Chained - 13

Though I’m tempted to dig into whatever Iarien is hiding, I’ve got other needs on my mind.

“Horatia, I’m going to hunt. I plan to be back before nightfall.”

Engrossed in setting the camp’s wards in place, she doesn’t take time to answer me, and I’m not interested in being protected. Hopefully, Titus was right about more predators being out in the day. I can only hope they’d come when I ring the dinner bell. Deep breaths bring only the scent of snow, ice, and ocean from somewhere further north.

Eternal map shows the churned ground I spotted off to one side of our flight path kilometres to the southwest. Skirting around the wards’ energy, metal forms under my feet and lifts me through the air. With only myself held aloft, my speed is faster than the undead Roc that had delivered me to Mother’s Glacier home, maybe even expressway speed.

The white powder snow is unmarked beneath my course, the brisk northern breeze keeping it unsullied by tracks. With the near constant wind cleaning evidence away, whatever had churned the snow will hopefully still be about.

Dark blotches of blood and broken ground are being covered by snow and smoothed out by the wind when I arrive. The edge of the broken ground is still showing a large, ploughed track like the Dire Bear had made, but with no exit from the area.

A strange scent of burned earth, fur, and flesh lingers against the breeze, and the frozen ground crunches under my weight settling down. The blood is certainly Dire Bear, and the churned earth shows where the beast’s claws had thrashed. Overtop the frenzied motions are strikes that look like hundreds of pitons smashed down into the permafrost. Up close, the churned ground makes sense and I know where the bear’s killer went.

There’s no point forming bells from my spikes. Instead, I run along the churned earth’s edge, letting my chains’ weight increase. After my first step, each is a thumping slap of noise, and the predator surges up in a spray of earth and ice before the fifth step lands.

The damn beast hadn’t come from where I’d expected and rises taller than a house. Pristine snow frames the hole from where it erupts with the appearance of engorged cock having already blown its load. A burst of vapor from instantly evaporating snow spraying from its up-thrust tip with a heat that chars the frozen ground. When unfurling stubby stingray-like wings and scores of legs breaks up the beast’s phallus-like appearance, the insectoid maw strikes down. The fangs within its open maw glisten as water droplets turn into steam from the heat coming up from its guts.

The strike’s momentum comes shuddering through the chains I lashed out to block the Remorhaz’s maw from swallowing me whole. The fierce impact against the spiked net I erected sends me skidding across the already broken ground. A Remorhaz hadn’t been what I’d been expecting, the breeds in Hell I’d only ever encountered in the glaciers and mountains. The chains’ cold isn’t a threat to this creature, but at least blood hisses across the ground from where the spikes and blades dug in.

A roar of rage carries a furnace’s fury, and the snow around my feet melts. The beast rearing back to strike again has me running forward, each footstep spraying water away to freeze again. A chain loop catching around the head crest, I reel myself in to get nice and close. My speed is enough that there is no chance for its motion to reverse before I catch hold. Both the internal furnace churning within, and the super-heated chitinous plates that runs down the beast’s length melt snow from me. Together they would already have cooked a Mortal that got this close alive.

With my grip putting me at eye level, a baneful glare locks on and my perch tilts as we plunge. Momentum is a bitch and my chains expand downwards, forming a spike trap that locks against the ground, spearing upwards. With its attention fixed on me, the brutal plunge drives them deep into the skull on either side of me without the beast even hesitating.

Allowing my chains and their spikes to bloom in size changes the beast’s cry of pain into bellows of agony. The thrashing death throes grinding me impotently between spikey scales and ground, completely blunted by my resistance. The extent of the damage stopped signalling how comparatively weak this version is compared to the Infernal Remorhaz.

[Combat Summary:

Remorhaz

Total Experience gained: 2,800

Hunter: +1,400

Artificer: +1,400

]

The lower value of the kill has me curling my lip in disgust. It had looked almost identical to the ones from Hell’s glaciers, and the size had me expecting hundreds of experience points more.

Still pinned in place under the bulky mass, I almost start cutting at the ground to dig myself free but switch my approach. The rough scales pressing through the gaps in the chains vanish into Inventory when the ability decapitates it cleanly. Hot blood oozes and spurts across me, the last beats of a dying heart causing only a weak geyser that freezes across my chains.

