Blind Chaos - Tales Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Jobs to cull dinosaurs and other predators, Tatius had explained, could be broadly broken down into two categories. Either people tried to push into territory they shouldn’t have or something discovered easy access to convenient food and decided to stay. Which made sense, predators tended to establish a territory and the only times that they were brought into conflict with people were when people entered their territory or when they were forced to find a new territory and discovered something easier to eat.

These were the most common Adventurer jobs on offer, at least once you filtered out the surprising breadth of jobs that seemed to mistake Adventurers for (often underpaid) handymen sought for various odd jobs. Escort missions were the next most common job, though they tended to require an Adventurer to be lucky enough to be present when the service was sought. Manhunts followed after that, those that the authority figures of Remus—or sometimes the aggrieved parties and/or their kin—had posted bounties on because someone had escaped conventional justice; these were almost always classers. Beyond that, there was always a job or three that defied the other classifications.

Tatius had taken a job to eliminate a predator that harassed a farm on the outskirts of a smaller town in a direction different from the one taken by the villagers. Thank Xaoc for towns that were on a convergence of roads, where there were more options than just ‘forward’ or ‘backward’.

Not all towns had an Adventurer’s Guild; there were many villages and small towns in Remus that were too small to warrant a permanent presence. When they needed assistance, they sent word—often with an existing traveler—to the nearest town that actually warranted a Guild. That was what happened here, so the trio had to travel a few days to reach the small town that the farm bordered.

The next step involved meeting with the farmer that requested the job, which went smoothly enough, though the man seemed to stare at Ranthia nonstop, which creeped her out. He seemed to be sufficiently glad that Adventurers had arrived and gave them more details. Just as the job stated, it was a Deinonychus, a relatively small predatory dinosaur that ‘only’ came up to a grown man’s chest, and the farmer insisted he had [Identify]’d it himself to confirm the species.

The color had been “a light red,” which could have been anywhere from roughly level 50 to level 200, depending on the man’s personal biases. Not that he had any helpful information to narrow it down further. Supposedly the thing had a taste for his chickens, and he was nearly out of surviving birds.

Quite reasonably, the man didn’t want to learn what happened when he ran out of chickens.

No, where everything went wrong was shortly after they found the dinosaur’s nesting grounds and engaged it.

“Don’t kill it!” Tatius had shouted moments before Pupius could drive his sword into the beast.

Pupius swore and pivoted off. The dinosaur spooked and ran.

Straight at Ranthia, naturally.

[*ding!* [Dodging] has reached level 40!]

Ranthia sprang out of the way, though the dinosaur’s head followed her and tried to take a bite out of her while she got clear. This forced her to dodge a second time—no level that time—which prevented her from counter-attacking.

“Why?!” Ranthia and Pupius roared in unison.

“Trust me, I know what I’m doing, herd it towards me!” Tatius called back while he switched out to his big shield and spear.

“Kid, be ready with your light show!” Pupius ordered out before he zipped off after the dinosaur. He was faster than the dinosaur, though they were nearly out of sight by the time he caught up to it and got in front of it. A few strikes with the flat of his sword convinced the beast to turn and, soon enough, he had it redirected back towards them.

Ranthia relaxed her legs, just as she had been taught, and kept herself ready to move while she watched it. This time the dinosaur didn’t go for her, but when it tried to turn away, she was ready. [Homunculus of Light] sent an imposing figure of glowing light a bit further into its path and the dinosaur pivoted back, angling for the space between Ranthia and Tatius.

Ranthia struck out when it passed her, but her knife only claimed a few feathers off its flank. She was still too slow!

Tatius, on the other hand, thrust his spear perfectly. The weapon pierced straight through the dinosaur’s leg.

The beast stumbled.

And, inexplicably, Tatius suddenly leapt on top of it, shield-first.

“What on Pallos are you doing?!” Ranthia called out.

She wanted to get closer, but the dinosaur was flailing with everything it had, even as Tatius wrestled to pin it beneath his shield. Pupius came into range just in time to hear the loud, coin purse-wounding sound of Tatius’ spear snapping like a twig beneath their combined weights.

