Chương 15: The Abnormal Party

The road to the client's house cut through a stretch of field that smelled like grass. Xyno walked beside me, humming something tuneless. Norman trailed a few steps back, present in the way Norman was always present. Somewhere in the distance, croaking drifted across the field. I ignored it. Frogs croaked. That was simply a thing frogs did, the same way beetles clicked and humans talked too much. I had spent the better part of my old life falling asleep to that exact sound. Still annoying, but I got used to it.

"Don't you think the frogs are croaking too much?" Norman asked.

"Must be your imagination. Frogs croak annoyingly all the time," I answered.

"What a lovely tune of madness," Xyno added, which I decided to ignore. We reached the house. It sat at the edge of the woods, small, with a chimney that had clearly seen more competent days and a fence that had given up being a fence in several key locations. A man was sitting on a rocking chair on the porch. He looked in our direction and clicked his tongue. I clicked mine back, out of politeness. He stopped rocking and stared at me for a moment. Xyno approached him first.

"Are you our client?" She pulled out the quest paper. He stood up. The crook of his walking stick hooked over one arm, a faint smell of wool and grass clinging to him.

"Yeah." He turned for the door.

"Can I call you Mr. Shepherd?" Xyno asked before he could push it open. He sighed.

"Sure. Call me whatever you want as long as you finish the quest." He pushed the door and went in. He stopped, then looked back.

"What are you waiting for? Come in."

"I'm waiting for you to say please," Xyno said.

"Eris told me not to enter a stranger's house," I added. The shepherd blinked. He looked at Xyno, standing perfectly still with a smile in front of the doorway. He looked at Norman, who had somehow gotten there without either of us noticing the walk. He looked back at me, still standing at the bottom of his porch steps like a damp statue.

"Who the hell is Eris?"

"My mom…" I tilted my head.

"Probably?" Our client opened his mouth. He closed it. He opened it again. He screamed for about five seconds. Xyno came in without the please, and I entered a stranger's house because he looked pitiful. I would apologize to Eris later. He led us to a table. There were cookies on it. I ate one immediately. He sat down across from us, dragged both hands down his face, and looked at us.

"So, you brats are doing the quest?" A vein popped on his forehead.

"What exactly would an alchemist and a mage do without a front liner? Are your ranks high enough that you don't need one?" Xyno reached into her coat pocket. Then she pulled out a cup. Her hand went back in and came out with a small black vial. She uncorked it and poured the contents into the cup. The aroma filled the room, somewhere between sweet and something that had never been food to begin with.

"What is that?" our client asked. Xyno raised one finger, silencing the question before it could grow into a second one. She reached into her pocket again and produced a small silver spoon, stirring the cup in slow circles. A small clank marked each turn. She raised the cup and sipped.

"I'm F." I swallowed a cookie.

"I'm also F. And an archer-mage." Our client screamed for another five seconds. I think this was normal for him by now. His hand came down on the table once the scream ran out. The cookies jumped. I caught them before they could escape and ate them out of principle.

"You think this is a joke?!" He glared.

"Just so you know, Ms. Archer-mage here is a bug-catching expert." Xyno gestured at me with her free hand. I nodded because I couldn't talk right now.

"I'm also here," Norman said, from somewhere near the bookcase. The man's chair scraped backward six inches. I understood this reaction. I had experienced a version of it myself, the first several dozen times with Norman.

"An assassin," the shepherd said slowly.

"You must be high-ranked, to seal your presence like that."

"I'm actually a swordsman. D-rank." The shepherd's expression did something complicated and then settled into flat disappointment. He rubbed a hand down his face and let out a long breath. Xyno put down the cup, her finger circling the rim.

"So, what's the story?" The shepherd clicked his tongue. He glared at Xyno, who just smiled at him in return.

"Fine." He sighed.

"Eleven years. Eleven years I've led that flock without losing a single one." He looked down at his hands, resting flat on the table.

"Then the moth came." I picked up a cookie that hadn't survived the hand-slam on the floor. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The human brain told me not to eat it because it was dirty. I ate it.

"One morning we were at the river bend, same as always. Then there was a sound. Low. I'd never heard anything like it." His jaw tightened.

"By the time I looked up, there was a cocoon the size of a barn sitting where my sheep had been standing. Red. Glistening. Breathing. I threw a stick to test it. It came apart in the air. Dozens of cuts, all at once, before it even touched the thing. Like it was woven out of knives." Xyno continued drinking from her cup.

"I looked inside. I wish I hadn't. There at the center was the fucking moth." His voice had gone quieter.

"Then its tube mouth extended." His hand closed slowly into a fist on the table.

"It found the nearest one. Melinda." He stopped. Started again.

"I watched her thin. Wool first. Then everything under it. The others pressed to the far side and just — watched. Then the tube went back in." He didn't say anything for a while after that. Xyno was now refilling her cup with another vial.

"Melinda was the one my granddaughter named… She named all of them, every spring, whatever nonsense comes into her head that week. Last year it was flowers. This year it was something from a book." His jaw tightened.

"I came back the next morning. Same thing. I counted, and my sheep were down two now. Took me a moment to realize what that meant." He unclenched his fist.

