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Burgled but not beaten, the sheepy sharp-shooter continues to make her presence known by giving chase to Russo and crew. After much bickering, bantering, and back-and-forth, a plan of action is settled upon.
FIRST, PREVIOUS, NEXT
Icon comes courtesy of
gravewalker
Chapter 53
By: RaddaRaem
“You could have at least incapacitated her, that’s all I’m saying.” Arms swinging at her sides Morgan could feel her ribs clenching ever tighter against her lungs with every breath. Bringing a hand to her bosom, she clenched at her fuzzy sternum. A gentle warmth radiated out from her padded digits. She could feel her furred flesh tingle as the congealed ether slowly seeped into her lithe frame.
“Well then you knock her out!” Russo sniped back, burgled bow in hand.
The raccoon grunted. Lips pursed, she breathed easily while the white magic circulating throughout her chest kneaded and soothed her protesting muscles.
“Give me bahhhhhhhhk my bowwwwww!” A feminine voice, interspersed by a bleat, screamed out at them.
With a roll of his eyes the human mage took to clearing his clearing his throat. Or tried to, anyway. The influx of parched and frigid air overwhelmed his already straining lungs. He launched into a wracking cough before taking to panting and swatting away the idea of a snide retort with his free hand. “Ehhh whatever. She’s no threat now.”
“That’s not an assumption we should be making,” Morgan snipped back. Her ears, perked and holding her hood aloft, splayed against her black haired head as all manners of grunts and groans and sheep sounds assailed them. “…T-this could all very well be an act,” she unconvincingly opined. A gentle poff sounded out as the raccoon’s hood plopped atop her head.
Feet stamping heavily against the uneven rocky inclines, heaving noisily as he did so, Tyridia mustered up everything he could to keep pace. “There’s nothing-” The fox licked his lips. “Stopping us from-” He patiently waited out his next exhale. Easier to let his words piggyback along the ebb and flow of his very breath than anything else. “Dealing with her here and now.” Lungs emptied, Tyr tossed his head back and wheezed for air.
“Okay. In hindsight-” Breathing in and out though his nose, Russo found the appeal of running and ruminating waning fast. “Maybe I should have done that thing you said. So-” His chest ached as frozen flakes of snow, circulating down his throat, latched upon his innards like icy caltrops. “Do we kick her ass now or later? I really don’t wanna have to haul ass all the way there.” His right arm tugged down heavily at his shoulder socket as he tightened his grip on his burgled bow. “Especially with this in tow. Thing’s heavier than it looks.”
Morgan took to gently slapping a gloved appendage against her foxy friend’s back. With every tap and pat, clumps of a subdued and sunny magical aura accumulated upon his slender frame. In a matter of moments Tyridia’s fitful and desperate gulps of air subsided. The strain and stress of their upward ascension literally evaporated off of him as what ought to have been mere concepts were carried along on darkened wisps of magic that trailed off of his shoulders.
“It’s not like we could if we wanted to,” the white mage huffed. Ring tail flitting behind her, she resisted the urge to raspberry. “This is anything but ideal but… Master did warn us as such. It’s a learning experience, I guess.”
Mist pooling out between his teeth, Russo’s brows went flat while both the raccoon and fox passed him up. “Now or later, Morgan?” He mmphhed when she lobbed an orb of congealed magic back at him. With a heavy and sticky slap it coated against his ribs. Near instantaneously he felt his posture straighten. “I… that’s. That’s really nice and all and, I mean, thanks. But that still doesn’t answer my question!”
“Look, I don’t disagree that we need to neutralize the threat she poses,” Morgan replied. Inarticulate yelling bellowing out from behind them promptly punctured her point. Steady streams of curses followed that forced even Russo to arch his brows in unspoken acknowledgement of her ferociously foul mouth. “There isn’t going to be a lull in that is there?”
Tyridia ummed aloud as he sought to drown out their petulant pursuer. “If she was capable of doing anything other than uh… whatever it is she’s doing right now-” His ears flopped flat against his fuzzy skull as the sheep’s tirades continued to filter on through. “Wouldn’t she have already done so?”
“Point taken,” the raccoon promptly acknowledged. “…We could afford to shut her up and shake her down for what she knows at the very least. Assuming she isn’t purposefully trying to bait us into doing so, granted.”
Russo cleared his throat in between breaths. “So you are knocking her out then?” He smirked when a bundled up arm flailed back and smacked against his shoulder.
“Get over here and help us plan this out,” Morgan evasively answered.
Eyes gone wide, Dax watched on eagerly as his newly designated idols huddled as they hustled. “Ooh ooh ooh what about me?” the wolf eagerly inquired. His tail wagged furiously behind him, plumes of snow and pine needles kicking up behind him while he did so.
“Oh!” Ears brushing against the interior of her hood the raccoon was surprised to see the canine keeping pace without issue. She had yet to prop him up with so much as a single Cure spell yet, surprisingly enough, there he was! “Rrrrrusso?”
“I got this. Dax, go... go… I dunno. Practice bantering on her?” An excited aroo assailed the human’s ears in response.
Arms tucked against his chest, Dax eagerly shook his clenched fists in delight. The wolf’s elbows jostled against his gut that sloshed and swayed in tune to his hastened gait. “Wruff. Russo always makes it look so easy…” he whined. Broad heavy canine paws slammed down forcefully against the rocky uneven slopes. While he hrmmed and pondered, Dax’s calloused leathery pads scuffed against the ice and slush.
“Get bahhk here!” The antagonistic archer commanded. Head start aside, she refused to let her targets fall out of sight much less earshot.
Teeth clacking together, the wannabe mage chewed on his words. Hmmph. His grey furred eyelids scrunched together as his puffy cheeks sweltered in shame. Russo didn’t take this long to come up with his comebacks. Russo didn’t stutter or fumble.
“One sec,” Russo mumbled aloud. “Dax? Bantering requires you to actually, you know, banter.” Brow half-cocked, the human turned his attention on his proclaimed protégé. His expression softened when he witnessed the wolf shrink away shyly. “Dax. It’s okay to suck at things, alright? You sucked at magic to start with remember? And now you… you. Well. You suck less.”
“You’re improving. That’s what you’re trying to say, Russo,” Morgan thought aloud.
The mage answered the raccoon with a roll of his eyes. “Anyway. Point is, Dax. Nobody expects you to be great at bantering as is. I mean, I sure don’t. With a little bit of practice though…”
Dragging a padded and patched up sleeve across his snuffling moist nose, the wolf swallowed his pride and nodded. “Mmhmm!” Dax snorted and snuffled away the mopey musings that nagged at his noggin. Air reverberated in his throat before he took to barking back at the salty sheep. “H-hey!”
“What?!”
Dax whined as he fumbled for a reply on the fly. “Ummm. Y-you’re mean!” His grey tail took to wagging slowly as a prolonged silence answered his verbal spat. Oh gosh did he shut her down already? That was easy! Although… ruff. He was kinda hoping there’d be more to it than that.
“Shut up lardass I’m not here for you! Answer me, human! Give me bahhhk my bowwwwww.”
