Chapter 54: Cheep!? 52

Cheep!?

Chapter 52

An exhausted Niko and Mithel sat side by side, their breathing finally having stabilized enough to hold something of a conversation.

“Water?” Mithel offered a canteen.

“Sure,” Squawked Niko in the affirmative, reaching over with his beak and picking it carefully enough out of her proffered hand. He tilted his head back, drinking down a little bit. He stopped at the halfway point and held it back out for her to take. Mithel was too tired to find the situation anything more than amusing, and the fact that she’d had to help neutralize and get rid of the worst of the potions on his feathers had done even more to diminish what little energy she had left. 

Considering how Niko could barely move a muscle after the exponentially mounting exertion that his own part of the exercise had given him, he very much appreciated the assistance. 

“That golem is mean,” Mithel commented on the scene they both watched as they rested, “Looks like that stick is electrified.”

Niko nodded, finding just a touch of sadistic pleasure in watching Dachna get a taser-stick to the arse. Mithel shook her head with a slight smile as he let out a high pitched squeal. “At least Ronald is handling it pretty well.”

Ronald was, Niko noted, very well suited to a leadership position. He barked orders and tried to work the trio that consisted of himself, Skye, and Dachna into something of a well oiled machine. Currently it was closer to a grinding, rusted heap that was belching uncomfortable amounts of black smoke into the air while hissing dangerously. Still, they’d managed to pull two of the five ‘flags’ off of the man-sized golem, little strips of cloth that were tied onto the body of the thing. If they pulled all five off, they won. 

The problem was, every flag removed also happened to release it from some kind of limiter. What they were dealing with now was a skilled combatant with essence high in the first tier. Niko knew that the thing was actually much stronger than that, but this was already enough to hold the group off, even with the golem's added restraints. As in Niko and Mithel’s match, the trio had to deal with their own seemingly arbitrary rules.

“No fatal shots against the target,” Camille said, “You’ll pretend like this is a teammate under mental control. In this scenario, the tags on the golem are curse marks that you need to physically remove. This is not a completely theoretical scenario, but you’ll hopefully never run into it either. Still, it’s good to practice trying to subdue and duel an opponent without killing blows being used. Often, the only difference between the two is the location and strength of your attack. The more power your ‘controlled ally’ is allowed to use, the more you’ll be allowed to use in turn, but it’ll register lethal blows and you’ll automatically force it to release to the next state without counting towards a flag being taken or destroyed.”

So far, they hadn’t applied lethal force, but Niko knew that it was a matter of time before they were forced to start playing hard. ‘They’re actually not bad when they’re working together.’ He noted; surprised that their individual skills weren’t nearly as good on their own as when they were cooperating with each other. As sand flew in the air following a missed strike from the golem at Ronald, Niko noted that Camille was studying the way they moved with what looked like a trace of approval.

“Now!” Ronald shouted as he fueled essence into his arms, not using any kind of formation but instead directly controlling his energy. They were as restricted as Niko had been, but Ronald had demonstrated that he actually had an impressive control of his own essence. With it, he amplified his strength and gained purchase on the golem’s weapon with his own, pinning the crackling, electrical rod to the sand.

“Up!” Ronald shouted, and the golem’s head lifted slightly at that. It reached back, hearing Dachna run up from behind through sand before the sound stopped. Niko suspected that the golem had thought that the man had jumped, but the truth was that Dachna had simply stopped in place, leaving the golem flailing one hand wildly in the air.

It was a move that wouldn’t work more than once against an intelligent opponent, but Niko had to admit that the group had gotten a good read on the golem. 

Skye shouted, “I got the legs!” And ran straight at the golem from the side. The automaton’s head snapped unnaturally in her direction, and this time it read the ploy for what it was. She was sprinting forward in a posture that suggested that she planned to jump. Impressively, Skye didn’t so much as flinch as she saw the golems' attention on her, instead trusting in her team.

Ronald bellowed a wordless roar that Niko felt in his bones even from where he sat. Essence surged through his body as he let the golem retrieve its weapon, the motion setting it off balance. Ronald then abandoned his own weapon, and slipped under its guard to deliver an uppercut, one that snapped the golems gaze straight up to the ceiling. It didn’t see Dachna slip under its guard then, leaving a few shallow knicks under its armpits and other locations, a glistening fluid left behind by semi-blunted daggers. Skye completed her jump, flipping in the air and axe-kicking it in its now angled torso.

