ARC 1: Arrival

Chapter 1.06: Dire Wolf Saliva

Aliz and I arrive to the sight of Astrid pulling her sword out of the monster's throat, Arthur preparing to skin the giant creature. I could imagine that tanning the hide of a creature such as this could make some really good leather. Or a decent coat, considering the trade aspects of their guild. I'd be curious to see what things the group would choose to harvest from the creature.

Arthur digs his knife into the creature around its neck, Astrid tugging at the pelt to help with removal. I've maneuvered myself around to the creature's face when a curious urge strikes me. I was wanting to test some of the curious abilities I seemed to have, and now was as good a time as ever.

Aliz was watching me curiously, a mix between keeping an eye out for the other two's safety and an interest in what I'm doing. With her watching, I stuck my finger into the beast's mouth. As I pull it back out saliva follows, coating my finger.

"Lillian, what are you-" swallowing my slight disgust at what I'm about to do, I stick my finger directly into my mouth and suck the saliva off. As I look over at Aliz, she's looking at me with shock, looking a little sick herself. I taste the saliva in all of it's dank slimeyness, the faint taste of venison reaching my tongue. Eventually though, I feel the familiar tug of information and pull my journal out, writing my first animal related entry.

Dire Wolf Saliva
Obtained directly from the mouths of Dire Wolves, Dire Wolf Saliva acts as a strong painkiller when ingested. Long term use can be debilitating to the nerves, and if possible should be used in tandem with a different lower effect pain killer. The taste is strong and can cause some users to vomit. It is recommended that you administer it with food and drink when possible. Not only for the taste, but to avoid numbness of extremities.

Swallowing the last of the saliva, I hurriedly scribble the last of the notes before pulling out my water bottle and gulping down a couple of swigs. Not only is the taste bad, but it seems to get worse the longer you taste it. Aliz is looking at me with wide eyes as I attempt to cough the taste out of my mouth. Even Arthur and Astrid have stopped their pelt collecting to look at me.

"Lillian, what the fuck was that." Arthur asks, looking more than a little weirded out.

"Research." I say simply, putting my journal away and pulling another empty jar out of the bag. I take a deep breath before opening up the Dire Wolf's mouth wide, scooping out the saliva into my jar as best as I can. The few times I have to take breaths, the smell nearly gets to me. I finish filling up the jar, letting the mouth drop closed. I manage to fish the moss jar out of my bag without getting much saliva anywhere, and I greedily yank the moss out, using clumps of it to scrub the worst of the saliva off my hands. I use one more clump of moss to wipe the outside of the saliva jar clean. Eventually I manage to get myself clean enough that I don't feel like I'm gonna gag over the saliva. It was a new medical ingredient. There was a lot of stuff I needed to learn about medicine here, I couldn't just stick to plants.

Finally clean and with my supplies put away, I look back over at Aliz. Arthur and Astrid are back to cutting the pelt away, but I notice astrid giving me glances as she does so. That's fair, considering even I thought what I did was nasty. I look back at Aliz. She's supervising the other two, but she turns to look at me as she notices I'm looking at her. Her brow furrows and I can feel the question take place in her mind. Her mouth opens for a moment, as if to say something, but no sound comes out. Eventually she closes her mouth and just shakes her head before finally speaking up.

"Why was that your first instinct?" She asks. A presumably different question than what she had originally thought about.

"I find that I can… Learn a great deal about substances by tasting them. It's not always the most pleasant of experiences I guess. I'm still trying to figure it all out. I wasn't sure I would be able to learn as much, if anything, about this mutt, but it had worked." I shrugged, attempting to temper my look with practiced indifference. I was, in reality, ecstatic about this new knowledge. It meant that my studies in medicine wouldn't be as difficult with all these new plants, and even occasionally animal materials, to research.

"You learn by tasting them?" She cocks her head to one side and I just shrug. "You're an interesting person, Lillian."

"I'd have to say the same about you all as well." I say, looking away from Aliz and to the two carving up the Dire Wolf. They had completely freed the hide from the wolf and were now loading up chunks of meat onto it. It seemed that they planned to carry as much of it with them as they could. Meeting my gaze, astrids smile seems to drop, quickly averting her head the other way. I frown lightly at the gesture. I suppose she's still a little wary around me, I'd have to be a little gentle with her. I turn my gaze back to Aliz and continue the thought, approaching a question I'd had for a while. "For instance, that shield of yours is huge. It's almost as big as you and solid metal, it must weigh a ton."

Aliz chuckles lightly, looking to her discarded shield on the floor. "You'd be right about that. I've had to do a lot of training to be able to use that shield effectively." For explanation, Aliz approaches me and picks me up effortlessly. I gasp lightly at the sudden rush of air as I'm lifted above her head. I can feel her hands grasping me firmly by my waist and the thought crosses my mind that if she had wanted to, she could crush my right now and I couldn't do anything about it. She gently sets me down and it takes me a second or two for my brain to catch up. A small pink tinge finds its way to my cheeks as I recover from the experience. I quickly start patting myself off, composing myself.

