FA+
Shop
1497
Views
Views
7
Favorites
Favorites
Category
Story / Fantasy
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 99 x 120
File Size 163.5 kB
Report this content
More from RaddaRaem
Listed in Folders
It's the journey, not the destination, that's important. Or at least that's what Morgan thought until Russo reveals to her that you really can just skip the journey entirely if circumstances allow for it. Their trek brought to an abrupt conclusion, Russo and crew settle down and make themselves at home in Kovous.
FIRST , PREVIOUS , NEXT
Icon comes courtesy of
RainbowFoxy
Chapter 54
By: RaddaRaem
“Your illusions can cover for this, right?” Russo asked aloud. Hand held out before him, the human repeatedly snapped his fingers together. Sparks flew free every time his index finger and thumb brushed against one another.
“You’re asking this after the fact?” Tyridia blinked.
A fwoosh answered the fox as a crackling flame came to hover above Russo’s palm. Lips pulled flat, the human curled his fingers into a fist and squelched the conjured fire within his grasp. Smoke wafted out from between his gloved fingers. “…Yyyyyyyes?”
Tyridia sighed uneasily. “Lucky for us, the answer is yes.”
Russo promptly splayed his fingers apart. The wisps trailing up from the mage’s palm immediately contracted into smoky threads bearing a faint orange glow.
“Please don’t do that,” Morgan chided him. “Now really isn’t the time to be opting for forgiveness rather than permission.”
“R-right. Uhhh.” The mage chafed at the thought of doling at an apology as the reignited smoke trails collapsed back together into a brilliant flame within his grasp. “I was… okay well technically I still am, cold.”
Lips pursed, Morgan blew out a steady stream of mist. “And you think we aren’t?”
“Says the one with all the fur,” Russo weakly protested.
The raccoon smirked in response. “No harm no foul, I guess. That and we might as well indulge it while we’re at it.”
Russo hmmphed when he found himself flanked by fuzzies eager to share in his conjured warmth.
“Ooh ooh! Can you turn it up some?” Dax inquired as he leaned into his idol.
A stifling heat settled upon the quartet as a roaring flame came to consume the entirety of Russo’s hand.
Tyridia uneasily regarded the trickling water his boots sloshed against. Within their very presence, the clumps of snow and ice that littered the mountain path melted near instantaneously. “E-easy there! You’re gonna give us away!”
With a roll of his eyes, Russo weaned the handheld inferno back down to a crackling ember.
“Well now that doesn’t do anyone any good,” Morgan opined.
His eyes clenched shut, Russo grumbled.
“There! Is everyone happy?” Exasperation seeped out from Russo’s every spoken syllable. “Have we finally hit the Goldilocks level of self-immolation?”
Brows arched, Morgan prepared to eat crow. “I… how? How the hell did you turn setting yourself on fire into a good idea?”
Licks of flame trailed off from Russo’s enchanted gloves, cloak, and boots. The human, and the raccoon, fox, and wolf in his immediate vicinity, were bathed in a gentle warmth.
Tyridia interjected to nitpick. “He isn’t technically on fire. There just happens to be fire. That is on him. Say uhh...” The foxy summoner tapped at his chin. The thought of wielding fox fire magic without fear of being burnt was an appealing one. “You wouldn’t happen to have any spares, would you?”
“Sure wouldn’t,” Russo replied.
The fox shrugged. “At least you had the courtesy to slap my hopes down before I could even get them up,” Tyridia conceded.
Shaking her head side to side, Morgan groaned. “Sooo… question for you. Is your thing that you enjoy delivering bad news? Or being the source of it?”
“Can’t it be both?” Russo snarked.
Morgan sighed. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Depends. Do you mean the being mouthy part or the being on fire part?” Russo smiled as he strung the raccoon along.
Denying him the satisfaction of a response, Morgan turned her attention to Dax. “And how are you holding up, Dax?”
The white mage watched as the wolf plucked at the burgled weapon’s bowstring. Low thrums accompanied the pew pew sound effects that Dax made every time he did so.
“I see,” Morgan simply stated. The raccoon breathed in deeply as she gathered her thoughts. “So how are you two still uhhh… alive, again?”
Russo bit down into his bottom lip and fumbled for a sincere reply. “I mean, I can bullshit you up an answer if you really want.”
“That’s not terribly reassuring,” she shot back.
Embers trailed off the human’s shoulders when he offered up a shrug. “It’s either that or me telling you that I don’t have one.”
“And that’s even less so,” Morgan grumbled while she pinched at the bridge of her nose. Her dampening mood lifted at the realization that they were no longer walking uphill. The concept of flat had reasserted itself once more as they came to tread upon the ground down mountain peak.
Under the twilit sun, the adventurers took in their surroundings.
“Are these clouds?” Tyridia wondered aloud in disbelief as a puffy white mass sailed past and obscured their view. By the time everyone, sans Russo, popped back together their jaws gone slack, the fading sunlight had managed to dissolve the collected condensation into a rainbow laden mist.
“They were clouds,” Russo, still ablaze, casually noted.
“How can you be so nonchalant about this?” Morgan implored as Dax wig wagged his tail beside her.
The human lazily tossed his arms to his sides. “Iunno, I mean, I’ve flown through a couple before. Just walking through one feels downright blasé in comparison.”
Both Tyridia and Morgan stared him down incredulously. “You… flew?” Tyridia followed up.
Russo defensively crossed his arms about his chest. At least until his tunic threatened to go up in flames. “Well if you’re gonna get nitpicky about it, then no,” he answered between huffs and puffs as he put parts of himself out. “Technically speaking, the dragon I was hitching a ride on was.”
“Do… do we want to know the story behind that?” Morgan dared to ask.
“Lettttttttt’s save it for after we trek across all of,” Russo gestured at the imposing view that had opened up to them, “that.”
The altitude, more than the hostile majesty of their environment, took their breath away. Directly beneath them, and some miles across a yawning valley, lay Kovous amongst an oasis of evergreens. Snowcapped sheer cliff faces protectively encircled the stalwart city and severely limited any and all means of approach. Icicles, and a steady stream of snow melt, trickled across their surfaces like veins.
“We’re not making it down there tonight,” Morgan bluntly assessed.
Tyridia traced the winding and narrow paths leading down below. He shuddered in defeat and resigned himself to sitting down as a crippling sense of vertigo clutched at his stomach.
“Hmm…” the wolf pondered aloud. Dax bumbled alongside Russo to hog all his crackling warmth as his companions faltered in the face of the trials that still awaited them. “Why’s everyone so sad? We made it!”
The fox weakly gestured at the steeply sloping path carved into the cliff face before them. “Why do you think? Just… just look at that! We’ll be lucky to even survive the descent. And there’s no telling what’s waiting in store for us if we even manage that…”
Dax scratched at his soft chin and let loose a pensive aroo. “Aren’t we gonna teleport though?”
Morgan and Tyridia’s heads snapped to attention. “Huh?”
“You two can hoof it if you really want,” Russo replied. “Fuck all if I am.”
The raccoon grasped out blindly at her vocabulary as words, invectives and inquiries alike, failed her. “Explain,” she managed to stammer out.
“If I can see it I can teleport to it?” Russo incredulously answered. “Crystals aside, all there is to teleportation spells is line of sight and some imagination.”
Hand held up before her, the white mage drew in deeply of the dry air. “And you didn’t explain this earlier because?”
“…Because no one asked me to?” Russo shrugged.
Tyridia scrambled to his feet to join them. Morgan, blinking in disbelief, refused to accept that it really was that easy to skip the journey entirely and jump straight to the destination.
