Chapter 22: Stalkers

Chapter 22: Stalkers

As excited as she was at the prospect of getting to eat some fresh fish, Jadis refrained from putting her extremely limited fishing skills to use and retreated from the mining compound for the day. She had a more than adequate food supply already, so there was no rush to dive in after the dark shapes gliding through the water. Time stopped for no one and the day’s light was almost exhausted.

Actually, now that she thought about it, maybe time could be stopped for particularly strong mages? For all Jadis knew about magic on Oros, maybe there were wizards pausing time every few minutes and she just didn’t know it because she was part of the world that was paused. A weird thought, but not anything Jadis cared to dwell on. Even if it was true, she couldn’t do anything about it anyway.

Quickly returning down the curved road and to the main village, Jadis saw that the pile of bone thief corpses still lay undisturbed in front of the temple where she had left them. No more demons were in sight, lending some credence to the idea that Jadis might have exterminated the majority, if not all, of the skeletal aberrations wandering around the valley. She still doubted that was the case and planned on acting as though there were more around until she had true reason to believe otherwise, but a girl could dream.

On reflection, Jadis wasn’t sure if she actually did want all the bone thieves to be dead just yet. Now that she had established she could basically farm them for experience, she planned on doing just that for as long as it was feasible. She’d already noticed diminishing returns in how it was taking more and more dead demons to level, though it wasn’t consistent. She guessed that it might be that the different bone thieves gave different amounts of experience, but she had no proof. Either way, she wanted to get as many levels out of the monsters as she possibly could before leaving the valley, now that she had secured a large food supply.

Jadis was eager to see what the rest of Oros had to offer. She was even more eager to talk with some people that weren’t her. Still, Jadis wasn’t going to waste what looked to be a valuable opportunity. The more experience and levels she got now, the safer she felt she’d be once she struck out into the wider world.

Jadis made plans as her two bodies worked to ferry the excessive amount of bones from the temple to the old cellar where she’d left the rest of the remains. Nothing had disturbed either location while she’d been gone, much to Jadis’ relief. The less material the demons had to work with, the better, was Jadis’ reasoning.

The sun set before Jadis finished moving all the bones, but with the moon’s light overhead Jadis was able to get the last load stashed away. Taking her hard-earned loot, she headed back to her small stone hut.

Her current accommodations were also a consideration. Jadis had chosen the hut because it was mostly intact and made for a good defense, but it wasn’t perfect. The house was cramped, made for people shorter than her, which not only left her feeling confined at times, but also meant she always had to be careful how she swung her clubs on the occasions she’d had to fight inside. Now that she had grown in strength, she wondered if she could move to a larger space.

The temple was a possibility. It had a large open space, but there were also a lot of wide open windows and while Jadis was certain she could handle most any single bone demon in a straight fight now, she wasn’t keen on giving them opportunities to sneak up on her while she was resting. The stone structure did have a tower, though, a feature she’d only briefly investigated that morning while setting up her ambush spot. She didn’t think there was much space there to stretch out, but it could be used as a decent fall back shelter.

Then there were the buildings in the mining compound. Specifically the warehouse since it too was tall and spacious inside. It had less windows to worry about and lots of crates that could be used as barricades. It was also directly next to a good water source and potential food source, if she could figure out how to catch the fish swimming in the lake.

She’d have to think about it. It wasn’t as though she had many things to move, she just felt a bit leery of moving into a location within the village when she wasn’t sure how much demon activity it might have at night.

Something to test, Jadis mused. She might just try staking out the village to see what it was like at night sometime soon.

Speaking of staking out, as Jadis got within sight of her stone hut, she was unsurprised to see another bone thief stalking through the trees nearby. With how they’d been sniffing around her commandeered abode the night before, it was no shock that there might still be demons hanging about, hoping to find more bones for their collections.

Reacting to the attack, the demon swiped at Dys’ legs with its long tail, not quite succeeding in knocking her to the ground but at least managing to stumble her. At the same time, the demon swatted at Jay with sharp claws, aiming for her face. On its hind legs, the large creature now stood head and shoulders taller than Jadis and had a long reach to leverage against her.

Jay and Dys both backed off rapidly, pulling away from the dangerous bone thief before it could land a hit.

“Well, shit,” they said in chorus. “You’re a little better at this than your friends were, huh?”

Back on all fours, the bear-like skeleton stalked after Jay, having focused on her. She was forced to backpedal, dodging behind trees and constantly turning, doing what she could to keep the large claws from slashing at her as the foe pursued. Dys followed behind, looking for a way to attack but unable to get close as the demon’s large tail swung at her.

“Fine then, back to basics!” Jay shouted, still dodging out of the way of the oncoming monstrosity.

Falling back on tried-and-true tactics, Dys broke away from the conga-line and rushed over to the hut entrance, ducking inside the open doorway. If the demon was going to make things difficult for her, Jadis would return the favor and force the bone bear to shove its head through the small door to come after her. With all of its bulky size, there was no way it’d be able to spin its tail at her or swipe with its claws properly, not with the limited space. She’d have a much easier time attacking the demon then. Dys would be waiting to the side of the door, ready to attack once Jay dove inside.

It was only seconds after she’d entered the hut that she realized she hadn’t left the door open when she’d left that morning.

From within the shadows a bony limb struck at Dys, slamming against her shoulder and knocking her to her hands and knees. A mass of grasping hands latched onto her, pulling at her arms and trying to wrap around her throat.

Dys rolled with the fall, letting the as of yet unidentified skeletal attacker knock her onto her back while fending off the many limbs from grabbing hold of her neck or head. Before it could get proper hold of her, Dys got one foot between her and the attempted strangler and kicked out with all her strength.

The bone thief was launched backwards, crashing into the wall with bone jarring force. However, with the limited space of the stone hut, there was little Dys could do to put distance between her and the demon. In moments the monster had recovered and was launching itself at her once again, its many arms grabbing at whatever part of her it could.

Outside, Jay was not doing much better. The skeletal bear wasn’t fast, but it was fast enough. It kept right on her heels, slashing with claws or snapping with oversized teeth. If she put too much distance between them, though, the demon would spin round and swing its deadly club tail at her, forcing her to dive out of the way, giving the monster precious moments to move in close and attack. All she could do was dodge and back up, dodge and back up, never getting too close or too far away.

Jadis didn’t know what to do. Whether by accident or intent, the two bone thieves had managed to separate her two selves, neutralizing the power of her Mirrored Body skill. If Jay ran in to help Dys with her attacker, the bear would be right on her back. She had no doubt the large bone demon could tear into her, even inside the small space, long before the two could put down the multi-armed demon inside the hut. Conversely, Dys couldn’t get the grabby demon off of her for long enough to flee back outside, nor could she kill it on her own. Dys was stronger than the bone thief, but she’d been forced to drop her club and had to constantly grapple with the many grasping limbs, keeping them from latching onto anywhere vital before they could do real damage.

As the dodging and grappling carried on, Jadis felt her mind fraying a bit at the seams. The things her two selves were being forced to do were decidedly different actions and multitasking for so long was making Jadis’ head ache with effort and stress. She knew it was only a matter of time before her concentration slipped and she made a fatal error, moving to grapple with Dys only to take the action with Jay’s body.

Jadis needed to think of a way out of her predicament, fast, because in short order her bones were going to find themselves attached to whole new bodies if she didn’t.