“Let her kill it! If she’s going to accompany us, she needs to learn how to face death!” Tatius called out.

“We could have done this smarter! Spears don’t grow on trees, you know!” Pupius snapped back.

Ranthia rolled her eyes. Spears were mostly wood, so Pupius was pretty much dead wrong; especially since the spearhead was probably fine. It was still going to cost them though, and this job wasn’t exactly going to provide significant wealth.

While the men argued, Ranthia carefully approached and, before either man could try to micromanage, she lashed out with her right knife. [Combat] and her own—admittedly patchwork—grasp of anatomy agreed where to cut with her knife to apply the ideal fatal injury. A major blood passage and its air passage would both suffer major damage, and given the amount of blood that flowed from the wound she had been right.

Ranthia stepped back and watched while the dinosaur slowed.

“You do realize I’ve killed before? Got a rat and a snake, both of which out-leveled me. At least at the time.” Ranthia deadpanned while the men gawked at her.

It was still a bit surprising that she already was at a higher level than the snake had been, albeit only slightly; she had just dinged level 41 during their journey to the farm. The near disaster that was the snake felt like both something that had just recently happened and like a lifetime ago.

She wasn’t the same little girl anymore.

And she would never be again.

[*ding!* Your group has slain a [Deinonychus] (Wood, level 106)!]

Tatius miserably examined his new spear shaft. None of them were going to pretend it was anything except a broom handle that the local blacksmith had removed and stuck the recovered spear tip onto.

And yet it still cost them over half what the job would, eventually, pay once they turned it in to the Adventurer’s Guild.

“I hate small towns.” Tatius grumbled.

Pupius just chuckled and took another sip of his beer, while they relaxed around the table outside of the little tavern that served the town. The day was pleasant, the air was refreshingly crisp, and the subtle scent of smoke in the air felt homey.

“I really should have ordered something else.” Ranthia grumbled. Ever since she had entered the care of the two men, meals were thrice a day. It still felt sort of hopelessly indulgent, though Ranthia had quickly discovered that she could be a picky eater when she wasn’t always starving.

“I’ll bite, what’s wrong with the beef stew?” Pupius asked after he finished rolling his eyes.

“None of the local farms keep cattle, and given the taste? It’s definitely not beef.” Ranthia groused.

“Ah. …Ew.” Pupius nodded his agreement, once he reached the same conclusion that Ranthia had.

“I really hate small towns.” Tatius chimed in.

Neither of them disagreed.

Ranthia rolled her eyes while Tatius insisted on brushing some of the tangles out of her hair. It had gotten long, again. Not that the man seemed to have any idea how to brush something other than a horse.

“I told you, I’m fine.” Ranthia snapped after she gritted her teeth through another painful tug of her hair.

“You might be an Adventurer, but you’re still a girl. Taking care of your appearance is important.” Tatius replied.

She didn’t entirely disagree. She had taken [Cute] for similar reasons, even if the skill was all too often neglected. But when she wasn’t in a town, she didn’t care. There was nobody in the wilderness that she needed to impress.

And she fully intended to hack her hair back short with her knives as soon as Tatius fell asleep.

“Stop trying to hit me and hit me!” Pupius challenged cockily, while he twisted and evaded around Ranthia’s slashes.

She ‘passed’ if she forced him to parry, which he was better at than he was at dodging, or actually landed a blow. Not that she had delusions of success. Especially since she was also expected to, somehow, pay full attention to Tatius’ ongoing lecture.

“I haven’t been one for long, but do you want to know what ruins the lives of most Adventurers?” Tatius called over.

Ranthia cursed aloud while she narrowly dodged a lazy slash from one of the sticks Pupius was wielding.

“Nope, try again.” Tatius called back, almost managing to suppress the amusement that threatened to sneak into his voice.

“Classers?” Ranthia speculated while she failed utterly at connecting a blow on Pupius.

“Not quite. Injuries. Healers are damn—very expensive. Every low-ranked Adventurer is a single major injury away from getting killed or getting crippled. If you get crippled, the best-case scenario is you end up so deep in debt that you have no choice but to sell yourself into slavery.” Tatius lectured.

