Chương 16: Chapter Sixteen: Buckoo Barks

The hunting party would normally leave in the early morning, but the giant fish had caused them some delay. Hollis waited for them to gather their gear so he could join them. What he really wanted to do was find some place to take a long nap, but if he was going to stay friendly with this group, he needed to do his part. As he waited, he walked around the canyon hideout, observing the gardens and other operations of the survivors. The grebe coop provided them with eggs.

A larder bee hive that had been built from an old carriage sat near the river, oozing with honey. Countless potted plants and earthen planters held a variety of herbs and flowers used for medicine and cooking. He walked from plant to plant, examining them to the best of his ability. All of the healing brews he had seen doled out to the patients were grown in these riverside gardens.

He found the kennels and stables, each built into a separate opening in the cliffside and sealed with large wooden shutters that would be sufficient to keep the fog out. The further south he went, the more he saw of the survivors' efforts to create a self-sustaining community.

As he looked around the canyon floor at the various gardens and outbuildings, his eyes rested on a huge collection of crates in the mud near the water's edge that had been grown by hand with dozens of separate areas for small animals, but it was empty. He studied it to figure out what it might be for. The outsides were made of wood, but the insides were packed with reeds and mud, as if creatures had been nesting in it. [Archaeology lvl. 3] You see a muskrat marsh ranch, used for centuries to raise and harvest the meat and fur of the semi-aquatic rodent. As he stood there examining the contraption, he didn't realize he had been tracked and followed for the longest time. Royle's horse really was that quiet. The man had managed to get right up behind Hollis without even triggering his Vigilance skill.

"If you're looking for where we keep our booze, you're in the wrong place," he said. Startled, Hollis began to laugh.

"No," he said.

"I'm only admiring the homestead you all have here."

"It helps us survive," Royle responded.

"If I had known where I was going to end up, I would have specced into a craftsman." While the game didn't have classes, it did have preset builds that allocated a player's stats in predefined ways. They were more suggestions than mandated paths. Hollis didn't get to pick one because the starter zone was abandoned. Hollis got his bearings again as he looked up at the man on horseback.

"What build did you choose?" he asked.

"Watchman," Royle said, his lips curling into a smile.

"I wasn't blind when I got here. Come on, we're heading out."

"Sure," Hollis said. He began following the man on horseback.

"I see you farmed muskrats." Royle's horse-mouse looked over in the direction of the abandoned muskrat complex near the river, as if reading his rider's mind. It was similar to how Willo always managed to shine light where Hollis was looking.

"It was a beauty. You should have seen it. We had hundreds of those things. They multiplied like nobody's business," he said.

"Almost solved our food problem and need for leather and fur all at once." He beckoned his horse to keep moving.

"So what happened?" Hollis asked.

"They break free? Did a monster attack?" Royle shook his head.

"The Rat King came to barter," he said with a chuckle. Hollis matched his laugh.

"I hate that guy."

"I can imagine. He offered up an accord to Dakota, a bond with a single hoveleer in exchange for a point of Mind and the freedom of our stock. Had to let them all go." Hollis looked out at the vast network of hoveleer nests on the marsh ranch. It was a massive undertaking that probably took months of work.

"Sounds like a bum deal," Hollis said.

"It was," Royle said, "Dakota was just about to butcher one when the old stinky bastard showed up and made his offer. I had never known Dakota to take an eidolon's first offer. He thinks they're holding out on us. The problem was that a group of locals was walking by at that exact time, and they went nuts when he tried to counteroffer." Up ahead, Hollis could see some of the healthier residents of Tawny's hospice on their morning walks.

"They think the eidolons are gods, right?" he asked.

"Even the damn Rat King," Royle said.

"They started bowing down and begging for help when they saw him. They pleaded with Dakota to take the deal, even if it meant they were going to starve. The women and children were crying. They told him that if he rejected the deal, they would smash the ranch anyway and never eat from it." Even in the game, the settlers of Periapt were a stubborn bunch.

"That's frustrating," Hollis said. Even Royle's horse snorted at the thought.

"So what does your horse here think about the Rat King?" Hollis asked.

"Oh, Jaq?" Royle asked, patting his horse's head.

