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The Big Oof! Volume 1 Chapter 20: A Little Recon
🕑 Added 2022-12-19 08:45:30 +0000 UTCAzeline sat at her table and shifted uncomfortably while the bustle of the tavern raged around her.
She hated this kind of environment.
“Hey there darlin’, What’s a pretty thing like ye doing sitting alone?” Asked an Aethari man with long flowing silver hair and a muscular build. The man wore the classic tabard over his linen long sleeved shirt to denote that he was the guard captain of the town.
“Someone’s sitting there, fuck off.” Azeline said while tapping on the desk with her knuckle as he grabbed a chair and started to pull it back.
The silver haired guard froze.
With a twitching face, he looked behind him to see a table full of his colleagues snickering and pointing in his direction as they sipped on their ales.
“.... My lovely lady, I’m-” He tried to sit down and try again, but was immediately cut off.
“I have an axe.” Azeline cut him off and tenderly wrapped her hand around the handle.
Rage filled the guard captain as his face turned beat red.
“Do ye not know who me or my father is!? I’m NOT asking!” he barked, slamming his hand on the table in an effort to intimidate.
Azeline just stared at him with bored eyes as if she was looking at walking garbage.
She really liked it here and didn’t particularly feel like making a bloody mess in the place and making an enemy of the town, but cleaving idiots in half that thought to force themselves onto her was satisfying.
Especially now she had the might to back it up.
“She said, fuck off.” A voice called out just behind the man.
Spinning around, the guard captain saw a huge dark skinned primate with long curly hair and oddly enough, a growing beard.
“I’ll have ye know, I’m not ASKING for- ARGGHHH!” The guard was once again interrupted, but instead of an insult, he received a heavy blow right into his liver.
Elijah watched as the screaming elf boy collapsed to the ground like a sack of shit and turned his attention to Azeline.
“Let’s get out of here, ya?” He asked with a wink.
Azeline wore a small smile on her face as she stood up and followed out of the tavern.
It was also nice to have friends.
The moment the two stepped outside, Azeline looked up to see the sun had finally set and the cloudy night sky set upon them an oppressive darkness. The only visible light was the two moons that would occasionally poke through a lesser dense patch of clouds and even then, only a sliver of light could be seen from the waning crescent.
“Don’t worry, we’re going to try to make this quick and easy.” Elijah said as they walked in the direction of the stables.
“Our objective is simple, we’re just going to patrol towards the cabin and scope out the cabin and take note of the guards rotations,” he explained. “This way, when we make a hit, we can time it when they have their pants around their ankles.”
Raising an eyebrow, Azeline couldn’t help but find his choice of words were quite… odd.
But nevertheless, fighting with your pants around your ankles would indeed seem exceedingly difficult.
But still…
“Don’t you think it’s a bit too dangerous to do this at night though?” She asked, looking back up and seeing it was darker than usual.
Elijah looked back over her shoulder with an amused smile on his face.
“Love, we own the night.”
Azeline’s face contorted into one of concern as she remembered their little saying…
Night time is the right time, eh? She youth to herself as they finally made it to the stables.
There she looked over to where their cart was supposedly placed and saw her other companion, Bennett, was already walking towards them. The man was twisting something on the end of his magical weapon that seemed similar to what Elijah had made a day or two prior.
“Shoulda just made one when I did.” Elijah pestered the man with an obnoxious smirk.
“Shut the fuck up.” Bennett immediately shot back.
Knowing a flurry of bickering between the two men was going to start, Azeline decided to tune them out and lean against the wall and let her eyes wander.
“I should have just left your ass outside of the airlock.” The engineer quipped as he struggled to properly wrap a sheet of linen around his weapon.
And right on que.
An annoyed sigh left Azelines lips as she looked around the stable grounds for anything that would distract her from the borderline lovers quarrel in front of her. Everytime one of them said something smart or annoying, the other couldn’t let it stand and had to one up the other to see who was more annoying.
This was her life now.
Her head panned right and managed to catch the sight of Afton and their former coachmen having their own spat as they argued just outside of the stables guard house.
I guess they’re doing quite a bit of trading… Azeline thought to herself as she focused on the two villagers.
It made for a decent distraction.
However, her brows soon furrowed when she saw that green haired man that was supposedly following her beckon them into the guard house.
“Azeline, come on!” Elijah yelled, snapping her out of her reverie.