A soft and pitiful aroo petered from the between wolf’s lips as his head hung low. Dax’s broad and heavy soles dragged along the ground as dejection weighed heavily upon his soft shoulders.
“Oh would you just indulge him. Even for a little bit?” Russo snapped back.
Bleats, low and prolonged, echoed across the mountainside. “Why should I?!”
Morgan groaned. “You know what, Tyr and I can handle this. Go… go be you. We’ll let you know when to hit her and how.” Eyes half lidded, she shooed Russo away with a flick of her wrist.
The mage’s lips pulled flat upon being booted from the discussion and allowed his gait to falter. “Fine,” the human sighed with resignation. Russo’s boots of his clapped loudly against the uneven stones worn down by the elements and travelers past as he slowly fell back from the Yash duo. “Come on, Dax. Gotta keep at it,” he said upon bumping shoulders with the wolf.
“Hruf…”
Inklings of irritation buzzed against Russo’s temples. “Dax. Remember what happened when I first started teaching you magic?”
“Hello?! Are you gonna friggin’ answer me or not?” The irritated archer angrily asked aloud.
Pointed ivory teeth sank into the grey wolf’s bottom lip. His dark furred ears took to ruffling between the makeshift holes cut into his cloak’s hood. “You… taught me magic?”
Fists clenched, Russo maintained his composure. Forcing anything other than a scowl he continued to nudge his portly protégé along. “What else?”
Dax hmmed. “Oh!” he barked. “You got grumpy at me.” The wolf’s tail took to wagging upon successfully spelunking the depths of his memories.
Nodding astutely at the canine, Russo engaged his angry eyebrows. “And what am I now?”
“Stop ignoring me you assholes!”
Dax squinted his eyes. Without so much as acknowledging the interruption he intently studied the composition of Russo’s facial features. “Mmm… still grumpy.”
Progress, albeit painstaking, was taking place. As they advanced ever onward Russo carefully considered his words as he sincerely doubted the wolf was capable of making the necessary leaps of logic he was aiming for. Or… regular leaps for that matter but that was beside the point. “Okay. Good. Now, do you think the reason I was grumpy then might explain why I’m grumpy now?”
Cheeks puffed out, Dax thought long and hard.
“Try not to strain yourself,” Russo flatly encouraged him.
“Oh! I remember! You said I was impatient.” A toothy smile spread wide across his muzzle as he happily recalled past criticisms. “Wanting to get really good really fast and how it doesn’t work like that and oh this is the same isn’t it.”
Unintelligible yelling, interspersed with guttural bleats, continued to assail the quartet’s ears.
“The lungs on her…” Tyridia noted aloud while shaking his head side to side.
Sinews of thread, embedding a mismatched myriad of colored patches into Dax’s well-worn cloak, slowly unraveled with the wolf’s every thumping step. Dax turned to Russo for guidance while he straightened his posture. “Guess I should keep at it, huh?”
“Do I really have to answer that?” Russo replied with eyes scrunched. “Here, I’ll even get us started.” Gloved fist pressed against his lips he coughed into it to clear his throat. No sooner did he draw breath did his mitteny uhh… mitts return to his lips as he dry heaved out a false start. “Anyway. Ahem. Hey idiot!”
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!”
Brows arched, Morgan turned her attention towards the human and wolf. “Wow. She actually answered to that.”
Dax giggled as his clawed fingers clasped round his muzzle. “My turn, my turn!” he excitedly barked. Growling with delight he let loose a proud and pronounced bellow. “Hi Idiot! I’m Dax!”
Wooly locks of hair brushed back and forth against the black furred bridge of the sheep’s snoot. Flattened teeth bared, Idiot glared at the waving wolf through the follicle forest obscuring her vision. “What you’ll be is dead in a… Wait. Waiiiiit a minute. No. NO. NO GODDAMMIT NO. OH I WILL KILL THE HELL OUT OF THE LOT OF YOU, DO YOU HEAR ME!”
“We hear you!” Dax helpfully barked back.
“Hard not to,” Tyridia smirked. His shoulders promptly pulled together as flustered fires burned hot in his ears. Gentle nudges, courtesy of a bemused Morgan, lifted the fox’s spirits more than any Cure spell ever could. Probably.
Subdued laughter, courtesy of a glut of glottal stops, rose up from Russo’s throat in sputtering bursts. “Okay. Okay this shouldn’t be this easy but it is. It really really is.” Coughs interspersed the mage’s cackling while he took the time to compose himself. “Sooooo… how do you plan on killing us? Given that you have yet to, you know, do so and all.”
“You’ll see!” Idiot shrieked back.
The human’s lips creased into a smile positively saturated with smug. “Any idea when?” Morgan, Russo, Tyridia, and Dax all exchanged glances as they awaited an answer.
Those flat ovine teeth ground against one another. “N-no! I mean. Why would I tell you?!” She snooted in satisfaction at the sweet sweet silence that she received in response.
“…You’re useless without your bow, aren’t you?” Russo bluntly inquired.
“Nooooooooooooooooooooo.”
Eyelids practically pinched together, the mage intended to wring that wooly wreck for all she was worth. His gloves scuffed loudly against one another, the bow between them awkwardly flipping side to side, as he entertained his options.
Frustrated growls echoed between Dax’s puffed out cheeks. “Heyyyy, I want a turn!” Pouting something fierce, the wolf jockeyed with the human for his chance to take the reins at bantering with the bahher.
“You surrrrrrrrre?” Russo teased out while Dax grumpily took to nipping at the air beside him.
“Yessssssssssssssssssssssssss,” the sheep all too unconvincingly replied.
Russo tossed his arms to the side with an exaggerated shrug. He grunted when his wrist strained at holding the weighty wooden weapon aloft. “Alright, alright, I’ve had my fill,” he quietly acknowledged. “Dax, you can take it from here.” An excited aroo indicated that all was forgiven.
“I… I… ummm.” Arms crossed about his chest, crystal dangling around his neck coming to rest atop his wrinkled sleeves, the canine harumphed. “Made me forget what I was gonna say,” Dax glumly trailed off. He barked when his self-appointed teacher took to bopping him repeatedly with the object of Idiot’s obsession.
“Need a hint?” Russo rotated his hand about his wrist. The displaced air kicked up by the bow twirling about in his grip rolled along the wrinkles in the wolf’s cloak.
The lack of subtlety was not lost on Dax. Muzzle scrunched, he hmmed and hummed. “Oh, I know!” Tail wagging, his broad behind wiggled side to side excitedly. “Hey! Do you want your bow back?”
“WHAT DO YOU THINK?!” Idiot screamed back.
Prolonged and not so internal screaming could be heard filtering through Russo’s clenched teeth.
“W-well!” Dax said while he fidgeted with the crystallized anti-magic that bounced against his chest with his every footfall. “You can’t have it! So there!” He timidly barked out with an air of finality and his nose raised to the air.
Brows arched, the human, fox, and raccoon exchanged shrugs and wishy washy nods of approval. A laughably low bar had been set for the wolf but he managed to clear it all the same. If only barely.
Low and ominous bleats echoed up along the mountainside. “Give it!”
