Log inOf Fates And Fetters Ch 8
Good checks clock dammit! Missed it by a literal minute!
Good afternoon y'all, hope you are having a good weekend. I come with chapter!
Not gonna lie, I had a big grin on my face while writing this one, so I hope it's as enjoyable to read as I found to write it.
As a side note, I realized just now that I forgot to put the second epilogue of Saving Yourself to the $5 tier two weeks ago and only changed it now and boy is that embarrassing. WHY DO I DO THINGS!?
But enough about that.
Lemme know your thoughts in a comment.
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“I spy with my little eye, something that starts with ‘M’.” I said in an obnoxiously sing-song voice.
“Is it moss?” Shana asked tiredly.
“Yup! Your turn!”
She sighed and spoke in a deadpan. “I spy with my little eye something that starts with ‘W’.”
“Oh boy! Is it a Wafer?” I asked.
“No.” Shana answered.
“Is it a Wagon?”
“No.”
“It must be a Wolf!”
“No.”
“Is it a—?”
“Water!” She snapped. “It’s water!”
“Wow Shana, way to ruin the fun.” I said in mock hurt. “Just, put the fun in camps why dontcha?”
“Dart, there are only three things to be found here, water, rocks, and moss!” Shana grumbled.
“There’s also stalactites and stalagmites.” I countered.
“Those are rocks!”
“…Shit you’re right. But I wanna say you’re not. Lavitz, back me up.” I said, turning to the spearman.
“While their shape is unique enough to require their own denomination.” Lavitz said evenly. “They are indeed made of stone.”
“Et tu, Lavitz?” I asked melodramatically.
“How much longer are we going to be in this cave?” Shana wailed. “It’s been hours!”
“Shana, we’ve been traveling for days, a few hours won’t hurt you.” I said reasonably.
“But that was aboveground! And we didn’t have oozes and plague bags to worry about!” She insisted.
“The plague bag wasn’t so bad.” Lavitz said.
“I can still taste it on the back of my throat!” Shana whined. “I shot it from over fifty feet away! How could I taste it from that far away!? It’s awful!”
“Just be happy you didn’t have to stab it.” I said solemnly. “I had to burn that entire set of clothing and bury the armor. I also got sick, which was definitely sub-par.”
Lavitz snorted. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else who would refer to being poisoned by a plague bag as ‘sub-par.’”
“Yeah, I’m awesome like that.” I said haughtily. “Anyways, I spy with my little eye something that starts wi—oh shit, Rock Fireflies!”
Lavitz huffed a laugh and trotted after me, stopping next to me. “A sight for sore eyes.”
Shana walked more sedately and stopped, keeping me between the lazily flying swarm of gently glowing insects and herself.
“Shit man.” I said, squinting and trying to follow an individual bug in the swarm. They reacted as they always did and began flying more chaotically so that I quickly lost track of it. “Whoda thunk we’d find them here.”
“Indeed, I’ll take them as an omen of good fortune.” Lavitz said, throwing a lazy salute at the insects.
“Uhh…guys?” Shana asked, still keeping her distance. “Would anyone mind filling me in?”
Lavitz and I shared a look. He nodded and I grinned. “Sure thing!”
I stepped forward and waved a hand through the lazy swarm, agitating them and making them buzz as their glow intensified.
Shana squeaked and closed her eyes as their glow became momentarily blinding, she then opened them and stopped hunching in on herself, examining her arms and legs. “I…I feel refreshed?”
“Yup.” I said as I worked my shoulders, basking in the sudden lack of aches and pains, my chest no longer feeling like a singular bruise and my arm no longer trembling when I held it out in front of me.
“Rock Fireflies have healing properties.” Lavitz explained. “They have saved my life plenty of times on campaign.”
“A swarm of these good boys have influenced the outcomes of entire wars.” I said to Shana. “People are still trying to figure out how to raise them in captivity, but nobody’s figured out how, if you capture them they stop healing and soon after die.”
“There is a legend of a singular knight who held a narrow pass against an army on his own for five days and nights.” Lavitz said, rolling his massive shoulders. “Its validity is hotly debated because the legend specifically states that he fought with a swarm of Rock Fireflies at his back.”
Shana made a humming sound, peering closer at the magical healing bugs. “Are they related to healing potions?”
I shuddered. “I hope not. If it turns out I’ve been drinking crushed good-boy goo I’d feel really guilty.”
“I have heard they’re considered a delicacy in Tiberoa.” Lavitz said with some trepidation in his voice.
“Ew.” I said.
“Ew.” Shana agreed.
“While I agree, every account I’ve read on the subject assures they are quite delicious and filling.” Lavitz insisted. “Though I do not think I’d be able to bring myself to eat one, I owe them my life too many times over.”