Her companions were already walking in the direction of the town gates.
“Bah! Fuckin bastards!” Azeline cursed to herself as she jogged to catch up.
-
Just outside of the town gates, Elijah stared at the mass of trees that towered so high one could mistake them for small skyscrapers. Looking towards the sky, his vision fixated on the two moons and realized this was most likely the perfect time to conduct this type of operation.
Only a sliver of light was being reflected on the surfaces.
“No rest for the wicked.” Elijah muttered to himself as he unwrapped his rifle that was hidden underneath a sheet of linens.
Sure he had a full and busy day, but there was still work to do and they were on a timer.
Glancing over at his companions, Elijah saw that both of them were fidgeting anxiously.
Azeline had a stoic look on her face, however he could tell she was uncomfortable with the prospect of trying to remain undetected. Bennett however, the poor man already had his rifle unwrapped and was nearly throttling the thing as his eyes darted anxiously across the darkness that lay before him.
“You alright?” Elijah asked Azeline, causing her to jump in start.
“Ye-yes. It’s just… even though we’re close to town.” The blonde haired elf hesitantly responded. “It’s still unwise to be outside the walls at night.”
That made sense… Elijah thought to himself after hearing the plethora of odd, aggressive noises coming from the impossibly dense forest.
For Elijah however… This was nostalgic.
This wasn’t the first time he had to go out in a small team and patrol into a dark and hostile jungle or forest.
Nor was it the second or third.
As a matter of fact, the man had seen extensive combat during his military days in some dense jungle shit hole off a planet full of lizard people that wanted to kill or eat him. The only exception here was that his adversaries didn’t have machine guns, drones or artillery to ruin his day, but he wasn’t going to underestimate anyone.
He’s already paid that price in blood.
“Why do you never ask ME if I’m alright?” Bennett protested with a somewhat worried look.
Elijah turned his head and gave him an incredulous look.
“You’ve DONE this before. Plus, you’re gonna have to get used to it at some point.” Elijah replied while pulling back on the charging handle for his rifle.
Bennett thought back to the job he had to go on in order to hunt down some tweaker in the middle of the woods because he had a bounty on his head.
There was something to be said about paranoid and violent schizos with closed network defenses…
“I’ll take point, you’re going to be1 0 meters behind me and Azeline will be 10 meters behind you making sure nothings going to try and eat us.” Elijah started giving orders as soon as his engineer accepted his fate.“I put up a fist, that means you stop, I pull my fist down, that means you get on your knees and if I point at the ground, you get on your belly.” He continued as he motioned for the group to follow.
Azeline kept her axe close to her chest as she followed behind Bennett into the darkness at the instructed distance.
But terror seemed to rear its ugly head the moment Azeline entered the treeline and the horrible sounds of unknown monsters echoed all around her. It was almost as if she entered a new world, a world only the most seasoned and skilled Freelancers dared to enter.
Especially since their encounter with the Ursadon…
Panic started to fill Azeline’s heart when she remembered that fateful encounter and how that beast blended with the shadows even with daylight shining through the forest.
“W-Wait…” Azeline called out with a shaky voice. “Aren’t you going to use a light? I can’t see!”
No one answered her call, but the footsteps just ahead suddenly stopped as she squinted her eyes trying to find any source of them.
“Eep!” Azeline quickly yelped when she reached out and felt the back of Bennetts head.
“It’s not THAT dark…. hold on to me and stay quiet.” Bennett quietly muttered as they restarted their trek.
Bennett and Elijah were both communicating subvocally when Azeline started to panic and decided it was best to have someone hold her hand during this venture. Where both of them had nearly instantaneously adjusted to the darkness by filtering any ambient light into their augmented eyes, Azeline seemingly was blind as a bat.
How can they SEE!? Azeline screamed in her own head as she followed Bennett through the near dense woods.
As a matter of fact… She couldn’t understand how quiet they were.
It was kind of muted, but she could at least hear and detect where Bennett was whenever he took a step or brushed against some foliage.
But Elijah… He was a ghost.
“Slow down a little…” Bennett sent over the sub-vocal network.
He was doing his best to mimic how Elijah flowed through the thick forest, but Bennett just couldn’t keep up. Maneuvering over overgrown roots, pushing through tangling foliage and traversing depressions in the ground while covering your sector and staying as quiet as you could proved much more difficult than he was ready for.