Holding firm, the wolf shook his head side to side. “No!”
“You two have a plan by now, right? Please tell me you have a plan,” Russo implored of the Yash duo.
Wrinkles formed along the raccoon’s robed shoulders when she nodded in the affirmative. Lips pulled flat, her nostrils contracted while wisps of white ether rose from her palms. With a gentle slap upon their shoulders, Morgan bestowed a pick-me-up of a pat upon Russo and Tyridia. “We’ll explain as we go. Dax.” The sinewy strands of muscle that ran along the white mage’s neck strained as she turned to face the wolf. “Keep doing what you’re doing. You’ll be our distraction. Also could you uhh…” She swished her fingers outward. “Scooch on over to the side? We’re going to need some room to work here.”
Clouds of pine needles kicked up behind the canine as his tail took to wagging furiously. Back and forth an amorphous blur of white and grey practically thrummed behind him. Bouncing atop his thick feet the wolf could hardly believe it. He was part of a mission! He was part of a plan! Half formed barks and hruffs flowed free from his muzzle while he sidled his portly frame over at her impetus. Scrapes, tears, and scuffs collected upon his cloak as Morgan gestured him as far to the side as he could manage.
“What the hell is that even supposed to mean?!” Aggravated, Idiot jostled her horned head side to side while a bevvy of… she’d be hard pressed to call them syllables. Sounds? Sure, whatever. All while a bevvy of sounds echoed out from above. Rolling her unseen eyes, the sheep’s hooves clopped against the water worn rocks in pursuit.
The raccoon hrrmmmed while she scrunched her amber eyes. They’d have to make do. “Close enough! Keep at it Dax,” Morgan reassured him. Her ring tail flit to and fro behind her tiredly as her breathing grew heavy. Tongue pressing against her bottom row of teeth, Morgan slapped a hand against her torso and grunted. Kneading her fingers against her sternum she coaxed yet another casting of Cure into herself. With a cough, she hacked up a faint purple mist that trailed along the sides of her lips. Morgan hurriedly pbbted and patooed out the rank aftertaste left behind by the expulsion of the lactic acid that ached at her muscles. “Blech. Tyr, you’re up! First phase is all on you.”
“On it!” the fox replied. Hand held out before him, his leathery fingertips glowered with energy. Trails of smoke wafted up from atop his clawed fingers and congealed together above his palm into a smoky flame. Curling his digits inward, the strands of fur upon them darkened in color as they singed. Tyridia’s pace slowed to a crawl as he turned towards Idiot and took aim. “Here goes!” With a flick of fingers, smoke still trailing off his splayed digits, the fox fire sailed down the path. In its wake, mist seethed and hissed off of the rapidly melting snow and ice. The faint drip drop of trickling water gave way to a loud lapping of liquid against the rocks.
Idiot recoiled when a scalding wave of air blew back her wool. Flat teeth clenched together, she exhaled through flared nostrils as the very air warped before her and rendered her targets little more than wavering blobs of color. “Cheap trick! Like that’s gonna stop me!” She bleated grumpily when freezing cold water, and a bed of pine needles floating atop it, rushed past her ankles.
Morgan cleared her throat before spitting out a glob of purple. “Gluh, I think that’s the last of it. Alright Russo, here’s where you come in. Tyr just set us up with some snowmelt. What we need you to do is flash freeze it.” The white mage held up a finger to preemptively shoosh the human. “The idea is to take out her footing from right under her. At worst, she’ll trip up on it or be forced off of the beaten path. At best, we can lock her in ice up to her ankles. You even have the cover of an illusion to work with so, ideally, she’ll never see it coming.”
Brows arched, Russo nodded along. “…Not bad. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Morgan interrupted. “Before you tear into that I need you to listen. The final phase of this plan involves you teleporting us all down there for the finisher. While she’s trapped or distracted or whatever is when we’ll strike. My magic alone should be able to manage but… just in case, I’d rather have everyone’s help to seal the deal.”
“Freeze the sheep then fuck her up, got it.” Russo fumbled with Idiot’s bow as frost came to cake his gloved fingertips. “Here.”
The raccoon’s shoulders sagged as she clasped her hands curled round the weapon’s leather padded grip. With an mmff her equip load suddenly shot up. “This doesn’t exactly lend itself to casting,” she mumbled. Her eyes darted between Dax and Tyr. Morgan motioned towards the fox before realizing he’d be just as encumbered as she was. Teeth poking against her bottom lip, the white mage turned her attention towards the wolf. It wasn’t exactly like they’d be all that disadvantaged if he wasn’t able to lend much in the way of help. “Say, Dax? Would you like to hold this? It’ll make your banter all the more uhhh…” She forced a smile as she mulled over the gentlest way to hot potato it on over to him.
“Authentic?” Tyridia chimed in to Morgan’s relief. “What better way to bother her than with her bow in hand?” The fox nervously exchanged glances with the raccoon as they waited to see how well their pitch went over.
An icy mist trailed off of Russo’s hands as he readied his spell. Soft cricks could be heard when he clenched his fist and cracks spread throughout the frost caking his knuckles. “Dax just take the bow.”
“Okay!” Barking excitedly, the canine cradled the weapon close to his chubby chest.
“You can just tell him what to do, you know,” the human chided. Jagged flakes of ice compacted upon one another and poked between his curled fingers.
Idiot panted as she stomped through the sloshing stream that matted her wooly ankles with pine needles. “You can’t run forever!” she bleated.
“Neither can you!” one of the wavering blobs of color hovering above the mountain side mirage shouted back down at her.
The Valais swatted angrily at the dome of warm air that surrounded her and bahhed. “Screw youuuuuu. Like I’ll let this stop me!”
“That so?” Russo smirked to himself. “Then maybe this will.” The mage slowed to a halt and pulled an arm behind his shoulder as if he were winding up for a punch. “Get ready,” he simply stated. Anchoring his feet as best he could upon the slick stones, the muffled crackling of ice sounding out from his gloved grip, he threw his arm forward. His fingers unfurled as he thrust his limb forward. The human’s open palm pushed a semisolid orb of super chilled magic along. Icy blue arcs extended out from it and lashed at the moisture laden mountain side. Jutting, angular, and imposing translucent crystals smothered everything left in the spell’s wake.
A triumphant bleat bellowed forth from Idiot’s lips when the haze of heat lifted. “Hah! Fat lot of good that did…” She choked on her words when she realized that it had not faded so much as one spell had been used to dispel another. Right as it slammed into her chest. Near instantaneously a thick layer of frost coated the sheep’s torso. She wheezed fitfully, frigid mist pooling out from between her teeth, as what felt like tendrils of ice clutched at her lungs.
“Now!” Morgan commanded. Eyes wide and at attention, the raccoon winced when a burst of blue light all but blinded her. Amorphous colored blobs clouded her vision as an icicle laden Idiot abruptly came into view. Morgan flung an arm out towards the snowy sheep. Magic rippled out across the air. Snowflakes rose and fell across the barely visible sine waves sent out by spell.
