Chapter 23: Chapter 22: The Town of the Rising Sun

After having revealed themselves, Rob and the others decided they’d be willing to escort us to their settlement (more accurately, Rob decided it, and the other two followed his lead). While we walked, we all shared our experiences, telling stories of where we were the day this all began, how we met, and what crazy creatures we’d all encountered. It would turn out Rob and Co. had encountered plenty. They were one of the settlement’s hunting parties, a group of skilled marksmen who were tasked with traveling outside the settlement’s borders to hunt for food, defend the local area, and collect potion ingredients.

“Wait, potions?” Rob had seemed like he was about to gloss over the whole potion deal, but Erica had refused to let that slide.

“Yes, potions. Turns out magical creatures and magical plants make for magical materials, some are good for building, some are good for wearing, and some are good for drinking. You didn’t think my whole chameleon thing was natural, did you?”

Erica scratched the back of her head, looking away kind of awkwardly.

“With how crazy everything has been lately, I guess I forgot to ask, it didn’t really seem important in the grand scheme of things…”

So potions were a thing, and if you killed the right thing and took the right parts, you could get some pretty significant effects. That was new, and something about it worried me. I was a magical creature now, after all. Even still, I understood why they'd take any advantage they could to survive, especially since they didn’t have the (un)natural advantages Erica and I did. That did leave me with a bit of a question though.

“How did you guys figure this out? Were you just eating some roast Basilisk when one of you suddenly started turning people to stone or something?”

It wasn’t Rob who replied this time, the one with the rifle, Mick, spoke up instead.

“It was the boss who figured it out. Some kind of dragon-ish thing attacked him, he cut it open, some of its blood got in his mouth, all of a sudden he sprouts wings and scales and shit. When he finally brought the bastard down, he drained it for all it was worth. Later on, he started trying similar shit with the other freaks he takes down, and now we know it works.”

“Ok… and the boss is..?”

Rob took over once again.

“Cyrus. He’s the one who founded our little hamlet, the one who found us and brought us all together, and he’s the only hunter who works alone. With good reason too, no other hunter has ever been able to match his speed, strength, or skill. I’m sure you’ll meet him soon enough.”

Cyrus, huh? A local dragon(-ish) slayer that founded a village of humans less than a week after everything went to shit. Damn, that was quite the pedigree. Something about the way Rob talked about him rubbed me the wrong way though, he spoke of Cyrus with something approaching reverence, and I was starting to feel what I could only describe as culty vibes from the whole thing. Even still, Rob hadn’t gone back on his word, having escorted us safely thus far, and call me naive, but I didn’t want to doubt the first and only human people I’d seen since the world went to hell. I guess I’d see whether this Cyrus lived up to the hype myself.

 

The settlement certainly did. The path by the river’s edge began to widen as we continued onwards, the dense vegetation that had obscured so much before growing thinner and thinner until eventually it had cleared up almost entirely, revealing a peaceful, mostly intact suburb surrounded by sturdy wooden walls that towered over 15 feet at least. Even from a distance, looking down from the crest of this hill beside the river, I could see small groups of people milling about, both inside and outside of the walls. I even spied a group of children playing with a ball in the village center. All of this in a week? I could hardly imagine what people as dedicated and clearly skilled as these would achieve in months or even years. I was starting to understand why the man who’d made all this happen would be so well respected. Among all these people though, I didn’t see a single one like Erica and I. They were all human, every single one, and that made me nervous. Erica too, it seemed, as she idly scritched me behind my horn nubs and looked towards Rob.

“Are you sure they’ll all be ok? With…” She gestured up and down at her whole body “all of this?”

Rob snorted.

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“Of course they will. Just cuz we’ve never seen anyone like you doesn’t mean we’d wanna hurt you. I’ll make sure to vouch for ya, and I’m sure Cyrus will too. People might be a lil’ nervous, but they’ll get used to it.”

Erica took a deep breath, looking at me as she exhaled, long and slow. I nodded, leaning into her hand, I didn’t feel too much from the horns themselves, but the area around them was shockingly sensitive. I relaxed, releasing tension I hadn’t even realized I was carrying, then there was a noise. A strange cross between a reptilian hiss and that “mrrp” sound that cats make. I flinched, and Erica looked at me incredulously.

“Was that-? Did you just-? What was that?”

I cringed away.

“I- uh… that was- yeah that was me…”

Erica’s eyes turned serious.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, A. I need you to know I mean this in the best possible light. That was fuckin’ adorable.”

“Aah-”

I couldn’t do words, and I felt heat flooding my cheeks. Was I really cute? Was that even allowed? Erica hadn’t even said cute, she’d said adorable, and that was like orders of magnitude cuter than cute. What were we even doing again? There was a village, right? I crouched on the spot, covering my little horn nubbins with my hands.

A hearty laugh rose up from my left, Rob was looking at us both and he was cracking up.

“Oh Erica, I think you broke the poor girl.” He wheezed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just keep thinking about how we were scared of you two, but a couple of scratches and some kind words and she’s practically melted.”

Oh not him too. Erica’s teasing was bad enough, but now Rob was calling me a girl again, and that made for an emotional cocktail that was wayyy too much for me to deal with right now. I stood up, and darted over to the other side of Erica.

“A-alright, I get it. We’ve all had our laugh at A. Can we get going now?”

Rob, still chuckling softly, just started walking ahead. 

“Sure thing A. Let’s get going.”

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