Healer Arc 2 -- Chapter 16

Chapter 16

“See anything yet?  They usually start up around here, don’t they?”

Garney looked up from his position along the bow of the Rivercat where he’d been focused on the water below, only to see the ship’s captain nervously looking around at the Adventurer Party he had hired to escort them to Fanebridge to deliver a shipment.  The route was a common one that happened every other day, but each trip always required protection from the dangers that lurked along the riverbed.  Garney, as well as his Party, had made the trip thousands of times over the years, as they basically had a lock on the Coalition Quests issued to help escort the shipments. 

It was an easy gig, provided a steady income, and gradually granted them the PICK they needed to slowly advance in Level.  Unfortunately, they’d all maxed-out their Rank Progress years ago, stopping at Iron Rank, as the Quests no longer gave any RP to move up – but Garney and his Party were more than happy with the arrangement.  They all spoke of eventually moving on to challenge themselves in the future, perhaps in another decade or so, but they’d also been saying that for years – so he doubted it would happy anytime soon.  The Quest was just too easy to give up for the dangers that dungeons presented, and none of them had any ambition to head to the Front Line where the Legions fought monsters on a daily basis, so they were content with what they had.

The hardest part of the job was dealing with new ship captains that had heard horror stories about the route up to Fanebridge, as they were always nervous and tended to get underfoot more than they should.  Of course, he couldn’t exactly yell at them to shut up and stay out of the way, as that was a surefire way to lose access to the Quest in the future, so he’d become quite adept at calming them down and having them focus on something else.

“There’s nothing yet, but not really surprising.  We’re still on the edge of where we typically begin to see some action, so there’s no reason to worry about it.  My Party and I have done this route thousands of times; you’re in good hands.”  He pointed toward the aft section of the ship.  “Why don’t you keep an eye on the water behind the Rivercat, just to make sure that nothing is sneaking up on us.  If you see anything suspicious, call out and we’ll come investigate it with you.”

The captain, a Netherine that looked almost as nervous running his ship as he was taking a route known to be hazardous, nodded a half-dozen times before he took off towards the rear of the ship, where he stared overboard with an intensity that Garney hoped would distract him for a few hours, at least.  As for the rest of the crew, some of whom the Adventurer recognized from operating other ships that had made this run multiple times, they simply kept on working as if they didn’t have a care in the world.  That was how it was supposed to be, as far as Garney was concerned; the crew ran the ship, while the Adventurers handled the danger along the way.  It wasn’t their responsibility to worry about something they couldn’t do anything about.  I just wish the captains shared that same mentality.

Garney turned back to his position, glancing at his fellow Party members who smirked and rolled their eyes at the antics of the captain.  He grunted in amusement, but he didn’t say anything, because he didn’t need himself or the others distracted.  He’d been telling the truth that they were right on the edge of where they typically saw dangerous monsters in the river, and he didn’t want to miss anything.

Of course, once someone had traveled this route at least a few hundred times, they began to learn that the river wasn’t really that dangerous – if you knew what to watch out for.  The smaller aquatic monsters that filled a good portion of the river were basically a non-issue, as they typically didn’t attack the ship directly.  Because they had to use large oars to row the ship up the river, the oars were at risk of being bitten or sliced apart when they dipped into the water, but that was why they had someone like Garney around to stop that from happening.  As an experienced Illusionist Support Class, he was able to extend a channeled aura that camouflaged the underside of the ship, including the oars that passed through the water, until most monsters lower than Level 20 couldn’t even detect that the ship was there.  He didn’t have it active yet, as there was no point keeping it running when it would drain his Mana keeping it running.  He could keep it up for a while, as it was a relatively inexpensive spell, but it strained his body and mind to channel it for more than an hour at a time without a break.

Of course, sometimes those monsters still detected the ship or the oars, either because they got lucky and noticed it or they were physically in the way and bumped into something, so they had other members of their Party that handled those issues.  First, there was Demarco, their Shieldwarper Fighter Class, who wielded his dual shields with an expertise of long practice; they weren’t just for defense, though, as he could sling them with deadly accuracy, before warping them back to his arms with an application of his abilities.  Then there was Nevena, an Arcane Slinger, able to throw any object imaginable at high speeds after enhancing them with her power; she typically used simple rocks that would explode upon contact with her target, which rippled through the water with a deadliness that was difficult to deny. 

