049

--TheirWorld--

Guin’s [Wind Blade] ripped in a horizontal arc through the room, crashing into the two Skeleton Warriors that charged at her. Their bones scattered gracelessly across the floor at their sudden, violent ends — though theirs was not half as bad as those that had met their ends by BronzePaw’s fists and tail.

It was almost impressive just how efficient BronzePaw was at physically destroying things as a mage; and to make it all the more impressive, it was, Guin dared to think, elegant. She certainly put Zen to shame.

Spinning her spear around her hand and storing it into whatever ether weapons were stored in, Guin watched her kills turn to treasure chests.

“That should do us for the bone dust,” BronzePaw grumbled, hands on her hips as she walked toward where Guin stood. “Still no gremlins, moss, or essence.”

“That’s true,” Guin frowned and looked around at the large room they were in. It was roughly identical to every other room they had been in there. “This place is a bloody maze,” she muttered. “Everything looks exactly the same.”

“Any hints?”

“‘Follow the Bones’,” Guin answered half heartedly. That advice was only for the inscriptions, and in this room — and several of the rooms before this one — there were no bones to speak of. The only ones she could find where the ones they had destroyed, and the ones that she could hear in the paths on all sides of them. “We came from that direction,” Guin pointed to the hall behind them. “Any preference on the others?”

BronzePaw shook her head. “I guess if your hint was to follow the bones, we need to find more skeletons?”

“Or statues, or walls and roads made of them,” the words came across with more annoyance than she had wanted them to, but she was starting to get tired. Closing her eyes, she focused on the sounds of clicking bones and clinking armor. “The path to the left has the most skeletons, according to my ears.”

“Good ears,” the garule grunted and followed as Guin set off.

Leading them down the chosen hall, Guin readied her knife. Scratching and clawing informed her that mice and rats were sure to appear soon — though she wondered if gremlins sounded any different and hoped that maybe, just maybe, there would be a few gremlins among them. She briefly thought back at the gremlin she had saved back in town, and though she wasn’t a huge fan of losing her reputation with the spirits, if she had to kill them anyway, would the ones in town suffice? As they rounded a bend, she shook her head.

It was hard to admit, but she was pretty sure that she was at least little bit lost. They had wandered around for a good half hour, yet they had little to show for it. Sure, they had finished collecting Bone Dust, and their current path seemed to be more infested with rats than mice, but they still hadn’t found a trace of any of the other things. Progress was coming in a trickle, rather than a stream.

Another room, another group of skeletons and bone hounds. Another hall, another group of rats and mice. Another room, another group of skeletons and bone hounds. And the cycle repeated. Another hall…

“Rats,” Guin hissed, gripping her dagger and leaning back against a wall. “It’s a whole mass of rats. Twenty of them, at least!”

Crouching on all fours, BronzePaw sniffed the air. “Rank creatures,” she said and looked around the bend. “Yes. I see them. I’ll go in first.”

With a mighty crash, the landing of BronzePaw’s [Earthquake] signalled Guin to come and help finish them off. It was a large group of higher level creatures, but between the two of them, they made quick work of them all.

“Still no gremlins,” Guin kicked at one of the dead creature’s bodies. Her ears told her that there was another room filled with skeletons up ahead. She cursed as she switched her weapons out.

“Is something wrong?” BronzePaw asked, looking up from looting.

Shaking her head, Guin said, “Not really. I just don’t like using the dagger very much — if only because I keep having to switch it out.”

“Then why use it?” BronzePaw asked, blinking in apparent confusion.

“Because my spear doesn’t work in the narrow halls,” Guin explained, “ I need to have something.” It was something that had annoyed her before, but with her class change, it felt even more awkward.

“What about your claws?” the garule woman asked as if it were an obvious answer to a stupid problem.

Guin looked back at her. “My… claws?”

BronzePaw pointed at Guin’s hands with a nod, “Mayhaps it is a bit… Garuli, of me, to think this way, but, those things combined with that wind attack of yours — I don’t think you would need a weapon.” She tilted her head, and said, “Back in the forest, you used them to quite an effective degree, if I may say so…”

Shivering, Guin thought back on what she had done to the Lore Master and looked at her hand. Her claws were awfully sharp. But could she use them that way? Could she use her hands that way on purpose? Guin’s gaze went from her claws to BronzePaw’s. “What is it like for you to use your claws?” she asked.

“Mine?” BronzePaw’s expression turned troubled. “I would think that it’s no different than using weapon,” she said, thinking about it. “I very rarely use weapons myself, though.”

“It’s not like that for me,” Guins face fell. “At least, not like what happened back in the woods.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s like… It’s like I’ve been possessed,” she explained, drawing on the memory. “Like my body isn’t at all my own, but like some kind of… beast…” It felt odd using that term, talking to the garule woman, and yet she wasn’t sure how else to describe it. “My powers come from the Veil,” Guin struggled. “A spirit of the forest. It’s like… that spirit possesses me and forces me my body to act in a way that my mind rejects. What you say makes sense, but…”

“Well that sounds absolutely horrifying,” BronzePaw said, seemingly offended by the thought. “Well,” she continued, “I say that, but I can remember experiencing something like that once, I guess.”

Guin tilted her head. “You were like this?”

“Most juveniles are like that,” the garule woman shrugged. “Of course, our scaly hides are tougher than yours, so we grow by playing with our claws and teeth without much injury. Biting and clawing at our litter and clanmates. We learn from our parents and kin how to differentiate friend from foe, clan from prey. Instinct becomes informed by education. Are humans not largely the same?”

“I —” Guin started, looking away. “I never really thought of it that way.”

BronzePaw let out a boisterous, chirping laugh. “I don’t know anything about any spirits of the forest,” she said. “Maybe it really is different, but I wouldn’t know. You’d want to ask my brother, Sathuren. He’s into all that mystical mumbo-jumbo.”

“The complicated one?”

The garule woman snorted. “It’s part of the reason he is so complicated.”

“And why you don’t want him to know you’re a magic user?”

“Do you know how hard he would laugh at me if he found out?” BronzePaw asked earnestly. “He’d never take me seriously again!”

Guin laughed. “Is that all?”

BronzePaw ducked her head. “Pathetic, isn’t it?”

“Just unexpected,” Guin chuckled. “I’ll think about it.”

“What?”

“Learning how to use my claws. I’d need help, though.”

“I may be useless at magic,” BronzePaw rose her head high. “But I am pretty good at teaching people how to use their claws.” She wriggled her serpentine tail and crossed her arms. “I know I’ve mentioned it before, but you are quite different in this game than you are in real life.”

“Oh,” Guin shrugged. She already knew that her personality inconsistencies were like to cause a few questions to come to the surface. Replaying their conversation in her head and realizing just how different her reaction was than what it would be in real life, Guin said, “You know, I’m a bit surprised myself. I guess there is something about being in a game that makes me feel… safer.”

“Well,” BronzePaw said. “I guess you are kind of immortal here. I feel that most people who are afraid of garule in real life tend be far more afraid for their lives than their dignity.”

“That’s true,” Guin agreed to a light chuckle, then looked down at her hands again. “Using my claws. It sounds a bit strange to say but… so does the phrase ‘I need to eat livers’.”

Hearing the squeaks and squeals of rats skittering towards them, Guin put her dagger away. “I wonder if claws even count as weapons,” she muttered, then shrugged. “Well. We have company coming, so I guess it’s a good time to try it out, at least. Any suggestions?”

“Trust your instincts?” the garule said, flipping her tail. “Let’s see you fight before we get into any more than that.”

“Okay!” Guin said, and together they rushed through the hall, and jumping into a group of rats.