Chapter 20: The Rise of Penrith - Chapter 3

An hour later, Quill and Rayden settled down beside a campfire, listening to the chirps and drones of insects, the hoots and calls of birds, and the delirious groans of the miserable dwarf beside them. If they’d gone any further, Boh would have collapsed whether they had permitted it or not. They had originally planned to push deep into the night, but the dwarves' sudden disclosure had derailed their hunt.

Nobody was in a good mood, but the Feral Lands had been more welcoming than Rayden had expected so far. The arrival of evening had cooled the forest considerably, and the scents of earthy soil, resin, and burning wood blended into a pleasant enough perfume. A strong breeze was rolling through, weaving through swaying branches.

If it wasn’t for the threat of monsters and a detoxing dwarf, Rayden could have almost considered this a camping trip.

There was something darkly funny about a lush forest lying just a few miles away from the nearly uninhabitable lands of the Boot. The balance of mana and nature was extremely delicate, particularly sensitive to the greed and power of the men who dared tamper with it. For tonight, he merely wished to survive it.

Rayden glanced over at Boh, who was tightly wrapped in a bedroll to help with the shaking. Sweat was pouring down the dwarf’s face, and he could make out a few mumbled requests for drink amidst the poor man’s ramblings. Their companion made for a pathetic sight at the moment.

Rayden had seen his fair share of addiction growing up, but this was his first time witnessing someone suffering through the debilitating pain of withdrawal. It dawned on him how naive he’d been, thinking that any race would celebrate this, the lonely sorrow lying at the bottom of empty mugs and bottles.

He did not think alcohol was inherently bad, but Boh’s condition made him wonder how many of the men he’d seen frequenting the kingdom’s taverns could survive away from their walls. It was worth asking at exactly what point those walls become a prison?

Rayden wasn’t sure, but knew it was profoundly sad to watch his friend’s body betray him, wracked by cravings for a stupid drink. Even someone Talented, one of the most powerful men in the kingdom, was not immune to pain—or at least the desire to numb it.

He felt Quill rest her head on his shoulders and sighed. She looked more perturbed than philosophical, glancing at their companion with a more personal mix of anger and pity.

“You can die of alcohol withdrawal, you know,” she whispered.

“I do know,” Rayden grimaced. “But what can we do?”

“Nothing, except wait…I suppose…”

She blew a few strands of hair out of her face.

“Sorry, not very helpful. I’m just frustrated.”

Quill reached down into the bag lying at her feet and took out a piece of cloth. He put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. She looked up at him, brown eyes shining in the glow of the dancing fire.

“Should we really be counting on this man, Rayden? I mean, this is only our second adventure, and he’s put us in a terrible position. What if we’re attacked?”

“We’ll manage,” he said, as confidently as he could muster. “Personally, I don’t want to give up on him. He did fuck us over, but I’m willing to forgive him. This isn’t malicious; it's just someone desperate, grasping for the only rope they can see. Plus, do you know of any other Attuned dwarven craftsmen willing to help the town?”

Quill slowly shook her head at him, but it didn’t look like she disagreed. She took out a canteen, poured some water on the cloth, then held it up to the fire.

“I get it, I just wish he didn’t choose our excursion into the Feral Lands to go cold turkey sober. All the gods standing on the corner of a fucking square, what exactly did he expect was going to happen?”

“Trust me, I get it,” Rayden said grimly. “But I don’t think addicts tend to be focused on planning things out. It wasn’t smart, but he’s trying to help himself. Hell, if he can actually do this and end up sober, we’ll be better off in the long run anyway.”

“I hope so…” Quill said, with a wave of her hand.

She got up from her seat, then walked over to Boh and gingerly placed the makeshift compress she had whipped up onto the dwarf’s forehead. He smiled to himself, confident that she hadn’t given up on the dwarf either.

Quill made her way back to the fire and sat down by his side.

“Don’t tell him I did that,” she huffed.

“No prob-”

The two of them turned their heads as Boh’s ravings suddenly grew louder.

“…you made me like this…you made me like this…it’s all your fault…”

Rayden winced.

“What do you think that’s about?” Quill asked.

“Not sure…but I’m guessing it has to do with why a dwarven artisan was willing to join up with random adventurers in Penrith in the first place. I’m sure he was running…and drinking from something.”

“I suppose I can understand that much,” she said, patting his arm. “You should get some sleep, Rayden.”

He looked at her, then at Boh, before staring back into the fire. The orange-red flames made him uneasy, both a blessing and a beacon.

“I’m not sure if I can, to be honest,” he admitted. “You sure you wouldn’t rather tell stories, or even kiss for a bit? It might make Boh so mad that he overcomes his withdrawals.”

Quill chuckled.

“A good thought, but not tonight. Unfortunately, the mere sight of his face makes my skin crawl. Anyway, try your best to sleep, and I’ll wake you up in four hours, or when the dwarf kicks the bucket.”

“Fair enough,” Rayden laughed.

She grinned, then leaned in for a quick kiss.

Reluctantly, he rose to his feet and made his way over to his bedroll, taking one last look at the pitiful dwarf tossing and turning on the ground. He was murmuring again, but Rayden couldn’t make out the words. He could only hope his dwarven buddy could survive the night and wake up a little freer.

