2.6 - Acclimatization (Patreon)

2.6 Acclimatization

Sophia

They followed the path down by the river the next morning. Practically waking up with the rising sun. Sophia wasn’t unused to all nighters or odd hours by any stretch, came with being a cape. But she’d be lying if she said that she could work with no sleep with any amount of effectiveness. 

And unfortunately last night she’d gotten almost no sleep to speak of.

Fuckin Hebert -fuckin skinny, four eyed, loser bitch.

“That’s rich, coming from the bitch that was gonna let her get raped for a power trip.”

The words had gotten into her head, they rolled ceaselessly from one side of her brain to the other as she tossed and turned on her cot under the canvas that had made a loose tent as it dangled over a branch.

She’d tried to brush it off. Just fuckin weak Hebert being a bitch and not understanding how the world works. That’s all it was. That’s all it was supposed to be. 

But then she thought about it, and thought about it and kept thinking about it. 

She knew why she… waited. Why she watched. Because people who fought deserved her help. The people who didn’t the ones that lied down and just took it didn’t.

The ones who fought were the ones that survived, that were deserving of survival. 

It had been what she thought when it happened, and had been what she thought for years.

So why; why did it feel so hollow now?

She wasn’t sure, and it put a disquieting, churning feeling in her gut. She walked next to Emma on the cart now, and spared a glance at the red head laying there.

Pale as paper, the bandages around her neck had been peeled away to reveal the jagged tear of scar tissue around her neck from the rock she’d used to try and rip her own throat out. Dirty, hair in messy clumps

She looked like anything but a survivor.

And still Sophia wanted to save her

“How many people did you watch get brutalized?”

The echo of Hebert’s question made Sophia grit her teeth.

“Umm… are you okay?”

Madison’s hesitant voice brought Sophia’s eyes snapping over towards the meek little follower who sat by Emma’s side, still reading that book like it’d amount to anything. 

“I’m fine.” Sophia bit out. She’d never really considered Madison a friend. She was useful. A tool. Her little cutesy innocent act helped Emma keep the teachers off their backs but she wasn’t like Emma. None of the sheep in that school were. Hell, even Hebert with her fuckin bugs was more useful. 

Still right now she could use the distraction, get herself out of her own head.

“The fuck are you doin anyway?” Sophia asked. 

Madison perked up “O-oh. I’m… I’m just reading about what they call Cantrips. Trying to see if I can do what Gale said to try and learn.”

Sophia’s features scrunched up. “You mean that spiky shit you drop on the floor to stab people in the foot?”

Now Madison looked confused- before realization hit her. “N-no that’s a caltrop, a Cantrip is like a low level spell. There’s a few of them. Right now I’m trying to learn something that might-well help you. Or, well… everyone really.”

Sophia glowered, insulted at the thought that she’d any help from a weakling like Madison but before she could say exactly that Madison continued.

“It’s called True-strike.” Madison said opening her book and looking at it. “I think the way I understand things, it kind of helps someone see weaknesses in their target. Like they can see where to hit to hurt someone more.”

Sophia sucked down her sentence real quick. There were more than a few capes that had Combat Thinker powers that let them see where to hurt people. And they could punch far above their weight most days. Most famous one PHO knew about was some old school cape called Harbinger, at least before he disappeared. 

If Madison could do that on demand…

Well… Guess even followers and sheep had their uses. 

Sophia glanced ahead of the Ox- “Hey! Mullet!”

Her call made some of the people ahead of them turn to look but Sophia was staring straight at the person she was calling, and so it made it didn’t take long for Gale to realize.

“Oh, you’re speaking to me Miss Hess.”

“Yeah.” She said. “You can do this magic shit right?”

The guy smirked, slowing his pace to reach them. “I’ve been known to weave a bit of magic here and there.”

“So you can use this-” She looked to Madison. “The hell you call it?”

“True strike?” Sophia wasn’t sure why she was asking. 

“Yeah that.” She said the wizard. “You can use that?”

“Of course.” Mullet answered. “It’s a simple cantrip, near anyone can learn. All you need to do i-”

“N-no you-.” Sophia shook her head, resisting the urge to call him an idiot. “Use it on me!”

“Oh!” The guy perked up, then waggled his fingers a bit “Done-”

Sophia stared at him, just about ready to call him a bullshitter when, with a blink something clicked in her brain. 

She knew, with absolute certainty- that the weakpoint on Gale was… dead center of his chest.

She turned her head, and on Madison, from this angle- she could see three points. The side of her neck, near the spine Her left side between the ninth and tenth rib to pierce the lung. Lower, just above the waist, her kidneys.

