Travel Log #0 Return
The Wilds, a dangerous and unforgiving place, filled with monsters and violent tribes, bandits, and criminals on the run. For most people it's a place to avoid, but for some it's just home. Then there's Logan, a wanderer in this place, equally at home as he is out of place. With clothes too elegant and pristine for someone living in the wilds and his eyes covered by a dark visor, most people would consider him lost; they would be wrong; he is waiting. Standing in the undergrowth, he inspects the area around him, looking for the traces of his target; the details stand out to him and are archived for later. Several creatures left a track, but the one he is searching for would not be so easy to find. It was a difficult job; there was a reason why the other hunters didn't want to deal with it, but it was on his way, and the pay was good; it could be useful for his planned trip. The sounds of nature are interrupted by something that clearly didn't belong there, the pained breaths of a human most likely; the heavy footfalls at irregular intervals communicated a heavy build and poor health. A portly man emerges from the bushes and stumbles into the clearing, almost rolling to a halt in front of the Surveyor.
Seeing the figure in dark clothes, the man panics and struggles to get up but seems to calm down somewhat after recognizing the uniform. "Oh, thank the Emperor, you have to help me! I was attacked by beasts; I am just a poor merchant; I didn't know what to do!" The man is bleeding and covered in cuts and bruises; he appears exhausted and struggles to get up.
Logan looks at the man, an expression of disappointment on his face. "Liar..." The word is said with no emotion, just a statement of fact, an undeniable truth.
"Wha- I did not lie! I was attacked!" The panic returns; the man nervously glances around, searching for an escape route and any signs of pursuers.
"That part is correct." The hunter starts circling the man, pacing as he speaks calmly. "Clear cuts, even and clean, they can't be from claws or fangs. You were attacked by a bladed weapon, short and slim, a dagger or stiletto probably." His tone is even as the merchant gets ever more uncomfortable; Logan gestures as he paces. "The cuts are shallow, away from the vitals, near the joints. The attacker was not aiming to kill but to immobilize. Bandits, a robbery gone wrong most likely." The circle complete, he stands in front of the merchant. "The bruises across your arms and face are from running in the shrubbery and attempting, poorly, to protect your eyes. So, how much did I get wrong, and why did you lie?"
The expression on the man's face turns from fear to resignation; escape seems impossible, he must have realized. "You have a Hunter uniform. I thought that by mentioning beasts, you would be more likely to help. Everything is as you said; the bandits are still searching my cart."
"I assume they will be quite frustrated by now as well."
"What... How?"
"I see you clutching the source of a metallic sound under your clothes; it's near a vital spot so the bandits would not risk hitting it. Your coins are not as subtle as you think. Bandits don't kill people close to the city borders; it's bad for business, so you must have run pretty far. They would have no reason to run after you if the cart had valuables, but you took the only ones already, right? This must be a return trip."
The merchant is at a loss for words by now and simply stares at the slightly glowing eyes behind the lenses, feeling as if they were digging into his very soul, about to unearth some childhood trauma.
"I see the shock worked. Now that you are calm, maybe you can explain what happened and what you wanted me to do about it." The tone is reassuring, or close to it at least.
In a state of confusion, the man answers. "I just want to go home..."
"Maybe I went too far? I just wanted to distract him from the panic and not be lied to." "That will be difficult on foot. We are close to the Spines, but with your... constitution, it would still be quite the journey. You should get your cart back; the bandits will leave it alone after a while, and I doubt they would expect you to come back. Just treat your wounds and wait a while."
"I don't know medicine; I am just a merchant. I sell furniture."
"He's not doing that bad from what I see; blood loss is not a problem with just a couple of bandages. The bigger problems would be infection, but that can be fixed by a healer in the City. Still, I can't be stuck babysitting him; my curse will act up, and I can't guarantee his safety. I also have a job to do." "I will help you get your cart back. You need medical attention, and the cart is the most efficient way of getting it."
"You're not a doctor?"
"No, you could call me a detective of the past, but I also hunt chimeras when I can." "Not like I have a choice..." "I should be able to handle the bandits. Bandage your wounds; we will depart shortly."
"What? Didn't you say it's best to wait?"
"It's not a viable solution anymore. This place is not going to be safe soon, and neither of us is able to offer the necessary medical assistance." Logan looks at the treeline. "I will make sure no chimera bothers you for now, but you need to hurry. Here, have some bandages." The surveyor takes a bundle of cloth from his pocket; it's decorated with a star pattern and clearly not supposed to be used as bandages. The man accepts it confusedly, and in a moment, Logan is gone.
When the merchant finished wrapping cloth around the last of the deeper cuts, the hunter appeared in front of him as if from nothing. "HAa."
"Please refrain from making too many loud noises; many chimeras have good hearing. That is on top of normal wild animals, of course." The man covers his own mouth with his hands in a rush. "I see, you finished on your side as well; they should hold long enough. Follow me; we should not waste time."
