SFS - Chapter 8 (Patreon)

Getting away from the shrine wasn’t nearly as difficult as getting into it. After I took a long breather and chilled out in a snowdrift, of course. The stairs were just as painful going down as they were going up. More so, even, since they were unevenly cut. I was not looking forward to the return trip.

I hopped up onto the wall surrounding the way up and skirted around it to entirely avoid the market. That put me a bit further south of the outskirts than I would’ve liked. It wasn’t the end of the world—it just felt like it. Especially when I got up onto a building and looked down at the street.

The street, just like everywhere I’d seen so far, was in a state of old chaos. Barricades, battle damage, forgotten corpses buried below the snow—it had the works. From a bird’s eye view, though, I spotted deep prints left in the snow. Something massive moved through here, and it was recent enough the snow hadn’t covered it up yet. 

Based on the size of the print, the creature was gargantuan. It was more angular then what I’d expect of a human foot, but it definitely had five toes like a human. The big toe looked like it was even larger than I was. Granted, that wasn’t saying much.

I looked up and down the street and eyed a group of Ophidian standing around an abandoned cart. Where could something that big even hide? The tracks lead further south, though, so investigating further was out. Not that I wanted to, anyway. The only big monster I’d want to deal with was one made of food. 

I shook my head and climbed across an alley using a beam. The serpent-scent and wind acted as my guides. Anywhere that reeked too strongly, I avoided like the plague. I probably should’ve asked about the mechanisms of the Ophidian blight before I left, but either way I didn’t want to get close.

By the time I approached my destination, my tail stayed low behind me, and my ears twitched toward every gust of wind. A gale swept over the eave above me, and a drift of snow scattered into the air. I let out a breath and slumped down onto the roof. This was one of those multilayered structures with overlapping roofs.

Record. I eyed the map and hunkered down to observe the situation. Old Zhou’s place? The one marked on my map? Yip, there was nothing there. Well, aside from a massive crater. Something had… exploded, maybe. Although it was faint, there was a powder-scent lingering about the area. 

The map wasn’t wrong. I lined myself up with a few landmarks, including two of those Spirit Flame braziers just to be sure. This was the right place. Old Zhou was dead then, yip? Or… maybe not. I should at least take a look around. 

I eyed the surrounding areas and dropped down off the roof onto a half collapsed banner flapping in the wind. The bright characters were stained black and half buried in snow, but I could still make out the proud advertisement for the Phoenix Teahouse. Seeing the little blips of what once was all over the Dragon Vein Village made my heart feel heavy.

I slid off the banner and into a snowdrift on the side of the street. Just like that, I vanished into the white like a ghost. My tail wagged around and covered up the satchel to further cover me up.

My ears twitched around, and I mentally marked the locations of Ophidian based on their labored breathing and clunky steps. I should be clear. I poked my head up out of the snow and looked around. The constant harsh wind caused movement all over the street that caught my eye. Banners and paper lanterns fluttered on the underside of roofs, and the constant flurries of snow made me uncomfortable.

The snow felt good wrapped around my small body, so I stayed in it a bit longer. Just to be safe, naturally. Definitely not like I nodded off while resting on my fluffy tail. That’d just be stupid, yip. Sleeping surrounded by enemies was the peak of courting death.

I burst out of the snow pile and shook out my fur. My tail swayed lightly behind me, and I approached the crater. The powder-scent was even stronger up close. Not as strong as the one that followed that Meilin woman, at least. It was tolerable.

My ears twitched, and I dropped down into the crater itself. A charred wood beam creaked under my paws, and I quickly jumped to a section of fallen tiles from the roof. This place was more than a little eerie. A pungent scent caught my attention, and I lightly dug through the snow—

“Yow!” I jumped back and stared at the face glaring up at the sky. The woman was dead, though it didn’t look like it was by long based on the decomposition scent. I hesitantly pawed at the snow around her corpse and dug her up. 

