119: Predator And Prey (Patreon)

“I told you to be careful!” Haymi chided as she applied a Treat Minor Burn orb. While it was a B Grade Life orb, it still wasn’t capable of completely healing Vir’s acid wounds, which had eaten deep into his flesh. But a deluge of water along with her Heal Skin orb neutralized the acid, allowing Haymi to patch up Vir’s bicep up.

Neel looked on with worry.

“You’ll have to wait for your body to do the rest,” she said. “I could’ve healed you fully if I’d been present when you received your wound, but the acid had continued to spread.”

“Thanks. I don’t know what I’d have done without your magic. Is, uh… do you know of any non-magical ways of healing, Haymi?” Vir asked.

“All Life mejai carry salves, balms, and alcohol with them, but there is a limit to what herbal remedies can do. Against such a strong acid… I’m afraid there would have been little to be done other than waiting for it to dissipate naturally.”

That was about what Vir had figured. But what Haymi said next came as a surprise.

“The Pagan Order might have something to treat acid, though. Their non-magical medicine is said to be the most advanced in the Known World, but that isn’t saying much. Magic can do things the Order could never dream of.”

Makes sense, I guess. When you’re forced to live without magic, you’d come up with alternatives.

Vir wondered what life was like in the Voidlands. He supposed he’d find out soon enough.

“So?” asked Tia. She’d been walking around the camp with a furrowed brow ever since Vir returned. “Was your foray worth putting yourself in such jeopardy?”

Vir cracked a grin. “Actually, it was.”

He proceeded to tell them all he’d learned, and though initially Spear’s Edge remained skeptical, they grew more and more impressed with each tidbit he divulged.

“You learned all that in just two hours?” Vason asked. “What Talent do you have and how can I get it?”

“The Talent helped, but I was mainly moving around on the treetops.”

“Wait. You jumped from branch to branch?” Tia asked. The others wore the same shocked expression as her.

“I have my reasons, but yeah.”

“Uh, Apramor? You do realize that’s not a normal thing, right?” Vason said with an awkward expression.

“Most people can’t run on trees,” Haymi added.

“That’s, uh… I’ve had a lot of practice,” Vir replied sheepishly. “Anyway, what’s important now is that we come up with a plan. And I think I have just the thing.”

“Oh? We’re all ears.”

Vir took a deep breath and began. “First, the scouts. As we saw earlier, they’re not that hard to take down, but they have excellent senses. They find food for the Brood Matron. Then the Hunter-Gatherers move in. Tia was right. They’re tough. Venom, hard armor, and sharp pincers.”

“Balar Rank?” asked Tia.

“I actually fought one, which is what caused my wounds. I bested it, but I’d say around thirty to forty. Hard to say, but they’re strong, and they always move in packs of six or more.”

“That’s going to be troublesome.”

“What about the workers?” Vason asked. “Anything we need to worry about?”

Vir shook his head. “Not that I can tell. They don’t seem to have any offensive abilities at all. It’s the Matron herself we need to worry about. She’s like a bigger hunter-gatherer. I didn’t feel safe fighting her—”

“As you well should!” Tia said. “You’re telling me you saw her?”

“I did,” Vir replied, nodding. “From afar. The thing is… I think she can move. And I think she’s powerful. Probably much stronger than her hunter-gatherers.”

“That’s bad news,” Vason said, his expression grim. “If these hunter-gatherers are as strong as you make them out to be, we’ll have our hands full just dealing with them.”

“Not to mention the scouts,” Tia added. “If they pile on… And if the Matron piles on…”

“We won’t stand a chance,” Vir completed. “Which is why I think we should target her scouts and workers first.”

“The scouts I understand,” Vason said. “But why the workers? Aren’t they harmless?”

“If we kill her scouts, the hunters can’t kill prey, and so the workers can’t bring them back. But with enough workers, I figure the Matron could use them as substitute scouts. As long as the Matron’s receiving nourishment, she can create more offspring.”

“You hope to starve out her brood,” Haymi said. She’d been silent until now, but she’d heard every word. “Not a bad plan.”

“Thanks.” Vir looked at each of them in turn. “If we can isolate the hunters and pick them off one by one, we can eventually whittle down the Matron’s Brood. I doubt we’ll ever kill all of them off, but if we can get the Matron down to just her and a few guards, we might stand a chance.”

“I like it,” Tia replied. “Let’s do it!”

— —

They each took turns guarding the base overnight. Vason was the happiest about having Vir onboard; with four people, each watch was shorter, making the burden lighter for everyone.

Prana Vision allowed Vir an unfair advantage when it came to guard duty. Despite the night—or rather because of it; the contrast against the darkness highlighted prana signatures better than during the day—Vir could see threats well beyond what the others could.

Only one threat came nearby during his watch, which was the last of the night. Just as dawn broke, he noticed a team of workers amble nearby. The thought crossed his mind to Dance out there and kill them, but he ultimately decided against it. Not only would killing off workers alert the matron, causing her to send forces to investigate, but it also went against their plan.

After a full hour of getting a sleepy Tia awake and food in their bellies, they set out.

With Vir in the lead, they headed due south—to the same vicinity he’d taken out the hunter-gatherer last night. By raiding locations in this region of the forest, they would make the Matron believe their base lay to the south, rather than the north.

A task that was easier said than done; none of the other party members could vault across branches like Vir could, so the going was arduous and slow.

Vir passed several groups of hunter-gatherers and workers, forcing the party to detour around them.