 She passed her eyes over the others, one by one seeing the optimal place to hit each and every one of them. 

“This is a low level spell?” She asked, just to make sure.

“Yes.” The walking Mullet chirped, releasing his gesture and just like that the knowledge faded from her mind, slipping from her grasp like sand. “A cantrip. You naturally recoup the magic you use before the spell is even complete. A Wizard can cast it practically all day.”

Sophia tried to not let her imagination run absolutely wild.

Harbinger and combat Tinkers like him were some of the most dangerous fuckers in any fight and these people had this shit on demand.

And that was just ‘low level’.

The fuck was high level? Eidolon on steroi-

“Hey!”

It was Shadowheart that called out and when Sophia looked she found the half elf staring towards their left, along the river, where now that she noticed there was a fairly sizable white cloud rising into the air. 

“Hebert.” Durge barked, and Sophia felt her irritation spike at the reminder that, yeah, the fucking bitch was useful now. “Can you sense what that is?”

Hebert squinted, “Just out of my range.”

“Might be Goblins burning something” Mullet man said next to her.

“If that’s the case someone could be in danger-” Wyll looked to Durge. “We should check. If someone needs help-”

She didn’t listen to the rest of the discussion, reaching into the wagon to grab hold of her bow, her quiver of arrows and the two spare knives that they had that -until they got some better ones- were hers. 

“Hebert, Wyll, Hess, lets go.”

Sophia caught Shadowheart glancing between her and Hebert. “You’re taking the two of them-”

“Hebert’s insects are useful for scouting, if needed Hess can float over the river to call for backup faster than anyone else and Wyll is practically volunteering to jump into danger.” Durge explained wading into the waist deep river. “Besides, they’ll either learn to cooperate or they’ll kill each other eventually if they want it hard enough.”

Hebert glared at her, Sophia glared back, when fucking twiggy began wading into the river she got a satisfied feeling when she shivered from the cold as Sophia shifted into her breaker state and floated over the currents. 

She made it to the other side of the river completely dry, the other three were, quite obviously, soaked from the chest down. 

“I hate this place.” She heard Hebert mutter under her breath, looking like a half drowned rat. 

“What’s wrong Hebert, your skank ass not used to taking baths?” She couldn’t help but taunt. 

“Focus.” Durge rumbled, his voice growling with something low that vibrated the air around them. “Argue, fight and be petty on your own time.”

Wyll looked between the two of them worriedly, and Hebert just stared with that silent anger filled look that never amounted to anything with the weak bitch.

Durge looked back at Hebert. “Let me know what you sense when you’re in range.”

Hebert nodded. 

They marched up the riverbank. 

After about a minute, maybe two, she saw Hebert flinch. 

Durge it seemed, recognized that flinch “Another Tadpole!?”

Hebert nodded.

“Helm.” Wyll… cursed? Was that a curse? “How many people did the Mindflayers take?”

“Hundreds, easily-” Durge answered “Can you sense what’s happening?”

Hebert’s face scrunched up. “I… it’s weird… I swear everything’s weird in this place. I think they’re in a hotspring? Doesn’t make sense. They’re in the river but there’s a lot of steam bubbling up, that’s the cloud we see.”

“There’s nothing that would make a hotspring anywhere near these lands.” Wyll noted. Sophia saw  his eyes narrow. “Wait-”

The man drew his sword and began running.

“Wyll?!” Durge’s shout was one of surprised and Sophia could understand. Boy-scout didn’t seem the type to just run off.

They followed after him, and after a bit, Sophia could admit- the fucker could move, he was running at a pace that was leaving her out of breath and in the dust, and after a bit she had to start compensating using her breaker state to keep up.

When they finally reached what they were running to Sophia was surprised to see a Tiefling woman at the edge of the Riverbank.

She had red skin, and one horn the water around her was bubbling and hissing like she was in a jacuzzi.

She looked at Wyll, “Ahh fuckin hell-” She cursed, reaching for the axe that was resting at the edge of the riverbank before she pulled herself out of the water. “The blade of frontiers.”

Steam wafted off of her in a white cloud and the woman was huge. A mountain of muscle, she towered over Wyll and Sophia could admit the woman had some Gym goals to aspire towards. 

“One horn.” Wyll sneered. “The stink of Avernus. Advocatus Diaboli.”

Sophia kept to the shade of the underbrush, hiding in the shadow, but still the woman’s burning eyes glanced her way, staring right at her. 

“Didn’t know the blade was relying on children to do his fighting for him.” The Tiefling smirked, all fangs and sharp teeth, taunting Wyll.

