Erage #6 Snakes

Untoltelage finds what he is looking for. Wolf tracks. The wolves were extra afraid of the forest fire after getting singed by Untoltelage. He follows the tracks. The kids follow. They follow. But they think Untoltelage is acting strange. Untoltelage is looking at the ground. Looking at tracks. They wonder what Untoltelage is trying to do. Is he hunting deer?

Untoltelage finally finds the wolf den. It is guarded by wolves, of course. That’s fine. Untoltelage doesn’t plan to attack anyway. That would sabotage his entire reason for coming here. He just sits there and waits for the pack to go out hunting.

“Untoltelage, what are we doing?” Kekister asks.

“Yeah, you just kept walking and walking yesterday. You didn’t like it when we stopped but now you just stop for no reason?” Hyethra asks, “What’s going on?”

“I’m looking for food. The wolves will have to go out and get food eventually. When they do, we will follow and see where they get their food.” Untoltelage says. He thinks it’s a brilliant plan.

The kids, however, can already think of a few problems with the plan.

“What if they notice us watching them, here?” Jostahim asks, “They’re not going to leave to go hunting while there is a threat near their home.”

“We can back up a bit more. We can give the wolves more space.” Untoltelage says.

“What if they notice us following them when they go out to hunt?” Kekister asks.

“We just need to go in the same direction they do.” Untoltelage says, “As long as they take a somewhat straight path, we don’t need to be anywhere near them, we just follow their path. If we’re lucky, we can even follow their paw tracks.”

“Do you even know what wolves eat?” Hyethra asks, “They tried to eat us. I am not going to eat a human.”

“They eat more than just humans.” Untoltelage says, “They have to, or else they would have starved to death. All the people here live in that city. If it was otherwise, the wolves would be dead. There is no way that the magical inhabitants of Erage would let wolves eat them.”

Untoltelage expected that to comfort Hyethra, instead she frowned even more. Is there anything he can say that won’t offend her?

“Unless we take the food from the wolves, there probably won’t be anything left after the wolves take what they can carry.” Kekister says.

They continue walking. Untoltelage smells smoke. Smoke? They get closer and then see smoke rising out of the forest over the canopy. Then there are wolves. The wolves are dead and smoking. They are singed. There is someone there. Someone is cooking the wolves over a fire.

“Well, we were following the wolves to find food.” Untoltelage whispers to himself, “I had never considered that the wolves could be food themselves.”

Untoltelage always appreciates discovering something new. Though, he is wondering whether wolves can actually be food, or if this person is just so hungry that they would eat wolves regardless of the nutritional content.

Untoltelage is going to find out by trying Wolves for himself. Right after he kills this person first. In Erage, violence is the first resort for all situations. He probably should have explained this to the kids earlier, but he didn’t expect to meet anyone else so soon after leaving the city. It has only been a day, right?

Oh dear, it’s the forest fire, isn’t it? Untoltelage really should not have pushed himself too hard. He would have realized that starting a fire was a bad idea. He was practically sending up a signal flare to alert his enemies where he is. Since everybody is the enemy of everybody else, that means he has to worry about attracting enemies.

The person cooking wolves over a fire is completely covered by a dark red hooded robe. Untoltelage can’t see the person’s face. He can’t see any detail of them. Color of their hair or if they even have hair. The robes look like they are too big on this person. So it is hard to even tell their size accurately.

The robed figure turns away from the fire to face Untoltelage. “I thought someone must have started that forest fire, but it seems I was fortunately mistaken.” It says, with an inhuman hiss instead of any real voice, “It was not someone who started that fire, but rather, many little tasty ones.”

Untoltelage can’t tell if this creature is human or not. That is part of the problem with Erage. He would consider vampires and werewolves to be humans. Yes, they are magically altered, but that it is because they are continuously using shape shifting and body-enhancing magic. If they were to ever stop using this magic, they would revert to their human forms.