“You coming or not?” the human asked. Clapping his hands together, the fires crackling on his person subsided. He coughed and hacked furiously as the smoke trailing off his shoulders enveloped his head.
“I’m not about to say no,” Morgan conceded. She sidled up along Tyridia and furrowed her brow in thought. “So… so why don’t more people specialize in this?”
Hand held out before him, Russo collected mana within his palm. The fleeting wisps congealed together into a bright blue orb. “You tell me. Have you never heard of Teleport or Blink or whatever you wanna call it before this or did you just always look down on them?”
Lips pulled flat, the white mage reluctantly broke off eye contact.
“They did always come off as kinda cheap,” Tyridia acknowledged.
Yawning, Russo goaded the collected magic to collapse. A film of ether spread out and came to cover his glove. “That’s because they are,” he answered with a smirk.
“Yayyyyy!” Dax reflexively cheered.
Morgan tried rationalizing away the unfathomably lazy approach. “It’s not unscrupulous so much as it is… pragmatic. Or at least that’s what I’ll keep telling myself.”
“You’re welcooooooooome,” Russo smugly boasted. Bringing his thumb and middle finger together, the human squinted. He needed something pronounced. Something stark and easy to imagine himself standing before. The mage hmmed when he picked out a blot of black and brown from among the sea of evergreens. His hmmm transitioned to a hnnngh when he realized those burnt out husks weren’t even remotely close to their desired destination. Teleporting ass deep into a forest with no bearings whatsoever wouldn’t be much of an improvement.
Teeth chattering, Tyridia found himself morbidly wistful for Russo’s self-conflagration. “Does it usually take this long?”
“I’m working on it,” the human snipped back. His eyes came to focus on the stone city as Russo tried to find a path, any path, leading into or out of it. When that failed his attention turned towards a prairie, carved through by a stream of snow melt, situated a ways behind Kovous at the base of the towering mountain range that encircled it. “That oughta work,” Russo mulled aloud.
“What will?” Morgan asked. One muffled snap of Russo’s fingers, and a burst of light later, left the raccoon blinking away the blobs of color that distorted her answer. “Oh. Yeah, I guess that will.”
Rubbing at his peepers, Dax gawked at the stone towers looming above even the tree canopies in the distance. They were… they were him-sized! Gosh and they were even taller than he first thought and wait no that was just his plump and pudgy self sinking into the damp and water logged soil.
“Huh. So this is what cheating feels like,” Tyridia mulled aloud.
“Pretty sweet, right?” Russo chimed in. “No one in their right mind would think we’d invest the time and effort to circle around from the back.”
Morgan pinched at her mask of black fur and grunted. “I’m sorry, I’m just… still trying to reconcile how the path of least resistance has become everything it shouldn’t.”
“You’re not frustrated at how well full-assing this is turning out, are you?” Russo prodded.
“A little,” the raccoon huffed with cheeks puffed out.
Russo refused, absolutely refused, to let this opportunity pass him by. A spate of magical bursts sent the quartet lurching closer towards Kovous by leaps and bounds. One moment they were on the edge of the prairie. The next, they found themselves in the freezing shade of the looming evergreens. Until finally, they manifested on Kovous’ outskirts. The uneven clay paths transitioned into proper roads and the backside of a sprawling watch tower monopolized their vision. And all before they could even jinx themselves!
“Hmmm?” the human teased as he casually sauntered into the city’s limits.
“A lot,” Morgan groaned in disgust. “Fine. Let’s just… let’s just introduce ourselves to Master Norn.”
Gurgles, emanating out from Dax’s tummy, protested against the proposed plan of action. “Before or after we grab some dinner?” the wolf shyly inquired.
The white mage clamped her jaws together and exhaled through her nostrils. “Know what? We may as well just completely commit to full-assing it at this point. Sure, why not. We’re ahead of schedule anyway.”
“You okay, Morgan?” Tyr worriedly inquired.
“Not really,” she acknowledged with a sigh as she tossed her arms out to the side and followed Dax’s aimless and bumbling lead. “This cannot, this should not, be this easy! Have we been doing this wrong the whole time?”
Biting down into his lips, ivory teeth pinching against his black flesh, Tyridia couldn’t bring himself to contradict her. “Would you have rather we trekked down here?”
“Noooooo,” Morgan grumpily answered. The raccoon’s expression soured as she stared into the back of Russo’s head.
Resisting the urge to cackle, the mage simply kept on keeping on while his cheeks strained from smiling so much.
“Any kind of reaction at all encourages you, doesn’t it?” the white mage accused him.
“I don’t have to answer that,” he answered while struggling to maintain a straight face. Hands shoved into his pockets he allowed himself to be led along by Dax. The wolf’s nose sniffed and snuffed furiously at the air as he ambled through the snow lined streets.
Tyridia gently nudged at his ring-tailed partner. Hand held before him, a spit of fox fire conjured above his palm. “It’s okay to be frustrated… but you have to admit a hot meal and a warm place to enjoy it in will do us good. We can agree on that much, right?”
“Yeahhhhhhh. Yeah,” the raccoon answered. Tossing down her hood, Morgan quietly took in the snowy scenery. That and the disbelieving stares the locals tossed their way.
“We can always just ask, you know,” Russo emphasized with a shake of his silverware.
Spoons clinking against the sides of their respective bowls, the Yash and Tedrah guildies struggled to stay on-topic.
“Have you seen the looks we’ve been getting?” Morgan snipped back. She promptly gestured towards a pair of goats who had feinted sipping at long since emptied mugs while casting them sideways glances all the while.
“Maybe they’re just that curious?” Tyridia hmmed in between slurps.
“Or just that insulated,” Russo mouthed back.
“Whatever it is, it’s unsettling. And annoying,” Morgan asserted.
Dax’s contribution to the conversation was to bury his muzzle into his bowl, bubbles pooling up along his chicken broth stained cheeks, and inhale his meal before he could drown in it.
“You learn to ignore it after a while,” Russo shrugged as he ripped a piece of bread off of the loaf sitting at the center of the table. He mopped up what soup remained inside his bowl with it as the fox and raccoon came to doubt the wolf’s lung capacity.
TUNK
The sudden jolt left everyone at the table fumbling for their silverware. Save for Dax, whose meal would not go uninterrupted. Umming uneasily, Russo, Tyr, and Morgan turned towards the front door to the tavern. Even though they were ready for it this time, it was still disarming to see the wooden slab of an entrance fly along its hinges and all but embed the pull handle upon it into the wall. A cold blast of air billowed past the bulky and imposing figure standing within the doorway.
“Hark, strangers!” the stranger, voice rich as molasses, bade the quartet.
Exchanging uneasy glances, Russo, Morgan, and Tyridia jockeyed among themselves to see who would be the first to cave and answer their garrulous inquisitor.
“Hello!” Dax barked out happily now that his meal was complete.
“Salutations, young wolf!” Tufts of fur lining the stranger’s hood swished and bapped against his face as he bid the portly canine a wave. “Pardon my intrusion but-”
The barkeep loudly ahemed into his fist when stray flakes of snow started blowing into the establishment. “Norn. The door.”
“O-oh. Woops, that’s right.” Waddling forward, Norn swiveled about in place and grunted while he struggled to pull the door out of its newfound indentation in the wall.
“Norn? …Master Norn?” Morgan dared to ask.
Hands resting on his hips, gloved hands sinking deep into the layers of clothes wrapped around his legs, Norn puffed out his chest. “Indeed I am! Might you be Nadie and Varun’s apprentices?”
“Something like that,” Russo responded.