"Ah. Um. Yes. Of course." I say absently, kickstarting my brain. "It's reassuring to have you looking after me then, cause I'd hate to fight you." I laugh gently. Aliz pats my shoulder, and turns back to Arthur and Astrid. I take a moment to compose myself, and turn back. After a few moments, I turn back to see that Astrid and Arthur have loaded up the animal pelt with hunks of meat. Their hands are slick with blood, but they don't seem to care.

There's a couple more minutes of conversation between the three of them that I tune out. After a few moments, I ask Aliz if I should wake Roarke up. She hesitates to answer, but eventually she nods her head. Aliz, Astrid, and Arthur continue to discuss the Dire Wolf resources as I walk back over to Vulmer and Roarke.

Vulmer is still standing over the boy, and at my approach his face twists in disgust. I ignore him and kneel down next to roarke. I pull out my water bottle, wetting my fingers and flicking water across his face. He seems to stir slightly and I continue to flick the water in his face. His face scrunches up in a grimace before his eyes shoot open. I stop flicking water in his face as he starts to groan. It's the familiar groan of a patient who's in a great deal of pain. I frown, pulling my bag around and rummaging through it. I unscrew the cap of my water bottle, using it as a makeshift cup.

I pull out a couple of my jars, scooping some saliva into the cap before slicing open a Worm Petal Flower, extracting the slime held within into the saliva. I generously sprinkle some sugar into the mixture, mixing the whole thing with water. I dip a finger into the mixture hesitantly and find that the sour from the slime and the sweet from the sugar go a long way to mask the saliva's taste. Satisfied, I raise the mixture up to Roarkes mouth, causing his eyes to open and stare at it.

"Drink." I command. He obeys through the pain, closing his eyes as he does so. When he's done, I can see him clenching his eyes shut. I can't tell if it's in pain, or at the taste, but I decide it doesn't matter as I see them swallow it. I refill the cap with more water, raising it to his lips once more. This time he drinks more greedily, especially once he realizes it's water. By now the group has wandered their way to Roarkes side as he bites down the worst of the groans of pain.

I let him lie there for a bit, biting down the pain as I see his struggles with the pain start to leave his eyes. The saliva seems to have been fairly fast acting in it's pain relief. I wondered idly as I watched him if that was another enhancement I was capable of. Roarke seemed to take some steady breaths, looking down at his bandaged leg. I see him reach to undo the cloth before I stop him. He looks at me in confusion.

"Don't remove it. You won't want to remove that for the entire first day at least. I just fed you some pretty potent pain killers, so the pain shouldn't bother you, but you're still injured. You need to take it easy for a while while you recover." I tell him. He seems to digest my words, glancing at his companions nearby as I talk.

"Um, who are you?" Confusion is etched on his face. Between the medical advice, my odd clothes, and casual presence amongst his friends and allies, my presence must have been very confusing to him.

"Lillian." I pause, holding out my hand before continuing. "Lillian Null. I'm a trained medical professional." Smiling sweetly at him, he seems to accept the offer for a handshake.

"Um, hey. I'm Roarke." He responds carefully, eyeing his teammates.

"Of course," I look him over briefly, making sure he seems fine. "Try to keep your weight off your injured leg for now, but I'd like to see if you can stand, at least." I say, still holding his hand. He nods, taking in a breath before I can feel his hand tighten around my own. I pull him up, leaning down to help stabilize him. Eventually, he's standing, leaning heavily on his good foot. He puts a small amount of weight onto the other one and winces. Thankfully, it doesn't seem too painful. Vulmer moves to his side, the one with the limp. Vulmer looks at Roarke with a smile and Roarke returns it cheekily. Vulmer lays an arm across him to stabilize him and Roarke leans into the taller man for stability. It was actually kind of cute seeing Vulmer acting so sweetly. I wondered for a second if they were involved with each other before realizing how intrusive and presumptive of a thought that was.

"Alright, I think that we're set to begin the trek back. We should be able to make it back before nightfall easily." Aliz says, nodding approvingly. Arthur and Astrid seize opposite ends of the pelt. Aliz had retrieved her shield, she seemed to affix it to her back like a turtle. I chuckled at the sight. Aliz had also gone to the liberty of collecting Roarke's blades from the ground nearby, which he seemed grateful for. I followed along next to Aliz rather uselessly.

I had no idea how long the trip was supposed to be, but the sun had already progressed a decent amount in the sky since I had last seen. Not that my body was really feeling drained yet, but I was starting to feel tired. It had been a long day after all. It was weird to think that the thing my brain was least worried about currently was the fact that I'd died earlier today. I dismissed the thought, enjoying the quiet company of the adventurers I'd met.