Base 5: Nin

"DON'T BRING IT TOWARDS ME!" Baltanthan yells, his lesser legs only taking him so far. I keep on running his way, right on through the valley. A huge smile on my buggy face. His yell continues to echo, and I add my laughter to the mix.

A thick, shelly chirp chases after me, and him.

Half-snapped trees fly ahead, trying to catch us, and I turn to face the source. A gigantic, artificially three-legged creature thing barrels its way through the falling forest. One bloody mark on its wounded back leg that only makes it howl with each arse-made thrust forward. Each of its clipper-like claws reach further, but not far enough.

What once was stripping trees for their branchy goodness is now after my gory delight. Whatever it is, as they've always been, he was fine with me near... Then I broke a leg, hoping to cripple it... I need to finish the job.

A laugh bursts out of me again, our camp coming closer and closer into view. A panicked Baltanthan, still rushing away from a hiding spot he was probably fine in. Screeching to a halt myself as the humour kind of dies down, I throw myself the other way. Smashing myself against the nearby trees and then leaping one more way.

So close to my helper now, I should put the creature out of its misery!

I fall into the dirt, skidding a trench into the earth. The creature almost trips over me, barely catching itself against the trees its claws decapitate. Hopping back to my feet, I dash right under and perform my final dash to get my footing. I jump.

Shooting right into its gut, I'm rewarded with a shower of blood and a vicious rupture of it as I force my way into the open. Only my awkward laughter can compare as I try to clean myself in the air, uncaring of my fall and smashing drop. It vanishes instantly, and I pull myself out of the muck. Only so much of the blood stays on the ground, and more of the ground comes up with me.

"Good thing I don't really itch anymore..." I mutter, flicking off what blood-clumped dirt I can, anyway. It keeps catching on my claw bandages, and I can barely clean off the lenses of my mask. I stop, groaning as I certainly feel all the heavier for all the blood and guts I now have on me. Though even that's placebo, I'm just remembering what it's like to be drenched with water before I came to this land.

Urk...

"Nin, please bear in mind you need to learn to kill things in a cleanlier manner!" I sarcastically remind myself as my mind shifts to the messiness of past hints. I started off not really knowing what I was doing, but I'm getting confident in it. I'm certainly not used to moving with all this magic, but, but... I'm getting better. Barely.

I guess there's somewhat of a small bonus to it, however. I'm growing dull to the concept of death, even though I know there are things out there that can kill me. Things that made me second guess myself a long time ago now make me feel nothing. Not quite enough to make me a psychopathic slaughterer.

Just enough dullness to not squirm at the sight of excessive blood and guts. Certainly enough to make me more tolerant of my past actions, heavy with guilt as I still am. I was forced to take so many regrettable actions back in that town. Back in Tryhpeltzweig... Never mind the hive.

I shake my head, clearing my head and wiping away some more of the blood. I'm not thinking these thoughts because they're properly bothering me right now. There's just too much blood on me. The blood I will have to clean off.

Sure, everyone was fine with the blood at first. We were all on the run, after all. The earliest days of our departure from Tryhpeltzweig. But now? Now we have been at it for a while and everyone, most particularly Baltanthan, are a lot more comfortable calling the others out on something. Be it simple filth and muck to being a know-it-all with his panties in a twist.

Nevermind how much our different ways of speaking, acting and conducting ourselves seems to set someone off... It's quite interesting to see, I suppose. We're all from different cultures. Some certainly further away than others.

Rose's is an aelenvari brought up in their most luxurious of ways. Baltanthan is the son of a common shopkeep. I'm similar, but not quite the same with how I'm also from the bottom of my society. Though, I've certainly matured to being more familiar with Rose's way of life since coming to this land. Nevermind everything that is Einervaene with how she's also a, for lack of a better word, a high-floor girl.

Being fair to her, though... Life has certainly tempered any rich daughter sensibilities with how her life has been from the moment she left her home. Unlike Rose, who still has all of those traits. And I don't think the friction created by her wealthy attitude is going to go away anytime soon.

Unfortunately for Baltanthan, who is coming up to me right now.

"What even is this thing?" Baltanthan asks as he finally comes down and joins me in the increasingly crimson grass. His face, unlike mine, however, is not quite used to all the gore. He'll scoff down a steak, but he hates seeing it get cut up from the animal. His face, plastered with disgustful sneers, only helps the idiots of this world.

"Not sure why you are asking me." I answer back, not sure how of all the times he's now confused as to what the hunted animal is. He's been more than helpful before, especially given one of his abandoned friends is a hunter. Still, to be stuck with someone who has as little practical knowledge as I do.

One of these days, going after whatever is not going to be to my benefit.

"Whatever it is... It didn't squirt you with anything, did it?" he asks, cautiously eyeing me with more than just disgust for the gore on me. A tension builds up in my chest, but I know what he's on about. My ignorance of the land bit me in the arse not that long ago. Some other creature with a tail-thing squirted me with a foul goo.

