Night 2

After arriving at the river, we decided to set up camp. We divvied up the roles by drawing straws. Lucille was supposed to set up the tents, Sofia was in charge of making dinner, Flora would settle her goods and take care of the mule, and I was tasked with gathering firewood. The sun was just beginning to set, so there was still some light out, but not much. So, I begrudgingly trotted out into the completely unfamiliar forest, where there could be any number of unknown dangers, while I was the lowest leveled member of our party. Perfect.

After about ten minutes of walking, I finally came across some decent firewood. All of the wood thus far had been slightly damp, or too small to be of use. I began forming a small stack of firewood in my arms that grew larger bit by bit as I drew farther from camp.

As I worked, I noticed a pair of tracks, belonging to a large animal of some sort. The animal was clearly rather heavy, as the prints had sunken fairly deep into the soft dirt. There were five toes, with what looked like paw pads and claws in the track. The prints themselves were each about three times the size of my own hand. Now, I’m not exactly informed on tracking, but based on how soft the dirt around the tracks was, I figured they were pretty recent.

*ROOOOOOAAAAAAARRRR*

Turns out I was right. Looking behind me, a giant beast with the body of a lion, wings of a bat, and a scorpion’s tail towered over me. It was on its hind legs, flapping its huge wings as it roared. Immediately, I steeled myself, knowing what I had to do.

“RUN AWAY!!!” I screamed, dropping the firewood and booking it straight back towards camp. The monster didn’t like that one bit. It dropped back onto all fours and began chasing me. While it’s movement was slowed by the trees, it was still fast enough to maintain pace with me, barreling through trees, tearing obstacles to shreds with its claws.

Hearing a whistling sound coming up from behind me, I instinctively ducked, nearly tripping and falling over. Sticking out of a tree directly in front of me as a spike about the length of my forearm. Glancing back at the creature, it seemed it had fired it from it’s scorpion-like tail, and another seemed to be growing back in its place. Great. The giant lion with wings had a gun.

Remembering what I learned in grade school, I ran in zig zag patterns, putting as many trees in between us as I could. My legs and lungs began screaming at me as I suddenly realized how out of shape I was. The adrenaline pumping through me was the only thing keeping me alive. Finally, I made it back to camp.

“FUCKING RUN!” I shouted to my party and Flora. They looked over in surprise, Lucille stopping construction of the third tent, Sofia setting aside her cooking pot, and Flora taking the reins of her mule.

“What’s wrong? Where’s the firewood?” Sofia asked, slightly annoyed. Then the monster burst out into the clearing with a mighty roar.

“THAT!” I said, pointing at it. I looked desperately to Lucille for her input.

“A manticore!? Here?” She said, drawing her blade. “Stay back everyone, it’s tail spikes are toxic. One scratch and the toxins will leave you paralyzed.”

“The fuck!?” I exclaimed. If that spike had even grazed me, I’d be dead right now.

“So what’s the plan?” Sofia said, gripping her staff, looking to me expectantly.

“Huh?” I stammered, backing away from the manticore, grabbing the hilt of my blade.

“Flynn!” Lucille said. “You’re our leader. What’s the plan?”

“Shit,” I muttered. “Lucille, draw its attention away from Sofia for as long as you can.”

“Got it,” she said, pointing her blade at the manticore and activating her taunt skill. Hoping she’d be alright, I turned my attention to Sofia, going over her spell list in my head.

“Fire Mine.” I said, coming up with a plan that may or may not end up failing horribly.

“Huh?” She said, confused.

“Flora, do you have anything flammable in those packs?” I asked.

“Uh...I have a few bottles of perfume, but...” she said, searching her pack.

“That’ll work,” I said, snatching up the vials. I ran over to the unfinished tent, snatching up the canvas and dumping two of the vials of perfume all over it. “Now Sofia, put the mine on the canvas.”

