Wraithwood Botanist

B2 - Chapter 29 - Do the Right Thing

Aiden emerged from the river to find hell breaking loose on shore. Mira and Kline were on the ground, and both had black ooze coming off their fur and arms. He wasn’t a doctor, but that wasn’t natural, and it made him freak out.

"Mira!" Aiden grabbed a container from Mira’s palette of tools, filled it with water, and splashed it on them. The black ooze on both of them boiled for a moment before dripping off their skin, and both groaned.

"Mira! Kline..." Aiden dropped to the ground, checking in on them.

Meanwhile, the beasts continued to ram into the barrier, making visible cracks.

"Shit..." He got up with shaky legs and picked up the enchanted axe and faced the barrier. Only then could he understand what they were saying. They weren’t refined enough to speak the language, as they never had a need, but he could understand them loud and clear, and what he heard was bone-chilling.

Nothing.

He heard nothing.

Simple, primal rage. A desire to kill after Kline’s challenge. Only that, nothing more.

There would be no reasoning with these creatures. The only thing these creatures, specifically, would understand was raw force.

Aiden laughed internally, reminding himself that he had only ever worked with domesticated animals. Zoo animals, pets, trained performers... he didn’t work with wild animals. He had seen them on Safaris and trips through the Amazon. He had gone bird watching in the Ozarks and saw the buffalos in Yellowstone—but he hadn’t talked to any of the wild animals. He hadn’t connected to them, had a conversation, or petted them. Just like everyone else, he just watched them pass.

Domesticated creatures were socialized. They were trained and adapted to working and communicating with humans.

Elionis had contracts with humans. Halten was chained to humans. Aiden’s pets, which he had barely gotten to see since coming to Dranami, had lived most of their lives with him.

Things were different here.

And even if they weren’t—

—he didn’t have a choice but to fight them.

He was in their world, living by their rules.

Aiden lifted up the axe like a baseball bat. "You’re lucky I don’t know how to swing this thing!" he roared at the attacking beasts. "’Cause if I did, I’d fuck you up!"

The beasts snarled and snorted and rushed forward, crashing harder.

Mira and Kline got up weakly. The cat stumbled to its feet, and Mira grabbed her head with both hands as the creature beat the barrier.

They were weak, but they were still in the fight. Aiden just needed to hold the beasts off until they recovered.

The barrier webbed with cracks, creating light blue lines up the darker blue barrier.

Three... two... one...

Howls suddenly erupted from the forest, and three-tailed lurvines—the same species of Skia, the demigod Aiden had made a deal with, but vastly larger—came to meet Kline’s challenge. They rushed off the mountain with their arctic fur, charging like united moose as they jumped into the fray.

The glarhans turned and rushed at them, creating a 1980s-style gang fight where two sides rushed at each other with baseball bats and the intention of giving each other brain damage.

Aiden lowered his axe in a daze as two sets of creatures that had never met each other or communicated started ripping each other to shreds without the slightest need to hunt—

—and felt dazed by their mismatch.

The lurvine breathed blue fire that didn’t affect the forest floor, but it bounced off the glarhan’s skin. It only hurt when it hit their eyes, and that only made the blinded beast shoot into a frenzy. It was uncomfortable and terrible to watch.

"Ignore them," Mira said. She unclipped her backpack and pulled out a container with cores. She walked up to the ward and looked inside with a frown.

With a deep breath, she blew out gray ash.

"We overestimated this thing." She grabbed a massive handful of cores, tens of millions of hawks in value, and threw them inside. Then she grabbed another handful and a third, she packed in about two hundred cores before it wouldn’t take anymore and sighed as she shut it.

The battle outside raged on, but she looked unconcerned as she went to the river and drank.

Kline walked over to her, and she brought him water with her cupped hands, and he lapped it up.

The battle raged on.

These people are crazy... Aiden thought, contrasting their calm demeanors and the wolves and glarhans ripping each other apart. They’re actually crazy.

But they were alive.

A few minutes later, Mira and Kline went to the barrier’s edge and watched the battle. "Just a little longer," Mira said.

Kline nodded and watched on.

Ten minutes later, when all the beasts were injured, Mira picked up Kline and melted through the barrier. Once they exited, all the beasts turned to them—

—and the real slaughter followed.

It was all Kline, and for the first time, Aiden could see what was happening. Or, rather, he couldn’t. Kline disappeared, and beasts just started dying without rhyme or reason, sometimes twenty feet from one another. He was moving so fast he would’ve sworn he could teleport.

"Elle," Aiden said as he watched. The little pixie was still on his shoulder, looking at her nails.

"Yeah?"

"What’s happening? Actually... don’t answer that question." He felt a deep pang of anxiety just by asking.

