4.15

“I love scouts! They make excellent appetizers.” - Mimicron the Living Dungeon at the Dungeon Master Convention.

“Two got away.”

Naukoth turned at the announcement, the rag he was fussily wiping away blood and gore from his piano with temporarily stilling.

“Two?”

“Three,” Utoqa corrected. “I sensed the movement of two on the ceiling.”

I raised an eyebrow and patted the pouting Yellow. “It’s fine,” I whispered, “you caught one, that was better than me.”

Turning to the lizardfolk, I asked, “I counted ten at the start, you?”

“Thirteen,” the lizardfolk muttered as he curiously examined the remaining two chimeras struggling in the pink foam. “Two ran at the start.”

Noam gestured for Naukoth’s rag. “You said you had no darkvision?” he asked as he started wiping his poor excuse of a melee weapon.

“I used my nose and ears.” He raised his tomahawk and in a swift motion, cleaved cleanly through the head of one of the chimeras.

“Seven.”

The other chimera, which happened to have the head of a large pug, stared at its cleanly decapitated companion before its cute large eyes began to tear up.

“Aww…” Celine said beside me.

‘Eight,’ I mentally counted as Utoqa swung again.

“Ahh!” she immediately screamed. “Why did you do that?!”

“It was an enemy.”

She looked like she wanted to say something further, but shrunk back slightly as she looked at Utoqa.

Turning back, she quietly muttered in a low voice, “You really don’t feel anything huh…”

“Hmm?” Declan thought.

No one else seemed to hear her, Naukoth was still wiping off gore while grumbling to Noam for leaving a mess and Utoqa was… holding the pug head with a strange expression I couldn’t read.

“Would it be fine if I ate this?”

Ah.

Naukoth shrugged, “You killed it, so it is yours.”

So this is what culture shock feels like. Is this normal? No can’t be, Celine was making a strange expression as well.

“Didn’t the guild say that all the hunted parts would go to them?” she cautiously said. Throw his attention somewhere else huh.

“Good point,” I said as Noam made a ‘That’s what you’re worried about!?’ look.

“I’m tempted to join him,” Declan muttered.

“What would a pug head taste like?” I asked.

“I will not grace that question with an answer.”

“When in Rome…”

Utoqa tossed the bloodied pug head, shame. I kinda want to see him eat it. “I’m pretty sure they only care about the rare valuable parts. They probably won’t care if a few random trash pieces were gone.”

His gaze lingered on the head for a moment. Strange slitted eyes considered the action, before leaving it.

“Is it done?” Declan asked, “Can I look without scarring my eyes now?”

“Liar, there wasn’t a single point where you looked away.” This guy was filled with the same morbid curiosity I was. Stop pretending to have decency.

“Don’t even think about it,” Noam said as he neared us.

I exaggeratedly shrugged. “Whatever are you talking about dear Noam.”

“Aww,” my real-world self said, abandoning decency as usual, “no dog tonight.”

“Probably would’ve tasted like a bitch either way.”

“Hah,” he drily laughed at my pun.

Celine nervously spoke up, “What were you guys talking about with the running chimeras?”

“Now I might be an antisocial…”

“But I recognise when someone desperately wants to change the subject,” I finished.

“They were probably programmed with different instincts,” I said.

“Probably ran back to report intruders,” Noam followed up.

“If it was a scouting party then it means they have a lot of chimeras to waste.”

“The ones left bought time for them to run.”

“How do we know this?” Celine asked.

“Well…” Noam thumbed towards me, “It’s what he would’ve done in the same situation.”

“What a horrible accusation,” I replied, “If I sent scouts we would’ve never seen them, and they would run on first sight. Utoqa did you catch anything when we entered?”

He shook his head.

“So either we missed the scouts,” Noam said in a pretty accurate parody of my voice.

“Or that wasn’t a scouting party.”

And given the presence of the previous party ahead of us, then there were some unfortunate implications. Either the party ahead were already beaten and these were the dregs that got past them or they were an ambush party sent to encircle them from behind, the former was unlikely, as I didn’t notice any recent damages on their bodies.

If this was a scouting party, then it meant that the cultist had chimeras to waste and/or a lack of effective information gathering types. If we assumed the runners were special or different somehow, then the fact that they had such a large contingent of other chimeras meant that they weren’t confident in the information gathering types abilities, either in combat or escape. The presence of the other party muddied this theory a bit since they would’ve likely cleared as they moved forward, but given the abnormal size of the cavern to the point that even a two-metre tall orc can walk around and carry a grand piano without much trouble means there’s room to outmaneuver, which would indicate an even higher degree of intelligence. At the very minimum threat assessment-

I felt a strong poke on my cap, almost tipping me over.

“Are you well?” Naukoth asked, “You went still.”

I blinked back to reality, “It’s fine, I was just thinking.”

I quickly explained my train of thoughts, to which Naukoth just asked incredulously, “You gleaned all of that after one encounter?”

“You’ll get used to it,” Noam tiredly muttered from the side.

I shrugged, “It’s all speculation and until we confirm more information it’ll remain so.”

“So there’s only one path.”

He stared deeper into the dark caverns.

“Once more,” the orc said, his eyes far, “into the fray.”

I whispered a command to Yellow and it deftly hopped off my cap. “To be safe, Yellow will scout ahead for now.” Glancing at Celine, I asked, “Can your familiar accomplish a similar task?”

She hurriedly shook her head, “Nappy doesn’t have darkvision and she can’t be far from me anyways.”

