Chapter 25: Cheep!? 24

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Cheep!?

Chapter 24

The armored men escorted the cart forward, wary of an ambush. In spite of their nonchalant demeanor in front of the adventurer’s, none of them were fully at ease. That was to be expected, though, considering what they were doing and who had them doing it.

“You know they’re going to tell the guild,” the man beside the leader spoke casually, his eyes flashing dimly as he peered around their surroundings, as though the vegetation was no impediment at all.

August snorted, “Yeah, and by the time they do we’ll be long gone.”

“Would have been more time if we’d just killed them,” Oscar’s words contained no trace of reproach or frustration, but a tinge of generalized disdain colored his tone.

That was normal for Oscar, though. 

“Some, sure.” August nodded, “but their team is the Greenhorns. The big guy in armor is the Guard Captain’s son, so him going missing would make things hard for us.”

“Adventurer’s go missing all the time, though?” Oscar tilted his head, genuinely curious as to why this would be a problem, “Who's to say that the Guard Captain would even suspect foul play?”

“Given their nature and skill, it’s highly unlikely anything out here can kill them,” August chuckled, “and most everyone in town knows them. Nobody has any real axe to grind with ‘em, so it comes down to freak accident or external party. The area ain’t a stranger to poachers.”

None of the other six spoke between the two, such was the difference in their status. They were all in the same group, the Thorned Gauntlets, and while not generally adhering to strict deference in terms of social manners, the others felt no need to interject. They’d long put trust in August’s leadership, and Oscar generally asked questions for their sake, rather than his own considerations. Considering Oscar would willingly stand on the frontlines of a fight if August asked him too, they knew well where his loyalties lie. But, he didn’t forget about the grunts in the background, which earned the pair much goodwill over the years.

Especially good, considering the six of them were only Essence Tier One Combatants, while Oscar was Tier Two, and August was Tier Three. Arguably, Oscar shouldn’t be in this area at all, and August was likely actively feeling the pains of essence depletion here, in spite of never showing it on his face.

“In any case, I didn’t dislike their spirit.” August laughed uproariously, “Been a minute since I’ve had anyone stand up to me like that.” He grinned, somewhere between malicious and amused, a look that fit just a little too well into their ‘Evil Poacher’ identities they’d adopted. 

“So, how many did you actually see?” August asked, genuinely wondering if they’d had others with them.

Oscar shrugged, “Only the two, but they had at least three. Several essence shadows in the forest, but none of them were actual people. Figure they were using either illusions or maybe some elixirs made to bleed off. I don’t think either of the two at the front have the know how to make ‘em, and ain’t no alchemist in town that would bother with making elixirs that only vent out essence, so I figure they had their own. So, at least three. Greenhorns is a four man team, though, yeah?”

When August nodded, Oscar thoughtfully spoke out, “Well, I couldn’t see the two of ‘em at all. They’re either geniuses at aura control, or they got potions for that, too.”

Their leader’s grin only widened imperceptibly at that, “Well prepared, lots of potential. Too bad we met like this, might’a been nice to try to persuade ‘em to join us.”

The wagon shook, but no noise came from within. Oscar frowned as he fell back to the back of the wagon. He pulled open one half of the flap, and suddenly the sound of growling and frustrated half-barking resounded through the air. The Greenhound was secure in the cage, while half of the Oath-Bound were sitting or laying despondently around, an air of heaviness hanging about them.

For as much as Oscar didn’t care about a lot of things, this brought a brief flash of a grimace to his face. The Thorned Gauntlets had done a lot of sketchy things, but this was at a level he and the rest were not at all comfortable with.

But what choice did they have? 

If nothing else, they had evidence to bite back at their employer, and he didn’t even know it.

“You lot…” Oscar began, before hesitating for a moment. What could he say? Sorry, your lives are in our hands, and it’s us or you? There wasn’t anything remotely fair about this situation, not for them, nor for the Gauntlets. “...rest up, we’ll let you know when we need you.”

