Cheep!?

Cheep!?

Chapter 75

What began as unsettling only became more so as all sound and activity completely vanished in the forest. Every step that the Wyldwalkers took deeper into the south east Evergreen only further solidified the suspicion that something was amiss. Niko moved slowly, a growing disquiet he remembered all too well gradually dragging itself to the fore of his mind. 

The essence in the air gradually drained away until it was virtually nothing. Niko felt the absence like a vacuum, the very air seeking to greedily claw away at his internal reserve like a thirsty wraith. With his and the others' control, they stymied the flow of essence for the most part, but Niko did not like the way this felt. Judging by the clear discomfort that the other showed, he wasn’t alone in that.

For another handful of minutes, they went deeper into the area, and Niko started as a memory dawned on him. It was far from where he remembered it, but this eerie feeling reminded him of the essence dead zone he'd found whilst chasing after that motherclucking poacher. Was it the same one? If it was, it was much larger now. ‘Is this just the work of the hornets? That can’t be, right? How would they do something like this?’ 

Just as the thought was occurring to him, he felt Skye’s intention to ask a question through their mental bridge. That suited him just fine, since he realized that it was an oversight to have not asked about the hornets. They had seemed unusually dangerous for the area, considering how everyone insisted that the Evergreen was a very beginner friendly part of the forest.

“What is this feeling? Niko, is there anything weird about the air?” Skye asked, doing her best to keep her voice quiet. With even the rustling of the leaves seeming to be more subdued, her voice would carry much easier, something she was keenly aware of. 

Niko gave a cursory examination of their surroundings before responding, “There’s almost no essence in the air here. It gets worse ahead, too.” He then paused, cringing as he realized he should have checked on the others directly before now, “Are you all good to continue through here?” 

Her reaction, however, was not what Niko expected. She froze, suddenly looking around as though the trees themselves were going to attack. “Uh, Skye?” 

“Regroup,” she gestured to him and quickly fell back towards the team. 

The trio looked visibly on edge when they saw Skye and Niko return to them, with Ronald quickly asking, “What’s going on?”
“New information, Niko says this area is completely dead of essence.” A scowling Skye said, “High chance that we’ll run into the Starved out here.”

Niko was curious about whatever a ‘Starved’ was, but added, “Also, I wasn’t sure if this was relevant before, but I think I remember something like this from before. Are there any creatures that cause this kind of thing?” 

Skye listened to his question before paling and saying nothing. Niko and the others could see her reeling at the question.

Ronald prompted her insistently, “What? What’d he say?”

“Niko just asked if there are any creatures that can cause this kind of thing,” Skye answered him rapidly, before rounding on Niko, “What did you see, Niko?”

Seeing Skye so intense, Niko realized that he definitely should have brought this up before. “Well, I’ve run across this strange hornet looking thing? White and red colorations, lots of them. They made large open-air hives with a dugout beneath them, though the first one I ever saw was just filled with various kinds of… bugs.” Niko trailed off as Skye went paler and paler, her eyes growing wide as she seemed to involuntarily look up at the canopy line of the trees.

“Oh, Bant’s arse,” Skye nearly whispered, before she groaned, “Niko, why didn’t you say anything before now?” 

“Uh, well… I wasn’t sure it was relevant.” Niko responded, shrinking inwardly.

“That’s…” Skye forced herself to stop with a shake of her head, “Alright, you didn’t know. We have to go. Now.” She turned back to the others, “I think Niko’s run across Massacre Hornets in the past in this area.”

Niko watched his companions go from wary to actively anxious. If he had to equate it to his old life, it’d be almost as though someone just told you that an axe murderer was outside the house. 

“Venris’ teeth,” Dachna immediately turned and started to walk in the other direction, “Don’t need to tell me twice.”

“Double time it.” Ronald declared, “Hornets are supposed to leave areas entirely when they’re done, so if we’re lucky they went somewhere else.”

“Shouldn’t we be quiet?” Mithel asked, looking as uncertain on her feet as Niko, though both of them immediately followed along with the others at speed.

Ronald shook his head, but Skye was the one that answered, “We’ll hear them long before they can detect us. Mithel, do you have any more scent obfuscation potions?”

Mithel nodded, “I do, will that help?”

“Maybe. They have very good senses of smell, though, so it might not matter.” Skye grimaced.

“Hold on a moment, then,” Mithel called for the others to stop, before she scooped up a very small amount of grass and leaves and poured out some water into a beaker with the leaves. “We’ll see if this works.” 

Niko didn’t get to wonder what she meant before her essence infused the water. It roiled in the next instant, though not in any way that he’d ever seen water do naturally. The water churned violently, shredding the materials inside of the flask into a fine mush. Now green, Mithel sat down where she’d been standing, pulling out five flasks of a nearly clear liquid. Wordlessly, she poured them all into the larger beaker, before setting the flasks aside. She repeated the process quickly and efficiently, all the while infusing additional essence into the mixture. 

