Chương 51: Challenged Squirt

A few days later, they hit the first village. Wary of having to deal with the village chief this close to the keep, Squirt instead kept to the forest around the village, hunting and continuing to familiarize herself with the area. This territory was known as Riverlands, as it sounded more regal than Creeklands. The forests in this area were filled with creeks that eventually met up into a river by the territory's edge, which then flowed into the lake at the Capital.

Some creeks were large enough for fish, while others were barely trickles of water as they made their way through the forest. Living up to its name, the feybeasts here tended to lean more towards water than fire like in Everwinter. The water was always moving, always flowing, preventing the area from becoming a bog as it carved a slow downhill path from the mountains east across the land. Nothing that needed a damn boat, luckily enough. Due to the size of villages, a party like Lord Prince Ranin's didn't fit well.

Instead, rather than kicking the fey living there out of their homes like they were technically allowed to do, they made camp in a clearing just southwest of the village fields. That night, when Squirt trotted into the lord's tent to do her annoying nightly check-in, Anvanil greeted her eagerly and her expression flattened. She wasn't sure what had changed in the young man, but every time he saw her, he smiled just a bit brighter. Annoying fey.

"Ah, Mystva, I was hoping I could, um, ask for some help, actually?" On guard, she hesitated as she slowly kneeled next to him on a pile of furs, his lordship eating at the table nearby. Lord Prince Ranin said casually, "Ah, the traps?" Anvanil sighed.

"Yeah." His wide eyes looked pleadingly at Squirt.

"They don't have blazing ants or laughing mushrooms, but… is there anything else you've found they can use?" Squirt pursed her lips and glared down in the ground in a furious pout.

"No."

"… oh." She fidgeted, glancing at the crestfallen look on his face and hating it immensely. Leaning in slightly, she muttered, "Give me a bit. I had twenty years in Everwinter, I've only been here for a few days."

"Oh. Right." He blushed.

"Sometimes I forget." Her brows pinched as she muttered, "Forget what?"

"Oh, uh… it's um… I just forget that you're not a… well that you didn't learn it all at the University." She gave him a hard stare. Then blinked.

"… we're not shipping out immediately, right?"

"Ah, right." She nodded to herself. The keep was only a few days south of here, so the Lord Prince Commander would be headed there to help train the recruits sent ahead from the Capital and help fortify defenses. They'd be in Riverlands for a few weeks at least, using the keep as a launching off point from which to work. Something she was opposed to with every fiber of her being. Quietly, a more contemplative expression on her face, she said, "Ask the locals for what their pests are. What irritates them?

What are their daily challenges? That's how I learned—blazing ants and laughing mushrooms aren't deadly, not usually. They were just things that the locals knew to avoid and complained about when a nest formed in the village or the mushrooms grew on the wood of the bathhouse." He nodded slowly.

"Okay… I can do that." She studied him, then lowered her eyes in thought, shifting to sit cross legged and crossing her arms over her chest.

Behind her, Ranin silently celebrated with a wide smirk that Bartos's future mate—in his mind, at least—was growing more comfortable around him.

Unaware of his attention, Squirt frowned softly at the rugs, her lips barely moving in a hushed murmur of words. Then touched her chin in thought, her eyes unfocused, her expression softening further. Finally, she spoke in a dreamlike tone, her voice quiet enough to not disturb the lord prince.

"Then again… most of the feybeasts are water-based… We're in summer now, with all the water over the forest… do you know if this area is known for lightning storms?" He blinked.

"Yeah. How'd you know? They were complaining that the nets for the flying beasts were like lightning rods during a storm." She straightened.

"Really?"

"Y-yes?"

"Can you show me?" He blushed, faltering as his voice squeaked, "Um, y-yeah. Sure." He cleared his throat.

"Now?" She blinked a few times at him.

"Don't be ridiculous. It's too dangerous at night," then returned her eyes to the furs, pinching her chin between her index finger and thumb, her eyes once again unfocused and staring. Anvanil calmed his racing heart before asking quietly, "What are you thinking?"

"Hm?" She blinked, coming out of her thought process, losing that daydream look to her eyes as she slowly focused back in on him. It took several seconds for her to register him, but her previous scowls and glares didn't make a reappearance even as she did. Instead, her hand fell back down to subconsciously cradle the egg.

"Oh. Right. I was just thinking." He hesitated before asking, "About?"

"Hm. The nets are made of metal in order to stand up to flamewings and phoenixes, who will otherwise just burn straight through them, and once the trap springs they are hit with the powder to keep them from attracting other feybeasts. Incapacitate them. But it's possible to just use electricity."