I dropped a bit of cheese on the ground as thanks for the treatment, and we left the good-boy swarm behind to enjoy their treat.
I made certain we walked around puddles on the stone floor, I wouldn’t want to be surprised by one of those being deeper than it would look at first and possibly drowning, or worse, getting all my stuff wet.
Shana got to test her accuracy on three more oozes, one of which she killed on her first shot, leaving it stuck to the ceiling. The other two dropped into a puddle and seemingly disappeared, the only way we were able to keep track of them being the arrow Shana had stuck in them, reinforcing my decision not to step on any puddles.
We stepped past another suspiciously door-like opening into another massive ‘natural’ cavern, the ceiling held up by a ‘natural’ utterly gargantuan pillar of stone in the center.
I’m not saying it’s absolutely 100% artificial, but goddammit, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it may just be a platypus.
Were platypuses even a thing here?
…Platipi?
“I believe we are near the exit of the cave network.” Lavitz said, looking around the cavern. “The reports I read spoke of an open space much like this one, though they definitely did not do justice to it in the description given.”
I shook my head to rid it of my dumbass thoughts. “Okay good. After we leave here, how much further before we get to Basil?”
“I’m uncertain, I’ve only ever traveled as part of my Knighthood.” Lavitz said. “We have made significantly faster progress than I am used to. Three days? Maybe four?”
“Oh goodie.” I said, popping my neck. “I’d like to sleep on an actual bed for once.”
“A bath.” Shana said, sniffing her arm. “A long, warm bath. I bet I’ll turn the water black with how dirty I am.”
“We have been keeping ourselves clean.” I countered.
“Cleaning myself with a rag is not the same, Dart.” Shana said with a sniff.
“Everyone’s a criti—” I heard a hiss of stone dust falling, my body threw itself back, slamming into Shana and Lavitz and forcing them back. A blob of rank smelling yellow-green liquid struck the ground we’d been standing on a few seconds before, the stone hissed and the liquid bubbled, quickly turning a muddy brown.
Out from some hole hidden by the central column, slithered a titanic serpentine creature, its body covered in brown and white scales, its bulbous head lacking in features beyond a large maw with serrated teeth and two huge fangs, a proportionately small and thin forked tongue slithering out and tasting the air. Its head rose into the air as it reared back, two sets of complex branching horns adorned the sides of its head, extruding from where I would have expected to see a pair of eyes.
I shifted my weight, the horns vibrated, and its large head zeroed in on me.
There was only one thing to do.
“Why do we even have the square-cube law!?” I shouted as I ran forward, drawing my sword. By the heavy footfalls I could hear Lavitz was doing the same, only without complaining.
Which was a shame really, bitching is a man’s god-given right.
“Dart!” Shana shouted.
“Be quiet and fill it with arrows!” I shouted back. “It tracks scent and noise!”
The snake shifted its weight. I stopped and brought my sword forward, its man-sized bulbous forehead slamming into the edge of my sword, halting me on my tracks and pushing me backwards ten feet, the impact nearly collapsing my arms, its teeth clanging shut in a failed attempt to bite me.
Lavitz slammed into its side, spear point leading. The thud of the impact causing a small ripple on the muscular flesh of the giant snake, but failing to penetrate past its scales.
The snake coiled, its horn striking me on the side, knocking the air out of my lungs and flinging me like a rag doll, a reflexive death grip on my sword’s handle the only thing that prevented me losing the weapon when I landed.
“Damnation!” I heard Lavitz curse as the snake, moving viper quick, caught him on a loop of its enormous body, then began to crush him.
As I levered myself to my feet, an arrow flew true and stroke the flesh at the base of one of its horns, causing the enormous beast to recoil, the undulation traveling down its length and all but ejecting Lavitz from its grasp. He landed with a roll and a grunt, and was back on his feet in a manner of seconds.
“Lavitz!” I shouted as I sheathed my sword..
“Yeah!?”
“I’mma make some noise! I need you to plug your ears until after you see two plumes of smoke! You too Shana!”
“Why!?” Shana asked.
Lavitz leaned his spear against his elbow and plugged his ears as I drew my rifle from my handy sack.
“JUST DO IT!” I shouted and welded my cheek to the rifle’s wooden stock.
I had no idea where the thing’s brain was, or if it even only had the one brain. Or if it had a primary brain of some kind.
Sixty-five caliber bullets were a bitch and a half, but on something the size of this serpent, I may as well be wielding a pea shooter.
I couldn’t kill it, even if I used every single one of my few remaining bullets. So I had to cripple it instead.
I aimed for the base of one of the sets of horns/sensory organs, and fired. The rifle kicked against my shoulder, and a plume of blue/white smoke obscured my vision. The roar of the rifle brought a familiar ringing to my ears.