“Outstanding! To think, not only did you manage to gain entry into Kovous of your own volition but you made it here days earlier than I had anticipated! Truly, Nadie was right to assure me that I had nothing to fear from testing your resolve.”
The barkeep angrily ahemed as snow flurries continued to bap against him. Laughing nervously, Norn finally managed to tug the door out of the wall and slammed it shut. Along with a good bit of plaster.
“Test? You mean that archer?” Tyridia inquired of the… huh. He wasn’t exactly sure what Norn was now that he thought about it.
Hood flopping up and down, Norn nodded in the affirmative. “But of course! Tevenitta is a sharpshooter without equal. I’m impressed you made it past her!”
“Tevenitta? Oh... ooh ooh aroo he must mean Idiot!” Dax proudly deduced out for himself. He hrmmphed when Russo reached over and clamped his muzzle shut.
Undaunted, Norn continued to praise their alleged valor. “Then of course I cannot help but be gobsmacked that you managed to force your way past our resident druid and morpher as well!”
Eyebrows cocked, Morgan rolled her eyes and pulled her lips flat. Tyridia squirmed uncomfortably and Russo just stared back blankly at Norn as he relaxed his grip on the wolf’s loose lips.
“Who?” Dax innocently asked while he batted away Russo’s hand.
Norn leaned back and laughed heartily. “Ah, that’s right! I imagine Jin and Estelle didn’t offer you much in the way of an introduction when they accosted you.”
“N-no, we mean…” Squinting, Russo grit his teeth and tried to figure out a way to pussyfoot around the topic.
Bouncing in his seat, Dax barreled straight into what everyone else was dreading. “What druid and morpher?”
Arms dangling at his sides, Norn stammered. “I. What do you mean who? Jin would have confronted you as you descended the rocky slopes. Commanding the gnarled pines embedded into the cliff face and preventing your progress. T-then Estelle with countless transformations at her disposal-”
Russo clasped his hands together and took to tapping his thumbs against one another. His eyes darted back and forth across the table as he slowly came to realize he didn’t have any tact to muster. “Yeah we skipped all that,” he bluntly acknowledged with a shrug.
“You. How?” Face hidden by his hood, Norn ambled forward and slapped his hands against the table.
“Alright, so it rhymes with-” Russo cheekily followed up before Morgan’s elbow smacked against his ribs.
“You’re not helping,” the raccoon muttered under her breath.
Fingers scraping against the polished wood, the Kovous guild master refused to believe his most trusted sentries could be so easily sidestepped. “Surely you jest! You couldn’t possibly have just waltzed past them!”
“Oh! Oh, no no no you misunderstand us, Master Norn!” Tyridia implored as he fumbled for a way to deescalate the situation. “We didn’t waltz past the sheep err… Tevenitta. We uhh… okay so actually we might have burgled her b-but that’s not the point!”
Morgan buried her face between her hands while Tyridia struggled to shut off his stream of consciousness. Not wanting to feel left out, Dax proudly produced the absconded bow to bring credence to the fox’s claim.
Norn slapped a hand against the side of his head. “Tevenitta is out there unarmed while Jin and Estelle are waiting to test travelers that will never come before them.”
“Now, to be fair. You did say that we got here entire days ahead of schedule,” Morgan mumbled between her splayed out fingers. “Maybe it’d be best if we turned in for the night and took another go at our introductions tomorrow when we rendezvous and regroup with everyone we ignored?” She reached out and slapped at Tyridia, then Russo, the second so much as a syllable slipped free from between their lips.
Drawing in deeply of the hops tinged air, Norn clenched his fists and lazily swung at the air. “We shall see! Until then, why don’t I show you where you’ll be bunking down for your stay?”
“Soooooo are we just gonna ignore everything leading up to this?” Russo asked. Digging into his pockets, he flicked a handful of gold coins onto the table.
Norn hrmmmed as he held the door open for his guests and ushered them outside. “I’m not going to make you any promises I know that I can’t keep,” he warned.
“Meaning what?” Tyridia fretted. A steady stream of mist billowed out from between the fox’s lips while his cheeks deflated.
With a broad sweep of his arm, Master Norn motioned for the human, fox, wolf, and raccoon to fall behind him. “Meaning that I might be willing to sweep this under the rug, but my subordinates may not. Tevenitta, especially.”
Dax hrmmed as he hugged the sheep’s stolen weapon close to his chest. “Why not? Russo beat me up the first time we met and we turned out okay!”
All eyes settled on the mage.
“It’s… it’s a story alright,” Russo reluctantly acknowledged with a forced grin. “One that I don’t really feel like telling.” He shot daggers at the wolf for so much as broaching the topic. Why why why why why would he do that.
Morgan ribbed the mage while he was down. If she had to suffer through this shit show then he would too. “Any reason why not?”
The human groaned. They knew, they expected him to bullshit and would needle him for the truth regardless. Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit. “Not really,” Russo stonewalled in response.
Dax arooed and bumped shoulders with his chafing chaperone. The wolf realized his mistake and struggled to salvage it. “O-oh! It’s… kind of a short and silly story anyway. I might have maybe tried to rob Russo because I was hungry…”
Russo’s eyebrows threatened to break free from the gravity of his brow. Dax was engaging in lies of omission? Holy hell.
“That’s it?” Morgan pressed.
The human quickly moved to put the subject to rest with copious amounts of snark. “He’s latched to me at the hip. What do you think happened after the fact?”
Morgan raspberried. “Snrk. That’s why you’re embarrassed? Because you ended up taking pity on him?”
“And look how well that turned out for me,” Russo shot back as he forcefully elbowed the wolf.
“Some story that turned out to be,” Morgan teased as a self-inflicted crisis was averted. “So you do have a conscience! You just resent the fact.”
Tyridia let himself be corralled by peer pressure and piled on. “Hmm you know, you did mention that you owed us some choice words earlier about your… I wouldn’t even know how to describe them. Associations? Business? Happenstances, maybe, with a dragon once we made it down here. Which you were so kind to facilitate, might I add!”
“Dammit past me,” the mage whined.
Norn, standing barely a head above them, slapped his big mitteny hands upon the human’s shoulders. “If you ask me, I say you regale me with how you rendered my guild’s most stalwart defenders utterly impotent and irrelevant!”
Brows flattened, Morgan couldn’t help but take note of the not entirely empty streets. “Master Norn?”
“Oh ho! Right. That is… well it probably shouldn’t have been public knowledge but it is now.” His hearty laughter tapered off before he coughed awkwardly into his hand. “Gaffes aside, that remains my suggestion.”
“Bibidy bobiddy back the fuck up here, people. Holy crap.” Jostled, bumped, and bounced aside by all comers, Russo lashed out with his tongue before banishing everyone from the confines of his personal space. “What’s in it for me?”
Norn hmmed. “I’ll let you weigh the pros and cons of getting in my good graces for yourself.”
Whatever the implications were, Russo had no interest sussing them out. Somehow, the Kovous guild master’s chest rattling and commanding voice rendered his suggestion all the more encouragingly ominous. Russo’s chapped lips quickly found themselves flapping. “Story time it is then!” he answered to half-hearted enthusiasm.
“Very good! Come, I will be your guide to the Kovous Guild. Or, should I say, the Kovous Watchtower!” Norn proclaimed. As he led the motley crew hailing from Tedrah and Yash he stopped every couple paces to dole out introductions and explanations to the gawking locals.
“This is going to take a while isn’t it?” Tyridia moaned as his emerald eyes followed Norn darting back and forth across the street.
