Chapter 53

TJ happily allowed anyone else to tell the tale of the hunt and everything that transpired. He was tired, and only halfway through the return journey to the town had he finally been cured of the damned Frostbite affliction. Even so, the chill persisted in his bones. Though the attack he'd sustained that pierced completely through his body was almost cauterized by the chill of the wendigo's frost, TJ felt his own blood slowly seep down his side. He found a couple of rags to staunch the bleeding on each side of his body. As he pulled his shirt down and tried to tie the rags in a way so as to press down on the wounds as best as he could manage, Stanton ambled up, his plate in hand.

"I want some vegetables already." TJ joked as he tried to adjust to sitting comfortably while his whole body ached.

"Don't expect it. Unless we find something out there, we're protein heavy until someone figures out how to grow food."

"Damn. Never thought I'd miss a salad."

Stanton merely grunted as they both tucked into the javelina meat that was already getting to be nauseating after just one day of eating it with every meal. They ate while the residents that hadn't gone on the hunt watched the rendition, completely enamored with Zig's retelling of their journey and struggles. She took desperate bites between sentences, inhaling the meat after just one or two chews. It was quite impressive, if TJ was to admit it. After a particularly enthusiastic bite, TJ groaned and settled back into his chair while gingerly cradling his aggravated wounds.

"You need to get that healed." The old cowboy scoffed as he looked at TJ's bloodstained shirt and shoddily wrapped injuries.

"I know. It's no rush though. Others have got it worse."

Stanton obviously disagreed and grunted.

"Fine. You want to take me out into the cold and heal me up? Are there any trees nearby that can offer enough of their lives to get me all healthy?"

"Quit your snark, kid. I'm too damn tired to deal with it."

TJ grinned and stopped talking. Zig's enthusiastic retelling of their journey had just revealed the wendigo's trap and, though the result was obvious, given the wendigo's dead body and there being no dead hunters, the fiery-headed woman was a good enough storyteller that a chorus of gasps erupted as she declared, "They'd prepared for us!"

"We need to talk to Laura about all this." TJ spoke just above a whisper to Stanton. He just looked at TJ in response, waiting for an explanation.

"Today shows we can't just treat this like a merry hunt to go on every day. They're learning what we're doing and adapting to it, and we'll need to change something or else we'll have too many casualties to sustain real growth."

"What do you think we should do, Mr. Smarty?"

"I dunno. It just needs to change somehow."

"Well, kid, you can talk about problems all day long. If you don't have anything to do about the problems, you're just complaining. If you want to talk to Laura about this problem, you need to bring some ideas to the table. No need to stress her out with something she can't control."

"I don't want to have to do all that. I just want to see Junior. I'm not made for being in charge of people like this anyways."

Stanton's jovial face shifted. A hard scowl filled his wrinkled face, and he spoke in a deadly serious tone. "Once we get out of here, you can talk about 'not made for this' or 'don't wanna' that. You decided to make the good decision of forcing hundreds of people out of their comfort zones and into battle zones. You've gone out and proven yourself as, if not the absolute premiere fighter in this Tutorial, then at least the top five. Now, you've gotta live with the fact that people are going to take your words seriously. If you walk up to Laura and say that we're in deep water and you have no pail to start bailing out the water, then more people will be convinced we're on a sinking ship. 

"You made yourself the representation of people who have adapted themselves to this hell. Everyone will follow your lead, so you can't just walk around and start saying 'woe is me' or they'll do the same."

"I don't want the responsibility." TJ knew he was whining, but he couldn't help himself. 

"Once upon a time, I might have said that's what makes you a good person to have it. Don't think that any more, but even so, you've got the authority whether you like it or not. Gotta do something with it."

TJ grumbled as he took another bite of his tough javelina pork chop. After a minute's thought, he answered Stanton's unspoken question. "Yeah, I'll think about it tonight. I have a lot to do until then, so maybe I can figure some sort of a solution out by morning."

"I bet Laura's going to want a meeting with everyone who went out tonight."

"And she can have it with everyone else. I'm going to try to process the rest of the wendigo claws and horns tonight. If I'm out on the front lines all day every day, I'm going to need to make things some time. You take care of it. Or literally anyone else." 

Stanton bowed with a grunting laugh, a certain twinkle in his eye that made TJ miss his gramps. The little levity drained what little unjustified anger remained in TJ as he finished off his meal and pushed back from his seat. He hadn't been paying attention to the story, but eyes flew to him as Zig continued her retelling.

"Things were looking grim as the monster ate its own companion!" Gasps rang through the audience. "It was restored to full health, and its foul magics returned! As fog filtered through the air, chilling everyone within 100 feet, we all wondered if we were going to die. Well, all of us except for the valiant TJ! Without a thought for his own safety, he threw himself at the wendigo! Scales clattered and bones creaked as he sacrificed his own health to tie the beast down for just another minute, just another second. It roared and lifted Connor's body to shield itself as it dealt a killing blow to TJ. Yet, here he still stands, unwilling to accept death as a possible outcome! Though he was pierced all the way through, he continued to hold the monster still, keep it from approaching the weakened Acolytes hiding behind. 