They felt the essence in the golem contort as the combined attacks triggered the release of another restriction on the golem, but Niko knew that they’d have pulled their strikes enough that the injuries would be more than treatable. As the golem's essence began to shift, though, Ronald tackled it to the ground, straddled it, and managed to hold its arms in lock as his companions stripped the remaining flags from it together all at once, making sure that it didn’t have any time to hit them with any huge impacts.

“Acceptable performance!” Camille shouted, now looking like she was enthused at their battle. “You all need to keep working individually, but your teamwork looks solid enough! I thought taking your new shock-cavalry and alchemist out would cause you problems, but look at you!” 

Ronald flopped onto the sand, sweating and heaving breath. Niko nudged Mithel. She got the message, and the pair managed to make their way over to the team.

Mithel smiled proudly at them, “That was very cool!”

Skye and Dachna breathed hard, but Ronald had expended more than them. They walked beside where he’d landed in the sand and joined him unceremoniously, “Damn,” Dachna shook his head, “I got worked over by a golem. That’s new.”

Skye snorted, nursing her ribs, “At least you didn’t get pitched across the sand.”

Niko trilled happily and encouragingly at them, “You did good! Much better than I expected you would.” ‘Or feared you would,’ he added mentally.

They looked up at Niko, getting the gist by his tone. Skye looked at him with a more complicated expression after a few moments. Niko tilted his head at that, and she quickly looked away with a wince.

When he then looked down at his feathers, he had to suppress tears. His feathers were a mess of damage and disorder. Mithel did her best, but there was no replacement for proper personal care.

“Alright, go hit the showers, clean up, and we’ll have lunch. Then we’ll go over what you did right and wrong. Trust me, there’s a lot of both.” Camille clapped, “After that, we’ll do some one on one training with Crowe and myself, and you lot.”

The three who had just managed to beat the golem looked utterly reluctant to move at that moment. Niko squawked at them insistently as he gazed meaningfully at his own mess of feathers.

Skye chuckled, “Alright, alright, I’m getting up.” 

After a little prodding from Mithel, Dachna rose too, and Niko came over and helped Ronald to his feet. If the man harbored any ill feelings for Niko’s rough treatment in their duel, he didn’t show it. Still, he was careful in pulling the man up, leveraging his large head against the man's back to get him on his feet. 

As they walked back through the hallways, Niko began singing a little tune again, happy to be on the way to cleaning and shiny plumage once more. Still, even with the training being over for the moment, he continued to push his essence through his feathers, trying to figure out how he was supposed to make liquids move off of them. Beyond that, he didn’t know how to get them to heal. Unlike before, he felt like his instincts were a little bit more out of his immediate touch than they normally were, but he could feel that it was possible. 

“Niko, when we’re allowed to go out and about,” Dachna spoke up, not so loud as to drown out his singing, “We have got to go see some good bards in action. You could make a killing emulating them.”

Niko paused then, tilting his head curiously at Dachna and releasing a questioning chirp.

“See, bards play musi–” he paused, seeing Niko make a circular motion with his beak as though to say ‘I know that part,’ “–Ah, you know that? Right, well, music crystals and such are still really expensive, so people can pay a lot of money to listen to a nice tune.”

‘Hmm… I guess that’s true. Shame that music isn’t that common, though.’ Niko thought to himself while he trilled thoughtfully aloud.

“Well, the dwarf holds and gnome burroughs have stuff like that, but they’re not really sold to the human kingdoms,” Mithel sighed forlornly, “It’s a shame, really, music is wonderful.”

“Why don’t they sell? I know some of the older generations of the stout folk can be spiteful and greedy sorts, but that’s excessive.” Skye asked.

Mithel shot her a slightly put-upon look, “It’s not our side, it’s the human side. They don’t want even more technological reliance on the Under-Kingdom for luxury goods.”

“And they don’t want to share how to make it, right?” Dachna shot back with mirth.

“Well… no, but we did make it,” she pouted, “Whoever made the thing should still get some rights to it.”

“How much did they want to sell each one for?” asked Ronald as he stroked his short beard in thought.

“I actually… have no idea.” Mithel murmured in thought, “Maybe I’ll write back home and find out later.”

