Road to Krakow, day 9

“How many does that make now?”

 

Vaughn asked, taking count of the samples of wood and plant matter through my pack's opening.

 

“Seven kills, four of which were hangman trees and another two Wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing atop the one from the day before last.”

 

I spoke, sluggishly keeping up with Beryl. I was tired, more so than usual, sleeping roughly ever since the fight with the mobile Wolf-in-sheep's-clothing. It left its mark, which displeased me even more when it was determined I was the best option to take them on. My ability, mana-break, made the chore nearly mute when the tendrils couldn’t even scratch me. It was a simple ‘approach, uproot, and smash’ style of killing. 

 

“It’s easy money, and it helps at least. We are saving people's lives at the core of the task.”

 

Vaughn continued, cinching the opening of the bag. 

 

“And more gold helps; we’re at a three-hundred-fifty gold payout. That much gold is more than enough for a three-week venture. We could technically skip over the Viper-vine if it weren’t for the fact we have to come back with one to collect on the reward.”

 

Beryl chimed, bringing my thoughts back to our last mark.

 

“That reminds me, we'll have to take a detour. The location that's seasonal with activity is a few miles off the beaten path.”

 

I studied the map, looking over a small set of trails roughly recorded before last winter.

 

“One this unused is odd, but it seems to be a halfway campsite for adventurers basing their hunts outside of Krakow. Close enough to rush to town on horseback by evening, but still far enough to keep collateral from battles or trailing monsters from getting too close.”

 

A note was placed aside, describing the campsite. It hadn't been cleared just yet, thanks to the increase in activity diverting the attention of the higher-ranked teams. Megafauna seemed to be absent, but that was apparently left to the lack of larger bodies of water. Krakow was built around the river that cut through Morus, leading past Brenton’s outskirts and back around the mountains past Lyoh to the sea. This man-made obstruction to nature discouraged most monsters from venturing too close.

 

“That's what, another day?”

 

Vaughn asked, looking at the paper.

 

“About that, considering time to and from the camp? We’ll have to set out as soon as we come in line with the spur of that peak.”

 

I pointed to the distance, the mountaintop nearly obscured by the trees, but still close enough to catch fleeting glimpses through the foliage. 

 

“From that spur, we have half the day to get there and back, another half to track something if we’re lucky, and it falls in our lap. Another three, and we’ll be at the gates.”

 

I didn't look at him directly but Vaughn resigned to nod quietly. 

 

“Then we can’t really unwind in Krakow, or atleast I can’t.”

 

Vaughn groaned. 

 

“The more I read into these plans, the more I think I may be called up to redraw them almost entirely.”

 

“They're that off on the measurements?”

 

Vaughn nodded again.

 

“I think Pa’s been wearing himself down lately, and he left out a few measurements. There’s a set of specifications on materials I may have to recalculate for waste as well.”

 

I thought back to earth for a moment, making small talk where I could. 

 

“Something like a listing of resources? ”

 

I asked, looking at him as I folded the map.

 

“Huh?”

 

Vaughn asked, my question throwing him off. 

 

Ah, earth talk, gotta remember sometimes.

 

“Hmm, sort of like, an itemization of everything needed, measurement, weight, standards? Something like a billing of materials?”

 

I asked, drawing forth a hesitant and confused nod. 

 

“It’s not called the same, but yeah, somethin’ almost like it.”

 

He stifled a smirk, the expression trying to make its way to the forefront before being shoved aside.

 

“Ahem, aye, similar. It’s just going to take most of my time there, so I’m praying to Myr we can leave on our original timeframe. However, with time we may need for the Viper-vine…”

 

Vaughn tilted his head in doubt. 

 

“This may extend further than the few days we expected. We could be delaying our return to next month.”

 

That wouldn't be the greatest outcome.

 

“Enough of that, though. What are we looking for with the monster?”

 

Vaughn asked. Looking back to Beryl, I prodded her mind for a plan we’d discussed sometime earlier. 

 

“Do you think it’s still good?”

 

I asked aloud, Beryl tilting her head back.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“The plan for the Viper-vine, stacking each of our abilities and laying ambush?”

 

“Ah.”

 

Beryl turned her torso around, maintaining her pace with her body. 

 

“We were discussing stacking mine and your abilities, Vaughn, taking on the Viper-vine at point blank.”

 

Vaughn cocked his head.

 

“Point blank? Me and you? What about her?”

 

Vaughn pointed his thumb at me. 

 

“We could use the experience together. It doesn't do us any good to push her in the way whenever it's convenient. We’ll get too accustomed to it.”

 

Beryl nodded at me. 

 

“My side still itches some.”

 

I grumbled, complaining halfheartedly. Beryl used my comment aside to continue her reasoning. 

 

“Viper-vines release a toxin in the form of gas during a confrontation. It’s not so bad that it will kill you, but it apparently can reach you before you can even see it.”

“Kiyomi can track it, lure it out, then run it through our ambush. Her mana-break can’t stop toxins, but your phalanx? It juuust might be enough to protect us if we took a measure more to group up behind it.”

