27

As Fawkes dragged him back to the entrance of the tomb, Hunter tried to look on the bright side of things. He was drenched to the bone, but at least the rain had washed off the spider goop off him. His shoulder hurt like hell, but at least the tomb was now a safe place for them to get some rest and wait out the storm. Oh, and the spider had dropped some loot, too: a few Giant Spider Glands, a few Giant Spider Webs, some Spider Chitin Plates, and a semi-transparent, wispy Essence of a Barrow Recluse. Hunter was too exhausted to stand, but not too exhausted to greedily shove it all in his backpack.

“I swear, I’ll never understand you” grumbled Fawkes as she was cleaning his wounds. “Your transient habits and your transient magics and your transient way of thought.”

“What did I do this time?” he groaned. “Ouch, ouch, can’t you be a bit gentler?”

“Still, I have to hand it to you”, she continued, ignoring him. “You held yourself up quite admirably out there. Unlike this mutt here.”

Fyodor, who was resting his huge furry head on Hunter’s lap turned his snout the other side, embarrassed.

“Come on, he did jump on the back of the spider.”

“If he wasn’t such a little crybaby,” Fawkes said, and wiped the blood off Hunter’s wound a bit more vigorously than she strictly had to, “the spider wouldn’t have gotten a whiff of us in the first place. Hold this gauze in place and put some pressure on it. Let me get a healing salve.”

She reached into one of her countless pouches, rummaged a bit, pulled a vial of rusty red liquid that looked suspiciously like coagulated blood, uncorked it, and handed it to Hunter.

“Down the hatch it goes, then,” he said and raised the vial in a mock toast. “Cheers.”

“No, no–you don’t drink that, you buffoon!” hissed Fawkes, grabbing the vial from his hands just as he was about to gulp the red liquid inside. “Don’t you have salves where you come from?”

“Uh… I thought you said healing potion.”

“Healing potion?” Fawkes shook her head in disbelief. “Do you think I’m made of money, lad? Those cost a king’s bounty.”

She poured the red liquid on Hunter’s wound and wrapped it with a clean bandage. It took effect almost immediately, relieving some of the pain and making the injured area feel hot and cold at the same time.

You are now under the effects of Trollblood Regeneration.

“Uh, Fawkes? What’s this thing made of?”

“Strawberry jam and pixie dust,” she brushed him off. “Give it a day or three, and you’ll be good as new.”

***

The wind and downpour outside still went strong throughout most of the day, so there was nothing for Hunter and Fawkes to do but sit around in the tomb’s antechamber, wrap themselves with their blankets for warmth, and exchange stories. Hunter tried to explain how movies and games and dungeon raids had given him insights about fighting monsters and using his transient magics, and Fawkes kept marveling at how silly all these gimmicky make-believe transient pastimes sounded.

“Okay then,” Hunter said. “Tell me about you. Tell me about your friend. Tell me about that Lodge you keep mentioning.”

That caught Fawkes off guard, and the tiny wrinkles around her mouth quickly turned into deep worry lines. Hunter almost regretted bringing the subject up, but said nothing. They were pretty much joined at the hip for now, he and she. It was only fair he at least knew the reasons why she’d dragged him to the valley of tombs, ghosts, and monstrous spiders, right?

“The Lodge… We of the Lodge were once an order of sorts, though we’re too few now to call us that, I guess. In short, our mission is to track down dangerous artifacts and relics of the old world and make sure they stay buried and forgotten.”

“Is your friend of the Lodge too, then?”

“He is,” Fawkes nodded. “He’s a Seeker, which means he roams the world investigating rumors of dangerous artifacts and potential threats to our cause. He sent word to me, saying he unearthed something of great interest in the lands of the Brennai. We were to meet and investigate together, but Reiner, ever the fool, isn’t one to sit around and wait.”

“So he came to the Ghostbarrows alone,” Hunter guessed.

“It’s been a fortnight since the folken last saw him,” Fawkes nodded. “I tried to contact him, but my sendings go unanswered.”

“Do you think something happened to him? I mean… something bad?”

Fawkes stared at the raging storm outside, her mouth suddenly a thin, pale straight line of worry. In that moment, she looked old; worn and weathered by decades and decades of hard life, Hunter realized. To him, she’d always seemed kind of untouchable. She had been his one constant in Elderpyre, Fawkes, so cavalier about everything, always quick with both with and blade.

Seeing her so worried felt… wrong.

“He’s a grown man,” she finally said with a sigh. “A Seeker of the Lodge, and as deadly a warrior as I’ve ever met. Worrying about him now won’t do anybody any favors.”

“For what it’s worth,” Hunter said, “I hope he’s alright.”

That brought a slight smile to Fawkes’s face–a smile that did little for her worried eyes and her furrowed brow.

“So do I, lad”, she said, turning her gaze away. “So do I.”