The travel companions made their way south and east. They spent the majority of the day walking through rough forest conditions. The forest floor was overrun with thick under cover and shrubs of all kinds. There was a road that they followed south for quite a ways, but it was hard to gauge distance. They could have traveled for 7 miles or 12. The fact that his map didn’t really have a function to measure distances made it hard to find the camp.
They ended up spending two full days wandering through the forest until they stumbled across a clearing that had obviously been used as a semi long term campsite. Their time spent traipsing through the woods wasn’t entirely aimless. The properties of his map made it easy to make sure they didn’t backtrack and that they didn’t miss anything major. 10 miles south and 3 miles east wasn’t exactly a gps coordinate. Killian’s sense of distances and direction might be suspect as well. They eventually spotted a walking path that parted the forest and that was what led them to the clearing ahead of them.
It was a small clearing all things considered. But as soon as they entered the clearing they knew without a doubt that it was what they were looking for. Even though it was empty there were signs that people had been there. The clearing was covered in a thick tall meadow grass that had been traipsed over in several different spots. There were 7 different spots where the grass had been knocked down over a large area, and haven’t totally recovered yet, the size and shape indicated tents. There were obvious foot paths that had also been beaten into the clearing where the grass hadn’t recovered fully.
Adriana followed close behind Bjorn with her bow at the ready. “What are we looking for?” She whispered barely loud enough for Bjorn to be able to make her voice out in the early morning light.
“Signs that lead us to them, or something that tells us that we are on the right track. Papers, items, path out of here. Anything and everything that helps lead us to them. We are lacking in two major departments. The first one is that we lack information on these people. We kind of know who they are.”
“You know.” She said Bjorn hadn’t shared the details of what he learned from his interrogation.
“I know. The second thing that we are lacking is fighting strength. I can’t really use my bow with my hand.” He held up his stump to emphasize the point. “We are ill equipped to deal with this threat. But that being said that is less important of an issue as information. If we know what we are dealing with the easier it is to win. Knowledge is power.” Adriana just nodded and the two of them got to work
Over several hours of searching they didn't find much of anything really that gave them a hint of what the group's plans were. They were very through when it came to packing up their camp to the point where it was actually disappointing. Oftentimes when groups of people stay in one place for a long period of time items are forgotten when packing up. Apparently not for this group the only signs that the site was used as a camp site were the spots where the tents were kept and where they had built a fire ring.
There was a slight sign of them leaving the clearing towards the south east, and there was a tree that had multiple knife wounds as if the group threw knives at the tree. Other than that there was nothing. It was disheartening but it was reality. For a moment Bjorn wished that this chase could be like a movie and they would drop a piece of paper with a destination on it. Or even an easily identified object that would make their next stop apparent. Sadly this was not a poorly written book or movie, it was real life and he had to face the facts. This was not going to be easy.
With a sigh he called Adriana over from where she was kneeling going through the grass looking for something. She stood, brushed the knees of her pants off and came over to where Bjorn was at.
“Did you find something?” She asked.
“No. I am assuming you didn’t as well.” She nodded her head in assent. “I doubt we will find anything of note. Our best bet will be to follow their trail. There is that fairly obvious trail that we can follow.” Bjorn said, pointing to the patch of disturbed grass at the edge of the clearing. “I have little doubt that is where they went. Especially seeing how it is also heading south.”
“What are you talking about? Show me.”
Bjorn gave Adriana a curious glance. “I don’t have a tracking skill, and I may have played in the woods my entire childhood but I have never spent any time tracking people. I don’t know what I am looking for.”
“Fair.” Bjorn said as he got up and together they walked over to the path leading away and south from the clearing. When they got there Bjorn knelt down and began to show Adriana what he was talking about. He began to explain it to her as they walked further into the woods.
As they began walking it was easy and obvious that a large group of people passed through here. Along the edge of the clearing there was tall thick grass that had been beaten down by the multiple feet that passed over it. The grass stocks were tall and brittle in the fall weather. Each time a foot fell on the stock it was snap and break into tons of small pieces, or if it was pushed against a little too hard the stem would break and the head of the seed pod at the end of the stem would be bent towards the ground.
As they continued however it became harder to spot the obvious signs of passage. The trees grew dense and their canopies began to interweave enough that it blocked out a good amount of sun. Enough in fact that it choked out enough of the underbrush that it cleared their path forward. There were a few exceptions to the rule but for the most part it was clear under the trees.
This made tracking harder. Bjorn began pointing out spots where people had traveled through the forest floor. There would be a section of new broken shale here. Or a broken small branch on a small bush. A small patch of scuffed up moss on top of a rock where a boot slightly slid. Adriana asked about more obvious signs such as thread left behind as they passed, or even a dropped item.
Bjorn’s response was to talk about how those types of things rarely happened. Especially if they had someone who was even slightly decent at woodcraft. The only time that ever really happens is if they are moving through thick underbrush and something catched on their pack without them noticing. A skilled traveler can easily avoid that. The other way is if the plant that they travel near has some sort of thorn that can catch and snag the fabric. Unfortunately for them the common plants in this section of forest didn’t seem to include thorn heavy plants.
All of this knowledge may seem to be secondary to the true power of skills. His tracking skill highlighted the passing of creatures, which also included human’s, ork’s, and tieflings. This seemed like it would solve the need to know exactly how a person passing through the woods affected it but that was hardly the case. There were two main reasons why his knowledge in tracking was important.
The first one was that the highlighting effect from his tracking skill only highlighted footprints of everything that passed through an area. This too had its limitations as well as the only thing that was highlighted was footprints that were left behind. If you stepped on a tuft of grass and no footprints were left you obviously wouldn’t be able to see their passage by the highlights.
The second reason was adjacent to the first one, but it was more of a fundamental rule of the Eld. Skills, and skill levels made life easier, but it wasn’t the same as expertise in any given skill. So his knowledge on tracking and how to track people also combined with the skill making him almost gifted with tracking. Skills on their own were useful but only were truly powerful when they were mixed with expertise in the activity being performed.
It was around an hour into their trip through the woods when Adriana informed Bjorn that she too gained the tracking skill. Much to his surprise Bjorn also got a new notification at the exact same time that Adriana did.
Congratulations you have gained a new skill: Teaching. Our time on this planet is fleeting, there is only so much we can do. Many believe that the most noble thing that we can do is share our skills, knowledge, and powers with those around us. You have begun walking down that most noble of paths.
Bjorn had begun to doubt that there was a skill associated with teaching. After all he had done to teach the alchemists of BlackRock Bay, and then the alchemists of Vanta, and then all that he had done to teach Adriana and Caiden, he figured that there was no way that he hadn’t gotten the skill yet. Yet here it was, he wondered briefly about what criteria was required to officially learn the teaching skill, the question hung in his mind for just a moment before he got back to the task at hand.
When she became inundated with all of the highlighted trails that have been left behind in the woods she grew overwhelmed. That was when Bjorn’s teaching turned from the importance and how to track to how to be more self aware.
When he first got the skill it was honestly extremely distracting as trails and paths lit up. Hundreds if not thousands of trails began to cloud Adriana’s vision. Each trail had different levels of distinction based on how easy it was to make out the trails. For Bjorn it was easier for him to pick out individual trails as he had gained skill levels in tracking. For Adriana his vision was just bombarded with tons and tons of useless information.
Bjorn calmly began to talk her through the mental exercises that he went through to help him sort through the useless information and focus on what was truly important to dig out. She worked on it with Bjorn’s guidance and slowly she was getting better and better at blocking out the useless information and eventually focus on the footprints that they were following. It was helping and working but still soon Adriana’s mental focus ran out and her head began to ache.
When that happened Bjorn told her how to turn off and on the tracking skill. All it took was a simple flex of will but she could essentially toggle the light overlay on and off. It was a mental exercise that Bjorn didn’t realize was possible at first, but while he was traveling with his previous party they instructed him on how to do it. Almost any skill that enhances one of your senses is able to be toggled on or off.
They followed the footprints for several days heading southward and slightly eastward. Unfortunately Bjorn wasn’t skilled enough to find out how old the trail they followed was. It made it so that it was nearly impossible for them to tell if they were catching up or falling behind as they tracked.
Their days fell into almost routine. They would get up, pack up whatever little they decided to use the night prior and then move on. They would spend all day slowly making their way through the forest following the path. On several occasions they had to back track because they lost the trail or got confused and accidentally followed the wrong one. Each time they both mentally kicked themselves but what was done was done. At night they would eat, most of the time a cold meal and then they would go to bed.
By Bjorn’s best guess his new ability to survive on less sleep, food, and water did work in conjunction with his belt of sustenance. After a few days of testing he determined that the 30% less from the belt was multiplicative with his 40% decrease instead of additive. Though it was hard to tell. As he only seemed to need to sleep, eat, and drink roughly 65% less than he used to. Making it so he only had to sleep a few hours each night. They ended up creating a watch schedule that was heavily weighted towards Bjorn staying up for most of the night letting Adriana get her sleep. Towards dawn Bjorn would then wake her up and he would take his turn sleeping.
The other reason for Bjorn taking the longer shifts was due to his increased vision. When he purchased Darkvision I it obviously gave him better vision in the pitch black but the power actually spilled over into his night vision as well. It was by no means perfect night vision but it did make it so he was able to make out things better at night. To him it made it so that the darkness at night wasn't anywhere near as oppressive as it should be. He was able to see fairly well out to 45 feet even on the darkest of nights. When the moons were out and he had a clear view he could almost see better at night than he could during the day.
Something that was kind of weird with how his body interacted with his decrease in needing food to survive was that he still found himself hungry when he normally would be. His need for food meant that he could in theory cut out one of his meals throughout the day. As it turned out he still had his normal breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was just that when he did eat those meals he would eat considerably less. He did know that technically he should be able to cut out a meal. But mentally he had been ingrained for years that he would eat when he did, so his body just naturally seemed to get hungry regardless of how much less he had to eat to feel full.
On top of eating Bjorn and Adriana would spar in the evenings. He would instruct her on how to fight. In the past when he taught he was gentle and guiding with his words and instructions. Now however when they sparred Bjorn held nothing back, he would strike with full force and speed. When he was about to land a devastating blow he would pull back. His thought process as to why his teaching style changed was before he was teaching her how to defend herself from untrained villagers, how to protect herself from a drunk man who was getting a little too friendly. Now however he was teaching her how to not die from trained killers. If he didn’t hold back then Adriana would be more prepared to handle what was to come. He had no doubt that things were going to get dangerous and he wouldn’t be able to protect her.
If she had any issues with the change in Bjorn’s demeanor and teaching style she didn’t say a word in complaint. She was slowly getting better but it was going to have to be a work in progress. After all he had spent years training with first Alaric and then with Rickie and still Bjorn was nowhere near the equal to either of the professed fighters.
Each night after sparring Bjorn forced her to stretch. He learned early on with Alaric that if he just stopped moving after a spar then his body would grow tense and the pain would truly set in. When in an actual combat situation the body was able to shrug off certain hits and damage and just keep powering through. Eventually each wound or hit would catch up to them and the pain would hit in full force. The best way that Bjorn found to counteract it was to stretch and force the muscles to relax slightly before settling down. Even still each time that Bjorn and Adriana were done she was either walking stiffly or limping as she walked.
The thought briefly crossed his mind to give his belt of sustenance to Adriana, he ultimately decided not to. There were a few reasons for that. The first of which was sentimental. He didn't want to lose the benefits of his longest owned magical item. It had gotten him through a lot and made his life in the Eld easier. When you need 30% less to maintain your body it is easy to get used to it.
The second reason was more pragmatic. The pair was going after a basically unknown large party to try and kill them. They had no good idea on the fighting capabilities of the bandits. There was no guarantee that Adriana could be of help against them. Hell, in her current state she couldn't stop Bjorn from killing her extremely quickly. In that type of situation Bjorn would then be left alone, and he needed to reap whatever benefit he could if he was to get vengeance for Meira. He couldn't chance Adriana dying and him not being able to retrieve the belt.
The third reason was also pragmatic. Although he was secretly glad to have Adriana’s help with his quest, she was hardly a help. She was a young girl who had only ever known Leefside. While there the only thing she had really done was farm. She wasn't going to be very useful in killing Kairon's crew. As such Bjorn could make better use of the more hours each night than she ever could.
With that being said Bjorn spent his extra hours each night working on various different projects. They all had to do with alchemy. Each night he would pull out his alchemy set and get to work. There were a bunch of different potions, poisons, and poultices that he could start work on even without a source of heat. One more of the wondrous functions of the bag of holding. He could start working on one part of a poison and then put it into his bag of holding and it would be basically frozen in stasis. When he would retrieve the piece worked on it would be exactly where he left off. For almost the millionth time since he found the bag of holding Bjorn marveled at its versatility and was thankful for his find.
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They followed the trail for a total of 5 days before there was finally a change in their daily routine. They were fording across a river when something felt off about the water. Not sure exactly what the feeling was or where it was coming from Bjorn was just about to tell Adriana that they should back up when the water in front of him burst outwards and a large lizard-like creature flew towards Bjorn.
It was surprisingly small for what it looked like it should be. It was made up of two main colors. It had a white front side running from its head to its toes. Its backside was made up of a dark green color with spots of darker green intermixed with spots of black and pale green. It was humanoid in its bodily configuration. The three main differences were its head, its tail, and its skin. Its head was the shape of a crocodile with a long snout filled with large teeth. The snout was running perpendicular to the rest of its body making it so that its eyes were planted squarely on the top of its head. The tail was several feet long and trailing behind the creature. The skin looked exactly like the leathery scales that covered crocodiles bodies. The creature was close to 5 feet tall when at full height.
Bjorn only had enough time to look at the creature and think. “What the fuck?” Before it slammed into him and both he and the creature fell into the water. The attack was so sudden and surprising that he started taking in a lung full of water before he knew it. He burst out of the knee deep water coughing and sputtering. In his mind he was just attacked by a damn croc as his mind tried to process what he just saw his body was already in motion.
The long hours honing his skills with Alaric and Rickie, then with teaching Adriana Bjorn’s training kicked in. He was disoriented as the creature ran into Bjorn’s body at an angle which spun him around as he was bore into the water. Unbeknownst to both Bjorn and Adriana the only thing that saved him in those first few seconds was Alaric’s teachings. Even while his conscious mind was thinking “What the fuck.” His subconscious was already moving him. It continued its trajectory as its surprisingly heavy body continued moving through Bjorn. This angle and spin disoriented Bjorn as he knocked prone.
As his body was gasping for air at the exact same time he was trying to expel all of the water from his lungs Bjorn was distracted. It only took the same amount of time to expel the water as it did for him to realize that he should have been dead by now. This cleared his mind enough for him to pay attention to his surroundings.
The crocs body was carried through the air and slammed into the water close to Adriana and a fountain of water coated her body. It recovered very quickly and began lunging at Adriana trying to latch its oversized jaws around her limbs.
She did a good job of dodging backwards and trying to keep some sort of distance between her and the creature. They seemed to be almost equal in speed. She was calling out to Bjorn as she retreated.
Bjorn surged back to his feet and withdrew his dagger from its sheath and lunged at the half crocodile creature. It took a few seconds to close the distance between him and the monster. In that time Adriana was being successful in avoiding getting bit. Her skill and luck could only carry her so far though. The creature managed to grasp her arm with its shortish arms, finally stopping her momentum.
It reared its head back to dart it down and bite into her body when Bjorn finally arrived. He plunged his dagger into the back of the monster, the blade sinking into its body. For a moment he thought that they had won. Then he noticed blankly that the dagger should have sunk deeper into the creature's back but was stopped short by some sort of invisible force. He had just another moment to realize the issue.
At the time he hadn't realized but when he attacked Aiden with the three dagger strikes the only thing that kept the farmer from dying right out was Bjorn's reduced damage from the vindictive tenet. If he didn't do 40% less damage Aiden wouldn't have survived the third strike.
This same effect came into play here. With the reduced damage that he dealt the wound which would have been a mortal wound and crippled the humanoids was instead just a flesh wound.
None of this registered in his mind while he was trying to pull back the blade for a second strike. A roar of anger escaped the monster's mouth as it swung around trying to hurt the man that had hurt it. Fortunately for Bjorn he was prepared for it. When the arm swung around to hit him he dodged back and swung the dagger in retaliation. The blade hit, slicing through the tough skin that covered the monster. It wasn't enough to do much more than cut through the skin. In another roar of rage it let go of Adriana and it came after Bjorn.
With that second hit not doing nearly as much as it should have, it finally clicked for Bjorn. Gritting his teeth in frustration at the debuff he couldn't do anything so he set in to fight the creature.
Even though it was smaller and heavier than expected the creature was slower than Bjorn was. His increased stats that he got from his level ups were paying dividends. The battle would have easily been a forgone conclusion if not for the water they were standing in and fighting in. Bjorn was still knee deep in the water which came up to mid thigh on the shorter monster. But for some reason it seemed to be unbothered by the water it was trying to push through. This made his movements almost sluggish and the monster unhindered.
This made their fight closer as well. Bjorn was faster and stronger than the monster, but he couldn't deal all that much damage to it. At the same time its long claws at the end of its hands would deal serious damage if they landed. Not to mention the bite which would be game over if it landed a bite.
Eventually Bjorn decided it was time for him to set the dagger aside for the moment. He sheathed it behind his back for two reasons. The first one was that it wasn't anywhere near as effective as he wished it would be. The second was with the lack of a hand he wasn't able to cast his magic without his only hand being free.
With his now free hand he began chanting. The one second cast time for his spell was easy enough to finish by the time the croc closed the distance between the two. Thick dark strands of magic shot forth from Bjorn’s fingertips and struck the monster in the chest. The dark energy quickly made its way up the monster's body and covered its eyes blocking out all light.
His blind spell was the first part of his plan. He barreled forwards colliding with the croc humanoid and tackling it. He began to struggle with the monster trying to restrain it. It was probably a dumb idea but he figured if he couldn't do full damage against the monster maybe restraining the monster might fare him better.
Even with the smaller stature the creature was surprisingly strong, but with Bjorn's 8 additional strength points from levels he was stronger still. Unfortunately strength wasn't the only thing that was important while wrestling. The creature was surprisingly slippery. When he touched its skin above water its skin was rough almost like sandpaper. After it got wet it got slick and hard to hold on to.
It quickly became apparent during their grapple that the monster was stronger while in water, it had some sort of affinity for it. It was like trying to hold on to an eel as the monster tried to free itself from the larger and stronger man’s grasp. Swearing up a storm Bjorn began to slowly drag it towards shore. It was a difficult process.
Bjorn was larger and stronger which gave him an advantage. At the same time he only had true use of one of his hands. It was hard to restrain the creature with only one set of moveable fingers. On the other hand the monster was slick, stronger in the water, and had an affinity with water. The only extra advantage that Bjorn had was that the creature was currently blinded by his magic. It flailed about wildly as it tried to free itself from Bjorn’s grasp to little avail. By a stroke of luck or by his practice grappling with Alaric Bjorn was slowly but surely making progress. The lizard was slowly being drug up onto the shore.
The scales weren’t tipped solely in Bjorn’s favor. There were a few moments where the lizard got lucky. One time Bjorn’s foot slipped on a rock and the pair went down hard into the water. It still wasn’t overly deep but it was enough to fully submerge his head and he almost lost his grip. By sheer force of will he kept ahold of the monster and he came back up gasping for air.
The other moment came when the creature managed to land a strike on Bjorn as it flailed about wildly. The long claws of its hand sank into Bjorn's side and with a pull tore free leaving deep lacerations in his side. Two icons appeared on the edge of his vision, both he had seen before. The first he was intimately familiar with and that was the bleeding status. The second one he had only seen a few times before, it was a green skull and crossbones indicating that he was poisoned.
There wasn’t much that he could do about it currently so Bjorn just gritted his teeth and kept pulling. Eventually the dark magic stopping the monster from seeing ran out and its efforts to escape became more coordinated and it started to break out of Bjorn’s grasp.
“Adriana, help.” Bjorn called out. There was no response, so he just had to hope that she was there and that she hadn’t left him. He was hoping she would rush forward with the dagger that he and Meira got for her and attack the creature. He was hoping that even though she wasn’t a great fighter, or overly strong, that her dagger strike which would not have reduced damage would be enough to kill the creature. That and he was hoping that he could get her used to killing.
Then a series of unfortunate events happened. Bjorn gave a mighty heave on the creature that was in a bear hug like hold and the rock he was standing on shifted slightly throwing him off balance. At the exact same time the monster dug its tail into the rocks at the bottom of the stream and with its new found purchase pulled further throwing Bjorn off balance and shifting his body as it started to throw Bjorn’s body over its head. As his body began to move upward and over the creature's head an arrow came streaking through the air and slammed into Bjorn’s leg.
If the shot had came just a moment sooner it would have struck Bjorn in the back. If it had been two moments sooner it would have struck the creature in the head. It was a fantastic shot, just with poor timing. The bow that Bjorn and Meira bought for Adriana was no weak practice bow, nor was it as heavy of a draw weight as his own drow warbow, it was still a nice heavy hunting bow. This gave the arrow more than enough power to penetrate through Bjorn’s cafe and travel into the body of the creature. Thus pinning the two together.
This pinned status only lasted another moment before the moment that Bjorn had going over the creature's head carried him the rest of the way, snapping the shaft of the arrow. The sharp pain that Bjorn felt in his leg made him cry out. There had been tons of different kinds of injuries that Bjorn had felt since he came to the Eld, being shot was a new experience. Luckily with the pain reduction that he had the wound was hardly debilitating. It was more of a surprise pain.
The cry was cut short as his body slammed into the water and he went under again, his mouth filling with filthy river water. Due to this sheer dumb determination he managed to remain ahold of the monster, carrying its body into the water as well. The arrow had slammed into the back of the creature right near its spine. As it traveled into the body it just barely missed the spinal cord. Still with the metal of the arrow head and 4 inches of wood embedded in the flesh around the creature’s spine its movement was greatly reduced.
When Bjorn’s head broke the surface again and he finally finished spitting out the nasty water that filled his mouth, his voice carried along the river bed. “God damn it Adriana!”
“Sorry.” She called back.
Bjorn was still mad for getting shot but this wasn’t the time for it. He needed to figure out how to disable this croc, that was when Bjorn had an idea. Taking his stump he took the metal hand at the end of his arm and put it directly in the monster's flailing mouth. The creature felt something finally press down on its tongue for the first time during this fight and its jaws snapped shut clamping ahold of Bjorn’s fake hand.
Now with the two attached to one another by the monster's choice this time Bjorn finally let go with his only hand and reached back to pull Tayla’s dagger, and his hand grasped onto nothing. He moved his hand a little further onto the small of his back and felt the sheath still there, empty.
Cursing he reached his hand into the bag of holding and withdrew his backup dagger that he stored with a naked blade. This wasn’t as easy as it sounded, the monster now unhindered by Bjorn’s arms was tugging on the hand in its mouth. Between trying to keep its mouth closed and on the hand and the deep wound in his side he had a hard time concentrating.
“Shot it again damn it!” Bjorn yelled out as he was doing three different things all at once.
“I don’t want to hit you again.”
“I’ll be fine, shoot the fucker.”
A moment later another arrow came streaking by Bjorn’s body as he was still on Adriana’s side of the river and slammed into the creature in the stomach this time. At the same time Bjorn heaved mightily with his right hand bringing it closer into him. Then he took the dagger and with all of the strength his 31 points could produce drove the dagger down on top of the monster's head.
The blade of the knife slammed into the top of the head of the creature and shattered the skull underneath. The blade continued its downward momentum for a second and then it pushed the creature down as well. Its body went limp all except for its mouth. Bjorn wasn’t ready for the extra weight and it drug him down into the water as well.
With a grunt he used his hand to pull the monster out of the water and onto dry land when it was safely on dry land Bjorn collapsed to the ground exhausted. He lay there breathing heavily just looking up at the blue sky trying to calm himself down.
Adriana’s face appeared in his vision with a smile on her face. “That was a good shot was it not?”
Bjorn finally focused on her face. “Good shot? You shot my leg. How the hell is that a good shot?”
She got a confused look on her face. “What do the hell planes have to do with this?”
“Use your context clues. It is pretty obvious what I meant. I am made that you shot me.”
“Yeah sorry. I didn’t mean to, but my second shot was a good shot wasn’t it?”
Instead of answering Bjorn just glared up at the girl and with a groan sat up. He placed his hand on the fletching side of the arrow and after a deep breath gave a yank. The shaft was yanked free of his body and blood began to flow into his pant leg now that there were two different holes in his leg. He just lay back down and took in a deep breath.
