Secret Fishing Spot

“May the mystique watch over Aurdon.” Feimo prays while trudging the stream.

Ahead of them, Aurdon has disappeared into the shade of the woods, an eerie sight that leaves Brez in tears and the rest of the children to shudder. 

They follow behind Feimo, but can’t keep the pace, it’s the main reason why she doesn’t rush too fast ahead. “Dammit Aurdon. Get back here at once!” She yells just before the woods but gets no response. 

Not to abandon Aurdon for dead, she leads the way into the woods, sticking to the stream in hopes he didn't break off from it.

***

Huffing with exhaustion, wading through at a slower and slower pace until he comes to a stop, Aurdon takes a breather and looks at his rippling reflection in the water, disappointed with his stamina. By the time he looks back up to resume the chase, the slime is lost, but in the distance there seems to be a shoddy dam and camp occupied by two little people in rags.

When Aurdon squints his eyes to take a closer look, the little person at the dam uses a bucket to capture the slime he was chasing.

“Hey…” Aurdon tries to speak up but is far too exhausted, now limping towards the strangers. “Wait a minute. I need that slime.”

The strange people take the bucketed slime to a wagon fitted with a large metal container and feed it in through a funnel. They celebrate the catch, and return to their positions.

Aurdon moves in to get a better look, but once close enough, the strangers become aware of Aurdon through sound and smell. First, they’re startled, trying to pack their things for a run, but then they catch sight of him and drop the escape plan.

"just lil one." The closest speaks to the other, fiddling with a blade hooked to its hip.

“Boy lost. We show way.” The other speaks while reaching for a club.

Aurdon steps back when he sees their weapons and faces. From the long nose and elongated heads, they’re almost like the aliens in movies, but clothed, green-skinned, and able to see using big goat-like eyes.

“Hey. There’s no need to get deadly.” Aurdon lowers his sword to the side of the stream. “Look. I’ll even put my sword down. It’s dull anyways.”

The creatures laugh. “He stupid.”

“I’m not stupid. I’m just… trying not to hurt anybody?”

“Sound like stupid to me!” Guffaws one.

“Er… No. That sound not same to me?” The other doesn’t seem to follow. “You sure?”

“I’m say it’s stupid, you stupid.”

“You right. boy stupid!”

“Thats what I’m say!”

“You’re both stupid, and you talk stupid.” Aurdon picks his sword back up, thinking the two are too stupid to talk things out or even hurt a fly. 

“Now you said it.” The one with the dagger twirls it in his direction. “I’ll take tongue.”

“What he say? I missed it.” The other with the club picks its nose.

“Just go take slimes. I’ll handle.”

“As you say Fib.”

“And you, dribble mouth.” Fib steps toward Aurdon. “Remember name when meet stupid mystique and stupid aura she have.”

Aurdon backs away with his sword readied to fend him off, but he is too weak in the knees to make any meaningful distance.  “Stay back. I’m warning you!”

The weight of the situation is only now setting in for him, Fib’s drawn dagger the one thing he can’t keep his eyes off of, blurring out everything else. His first thought is that this might be when he dies, and his heart picks up pace.

***

Back with Feimo and the children, a strong gust of wind through the trees and the once clear sky changing gray catches their attention.

“That was quick. It was clear just a moment ago.” Kea looks up, a droplet hitting her cheek.

“It has to be a sign from the mystique. M-maybe Aurdon is in danger…” Brez trembles, her sword clattering in hand.

“He’s a lost cause. What’re we even doing wasting our time.” Siege kicks up some water in Brez’s direction, startling her.

“It’s just rain.” Feimo continues forth, her sword drawn and ready at the side. “And he isn’t far. I sense him through the aura.”

Some rumbling in the sky catches all but Feimo’s attention, who doesn’t skip a beat in her marching.

“Sounds like a storm to me.” Jivali stops to look up as well.

“Keep moving.” Feimo says without needing to look back at them, and they follow.

***

Fib jabs at Aurdon, but his weak knees save him as he falls back into the water. “Stop squirming!”

The adrenaline kicks in and Aurdon picks himself up while continuing to back away. “Stop!” He screams for his life. “Feimo. Somebody. Help me!”