Only one of them had lifted their heads to meet his gaze, a kind of smoldering anger and defiance that was rare in most people. Oscar pretended not to see it - ordinarily if they captured some people for ransom, he’d beat them up a bit in order to make sure they knew the order of things. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

Especially considering they were shacking up in the same wagon as the beasty that had killed three of their number. Another man still had just vanished, and the fact that he didn’t die screaming on the spot meant that he didn’t willingly desert the group. Considering they had dipped into the edges of the Daurghast hoping to strike gold - which they had with the Greenhound - the Gauntlets had still underestimated the sheer danger that the Bewitched Forest presented. From eighteen to fourteen in one encounter; Oscar was no stranger to death on a daily basis, but he knew that most people weren’t nearly as accustomed to it as he was. 

As the flap closed, Dane’s glare melted into a look of depression and helplessness. His distorted and corrupted Oath kept him and the others silent, and in the wake of what had happened, they all knew full well that their lives were in no uncomplicated terms in their captors hands. After what had happened with the Greenhound, they’d all felt the sheer agony that now compelled them in place of the warm reinforcement the Oath normally gave. They’d all felt the specter of death looming with every disobedient action, the jolts of pain that they gave. It was a small blessing that the punishment was in grades, or else the lot of them might well have died already.

‘Please, whichever of you damned deities is listening, grant us help. Just this once.’ Dane silently prayed, ‘Hell, I’ll even blaspheme here happily and call upon Chaos and the Spirits if it means we get out of this alive.’ 

Yet, he knew that his wishes would fall on deaf ears. Dane had never put much stock in how much the deities cared about their mere mortal problems. Even more so, now, considering one of the god’s blessings, the Oath itself, had been used as a weapon against them. Where these men had gotten scrolls of power capable of subverting the Oath, he had no idea. He didn’t even know it was possible, nor did he think most did. Otherwise, who would dare take the Oath? 

With his thoughts tying themselves in knots, Dane took the time to calm himself. With every moment that passed, he tried to push his concerns and fears aside. A resolve settled within him as he gazed upon the Greenhound, no less a prisoner than he was. It let out a snarl upon meeting his eyes, but grew silent, seething in relative quiet. Yet, as it met his gaze, he couldn’t help but feel his newfound resolve grow. 

A shift in essence was the only change between them, an exchange of sorts, and reluctantly the Greenhound lay itself down, resting.

`We might have a shot…’ He swallowed hard, not letting himself think of the risk of failure. Slowly, steadily, a plan formed, where the only thing missing was the opportunity…

‘Watch, listen, and be prepared,’ Dane thought to himself grimly as he settled back down, the heat of rage settling rapidly into the cool of resolve, tempering his will as much as he could. The only thing left was to wait…

 

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

…The only thing left was to contemplate what Charles had just witnessed. The woman from before had come back to the forest, and if it weren’t for the fact that Charles was both very stealthy and able to watch them from a considerable distance away, he wasn’t certain he’d have remained undetected. One of the men in armor had swept his gaze outwards, and Charles had realized he was very near the range of his vision. Some kind of ability that he was sure he could use to detect things. The method eluded him, but at the very least it was different from his own. It was difficult to say if he was more or less sophisticated in its function, considering Charles’ eyes could magnify, easily see through the gloom, and perceive essence better, and the somewhat more esoteric ‘see the unseen’ concept he’d tried to apply to them. What that meant, or if it was even successful, Charles wasn’t positive.

Certainly, he’d detected the man’s eye-sight ability, perhaps that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. In which case, his essence pattern would be invaluable to Charles. Detecting if someone else was using an ability was nearly as good, if not better, than simply seeing them in the first place. 

But what he’d seen otherwise did not give him any confidence. They were all powerful, exuding an aura similar to the Ironback Badgers he’d made prey of. But the leader of the armored men, and the eye-guy, both seemed to be different somehow. Their aura’s seemed stifled, restrained in a way he’d never seen before. Charles wondered if perhaps they were suppressing their aura’s, or if that was environmental. ‘Maybe both,’ he pondered, ‘I don’t think these Poachers need to use deceit to gain an advantage, that’s clearly theirs without even trying.’ 

‘Are they trying to create a false impression? Is poaching illegal?’ Charles considered things, before concluding that, at the least, if it wasn’t illegal, it was highly frowned upon.

