Chapter Sixty-seven

Chapter Sixty-seven

Kay fell out of bed as he thrashed around, still mostly asleep and trying to get away from some half-visible dream attacker. He struggled to his feet and spun to face the threat and then froze as all he saw was a bare stone wall. “Wha...?”

“Oh, you’re awake!”

The unfamiliar voice startled Kay, and he spun to face it, unconsciously trying to summon blood to his hands in order to defend himself. Before he could see the person, his foot got caught in the blankets strewn over the floor. Kay slammed into the ground with an audible thud and clutched at his head.

“Shit!” The person scrambled over to him and pressed their hands to his head. A gentle warmth blossomed where he’d hit his head, and the pain eased. “Oh good, you didn’t get a concussion from that. Wouldn’t that suck?”

“Who’re you?” Kay asked as he started slowly freeing himself from the tangling grasp of the blankets. He looked up to see a smiling woman with a purple skin tone and pointed elven ears. Her black hair was wound in a tight braid, and her eyes flashed a lighter shade of violet as she smiled down at him.

“I’m not surprised that you don’t remember; that venom really did a number on you.” She held out her hand, and Kay let her help him up.

He shuddered and grimaced as he remembered the excruciating heat trying to consume him.

“Yeah, it looked that bad.” The woman held out a hand, “I’m Chitel, the healer of the little group who you saved.”

“I’m not really sure who did the saving at this point,” Kay muttered as he shook her hand, some of his memories of the fight coming back with the reminder.

“Oh, it was definitely you.” Chitel replied firmly, “Most of us would have been dead if you hadn’t shown up and slowed the hydra down. Leaf and I got thrown really far away when it first attacked, and it would have picked off the others and then come back for the two of us. If we’d been able to stay together for the entire fight, we’d have been fine, but with us splitting us up right at the beginning, we definitely needed the help.”

Kay shrugged and looked away, a little uncomfortable with the direct gratitude she was giving him. “No problem?”

She grinned at him and stepped out of his space. “Now that you’re up, you should probably come outside. Cindy keeps getting into arguments with your teacher.”

Kay frowned, “Wait, we’re at the village?”

Chitel nodded, “Yup, been here for a few days. You woke up once and talked with your teacher, but it was mostly delirious ramblings.” She pointed outside and walked off.

Kay frowned deeper. How’d they find- Oh, right, Murunel was with me. She probably gave them directions. He followed Chitel outside, holding his hands up to block the glare from the sun. He squinted as the light stabbed into his eyes and worsened his small headache. “Ow.”

“They’re over at your office.” Chitel pointed off to the right.

Kay looked back and saw the building they’d just left was new to him, and there were a few others next to it. “Darten’s been busy.” He turned and started trudging towards the government building, his hand still between his eyes and the sun.

He heard raised voices from inside and stuck his head in to see Eleniah arguing with a young human woman. Her hair was red-brown and pulled back into a ponytail that flipped around as she gestured widely at Eleniah. She was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt that resembled a men’s dress shirt and leather pants, with a strange half chest-plate half bandoleer type of covering on top of the pristine shirt. She had a pair of leather goggles sitting on her forehead, trapping a few stray hairs underneath the band.

“Are you some kind of steampunker?” Kay asked, the question leaping from his mouth before he could think it over.

The two women stopped arguing and turned to see Kay.

The human woman’s eyes flashed with mischief. “Well, G’day mate! Good to see you’re finally awake.”

Kay stared at her, expression blank.

She stared back.

Eventually, Kay shook his head disapprovingly, “That is the worst Australian accent I have ever heard.”

She glared back at him, “It’s not that bad!” Her real voice had a standard American accent, and he remembered that voice shouting at him about how to dodge.

“Absolutely terrible.”

“It’s alright!”

“Zero out of anything. You’d get your ass kicked in New Melbourne talking like that.”

Kay laughed and waved his hand, “Keep going.”

“One of my classes is Fortune Seeker.”

Eleniah shot up in her chair, “No way!”

“Yes, way,” Cindy nodded, “She already knows, I guess, but my class helps me find things. It’s an offshoot of the Treasure Hunter line, except Fortune Seeker lets me find more esoteric things. I wanted to find a place where me and my misfits could live, and it led me here.”

“That’s a cool Class.”

“It really is. It’s helped me a lot since I got it.”

Kay nodded. “There’s more to it, though.”

“Huh?”

“You told me which way to dodge when the hydra was attacking before it even happened. Also, one of your people asked you if you’d ‘seen this’. So what’s that about?”

“I was hoping to bring that up after you let us stay,” Cindy muttered.

Kay shrugged, “Sorry.”

“Fine!” She snapped, “But I won’t get exploited by you or anyone else. I am a person, not a tool to use to enrich yourself!”

Kay jerked back in his chair. “Uh, what?”

“Fortune Seekers are really rare. Treasure Hunters show up all the time, but the regular paths for that line don’t literally lead you to what you’re looking for; they just make it easier to track things down through regular methods. Lots of people try and control Fortune Seekers as use them as overpowered magical dowsing rods.” She turned her head to look at Cindy, “Sounds like there’s something else with that, though.”

Cindy glanced off to the side, “My starting class was Novice Oracle. I’m a Dream Seer now.”

Eleniah whistled in surprise. “Okay, yeah, An Oracle class and a Fortune Seeker? I can understand the attitude.”

“You know what?” Kay leaned back in his chair, “You’ve obviously been in Torotia long enough to know things I don’t, and this headache is getting worse, so give me your short pitch.”

“We’re a group of people looking for a place to live without the problems of the places we were before, and we have useful skills to help. Plus, as long as you don’t treat me like a thing, I can use my Classes to really help you in a lot of ways that are less direct.” She pointed outside, “Like one of the people I picked up on the way? He’s got experience doing city planning, which I knew you’d want.”

“How did you know that?”

“I dreamed it.”

“Oh.” Kay stared at her for a second, massaging his temples in an attempt to make his headache go away, “You know what? Sure. You’re all on probation, and you have to sign agreements about loyalty and secrecy and stuff like that, but you’re provisionally in.”

“Awesome!” Cindy exclaimed and fist-pumped.

Kay winced away from her volume, the pain in his head spiking.

“Since you’re letting us stay, can I tell you something I dreamed of now?”

Kay sighed, “Sure? Why not say it first?”

“Because it would sound like I was being all mysterious or threatening to sway your decision.”

Kay grunted in acknowledgment.

Cindy turned and pointed in the direction of the cliff face. “There’s something really dangerous inside there.”

Kay slowly lowered his head to the table. “Yeah, I’d figured that out.”