Escaping The Empire - The Nonhuman Chronicles

Gerid internally sighed, though it did not show outwardly on his face. It was far from the first time he had been forced to endure such treatments from a commander clearly more concerned about his coffers and cock than his corps and probably far from the last.

The temptation to just draw his knife, stab it up through the sneering man's jaw and penetrate his brain briefly trickled through his mind but Gerid dismissed it. While he was fairly sure he would have been able to prove that it was a justifiable execution due to gross incompetence, he knew the other surviving men would be too loyal to let him live long enough to make that kind of case to their superiors. If it were picking them off one at a time during a march or trek through the woods, he was fairly confident of his chances but a direct confrontation in this situation was a different matter.

Instead, he saluted in return and flatly said, "Yes sir. Do you wish for me to recapture any of them should the opportunity arise? And if they resist too fiercely, am I to prioritize your potential profits or...?"

 

He frowns and gives it a thoughtful thought "If you get the chance to capture one of them, then by all means. However, if it's something like the bull...I doubt you would be able to handle it. Primarily i'm interested in how many survived, which ones survived, and where are they headed. For your last question. They're animals: Should one of the survivors resist too fiercely to bring back, put them to the sword."
​

 

"Ugh...."

"Agh..."

Agggggrhhhh...."

After they had settled up the path of the mountains, Kerri was back to walking upright only a little ahead of them, but not even trying to hide that she was starting to lose patience with slowing down for everybody.

The rest had decided to follow along, as she set the pace, reminding herself to slow down a bunch of times. The winged lady could at least keep up while in the air, but the other two. Especially the Minotaur. This was exactly why she was against heavy weapons and armor. Not that she was going to turn it away. If she needed to make an escape, he'd be the slowest and stall the enemy long enough for the wolf girl to make her escape.

Kerri had essentially appointed herself as the boss of their little runaway group and while she was the least willing to work with them, still figuring her chances were much better solo, she did find herself slowing down just a little bit.

"Whhhyyyy are you slow?.....the people before were way better." Her tantrum did reveal that apparently it wasn't the first time this had happened, but it wasn't meant to be a secret from how she kept giving judgmental stares to them. "I like the lizard guys more than you."

Lost in her own memories, what she was talking about had to be a question, but she wasn't really looking for a proper response as the climb up the more unsteady rocks began to slow. Lifting her hand out in front of her, she began to let fingers rise as she counted them under her breath. "One. Two. Thre.." She stopped herself before reaching her thumb. "Four."

 

"Understood."

Seeing no need to say anything more, Gerid quickly turns and heads in the direction of where he last saw the prisoner transport roll off to before he head the crash. It seems the most logical place to start, both because there may be some that were injured and unable to escape, and those who do escape in such an obviously unplanned manner tend to be too preoccupied with fleeing to cover their tracks.

 

@moonblack @Tjf @Omega98 @Auraicide

Your party travels northwest back towards the line of mountains from which you came. although you have to travel for awhile alongside the steep hills trying to find a path that leads upwards into the mountain. The roadway that comes down off the mountain is the only easy way over and barring that, it's largely foot trails and rocky paths. It doesn't take you long to get past the treeline, but the going slows dramatically the farther up the mountainside your group gets and by mid-afternoon, you find yourselves roughly a third of the way up the mountainside. The path that you've been following cuts along the mountainside. There's probably a path that leads farther upward eventually, or at least around the tall peak. However, it doesn't look to be happening anytime soon.

The angle of ascent and the rough terrain has been pretty rough, but none of you have fared worse than Talia. The faun kept pace for a while but quickly fell into the back of the group. Finally, after a particularly steep portion that has now flattened into a relatively flat path along the mountainside she leans back against a large boulder while panting hard. "I...ah....I need to take a short....ah...break...." Her skin glistens with a thin layer of sweat and her cheeks are red. Faun and Satyrs are creatures of the forest and neither their thick fur legs or hooves were made for long-term, frantic mountain-climbing. Despite asking for a break, her expression is one of disappointment and frustration at not being able to keep up with everyone else.

@Daylan

Heading out ahead of the company, you easily find where the carriage went over the side of the hill and there's a clear path down towards the river where the cells gouged a path through the ground and trees below. Off in the distance and near the river, you see a thick billow of smoke emitting up from below. To save some time, you manage to carefully slide down the torn path. It would be difficult with multiple men, but even just sitting back and doing a controlled slide would take much less time than continuing along the road. It's several hundred feet to the bottom, but you manage to slide down without incident and come upon the resting place of the wreckage. Supplies are strewn along the lower part of the mountain and the area between the base of the mountain and main carriage were two soldiers lay dead. A couple of Oxen as well although it looks like crude slices of meat were cut out of them. The remaining cells are in various states of disarray with the heavy metal one nearly in the river. The metal bars of it are wrenched outwards. The source of the flames is from one of the prison cells. A quick count of it tells you that it was originally the Vampire's cell. It's likely that any kind of magical mechanism that was powering it had burst into flames.