“I take it that you’re the devil he’s set out to hunt-” Durge waltzed his way out of the treeline just a few feet away, walking close, Sophia looked around, and couldn’t find Hebert, but glancing Karlach’s way she did notice a single spider crawling its way across the river sands very very quietly. “Karlach.”

She grit her teeth, hating the realization that fucking Twiggy probably had a bug on her right now.

“Damn right-” The woman said. “Nice as this reunion is I’m afraid I’m gonna have ta-”

The Tadpoles clenched, it felt like it did every time, like a punch directly on the brain matter. Sophia saw flashes, images. Fire and brimstone. Ash and soot. Axe cleaving through flesh and bone. Claw and tooth. Heat burning beneath skin. Fight and kill, fight and kill. The conflict is ceaseless, unremitting, endless.

She will never escape, never be free.

Until she sees the Nautiloid.

And she runs for it.

“What was that!?” The Tiefling, Karlach yelled, reeling, and her stumble backwards let the spider slip onto her boot.

“Evidence!” Wyll cried. “Proof that you’re the monster of Zariel, her soldier in the blood war!” He brandished his sword, holding it out towards her tip towards her face.

Karlach winced. “Look, I can explain, but it’s a whole- Argh!” She seemed to wince again, the tadpole in her head making her cringe and Sophia took the opportunity to nock an arrow on her bowstring. 

Durge suddenly walked between Wyll and Karlach, two fingers flicking the blade down, much to Wyll’s naked surprise. 

“Look again.” The white lizard demanded. And Sophia could almost see the man force open the tadpole connection as Wyll flinched in pain.

“She served Zariel!” Boy-scout cried out after a second. “That’s enough to damn her!”

Karlach clutched at her head, seemingly trying to literally shake off the pain.

Durge raised an eyebrow, staring at Wyll, but he didn’t say a word. 

Karlach looked between Wyll and Durge, and Sophia had no idea if the two of them were talking the way she and Hebert had talked ‘privately’ just a few days ago, but whatever happened after a moment Wyll’s entire face crumpled, his eyes closing and looking for all the world like someone just told him his dog died or something. 

“Shit…” He said slowly. “You really are no Devil are you?” He said to Karlach, his stance straightening and his sword lowering. “I… I’ve been deceived.”

Karlach sighed, her shoulders sagging. “Oh. Thank the Gods. Was afraid I’d have to take all your heads.” She laughed. 

Wyll let out a rueful chuckle. “You’d have died in the attempt.” He said, but the laughter was subdued. 

Karlach smirked and looked to Durge. “Thanks.” She said. “I’m Karlach. But I take it you already knew that- and you are?”

“My name is Durge.” The Dragonborn answered. He gestured with a jerk of his head towards Sophia. “That’s Hess,”

Karlach, again stared right at her, and Sophia had to wonder if Tieflings had enhanced vision or something. “Hey there.”

“And Hebert is-”

“Right here.” 

Sophia would deny it til the end of her days that Hebert’s sudden voice and appearance made her jump, just a bit. The girl practically coming out of fucking nowhere was she marched onto the riverside sands.

“Well-” The Tiefling woman looked at all of them before giving a single jaunty wave. “Nice to meet you all.”

“Likewise.” Durge offered an odd sort of nod that could almost be a very light bow. 

“So…” Karlach ventured somewhat awkwardly, shifting and fidgeting. “From what I got by that… stumble around in your heads we all got these little passengers in our skulls yeah?”

Durge nodded. “Correct. Looking to cure them. From what I gathered in your head you’ve a strong sword arm. Interested.”

Karlach grinned pumping a fist in the air. “Didn’t think gettin shoved down a river by some fake Paladins would turn my luck around but hey- seems like things are lookin up for once… relatively at least. Where are we off to?”

Durge seemed to chuckle, and Sophia had to imagine he did the next part on purpose. 

“We’re off to fight a Hag.”

Karlach blinked fist falling limply to her side. 

“Oh…” She said somewhat numbly. “Well fuck me I guess…”

(X)(X)(X)

Mama K is in da house!!!

For those of you who've played BG3, yes, I know Karlach is in the complete opposite direction to Ethel's cabin but frankly, if I kept her in her default place it would be another arc and a half before we saw her and that was just way too long.So a little tweak where Karlach falls into the river and gets swept downstream and presto, Mama K joins the party!And we cap off the Arc with the whole Base squad with us! Just in time to go face EthelNext up is Arc 3 where our girls get to experience a DnD style Boss fight.

I'm sure everything will be fine. After all, you only need to be lvl 5 to fight Auntie Ethel comfortably and our girls are at... Oh... Lvl 1...

...

What could possibly go wrong? :pRead review and all that fun stuff.