Knights Apocalyptica
Chapter 235: To The Hunt

Sir Matt, as it turned out, was not busy. Much like Erec thought, the senior, bulking mammoth of a Knight, didn't have much to do with the tournament itself. He hadn't been tasked with any obligations. Erec got the feeling that this overpowered Knight was more of a weapon for the Verdant Oak, not a tool of diplomacy.

Given his not-so-fond memories of being battered around by the old man and beaten bloody for a whole day, Erec understood why that might be.

Still, as he showed up at Gem's farmhouse, knocking and asking if she knew where Sir Matt was, and then his eventual appearance at the farmhouse… Hadn’t gone over terribly well. Matt was pissed that Erec had come and disturbed them, Erec had managed to talk his way out of getting his face smashed in with another impromptu, ‘training session.’ And at least got the Knight to talk.

It took two hours.

During this time, Erec pleaded and begged, and then, eventually, by the mercy of Gem taking a soft spot with him, got the senior Knight to agree to play chaperon for the hunting group. The man hadn't been happy about it, but Erec swore to him that he wouldn't have to lift his finger or do anything. All he had to do was sit in the caravan they would haul and watch over them as they participated in the contest.

After spending a good day getting his agreement, the next day was a blur.

The hunt began.

It started with all the willing participants gathering at the gate, in the shadow of the great, towering Steel Curtain. There, a Master Knight warned them about the dangers outside. Not that anyone coming to this tournament needed to be told that—they'd all crossed a wasteland to get there—so the announcement was brief.

He then went over the rules.

Erec listened as best he could, but the excitement in him was too much. With his companions at his side—Enide, Gwen, Garin, and Olivia… Even somehow, Enide had managed to convince Bedwyr to come along for the ride, he felt thrilled.

Finally. A real fight. With real stakes. All that training, and he'd get to let it loose on an expedition under his control.

He glanced over at his brother, who was staring at the announcer.

Why is he here?

Bedwyr couldn’t have cared about gathering points or winning this silly hunt. So it had to be that he wanted to kill monsters. Since he’d been training his new power… Maybe this was a test for him? That had to have been how Enide swayed him.

Erec looked up at the sun, wondering how it would feel to have that warm brightness kiss his skin in the wasteland. While his Armor made him feel secure, it did take away that natural element to life. Just as his daydreams started to take over, Garin tapped him on the side and gestured for him to get moving. In rapid order, they got their communicator, which was given to each group, and a caravan hauled by oxen.

Soon, they were one of many to leave the gate. Possibly one of hundreds—all of these people competing over the same limited number of monsters.

Erec unfurled the map as they walked, scanning its contents.

"Which one do we go for?" Garin asked from his side, peering over and sneaking a peek. The map was laid out simply. It had been marked with different monster nests, each rated with two pieces of information: perceived threat level and estimated numbers.

Before the tournament, the Knights had done as well a job as they could, clearing out any major threats that got in the way of the road. However, with so many people moving and shifting across the wasteland, it had attracted more. And that was in addition to the fact that sometimes Rifts would randomly appear and let loose monsters, and their natural tendency to wander. Attempting to completely clear out the various monsters that roamed the wasteland was an exercise in futility. There would always be more to kill and finish off to make the surrounding lands safe.

“Not sure…” Erec hummed as he scanned the map.

The threat levels corresponded to awarded points. A level 1 was the weakest—something a new initiate could handle.

But it might be a different fight if you picked a spot with a hundred level 1 monsters, and on this, Verdant Oak didn't leave notes. Letting people make their own judgments on how many of a certain difficulty level of monster they could face alone. The ‘hunt’ had a freedom to it, and Erec knew a historical context. Tracing back to the old Knights from the Old World.

The issue was that he didn’t know what to do.

