Chapter 121 - Dashed Expectations (Patreon)

Abby peeked out from behind a boulder, taking in the scene before her. Laid out at the base of the mountain was a crude village, comprised of wooden huts, communal campfires, and a few crude totems that were clearly meant to depict majestic thunderbirds. Whoever the artists had been had clearly failed on that count, because to Abby, they looked like nothing so much as wooden carvings of roosters. Throughout the village ranged gnolls of various levels and labels. Some were simple Gnoll Workers, while others were Gnoll Hunters. Still others were named Gnoll Craftsmen. And finally, there were the elite Gnoll Centurions, who were all clad in various pieces of leather armor and armed with flint-bladed axes.

And then there were the Gnoll Pups running around, sometimes on all fours, chasing one another and playing various canine games. Abby even saw a few nursing mothers, which made her plan of infiltrating and defeating the gnolls’ forces even less palatable than usual. She wasn’t like Zeke, who could see them as the monsters the Framework had categorized them as. She would kill if necessary, but the notion of massacring and entire village was enough to twist her stomach into knots. Even if it was necessary, she wasn’t sure she could do it. Not without being forced into it.

And that left her in something of a conundrum. On the one hand, the information she’d gotten back in Beacon clearly pointed her to this specific mountain, which was easily identifiable by its jagged peak and sheer sides. And her path to finding and completing the quest which would grant her more power ran directly through the gnoll village. So, given that she’d already come too far to turn back, she only really had two choices. One, she could fight her way through the gnoll village, slaughtering anything that got in her way. Down that road lay probable death, because she knew she wasn’t capable of killing so many. She’d struggled with a small hunting party; what chance would she have against the village’s entire might? And that wasn’t even considering what success might do to her psyche. She was not equipped to deal with that.

Her other option was to somehow sneak around. The village was situated at the base of the mountain, guarding the lone pass to the top, which consisted of roughly hewn stairs that led toward the peek. Periodically, the gnolls would climb those stairs, usually carrying the corpse of some small animal, only to return hours later, empty handed. Abby was no expert on gnoll mannerisms, but she thought the hunters who descended those steps carried themselves with a little more pride after their task had been completed.

The whole situation screamed at Abby what she was supposed to do. Even without the information she’d acquired in Beacon, she would’ve known that something important was perched upon the mountain’s irregular peak. And given what she knew, it wasn’t difficult to surmise that it was her quarry, the majestic and elusive thunderbird.

But if she couldn’t make her way through the gnoll village, she would never know for sure. More, if that proved to be the case, did she even deserve to confront something as legendarily powerful as a thunderbird? It wasn’t quite on the wurm’s level, in terms of its place on the food chain, but it wasn’t that far behind, either. And Abby suspected that a lot of that was due to the fact that it was nestled within the uninhabited wilds of the north, as opposed to abutting civilization on the boundaries of the Red Wastes, like the wurms they would eventually have to hunt.

Regardless, the idea of fighting a thunderbird alone was the height of stupidity. Not for the first time, Abby considered turning back in defeat. No one would blame her. Zeke certainly wouldn’t. But if she turned back, she knew it would signal their eventual parting. Perhaps it wouldn’t happen soon, but at some point, she simply wouldn’t be able to keep up. Then, she’d be alone. Again. And while that wasn’t as horrible a prospect as it would have been back on Earth, she just wasn’t built for solitude.

Inevitably, Abby’s thoughts drifted back to her old life, the one she’d tried so hard to forget. Her story wasn’t all that unique. Even back then, enough of her friends and acquaintances had found themselves mired in bad marriages to horrible men that Abby recognized it as commonplace. But it hits differently when it happens to you, as opposed to simply hearing about it. Such was the case with her relationship with her husband.

At first, he’d been a perfect gentleman. Handsome, successful, and kind, he seemed a great catch. Even after marriage, it had been like something out of a fairy tale. However, as pressure at his job increased, his edges became frayed, and eventually, he came apart at the seams. The first time he hit her, he’d been so apologetic. He’d offered to get counseling.  He had even followed through. And Abby had fallen for it.