With the setting of the sun, the last of its rays struggling to pierce past the evergreen canopies that surrounded Kovous, the encroaching darkness carried a bitter cold along with it. Teeth chattering, everyone looked to Russo once more.
“Fiiiiine. I’ll set myself on fire again,” the human grumbled.
A pronounced fwoosh, accompanied by the gentle ebbing glow of flame, caught Master Norn’s attention. “Russo! I… I cannot help but notice that you appear to have spontaneously combusted! Might you need any help with that?”
His expression blank, Russo’s gaze swiveled between his companions that shamelessly huddled around him for warmth. “Nah, I’m good.”
“You’re sure?”
Russo offered up a fiery shrug. “Ehh, you know how it goes. Teach a man to build a fire, he’ll be warm for the night. Set a man on fire and…”
“If it’s stupid and it works,” Morgan said through clenched teeth.
Shaking his head, Norn leaned in close to the disapproving hare before him. “I’ve barely just met them and they’re already a handful!”
“Master says that to me all the time!” Dax happily barked.
“We can hear you, you know,” Russo snipped back. “You’re not really whispering so much as you are shouting. Come to think of it, is that the only volume you’re even capable of?”
The Kovous guild master strained himself clearing his throat. “C-certainly not! I can… speak even louder if need be.” Norn’s limp rebuttal earned him a couple of disbelieving stares. “A-anyway! Come, come! We’ve idled long enough. Oh, and, Russo? Could you please erm… extinguish yourself before entering the guild?”
“Let me, let me!” Dax insisted. The wolf proceeded to huff and puff at his role model.
“Dax. Dax, stoppit. Dax! DAX.”
“Morpher, huh?” Morgan inquired. Trailing behind her, Russo stifled a yawn while Dax sleepily clung to him. Tyridia followed alongside them quietly, lost in thought. Their footsteps thumped loudly against the frozen forest floor as they traversed a barely recognizable footpath.
Clad in yet another all-consuming set of coats and heavy pants, Norn led the way with his arms swinging wildly at his sides. “Indeed! It is an exceedingly difficult profession to master. Very few have the tenacity, and sheer good fortune, needed in order to do so. I’m very proud to say that Estelle is one of them.”
“I’ve always heard getting started, the learning curve for it, is pretty steep. That and I never did understand quite how it worked,” Morgan pondered aloud. Hood flipped up, her perked ears pressed against the snowy white fabric.
Norn nodded solemnly. “Aye, Morphers start from nothing. Without so much as a single transformation to their name it can be daunting to approach, much less defeat, their very first monster and claim its form for their own. On their own, anyway. Estelle was fortunate enough to have been blessed with the friends, and guild master, who could help her do so. From there, everything snowballs!”
“That much I can understand,” Morgan trailed off. “But how does it actually work though? Do Morphers capture monster souls to later inhabit or is it more they take those souls into themselves and flaunt them when needed? And I haven’t even asked about the transformations yet! Eesh, the more I think about it the more macabre it gets.”
The Kovous guildmaster chuckled. “The concepts behind the actual practice of Morphing can get rather... heady, I admit. That and it does overlap a fair deal with what you would expect from a Beastmaster. Oh oh oh, just for funsies, you really ought to ask her how she feels about being a Beastmorpher! Her reaction when you conflate the two is just too much!”
Russo’s eyelids grew heavier as the conversation between the raccoon and the bundled up… he still didn’t know what the hell Norn was, grew increasingly complex. “Dax, weren’t you supposed to be interested in this?” the mage asked. He received some sleepy mumbles and a nuzzle into his shoulder in response. Alright, never mind then. Russo turned back, as much as the clingy wolf would allow, towards Tyridia. “How you holding up, Tyr?”
“Hmmm? Oh, uh, well enough, I guess,” the fox unconvincingly answered.
Welp. Whatever was eating at Tyr, Russo was more than content to not make it his problem. Drawing his attention back to the path before him, the human acked when he abruptly bumped into Norn’s cushioned back. A puffy glove pressed itself against his lips before Russo could even reply.
Alright then. While he waited for… whatever it was they were waiting for, Russo took the opportunity to look for a tail, or fur, or literally anything that would give Norn away. There had to be something to go off of! Unfortunately, the mage’s seek and find was brought to a premature end as the background noise of a faraway conversation burbled along the mist coiling around their feet.
“You’re sure you’re not making this up?” an unfamiliar voice pressed.
“Do you really think I’d go so far as to trash my own friggin’ bow just to save face?” a vaguely familiar and irate voice snapped back.
“…Yes?”
“Well screw you too!”
“Tevi, knock it off,” yet another voice, this one clearly exasperated, interjected.
“Noooooooooooo! No I will not!”
Norn ho hoed delightedly. That was them alright. “Tevenitta, Estelle, Jin! Are those your whispers on the wind I hear?”
“What the…” the unseen trio muttered in unison. “Master Norn?”
Shimmying his shoulders side to side, Norn hailed the stragglers. “Come, come! We have guests! Ones that thoroughly embarrassed us by rendering our defenses meaningless! Morgan, Russo, Tyridia, Dax! Why not introduce yourselves?”
Clearing his throat, Russo knocked Norn’s hand aside. “What’s shaking, Idiot? It’s been a while!” he smirked.
“YOU! I’LL KILL YOU,” Tevenitta bleated.
“Oh gods she really was telling the truth,” the more masculine sounding of the sheep’s companions sounded off.
“Give me bahhhk my bow! NOW.”
Dax slowly roused himself awake with a subdued growl. Pouting, he clutched the weapon he still had no idea how to wield close to his chest. “Don’t wanna!”
“Wow Tevi, I’m impressed. We finally found someone as bitter and petty as you are,” her fellow female snidely commented.
Hooves slamming against the forest floor, Idiot err… Tevenitta, bounded forward. In her wake, a rat and maned wolf sauntered along at their own leisurely pace.
“Now, now, Tevenitta! You can at least be polite towards those who didn’t explicitly rob you. Say hello to Tyridia and Morgan here, why don’t you?” With a swish of his wrist, Norn gestured towards the fox and raccoon.
A low and angry bleat was offered up in reply.
Norn tugged at his sleeve and a handful of seeds tumbled out into his palm. “I know you’re upset but, understandably, we can’t have you casually threatening to engage in attempted murder.”
“It won’t be attempted murder, it’ll be successful murder!”
Head shaking side to side, Norn tossed out the ether infused seeds before him. They flared to life beneath Tevenitta’s stomping gait and exploded into a mesh of flowering vines. The Kovous guild master’s enchanted flora coiled around the Valais sheep’s legs and sent her flopping to the ground with an infuriated grunt.
Hands shoved in his pockets, Russo exhibited considerable restraint by not actively taunting his self-declared murderer. Granted, given that he wasn’t actually the bigger man, he settled for snickering instead. Dax did his part by sticking his tongue out her.
“Anyway…” Morgan trailed off while sidestepping the idiotic theatrics entirely. Dragging Tyridia with her, the white mage and summoner stepped forth to meet their presumed counterparts. “Hey there, I’m Morgan and this here is Tyridia.” The raccoon gestured towards her foxy friend who shyly waved at their new acquaintances.
Arms crossed about her chest, Estelle sported a lopsided grin. “I take it you two are the saner half of your respective shitshow? Because that’s what Jin and I are,” the maned wolf thumbed back at the rat behind her. She extended a hand out to the white mage. “Nice to meet you, all the same.”
“I’m sure we’ll be getting to know each other pretty well,”Jin followed up as the rat came to acquaint himself with Tyridia. “Especially seeing as your handfuls are already butting heads with ours.”