Nodding, I said to Yellow, “Run when you meet an enemy.” We had Observe on it, so Yellow didn’t need to worry about reporting.

It did a salute, this time with the correct arm, “Yessir!”

“Forty metres,” I muttered, “remember it.”

Yellow nodded before it waddled off. Its dim yellow glow disappeared as he left my sight.

“Get any preparation you need done,” I said aloud. “I’ll keep watch for now.”

Noam sat down crosslegged, leaning on a stalagmite. Bored now that combat was over.

Utoqa began rifling through the corpses of the chimeras, sorting them with some sort of system, while Celine looked around with a flustered expression, before finally settling around Noam.

Naukoth clicked his tongue as he stared at his piano, pulling back the lid and adjusting the strings.

As for me, I was deepest into the cave. Keeping watch of what was deeper while Declan was watching through Yellow’s eyes.

First off, I used my class skill, creating another Wisp body, just in case Yellow got taken out and needed a quick body to return to. Then, I started preparing more Sporages. The damn problem was that I had very few places to store them. I left my backpack to my alt, a poor decision in hindsight but even if I filled it with Sporages, I wouldn’t be able to access them quickly.

“You can use your head,” Greenie lazily chirped.

“I am but there isn’t a way I can do it right now,” I answered. I needed a satchel of some kind, maybe get a Bag of Holding-

“No! I meant use your head!” Greenie corrected as it slapped my cap. “This boi can fit so much in it!”

Oh god, they found Matt’s history reference memories.

Greenie slid off my cap and dropped onto my shoulder before it began crawling up my neck and into my cap.

Feeling a tickling sensation as it climbed through my gills, I quickly swapped my vision to it.

“What?” I muttered in surprise.

The inside of my head was a roomy penthouse suit. The furniture Yellow and Greenie had bought earlier were decorating the place and while there were no windows, the natural blue glow along with the randomly floating motes of mana gave the place an ethereal and fairytale-like look.

Raising an eyebrow, I reached into my cap with my hand. It came up with the same relative size to Greenie… but significantly smaller compared to what the insides of my cap should be.

“So it’s bigger on the inside than the outside huh,” I thought, mind drifting to the famous blue police box. “How long has it been like this?”

“Since we got back!” Greenie cheerfully answered. It raised an arm, pointing upwards to what appeared to be a wizard hat hanging from a stray bony like protrusion.

Looking closer at the thing, I realised from the exposed sowing lines that the hat was actually inverted so that it was hung from the inside out.

“Where did you get this?”

“Zoe!” the wisp answered as if it would answer everything. Very briefly, my mind flashed with images of a magical white cat, floating and… turning lizards into eating utensils?

I need to get the story of this Zoe out of them, but for now, I won’t look a gift cat in the mouth.

“Help me sort this stuff out then,” I said as I pushed my prepared Sporages into my head, along with Yellow’s back up body.

Greenie swiftly went to work, its previous lethargy disappearing as it was newly enriched by my mana. It sat the back up along one of the walls and under my instruction, piled the sporages in places my hand could easily reach.

“Yo,” Declan suddenly called.

“Update?”

“Yellow found them.”

Yellow rushed through the dark empty caverns.

The path ahead was eerily silent, to the point that Yellow’s felt its light and short steps sounded like booming stomps slamming into the floor.

Still, it persisted. Stopping only every few dozen metres to scan around like its Master would do.

Until it came to a point where it heard the faint sounds of metal clanging against metal and its steps fastened.

With hastened steps, Yellow began passing numerous corpses, most were the same dog-sized chimeras they had easily dealt with earlier, but some… significantly larger.

It kept running, dodging corpses when it needed.

Before it suddenly heard movement.

Yellow hurriedly hid behind a stalagmite as a lumbering creature passed it.

“It’s time to leave,” its sensible side said.

“But I wanna keep going!” its dominant side said.

So it kept going, and it passed more and more chimeras, all rushing towards the same place.

It hid, again and again, every time it did so, images flashed through its mind.

A man in desert camo surveyed a dusty battlefield covered in numerous jagged ruins, he took out some kind of small circular device with several digital green rings on a black background. A radar, but it was completely frozen.

Declan tsked, “Interference.”

“Problem?” a distorted voice answered back.

“None,” he answered, placing the device back in his pocket. “I’ve already marked the possible hidings spots on the map. There’s also a Cloaker somewhere, need me to find it for you?”

Matt chuckled, “What do you take me for? A goddamn casual?”

The memory ended, with Declan alone on a dusty dune as gunfire sounded through the desert.

To hide, you simply need to be outside their sight. They knew this, so they attacked everywhere they couldn’t see.

Yellow was being taught how to catch hiders, but it also learned how to avoid catchers.

It dashed from one hiding spot to another. Unnoticed despite its natural glow. Going deeper and deeper until the clash of metal was no longer a faint noise in the background. Until the sparse chimeras were no longer sparse, but a thick stream rushing into a single cavern.

Yellow climbed onto the wall, edging over the constantly rushing chimeras before it saw them.

A group of people pushed back to the edge of the wall. Desperately battling against the endless horde. Three people held the line, the ones that Dustin insulted earlier, they worked together noticeably better than with the other three remaining survivors.

Numerous corpses piled everywhere as blade and magic flew, but the group was failing, tiredness was setting in and they were becoming slower in front of the encroaching horde.

With a morbid fascination, Yellow noticed two humanoid corpses, scattered and broken on the ground.

Far away, Declan crossed his brow. “This could be annoying.”