User:Arrow Quivershaft/Birds of a Feather
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{{#ifeq: User |User| Birds of a Feather | Arrow Quivershaft/Birds of a Feather}}[[Title::{{#ifeq: User |User| Birds of a Feather | Arrow Quivershaft/Birds of a Feather}}| ]]
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Author: [[User:{{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | {{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | }}}}|{{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | {{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | }}}}]] [[Author::{{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | {{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | }}}}| ]]
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Author: [[User:{{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | {{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | }}}}|{{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | }}]] [[Author::{{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | }}| ]]
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Authors: [[User:{{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | {{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | }}}}|{{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | {{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | }}}}]]
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Authors: {{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | }} |
Author: [[User:{{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | {{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | }}}}|{{#ifeq: User |User| Arrow Quivershaft | }}]]
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The next day, we all got up early and made our way out of the grove, heading back to Corinth. The morning was uneventful, though we made better time now, because Blossom had been the shortest, and thus slowest, of us four. Now it was just Alex, so we had less trouble The morning was mostly uneventful; me and Alex walking along, with Dawn flying ahead at low altitude, doing spotting duties. Nothing too big. Minor hazards, distant stormwings. A part of me was hoping against hope that the stormwings would miss us coming back and I wouldn’t get shaken down for the other 500 Euros. It’s not reneging on a deal if the other person never shows up to claim it.
About 2PM, Dawn landed up ahead a ways to rest. Alex was slowing down a bit, and stumbling as his legs finally got their displeasure known through the endorphins, so I figured we should take a break soon. We hadn’t been talking much since lunch, but Alex finally broke the silence.
"All this walking makes you truly appreciate cars," he said.
"You get used to it, man." I said. "I keep to a gym regimen when I'm off duty, just so I'm always in top shape."
"And now I know why. My legs are sending me death threats." he joked.
I evaluated that a bit. "We may want to take a break soon, then. Just to keep you from collapsing. Need you tomorrow to finish the trip...after that it’s a boat ride and we can all relax."
Alex glanced around nervously. "Hmm, maybe, I'm okay for now."
"Ok, then. We'll keep going. Just stay hydrated and keep working." If he was alright with it, we’d cover more ground with less breaks.
Alex nodded. "Will do." He took a drink of water.
When I turned back to the road, Dawn was barreling towards us at high speed. She was in yelling range faster than I’d ever seen her, calling out “BEHIND!” I whipped around to see two stormwings approaching us, already swooping in for a landing. Damn! I should’ve been checking behind us more often! I grabbed my crossbow off my pack and readied it, yanking back the lever so that it drew a bolt out of the mag, and priming it to fire with a satisfying CHLUNK.
"Oh shit!" Alex yelled as he realized the situation. He jumped a bit, and promptly started hiding behind me.
As they approached, I could see that it was the same pair as previously. I relaxed a bit. I’d already measured out the money in a pouch, so this should all go pretty smoothly. I didn’t reach for it yet, though, because I had my hands on the crossbow. Dawn landed on one of the interspersed trees nearby to watch, and the two stormwings flared their wings, scattering sunlight everywhere as they landed, one to either side of me.
The male nodded towards me as he stood back up. “G’day.”
“Good afternoon,” I replied evenly, lowering the crossbow towards the ground. Alex stayed silent behind me. "You want the other half of your payment?"
"Huh... Looks like you lost yer little gal. Wasn't nothin' nasty, I'm hopin?" the male observed.
I shook my head. "No. Nothing nasty."
"Good thing. I'd hate to think I hadn't kept up my end of the bargain, eh?" he stated.
"Your end of the bargain has been maintained thus far, yes." I agreed.
I heard some Hellenic from the female stormwing to the male, although I couldn’t understand it, and then a chuckle.
The male smirked back at his partner, then looked to me. "Well, we're expandin' the offer just a little bit, y'see. We didn't know till t'day that you'd brought us some VIPs, yeah? Shoulda maybe clued in from the foxie, but yeh, I'mma bit of a doof that way. Was thinkin we might be of a bit more help to ya."
More Hellenic. I really need to learn to speak it. I kept an eye on the stormwing male, quirking a brow and waiting for him to continue.
The male made a placating wing gesture at his partner. Then he looked back to me. "So y'see, I think it'd be terribly rude of me to withhold my rapid transportation services to the local sights before we see ya off, yeah?"
"Oh, fuck." Alex said from behind me, groaning.
