Primal Dawn

Peter returned to the tied-up primals along with Kalista and Gaia. “Is your election finished yet? Are you going to walk to Shantee and ask everyone there for their opinion as well? I’m going to bleed out before you finish counting your damn votes,” Brinda said. Looking at her, he hesitated to give the order. 

Despite knowing what she had done.

Despite knowing what she would do if free.

Somehow, it was difficult to give the command.

“Aww, what’s wrong, starting to fall in love?” Brinda mocked. “Come here, take a load off. My hands are tied up, so how about a kiss,” she said as she stuck out her lips and then suddenly bit the air.

There was something wrong with this primal. And there was something wrong with the world that created her. But today, only one of them would be punished.

“I’m sorry, but you must die. Ka-... Rena, would you like to?”

“Gladly,” she replied. She pulled back her glaive and swiftly rammed the tip into Brinda’s stomach, carefully avoiding the rope. Her armor protected her somewhat, but the blow still pierced her flesh.

“Kuh,” Brinda made a noise as she spits out blood, “is it in yet?” she asked with a grin. The Goblin began to cry. The next blow was a downward swing into her shoulder. Brinda let out a scream as the blade bit deeply into her body. Her pained breaths grew rapid, but she still managed to force a smile. “Missed again.”

Peter recoiled. He had hoped to give Rena some sort of catharsis. But this… this would help no one.

“Line Breaker!” Rena angrily shouted. In a giant sweeping motion, she spun her glaive around, the blade’s edge went straight through Brinda’s neck, severing her head. The Goblin began to sob uncontrollably while the Dryad glowered at them. 

As Rena began to walk away, she stopped and kicked the Templar’s head with her rear leg. It flew through the air toward the body of the Arachnid, then landed on the ground. Next to eight severed legs and another head.

Peter quickly looked away.

“As for you two,” Peter spoke, trying to sound confident, “I’ll give you two options. You,” he said, looking at the Dryad. “Capture, or kill.”

“Kill,” and she spat towards him.

Peter nodded. “Kalista.”

“Vengeance!” with one clean sweep, her life was forfeit. The Goblin began to sob even louder as Peter silently thanked Kalista.

“Same goes for you, capture or kill.”

“C-capture, I don’t want to die!” she said with tears in her eyes.

Peter leaned down towards her. “Then I have a special offer for you.” She looked at his disturbed eyes with terror. “Brinda said you capture tamers, where are you keeping them?”

“Wh-what’s in it for me?” the Goblin stammered.

Peter gave a light smile. “Capture…”

“You fiend! You lied to her?” Fira yelled.

“Or freedom, if you tell me.”

The Goblin’s eyes went wide. “You’d… you’d let me go?” Peter slowly nodded. “A-alright. There’s a cave, twenty minutes that way,” she said as she turned her head in the direction of the forest and lifted her chin upwards. “Our base is behind it.”

“Any of your friends we need to worry about?”

“N-,” the Goblin went pale. “Only Rin, but she doesn’t fight, don’t hurt her!”

Fira moved towards the rope.

“What are you doing?” Peter asked.

“You said you would let her go,” she glared.

“First we need to make sure she’s telling the truth.”

—

“Peter, are you sure about letting the Goblin go?” Kalista asked.

They had been walking for roughly twenty minutes. If the Goblin wasn’t lying, they would soon see a cave.

Peter sighed. “I don’t want to torture her for information, so instead I had to offer a better deal. It should be fine, I think. It’s just her and this Rin that she spoke of left from their group. If Rin can’t fight then they won’t do much more damage by themselves. Their days of kidnapping tamers should be over. Besides…” Peter’s voice trailed off. “I think that’s it,” he muttered.

He spotted a large cave, its maw opening wide. The inside was so steep, it quickly became impossible to see what lurked inside from a distance.

The Goblin had said that their camp was behind the cave. A strange location. As the three left the confines of the forest and entered the clearing, Peter heard a small rustling. 

Kalista readied her weapon as they all looked in the direction of the sound. Was it a Slime glazing over the grass?

“Oh, travelers,” said a Fren as her head popped out from behind the cave. She was strangely short. “You’d best stay far away from here. Before the others catch sight of you.”

She moved out from behind the cave, and Peter showed surprise. She used both her hands to slowly drag herself towards them, her legs following behind. One had bite marks all over, chunks of flesh ripped out from it. The other was badly bent.

