Grand Game 289: Visitors (Patreon)

“Go away.”

The words were hurled in my mind with such force, I was almost pitched forward and into my foe—the fire lizard had not stopped attacking.

“Easy there,” I said to the other. “I’m a friend of the Pack.”

I hadn’t recognized the speaker’s voice, and my mindsight was empty. Whoever the wolf was, he was intent on hiding himself. Urged to caution, I erected a half-shield of psi around my mind. If nothing else, it would hide my thoughts.

My words drew no verbal response from the wolf, but I sensed him pad closer. Why the anger, and why the games? I wondered.

You have failed to detect a hidden entity!

“Leave, prey!” the unknown wolf snapped again.

My brows drew down. Now, what does that mean?

“Michael?” Terence yelled. It sounded as if he’d been calling me for a while.

Wrenching my attention away from the strange wolf, I focused on the twins and gestured to the half-dead fire lizard still attacking me. “See to this. There is something else I have to deal with.”

“On it,” the twins replied in unison, thankfully not questioning me further.

I glanced over my shoulder and snapped, “Identify yourself!” I had no target for my mental shout, but I had broadcast my sending wide enough that my visitor could not fail to hear, and this time, there had been nothing polite about my tone. I’d flung my words as forcefully back at the wolf as he had his own at me.

The snap of command in my voice gave the interloper pause and I sensed him draw back a moment. “I… am… pack,” he half-whined.

“No, you’re not,” I retorted.

The wolf’s thoughts were shielded, hiding much of his nature—but not everything. His mind felt almost… feral and strangely different from the dire wolves I remembered.

“I AM,” the wolf asserted. “You are not.”

You have detected a hidden entity!

A growl sounded from almost beneath my eyes, this time in the real.

“GO. NOW,” my angry visitor demanded.

My gaze drifted downwards to witness two yellow eyes emerge from the darkness as the wolf stalked forward.

The twins gasped. They, too, had spotted our visitor.

“Dire wolf!” Terence wheezed and began to swing his broadsword around. Teresa’s stance shifted, too, as she tried to keep lizard and wolf in her line of sight.

I didn’t recognize the beast. His fur was torn, scars riddled his muzzle, and three deep claw marks ran down his torso. His eyes were the most disturbing of all. They swam with hate and rage. Barring yellow teeth, the wolf coiled back on his haunches.

He was getting ready to leap.

Damnit. Things were spinning out of control. “STOP!” I roared.

Wolf and twins froze.

Ignoring the trio for a second, I turned back around and plunged my shortswords downward.

You have killed a level 61 fire lizard.

Retracting the bloody blades, I slapped the trigger in my pocket.

You have activated a trap. Twelve fire lizards have been frozen for 5 seconds.

“Lower your swords,” I ordered the twins. “He’s not a threat.” Sheathing my own blades, I advanced on the interloper. The wolf bared his teeth again, but I could see he was struggling not to shrink away.

My own anger was mounting. I was unhappy with the unknown beast, not just because of his ludicrous demands but for revealing himself. How was I going to explain his appearance to the twins?

“Follow,” I demanded peremptorily to all three as I brushed past the wolf. My trap would not hold the fire lizards for long.

“I do not answer to you,” he said defiantly, sounding sane for once. We were about the same height, but my visitor’s size did not daunt me. Despite his denials, I knew he recognized me and, more importantly, the Wolf Mark I bore.

“I will not ask again,” I growled. “Follow.”

The strange wolf did not respond, but I sensed him swing around, however unwillingly, and stalk in my wake. The twins came behind him, their unease at the looming wolf between us plain to see.

I didn’t have time to reassure them, though. There were still the fire lizards to attend to. Spinning psi, I flung a casting at the creatures who were beginning to thaw.

You have charmed 10 of 10 targets for 20 seconds.

Reaching into the minds of my minions, I sent them into battle against the rest of the lair. I wouldn’t have bothered, but we needed time to exit the tunnel and escape the nest’s awareness.