The coppery-iron blood smells clean after the foulness of the Winter Wolves and even unneeded it makes my stomach gurgle. It’s rich flavour scenting the air, adrenaline and rage having left its muscles flooded and likely toughening the meat. The frozen blood makes it clear the meat doesn’t share the Winter Wolves’ immunity to cold and I keep my chains clear when my claws cut a strip of flesh free.

Savouring the raw flesh’s taste, I loft myself atop the body. The steaming strip down its back continues to burn white-hot like its Infernal kin. The musky smell of decay from the melting Permafrost and charring earth competing against the richness of its blood. The natural Mana in the plates shows no hint of fading, and I claim a wide strip into Inventory leaving a track of white-marbled flesh an arm length wide exposed to the freezing air.

Hopefully, though weaker, the hide and scales will be useful enough for practicing Artificer skills. Inventory makes quick work of cleaning the frozen blood from my chains, along with claiming large sections of intact scales of various weights, and thick raw hide from the beast should hopefully be plenty to practise with for now. Though my Skinning Skill makes it easier to visualise what I want to achieve, I’m disappointed that by the time the metal disc is carrying me to camp the Skill has shown no progress.

Another example of the usual problem with facing no challenge, this place doesn’t count it as learning. To progress a physical Skill takes physical action, or the synergy of another Skill. Using Metal Control to form a dagger only ups Metal Control, and Weapon Smith gains nothing. Inventory has never earned me the Mining Skill. Now, despite following the knowledge and cut adjustments learned from levelling Skinning, it earned no progress.

Eternal Map set me right by the camp, and the lack of visibility isn’t an issue when I can taste the wards disguising it. Yet each step towards where they should be turns my focus away, and the Map in my mind’s eye shows my progression sidestepping along the barrier’s edge.

Inger steps through the barrier nearby and catches me in mid frustrated hiss. “Take my hand and I can let you through the ward.”

“Will you actually though or are you looking to get some pay back?”

“What do you mean, I can’t let you in the ward without physical contact, since you weren’t present when we finished it.”

“Your wording, you said ‘I can’, but it doesn’t make it clear that is what you intend,” I point out.

“Hell, truly is twisted, isn’t it? Forget it,” retorts Inger, and waves her hands in frustration the moment my sneer starts. “I meant forget it as the question answers itself. Very well, Sidero. Take my hand and I’ll let you in through the ward.”

The truth in her scent sits among confusion and surprise but is clear of the hate and disgust that she’s had over the last days. “Why the sudden change in attitude?”

The sigh fills her scent with an explosion of frustration, but still no anger is present. “Sidero, will you please take my hand, so we can both get back within the ward?”

“Using my name, and please, I’m honoured,” I purr in warm amusement, and step forward to clasp her hand. I let her guide me when Inger takes a step back. When the ward’s energy enfolds me on contact suddenly, I can see within, and it’s a simple matter to finish crossing the perimeter.

When I’m fully inside Inger releases her grip on my hand, and though the scent of confusion is thick about her, the revulsion doesn’t return.

“You still haven’t answered my question. Do you need me to pay a fee? Why the sudden change in attitude?”

“Unfortunately, charging you would be against my instructions. I prayed for guidance while you were out hunting. I expected nothing, as you should be beneath Asgard’s notice. Instead, my Goddess said to consider you like someone who walks Odin’s path of trials.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you have already endured the worst life can inflict on you, nothing else can break you. If you do no harm to the group, I was told to treat you as I would a fellow shield-maiden.”

“Just because your Goddess gives you an all-clear on me, you’re happy to set your anger aside?” I ask and take the chance for a verbal poke. “Along with the revulsion, disgust, sense of betrayal, and a few other things.”

“I’m trying Sidero and that is all I can promise,” sighs Inger. “The response to a commune prayer sometimes seems like hours pass in contemplation and discussion. This was one such occasion, and it makes me wonder why my Goddess spent such an effort to reassure me about you. But whatever else is going on, those three girls are alive, and I’ll try to let that guide my responses to you. My Goddess was abundantly clear that without you, all their bones would have just added to the Troll’s midden heap. I don’t know why she took such pains for you or why you warrant the attention of Týr.”

“I’ll take that as progress, whatever the source.”

Gritting her teeth briefly, Inger took a deep breath as frustration spiked again. “My Goddess instructed me to ask you what your name means.”

“Really? Why didn’t she just tell you?”

“I’m just following her instructions. Do I need to ask you another question, and give you a line from the prophecy?”

