Book 1. Chapter 35

Book 1. Chapter 35

On the way to the spinewolf den, Brin couldn’t stop his brain from thinking. Was doing all this playing right into the [Weavers] hands? If it was, so what? If Tawna wanted him to do something that he also wanted to do, would it make sense to not do it just to spite her? That would be giving her too much power. The best decision would be to live his life as if she didn’t exist, not to rearrange his life based on every little thing she did.

She’d given him a choice, and he’d chosen to do what he wanted. What she wanted was irrelevant. Although, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d screwed himself by going after the weaker monsters first. What if trying to do both meant he wouldn’t get the information she’d promised? Well, if that was the case, so be it. This was already an extremely lucrative day.

The clouds continued to darken as he walked, and a chill wind began to blow, but for now the rain stayed constrained to a few drops here and there.

Around noon, he knew that if he went any further then he would be near where he thought the den should be. Before that, he should take a break. The fight with the spiderlings had taken a lot out of him. He needed to approach whatever this was at his absolute best.

He found a patch of soft grass, asked Marksi to keep watch, and then lay down and closed his eyes. Back in his old life, he’d been the king of the fifteen minute nap. He wasn’t sure if that talent had transferred. With all the preteen manic energy he’d been living with, he’d never needed it. But it was worth a try now.

He lay on the ground, but couldn’t sleep. His neck and hand hurt too much. Well, even if he couldn’t sleep, a rest would still help.

He woke up and it was dark. Panicking, he thought he’d slept through the night, but it wasn’t actually that dark. The clouds had gotten a little bit darker and the wind was blowing harder, but he doubted he’d been asleep for more than an hour.This chapter's initial release occurred on the n0vell--Bjjn site.

The pain in his neck and hand had diminished to a dull ache, but for some reason all his other muscles had started to ache more. Oh well, this was as good as he was going to feel. Best to get started.

He continued north towards the spinewolf den. The trees thinned out, but the water became more and more muddy, until pools of stagnant water started to cut off his path and he had to wander through them like a maze.

He copied Lurilan’s trick of cutting a tree branch to use to test that the ground in front of him was solid. He didn’t fear illusions, but sometimes grass that looked normal was actually floating on top of the water.

Slowly, he made his way through the swampy forest. He might have gotten lost, but Marksi had no problem swimming over the top of the water, so Brin could send him ahead and use him as a goal post.

Finally, Brin saw a trail. A game trail, probably. Whatever animals lived in this forest would know the best way to get through on solid ground.

He followed the trail, astonished at how easy walking was when you didn’t have to fear every step.

Soon he found a small hill rising out of the swampy surroundings. There was an old dead tree he recognized; it had been drawn on the map. Underneath it on the other side, there would be the mouth of a cave. The perfect home for whatever evil thing happened to be passing through the area.

The area around the hill was wet and treacherous. Without his stick to test the ground, he would have sunken into the mud a dozen times over.

He approached cautiously, straining his ears to pick up any sounds. Yeah, something was definitely in there. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was that made him think so, just a strong sense of danger and... wrongness from that direction. This had to be what [Monster Sense] felt like. He’d need to remember this feeling.

He backed away, and thought about his plan of attack.

Without knowing what it was, he couldn’t really think up a strategy, but the fact that it sought out this hill as a place to hang out meant that it probably couldn’t live in water. Maybe he could use the swampy terrain to his advantage?

He also couldn’t swim very effectively while wearing full leather armor and carrying a backpack and weapons, but that didn’t mean there was nothing he could do. He saw a tree covered in vines, some of them hanging down all the way to the water, and that gave him an idea.

He pulled out the rope with a grappling hook, and had Marksi carry it up to a high branch on a tree overlooking a pond. By getting a running start, he should be able to jump, catch the rope in midair, and swing around to dry ground. Anything following him would either plunge into the water, or have to stop and go around. His biggest saving grace in the fight against the spiderlings had been the fact that he was faster than them. That meant that he had been able to disengage and then fight them on his own terms.

He tested it, running along the ground and leaping into the air to grab the rope. He was gratified to feel the strength in his arm as he easily held his body’s weight with one arm. The first swing didn’t go quite as he planned, and he had to swing back and forth a couple times to get to dry ground again. The second attempt went perfectly. He swung on the rope, around the tree, to land on solid ground on the other side.