The woman from before, the half-elf - he realized he hadn’t even noticed her ears before - was definitely hostile to them, as was the big guy next to her. He could feel the essences of several others behind her, and at first he’d thought that she’d brought a strike force with her.

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Yet, with how nonchalant the black armored group was, he had to take a second guess. Either they were much stronger than Charles could tell, or they knew something he didn’t. Considering the workmen, Charles didn’t think that they were combatants at all, and he could only think at how desperate, or foolish, it was that they were doing this at all. They didn’t dare say anything, in spite of the fact that one of their own had already fallen, and judging by the sheer reek of fear on them, Charles refused to believe that this was voluntary. But then, why were they doing it?

There were many questions that came to him, but chief among them became centered around the four man team of adventurers as the larger group left. Not a single one of the essences behind them in the woods came forwards, nor did they move. As he focused on them, pushing his visual acuity to the limit, he realized that there was a strange sort of erraticness to them. Essence gradually dispersed from those locations, filling the air in such a way that reminded him almost like fog.

At which point, he realized that it may as well be fog, they might well have been distractions of some kind. Obviously, the eye-guy had detected that. Charles let out a quiet sigh in relief at that supporting evidence. If they really were that much more powerful and Charles couldn’t tell, he wasn’t sure how he’d be able to gauge anyone’s power going forwards. 

Charles listened keenly to their conversation, knowing now the workmen in question were probably the Oath-Bound they spoke of. And, more than that, it wasn’t merely a turn of phrase, but actually some kind of magically enforced contract. It rankled at Charles that it seemed like a flavor of slavery, but when they expounded on it slightly, it seemed closer to something like a lighter flavor of temp worker mixed with indentured servant. That… hadn’t really cleared the air all that much, if Charles was honest, but he knew he couldn’t use his world's moral code of conduct here on all things. He didn’t even know if it was willing or not, so he withheld absolute judgment, and settled on disdaining the concept instead of outright condemning it.

“The Phorus wooing plan is gonna have to wait.”

That line felt like a sledgehammer to Charles’ brain, and he instantly felt incredibly complex feelings regarding that line. On the one hand, he now had a name for what he was - he could tell on an intrinsic level that ‘Phorus’ was his species name. However, he wasn’t sure at all how to feel with the fact that they were trying to “woo” him. He barely even caught the rest of their conversation before they began to set off on their way. It was entirely one thing to see the Greenhound being poached, and entirely another to fully realize he was most definitely also on the menu.

Charles slipped off into the underbrush, moving slower than usual as he tried to retrain his feet to utilize the new essence pattern he had. With practice it would get faster, he was sure, and perhaps he could even run with it later, but for now the slow and steady route would do. Every footfall he made was soundless, and even when he would rustle leaves or crack a twig, the sound was so muffled as to die within a few feet of him. It was, frankly, more overpowered than he’d initially considered.

It ate essence like nobody's business with everything it had to block, though, but it was damn near the most supernatural thing he’d seen since coming here.

Well, except for when the leader of the armored guys sent a mother-pecking-spear thrust through the air and hit a tree. That was alarming.

If he had to get into a real fight with a person, he decided he’d have to hit them so hard and fast that they didn’t get to use whatever crazy magic shenanigans they might have.

As he grew more accustomed to it, he even realized that his feet were somehow communicating what he was about to step on to his brain without even looking. It was weak, but the sense was there, and growing ever so slightly with use. For now, it helped him to just know when to shift his foot fall at the last second to not step on something that would snap ridiculously loudly from his weight. Whatever it would be in the future, Charles was excited to find out.

That excitement faded somewhat as he once more contemplated his options. 

‘Alright, so, I definitely need to watch out for those poachers. I’m not at all confident in fighting that.’ Charles easily decided that part, ‘I feel bad for those people, and for that Greenhound, but… that’s not my problem if they don’t make it my problem.’ Nodding to himself, he felt oddly at peace with that decision. He wasn’t sure if that made him a bad person, or bird, to not care about the plight that they found themselves in, but he damned well had no idea how he could fix it. As far as Charles knew, he wasn’t some MC in a story, and didn’t have impenetrable plot-armor to help him through the day. 

