Chapter 74 – Round and round she goes

A/N Another short one. I think there will be another on the weekend and hopefully two next week as well. I'm setting a two a week goal to get back into the groove and will hopefully be back to three before too much longer.

Thanks everyone for your patience and understanding!

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That night might have been the longest Kori had ever experienced. She didn’t so much as sleep, as eventually pass out. Even that was short lived and disturbed by dreams of blood and goblins, shrieking in pain and confusion as she watched them clawing out their own eyes. What she saw in her nightmares was worse by far than what had really happened, exaggerated and twisted by her fear and guilt.

Long before the sun crested the horizon, she was sitting on one of the carts trying to distract herself from the weariness that threatened to send her back into her dreams. She sat there for hours, rolling the remaining stinging flask over in her hands, clinking her claws against the glass, as staring unseeingly into the distance. The rain had ceased at some point, though there was still a light misting now and then to dampen her scales. It matched her mood well.

Can’t I make something that just helps? If I do, will they just find some other way to use whatever it is to kill things too?

Her thoughts still spiraled around the same theme as the night before. She didn’t feel quite so conflicted about having defended herself the night before, but the idea of all paths leading to violence, whether directly or indirectly, was weighing on her conscience.

Is it even possible to make something that isn’t useful in killing? Even food or a water rune helps the warriors stay strong…

While she remained stuck in her little loop of realization and rationalization, the rest of the camp began to wake. Chores were completed, the oxen, including the now much calmer injured one, were tended, and a morning meal was prepared. Kori barely even registered the bowl that had been placed in her hands and while she ate it, she couldn’t even recall what it had contained. She barely even acknowledged the banging and hammering as makeshift repairs were made to the yoke of the very cart she sat upon.

She still wasn’t sure if she was okay with the idea of being involved in a fight ever again, she’d much rather be creating her concoctions than using them, but the idea that her creations would inevitably make their way to the battlefield sat just a little less heavily on her shoulders.

We didn’t start the fight, they did. We didn’t seek violence; they brought it to us. If my creations are going to help defend kobolds, then it’s not about killing, it’s about protecting.

It wasn’t until the cart finally lurched into motion, Har seated alongside her, that Kori finally stirred from her introspection.

With her attention once again turned outwards, Kori realized that they were already packed and moving, the warriors vigilantly watching the terrain as they passed and even Zln sat with a glow of spiritual energy around her as Kori spotted vague impressions of spirits flitting about the woman.

With a start she realized that she didn’t see Aef anywhere, her searching becoming frantic as her gaze passed each and every kobold in their little caravan without spotting the injured trader.

Har spotted her growing panic and tapped her shoulder before pointing back into their own cart. Where he pointed, several boxes were arranged with a tarp spread across them, the same as had been on the little shelter the night before.

“He’s alive.” He said, clearly relieved, “Still weak, but alive.”

Kori gave a relieved sigh as the anxiety loosened, tension that had been building all night draining from her muscles. “He’s going to live then?”

He confirmed with a nod, “He is, yes.” Then with a brief grin he added, “Got himself a pretty good Title out of it too, actually.” His tone turned somber again, “Not one I think any of us ever want to chance getting though.”

“Why?”

Har had to suppress his grin as he watched his apprentice’s head tilt and heard the inevitable response to his statement, happy to see her acting a little more like herself again.

“It’s called ‘Defied the Grave’ and requires you to survive reaching 0 health… didn’t even know that was possible…” He shook his head at the implication.

The realization left Kori with her jaw hung open. Aef should be dead. By all accounts your Health was a measure of your ‘personal well being’, at least according to the system, so to have none, was to be dead. For him to be alive, and at one point conscious since he’d told Har about his new Title, defied this supposed fact.

Har let her wrap her mind around it for a few moments before he continued. “You know that was all you, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“He reached the very edge, quite literally going by the title, and returned.” A thread of awe entered his tone as he spoke, “That was because of you. I doubt if you’d held back or hesitated, he’d have made it.”

Kori was stunned by the implication; she’d only done what she thought was necessary, nothing more. “But any of you would have helped him. You’d have given him the same concoctions.”

“Definitely not.” He shook his head, “We’d of helped him, sure, but I didn’t even consider breaking out the boosting suspensions. I’d have used the ointment and mending suspension and left it in Zln’s hands to bandage him up. And he would have died.” His reply was one of certainty. “I spent half the night kicking myself for not thinking of it,” His shoulders slumped and voice lowered as he continued, “and the other half for letting you do it yourself instead of taking over.”

The last surprised Kori. Why would Har feel guilty that she’d treated Aef? They’d been her creations, of course she would use them. “What? Why?” She blurted out.

Her question put him on the defensive and caused Har to straighten his back, his tone taking on a hint of anger, though it was pretty clear it was directed at himself. “Because I’m the leader here!” He said forcefully, “It’s my job to keep everyone here safe. That includes protecting you from yourself… if despite your best effort Aef died…” His words tapered off, the insinuation clear.

Kori ignored his point, still trying to avoid that particular ‘what if’ herself, “But he didn’t!” Her own words and what Har had said finally getting through her thick scales, her eyes going wide and a stupefied expression settling in on her visage “And I did that…”

I saved him… me… not my concoctions… me.

“You did.” The thread of pride in his voice cutting through his self-recrimination.

Her thoughts finally settled after the realization. And with them the fatigue that had been built up by a night of worry, bad dreams, and self-doubt came crashing in with a gaping yawn.

Har had to stifle his own responding yawn, he had gotten less sleep than the youngling but that wasn’t all that new to him. “Either hop down and walk or go find somewhere in the back to curl up, I’ll not have you falling asleep on the seat and rolling off the damn cart.”

Not liking the sound of the first option, Kori took the second and crawled over the lip of the cart to find somewhere to nap. It didn’t take long to find a semi-comfortable nook to curl up in, using a bale of feed for the oxen as a mattress and laying an empty sack over her head to block out most of the light. Her sleep wasn’t exactly peaceful, neither the constant jostling of the cart or the visions of gasping goblins aiding in her attempt to rest, but it was more than she’d gotten the night before.

It didn’t take them very long to reach their destination for the day; the rest stop they’d been supposed to stop at the previous day. Har wasn’t happy about the extra day for the trip, they had some extra supplies, but the trip was only supposed to take the three days so it wasn’t really enough to feed the lot of them a fourth. The only ones who wouldn’t have to make do with less would be the oxen, since they were carrying feed to resupply the waystation.

There was one easy solution to satiate their less than full bellies, hunting. None of the traders were all too enthused about the combatants leaving the caravan unprotected and with there being neither a shaman capable of healing their wounds nor a supply of Kori’s salve on hand, they weren’t particularly raring to go either. In the end they still did a perfunctory sweep around the camp to ensure there weren’t any dangers to surprise them, but didn’t go out looking for trouble more than they strictly had to.

By the early afternoon Aef was awake again, long enough to drink some water and confirm that his bleeding had stopped and the Suspension Toxicity had risen to moderate. It was hard to tell what the condition actually did, nearly everything that he was experiencing could be attributed to his injury as easily as the condition.

Kori had wanted him to drink another mending suspension, but if the toxicity was still at moderate over a day later, she didn’t think that was a particularly good idea.