"Get up Trezlan." Aunt Corli was not the nicest person to wake up to in the morning, her voice combined with the impatient manner in which she was speaking was sub optimal.
"No more training I'm so tired of stabbing training dummies," My training had been going on for months now, everyday I'd wake up Linsk would show me the myriad of ways I'd die for failing to make my move properly and then I'd try again. It was odd, I was training to fight monsters, but Linsk seemed intent on showing me how to defeat people (this would come in handy later, but at the time I recall wondering exactly why I was being trained to kill people, well other then the obvious).
"Get your shit, trainings over you're going on a job," Aunt Corli walked outside and I fumbled with my gear. My room was one of the smaller ones on the first floor of the "inn", it had a small bed stuffed with hay, a little closet (thankfully not big enough for someone to watch me in well aside from a shorty sneaky bastards) where I kept my gear, and a nightstand with an oil lamp on it. My gear consisted of the same hide type armor I'd seen my Aunt wearing, though I'd augmented it with a lighter interior clothing element to cut down on chafing (I chafe easy). I had a pair of swords (everyone in the guild wore at least two weapons, one it looked awesome, two you frequently lost one to a rampaging beast or so I was told), both were arranged so I could grab them with my left hand (despite Linsk yelling at me, I'm still a left handed swordsman it feels right) one was a long thin sword used for dealing with enemies at a distance, and the other was a shorter broader blade for up close work and skinning should the need arise.
I dressed myself in the armor and attached my sheaths and swords hastily running out of my room as I finished buckling my belt, my Aunt was outside the door and barked "Move Move Move" at me. I made my way down the hallway to the outside courtyard where the rest of the guild was assembled. The older vets smiled at me, the kind of "welcome to the team" that my Aunt's group was known for (she put up with a lot, but could not stand any kind of intergroup rivalry). There were six hunters assembeled with me awaiting orders from Corli.
"Ok guys its been a bit since we've had a job and I apologize for the downtime," I'd missed jobs earlier, but it had been over a month since I'd seen them move out, I was starting to worry Corli had suffered some hidden slight from rescuing me, "That's over now, we got a job and it won't be pretty, looks like a pack of Goli is in the area and they have decided local village inhabitants make a good snack, our job is to dissuade them from this idea, understood? Mount up lets get this done." Goli were pack hunters (normally six to nine in a pack), they are spider creatures that tend to wrap up and slowly digest victims as a pack (not as well known to non hunters, typical procedure is to burn the bodies so as to not have their loved ones aware of what happened in the end, well we also burn them because they tend to incubate new goli in the dead bodies, yeah as if being slowly eaten was not insult enough). Normally they are mountain based, but recent mining operations burning them out of caves has forced them to hunt easier prey (once again we create the problems through greed, a lesson that will never be learned, because honestly greed is awesome).
I mounted with the rest and we followed Corli out of base camp, Sal waited at the gate and in something that I would see many times later wished every passing hunter good luck and to come back safe. Corli always lead it seemed, I asked one of the other hunters where we were going and he said he didn't know, and that was standard. She wouldn't want someone showing up in advance and trying to get all the glory and dying (it made sense, guilders were mostly glory hounds who loved the attention). The journey was mostly boring, a couple days ride north we crossed the border into Red Hand lands. A day after that we were approaching the town that I could only assume called for our help when Corli held up a hand and we stopped, the simple joking and talking that had been going on amongst the men stopped with her hand.
"Something seem wrong to any of you?" I was in the rear of the group so I couldn't see what was ahead, but Corli obviously saw something she didn't like.
"I can't see anyone on the streets." Tormino one of my aunts more long term guilders spoke up when no one else said anything.
"You know I've been mulling it over on the ride here, how often do we know an attack is a goli one?" Corli hopped down off her horse and withdrew a telescope to make out the town better from a distance.
"Never normally, people just point out that they've gone missing and get scared, Goli attack during the night and..."
"And the only ones who know they are there are being eaten," Corli spit, "I knew that guy seemed sketchy, dismount boys this is a god damn ambush."
"Who's ambushing us?" I was a bit afraid we were in Red Hand territory, and thought for a moment perhaps they would get revenge for shabastard.