Estelle snrrked. “Hey, idiots attract.” She couldn’t help but laugh at the grumpy bleat her sniping provoked.
FIRST , PREVIOUS , -
FIRST , PREVIOUS , NEXT
Icon comes courtesy of
RainbowFoxyChapter 54
By: RaddaRaem
“Your illusions can cover for this, right?” Russo asked aloud. Hand held out before him, the human repeatedly snapped his fingers together. Sparks flew free every time his index finger and thumb brushed against one another.
“You’re asking this after the fact?” Tyridia blinked.
A fwoosh answered the fox as a crackling flame came to hover above Russo’s palm. Lips pulled flat, the human curled his fingers into a fist and squelched the conjured fire within his grasp. Smoke wafted out from between his gloved fingers. “…Yyyyyyyes?”
Tyridia sighed uneasily. “Lucky for us, the answer is yes.”
Russo promptly splayed his fingers apart. The wisps trailing up from the mage’s palm immediately contracted into smoky threads bearing a faint orange glow.
“Please don’t do that,” Morgan chided him. “Now really isn’t the time to be opting for forgiveness rather than permission.”
“R-right. Uhhh.” The mage chafed at the thought of doling at an apology as the reignited smoke trails collapsed back together into a brilliant flame within his grasp. “I was… okay well technically I still am, cold.”
Lips pursed, Morgan blew out a steady stream of mist. “And you think we aren’t?”
“Says the one with all the fur,” Russo weakly protested.
The raccoon smirked in response. “No harm no foul, I guess. That and we might as well indulge it while we’re at it.”
Russo hmmphed when he found himself flanked by fuzzies eager to share in his conjured warmth.
“Ooh ooh! Can you turn it up some?” Dax inquired as he leaned into his idol.
A stifling heat settled upon the quartet as a roaring flame came to consume the entirety of Russo’s hand.
Tyridia uneasily regarded the trickling water his boots sloshed against. Within their very presence, the clumps of snow and ice that littered the mountain path melted near instantaneously. “E-easy there! You’re gonna give us away!”
With a roll of his eyes, Russo weaned the handheld inferno back down to a crackling ember.
“Well now that doesn’t do anyone any good,” Morgan opined.
His eyes clenched shut, Russo grumbled.
“There! Is everyone happy?” Exasperation seeped out from Russo’s every spoken syllable. “Have we finally hit the Goldilocks level of self-immolation?”
Brows arched, Morgan prepared to eat crow. “I… how? How the hell did you turn setting yourself on fire into a good idea?”
Licks of flame trailed off from Russo’s enchanted gloves, cloak, and boots. The human, and the raccoon, fox, and wolf in his immediate vicinity, were bathed in a gentle warmth.
Tyridia interjected to nitpick. “He isn’t technically on fire. There just happens to be fire. That is on him. Say uhh...” The foxy summoner tapped at his chin. The thought of wielding fox fire magic without fear of being burnt was an appealing one. “You wouldn’t happen to have any spares, would you?”
“Sure wouldn’t,” Russo replied.
The fox shrugged. “At least you had the courtesy to slap my hopes down before I could even get them up,” Tyridia conceded.
Shaking her head side to side, Morgan groaned. “Sooo… question for you. Is your thing that you enjoy delivering bad news? Or being the source of it?”
“Can’t it be both?” Russo snarked.
Morgan sighed. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Depends. Do you mean the being mouthy part or the being on fire part?” Russo smiled as he strung the raccoon along.
Denying him the satisfaction of a response, Morgan turned her attention to Dax. “And how are you holding up, Dax?”
The white mage watched as the wolf plucked at the burgled weapon’s bowstring. Low thrums accompanied the pew pew sound effects that Dax made every time he did so.
“I see,” Morgan simply stated. The raccoon breathed in deeply as she gathered her thoughts. “So how are you two still uhhh… alive, again?”
Russo bit down into his bottom lip and fumbled for a sincere reply. “I mean, I can bullshit you up an answer if you really want.”
“That’s not terribly reassuring,” she shot back.
Embers trailed off the human’s shoulders when he offered up a shrug. “It’s either that or me telling you that I don’t have one.”
“And that’s even less so,” Morgan grumbled while she pinched at the bridge of her nose. Her dampening mood lifted at the realization that they were no longer walking uphill. The concept of flat had reasserted itself once more as they came to tread upon the ground down mountain peak.
Under the twilit sun, the adventurers took in their surroundings.
“Are these clouds?” Tyridia wondered aloud in disbelief as a puffy white mass sailed past and obscured their view. By the time everyone, sans Russo, popped back together their jaws gone slack, the fading sunlight had managed to dissolve the collected condensation into a rainbow laden mist.
“They were clouds,” Russo, still ablaze, casually noted.
“How can you be so nonchalant about this?” Morgan implored as Dax wig wagged his tail beside her.
The human lazily tossed his arms to his sides. “Iunno, I mean, I’ve flown through a couple before. Just walking through one feels downright blasé in comparison.”
Both Tyridia and Morgan stared him down incredulously. “You… flew?” Tyridia followed up.
Russo defensively crossed his arms about his chest. At least until his tunic threatened to go up in flames. “Well if you’re gonna get nitpicky about it, then no,” he answered between huffs and puffs as he put parts of himself out. “Technically speaking, the dragon I was hitching a ride on was.”
“Do… do we want to know the story behind that?” Morgan dared to ask.
“Lettttttttt’s save it for after we trek across all of,” Russo gestured at the imposing view that had opened up to them, “that.”
The altitude, more than the hostile majesty of their environment, took their breath away. Directly beneath them, and some miles across a yawning valley, lay Kovous amongst an oasis of evergreens. Snowcapped sheer cliff faces protectively encircled the stalwart city and severely limited any and all means of approach. Icicles, and a steady stream of snow melt, trickled across their surfaces like veins.
“We’re not making it down there tonight,” Morgan bluntly assessed.
Tyridia traced the winding and narrow paths leading down below. He shuddered in defeat and resigned himself to sitting down as a crippling sense of vertigo clutched at his stomach.
“Hmm…” the wolf pondered aloud. Dax bumbled alongside Russo to hog all his crackling warmth as his companions faltered in the face of the trials that still awaited them. “Why’s everyone so sad? We made it!”
The fox weakly gestured at the steeply sloping path carved into the cliff face before them. “Why do you think? Just… just look at that! We’ll be lucky to even survive the descent. And there’s no telling what’s waiting in store for us if we even manage that…”
Dax scratched at his soft chin and let loose a pensive aroo. “Aren’t we gonna teleport though?”
Morgan and Tyridia’s heads snapped to attention. “Huh?”
“You two can hoof it if you really want,” Russo replied. “Fuck all if I am.”
The raccoon grasped out blindly at her vocabulary as words, invectives and inquiries alike, failed her. “Explain,” she managed to stammer out.
“If I can see it I can teleport to it?” Russo incredulously answered. “Crystals aside, all there is to teleportation spells is line of sight and some imagination.”
Hand held up before her, the white mage drew in deeply of the dry air. “And you didn’t explain this earlier because?”
“…Because no one asked me to?” Russo shrugged.
Tyridia scrambled to his feet to join them. Morgan, blinking in disbelief, refused to accept that it really was that easy to skip the journey entirely and jump straight to the destination.
“You coming or not?” the human asked. Clapping his hands together, the fires crackling on his person subsided. He coughed and hacked furiously as the smoke trailing off his shoulders enveloped his head.
“I’m not about to say no,” Morgan conceded. She sidled up along Tyridia and furrowed her brow in thought. “So… so why don’t more people specialize in this?”