It was interesting to see, and Niko noted that she was using both of her patterns to great effect at that moment. Before long, she poured the large beaker’s contents into the smaller flasks and handed them out to the Wyldwalkers while saying, “Drink them quick, I don’t know how long they’ll hold the ingredients together, so the faster you get to digesting them, the better.”

In spite of everything, Niko couldn’t help but look at the greenish tinted fluid with some trepidation. Even so, he drank it down, tipping it back in his beak and letting it go down.

“Ugh… Thanks.” Dachna said exactly what Niko was thinking as he tasted the incredibly bitter fluid. Mithel’s expression was commiserate, her face screwing up in distaste after she finished her own. 

“I’ll figure something out for the taste later,” She said as she regathered the flasks, “No idea how long these will last, so we need to get moving now.”

Nodding at that, Niko and the others quickly made their way back the way they came. All the while, he could feel an odd heat rise from his stomach, circulating through his metaphysical essence channels as they went. It was somewhat uncomfortable, like his pores were being pushed on by the concoction he’d imbibed. The sensation was almost like a mild sunburn all over his body, but he supposed that was an acceptable side effect.

Still, it only somewhat allayed their concerns, the forest still as quiet as it was on their way in. Whereas before they had been ranging far afield, they didn’t bother doing so this time. Niko considered moving ahead of the group, but decided against it. If they were seeking to avoid contact entirely, it would be more useful for them all to be moving together, where they could quickly organize in the event they were found, and to better ensure any threats were detected and reported to everyone.

“We’re halfway back through the dead zone,” Niko passed the message on to Skye, who nodded seriously.

“Keep an ear out, everyone. If you hear any buzzing, then it could be a patrol.” Skye reminded everyone.

“Hopefully they’ve moved on from this area. It seems like it’s been stripped pretty bare.” Dachna regarded the forest, “At least they haven’t shredded the trees.”

Ronald spoke then, “Might be that it was a small hive when Niko found it. With any luck, it’s far from the city and we’ll have time to get backup from the army.” 

The group fell into relative silence then, pausing occasionally to check their surroundings. For several tense minutes, the Wyldwalkers moved through the undergrowth hopefully. As such, when Skye held up a hand and crouched down, the rest of the group reacted nearly instantly. 

No one said anything, only focused on their surroundings and glancing back to Skye to see what she had noticed. 

In a few seconds, though, they began to hear the droning noise cutting through the air. Niko felt his hackles rise even as he found himself lowering his body to the ground. He couldn’t help it, there was just a feeling of dread that accompanied the sound, though he knew that it carried no essence. The Wyldwalkers wordlessly slipped into the underbrush around them, Skye and Niko into one, and the four into another. What had seemed dense and lush now felt wholly inadequate to Niko for hiding. 

The noise drew closer and closer, but Niko adamantly denied his curiosity begging him to peer through the bushes. He felt Skye beside him, her hand subconsciously gripping onto his stiff feathers. His own taloned claws were digging into the soil beneath him anxiously. 

Then the sound became nearly deafening with the wind thrashing the undergrowth. Niko could see white and red blurred shapes flash by overhead between the quickly moving branches, and with his visual acuity, he couldn’t help but notice that the smallest of them were now the size of a medium dog. 

There were many of them, at least a dozen, and Niko noticed that they were carrying small creatures in their grasping legs. They were alive, if the essence in their bodies had anything to say about it, and Niko cringed as he imagined their fates. If the pit of bugs in the first nest he’d seen was any indication, he guessed that they would be stored in that feeding pit of sorts. More and more flew through the space, and what had been loud was now all consuming. Groups streamed in, sometimes half a dozen when they were larger specimens, all carrying a bounty of some sort. Many of those types carried dismembered parts, though he couldn’t place the macabre pieces as any given creature he’d seen. 

‘The small dog sized ones are tier one,’ Niko thought as he distracted himself, trying to keep from moving an inch more than necessary, ‘The medium ones are tier two, there are fewer of them around. Some of the mediums are accompanied by a larger one, about the size of a pecking timber wolf. Penelope is still bigger, but they’re tier three… This is a nightmare. Are all bug species like this? How do you fight that?’ 

He couldn’t help but remember the number advantage that insects had in his old life. He’d assumed that massive eusocial colonies of insects weren’t a thing here, but in hindsight he recognized that as wishful thinking. But, then, how were insects not the top of the food chain? Though, he supposed dragons and other fantastical things might actually have countermeasures. After all, a living flamethrowing monster might just be a pretty decent counter to such bugs.

