~ Book 2 ~

Chapter 43 - Leaving Home (Part One)

Søren, Neeka, and Sehro spent the first few days heading northward from Caisleán by following an overgrown path that Neeka recalled being used by traveling merchants in the past. Unfortunately, time had erased all but the barest hints of the track and put even Neeka's skills to the test after more than a week into their journey northward.

"It's as much a guess as it is knowing the will of the Devourer at this point Søren," Neeka explained. She swept aside a patch of dried grass and revealed a worn down, weathered stone that may have been part of a campfire at this location. "It looks like it was a good spot for a wagon to pull off the trail and set up camp for the night, but..." Her voice trailed off as she swept an arm out towards the small clearing she had found nestled within the shelter of a small copse of trees. Years of growth had crowded the access to the clearing, making it impossible for any cart or wagon to enter the clearing.

"Yeah. It'll do for a camp tonight," Søren suggested to the others. "We could take a couple days to explore the area. See if we can find the trail or just head towards the foothills northwest of us."

Neeka nodded in agreement as Sehro dropped out of the lowest branches of the tallest tree around the clearing.

"I didn't see any signs of the trail, but I did spot a campfire or something several hours north of us, just beyond the hills. There's a hint of wood-smoke in the air that way," the former hunter turned assassin mentioned. He brushed off some leaves that had stuck to his armor and picked off a two inch long bright green caterpillar that was inching its way down his arm. It had two rows of bright yellow and white hairs along its back and dozens of knobby brown legs on its underside. Much to Søren's delight, Sehro popped the wriggling insect into his mouth. His teeth snapped shut audibly and then gnashed together as the caterpillar was bitten into pieces and then swallowed. Søren started to turn away to begin setting up the camp when Sehro coughed and gagged loudly.

"You ok?" Søren asked with some concern. Sehro waved the human Traveler off quickly and made an awful swallowing sound, jerking his head forward.

"Sorry. The hairs tickled my throat and a piece tried to crawl back out," Sehro explained as soon as he could.

"Even a hatchling knows to chew their food first, Sehro." Neeka's mouth fell open in silent laughter. One eye on Sehro, the other watching Søren's reaction.

Søren shook his head and turned away from the two, his features a little green. His traveling companions had greatly enjoyed teaching Søren about the variety of grubs, worms, river crabs, and other arthropods that were a vital source of nutrition in the wilderness. They knew less about edible fruits and plants, but they did know of a few at least. Enough to keep Søren from having to subsist entirely on a Fuerven diet.

"Anyway, this smoke. Do you think it's a different Fuerven tribe or more likely Scrappers?" he asked.

"Unlikely it's any of our tribes," Neeka answered. "Unless something has driven them further east. Our tribe was one of very few to travel so far after being driven from our homelands by the Collective. Scrappers or someone else. Harpies don't use fire. They prefer their prey raw and wriggling when they eat."

"Fuervens wouldn't allow their campfire to give away their location so easily," Sehro added. "Well, most wouldn't. It's in our nature to mask our presence, to hide."

"Let's get our camp sorted and then we'll scout their camp just after sunset. Sound good?" Søren asked the others. Neeka and Sehro both nodded in agreement. The trio worked quickly to clear a small area and set up a ring of stones around a pair of holes dug into the ground for the campfire. The design would reduce the amount of smoke produced to almost nothing and would also prevent the light from the fire from being seen at a distance. Søren and Sehro stored their packs at the edge of the clearing and used some dead branches and leaves to cover them up. The tip of Søren's [Artemis Scout Rifle (Silver I)] peeked out over his shoulder.

"Time to put my armor's camouflage abilities to the test," Søren said, mostly to himself. He accessed the Guardian armor's controls and activated a a basic camouflage option. The active camo option was greyed out and unselectable. The eye strain inducing bright white color of his jumpsuit and armor darkened to a neutral grey color and then small, irregular shapes in various shades of grey appeared scattered across every surface of his gear. Different patterns and options appeared in his interface, one of them being adaptive. He tapped that option and the colors shifted slightly to greys and greens to match the surrounding flora.

"Very useful," Sehro commented. "So long as you don't move too quickly, even I would have trouble seeing you, Søren."

"Well, I'm still trying to learn the first rank of the [Stealth] skill. Maybe this will help."

Neeka nodded and took a last look at the campsite.

"I'll cover our tracks after we leave, make it more difficult for anyone to find our campsite."

Søren and Sehro left the camp and headed northward, using a small game trail Neeka had scouted earlier. She rejoined the two moments later, adjusting a branch across the path and scattering some dead leaves and other detritus in the area. Without a word, they continued north towards the bit of smoke Sehro had spotted.