The Fren stopped and began to sniff. She suddenly turned pale. “B-b-blood, Ms. Brinda, the others… I, I see.” Her arms began to rattle as Peter began to walk towards her. “Oh dear, oh my, if I may, oop!” She tried to lift both her hands and fell face flat into the grass. “M-my apologies for the pathetic display, i-if you could, please, make it quick,” she stammered as she stretched one hand’s fingers as far as she could across her eyes, the other straining to support herself. Her fingers seemed to be covered in some sort of red liquid. Blood, perhaps?

“No,” Peter sighed. “It won’t be quick. It will be long. So long that you’ll begin to question if we’d actually go through with it.” He let out another exhausted sigh. “Where are the tamers you’ve been keeping?” 

“Y-yes, right this way.”

The Fren began to drag herself behind the cave. So this was Rin. Peter felt a little awkward moving so slowly, so he began to look around. At first glance, the cave was just that, a cave. But as they began to walk along its side, Peter noticed that there were some strange markings on the bottom portion. They were made with an assortment of colors; red, blue, and purple. Were they part of some ritual? 

Soon they reached a makeshift hut. The door was a drape made of shirts and silken web to bind them together. At the center was the axle of some wagon. Chained to this axle were several men. Peter quickly went inside and began to move between them. He felt the heart of the first one. Cold and dark. The second, the same.

The third as well. As Peter began to fear they had come too late, he touched the last man. As warm as you could expect someone naked right before winter began, and still beating. “Gaia, he’s alive!”

He quickly moved out of the way as she rushed over. “Heal!” she shouted as she began to heal him. The green light filled the room, and Peter felt excited, he was able to save someone.

“Ugh,” the man groaned. He slowly blinked as he looked towards Gaia. “N-No more, maybe in a couple hours...”

“She’s taken anyway,” Peter said with a smile.

“A tamer?” the man said, surprised. He mustered the energy to look towards Peter. “Oh, thank the gods.”

“We’ll get you out of here. Kalista!” Peter pulled the man’s arms down, stretching the chains as far as they could go. Kalista swung her sword two times, destroying the chains, but leaving the shackles on the man.

“Their leader, she holds the keys.”

“We defeated her already. We’ll grab them and get you out of those cuffs. Here, let me help.” Peter helped the man stand up and wrapped his arm around his shoulder.

As he left the hut, he turned back towards the dead tamers. Peter didn’t have a shovel, or any way to burn them. Perhaps if he had brought Fira, but he didn’t. He settled for having Kalista smash their chains and laying them next to each other, along with him clasping his hands and performing a slight bow. 

Outside, Rin was crushing fruit in her palm, then rubbing it against the bottom of the cave. Her motions were too methodical to be completely random, but Peter couldn’t tell what the purpose was.

“Your items are over there if you’re leaving,” Rin pointed. Peter walked the man over. It was an old wheelbarrow filled with tamers’ possessions. Clothes, licenses, coins. Peter wondered if this was all the tamers’ possessions, or just the ones this group had little use for.

On a stump nearby, Peter saw the cracked remnants of summoning stones. The man tossed some of the clothing out and finally pulled out a license. Peter caught the name. Jack.

Jack then picked out a few coins and stuffed them into his pocket. He picked out some of the clothing and put it on, and then tossed out the remainder.

Peter noticed that there were more than three licenses here, and felt sad. Jack pocketed a hefty amount of coins, and then stopped reaching for more. He looked at Peter for a moment.

“I guess you shouldn’t worry about leaving some for the others…” Peter said morbidly.

“I figured you’d take it.” 

Peter nodded and pocketed the remainder, as well as the licenses. “Let’s go.” The two began to hobble back towards the caravan.

“Wait,” Jack said, just as they passed the Fren. “What’s going to happen to Rin?” Her ears perked up, and her body began to tremble, but she continued her work on the cave.

“She didn’t attack us,” Peter paused, “So I see no reason to harm her.”

Rin relaxed visibly.

“So she’ll be left here, all alone?”

Her tail stood up.

“Maybe. We’re letting one of their group go free, in exchange for telling us where this camp was. They might just have to work together.”

“She was always nice to us…” Jack muttered as he watched her tail begin to slowly waggle back and forth. “Sorry, you’ve already done so much, but, can she come with us?”