“Keza! Sis! Come on! Wake up!” The words were accompanied by a few soft slaps and insistent shaking. What really roused me though was the pain. I felt like I had been mauled by Agar'zan all over again. Oh dear Maidens! If only I could have passed out again right away. But apparently I wasn't deserving of small mercies like that. No, no rest for the wicked. I had to suffer through it all. The world came back into focus around me only slowly and not quite to the extent I would have preferred. Another concussion, that was the conclusion at which I arrived. It was a feeling I was entirely too familiar with. I was familiar with it and I hated it.

It took me a lot of effort to focus on my sister's face. Worry was etched in it. And her dress was bloody. That observation roused me more properly. I struggled to get up. Kaele lent me a hand but even with her help it wasn't easy. I wasn't feeling all that well. She must have noticed that my eyes were still glued to the blood staining her clothes. “Oh. No. That isn't mine. You got a face full of wyvern blood. I wiped it off. You … uh, might have still swallowed some of it. Probably not enough to cause you serious problems, but, you know, it is poisonous.” She paused briefly, pondering her words. “It might be for the best if you could throw it back up. Yes?”

No wonder I was feeling off. “And here I was hoping that I was only feeling the side effects of your Regeneration spell.” She shook her head. Right, that would have been to good to be true. Of course now that I knew it wasn't hard to spot the differences. I wasn't feeling feverish all over. Instead it was just my midsection that felt hot and uncomfortable. Without any further words I turned sideways and emptied my stomach against the next tree. I retched like that for a little while. What landed in the dirt at my feet wasn't much. It was mostly just bile with a few specks of blood in it.

Kaele patted my back. “Drink some water from the waterfall, not the basin below, and throw up some more, just to be safe.” She helped me back to the site of our desperate struggle. It was only a few steps around broken trees and uprooted underbrush. Still I had to lean onto my sister for support. Damn, that made me feel even more miserable. At least until she gave me a little squeeze to cheer me up. The sight that greeted me gave me pause. The wyvern must have trashed about fiercely in its death throes, totally trashing the place. I had trouble recognizing the leisure spot where I had taken my bath.

Well, at least both of our friends were up and about. That eased my mind. At least a little. Khuzan was helping Eld'tide back into her things. She must have fought invisible and in the nude the entire time. I just got to see enough to realize that she was sporting a number of bruises all over. Kaele must have noticed my gaze. “She got hit with gravel as the beast landed while she was going for her bow and the quiver.” I nodded and she kept going. “And Khuzan lost his shield as the thing went berserk after you opened its artery.” I looked at him and noticed that he was indeed missing the shield. A moment later my eyes fell upon it, lodged in between the wyvern's teeth, where the beast had fallen after its final struggle.

I shook my head. I didn't really want to know how it had ended up there. I wouldn't ask. I probably wouldn't like the answer. Instead I went to the waterfall and stuck my head under it. The cold water properly shocked me awake again. That probably wouldn't last though. At some point my body would demand proper rest and it wouldn't accept no for an answer. I could see why my sister had told me to drink from the waterfall though. The scaled beast's blood was oozing into the basin, clouding its content in an unpleasant way. I grimaced. It probably would poison the creek and maybe even the river further down for days or weeks if not for even longer.

I drank some of the water and hurried to the edge of the clearing. I barely made it before throwing up again. Oh, Moon Maidens. I should feel heroic or at least ecstatic. Instead I was miserable and sick. Well, I felt at least a little better after throwing up again. Now I just needed to rinse my mouth to get rid of that awful taste. I did just that. I rinsed again and again until I was finally satisfied. Across the messed up clearing around the waterfall I could hear Kaele call out as she cast her healing spell on Eld'tide. “Regeneration!” Once the spell took hold she came my way again and repeated the process. “Regeneration!”, she called out again and I could feel the spell take hold of me.