He only found that tree and one other that would work for this, but that also meant he only had to cut his rope once.

After that, he spent some time going over every inch of ground in the surrounding area, figuring out what was dry and what was wet. If he was going to be running around here, it would help to know what was safe to stand on. It would be just his luck to die because he stepped on the wrong spot and plunged down to his neck in mud, presenting his head nice and convenient for some monster to come and bite it off.

The entire time he jumped and flinched at every sound, thinking that it was the monster coming out of its den, but the monster stayed put while he got the lay of the land.

Finally, he decided it was time. He was as ready as he’d ever be. He did one last mental inventory. He had the smoke bomb that would shoot sparks and heat–good for fooling undead. He had one wand with a potent flame spell, and two fakes, and a lighter. All that, he kept in the various pockets on the armor, where he could get to them quickly if he needed it.

He had the potions of turn undead, which he left in a backpack a little distance away. He also had his two swords. The sword of speed was still a bit slippery from the pool of spider goo he’d found it in. And the other sword.

He pulled out his sword of strength. Perris hadn’t really given it a name, but Brin was calling it the glass cannon sword, because it would break after one or two uses, and because of the enchanted glass core that gave it its power.

In video games, he’d always been the person to die with all his best items unused and a backpack full of health potions. In real life, though, he was going to jump straight into his strongest attack and hopefully end things before they even started.

If that didn’t work, he’d use the fire wand, and if that failed, he’d use his sword of speed to run away. He already had the Monster Hunter achievement; this was just the victory lap. If things got too hairy, he’d leave.

He approached the hill, using every bit of stealth to walk as silently as he could. Sure, the monster probably knew he was out here, but he’d rather not let it know he was approaching it now. It was probably too much to hope that he’d be able to sneak up and stab it while it was sleeping, but that would obviously be preferable to a straight out fight.

He saw motion, and froze. Something rose behind the hill, a line of red and yellow spikes. They were on the back of a large green head; a giant lizard. It had the protruding eyes of a chameleon, but spines along its back like an iguana.

Monsters roar in movies. The first time you see a monster in any movie, tv show, or video game, it always roars. The giant lizard didn’t roar. It barely even looked interested. It simply climbed over the crest of the hill, approaching in no great hurry.

It was bigger than any lizards they had on earth. Bigger than komodo dragons, it was more like some dinosaur he didn’t have a name for, especially with the way that its tail curled up and around, with a dagger-length stinger on the end. Its legs were much longer than he’d expected, keeping it high off the ground. Maybe the size of a horse, if a horse was a lizard with the tail of a scorpion.

That was awesome. At the same time... he couldn’t help but feel like it was a bit anticlimactic. It was a nice but expected increase to his Achievement. It wasn’t the earth-shattering, mind-blowing advancement that Tawna had promised. Had she just been screwing with him, in the hopes that he’d die?

At the same time, it wasn’t as dangerous as she’d said either. True, he could’ve died, but with his magic sword, it was closer to the coin-flip Perris had talked about. Not the [Weaver’s] “most likely you will die”.

That meant that either the [Weaver] was totally full of crap and that Perris was the only one who was actually straight with him, which totally checked out, or it meant that... the danger wasn’t over.

That thought had him sitting up straight despite his exhaustion. This was a monster den. He shouldn’t expect to be safe here.

He stood up, groaning at the pain in his middle. He loosened the armor to poke around a little and he didn’t think anything was broken, just very bruised. He’d have to walk it off, he didn’t want to stick around here.

He did another quick inventory. His wands weren’t broken, the lighter still lit, and the sword of speed was still in its sheath. The other sword was broken and lost, he hadn’t even held onto the hilt.

Surprisingly, his armor was completely whole. It was scratched, but none of the monster's attacks had cut through. Just how good was this armor, Perris?

He fetched his backpack, ready to leave before something else came to the spinewolf den, but Marksi refused to leave the spot. He kept moving around, looking agitated, and pointing at the water where the corpse of the giant lizard, the Facaldagart apparently, was still floating on the surface of the water. Strange, that it could float. The thing was definitely heavy.

“Well, if you want it, you’re going to need to fetch the grappling hook for me,” said Brin.

Marksi quickly climbed the tree and loosened the grappling hook, then climbed back down with the rope in his mouth.