It made sense. Adventurers made quite a bit of money; even a modest job tended to pay what a [Laborer] might earn in weeks. But with commensurate reward came grave risk. Often literally.

“The high-ranked Adventurers—the A-ranked ones—aren’t necessarily the ones with the sharpest swords or the strongest classes, they’re the smart ones. Every [Warrior], or [Mage], excels at countering certain threats while others are more dangerous to you. Learning what you can counter, where you can punch up, is as important as anything else.” Tatius continued.

Ranthia ducked another halfhearted swing from Pupius.

“In your case, that means opponents that you can defeat by missing every swing.” The shorter man teased.

“Oh hush!” Ranthia snapped while she whiffed, yet again.

“And Tats, why do you keep trying to censor your cursing? The brat’s got a fouler mouth than either of us.” Pupius added in the same tone.

“Shut up.” Tatius replied coldly.

Ranthia’s own response… well, it probably proved him right, but in her defense, she was getting very frustrated.

Tatius just continued to lecture on the value of matching talent to threats while Ranthia struggled—in vain—to finally force Pupius to take their sparring match seriously.

Not that she managed.

Another day, another town. Honestly, Ranthia loved the travel. Most people within Remus never left the walls of their hometown, which seemed like a shame. It was how you got people as delusional as the other refugees from Perinthus that had no concept of the danger that outclassed their paltry levels so severely. But it also meant that they had no grasp of the splendor that Xaoc and the other great gods had created.

Even within Remus, there were changes. Jungles, forests, bamboo thickets, and more. There were rocky mountainous areas, the Nostrum Sea at the heart of the Republic, and the Ocean to the north. And almost every day Ranthia got to discover a new facet of her slice of the world.

They had just concluded a job to find a missing child that was—miraculously—still alive, living off of mercifully edible mushrooms he had found in the woods. The kid had been reunited with his aunts, who had been all too happy to declare them heroes to the town.

…Well, Tatius and Pupius were declared heroes. Ranthia was just ‘the tagalong,’ despite her daily efforts to hone herself. It grated, but she knew that her efforts would be rewarded with time. She trained her body, her mind, and—when she wasn’t trapped in a town—her magic. Most towns took a dim view of classers practicing magic openly, even if it was technically mostly harmless.

Remus feared those with combat potential. [Warriors], [Mages], and [Rangers] were treated with suspicion unless they had the badge of the Remus Eagle pinned to their chest—like Rangers or the alleged expert Rangers, the Sentinels—or were a familiar face garbed in the drab equipment of the guard.

Tatius and Pupius had used their newfound reputation to secure the attentions of a couple of the small town’s unattached (or perhaps under-attached, since Ranthia was fairly certain Pupius’ paramour of the moment was married) women. Ranthia didn’t begrudge the men their gratification, though it still skeeved her out on some level and she wanted nothing to do with the merest proximity to it.

When they kissed prospective temporary partners, it didn’t bother her, but much past that…

Well, she was all too happy to take a few coins from the men and occupy herself. As per usual when it happened, Ranthia bought food from a stall—smoked fish in this case—and slipped into a quiet alley where the local wild cats liked to linger.

Nothing was better than to take a moment to yourself and relax among purring friends whose company you bribed your way into. There was always at least one that would let her pet it while she shared her bounty of cheap fish. Once the food was done, they usually tolerated her presence while she leisurely sunned herself, prayed, or just plotted.

The small moments were just as important in life as the large.

“We’re not taking a manhunt quest.” Tatius repeated, his face and demeanor stony.

“We’re low on funds and the kid needs new sandals, again. This pays nearly five times as much as any other job available.” Pupius argued, his voice calm.

It seemed perfectly civil, so long as you didn’t look at their faces. The men glared at one another while they argued.

Ranthia had learned her lesson. If she chimed in that she didn’t mind taking human lives—at least not when they were scum like that—Pupius would immediately swing into siding with Tatius. And then both of them would try to make her feel like she shouldn’t have wanted to go after other people. Instead, she ignored them and skimmed the monster extermination jobs. When Pupius ultimately gave up, she had a narrow window where they would just go with whatever fallback option she suggested.

It was a marvelous opportunity to guide their journey through Remus.