No, it was far wiser to sit back and let the humans handle their human business. In the first place, the adventurers were heading back to town for that very reason, so there shouldn’t be a need for him to play hero at all. It wasn’t like the world wasn’t getting on with it’s business before he came; the world could damn well figure its own problems out.

Except for his deal with Alterra, he had no particular responsibility to meddle in anything else.

That said, he doubted he’d remain a neutral party for long, especially considering that the adventuring party wanted to “woo” him.

‘Is it weird that I’m almost looking forward to what they intend? Getting pandered to would be nice, but I swear if I hear a ‘good little birdy, want some bird seed?’ I’m going pecking postal on them.’ Charles chuckled to himself, trying to put the previous sights out of his mind. ‘In all seriousness… How do I want to respond to that? Is it a good idea to drive them off? They seem to be decent, at the very least, so it could be useful to follow them around and get the lay of the land. But, if they treat me like a pet…’ Conflicted, Charles countenance shifted into a grimace, ‘Man, are people just going to treat me like a pet? Should I show how intelligent I am? Would that be a bad idea? If I can speak their language, this’ll be somewhat easy, I’ll just claim to be a hyper intelligent variant of a Phorus who… somehow… knows their language.’ 

‘Ugh, this is gonna be a pain in my tail feathers,’ Charles came up with a few reasons why that wasn’t going to work. Smart? Sure, most people could probably go with the flow on a beast intelligent enough to comprehend orders of some degree. But actually capable of communicating?... That went beyond mere variant status. How would you respond to know that your pet dog was actually a person trapped in that body? Able to comprehend everything you said and say it back, should I desire to do so. Could beasts naturally get that intelligent and capable somehow? Or was that still a line too far.

In a world like this, was that something to be celebrated, or to be feared? He didn’t know at all, so the answer seemed fairly obvious after some consideration.

‘If they don’t somehow dramatically peck-up their so-called ‘wooing’ process, I’ll follow them.’ Charles decided, only to pause, remembering his family shortly thereafter. ‘Ah, feathering peck, what about the siblings? Will they be okay?’ 

The Phorus picked up the pace after a while, dropping the essence-consumptive Feather-Step technique that he’d coined in place of using his essence pattern for speed. The difference was night and day, and almost half, again, faster than it had been before. This didn’t take much adjustment at all to get into the flow of, and Charles had the feeling that there probably wasn’t anything in the forest that could outrun him. He did have to concentrate somewhat more on not slamming beak-first into any trees, but that was something he’d had all too much practice with, at least.

‘They’ll be fine,’ Charles felt his will firm at the declaration, ‘They’re all together, and as much as I want to stay with them, I feel my instincts already telling me that I need to move on. Might have something to do with essence.’ He mentally shrugged, ‘Their group can help facilitate me moving around, so long as they don’t get ahead of themselves.’

‘Admittedly, I really miss cheese, too. And cheeseburgers. Mmm… cheeseburgers…’ Charles involuntarily salivated as he shifted his path towards the river, ‘Guess it’s fish-dinner today. Again.’ He sighed, reaching the stream shortly and, with his enhanced vision, easily spotting a large fish. With fast steps, Charles’ beak darted into the water and, with a mild flux of essence, struck with a fearful might and speed through the water.

Which almost resulted in him directly cutting the fish in half, ‘Oops! Whoa, there, to the shore you go!’ He flung the fish onto the nearest rock, force and gravity finishing the job of separating the fish's head from its body. 

‘Right, so… time to practice with all of this again.’ Charles thought to himself dryly as he stared after his now portioned meal. After a few seconds of searching, Charles found a wide, flat rock that he could reasonably stand on, overlooking the water. It didn’t take long for another fish to float by, but it wasn’t nearly large enough for him to bother. These days, he didn’t scrounge for every scrap he could find - he wasn’t sure how long he’d be in the area still, and further constraining himself by over-hunting seemed like a foolish mistake. Charles wasn’t sure if there was any kind of ‘monster spawning’ that happened in this world, or if it was all down to a much more natural cycle of migration patterns, natural wandering due to food sources, or whatever else could lead populations of beasts to move around.