“Bjorn?”
“Leave me alone for a moment. Go check and see if there is anything worth taking from the monster.” He didn’t check to see if she followed his orders but he could hear rustling from his side so it was a pretty safe bet. He continued to just lay on the cold stones and breath in the fall air.
Eventually a tugging sensation roused him from his relaxation and he opened his eyes to see the cause. He hadn’t realized but his metal hand was still firmly clasped in the monster’s mouth. She had her hands on either side of its mouth and was trying to pry it open. Her efforts had little to no effect other than to pull on Bjorn’s arm a little.
He withdrew his dagger from the soft brain tissue within the skull and he performed an action that he saw recently. He slid the dagger through the muscle of the cheek on one side of its head. He offered the dagger to Adriana and she declined. Instead she began wrenching on the mouth again.
This time she had more luck that previously after a few attempts there was an audible snapping sound as the thick muscle in the creature's mouth finally gave way and the jaw hinged open. He extracted his hand and then lay back down on the cold stone. After a few minutes of wait Bjorn finally decided it was time to get up.
The first thing he did after standing was wade out into the river. It took longer than he would have liked but eventually he did find Tayla’s dagger. It must have been knocked loose of its sheath at some point during the fight, then when he was knocked into the water it must have fully come out of the sheath. The water wasn’t extremely fast but it was fast enough to carry the dagger for a bit before it came to a stop.
Now that he had his dagger and there was no more obvious danger Bjorn took in one more deep breath, wincing slightly at the pain in his side, and decided it was finally time to inform Adriana. With determination he slowly limped over to where she was kneeling, not really doing much.
“Alright, let's talk about it.”
Her posture spoke loudly of regret and remorse. Her eyes were downcast and she wouldn’t meet Bjorn’s eyes. Her excitement from earlier must have died down.
“Adriana, what I am about to tell you is very important and I need you to look me in the eyes.”
She responded to that, she slowly turned her head up to meet Bjorn’s eyes. Her eyes were red rimmed and puffy as if she had just been crying. “I am sorry that I hurt you. I am sorry I wasn’t more use during that fight. I am sorry that I almost ended our best chance to avenge Meira today, I almost killed you.”
“You shot me, yeah that sucks but it isn’t the end of the world.” Bjorn knelt down to eye level with Adriana. He was mad about getting shot still, and in his current mood he wanted to tell her to be better. He wanted to blame and yell but that wasn’t going to help anything. All of her life she had been used to her father yelling and beating Caiden. In a rare moment of clarity he realized that wasn’t what she needed right now.
Instead of getting angry he got down to eye level with her. “I understand that you won’t be useful during every fight, I had that often while I traveled with Meira.” Her name caught in his throat and threatened to bring tears to his eyes again. “But why do you think I spent so much time and effort training you? That way you can be useful in a pinch. If you want to keep going down this path and help me make those bastards pay then you are going to need to be better. That is what I am trying to impart on you. I can’t do this alone, there will without a doubt be times where I will fail on this. The only reason I didn’t want to take you was that I don’t want to see anything happen to you.”
“As for the last part, you didn’t almost kill me. You hurt me but it will take a lot more than an arrow through my calf to put me down. If that was all that it took to end my life I wouldn’t be here right now, I have suffered tons of wounds that are worse than what you did to me. Do you understand?”
She nodded at Bjorn. He held her gaze for a few moments and then made to stand up. At the same time Adriana shot forwards and wrapped her arms around Bjorn. She sobbed into him for a few seconds before Bjorn relented and gave her a hug back. They stayed like that for a few minutes before Bjorn broke the hug off.
“All of the wounds I suffered today will likely be fully healed by tomorrow anyways. In the meantime I don’t really want to walk on an injured leg, so let's make camp here tonight. Besides, we have fresh meat to prepare.”
With that they both set out to do their various tasks. Adriana started to collect wood for a fire, plenty of wood because there was a lot of meat to prepare. At the same time Bjorn set about skinning the monster as well as field dressing the creature.
There was a flashing icon indicating he had a new prompt.
Congratulations you have gained a new skill: Grappling. There is just something innately satisfying when you get your hands on something and just beat it into submission.
