Born a Monster

Chapter 11

Funeral of Eihtfuhr

You know that moment in every story where the heroes outwit their opponents? Where they stand triumphant over their foes, and drink in their victory?

This isn’t that moment.

I waited for that moment, for a thought speech from Eihtfuhr saying that it was safe to come back. I’d heard the sounds of battle, the screams, thrashing sounds from near the pond.

I watched, silent, as his health bar went down, hit half, hit quarter, hit zero.

.....

As it turned black, and his condition was listed as DEAD.

His entry faded from my party, and then I was kicked.

I blinked.

I could hear the hoof-beats as one of them searched for me. Curled up, I greatly resembled a rock. A crying rock, but a rock nonetheless.

I fell asleep there, among the roots of that tree. It was night before I awoke again.

I could smell blood over the battlefield, and the scent of death. I took some small comfort that Eihtfuhr hadn’t died alone.

They had taken the bodies.

A quick check near the pond taught me that wounded hungry crocodiles were better off not approached. No wounds, though, and she didn’t chase me far.

There was a hollow place in my sanity; my meter wasn’t able to fully charge. My serenity meter was greyed out. I decided that wasn’t important right now.

I closed my eyes, and focused. What WAS important right now?

Eihtfuhr was important now. What had been important to him?

He wanted what Birimirihiirp wanted; a family, for life to go on.

Well, that wasn’t happening.

He had wanted to protect the wood. Were there even enough protectors left?

I wanted to reach out, to ask Eihtfuhr, even knowing he was gone.

[Necromatic Magic Discovered! Attunement: 1. 1/10 XP to next level.

One point of Death Mana tapped from recent combat site. You now have 1/1 Death Mana.

Your defenses have prevented one point of Aura Taint.]

What? No! That was absolutely NOT what I wanted!

What did I want? Did it matter?

Wasn’t I just the runt of the litter? Powerless before even goblins?

No. I refuse. I refuse to be helpless.

I refuse to remain weak.

I performed my physical and magical regimens.

And, an acorn hit me in the head. A squirrel chittered angrily at me.

And. I. snapped.

Not for long, but I chased that squirrel until a tree limb broke beneath me.

I lay on the ground until a path became clear to me.

Dawn was a while off, but I struck out to find Mother Bear.

Almost to mock me, I gained my second level in Gathering Cultivation, and a brand new Development Point to go with it.

I just – I couldn’t – NOT NOW!

Oh, I sprinted. I tried to outrun the void that was inside me.

When I could run no longer, I impotently pounded on the earth.

Water leaked from me freely, and I barely cared when a check of my hydration meter showed me at over three quarters full.

Let it all out.

And, when I had enough fatigue, I rose from the dirt, shook myself off, and started walking.

#

Somehow, I made it to a structure of fallen tree trunks and other detritus that formed the lair for Mother Bear and her family.

I’m sure it was warm and snug and safe, and other things, but I wasn’t in the mood for appreciating the architecture.

One of the bear family noticed me, lumbered over and stomped on me.

“Hello to you, also.” I snapped. “Now get off.”

“Aww.” He replied. “You look so tasty.” But he did get off, and with my sanity and serenity meters the way they were, I wasn’t about to sweat a mere four health points.

“Is Mother Bear here?”

“Oh, Mother wakes up around noon or so. Feel free to lounge around until then.”

I nibbled on a few things, but couldn’t really get into it.

If I ever wondered how I sounded waking up, I got a lesson then. She let loose with a long yawn, and she took a while stretching, and it seemed to take forever for her to poke her snout into the sunshine.

“Eihtfuhr is dead.” I told her.

“Who?”

“The Child of Anansi?”

“The big spider?”

I was too tired to argue. “Sure.”

“Never knew he had a name.” She sat on her hindquarters, and licked at the back of her forepaw. “Well, nothing to help for it now. KIDS! WE’RE WINTERING IN THE MOUNTAINS!”

Wait, what? Was everyone leaving?

“Wait, aren’t you a defender of the woods?”

“Defender of my kin first. Without the big one, this forest is just going to die. Not sacrificing my kids to slow that down. The rock is in charge.”

However important Eihtfuhr had been to me, it seems he wasn’t very important to the rest of the woods.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I excused myself and wandered off.

Was my presence so toxic? Had I somehow managed to destroy the lagoon as well?

It seemed perfectly reasonable that my sadness was strong enough to have driven off both the gordvork and the bears. Maybe if I just opened my mouth and talked with the goblins, they’d leave the wood alone?

That wasn’t the direction I was headed, though.

I took care not to crush any mushrooms while I walked, not to disturb any bird nests.

I became aware of tiny eyes beginning to watch me, always hidden, some better than others.

They watched, they whispered, but nothing challenged me.

With the use of my System map, I had no trouble finding the Earth Node.

[Tapping attempt has failed.]

“Who DARES!” She didn’t explode so much as swim up through the earth. If I hadn’t known she were there, that would have been much scarier.

“Eihtfuhr is slain, his body taken.” I said.

She reached out, grabbing me by the throat faster than anything made of stone has any right to move. Her expression didn’t soften in the least. “Answer. The. Question.”

“My name is Rhishisikk.”

“Why are you here?”

“Eihtfuhr is slain, his body-”

She released my throat, her eyes narrow. “What has that to do with the feywood?”

.....

“There’s nobody guarding the eastern forest.”

“Take that up with Mother Bear.”