The snake screamed, the complex horn falling to the ground, the base that it branched out from a bleeding ruin.
I had thought that it was only capable of hissing as it hadn’t made much noise until now, but I had merely not managed to piss it off enough.
Thinking of pissing it off, I shot it again. Only because of its flailing, I missed the other auditory organ, the bullet striking it dead center in the forehead, leaving what on a man would be a ruinous wound, but on something of its mass was little more than a deeply painful pinprick.
“Fuckin’!” I shouted, putting the rifle away and drew my sword.
Lavitz said something.
“What!?” I shouted past the ringing in my ears and the screeching of the snake.
“I asked what that was!” Lavitz said at a more reasonable volume.
“I’ll explain later!” I said, waving at the giant snake. “Deal with that first!”
The two of us approached cautiously, it reared back, hissing wrathfully. An arrow missed its mouth by a hair, bouncing off its belly.
I was strongly regretting using my one and only Frost Spear at Hellena. I’d like to see this thing evade a ton of icy spikes.
The snake reared back, Lavitz said something.
“What!?” I asked, then was too busy dealing with a mawfull of serrated teeth and two big fangs, the snake chomped down on me before I could interpose my sword, my armor screeching in agony as the two biggest fangs deformed it and pushed two sharp points painfully against my back. I tried to shout, but only managed to wheeze. “Fuck!”
“Dart!” I heard Shana scream, then an arrow thudded against the snake’s scales next to my head.
I chose to believe that was on purpose, and Shana displayed an incredible feat of marksmanship.
I saw the paint on my armor bubble and let off fumes as it began to run like water.
This was going to be a bitch to fix.
The snake bit down harder, my armor groaning in a very worrisome manner.
Then Lavitz came into my field of vision as he finished climbing up the side of the snake’s body, then jumped and plunged his spear down into the bloody mess that was the ear analogue I’d ruined with my first shot. The spear sank two thirds of its length into the animal before coming to a sudden halt.
The snake screeched and convulsed, thankfully letting me go as it did, sending me skidding on the stone floor. This time I did lose hold of my sword.
There was a localized seismic event as the snake thrashed in agony, before falling on its side. Its one remaining ear twitching before falling still, its thin forked tongue lolling out.
I felt soft rhythmic vibrations through the stone floor, and raised an arm, pointing in their general direction. “Don’t touch me! I’m covered in acid goo!”
I tossed my handy sack in that general direction. “Find the bucket, toss some water on me!” With that done, I levered myself painfully to my feet. “Oh yeah, gonna have to go back to the good boy bugs and ask another favor…whooo.”
Lavitz and Shana rummaged around my handy sack for a while, probably undoing the carefully curated order I had everything stacked in. But did eventually produce the bucket, found the nearest puddle, then splashed me with water.
As I stood there dripping, I realized it was salt water, so no matter what, maintenance and repair was going to be a bitch this time.
Fuckin’ giant snakes, what anime am I in!? Why couldn’t the world make sense and be slowly choking under mankind’s own pollution!?
…
On second thought, maybe giant snakes weren’t so bad.
I was distracted enough that the second bucketful of water came as a surprise.
After bucket number three I judged enough of the acid had been washed off for it to be safe for Shana to approach me. “Hey boogers, good shooting.”
“So…you’re okay?” She asked, her voice trembling, then she pouted. “And don’t call me boogers.”
Lavitz handed me my sword. “You did well distracting the snake.”
“I like your definition of what I did better, let’s go with that.” I said as I sheathed my sword.
Lavitz nodded. “I have a few questions, but first and foremost, Shana, I must apologize to you.”
Shana and I blinked, she turned to him. “Whatever for?”
Lavitz hung his head. “It was most crass of me to use foul language in the presence of a woman. You have my apologies.”
Shana and I looked at each other, then turned back to Lavitz.
There was a long moment of silence, which Shana broke with a stifled giggle. The small sound seemed utterly hilarious, and I was far less reserved as I started bellowing in laughter. Which made Shana laugh harder.
Lavitz tried to look put-upon, but soon he was laughing so hard he couldn’t stand straight.
The snake moved like greased lightning as it whipped up and drove its maw down at Shana, my body was already moving toward her, but I knew I wouldn’t get there in time to stop it.
A blinding silver light erupted from Shana’s forehead and the entire upper quarter of the snake’s body sublimated, the cavern that faced away from Shana was painted red with its blood and entrails as what remained of the body was blasted back as if carelessly thrown by a hurricane.
But there was no sound, none beyond the spatter of its blood and the crash of the ruined body.
I stared in awed fascination as Shana finished flinching and fell on her butt with a squeak. Then she too stared at the devastation she’d caused.
Out of the three of us, Lavitz was the first to recover, and he surmised the situation perfectly.
“Fuck.”