Chaos erupted as the fire lizards turned on one another, jaws snapping and tails swishing. Both twins spun around at the sound.

“Leave it,” I ordered. “I’ve bought us more time. Now, let’s get out of here.”

Saying no more, I led our odd party out of the lair.

✵ ✵ ✵

The moment I stepped back onto the mountainside, I spun around to confront the wolf. “Your name,” I demanded.

“Cantur,” he answered reluctantly.

I nodded. We were finally getting somewhere. “Where is Duggar?”

At the mention of the dire wolf alpha’s name, a whine of unease escaped the beast. Saying nothing, he crouched submissively.

Mute witnesses, the twins watched on. They surely found all of this more than passing strange, but I had little attention to spare them and would have to deal with the fallout later.

“Don’t you recognize me?” I asked, looming over the wolf. “Don’t you recognize my Mark?”

“Y-y-ess,” he whispered.

“Then why?” I growled harshly. “Why the threats and cryptic demands?”

The beast hung his head, and I sensed shame and fear, but only a heartbeat later, both were washed away by rage.

“You human. Player. Not true wolf. Player hurt wolves.” Hate blossomed in Cantur’s mind so thick I could taste it. “I kill player. You danger.”

I stared at the wolf in shock. “I’m not—”

More mindglows brightened in my awareness. Breaking off, I whipped around. We were about to have more visitors.

A second wolf stepped into sight. Then a third and a fourth.

Nervously, the twins edged back toward the lair. Glancing at them, I shook my head, and they stopped their retreat. I didn’t recognize two of the newcomers. But the last, I knew.

It was Oursk.

✵ ✵ ✵

Mutely, I watched Aira’s mate approach.

He was in nearly as bad a state as Cantur, and my mind flashed back to when I’d first found him and his family in the clutches of the Fangtooths.

Some disaster has befallen the pack, I thought.

It was the only explanation that made sense. My gaze drifted to the other two wolves. They were smaller than Oursk and Cantur, but they were just as thin, the lines of their ribs visible beneath skin that hung loose.

They’re starving.

Oursk remained silent as he drew nearer, and my apprehension grew that he, too, would be filled with the same hate I sensed in Cantur.

“Oursk …?” I began, then stopped, unable to go on as he halted before me.

“Michael,” the dire wolf greeted, his mindvoice weary but otherwise no different from the wolf I remembered.

I exhaled in relief. Whatever was going on, I still had friends amongst the pack. “It is good to see you.”

“I wish I could say the same,” Oursk replied sadly.

His response put me on edge again. “What has happened?”

“Too much,” Oursk said, hanging his head. “I will tell you all later, but for now, I must ask—”

“Food,” one of Oursk’s companions interjected. His snout raised, the wolf was tasting the air wafting out of the tunnel.

Oursk’s own nose wrinkled, and I could tell he also smelled the lizards’ spilled blood, but despite his quite obvious hunger, the big dire wolf turned away from the cave mouth. “Not now,” he said, addressing the speaker. “Later. First, we deliver him.”

Deliver?

The other wolf licked his muzzle. “Food. Now,” he insisted.

“This is not the time, pup,” Oursk growled. “Nor are we scavengers. The kills are the scion’s.”

“It’s alright,” I said, stepping in. “Go on. Eat your fill. Then we talk.”

Oursk glanced at me, visibly torn. Not so the two unknown wolves. As one, the pair rushed into the cave.

Cantur padded forward and nudged me. “Leave,” he growled insistently. “You go. Now.”

I glanced at the scarred wolf, realizing something was not quite right with him. “What’s happened to him?”

“He is mad,” Oursk said bluntly. “His mind could not survive the suffering it endured and broke.”

“Why is he out here, then? Shouldn’t he be safe with the rest of the pack?”

“Safe?” Oursk repeated hollowly. “There is nowhere safe anymore.” Before I could ask what he meant, Oursk turned towards the cave mouth. “You will wait?”

I nodded. “Of course. Go.”