“She and her family are leaving for the mountains to the northeast.”

SORROW. “A pity. She shall be missed.”

“Who is next for guardianship?”

“That is between Birimirihiirp, Black Kang, and myself. Do not concern yourself with woodland matters, beast of the ocean.”

“Birimirihiirp is returned to his people.”

“Oh. I hope he doesn’t make them too miserable. Was there anything else?”

“That is all my news.”

She snorted. “News. Begone, bearer of ill tidings, and I’ll not smite you today.”

Well – crap.

I returned to our – to my side of the wood.

#

And so my efforts to warn the forest came to an end.

I couldn’t stay here. The goblins would find and kill me.

I couldn’t leave. Where would I go?

The goblins would kill me.

The centaurs would kill me.

The centaurs had Eihtfuhr’s body.

I wasn’t sure why, but I wanted that body. I wanted to see my friend eaten, perhaps a few tools made from his bones. Not gone to waste, left to rot save for a few trophies of his enemies.

I stumbled.

Oh, I should probably rest until nightfall.

I did feel better waking up, even if I did have an eel attacking my left foot.

“Bwaa!” I screamed.

“Hahaha! Vengeance is mine!”

“What in the seven hells?”

I yanked my body toward the shore, and she let go.

“Catch you later, food boy.”

I needed to learn more cuss words, I decided, limping toward the north. It wasn’t noticeably faster, but it let me carry a spear. With my incredibly small inventory, that was important.

I looked up at the growing moon, wondering what I was doing. I had plenty of health, 12/20 points, but sanity and serenity were both in the low single digits.

At least I wasn’t experiencing wild mood swings any more.

I had let my biomass meters get uncomfortably low during the day, but even on auto-forage it was easy to find food.

I regretted not being able to cook while walking, but if the centaurs were active during the day-

There was a large fire in the distance. Full of foreboding, I attempted to activate Fleet of Foot. Turns out that Uses Per Day means per day, not per sleep.

The advantage of having evolved from a four-legged animal is that I was used to moving while keeping my body close to the earth.

Cresting a hill, I saw that they had set Eihtfuhr’s body onto a rectangular structure of logs. That structure had then been set on fire.

On a nearby structure, flames licked at the corpse of a female centaur, decked out in full regalia.

It was – wasteful, yes, but also...

It was respectful, for some reason I couldn’t put my finger on.

Maybe I had some manner of latent Shaman sense to recognize ceremonies? Maybe doing the cremation ceremony properly radiated the sense of peace I felt?

And when had I started crying again?

I kept my profile low to the ground, but I also didn’t move until the last of Eihtfuhr had burned away to ashes.

#

My first thought had been to flee the area and never return.

My second had been to ally with the goblins against the centaurs, but I realized I no longer wanted bloody vengeance.

My third, and stupidest, thought had been to rise, wave my spear in the air, and approach the remains of the bonfires.

When the guards nearest me began to string their bows, I turned the tip of the spear downward, and thrust it into the earth.

The guards nearest my approach readied spears, and flanked me, but made no effort to stop me.

I took a seat near Eihtfuhr’s pyre, wishing I had done so while his form was still present.

A centaur with his left foreleg wrapped in a bloody bandage came to me.

“You speak Goblin?”

“Some.”

“We your wood .”

I used thought-speech. “Yeah, I didn’t understand that at all.”

He reared back as though assaulted, and knocked me back with his hooves on the way down.

He screamed something, pointing his spear at me.

“Is that true, little one?” one of the females sent at me. “Are you a mind-witch?”

“I know the mind speech, is that the same thing?”

She clopped forward, set a hand on his shoulder, and said something soothing to him.

From a belt pouch, she drew a pinch of pollen, which she blew in my direction.

[You have no Dream Mana, and thus no innate defense.

You have failed your Resolve save; condition SLEEPING applied.]

What? But I wasn’t –

–

–

They bound me tightly while I slept. It wasn’t hemp rope, but seemed firm enough in spite of being thinner and lighter. Not quite like the silk... what WAS I wrapped in?

I wiggled about a bit and got a look at the cords binding me. Didn’t help, no clue what it was.

I heard a giggle. “How do you DO that without snapping your neck?” sent the woman from the night before.

“I’m surprisingly flexible.” I admitted.

“I’ve no doubt. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

I admitted I was, and gobbled down some manner of porridge and gulped water as she provided them.

“What Parama was attempting to tell you last night is that the clan is laying claim to your forest.”

“They can have it; there’s nothing there for me now.”

Maybe I could visit Birimirihiirp’s people?

“Oh. No, let me make this clear. You’re our prisoner. Not every centaur has the mind speech. If you wander around on your own, they’ll kill you as a mind-witch.”

Well, I was a Shaman with the Dreamtime tree unlocked. In a sense, they were right. In other...

[List of Psion classes available, cost 100 Development Points each:]

Yeah, I’m not listing those here, mainly because I was 99 DP short and didn’t want to grow my divisor to the point where I wasn’t getting XP at all.

Ugh, the last thing I needed – another whole set of classes to choose from.

“Oh, it’s not all that bad.” She sent, misinterpreting my frustration. “I’m certain you’ve got some skills the clan can make use of. Seven years of indenture may sound like a lot, but I’m sure it will pass quickly.”

Seven years? I mean, I understood that, now that I knew what seasons were.

“It really does sound like a lot.” I admitted.

“So what skills do you have?”

“You may want to open a System list.” I began.

#