by Eric Ugland
We did find one interesting thing in our search around the village: a hastily-constructed platform of sorts high up in a pine. It had a clear vantage point over the walls and into the settlement. It had all the signs that the lookout spot had been used, and recently. Trash. And poop. Rather fresh poop.
“You have a goblin problem,” Alexios said.
“I knew that,” I replied. “But I didn’t know how close they were.”
I wrote a note out to Nikolai, explaining the where the platform was and what we’d found there. Then I summoned a prinky and told it to give the note to Nikolai, and then to do whatever Nikolai told him.
The prinky was off and running instantly. I noticed it took a single prinky less time to react to orders than a group of them. A nugget of information I filed away for later.
Alexios was very intrigued by the trolls, so instead of following the river directly, we went along the clear path of destruction left by the trolls. They weren’t exactly careful about how they moved, knocking trees over here and there, pushing rocks around. It made me think of the safari videos I’d seen of elephants, the sort of casual destruction they left anywhere they went.
Alexios remained constantly in motion, looking all around, pointing tracks out to Amber, telling us both what the noises were that we heard call. The birds, the squirrels that sounded like birds, the animals that made bizarre knocking noises. He pointed out the torn-apart trunks, places where trolls had gotten angry. Or gotten their back scratched. There was a whole book to read in the nature around us.
I noticed I started to get some skills I hadn’t really expected to pick up:
Cool Beans, you’ve leveled up the skill Tracking.
Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Birding. Now you can and identify common birds.
I was having fun. At least, I was until it started to rain. That put a damper on things. The weather turned very quickly. A heady storm came in swiftly from the west, with dark grey clouds swooping in on us. The temperature plummeted, and then heavy rain came down.
Given the horrific weather, I wanted to stop, but considering my other two explorers seemed very keen on continuing on, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be the weak one. We pressed on, moving through the forests, heading slightly uphill. When finally got close enough to the river to see the water, it seemed like the trolls weren’t keen on crossing it. They, like us, were following it uphill. The river next to us alternated between ridiculous rapids and deep still pools, and I could see some large fish swimming about. When I got close, though, Alexios pulled me back from the edge.
“Be wary, my lord,” he whispered. “These pools hold dangers.”
“Agachnern?” I asked.
“Nothing quite as evil, I hope. There are plenty of beasts who dwell in the still parts of the northern rivers of Glaton, and I must imagine those same creatures exist here.”
“Is there any way to catch them?”
“A myriad, my lord. But why would you wish to do so?”
“Are they a viable food source?”
“Certainly, but that is an activity for the fishermen, not a duke.”
I was flabbergasted, but he seemed to take my inability to form a sentence in response as acceptance to his beliefs, because he was off, catching up to Amber and pointing out the semi-dormant hive of wild bees.
Though I disagreed with Alexios, I wasn’t planning on poking about the deeper pools just because I wanted to see what was in there. I’d done that in the WarWaters and almost gotten smushed by a giant tentacle thing. Not an activity I was keen on repeating. Still, these pools were nowhere near as deep as the holes in the WarWaters. The creatures inside couldn’t possibly be as big.
It was something I’d investigate further another time. Ultimately this was a trip to train up another ranger and to map out the valley. We weren’t exactly making good time through the wilderness, but going slow was part of the plan, at least as far as I could tell. I kept track of everything I was passing, doing my best to mark down anything interesting. Which, so far, was relegated to a few good-looking fishing holes and an increasing number of bee hives.
We stopped for a late lunch, mainly because we’d started so late in the day, and I asked Alexios about the bees.
“They are honey bees,” he replied.
“Are there normally this many hives?” I asked.
“When there are this many flowers, yes.”
“Oh.”
“Are you hoping there is something special about the bees?”
“Wouldn’t hurt.”
“If you have an apiarist, you could bring these colonies back and have a ready supply of honey. But other than that, I believe these are common honey bees.”
I thanked him, and we ate our bread and sausage. Amber remained quiet. She’d barely spoken all day. But she looked as if she had settled into things a bit. Not quite as tense. I wanted to believe it was because she was just so into learning, that she was focused on picking up everything Alexios said.
One nice thing about being in the deep woods was that the rain didn’t hit us quite so hard. It couldn’t really penetrate the trees, so even though I could see that the rain was absolutely soaking the world all around us, it wasn’t that bad where we were walking. Granted, I was still thoroughly soaked and wished I’d dressed more like Alexios or Amber. They wore leather armor over wool clothes. Amber had a dark green woolen hooded cloak over all that, while Alexios had an oilskin coat of some sort and a tricorn hat. I had on my last non-torn dress shirt, my seal pants, and that was pretty much it. I had armor in my bag, a set of plate and a set of chain, figuring I could slip on what I needed to when I needed it. I was a fool.
We continued on towards the lake, the one bit of geography I knew existed in the valley. Late in the day, when we left the river and went up a hill following a game trail, we got our first sight of it. It was huge, and a remarkably dark blue, especially on this rainy day. There were a few islands dotting it, all covered with vegetation. Some were just tall grasses, others trees. At least, that’s what it seemed like to me.