 

Beryl exaggerated her description by holding her thumb and pointer fingers together. 

 

“What’s that extra measure?”

 

Vaughn asked, looking between us. I produced three patches of heavily stitched cloth. 

 

“I made these.”

 

I held them up, swinging them in Vaughn’s direction so he would take one. 

 

“They’re filled with charcoal, silk, and a few other things I had to track down.”

 

I balled another up, tossing it forward. Catching it, Beryl unfurled the cloth to examine it. 

 

“With water, it should catch any heavier airborne toxins. However, it can only protect you for so long. When it's picked up enough, it'll creep through via droplets. With you two shielded with phalanx? You should have a while longer.”

 

Vaughn was silent, absorbing the information as best he could.

 

“So it's our turn?”

 

He asked, folding the mask and tucking it in between his belt and clothes.

 

“Aye.”

---

 

The forest was alive, the sun at its height within the sky as the two sat in wait. Beryl, loosely coiled within the trunk of a tree, and Vaughn within those coils.

 

“This shouldn't be much work, for the trap we're laying? Seems overkill.”

 

Vaughn whispered.

 

“Rather overkill than see the two of you hurt.”

 

Beryl replied, picking at her own scales as she partially obscured her torso. They were strangely translucent, an intermittent stuttering of light and the scenery outside of her coils passing through. To them, the world was within view, but to the world, there was simply the head and robe of a girl floating precariously within the treetops.

 

“Natural camouflage. It's pretty cool.”

 

Vaughn exclaimed with a shrug.

 

“Just ‘pretty cool?”

 

Beryl asked.

 

“Aye, just that.”

 

The lamia pouted for a moment, hoping to impress with the feat she’d worked hard to attain. Traditionally, it was a scout skill, yet it was one she managed to learn thanks to instruction from Chessa, the Revenants’ scout. She didn't understand the phenomena herself, but it was the inevitable end result of dozens upon dozens of attempts to cover herself in foliage and netting during hunts. As the group's sniper, it felt convenient given her need for tactical positioning.

 

“Still, to do something you two can’t. Aside from what I've been taught from Hatsumi? It's encouraging.”

 

She muttered, peering into the distance, listening for any signals. A crack of wood being snapped, brush rustling, a bird chirping as it took flight.  

 

“Hm? We might be up.”

 

Beryl muttered, crouching down within her coils.

 

“Here, I've got you.”

 

Beryl whispered, her tail loosing itself from the tree as it moved to slide under Vaugh.

 

“Shit, careful! Don't wanna feel my damned balls in my throat!”

 

He blurted, letting the appendage push him from their perch. He wrapped his sword arm around it, boots biting and scratching at bark as he tried to control his descent. Nearly ten feet, a safe enough distance to jump. Though they cared little to play with risks when they knew the fight was near enough to begin. Vaughn's feet barely touched the ground with a thump and crackle of leaves before he activated Phalanx, then Lionheart, only then letting go of Beryl's tail.

 

She's close, right?

 

He asked himself, pulling the cloth free from his belt. Soaking it in water from his canteen, he placed it around his face. It was almost describable as musty, the smell of a campfire and a few sparse herbs entering his nose as he breathed. 

 

Go time.

 

He thought, unsheathing his sword and resting the flat of the blade along his thigh.

 

“I'm on my way!”

 

Kiyomi's yelling echoed among the tree's, the shrieking of something birdlike just behind her.

 

“Holy shit! Hey, fuck you!”

 

She yelled, a sharp crack of wood and bird-like bellow ensuing after.

 

“Shit!” 

 

The sound of brush snapping grew, accompanied by the low, rough, and steady sound of shifting earth.

 

“Fuc–fff!”

 

Kiyomi's voice was suddenly muffled but close, and followed by a thin orange fog. 

 

“Right behind me!”

 

She screamed, waterlogged cloth in hand whilst her face and hair was matted and stained with charcoal. Behind her, the fog grew, bellowing forth in an intimidating miasma of bright oranges and reds. 

 

“Keep running; we're on it!”

 

She sprinted, leaping over a small depression in the earth. Behind her, from the obscuring presence of trees and undergrowth, their quarry launched itself forward. The viper-vine, both plant and beast in the same sense, its massive wooden frame propelled it's snake-like body forward. Its beak was akin to that of a bird of prey, hooked along the tip. The lower jaw was hooked as well, each tip flanking the upper jaw. It wore a giant bush as a mane, mottled orange and brown adorning its splotchy green mass, shaking as if it were a layer of blubber and skin.The hideous amalgamation of foliage and fauna shrieked as it lurched forward, still locked in on Kiyomi as she passed Vaughn.

 

“Now!”

