From the bottom of my heart, thank you to my p4tr0ns: Morpheaus, and RTB <3 <3 <3
Become a p4tr0n too and read up to FOUR chapters ahead!:
h t t p s : / / w w w . p a t r e o n . c o m / t r a s h w i t h g l a s s e s
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I hadn't noticed before, but all of the tents were made of wolf skin, and were organized in a triangle, with a big fire at the center of the encampment, where the huge carcass of the pig from before was being boiled. Hyber had been kind enough to share his own tent with us that night. But it wasn't time to sleep just yet.
"I'm Spoon, of the Deathbead Clan", the slim man said, proudly as he rested both hands on his hips. "This Clan's cook!"
"Thank you for the food, it's really tasty", I said, nodding at Spoon with a bowl full of the meat stew he prepared.
"Th- Thank you", Ike thanked too.
"I'm Twelve-Ax of the Deathbead Clan, the one responsible to keep this bunch from going all lazy and fat while they're not in action, their training master!", the burly man said, resting a big ax on his shoulder and living up to his name.
"Hy- Hyeah…!", Spruce walked toward us from behind the man, completely drenched in sweat, with his eyes spinning, and fell on the sand of the beach beside the log we used as a bench. "Thank you… for the training...!"
"Are you okay?", I asked the little person, raising one eyebrow up. To answer me, however, he didn't utter a word, but simply raised a thumb up, slowly.
"And…"
"We…"
"Are…"
"The…"
"Boys…"
The five hooded figures completed each other's sentences, sitting by our side in another log.
"Of the Deathbead Clan", they all said in unison.
"Pleasured to meet you", I nodded at them.
"And I'm Lola!", a girl with brown pigtails and bright green eyes waved her hands at us while hugging cloudy. "Same clan as everyone~"
"You don't need to worry about the rest of the idiots", the sleepy boy said from the log before ours, trying to eat and avoid Lola's kisses at the same time. "Because they are just…", as he was still speaking, a commotion erupted in between the other Clan members as two guys stumbled against one another, and spilled their stew on each other. Their demanding voices started to grow louder and louder, until they finally threw their food away, and started to brawl… and soon the fight extended to almost the whole camp with the exception of our little island of tranquility. "…Idiots."
"I… See… Well, and about the dragon skeleton and the thing inside of it…?"
"Right. That", Hyber took a moment to patiently taste his stew, and his clan members around him paid just as much attention as we did. "We discovered it from rumors we heard from fishermen nearby. There's no big secret why we're looking for the stuff, however. It's a very sought-after item, and with it we can buy whatever we want… Including a whole village. A house for our homeless clan", his clanmates all nodded, looking down, all serious. "The damn eel is strong… No, the problem is that we have to fight it underwater, greatly reducing our strength. That's why I asked for your help. Since you came from another adventure yourself, I presume you had to deal with similar issues, no?"
"Uhm, well, we did have to fight with two underwater panthers", I held my chin, thinking to myself.
"Hu? Cool… What else? How was your journey?", Hyber insisted.
"Well, even if you ask me, I don't know exactly what to tell you…"
"Oh! Oh! In that case, listen to some of our stories first, pay attention to them, and then tell your story next!", Lola said, still hugging the clearly uninterested sleepy boy. "Okay, I'll start! U-hum!", she coughed. "…Once upon a time, long, long ago, a little girl named… uhm… Lalo! A girl named Lalo, was looking for the love of her life. So, she went to the strongest man in her village… And beat him! Therefore, she discovered he was too weak to be her lover. Then, she went to the beasts of the wild… And beat the crap out of them! Then, she went to the monsters in the shadows, and wiped the floor with the beings. Then, she went to the bandits of the mountains, and the mountains were safe again. And then! And then, she felt the gentle touch of a boot against her face, she tasted the sweetness of her own blood. She was… in love!", she concluded her story, and tried to kiss Hyber much for his discomfort again. "So, did you understand how to tell a story?"
"Well… more or less? What about you, Ike?", I asked my friend who hadn't passed out on the sand yet.
"Ahm… Uhm… W- Well…"
"…Let me help you with that as well then!", Twelve-Ax volunteered too, putting on a big smile on his face. "About twenty years ago, when I was just a little lad not unlike the three of you, I was a logger for my tribe. But it didn't take long for me to notice that I was good at axing more than just trees, as the woods are a plenty dangerous place by themselves… unfortunately, these dangers didn't come for me, but for my baby daughter. They took her away from me… and so I fell down every single tree in that forest, and every single animal, and every single monster that lived within them with my own ax. Only after my land had turned into an arid desert and my tribe had moved to other greener lands was that I found a new family. Because, alone in the desert I created, I met the Deathbed Clan!"
"I see. I'm getting the feeling of it!"
"Then. It. Is Our. Time", the boys spoke one by one. "In. The. Beginning. Five. Brothers. Not. By. Blood. But. By. Murder. The. Only. Way. Of. Surviving. For. We. Were. The. Undesirable", they pulled their hoods back, and revealed melted flesh, split lips, and asymmetrical faces. Deformities from birth. "Now. We. Are. Many. Brothers. And. Sisters", they smiled the best they could towards the brawl happening around the big pire.
"Okay! Let me try this…", I cleaned my throat.
"Oh, wait! I don't want to be the only one who hasn't told my own story", the cook, Spoon, said with a silly smile on his face. "Well, once, my old Clan found itself stuck in a terrible snowstorm. We ran out of food. But that was inadmissible under MY kitchen supervision. So…", he raised his black leathery shirt, and revealed an almost completely skeletal figure under, simply completely covered in scars. "I removed as much muscle as I could from myself. I fought against the famine. And I won. But my Clan… well, some were too ashamed of what they did. So now I'm a Deathbed."
"Everyone has such incredible, beautiful and chilling stories to tell… I'll give it my best! Alright: there were dangerous flightless birds, and tall canyons, and forests, and caves…"
"Caves…?"
"Yeah, a bunch of them. The birds I mentioned before were using them to ambush their prey, and later we met a clan of people who were camping in another cave, and they lent us a rectangle thing, which we used to open a door inside another cave in the Rock with Wings. And, would you believe it? Inside there were thousands of metal man praying to something! Two of them were even awake, and tried to kill us, but we dealt with them."
"Wow, all of that. Sounds like. It's coming. Straight out of. One of Twelve-Ax's tales", the five boys spoke, completing each other's phrases again.
"They are not just tales! They were all real adventures I lived in before I joined the Clan! I was once the leader of this group, you know?", the burly man dug his ax in the sand, throwing a side glance at the hooded figures. "It seems you all are needing some training with our Spruce friend here, if you're starting to grow disbelief", all the hooded figures looked away, their shoulders slanting down.
"Fuck. We. All. Messed. Up."
"Praying metal men, you said? Could you tell what they were praying to?", Hyber brought the attention back to my story.
"Hm, well, I found something like a temple inside the place, but I didn't really explore it. Maybe there was a shrine there, or something?", I shrugged.
"…I see. Quite an adventure indeed", Hyber closed his eyes, and nodded… except his head didn't bob back up. Did he fell asleep?!
"Now's my chance…!" Lola delicately started to raise Hyber's shirt, when he woke back up, and slapped her hand away.
"Well, let's go to sleep already. Tomorrow, we have an eel to kill."
"Wait. What about you, Hyber? Do you have a story to tell?"
The sleepy boy turned away. Walking to the shadows, he waved his hand, brushing the issue aside.
"Maybe later…"