The lurvine’s nose scrunched in, his eyes narrowed, and he moved his legs even though his body was giving up. That creature is a warrior—don’t you dare compare yourself to him.

I will be, too once I thread your entire packs’ cores and hit the river. I’ll have a pure second evolution core by the end of the month.

The lurvine snarled at him.

But... That could be you, couldn’t it?

The lurvine calmed down.

I mean... we have hundreds of cores and access to the river. If we gave ’em to you, couldn’t you max your purity and evolve?

The lurvine’s bloodshot eyes glanced at the bear and then back at Aiden.

A week and a non-aggression pact, Aiden said. I’ll let your family live and give you cores and river water. Do the right thing.

2.

Elana watched as Aiden moved from wolf to wolf, nudging its family members as Aiden walked to each with Diktyo water and spoke to them. Even once he healed them, they didn’t attack.

"Told you..." Kori’s lips curved into a smile as he took another shot of his amber poison.

"Are you ever gonna put that down?" Elana sneered.

"Of course not," Kori said. "Hapsel’s really outdone himself and I can tell..." He took a shot and exhaled with red cheeks. "That he’s really trying to kill me. How could I deny such dedication."

Elana scoffed and turned back to the screen, where Mira had exited the barrier and started staring down the wolves as Aiden translated the things they were saying.

"Just admit it... he’s useful," Kori said, lounging on the couch. "Well, not now... but... soon."

"Why’re you so confident?"

He smiled as he stared at the ceiling. "’Cause while you’ve been obsessin’ over your star pupil, I’ve been watchin’ Aiden."

"Why?"

"’Cause they were gonna cross paths... ’ventually."

"And?"

"That’s it."

"No. What was he like?"

"Huh... let me see. Socially pathetic... Talent wise, he’s a natural at beast taming but mediocre to inept at almost everything else, especially talking to—"

"But?"

"I think that he loves animals from the bottom of his heart, and that’s never gonna change... but not nearly as innocent as he looks. These last three months... they’ve fucked ’em up."

Elana frowned. "Speak."

"What do you want me to say? He’s had enough. Kid’s been drugged and kidnapped and introduced to all sorts of shady shit..." Kori laughed and raised his bottle of poison and then let it drop, ’drunk’ to the point he could barely focus. "And he’s done with it."

"Reasons, Kori. Why do you think that?"

"Why... Okay. Well... that kid can’t make small talk to save his life. Keeps to himself. Never gets into fights... but. One night, I watched the kid rock back a glass and hit the dice table. He won a bag and went straight to a contract lawyer to read his binding. And judging’ by the way the lawyer team’s been workin’, looks like they’ve found something. My guess... and this is only a guess, but... I’m known for good ones..."

Elana scoffed.

"My guess... is that sneaky Claustra kid negotiated a contract with a kill switch... and Aiden found it."

Elana narrowed her eyes. "I’m listening."

"What? That’s all. I don’t know what’s goin’ on with that. The Claustra’s deal in secrets. They’re iron-clad."

"Oh? Aren’t you gonna guess? You’re known for good ones."

"Now she wants guesses..." he mumbled, turning to her with bleary eyes. "Here’s what I think. I think he’s gotta kill switch, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. But I think... that’s he a wee bit vindictive. Annnnnnnnd he’s gonna wait... and play dumb... and..." He cleared his throat drunkenly. "The minute he gets the chance to leave... he’ll keep stayin’... and waitin’... and bidin’ him time till the ideal moment to fuck them all over... and he’ll do it. He’ll snatch up his pets and hit the jungle, you best believe."

Kori laughed and fell onto the couch with a bounce. "And now..." he chuckled, followed by breaking into giggles. "I think... he found his way out. Oh... I can’t wait until he gets right the fuck out of there... and returns. It’s gonna be a shit show."

Elana frowned. "What about Mira? He dangerous?"

"Huh? Everyone’s dangerous. It’s a matter of the type. And that kid... he’ll be spillin’ her secrets. Doubt he got that core and all that trainin’ for nothi’. But otherwise... Nah... she’s alright. Aiden’s... what we aaaaaaall wish we could... go back to."

"Go to sleep."

He did and Elana huffed and rolled her eyes. She silently commented on how ridiculous it was that a god would leave himself so defenseless after so many millennia, then felt a deep emotion from it. She helped him out of his boots, laid him flat, and gave him a blanket. Then, she grabbed the bottle and thought about chucking it, but instead put it on the table and went to bed, thinking about Mira and Aiden and the whole damn forest.

3.

Aiden walked up to the barrier with seven lurvines, all healed and regular size again, looking at Mira’s half-illuminated face beside the cooking fire.

"Good work," she said.

"It’s not over yet," Aiden said with a nervous, chuckling smile. "If you don’t give ’em all the glarhan cores, I’ll kinda sorta die."