The confused merchant stands up. "Where?"
"To your cart, where else? You left a trail."
The trek to the cart is not long for Logan; the merchant, however, is barely holding on; his panting and heavy steps make a stealthy approach impossible for both of them. The sounds of the forest fade away to be replaced by angry chattering, which also stops when the bandits see the two figures approaching the road. One of the bandits is the first to speak.
"Look who's back, the failed merchant. You have jack shit in this cart." The bandit is dressed slightly better than the rest; his aura is also a bit more intense; he must be the leader. His tone seems jovial, but there is anger hidden in plain sight.
As the merchant struggles to come up with a retort, the hunter speaks. "I will kindly ask you only once to surrender and disperse. Failure to comply will see me forced to disarm you."
After a small moment of confusion and a couple of glances with his band, the leader laughs in an exaggerated way. "Did you hear him, men? He will disarm us, all seven. Look at you, pathetic man, hiding behind a kid." The air around Logan briefly crackles with energy as his expression twitches; the bandits are too busy laughing to notice. "And you, using big words to be taken seriously, how fun."
"Fine, as you wish." The crackle returns, forming into claws covering the hunter's hands. "Have some more big words then. Element Entanglement" In a flash of motion, all that is left behind is the trail leading to his new location behind the chief bandit; a dull thud resonates in the stunned silence as an arm hits the ground. "No body enhancement; I took him by surprise."
The leader screams, clutching the place where the arm used to be. "Fuck, what are you waiting for?! Get the kid." Two more bandits find themselves with one less limb in the time it takes to bark those orders. The rest of the bandits try to crowd around the blur of energy.
One of the bandits attacks Logan from behind; a tail of energy blocks the dagger, and the blade is cut instead. The two bandits approaching from the sides almost hit each other when the hunter jumps in the air to land on the cart in front of them; a beam extends from his outstretched finger, cutting off another arm. One of the remaining bandits stumbles backward and falls terrified. "I have removed your arms, as I promised. This is your last warning before I am forced to delete you. Please comply while you still have the legs to run." A series of clawed hands start appearing, floating around Logan.
With a sudden shift, the hunter is forced to move as a blade flies from the nearby bushes; despite the quick dodge, it still manages to make a deep cut in his arm. The knife lands, still sizzling, on the ground. "No, don't! This thing is—" The fallen bandit tries to warn its ally in the bushes, but one of the claws shoots in the direction the knife came from. A pained cry is heard with a thud; no more sounds follow. "Fuck. We need to go, take the leader, and run! We can't fight this monster!"
The bandits scramble to gather the injured; Logan dashes back to the merchant's side. The claws position themselves in formation around them. "Are you not going to stop them?"
"The battle is won; I have no reason to. I have no legal authority to detain them, and killing them would not solve much. Many of them don't have a choice either; maybe this experience will make them see the error of their ways." "Or just do nothing, but they will cause fewer problems maimed like that; if I kill them, a new gang will just fill the vacuum."
The site of the battle is covered in scorch marks where the surveyor dashed around and discarded weapons and limbs. The beast carrying the cart is unharmed; it's some sort of mix between a cow and an armadillo. "We should get moving; they could come back with more people." The merchant starts waking up the beast and gathering the boxes scattered around, giving them a semblance of order.
"Unlikely" "The bandits wouldn't come back with more people; revenge would be a stupid goal to pursue. And we would be gone by then anyway." Logan looks around the field as the merchant cleans up. "Sometimes I wish I was able to use alchemy; I would leave less wasted materials behind. These bandits were weaker than I expected; something feels off. I better stay alert."
"You were injured in the fight, right? Do you need to travel to the city too? I would appreciate the protection as well; it feels less safe around here now."
The surveyor glances at his wound; it's already mostly gone. "I need to go in that direction anyway. I will gladly accept your offer then." "And I can't leave this guy alone now."
The travel in the back of the cart is uncomfortable but peaceful; the scenery passing by is calm, and the road is free of obstacles. It is also free of other travelers; it is a slow season, but this lack of traffic still feels unnatural. "I don't know if I'm just behind on trends or if there is something wrong here. My instinct has yet to lead me astray, but commerce is not my field." The sounds of nature surround the road, occasionally interrupted by the odd crackle of energy; nothing seems out of place, but Logan can't help but feel on edge; his instincts prevent him from dropping the Immersion. It's been an hour since the travel started; the surveyor was fully healed by now, and the merchant stopped nervously looking around, afraid of every shadow. Logan was conflicted by this change; it was better than constant anxiety, but being alert would not be a bad thing. During his reflection the hunter noticed the sound of the forest fading in the distance; they were getting closer to the Spires, but it should be too early for that, not enough civilization yet. The ground shifted almost imperceptibly. "I should have expected this." "Fuck." It happens in a heartbeat; Logan turns around and dashes against the merchant in a flash of energy, sending him flying out of his seat. "Ascending Kingdom"
The words are cut short as the earth itself forms into a pair of vaguely reptilian jaws and swallows the whole cart with the surveyor in it. The armored cow rolls up and away as the merchant looks in terror at the ground that is taking the shape of a creature. The head of the newly formed earth monster explodes as energy surges from within; the winged figure of the hunter, now free, flies in front of the merchant, covered in cuts and bruises. "What is that?! What's going on!?" The creature's head has already regenerated.
