Chương 138: Chapter 136: Circling the island

The next morning, we start exploring the island. We find pretty quickly that there are animals we can hunt for food, there is fruit aplenty and there are plants that we recognize. This is an island paradise; we could live here indefinitely without trouble. The only thing we'd have to worry about is the dragon that is somewhere on this island, and that may not be pleased that we are trespassing in her territory.

After we break camp, we start walking around the coast of the island, trying to get a better idea of how big around it is. Will we be able to walk the perimeter in a single day, or will it take more time than that to get all the way around? Silk said that the island was several dozen miles across. If it's thirty six miles across, and roughly a circle, how big is that perimeter? I think it's like a hundred and twenty miles. So we shouldn't be able to walk the perimeter in one day. Probably not in two.

Walking on sand is slow. Each step, you sink in a little bit. It's difficult to keep a steady pace, even at our normal casual jog. We kick up sand while we move, and it gets uncomfortable after a little while. So we decide to move inland just a little bit, just until the ground gets more stable. Then we continue our trek around, and I start looking at the other tracks that we come across. I don't recognize all the tracks. Some of them look familiar; goat tracks or boar tracks, that kind of thing.

But there are also larger paw prints, that might belong to some kind of massive cat. And there are tracks that seem to be from cloven hooves, but much bigger than any goat I've ever seen. What I don't see are any tracks that seem to be from a bipedal creature. Now, I'm not saying that only bipedal creatures are sapient. It's clearly not a prerequisite. Centaurs aren't bipedal, neither are dragons. But they are both clearly intelligent.

The thing is, though, I'm hard pressed to think of something that is bipedal but is not intelligent. Is being bipedal a sufficient condition for intelligence? I always used to get necessary and sufficient conditions confused when I was in school. I had a lot of trouble wrapping my mind around the concept. A necessary condition means that the condition has to be present. So you might say that something has to have a language in order for it to be intelligent.

I don't know if that's a good example; I can't really think of how something could have language and not be intelligent. But a necessary condition is one that has to be there, no matter what else is present. So something cannot be intelligent unless it has that necessary condition. A sufficient condition is one that is enough. Having the sufficient condition means that you qualify for whatever you're talking about. So maybe language is a better sufficient condition.

If something has language, that's enough to say that it's intelligent. Because it can't both have a language and not be intelligent. A lot of things are both necessary and sufficient. Some things are just one of those two, though. Maybe walking upright is a sufficient condition for intelligence. It's not necessary, because there are ways to be intelligent without walking upright, but walking upright is enough to prove that you're intelligent. Whatever the case, I don't find any sign of anything walking upright.

Everything is on four feet, or more. I think the giant cat things are on six legs. Which is interesting, I suppose.

"Tracking is so interesting," El says as she walks next to me.

"We see these marks on the ground, and it's like the creature grows out of it. I can almost see what it looks like." I smile.

"Yeah," I say.

"It's weird. The more you get to know the tracks, the more you can tell about the body. The shift to one side or the other helps you even tell if the creature turned its head, or which way it was facing when it made the track."

"I want to know what those are," she says, pointing at the cat tracks.

"That looks like it might be as big as a lynxith. Remember them?" I nod.

"It's been a while, but yeah, I remember them. Remember when they were dangerous?" She chuckles.

"I wonder if we're going to start feeling that way about things like the beach guardian."

"That would be wild," she says, shaking her head.

"That was one hell of a fight. Do you think we'll get to see one of these big cats?" Looking down at the trail, I see that the sign is pretty fresh. There's even some spore there, buried just off the trail, if I'm not mistaken.

"I think we probably will," I say. I pull out my bow and nock an arrow.

"That trail is pretty fresh." We aren't immediately attacked. I was half expecting that we would be. That it would interrupt our conversation by leaping out of the brush and trying to kill us. But that doesn't happen. What does happen is that I start to feel like I'm being watched. Like I'm being hunted. It's a weird instinct. I think all people have it. You know, somehow, when someone is watching you. When they stalk you, moving around and trying to figure you out.