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Niko followed the group as they got to their common room with the large tree in it, feeling more at ease in this space than the halls surrounding it. Admittedly, the entire building seemed to be built with spaciousness in mind, so it was far from a claustrophobic feeling, but after having lived in the forest for such a long time, he wasn’t nearly as comfortable in a building as he’d felt before. 

They walked through to the washroom area where they all then split up. Niko went through the middle path as before, the strange beast symbol once again showing the way. It still looked like a cat-bird-dog thing to him. This time, he took a look around the washroom before realizing that there was a nondescript hallway to the left that immediately turned at a ninety degree angle. 

‘Hmm… is that to the actual bathing area?’ Niko’s talons clicked against the tile as he moved through the hall. Sure enough, after a short way, the warm-toned colored tiles gave way to a green and sea-blue tiled room that was much larger than he’d expected. The tiles were squared, but also had diagonal lines of the opposite color of the tile beneath it. A greenish tile–admittedly not a solid green, they were just predominantly green–would be intersected with blue, and vice versa. He found he liked the colors, they were calming in the warm lights that came from several wall sconces that gave off light from crystals embedded within. 

Much of the middle of the room was occupied by a decently deep bathing area, the middle of which was deeper than the outside edges. Steam rose over the warm water, and Niko noticed that each wall had what appeared to be a divider that rose perhaps seven feet, obscuring much of those sides. 

He guessed, then, that those were smaller areas for other baths, but then, was this middle one just for beasts? It was huge, though, so…

Then he heard conversational voices from either side of the dividers, and he realized that he was off the mark. ‘Ah, I get it, optional mixed bathing. I guess this society isn’t so shy about that kind of thing?’ 

Shrugging, Niko moved to where he saw a spout that came out of the wall with a drain beneath it. All he had to do was stand on the pressure plate set and water started to come out. It wasn’t quite as hot as he wanted it, but it was warm enough. 

‘At least warm enough to get all this gunk off before I go into the bath.’ Niko started thoroughly cleaning his feathers, his sharp beak and firm grip breaking up and straightening them out. Some of them were damaged, and he couldn’t think of anything he could do about that. ‘Ugh… My poor feathers!’ He bemoaned mentally as he saw what amounted to an oil-slick coming out of his plumage. It was kind of pretty in the light, a shimmering rainbow of colors reflecting off of the filthy water. All Niko could think about, though, was how annoying it was to get out of his feathers. Then something occurred to him.

‘Wait… am I overthinking this essence thing?’ He paused, recalling how he was trying to push his essence out of his feathers like a barrier. Niko realized that he was able to do that, but that wasn’t particularly effective. But, he realized, he was going after the wrong idea. 

With a hunch, Niko stopped cleaning himself and instead focused closely on what he was doing with his essence. 

Niko took his essence and applied it over his feathers, contouring to them closely, sticking to them like a smooth finish. Not unlike the oil, he wanted it to hug the feathers, not overlay them like a clumsy shell. Immediately he began to feel a difference in his feathers, each one being wrapped up in its own nourishing and protective layer of essence, different from the goal he’d been going for previously. After all, his feathers were the defensive layer, but not against everything. This would help.

As he finished the process, Niko happily warbled at the progress of the filth falling away, unable to maintain a decent grip on him. It wasn’t perfect, but now that Niko knew what he’d been doing wrong, things would be much easier to correct. 

The now much cleaner bird happily plopped into the middle bath as the other greenhorns came around from the corners, each carrying their own sets of towels and not so much as glancing upwards in surprise at the other party. 

Mithel did, however, give Dachna a decidedly uncouth eyebrow wriggle.

“Ahhhh… a real bath.” Ronald plopped into the bathwater before noting Niko. He smiled, “You rinsed off first, right? Lookin’ a lot better.”

Niko gave a titter of noise in confirmation, his feathers fluffing out as he let the tension of his muscles fall away. The others chuckled at that before sinking fully into their own bliss. No one said anything for nearly a minute as a companionable silence rested over them.

“How bad do you think one-on-one training is going to be?” Skye broke the silence, the back of her head leaning against the edge of the bath and her line of sight set on a distant part of the modestly high ceiling.

“Mrbhglrlghlghhhhgggrrrr…” Niko replied while partway submerged in the water with a complaining tone, already imagining all of the ‘restrictions’ he’d be under for being a bird.

