Chương 27: Chapter 25 — The Giant Problem

⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── HUNGER: 6 / 10 Fenwick woke up, renewed Flower Scent, and climbed into the harness. However, the spell was a bit of an overkill at this point. The smell of rot and decay had largely disappeared with the zombie body gone, the ghoul body still smelled of death, but it was more subtle. Max was sitting in the grass where they had left him, watching the Thornwood wake up.

Fenwick settled onto the shoulder and adjusted his grip and looked at the screen out of habit, the way he looked at it every morning now. He stopped.

"Sindy, that isn't good, is it?" he said quietly. I've been calculating since I saw it.

"And?" We need to solve this today. Fenwick looked at the bar. Then, at Max, remembering the hungry look in his eyes shortly after the evolution. Then, with a sigh.

"We need to keep him fed." Fenwick looked at the bar one more time.

"Let's head to the trail. I have an idea." The Bunny Hill Giant was not where they had left it. The path was there. The churned earth where the fight had been was there, the ground scorched in places, broken branches still scattered across the verge, the visible damage of a very large thing hitting the ground several times in the same area. The giant had been there. Something had happened to it over the two days and nights since the battle. What remained was not sufficient.

Max stood at the edge of the disruption, looking at it. His head moved slowly, his new perception cataloging the area with focused attention. His nostrils moved. ⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── HUNGER: 5 / 10 Fenwick looked at the churned earth. At the scorch marks from last night. At the very obvious absence of something that had weighed several thousand pounds.

"The Guild," he said.

"They maintain the paths. They would have cleared it overnight." He paused.

"Of course they did." It was almost funny. Max made a sound. Low. Directionless at first, the kind of sound that had no set target. Then it found a direction. A large lizard had emerged from the undergrowth at the edge of the path, freezing as it noticed Max and Fenwick, before darting back into the undergrowth.

"Max," said Fenwick. The head turned toward him. Fenwick looked at the bar. Then at Max. Then, at the Thornwood around them, full of small moving things.

"We need to go," said Fenwick.

"Now." ⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── HUNGER: 4 / 10 The bar had moved faster than Sindy had calculated. She put the butterfly on the path ahead and kept it moving. Fenwick's voice was steady beside her, a continuous low instruction that Max was following, with a sharp focus that showed hunting behavior more intense than anything else before. Max was more of a predator now than ever.

"Max. Ahead. Keep moving. Max." ⟨ Warning ⟩ ──────────────────────────── Warning HUNGER: 3 / 10 ███ ░░░░░░░ 3/10"Max. This way." The growling had started somewhere between 4 and 3. Not aggressive exactly. More like a frequency the body had found and decided to maintain, a low vibration that had nothing to do with decision and everything to do with what was happening in the hunger bar. His head was turning. Not toward Fenwick, at least not yet.

But toward the ambient warmth of the forest around them, the hungry attention of something that was running a calculation it hadn't been running an hour ago.

"Max." Fenwick's voice. Steady. Right there.

"Look at me." The head turned. The eyes found him, dark and present and working hard on something.

"Good," said Fenwick.

"Keep going." ⟨ Warning ⟩ ──────────────────────────── If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Warning HUNGER: 2 / 10 ██ ░░░░░░░ 2/10"Sindy," said Fenwick, very quietly. The bar. I see it. Keep him moving. The Guild's processing area had existed for as long as the training grounds.

Fenwick had known it was there without ever examining it closely — the culled creatures had to go somewhere, the hides had to be stripped somewhere, the useful parts separated from the waste somewhere. He had never needed to find it before. He needed to find it now.

"Left at the fork," said Fenwick.

"Three hundred feet, if I remember right." Keep moving. There's a fence. Max was not growling anymore. Max had stopped making any sound at all, which was somehow worse. The three Guild workers at the processing station were having an unremarkable morning. They were squirrels, which meant they were fast, precise with their hands, and thoroughly comfortable in the Thornwood. Creature processing suited them well — the skinning knives, the careful stripping of hides, the sorting of bones, fat, and useful parts.