Luckily, there is food here in the form of cooked wolves. So he doesn’t need to save any plant magic for conjuring fruit-bearing plants. He was a little bit worried that the wolves wouldn’t eat anything edible to humans. But that whole situation of hunger is no longer relevant. However, he is still very tired.

No attempt at diplomacy, no parley, no negotiation. Straight to violence. Straight to fighting. This world is literally kill or be killed. Untoltelage is excited to be fighting again. Those wolves didn’t really count as a real battle. And the apprentice had been a one trick pony and Untoltelage had been out of practice. Here, here this should be a real battle.

“Untoltelage, what’s going on?” Jostahim asks, “Are you ever going to stop your staring contest with this… person?” He didn’t seem so certain about the robed figure being a person. Untoltelage was a little suspicious himself. Though, in all likelihood, it was just some magically altered magician using a mixture of body-enhancing and shapeshift magic.

Untoltelage and the robed figure continued to stare at each other for a few more seconds. In unison, as if to some unseen signal, they both start running towards each other. Running? Well, Untoltelage is really tired and just walked many miles following the now dead wolves. The robed figure isn’t going to fast either, the top of their body is swaying from side to side as it moves and it is leaning forward further than one would imagine to be possible to do without falling.

Quastiffany watches as Untoltelage charges towards the robed figure. They intend to fight. Quastiffany can’t think of why they would do that. But that’s not strange. She’s been having trouble thinking at all lately. Thinking and feeling? That’s been hard for her.

Untoltelage jumps to the side and rolls, ripping a patch out of grass out of the ground as he does so. Untoltelage

Untoltelage is excited. There is something that everyone who survives in Erage have in common, a strange excitement during battle. They live for this adrenaline rush. Their very life is at stake. Untoltelage misses that feeling. He doesn’t get that so much anymore. That happens too, that wonderful feeling grows dim with age and experience. The longer you live, the more confident you become. The more confident you become, the less seriously you take threats. This usually would cause your downfall, but with so much experience, they are right to be so overconfident.

Untoltelage doesn’t quite have the same problem. The adrenaline rush is still there. After all, he is just a kid, and this creature he is fighting might not even be human. But the excitement is fainter than it should be. It’s not that he is so confident that he doesn’t think there is a chance of failure. Play, maybe there is a bit of that. But everyone is confident in Erage. Ther few people actually think that they will lose any given battle, usually do.

For Untoltelage, he just doesn’t fear losing. No, he thinks that failure is likely and he knows that the cost of loss will be the loss of his life. But what good is that to him anyway. Wait, these aren’t his thoughts. They are similar to to the ones he usually thinks, but they are not right. He actually does value his life, he just finds death more annoying than scary. Where did this idea of him thinking his life unimportant come from? He is actually rather egotistical, one might even say Egocentric.

Untoltelage does feel excited though. But his excitement is  even less than he would have expected. It must be these kids. He isn’t actually worried if they die, right? That would increase his worry, his excitement, his adrenaline. No, he just has a dullness in his mind. Strange, that doesn’t make any sense. Oh well. Time to kill this robed person.

Untoltelage rushes towards the robed figure and expends a small amount of plant magic to grow the grass in his hand into a thick shard but small spearhead with barely any handle at all. He punches it straight into the robe of the creature. There isn’t much resistance. The figure collapses and the robe deflates as if there was nothing inside. It’s kind of disappointing. This wasn’t any sort of challenge. The apprentice had more fight in him than this.

Behind him, Untoltelage hears a scream from all of the children except Quastiffany who merely gasps in shock. Untoltelage turns around. It isn’t a snake person as he expected. Instead, it is many serpents  swarming together. They are going after the children. They don’t seem to even bother with Untoltelage. Is it just because he is the greater threat and they are scared of him? That doesn’t make much sense to him. They will still have to deal with Untoltelage no matter who they kill. Isn’t it better to kill the most dangerous targets first? Sure, they could kill all of the weaker targets in less time than it would take to the single most dangerous one of the group, but that would give him, Untoltelage, a chance to destroy them while they are focusing on destroying his minions and sidekicks.