"I will have to be brief. It's a chimera that controls the ground; it can die." "But it would have been a lot easier if I had followed the original plan and gotten a surprise attack." The creature throws its entire body mass at the hunter with surprising speed. Logan shields his form with the energy wings; the earth that composes the creature sizzles as it disintegrates on contact, the remaining material coalesces and reforms into the creature as if nothing happened. "Please don't move; it is easier to protect a stationary target." The surveyor takes aim and lets loose a barrage of shots into the beast; it explodes but keeps reforming with the surrounding material. *"This is not sustainable. I can keep it at bay because it's still a beast in the end; a creature with higher brain functions would be much more dangerous with this power. I need a distraction, something like..." Amid the explosions and shifting earth, the surveyor hears something else in the distance: heavy, hurried steps and a battle cry very familiar to him. "Perfect."
The barrage stops; the form of a large man with reptilian features tackles the regenerating beast into the ground; the earth shifts but can't completely escape his grasp. The man is still briefly confused by the situation; some earth tries to snake past him to form into a set of claws but gets blown up by a precise shot of energy. Dao disengages the creature, earth falling off his form as he takes a stance ready to counter any approach. He briefly takes the time to glance at the familiar figure clad in energy before locking his eyes on the shifting mound of earth.
"Scatter it as much as you can; we need the right angle." It's not a command, but he knows he will be heard. "Now back to the plan." "Channel Extension: Element Oneness" The chant is barely a whisper; the crackle of energy surrounding Logan turns into a low hum of power; energy erupts from his form, enveloping him and shaping into jagged armor with claws and spikes. If people saw him now, his claims of being a demon would be much more believable. The merchant is stuck struggling to breathe in the pressure zone, looking in horror as he can't decide which monster is the scariest right now.
The beast switched its attention to the new threat, the serpentine hunter unmoving in the face of danger. A lunge is met with a punch; the shockwave disrupts the form of the beast, loose stones and debris pepper Dao as the earth flows around him. The ripples reveal a flash of white.
"Found you." "Trajection of Justice." Energy gathers on the outstretched finger aiming at the beast, wings morph into stabilizers, and eyes glow strong enough to be visible over the glasses. A single shot is fired; a concentrated beam of light pierces the creature, barely avoiding Dao as he returns to his stance; everything stops.
The beast crumbles like the mound of earth and plants it's supposed to be; a flash of white shines from the pile; the tension remains for a few moments. "I—is it dead?" The merchant struggles to get the words out; despite being mostly unharmed by the recent encounter, he can't seem to move yet.
"Yes, the core was breached; it can't survive that." The surveyor approaches his colleague, who seems to be calming down. The hum disappears as the energy dissipates. "Thank you for the assistance, Dao. These things are not easy to deal with when unprepared."
Dao is calming down from the fight; the debris seems to have bruised him a bit, but he is otherwise fine. "I saw the light show from afar and thought you could use a hand or a bite." The reptilian hunter looks at the remains of the beast; most people would mistake them for just a normal pile of dirt. "What is this thing anyway? It doesn't look... appetizing."
"A rare chimera, difficult to spot and permanently injure." The neon-clad surveyor starts digging into the pile of dirt with his energy claws. "The core is almost indestructible. Almost." A giant sphere of a bone-like material is revealed; it has a hole in the middle from which the other side is visible. "Its biology is really fascinating; I should focus on gathering the core as proof for now, however." He takes out a small turtle-shaped box from his pocket and starts placing a small key into an indent on it but stops. "Oh, the core is completely inedible, has all the worst parts of bone, but you can find some edible plants in the dirt that made up its body. They should be easy to identify; I will help in a bit." Ignoring the confused look of his interlocutor, Logan places the box on the core and inserts the key; they both disappear, leaving the box behind.
The entrance of the house is a bit too cluttered for the orb the size of a person, but with a bit of effort, the surveyor manages to roll it into an out-of-the-way position. After making sure that nothing was too out of place, Logan goes back to the door.
The scene outside hasn't changed much; Dao is digging into the mound and made little piles of all the plants he found, while the merchant recovered somewhat, or at least collapsed in a different place, seemingly in mourning for his lost cart. The armored cow rolled out from the bushes it was hiding in. "You're back. I tried finding what you said, but these look like normal plants to me." The serpentine hunter greets him with a strained smile; he seems to be fighting back something but does his best to appear fine.