"You mean lightning?" She waved her hand dismissively.

"Yes and no. Less power, but enough to disrupt the nervous system and stun the creatures. If this area has frequent lightning storms, it might have lightning stones."

"What are lightning stones?"

"Oh." She scratched her head.

"… you know how gold is condensed magic?" He nodded slowly.

"Yeah?"

"Same concept, but rather than being general magic and able to conduct any element, they specialize." She reached into her bag and pulled out some loose feystones.

"Like these, only these are made by the condensed magic of beasts who produce magic of a particular element, or multiple, as the seasons go. It's why some evolve into different varieties. An earth snake that consumes a lot of shadow stones will turn into wisp snakes instead of a basilisk." Then she scratched her head.

"… I bet I could modify it to take lightning stones and electrocute the beasts instead." Without another thought, she reached into her pouch, pulling out her practice slate and chalk, rapidly writing and erasing in quick succession.

Anvanil, who she had taught the traps to originally after Lord Everwinter bought them off her, had never seen her do this before. Both him and Ranin studied at the University, Ranin for the military line, Anvanil for historical studies and practical magical application, and had instant appreciation and awe for the work she was doing.

Cirn had less experience with deep magical theory, having actively rejected training to be a Scholar in favor of knight training from a young age, but she still had been around enough mages and magic to have an appreciation as well, even if her understanding wasn't quite as deep. If anything, the distance helped her understand better, because she wasn't watching a woman fundamentally rewrite how she had been taught runic theory worked.

The Captain of the Guard, a dwarf named Dwuan who was almost as wide as he was tall and thick with muscles that he'd spent centuries developing, had absolutely no idea what the tiny thing scribbling on a slate was doing that was drawing everyone else's attention. But then again, he knew his flaws and figured by the way his lord was starting to look visibly angry that she was doing a fine job at scribbling. Bless him.

The next morning, Squirt woke with the early dawn as usual and headed off, glaring at the waiting redcap with Mole already saddled and ready to go. Something he'd insisted on every gods damned morning. Always greeting her with a gods damn bright, manic smile, and the same goddamn routine.

"Good morning, pricklebear!" he practically shouted, waking several in the nearby tents based on the annoyed and tired groans. The first few times he did that, she hand signaled for Mole to kick him. Mole always landed his kicks but she stopped trying when she started to suspect he only fell deeper into delusions by the way he would wistfully stare after her while groaning in pain. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

She'd seen how fast the fucker was. He could've dodged those hooves. He chose not to. The elk were not nearly as heavy hitters as horses with their kicks. Instead, their horns were their main defense, but a good kick still hurt plenty. Not that she ever saw him bruised from it, something that she shouldn't have been able to check for, but by midday the damn man had a habit of starting to lose clothing. He claimed it was the heat. It wasn't.

She didn't care enough to oppose it, and even if she tried, it'd only encourage him more. In the only kind of retaliation she could think of, she decided abruptly that if he lost his damn shirt again today, she would just refuse to acknowledge him. That might work. Maybe. He never went too far with his teasing, never truly asking for anything from her and just very obviously showing he was on offer.

Eventually, he'd lose interest and move on from his delusion, or worse, she'd give in for one night because fuck it, she'd probably die any day now and he was hardly unattractive. If she did, she was dead, because he'd never let her go. He could very easily turn into another Sia-bitch. He had all the right personality traits for it, and honestly, no fey was worth that again.

Instead of paying him any attention, she snatched the reins, letting Mole start trotting forward as she practiced using the handles to hold herself up alongside him, focusing on her posture and balance instead. One thing she'd noticed since the last time she'd ridden elk, she was stronger. Physically, she was stronger. Her balance was better, her grip stronger, her seat controlled—with that and the saddle as it was built, it was easier riding Mole than she ever wanted to admit.

Better than any horse, and certainly preferable to the gods damned Clydesdale they gave her in Everwinter once. Once her arms were aching and they were far enough from the camp, she dropped from the saddle, running alongside him as she gave him the command to secretly follow at a distance. Now there was a fey she wanted to kiss. The damn beast tamer. Mole may have been growing on her.

Slinking through the forest in the early morning light, a familiar chittering drew her attention as a Favet landed on a nearby tree branch, chattering at her noisily. She almost groaned. She'd started to figure out a pattern with the Hunt, after all. Standing with a huff, she obediently trotted after the thing as it took off through the forest. She caught sight of a tendril reaching out to capture the creature. Without slowing, she drew her bow, pointed her arrow at it, and shook her head. The tendril receded.