You see no visible signs of any dead bodies beyond the pair of soldiers.

 

Unless he was lucky and the Vampire had been burned to ash by the fire started in her cage, which seemed highly unlikely, it looked as if every prisoner had escaped. Gerid found the fact that at least one of them had thought to take some meat with them interesting, as it indicated they were actively preparing for travel instead of being caught up in a panicked dash.

The next question then became figuring if they had all stuck together or each split off on their own paths. To that end he began checking near the river for signs if any of them had crossed or not while also keeping an eye out for broken foliage or disrupted ground that might indicate they had headed in a different direction.

 

“...useless.” Kerri didn’t try to mask her thoughts, but reasoned it was actually acceptable for the thing to pause here for a bit. The climb was only going to get worse and a full squadron of soldiers wasn’t going to bass through anytime soon. They’d be forced to send scouts or trackers and they could deal with just one or two people. So they’d likely keep their distance and stalk the party, like predator animals waiting for the slowest and weakest of the herd to get left behind. Which was Kerri’s whole intention in the first place.

Yet...her speed manifested again in getting right in the faun’s face, not bothering to stay little more than an inch away from her face as Kerri began investigating the creature to determine it’s condition. “Already tired...and wasting my stuff.”

Before the later could be followed up on, Kerri had placed the water filled flask in Talia’s hands. “Slowly. Not all at once.”

None of what the wolf was seeing convinced her that helping these people in anyway was worth it. But Kerri backed off for a moment, leaving her drinking water to the faun, but still not without providing the accusatory stare to the group in general. She really didn’t care that much if they didn’t like her. As far as she was concerned, she was the only reason, any of them hadn’t already been rounded up by now.

“Need to be higher before sleep. Or...make it harder for them to get up here....what if...rocks fall and cut the off the path? Can anyone do that?...I already did lot’s..like it if other’s start chipping in...would be nice.”

 

Wilhelmina looks visibly disquieted, feeling the faun's blood pumping, calling out to her. She shakes her head clear, before turning to the group. "Perhaps..." Wilhelmina thinks for a moment. A vampire

Wilhelmina approaches Talia. "Come, girl. My blood will rejuvenate you and give you the strength and stamina you need to survive the trip. Water won't help you." She extends her wrist, offering the faun a blade to cut it with.

To Kerri, Wilhelmina says I can use my magic to move boulders to block the path. I'll need more blood, though. Either you can give it to me, or someone else can."

 

@Tjf

Kerri having heard the woman speak up who had seemed mostly focused on only speaking to the Minotaur before took her by surprise. Especially at the implication of somebody actually able to do something. The fuan was clearly weakened. Draining her wouldn't do much good. The angel might be better...but Kerri was still among the healthiest as the group, so the wolf felt it fell to her to do. Kerri didn't even ask that many questions before approaching, twisting a little awkwardly, unsure of how or where this was supposed to come from, but the assertion that somebody could contribute in someway was enough that she didn't have second thoughts about doing it.

It was maybe after about ten seconds tensed and ready to get her blood drained, that it finally occurred to her. "Humans don't drink blood...not that often....so not quite that....leech?"

 

Wilhelmina looks a little offended. "I'm a member of the species hominis nocturna. What you would call a vampire. You won't be harmed, little one. I assure you. Do I have your consent?"

 

"Mm? Yeah. You just said it won't hurt." The beastgirl may have been smarter than she looked, and capable of escaping traps, but it was pretty apparent how she kept ending back up in this situation. She was perfectly willing to offer her blood without worry only going off of the fact that a stranger had told her it would be fine. She was capable of getting out of traps after she fell into them, but the attitude of not being more worried abut this made it clear why she so repeatedly fell for them.

She put her arm out, wondering if that was where she was supposed to bit or not, but not looking in the slightest scared of it. She had protected her food way more seriously than she was taking this, just now only really looking at her, with a somewhat puzzled look. "...how do teeth drain blood?"

 

Wilhelmina shrugs, moving forwards. She takes the girl's hand for a moment, before changing her mind and closing in. She kisses the wolf girl's neck, and Kerri feels a sharp pain there, before she feels an indescribable bolt of ecstasy. It's sexual in nature, but also feels like her favourite food, and a shot of an incredibly strong narcotic, all at the same time. Her senses dull, her entire world reduced to the pleasure flowing from her neck, spreading into the rest of her body.