The second time, he’d blamed the alcohol. But the third? That was when he blamed Abby. She’d pushed him to it. She had brought out the worst in him, pushing him to drink, to drug abuse. And she had accepted it. Even as a trained therapist, she was no less subject to self-loathing and excuses. She had tried to do better, rectifying any flaws he cited. Looking back, she could see the pattern. She knew that those “flaws” were merely excuses for his terribly actions. But at the time, she could only think of regaining that briefly perfect marriage.

It had lasted almost a decade, that cycle of abuse. On more than one occasion, she’d tried to escape. She had even lived with her best friend, Betsy, for a few weeks. But at the end of the day, she’d always gone back to her husband. And that pattern had persisted right up until the moment she had died, arguing with her drunken and raging husband even as he lost control of the car and wrapped it around a telephone pole. She’d been forty-one years old, ten years of which had been wasted with an abusive alcoholic who didn’t deserve her.

Since her death, Abby had tried to live a different sort of life – one of self-reliance and competence. She had had various companions along the way, but they were, one and all, her followers. Through it all, she’d been the strong one, the leader. And she needed to prove to herself that she belonged in her current party, lest she end up dragging them all down to her level.

Pushing those thoughts aside, she focused on the task before her. She wouldn’t abandon the opportunity, regardless how steeply the odds were stacked against her. Perhaps she would die. Maybe she would fail. But it wouldn’t be because she was too frightened to even try. Down that road lay weakness, and she refused to surrender that horrible state again. Not after what she’d already been through in her old life.

But that didn’t change the fact that she was faced with an uphill climb, both literally and figuratively. Fighting wasn’t really an option, she knew. Zeke could’ve handled it, probably. But he was built differently than most people – well, than anyone, Abby thought – so trying to do things his way was out of the question. Her lips quirked up in a small smile as she imagined him charging into the village, his club held high as the gnolls tried, unsuccessfully, to counter his charge.

Things might’ve been a lot easier if she’d gone that route with her development, but she wasn’t envious. As indestructible as Zeke sometimes seemed, she knew he felt every single wound inflicted upon him, regardless of how quickly his [Leech Strike] skill healed him with its injection of stolen vitality. As much as she sometimes wished she could do some of the things he did, she wouldn’t have put herself in that sort of situation for anything. It was effective, but it came with a significant cost – just like any power.

The problem was that it was so easy to lean on Zeke’s strength. What use is a plan if he can just charge in, swing his club a few times, and poof, problem solved? But Abby had survived and thrived in the Radiant Isles for years before Zeke had even been reborn. She only needed to regain that edge and remember that there was always more than one way around any given problem.

To that end, she watched. After climbing a likely tree, she settled in to observe the village’s goings-on. And it wasn’t until night had fallen that she an opportunity presented itself. The gnolls were diurnal creatures, it seemed, which meant that they were most active during the day, usually reserving the nighttime hours for rest. There were exceptions, of course. A handful of Gnoll Centurions patrolled the sprawling village, and a few hunters ranged the outskirts as well. Abby found that it wasn’t difficult to avoid the hunters, so long as she retained her perch among the branches.

Of course, the gnolls, harnessing their canine nature, knew something was amiss, if only from her scent. However, Abby had spent enough time in the wilderness that she didn’t think her scent really stood out from the rest of the forest’s denizens. Or maybe it was too old. Either way, they didn’t detect her.

Slowly, as the night wore on, Abby noted the patterns of the patrols, developing a likely path through the village. It wouldn’t be easy, but if she was careful, and there were no deviations among the gnolls’ paths, she felt confident that she could manage it. So, around midnight, with a gibbous moon hanging high in the starry sky, Abby descended from her perch and crept toward the village.