Oh well, it’s their loss. The snakes split into four groups so that they are surrounding the children. But they don’t go in for the kill. Foolish. Never hesitate to kill in Erage. This creature must not be human. No human would be able to survive long enough to gain the ability to shapeshift into swarms yet still hesitate to kill.

Now, what is a good way to kill snakes? Stabbing them is difficult because they are so slippery and wriggly. Slashing a sharp edge of a sword might work. But conjuring anything much bigger than a spearhead just seems wasteful. Untoltelage has time to search for a better weapon because the snakes are distracting themselves with lesser targets. He finds a thick stick that might be usable as a club. Problem? What’s a club going to do against a snake?

But Untoltelage still has the grass, so when he picks up the club-like stick, he places the grass spearhead onto the stick. The grass seems to melt into a liquid form and spread across the club. The liquid grass coalesces on the climb as jagged green spikes. Untoltelage has made a shillelagh out of his grass and stick. Because there was no conjuration involved, he still hasn’t even expended a quarter of his plant magic yet.

Untoltelage approaches the snakes that are surrounding the children. Untoltelage is pretty sure that the snakes recognize him as the greater threat even though he is a child of the same age as the rest of those children. The snakes hiss at him, a cacophony of overlapping sounds that combine to sound almost like words. No, those are words.

“You cannot save them. I would prefer to keep them alive. They taste better when they’re fresh. But if you attack, I will kill them.”

How can those snakes even speak? It’s incredibly difficult to form anything like human speech with a reptilian mouth, tongue and teeth. Or in this case, just fangs. Fangs. It’s venomous. Hah, what’s venom to someone like Untoltelage? Body-enhancing magic can be used to neutralize poison and diseases in his body.

Untoltelage knows that he can’t kill all of the snakes fast enough. He might be able to knock the snakes away from one of the kids, but the snake will kill the others if he does that. Luckily, for Untoltelage, he has more than just a shillelagh. Untoltelage blasts the group with fire. Encompassing them all with flames. The snakes panic. Didn’t they expect this? How else would he attack all of the snakes at once?

Catching fire causes the kids to panic as well. They run out of the flames and roll around on the ground, crushing some of the snakes that are trying to escape or are still crawling over them.

The kids don’t really get burnt. At least, nothing that will last longer than a few days. Untoltelage thinks that some snakes escape. He doesn’ care. Why does it matter to him if some snakes get away. They clearly don’t understand that even a human child is a terrible threat to snakes. Even if the snakes are intelligent and venomous, they just can’t compare to magic-wielding humans.

Snakes and other animals don’t have magic. Though, these creatures are oddly intelligent and thus might have magic. It’s complicated. He’s heard it explained that only things with souls have magic. This is why things like humans and dragons have magic but things like leopards and porcupines don’t have magic.

“Why did you throw fire at us?” Jostahim asks.

“I threw fire at the snakes.” Untoltelage says, “You just happened to be in the same location.”

“You could have hurt us!” Hyethra criticizes.

“Could have? You mean that didn’t hurt you?” Untoltelage asks.

“It did hurt.” Hyethra says, “I meant, you could have killed us or left us with scars.”

“Untoltelage, what’s that in you hand?” Kekister asks. He doesn’t seem angry, just curious. Untoltelage can understand the anger from the children, he did hurt them after all. But Quastiffany and Kekister don’t look angry. That is weird.

“This is a shillelagh. Or at least the best impression of one I could form from only grass and a stick.” Untoltelage explains.

“Why did you make it if you didn’t use it to fight the snakes?” Kekister asks.

“I was having trouble with the grass spearhead. I thought I needed a better weapon. But I quickly realized that the no weapon was going to be effective in trying to fight so many snakes.” Untoltelage says, “In battle, you don’t have time to think things through, so sometimes you will make a wasteful effort.”