“Nah, this one I’ll answer because I feel like it,” I say, and see if she’ll bite, but her patience remains even when I let my pause stretch on. “My name means evil nymph, in a Grecian dialect of all things.”

“Jotunn’s balls,” groans Inger, and scrubs at her face, before fixing her gaze carefully on my mouth. “The red nymph will wield her scales amid the deepest ice.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s one line of the prophecy,” grumbles Inger.

“That’s annoying,” I groan, and put my hands to my hips in a mock-huff.

“Why? Because you don’t want to be caught up in a prophecy?” asks Inger, motioning towards the others already settled down to sleep. “Look around you. We’re all caught up in one at present.”

A seed of irritation flares under the frustration and I’m glad her Deity can’t make her completely drink the Kool Aid.

“You can do whatever you want for the mumbo-jumbo. But the order of our arrangement was I answer two questions, then you give me a line, then another two questions. Now you’ve done things out of order, that’s annoying. Is it even the next line?”

“No, it’s not,” admits Inger, her confusion drowning out frustration.

“You changed the arrangement and gave me a line out of order,” I tease, and Inger’s gaze narrows at the twitch of my lips. “I mean, I thought I’d escaped Hell for a time. What torment! Though seriously, how could you be so cruel?”

“You are…”

My smile slips free and Inger halts with a groan before she turns and stalks back to the campfire that someone setup to burn merrily away without even a single twig or lump of coal.

“Let me know when you’ve defined me. I’d hate not to know what box you think I fit into.”

The teasing words don’t even get a reaction, and I drop to sit cross-legged in the snow. Bringing out a Remorhaz scale, I carve a fire rune into an unblemished spot on its inner edge. The moment I finish the first, I look at it in disgust, the words Inger shared with me digging across my nerves. Putting it away, I bring out a fang instead and start smoothing out a section to carve with a rune.

The curious girls move to watch the runes I practice take form but stay quiet. Focusing, I can only ignore them as much as my instincts will allow me. With so many foreign scents digging at my awareness, my ability to get lost in the work, as in Mother’s forge room, isn’t an easy mind space to find. The materials soak up the Mana being embedded into the runes like a sponge, and I don’t have to push the energy to hold it in place within the runes.

Ignoring the watch changes during the day, I enjoy the sunlight and keep focused on my carving, which, given the number of runes progressing takes, is just as well.

[Embed Mana [Ap] (9->10)]

The drain of the runes I manage weighs on me long before I get the last in place, an edge of fatigue I’ve not felt in year is an odd echo of lost humanity.

“How many did you manage?” Gaius asks from his spot by the fire, apparently preparing ingredients for later.

The finished rune disappears in Inventory before I look his way. “Eighty-five fire runes.”

“Where did you get those materials from?”

“I noticed churned up ground towards morning, investigated looking for something to kill, and ran into a Remorhaz.”

“Polar worm on this tundra! How big was it?”

“About this big.”

I release the head, now missing a few fangs unto the ground next to me, and the blood scent thickens the air before I store the mess away again.

“Was that necessary?” Senca asks, his nose wrinkling at the copper-iron yummy scent.

Pulling a section of raw meat from the shell, I chew it with an open mouth until he flinches away from its blood oozing down my chin.

“Just had to whip it out so we could measure it.” I quip and consider Titus checking his gear, ignoring all the fuss. “The scent of open ice and salt is getting stronger. I think we’ll hit the ocean easily tonight. Do you want me to stop or follow the coast-line eastwards when I do?”

The question gets a look of surprise from most of the expedition, but Titus just stops to consider, seemingly unbothered.

“I’d say follow it unless anyone has a good reason for wasting a chunk of night sitting on the coastline.”

“We’ve made good time. Do we really have to use her floating chairs again?” Senca chirps up, and Martialis just shoots him a look of disgust.

“There are no roads out here to aid our way, and I enjoy them after the initial fright, though they’re a bit lacking in comfort,” states Martialis. “I hope Janus gives me inspiration to duplicate them with objects dedicated in his name. Such swift means of travelling shouldn’t be in the sole possession of a denizen of Hell.”

“Oh, I’ll give you both points,” I murmur in amusement, and Martialis glances at me in confusion. “You didn’t call me a Devil, and you avoided all insults. Given your Deities portfolio of crossroads and travellers, I can see why you’d be interested in a means of faster travel. This trip is the first time I’ve used my Power in such a fashion. I used to always be cursing the entities that had Teleport or Flight.”

