“Couldn’t you just give us the directions?” I said. “How it looks like and stuff?”
Abhat sighed.
“There is no other way.”
Chapter 23
Abhat told us that the tree was one with a very wide trunk and it had leaves that had a strong smell which was not very pleasing to the nose. He also told us that it was relatively easy to collect the resin from the tree by making cuts on it with a sword. The fluid would flow out and then it could be collected in jars.
So it happened that early the next morning, the three of us left Abhat’s home. Abhat for his shift, and us for the tree.
Abhat told us that he would try talking to the guards about his plans. He hoped they would side with him.
For hours Junaki and I prowled the forest. We found trees with wide trunks, but the leaves were large and they barely had any scent. We also found trees that had small leaves and a strong foul smell, but the trunks were way too lean.
Noon arrived, Junaki and I ate some fruits that Junaki knew to be edible and we rested. We resumed searching the forest. The tree we were after was rare without a doubt. We were careful not to cross over to the Dogmen side of the region though there were times when we spotted dogmen in the distance in their villages going about their daily chores.
And then the sun set. Our spirits were low and I slumped down against a tree, tired as I was. Junaki looked pale as well.
“Do you think we’ll ever find the tree?” I asked Junaki. I had barely any hope left in me.
“I think we should return to the village,” Junaki said, also devoid of hope.
“But I don’t want to tell Abhat we failed to find the tree,” I said.
At that moment, a hoot filled the air. A continues hoot that kept going for at least ten minutes. Our curiosity was piqued. We followed the sound. And lo! Within a matter of minutes we reached a tree— one with a broad trunk and small leaves. And damn the smell. It stung my nose and made me want to retch. The sound was coming from within the tree. The darkness falling somehow made the tree look ominous. It didn’t help that the tree had a large hole at a point higher up in its trunk, which gave it the appearance of an eye.
“That is the tree,” Junaki said, “it fits the description well.”
“But Abhat never told us the tree makes any sound,” I said, for the hooting sound was only continuing.
And then a strange thing happened.
From the hole atop the tree a blast of fire came out. It was a very brief blast of fire and so it didn’t harm the tree.
Junaki gasped, while my own heart thundered in my chest.
“I reckon Abhat didn’t tell us a few things about the tree,” I said.
As we watched in our fear, paralysed to the spot by the weird tree, a clawed forelimb protruded out from the hole. It belonged to an animal, and it explained the fire immediately. The notification that popped up in my vision helped as well.
New quest available!
Defeat the monster of the fire tree!
Rewards: You receive the Blast spell!
Note: This quest does not conflict with any of your previous quests.
“The blast spell?” I said. It sure sounded cool, and without much thought I immediately accepted the quest as the animal’s head peeked out of the hole. In a matter of seconds the entire animal had come out of the hole in the tree. I reckoned most of the trunk of the tree was hollow otherwise there was no way an animal of such a great size could have stayed inside the tree trunk.
The animal was reptilian in appearance, scales covering its body that glittered in the moonlight. It’s eyes seemed to glow purple. And its body was long like a snake’s. But its limbs were also long. Imagine a very long lizard with long limbs that enabled it to stand up like a mammal.
I rummaged in my bag and drew out my own sword and gave one of the swords we had bought from Tali to Junaki. I enabled the Human Hands spell and so did Junaki.
“So we are killing that thing?” she asked me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then so be it,” Junaki said with determination.
“Use both the sword and your spells,” I told her.
The animal had noticed us and now it approached. It opened its mouth. A blast of fire shot towards us. Both of us leapt in opposite directions, the fire barely missing us. The bush where the fire hit was incinerated immediately. I reckoned the fire tree resisted fire so it hadn’t been harmed earlier unlike the poor bush.
Junaki threw paralysis on the beast. It froze but I knew it wouldn’t be so for long. I leapt into the air and delivered a blow on the snout of the monster. I raised my hands for a second blow, but the spell ended, instead a blast of fire came my way. Everything turned orange in my vision. A hand grabbed my tail and pulled, so that the fire could only touch my whiskers. Junaki had saved me!
I beat out the flames on my whiskers. Damn, the monster was going to pay for that. Nobody messes with a cat’s whiskers!
As the monster turned towards the two of us again, I realised there was no way we could kill the monster by attacking its tail. We needed to attack it from behind.
The monster though large and aggressive was sluggish in its movements at best.
“I have a plan,” I said to Junaki, “but first let’s back away for a minute.”
We turned on our heels and raced a short distance away from the monster. The monster didn’t follow us. Apparently its main intention was to protect its dwelling: the fire tree. It just kept circling the fire tree, sending off random blasts of fire in any direction that pleased it, in the process setting a ring of fire in the bushes and trees that surrounded it. Thankfully it had rained yesterday, so most of the plants were somewhat damp as the sun hadn’t been very hard today either. The fire thankfully didn’t spread and become a raging forest fire.
