Chương 190: 14. They Can't All Be Winners

Talla isn't able to identify the monster from sound alone, but thanks to her skills allowing her to memorize entire bestiaries and recall information from them at will, she narrows it down to a few options.

"First, I have to stress that it's entirely possible that it's something new or unknown," she says.

"And it's hard to fit a description of a sound to something I've actually heard, so I'm not particularly confident about any of these guesses."

"Incomplete information is better than no information," I reply.

"We can refine our theories further with new information."

"Right," she agrees.

"Just so long as you remember to be careful about making assumptions." She lays out the possibilities for me as we eat. The cry was distant, and we haven't heard it again, so both of us agree that haste would be unwise. There aren't a huge number of documented anomalous creatures—colloquially called monsters—that could cause a sound like that. It was a lot more than just a shriek or a cry, and it's hard to describe the difference. It was beyond loud, as if the air itself was shaking.

I felt the sound in my bones, and my ears are still ringing slightly. At my suggestion, Talla even activates the gentle healing aura of her signature ball of light to ensure neither of us suffers permanent hearing damage. So if it's that loud, then we can safely guess that the sound is probably a weapon. The first potential candidate is a familiar one, and I can't help but laugh when Talla describes it.

The sonicgaze basilisk doesn't actually make the sound itself, but causes things it looks at—especially rigid bodies—to ring loudly. The creatures are almost entirely deaf themselves, but are considered to be one of the more dangerous subspecies of basilisk.

"I suppose it makes a sort of sense," I muse.

"Heat is essentially just vibrations anyway, so it's not such a wild leap from laser geckos to that. Just a difference in scale." Talla stares at me like I've grown a second head.

"What do you mean heat is vibration?"

"Uh... that might be a conversation for another time," I hedge.

"And with Maggie."

"Alright, but I'll hold you to that," she sighs.

"Anyway, it's probably not a basilisk. We would have heard something explode or shatter." I wince.

"Yet another lizard that explodes you with a look, huh?"

"Actually, unlike most subspecies, the sonicgaze basilisk doesn't usually turn its gaze directly on victims, preferring instead to use harder materials to create louder sounds and more shrapnel." Yikes. If the sound isn't enough to make you bleed from the ears, then exploding shards of rock will do it. I'd say it sounds a lot worse than the laser geckos we know, but the higher tier variants of those could skip the shrapnel entirely and turn you into a living grenade.

Moving on, the next possible monster is something Eva's shared understanding of the language generously translates as simply "banshee."

"I assume it's not a literal ghost or spirit," I comment.

"Ghost?" Talla asks, cocking her head.

"Where did you get that idea?" It takes a bit of back and forth, as well as waking up Allie, to fully explain what "banshee" means to us.

"Ah! I can see how it might translate that way," Talla says.

"But in this case, it's not a ghost, it's a bug."

"Eww! Another giant bug?" Allie complains.

"As if the snails weren't bad enough."

"Not giant," Talla corrects her.

"It's just regular-sized. I mean, I guess they are kind of big—about palm-sized—but still well within normal bug ranges."

"So it's just a little palm-sized insect that makes an extremely loud noise?" I ask for clarification.

"Yes, exactly."

"Like a [cicada]?" Of course, nothing will do but for Allie to help me explain to Talla what a cicada is, and once that's done she hums over it for a moment.

"Well, I suppose it's kind of like a cicada, if the ones from your world are loud enough to cause brain hemorrhages."

"They are not," I reply drily.

"I can see why you'd call them banshees."

"Are we sure we can even take something like that?" Allison asks.

"A tiny little bug that can kill us before we even see it doesn't sound wise to go after."

"We'll go in with protection, if at all," Talla says.

"But whether we actually hunt this monster is certainly something to consider. It might not be that anyway—the bestiary describes its sound as more of a buzzing or droning, though it notes that most survivors only heard it from extreme distances." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"That's not inspiring confidence, Talla!" Allie groans.

"This dungeon's been maintained steadily by the Degala tribe, with the wards being maintained as recently as last year, right?" I point out.

"If they're broken, then it can't have been long. This might be our only chance to get in and fix it before things get even worse."

"What happened to looking out for ourselves first?" Allie asks. I purse my lips and poke at the fire with a stick.

"Draga happened," I remind her.

"And you and Maggie both raked me over the coals for not helping Saban while we were fighting the demon." Though I still think that my decision was the right one, in the end. If either Saban or I had been exhausted by [Revitalization] we wouldn't have made it through that fight.

"Right, sorry," Allie mutters.

"I shouldn't have said that."