The woman had scales across her cheeks. Her robe had been torn apart and burned in the explosion, revealing scales running up along her arms as well. They didn’t look like the Ophidian, though. With the blighted, the scales grew out like blobs of chaotic flesh. Hers looked almost intentional? Was there a way of harvesting the blight as a kind of strength enhancement? 

Not to mention a sharp blood-scent clung to her. It stung my nose sharper than anything before. I dropped my nose to her sleeve and picked up dozens of different kinds. They lacked the faint serpent-scent that dead Ophidian had… either she’d killed dozens of people, or she’d been around dozens of deaths.

I shifted a beam off her torso by throwing my entire weight into it, and revealed her belt. An empty sword sheath suggested she might’ve been fighting when the explosion went off. Or, at least, I based that on the fact her dagger was still perfectly sheathed. I pawed around at a small bag—

“Achoo!” A sharp sneeze shook my entire body as I tossed the bag to the side. The sharp scent of herbs from her perfume pouch stung my nose.

If she didn’t carry her important items on her belt, then… her sleeve? I tried to ignore the sensation of my snout brushing against her cold arm and ripped her wide-sleeve open. The pocket on the inside of the sleeve tore, and a small jingling pouch fell to the ground. 

A quick pull of the strap using my teeth later, and the contents spilled out for me to see. It was mostly just bronze pieces and a silver one. There was a token and a weird, sharp needle in it, too.

I casually stuffed the coin purse into my satchel and took a closer look at the other stuff. No idea what the needle was for. The vial on the backside was entirely empty. The token, though, was probably some kind of identification. Zhang Si, huh? How’d you end up like this?

I left the corpse alone and dug around a bit more. Eventually, I found a heavy trail leading away from the destruction. Someone massive ploughed through, and a thick serpent-scent followed him like he was being chased. Old Zhou, maybe? 

Nothing else around the crater stood out to me, so it was as good a trail to follow as any. My nose was sharp enough to follow the serpent-scent. Although I slumped all the scents together, there were subtle tells in each one that stood apart from the others. Even with Ophidian nearby, it was hard to mess up and start following the wrong scent. 

I followed it out into a grungy back alley full of mud, and then out onto the street behind—

Clang!

Something heavy and concussive shattered the chaotic storm for a moment. The snow seemed to pause in the air, and then fell even faster like it was affronted by the fact. My ears flattened to my head, and I took a shaky step back from the noise. It was in the same direction I was headed. What are the odds it's Old Zhou?

I took a deep breath to gather the scent once more and shook my head. Following the trail would be boring, wouldn’t it? I hesitated for a moment and then bounded back up onto the rooftops and moved toward the noise. The fighting didn’t sound far. 

The sounds of a fight were weak, but they guided me better than sight ever could. By the time I neared the source of the noise, the fighting had already almost ground to a halt. I slowed my steps and glanced down toward the street. Flashes of lightning cast long shadows across the place.

A line of black blood marred the snow, and ashy-green scales were scattered around by the dozens across it. The blighted that once walked the street lay on either side of it with chunks missing from their bodies like they’d been slammed with an insane amount of force. The trail abruptly cut to the side where a set of courtyard doors sat knocked off their hinges.

This is so stupid. Why am I still following the signs of an obviously massive monster? Before I could talk myself out of it, I hopped across a narrow alley and stealthily landed on an ornate wall surrounding a courtyard. It was much larger than most I’d seen, and bamboo chutes grew along the fringes of it. A once ornate rock garden lay in complete ruins at the center of the courtyard.

A dozen fresh corpses were scattered around the place. Some were cracked open and split in halves, and some were slammed up against pillars with blood frothing from their pale lips. All had the same scale patterns that the woman back at the crater had.

That wasn’t what caught my eye, though. That honor belonged to the man sitting in the middle of the desecrated rock garden. He might’ve been handsome once. In a different time, in a different place.

Now, his shoulders were wrapped in sharp spines of scale that grew straight from his skin. His ghastly silver-green hair split into a mess across broken armor that clung to him. His arm was entirely reptilian, and the fans of scales sticking out of it quivered slightly.