Needless to say, with them watching out for any of the smaller monsters in the river that wanted to cause problems with the vessel, they could eliminate most threats within seconds all by themselves.  But it wasn’t the Gators or Swordfish that swam around that was the major problem they would face; instead, that distinction belonged to the Tentacled Stranglers of the Depths. 

Those monstrosities were the main source of the warnings that ship captains were given before they set out, as the long, durable tentacles that emerged from the nightmarish blobs at the bottom of the riverbed could wrap around a ship and rip it in half within seconds.  It was a real danger that had to be considered, at least it was in the past, but nowadays they had learned how to handle them without too much trouble.

How?  Well, some of the time, Garney’s illusions helped to camouflage them enough that they could slip by without calling attention to themselves.  It wasn’t reliable, however, as the Stranglers were too high of a Level to be easily fooled.

Instead, their secret weapon was Geordynn, their Control Class Party member and expert Befuddler.  It was an odd name for a Class, Befuddler, but the way Geordynn was able to use her spells to confuse or even change the thoughts of a target was unmatched as a technique to bypass the Stranglers without them being an issue.  The tentacled monsters weren’t exactly the smartest of opponents, as they relied mostly on their instincts to snatch their prey with their appendages before strangling them to death and feeding their large maws, but that was precisely why a Befuddler’s spells were perfect for them.  Geordynn’s spells typically caused the Level 50 monster’s instincts to go wild, as it was convinced that prey was tantalizingly near it, and it spent the time the ship would pass along the surface snatching at invisible victims with its tentacles.  It was a simple and easy solution to getting up the river without risking the ship.

After all, they were hired to bring the ship, its crew, and its shipment to Fanebridge safely – not to kill everything in their path.  That didn’t mean that they couldn’t kill the Tentacled Stranglers if the need arose, only that they usually didn’t need to.  Inevitably, every other trip – on average – saw that very circumstance happen, when everything they did to avoid contact with one of the Stranglers failed, and they were forced to fight it.

That’s where Lorach came in.  As the Mage Class of the Party, he typically had a light workload on these trips up and down the river, but when it came time for him to act, he pulled his weight – and then some.  With his Bursting Shocker Class, he specialized in sudden and powerful spells that did a significant amount of damage in a short time, though he didn’t have a lot of staying power; he was more of a “throw all my Mana at something as fast as possible to kill it” type of people, so his Class worked perfectly for this kind of work.  Wielding the power of lightning that not only paralyzed everything it hit but then exploded upon contact, Lorach took one look at a hostile Tentacled Strangler, sent everything he had at it in one massive burst of shocking energy, and he fried the hell out of the target.  If it didn’t die immediately, it was usually so damaged that the rest of the Party could finish it off within seconds, but Lorach had become quite good at making his attacks more of a one-shot spell rather than leaving anything for the others to clean up.

Afterwards, he would practically collapse as he drained his entire Mana pool with just the singular spell, and his Mana also regenerated slowly afterwards for the course of an hour.  This limitation was the reason they didn’t simply tear their way up and down the river with Lorach killing everything in their way, as it just wasn’t possible with the exhaustion he felt afterwards, as well as the slow Mana regeneration.  Lorach had other spells that didn’t cost his entire Mana pool, but they did less damage and weren’t as effective, which would then give the monster a chance to fight back and put the ship at risk.  In the end, as they had other ways to deal with the majority of the threats they faced, there really wasn’t any reason to risk the ship by trying to kill everything in their way.

As Garney switched his attention back to the job at hand, focusing on the refreshingly clear water below them to know when he should start activating his illusionary aura, he began to wonder if the ship’s captain wasn’t wrong to be concerned.  He glanced again at the others, this time in concern instead of shared annoyance at the captain’s nervousness, and he could see similar signs that his Party was also slightly unsettled. 

There really should’ve been at least some monsters by this point.  The first leg of their journey up the river was almost always quiet, as the land around the river was open farmland that gradually turned to rolling plains; after about 200 miles, however, the first trees began to make an appearance, which typically signaled the start of the danger that they had to really look out for.  However, they had left the edge of the forest behind them by about a mile, and yet there was not a single sign of an aquatic monster as of yet.  Garney couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t seen at least one monster shortly after hitting the tree line, so this was highly unusual.  When another mile passed and there was still no sign of any monsters, he knew that something was up.