"He doesn't like the Rat King, but he's more horse than mouse. His eidolon is the Turning Wind. I was told she was beautiful, but by that point I couldn't tell." Hollis noticed that Royle tended to laugh when referencing his blindness. The story was strangely foreboding to Hollis. He came to this world to help people. Knowing that they might reject his help based on the demands of some roaming fae or whatever the eidolons were could complicate things.

~-~ If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. It turned out Otis was the only other person in the hunting party to bring a firearm. It was a large, brutal blunderbuss that he could only fire once. It was strictly for protection. Gunpowder was a precious resource, and they had no way of replenishing it efficiently. Of course, they had other forms of protection.

Otis had brought three bluffing hounds, including the medium-sized dog that all the others listened to. Hollis followed behind them, trying not to step on anyone's toes, literally or figuratively, as they took the narrow trail along the canyon wall north.

"My dad owned a computer repair shop," Royle was telling him.

"Of course, he could fix anything, but since nobody knew anything about computers, he could charge whatever he wanted. He would also recycle people's old tech, and had a bin for it at the front of the store. People put all kinds of stuff in there, but you never knew what you might find inside. I bet you could guess what I found when I was rummaging through it one day."

"A peculiar CD," Hollis said.

"You know it," Royle continued.

"I'd been mouthing off, so Dad made me keep my Nintendo DS at home while I went with him to work. Once I figured out the CD was a game, I thought I'd found a loophole. Return to Periapt. I didn't care what the game was. I just wanted to see my dad's face when he saw me playing it. Then I could say, 'Hey, I didn't break any rules.'" The path they were on got so narrow that Royle's horse, Jaq, had to shrink down into a mouse, while Royle reached out and grabbed Dakota's arm ahead of him as a guide.

"Where exactly are we going?" Hollis asked.

"We've got a boat up here," Royle said.

"It'll help us get to the other side. Then there's a pretty easy staircase." Hollis looked at the river. Where they were, there was only one large, solid stream. He had to hope they wouldn't try to cross it until it widened up so it would be safer.

"How about you?" Royle asked.

"I can't even remember what year it's supposed to be back home. How did you end up getting the game? I haven't seen anyone cross over in a long time." Hollis considered how forthright he needed to be. It wasn't that he didn't trust his new companions; he trusted them enough to go hunting with them. It was that he didn't know them. He didn't know what culture had grown up among the Kaziers. The way he saw it, he couldn't play the dark stranger for long, not if he wanted these people to trust him.

They were clearly wondering why he had come to Periapt so heavily armed.

"I found it in a cereal box," he said.

"Reese's Puffs."

"Cereal, huh?" Royle asked.

"I've heard that one a few times before. I wonder if the whole thing is about to start back up. It's a bad time to be a Kazier in Beckett's Sound."

"Bad time to be anybody," Hollis said. Once the river widened again, it slowed enough to be crossed by boat. The four men traveled down the riverside until they arrived at the small boat that had been stored upside down on the rocky ground. Near the boat, a long, thick rope hung over the river at an angle. Hollis realized how it worked. They wouldn't have to row. They were going to pull themselves across the river with the rope. And that's just what they did.

They then stored the boat on the opposite side of the river. Then, they walked up the well-worn steps on the side of the canyon until they emerged at ground level on top of the canyon. The dogs Otis had chosen were extremely obedient. They followed his commands silently.

"I thought west of the canyon was too dangerous for travel," Hollis said.

"It is," Otis growled with a side eye at Hollis. Then he trudged off into the forest, grabbing a spear that was leaning up against the side of a tree.

"Don't worry about it, newbie," Dakota said as he grabbed a spear of his own from near where Otis had.