"The spirit must be acting up; fighting against something inedible must have upset it." Logan starts approaching the piles but stumbles; looking at his bloodied clothes, he takes the time to lament the end of the adrenaline rush, then he carries on, ignoring the pain. "As I was saying, I studied this creature while hunting it and researched its origins. Its abilities may seem aura-related, and many mistake it for a spirit instead of a chimera, but they are biological in nature. The core produces an abnormally large amount of plant matter that is then dispersed into the ground. I am calling it a plant, but it's more like a fungus; it takes root and spreads at blinding speeds, acting as the nervous system, the locomotive system, and, of course, the normal functions of plant roots." The surveyor glances at the pile of dirt and picks up a strange red root-like material; pulling on it, the whole root network follows. "I would not call it edible under normal circumstances, not raw at least, but I did see animals eat it and be fine. I also saw you eat worse, so you will definitely be fine at least."
"Those looked toxic yo me. You studied this thing a lot. Just hunting, it would have been easier, I think."
"Maybe, but it is a rare species, and knowledge can always be useful. Also, we would not be able to eat it if I didn't study it first, so that should count for something."
They fall into a rhythm of excavation and small talk, used to the process of material gathering and the methods the other applies.
"My cart... it's ruined..."
The merchant's mourning for the cart stops at some point, and he joins the two surveyors around a fire on the side of the road. They are almost done cooking by now; the chimera was turned into an approximation of noodles, combined with some more edible plants and some preserved meat for a more rounded meal. "It smells better than I expected, but that may be all the spices we put in there."
"I am not sure; you are the expert here on that front, but I suspect the chimera to be almost odorless; it is an ambush predator after all." Logan answers while taking notes on the events of the day.
"Are we going to keep ignoring the state my cart is in?" The merchant asks worriedly; it's not the first time he attempts to bring up the notion, but the surveyors ignored him in favor of cooking.
"Don't worry, we can get to the Spines with most of your cart. Someone there should be able to offer more permanent repairs, or you can just buy a new one."
"But there is barely a cart left, just the wheels and a couple of planks."
"We don't need much else. If it makes you feel better, I can make a quick repair while we wait for the food."
"I would appreciate it." The merchant is unconvinced, looking dejected at the remains of the cart.
"I didn't know you were also a carpenter, Logan." Dao stirs the mixture in the pot.
"I am not, but I have the right tools to approximate something." Logan is gone in a flash, moving like a blur between the fragments of the transport and planting metal spikes in them at apparently random points.
"Does he always act like this?" The merchant asks absentmindedly, almost not expecting a real answer.
"As far as I know, yes. Sometimes it's difficult keeping up, but he does his best to explain if you ask." The reptilian hunter tastes the broth. "The food is ready, I think."
"Then let us eat." The hooded surveyor appears as suddenly as he left, making the merchant jump in shock. "The repairs are also finished."
Dao starts serving the noodles into bowls; the merchant looks at the remains of his cart; they are still there; the only difference is the multitude of spikes protruding from them. "What? It loo-"
A bowl is placed in front of the merchant, interrupting his confusion. "Let's eat for now; we don't want it to get cold." Dao is already eating his portion.
"It... tastes like meat?" The hunter manages to say between bites.
"So it seems, interesting. I will have to note it down; apparently the creature manages to mix plant and animal traits more than I thought."
The group falls into silence as they eat, the merchant too tired and in pain to protest any longer.
Logan observes the world from a mess of wires and springs on wheels; the abomination doesn't look comfortable or functional, but it has yet to fall apart after a couple of hours of travel. After parting ways with Dao and the leftovers from the meal, the travel was unusually peaceful, the pain of the previous wounds replaced by the discomfort of the strange contraption, an ideal result as far as the overworked surveyor was concerned. "We are out of the danger zone now; the Spines are in sight, which means we are too close to overseer jurisdiction for bandits to risk an attack and too close to civilization for the wild chimeras to roam. It's only city criminals from here, and the overseers can deal with them most of the time." The sounds of writing are covered by the metallic scraping and springs straining to hold what remains of the cart. "I should write down the recipe for those noodles again."
The tired man sat on the only intact part of the cart, sighs, hoping to never deal with something like this ever again. "I should hire someone else to handle deliveries."
Damage Report
Humans: 4 bandits, arm removed; 1 bandit, unknown damage (death unlikely, probable locomotive limb affected)
Chimeras: 1 Plant type earth mover, neutralized, ediblility confirmed, high nutritional values
Objects: 1 cart, rendered non functional, not beyond repair
Enviroment: Inside acceptable parameters.
Personal injuries: Deep cut in the upper arm, crushed by earth
Overall successful expedition.
See addendum for details.