Leaving the game trail, we hiked downhill for quite some time, the rain finally starting to peter off. With the sun sitting on the horizon, we started looking for a place to make camp for the night. Apparently Alexios had a hint about something, a feeling he’d gotten after he saw something on the trail. He didn’t mention it to us though, because he wanted to see if we would notice on our own.
We did not.
What he’d noticed was damage to the trees. Like things were running. Large branches knocked off trees. And the general absence of any big game. Big predators were about. And Alexios had spotted their cave.
Which wasn’t that hard once you knew what to look for. Or you got close enough that you could smell it. It barely qualified as a cave — it was only about a hundred yards deep — but was mostly filled with animal remains and other nasty detritus.
“We could camp here,” Alexios said, pointing to the cave.
“Um,” I started, “it’s kind of really gross in there.”
“True, but we would be left alone. Nothing will come near that cave.”
“What about the current residents?”
“Something scared them off.”
“I thought you said nothing would come near it.”
“Nothing but the thing that did.”
“See, you’re not making sense to me.”
“This cave was the troll home. Something drove them off, but did not keep the cave as its own home.”
“Something bigger and badder than trolls is cruising around these woods?”
“That is my belief, yes.”
“Any idea what that might be?”
“No.”
“Why do you think this is safe here, if there’s some bigger and badder beast out there?”
“Because it did not choose to keep this for its lair. If it did, there would be signs pointing to whatever it might be. And, given the time of day and the weather,
I would expect it to be here.”
“But, like, trolls. They’re disgusting.”
“I am not bothered by it,” Amber said, walking into the shelter the cave offered.
Once I got inside, if you climbed up the sides to some of the natural rock ledges, it wasn’t that bad. There were no piles of offal or refuse up there, and the smell went away after a while. We pointedly did not have a fire, but we spent some time shooting arrows at the soft corpses of things I couldn’t identify. I took first watch, knowing that, if I decided to, I could spend the night awake.
Chapter Forty-Six
My desire to sleep was pretty close to nil. I didn’t want to chance having another one of those terrible dreams. Not while we were out in the wilds.
The night was cold. The rain had stopped, and the moons were out. Their light reflected back at me from a profusion of puddles. The night wasn’t too quiet — frogs called back and forth to each other. Bugs zipped around. I saw bats pulling off some serious acrobatics in the moonlight.
I wished I had a book. Preferably an ebook that had a built-in light. The nights were long, and full of boredom.
Time ticked by slower and slower. Finally I found a piece of wood and started to carve it. I made little figurines of Ragnar and Skeld. Little otters standing up. It made sense because otters were about the same shape as the little branches I could get from the mouth of the cave.
Just as I put the sixth Ragnar in a row, I noticed that the sounds from outside the cave had stopped. Suddenly enough that it startled me.
I slipped my dagger into my sheath. Then I laid down on my stomach, trying to make myself small in the shadows of the cave. I looked out in to the world, trying to get a clue about what was lurking about and causing all the little critters to go quiet.
The ground wasn’t shaking. The puddles didn’t ripple like in Jurassic Park. But, thanks to my tremorsense, I could feel it moving. It was very heavy, and yet, took soft steps. I could feel the weight pushing mud out of the way. It wasn’t easy to feel it — I actually had to concentrate to feel exactly where it was — but my curiosity was piqued. What was this creature?
And then I saw it. Rather, I saw its silhouette. Its skin must have been very dark, because it almost seemed to absorb all the light around it. But it was very large, 20, maybe 30 feet tall, and nearly as wide. It had a massive torso and and almost ungainly sized head, and it was bowlegged.
The beast sniffed. Deep, loud. He had the scent of something, and given the path he’d taken to get to the cave, I had a bad feeling about it. It seemed like he was following our trail. I wondered if Alexios had some instinct about the monster. If, perhaps, he had a feeling the monster was tracking us, and that’s why he wanted us to sleep in the stink. If that was the case, maybe the stench was worth it. The creature put one large hand down on the mud, and leaned forward, sniffing into the cave again.
I was just about to move forward when a pebble hit my face.
Following its path, I saw Alexios looking at me, shaking his head ever so slightly.
So I stopped moving. Completely.
The creature sniffed around a little more. It seemed to get increasingly annoyed. It backed up, sniffed around, and then it bent to the ground. Then, it lumbered into the trees, being substantially louder than it had when it entered the clearing.
Amber was on her feet instantly, followed by Alexios.
I got up as well.
Alexios approached me, and had his mouth next to my ear. “I believe it to be a ruse,” he said. “The creature believes we may be here, so it tries to lure us out.”
“What’s the plan?”
“I do not believe the beast will leave us this night. We must draw him away.”
“Which means you, right?”
“Yes, my lord, I am the best candidate for this particular ploy.”
“I think it’d be better for me to do it. If he catches me, I’m more likely to survive the encounter.”
“I suppose it would be best if he did not catch me, then. Go down to the lake, my lord. We will meet in the place where the river leaves.”