She lowered the arrow, scanning for danger as the beast led them deeper into the forest before the ground abruptly sloped down. Squirt caught herself before she slipped, having to slide to a stop from her jog. With a frown, she looked down at the opening of a cave. The creature chittered, stepping this way and that before it took off. Squirt glared down at the hole before pulling out a rare lightstick, muttering, "Sure, fine, just send the pixie down into the ominous cave…"

The redcap said a little too close to her, "Who is sending you?" Squirt didn't answer. Nor did she startle, though it was a near thing. Instead, she pressed her lips together and started navigating down the steep hillside to reach the bottom of the ravine and enter the cave, leaving the redcap behind. Though she heard nothing, she knew he stopped at the entrance to the cave and did not follow further. About to break the lightstick, she stopped when she caught sight of a faint glow deeper in the cave.

She put the valuable lightstick away, instead holding her arrow in place, ready to shoot at a moment's notice as she crept forward. A hand came over her mouth and she froze, cursing herself for not having palmed her dagger. Zhadin murmured in the smallest whisper right in her ear, "The beast ahead. Will you face it alone?" She blinked a few times, the panic quelling as she slowly thought through the statement. Oh.

They had figured out who sent her, meaning that this might be a challenge for her as the goddess's chosen. And since it was unclear if it was, if they and the redcap helped and it was a challenge, it could make the goddess angry. Gods weren't exactly the most forgiving lot, after all, and loved their games. Much like with receiving a sign from a god, it was safer to assume they would be offended than assume they wouldn't. Silently, she seethed.

Some chosen had whole conversations in dreams with their gods, were able to ask questions and clarify intentions. Squirt had flying monkeys that chattered at her and then put her in danger. Annoying. So damn annoying. She huffed and answered with an annoyed nod. They nodded in answer, murmuring, "Be fierce. I'll keep him from interfering." Then they melted into the darkness. Squirt bit her lip, falling to her knees silently. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself.

Stashing her strung bow in her pouch for fast retrieval, she pulled out her handkerchief and lowered the goggles over her eyes. Then touched the egg wrapped against her chest. In an emergency, she could stash it in her pouch, but it was risky. If it was like a feystone slowly absorbing her magic, there shouldn't be any negative effects, but if it was like a living beast growing inside it like a snake or bird, the pouch might kill it. Fucking damn it, was this part of the damn challenge?

Scowling to herself and deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, she adjusted the wrap to tuck the egg inside the leather jerkin, retying it tighter. Then glared down at it in annoyance. She finally filled out the chest of the armor. Damnit. Focusing back on her impending death, she put her goggles in place, pulling out her slingshot and sticking it in her belt, keeping one hand on the hilt of her sword as she crept forward, using the other to feel her way and judge the most silent steps to take.

She heard it long before she saw it, the distinctive echo of it swallowing something down. She finally reached the end cavern and her eyes widened as they landed on the giant Bully Mouth. Twelve feet tall when standing, its head was easily a third of its body mass, shaped like a massive frog with bright yellow eyes and a full throat pouch.

While it had the skin and head of a frog, the body was more apelike, long arms that dragged across the ground and ended in razor-sharp extendable blade-claws on nimble, webbed fingers. Currently, it was squatting in the dim glow of lights that twinkled at the top of the cave. It hadn't noticed her. So, Squirt slowly lowered herself to a crouch to observe. There was a faint sweet scent in the air that she slowly determined was coming from the ceiling.

Looking up, she studied the lights, realizing that they were glowing strings. They weren't feybeasts, she knew that much, but she wasn't sure what they were. Eventually, time passed, and a creature sounded behind her as it flew into the cave—a flying batlike feybeast about three feet across in wingspan. The feybeast on the ground remained utterly still, barely even breathing, as the other one became tangled in the glowing lines that stuck to its fur. Quickly, it stopped struggling, tangled and asleep.

The giant Bully Mouth croaked a ribbit in a low frequency that shook the floor of the cave, then opened its mouth wide as the bat-like beast was shaken, then dropped from retreating sticky, glowing lines and right into its waiting maw. Her expression flattened. Freeloader. Still, the question was, if she killed the giant Bully Mouth would the tentacles be a worse creature? Or were they like the laughing mushrooms and relatively harmless if avoided?

She got her answer a few minutes later as regular bats also flew into the cave, being caught by the stringing lights until they fell asleep. The giant bully frog didn't move. Interesting. Looking more carefully, now that she was looking for small shapes instead of large ones, she saw a number of bats or other small critter bodies in a variety of states of decay. She couldn't be sure if the creatures were slowly eaten alive until they died, or if they had actually died from a deadly toxin and weren't asleep at all.