Teeth chattering, the Valais groaned as her form shimmered. Ether, oily and rich, coated her wooly frame. It slowly eked across her body with the consistency of sludge. Idiot’s body shimmered in the waning winter sun as her body underwent a chromatic inversion courtesy of Morgan’s Reverse spell.
“You…” Flakes of snow and ice contrasted sharply against the sheep’s newly blackened wool. Keratin tipped fingers scraped at the frozen rocks she had been forced into a kneeling position upon while a low and guttural bleat carried along the frigid mist pooling from her white furred muzzle.
Fingers curled, the white mage gripped at the semi solid orb of white energy she had conjured in her grasp. Her face was set aglow with the, under any other circumstances, soothing light of white magic. A flick of her wrist sent the Cure spell lazily tumbling through the air along a downward arc. A seething hiss could be heard the instant it made contact with their persnickety pursuer.
Pained and stuttering bleats rang out from Idiot’s snout. “Yyyyyyeeeeoww!” Her grunts and groans tapered off as her drive and energy burnt away from the inside. Chin thudding against the ice caked ground, she bahhed quietly while smoky white wisps trailed off her flopped form.
Uncertain expressions made themselves manifest upon the human, wolf, fox, and raccoon’s faces. “So… now what?” Tyridia was the first to speak.
“Mulling that over as we speak,” Morgan replied.
Balanced precariously on one foot, Russo tapped at the sheep with his boot. Idiot bahhed every time he did so. “Well. That was pleasantly anticlimactic.”
Dax’s hips swung side to side as his tail came to wag him rather than the other way around. “I helped, I helped, I helped!” Bow hugged tightly against his chest, the canine arooed excitedly.
The foxy summoner allowed his jaw to slacken slightly. Misting breath to spilled out and around his pointed teeth. “Do we… do we interrogate her? What if there are others like her lying in wait for us? She might know something we don’t.”
Morgan crossed her arms about her chest and twiddled her fingers along her elbows. Muffled thrums sounded out steadily while she did so. “Maybe she does and maybe she doesn’t. Even if she does there’s no guarantee she’ll cooperate.” Beneath her robe, the raccoon could feel her long black hair brush along her shoulders when she tipped her head up towards the waning sun. “Kovous is still a half day’s travel away, at least. If we want to make it there today… it’s not worth it. Especially not with what little daylight we have left.”
Tyridia scratched at the fur between his ears uneasily. “Not to mention our uhhh… lack of supplies. We’re running light as is and can’t exactly afford to be all that generous with what we have. Then there’s the matter of the time and energy that’d come with keeping watch over her throughout the night.”
Dax’s lips curled down into a pronounced pout. “We’re not gonna leave her here are we?”
“She’s been screaming death threats at us for the past… however long we’ve been hauling ass,” Russo replied nonplussed.
Toes curled, the wolf retreated in on himself and tucked his chin against his chest. “I know. Just… seems kinda mean.”
“What’s best for her isn’t what’s best for us,” the raccoon plainly stated. “Sure, it does come off as, well, callous to leave her to her fate. But she chose to attack us. She owns the consequences for doing so.” Back turned to the sheep, Morgan took in the desolate beauty of the snow and stone stretching beyond her vision.
“Leaving her alive is generous enough as it is,” the human mouthed off.
Barking, Dax hrufed at the repeated slaps at his back that nudged him ever onwards. “Oooookay.” He reluctantly picked up the pace when Russo started stepping on his heels.
“Would you quit your worrying and get a move on?” Russo all but commanded. The mage rolled his eyes when Dax whapped that thick fluffy tail of his against his legs in protest. “If Idiot here has been skulking around for any amount of time she clearly knows the lay of the land better than we ever would. I mean, Jem and I left you by your lonesome when we first met and you turned out fine. She probably will too.”
Tired and drawn out bahhs rumbled out from the wooly lump sprawled out upon the ice.
“See?” Russo confidently replied. Fumbling for his footing, the human held his arms out to the side for balance. At least until he scrunched his eyes and remembered he had any number of spells at his disposal that rendered that wholly unnecessary. With a soft snap of his fingers he teleported the lot of a ways up the pass. Coarse rock, misshapen but dry, abruptly pressed into the undersides of their feet.
Morgan peered back at their fallen foe. Congealed clumps of darkened magic slowly slid off of Idiot’s prone form. With the consistency of tar the mass of ether oozed along her curves, peeling away the inverted sheen that coated her, before coming to undulate along the ice. Smoke trailed up from the discolored clumps as they violently churned. The magically manifested ice prompted the Reverse spell to flare back to life as the residual magic boiled to a bubble before bursting into flame.
“The more distance between her and us, the better,” the white mage declared. Eyes locked on the sheep, still lethargically writing in place, Morgan pattered along as Russo, Tyr, and Dax sidled up beside her. The options available to them, along with the accompanying risks and rewards, swarmed at the forefront of her thoughts. Morgan’s cracked leather lips parted when she began to speak. “Tyr, you mind shrouding us with another illusion?” A blanket of warmth promptly settled upon the ring tail’s shoulders.
Tyridia’s white tipped tail started to swish side to side. “And done. What’s next?” he inquired expectantly. Latching onto the fox’s initiative, Russo and Dax lazily turned to the raccoon for guidance as well.
“I… well. Way to put me on the spot.” Morgan huffed as she defaulted to the leader of the group. “I know there’s something to be said about walking slowly when in a hurry but Kovous is within our reach. We can feasibly settle down there for the night if we pick up the pace. Just, the catch is, we’ll have to trek beneath the twilit sky for at least a couple hours to do so,” she sighed.
Muzzle scrunched, Tyr’s teeth poked into his bottom lip. “So even without the uhh… distractions, we still wouldn’t have had enough sunlight to work with,” he mulled aloud.
“Even if we do play it safe and set up camp for the night we risk letting ol’ Idiot over there catch up with us. Certainly wouldn’t put it past her to do so,” Russo opined. Hands shoved into his pockets, he grunted. “Otherwise, we’re literally running blind for the last leg of our trip. Right when everything that could go wrong would.”
Dax protectively cradled a weapon he couldn’t even wield close to his chest for some semblance of security. “Those both sound kinda bad…”
“That’s because they are,” Morgan hmmphed. Cheek puffed out, she pursed her lips and exhaled. “It’s on us to figure out which one is less bad and commit to it.” The pine trees, gnarled roots shallowly embedded into and cracking apart the bedrock, slowly tapered off as they continued to ascend.
Zaps emanated from Russo’s gloves as arcs of electricity jumped between his fingertips. “We could always just ‘incapacitate,’ heavy emphasis on the air quotes, Idiot further and save ourselves the hassle. Rest easy for the night and stroll on-”
“No,” Morgan flatly denied him. “Master all but told us to expect this, short of outright saying so, for a reason. Planned or no, I’m tempted to think this was a test.”
“And killing the proctor is probably a surefire way to fail said test. Assuming that’s the case, heh,” Tyridia nervously chimed in. “Master was awfully cagey on details now that you mention it. If Kovous had a reputation for bandits or highwaymen you think she would’ve said so…”
Russo rolled his eyes while Dax sighed in relief. “To Kovous?” The human asked with resignation.
