Written by Angel of Death. Posted on Jan 26, 08:29 PM.

Come aboard the Vagabond: Chapter 1, v.2.

So yeah, this is the rewrite. And the chapter is complete this time.

Chapter 1: Of bats and invasions.

Hunters and exterminators: On Aura, these guys are everywhere. Mainly because what they are paid to deal with is everywhere. Monsters, creatures, undead of various calibers, or just very big vermin. Where there is civilization, even the smallest backwater village, there is work to be had in dealing with these for those who don’t mind a little, or a lot of, danger in their daily lives. And you can manage quite well in that career money-wise if you don’t bite more than you can chew.

Mages often made good hunters too and that is one of the reasons why Illie, a 17 year old human girl who was a mage in training herself, wanted to try it out. And she didn’t have to look very far for guidance. Her brother in law, Nathaniel Hartag, was a hunter himself. And his partner, an orc named Horatio Brutus, was a friend of her sister. That made convincing him to let her tag along rather easy.

That day, Illie was on her second hunt request alongside Nathan and Horatio. Nathan had told her she could probably do most of the work, unlike last time.

The job itself was a no-brainer. They were to wipe out a flock of ravenous bats, called Vampyrs, that made their nest in some caverns that were connected to a locked up Crystalline Aura mine shaft.

The CryAu mine in question was in a forested area on the foothills of the Drez Mountains. It was of medium size, and was part of a much larger mining complex.

After they arrived at the mine, exited Nathan’s jeep, and gotten their stuff ready, they were “greeted” in the parking lot by a very bored looking mid aged man wearing a blue cover-all and a yellow hard hat. He eyed them as if he was analyzing them from head to toe.

They were wearing camouflage vests and trousers, over which they had grey protective vests. They also had gloves, sturdy boots, helmets and their weapons. Nathan had his trusty shot gun, its leather strap slung over his right shoulder. He also had six incendiary grenades in pouches in the front of his protective vest, and a handgun strapped on his right hip. Horatio held a light assault riffle. Illie had her hand gun in its holster attached to her belt on her right side. Her black hair that went past her hips, which was usually held in a ponytail, was done into a braid. The man looked at her the longest, and raised his eyebrows.

Illie gave the man a questioning look.

“Is there something wrong?”

The man just shrugged.

“She’s young, and she has more gentle looks than what I am used to with hunters. But ho well, not my concern.”

“This way, come on.” He said, nudging towards the low grey main building.

As they followed the man, he began telling them about what was going on.

“This mine as been closed for over ten years. It was shut down during the depression. Recently, our company purchased it, and started to get it back in working condition. That’s when we found it. That cave wasn’t recorded. That could be for any number of reasons.”

They entered the building. The noise of machinery immediately assaulted their ears. There was three orange corridors, one that went forward, one that went right, and one that went left. The miner took the left one.

“The guys are on break right now.” He said as if to excuse the lack of people in the building. “It’s the electrician who found about them. The lights on that level were busted, and he was reinstalling them. His work lights deranged the damned things. They ripped his fucking ear off.” He said while taping on the right side of his hard hat.

“That got to hurt!” Illie said.

“Vampyrs hate any kind of lights. That guy was lucky if they just ripped his ear off.” Nathan said.

They arrived at an elevator. The worker opened it, and got it. They followed him inside.

As the elevator slowly descended into the depths of the mine, Illie taped her foot while whistling a tune lightly. She looked sideways at their “escort”. He just stared at the pad on the elevator’s side that showed the level numbers as they descended, his arms crossed over his chest and his bored expression on his face. She wondered a bit if that man even liked his job.

The elevator stopped at the 11th level, and the mine worker pushed on a button that caused the door to open with a metallic rustle. A couple of meters from the elevator shaft, a barrier made of metal bars barred the way. Behind it, there was no light. The cause for this was apparently not a turned off switch, as the fuse box on the wall to the left was opened and there was a number of wires sticking out. The worker took out a set of keys and a flashlight, went to the door and began fiddling with the lock.

“Well, we would have needed night-vision goggles for this anyhow.” Nathaniel said almost to himself as they stepped out of the elevator after the worker. “I guess the electrician didn’t finish his work.”

The door squeaked as the worker opened it. He then went back near to the elevator, and took out a blueprint from is cover-all. They waited as he looked at it in the light for a minute, after which he motioned Nathan to come over.

“The cavern the bats are supposed to be in is here.” The worker said, pointing at an area on the blueprint. “Continue straight, and at the last intersection, turn right. The cavern opening is halfway down that shaft, on your right.” He refolded the blueprint and put it back in is cover-all. “I’m going back up. Do your stuff, and call me when you’re done, I’m on channel four.”

As the worker went in the elevator and closed the gate, Horatio passed is fingers in his white beard and let out a sigh.

“Let’s do this.” The orc said as he put on his night-vision goggles. The two others did the same.

Nathan was in front, Horatio was in the back, and that left Illie to be between them. The two men were relatively alert, while she was really just looking around, still not fully used to see her environment rendered in grey. The mine shaft was all square angles. The walls and ceilings mostly plane but with a very rugged surface, were reinforced with iron beams. There was a relative amount of humidity, at some places water dripped from the walls. They couldn’t see it, but the Aura Crystals embedded on the walls and ceilings gave off a very dim blue light. Eventually, they arrived at the cavern opening with out seeing a bat on the way there, thought they did see what looked like droppings here and there on the ground.

The cavern opening was a crack that started about a feet from the shaft floor, and went all the way to its ceiling. It was about two meters wide.

