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Chapter 15

Bounty

In the end, I had to have Osmund, one of the crew, translate, after all of the warriors had been assembled on deck.

“Diamond Jaek Hoarfrost assures me that each of you can fight like ten men.”

Generally, they seemed pleased and agreed with that.

“Five men can slay six spiders of my size per day. Roughly one spider a day. Therefore, I am expecting each of you to kill no fewer than one such spider every hour of work or so.”

.....

They were less pleased with that.

Osmund listened, and said: “Jangard there asks how they are to kill that many spiders when they are certain to be cowardly and stop coming.”

“I was under the impression from Jaek that I had hired Norvik. Warriors. Hunters. True, some will have to remain behind to guard the villagers. That sad duty will be rotated through the warriors. The rest of us will be scouring the mountainside, seeking out and removing our enemies at their source.”

“Solovid and her sister want to know about antivenoms.”

“We do have a single case of antivenom, purchased from a Neonen trader. If we need more, we can make it on the island.”

Using people. Over time. And I trusted the particular trader as far as I could throw his case.

“In short, Jaek has convinced me that expecting this much performance even out of Norvik warriors while ignoring the lesser spiders is a mistake.”

I sat down cross-legged in the manner of the Norvik, and explained to them how we would deal with the swarms of small spiders with fire, and how the spiders of a thumbnail to a handspan were worth a tin coin each, those larger than that but smaller than my arm were worth a copper, and those from longer than an arm to my size worth a silver.

I explained how I would be there to see each kill, and would be fighting among them.

And, again, assured them that if they truly fought with the strength of ten men, that their earnings would easy eclipse even the gold piece a day that they had been promised.

Later in the day, Jaek the negotiation hero miraculously appeared with Elkenmoor to partake of lunch snacks.

“I see how you’re looking at him.” Gamilla said. “If you want that he should unfortunately die during the hunt, I can make that happen.”

“Tempting, but no.” I said. “I’m willing to see if he’s given us what he says he has.”

Bosun Smythe’s voice boomed out. “Man-fish sighted! Man-fish to the port! Open nets! Offboard the cattle!”

Oh, I should mention that the fishing nets from behind the ship had been drawn up to the deck. While not full to the brim, there were fish, and the bounty of both sea and land was offered to the men-fish for safe passage.

“Boarders to port!”

“Boarders to starboard!”

“Prepare to repel boarders!”

Or, you know, they could decide to attack us anyway.

#

Ten gold coins. A fat, healthy, well-fed cow costs ten golden coins.

For safe passage, it was worth it.

For this crap? I was livid.

“Turn down MY peace offering? Yearrgh!” Or some words like that.

The man-fish HYRKLed at us, a wave of sound beneath what we could hear, that carried the one command FEAR US.

The crew was cast into disarray, and our casualties were countless, and then...

[Successful Willpower resistance. You have earned 1XP for Willpower. After divisor, 1XP has been granted.]

Our casualties were three, but they had gained both sides of the deck, and were moving toward both fore and aft castles.

“Protect the sea-witch! Protect the captaine!” Bosun Smythe boomed out.

They were scary, and their Might was about 4, but they were clumsy out of water.

“Beware!” Jeanne warned. “There are tainted among them!”

Well, we were engaged in melee, and there was no time to look for mutations. What did a mutated man-fish look like, anyway?

Of course, I stepped on a drop of tainted blood at some point during the battle.

[One point of physical taint has been encountered. After sin armor, zero points of physical taint have been accrued. You are 0% of your physical taint capacity. You are 0% of your mental taint capacity. You are 0% of your aural taint capacity.]

Geez, just a few drops of blood? No wonder people worried about taint, if it was that strong.

There was no second wave, but there was also no retreat, no surrender, no slacking. Twelve crew members fell to kill fifteen men-fish.

About two thirds of them were female, and two were tainted. These two were pushed overboard with swabs, and the swabs that came in contact with their blood were likewise cast overboard. Those areas of the deck were scoured clean and swabbed again.

I managed to get a bite of one of the others. Ick.

And their fear attack wasn’t an evolution.

There were two of note, De-Calcified Pineal Gland and Open Third Eye that required it. There were vague notes that these made psionic powers more accessible, but no details.

The biomass required for unlock was only fifty and one hundred twenty, respectively, but they required an impressive number of oils and amino acids. Fish, eggs, and beans.

It wasn’t even a whole lot of servings of fish.

Whatever. If it helped to unlock even one psionic class, that was another ten percent closer to completing Path of the Polymath.

So I started on De-Calcified Pineal Gland, and was a little irked to find that it had a two week timer attached. How calcified could my internal organs be? And yes, I know better now.

It took two days, mostly due to the southern wind, which we had to tack against, weaving first one way and then another.

Narces and I were in the first longboat, to ensure all bags and supplies were unloaded properly, and Kismet with Gamilla in the last.

As agreed, the Sharkbite sailed off to the north after depositing the last of us on shore.

#

There was only the one spider inside the village wall, and two others where warriors could chase them down.

The villagers seemed eager to get new supplies, and the warriors were eager to clear out spiders for them.

There was a hole in the garden, filled with tiny spiders. It took two vials of the Black Blood to burn them out.

We rotated the night watch, with Kismet and I taking the midnight shift. Some sort of Norvik superstition, that the worst of supernatural creatures were active in the hour before and after.

And then, we went upriver, burning and slaying spiders as we went. But there were too many spiders that night to get good sleep, so we relented and returned to the village.

And the same the next day.

We stayed there a night and the next day, intending to set out at night.

The spiders were waiting for that. They swarmed.

We never saw the Child, but their presence was obvious. There were more spiders, and they were more aggressive.

We lost Fenri and Oxglove, and no fewer than half of our people were down with spider bites. As I had feared, the antivenom we had purchased wasn’t fresh, and was far less effective than we had hoped.

Oh, and the spear-bearers got all kinds of reckless with the Black Blood, and set the jungle afire. The natives came out to keep that away from their foraging grounds, but they weren’t happy about it.

“Almost.” Miss Turner said.

“Almost what?” I asked.

“The fire almost made it up to a cave I want to explore. It’s not deep, and I won’t need access long.”

With part of the jungle cleared, we made better progress the next day, but again had to turn back.

“If we do a forced march to the cave, we can use it as our base, and range over the mountain.” Miss Turner said.

“And if we use just half our supplies of the Blood, we can get a controlled burn going here, and go up the south slope.” Jaek proposed.

“We’ve encountered a number of swarms.” I said. “Let’s not expend any more of the Blood than we must.”

But they swarmed that night as well, keeping us outside the jungle. By the coins Gamilla and I had given out, the spiders might just have the numbers to overbear us.

Worse, the natives weren’t willing to help us make antivenom. I had some resistance to toxins, so it was just safer to use me.

I would be poisoned down to ten health or so, and left to recover, drained of blood until my health was about there, and then Purify Blood used to extract the antitoxin.

This process took about a week per dose.

During the day, we cleared spiders from the village and the foraging grounds. At night, we fought while we could, and then fell back inside the village huts.

On our tenth day there, the Tiburon showed up to take us back north to Boadicea’s Girdle.

.....

Jaek, the Norvik, and the islanders all considered this a success; between one and two hundred spiders had been slain, and countless swarms of newborn spiders had been burned.

The rest of us knew that our work was mostly undone, but there was no more time.

#