Good luck, Boh.

Rayden lay down, unsure if sleep was a realistic prospect. He had always been an anxious man, and tonight’s events didn’t help. The canopy of leaves was so dense that it was impossible to see more than small swathes of the night sky, but he did his best to try to find some stars.

One particular blot of darkness caught his attention, causing him to squint. Unfortunately, further inspection revealed an unwelcome surprise.

About twenty feet above, the wriggling abdomen of a dog-sized spider was faintly visible in the moonlight, covered in yellow, circular markings. A furry-looking horn protruded outwards from the top of its head, reminding him of a sword hilt. Looking around, he saw several of the giant arachnids hanging above their camp, dangling from thick cords of silk attached to swaying branches.

Fuck.

“Quill, look up!” He shouted.

Rayden chucked one of his daggers into the closest spider's middle, then rolled over to avoid a spray of green blood. He poured mana into the weapon, frying the spider with a jolt of lightning. It fell to the ground with a wet thud, but several more of the beasts were descending on their camp.

He retrieved his dagger just as a new spider swung toward him, legs curled into a hairy cannonball. He ducked, narrowly avoiding its reared fangs. Following its trajectory, he sprinted forward on empowered legs, jumped, and stabbed his daggers into its dangling abdomen before it could swing away to safety.

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Holding his weapons in its innards like two macabre pitons, Rayden nearly vomited as green gunk splashed all over his hands. He suppressed the urge and slammed the flailing spider into the ground instead, then pivoted to watch Quill blast another right in its disgusting clump of beady eyes.

The monster’s corpse rolled onto the ground in pieces.

The Mage’s eyes glowed green, just before a rope-swinging spider crashed into one of its kin in a mess of flailing limbs. Moments later, the tangled-up duo met the same fate as their vaporized brother. Quill’s blasts of raw mana were perfect for exterminating pests, so Rayden focused on his own peril. Ten feet away, a spider was skittering its way over to their incapacitated dwarf patient.

Fuck, I cannot imagine a worse scenario to detox in.

Laughing darkly to himself, Rayden raised his palm towards the fire and fanned the flames. They leapt forward, licking the spider’s abdomen and causing it to jerk around with a loud hiss. It wasn’t badly wounded, but the distraction gave him enough time to draw his bow. In one fluid motion, he slipped an arrow on the string and fired.

The creature clicked and thrashed, trying to locate the source of its pain. Rayden fired again, then once more, turning the spider into an eight-legged pincushion. It had already collapsed by the time a fourth arrow silenced it for good.

Rayden took a deep and calming breath. The bow had always been his first love, and he wielded it with pride. He worried it was lagging behind his daggers in power, as his control of wind wasn’t precise or long ranged enough to manipulate his arrows, but it had proved deadly enough thus far.

He let his instincts and muscle memory take over as he defended Quill from afar, peppering the oversized arachnids with potshots. Each of her bolts was lethal, so all he had to do was distract the spiders long enough for her to connect. Mages were fucking scary, creating deadly weapons out of thin air with none of the wind-up his humble lightning required.

Working together, two more spiders died from neatly placed arrows, while another four were blasted apart with mana. They had thinned the herd and were close to finishing off the stragglers. Right after smashing a spider’s head with the butt of her staff, Quill looked over at him and screamed.

“Watch out!”

Rayden instinctively looked up, but the surprise was coming from behind. He felt a wriggling hairy mass connect with his back and knock him forward.

Fuck no.

Panicked, he summoned a gust of wind and blasted it backwards across his body. He fell over onto his back as the spider was sent flying backwards, just before its fangs could sink into his neck. Rayden hit the ground hard, needing a second to recover before he tilted his head back and stared into the hissing maw of an extremely aggravated spider. Saliva dripped from its fangs as its front two legs raised to pounce.

He reached out with two tendrils of mana and beckoned the air, praying his Talent would save him in time. Summoning every ounce of mana and strength he had left, Rayden dragged a mass of cold and hot air together, then slammed it together with a violent clap.

The spider jumped, impaling itself on the thin blue spear of lightning that fulminated mid-way through its leap. There was a blinding flash, followed by a wave of heat and a crack of vibrating air. By the time his vision cleared, the attacking spider was curled up, smoking, and dead.

I’d like to see you do that, Quill...I bet Jim would be proud of me.

Rayden looked around, sucking gulps of air into his tired lungs. Quill was already rushing over to him, running past the mess of spiders she had felled.

“Still kicking?” She asked, wiping sweat off her forehead before she bent over and grabbed her knees.

“Just barely,” Rayden cursed in between jagged breaths. “I fucking hate spiders.”

“They are indeed disgusting creatures. My brother likes to say they are a necessary evil, because they deal with other pests.”

She looked around at the carnage and shivered.

“Personally, I would prefer to just blast them all.”

“You have a brother?”

“Yup,” she nodded. “He’s a few years older, and his name is Jayden. Funny, you almost have the same name.”

Rayden gave her a look, unsure what to do with that. He wondered if he would eventually meet the man and seek his approval. He decided, at the very least, he wouldn’t mention the similarity of their names.

