Back on the trail

John and Jack took about ten minutes to find the trail again after the lamia had so unceremoniously bitch slapped them away from it. Now, with a bit more exp and a bit more vigilance, John once more followed the trail of scratch-marks on the trees. The longer he walked, the faster he got, noticing how his tracking leveled up along the way. The only difference to lvl 1 was that the glow got a little bit brighter, but barely noticeably.

The marks led him to the place of a battlefield, a small clearing in the forest, where a pack of wolves lay dead strewn across the grass. John circled around the clearing once, making sure no one was hiding nearby, then he climbed down. He stayed in a low crouch as he made his way to the deceased animals. The beasts were mangled: some had their bones broken, others had deep laceration wounds on their flanks, and others had small burn marks on their sides; the one thing they had in common was that they were killed and just thrown to the side, once again confirming John’s belief that it was not a hunter that he was following. The hunters would have at least harvested a trophy.

John put his hand on one of the wolves; however, nothing happened. The wolf stayed like it was, a small pop-up floating in front of him.

You don’t have permission to loot that.

“Noted,” John mumbled as he started to look around the clearing more intensively, searching for extra clues before finally noticing a small, white tube sticking out of the grass between the corpses. As he moved over to pick it up, he smelled the faint scent of strawberries, a not so distant memory returning to him, making him shudder slightly. ’I hope it isn’t…’ he thought while picking the tube up carefully.

The tube was about three centimeters long and about as thick as a pen; one edge was burned and the other still slightly damp. John cast Observe on it right away, the helpful text screen popping up nigh instantly.

Magitex Toxin Cig Strawberry Flavored (used)
A used up toxin cigarette. Magitex produces these cigarettes to give poison focused mages and ability users a quick and easy way to top off their supply of toxins. Unlike mundane ones, these cigarettes don’t contain tobacco or addictive substances. This set smells like strawberries.

John’s mind went back to yesterday, when he had been ambushed by one of the mercenaries hired by The Collector. She had been smoking, she had smelled like strawberries. In other words, fuck. “Jack, it looks like we are going to run into a friend of ours. Do you think we can take her down when we ambush her this time?”

“Mew.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Mew!”

John scratched the little leopard between his ears again before looking at the trampled grass of the clearing, flicking the used cig away, as he checked for the direction the footprints would lead them. Three pair of footsteps led into the woods: one heavy set, one slightly lighter set and one set that was almost impossible to spot, even with his tracking ability. John followed the path, climbing up into the trees once more, spotting the familiar claw marks as he forged on ahead.

As John made his way through the forest, now and then he would get ambushed by an animal; he managed to cleanly dispatch them, netting himself some experience and trophies on his way while he kept following the people that he was pretty sure by now where mercenaries.

While John was dodging and fighting the creatures, his Wild Run had leveled up to level 2, making his movements on the branches a little more fluent and feel like he had been doing this for a while longer than when it was just at level 1. It was around the time he leveled up, the forest was getting darker, night setting in, thathe heard talking. Faintly at first, but louder as he got closer.

“Who does that bitch think she is? Telling us to just go and **** the local leader of Artemis’ posse? Is she crazy?”

“Spoiled more like, little miss never had to think in her life, pappy and mammy always foot the bill, crazy girl.”

John saw the flickering light of a campfire and two silhouettes sitting next to it. The third person was nowhere to be found. As John approached, he remained vigilant, the necklace he had giving him at least a bit of sight in the dark, but it was barely enough to see where he was going.

“So, why did you take the job then? If you think she’s such a spoiled brat?” the voice of a certain Ellen flowed out, along with a long exhale.

“I need the money, what else? She pays like shit, but it's better than working in those damn mana factories, those fucks rip you off every chance they get!” the voice of a rather pissed woman rang out into the night, her voice carrying the hint of a French accent, or Canadian, John wasn’t sure.

“That makes two of us. Hell, some of these days I wish our clan had just never gotten involved with the Abyss at all, but then again, I wouldn’t be able to do magic if we didn’t. So eh. Still wish I could find a more stable job, you know, better pay?”

“Don’t we all sister.”
John carefully crept closer to them, finally making out the appearance of the two women sitting at the campfire.

It was indeed Ellen sitting on a stump; the half asian had a polearm with a curved blade on top of it resting against her shoulder as she smoked one of those cigarettes.

Next to her, there was a woman about one and a half times as wide and a head taller than her. Her left shoulder, left wrist and her torso were covered in plate armor. The chest armor was painted red and had a yellow pattern John could not clearly make out from his vantage point. On her shoulder and wrist guard, a few small black orbs were attached, though John had no clue why. Her lower half was clad in what seemed to be kevlar pants and shoes, fitting neatly. On her lap there was a softly glowing aluminium baseball bat. When John was done checking out her gear, he looked at her face, seeing a semi pretty woman in her mid 30s. She had two red streaks on her face, going from below her eyes to presumably her ears, as the ends of the streaks were covered by her dirty blonde hair, with the edges tipped in dark pink.

John learned a few things from this entire conversation, but when he drew an arrow onto his bow, Jack hissed softly, causing John to push himself backwards right away. A black clad figure slashed at the spot he had just been in with a metal claw.

John raised his bow at the ambusher, before an annoyed, slightly panicked voice rang out from behind the assailant’s mask: