Path of Dragons

Book 8: Chapter 48: Survivors

Not wanting to spook the guard, Elijah retreated a few hundred feet down the tunnel so he could resume his human shape. When he did, his scales flashed briefly before he got a handle on it with Natural Shapeshifter. It was getting easier, but he knew he was still a long way from suppressing his draconic changes entirely. It had gotten to the point where he’d begun to wonder why he even bothered.

Lots of skills and spells featured cosmetic changes to a person’s body. Would it be so bad if he let his dragon scales show?

He dismissed the idea, not because it didn’t have merit. Rather, because he didn’t think approaching a bunch of defensive strangers was the time to test it out. Instead, he wanted to present as unthreatening a face as he could possibly manage. To that end, Elijah exchanged the Verdant Fang for the Feral Spire. The former was too aggressive, and he didn’t want to alarm anyone by waving a massive scythe around.

Thankfully, the weapon fit into his Ghoul-Hide Satchel, if only barely. It wouldn’t be long before he needed to think about replacing it. Some of the new bags available in Ironshore were capable of holding more stuff, even if they were a little less convenient to carry.

Regardless, once he’d assumed his non-threatening human form, with his relatively innocuous staff in hand, he made his way back to the wall of scavenged metal. The second he came within sight of the guard, the man leveled his spear in Elijah’s direction, demanding that he stop.

Elijah did, holding his hands up in surrender as he called back, “I’m here to help.”

“Who are you? Where did you come from?” the man demanded in a rough voice. His appearance matched his tone, and with his matted beard and gaunt frame, he looked like he’d been living underground for years. Perhaps he had.

Guilt tightened its grip around Elijah’s heart.

He’d been relaxing on his island while these people suffered. Certainly, he’d needed a break. He couldn’t deny that. And it wasn’t as if he’d wasted all of that time, either. Without his recent advancement in body cultivation, he suspected that the hand-spider’s venom would have been much more effective against him.

Was it his responsibility to save everyone? Not at all. And yet, with the guard standing right in front of him, Elijah was reminded of the consequences of self-interest. Could he live with it, so long as he never had to look at it? Maybe. But with it thrust so blatantly into his face, he couldn’t escape the twisting feeling in his gut that he’d left these people to fend for themselves because he wanted to hang out with his new girlfriend.

Not the best feeling.

But he was here now, and he wanted to help. So, he said, “Gwenivere and the others made it to the mainland. I’m here to figure out how to get you and your people out of here. I just want to help. I can offer healing and food.”

The pale man narrowed his eyes. “Wait. Don’t come any closer.”

Elijah didn’t, and the guard raised his hand, glancing away from Elijah. A second later, a small swirl of ethera preceded a tiny flame. One pulse. Then two. A third one manifested before the man turned his attention back to Elijah. “Someone will be here soon.”

That gave Elijah a good chance to truly study the situation. The wall didn’t look like much, but judging from what he felt from Soul of the Wild, it was quite sturdy. Backed by almost three feet of rock and kept in place by scavenged metal, it featured a subtle undercurrent of ethera that told him it had been built by someone with a specialized class. More importantly, he could sense tiny power crystals throughout.

As Elijah turned his attention to the guard, he realized that the man was both better and worse off than his first impressions suggested. He was rail thin, with the sort of body only attainable for those on an extreme calorie deficit and an expectation of physical labor. Elijah suspected that without the extra attributes that came with a few levels, the man wouldn’t still be alive.

But he also had some strength in him. Elijah was still working on his ability to assess someone’s progression by feel alone, but if the guy was lower than level fifty, he would have been very surprised. What was painfully obvious, though, was that things had not been easy for the crash survivors.

After a few minutes, a woman approached from the other direction. Elijah couldn’t sense anything but a long tunnel behind the wall, but he suspected that the other survivors had some sort of community down there.

The woman herself was short, with dusky skin that suggested she’d originated from south Asia, and she looked like she was made of old leather. Part of that was certainly due to hard living, but mostly, it seemed to come from a long life spent outdoors.

“Who are you?” she demanded without even acknowledging the guard. “Why are you here?”

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“My name is Elijah Hart. I live about six or seven hundred miles from here. A while back, some of your people washed up on my island,” he explained. “Gwenivere and John – I don’t remember their last names – explained your situation. So here I am.”

“That was almost a year ago.”

Elijah rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. I got here as soon as I could.”

“How did you get past the harpies? How did you make it through the storm?” she demanded.

“How did he get past the flesh spiders?” added the guard.

“Shut up, Gavin.”

“But –”

She silenced him with a glare, then focused on Elijah. “I’m waiting on an answer.”

“I snuck past the harpies. I have a stealth ability. As for the storm, I swam.”

“Liar. The harpies can see through stealth. And no one can get through the storm without an appropriate class. That’s why we sent who we sent. Callum had a Sailor class. Even then, he didn’t think he could guide them through.”

Elijah had wondered about that. Part of him had assumed they’d just gotten lucky – and they probably had, to an extent – but being a Sailor probably helped immensely. But Elijah didn’t remember anyone named Callum making it to his island, so perhaps they hadn’t been very lucky at all.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I swam. Mostly underwater, but that’s how I got here,” he said. “But I don’t understand why you’re so worried about who I am or how I got here. There’s nothing on this island that anyone would want. I’m just here to help.”

She frowned. Or perhaps that was just her resting expression. In any case, it wasn’t long before she said, “You have food?”

“I do.”

“How much?”

“Enough,” Elijah said, reaching into his pack. The guard shifted, readying his spear. “Calm down there, bud. Just getting something out of my bag.” He pulled out a grove fruit. He tossed it to the woman, who caught it deftly. “I’ve got a bunch of those.”

Even in the ethera dense location, the fruit practically glowed to anyone who’d managed to hone their senses at all. To Elijah, it was like a beacon. Before he could say anything else, the old woman was taking a bite. The change in expression was a sight to behold – from slight irritation to elation in the space of a second – even if she tried to smother it.

“You have more of those?” she asked, hesitantly handing the fruit to the guard.

When Gavin took a bite, he moaned, “Oh, God…”

“Probably a hundred of them,” Elijah said. “But more importantly, I’m here to get you all out of here.”

“How?” she asked.

“I’ve got a couple of ideas. Can I come in? Is there anyone who needs healing, maybe?” he asked.

The old woman nodded. “Come on, then. But if you make one wrong move…”

“I get it,” Elijah said, though he was a little confused. Surely, the area was dangerous. If those hand-spiders were deadly enough to threaten him, then they were certainly more than lethal enough to kill the crash survivors. However, that caution didn’t make a ton of sense when it came to other people. So, as he followed the woman past the wall, he asked about it.

“Not surprising if you know the history. About six months ago, there was a split. Some wanted to go deeper,” she said. “The rest of us stayed here. Nobody stopped them from leaving, but, well, they tried to take our supplies. When that didn’t work, and we kicked them out, they tried a couple of raids. Even killed a few people. It’s been a while, but who knows when they’ll be back.”

“Wouldn’t you recognize that I wasn’t one of them, though? How many people do you have here?”

“Some classes are good at disguises,” she stated, though she refused to elaborate further. So, they traveled in silence for the next few minutes until, at last, they reached their destination.

Elijah felt it well before he saw it, so he wasn’t completely surprised when they entered the large cavern. However, the sense afforded by Soul of the Wild wasn’t nearly as detailed as his normal senses. Or maybe he just wasn’t as accustomed to interpreting it properly. Regardless, seeing the settlement’s layout was much different than simply feeling it.

The first thing he realized was that the place was both larger than he had expected and much too small for the population. From what Elijah remembered, the plane had been at full capacity, meaning that it had held somewhere between two-hundred and three-hundred passengers. Many of those had obviously died in the crash, but from what he could tell, a surprising number had survived. There were at least a hundred people present, and that wasn’t including the children.

“There are babies here,” he said immediately.

The old woman nodded. “Not on purpose, but you try keeping people from having sex for more than half a decade,” she said. “The first child was born about a year after the crash, and there have been thirteen since. The latest was born only a couple of months ago.”

“Damn.”

Elijah’s guilt gripped him even more firmly, though he pushed that aside as people noticed their arrival and started to gather around. In moments, the old woman announced that Elijah had come to help, and before long, he’d handed out every single grove fruit he had in his satchel. And the rest of his rations as well. He’d intended to keep some for himself, but seeing how starved most of these people were cut right through his plans.

Next, he started healing. Mostly, the survivors only had minor injuries – probably because they wouldn’t have survived anything worse without a Healer – but a few had the beginnings of serious infections that took a little while to banish. Finally, there were some chronic ailments that Elijah couldn’t cure – not entirely – but he could mitigate some of the symptoms.

That was all it really took to get him in the people’s good graces.

“Thank you,” the old woman said with tears in her eyes as she watched her people savor the food Elijah had brought with him. “It has been some time since they had hope. We thought the others had perished.”

Elijah nodded. “I came as soon as I could,” he stated. It burned inside him, that lie, but he tamped it down.

“I am Davika,” she said, extending her hand. He took it. “Now – you mentioned that you had some ideas how to get us off this forsaken island?”

“I do,” he said. There was no way to get them past the harpies, and even if there was, he knew they wouldn’t survive the maelstrom surrounding the island. So, there were only two other options.

And as much as it fouled some of his plans, he knew which one he preferred.

“I need space,” Elijah said. “And rock.”

“Space is at a premium down here, but we’ve got plenty of rock,” she said. “Come, let me introduce you to our chief scout. He can tell you more about our surroundings.”