“This isn’t the same—”
“Ris’kin and I will go with them. With Longshank and the five scouts, a badger is no threat to us, especially one on its own. The reward is worth the risk.”
We weren’t due a rest stop for another hour. I didn’t want to lose momentum this early in the day, so rather than issuing orders to halt, I let the march continue while I rounded up my team for this little excursion.
This won’t take long. And the scouts are skilled enough to find their way back even when we’re on the move. I eyed the disturbed ground behind us. It’s not like we’re hard to track.
“Corey.”
I rolled my eyes as Ket whispered, “Don’t you think there’s something strange about this?”
“I think it’s strange that you’re trying to hamper my attempts to advance our progress. Is that what you mean?”
She sparked angrily. “Since when does he pay attention to the ground? He spends most of his time at the top of your Sphere, whinging about how he misses the sky or whatever. This smells like a trap.”
Honestly, my first thoughts had been along those same lines. Though he’d done nothing but help us, I still didn’t fully trust my new sprite’s motives—or his suspiciously timely arrival.
But Bekkit was confined to my Sphere of Influence, just like Ket. And it was a small enough area now that there was no way he’d been up to anything dodgy without me—or Ket, who’d been watching him like a hawk—knowing about it.
Not wanting to stoke more tension between the two sprites by voicing my own concerns, I said, “I understand why you’re worried, but it’ll be fine. Shanky and the scouts already handled a pack of mole-rats. How dangerous can one badger be?”
I activated Double Sight and slipped behind my avatar’s eyes, shutting out my sprite’s simmering frustration as I followed the hunter’s lead into the trees.
This is so boring.
I found myself almost wishing this excursion was as dangerous as Ket had feared.
For what felt like the hundredth time, we watched one of the scouts crouch beside a scuffed bit of earth. It was tempting to have Ris’kin use her own superior tracking skills and take the lead, but the opportunity to level up my scouts’ skills instead was too valuable to miss. Two of the five had already attained nine ranks in Tracking; since ten seemed to be something of a magic number when it came to vocation skills, I was keen to see what the next rank would unlock.
Or at least, I had been keen. Now I was just bored.
The creature we were following seemed to have been suffering from a debilitating lack of purpose. That, or it was lost. Or maybe drunk. The tracks meandered back and forth, sometimes circling a tree, occasionally doubling back on themselves. I’d have suspected it to be injured, except Ris’kin’s senses detected no hint of blood or pain from the badger’s spoor.
Maybe Ket’s right. Maybe we should just turn back.
I was growing increasingly conscious of the fact this wild badger chase was consuming my scouts’ precious stamina, which they would need later for hunting. Longshank’s drained at an even greater rate than the others’ because of the penalties he was still suffering from his missing leg.
But the tracks were growing fresher, which meant we were gaining on our quarry.
Just a little longer…
As Ris’kin ducked beneath a low-hanging branch, I felt a pressure on the edge of her right ear. The squirrel chittered softly, its tiny fingers gripping my avatar’s ear for balance.
The day before, one of the scouts had returned with the corpse of another squirrel, and Gneil had rushed to cover our fuzzy new friend’s eyes. He needn’t have worried. The psychotic little rodent went foraging among the bones—scraped clean by the industrious cooks—and emerged with its prize, chittering excitedly. The unfortunate squirrel had been slightly larger than Furynuts, and the top half of its skull fit his head perfectly, making for a macabre (and presumably intimidating, if you were squirrel-sized) helmet.
Despite his attempt to look fearsome, he had grown surprisingly docile since being provided with other kinds of nuts to eat. He also seemed to be permanently attached to Ris’kin’s right shoulder, as though deliberately guarding what was now her blind side. What was even more surprising was that my avatar allowed it. She really was getting soft.
We both are. Despite my fondness for the nickname, Ket had insisted “Furynuts” was not appropriate, especially given his new calmer disposition. She wanted to name him something more ‘noble,’ and got offended when I laughed at her proposal of “Captain Sycamore.” I’d countered by suggesting “Colonel Kernel.” In the end, we settled on Sir Fura.
The only times I ever saw him and Ris’kin separated were when the little critter scampered off to harass Swift and Cheer. Since he’d joined our party, his nutty missiles—of which he seemed to have an indefinite supply tucked away in his stomach pouch—had helped make sure the two scavengers no longer held up our progress as much as they had before, though that didn’t stop him from continuing to harass them, presumably for fun. After a few more close calls with Cheer’s net-shooter, however, he’d learned to keep his distance while doing it.
He also seemed to enjoy throwing objects at the emberfox, though he limited these to small twigs and balled-up leaves. When his missiles came into contact with the fiery fox’s aura, they would burn and shrivel with a crispy hiss, and the squirrel would clap its tiny hands in delight. Pyra mostly ignored him, though on one occasion she picked up a particularly large twig in her teeth and returned it to him so he could try again.
If only I’d been able to use Evolution. I’d gained the ‘cave bat’ blueprint during my very first week on the job, but never found the opportunity to use it. If I could fiddle