“Ah, I get it now,” she said. She began casting the spell. I turned away, took one of the two remaining vials and chucked it at the manticore as hard as I could. The fragile glass vial shattered on impact with the monster, coating its fur in perfume. The beast turned its attention back to me. I threw the last vial, but a tail spike intercepted it, shattering it in midair.

“Hey! Over here!” Shouted Lucille, as she swung her blade at the manticore, only to be swatted aside by its claw, getting knocked into a nearby tree. The beast ignored the crumpled up Paladin, closing in on Sofia and I.

I turned back to her, seeing the spell done, as a magic circle appeared in the center of the damp tent. I grabbed the canvas, charging the manticore. It swiped at me with its claw, but I jumped over it, swinging the canvas over its head, the pole-less tent getting draped over the the manticore. As it fell overtop, I stabbed through the canvas into the manticore’s shoulder with my silver dagger, pinning it down to the beast. My part done, I bailed to the side.

“Firebolt! Now!” I shouted, the blinded manticore already beginning to thrash about at the canvas. Sofia launched the spell right at the target, the bolt colliding with the fire mine, creating a small explosion from the flammable perfume quickly being lit ablaze.

The flaming manticore roared in pain before running out into the river to extinguish the flames, barreling through a tent on its way, destroying it. When the beast got out of the water, it could barely stand, shakily climbing up the riverbank. Giving one last roar, much weaker this time, the manticore flapped its wings, ascending to the air and flying away. While we didn’t kill it, we definitely defeated a manticore. Remembering Lucille, we rushed to her side.

“Hey, are you alright?” I asked, crouching next to her, helping her to sit up against the tree she’d been knocked into.

“I’ll be okay,” she winced. “It’s not that bad.”

“Are you sure?” Sofia said, poking her in one arm. Lucille cried out in pain.

“Her arm is clearly broken,” said Flora. “Help her back to the tents, I have some bandages, and we can fashion her a splint.” Sofia and I followed her directions. We had Lucille sit down on a fallen log near the tents. Sofia helped Lucille remove the armor and clothing from her broken right arm.

“Thank you, everyone,” said Lucille, clearly bearing the pain.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have been more careful. If I had been paying more attention, then-”

“Stop,” Lucille said. “Adventuring is dangerous, we all know the risks. If you hadn’t come back to us, you’d be dead right now. If you hadn’t come up with that plan, we’d all be dead. Don’t think about what you SHOULD’VE done, but what you CAN do.”

“Thanks,” I nodded. Flora came back with some bandages, and some decent sticks for a splint.

“This may hurt a bit, so bite down on this.” Flora said, handing Lucille a strap of leather.

She instructed me on how to set her bone back into place for proper healing. As soon as I did, Lucille howled in pain, her teeth clamping down on the leather strap. Flora quickly began to bandage her up, setting the splint in place. Once it was done, Lucille spit out the strap.

“Thank you, Flora,” she said, carefully getting to her feet. “I think I’ll be retiring early tonight. Sofia, could you help me get the rest of my armor off?”

“Of course,” Sofia said, the two of them heading into one of the tents.

“Sorry about all that,” I said. “We do tend to be a bit incident prone. And thanks for helping Lucille out.”

“It’s no issue. You’ve saved my life multiple times, the least I can do is help with what I can,” Flora said.

“By the way, how’d you learn all that?” I asked.

“We didn’t have a healer nearby growing up, so whenever someone got hurt, we’d have to patch them up ourselves,” said Flora. Sofia exited the tent.

“She’s about to sleep,” said Sofia. “We should get something to eat as well before we join her. It’s getting dark.” Sure enough, the sun was almost fully set now. We canceled the cooking and just ate a bit of our dried meat supplies. As we prepared to go to bed, I realized a flaw in my strategy. I burned my own damn tent.

“So how are we going to divide the tents?” I smoothly suggested.

“Flora, can you stay with Lucille tonight, in case she needs anything,” Sofia asked.

“Of course,” she said, quietly entering Lucille’s tent.

“So I guess you and me are sharing the other one,” I said slyly. She blushed.

“Uh, I guess so,” she said.