Hand held out before him, Russo collected mana within his palm. The fleeting wisps congealed together into a bright blue orb. “You tell me. Have you never heard of Teleport or Blink or whatever you wanna call it before this or did you just always look down on them?”
Lips pulled flat, the white mage reluctantly broke off eye contact.
“They did always come off as kinda cheap,” Tyridia acknowledged.
Yawning, Russo goaded the collected magic to collapse. A film of ether spread out and came to cover his glove. “That’s because they are,” he answered with a smirk.
“Yayyyyy!” Dax reflexively cheered.
Morgan tried rationalizing away the unfathomably lazy approach. “It’s not unscrupulous so much as it is… pragmatic. Or at least that’s what I’ll keep telling myself.”
“You’re welcooooooooome,” Russo smugly boasted. Bringing his thumb and middle finger together, the human squinted. He needed something pronounced. Something stark and easy to imagine himself standing before. The mage hmmed when he picked out a blot of black and brown from among the sea of evergreens. His hmmm transitioned to a hnnngh when he realized those burnt out husks weren’t even remotely close to their desired destination. Teleporting ass deep into a forest with no bearings whatsoever wouldn’t be much of an improvement.
Teeth chattering, Tyridia found himself morbidly wistful for Russo’s self-conflagration. “Does it usually take this long?”
“I’m working on it,” the human snipped back. His eyes came to focus on the stone city as Russo tried to find a path, any path, leading into or out of it. When that failed his attention turned towards a prairie, carved through by a stream of snow melt, situated a ways behind Kovous at the base of the towering mountain range that encircled it. “That oughta work,” Russo mulled aloud.
“What will?” Morgan asked. One muffled snap of Russo’s fingers, and a burst of light later, left the raccoon blinking away the blobs of color that distorted her answer. “Oh. Yeah, I guess that will.”
Rubbing at his peepers, Dax gawked at the stone towers looming above even the tree canopies in the distance. They were… they were him-sized! Gosh and they were even taller than he first thought and wait no that was just his plump and pudgy self sinking into the damp and water logged soil.
“Huh. So this is what cheating feels like,” Tyridia mulled aloud.
“Pretty sweet, right?” Russo chimed in. “No one in their right mind would think we’d invest the time and effort to circle around from the back.”
Morgan pinched at her mask of black fur and grunted. “I’m sorry, I’m just… still trying to reconcile how the path of least resistance has become everything it shouldn’t.”
“You’re not frustrated at how well full-assing this is turning out, are you?” Russo prodded.
“A little,” the raccoon huffed with cheeks puffed out.
Russo refused, absolutely refused, to let this opportunity pass him by. A spate of magical bursts sent the quartet lurching closer towards Kovous by leaps and bounds. One moment they were on the edge of the prairie. The next, they found themselves in the freezing shade of the looming evergreens. Until finally, they manifested on Kovous’ outskirts. The uneven clay paths transitioned into proper roads and the backside of a sprawling watch tower monopolized their vision. And all before they could even jinx themselves!
“Hmmm?” the human teased as he casually sauntered into the city’s limits.
“A lot,” Morgan groaned in disgust. “Fine. Let’s just… let’s just introduce ourselves to Master Norn.”
Gurgles, emanating out from Dax’s tummy, protested against the proposed plan of action. “Before or after we grab some dinner?” the wolf shyly inquired.
The white mage clamped her jaws together and exhaled through her nostrils. “Know what? We may as well just completely commit to full-assing it at this point. Sure, why not. We’re ahead of schedule anyway.”
“You okay, Morgan?” Tyr worriedly inquired.
“Not really,” she acknowledged with a sigh as she tossed her arms out to the side and followed Dax’s aimless and bumbling lead. “This cannot, this should not, be this easy! Have we been doing this wrong the whole time?”
Biting down into his lips, ivory teeth pinching against his black flesh, Tyridia couldn’t bring himself to contradict her. “Would you have rather we trekked down here?”
“Noooooo,” Morgan grumpily answered. The raccoon’s expression soured as she stared into the back of Russo’s head.
Resisting the urge to cackle, the mage simply kept on keeping on while his cheeks strained from smiling so much.
“Any kind of reaction at all encourages you, doesn’t it?” the white mage accused him.
“I don’t have to answer that,” he answered while struggling to maintain a straight face. Hands shoved into his pockets he allowed himself to be led along by Dax. The wolf’s nose sniffed and snuffed furiously at the air as he ambled through the snow lined streets.
Tyridia gently nudged at his ring-tailed partner. Hand held before him, a spit of fox fire conjured above his palm. “It’s okay to be frustrated… but you have to admit a hot meal and a warm place to enjoy it in will do us good. We can agree on that much, right?”
“Yeahhhhhhh. Yeah,” the raccoon answered. Tossing down her hood, Morgan quietly took in the snowy scenery. That and the disbelieving stares the locals tossed their way.
“We can always just ask, you know,” Russo emphasized with a shake of his silverware.
Spoons clinking against the sides of their respective bowls, the Yash and Tedrah guildies struggled to stay on-topic.
“Have you seen the looks we’ve been getting?” Morgan snipped back. She promptly gestured towards a pair of goats who had feinted sipping at long since emptied mugs while casting them sideways glances all the while.
“Maybe they’re just that curious?” Tyridia hmmed in between slurps.
“Or just that insulated,” Russo mouthed back.
“Whatever it is, it’s unsettling. And annoying,” Morgan asserted.
Dax’s contribution to the conversation was to bury his muzzle into his bowl, bubbles pooling up along his chicken broth stained cheeks, and inhale his meal before he could drown in it.
“You learn to ignore it after a while,” Russo shrugged as he ripped a piece of bread off of the loaf sitting at the center of the table. He mopped up what soup remained inside his bowl with it as the fox and raccoon came to doubt the wolf’s lung capacity.
TUNK
The sudden jolt left everyone at the table fumbling for their silverware. Save for Dax, whose meal would not go uninterrupted. Umming uneasily, Russo, Tyr, and Morgan turned towards the front door to the tavern. Even though they were ready for it this time, it was still disarming to see the wooden slab of an entrance fly along its hinges and all but embed the pull handle upon it into the wall. A cold blast of air billowed past the bulky and imposing figure standing within the doorway.
“Hark, strangers!” the stranger, voice rich as molasses, bade the quartet.
Exchanging uneasy glances, Russo, Morgan, and Tyridia jockeyed among themselves to see who would be the first to cave and answer their garrulous inquisitor.
“Hello!” Dax barked out happily now that his meal was complete.
“Salutations, young wolf!” Tufts of fur lining the stranger’s hood swished and bapped against his face as he bid the portly canine a wave. “Pardon my intrusion but-”
The barkeep loudly ahemed into his fist when stray flakes of snow started blowing into the establishment. “Norn. The door.”
“O-oh. Woops, that’s right.” Waddling forward, Norn swiveled about in place and grunted while he struggled to pull the door out of its newfound indentation in the wall.
“Norn? …Master Norn?” Morgan dared to ask.
Hands resting on his hips, gloved hands sinking deep into the layers of clothes wrapped around his legs, Norn puffed out his chest. “Indeed I am! Might you be Nadie and Varun’s apprentices?”
“Something like that,” Russo responded.
“Outstanding! To think, not only did you manage to gain entry into Kovous of your own volition but you made it here days earlier than I had anticipated! Truly, Nadie was right to assure me that I had nothing to fear from testing your resolve.”