Fib hesitated to Feimo’s name, but laughs it off soon after, believing it to be a farce.

Aurdon swings back at Fib, but the moment of hesitation he had created just enough distance to make it meaningless.

Amused by his cries, Fib toys with him, always seeming to come for the killing blow, only to stop and watch as Aurdon cowers.

Eventually Aurdon expels all of his energy and stops backing away, disappointing his tormentor.

“So soon ay?” Fib cackles. “I thought you more fight, but you so weak is funny.”

Aurdon finds it hard to say anything back, being practically out of breath.

“Is really all got?” Fib comes in but stops when Aurdon raises his sword overhead. “Oh, yea keep up. More more!”

In Aurdon’s eyes reflects the same fury he held when striking at the slime, but his hands ached, too weak to hold it any longer.

The storm that came in over Feimo and the children reaches them, but the thundering is louder, and the rain has picked up in volume.

“With dull blade?” Fib can’t contain his laughter. “Alright. You dead now.”

“No!” Aurdon screams at the top of his lungs while bringing the blade down at Fib, who’s almost at his throat. 

In the blink of an eye, before either of their weapons make contact, a flash of lightning hit Aurdon’s blade between them.

Sparks fly, and so do they, down into the stream. 

Heavy rain comes in the following moments, the water of the stream rushing faster, and the towering trees swaying in the wind.

They stay silent, mutually defeated, till Aurdon’s body twitches awake. He’s disoriented, but somehow livelier than before.

“It’s… comfortable.” He looks to his hands, then to the unconscious Fib. “Did I die? Did we die? It’s so strange.” 

Standing up as if nothing happened, he’s unfazed by the rain, and unmoved by its wind. In his mind, it doesn’t even seem like the storm is touching him, but he can feel it.

“It’s so fuzzy. Like my body is asleep. TV static…” he sees his body is releasing some sort of heat and buzz, and there’s a snap of light occasionally jumping between parts of his skin.

Then he smiles. “I guess ghosts are real. It’s cooler than I thought.”

Fib groans, rolling ever-so-slightly in the water, unable to bring himself back from the daze. “Wuzz…at.”

“You win Fib. I kind of thank you for it too.” He steps over to them, reaching toward its shoulder. “Now I wonder if I can haunt you for life, or something like that.”

Before his hand touches him, an arc of light jumps between the tip of his finger and its pointy ear, recoiling Aurdon, and springing Fib back alert.

“Wha-wu-where’s the…” Fib rolls away and looks for his dagger in the water, but it's lost. “Bah! Have the tongue of abominations lick you clean, freak. If know you bring strong magics, you dead moment I see.”

Aurdon sees that he's aware of him, and the ghostly reality once perceived, shatters. "We're alive?!”

"You stupid. Try kill both us?" Fib snorts and spits before Aurdon. "Crazier than devil you is. No play now. You squashed."

Fib raises its hand and begins an incantation. "Abominations. Crush foe till bone powder and flesh mushy." Then a large stone forms from the pebbles in the stream, hovering at their readied to throw palm.

Aurdon thinks of what just happened, and why his body is so tingly, bringing to question if he used magic, and it excites him. He's been reinvigorated since the incident and more-so at ease. Then he mirrors fib with his own hand, raising it over head. 

"I feel like I can do it!" He shouts with a grin that confuses Fib. "Like it's at the tip of my fingers."

And it is, the electricity webbed between parts of his palm and fingers, rising and branching out into the rain, and intensifying the more he strains their muscles. It isn't just the light that he influenced however, as the wind and rain around him spins into a feint vortex.

Then it all fades away, the voice of Feimo piercing through the rain, the two at odds hesitating their attacks. Aurdon looks back for them, but Fib takes that as an opportunity to strike.

Breaking through the rain and flying past Aurdon, Feimo blocks the rock with her blade and rebounds it into a far away tree, splitting the tree in two.

Fib's eyes nearly pop out with surprise, and before he can defend himself, Feimo slices him at the neck in the same motion.

Aurdon couldn't watch at first, falling back and covering his eyes, but between his fingers he takes a peek at the next strange phenomena of this world to occur. The body and head of Fib, still stays in place, distorting form until bursting into a green pollen-like cloud while the rags from their body fall into the stream and get carried away.