"It sought to strike him again, perhaps a truly fatal blow. How could he survive? He'd never let it go and compromise the safety of his friends. Caught between a rock and a hard place, the decision was made for our valiant hero. Charlie rushed in, ax held high and with a mighty blow, halted the deadly strike. The wendigo screeched in agony, unable to believe our continued efforts, and as…" 

TJ stopped paying attention, instead walking to Penny, who sat nearby, enraptured by the story. He tapped her shoulder and she jumped, startled.

"Oh, TJ! She's such a good storyteller I almost believe her. There's no way it was quite the way she's telling it, though, is there?"

"There's some embellishment." TJ nodded. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Course, honey."

"Would you heal me? I think I'll be ok, but I might have some bacteria or whatever that needs some help."

"You really were hit by the bony devil?"

TJ raised his shirt, showing the bloodied rags. 

"Oh, why on earth didn't you say anything? You needed attention the moment you got here!" Granny Penny didn't keep her voice down at all, and began getting attention from others around them. TJ tried to point at Zig, to get them to continue to listen to her story, but as they saw him there, sporting wounds to support her story, the whispers grew and exploded. 

The storytelling Zig quickly realized what was happening and jumped into the distraction. "So selfless is he that he let all the rest be healed before him! Someone, is there someone that can heal our poor TJ?"

He shot the redheaded woman a glare, which she returned with a toothy grin. The witch knew what she was doing, and was enjoying it. A couple people, Disciples he was sure, approached with concerned looks. Penny was the first to lay her hands on him and TJ fought to suppress a grimace. A wash of healing energy flooded through him, and once she was exhausted, Granny Penny stepped back. The next, Jordan and Rebekkah, the Disciples from his first hunt that morning, both laid a hand on his shoulders, and more healing flooded his body. More and more hands touched him, and once TJ saw that his HP was full, he raised both hands and spun in a gentle circle. 

"That's enough. I'm good. Thank you." He raised his shirt and pulled away the bloodied rags to display his healed, if still filthy, skin. "Enjoy your night, but I need some rest. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

TJ didn't wait to hear a response before walking out the firehouse. The crowd continued speculating about something or other, but, too uncomfortable with the hero worship, TJ merely grabbed the wendigo's corpse and dragged it back towards the home he and Stanton were currently living in. The darkness of the night was a welcome change, and TJ felt he finally wasn't being dissected by hundreds of eyes. As he walked, the chorus of night creatures lulled him from his worries. An owl called, and though it was too cold for the crickets to sing, the movement of something small through the brush both set his mind at ease and made it race wildly. It couldn't be an enemy or something, right?

He forced himself to calm down, instead making his way home as quickly as he could manage. The Javelina hides were still outside curing, and TJ dropped the wendigo corpse by the door before gathering them all up to hand again inside. Then, his first task complete, he turned to the real purpose of his work for tonight. To say nothing of the new corpse he'd just lugged home, the materials left over from the first wendigo still remained, nine fingers and one whole horn. Nearly a foot of curved horn remained of the other, the point coming to a wicked spike. TJ saw the possibility immediately and, after stoking a fire in the fireplace in the center of the house, settled down to carve.

Though he knew that he could use Wind Manipulation to cut the horn into his desired shape, TJ didn't want to influence the material any more than he already had. Instead, he painstakingly cut the horn into a nine inch-long pick. Then, realizing he didn't have a haft for the weapon he was creating, TJ looked down at the first wendigo's body. It didn't stink, strangely enough, but even so, TJ wanted to deal with it faster than the newer one and dispose of the body. Thus, with a less disturbed stomach than he'd expected, TJ cut the bones of the wendigo's arms and legs free. When he looked at the flayed body, though, TJ knew he was done. There might have been more materials that he could salvage, but at this point, it was too gruesome. 

Taking one of the bones from the wendigo's forearm, TJ cut and drilled a hole until he'd fashioned one big enough to have the wendigo's bone serve as a haft to the war pick. After hammering the bone into the socket he'd carved, TJ finally cut a small section of one of the horn offcuts into a long thin wedge. He drove it into the top of the haft, making it snugly fit into the haft and making sure the head wouldn't fly off so easily. 

Having done so, TJ felt that he'd nearly reached level 9 in Savage with this latest endeavor and looked at the rest of his grisly materials laid out in the living room. There was still so much left to do, and TJ was sure he could get at least one more level that night if he tried hard enough. He refused to check the description of the weapon he'd created, instead choosing to check the results of everything he did at the same time.

With a sigh, TJ rolled back his sleeves, rolled his neck, and rolled on to the next item he wanted to try to build.