“Mid-sized! The job said it was a mid-sized dinosaur!”

“I mean, dinosaurs do get bigger than a Rugops…”

“Don’t you dare start with that, Ranthia! Something larger than all of us combined is not mid-sized!”

Lesson learned—Tatius handled dangerous surprises poorly. Ranthia was more focused on Pupius though; he was leading the beast away, but she was worried about whether he’d be oka—

[*ding!* Your allies have slain a [Rugops] (Earth, level 183)!]

Pupius returned with the broadest of grins, no worse for wear.

One of Ranthia’s hobbies was to visit the temple(s) in every town they spent even a single night within. The temples were a fascinating look into the culture of a city. Some were robust buildings that were works of art, others were small and humble.

In one case, the temple had simply been a building that looked like any of the homes in the village, with a single altar with the symbol of the five gods engraved upon it, and a small table—an actual simple little table—that served as the altar for other deities.

The temples were important to Remus. They handled saved money so no one had to carry the sum of their wealth in their bags everywhere they went. Prayers to the gods or, occasionally, to the Guardian Etalix were a common part of Reman society. Priests and priestesses spoke to those that endured grief. Religious services handled numerous local celebrations and events too. The temples were the backbone of most cities.

And yet they subtly differed everywhere she went.

Ranthia could pray to Xaoc anywhere, but she had made a habit of reporting on her jobs and journeys at the temples as well, as if she hadn’t spoken to Xaoc practically every day of said jobs and journeys. It seemed important, and so she did it.

“This is one of the herbs we’re supposed to be gathering.” Tatius explained while he held up the plant.

“…That’s one of the weeds that the alchemist showed us and asked us to not mix up with the herb.” Ranthia replied with a smirk.

“She’s right, you know, it has those same grey bits near the stem instead of the black bark. This is silphium.” Pupius chimed in, holding up his own harvested plant.

Tatius just sighed and tossed his weed aside.

“Shouldn’t you be having a birthday sometime soon, Ranthia?” He grumbled in an incredibly transparent attempt to shift the topic off his obvious mistake.

“Yeah, like a season or so ago.” Ranthia replied glibly.

“What?!” Both men snapped. This was followed up with demands about why she hadn’t said anything and threats of parties.

“It was when we were doing that job that had us traipsing through the woods trying to find any sign of the ‘mysterious singing woman’ back in late spring! I didn’t even notice until we finally gave up and left, and at that point none of us were in the mood to celebrate!” Ranthia waved the men off. Jobs that resulted in a report of “no incident” still paid, but they paid a tiny pittance compared to the payment that was posted on the job for a successful completion. None of them enjoyed burning so many supplies and so much effort for less than the cost of a hot meal for each of them.

They were sweet, but she really didn’t need to celebrate turning 9.

She had several more years to get through before she felt like celebrating.

“I think my dinosaur hide’s going off.” Ranthia finally confessed.

They had always wanted to get her proper armor, but every time they got close to having enough spare money banked in the temple something went wrong. Pupius’ sword would break. Tatius’ chestplate would get damaged. Pupius broke his arm badly enough that Tatius and Ranthia browbeat him into seeing a [Healer]. They had to pay for damage to a wagon.

Bribes to get them out of trouble with the local guard.

That time they had to pay some thieves to smuggle them out of a town, which shockingly wasn’t Ranthia’s fault. Instead, Pupius got caught with the prick of a village elder’s daughter. …The jerk of an elder hadn’t even had time to discover what she had done to his collection of wigs.

Ranthia was still wrapped in her increasingly ill-fitting ‘cloak’ of dinosaur hide that she had acquired the very day that she joined with the men. It provided a modicum of protection, and she had grown to kind of like it. But it wasn’t armor.

And Ranthia was growingly increasingly unconvinced that it had been properly treated. The itchiness she had mostly quietly endured for a season had gotten dramatically worse and the odor that emanated from her dinosaur hide ‘cloak’ had become more pronounced.

Pupius had thought she was just getting ‘old enough to get picky’ and shrugged it off as a girl becoming a woman. His comments—and the lack of trust they implied—hurt and Ranthia had kept her mouth shut for entirely too long.