The de facto leader of the group hesitated before answering. “To Kovous,” Morgan replied.
FIRST, PREVIOUS, NEXT
FIRST, PREVIOUS, NEXT
Icon comes courtesy of
gravewalkerChapter 53
By: RaddaRaem
“You could have at least incapacitated her, that’s all I’m saying.” Arms swinging at her sides Morgan could feel her ribs clenching ever tighter against her lungs with every breath. Bringing a hand to her bosom, she clenched at her fuzzy sternum. A gentle warmth radiated out from her padded digits. She could feel her furred flesh tingle as the congealed ether slowly seeped into her lithe frame.
“Well then you knock her out!” Russo sniped back, burgled bow in hand.
The raccoon grunted. Lips pursed, she breathed easily while the white magic circulating throughout her chest kneaded and soothed her protesting muscles.
“Give me bahhhhhhhhk my bowwwwww!” A feminine voice, interspersed by a bleat, screamed out at them.
With a roll of his eyes the human mage took to clearing his clearing his throat. Or tried to, anyway. The influx of parched and frigid air overwhelmed his already straining lungs. He launched into a wracking cough before taking to panting and swatting away the idea of a snide retort with his free hand. “Ehhh whatever. She’s no threat now.”
“That’s not an assumption we should be making,” Morgan snipped back. Her ears, perked and holding her hood aloft, splayed against her black haired head as all manners of grunts and groans and sheep sounds assailed them. “…T-this could all very well be an act,” she unconvincingly opined. A gentle poff sounded out as the raccoon’s hood plopped atop her head.
Feet stamping heavily against the uneven rocky inclines, heaving noisily as he did so, Tyridia mustered up everything he could to keep pace. “There’s nothing-” The fox licked his lips. “Stopping us from-” He patiently waited out his next exhale. Easier to let his words piggyback along the ebb and flow of his very breath than anything else. “Dealing with her here and now.” Lungs emptied, Tyr tossed his head back and wheezed for air.
“Okay. In hindsight-” Breathing in and out though his nose, Russo found the appeal of running and ruminating waning fast. “Maybe I should have done that thing you said. So-” His chest ached as frozen flakes of snow, circulating down his throat, latched upon his innards like icy caltrops. “Do we kick her ass now or later? I really don’t wanna have to haul ass all the way there.” His right arm tugged down heavily at his shoulder socket as he tightened his grip on his burgled bow. “Especially with this in tow. Thing’s heavier than it looks.”
Morgan took to gently slapping a gloved appendage against her foxy friend’s back. With every tap and pat, clumps of a subdued and sunny magical aura accumulated upon his slender frame. In a matter of moments Tyridia’s fitful and desperate gulps of air subsided. The strain and stress of their upward ascension literally evaporated off of him as what ought to have been mere concepts were carried along on darkened wisps of magic that trailed off of his shoulders.
“It’s not like we could if we wanted to,” the white mage huffed. Ring tail flitting behind her, she resisted the urge to raspberry. “This is anything but ideal but… Master did warn us as such. It’s a learning experience, I guess.”
Mist pooling out between his teeth, Russo’s brows went flat while both the raccoon and fox passed him up. “Now or later, Morgan?” He mmphhed when she lobbed an orb of congealed magic back at him. With a heavy and sticky slap it coated against his ribs. Near instantaneously he felt his posture straighten. “I… that’s. That’s really nice and all and, I mean, thanks. But that still doesn’t answer my question!”
“Look, I don’t disagree that we need to neutralize the threat she poses,” Morgan replied. Inarticulate yelling bellowing out from behind them promptly punctured her point. Steady streams of curses followed that forced even Russo to arch his brows in unspoken acknowledgement of her ferociously foul mouth. “There isn’t going to be a lull in that is there?”
Tyridia ummed aloud as he sought to drown out their petulant pursuer. “If she was capable of doing anything other than uh… whatever it is she’s doing right now-” His ears flopped flat against his fuzzy skull as the sheep’s tirades continued to filter on through. “Wouldn’t she have already done so?”
“Point taken,” the raccoon promptly acknowledged. “…We could afford to shut her up and shake her down for what she knows at the very least. Assuming she isn’t purposefully trying to bait us into doing so, granted.”
Russo cleared his throat in between breaths. “So you are knocking her out then?” He smirked when a bundled up arm flailed back and smacked against his shoulder.
“Get over here and help us plan this out,” Morgan evasively answered.
Eyes gone wide, Dax watched on eagerly as his newly designated idols huddled as they hustled. “Ooh ooh ooh what about me?” the wolf eagerly inquired. His tail wagged furiously behind him, plumes of snow and pine needles kicking up behind him while he did so.
“Oh!” Ears brushing against the interior of her hood the raccoon was surprised to see the canine keeping pace without issue. She had yet to prop him up with so much as a single Cure spell yet, surprisingly enough, there he was! “Rrrrrusso?”
“I got this. Dax, go... go… I dunno. Practice bantering on her?” An excited aroo assailed the human’s ears in response.
Arms tucked against his chest, Dax eagerly shook his clenched fists in delight. The wolf’s elbows jostled against his gut that sloshed and swayed in tune to his hastened gait. “Wruff. Russo always makes it look so easy…” he whined. Broad heavy canine paws slammed down forcefully against the rocky uneven slopes. While he hrmmed and pondered, Dax’s calloused leathery pads scuffed against the ice and slush.
“Get bahhk here!” The antagonistic archer commanded. Head start aside, she refused to let her targets fall out of sight much less earshot.
Teeth clacking together, the wannabe mage chewed on his words. Hmmph. His grey furred eyelids scrunched together as his puffy cheeks sweltered in shame. Russo didn’t take this long to come up with his comebacks. Russo didn’t stutter or fumble.
“One sec,” Russo mumbled aloud. “Dax? Bantering requires you to actually, you know, banter.” Brow half-cocked, the human turned his attention on his proclaimed protégé. His expression softened when he witnessed the wolf shrink away shyly. “Dax. It’s okay to suck at things, alright? You sucked at magic to start with remember? And now you… you. Well. You suck less.”
“You’re improving. That’s what you’re trying to say, Russo,” Morgan thought aloud.
The mage answered the raccoon with a roll of his eyes. “Anyway. Point is, Dax. Nobody expects you to be great at bantering as is. I mean, I sure don’t. With a little bit of practice though…”
Dragging a padded and patched up sleeve across his snuffling moist nose, the wolf swallowed his pride and nodded. “Mmhmm!” Dax snorted and snuffled away the mopey musings that nagged at his noggin. Air reverberated in his throat before he took to barking back at the salty sheep. “H-hey!”
“What?!”
Dax whined as he fumbled for a reply on the fly. “Ummm. Y-you’re mean!” His grey tail took to wagging slowly as a prolonged silence answered his verbal spat. Oh gosh did he shut her down already? That was easy! Although… ruff. He was kinda hoping there’d be more to it than that.
“Shut up lardass I’m not here for you! Answer me, human! Give me bahhhk my bowwwwww.”
A soft and pitiful aroo petered from the between wolf’s lips as his head hung low. Dax’s broad and heavy soles dragged along the ground as dejection weighed heavily upon his soft shoulders.
