CHPT 292: Learn from His Mistakes....

Standing at the edge of the field, human feet submerged into the lush green grass sparkled with diamond-like snowflakes. The shadows of the of the encompassing canopy above bathed his hairless frame in shadow, failing to cover up the mess of scarring that marred his inhumanly toned body.

Thicker shadows cast by his deep black flowing locks of hair that now hung past his chest hid his human face completely. Allowing only the predatory glow of reflected light to show from beneath the dark. A reflective glow that matched the shine of the many predators surrounding him until it all just looked like a shifting cloud of fur, claw and muscle.

He was in his human shape once again. A newly made relative term. Sure, he looked human now.....but the Lupines were a progressive race. And the progression was anything but human. Maybe now he looked like an unnaturally fit and scarred eighteen year old. But if he survived long enough, he'd look like something else. Something as inhuman as he truly was.

But, that didn't matter now. Rollan had met the boy beneath the beast. And for this reason....

"This changes many things, you know?"

A simple sentence, that conveyed a dozen messages. A dozen interpretations, a dozen futures.

The way Rollan blindly looked from him to his gruesome handiwork that littered the field. A fluid mixture of wonder, disbelief, and respect, all laid behind a drunken sheen that made Claude wonder if the man wanted to congratulate him or chain him up and send him off somewhere for a fair share of currency.

And then, it was gone. As quickly as it came. With a clap of his hands, sloshing his beverage clumsily, causing bits to land in the burning wooden sculpture beside him. The flames spit out an array of yellow sparks in response as he unflinchingly held the bottle in both hands with a curt smile on his face.

"Anyway! Let's talk current matters, no?"

Claude hesitantly stepped out of the shadows, pointing at his home in the distance. "Let's talk her before anything."

Rollan's eyebrows raised, causing the blindfold to move on his dark cocoa skinned face, "Oh but Monsieur, she is the current matters....at least most of them."

Claude stiffened, "Why? Is she ok?"

Rollan nodded as if considering his words deeply, "Well-- yes. She was well enough to get up at some point as well."

"WHA--....Is she awake now?!" Claude asked, the warmth of adrenaline slicked his joints and deepened his breaths.

Rollan shook his head, "No-- no, Monsieur. She got up, did some damage, and passed out inches from ma maison-- my home, yes. She didn't get far...her injuries were still..ehhh big problem. Something that seems to be old news now, yes."

"....Wait, what do you mean old news?" Claude asked, eager to know more and barely able to stop himself from leaping over the old man and bursting into his home to get the answers himself.

"I will show you, hm? But first, help my clean my home. You're the reason it looks like une guerre fell on this place." He said, pointing a long branch-like finger at Claude.

Claude stepped closer, "Une what?"

Rollan, who was already moving to continue cleaning his home turned to respond, "A war. It looks like a war fell on this place. And yet, here you are...no worse for wear, with more beasts at your back. Well done, jeune-loup. Now help me and then we'll check on your....inhuman girl."

Claude inhaled deeply, working to satiate his nerves over the many turns of events. "Alright, alright. I'm coming." He replied before entering the field and helping the man clean.

***

For the following hour, Claude moved across the field like a true village-farmer in the wild expanse of nature. If farmers were known to chop and drag parts of Demonically infected Monster body parts into a wooden flaming statue.

It was nothing short of a grueling process made somewhat more bearable as Rollan tiredly sang in his native language while the flames of the statue roared and bit away at every new body-part added.

As Rollan continued to sing, the song of the Banshee's fluttered into Claude's mind. He wished more than anything to hear it again. But he couldn't. The Banshee's were gone, but they left him with a skill. Something he remembered part way through carrying three bloody Centaur legs toward the flame.

Right when he was about to throw them in, Rollan interrupted him.

"Woah, woah. Those parts are natural, Monsieur." He yelled from somewhere beside the house.

Claude froze, "What does that mean?"

"Untouched by the desert, you idiot." He replied in his rich french accent.

"Ok, so what do you want me to do to them?" He growled.

"Bring them over to me..."

Claude shrugged off the request. While he moved with the extra hundred plus pounds of monstrous bulk, he opened up his system screen and began reading over the final skill he'd gained during his night of Lunar Madness.

A gift from the Banshee's....although, they were called something else. He couldn't remember though....

***

(Death's Ambiance): A SpiritBorn Skill gifted to survivors of chaos and strife. Users who have witnessed such an excess of death and destruction, that the cry of the Banshee's falls on the users ears as song. The lament of the lifeless is a sound the user is adjusted to-- they can sense it. As a byproduct, through means of contract, saving or choice, a member of the SpiritBorn has gifted you with the ability to focus this sense to the point that you can hear the song of death before it realizes in the mortal plane. Through focus and activation of the Skill, the user can find where death looms...or where it will appear. Death's Ambiance is a skill of many purposes. The user may use it to pinpoint the dangers they desire, or move away from the madness that mingles at their doorstep.

***

"Holy hell.....it's an intuition based sensory skill." Claude said, almost dropping the Centaur legs as he rounded Rollan's home.

"[That's an incredibly powerful skill. I don't know the in's and outs but with this....you could become impervious to ambushes.]"

Claude suddenly remembered the story of how Romulus and his race fell. An ambush that soaked the largest desert on earth in blood before it was twisted by Wild Magic and changed into a forest for some of the most dangerous Monsters. All drawn to the heart of Romulus that pulsed with godly amounts of Wild Magic and who knows what else.

All the work he put in, all the studying all the sacrifice. Only to be ambushed and slain by his brother. He didn't want to go out like that.

"Yea, I hope so." He said as he plopped the Centaur legs down near Rollan.