"It doesn't eat more than once a day." He looked up.

"So I ran to the guild. Figured I still had time, if I moved fast enough." He glared at us. All three of us, in turn.

"And the guild sent me newbies." I ate another cookie. It seemed like the wrong moment, but also the only thing I could do about the situation.

"By the way, Mr. Shepherd," Xyno said, raising her newly filled cup, "do you know why the moth showed up outside the dungeon in the first place?"

"How would I know? Isn't figuring that out the adventurer's job?"

"Technically, scouts. There's a difference." He sighed.

"I heard croaking, if that means anything to you." I choked at the word. The cookies I'd put in my mouth that time were probably three. I started coughing. Xyno looked at me and smiled.

"He said croaking." Norman also looked at me with blank eyes. The shepherd continued, "Yeah. Probably some new frog monster inside the dungeon. For some reason I can't help getting annoyed every time I hear—" He stopped himself, frowning.

"Am I always this grumpy…?" Xyno turned back to him.

"You sounded like a natural grumpy old man to me, Mr. Shepherd." He ignored Xyno's comment. His eyes widened and raised his hand to cover his mouth.

"Every time I hear those annoying croaks… every time… croaking…" he mumbled, then he suddenly screamed, making me jump back from my seat, pushing the cookies down from my throat. I could breathe normally again. He stopped, panting.

"Anyway. We need to go, before it eats another one of my sheep." I rubbed my throat and eyed the last cookie on the plate. Some debts could wait after a near-death experience. I ate it anyway.

"Are you okay, Ms. Archer-mage?" Xyno asked like she was enjoying it. I think she was.

"Define okay."

"How about the frogs?" I didn't answer. I decided that this wasn't the moment to mention anything about frogs. Not ever.

We reached the pasture. The cocoon caught the sun and threw it back in threads of dull red. The sheep inside pressed together at the far edge of it, as far as the walls would allow, which was not very far. We crouched in the long grass together.

"That's the thing." The shepherd kept his voice low.

"It's made out of razor-sharp threads." He turned to me.

"How about a spell to break it? Could you cast something?"

"I don't have such a spell," I answered.

"Then what magic do you have?"

"Magic is fiction." He stared at me for a long moment.

"You guys are useless."

"Would some explosion do, Mr. Shepherd?" Xyno was already reaching into her coat, pulling out a red vial. She held it up to the light, turning it once between two fingers, then tossed and caught it on the way down without looking.

"No, don't—" the shepherd started. She wound her arm back.

"Wait—" She threw it anyway. The cocoon came apart in a wave of heat, light, and a thunderous sound. When it cleared, some of the sheep were also gone. The rest stood shaking at the edge of the churned earth. The shepherd screamed. Then the moth's wings opened and faced us.

"Oh no, you made the moth turn to us, Mr. Shepherd." Xyno smiled.

"You lunatic! Your quest is to save the sheep!" The shepherd didn't care about the moth glaring at us. Probably. It had too many eyes to tell accurately how it felt with eyes alone. Xyno put one finger to her lips.

"Nope. It's to kill the Bloody Moth. Everything else can be filed under casualties of war." I looked at the moth. Its wings had opened, spreading red against the noon sky, over the grass where the sheep had been standing a moment ago. I decided this was probably a bad sign, in the same category as a heron opening its wings. The shepherd breathed in. He breathed out.

"I'll tell the guild about this!"

"Feel free to do so, Mr. Shepherd." She didn't stop smiling. He gritted his teeth. Then someone beside me whispered, "Ignore." I turned. He was no longer there. The moth's left wing separated from its body, making the moth drop sideways in the air.

"I knew it!" the shepherd shouted, pointing at the empty space where Norman had been standing.

"He is an assassin!" The moth righted itself. The tube came out. Xyno grabbed the shepherd's collar and tossed him back. He hit the ground and rolled through the grass.

"What was that for?!" The tube struck the exact spot he'd just been. The grass there did not survive the experience. The shepherd stopped shouting. The tube retracted, coiled, then extended again. Xyno had already stepped left. I jumped right. Climbing Mastery did the rest, and I found myself on a branch a full three body-lengths off the ground, rock still balanced perfectly, before I'd decided that was where I wanted to be. The moth turned toward the tree. The tube was being retracted. I opened my mouth.

My tongue shot out. It connected with the moth's face before it could extend the tube. The moth stopped moving entirely. One of its legs rose to touch its own cheek. It probably couldn't believe that it had just been face-slapped by a tongue.

"What is this party?" the shepherd's voice carried up from below, somewhere between awe and despair. The moth sat on the ground, one wing flat against the grass, its many eyes unfocused. I opened my mouth again, tongue extending a second time, aimed for the opposite cheek for balance. It came apart. Dozens of clean cuts, all at once. I raised my hand to touch my tongue. It was now considerably shorter than it had been a moment ago, and considerably less attached to the rest of it than tongues preferred to be.

I looked at the moth properly this time and understood what it had been doing while it sat still. It was working, layering thread over its body while I'd been busy being smug about the first hit. The moth's eyes refocused. They settled on me, and stayed there. The sun kept sliding toward the treeline, unbothered.