“Oh would you just indulge him. Even for a little bit?” Russo snapped back.
Bleats, low and prolonged, echoed across the mountainside. “Why should I?!”
Morgan groaned. “You know what, Tyr and I can handle this. Go… go be you. We’ll let you know when to hit her and how.” Eyes half lidded, she shooed Russo away with a flick of her wrist.
The mage’s lips pulled flat upon being booted from the discussion and allowed his gait to falter. “Fine,” the human sighed with resignation. Russo’s boots of his clapped loudly against the uneven stones worn down by the elements and travelers past as he slowly fell back from the Yash duo. “Come on, Dax. Gotta keep at it,” he said upon bumping shoulders with the wolf.
“Hruf…”
Inklings of irritation buzzed against Russo’s temples. “Dax. Remember what happened when I first started teaching you magic?”
“Hello?! Are you gonna friggin’ answer me or not?” The irritated archer angrily asked aloud.
Pointed ivory teeth sank into the grey wolf’s bottom lip. His dark furred ears took to ruffling between the makeshift holes cut into his cloak’s hood. “You… taught me magic?”
Fists clenched, Russo maintained his composure. Forcing anything other than a scowl he continued to nudge his portly protégé along. “What else?”
Dax hmmed. “Oh!” he barked. “You got grumpy at me.” The wolf’s tail took to wagging upon successfully spelunking the depths of his memories.
Nodding astutely at the canine, Russo engaged his angry eyebrows. “And what am I now?”
“Stop ignoring me you assholes!”
Dax squinted his eyes. Without so much as acknowledging the interruption he intently studied the composition of Russo’s facial features. “Mmm… still grumpy.”
Progress, albeit painstaking, was taking place. As they advanced ever onward Russo carefully considered his words as he sincerely doubted the wolf was capable of making the necessary leaps of logic he was aiming for. Or… regular leaps for that matter but that was beside the point. “Okay. Good. Now, do you think the reason I was grumpy then might explain why I’m grumpy now?”
Cheeks puffed out, Dax thought long and hard.
“Try not to strain yourself,” Russo flatly encouraged him.
“Oh! I remember! You said I was impatient.” A toothy smile spread wide across his muzzle as he happily recalled past criticisms. “Wanting to get really good really fast and how it doesn’t work like that and oh this is the same isn’t it.”
Unintelligible yelling, interspersed with guttural bleats, continued to assail the quartet’s ears.
“The lungs on her…” Tyridia noted aloud while shaking his head side to side.
Sinews of thread, embedding a mismatched myriad of colored patches into Dax’s well-worn cloak, slowly unraveled with the wolf’s every thumping step. Dax turned to Russo for guidance while he straightened his posture. “Guess I should keep at it, huh?”
“Do I really have to answer that?” Russo replied with eyes scrunched. “Here, I’ll even get us started.” Gloved fist pressed against his lips he coughed into it to clear his throat. No sooner did he draw breath did his mitteny uhh… mitts return to his lips as he dry heaved out a false start. “Anyway. Ahem. Hey idiot!”
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!”
Brows arched, Morgan turned her attention towards the human and wolf. “Wow. She actually answered to that.”
Dax giggled as his clawed fingers clasped round his muzzle. “My turn, my turn!” he excitedly barked. Growling with delight he let loose a proud and pronounced bellow. “Hi Idiot! I’m Dax!”
Wooly locks of hair brushed back and forth against the black furred bridge of the sheep’s snoot. Flattened teeth bared, Idiot glared at the waving wolf through the follicle forest obscuring her vision. “What you’ll be is dead in a… Wait. Waiiiiit a minute. No. NO. NO GODDAMMIT NO. OH I WILL KILL THE HELL OUT OF THE LOT OF YOU, DO YOU HEAR ME!”
“We hear you!” Dax helpfully barked back.
“Hard not to,” Tyridia smirked. His shoulders promptly pulled together as flustered fires burned hot in his ears. Gentle nudges, courtesy of a bemused Morgan, lifted the fox’s spirits more than any Cure spell ever could. Probably.
Subdued laughter, courtesy of a glut of glottal stops, rose up from Russo’s throat in sputtering bursts. “Okay. Okay this shouldn’t be this easy but it is. It really really is.” Coughs interspersed the mage’s cackling while he took the time to compose himself. “Sooooo… how do you plan on killing us? Given that you have yet to, you know, do so and all.”
“You’ll see!” Idiot shrieked back.
The human’s lips creased into a smile positively saturated with smug. “Any idea when?” Morgan, Russo, Tyridia, and Dax all exchanged glances as they awaited an answer.
Those flat ovine teeth ground against one another. “N-no! I mean. Why would I tell you?!” She snooted in satisfaction at the sweet sweet silence that she received in response.
“…You’re useless without your bow, aren’t you?” Russo bluntly inquired.
“Nooooooooooooooooooooo.”
Eyelids practically pinched together, the mage intended to wring that wooly wreck for all she was worth. His gloves scuffed loudly against one another, the bow between them awkwardly flipping side to side, as he entertained his options.
Frustrated growls echoed between Dax’s puffed out cheeks. “Heyyyy, I want a turn!” Pouting something fierce, the wolf jockeyed with the human for his chance to take the reins at bantering with the bahher.
“You surrrrrrrrre?” Russo teased out while Dax grumpily took to nipping at the air beside him.
“Yessssssssssssssssssssssssss,” the sheep all too unconvincingly replied.
Russo tossed his arms to the side with an exaggerated shrug. He grunted when his wrist strained at holding the weighty wooden weapon aloft. “Alright, alright, I’ve had my fill,” he quietly acknowledged. “Dax, you can take it from here.” An excited aroo indicated that all was forgiven.
“I… I… ummm.” Arms crossed about his chest, crystal dangling around his neck coming to rest atop his wrinkled sleeves, the canine harumphed. “Made me forget what I was gonna say,” Dax glumly trailed off. He barked when his self-appointed teacher took to bopping him repeatedly with the object of Idiot’s obsession.
“Need a hint?” Russo rotated his hand about his wrist. The displaced air kicked up by the bow twirling about in his grip rolled along the wrinkles in the wolf’s cloak.
The lack of subtlety was not lost on Dax. Muzzle scrunched, he hmmed and hummed. “Oh, I know!” Tail wagging, his broad behind wiggled side to side excitedly. “Hey! Do you want your bow back?”
“WHAT DO YOU THINK?!” Idiot screamed back.
Prolonged and not so internal screaming could be heard filtering through Russo’s clenched teeth.
“W-well!” Dax said while he fidgeted with the crystallized anti-magic that bounced against his chest with his every footfall. “You can’t have it! So there!” He timidly barked out with an air of finality and his nose raised to the air.
Brows arched, the human, fox, and raccoon exchanged shrugs and wishy washy nods of approval. A laughably low bar had been set for the wolf but he managed to clear it all the same. If only barely.
Low and ominous bleats echoed up along the mountainside. “Give it!”
Holding firm, the wolf shook his head side to side. “No!”
“You two have a plan by now, right? Please tell me you have a plan,” Russo implored of the Yash duo.