I looked at Alex for just a second, seeing him start his change as he collapsed to the ground. Fuck. "You wish to...offer us a sightseeing tour?" I asked, slightly incredulously.
Some Hellenic came from behind me again. The male stormwing stepped in a little bit closer, knife-wings flashing in the light again. "Sounds like fun, yeah?" Then he responded to the female. I didn’t like this one bit, but I was two to one against razor blade factories.
Alex was breathing heavily. I needed to get us out of this situation, and talking was the only realistic option here.“I don’t think we’re interested. That would be Alex’s call, and he’s indisposed.”
"No! ... thanks..." Alex shouted, between some ragged breaths.
"Just take your money and go,” Dawn advised. “You're going to run out of 'customers' to extort if you keep coming on this strong."
And that’s when all hell broke loose. I heard movement from behind me. I swung around to the behind and saw the female stormwing moving rushing in to grab Alex. I lifted my crossbow to fire, and heard swishing noise, a TWANG, and felt pain on my left hand. The crossbow clicked, but no bolt ejected, the string hanging limp on either side. The male stormwing’s wing retracted, the job done. Fuck fuck fuck...Dawn was on a strike-dive towards the male stormwing. She’d get shredded against him!
I had bigger worries. The female stormwing had gotten a hold of Alex’s clothing and body and wrapped her talons around him, and now was flapping to take off. She was coming towards us, those razor feathers flapping on the downstroke. I dropped the crossbow and hit the dirt to avoid getting lacerated. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any other options. She took off and started to wheel away, gaining altitude and starting to leave. Alex was flailing, but he couldn’t do anything easily.
Dawn got a good clawing in on the stormwing’s face, but had to jump back when he tried to bring his wings up to block her off. He took a step back as I got to my feet, instinctively drawing the knife from my left boot, trying to ignore the pain on my left hand for now. Blood on my hand, and I’d just hit the ground. Dirt in the wound. Have to clean it. Why was I thinking of this?
"Whoa now! She misunderstood! Let's calm down!" the male shouted. "You don't want to fight me, walker. Not when there's nothin to fight over."
The female stormwing screeched in the distance, but I wasn’t focusing on her anymore.
"I understand that. I also understand that contrary to your claims, you just MADE something to fight over." I said threateningly.
"I'm already sparin' yer girlie, cuz that hurt like hell.” He was bleeding from the face and neck. “Only reason I ain't takin' off right now is so that I can explain this so you don't do anything schtupid."
"Then talk!" I demanded.
"He's just gonna pay a visit to a friend. You can come with him, or you can stay here. Either way, nobody's gettin hurt except for me," the male explained.
"Fucking press gang tactics!" Dawn shouted.
I didn’t have much I could do here. "I don't believe this was ever mentioned in the deal, for one, and two, I no longer have any reason to trust your word." I said, probably sounding pathetic. I was facing down a stormwing with a useless weapon, he’d just beaten me, and I was debating in legalese.
“You're right. I'll have to bring back a refund.” he said, evenly. “So you're staying here, then?"
"If I went with you, you'd drop me." I noted. I didn’t have any reason to believe him at this point.
"’f I did that, I'd be kill-on-sight for ya walkers. Just sit tight, alright? We'll be back, you get yer friend, yer cash... Do keep your Sheila here with ya, will ya? Ain't no reason to hurt anybody." he said, veiling his anger.
Dawn was wheeling in an attack pattern, waiting for another go at the stormwing.
"You took my client for forcemarking. Deal declined." I stated. I just didn’t trust him.
"Then I believe we're done here. Don't beat yerself up over it, happens all the time. You do what you gotta to survive. I do what I gotta." the stormwing said, stepping away, wing still up.
I let him go, keeping my eye on him. There was nothing I could do at the moment. When he left, however...he lowered his wing and made as though he was going to take off. Dawn swooped at him, but had to veer off when he took a slash at her with a wing.
"Hold, Dawn!" I said. I needed her intact.
And with that opening, the stormwing took off, heading due west after his partner...and Alex.
I was broken out of my thoughts just a moment later by Dawn yelling, "FUCK!" Same thing I was thinking, she just put it into words. I glanced over at her as I sheathed my dagger. The stormwings circled as they caught up, but I didn’t have a crossbow...I went to pick it up where I’d dropped it.
"This is why unarmed children should /not/ be allowed to come in here unarmed! Or at all!" Dawn shouted.
"I'm not disagreeing," I told Dawn. I needed to focus. "We probably don't have particularly long, come on."