The barkeep angrily ahemed as snow flurries continued to bap against him. Laughing nervously, Norn finally managed to tug the door out of the wall and slammed it shut. Along with a good bit of plaster.
“Test? You mean that archer?” Tyridia inquired of the… huh. He wasn’t exactly sure what Norn was now that he thought about it.
Hood flopping up and down, Norn nodded in the affirmative. “But of course! Tevenitta is a sharpshooter without equal. I’m impressed you made it past her!”
“Tevenitta? Oh... ooh ooh aroo he must mean Idiot!” Dax proudly deduced out for himself. He hrmmphed when Russo reached over and clamped his muzzle shut.
Undaunted, Norn continued to praise their alleged valor. “Then of course I cannot help but be gobsmacked that you managed to force your way past our resident druid and morpher as well!”
Eyebrows cocked, Morgan rolled her eyes and pulled her lips flat. Tyridia squirmed uncomfortably and Russo just stared back blankly at Norn as he relaxed his grip on the wolf’s loose lips.
“Who?” Dax innocently asked while he batted away Russo’s hand.
Norn leaned back and laughed heartily. “Ah, that’s right! I imagine Jin and Estelle didn’t offer you much in the way of an introduction when they accosted you.”
“N-no, we mean…” Squinting, Russo grit his teeth and tried to figure out a way to pussyfoot around the topic.
Bouncing in his seat, Dax barreled straight into what everyone else was dreading. “What druid and morpher?”
Arms dangling at his sides, Norn stammered. “I. What do you mean who? Jin would have confronted you as you descended the rocky slopes. Commanding the gnarled pines embedded into the cliff face and preventing your progress. T-then Estelle with countless transformations at her disposal-”
Russo clasped his hands together and took to tapping his thumbs against one another. His eyes darted back and forth across the table as he slowly came to realize he didn’t have any tact to muster. “Yeah we skipped all that,” he bluntly acknowledged with a shrug.
“You. How?” Face hidden by his hood, Norn ambled forward and slapped his hands against the table.
“Alright, so it rhymes with-” Russo cheekily followed up before Morgan’s elbow smacked against his ribs.
“You’re not helping,” the raccoon muttered under her breath.
Fingers scraping against the polished wood, the Kovous guild master refused to believe his most trusted sentries could be so easily sidestepped. “Surely you jest! You couldn’t possibly have just waltzed past them!”
“Oh! Oh, no no no you misunderstand us, Master Norn!” Tyridia implored as he fumbled for a way to deescalate the situation. “We didn’t waltz past the sheep err… Tevenitta. We uhh… okay so actually we might have burgled her b-but that’s not the point!”
Morgan buried her face between her hands while Tyridia struggled to shut off his stream of consciousness. Not wanting to feel left out, Dax proudly produced the absconded bow to bring credence to the fox’s claim.
Norn slapped a hand against the side of his head. “Tevenitta is out there unarmed while Jin and Estelle are waiting to test travelers that will never come before them.”
“Now, to be fair. You did say that we got here entire days ahead of schedule,” Morgan mumbled between her splayed out fingers. “Maybe it’d be best if we turned in for the night and took another go at our introductions tomorrow when we rendezvous and regroup with everyone we ignored?” She reached out and slapped at Tyridia, then Russo, the second so much as a syllable slipped free from between their lips.
Drawing in deeply of the hops tinged air, Norn clenched his fists and lazily swung at the air. “We shall see! Until then, why don’t I show you where you’ll be bunking down for your stay?”
“Soooooo are we just gonna ignore everything leading up to this?” Russo asked. Digging into his pockets, he flicked a handful of gold coins onto the table.
Norn hrmmmed as he held the door open for his guests and ushered them outside. “I’m not going to make you any promises I know that I can’t keep,” he warned.
“Meaning what?” Tyridia fretted. A steady stream of mist billowed out from between the fox’s lips while his cheeks deflated.
With a broad sweep of his arm, Master Norn motioned for the human, fox, wolf, and raccoon to fall behind him. “Meaning that I might be willing to sweep this under the rug, but my subordinates may not. Tevenitta, especially.”
Dax hrmmed as he hugged the sheep’s stolen weapon close to his chest. “Why not? Russo beat me up the first time we met and we turned out okay!”
All eyes settled on the mage.
“It’s… it’s a story alright,” Russo reluctantly acknowledged with a forced grin. “One that I don’t really feel like telling.” He shot daggers at the wolf for so much as broaching the topic. Why why why why why would he do that.
Morgan ribbed the mage while he was down. If she had to suffer through this shit show then he would too. “Any reason why not?”
The human groaned. They knew, they expected him to bullshit and would needle him for the truth regardless. Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit. “Not really,” Russo stonewalled in response.
Dax arooed and bumped shoulders with his chafing chaperone. The wolf realized his mistake and struggled to salvage it. “O-oh! It’s… kind of a short and silly story anyway. I might have maybe tried to rob Russo because I was hungry…”
Russo’s eyebrows threatened to break free from the gravity of his brow. Dax was engaging in lies of omission? Holy hell.
“That’s it?” Morgan pressed.
The human quickly moved to put the subject to rest with copious amounts of snark. “He’s latched to me at the hip. What do you think happened after the fact?”
Morgan raspberried. “Snrk. That’s why you’re embarrassed? Because you ended up taking pity on him?”
“And look how well that turned out for me,” Russo shot back as he forcefully elbowed the wolf.
“Some story that turned out to be,” Morgan teased as a self-inflicted crisis was averted. “So you do have a conscience! You just resent the fact.”
Tyridia let himself be corralled by peer pressure and piled on. “Hmm you know, you did mention that you owed us some choice words earlier about your… I wouldn’t even know how to describe them. Associations? Business? Happenstances, maybe, with a dragon once we made it down here. Which you were so kind to facilitate, might I add!”
“Dammit past me,” the mage whined.
Norn, standing barely a head above them, slapped his big mitteny hands upon the human’s shoulders. “If you ask me, I say you regale me with how you rendered my guild’s most stalwart defenders utterly impotent and irrelevant!”
Brows flattened, Morgan couldn’t help but take note of the not entirely empty streets. “Master Norn?”
“Oh ho! Right. That is… well it probably shouldn’t have been public knowledge but it is now.” His hearty laughter tapered off before he coughed awkwardly into his hand. “Gaffes aside, that remains my suggestion.”
“Bibidy bobiddy back the fuck up here, people. Holy crap.” Jostled, bumped, and bounced aside by all comers, Russo lashed out with his tongue before banishing everyone from the confines of his personal space. “What’s in it for me?”
Norn hmmed. “I’ll let you weigh the pros and cons of getting in my good graces for yourself.”
Whatever the implications were, Russo had no interest sussing them out. Somehow, the Kovous guild master’s chest rattling and commanding voice rendered his suggestion all the more encouragingly ominous. Russo’s chapped lips quickly found themselves flapping. “Story time it is then!” he answered to half-hearted enthusiasm.
“Very good! Come, I will be your guide to the Kovous Guild. Or, should I say, the Kovous Watchtower!” Norn proclaimed. As he led the motley crew hailing from Tedrah and Yash he stopped every couple paces to dole out introductions and explanations to the gawking locals.
“This is going to take a while isn’t it?” Tyridia moaned as his emerald eyes followed Norn darting back and forth across the street.
With the setting of the sun, the last of its rays struggling to pierce past the evergreen canopies that surrounded Kovous, the encroaching darkness carried a bitter cold along with it. Teeth chattering, everyone looked to Russo once more.
“Fiiiiine. I’ll set myself on fire again,” the human grumbled.
