WWotWW - Chapter 35 - Tracks (Patreon)

“Mow!” Kaylee yowled as I jumped off Nightmare. 

“I know we need to get out of here, but I need to know which direction Clara and the girls went first!” I yelled back at her. “I have no idea where Play’s shelter is, and if we flee in a random direction I may not be able to find it on my own. There’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to find my way back to this area after we leave either, so it’s now or never.”

“Murrrrrrrrr….” Kaylee growled.

“Yes! Even if it means risking another encounter with more empowered undead,” I hissed back at her. “And before you ask: Yes, I did have to get off Nightmare. Miasma is pretty much concentrated malice in magical form, so if I didn’t get down there was a chance it would have tried to distort my perception and get us to head in the wrong direction. I needed to get down and confirm what I’m seeing is real.”

“Mup,” she pouted.

“I know you don’t like it, but I’ll be quick,” I replied as I crouched down to look for tracks. 

Thankfully, it looked like nothing had passed through this area in quite a while because of the miasma, so I didn’t need to try and figure out which trail belonged to the wildlife and which belonged to Clara and the girls. That didn’t mean the search was easy. 

The miasma constantly shifted. Roiling in some places and settling down and becoming so thick it was opaque in others. There was more than one occasion where I thought I’d discovered the right trail, only to discover that when I crouched down and ran my fingers across the forest floor, there was an undisturbed area underneath. 

“You mother… I don’t have time for this,” I growled, flicking my hands in irritation and sending out a short burst of magic. The wave quickly spread out, consuming the dark magic out to about twenty feet in front of me before finally fading. As soon as it did, the miasma came pouring back into the area.

“Meow?” Kaylee asked.

“I didn’t do that before because it doesn’t really solve anything,” I grumbled. “Magic is resonant, so as long as there are zombies around, the local magic will naturally become miasma, and as long as there’s miasma, anything that dies in this area will turn into a zombie. In order to clear up this fell, you’d need a team to stay here for a couple of weeks, constantly monitoring the area to clean this up. I just did that because I was frustrated and wanted to blow off some steam.”

After pushing myself to my feet, I rubbed my hands against my pants to clean them before turning back towards the cat. “Well, at least I didn’t think it’d solve anything anyway. It turns out when I cleared that patch of ground, I spotted the trail, so as soon as I confirm it, we’ll be out of here,” I said.

Kaylee rolled her eyes, then turned and strutted to the back of my saddle to settle down on my bedroll. 

I trotted over to where I’d spotted the trail, double-checked to make sure it was real, then stepped back to Nightmare and jumped up into the saddle. “It’s a good thing there’s a tiny bit of light left; otherwise, I’d have to make a coin flip and hope that we went in the right direction,” I told Kaylee. “Wouldn’t that have been embarrassing? Riding all the way back to the pass without realizing it?”

Kaylee huffed but didn’t reply, so I turned Nightmare in the direction of the tracks and urged her forward. With the light about the fail we couldn’t travel too quickly, so I cautiously directed her between the narrow tree trunks while trying to keep track of the trail and wairily watching out for signs of trouble. Even though my skirmish with the empowered zombie had been brief, I had expected some of the other undead to come investigate the gunshots.

I found the fact that nothing had a little unsettling. Either something had slowly been clearing the creatures out, which was possible if the tribe had more than one guardian spirit, or the remaining zombies had already spread out far enough that they were unable to respond to the gunshots.

I knew which situation I liked, based upon what I’d seen; a couple of spirits should have had no problem clearing out a couple of minor undead; however, the way the guardian had acted back at camp gave me pause. It honestly looked like it had been afraid of that zombie. Or more precisely, what had come out of it.

I lifted my hat a couple inches and ruffled my hair in frustration. “Nothing about this makes sense,” I muttered. “This was supposed to be an easy escort mission and now we’re dealing with a missing tribe, zombies, miasma, and who knows what else. Why can’t anything ever be simple.”

“Mow,” Kaylee muttered.

“I do not complicate things!” I replied defensively. “At least, not intentionally. I mean, I didn’t know any of this was going to happen before we left. If I had I would have prepared better.”

“Merrow,” Kaylee replied.

“Okay, yes, the fact that the tribes guardian spirit was running around hunting for a single girl around the coven should have been an indiciation that something funky was going on, but as far as I’m concerned that’s level of complications is fairly normal these days,” I said.

Kaylee let out a sigh and rested a paw against my back.

I was quiet for a minute. “Alright. I admit that what I consider ‘normal’ these days may be a little skewed; however, I think this goes even beyond my expectations,” I said. “This is NOT normal.”

“Mur?” Kaylee asked.

“Ideas about what’s going on? I have one, but I have no idea how realistic it is,” I replied. “I’m only familiar with one group of antagonistic supremacists in the area, and that’s Graves. The problem is I have no idea why they’d go to so much trouble, or what they’d get out of it. There could also be some sort of cult, diabloist coven, or occultist enclave in the area that I’m just not aware of… I just don’t have enough information. I’ll have to ask Clara and Plays once we find them again.”

“Mow,” Kaylee huffed.

“No, not if, when. Now that I’ve located the trail I’m confident enough in my tracking skills that I’m sure I can follow it to the others. At least, until the light holds out,” I said.

“Muuur?” Kaylee asked.

“If the sun sets before we find them we might be in trouble,” I admitted. “Bumbling around in the dark with undead wandering around in the dark without any wards sounds like a recipe for disaster. However, I doubt Clara would have taken the girls too far ahead without me. She knows better than to get separated.”

“Merrrow,” Kaylee said.

“I hope,” I muttered, repeating what she said.

We rode on for a couple more minutes before I finally spotted a spot of light between the trees. “Ah, see? I told you I’d find them,” I told my familiar. 

“Mer?” she asked, jumping up to my shoulder.

“No, I wasn’t worried, not even a little,” I replied.

“Have you really been casually riding through the forest arguing with your familiar while we’ve been here worrying about you?” Clara asked. “What took you so long anyways?”

“I got turned around during the fight and had to track down your trail again,” I replied. “The miasma made things difficult.”

“Did you run into anymore of those monsters?” Mary asked.

“No, just the one,” I replied. “Did you?”

The girl slowly shook her head. “One is more than enough for me,” she muttered. 

“We’ve already encountered two of them, though,” I said. “If you include the one from last night.”

“I know,” Mary replied. “Like I said, one was more than enough.”

I chuckled, then glanced over at Clara. “I’ll fill you in on everything that happened, but I suggest we get to the campsite first. We don’t want to be caught out here in the dark.”

Clara nodded. “I asked Plays to give me some more information while we were waiting for you,” she replied. “It’s only about ten minutes away. I was considering leaving you markers and taking the girls on ahead. I’m glad I didn’t have to do that.”

“Me too,” I replied. “Now that I’m here, we should get a move on. I want to get out of this miasma as soon as possible; We have no idea what else could be out there, and I’d feel a lot safer behind a set of wards.”

“I’m sure everyone would,” she replied, turning her horse towards Plays. “Come on then, let’s take a look at this shelter before it gets too dark.”

“I’m right behind you,” I replied.