 

Beryl yelled, signaling Vaughn to spring the trap they had laid in wait. He sidestepped the tree, sword in hand and his other hand flush with the ground. The rumble of shifting stone and dirt precluded the masses of earth that slammed into the massive snake’s sides, followed by the ear-shattering crack of lightning unique to Beryl’s Arc-bow. The monster shrieked, coiling itself into a defensive stance as it hissed through its wooden esophagus. It seemed the part of a massive rattlesnake as it heaved its massive head over its coils. Shaking its head, the sound of branches and leaves brushing over one another served as its warning. 

 

“Beryl!”

 

Vaughn yelled to the lamia for her next move. She held the greatest chance to immobilize the monster out of the three, given its form. Leaves fell from overhead, twigs, bark, and other debris plummeted, and atop it all, Beryl’s massive serpentine body slammed down on the Viper-vine as if she were a cart of stone and sand. The sound of cracking wood and bird-like cries filled the air, the Viper-vine’s crude intelligence still not recognizing the mass of partially translucent muscle and scales that steadily attempted to subdue it. 

 

“Vaughn! I’ve got it! Move-in!”

 

Beryl’s camouflage dropped as she hugged herself against the Viper-vines mane. 

 

Damnit! I can’t bloody use Sol’s spear like this!”

 

“Now!”

 

She muttered, her body flexing as she struggled to pry its coils in a way to avoid any death roll the monster could dish out. Wordlessly, Vaughn broke out into a sprint, hopping over their rolling bodies as he readied Piercing thrust. He lunged for the beast’s throat just short of the head, nearly bumping heads with Beryl until his weight threw them all off balance. With a loud thump, the monster slammed its head onto the ground and then began to writhe in a vain attempt to free itself. 

 

“Oh gods, I think it’s getting through– urp.”

 

Vaughn tensed up for a moment, struggling to hold in the bile that fought its way up his throat. His head was tingling, and stars were gleaming through his eyes as they opened. Beryl seemed to be spasming now as well, holding on for life and death as the color drained from her face. 

 

“Stab the bastard!”

 

She yelled, her cloth tearing free against the Viper-vine’s foliage. Vaughn did not respond, opting to move straight for the kill. He found purchase in the first place he could, grabbing at the corner of the Viper-vine’s mouth. 

 

Wait- no-

 

He only had a moment to regret his decision as the monster slammed its beak shut at the sudden intrusion.

 

“Aaah!”

 

He howled, nearly dropping himself from its neck. He could feel it; two fingers cut from his hand near the edge of the hardened jaws. It stung, but nowhere as much as it could have if they'd prolonged the fight. He flipped his sword within his grip, using Piercing thrust as he plunged it into the rudimentary brain. He hilted the blade, a mixture of golden and green fluids spurting outward. The rush of chlorophyll,sap, and blood was all that was needed to loosen his grip as he was tossed aside by the monster's death throes. 

 

“Beryl, back off! It should be done!”

 

Vaughn yelled, crawling backward as he clamped his gambison around the two freshly taken fingers. She heeded Vaughn’s warning, relaxing her body and letting her torso fall limp. True to their expectations, the monster simply rolled free of her embrace, shuddering and convulsing as it attempted to cling to its life for its last few moments. It lasted a minute, then two, and ceased as its half-dead efforts pulled itself back into a defensive posture. However, now it lay there, in the sun, belly up to the world as would any other dying snake.

---

“You're not feeling pain in any other places?”

 

Beryl asked, checking Vaughn's shoulder and left trapezius. She was unsure at first, but when he struggled to lift the hand that had lost its finger, she needed to inspect further. 

 

“I’m sure.”

 

Beryl sighed, prodding the muscles with enough pressure that even Kiyomi might have shied away. 

 

“Even so, I’m checking because enough unseen injuries will build up. If your rotator cuff is shot and heals on its own? You’d be out of our arrangement.”

 

Beryl spoke flatly. 

 

“Adventuring with her?”

 

Vaughn nodded to Kiyomi, loosely leaning against a tree as she dry-heaved, nearly falling to her knees.

 

“Mhmm, and I can’t lose my competition.”

 

Vaughn nodded, then rolled his head to eye Beryl through her periphery. 

 

“A competition with what? A gremlin with a growth spurt?”

 

They both chuckled, Vaughn, ending with a shaky sigh as he looked down at his newly formed fingers. The tan that formed over his arms from months of outside work was absent, the fingers now pale and free of any blemishes. Even the scars they'd formed from nervously chewing his fingertips whilst he worked. 

 

“By the way, how is–”

 

Kiyomi’s dry-heaved, groaning painfully as her knee’s finally buckled. 

 

“She?”

 

Beryl nodded, relieving the pressure she’d put on his back. Lifting Vaughn’s Gambison back over his shoulder, Beryl came around to his front and helped him to his feet.

 

“Something about overdosing? The Viper-vine got the jump on her literally the moment she found it. She got a throat full of gas before she could even douse her mask. She tore it apart by accident at some point. With some water and an hour to rest, she said we can move.”

 

Vaughn nodded at Beryl’s words. 

 

“Bright side to everything, we’re clear to drop hunt and cash out our marks.”