Chapter 50

They set out without too much planning except to go south, where the latest pukwudgies had been seen. Even so, there had been a brief discussion about what to look out for. The established greatest threats were, in ascending order, pukwudgie ambushes, mountain lion ambushes, large numbers of recklessly charging anything, especially javelinas, a wendigo, then anything that had overcome the barrier to level 10. Though nobody had seen anything even especially close to that benchmark, they could instinctively understand how terrible it could be to encounter something so far beyond their capabilities. It wasn't long before they agreed to get moving before night actually fell.

The sun hadn't quite gotten to the point of setting behind the mountains, but dark wasn't too far off. Even so, with so many people who had gained at least their first additional Skill around, the group was confident in doing something to the monsters that surrounded their current home. Even so, they walked carefully, Zig and Stanton calling warnings for the slightest suspicious thing in their surroundings. The Acolytes, TJ had learned, were the best Class for scouting. All Acolytes' Perception growth was +2 per level, and if they had an Occupation, as both Zig and Stanton did, they would gain additional Racial levels and whatever other attributes they could.

When he'd finally gotten around to asking, TJ learned that a Bloodline provided, beyond any additional attributes gained at the time of Integration, two additional attribute points upon every Racial level acquired. For him, it was Vitality and Fixation, while he'd learned that for Stanton (after an unnecessarily long period of asking) it was Strength and Agility. Zig, from her Bloodline of Brigid the Celtic goddess, gained Wisdom and Perception. TJ hadn't yet found a purpose for the Wisdom attribute, but Zig said that her Occupation's, Huntmaster, base Skill gave a bonus to the damage dealt in proportion to her Wisdom attribute. Supposedly, it was negligible at this point, but what that would mean and do long term wasn't lost on him.

Regardless of what each person's newest Skills may be in the party, TJ felt secure in their vengeful endeavor. The fact that they called it vengeful was important, he supposed, since Seth had vowed to avenge the loss of Peter's eye and could thus feel where the guilty party was, in a general sense.

"I just know it's that way." The skinny man said, pointing. "How far or if it's moving or anything, I don't know. But it's there." His hand didn't waver, though it shifted slightly as they all stood still.

"Want to start there?" TJ asked. "We can see if we recover that Lifebloom too, while we're at it."

Stanton didn't even deign to grunt in response, merely turning to look at TJ before his grey eyebrow rose in a disbelieving denial.

"The hell's a Lifebloom?" Zig asked, though she only watched their surroundings.

"We're not sure." TJ responded. "Just that it was a magical plant of some sort, and the pukwudgies stole it when they nearly killed Stanton."

"Then we'll find it and see if it'll help everyone who's hurt." Zig declared. The rest of the hunting party made various sounds of approval, and TJ refocused himself on the forest. Shrouded by trees at least 50 feet tall, the shadows were long and everyone's breaths fogged the chilling air. Some shivered lightly, but it was obvious that everyone there wearing ill-fitting or insufficient winter clothes had gained enough levels and Vitality to, if not be unbothered by the moderate southern winter, at least ok. TJ's feet in the mostly destroyed moccasins stepped cautiously, the crackling of dead pine needles underfoot accompanying their passage.

"Incoming, above!" Zig shouted as she loosed a shot without taking more than a quarter of a second to draw, aim, and fire. A pukwudgie corpse dropped, arrow in its eye, but the ambushers were far from done. A hail of spears fell, at least as many as there were hunters on the ground.

"I got it!" TJ shouted as, without activating Diving Transformation, he swirled a 15 foot wide weak vortex into being above them with Wind Manipulation. Though most didn't come all the way to where he'd anticipated, each spear was pulled from its intended target and instead struck either completely harmlessly against the ground, or merely glanced off of the shoulders of the hunters. TJ celebrated to himself as he saw that his MP was reduced only by 28 instead of if he'd forced every spear to come to him with the Copper tiered Skill after activating Divine Transformation, as that would have exhausted at least double that.

The hunters all leapt into action, with the exception of Angelo, the Disciple with a Zealot dedicated to protecting him. Skills blazed into being, javelins, arrows, bullets, and more shredded through each pukwudgie they could see. None of the Zealots seemed to have Skills dedicated to any sort of ranged combat, but there were plenty of things to throw. The hail of things flying to the pukwudgies quickly knocked many of the creatures out of the trees, and TJ led the charge to kill those that had fallen. The flurry of kill notifications went unheeded, TJ seeing more than just those he'd directly participated in.

Overhead, the few pukwudgies that survived tried to flee. Only one was able to escape the final volley, its screaming warning its fellows of the hunters' hostile presence. When the fourteen bodies sprawled on the ground were confirmed dead by the System, TJ checked the notifications to see whatever classification each pukwudgie had. Ranging from level 4 to 6, the latest pukwudgies were nothing he hadn't seen, and it was no surprise that there were no mentioned riders or the more melee focused types.

"Anything else?" Zig asked, her own eyes focused on their surroundings.