Wrinkles formed along the raccoon’s robed shoulders when she nodded in the affirmative. Lips pulled flat, her nostrils contracted while wisps of white ether rose from her palms. With a gentle slap upon their shoulders, Morgan bestowed a pick-me-up of a pat upon Russo and Tyridia. “We’ll explain as we go. Dax.” The sinewy strands of muscle that ran along the white mage’s neck strained as she turned to face the wolf. “Keep doing what you’re doing. You’ll be our distraction. Also could you uhh…” She swished her fingers outward. “Scooch on over to the side? We’re going to need some room to work here.”
Clouds of pine needles kicked up behind the canine as his tail took to wagging furiously. Back and forth an amorphous blur of white and grey practically thrummed behind him. Bouncing atop his thick feet the wolf could hardly believe it. He was part of a mission! He was part of a plan! Half formed barks and hruffs flowed free from his muzzle while he sidled his portly frame over at her impetus. Scrapes, tears, and scuffs collected upon his cloak as Morgan gestured him as far to the side as he could manage.
“What the hell is that even supposed to mean?!” Aggravated, Idiot jostled her horned head side to side while a bevvy of… she’d be hard pressed to call them syllables. Sounds? Sure, whatever. All while a bevvy of sounds echoed out from above. Rolling her unseen eyes, the sheep’s hooves clopped against the water worn rocks in pursuit.
The raccoon hrrmmmed while she scrunched her amber eyes. They’d have to make do. “Close enough! Keep at it Dax,” Morgan reassured him. Her ring tail flit to and fro behind her tiredly as her breathing grew heavy. Tongue pressing against her bottom row of teeth, Morgan slapped a hand against her torso and grunted. Kneading her fingers against her sternum she coaxed yet another casting of Cure into herself. With a cough, she hacked up a faint purple mist that trailed along the sides of her lips. Morgan hurriedly pbbted and patooed out the rank aftertaste left behind by the expulsion of the lactic acid that ached at her muscles. “Blech. Tyr, you’re up! First phase is all on you.”
“On it!” the fox replied. Hand held out before him, his leathery fingertips glowered with energy. Trails of smoke wafted up from atop his clawed fingers and congealed together above his palm into a smoky flame. Curling his digits inward, the strands of fur upon them darkened in color as they singed. Tyridia’s pace slowed to a crawl as he turned towards Idiot and took aim. “Here goes!” With a flick of fingers, smoke still trailing off his splayed digits, the fox fire sailed down the path. In its wake, mist seethed and hissed off of the rapidly melting snow and ice. The faint drip drop of trickling water gave way to a loud lapping of liquid against the rocks.
Idiot recoiled when a scalding wave of air blew back her wool. Flat teeth clenched together, she exhaled through flared nostrils as the very air warped before her and rendered her targets little more than wavering blobs of color. “Cheap trick! Like that’s gonna stop me!” She bleated grumpily when freezing cold water, and a bed of pine needles floating atop it, rushed past her ankles.
Morgan cleared her throat before spitting out a glob of purple. “Gluh, I think that’s the last of it. Alright Russo, here’s where you come in. Tyr just set us up with some snowmelt. What we need you to do is flash freeze it.” The white mage held up a finger to preemptively shoosh the human. “The idea is to take out her footing from right under her. At worst, she’ll trip up on it or be forced off of the beaten path. At best, we can lock her in ice up to her ankles. You even have the cover of an illusion to work with so, ideally, she’ll never see it coming.”
Brows arched, Russo nodded along. “…Not bad. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Morgan interrupted. “Before you tear into that I need you to listen. The final phase of this plan involves you teleporting us all down there for the finisher. While she’s trapped or distracted or whatever is when we’ll strike. My magic alone should be able to manage but… just in case, I’d rather have everyone’s help to seal the deal.”
“Freeze the sheep then fuck her up, got it.” Russo fumbled with Idiot’s bow as frost came to cake his gloved fingertips. “Here.”
The raccoon’s shoulders sagged as she clasped her hands curled round the weapon’s leather padded grip. With an mmff her equip load suddenly shot up. “This doesn’t exactly lend itself to casting,” she mumbled. Her eyes darted between Dax and Tyr. Morgan motioned towards the fox before realizing he’d be just as encumbered as she was. Teeth poking against her bottom lip, the white mage turned her attention towards the wolf. It wasn’t exactly like they’d be all that disadvantaged if he wasn’t able to lend much in the way of help. “Say, Dax? Would you like to hold this? It’ll make your banter all the more uhhh…” She forced a smile as she mulled over the gentlest way to hot potato it on over to him.
“Authentic?” Tyridia chimed in to Morgan’s relief. “What better way to bother her than with her bow in hand?” The fox nervously exchanged glances with the raccoon as they waited to see how well their pitch went over.
An icy mist trailed off of Russo’s hands as he readied his spell. Soft cricks could be heard when he clenched his fist and cracks spread throughout the frost caking his knuckles. “Dax just take the bow.”
“Okay!” Barking excitedly, the canine cradled the weapon close to his chubby chest.
“You can just tell him what to do, you know,” the human chided. Jagged flakes of ice compacted upon one another and poked between his curled fingers.
Idiot panted as she stomped through the sloshing stream that matted her wooly ankles with pine needles. “You can’t run forever!” she bleated.
“Neither can you!” one of the wavering blobs of color hovering above the mountain side mirage shouted back down at her.
The Valais swatted angrily at the dome of warm air that surrounded her and bahhed. “Screw youuuuuu. Like I’ll let this stop me!”
“That so?” Russo smirked to himself. “Then maybe this will.” The mage slowed to a halt and pulled an arm behind his shoulder as if he were winding up for a punch. “Get ready,” he simply stated. Anchoring his feet as best he could upon the slick stones, the muffled crackling of ice sounding out from his gloved grip, he threw his arm forward. His fingers unfurled as he thrust his limb forward. The human’s open palm pushed a semisolid orb of super chilled magic along. Icy blue arcs extended out from it and lashed at the moisture laden mountain side. Jutting, angular, and imposing translucent crystals smothered everything left in the spell’s wake.
A triumphant bleat bellowed forth from Idiot’s lips when the haze of heat lifted. “Hah! Fat lot of good that did…” She choked on her words when she realized that it had not faded so much as one spell had been used to dispel another. Right as it slammed into her chest. Near instantaneously a thick layer of frost coated the sheep’s torso. She wheezed fitfully, frigid mist pooling out from between her teeth, as what felt like tendrils of ice clutched at her lungs.
“Now!” Morgan commanded. Eyes wide and at attention, the raccoon winced when a burst of blue light all but blinded her. Amorphous colored blobs clouded her vision as an icicle laden Idiot abruptly came into view. Morgan flung an arm out towards the snowy sheep. Magic rippled out across the air. Snowflakes rose and fell across the barely visible sine waves sent out by spell.
Teeth chattering, the Valais groaned as her form shimmered. Ether, oily and rich, coated her wooly frame. It slowly eked across her body with the consistency of sludge. Idiot’s body shimmered in the waning winter sun as her body underwent a chromatic inversion courtesy of Morgan’s Reverse spell.