Her heart hammered out of her chest as she approached the crude palisade, which had been constructed of rough-hewn, wooden logs. It was only fifteen-feet high, but even that would prove a difficult obstacle to overcome. Luckily, Abby had come prepared, and she fished a pair of gloves out of her satchel. Using [Keen Eye], she inspected them:

Gloves of Nefarious Pursuits [H] – These gloves are popular among thieves. Constructed by a mid-tier leatherworker from the viscous hide of a Creeping Slug, they cling to almost any surface when activated.

Abby handled the gloves with care, lest they get tangled in her fingers. The gloves only had one use, and the duration of their usefulness was extremely limited. In Beacon, the mere possession of such an item was enough to draw the ire of the authorities, if for no other reason than because gloves of their like were popular among the various thieving gangs. One, in particularly, had built their entire reputation around them, dubbing themselves The Sticky Finger Gang. Once, when Abby had asked one of the members if the double meaning was intentional, she’d only gotten a blank stare in return. Clearly, they weren’t known for their intelligence.

Whatever the case, Abby slipped the lime-green gloves over her hands, then injected a bit of mana. The items latched onto that thin tendril and wrested it away from her, drinking far more mana than Abby expected. She almost let out a gasp before she remembered where she was. Immediately, the surface of the gloves began to secrete a viscous, sticky gel-like fluid that reminded Abby of nothing so much as phlegm. However, after reaching up and placing her hand on the crude wall, she couldn’t deny that it was effective. Even one hand could support her weight, and it took a small application of her strength to rip it free. Whatever the case, she’d found her way up, and she dragged herself up and over the palisade, cutting off the feed of mana as she dropped to the ground on the other side.

There were no numbers associated with her pool of available mana, but she had an innate sense of how much was left. And Abby was surprised to see that nearly half of her entire mana had been used to power even that short climb. If she’d taken any longer, she wouldn’t have had any left; she shuddered to think about running out mid-climb; clearly, the mortality rate of thieves wasn’t all due to the guards’ intervention.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Abby crept forward. She’d climbed over the wall in a predetermined spot that would provide plenty of cover, but only for a few more minutes. The centurions would soon patrol nearby, and she didn’t trust the shadows to hide her from whatever enhanced visual acuity might allow them to see in the dark. The village sported far too few torches for her to think that they couldn’t see into the shadows.

So, Abby ghosted along her preordained path, dodging between the crude huts and around the various patrols. She had a few close calls, but none of them were made her clench quite as hard as she did when, waiting in an alley, she saw a level twenty-three centurion sniff the air in her direction. She was hidden behind a pile of discarded detritus, but when the gnoll’s head turned toward her, her heart very nearly stopped, and it didn’t restart again until one of the centurions’ companions grunted something at it, then smacked it across the shoulder. The observant gnoll responded by growling some guttural response, then launching itself at its offending companion. What followed was a short, brutal fight that showed Abby just how slim of a chance she’d have of surviving if it came to a fight. After a brief tussle, the first gnoll had completely ripped the other monster’s throat out with its teeth.

Abby swallowed hard as the victorious gnoll puffed its chest out and glared at the other three patrolling centurions in challenge. None met its gaze, and whatever had caught its attention was completely forgotten as they continued along, leaving the fallen monster where it lay. A minute or two later, when Abby was just about to continue along her way, a few scraggly gnoll pups ran into the area and began feasting on the dead centurion. Abby almost vomited, she was so disgusted by the ferocity with which they attacked their free meal. If she’d ever wondered about their monstrous nature, that scene reaffirmed their status in a way no Framework designation ever could. When the pups had finished their gruesome meal, there was nothing left but some tattered scraps of armor.

More importantly, Abby’s way was clear. After a few more tense minutes, she found herself upon the path to the mountain’s peak.  With determination in her steps, Abby began to climb, secure in the knowledge that the gnolls didn’t traverse the path at night. Her way was clear, her first obstacle overcome. And she hadn’t had to kill a single thing. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come.