Junaki and I took a moment to catch our breaths.
“So what plan do you have?” Junaki asked me, panting. “We need to kill the animal by all means if we want the resin.”
“Junaki, could you distract the animal for a while?” I said to her, “I will get behind it and attack its head in the meantime.”
Junaki glanced at the beast still circling its tree, then she nodded.
“Okay, let’s do it, but be careful not to let yourself be seen by the monster.”
So it happened that this time Junaki approached the beast from one side and I approached it from a different direction.
Junaki was the first to go close to it, grabbing the attention of the monster. I meanwhile snuck up to it from behind. One advantage of being a cat is that we can be super quiet. However, by the time I had reached close enough to the reptilian devil Junaki was having a hard time dodging the many blasts of fire that the monster kept sending at her. And then the worst possible thing happened. A twig cracked under my foot, creating a rather loud noise. The monster was about to turn. I was not in a position to back away. I leapt onto the back of the monster.
The monster began to lash its tail violently in a bid to hit me. I dug my claws onto the back of the monster and tried my best not to be thrown off its back, for if that happened the monster would turn its vile mouth at me and roast me alive.
I somehow progressed towards the monster’s head. Junaki meanwhile kept teasing the monster from the front. And with great difficulty I reached the neck of the monster. It shook its head rapidly and there were many times when it’s whip like tail nearly had me, missing me by mere inches and making a whooshing sound as it passed by me. I took in a breath to calm my nerves. I lifted my sword high.
I let out a yell and buried my sword into the neck of the animal. It out a cry and for a moment struggled frantically, blood spurting out uncontrollably from its neck. I knew if I hit it a couple more times it would die.
I removed my sword from the monster’s neck, so that more blood spurted from the deep wound. I raised my sword, hoping to kill the monster swiftly. Instead, a sharp force hit my back, such that I felt like a sword had penetrate
d it, and I was thrown off the monster and landed roughly on the ground.
You have been hit!
You receive -76 health!
It was with only sheer will power that I pushed myself up again. My back felt like it was on fire. Apparently the monster had hit me with its tail. I saw to my horror as Junaki stumbled and fell as she came towards me.
The monster sluggishly approached her. It opened its mouth wide. The moment seemed to freeze.
But no fire erupted from the mouth of the monster. Instead it fell on its knees in a limp manner and its eyes closed. My eyes fell on the spot on its neck where I had buried my sword earlier. The entire back of the monster was covered in blood.
Junaki turned towards me, the horror in her eyes slowly fading, as she realised she would live. I managed a meek smile. Damn, that had been a close call!
A message popped up in my vision.
Quest completed!
Congratulations! You have defeated the fire monster!
You receive a new spell: Blast
Beware: The blast spell is one that harms the user though it causes much more harm to those in the immediate vicinity of the user. You are advised to use this spell only during times when you have no other option left to save your life.
Well, the blast spell did look more complicated and came with strings attached. But anyway, I reckoned it was better to have the spell than to not have it. Besides, we could now take all the resins from the tree that we wanted. The fires that the monster had spread in the surrounding had died out by now, and the moonlight was the only light source available now. Thankfully we were cats and the dark was no enemy of ours. The moonlight had a very calm and soothing feel to it felt nice after the near death experience that Junaki and I had just had.
And then, a familiar feeling of well being suddenly took over my body. I felt like I was flying as I enjoyed the sensation.
Congratulations!
You level up!
Now that was cool, wasn’t it? I checked my stats and saw that my health and stamina levels had all increased much to my pleasure. And then a third notification popped up.
Congratulations!
You receive a new spell: Paralysis
Simply point at an opponent and say “Freeze” to paralyse them. Note: the spell uses considerable mana. Also, if you throw the spell at multiple opponents at once, they would remain paralysed for only a short while.
Whoots! Two new spells!
I leapt into the air in my joy.
“You levelled up?” Junaki asked. I nodded like a kid who had just been given a toy he had been dreaming for long.
“And I have two new spells now!”
The two of us then got to collecting the resins. It was relatively easy to make cuts on the trunk of the stem, such that resin flowed out in thick globs that we collected in the jars hat I had brought in my bag. We had to continuously keep making cuts as the resins stopped coming out of a certain cut within minutes. The tepid odour of the tree about which we had almost forgotten when we had been engaged with battling the fire monster, that now lay dead on the ground, now hit us hard such that we were barely able to breathe. It took us about a couple of hours to fill up all the jars that we had brought along. The night was maturing, and we finally decided that we should return to the village.
“Took you long,” Abhat said, who had been at the gate.
“For what purpose did they go,” one of the guards asked, who had a rather elongated face and was quite tall.
Abhat dropped his voice.
“To collect the resin of the fire tree.”
The guard’s eyes widened a bit.
“I have heard of a fire monster being sighted recently.”
Abhat slapped his forehead.