The others smiled widely at the sound, “Sounds rough.” Ronald jokingly commented with a chuckle, “Definitely rough, though. If our teamwork only earned ‘acceptable enough’ then I think we’re in for… what’d you call it Dachna, getting ‘worked over’?”

Dachna snorted with amusement, “Close ‘nuff. Honestly, I think Niko is gonna get the harder part.”

Skye nodded, “Makes sense.”

Mithel and Ronald looked at each other to confirm they weren’t the only ones confused. “Why?” Mithel asked, “Because he’s a beast?”

Dachna nodded, “Aye. I don’t know much about it, but Skye mentioned once that beasts learn bad habits too easily.”

“Yeah, it’s the instincts,” she said, “Beasts are great innate fighters, but the theory goes that if you know how to fight one, you know how to fight ‘em all. So long as they aren’t smart enough to realize their tricks are being learned,” Skye gestured to Niko with a sideways hand and gave it a moderate shake, “I don’t even know if Niko would have that problem, but if he does act like other Phorus do in combat, anybody who's ever fought one could theoretically take him blindsided by guessing how he’ll want to attack.”

“That’s… annoying.” Niko cheeped at her, and she smirked as she felt the connection thrum with his annoyance.

“It is what it is. It’s bad for you right now, but it’ll be great later on. You hunted lots of badgers, right?” She waited until Niko nodded begrudgingly, “That’s probably because you got used to what they could do. Same principle holds true for monsters. Some things change, but the tendencies stay the same.”

“Ah, so it’s just like learning their attack patterns?” Mithel nodded in understanding.

“Just so,” Skye approved, “It’s never good to lean too hard on that, though, it’s just good to keep it in mind.”

By the time they were ready to leave the bath, Niko felt much better about his state of cleanliness. He did march with Skye over to the far side of the room for some shampoo of some kind that she helped work through his feathers, and he gladly accepted her help in learning how to use the heating and cooling sigils under the showers that he hadn’t even realized were there. 

Distantly, he noted that he felt absolutely nothing in regards to being in a room with naked men and women, for which he was grateful. He’d been human once, sure, but that didn’t mean he wanted to have to deal with any hormonal responses now. That would have been thoroughly awkward.

“And press here for the drying function.” Skye demonstrated how to use what Niko had thought was a ventilation device. He followed along, noting how her chestnut brown hair lightened as the water seemed to be gently pulled from it towards the vent. Niko couldn’t help but notice that each of the team were physically very fit, but Skye defied his own stereotypical conventions of what an elf looked like. She was thin, but not especially so, and while her body was mature, she was lean. She also had a sharper outline of a six pack than Dachna did, amusingly enough to Niko, and very clearly cared for her body more than most.

Idly, he wondered if they were all going to be much fitter after their sessions with Camille and Crowe.

He pulled his thoughts away from the realization that he wouldn’t get to see himself with a six-pack and stepped in front of the vent. The sigils pulled water from him to the receptacle in the floor, and Niko couldn’t help but marvel at the speed of it.

“It’s cool, right? This one’s a lot faster than what you’d normally have in an inn, but those ones aren’t that slow either. Definitely better than drying off in the air, in any case.” Skye said, “Alright, I’m going to go get dressed and meet you back in the main room for some lunch.”

Niko nodded to her and trilled in thanks, getting a bright smile in return. Along the way, he once more noted Dachna and Ronald as they finished drying off, and then as he made his way through the washroom once more, had another errant thought.

‘Are pretty much all of the people in this world good looking? I don’t think I’ve seen an ugly person so far. Even among the poachers.’ Niko frowned to himself, before shaking his head, ‘Well, even if they were pecking hideous, it still wouldn’t be nice to treat them differently. But, damn, they’d all be model material back on earth.’ He emerged into the main room, briefly looking around, only noting that there were a few attendants setting out some small plates and appetizers. 

‘Hmm… wonder where the bird brigade is?’ Niko turned his thoughts to his siblings, ‘Hope they’re doing okay, this training’s a little rough. But, I’m sure they’ll be… mostly fine.’ 

Taking a seat at the table, Niko found himself distracted by the tantalizing smells that wafted out of the kitchen, and by the fresh, lightly salted breadsticks with some kind of spinach alfredo-like dip next to them.. ‘Mmm… Is it wrong that I hope they have more pheasant? That was good stuff.’

 

 

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