A moment ago I had been cold and miserable. Now I was feverish and miserable. Eld'tide didn't look all that good either. I pointed in the direction of the uprooted and smashed trees. “We probably should build a shelter somewhere around here. I doubt we'll be able to make it back to camp like this.” The young Gorgon nodded and after a moment Khuzan and Kaele did as well. I tried to gather my thoughts before exhaustion could claim me. “Should we be worried about scavengers?” Then something else occurred to me. “And has anyone seen my things? My armor? My pack?”

It was Khuzan who answered my questions as Eld'tide had already set out to build us a makeshift shelter. “Most of our stuff was scattered far and wide. Best look for it around the edge of the clearing. Regarding scavengers or other predators we shouldn't have to worry. If anything the smell of the rotting wyvern will scare them off. Only other creatures corrupted by The Devourer would we willing to eat that. You know Ogres, other Wyverns, real Dragons, maybe Oozes. If any of those were around we would be fucked though. They'd all see us as a tasty side dish.” He winced. “That thing will pollute the creek and the forest for quite some time unless we do something about it.”

I could only nod. He was right of course. I doubted we could face another of the Devourer's spawn and win right now. There probably weren't any more around though. Mother would have gathered her banner and eradicated these monsters if there were more of them. She wouldn't have let something like that slip. Honestly I was surprised that we even ran into a single one of them. We really had the worst luck. I let Khuzan join Eld'tide. She probably could use the help. I turned towards the edge of the clearing to search for our stuff and more importantly my clothes and armor.

I stopped only briefly to address my sister. “Wash you clothes, Kaele. We don't want the blood of that nasty creature to get anywhere else.” She nodded and proceeded to do just that. She could join the others afterwards. I for my part set out to search in earnest. It didn't take me too long to find most of our things. Our packs had been scattered far and wide, but they had not spilled their contents at the very least. I was thankful for that. If I had had to search for everything piecemeal it might have taken me hours and I doubted I could have lasted that long.

My scale mail was one of the last pieces I found. By the time I stumbled across it I had at least found my own underclothes so I wasn't quite naked anymore. In hindsight I must have walked past it once or twice. The piece of armor hadn't been blown away at all. Instead it still lay at the edge of the pond. It had only been buried under a generous amount of sand and gravel. I must be getting tired. Otherwise I wouldn't have missed it. I shook my head and brushed it off the best I could. That didn't mean it was clean afterwards, but I could make do with it in this state. A little sand and mud wouldn't kill me. Probably.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see a thin column of smoke rice between the fallen trees. That probably meant that the shelter was coming along nicely. Warming up next to a fire sounded nice. Too bad we didn't have any food though. That was the wrong train of thought. Almost immediately my stomach cramped up at the thought of food. Well, that was a no go then. I headed to the dead monster next to retrieve my weapon. I winced. Khuzan's mother would tan my hide if she ever learned that I hadn't recovered it first before doing anything else.

It took me some serious effort to pull the blade free. I gagged again, fighting hard to keep my stomach from revolting once more. The shaft of the weapon had been drenched in the creature's blood, making it quite slippery. I would have to wash it properly. As I headed for the waterfall once more I stubbed my toes against something. I pulled the offending object from the sand. It was a scale. It was one of the scales our weapons had been unable to pierce. My gaze wandered from it to the carcass of the wyvern. How hadn't I thought of that before? Wasn't it the prerogative of monster slayers to wear the hides of their foes as armor?

That thought lifted my waning spirits. I scraped the dried blood off my weapon best I could and throughoutly washed my hands after wards before heading to the shelter the others had set up. It wasn't much, but I would take it. A roof of overlapping branches would provide cover and a nice little fire would provide warmth. I uprooted a bushel of grass to wipe the shaft of my glaive some more. At the same time I threw the scale I had picked up to Eld'tide. She turned it around in her hands before handing it off to Khuzan, shooting me a curious glance. “Scale mail.”, I said. “Scale mail made from a Wyvern's scales. We should properly pluck that damn beast for giving us so much trouble, once we have rested up a little!”