“What’s going on?” he muttered, which was overheard by Demarco next to him.  The Shieldwarper looked up and was about to open his mouth, when Nevena interrupted him.

“Look!  What’s that?” she asked as she stood up, pointing ahead of them further up the river.  Garney’s eyes snapped over to where she was pointing, while at the same time preparing to cast his aura.  He hesitated to do anything, however, as he witnessed a sight that had him questioning his sanity.

A strange-looking individual appeared to be caught by a large tentacle rising up from below the water, the familiar appendage of a Tentacled Strangler wrapped tightly around his torso as he was slammed down forcefully upon the surface of the water one way and then another – as if the monster was attempting to beat him up rather than kill and then eat him.  It took a few seconds for Garney to catch a sight of the nametag over the individual’s head, but once he did, he knew it was probably already too late for the individual based on his Level.

Thaden

Human

Level 15

What was strange about the figure, other than being of a race that he’d never heard of before, was that he didn’t appear to be part of the Densartis Faction.  It had been many, many years since he’d seen anyone without a direct connection to the Faction, though that probably had more to do with the fact that he didn’t leave the area he’d been living in for decades rather than those types of people not existing, but it was still extremely strange.

It was enough of anomaly that he questioned what he was seeing – and immediately worried that they were walking into a trap.  That was because the last time he’d seen someone without a direct tie to any Faction they had been a bandit, someone outside of the bounds of Faction control.  He quickly peered around at the nearby shores, trying to discern if there were other figures waiting to ambush while they were distracted, but he didn’t see or sense anything; if they had been camouflaged by some sort of illusion, he would’ve sensed it, but that didn’t meant they weren’t using a different method to hide their presence.

“Aaaahhh!”

The scream brought his attention back to the scene unfolding ahead of them in the river, only to catch the sight of the Human figure being launched downstream as the tentacle released him.  That alone was strange, as he’d never seen a Tentacled Strangler release a victim once they had a hold of it, but when he saw the genuine fear and pained look on the flying individual, he couldn’t help but believe that it was real.  Whether or not this was a trap, as he watched this “Thaden” crash into the water approximately 300 feet ahead of the Rivercat with a big splash, he called back to the captain.  “Faster!  We have someone overboard!”

It took longer than he liked for the crew to respond, but he felt the deck under his feet lurch slightly as the ship shot forward, closing the distance between them and the figure in a matter of seconds.  Demarco had already thrown a rope over the side and was repelling down it in order to grab the flailing figure, even as Garney witnessed a cluster of tentacles rapidly moving toward them.  “Lorach!  Can you kill it from here?”

“A little closer and I should be—oh, no.”  The note of panic in his voice caught Garney’s attention, and he saw his Party member flinch at something that he was seeing.  It only took him a second to look under the water to see what worried him, and he felt himself taking more than a single step back.

“Back!  Reverse immediately!” he screamed, and for a wonder, the captain listened to his words and didn’t hesitate for more than a second.  The Rivercat’s oars quickly stopped their forward progress and rapidly started pushing them backwards; aided by the natural quick flow of the river, they moved backwards much faster than they’d been progressing just a few seconds before, and he could see that they just barely able to keep their distance between the ship and the tentacles coming after them.

After a chase that lasted until he could see the edge of the forest, he saw beneath the water as the Tentacled Stranglers came to a stop, as the riverbed began to become shallower.  It was commonly known that the Stranglers only stayed in the depths that came with the proximity of the forest, and he breathed a sigh of relief as they emerged safely from what could’ve been the death of everyone on board the ship.

Now that they had escaped from certain death, Garney turned toward the exhausted-looking figure that was dripping water onto the deck of the ship, his back up against the railing where Demarco had deposited him after pulling him up from the fast-flowing river.  A quick glance at Thaden showed him that while his cheap, worn clothing had been ripped apart in multiple places, he didn’t appear to actually be injured – which seemed like an impossibility given what he’d seen.  Unless he’s a healer of some sort?

Geordynn knelt down next to him, and Garney could see the flash of energy envelop the Human as their Control Class cast a spell on him.  While a Befuddler was an expert on confusing targets, they were also adept at getting the truth out of people by manipulating what they wanted their targets to experience while answering questions.  We’ll get the answers we need one way or another.  He added his own illusions a few seconds later, which would hopefully put this Thaden more at ease once he started talking.