“Gosh! How did I forget to warn you about the fire monster?” He lamented.
“No worries,” I said with pride, “we killed it.”
Both Abhat’s and the guard’s mouths fell open.
“So you collected the resin?” the guard asked.
“Of course, quite a large quantity of it.”
“That’s nice, I am Herim by the way,” the guard said, extending an arm. I shook it and so did Junaki.
Abhat patted Herim’s shoulder.
“Herim’s a good friend of mine.”
“If you need any help regarding the inevitable fight that the village must face, I am there for you,” Herim said. “You should have told all this to me earlier, Abhat.”
“Well, you know everything now,” Abhat said, “I will tell all my friends about it, but one at a time. I have already told about it to a few others and they assisted me in getting the money for the swords.”
“Be careful though,” Herim said with a nod of warning, “especially when you tell about it to the villagers who are related to Jurim our chieftain. They might tell him about it, and you don’t know how he would react. Guy is crazy, not a trace of his father is in him. He’s going to get us all killed someday.”
“But we can’t allow that to happen, right?” Abhat said, “We need to fend for ourselves. Leaders are not always right.”
“Aye, those are true words,” Herim agreed.
***
General Information
Name
Kitty
Level
3
Sex
Male
Race
Cat
Health
225
Mana
73
Strength
28
Stamina
27
Luck
30
***
Chapter 24
The next day we stayed at home. We still required to gather as many herbs and other medicinal plants so as to be able to treat the injured when the attack happened. But for that we would require Abhat to go to the forest with us and he still had a day of duty at the gate. Instead, we stayed at Abhat’s home. When he came for breakfast the following morning, he told us the initial part of the procedure to prepare explosives from the resins.
It was a pretty straight forward process. The resin that we had brought yesterday had already dried into a flake-like substance. All that we were needed to do was crush it and turn it into powder form. This powder Abhat told us he would give to a trusted friend of his, who could convert it into bombs in a short period of time.
It was late night when Abhat returned. Junaki and I had prepared the dinner, and the moment he was done eating, he took the jars containing the crushed powders and immediately set off for his friend’s place. I couldn’t help but be overcome with a sense of respect for Abhat. He really was giving his best to protect the village.
The next day the three of us went to the forest for the third time. We gathered herbs. I realised that my knowledge about herbs was non-existent compared to that of Abhat. Even Junaki knew a lot about herb lore, though Abhat knew more about the herbs that were indigenous to the region.
There were herbs and other medicinal plants of all kinds: herbs to stop bleeding, to relieve one of pain and so on. The entire day we spent collecting herbs and it was only once the sun had set that we returned to the village.
A surprise awaited us at the village gate.
The chieftain was there, along with quite a crowd of villagers. Jurim had an expression of intense anger pasted on his chubby face. They were all waiting for us. With much hesitation we approached them.
Jurim let out a chuckle of mockery at us.
“So here come the three protectors of Duarga!” he said.
“Please, chief,” Abhat said, “I can explain—”
“Shut up!” Jurim yelled. “I know now the reason why you let those two stay in your home. The three of you are conspiring to break war between the dogmen and our village all over again, aren’t you?”
“You don’t understand,” Abhat said, and the tone of humility that he had earlier possessed seemed to have left as though he no longer cared that he was talking to the chiefta
in of the village.
“I understand everything,” Jurim said, “much thanks to my nephew who got wind of what you were doing from a contact of his,” Jurim patted a younger looking cat standing beside him, who seemed to swell with pride.
I reckoned not all of Abhat’s friends were as trustworthy as he had thought them to be.
“I am sorry chief,” a villager spoke up, and I saw that it was Herim the guard, “but I do not see anything wrong in arming our village. Abhat is not trying to attack the dogmen and spark a war, instead all he wants to do is protect the village.”
Jurim eyed Herim like he wanted to murder him at the spot.
“So now you are teaching me how to rule this village, eh—”
But before Jurim could complete his sentence his nephew did a strange thing. He pushed Jurim with such force, that Jurim fell to the ground. I heard a whooshing sound a couple of feet away and the next thing I knew was that the nephew had been hit by an arrow, right at his chest.
Everyone gasped.
Jurim scrambled to his nephew’s side as tears poured down his eyes.
“Uncle,” the nephew croaked with the last breath still left in him, “I think they are right.”
All movement ceased the nephew’s body. He was dead, his listless eyes staring at Jurim. I whirled at the spot. In the distance I could see dogmen archers, swordsmen and what not. More arrows came.
“Run!” I yelled. I grabbed Junaki’s arm and pulled her inside the village, ignoring everyone else. If she was hurt in any way I would forever be filled with guilt.
But the others heeded me as well and fled from the village gate.
“Dogmen are attacking!” I yelled at the villagers whom I came across as I sped towards Abhat’s house. Immediately panic spread. Seeing Jurim in tears even as he ran probably heightened the fears among the villagers.
Catheroes Page 13