Niko almost startled into movement when one of the hornets crashed through a tree branch overhead, hurtling off to the side and smashing into the ground. Essence hemorrhaged from the insect before Niko’s eyes, and he realized that he was watching the bug perish. A tier three hornet paused overhead, hovering perfectly in the space between the trees like a helicopter and about as loudly. Niko could just barely see the scene as it seemed to stare appraisingly at the fallen tier two.

The insect on the ground had broken a wing in its tumble and bore egregious head injuries from what Niko would have guessed were fang wounds. The fall had only exaggerated its injuries, and from what Niko saw, the bug probably didn’t have long to live. The rest of its carapace was riddled with smaller injuries, all seemingly from different creatures. Niko didn’t know how a single hornet could be the focus of so much abuse, but as he noticed the many other markless insects around, he came to a gruesome conclusion.

‘Do they force one specific bug to tank harder targets?’ The thought chilled Niko’s blood, and as the tier three landed softly over the tier two, he couldn’t help but feel pity for the dying tier two.

The pair of insects leaned together near their heads, the tier two only having one antennae left. The larger of the two leaned down, gently touching its own antennae against the fallen, and Niko found himself wondering what he was witnessing. The one with only one antennae tapped its said antennae against the larger of the two’s antennae for a few seconds before lying down, seeming more relaxed than Niko expected. The larger hornet, who Niko now noticed had slight discolorations all over its own body, like aged scars, gently moved the downed hornet’s head to the side. 

It placed its large, shearing mandibles gently above the mortally wounded insect's neck, and Niko realized he wasn’t so much watching an execution as a mercy killing. The mandibles of the larger snapped shut with a thunk that Niko felt from where he was, and then only one of the two on the forest floor remained. Niko felt a pulse of essence rise from the fallen bug, drained into the environment partly. 

Silence dominated the air once more as Niko realized that four other tier two hornets had landed on the trees overhead, presiding over the moment in silence. Yet, for all their alien features, Niko felt as though something almost sanctified had just occurred. The larger hornet took a moment to itself, somehow collecting a much larger share of the essence of its companion rather than allowing it to move into the environment. 

Then, it gently picked up the perished hornet’s head in its forelimbs and with a harsh buzz, took off into the air once more with a leap. Rapidly, the others followed along, each still carrying their own haul. 

And then, all was silent once more.

It took nearly a minute before the Wyldwalkers moved, all of them hushed and contemplative over what they’d just seen. Niko wasn’t sure how to feel about what he’d just witnessed, and also wasn’t sure if he was assigning humanoid characteristics to a creature that might have wholly different motivations.

Was what just happened honorable? Merciful? Or was it a clinical decision, to harvest away as much essence as possible? Niko didn’t know, and he couldn’t begin to tell what emotions the hornets had felt in that moment. Perhaps he could have looked in on them more closely, but he wasn’t sure if that might have been detectable in this essence deprived environment. Considering they would almost certainly die if they were found, Niko hadn’t dared to try do so.

Skye broke the silence, “Mithel, can you make another scent potion?”

The gnomish woman glanced at her friend, before nodding, looking meaningfully back at the body. “I can.”

“Evidence?” Dachna asked, his mood clearly sober and reflective even as he asked Skye. She nodded before Ronald pulled out a large rough sack from his pack.

“Niko, would you mind carrying it? It’d be a little rough if I slung it over my shoulders.” Ronald asked quietly.

Niko nodded slowly, feeling, strangely enough, almost guilty at the prospect of taking the body. He also wasn’t a fan of the idea of it becoming even more thoroughly damaged by being slung over Ronald’s shoulder, though.

Mithel took even less time in making this concoction, but in Niko’s vision the scent potion absolutely burned with essence overload. 

“We need to go fast now,” Mithel said, “I’ve made this concoction much stronger, but it’ll burn off fast in trade off. That should keep the scent from becoming a trail.”

Skye nodded and took the potion before liberally applying it to the corpse. Dachna and Ronald helped, much to the former's quiet distaste, but the dirty blonde haired man didn’t complain outwardly. Ronald stuffed it into a sack with a waxy interior, which Niko imagined would be able to hold any errant fluids more easily without leakage. 

Niko knelt down for the man to strap the bag in, looping cordage around specially made loops on Niko’s harness and vest to keep it in place on his back. “Alright, I’m ready.” 

“I’ll set the pace, we’re going to move fast from hereout.” Skye declared, and no one disagreed. Their nerves were frayed after the dramatically close call, and Niko privately wondered if the pilgrimage had helped that incident happen in their favor or not. 

Their trip back to Greenleaf was indeed quicker, and they heaved a collective sigh of relief as they left the essence dead zone. Even so, Niko dared not lower his guard, and the others felt the same. He thought briefly to his siblings, and hoped that they were well clear of this area by now. Niko still didn’t know how bad this was, but just based on what he’d seen already… This was a much larger issue than he’d feared…