When she tried to scratch her back when they stopped to camp for the night and her hand came away bloody, that had been the final straw.

“A treated hide doesn’t go off; you just aren’t doing your maintenance properly.” Pupius replied automatically.

“I’m not just being sloppy OR picky!” Ranthia insisted.

“And I’m sure it’s fine.” Pupius stubbornly replied.

“Oh, for the love of Xaoc.” Ranthia huffed, before she stood and turned her back on the men.

She shucked her tunic while the two desperately turned away. At some point they had gotten profoundly conscientious about nudity of any form that involved her, out of hypothetical concerns that people might assume impropriety in their relationship. Not that anyone had ever seemed to doubt Tatius’ claims of being her father, even as their features further diverged every time that she grew a little more.

“Gods and Goddesses, you two, just look. We’re all Adventurers here!” Ranthia snapped over her shoulder.

It was hesitant and took forever, but Tatius looked first. And his sharp intake of breath made Pupius finally look.

…Apparently her skin was in even worse shape than she had thought. In the aftermath, Tatius grabbed the dinosaur hide and—before saner minds could stop him—threw it into the fire.

They had to flee their campsite to escape the choking, black smoke that filled the area.

The next morning, they arrived in a decent town and Ranthia was immediately dragged to the local apothecary—and even then she had struggled to argue the men down from taking her to a [Healer], which was an absurd overreaction—almost literally.

There Ranthia pretended to be demure and okay with it while she clutched her wadded-up tunic over her chest and tried to ignore how the old man’s eyes continued to wander her still childish body while he examined her back. In the end though, the cream that the man prepared for her was divine. Minor blasphemy aside, the cool cream soothed the omnipresent itchiness immediately and freed her from a season of constant pain and distraction.

It was worth every one of the many, many coins it had cost. And it’d still been cheaper than a [Healer] would have been.

Ranthia didn’t mind paying a bit of dignity either.

“Another cloak of hide, really?” Pupius asked.

The leatherworker shot the shorter man a glare, but Pupius flagrantly ignored it.

“This time it’s proper worked leather.” Ranthia defended the man.

The man nodded his appreciation before he knelt to loosely hem the leather. Ranthia was still growing, so she wanted something that could grow with her until she learned how tall she was going to become.

As much as she wanted proper armor, it couldn’t grow with her.

…Plus, there weren’t exactly a bunch of used sets of armor sized for children on sale, and new custom armor was a luxury they were nowhere close to being able to afford. Not even before Ranthia had become infested with biting parasites that needed to be medicated out of existence.

She had dumped some of her free stats into vitality to help that process along when she found out there were tiny bugs living inside of her flesh. She was a worldly young woman, and she had long accepted that fleas and mites were kind of an inevitability for people that traipsed through woods and slept on the ground more often than not. But there was a difference between having to dislodge a leech and discovering that you were both food and home to a full-on infestation.

That was an insult too far.

“We’re just surprised that you’re fine with another cloak.” Tatius diplomatically offered.

The leatherworker stood and admired his work. The layered hems were even and were loose enough that Ranthia would be able to undo them one by one as she needed more space in the shoulders or chest, or needed more length added. Ranthia was growing in every sense of the word, but she was far from done with the physical aspect of it.

The leatherworker had done good work though, especially for how surprisingly cheap the thick leather was.

The leatherworker seemed satisfied too, because he excused himself to ready the bill of sale.

“Aside from our limited funds, I’ve decided to like them while I grow. Plus, I get to do this!” Ranthia finally answered.

She then twirled back to face the men and smiled sweetly. With a swift, practiced motion she unsheathed her knives and flicked her arms down so the blades of the knives peeked underneath the leather cloak while her smile twisted from sweet to spicy.

“Not gonna lie kid, that’s probably the first legitimately intimidating thing that I’ve seen out of you.” Pupius commented after he whistled appreciatively.

Tatius just muttered something about terrible influences.

Ranthia wholeheartedly disagreed.

She thought the two well-meaning men were the best of influences.

And her new leather cloak made a great early birthday present, and a great excuse to keep the men from wasting any more precious coin on her upcoming tenth birthday.