“Seriously, though, I don’t know how we’d do this without you. We’d have walked headlong into the enemy several times by now,” Tia said, wiping sweat off her brow. Vir had been careful to expend as little energy as possible to avoid that problem. It helped that his new, improved makeup was more resilient than before, but hard exertion would still cause it to run.

“We’d likely have aborted this contract,” Haymi said in agreement. “Having someone specialized in detection is invaluable.”

“I’m sure there are a bunch of others with similar abilities,” Vir lied, scratching his neck. “Just takes practice, is all.”

“Uh, huh,” Vason said, his doubt plainly clear.

Vir cleared his throat. “So, it looks like there’s a group of scouts up ahead. We’ll go with the strategy we talked about—incapacitate, then kill. Haymi? You’re up.”

Tia smirked. “We’ll make a leader out of you yet, Apramor!”

“S-sorry,” Vir said, immediately realizing what he’d just done. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine! I’m ostensibly the leader of Spear’s Edge, but I want us all to be leaders. Just means we have a stronger party that way. Haymi? If you will…”

The group sneaked to within thirty paces of the scout group, guided by Vir, using hand signals he’d practiced while Haymi was convalescing. Thirty paces was the minimum distance Vir was comfortable pushing. While he’d gotten closer to them before, it seemed like scout squads could link their senses together—or perhaps they merely communicated with each other. Their  sensory range was more robust than the rare smaller groups he’d encountered.

Haymi retrieved her C Grade Splash spell and held it in her left hand. Splash could hardly be considered a combat spell, but it used as much prana as other C Grade orbs, so it lay in the same category. More a utility spell, it shot a stream of water in a spread. Useful for creating drinking water out of thin air… and for annoying people.

In her right mejai aiming bracer, she’d already slotted a C Grade Arc spell. For this engagement, she wore Life and Water orbs on slotted pauldrons and greaves besides her bracer, but Lightning spells demanded pinpoint accuracy—it was nearly impossible to use them without an aiming device.

Incidentally, Haymi’s aiming bracer was unlike those he’d seen Tanya and Maiya wear. Hers had two slots, allowing the mejai to slot two C grade orbs in the palm of their hand, or optionally, one larger B grade orb instead. Right now, Haymi had two Arcs, both pre-charged.

Must be nice… Vir thought, longing to shoot one spell after another in rapid succession. Mejai really are impressive.

“Wait for my mark, then go,” Vir whispered, nodding to Vason and Tia. Each of them snuck off in different directions into the brush.

Vir’s strategy relied on his enemies’ senses. Scouts were first and foremost information collectors. When faced with a threat, they fled more often than they fought.

When Vir approached, the spread-out scouts immediately moved away… before immediately stopping.

Neel and Vason waited sixty paces away, on the other side of the squad.

They then moved left, but found Tia. Haymi was on the right.

Boxed in, the scouts clustered together for safety, pressing their gelatinous forms against each other, pincers all pointed out.

“Now!” Vir shouted.

Haymi charged forth, holding out her Splash orb in her left hand, and firing it high into the air.

A stream of water sprayed out, hurling in an arc to their foes. Even before her first spell had doused the scouts, she retrieved another precharged Splash and fired it, sending more water at their enemy.

When the two spells hit, not only were the scouts completely covered in water, but the surrounding ground became wet as well.

Thunder cracked at that very instant, but Haymi’s aim was not the scouts themselves. She had only two spells precharged, and there were six of them. Leveraging the tactic she used in their previous encounter, she forest at the ground next to their foes. Except this time, she fired both Arcs simultaneously.

Bunched up as they were, they made for the perfect target. The entire squad writhed as Lightning magic coursed through their bodies.

Spear’s Edge did not waste the opportunity. Vir Leaped into the nearest foe. His seric blade was so sharp, he didn’t even need Empower. The beautiful katar sank into the enemy’s gelatinous torso as if it was water. Haymi’s slotted Arc spell only heightened the scout’s spasms, and Prana Blade did the rest. As before, the scout exploded into nothingness.

Tia took a similar approach, opting to wreathe her blade with Fire prana. Magic orbs didn’t quite imbue their physical effects when slotted in such a manner; only their prana. Tia’s blade was augmented with Ember, but without Prana Vision, Vir wouldn’t have known. Just that when her blade ripped through enemies, it did so with a deadliness akin to Vir’s own Prana Blade.

Realization dawned upon him in that instant. Prana Blade and orb augmentation were identical. Most Talent wielders used Earth or Shadow affinity to wreathe their blades, while mejai used one of the five known affinities. Vir, on the other hand, used Ash prana. Owing to its natural potency, he figured his Ash Prana Blade was superior to the normal kind, but he’d have to do some tests to be sure.

Tia’s scout similarly exploded, while Vason took a different approach. He understood that these scouts couldn’t be cut… so he didn’t even use his word. He simply Leaped at his enemy with his tower shield, smashing it with the full force of his body.

Crushed under the impact, the blob similarly exploded and failed to reconstitute.

“Guess that’s one way to do it,” Vir said with a smirk as he dispatched his second foe.

Neel did what he could, distracting the enemies and biting into them, but he was unable to land a fatal blow on his own. Even so, he bought time for Vason and Tia to finish off the rest in no time, annihilating the squad.

A rush of adrenaline coursed through Vir. They’d perfectly ambushed their prey and had executed a flawless victory. What would’ve been arduous for him alone became trivially easy with a party. More than that, it felt good to share the victory with friends.

Friends, huh? Vir didn’t know when he started thinking of Tia and her crew that way. Yes, they disliked demons, but even so. They were good people. They’d done right by him, and he got along with them nearly as well as he did with Maiya.

Maybe I’ll stay on just a bit longer…