“Yeah, you clearly didn’t think it through when you blasted us with fire.” Hyethra says.

“I think everything turned out pretty well.” Untoltelage says, “Now we have food to eat, and we didn’t even have to kill it ourselves!”

“Yeah, instead we were attacked by a bunch of snakes that speak.” Jostahim says.

“Exactly, everything turned out so much better than we could have hoped for.” Untoltelage says.

“Whatever, wait— you think there is food here?” Hyethra asks.

“Yes, we couldn’t steal the meal from the wolves but we can steal the the food from the snakes.” Untoltelage says.

“We can’t eat wolves!” Hyethra says.

“Why not?” Untoltelage asks, “The snakes were going to eat the wolves. If it’s good enough for group of strangely sapient venomous snakes, then it’s good enough for us.”

“I don’t agree. Those snakes aren’t anything near human.” Hyethra says, “What is food for them could be poison for us!”

“Wolves aren’t poisonous.” Jostahim says.

“I know, that isn’t the point.” Hyethra says, “I’m saying that snakes eating something doesn’t necessarily make it acceptable for us to eat it.”

“Well, you guys can go hungry, but I’m going to eat.” Untoltelage says.

“How? How can you even eat that?” Kekister Jostahim asks.

“What? Are you all vegetarian?” Untoltelage asks.

“No, we ate meat back in the city, but that thing is still covered in fur and is full of bones and blood.” Jostahim says.

“Well, obviously there is some amount of preparation that I must do before the burnt wolves are ready to be eaten.” Untoltelage says.

Then Untoltelage sits there, staring scorch marks covering the wolf carcasses. For about a minute Untolelage worries that the snakes wield fire magic. He is just so used to fire being produced by magic that he almost forgot that you can make fire without using any magic at all. The snake probably killed the wolves with its venomous bite, then cooked them over a fire.

Untoltelage is not really looking forward to eating these wolves. They won’t taste good. But in Erage, food is in short supply. You take what you can get. The others will have to learn this if they are going to survive. You can can’t be a picky eater in Erage. Because oftentimes, there are no options to pick from.

It is about an hour later, after Untoltelage has started eating that they others finally join in eating the cooked wolves. It takes multiple tries for most of them to swallow their food. They keep spitting it out. Luckily, there are plenty of cooked wolves. It seems a waste, actually, because they will go bad in less than a day.

All of this work for breakfast. It’s already late in the day. And they only eat once. Sure, they gain enough to fill overfill themselves. But they don’t over fill themselves. It doesn’t taste good. So they only eat as much as to not be hungry.

All of those kids from the city eat the burnt wolves. Well, Untoltelage is also from the city. But it’s not really the same. He sort of belongs out in the wilderness. This is his true home. The city is almost foreign to him.

Quastiffany and Kekister are the first ones to join Untoltelage in eating. Quastiffany eats without complaint. Kekister complains a little bit, but he also seems excited by the idea of living in the wild and eating ferocious beasts.

Jostahim and Hyethra are the last to join in eating. They really don’t like the idea of eating a burnt wolf. It’s disgusting, yes. But are they really so worried about taste? Probably. The real question is why Quastiffany and Kekister were so eager to eat. Kekister just really seemed to like the idea even though he didn’t like the taste. Why Quastiffany was so quick to join? It’s hard to say. She doesn’t talk much. But based on her lack of response or complaint, Shem use not care whether it tastes good or bad. But even then, it is a wolf corpse. Even that doesn’t seem much a deterrent.

Untoltelage thinks about how lifeless Quastiffany seems. She doesn’t complain or comment upon the taste, texture or appearance of her meal like literally everyone else does. She doesn’t seem to enjoy her meal, but she doesn’t show any dislike towards it either. She is from the city too. Why is her reaction, or lack of reaction so different from that of everyone else?