When they are measuring you, measuring the distance to you, and trying to decide if they are ready to pounce. It's like an itch you get in the center of your back, in that spot that you just can't reach. Someone is watching you, and they do not mean you well. I'm clearly not the only one who feels is. El draws her sword, and I hear Gigi draw hers. I'm pretty sure Ash has her mace in hand. We're not being the least bit stealthy.

Hard to be stealthy when two of us are wearing heavy metal armor, especially in this tropical heat. I'm not saying that the metal actually makes more noise in the heat, but it certainly seems like it does. I keep my eyes out, passing them around us with my head on a swivel as we continue to walk. We've slowed from our usual jog into a cautious walk, and I think that's to our benefit. We're going to get attacked. It's just a matter of time at this point. Something is watching us, and it means us harm.

I try to spot it, hoping that I'll see a tiny hint of movement between the trees, between the branches of the foliage. Something that will give me enough warning to turn my body in that direction, so that I can let loose an arrow. Maybe I should switch to my sword. It will allow me to react faster, to attack faster, even if I can't attack at a distance. I pull the spell Fire Bolt to the front of my head, ready to throw that instead. It's no faster than the bow, but it's good to have options.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. We continue walking for maybe five minutes before it happens. The only warning is a rustle in the undergrowth. I turn towards it, drawing back my arrow and firing as the form bursts out of its camouflage, leaping at us with claws spread, pouncing to land on one of us.

We all step back almost as one, and the creature doesn't quite land on top of anyone, but it still slashes out with its claws, catching El across the leg. Superior Lynxith. Legendary elite creature, level 35. HP: 34, 444/35, 000. Almost at the same time, another one leaps down on us from the trees. This one lands fully on Ash, slamming her to the ground with the force of its weight. So they hunt in pairs. At least. There might be more of them.

I keep waiting for another one to leap out at us as I fire a Rapid Shot into the one that landed on Ash. I'm trying to buy her some time to get her feet under her. Gigi and El have closed in on the other one, and are pinning it between them. The creature keeps turning back and forth, swinging its front claws at them each in turn. The superior lynxith does in fact have six legs.

It's using two of them to try to pin Ash down at the shoulder, two to try to peel off her chest armor, and the back two to scrape down her legs, trying to claw her to ribbons. It barely flinches when my arrows hit it, though they do almost ten percent of its total health from that one attack. Ash grunts underneath the huge creature. The lynxith has to be at least four hundred pounds. She braces herself and flips the creature off her as if it weighed nothing at all, kicking it over her head.

It flies through the air, twisting as it moves, and lands on its paws. Without hesitation, it charges forward again, this time trying to bite Ash before she can get up. I put a Power Shot into its head, and the greater lynxith stops its charge, shaking its head in a bit of confusion. The arrow went into its mouth, and it opens and closes its maw a few times as if trying to dislodge the arrow.

The momentary hesitation of the greater lynxith gives Ash all the time she needs to get up from the ground, and when it moves forward again, she smashes its face out of the way, lifting her shield to block its claws. The two creatures don't really stand a chance against the four of us. I keep expecting more of them to attack, to come out of the jungle and join their brethren. But if there are more of them, they quickly decide that we are not prey and move away from us.

The two that attacked us don't last very long, and soon we're getting the experience for killing them. Once they're dead, I immediately start to harvest their claws.

"You going to make new bracers like those ones we used to have?" El asks, excited.

"That's the plan," I say, prying the claws free. My animal harvesting goes up by one as I get all thirty claws from each of the creatures and then skin them. Ash starts carving away the meat to be used when we decide to stop for the night, and it's not long before we're ready to move on again. I'm getting much less blood on me than I used to when I did this harvesting thing. I guess it's something that comes with practice. Though I might want the blood on me.

The lynxiths in the tutorial couldn't smell me when I was covered in their blood. They pretty much ignored me, even if I walked right by them. I'm sure they could see me, but the smell of the blood made me seem like something that wasn't a threat to them, and that wasn't prey for them. Maybe we should take some of the blood for ourselves, to get that smell on us. Then again, they really weren't much trouble at all. No one took any actual damage from them. They're only level thirty five.