After only a few more minutes of waiting, Charles had himself a small banquet of fish laying before him. Yet, he didn’t immediately dig in, sitting next to the pile, wistfully staring through the food.

‘Do I really need to go out and do anything? I could just… live my life here, with my family.’ The idea was appealing on many levels. It was ostensibly safer here, and he had plentiful food, good company, and still had much that he could investigate. The forest was huge, he still hadn’t nearly explored its depths, and that wasn’t even to say that he wouldn’t try the Daurghast again at some point. It would be so easy to just forget his deal with Alterra, to finally let go of whatever attachment he had left with his human family–what’s done was done, seeing them again just to ask why they were so willing to leave him behind wasn’t something he felt he needed to do any longer. If he were perfectly honest, he wasn’t sure he cared much anymore. Unlike him, they hadn’t been in the middle of realizing their ultimate mortality; his previous family had been hale and hearty, to all of his knowledge, before they’d vanished. Though, given the choice between the two options he’d had, any kind of life seemed preferable.

But his human family had just up and left at the drop of a hat, because some voice from afar asked them to. 

‘I said I’d help Alterra, but… there are plenty of things that I’m not happy about.’ Charles contemplated things more, noting that while Alterra wasn’t some evil entity as far as he could tell, it was certainly still something that could make mistakes, that obviously put its own interests first to some extent. He couldn’t fault anyone for that, especially when their lives were in peril. His mother, father, and sister though…

‘How much do I really care about people who willingly abandoned me? So what if it’s a call for adventure. So what if someone’s asking them for help? It’s not like there aren’t literally millions of people on Earth that weren’t asking for help, some way or another. You can’t tell me it’s because of some pure hearted nonsense. The only thing that makes sense is that they wanted to go, they wanted to adventure, to break out of the mold. That left my sister and I alone in the world. Then, it left me alone, just before I needed them most.’ Charles' mood fouled as he grit his beak, angry at them for everything that he’d had to put up with. 

And angry at himself for becoming so melancholic over people who, he realized, no longer held the same place in his heart as he’d thought they did.

‘There’s still time to decide,’ he told himself, knowing the only reason why he didn’t abandon his mission on the spot was the fact that he’d given his word to Alterra, as much as there hadn’t been a real choice at the time. Realistically, he also knew that eventually his siblings would grow up, maybe they’d scatter to the winds, or maybe he’d be forced to move on anyways. His instincts had already been not-so-subtly suggesting that he begin to move towards higher essence-density areas himself. 

Charles forced himself to eat the fish, still deep in thought as he did so. ‘I wonder how these would taste if they were cooked properly.’ He snorted at that, figuring he may as well throw ‘good food’ in the pro’s section of getting somewhat related to human society once more. 

‘This is going nowhere.’ Charles stood up before vigorously shaking himself, loosening up his tensed muscles and trying to dislodge the dark mood that had settled on him. He darted off quickly, bounding as silently as he could while maintaining speed, becoming better and better at controlling his leg essence-pattern as he went. He jumped, bounding from rock to rock, or rise of gnarled roots to other terrain in the forest, all the while practicing with his eyes to see anything unusual. The Poachers from earlier had set him on edge, but if nothing else they were moving farther and farther out of his terrain.

They’d be long out of his territory before long, all the better, because if the adventurers’ team had made plans to come try to tame him, then he could well imagine that he was at least valuable. 

“I am a pretty bird,” Charles admitted to himself proudly aloud, before feeling his cheeks flush, “Feathering peck, did I actually say that?” he cringed inwardly. He was quite proud of his overall appearance, but that didn’t mean he needed to say stuff like that. Even if his instincts were pompously celebrating the fact and adding far, far too much positive reinforcement on the thought.

“Am I a peacock or something?” He shook his head, bewildered at the more innocuous changes happening in his subconsciousness. Regardless, though, he had a few more things to do today, and his plans for tomorrow amounted to scouting his territory once more. After that, though, he’d visit his siblings and hang out, maybe give them a heads up about the weird things he’d seen so far. 

With his plans for the next few days settled, Charles continued to increase his finesse with his own body, transforming the blunt tool into an instrument of his will.

 

 

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