“Those were hiltheads by the way,” Quill said, crouching by the corpse of one. “We’re lucky neither of us was bitten.”

He nodded slowly, having never heard of them before, but assuming the creature’s name came from its protruding horn.

“How do you know I wasn’t bitten?” He asked, partly in jest.

Quill glanced up at him, unamused.

“Because you’d be screaming in pain, and possibly dead. I’ve heard them called poisoned daggers, and for good reason. Nasty little fucks, even worse than dwarves.”

Both of them looked over at Boh, who was still squirming in his bedroll, apparently oblivious.

“I’m glad he wasn’t bothered by our guests,” she said.

Rayden bobbed his head, then pulled his hands behind his head and looked up at the maze of branches above. He didn’t see any more vicious monsters lying in wait, but it wasn’t like he could make out much in the darkness. By now, all five moons should be out in some capacity, but their pale light failed to pierce much of the thick blanket of foliage above.

“Think he’s doing alright?” Rayden asked eventually.

He heard Quill trudge over to the dwarf, pause, then make her way back to his side.

“He’s mercifully delirious,” Quill said. “Tossing and turning and mumbling to himself, but seemingly alive.”

“Good for him,” Rayden sighed.

“We should move camp, Rayden, at least a little bit away,” Quill suggested, taking his hand.

“Ugh. You sure we can’t just lie down and die instead?”

“Tempting, but no. I’d rather not sleep surrounded by spider corpses, as well as whatever might be keen on eating them,” she said with a shudder. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather move the three of us than a dozen spider corpses.”

“Can’t you blame you there,” Rayden replied, slowly getting to his feet. “Changing camps, it is.”

Looking around, he recalled a conversation he’d had long ago with a brunette he’d met during a quest. She’d maintained that in every relationship, one person should take responsibility for killing pests, and the other should take charge of disposing of them. The woman had been adamant that this sacred agreement was a fundamental part of a healthy marriage.

Sadly, it looked like both he and Quill were the killing type, but maybe someday his lightning would be powerful enough to turn corpses into ash.

What a sweet, romantic thought.

Tired and dirty, they lumbered through the night together, dragging a rolled-up dwarf behind them until they reached a spot suitable enough for a new fire. Rayden did the honors, in what he considered a very emasculating use of his Talent, but it did the job. After inspecting their surroundings as thoroughly as possible while trying not to flinch at every bump in the night, they laid back down together.

Quill turned onto her side, resting the back of her head against his chest. He reached behind her and laid his hand on her stomach, then pulled her in. She flinched a little at his touch, then grabbed his hand and guided it to her sternum.

There was a brief moment of awkward silence before Quill mumbled out an explanation, “Sorry, I’m a bit sensitive about my stomach.”

“I see…my bad. I’ll keep that in mind,” Rayden said, apologetic but a tad surprised.

“It’s alright,” she sighed heavily. “Just, bad memories of the tailor’s scolding and trying to suck in during dances…mostly childhood bullshit.”

“Really? Were you…um, bigger, as a kid or something?”

Quill grunted, shifting her weight against him.

“No, it's just, growing up, the fashion for noble women was to be as thin as possible. I’ve always been about how I am, not the smallest, nor the largest. I’m content with it, but my mother and her friends weren’t. Thank the gods I no longer have to wear the flesh prisons they called clothes back then. Now, the style is a little different, but the scars remain. Oh, to be a woman in a man’s kingdom,” she said mournfully.

“I’m sorry,” Rayden said quietly. “That sounds like a nightmare. Just in case it wasn’t clear, I think you are beautiful.”

“You sure you don’t prefer Ivy?” Quill asked playfully, with a touch of scorn. “She seems oddly interested in you.”

“I’m sure, and honestly, I’m daunted by the prospect…I’m willing to bend, but not break.”

Quill giggled before turning over with a long sigh.

“We both need to get some sleep.”

“Agreed,” Rayden said. “Though I’m not sure I can. I’ll grab the first watch.”

“Noope,” she gently commanded. “Let’s both try to sleep. We don’t know if Boh will be any help tomorrow, so we need to be ready to pull his weight again…possibly literally.”

“So, we just risk getting ambushed?”

“Yes, but I’m willing to risk it,” Quill said wearily, nestling into his chest again. “It’s as you suggested before. Time to lie down and die. Who knows, we just might wake up.”

“Alright,” he agreed. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“‘K, goodnight, Quill.”

“Goodnight.”

He stared up into the dark depths of the forest, searching for monsters as he listened to Quill’s breathing slow down and steady. At least one of the three of them was relatively at peace. He supposed that if he was going to spend the night with unknown creatures and a detoxing dwarf, he was glad to have her by his side.

Things could be much worse. It was hard to imagine venturing into the Feral Lands alone, but Rayden would have done it if he had to, and without hesitating. Somewhere deeper in the forest, their next dungeon waited, and he was willing to do anything to get stronger; giant spiders, dark forest, and alcohol be damned. Promising himself that guilt-tripping Boh would make him feel better tomorrow, Rayden slowly drifted off to an anxious sleep.