The creature scratched at his scaled arm and ripped out a chunk of scales growing along a sharp spine. His breath came heavy and labored, and it quickened with the act of self-mutilation. 

“Another hunter.” His voice spilled out low and gravely. There was a certain hiss to it though, almost like a snake. He broke into a coughing fit and held a bone-deep gash on his ribs. He was entirely covered in wounds both big and small.

Me? How does he know I’m here? I slunk back into a pile of snow and held perfectly still. He wasn’t even looking at me, and I’d been quiet this entire way…

A spray of sickly-green scales broke off from his skin and scattered to the ground. His back was still turned to me. “I can smell the fear radiating off of you.”

The monstrous man groaned and forced himself to his feet. A long, snake-like tail whipped around from behind him and grabbed a greatsword that was impaled through a dead man. It ripped the greatsword out in a spray of blood that seemed to linger in the air for a moment too long. 

He lifted his blighted-hand. The scales scattered around the clearing trembled and tore into the sky like a hundred deadly knives. His voice, when he spoke, held a weird note of gentleness to it, though, “you should attack first, junior. It’ll spare me the awkwardness.”

He was Ophidian… but clear headed? Was that possible? Did that bastard scholar know about this before he sent me down here? No—there was no way, yip… I eyed the condition of the blighted warrior. The scaled parts of his body trembled faintly. How clear headed was clear headed?

I glanced around the corpses. From the looks of things, he was just defending himself. Besides, the scent of Old Zhou I picked up at the crafter wafted off of the creat—off the man strongly. It appeared the grotesquely intimidating man was the friend of Zeteoh.

I hesitated for a moment longer and then pushed out of the snowdrift. He already knew I was here, anyway. “Y-yip!”

The man’s head tilted to the side, and the scales hovering like flying knives dropped to the ground. He glanced back, and curiosity flickered through the ruin of his face. Scales had grown out of his eyes, and sharp spines stuck out like horns in every direction. He was entirely blind. “… a fox?”

“Yip!” His guarded posture entirely collapsed, and a wave of confidence surged through me. I wasn’t sure how he noticed me, but it definitely wasn’t scent like his words suggested. Otherwise, he would’ve realized I wasn’t human.

“Interesting.” He slammed the tip of his greatsword into the ground and leaned on it. His heavy labored breaths filled the rock garden once more. “Forgive this old man for not properly greeting a guest.”

“Yip, yip—yip-yip!” I hesitantly drew the bottle of pills from my satchel and tossed it with my mouth. It sailed through the air and landed in a pile of snow to the side of the courtyard.

The man waved a hand, and an array of green scales surrounded the bottle. They dragged the thing back toward his outstretched hand. “A gift—no, this reeks of that old fool. So he’s still alive, huh.”

”Yip.” Unfortunately… no, I shouldn’t say that. Zeteoh had been extremely helpful aside from getting my name entirely wrong. And forcing me out into the cold village. And exposing me to danger—was the scholar even a good guy in the first place?

The scale coated man popped the cork of the bottle and took a breath. “Qi Gathering… He honors me one last time.”

The man broke into a coughing fit once more. This time, when it ended, he popped all of the pills in the bottle. It wasn’t immediate, but he seemed to slowly regain some vitality. 

I dropped down onto a broken bamboo chute and bounced off of it into a pile of snow. I agilely landed on my face, and rolled down to the rock garden like a wet rag. “Kek…”

”You come within paces of a blighted.” The man took a heavy step back and stretched his clawed-blight arm into his other sleeve. The scaled limb shook and twitched like it was resisting his commands. “Either you’re brave, or incredibly foolish, little fox. Which one?”

”Yip!” Brave, of course. My courage knew no bounds, and my cunning matched it. He was amicable so far, too, which helped. Sure, he may look extremely intimidating, but I hadn’t seen any other blighter capable of speech. He wasn’t completely taken over yet.

”The line between the two lays on a knife’s edge—“ The old man broke into a ragged coughing fit. Scales and blood sprung from his throat. “Forgive me.”

