A masterly retreat is in itself a victory - Norman Vincent Peale

Hank walked back over to the group.

“What’s all that about, becoming a vet?” Jamie asked.

“No. Those Exi are much smarter than I realised. That big one seems to have watched me treat Marko and decided I could heal one of his friends.” Hank bent over Marko to check the wrap around his wound and to pour some of his dwindling supply of tonic down the unconscious man’s throat.

“Yeah, we saw that. And the dog?” Sabine was also curious.

“Looks like the Exi decided that I needed to help them. Pulled this arachnid fang out from the side of one of them.” Hank held up a fang the size of his hand. “Oh, and they are not dogs. At least I don’t think they are. I believe that we have had the dubious honour of being spectators to a disagreement between the apex species of the GNF.”

“Ye gehn’ t’ ‘splane?” Fritz wandered over to join them, taking the rare opportunity to voice a quest in front of more than one person. Hank felt he almost knew what the diminutive man said but could quite connect the dots. He looked around for a translation.

With a sigh, Sabine translated. “Care to elaborate?”

“I am certain that Ruadh will have his portion of the story, after all Ore Cane never travel alone.” Jamie accidentally seemed to have ignored the question. “And from his comments, those coughing sounds had been pushing him for close to a day before he ran into us.”

“I guess that means you don’t think that it was a coincidence that as soon as we joined him those noises guided us and our mounts through the middle of this Harissi treo den.” Hank tryed to work out if he was more impressed or unsettled.

“What makes you think that this is a Harissi den?” Sabine replied.

“Can you think of anything else that bites legs off fully grown giant spiders? It took four or five of us to kill each of the arachnids we encountered. There are almost thirty of those spiders dead here.” Hank’s tone was derisive as he gestured around the clearing.

He continued. “We killed three. The Exi got three or four juveniles including the one that almost killed Marko. They also disabled one adult. But by my count that Harissi treo killed three adults and almost twenty five juveniles.”

“Didn’t the Exi kill the last adult?” Jamie had been looking in the wrong direction as the fight ended but now he looked about the clearing obviously counting for himself.

“No, they just drove it towards the Harissi.” Hank paused thinking. “I am not sure about Harissi genders. Even Nancy’s people have never been as close I just was. But that big one, male I think, tore off random legs whilst the other two kept it distracted. From memory one gripped a front leg whilst its smaller mate feigned an attack.”

“Have you seen how quick they are.” Sabine added. “It’s absolutely ridiculous how fast they are. They don’t seem to be afraid of anything. And did you see them repeatedly biting completely through spider exoskeleton? I can’t smash through that stuff with me axe, or even me favourite hammer. We have to aim for the chinks in the exoskeleton, usually the joints. Those dogs went through the juveniles like the proverbial hot knife through butter.”

She paused. “Very scary dogs.”

“They’re not dogs.” Hank unconsciously corrected her. “But I’m more scared of the Exi. As far as I can tell, they engineered everything.”

“What do you mean?” Sabine translated Gruffly’s pained rasping question.

“Oh, you’re awake. Drink some tonic.” Hank didn’t wait for a response as he poured a liberal dose into Gruffly’s mouth.

“As Hank and I were just saying it seems that the Exi used that coughing sound to spook the horses, forcing them to run in particular directions. Which is crazy because that means they executed a plan that took at least two or three days to play out.” Jamie was in awe.

Hank continued the explanation as Ruadh interrupted Jamie. “Most animals, including humans, don’t plan that far ahead. As a result, they only actually dirtied their claws on three or four occasions to wipe out a juvenile colony of almost fifty spiders. The adults were just a bonus.”

Before anyone could comment on this revelation, Jamie spoke. “Ruadh was just saying, that they also managed to wipe out most of the forty-five members of his tribe of Ore Cane that had come south. He hates the cats, but he is afraid of them.” Jamie seemed to have kept Ruadh up to speed with the conversation.

“Why does he hate them?” Hank asked?

“Hoekom haat jy hulle” Jamie asked the Ore Cane.

“Drie dae gelede ons hoof ’n vrolike lees aangeval en gewond. Hy wou sy bont hê, maar dit het beseer. Vyf uur daarna het twintig spinnekoppe ons kamp aangeval. Die spinnekoppe het een van die katte gejaag. Maar ons het ons teikens verander en ons aangeval.” Slowly everyone turned away from the tall man looking to Jamie for a translation.

“The gist of it is that one of their leaders attacked an Exi about three days ago. He wanted to kill it for the fur. It escaped, injured. About five hours later, twenty of the spiders attacked their camp. He was just returning to the camp and saw that they spiders have been drawn there chasing an Exi.” Jamie seemed a little incredulous telling the story.

“That female Exi wound I treated looks like it was about four days old, but I’m certain it was a spider bite. That would seem to indicate that both humans and spiders attacked the cats within 24 hours of each other.” Hank paused for a second.

“If they planned this, that’s two lots of revenge in one big fight. I’m completely with Ruadh here. They’re, by a country mile, the most dangerous creatures in this forest. General comment for everyone, do not make the really big kitties cross. I can see that ending very badly for us.”

Wisdom Point

Name :

Implacable enemy

Description :

Remember the Exi, be implacable in your resolve.

Let neither the size nor the numbers of your opposition stop you.

There is always a way to destroy your enemy.

Alternative Description :

Don’t poke the bear (or Exi in this case)

Reward :

Wisdom is its own reward, so you shouldn’t expect any but…

125 XP

Some other stuff you may never understand.

Hank had made sure that things as important as wisdom points popped up immediately, not that he knew what they were useful for but they seemed important.