“Come, Cantur. We eat,” Oursk said, and the two wolves streaked after their pack mates, leaving me alone with the twins, both of whom were staring expectantly at me.

I sighed. “I guess it’s time we spoke.”

They nodded vigorously. “Talk about strange,” Terence murmured, staring in fascination at the cave mouth into which the wolves had disappeared.

“Talk is right. You were speaking to them, weren’t you?” Even though Teresa had voiced her deduction as a question, there was no hint of doubt in her tone.

“I was,” I said, not dissembling. The twins had already seen too much for me to obscure the truth entirely. “What do you know about dire wolves?”

“Not much,” Terence said. “Only that they are big.” He paused. “And scary.”

My lips twitched. “That they are. They are also sentient and natural telepaths.”

“And you’re a psionic, which is why you can speak to them,” Teresa concluded. “Mind-to-mind.”

“Not quite. Early in the Game, after completing a task to help a family of dire wolves, I earned the beast tongue trait. It’s the trait that lets me converse with them, not my telepathy skill.”

The pair exchanged glances.

“What is it?” I asked, noticing their sidelong looks.

Terence shifted. “It’s only… we’ve got a quest to help the pack.”

“The pack? You mean the dire wolves?”

He nodded.

“When did you receive it?” I asked sharply. “And from whom?”

Teresa frowned. “What do you mean from whom? The Adjudicator, of course. As for when: only just now.”

I relaxed, but only slightly. Why had the pair received the task but not me? “What is your task called? And what are the objectives?”

“It’s titled, ‘Aid the Pack,’” Terence said, his gaze turning inwards as he read aloud from the Adjudicator’s message. “And it requires us to help feed the dire wolves.”

“I see,” I said. ‘Aid the Pack’ was the exact name of the task I’d received after meeting Duggar, even if my own objectives had been different.

“Does that mean we will also receive the beast tongue trait after completing our quest?” Teresa asked, looking enthused at the idea.

I began to shake my head, then shrugged. “Who knows? That’s up to the Adjudicator.”

Terence was staring in the direction of the lair again. “Where did the wolves go?”

I looked at him. “To eat.”

He frowned, then brightened as realization dawned. “Does that mean our quest will be finished soon?”

I smiled. “Probably not. The pack consists of more than those wolves, you know. If you’re going to complete the task, I suspect you will have to work much harder.”

“Oh,” Terence said, deflating. “So, what now?”

I shrugged again. “Those four came here for a reason, and they’ll tell us about it once they’re done. In the meantime, we wait.” Retrieving a bag from my backpack, I threw it at Terence. “Or at least, I do.”

You have lost a small bag of holding.

Teresa looked at the item in her brother’s hands. “What’s that for?”

“Well, if you two intend on completing your task, you best get started.”

They stared at me blankly.

I rolled my eyes. “There is no way four wolves—however hungry—are going to eat through fifteen dead lizards. Take your knives to the corpses, strip the carcasses of everything edible, and store it in the bag. I’m sure the rest of the pack will appreciate your efforts.”

“You want us to go in there?” Terence asked. “Alone?”

“It’s your task,” I pointed out. Sitting down and pretending at a calm I didn’t feel, I closed my eyes.

For a minute, the twins didn’t move, then their desire to advance their task overcame their fear of the wolves, and they rushed into the tunnel.

I smiled. Oursk knew the twins were with me, and he would see that they came to no harm. Only a moment later, though, my smile died as I recalled the words that had been troubling me ever since Oursk had uttered them.

The dire wolf had said ‘deliver him,’ and by ‘him,’ I was sure he’d meant me. It was a strange choice of words and worried me on more levels than one.

I was certain Oursk and his fellows had not happened upon the lizard lair by accident. They’d been sent to find me. But it was not how they had located me that bothered me. It was who had sent them that had me wondering.

The circumstances seemed… suspicious.

I sighed. But no matter how questionable matters appeared, Oursk was Pack, and I trusted the Pack. Reining in my misgivings, I resolved to hear what the dire wolf had to say.