“Hey, Thaden, are you alright?  Do you need any healing?” Geordynn asked, gently touching him on the shoulder.  His head snapped upright and looked at her, seemingly only now realizing that he was no longer in the water.

The Human immediately shook his head a few times.  “No, I’m fine.  Just tired.”

“I’m very glad to hear that.  Now that you’re safe, I have a few questions for you.”

Thaden had a clearly thankful smile on his face, which had skin that was a light brown color – likely from being out in the sun for long periods of time.  Garney also couldn’t help but see how scrawny he appeared, as if he hadn’t eaten well lately – or it could simply be how his race appeared.  He’d never heard of a Human before, after all, and had no others of that race in which to compare this Thaden person.  “Thank you for saving me.  I’ll answer whatever questions you have.”

“You’re very welcome.  Now, I have one very important question for you that needs a very truthful answer.  Can you do that for me?”

“Of course.  You saved my life, after all.”

The more the Human spoke, and even as he simply sat there dripping on the deck of the Rivercat, the more Garney began to think his suspicions were completely unfounded.  There was just something about this Thaden fellow that elicited trust because he seemed entirely honest; he had already come to the conclusion that the Human had simply ran into an unfortunate circumstance and was lucky that the Rivercat and Garney’s Party had arrived when they did to save him.

The exhausted-looking Human nodded.  “I can do that.”

“Well, then, can you explain to me who you are, why you were in the Fane River, and why – for the System’s goodness – were there eight Tentacled Stranglers of the Depths attacking you?”

Thaden was silent for a second, though it seemed less as a hesitation and more of a marshalling of thoughts, before he responded.  “I’m Thaden, and Adventurer like you, I assume.  As for why I was in the river and why there were so many of those Stranglers around, it’s because I was controlling them.  Or, I should say, I was controlling them; it turns out that they don’t really take kindly to such influence, and one of them decided to take their frustration out on me.  I can’t remember much of what happened after it began flinging me around, though.”

Garney and his Party stood or knelt next to Thaden in silence at the proclamation of impossibility he was spouting, but for some reason, the Illusionist believed what he was hearing – as far-fetched as it seemed.  Finally, after what felt like hours but was only a few seconds, Geordynn asked, “You were… controlling them?  How?”

“Oh, it’s just a trick of my Class, that’s all.  After my Party was recently killed near here, I had no other choice but to try to find my way back to civilization on my own; unfortunately, I ran into the river unexpectedly, and I was forced to control some of those tentacled monsters before they killed me.  Sadly, because of the Level difference, my control was tenuous at best, and barely a restraint at worse, but I was hoping to live long enough to get to the other side of the river before I lost complete control.  Obviously, that didn’t work out so well for me, as you no doubt saw.  So, again, thank you for saving me.”

“You’re Party was killed?  Where are you from?”

There was a slight hesitation at this point from the Human, though Garney thought it was likely of being reminded once again of his Party being killed.  “I’m from Fanebridge.”

Geordynn looked at each of them, silently telling them that Thaden was telling the truth as far as she could tell – which was wild.  Still, Garney had to agree that it seemed as if the Human was being completely honest; as a result, he didn’t have any further suspicions about ambushes or traps.  Their Control Class patted Thaden on the shoulder one more time, this time consolingly.  “I’m sorry to hear about your Party.  And I’m also sorry about Fanebridge, but we’ll have to wait to take the trip up there for at least a day or so, once the Tentacled Stranglers disperse; it’s too dangerous to navigate up the river until then.”

Garney nodded in agreement, even as Thaden shrugged helplessly.  “That’s… alright.  I don’t really have anything there for me anymore, anyway.  So, where are we going?”

It was strange that someone living in Fanebridge wouldn’t know the closest city downriver, but he let it pass because the Human was clearly still emotionally and mentally affected by the loss of his Party.  Geordynn answered him quickly, likely sensing the same thing that Garney had.  “We’re heading back to the city of Teglir, which is located approximately 200 miles downriver.  I’m sure you’ll be able to fit in well enough there to start over, if that’s what you want to do.”

“The city of Teglir?  Yes, I think that’ll work just fine.”