It didn't seem harmful, but the night that followed had me sleeping on my own. Scratch that, I never slept at all. Creepy crawlies covered me the whole time. Grass almost went as black as my actual carapace is with how many insects there were. Sure... There was some fun to it for a little while, but the others did not find it funny to have dozens of little legs in their food.

"No, no squirts this time. Just blood." I thankfully answer, picking away at any bits of flesh stuck to my clothes. The big stuff falls off just fine on its own. The small stuff is not going anywhere, not without a bath and a laundry session. Not even a mechanical laundry session, all by hand!

"Clean yourself off, anyway, at some point." he snips away, looking the animal over for the parts that are best to use as food. Though the main body is a mess, there's certainly a lot still intact about it.

"The quicker we get this done, the cleaner it will be." I tell him, clapping my claws together as I watch him be picky about all the bits of grass and dirt. His attention isn't moving away from the top half of the corpse, however. Though he's always been seemingly picky about what I hunt and I can't tell if it's because he's a neat freak or just icky about the blood.

"We can take as long as we need. Insects aren't going to be crawling up this high," he explains, patting the corpse as it all becomes clear. Ah. Insects, right. Especially considering...

I shake my head clear of the tangent, "I am not on about them. I'm on about the underside of it."

"It's touching bloody mud and grass..." he points out, his disgust quite clear even in my spirit. No one wants to snack on anything like one of those 'mudfish' we had one night. Flesh that tastes like dirt, however...

"We can clean it off." I point out, focusing on just how much of this creature is shelled like a bug, though otherwise not buggy on the inside. Crustecean...? I think Einervaene said before when she went on about something called a 'crab.'

"You don't wash meat in water!" Baltanthan snaps, turning around to lob some animal shrapnel at me. It knocks against me, splattering in the blood pool as the mud continues to squelch.

"You're the one who complains about us not getting the better part of the animal!"

"Which is entirely your fault because you cannot kill anything without making a mess of it!" he's right to point out.

"It doesn't matter if it has a bloody demise, you can still clean it off! A blade of grass isn't going to kill you!" I say, wavering in my tone slightly as he's certainly right with his words. I am a messy killer for the time being.

"There shouldn't be a blade of grass on it, to begin with!" he complains, throwing his arms up in the air as he nearly slips on the mud. He heads away, shivering the whole of his body while his eyes just roll. I shrug at his words, heading forward to tear off a large chunk of the animal. A whole natural basket of meat and shell.

"Anything..." I start to say, tearing off some more to fill up my shell-plate and then even more shell to cover it all with, "Else?"

"Do you want anything else? We got small bits and big bits, not much else we really need," he says, leaving me to stare at the torn-up animal.

"Well, our map did show we were pretty much a day away from the base of the mountain we wanted to go to. So why not take a little extra for celebratory purposes?" I point out as his whole demeanour changes to a joyous sigh.

"We're really that close, huh?" Baltanthan says quietly, his smile growing and growing as he looks around, hoping to find the right mountain. He does just that, I think, staring off towards the city of Thrurstradtur built atop it.

Oh, sorry, Thrurstradtur-Suhurlodst-

"Heh." I snicker, remembering the correcting annoyance can't hear my thoughts.

Still, we are nearly there, nearly at the place Vapooliar is at. Maybe a place that can help me with my current problem. If magic did this to me, maybe magic can undo it? Again, however...

"How's our long-lasting food? Do we have enough?" I ask again, though differently this time.

"No idea, but we can just smoke a few strips of this animal and move on from there," Baltanthan suggests, taking the dive to suddenly put some bloody food on his clothes and arms. Guess this is the magical power of a better mood?

"I suppose that is true. Actually, how are the bags for you three coming along as well?" I ask him, knowing full well that Einervaene and Rose should be working on de-scaling that utter boulder of one Rose made me pack at her caravan.

"Einervaene made them without much issue. If they hold up, however, we do not know, as so far we have just been having you carry them in the bigger bag," he explains, somehow not bothered by the fact their bags are made from that bigger bad.

"I hope you didn't tear apart that bag too much, if at all." I mutter, my claws too occupied to try and clutch at my chittering jaw. Annoying thing.

"I mean, we can just abandon some of it, no? It's not like we won't be able to get new ones later." Baltanthan shrugs as if we'll just come right across a shop for bags.

"It depends on what you get rid of, I am sure you know what Rose is like." I say, letting my words sigh on out with a partial snort. Baltanthan agrees with the sentiment, and a bolt of lightning flashes before us. A beautiful, but twitching woman stepping off of the charred earth.

"Do I need to get a bath ready!?" Einervaene asks, her surprise still as endearing as ever even with my history of being in bloody clothes.

"It would be appreciated!" I reply, smiling even if she can't see. She looks at us both, nodding away as she shoots off again. Leaving us to begin the journey up to the camp.

"She could've taken us with her..." Baltanthan complains, this meagre mountainside making him moan.

"Thrurstradutur is bigger, no?" I ask, intentionally slipping on my pronunciation.

"THRURSTRADTUR-SUHURLODST!" Baltanthan bellows, his easy to light temper putting a smile on my face. His annoyed ruminations all but keeping the smile there as my legs bend up and down the mountainside.