It was skilled work, and they were skilled at it. The waste went into the disposal pit at the back of the station, a deep trench the Guild maintained and periodically covered over when it filled. None of them had expected a ghoul. The first squirrel saw Max coming through the gap in the fence and made an immediate professional assessment of the situation. She was over the opposite fence before the second had fully processed what he was looking at. The second squirrel looked at the ghoul.

He looked at the small guinea pig on the ghoul's shoulder. He looked at the disposal pit ten feet to his left. He looked back at the ghoul. He stepped to one side with the calculated calm of someone who had decided that whatever was about to happen, he was not going to be between it and the pit. The third squirrel did not look up from his work. He had been doing this job for eleven years. He had decided some time ago that looking up was rarely the correct response to unexpected sounds. Max reached the pit.

⟨ Warning ⟩ ──────────────────────────── Warning HUNGER: 2 / 10 ██ ░░░░░░░░ 2/10 He ate. The bar moved. ⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── HUNGER: 4 / 10 ⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── HUNGER: 6 / 10 ⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── HUNGER: 8 / 10 Fenwick sat on the shoulder and watched the bar climb and said nothing until it had been still for a full minute.

"Right," he said then, to nobody in particular. The second worker was still standing to one side. He looked at Fenwick. Fenwick looked at him.

"You didn't see this," said Fenwick. The worker looked at the ghoul. At the disposal pit. At the guinea pig wizard with two silver sprigs on his robes, and the expression of someone who had been managing impossible situations for two months and was not finished yet.

"Didn't see what?" said the worker. Fenwick nodded. He produced a card from somewhere in his robes — Order of the Eternal Flame, the Seal of the Eternal Flame embossed on the front — and held it out.

"Someone will be in touch," said Fenwick. Nibbles received the message before midday. He read it. He set it down. He picked it up and read it again. He called for Brother Aldous, gave him a specific figure and a specific set of instructions, and sent him out without elaborating on either. Then he called for the beaver accountant. The beaver accountant arrived with his ledger already open.

"Two items," said Nibbles.

"The first is a discretionary payment to three Guild processing workers. The amount is—" He named the figure. The beaver wrote it down without expression.

"The second item," said Nibbles, "is a standing order. Weekly. To the Guild processing station at the edge of the Thornwood training grounds." He described what he needed. He described how it was to be prepared. He described the quantity. The beaver's pen paused for just a moment.

"Jerky," said the beaver.

"Jerky," confirmed Nibbles. The beaver wrote it down.

"And the third item," said Nibbles, "is that I need to speak to the Guild Master about registering a questing party." The beaver looked up.

"The hero," said Nibbles, "needs work." Fenwick had arrived at the same conclusion three hours earlier, sitting on Max's shoulder outside the processing station while Max sat in the grass looking at the sky with the satisfied calm of something that had just solved a problem it hadn't known it had. This can't be a weekly crisis. Sindy had written on the screen.

"No," said Fenwick. He needs a legitimate food source. Something regular. Something we control.

"Questing," said Fenwick. Questing. Sindy confirmed. Max had turned his head at the word. He didn't know what it meant yet. But it had the shape of something, and his increased intelligence was enough to know that shapes mattered.

"Soon," said Fenwick. To Max, or to the question, or to the eastern border that had been quiet for too long. Max looked at the Thornwood.

"Quest," he said. Trying the word and turning it over. Fenwick looked at him.

"Yes," he said.

"That's the idea." ⟨ [SYSTEM PRIVATE LOG] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── [Sindy — Private Log — Day 60] HUNGER: 8 / 10. Stable. Three Guild workers saw us today. Nibbles is handling it. There is now jerky. Weekly delivery. Enough for a three-day emergency supply. I have run the numbers on questing. Combat creatures he can eat. XP continues accumulating. The Guild board has postings. Fenwick knows the system. It is, by any reasonable measure, a clean solution.

Max said "quest" this afternoon and held onto the word the way he holds onto rocks. Tomorrow we find the board. I am choosing to find the jerky funny. I think Becca would too.