A pronounced fwoosh, accompanied by the gentle ebbing glow of flame, caught Master Norn’s attention. “Russo! I… I cannot help but notice that you appear to have spontaneously combusted! Might you need any help with that?”
His expression blank, Russo’s gaze swiveled between his companions that shamelessly huddled around him for warmth. “Nah, I’m good.”
“You’re sure?”
Russo offered up a fiery shrug. “Ehh, you know how it goes. Teach a man to build a fire, he’ll be warm for the night. Set a man on fire and…”
“If it’s stupid and it works,” Morgan said through clenched teeth.
Shaking his head, Norn leaned in close to the disapproving hare before him. “I’ve barely just met them and they’re already a handful!”
“Master says that to me all the time!” Dax happily barked.
“We can hear you, you know,” Russo snipped back. “You’re not really whispering so much as you are shouting. Come to think of it, is that the only volume you’re even capable of?”
The Kovous guild master strained himself clearing his throat. “C-certainly not! I can… speak even louder if need be.” Norn’s limp rebuttal earned him a couple of disbelieving stares. “A-anyway! Come, come! We’ve idled long enough. Oh, and, Russo? Could you please erm… extinguish yourself before entering the guild?”
“Let me, let me!” Dax insisted. The wolf proceeded to huff and puff at his role model.
“Dax. Dax, stoppit. Dax! DAX.”
“Morpher, huh?” Morgan inquired. Trailing behind her, Russo stifled a yawn while Dax sleepily clung to him. Tyridia followed alongside them quietly, lost in thought. Their footsteps thumped loudly against the frozen forest floor as they traversed a barely recognizable footpath.
Clad in yet another all-consuming set of coats and heavy pants, Norn led the way with his arms swinging wildly at his sides. “Indeed! It is an exceedingly difficult profession to master. Very few have the tenacity, and sheer good fortune, needed in order to do so. I’m very proud to say that Estelle is one of them.”
“I’ve always heard getting started, the learning curve for it, is pretty steep. That and I never did understand quite how it worked,” Morgan pondered aloud. Hood flipped up, her perked ears pressed against the snowy white fabric.
Norn nodded solemnly. “Aye, Morphers start from nothing. Without so much as a single transformation to their name it can be daunting to approach, much less defeat, their very first monster and claim its form for their own. On their own, anyway. Estelle was fortunate enough to have been blessed with the friends, and guild master, who could help her do so. From there, everything snowballs!”
“That much I can understand,” Morgan trailed off. “But how does it actually work though? Do Morphers capture monster souls to later inhabit or is it more they take those souls into themselves and flaunt them when needed? And I haven’t even asked about the transformations yet! Eesh, the more I think about it the more macabre it gets.”
The Kovous guildmaster chuckled. “The concepts behind the actual practice of Morphing can get rather... heady, I admit. That and it does overlap a fair deal with what you would expect from a Beastmaster. Oh oh oh, just for funsies, you really ought to ask her how she feels about being a Beastmorpher! Her reaction when you conflate the two is just too much!”
Russo’s eyelids grew heavier as the conversation between the raccoon and the bundled up… he still didn’t know what the hell Norn was, grew increasingly complex. “Dax, weren’t you supposed to be interested in this?” the mage asked. He received some sleepy mumbles and a nuzzle into his shoulder in response. Alright, never mind then. Russo turned back, as much as the clingy wolf would allow, towards Tyridia. “How you holding up, Tyr?”
“Hmmm? Oh, uh, well enough, I guess,” the fox unconvincingly answered.
Welp. Whatever was eating at Tyr, Russo was more than content to not make it his problem. Drawing his attention back to the path before him, the human acked when he abruptly bumped into Norn’s cushioned back. A puffy glove pressed itself against his lips before Russo could even reply.
Alright then. While he waited for… whatever it was they were waiting for, Russo took the opportunity to look for a tail, or fur, or literally anything that would give Norn away. There had to be something to go off of! Unfortunately, the mage’s seek and find was brought to a premature end as the background noise of a faraway conversation burbled along the mist coiling around their feet.
“You’re sure you’re not making this up?” an unfamiliar voice pressed.
“Do you really think I’d go so far as to trash my own friggin’ bow just to save face?” a vaguely familiar and irate voice snapped back.
“…Yes?”
“Well screw you too!”
“Tevi, knock it off,” yet another voice, this one clearly exasperated, interjected.
“Noooooooooooo! No I will not!”
Norn ho hoed delightedly. That was them alright. “Tevenitta, Estelle, Jin! Are those your whispers on the wind I hear?”
“What the…” the unseen trio muttered in unison. “Master Norn?”
Shimmying his shoulders side to side, Norn hailed the stragglers. “Come, come! We have guests! Ones that thoroughly embarrassed us by rendering our defenses meaningless! Morgan, Russo, Tyridia, Dax! Why not introduce yourselves?”
Clearing his throat, Russo knocked Norn’s hand aside. “What’s shaking, Idiot? It’s been a while!” he smirked.
“YOU! I’LL KILL YOU,” Tevenitta bleated.
“Oh gods she really was telling the truth,” the more masculine sounding of the sheep’s companions sounded off.
“Give me bahhhk my bow! NOW.”
Dax slowly roused himself awake with a subdued growl. Pouting, he clutched the weapon he still had no idea how to wield close to his chest. “Don’t wanna!”
“Wow Tevi, I’m impressed. We finally found someone as bitter and petty as you are,” her fellow female snidely commented.
Hooves slamming against the forest floor, Idiot err… Tevenitta, bounded forward. In her wake, a rat and maned wolf sauntered along at their own leisurely pace.
“Now, now, Tevenitta! You can at least be polite towards those who didn’t explicitly rob you. Say hello to Tyridia and Morgan here, why don’t you?” With a swish of his wrist, Norn gestured towards the fox and raccoon.
A low and angry bleat was offered up in reply.
Norn tugged at his sleeve and a handful of seeds tumbled out into his palm. “I know you’re upset but, understandably, we can’t have you casually threatening to engage in attempted murder.”
“It won’t be attempted murder, it’ll be successful murder!”
Head shaking side to side, Norn tossed out the ether infused seeds before him. They flared to life beneath Tevenitta’s stomping gait and exploded into a mesh of flowering vines. The Kovous guild master’s enchanted flora coiled around the Valais sheep’s legs and sent her flopping to the ground with an infuriated grunt.
Hands shoved in his pockets, Russo exhibited considerable restraint by not actively taunting his self-declared murderer. Granted, given that he wasn’t actually the bigger man, he settled for snickering instead. Dax did his part by sticking his tongue out her.
“Anyway…” Morgan trailed off while sidestepping the idiotic theatrics entirely. Dragging Tyridia with her, the white mage and summoner stepped forth to meet their presumed counterparts. “Hey there, I’m Morgan and this here is Tyridia.” The raccoon gestured towards her foxy friend who shyly waved at their new acquaintances.
Arms crossed about her chest, Estelle sported a lopsided grin. “I take it you two are the saner half of your respective shitshow? Because that’s what Jin and I are,” the maned wolf thumbed back at the rat behind her. She extended a hand out to the white mage. “Nice to meet you, all the same.”
“I’m sure we’ll be getting to know each other pretty well,”Jin followed up as the rat came to acquaint himself with Tyridia. “Especially seeing as your handfuls are already butting heads with ours.”
Estelle snrrked. “Hey, idiots attract.” She couldn’t help but laugh at the grumpy bleat her sniping provoked.
FIRST , PREVIOUS , -
Category Story / Fantasy
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 99 x 120px
File Size 163.5 kB
Comments