"We'll take care of you." Dakota still had his bowler hat, but he had added a large pelt to his outfit that wrapped around his torso and hung down loosely as he walked. It was made of muskrat. The first hour they were there, they stuck to the thinnest parts of the forest gathering berries, mushrooms, edible ferns, and flowers. They dug up roots. They cut some shoots of wild plants that smelled like onions. The trip was much more gatherer-oriented than hunter. [Vigilance lvl. 6] You sense movement in the forest around you. You are being watched. Hollis' indicator displayed that message every three or four minutes from the moment they walked into the forest. The others were tense and worked quickly. Jaq, the horse-mouse, was back in full size and never strayed more than a few inches from Royle's side. Just watching the creature, Hollis could tell how sensitive it was, how well it perceived the threats in the darkness. Its ears were finely tuned. [Naturalism lvl. 6] The three-quarter horse (one-quarter mouse) is adept at fleeing danger. Its ability to sense escape routes is regarded as borderline precognitive by many breeders.

"Don't you worry," Dakota reassured him again with a nervous smile.

"This part of the woods isn't so bad. Most of the things in here are more afraid of us than we are of them." As they continued collecting food from the forest's outskirts, the silent woods eventually came to life with noise. It wasn't a fierce howl or low growl. It was a… buckoo. It sounded like a group of men were hiding in the bushes, saying the word buckoo in a dozen different ways.

"Paydirt," Otis growled.

"Net!" Dakota was the one with the net. He had to drop his muskrat cloak to the ground to retrieve it, though. Hollis looked at the others to gauge their reactions. They were smiling. Nervously, sure, but definitely pleased with the latest development. The word "buckoo" continued to echo around the bushes.

"I'm ready," Royle said as he grabbed some dirt and twigs from the ground.

"I think one is over there." [Naturalism lvl. 6] You hear a flock of buckoo birds throwing their voices. Royle tossed the dirt and twigs in the air and used his bartered ability to bring them all down like meteors into the ground, shearing off a layer of leaves from a bush. Sure enough, as he did it, a large, round ball of feathers jumped out of the bush. Seconds later, dozens of feather balls jumped out of nearby foliage.

They screamed "buckoo" over and over, throwing their voices and confusing the heck out of everyone. Their feathers were puffed out defensively so much that they could roll, both on the ground and through the air. They were gone as fast as they had arrived, all choosing different bushes and evergreen trees to hide in.

"Got one!" Dakota cried.

"It's right here for you, Otis." There was one tangled in the cast net. Otis pounced on it, grabbing it up and then waiting a few seconds before dispatching it. Its feathers lowered to reveal a bird that looked like a big quail.

"So we scare them, catch them, snap their necks?" Hollis asked.

"I kill 'em," Otis said in a dull roar.

"Okay, you kill them," Hollis repeated. They spent a few minutes locating other birds. The trick was, Royle had explained, that the birds would never betray each other by throwing their voice, so if Hollis focused on a bush and never heard a "buckoo" come from that place over a few minutes, that meant there was likely a bird there.

"Let me try something," he said. He bid Willo to go near the bush and use its Warning Beacon. He had never actually seen it before. Willo mostly complied. Instead of flying all the way there, the bug combined its ability to create a will o' the wisp with its Warning Beacon. With a flash, it sent a fluttering little copy of itself into the bush, and then an image that looked disturbingly like a humanoid skull burst from it. A bird ball jumped from the bush, and another storm of birds happened.

Hollis even managed to catch one, though a look from Otis nearly scared him enough to let go of it. Otis came over and grabbed the bird and dispatched it himself. Otis' dogs were great at this. They loved it, like it was their favorite thing in the world. The dogs were bluffing hounds, which meant the sound of their bark could cause bite-like injuries to targets in its path. Hollis had played with these animals in the game. It was amazing to see them in real life.

They could send a bark after a feather ball, and it would stop in its tracks, exploding in a puff of feathers. The birds' defensive feather puffing was still pretty effective, but if the dogs got a good hit with their bark, it was a wild show. Otis had trained them to bring the birds to him so he could dispatch them. The other three men had to wait in line behind the dogs.

"It's just one of his things," Royle said.

"He has to kill the birds. Must really hate those things." They continued for hours. First scaring, then catching, then handing their catch to Otis. It was going so well that Hollis even began to wonder if the western woods were really as dangerous as he had been led to believe. [Vigilance lvl. 6] You hear the snort of a large animal in the distance. You don't know what it is. Then again, maybe it was just as dangerous as he had been told. In the distance, something big was headed their way.

Hollis brought out his rifle, ready to find out what.