But instead of a response, Bennett heard the click of Elijah’s safety switching to fire and a fist going up.
Coming to an immediate stop, Bennett also switched his weapon to fire and concentrated on his sector of fire. However, his concentration was interrupted when Azeline didn’t get the memo and walked directly into his back, letting out a small yelp.
He turned around to see that Azeline had clasped a hand around her mouth and looked at him with an apologetic look.
Bennett turned his head to see what had made Elijah stop and saw the man aiming his rifle at one of those massive tree deer-thing that was starting to uneasily stand up. A surge of adrenaline coursed through the engineer as he slowly twisted his body and aimed his weapon at the monster as well. Once the beast had managed to rise to its full height, he could see the thing was easily the size of an adult moose.
In place of fur, rough dark brown bark covered its entire body with leaves sprouting out in seemingly random locations all over its body. The monster turned its head to face away from the group showing two thick branch looking antlers that branched out with incredibly sharp points on each end.
“Welp, It now knows we’re here…” Elijah muttered over the sub-vocals.
Ahhh, that’s right. Bennett thought to himself as he stared at the beast as it remained stocks still, staring at them with one eye.
However, once the beast started moving to face them, Bennett saw Elijah slowly start to move behind a large tree and propped up his rifle on the side. Electing that being behind cover as a deer monster with murder branches stared at them was probably the best idea, the engineer reached behind him and guided Azeline to the thickest tree he could find.
“Whats going on-”
THUD
Azeline was unable to figure out what was going on and tried asking, but she was cut off by the sound of a single hoof slamming against the ground.
The woman recognized the sound and what it belonged to and immediately shut up while she clutched her axe.
She fucked up.
Not moving a muscle other than his finger slowly wrapping around the trigger, Elijah prepared for the possible event of this thing charging them. Which seemed like a real possibility as it stomped the ground once again and let out a deafening breath of air, letting the group know it was unhappy with their presence.
Please go away, please go away, please go away, please go away. Elijah repeated his mantra in his own head, hoping he wasn’t going to give this thing a healthy dose of tungsten and give their position away.
However, the monster just became more aggravated.
Bobbing its head up and down, the leaves growing on its branch like antlers shook as telltale signs of wanting to charge.
Suddenly an intense concentrated beam of light from Bennett’s location showed directly into the beast's face. The deer-like monster stomped and thrashed as its head slammed against the trees, leaving deep gouges into the trunks.
Elijah’s eyes widened in surprise as he reached his hand forward and adjusted his own laser/light unit on his rifle and directed more intense lumens into the beast's face.
A warbled cry came from the monster as it stubbornly continued to thrash before spinning around and bolting deeper into the woods.
“Fucking NICE, dude.” Elijah praised, spinning around while giving Bennett a thumbs up.
Bennett huffed in affirmation before turning off the light on his weapon while a proud smile on his face.
“I’ve never seen an Ixtal This close before…” Azeline muttered to herself.
“But, what in the heavens was that light??” she questioned while rubbing her eyes.
Even though she was standing behind the source and it wasn’t directed at her, the blinding light was still intense enough to be uncomfortable.
Elijah rubbed his short, but growing beard for a second trying to think of a way to answer that question, but before he could open his mouth, Bennett beat him to the punch.
“Magic.” The engineer said, stepping away from his tree and readying himself to continue the patrol.
Azeline hummed and hawed in amazement as she peered around Bennett’s back to look at the device at the end of his magical weapon that shot out the light.
Snorting in amusement, Elijah stepped away from his own tree to continue towards their objective.
“Come on, let’s get this over with.” He said as waving his hand forward.
Without a word, Bennett stood up and brought his weapon to bear to cover Elijah’s flank as the two stepped into the small clearing where the Ixtal was resting. Looking down, the engineer saw a plethora of bioluminescent flowers and mushrooms that were blooming in the rough shape of the beast's sleeping body.
“Is that normal?” Bennett quietly asked, staring at the mass of glowing flowers..
The woman still had an iron grip on his shoulder as she tilted her head to the side in wonder, not knowing what he was talking about.
But then she looked over to where his weapon was pointed.
“Ah, right.” She said in understanding. “Ixtal’s are known for that, but seeing the growth here , that one seemed to be one of Mother Nature's Harbingers.”
Bennett looked up for a moment while his brain tried to comprehend what she just said.
“What the fuck does that even mean???” He questioned looking over shoulder at the woman.