A few hours later, they found themselves crawling on their bellies towards the ridge of a hill near the pillar of smoke that had turned into three now. Sehro crept forward ahead of the other two, using the cover of a large boulder the size of a small boulder to get closer to the ridge. The deep shadow cast by the sun setting to the west made a perfect spot to scout the camp from. It also made a perfect spot for a sentry to be posted to watch for any approaching threats. The plan was for Sehro to eliminate the sentry if he found one and felt like he could get into position without being seen.

Neeka had explained to Søren that the Scrappers were not friendly with the Fuerven tribes, or anyone else really. They would raid settlements to take any resources they could and were often seen in old ruins, tearing apart metal structures and vehicles to slap together their scrapheap homes and vehicles from the bits and bobs they could carry away.

"Sounds very Mad Max," Søren had quipped in response. "Not that you would understand." The two of them hadn't, but they had grown used to Søren's constant references to bits of his life back on Earth.

Neeka crouched a short distance away from Sehro, ready to assist if needed, while Søren was a hundred feet away, his scout rifle trained on the location. The days heat had warmed the rocks and made the thermal sight on the rifle near useless for checking for a sentry. Søren watched Sehro through the scope, as the Fuerven assassin crept up to the very edge of the rock and then slipped around it. A moment later, Sehro returned holding a blade slick with a warm glow in the thermal scope and dragging a rapidly cooling corpse behind him. Søren tightened his grip on his rifle and hugged it close to his chest as he hustled up the hill to rejoin Neeka and Sehro. A notification for a new mission appeared in his notifications.

*ding* 1 / 24 Scrapper Raiders slain.

Clear the Scrapper Raider's Camp

A raiding party of Scrapper's have set up a temporary camp at the Crossroads. Remove the Scrapper threat before they become a danger to Caisleán.

1 / 24 Scrapper Raider slain

0 / 1 Scrapper Raider Captain slain

Rewards

• 1500 TEK

• 1 settlement build point

• [Uncommon] engram

Søren glanced down at the corpse after dismissing the notification, getting his first look at a Scrapper. The boy was young, dirty, but appeared human. A scraggly beard covered the bottom of his face. A stab wound beneath the beard showed how the sentry had died. His clothing was ragged and heavily mended with knots of leather and cloth. Over his clothes, he wore a patchwork set of armor made from road signs, sports equipment, and even a dented metal mixing bowl that wouldn't look out of place in a modern Earth kitchen, barring the array of spikes that had been thrust through the bowl and welded into place.

"He's just a kid," Søren said, his brows furrowed beneath the visor of his [Guardian Helmet (Copper VI)]. He then noticed the crude punch dagger attached to a metal-backed leather glove on his right hand. The tip had a streak of fresh blood on it.

"Don't worry Søren," Sehro said as soon as he noticed Søren look at him suddenly. "It's just a scratch. I've already cleaned it out, daubed on some of your an-tee-bi-oh-tics, and covered the wound. I gave the kid a chance to surrender, but he chose to stab at me."

"Still awfully young, but it can't be helped I suppose." Søren crouched next to the dead Scrapper and pulled off a frayed cloth bag bearing a box wrapped with ribbons and an Atlantean phrase, 'Save more by shopping at Buy More Gift Shop!' He frowned and shook his head at the commercialism of the world prior to the Merge. The back of the bag had a faded image of a gift shop loaded with shelves full of knick-knacks and other miscellaneous junk for tourists to purchase.

"We have twenty-three raiders and a captain to deal with," Neeka said, her eyes focused on the air in front of her. "The mission log and this interface feels like cheating. We have only just reached the camp, we already know how many raiders there are, and it will keep track of them as we remove the threat they pose to us and others."

Søren shrugged at Neeka, "It's just like the games we have back on Earth. I wonder if the Scrappers would get a mission to stop us once they figure out what's happening, if they had their interface unlocked as well." He turned the bag inside out close to the ground. A few ration bars in faded plastic wrap dropped out, along with a dagger and a handful of credits.

Neeka picked up one of the ration bars and turned it over in her claws. She used the tip of one to lift up a flap of the wrapper.

"Expired only six hundred years ago," she said as she read the date written inside the flap. "Must have been well preserved if they're still eating them. What's our plan now? They outnumber us by a decent amount."

Søren grinned and detached one of the drone's from the sleeve of his jumpsuit.

"I've been looking for an excuse to use one of these." He focused his gaze on the interface and brought up the camera drone controls. The tiny machine lifted off the palm of his hand, a thin blue glow emitting from several locations. A moment later, the lights dimmed to near invisible and the drone shot up into the sky. Søren brought out a dataslate and slaved the camera feed from the drone to the slate. "Let's see exactly what we're getting ourselves into here."