Before the cloud dissipates, Feimo puts her hand out to it and says a spell. "The aura must bring you to ash," and a flash of fire engulfs the cloud leaving nothing but a wisp of smoke. 

The storm quiets down gradually, and she turns to Aurdon, sheathing her blade.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was doing. I’m sorry.” Aurdon says while unable to face her. “I kept him back though. I even used magic, I think. I couldn’t befo—“

“Are you deaf?” Feimo paces the grounds around him, finding Aurdon’s blade in the water. “Do you have a death wish? What do you need to tell me? There’s something going on inside that head of yours.”

“I-I don’t know…” Aurdon takes back his sword with his head down, suppressing something in his chest.

Feimo’s steps get heavier, and she clenches her fists. Everything her eyes wander to become a target of rage.  “I didn’t explain the forest. I didn’t stay ahead. I put you on the spot on your first hunt.” She pulls at her hair, agonizing over every detail. “I messed it up! If Garth found out… No! Just If I found out you had died under my supervision, the Aura of today would remind me for life. I’d claw my head apart!”

Her rambling is hard for Aurdon to follow, a manic episode that he rejects standing around any longer for, so he walks away.

Then the kids confront him, creating a barrier across the stream. The first to walk up to him, Kea, does so quickly and with her hand coming for his shirt.

“Oh, you all followed!” Aurdon forces a smile, but she takes him by the collar, and with the other hand, slaps him across the face.

Brez cries out. “Kea!”

“Of course we did!” Kea yells so close to his face he winces. “We had to, and now we’re soaked and exhausted and in the only aura, I begged you return a corpse because of how stupid you are.”

Her chest rose and fell rapidly and her grip clenched so tight she could tear the fabric. She wound back the hand she used to slap him again, but it trembles and stung from the first hit, so she doesn’t follow through again.

“That’s not true!” Brez comes up and pulls Kea away, releasing her grip.

Siege steps forth. “Don’t kid yourself. We’re all thinking it.”

“Stop. No we’re no—“

“Me too.” Aurdon returns a deeper pained smile to all of them, especially towards Kea. “For a moment, I thought I did, and I was never happier.”

He walks forward past them all, Kea frozen with her eyes stuck forward, Brez reaching for him but missing and slipping, Jivali unsure what to say or do besides watch, and Siege smiling.

Feimo regains some temperament and returns to Aurdon, placing a hand on his bead and forcing it down slightly. “Don’t you walk off like that. Not again. You stay with your teammates, and explain to me one thing.”

“I already said I don’t know why I did it.” He continues ahead and Feimo follows, creating some space between them and the children who also follow.

“Not that.” She applies more pressure down on him. “Your fight with the goblin. One like that hardly resorts to magic unless desperate, and you, you looked to be using a powerful magic too for a moment.”

Aurdon barely resisted Feimo’s hand let alone desire to move his lips, but he knew she’d get it out of him eventually. “I don’t know that either. Besides, they were just fishing or something. Fisher goblins, if that’s a thing. I took them by surprise.”

Feimo doesn’t believe it, but releases her hand to think harder about what he said. “Fishing? In such a shallow stream like this?”

“They caught my slime. It’s why I fought them in the first place. They didn’t seem happy I found their secret spot. There was a second one that ran away with a cart probably full of them. Are slimes a delicacy?”

“Hardly. They’ll dissolve you from the inside out no matter how iron the gut. And the core, it might soak up all the liquid in your body till you’re left dry, possibly reviving it in the process. I’ve heard horror stories…”

Aurdon isn’t bothered anymore by disturbing thoughts, and Feimo sees where his mindset lies.

“Anyways, that’s not important!” She places her hand back on him, but at his back, thinking it’ll soothe tensions. “I believe, as rough as today has been, your little breakaway discovered why we’ve seen barely any slimes lately. It’s only one incident, but I can’t think of a better reason.”

“Who cares? Sounds like they’re doing favors.”

“With how many have gone missing, this operation has to be large in scale. Remember this, Goblins are scheming little followers of the abominations. Never once do they coordinate for good. I’ll need to discuss this at the lake.”

“The lake?”