At my explanation, Inger sits up straight and turns to join the conversation. “You really keep to your rules, don’t you? You said if we talked normally, you wouldn’t get in our faces.”

“I prefer things being orderly,” I say, and change the subject. “Who is ruining dinner tonight?”

“Do you even need to eat?” Gaius asks, and I wonder if this is part of the lore he wants to leave behind or just curiosity.

“No, but I can. I prefer food that doesn’t taste like someone’s poured ashes into a fry pan and served it soaked in oil.”

I’m at least nice about it, and don’t stare at Senca when I mentioned his last turn at cooking.

“Why do you eat if you don’t need to?”

“Good food is a pleasure of its own. I prefer genuine pleasures over pain twisted into orgasms. Mind you, I’ll take either, but genuine pleasures are almost non-existent in Hell.”

“Pleasure actually exists in Hell? I thought it was all torment.”

“Perhaps I should have said things I find genuinely pleasurable. But I enjoy working at the forge, for example, which wouldn’t appeal to others. It doesn’t matter what I’m making, turning steel ingots into anything gives me a sense of satisfaction.”

“What else do you enjoy?” Inger asks, and winces at her own question.

I could give her so many answers, but I pick one that is truly fun. “Fucking, but most entities in Hell with cocks don’t know how to use them pleasurably.”

The heated scent of embarrassment doesn’t just come from Inger, but Senca’s anger is a sharp sour odour. Though I manage not to give Gaius a smile for the bright spike of his lust that I taste in the air.

A gust of wind from the North that’s been scattering the clouds all day brings another scent washing across theirs. The sharp cold brine of the ocean somewhere ahead, and a wash of blood, rich and thick, crosses my tongue. A normal creature with no Mana salting its taste, but it’s travelled far and remained strong, and I shift the scent for recognition. Again, it’s not Mother’s memory that answers, but something else. Memories that feel similar but more like forgotten moments bubbling up. The taste of a bull seal’s richness; the taste of marbled flesh and blubber fills my mouth, and the warm blood comes rising in my mind.

Raw meat, rich blood, and marrow oozing from broken bones. The memory’s sharpness makes it seem like right now, with the sensations of consuming my prey, the blood that sends warmth roiling through me, among the budding eggs, and deep towards my groin. The tingling memory shrugs my confusion aside and overwhelms me with the details of feeding again and again, before leaping aloft. A moment more of memory: wings catching the wind, the deep bellows of my pursuers and it vanishes away.

I blink and its grip is gone, but at some point, I’ve risen to my feet. My gaze now focused on the scattered cloud above, while the memory of what I know was a first mating flight fades.

“Sidero, is there a problem?”

“I don’t know for sure, there is a slaughtered Bull Seal somewhere ahead. Too much blood to just be an argument between males. Something has ripped it… no, them, open. Four or five at least, a big male along with some of his cows. They’re big things, think wagon-sized beasts, and their lifeblood gushed into the air. The scents have come a long way, mingled with others; blood is clearer to me, so I can’t tell what killed them.”

Most of the others look at me in disbelief, but Titus speaks up first, pulling a large, wrapped bundle from the small bag strapped to his waist. “The wind is coming directly from the North. I’ll see if I can divine the direction to our destination. Might be better than heading directly into trouble that isn’t required for our expedition.”

“You smelled the Winter Wolves,” Inger observes, and I can tell she leaves the rest of her question unsaid.

“They had a weird scent. Whatever the cause of these kills, its scent blends into the background too well to make out. I wasn’t expecting a Remorhaz on this tundra, and I’ve got no idea what else is out here.”

The scent of oil and incense fills the air with Titus’ preparations. As he chants, he sets an ornate dagger within a shallow bowl filled with the oil that evaporates with each intonation of the Blessing. Before he’s finished, the dagger glowing with a subdued red glow is pointing its way in a distinctly north-easterly direction and I step around to the camp’s edge and cut a notch into the earth.

When he’s done, Titus looks at the still glowing dagger, and the gouge I made and smiles in amusement.

“How was I to know it would last?”

“It will last for hours yet and stay pointed towards our goal,” says Titus, and speaks up when I step towards it. “It’s enfolded in a Blessing from Mars, touching it would likely be unhealthy for you.”

“In that case, when we set off, your chair sits right by mine.”