Dawn looked at me incredulously. "Do you mean that you're actually going to Typhon's temple? Nathan, you can't make that in time. I can, but there's nothing I can do there..."
"I'm gonna do my best." I said, checking over my crossbow to make sure it was still in good order. Everything except the string...idiot.
She looked at me "What to you want me doin' hun? I don't know your plan here."
"Plan is to go and get Alex back." I dug a spare string out of my pack, and started restringing the bow.
Dawn paused, and looked at me with concern, seeing the blood on my hand. "You alright, hon?"
"It's just a scratch. I'll be fine. See, it's already clotting up." I said, showing her my hand after I finished restringing.
"Nothing we can do Nathan..." she said with resignation.
"I'm going to try. That's my job, and my code." I resolved.
"I hesitated too long... Again." she said, a bit angrily.
"I as well. Let's go make up for mistakes, eh?" I tried to buoy her spirits. I couldn’t do this on my own.
"Lead on." she said with a sigh.
I led onwards. "Just to keep you assured, the plan is in progress. But right now, there's alot of data I don't have that I'll need before I can figure anything solid out."
"Like what?" She followed as best she could, taking short flights when she needed to.
"Need to know how many people are there, for one. We also know the general direction, but don't have solid location data yet." I watched the stormwings as they went out of sight.
"There's a temple of Typhon that way. I guarantee that's where they're going."
"One piece of data, then." I nodded. "Preferably, I'd like to get in and out without alot of fuss. Of course, what I want and what will happen are likely going to be wildly different." I paused. "Unless you have any ideas?"
"I actually think that your plan will work just fine." Dawn commented flatly. "I've /seen/ it work just fine."
I took a deep breath...I was pushing myself harder, since time was of the essence now. No relaxed pace. "Good, then hopefully we can replicate that feat. Get in, rescue Alex, and get out, hopefully before they know what happened. Then we'll have to hide until tomorrow."
"It worked, Nathan, when it was me being rescued." Dawn said dryly.
Oh. Shit. I blanked off my face. "Ok." Hopefully I was a bit luckier than Dawn’s rescuers.
Dawn sighed, but kept pace.
"Any data you have that you can give me on Typhon? Followers, strength, anything else that I may not know? You're still the more experienced one here."
"Big ass dragon... He's basically Echidna under a different name. Another monster god."
"Hopefully we can avoid him," I said with a curse.
"He's like any other god, doesn't do much that we'll ever see."
"Gotcha. As for numbers, we'll have to figure that out when we get there, I guess?" I secured my crossbow and cleaned my wound, then got started doing a dressing and bandage on it. It was tricky, since it was on my hand.
"In all likelihood, we're heading for a stormwing rookery..."
I checked if stormwings were still on the horizon, and could see them glinting in the distance...especially in the direction we were headed. None of them were harrassing us at the moment, though. "Greaaaaaat." I sighed. "I'm wishing my crossbow had a larger magazine right about now."
"I'm wishing he'd just taken a mark."
"That'd probably have been best, but we can't do anything about that now."
We started entering what was...rough terrain farmland. Seriously. With naga farmers going on about their daily lives. I broke into a jog on occasion, detouring to avoid making anyone upset, but I kept heading due west towards the temple. Dawn kept up easily enough. As the terrain got rough in a hurry, I envied her wings. This was exhausting, even if I was still making decent time. Eventually, I told Dawn to stay down, so we didn’t tip our hand any earlier than necessary.
It took over an hour. But we made it up a ridge, finally, to look at the temple. It was down below the ridge, and the outside of the temple was made of museum components that had been dragged here, and built onto the entrance of a large cave system that went underground.
On the ridge, there was a well-armed naga that seemed to be expecting us. Oddly, this one was male. My heart sank. The ridge was such that it was impossible for it to have not seen us. It was heavily armored, and it wasn’t even wielding its short swords. Seemed too relaxed. I approached carefully.
After a moment, the naga asked, with a modified American accent. "You're with Alexss?"
I glanced away for a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”
"Thisss way, dude." He turned around and headed down the difficult trail toward the temple.
I eyequirked at this, but wasn’t going to look the gift horse in the mouth at this point.
Dawn looked to me. “I’m gonna go tophat, alright?” She was going to watch from altitude. I nodded to her, and she jumped off the ridge and started circling.
The naga led me on, as I expected to be ambushed at any time. After a short distance, he led me around and showed me a canvas awning. The two stormwings from before were there, hanging around in a shallow bowl-shaped depression...as well as a third one, about two-thirds their size...I looked upon it, and swore extensively in my head.