"No." Charlie confirmed. "It looks like it was just an opportunity they saw and decided to seize. Nothing on the ground that I can see, and no more enemies approaching."

Stanton grunted his agreement as he held his hand to Suzie, the gun glowing a faint blue as his MP created and chambered more bullets.

"Good job on slowing that initial attack." Charlie said as he walked up to TJ. "How much MP did it take, though?"

"Less than 30, so less than 10%. More like a twelfth of my total."

"Good. Keeping people preemptively healthy when we've only got the one Disciple is key, even if we do have Stanton here to help as well."

Zig's command cut through the quiet sounds of the more idle chatting.

"Listen up! Who's lost at least 10% of their HP?"

Nobody responded, though TJ wondered if one of the Zealots was lying, a faint red stain coloring the shoulder of his armor.

"Great. We're moving forward, let me know if you drop below 50% of MP, HP, or Stamina. This isn't some desperate, last ditch activity where we'll need to sacrifice ourselves, so don't you even dream of keeping it hidden, however you're feeling. I'm not letting this be some zombie B-movie where a moron gets themselves dead because they're not talking." As Zig finished her little spiel, she made eye contact with the same Zealot who TJ'd mentally noted. The man, to his credit, didn't seem fazed at her words, and TJ supposed it was possible that the cut looked worse than it seemed.

"We keep following me?" Seth asked, his vision tunneled on the pukwudgie he'd sworn vengeance on.

"Yeah." Zig said after looking around the group. Her red hair seemed almost to glow in the dying light of sunset and she led the group from the center of the massed body of hunters. TJ considered activating Divine Transformation, but he needed to trust in the people surrounding him. Traveling in the group still somewhat grated on him, needing to worry about everyone else's safety as he worried about himself, but TJ reminded himself that he needed only to look out for himself for now. Whether he himself actually believed that statement was something he refused to fully confront himself about.

The hunters continued forward, their path clear enough under Seth's guidance that nobody questioned when the path veered to the right, deeper into the forest and away from cabins and roads and even game trails.

"How far will we go before we decide to go back home, even if we find nothing?" Farid asked.

"Three hundred yards at most." Stanton directly answered. "We can't be out here in true dark. It's their territory and we'll be SOL if we're stumbling through bushes during an ambush."

Nobody disagreed with the old man's stance, and the group decided to go only a set distance further. Thrice in that distance, a pair of coyotes lunged out of the brush and snapped with slavering jaws at the humans, but there was never any true threat. In retrospect, TJ realized they'd been lulled into a false sense of security. There hadn't been any true threats, and so they'd begun to believe that there wouldn't be any creatures intelligent enough to sacrifice some of their number to draw them further in.

When they'd nearly reached the point where they'd decided was the point of no trespassing, the wendigo appeared. Its eerie jaw gaped in a laugh, and the pained gasping of air through its teeth set TJ on edge.

"You. Come. Feed. Me."

Without any further words, the wendigo lunged towards the hunting party. TJ Appraised it, and had to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat.

Wendigo, 7

The level had been increased by two, and though TJ couldn't say exactly what that would mean for this individual, it wasn't good.

"Stronger than the one I killed last night!" He called. The chorus of acknowledgement was interrupted by the sound of claws tearing through metal with a discorant shriek. As Connor hoisted up his shield, the wendigo easily tore through the Zealot's shield's magically reinforced material. With a hiss of pain, it took less than a second before Connor pulled back and shouted to the rest of the party, "Burned me! Ice on my shield!"

TJ rushed to engage the creature, but quickly realized he was just about the worst person to have do so right now. He had no armor beyond what his body and Divine Transformation offered him, and he'd quickly learned that the chill of a wendigo's claws easily bypassed his Toughness. For now, though it was painful for them, it was better to pit the wendigo's attacks against the Zealots' protection that wasn't merely their bodies. Just as he considered utilizing the whole of his MP to create a blade of wind to weaken or even kill the wendigo outright, a shuffle of sound in the nearby bushes reminded him of the other aspect of what made a wendigo so dangerous.

Three pukwudgies mounted on coyotes approached, their spears held high, and behind the wendigo, five more pukwudgies materialized.

Pukwudgie, 7

Coyote, 6

Pukwudgie, 6

Counting the wendigo, the two groups were matched in numbers, and TJ wasn't confident in matching up in quality. The wendigo's voice, somehow sounding wet despite its desiccated nature, laughed out again, and TJ's Wind Manipulation seemed to scream that even the monster's mere voice was a desecration to life itself.

"Feed. Good. Taste. Good."

Without another word, the entire gathered host of enemies rushed forward, and there was no chance open to the hunters except to stand and fight. The idea of fleeing appealed to everyone, it seemed, but they'd have to sacrifice several of their companions to do so. TJ nearly did, but Stanton stepped forward and shouldered him towards the pukwudgies.

"Time to get to work."

Cursing his cowardice, TJ did just that.

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