"It's alright," I assure her.

"I understand your misgivings, but I think we owe it to the tribe to head this off before it can become a real disaster." Talla sighs and runs a hand through her damp hair.

"If we can," she reiterates.

"But that still remains to be seen." The last monster from Talla's bestiaries that might be a potential match is the most promising by far. The word in Fa'aun doesn't cleanly translate, but after a thorough description, Allison creatively dubs it "giant bat."

"Seriously?" I groan.

"They can't all be winners," she murmurs defensively. Regardless, the name doesn't really do the creature justice. Talla describes it as a black-furred creature with a main body twice the size of a Fa'aun and huge leathery wings. The good news is that it only uses its loud screech as a way to stun prey, but unfortunately that's because it is otherwise capable of using its huge teeth and claws to rip things apart.

"They typically return to their convergence points to hibernate during the bright seasons, and only emerge when it gets dark," Talla explains.

"So if it's a giant bat we're dealing with, then it should be fresh out of hibernation and still weak. Unfortunately, that also means it will be very aggressive." If, indeed, it's a "giant bat" we're dealing with at all. Even if it is, I doubt that my mental image of a bat is doing it justice. This is another "horse," I'm sure of it.

"We should turn in early tonight," I suggest.

"We'll want to be well rested tomorrow, and we might be able to get visual confirmation of the monster using Evelyn's skills." Talla frowns slightly.

"It might be better to keep watch," she suggests.

"We don't want to get ambushed in the night."

"We can do both," I explain.

"There's nothing in Eva's skill that requires us to stay together, and when she brings us into her dreams there's an odd sort of connection between us, so we'd even be able to communicate between the two groups." She blinks, then scratches her horns.

"You know, even after seeing Evelyn and Reverie together in the dream, even after all the time we've spent together, I still sometimes forget that you're five people."

"Honestly, so do we, sometimes," Allie admits.

"Mostly me, actually. Evie's dream space makes it a lot easier for that to sink in, when we can all actually look at each other." I finish my meal and toss the skewer into the fire.

"Which just leaves the matter of who we bring into the dream, and where each of us goes," I muse.

"Talla, obviously, since you've got the most tracking experience and have the bestiaries memorized, you'd be in the scouting party."

"You can leave me out of it," Allison decides.

"I don't think I'd be able to contribute much aside from communication, and your Fa'aun has improved a lot lately."

"Evelyn doesn't really have much of a choice," Talla points out.

"And I get the impression that Reverie won't leave her side."

"Not necessarily," I reply.

"It's probably best not to assume anything out of River. She'll do whatever she does, regardless of what we plan."

"Maggie will want to join you on the scouting," Allie comments. Talla cocks her head and hums thoughtfully.

"Come to think of it, she's been unusually quiet lately. I thought I'd be seeing a lot more of her on this trip since we're alone together."

"She's shy," Allie giggles.

"The fact that we're alone is exactly why you haven't heard from her."

"She's a lot more bold when it's just us," I muse.

"Maybe some of that boldness will come out in dream space." Not that I'd count on it. The fact that she hasn't even joined this conversation yet suggests that Maggie is still as nervous about interacting with Talla as she's ever been, despite her insistence to the contrary.

"I think you should come with us too, Vi," Talla adds.

"I'm not sure if that Faerie Fire spell of yours will work inside the dream, but it's worth trying."

"Wait, so you want to leave Evie and Revi to keep watch while you take Mags and Vi exploring together?" Allison asks incredulously.

"Yes?" Talla answers.

"Is that a problem?"

"Only if Maggie makes it one," I say with a shrug.

"We don't always get along, but we haven't been butting heads as much as we used to." Allie is silent for a long moment, then just sighs.

"Okay, if you're sure. Good luck with that." I can't help but feel a little insulted by that. Sure Maggie can be a bit of a troublemaker, but I know how to handle her by now, and surely Allie can trust me to behave, at least.

"All of this is contingent on Evelyn agreeing anyway," I point out.

"I've been listening," Eva interjects.

"And I can think of no better way to spend the night than watching Lady Talla try to make Violet and Magdalena cooperate with each other."

"Have Revi make you a bucket of popcorn," Allie suggests.

"You'll thank me later." Okay, now I'm definitely feeling insulted. I cross my arms and frown.

"That hardly seems fair," I complain.

"We're not children, and we've cooperated just fine before." Usually in life or death situations, to be fair, but I look to Talla for validation, feeling only slightly betrayed when she has to hastily wipe the look of mounting dread off her face and offer me a stiff smile.

"Right, I'm sure it'll be fine!"