Blood Shaper

"I'm John, by the way."

Dryth looked to his side and found the other mage holding his hand out. They shook briefly as Dryth introduced himself. "Dryth. Nice to meet you."

"You as well." He gestured over his shoulder, "This is Xin, er, Xinath. Sorry, they don't talk much."

Dryth checked around just to make sure he wasn't missing something. "There's no one behind you."

"What? They-" John whipped around and found empty air. "Dammit, I asked you to tell me when you run off." He turned back to Dryth with a put upon expression. "Sorry, again. You saw my companion earlier, right? That's Xinath."

"Covered in a cloak that makes them impossible to identify? Yeah I noticed."

"They do stand out when they aren't hiding." John admitted. "They're really good at going unnoticed and being the one to take out monsters while I support from the back, though." He nodded at Sindri. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Sindri." Dryth patted the coatl, who continued to sweep the area around them as they walked, looking for threats. They'd agreed as part of their "don't stand out" plan that they weren't going to advertise Sindri's sapience unless it was necessary. Changing the subject Dryth pointed ahead of them at the short woman who was leading the way and reading over the information in the folio while they all walked. "You work with her before?"

"No, this is our first job with her too. I don't know much about her other than what she shared herself, but when Holter was wrangling people to take this job he said she had a bit more experience than my friend and I did and was good at what she does."

John chuckled. "Wow, she didn't introduced herself to you did she? I totally missed that. Her name's Venna. The ranger looking guy is Tobias and he asked us all not to call him Toby. From what I've gathered the four of us are pretty new at being bounty hunters and Venna's been at it for a year or so. The ruin crab we're supposed to be taking care of isn't that big yet so they don't need to sic more experienced or powerful people on it and we've all apparently shown our chops enough that we're being trusted with a more important bounty than our usual fare."

Dryth watched him from the corner of his eye. "That's quite a bit of information you've gathered."

John chuckled and shrugged. "Better to know more than to know less."

"Huh." Dryth checked up ahead of them and from the look of her Venna was still a bit grumpy and probably wasn't interested in answering questions. "So, Holter convinced me to take join you for this job with no notice. What can you tell me about what we're supposed to be doing?"

"Oh, that's not a good idea." He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out. "Hey Venna, come here."

She looked behind her and slowed her pace so that they could catch up. "What's going on?"

"Dryth here doesn't know what the job is."

The faint annoyance in her gaze at being interrupted from her sporadic reading turned into surprise. "You don't?"

"No, I don't. I was taking a different job when Holter ran over and begged me to go so that you'd have a mage with magical damage, but I have no idea what the job is other than fighting a ruin crab and that you need a mage for those. I don't even know what a ruin crab is."

"Well, damn. I'm glad you said something." She looked around till she found Tobias walking along the edge of the road and waved him closer. "John, right? Where's that intense friend of yours?"

"Right here."

Everyone but John jumped in shock at the reply from a quiet, androgynous voice. The cloaked figure of Xinath was just suddenly leaning over him from behind as if they'd been there the whole time.

Venna looked up into the eyes of the much taller person with a frustrated furrow to her brow. "Can you not do that? You almost scared the piss out of me." She scowled and brandished the papers in her hand at everyone. "Our new companion got dragged into this bounty without any information, so lets go over the information we have while we're on the way there and make sure that none of us are missing anything." She checked with each of them with a quick glance. "Right, so the four of use got a quick briefing from Holter but these papers have a bit more detail on the bounty and on ruin crabs in general. Thanks for letting me have these, by the way." She said to Dryth.

He shrugged in response. "They're for all of us, aren't they?"

"Still, I appreciate it. So the bounty itself isn't technically a monster extermination bounty, but we're going to have to kill it anyways. Apparently the ruin crab's shell has a reliquary on it and some noble wans the whatever's inside. That means we technically don't have to kill the crab, but the reality is that there's no way we're getting in it without taking out the crab."

Stolen novel; please report.

"Sorry, there's a reliquary on it's shell?" Dryth asked, "How does that work?"

"Right, ruin crabs." She flipped to the next page in the folio and summarizing the information out loud. "Ruin crabs are a type of monstrous hermit crab, whatever those are, that uses bits of ruins, collapsed buildings, and other older sites of habitation as their shells. They grow larger and larger until they die and they'll continuously grab bits of ruins to add to their shell as they get bigger. So this one apparently showed up and stole a chunk of an old building that this noble was having searched and took the bit that the reliquary he was interested in was in."

"How big is this thing?" Tobias asked with some nerves in his tone. "If it can wear a building it has to be big."

She flipped to another page and showed them all a sketch of what looked like a hill with legs standing at least twenty feet tall. "Big."

"And we're supposed to kill it?"

"It has small eyes." Xinath said in a whisper, "I could sneak onto its back and take what we're after without it ever knowing."