“The Exi are all lounging over there…” Hank pointed “… and the Harissi seem to be licking each other and sunning themselves on the rocks. I’m not sure that we’re at all safe, but we aren’t in any condition to move at the moment. Let’s rest where we are for a few hours. The palfrey’s definitely need to recover before we move on.”

“Someone needs to keep an eye on both the Exi and the Harissi whilst we do. If either one gets upset it is unlikely, we will survive.” Jamie stated, out as he sat down, back against a tree. Positioned himself so that he could watch both groups he continued, “I’ll act as the clearing lookout. Someone else had better watch the forest”.

In the end, they only rested for an hour before the Harissi started growling for no reason at all. At which point Hank’s friendly Exi arose, sauntering over to Hank’s group. The rest of it’s mates followed a slightly further distance. The injured one carefully positioned in the middle of the pack.

Hank’s friend started the distinctive cough they had all become acquainted with. It was a deep resonant sound that had the predictable effect of making all the horses very nervous. They jerked at their tethers and wanted to flee. Those on the ground started to clamber to their feet but it must have seemed a little slow to the large Exi. It head-butted Hank in the chest, much as he had before. This time he coughed and then growled. Hank received the message loud and clear.

“People, our presence is no longer required.” Hank started waving at the group as he slowly climbed to his feet.

“Actually, I think you’re understating it somewhat.” Jamie nervously commented, eyes on the rest of the clearing. “I think that whatever is happening right now indicates the end of any truce. It’s time for us to leave before either the big kitties or the grumpy pooches decide that we are an excellent source of protein.”

“They are not dogs.” Hank chided.

“Fine, whatever they are, you can explain to me, o nerdiest of travellers, when we are riding away from the sharp teeth and powerful jaws.” Jamie surprised Hank with a sarcastic tone of voice he hadn’t used before.

“He must be learning from Sabine,” Hank grumped to himself.

“But there’s a little over an hour until night fall, we can’t move now.” Sabine translated Gruffly’s objection.

“Idiot miner. Do you want to explain to this cat, which is three times your size, that you don’t want to move?” Jamie and Gruffly’s ongoing disaffection for each other had spilled over into nasty comments, again. “Perhaps you want to vocalise your objections to the stinky pooches who make the nice kitties skittish.”

Gruffly started to reach for a hammer to ‘discuss’ this more fully when Sabine just punched him and pointed at Marko. Who, though breathing more easily, was still obviously labouring from the two wounds he had sustained. There was a brief discussion in Compidg that Hank didn’t catch before Gruffly stalked off towards his horse, grumbling under his breath as he went.

Ten minutes of activity saw all them all leading their tired mounts out of the clearing. Only Marko was riding, tied to his palfrey again, but they finally were on the move. Once again Hank positioned himself at the back of the pack, leaving Fritz to scout the way ahead. He had handed the reins for his horse over to Sabine as he disappeared in to the forest as the light of day started to fade. Glancing back into the clearing Hank watched all the Exi scurry up into various trees around the clearing.

“So, what are Harissi if they are not dogs?” Hank wasn’t paying attention enough to work out if Jamie was translating someone else’s question or asking himself. It didn’t matter anyway.

“Well as far as Nancy’s people can determine they are actually Marsupials. Dogs are Carnivora. Fortunately for us they like eating insects and spiders. I can only speculate but if they are the size of the insect hunters, perhaps other insects in the GNF are comparable to the spiders.” Hank shuddered. “Imagine a wasp the size of a potato. It’s enough to give one nightmares.”

This pronouncement, unintentionally, scared the group to silence. So as he waled along, Hank decided to have a look at his logs whist.

Level Increase

Congratulations: Your efforts have earned you enough XP to advance to level 8

Reward :

You have no new class options though some are close.

With a sense of apprehension Hank realised that he couldn't choose a class this time. All his class options had disappeared. He guessed that was because the game seemed to let you buy a class early when you reached level 7. Perhaps you had to actually meet the minimum criteria to get a class later then 7. That was a disheartening thought.

He knew that it was progressively harder to level, you could only choose a class when you levelled so he had been hoping that he would met some criteria in days since he had reached level 7. He hadn’t. It was a concern. “Why is the is game so dam restrictive in everything?” He grumbled to himself.

“What this?” Jamie asked.

“Nothing. I was just reflecting that nothing is easy in this life.” Hank grumped.

“If you wanted easy, you’re in the wrong life.” Jamie replied unconsciously vocalising Hanks’s regrets about his game selection.

“Right.” He waved Jamie off and returned to his level screen. He dismissed it and moved on to the other logs.

Log (Combat)

Actors

Result

Level

XP Gain

Since you last looked at this log your actions can be summarised.

Remember that all experience earned whilst part of a team is shared by the team.

All experience earned is based on the highest level of your team members (Sabine level 20)

Sabine’s Quick Team

3 juvenile female arachnids killed by team

25 to 29

76

Sabine’s Quick Team

1 adult female arachnids killed by team

37

39

For a moment the limited amount of experience surprised Hank. Initially because it was small, then because he received any. He hadn’t thought about it before. Obviously everyone in the team received some portion of the experience. Large group numbers meant limited experience points gained. He was about to comment on this when he realised that Sabine must have been in many teams to reach level twenty. Even Sabine would struggle to kill anything almost twice her level without help.

There were, however, a few other things he had never seen before.

Team Notice

Congratulations. You have been appointed Team Healer by the team leader.

Whilst filling this role you are 1% more likely to increase your medical knowledge

Whilst filling this role you are 3% more likely to increase your battlefield medical knowledge

Whilst filling this role treating team members will be 2% more effective

Whilst filling this role treating team members will be 1% faster acting

As you gain experience in this role your benefits will change

Obviously Sabine appointing him to a team role was more significant than he had anticipated.