When Wilhelmina moves away, daintily wiping her mouth after giving the wounds a lick to close them, the world seems just a little bit less bright and sensational, now that she knows the pure joy of Wilhelmina's kiss. The pale woman grows flushed, her cheeks red, and her demeanor more lively. "You're delicious, my dear." She smiles, in a better mood.

 

Kerri jumped a little. Mostly from the sudden touch against her neck. That wasn't how she expected things to go and the sudden pricking into a neck had made her gasp lightly in shock for a second, her own fangs showing that were nowhere near as threatening as the vampire's. The sensation was bizarre...a kind of numbness and tingling, but not really painful after the initial prick to break the skin. It was difficult to say how it made her feel, the wolf girl shutting her eyes for a second when Wilhelmina licked along her neck, but not looking in anyway upset or bothered. After she had drained, Kerri rubbed the spot only to find it feeling perfectly fine. The muscles in her neck relaxed as a slight dizziness overtook her for a brief second, but Kerri stayed conscious through it, confused at the feeling it gave her from it. There was some kind of influence...even she realized that. She just wasn't sure how.

"Hey...you did something...what did you do?"

 

"That's the kiss, the act of drawing blood. How did it feel?"

 

“...weird. Cold and also not. Is it supposed to be like that?” She really wasn’t sure what to make of it or the fact this vampire was suddenly a lot more chatty.

Kerri didn’t really know, but her blood would be cleaner than most due to living off the land and sustaining herself on proper nutrients. It didn’t feel bad to share it...but she didn’t know how often she’d really want this woman taking it. But if it meant she could help, that wasn’t too big of a deal.

“Need to do this a lot?”

 

"Fairly often, yes." She cracks her neck, preparing to use her magic. "I'll give the faun some blood to perk her up, and then I'll block the path."

@merkros "So, do you want it?" She extends her wrist again. "I assure you, it's actually a rather pleasant experience, and it will give you the strength you need to get over this hill."

 

"Sorry..." Her face reddens and she looks away from Kerri in shame and disappointment at her lack of ability and takes the water flask and slowly drinks from it. She continues to take slow sips from it as Wilhelmina enters the conversation and drinks some of Kerri's blood before offering her wrist to the faun again. She eyes the vampire's wrist carefully while she seriously contemplates taking a sip, but eventually shakes her head. "I might hate being useless, but I don't think I'm at the point of drinking blood yet."

It takes some time to search around, but you eventually manage to find a campfire by the river. It's well built and obviously set up to not smolder and smoke like a normal fire. It's obvious that they spent some time around the fire and a few dropped sticks still smelled of cooked meat. After several more minutes of searching around, you find five different sets of footprints that lead away from the campfire and back towards the mountainside. With that said, instead of heading towards the road that leads up the mountain, their path turns farther to the north. As far as you know, there aren't any easily traveled path over the mountain in that direction. Although there may be some foot trails that lead through.

 

Kerri looked overall just indifferent staring at the faun. "You sure? Still need to go ahead a bit...find good place to sleep. Mountains...super cold at night. Can't stay out in the open. Need to go on and find a cave..that's rare...maybe tunnels people make to pass through? Could use those. Also need fire." Kerri still stared at the faun flatly. "Sleep in a pile. Best way to stay warm."

Kerri's facial expression didn't stir in the slightest, saying it with such indifference, that she obviously wasn't considering how this might be a problem for anybody else to do. If anything she was more focused on how much longer until they could get moving again. Sleeping out in the open was a really bad idea and they would at least need to get a proper shelter before nightfall which was coming soon.

"Block path first...make it slippery and wet too, if can. Really difficult to climb...when night, almost impassable. Then get a move on and sleep together." It was almost baffling at how easily she could lump the suggestion in with everything else, treating it like there was absolutely no difference between delivering that survival tip compared to the rest.

 

So they were sticking together so far, which was both a good and bad thing. The good part was that his chances of catching up with them was better, as they could only move as swiftly as their slowest member while he had no such restraints. The bad part was he would have to be even more careful not to be spotted, as a five-on-one encounter required more stealth to avoid. This was especially true if they were avoiding the main roads, which seemed to be the case.

Still, Gerid knew he needed at least some actual, direct confirmation of the escapees statuses instead of just a camouflaged fire and footprints, so he too turned north as he began looking for some of those foot trails that would be the most likely path they might take.

 

"My magic can help with blocking the path." Ariel pointed out. "Also, I can carry her for a bit." She added as she looked at Talia. While the angel did not know the faun's weight she felt certain she could carry her for at least a short while, if necessary.