Staring at the man as if he were an alien, Azeline stood there for a moment trying to decipher if he was being serious or not. There was no way he wouldn’t know who Mother Nature and her Archons were let alone the innumerable Harbingers that roamed the lands to maintain balance.
Could he?
“You know what? Nevermind.” Bennett said abruptly as soon as he saw the look on her face.
Now was not the time to be committed towards a lengthy conversation that was undoubtedly about to come. Doubly so when Bennett knew that logic wasn’t a factor here and whatever she had to say would make zero sense to him.
Azeline let out a sigh of relief at the fact she dodged having to explain further.
Explaining complicated topics wasn't exactly her strong suit.
Silence seemed to finally reign as the group followed the preplanned route and lurked through the dense thicket towards the target building. The intense sound of wildlife around them also seemed to die down as they started inching closer to the road.
Until suddenly, she felt Bennett suddenly stop in the same manner as when they ran into that massive Ixtal.
Azeline’s heart started racing as she clutched her axe and peered around the man’s shoulder and prepared for another standoff. She could do nothing but hope that the beast would react in the same way and run blinded by those magical beams of light.
However, what greeted her vision was a new problem; A small flickering flame in the distance.
“We’re here…” Bennett whispered softly as he resumed his slow creep forward.
Trying to soothe her frayed nerves, Azelines hand clenched harder around Bennett’s shoulder as the flickering flame grew larger and larger. She couldn’t help but be reminded how bad she was with situation that necessitated the need to be quiet and remained hidden
Much like her first time venturing out into the wilderness with the hunters during her childhood, except the stakes were much higher here. Azeline recalled the ridicule and scolding she received whenever she floundered and scared every beast away when they came into bow range.
There had been vast improvements in her performance, however there was a reason why she preferred to use an axe.
Azeline’s musing came to a halt when she felt Bennett stop again, this time taking a knee and resting his weapon against a tree, pointing it towards the light source.
The cabin was in full view.
“You guy see anyone?” Elijah asked in a hushed whisper.
The poor woman nearly jumped out of her skin as she clapped a hand over her mouth to prevent a scream.
“Nah, I don’t see shit.” Bennett whispered back while giving Azeline the side eyes that asked what the hell she was doing.
It took everything Azeline had to keep her calm and not reach out and strangle the man, but If looks could kill, both of these two morons would be dead. Taking a deep breath, she tried to regain some semblance of calm as she looked back towards the cabin and saw the guards were nowhere to be seen.
The small wooden building itself seemed half way abandoned with half of its foundation slipping off to the side and growth wrapping around it as if it were being strangled. Everything about it just made your eyes want to just slip off of it and ignore the thing, but that in itself is peculiar…
Just as she opened her mouth to mention that small detail, as two individuals dressed in shiny white armor draped in red and white cloak barged out of the building in an angry huff.
“Corrupted bastard!” A bald man yelled, while throwing a severed hand to the floor. “He won’t give us any names!!”
Next to him was a female knight with glowing red eyes that had her arms crossed.
“Relax Adoni, we will know who his associates are in due time…” She said, as the two walked closer to the tree line..
The bald man that was apparently named Adonio looked over at his companion and gave her an irritated look before letting out a sigh.
“You know how hard Lord Salvanius takes failure…” Adoni brought his hand to his head and started pacing. “This is HIS personal crusade!”
“Yes, however we have already succeeded in getting a trial and that’s all we need.” The woman said, bringing her hand to his shoulder. “Let’s be done with this and you can go back to punishing that corrupted whore.”
Adonio came to a stop and thought for a moment before licking his lips.
“Hahah! yes, yes, you’re right.” He chuckled as he jogged back to the door. “Brothers, Sisters! We’ve got what we need!”
“Kill it, slowly!” The woman added as they slammed the door behind them.
…
Elijah and Bennett looked at each other for a moment trying to soak in everything that was just said.
“We gotta go NOW!” Elijah said as he flipped his weapon to fire and took off in a sprint through the thick brush.
“Yep!” Bennett replied, hot on his tail dragging Azeline behind him.
Comments
scribbles
Thanks! I'll fix.
David Ellis
Some minor editing issues: "She youth to herself" probably should be "She thought to herself"; "you’re going to be1 0 meters" has a misplaced space; Adoni is called Adonio once. I feel like I read a fourth one, but I can't find it now.