They might be trouble if had to fight, like, fifty of them. But if they fight in pairs like this, they're never going to be a threat. I'm more concerned about the giant hoof marks. I don't know what those are attached to, and the unknown is always more concerning. We keep moving around the edge of the jungle, circumnavigating the island. It seems like the lynxiths have specific territories, because I stop seeing their tracks for a while after the combat. When the tracks come back, I draw my sword this time.

The arrows are all well and good, but I feel like the sword will serve me better if we get ambushed by a large group of the creatures.

"It feels weird here," Gigi says after a few hours of walking in relative silence.

"I'm still getting that feeling like I'm being watched, but it's coming from the whole island."

"Do you guys remember that television show about the weird haunted island?" El asks.

"I loved that show. The first few seasons of it, at least. They kept raising more and more questions, and leaving me wondering what the hell was going on."

"I liked that show," Ash agrees.

"But it got to be too much. I hit a point where they were raising all these questions without answering the old ones, and I just got overwhelmed and stopped caring."

"Yeah," El says.

"Me too."

"What does that have to do with this island?" Gigi asks. El shrugs.

"I dunno. Maybe nothing. But maybe there's a smoke monster or something that we can kill."

"How would you even fight a smoke monster?" Gigi asks.

"Probably with magic," I say.

"I don't think physical blows would do anything to it."

"Maybe I need some magic after all," El says.

"I hate magic, though."

"How can you hate magic?" Ash asks.

"Magic is awesome."

"Because it breaks the rules," El says.

"Magic is all about doing what's impossible, and I don't like that." I'm reminded of Amanda wanting to dream the impossible dream.

"But it is possible," Ash says.

"That's the whole point. This world has magic. Magic can do a lot. But it can't do anything."

"I think Tolkien hated magic too," Gigi says.

"That's why you almost never see any actual magic in those books. Magic disrupts the narrative, I guess."

"It can," I agree.

"But it can also just offer possibilities you hadn't thought of before. I think it's a good idea for us to get more magic, if we can."

"How many spells do you know?" El asks me.

"Eight," I say.

"Nowhere near what Vincent or Amanda have."

"I only have Shell and one other," El says.

"But it's a good spell. It increases my damage in melee."

"We definitely need more spells," Ash says.

"No idea if we'll be able to find them, though. I mean, where would we even look?"

"Treasure chests," Gigi says.

"That's where they usually are."

"Do you still have lock picks?" Ash asks me. I nod.

"I've got a few dozen of them still. And I can make more if we have the materials and somewhere to do the crafting."

"That's the problem with crafting," El says.

"You need somewhere specific to do it. I like fighting. You can do that anywhere."

"Yes, El, we all know you like fighting," Ash says. I can hear her rolling her eyes.

"Do you think there would be a dungeon on this island?"

"There might be," I say.

"I mean, it's like nine hundred square miles or whatever. So there might be one."

"I hope there is," Gigi says.

"I could use a good dungeon crawl." We fight two more groups of greater lynxiths. They always attack in pairs, and are never much hassle. But I do get a whole lot of claws and fur to work with when we stop for the night. I keep seeing more of the hoofed tracks, but we don't see any other sign of the creature that makes them, save for a few spots of spore. From the piles, it's probably pretty big. Should be hard to miss.

And we know it lives out here towards the edge of the island, because otherwise there wouldn't be those tracks out here.

"What do you think that thing is?" I ask El as we're walking. Since the last lynxith attack, we've taken to just walking all the time. It's slower going; we're moving at maybe three or four miles an hour, but it's safer. It gives us more warning before the lynxiths attack.

"Maybe it's a giant goat," she says.

"But, like, an armored goat." I shake my head.

"That doesn't make any sense for out here. Goats prefer rockier terrain."

"So maybe it's like a boar or something. A giant boar, with razor sharp tusks the size of swords." I look at her. She's licking her lips. She sees me looking and laughs.

"What?" she says.

"I haven't had ham in months."