”Yip?” The man… death was near. I could clearly discern it. His blood was rancid, and barely a step above the mindless Ophidian I’d seen scrambling around. No—actually, it was harsher. The blight clung to him fiercer than the farmers, but he still somehow remained with his mind.

“I intended this for my disciple.” The man withdrew a weathered manuscript wrapped in cloth and ran a clawed hand along its surface. The scent of age-cracked paper and ancient ink curled around my nose. “The blight took her before I could pass it down. The foolish girl still owed me a bottle of plum wine…”

“Yiiii—” A low whine left my throat. His scent changed subtly. A sorrowful tinge pulled at the back of my nose.

Old Zhou stared at the manuscript for a moment longer and tossed it into the snow just in front of me. “It’s an old technique.”

“Yip!” Then keep it. I can’t even sense Qi, so techniques had little meaning for me. I hadn’t seen or felt a lick of the mysterious thing since Zeteoh mentioned it.

“Better the stranger I don’t know, then the enemy I do.” His tail whipped around and picked up his greatsword once more. He ran a trembling hand along the blade in a slow caress. By the time he reached the tip, his scaled arm was full of vigor once more. “May a brave one such as yourself find use for it.”

I eyed him for a moment and then grabbed the manuscript lightly with my teeth. I caught a glimpse of its title with the motion—the Red Tithe Technique. No idea what that meant, but I stashed it in my satchel anyway.

“Now, begone.” The man waved a hand at me, and an array of scales built themselves into platforms back toward the roof behind me. “More Splicers are undoubtedly on their way… Give the old scholar my thanks for honoring this old warrior one final time.”

Why do people keep asking me to do that? I’m a fox! I can’t speak, and even if I could, I’d be cursing that stooge out! I didn’t say that, though. I couldn’t. Not just because of my, um, limitations, but also because of the way the man stood.

I could see it in his eye—err, in his posture. His back was straightened as much as it could be, and he stood like a proud warrior once more. This was likely going to be his final battle, and he knew it. Still, he planned to face it without fleeing. The Qi Gathering pills gave him one last leg to walk on, and he planned to use it fighting the enemy every step.

I took a breath and forced myself to climb the back up to the roof. I could respect his resolute wish. It was better to die in one last glorious fight than to be consumed by the blight. Part of me wanted to stick around and help, but I knew just as well as he did how that would end. A weak fox such as myself had no place here. 

As I headed back west toward the Ancient Shrine with a heavy heart, I could hear intense fighting break out behind me. I would remember the name of the Splicers.

— — —

AN: Have I talked about their sense of smell? Bloodhounds, dogs specifically well-suited for scenting, have 300 million olfactory nerves, or whatever they’re called. They’re, like, the apex of tamed canine noses. Even a different breed of dog can detect a human’s illness from scent alone, though, and can distinguish the blood of one person from another based on micro hormonal balances. 

They’re really incredible, and specialized dogs do all sorts of things from helping find people buried in rubble as disaster relief to finding corpses buried under feet of snow after an avalanche. Of course, there’s also the drug dogs and hunting dogs that are much more known. 

As you probably noticed, that wasn’t about foxes. Snow foxes have a much more acute sense of smell than dogs, and a larger part of their brain dedicated to processing scents than tamed breeds. They can detect a carcass left by a polar bear from up to twenty five miles away, and pick up prey even through blankets of snow.

I, uh, probably won’t have Snow’s senses that good? Hearing and sense of smell will be high, ‘course, but it's hard for me to process the extent of that and get it written into a story. I do want to lean on natural capabilities more, though. Especially for this first arc. I feel like most writers completely skip what animals are good at IRL when writing since they’re too focused on the fantastical side. I like sun summoning solar serpents as much as the next person, but it’s a bit of a bummer.

I’m also gonna run out of fox facts at some point. I might swap to something else, or it might just be the end of these post chapter notes. I haven’t decided yet. I’m just having fun and messing around with SFS so far. Also, I’m still trying to figure out the fox speech, so you might see it change around quite a bit. I’ve gotten a few down that I really like. Kinda reminds of when I first started writing Aylin’s speech, in a way.