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New world, runes
Another assessor adorning the houses asides from the bright lanterns I later just learned were fuelled by beast fat, were strange pale glowing runes. They were only obvious at night, as the moonlight shone in the same colour. These runes were probably also produced with parts of the monsters, no wonder the village could prosper without proper farmland, the products of the hunt would sell for much. At first I thought it was pure superstition, but apparently runes were the only form of magic humans were allowed to wield, explaining how the hunters took down the monsters even we had troubles with. I would like to learn more, but Leonard told me, that the knowledge was only passed down from master to apprentice, and you could forget about getting runes without being either part of the community or with a giant ton of money.
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A day, or rather moon circle happened in a timeframe of 30 hours. The Moon went straight from one side over our head and vanished on the other, as such one could conclude that we were right on the path the moon took in this world. As such there was always light for 15 hours and darkness for just as long.
To measure the time I used my trusted pocket watch.
Although not equipped with the latest technology, it was a gift from my mentor and precise as well as reliable.
The thing never broke and would still work under the most extreme of conditions.
Snapping out of my thoughts i sped up a bit, not to fall behind Leonard. We were currently walking up a stairway towards the second floor of the building we last met the man.
There we were greeted with what I can only assume to be an office room.
The man we wanted to meet sat behind a big wooden desk, looking at the skull of some strange creature. Aside from a large window behind him the room was adorned with similar skulls of different sizes and shape. I even noticed one three times as large as an adult human, and fitted with abnormal looking teeth.
It was probably meant to intimidate whoever stood here, but it only served to ignite my curiosity. What if we could let such creatures fight for us, they would make for excellent foot soldiers. Well or they would eat up so many resources, that or we could just build a few tanks.
Looking back at the man, revealed that he was just as curious about us as I was about him.
„I am the leader of the hunters, I guess you want to talk about the trade?"
„So before we talk about that, I would like to inquire what you have to offer us by helping with your problem."
Always take the initiative, or eventually something will ruin even your best plans.
I could see the man smiling, it was probably within his expectations.
„I do not believe that you went here all the way from the highland, just so that you can end up somewhere as worn down as this place. So where do you want to go, maybe we can help you get there?"
Leonard nodded to me, I would need to finish what I began.
„You see we are on our way to the port city, but the situation is quite tense isn't it?"
„Hahah" the Boss burster into a fit of laughter "do you really think that the brave man keep, the biggest and only harbour in the entire region would suffer from such small events. Keep dreaming."
Hmm I would need to ask my companion about the city later, it seemed more important than I speculated, even thinking about the sunlight I saw back on the road terrifies me, and if there were people with even more might at the city, we would need to be careful.. But it did not matter right now, we would need to arrive first.
„So I suppose you could help us?"
He nodded.
„just leave that to me, you only have to slay beasts. I presume you would like to form your own team?"
I stayed silent and waited for him to continue. As my teacher always said, do not trust anything you don't have under contract especially if it is something dear to you.
„Good I take that as a yes, so look here"
He took out a hand drawn leather map. I presume it was quite expensive, if you could even get it for money. The village we were currently in is situated right in the middle, on a slim patch of grassland that spanned between the river and the forest we arrived from. Depicted on the forest were various beast and natural resources like mushrooms and edible plants. It seemed that this is the lifeblood of the village, the accumulated experience of the hunters exploring the forest to earn a living.
The man pointed at a spot quit far in the forest. Judging by its position relative to the road on the map it was probably the spot the light shone down the other day.
„This is were the main operation will take place. We have nothing to do with that, even if we could help, the worship would not take it kindly for a human to do what they think is a sacred task. You know with us humans too low to do them."
He then used his finger to mark the surrounding beasts on the map.
„Our duty is to clear out the near beasts. I don't know why and strictly speaking I don't care and neither should you. We will just do what they told us."
He then pointed at a spot near the edge of the forest. It depicted a beast similar to the one I saw at my first night outside the bubble.
„As you might know these apes are normally not much of a problem as there are rather territorial. They have nothing valuable on them either so we usually let them live, as they prevent mor aggressive species from living near our village. As they aren't much of a thread when one is careful, I will let you handle it. They are also easy to get to so your lacking knowledge of the area won't hinder you too much."
He looked at us.
„Any questions?"
Surprising me Leonardo finally decided to speak.
„How many are there, and do you have any suggestions?"
Nodding the boss replied. On his face was the hint of a smile.
„There should be around twelve of them, and they live in caves they dug out of a big rock. What you might not expect is that despite their appearance they eat both meat and plants. Usually everything that they can find. Well also corpses so you can often find them on battlefields. You may have encountered them before?"
Ha, I couldn't suppress a small chuckle.
„You call them rather peaceful?"
„Yes," he replied"they are aggressive when you encounter them alone or on small groups, wandering. But that is the interesting thing about them, once settled down they become peaceful. But don't be deceived, despite they're almost human appearance, they are unable to use any weapons or tools, they are still monsters after all."
Concluding the discussion we moved on to the trade. Well I had no experience whatsoever regarding this, as I didn't even know the local currencies. But from the sincere smiles at both parties faces, the discussion couldn't be too bad.
In the end we managed to sell almost everything. Leonardo was quit happy as the Food we managed to acquire was allot less heavy than the weapons.
The night was spent inside a community room of the large Building, as the Boss kindly offered us to sleep there.
The next day, was spent almost entirely inside to prepare and rest. There was actually not that much to do, since we were both always on the edge, and had our weapons on standby. One day the stress would kill me.
1 hour after moon set.
„Hey Leonard, what are the weapons you favour?"
He turned his head to me and looked at me strangely. We were currently inside sleeping bags, if you can call it like this. The one he had looked more like a bag for vegetables.
„You do realise that I want to sleep right now and you could have asked that question literally any other time of the day, do you?"
Well you could say that I forgot.
„It does not matter right now, the question is important."
Leonard sighted and moved his body up.
„Obviously I use daggers and throwing weapons most of the time. They are good at spreading the curse, Iam proficient in them and they are easy to hide and transport. Against humans, and that is were most of the threads come from, one in the throat does the job."
Once I heard this I stood up and rummaged through my backpack to find the two army knifes I packed. Usually I would use them to cut vegetables and fruit, but considering that they were made of a special alloy consisting of the best humanity has ever put together they deserved a little more appreciation.
Then why wasn't I using them? I was abysmal bad at using slope close combat weapons.
Once I found them, I tossed them into Leonard's bag and went to sleep again. There was no need to start another conversation and let the experience be any more awkward.