When they entered the cavern, Illie stood still and waited while the two seasoned members assessed their surroundings: the cavern was of about twenty meters deep, and thirty meters wide. They could sense some fresh air that was apparently coming from a large opening on the left wall. The ground was littered with bones from small animals, and was covered with a layer of bat droppings. The ceiling, which went no further than half a dozen meters in height, had a few hundred bats hanging upside down from most of its surface. They all seemed to be sleeping. Nathan, deciding that Illie was quite able to take care of this, nodded to her. As she moved carefully into the center of the cavern, the two others went back through the mine opening: They had a device on them that protected them from magic up to a certain point, but there was no sense in wasting it.

Standing in the middle of the cavern, Illie worked on concentrating the Aura energy in her hands. It only took her a few seconds to gather the energy for what she wanted to do. She then raised her arms straight up, with gloved palms open towards the ceiling. She unleashed the energy all at once. A sea of fire engulfed the ceiling and its inhabitants, and in a mater of three seconds it was over. The bats started falling to the ground, all on fire, most thoroughly carbonized and already lifeless, the unlucky rest screeching in pain. A few flapped about weakly for a few moments before joining their companions on the ground.

Illie let her arms drop and hanging limply on her sides for a moment. She then removed her goggles and took out a flashlight, feeling that it was easier than to produce magic lighting at the moment, the spell she used having left her quite drained. She looked around the cavern. Most of the bats were no longer burning, and the smoke was starting to clear, but the smell of burned flesh was heavily present.

“Nice, very nice!” she heard Nathan say behind her. She started to turn towards the mine opening, but she stopped when she heard a quick flapping sound to her right. Without thinking, she turned towards the sound, only to be faced with a huge male bat specimen who flew into her face. The suddenness of it all made her drop the flashlight. Her vest protected her from the bat’s claws, but the left side of her chin was not so lucky when it came to its teeth. And they dug deep. Being in no condition to cast a good spell, she went for her handgun, but she had just put her hand on it when a strong orc hand caught the bat by the throat, and squeezed it tight enough to make it let go of her chin.

The weakness she felt because of her spell, added to the unpleasant smell and the pain her chin, made her very light headed, and she fell to her knees in front of Horatio, who looked at her worryingly, while still holding the suffocating bat. It was surprising how the thing could still find the hair needed to screech loudly. When a few drops of blood fell on her lap, she put a hand on her wound.

“Are you going to be alright?” Nathan said, putting his right hand on her left shoulder and looking down at her, while holding a flashlight in his other hand. “Horatio, shut that thing up.” He added with an annoyed tone and without looking up.

“Ho, right.”

The orc snapped the bat’s neck, and threw its now limp body over his shoulder like it was the most mundane thing to do.

“Eh… I…I am going to be alright… I think.” Illie said slowly and weakly. “But damn this hurts.” She then tried to stand up, but fell forward and was caught by Horatio.

“Get her outside the cave, and put something on that wound.” Nathan told Horatio while kicking a bat’s body like a football, sending it to the other side of the cavern. “I’ll do a quick check to see if there are any more critters left after our barbecue. After that, we’ll go get our cash and then get your face fixed, Illie.”

Illie nodded. Horatio picked up her flashlight, and then picked her up in his arms, surprising her. They then exited the cavern.

“Ouch.” Illie said, jerking a little when she felt the needle penetrate her skin.

“Stay still now,” the doctor said to her. “It won’t take too long.

“Really, I rarely saw such a cute looking girl like you doing monster hunting. But hey, what do I know?”

They were in one of Drez City’s hospitals. They still had their camouflage outfit, but they had remover the protective gear. With fresh air and after drinking some water, Illie had started to feel better. Nathan was standing behind the doctor, leaning on the wall while Illie was being stitched up. Without his helmet, his large brown sideburns where clearly visible, as was his perpetually uncombed hair.

When he was finished, the doc put a bandage on the stitches, an then looked at her medical files on his computer.

“What did you say did that to her again?” He said, looking at Nathan.

“A bat. A king sized bat.”

“Ha, well, all her vaccines seem up to date. Don’t rub that!” he said, turning to Illie, who had put her hand over the bandage. “Ok, you seem alright, but these things sometimes transport some exotic diseases. If you begin to feel weak for no reason, or sick in the next four weeks, don’t hesitate to go to a clinic or hospital, ok? I am going to have a blood test done on that sample, but it could take a while.”

“Ok, thanks doc.” she said, getting up from the chair she was on.

When they entered the emergency waiting room, they found Horatio looking at the TV in a corner of the room. The orc had a frown on his grey face. They had expected for him to still be in the jeep, watching their stuff. Not news broadcast. Nathan went and stood next to him.

The TV showed a mid aged bald man holding a mike and standing in front of the stairs of an apparently large building.

“…been confirmed: Rosbar as declared war on Drezdea. The sky fleets and the whole army have been mobilized. We have been told that a press conference will be held today at the parliament, in which Chairman Philips will address the nation. Back to you Leanne.”

The image changed to that of a blond Elven woman in a news room. Nathan sighed.

“Well, I am not very surprised that Big Fred wants to take over the place.” He said.

Frederick Anastasius, an orc, was the Fuehrer of Rosbar.

“After all, Drez has been the fly in the Fuehrer’s soup for a while. Still, damn…”

Horatio just shrugged.

“What can I say? Shit appends.”

Illie came between the two.

“How do you think Helen is going to take this?” she asked her brother in law while she was undoing her braid.

“Your sister is probably going to be highly pissed. That ship is not ready to go out yet, last I heard.”

******
So, I hope that was better. I might just post chapter 2 tomorow, if I can get my but into gear.

Tagged as Angel Of Death, Come Aboard The Vagabond, Critique.

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