“Got it.”
Alexios pushed his pack at me, and then he sprinted out into the clearing, heading uphill away from the lake. I slung Alexios’s gear over my back, and crept along the cave until my foot was at the edge of the moonlight. I knelt down and listened for a moment. Heavy footsteps going away, and up hill. The beast had taken the bait.
I turned to tell Amber to follow me, but instead got a close-up view of her pushing me out of the way and taking the lead.
"This way," she said. And I followed.
She took me straight down to the river, stopping at a slight calm stretch, rough rapids downstream and what appeared to be a super deep pool upstream.
"We have to cross here," she said. “And try to go as much upstream as you can. We need to get the scent off us as much as possible."
Made sense.
I dove in, whereupon I realized it wasn't that deep, and promptly smashed my face into a rock.
My vision exploded into colors, and I didn't fight at all when I felt arms pulling me to my feet out of the water.
"Put your feet down," Amber said. "Wade across until the middle."
After a second, the little concussion icon denoting the debuff I was under disappeared, and I felt a ton better. And I could follow the basic instructions she'd given me. Sure enough, I was able to keep my feet and walk almost all the way across. Much easier than trying to swim for it. Amber, on the other hand, needed help, as the current was too strong for her to keep her feet the whole way across. There were 15 or so feet where we had to swim, but other than that it was a quick trip across. We splashed through the shallows heading upstream for about a hundred yards, and then came ashore. There was sandier soil and fewer trees on the eastern side.
We only stopped long enough to catch our breath, and then we raced uphill along the river. I heard a growl right before Amber put her hand up for me to stop, so I already had a spear out.
The wolf, or wolf-like thing, pounced at Amber from the darkness. As soon as I saw it moving, my spear went thrusting out.
I caught the beast right through the midsection, lifting him up so he soared right over Amber before slamming down. I stomped his head in as I pulled the spear out.
"Thanks," she whispered, already continuing on as if nothing had happened.
I quickly checked the death notification to confirm that it was, indeed, a wolf. In this case:
GG! You’ve killed a Black Mountain Wolf (lvl 14 Beast).
You’ve earned 125 xp! What a mighty hero you are.
As we ran along, I couldn't help but think about how much easier taxonomy was in this world. Everything was already labeled for you. Just kill one, and then you know what it is. Or was, I suppose.
Twenty minutes of hard running along the banks, and we came up on our first real issue: a waterfall. Not that big, but it meant we had to do some wet rock climbing.
We clambered up, occasionally needing to do a little boosting and pulling so we could both get to the top. It was seriously challenging, considering all the handholds were wet.
We ended up having to climb the rest of the way, until we crested the last bit of rock and saw the lake spread out in front of us, a great swath of darkness, rippling ever so much from the gentle wind.
Quick as can be, Amber was up a tree, clinging on to some of the very top branches in the hundred foot pine. It wasn’t clear if she’d done so to hide, or if she was trying to get a better view. Certainly I’d have preferred it be the latter, but considering she was trying to see into thick forest in the middle of the night, I had a feeling it was the former. Regardless, her speed impressed me. In the time it took for me to look out and appreciate the midnight beauty of the lake, she’d zoomed up to the top of the tree.
I took a spot near a rock, leaning against it. I wanted to be sure I was visible-ish, enough for a trained ranger to see me.
And I waited.
And waited.
Finally, I saw a figure on the other side of the river, the western side. The figure made its way along the beach deliberately. Then it waded out into the lake and swam around the river outlet before coming up onto the shore near me.
“Is Amber with you, my lord?” Alexios asked.
I pointed up at the tree.
“Ah, she did as I instructed.”
“Hid up in the tree?”
“Yes. I assume she has her bow out, ready to fire down on the beast should it have followed you.”
“Did you make it around okay?” I asked.
“I did, my lord. Thank you.”
“And what is this beast? Did you identify it?”
“It is nothing I have seen before, my lord. It hunts with intelligence. But I detected no sense of sentience. It does not seem to use tools, nor have anything I could identify as clothing. Or armor. It is a male, I believe, but I found no indications of a lair or a family. I am hopeful it is a solo hunter.”
“And it moved the trolls out,” I said. “But then where did it come from?”
“Another question I cannot answer,” he said. “But for tonight, I suggest we head up into the tree. If we are high enough, I believe the beast will not be able to reach us.”
“How high?”
“At least 50 feet, my lord.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Let me make this very clear: if anyone ever asks if you’d like to sleep in a tree, say no. There is really nothing good I can say about it. There’s a lot of sap, plenty of swaying, and you have to rope yourself onto branches so you don’t fall out while you’re sleeping.
I did sleep, a little. If only to pass the time away. Alexios and Amber traded off the rest of the night’s watches — they wouldn’t hear of me doing anything else. We were pretty close to each other in the tree, 50 feet up and on neighboring branches. When the sun came up, I handed out dried meats and cheese, and we ate. In silence. Neither one of the rangers was keen on talking. Perhaps it was because of this silence that I heard the whimpering of something. Or somethings.
