B2 Chapter 240: Beast Lore

After waking with the rising dawn, Kaius pushed his way out of the tent they had pitched right by the site of their battle and set about making breakfast. His companions were still dozing, sleep claiming them deeply after the rigours of their midnight soiree with the drake.

Fetching another cut of meat from the body of the drake, he decided to pair it with some bread and scrambled eggs. A simple meal, but one that would be relatively easy to make.

He prepared an extra serving—it was likely that Ro would arrive within an hour at most.

Kaius shook his head wrily at the thought of the woman crossing that much ground in only eight hours. The trip had taken them the better part of two weeks—that sort of speed, sustained over that long, was ridiculous.

Not for the first time, he wondered what level she was—and Rieker too, for that matter. The second tier was the bare minimum, he suspected that Silver was a requirement to hold the sort of rank that they had within the guild.

It felt too low for the kind of feats he had seen from them. Gold rank—level three-hundred—perhaps?

Regardless of their exact level, he was almost certain that they had good classes too. People who put in the sort of consistent effort required to reach that level in the low mana zone that was Central Plains almost invariably grew strong as they passed through the tiers. Before beasts had swamped the land, reaching that high in any sort of reasonable time frame required nigh constant delving, or trips far afield to where powerful monsters were able to be found.

It was still hard to believe; people in the second tier were rare. Almost unheard of, from what he’d heard from Father and the discussion he’d had with Ianmus after they had first witnessed Ro’s blinding speed. Sure, it was obvious that he’d run into far more of them in the Guild, and that his own strength meant he was all but certain to brush shoulders with people of nominally similar pedigree.

But Deadacre? It was a backwater—and not a particularly pleasant one at that, from what Ianmus had said.

Meeting not one, but two delvers of their capability was mind boggling. It was somewhat explainable in that they clearly knew each other well—too well for the mere handful of years that Rieker had been stationed in the city.

He still questioned why they were there though. There had to be a reason.

It wasn’t so much a burning need to know, but there was a curiosity there.

Maybe he was wrong, and the second tier was more common than he was led to believe—certainly, both Rieker and Ekum had implied that the third tier was not the legendary achievement he had believed it was. For all he knew, bigger cities could have second tiers by the dozen, and guildmasters solidly into the third.

On the other hand, maybe there was something about Deadacre that held the guild’s interest enough that they’d station two elites just to safeguard it.

It was by no means impossible. The city had its mysteries. The circle of blighted land that grew around it, and the rumours of its origin, for one. Even if that wasn’t the case, it could be something as mundane as politics.

The frontier was large. A poor and underpopulated region, it nonetheless was the nexus between the Hiwiann steppe, Mystral, the Dukedoms, and the elvish Domains. With only two major cities in such a region, maybe the guild simply needed some display of strength to project their will through the region.

Honestly, the more he thought about it, the more likely that was the case—though he hoped it was not so. The other two options were far more exciting secrets.

Lost in thought as he dreamed of hidden lairs in the Deadacre sewers, and secret societies of high level delvers, Kaius smiled as he continued his preparation for breakfast, cutting the drake meat into long strips.

….

“Fucking hells, you guys really did a number on this thing.”

Surprise physically jolted him at the sudden noise that came from behind him, a desperate blurt escaping from his lips as Kaius jumped upwards. His team mirrored his responses—Porkchop bolted upright, hackles raised, and Ianmus snapped his head upwards from where he’d been staring mindlessly at the ground in front of him.

Kaius’s hand lurched to the hilt of his sword instinctively, before he realised he recognised who the voice belonged to.

Ro.

Whipping around, Kaius found the guild manager grinning at them with a knowing smile—clearly finding amusement at the fright she had given them.

“Gods’ bollocks, woman!” Ianmus replied with a glare, clutching his chest.

Ro only cackled madly, the mage’s protests inspiring more delight.

“Never gets old,” she finally said, wiping her eyes as her laughter petered out.

Walking over to their group, she waved at Kaius to shuffle to the side—staring at the nearly finished breakfast cooking away in his pan.

“Shuffle over,” Ro said. “Do you have enough for me? Some asshole activated a communication token at midnight, so I’ve been running for hours on last night’s dinner.”

Kaius winced—suddenly realising the imposition they had placed upon her.

“Sorry about that—its nightly patrol was the only time that it came through this valley, and it was the best shot we had.” he explained, moving to his right to create some space for Ro.

“Bah,” Ro said as she waved him off, and took her seat on the stone ground. “Think nothing of it—this sort of shit is just part of the job.”

Craning her neck back, she took in the still body of the drake. Nearly fifty strides from snout to tail, Kaius would have needed to stand on his own shoulders with his arms outstretched to just barely reach its back.

“Even seeing it for myself a few weeks ago, it still amazes me just how damn big these things get. It’s only the second I’ve ever seen, you know? And the other was in the depths, so I couldn’t be sure if they got to that size naturally.” Ro said, turning back to them.

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Kaius nodded. Things like drakes were unheard of in the central lands—seeing one at all was seen as something of a sign of a successful career. Hells, anything of that size was seen as a serious threat—the irontusks around Deadacre were something of an outlier, and probably would have been culled if they didn’t tend to stay low level and keep clear of major settlements.

“Guess it goes to show just how much is changing, huh?” Kaius replied.

He only got a slow nod in response—they were all well too aware of the effects the phase change had had on the settlements in the region.

Finally, Ro looked up and gave them a smile. “Still, I wasn’t joking about you tearing that thing to shreds. It looks like a pack of flaming dogs got at it.”

Porkchop snorted in amusement. “It might as well have been—that thing just wouldn’t bloody die no matter what we did. I’d bet the fight would have gone far differently if we hadn’t had the sense to drop half a forest of logs on its back.”