Venna smacked the papers. "This says that isn't possible, which is why we'll have to kill it. Apparently ruin crabs are as possessive of their shells and what's on them as dragons are of their hoards, and they're magically bound to their shells so they can notice if anything goes missing. It'll just chase us down to try and get the contents of the reliquary back and we'll have to fight it anyways."

"It's huge!" Tobias protested, "How are we supposed to kill something like that!?"

"From what I'm seeing here, they're big and bulky but they're not very fast." Venna pointed at several points on the drawing. "They're legs are as coated in stone as the rest of them and the bigger they get the more heavy they become, so it isn't going to be doing any sprints after us. Tailor it as we go, but current plan is to hit and run until we bleed it out." She flipped through a couple more pages and nodded. "Whoever wrote this agrees with me. 'When hunting ruins crabs, the thing to pay attention to is your goal. If you lack overwhelming power or wish to conserve some portion of the crab's shell, it's best to bleed them out over time, striking quickly and retreating out of the crabs range before repeating until death.' Direct quote."

Tobias still looked queasy.

Venna gave him a look. "Look, I was nervous the first time I went against something that much bigger than me, but we've got a team with a good balance of rolls and we're not going into this blind or without a plan. We're going to do fine. And, the money's worth the risk in my opinion."

"It is really good pay." Tobias said with a little more confidence.

"What are we getting paid?" Dryth asked.

Everyone turned to look at him incredulously. "You accepted the job without asking how much you were set to make?" Tobias demanded.

Dryth shrugged and held his hands up in a 'what can you do' gesture. "Holter was really pushing me to accept so that the job could get done fast. I guess the noble who wants the reliquary has some pull. He told me it was good pay and now he owes me a favor."

"A favors something, but money is money. The job as a whole pays 5 gild and we can claim any loot from the crab short of the reliquary itself."

"That is good money." Dryth said after an impressed whistle.

Venna gave him a weird look. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Why'd you whistle like that?"

"Huh? It's an expression of being impressed." He did it again a little slower. "It's like, if someone tells you they just made a ton of money or did big some thing."

"Never heard of that before. Where you from?" She asked.

"Down south, other side of the kingdom basically. My family's from one of the tiny farming villages out that way."

"What are you doing up here in the northern wilderness then?"

"My teacher lives around here, so I stay with him now."

"Huh." She looked at him for a moment more, then shrugged. "Weird turn of events for you, I guess. Anyways, since we're in planning mode lets talk about what we each bring to the table and how we can help each other when we fight the crab." She thumped her chest with a fist. "I'm a Warrior, as basic as it gets. I draw attention, take hits, and dish out damage with my swords. I've got some cards that let me hit harder and some that let me take more hits. Basic, but effective." She looked around expectantly.

Tobias decided to go next. "I'm similar. Just an Archer with nothing really special to mention. I'm good at spotting things and shooting arrows into them."

Xinath was silent and John looked like he was debating what to share so Dryth went next. "I'm Dryth, just in case you two didn't catch my name. I'm a mage with mostly ranged damage spells right now as cards, with a few pure cast support spells that I'm trying to manifest hopefully. Those are mostly for strengthening my partner here," He tapped Sindri once on the head, "And making things lighter so I don't break my legs carrying back monster bodies. My buddy likes to bite things up close and has a ranged attack too." He glanced over at the other pair, who were now quietly debating something. "While they're figuring out what to share, I meant to ask, why do we have to have a mage with magical attacks for ruin crabs?"

"Oh, right." Venna flipped through the papers again to make sure she got it right. "So, they bond with their shells somehow, which lets them know when pieces go missing, but it can also give them different cards apparently. Some ruin crabs get cards that harden their shells against any attacks that don't have a magical component, and we'd need a mage to blast off the bits of shell in the way so we can get to the weak spots."

John took a step forward at that moment with a small frown on his face. "Sorry, there's some details that are..."

Dryth waved off his apology. "That's fine. None of us went into detail about our cards or anything, just give us an overview."

Venna and Tobias nodded in agreement.

"Thanks. I'm a Transmutor Mage and-"

Dryth cut him off with another whistle. "Damn, what are you doing as a bounty hunter? Transmutors can make so much money."

"It's..." He made a complicated expression. "Not giving you the details, but my family situation plus my silver text making my class interesting makes this an easier path for me right now."

"Oh, sorry. That's me too."

"Yeah, so right now I have spells that can change some physical materials and their properties, so I'll be focusing on messing with the surroundings of the monster to give us opportunities and weakening it's shell. Xinath is-"

"Gone again." Venna noted.

John sighed. "Yeah, they do that. They're a stealthy hard hitter though, which sounds like it's perfect for this job. She'll hide somewhere, hit the monster in its blind spot with a lot of hurt all at once, then go hide again."

Venna looked at each of them again with a lot more confidence than she'd had in the yard behind the bounty station. "Sounds like we've got an actual team set up for this exact kind of job. Let's get back to marching. I'm not going to pick getting the job done fast over our safety, but Holter was insisting we be quick, so we can at least make good time to the area the crab's in."

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