Talking with the Chief was incredibly interesting. When it ca to his speciality, he was just as adept as Mrs Wu, and a part of wanted to watch these two face off in so sort of sneakiness challenge or sothing like that. While the Chief never outright explained what he had been doing in the military, the way he readily spoke about covert tactics, night raids and strategies more suited for thieves, bandits or other sinister folk who went around doing mischief in the night, gave a sneaking suspicion that he was one of those guys who went to places they shouldn’t and did things nobody wanted to talk about. All in the na of Queen and country, of course, as he was a Canadian.
Since the change had hit, he had led and, more importantly, trained these people, applying his experience in covert warfare to a related task, naly, making sure that this group could survive. A few of the anecdotes he used to illustrate his points spoke of harsh and cold mountains, hiding in narrow valleys and avoiding people who knew the terrain just as well, if not better, than you did, all while trying to get to their objective.
Sure, so of the lessons he could teach could be considered obsolete, though I wasn’t one to disregard them, even if I could accomplish what he taught differently. Not even when my way had usually better results, simply because magic was an incredible tool capable of surpassing many mundane thods but that only ant that using the mundane thod, especially when it ca to stealth, and then augnting them magically was the best way to go about doing things.
In turn, to make up for the things he related to and the tips he gave, I offered my own lessons, though the initial explanations were kept brief out of necessity. There simply wasn’t enough ti in the short hours I could spare between hunting for Bitun to keep them from pushing further into the small village’s direction, even with the locals helping out.
The five of us, Lia, Luna, Silva, Sasha and I, had decided to split up to a degree, with Lia and Luna providing support to one group of locals each, while Silva and Sasha helped another. This gave us three fairly effective combat units capable of taking down small groups of Bitun, while I used my wings and the mobility granted by them to roam around the burned area, taking potshots at individual Bitun. The biggest problem was that Lia could only operate after dusk, but that mainly ant she, alongside her group of locals, focused on containing the threat during the night. Curiously, so of the locals had already focused on hunting in the twilight or even at night, adapting their equipnt and tactics in order to do so.
Maybe it was due to that group of night hunters that Lia was accepted as easily as she was, even after the locals realised that she was a Vampire. It was simply taken in stride, as was the presence of Sasha, who was almost as strange. While I wasn’t sure why the locals were so readily accepting of them and their oddities, or mine for that matter, I had a feeling that the reason was the massive burning ss clouding the horizon. The locals had been aware of their desperate need for help, even if said desperation hadn’t fully gripped them at the ti of our arrival, making them accept the help gracefully. They were, both on a collective and an individual level, all aware just how big a problem the Bitun were and would be, and, in turn, understood that they needed us.
But we didn’t need them. Luna had told them about our journey and the hundreds of kilotres we had crossed since the Change had hit, driving ho the point that we could continue to travel whenever we wanted to. They, on the other hand, might be able to leave their hos, but it would be difficult and quite possibly lethal.
It was during one of my flights that I saw sothing weird from up high. Usually, the air above the burned area was filled with choking ash and clouding smoke, making it nearly impossible to see all that far into the interior but thanks to a sowhat heavy rain shower earlier during the day, I had a much better view than I usually had. Thanks to that, I noticed a weird, moving shape, a lot bigger than the usual Bitun I hunted. The sheer size and mass of the thing made curious, and, as I usually did when seeing sothing interesting, I decided to investigate.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Getting closer allowed a better idea of what I was dealing with and, quite frankly, a part of wanted to turn around and leave. Even from the respectful distance I kept, it was obvious that two adjectives applied to the thing in almost equal asure. One of them was ‘ugly’, the other was ‘massive’, and I wasn’t sure which of these two had the bigger impact. The thing was easily as big as a house, moving around on four pillar-like legs, though they might just as well be called tentacles. Those four legs held up a central body the size of a small bus, with a single, glowing eye, though I had no idea if it actually was a sensory organ or if I simply attached the word to sothing just looking like an eye. On the other side of that eye, the thing had a shorter, sowhat stubby tentacle hanging down, though short and stubby didn’t an much, as it only applied when compared to the rest of the thing. In actual terms, the short tentacle was so three tres, maybe four, in length and almost as thick as I was tall.
The entire body, other than that eye, was made from the sa goopy material the Bitun were made out of, and, just like the Bitun, this thing had lines of fire running all across its body, adding to its nacing appearance.
Finally, there was the stench, though that was sothing constant in the area. The entire burned area slled of rotten eggs, with a few other unpleasant odours mixed in, making wish that the fires here would act as a cleansing force. I knew the elent could accomplish it but alas, it was not to be. The entire area stunk to the high heavens, as I would know, riding on the high winds as I did and still getting the stench into my nose.
Curious how the thing would react, I idly conjured a few Javelins and launched them at the massive shape. If there was one nice thing about its size, it was that it made for a conveniently large target, though the flipside of that was that hitting it didn’t do all that much, as I quickly found out. Sure, all five of the frozen Javelins I had conjured and launched struck, blowing up in bursts of frozen shards monts later. Sadly, where a single attack would have bisected a normal Bitun, leaving its core exposed or even destroyed in the blasts, this massive thing wasn’t fazed all that much.
The holes quickly filled back up with more of the burning goop, and monts later, I learned what the tail was all about. It flicked upward, stretching and elongating as it moved and forming a thick bulb at the end. Said bulb was then shorn off and continued to move with impressive alacrity, all the while it started to break up and form into a scattered wave, forcing to rise up a little outside of its range. Trying to evade such an attack on the ground would require shadow stepping, and sohow, I had a feeling that this thing, or one like it, had been the source of the bombardnt striking my ritual site and forcing Lia to rescue about two weeks ago.
Given that, historically, artillery had been amongst the deadliest weapons to haunt humanity’s many battlefields, I quickly realised that this could very well be amongst the most dangerous beings the burned area had to offer. As such, striking it sounded like a wise idea, even if I would have to be quite cautious and remain out of range. That way, I wouldn’t get myself singed by it and could take an enemy asset off the field without getting into too much trouble.
So, I started to rain down frozen Javelins one after the other, trying to saturate the thing with my attacks until I managed to get a hit on the thing’s core, hopefully destroying it in the process. The eye was one of my first targets, but, sadly, it seed that it wasn’t more than a decoration, leaving with no other obvious weak spots, though I did try to hit every part of it.
Eventually, the thing collapsed, though I didn’t get any EXP for it, making wonder if I had hit the core at all or if the core had simply retreated underground or sothing like that. I would have to investigate so more, but for now, I turned around and left the area behind, aware that I had spent too much ti stationary already.
User Comments
0 comments from readers