His eyes ran over the vast desert around them. Already, the different caravans and groups were splitting off, going to hunt down whatever monsters they could find. It struck him as odd then that this was the first time that they had control out here. Before, when they'd gone on expeditions, they'd done so with Boldwick or Dame Robin, night commanders who, while they might have let them lead at points, were there with hands ready to grasp the reins if things went bad.

He looked over to Matt in the back of the caravan, who was dozing away in the middle of the day. Erec had a very distinct sense that this situation was far different.

Sir Matt could be there if things went wrong, but he wasn't about to lead them by the nose or give them directions. It was on them to find and track these monsters from the planning to the execution.

The practical effect was that this was pretty much a normal Verdant Oak mission—something that a Knight Errant or a Knight Protector might be ordered to do on their own. Erec gave a sigh as he looked at the map and looked for a threat above something a regular knight initiate could take on.

"Level two," he said, pointing. "This one's a little further out, but some monster groups next to it are higher. We can test it, see how we do, and then move on to others.”

"So far out. You think that everyone's gonna go for all the close monsters?" Garin said, his eyes scanning the page as he marked out some maps. Already, they could see in the distance some of the caravans headed in those directions. Considering that they got points back for every corpse they killed, with different points being awarded based on the difficulty of the monster slain, it would make sense to go for this approach—kill the closest thing, then go and kill the next closest thing. Repeat ad nauseam.

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Erec distinctly didn't want to pick a monster to hunt, go to the location, and then find out after trying to track it for hours that someone had already come and finished the job.

That was the worst-case scenario. So if they picked a further target, it was more likely to still be alive.

"You got it," Erec said as he picked out and placed his hand on the threat he saw. It was a good ten miles away from the walls near the border of the charted territory that the Verdant Oak had supplied on their maps.

It would take almost the entire day to get there, but then they would be able to camp and go after something else.

Garin snorted. "Seems as good to me as anything, but as we go,.." he looked at Fido, who was busy begging Gwen for a snack. Both of his companions had come along for the ride, though Munchy was lazing in the sun next to Sir Matt. “I think maybe I'll try to talk to the birds and see if they can't give us a better perspective on anything nearby or at the very track where our competitors are going, so we know we're making the right choice."

"I would appreciate it," Erec said, clapping his friend on the back. Garin gave a grin and then wandered over to where Gwen was currently snacking and asked to borrow some food, no doubt to call down birds and begin his plan.

With Enide by his side, Erec sighed and began to set out, leading the caravan whose carts were hauled by oxen further and further away from the gate. The entire time as he walked, his mind went to his training with Dame Juliana.

The ability to navigate the wasteland effectively and safely was the ability to be a scout. It was also a matter of survival. Something could go terribly wrong outside the gates, even with Sir Matt. It wasn't just monsters they had to worry about, but the harsh landscape itself.

His Armor gleamed as he walked, but the dust caught and stuck to it, ruining the effect very soon as they moved further and further away from the Steel Curtain. Foot by foot, the looming steel wall faded away into the background.

The various caravans split up, breaking apart to hunt down some of the many monsters that surrounded them, hidden in the wasteland. Soon, leaving them alone in the waste.

Time passed slowly as he walked, eyes ahead, keen to make sure that they were still safe. But it was much the same as any time spent in the wasteland. Caution, with a healthy dose of observance, made for a dull travel. That, along with the fact that their map had the approximate locations of the nearby dangers, made for safe travel.

Half a day later, they arrived at the destination, the place where there were level two monsters. Yet, as his eyes skimmed the open waste, all he could see were some hills and some burned-up trees.

Wait, burned-up trees?

It would be easy to mistake them as dried out and dying. Many plants out here suffered that fate, withering and going away to nothing due to either a lack of water or nutrition in the soil. But as he saw the edges of the trees, he saw they were burned. Scorch marks on the trunk, and an odd pile of ash down by the base.

"Uh," Garin said, "I don't know how to say this."

He didn’t have to. A bird crashed out of the sky next to their caravan—its plumage seared as it met an unfortunate end. Garin looked at it, then up.

“Above!”

Erec's eyes traveled into the bright blue sky, and he almost missed it with the sun up there. Three small miniature suns were headed their way, burning through the sky. VAL adjusted the brightness of his helmet and centered his vision on what he was looking at. Headed towards them were three massive burning birds, trailing smoke through the sky itself.

With a grin at the spotted enemies, he pulled the axe off his back, feeling the thrum of Fury erupt like a volcano.

It was like this in the wasteland, too. One second of peaceful wandering could transform into a furious fight.

A burning bird dived down through the air, headed right for Enide. She vanished out of the way, making the bird miss and crash into the caravan, waking Sir Matt up.

The Knight called out, “Handle your business already!”

Gwen did just that, firing off a glyph that missed the third bird as it spiraled nearby, its wings breaking across the ground and leaving a trail of burning fire in its wake.

Flying things were annoying enemies to deal with. Erec swung his axe as another burning bird got near him, and missed as it expertly navigated out of the way, evading his deadly edge by mere inches. It was hard to see where their bodies even started, and the constant burning flames began. Damn annoying firebirds.

Bedwyr wasn’t far away from Erec, and he did something that made him startle.

He felt Bedwyr reach for his mantle. Trying at the first sign of trouble to grasp upon that ancient power from beyond… And he failed.

“Just fight it normally!” Erec yelled at his brother, shaking himself out of it, moving further from the caravan to give himself room. He waited for one of the birds to come back down and dive-bomb him. They came in passes, moving at a speed that was hard to track, soaring through the air with a fiery blaze, able to maneuver with a surprising agility.

One of them hit Gwen, its talons digging into her as she fell to the ground. Thankfully, her Armor stopped it from actually digging in, but the steel melted as it pressed down, its beak trying to peck open her suit and get at the soft insides within.

My chance.

Erec darted over with a single bound, his axe drawn overhead, and he cleaved.

He split into the bird’s back with a meaty thwack; there was resistance there, and with a kick, he yanked his axe back free, spilling a hot red steam out of it. Is its blood made of gas?

The firebird squawked and tried to fly off, but the wound prevented it from getting a good flap. The best it managed was to hop away from Gwen… Not anywhere far enough to keep Erec from finishing the job. With his next swing, he decapitated the monster, sending a charred skull rolling across the ground in a burst of bloody steam.

Bedwyr, it seemed, had adapted, giving up on using his mantle and instead focusing on the skills he had. there was a glyph and a prayer, and suddenly a fire bird fell out of the sky its wings immobilized. Enide took advantage, and was there a second later, pressing her las-rifle to the bird’s head, and then shot a hole through it. Another one down.

The third had targeted Garin and Olivia, the two of them back to back as it flared above them, doing large swoops as it tried to scratch at them and bring them down, but they saw little to no progress. Whenever it targeted Garin, Olivia would use a prayer to mitigate the damage. Whenever it tried to attack Olivia, Garin slashed with his sword.

the thing bled—more and more gaseous red vapor flowing out from its body—before Enide lined up a shot and hit its wing, eliminating its ability to fly. From there, it was relatively easy work for Garin and Olivia to finish the monster off.

Erec let out a laugh as they stared at the three charred bird corpses. The numbers matched what the map had shown, and the difficulty wasn't too bad.

Complaining, Gwen got up and looked at the damage to her armor. Parts of it were melted, but it wasn't anything too severe. It was the best they could hope for in their first encounter.

"Well, on to the next one then," Erec said, shaking his head as he unfolded the map and looked at the next one. "Who feels good about a level three?”

There were shared looks amongst the group before Bedwyr spoke up. "I think we're ready for a better challenge. Level four?”

"Better challenge it is," Erec said, agreeing as he looked over the map and began to sort out the directions. Shortly, the bird corpses were loaded on the caravan, and they were ready to find the next monster to slay.