Maybe she could use this. Test it out. If she could throw a blade just right… No. Not safe enough. Not enough margin for error. Even if the knife cut the strands in rotation, it would more likely launch the cut strands at the wall instead of dropping them down. And without knowing what kind of creature it was, she didn't know if she could startle them into dropping the strands or if they were more firmly attached to the wall than that. She could do that kind of experimenting after dealing with the Bully Mouth.

Still, it had froglike skin, so that would make it simple enough—it would be absorbent and make her powders highly effective. She debated with herself for a moment before deciding she really liked the look of those claws and opting for a paralytic shot. Sneaking a little closer, she lined up her shot and hit it. Then she held very still behind her cape. The powder exploded and the frog let out a roar that shook dirt from the ceiling. It stood, flexing its muscles as it looked around, failing to see her.

Then it roared again, this time shaking some of the glowing strands down on its own head as it took a step forward. Then another. Then fell forward, the tension lost from its limbs. Squirt scowled. Damnit. It fell on its damn hands. Trotting forward, she stopped long enough to squat by a glowing string laying on the ground, blinking when she realized it was a worm.

A worm at the top by where it had connected to the ceiling that was now rolling and thrashing blindly across the floor away from the thread it left behind, slowly losing its glow. The glow of the thread remained steady and strong. Squirt took a much closer look at the floor, realizing with a grimace it was not the only worm thrashing about in the dark.

Reaching into her bag for an empty wine bottle, she used a dagger to scoop up the glowing thread, dropping it into the wine bottle, then trotted over to the Bully Mouth. Clearly, the worms incapacitated their prey with the threads, they didn't kill their prey, or he'd be a pretty blue feystone. Asleep and paralyzed. Almost perfect. Except, try as she might, she couldn't get to the damn thing's wrists. It was more efficient to cut the whole hand instead of the fingers. Two cuts instead of ten.

And now the worms were starting to crawl over his body. Gross.

"Need a hand?" came a whisper by her ear. Zhadin. She scowled.

"Two, actually," as she debated using her blunt practice sword to get the leverage she needed to get his arm out. Fuck it. She was doing it. Pulling out the practice sword from her pouch, she wedged it in the creature's armpit and under its chest before pulling down with all her might. She gritted her teeth. She grunted. Groaned. Jumped. Nothing.

"Stupid fucking frog fuckface—" she muttered as she continued to use the sword until cool tendrils wrapped around her wrists. She growled as she pressed down, this time their magic weaving into her body to give her a boost of power, and with one last roar she shifted the body enough to kick the arm out from under it. Panting with exertion, she trotted to the other side, grumbling about frogs too big for their own good. Their voice came quietly again, "I confess, I thought you'd be more surprised."

"About what?" she bit out.

"Our compatibility."

"Compatibility this, compatibility that, you all put way too much thought into it. Compatibility isn't an exact science, it's just coincidence."

"Coincidence?" More firmly, she said, "Coincidence," and jammed the blade back between the creature's arm and body. The tendrils wrapped around her wrists and wordlessly, they gave her their magic again.

"You're hardly my first and you won't be my last."

"… you were compatible with the severed one?" She grunted, moving the arms with effort so it would be an easy slice, hop, slice maneuver before he bled out.

"Yep." Using her short sword with the sharpness enchantment, she took aim, sliced, then hopped over the body. Another slice before then stabbing her blade through its skull to kill it. With a poof of blue smoke, it dropped to the ground as a large feystone as big as both her fists put together. Picking up the severed hands, she drained them of blood by covering them with a bag tied off at the middle finger and tying that off at her belt. A chuckle and a brush of the tendril over the bag on her left hip.

"Cute."

"Fuck off." The chuckles faded back into the dark as she walked around with the wine bottle, picking up other dropped threads with her knife before lowering them into the bottle. Finished, she pocketed it, then trotted out to the light. At the end of the tunnel as the shadow faded to light, she heard muffled yelling that slowed her steps and put her on alert. Creeping forward and hiding behind her cloak, her eyes fell upon a thrashing redcap caught and gagged by some form of shadow spell.

"I won't lie," came Zhadin's uniquely raspy voice.

"I like him better this way." Her lips twitched and she relaxed, turning and trotting out the front of the cave to daylight and leaving the redcap behind. With a whistle to call Mole forward at a lope and without him stopping, she grabbed the loops, easily hopped onto her elk's saddle, and took off for the village.