“You…” Flakes of snow and ice contrasted sharply against the sheep’s newly blackened wool. Keratin tipped fingers scraped at the frozen rocks she had been forced into a kneeling position upon while a low and guttural bleat carried along the frigid mist pooling from her white furred muzzle.
Fingers curled, the white mage gripped at the semi solid orb of white energy she had conjured in her grasp. Her face was set aglow with the, under any other circumstances, soothing light of white magic. A flick of her wrist sent the Cure spell lazily tumbling through the air along a downward arc. A seething hiss could be heard the instant it made contact with their persnickety pursuer.
Pained and stuttering bleats rang out from Idiot’s snout. “Yyyyyyeeeeoww!” Her grunts and groans tapered off as her drive and energy burnt away from the inside. Chin thudding against the ice caked ground, she bahhed quietly while smoky white wisps trailed off her flopped form.
Uncertain expressions made themselves manifest upon the human, wolf, fox, and raccoon’s faces. “So… now what?” Tyridia was the first to speak.
“Mulling that over as we speak,” Morgan replied.
Balanced precariously on one foot, Russo tapped at the sheep with his boot. Idiot bahhed every time he did so. “Well. That was pleasantly anticlimactic.”
Dax’s hips swung side to side as his tail came to wag him rather than the other way around. “I helped, I helped, I helped!” Bow hugged tightly against his chest, the canine arooed excitedly.
The foxy summoner allowed his jaw to slacken slightly. Misting breath to spilled out and around his pointed teeth. “Do we… do we interrogate her? What if there are others like her lying in wait for us? She might know something we don’t.”
Morgan crossed her arms about her chest and twiddled her fingers along her elbows. Muffled thrums sounded out steadily while she did so. “Maybe she does and maybe she doesn’t. Even if she does there’s no guarantee she’ll cooperate.” Beneath her robe, the raccoon could feel her long black hair brush along her shoulders when she tipped her head up towards the waning sun. “Kovous is still a half day’s travel away, at least. If we want to make it there today… it’s not worth it. Especially not with what little daylight we have left.”
Tyridia scratched at the fur between his ears uneasily. “Not to mention our uhhh… lack of supplies. We’re running light as is and can’t exactly afford to be all that generous with what we have. Then there’s the matter of the time and energy that’d come with keeping watch over her throughout the night.”
Dax’s lips curled down into a pronounced pout. “We’re not gonna leave her here are we?”
“She’s been screaming death threats at us for the past… however long we’ve been hauling ass,” Russo replied nonplussed.
Toes curled, the wolf retreated in on himself and tucked his chin against his chest. “I know. Just… seems kinda mean.”
“What’s best for her isn’t what’s best for us,” the raccoon plainly stated. “Sure, it does come off as, well, callous to leave her to her fate. But she chose to attack us. She owns the consequences for doing so.” Back turned to the sheep, Morgan took in the desolate beauty of the snow and stone stretching beyond her vision.
“Leaving her alive is generous enough as it is,” the human mouthed off.
Barking, Dax hrufed at the repeated slaps at his back that nudged him ever onwards. “Oooookay.” He reluctantly picked up the pace when Russo started stepping on his heels.
“Would you quit your worrying and get a move on?” Russo all but commanded. The mage rolled his eyes when Dax whapped that thick fluffy tail of his against his legs in protest. “If Idiot here has been skulking around for any amount of time she clearly knows the lay of the land better than we ever would. I mean, Jem and I left you by your lonesome when we first met and you turned out fine. She probably will too.”
Tired and drawn out bahhs rumbled out from the wooly lump sprawled out upon the ice.
“See?” Russo confidently replied. Fumbling for his footing, the human held his arms out to the side for balance. At least until he scrunched his eyes and remembered he had any number of spells at his disposal that rendered that wholly unnecessary. With a soft snap of his fingers he teleported the lot of a ways up the pass. Coarse rock, misshapen but dry, abruptly pressed into the undersides of their feet.
Morgan peered back at their fallen foe. Congealed clumps of darkened magic slowly slid off of Idiot’s prone form. With the consistency of tar the mass of ether oozed along her curves, peeling away the inverted sheen that coated her, before coming to undulate along the ice. Smoke trailed up from the discolored clumps as they violently churned. The magically manifested ice prompted the Reverse spell to flare back to life as the residual magic boiled to a bubble before bursting into flame.
“The more distance between her and us, the better,” the white mage declared. Eyes locked on the sheep, still lethargically writing in place, Morgan pattered along as Russo, Tyr, and Dax sidled up beside her. The options available to them, along with the accompanying risks and rewards, swarmed at the forefront of her thoughts. Morgan’s cracked leather lips parted when she began to speak. “Tyr, you mind shrouding us with another illusion?” A blanket of warmth promptly settled upon the ring tail’s shoulders.
Tyridia’s white tipped tail started to swish side to side. “And done. What’s next?” he inquired expectantly. Latching onto the fox’s initiative, Russo and Dax lazily turned to the raccoon for guidance as well.
“I… well. Way to put me on the spot.” Morgan huffed as she defaulted to the leader of the group. “I know there’s something to be said about walking slowly when in a hurry but Kovous is within our reach. We can feasibly settle down there for the night if we pick up the pace. Just, the catch is, we’ll have to trek beneath the twilit sky for at least a couple hours to do so,” she sighed.
Muzzle scrunched, Tyr’s teeth poked into his bottom lip. “So even without the uhh… distractions, we still wouldn’t have had enough sunlight to work with,” he mulled aloud.
“Even if we do play it safe and set up camp for the night we risk letting ol’ Idiot over there catch up with us. Certainly wouldn’t put it past her to do so,” Russo opined. Hands shoved into his pockets, he grunted. “Otherwise, we’re literally running blind for the last leg of our trip. Right when everything that could go wrong would.”
Dax protectively cradled a weapon he couldn’t even wield close to his chest for some semblance of security. “Those both sound kinda bad…”
“That’s because they are,” Morgan hmmphed. Cheek puffed out, she pursed her lips and exhaled. “It’s on us to figure out which one is less bad and commit to it.” The pine trees, gnarled roots shallowly embedded into and cracking apart the bedrock, slowly tapered off as they continued to ascend.
Zaps emanated from Russo’s gloves as arcs of electricity jumped between his fingertips. “We could always just ‘incapacitate,’ heavy emphasis on the air quotes, Idiot further and save ourselves the hassle. Rest easy for the night and stroll on-”
“No,” Morgan flatly denied him. “Master all but told us to expect this, short of outright saying so, for a reason. Planned or no, I’m tempted to think this was a test.”
“And killing the proctor is probably a surefire way to fail said test. Assuming that’s the case, heh,” Tyridia nervously chimed in. “Master was awfully cagey on details now that you mention it. If Kovous had a reputation for bandits or highwaymen you think she would’ve said so…”
Russo rolled his eyes while Dax sighed in relief. “To Kovous?” The human asked with resignation.
The de facto leader of the group hesitated before answering. “To Kovous,” Morgan replied.
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Category Story / Fantasy
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