Brin threw it out to the monster, where it hooked against the tough scaly hide. He pulled it to shore. Actually getting it on land was difficult. He couldn’t get good leverage, and the ground was slippery. He ended up using the grappling hook again by stabbing it in deep and then using the rope to pull it up.

Marksi found the hole in the monsters side, and started biting it, trying to dig itself in deeper.

“Marksi, I don’t really know how to dress a kill, and I don’t think we could explain where we got the monster parts if we brought it to town. I think we’d better leave it here.”

The little snake wouldn’t give up, so Brin sighed and used his sword to deepen the hole Marksi was trying to dig into. He didn’t know what he was looking for, so he stabbed deep inside in several different directions. The smell was intense. He knew corpses smelled bad when they rotted, but he had nothing to prepare him for the strong, stinging smell of an animal’s insides.

Marksi disappeared inside the monster. He re-emerged, slimy with blood and viscera, holding something in his mouth. It was red and glossy. It looked like a rock. A gastrolith, maybe? It could also be a Mana stone. He’d heard that adventurers collected them from monsters and that Chamylla used them for enchanting, but he’d never seen one before. Before he could get a better look, Marksi swallowed it.

“No, Marksi! We don’t know what that is!”

It was too late. Snakes could regurgitate, but it was dangerous; he’d only make Marksi do it if he was sure the thing he’d eaten would kill him. He’d ask Hogg about the stone before he made him do it.

For now, Marksi curled around in a pile and immediately fell asleep. Right there, in full view of a spinewolf den. Exasperated, Brin picked him up and put him in the backpack.

Then he took off. He ran from the area at a steady, maintainable pace. He was exhausted, but the worst was behind him and now he just wanted to get home. There was nothing to conserve his energy for.

No other monsters found him as he ran. He didn’t hear or see anything out of the ordinary. He didn’t even see any animals, and the birds were silent. The rain started to come down steadily, a light drizzle. Not enough to make it cold, especially not to him in his leather armor, but it was enough that the ground started to get slippery, so he slowed down to a walk.

The walk almost felt worse because now that he wasn’t expending so much effort, he could start to think about how tired he was, and about how much his bruised chest hurt.

To get himself to stop thinking about that, he started thinking about Tawna instead, which wasn’t any better.

Danger, rewards, and information. She’d promised him those three things, but hadn’t really delivered. Was it because he’d gone to the thick brush first? Would something different have happened if he’d gone to the spinewolf den right away? He couldn’t imagine what. He’d have fought the same monster, then come home after, walking this same exact direction. The timing would have been different.

As nice as it would be to have more achievements, he’d accomplished a lot today. More than he’d even expected when he set out. He actually hoped that he’d missed whatever it was Tawna wanted him to find.

The other option would be that he was doing exactly what she wanted him to do. That she would guess that if she gave him two choices, that he’d be greedy and pick both. After all, if she had really wanted him to go to the spinewolf den right away, she could have just not told him about the thick brush.

The sky grew a bit darker. The rain came down harder, a proper shower now, and the wind picked up.

His mood began to darken, too. He felt strange, like a thread was connected to his heart and pulling on his heart, guiding him forward. Not to where he wanted to go, but to where fate intended him to go.

Could people other than [Weavers] feel fate? Could they feel it, when they did exactly what a [Weaver] manipulated them into doing, and walked the exact path she wanted him to walk? If so, that’s what he was feeling now. The terrible shackles of fate. He could take them off, if only he was certain they were really there.

He could turn aside. He could go a different direction, take a longer path home. But he wouldn’t, because he wasn’t sure if that was wise or simply superstitious. Mostly, because he wanted to see it, whatever fate had in store. He knew he wouldn’t turn aside. And so did she.

Even so, even with the sharp tugs of fate pulling him along, and with all his dark thoughts and terrible expectations, it still took him by surprise. Even after all of that, Brin was still surprised when he found him.

A manlike figure, wearing tight and ugly black clothing, sitting on the ground. A crude spear in his lap, also black. Skin, a terrible gray.

Absurdly, he didn't set off Monster Sense. Not a monster. A person? That was highly debatable.

The figure had his back turned, and Brin thought he might not have noticed he was there. Maybe he could still get away. The figure turned, slowly. He looked Brin in the eye.

In his eyes, Brin saw death.