"Hard to tell Trez, Ok boys lets approach this quietly cover formation, Trezlan stay with the horses." A command I would unfortunately grow very used to.
"I can fight Aunt Corli!"
"I know you can Trez, but I need someone trustworthy watching the horses, without them we're out here without a way of leaving in a hurr which we might have to do, so stay with them before I pin your foot to the ground." Aunt Corli was a master negotiator. The other hunters mouthed sorry and gave me a thumbs up as they dismounted withdrew weapons and moved toward the town. The town was pretty large for being in the middle of nowhere, domed roof single story houses were aranged in an ever widening circle on the plain (I was told later that the dome roof is popular for ease of construction and less structural damage from constant rain in the area we were currently in). The area was all flat, no hills at all (another abnormality for Goli, they come from the hills of an area, there weren't any hills for miles around, so no way they could have approached here with ease), I could see in all directions nothing but boring red ground, near the towns outskirts were some kind of crop I couldn't make out, but no feed animals though there were barns. The hunters moved slowly, ranged weapons drawn in a triangle formation with Corli in the middle (I hadn't been trained on any ranged weapon hilariously enough, I figured Linsk was happy I could manage a sword and didn't want to ruin it by having me screw up a bow). I sat down on the road and kicked some rocks (ok so maybe this is the reason I was held back on my first job. I heard shouts from the town ahead, but my attempt at seeing anything came up with nothing, they were too far outside my visual ability.
I was about to sit down again when I felt a vague sense of unease, like walking through a cobweb but in my mind. I drew my long blade and slowly turned around, the horses were way they were before not moving, just slowly braying to each other (probably talking in horse or whatever). I was about to write off my unease on just general loneliness when I hear a small click coming from behind me. I spun with a slash of my long sword and thought I hit air until I heard an ungodly screech and saw part of an insectoid arm flap to the ground. Unfortunately the rest of the creature materialized and I saw that while I cut off one arm it had three more to attack me with. These were not Goli (my aunt had shown me a book of sketches that a hunter had compiled once, Goli were smaller and definately did not walk on two man legs like this one), these were some kind of man spider hybrid, and worse the invisibility I had disrupted was definately magical (the cobweb feeling was that of another magic user nearby). The arm I had sliced off ended in some kind of claw/blade but it still had two very functional hands and another clawblade still attached. Its face was part spider in the eyes and part human in the mouth (the mouth had fangs too many for a normal mouth, extras hang out creepily) I screamed out, but thought better on it since my Aunt and her men were no where nearby. I tried to hack at the other blade arm, but the creature not being surprised by my sudden attack easily parried the blade and sent my sword spiraling away. I went to grab my other sword, but it snatched me by the throat and lifted me in the air. My options slowly diminishing to becoming a corpse I summed up my fire and attempted to throw a palm strike into the creatures face. I once again overcompensated the strike became more of a flaming fist and sank through his head like a hot knife through butter (you never want to know what the inside of a spider creature feels like ever trust me).
I hit my feet with a thump as his corpse crumpled from not having a head (I say he because uhh it looked like a dude). I was no worse for wear from my ordeal, and couldn't feel others (at the time I was worried that I had some kind of creepy spider sense, it would be later I learned of the ability to sense other magic), to hide what I did to the creature I set it on fire (again I feared anyone finding out), it was only after the fact I realized I didn't actually have any implement to set the damn thing on fire. I hoped that if they returned they'd just overlook that, which thankfully they did.
Aunt Corli and her crew arrived covered in black goo hours later. Some of them were wounded (one looked pretty bad), but they had been successful. She was mildly alarmed to see one of them dead when she arrived, but was pretty tired and congratulated me for keeping the horses safe. We made camp outside that town, there was no small talk, the hunters she brought with her had that wild eyed look you get when you see something truely horrible (I've seen it in others but long ago lost the ability to have it myself). It wasn't till the next day I knew the full horror of what was in that town, but that will have to wait. As I'm kinda tired today (again I apologize) you know remembering this particular story calls into relief something I recently dealt with, makes me wonder how many horrors I deal with now I dealt with back then and just forgot.
Oh god am I losing my mind? Nah, I'm just forgetful, hopefully, god I hope I remember I'm forgetful.
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