Before they headed up to the fort, an irate Rae had finished checking her catch and returned to her space to have a nap before evening descended, and she went on guard to make sure that nobody else was going to steal from her.
She had been active all day, so Karl didn’t begrudge her the rest. Thor was returning to his space as well, since he couldn’t climb to the fort, and Hawk had already settled into the nest he made in the fort last night.
That might be the reason that nothing came up. It would have smelled like Hawk and humans to them, and that would be enough to repel most forms of common monsters.
Even in her sleep, Karl could sense Rae’s annoyance. The thief was most likely just some common grade monster who saw an opportunity and took it, but she took it very personally. In her space, there were no threats, and things stayed where she put them, so when someone looted her webs in the real world, she was not mentally prepared.
Doug prepared dinner again, and Karl relaxed against the wall of the fort as they all waited for the food to be ready.
“Aren’t you afraid of falling?” One of the mages asked, and Karl opened his eyes to look their way.
“Honestly, not really. It’s a strange thing, but I don’t have any sort of fear of heights. With the durability that I have, I likely wouldn’t suffer too badly if I did fall, but here with the wall at my back, it doesn’t concern me in the least.” He replied with a shrug.
“It’s got to be a class thing. Even for the warriors, the fear of heights and sense of vertigo is inherited. Bob wouldn’t be seriously injured either, unless he landed on his head, but even he stays closer to the middle of the net.” She explained.
Hawk thought that the whole conversation was funny. Karl couldn’t fly, but a little fall wouldn’t hurt him.
[Maybe you should grow wings.] Hawk suggested.
[And how do you suggest that I do that?] Karl replied.
[Attach them to your uniform. I saw a video of soldiers with a big round net over their heads and they could float. Wings can’t be that much harder.] Hawk replied with absolute certainty.
[That’s a parachute. It does let them float fairly well, but actually flying is harder for humans. We’re heavy.]
Hawk lost interest when Karl announced that he wouldn’t be able to fly, but the idea was an intriguing one. If he had a hang glider or a squirrel suit like the extreme sports people on TV, he might actually be able to nearly fly, and attack monsters from the sky.
Hawk would love it.
They settled in for their usual watches after dinner, and at some point during the night, Rae woke up to patrol her webs because she was awake and in a much better mood when Karl was gently shaken awake for his watch.
[Did you find something good on your web?] Karl asked as he sensed her change of mood.
[I found a very good thing. The stupid thief is a Box Tree Spider family.] Rae replied.
Karl wasn’t sure why that was a particularly good answer, so he thought about what he knew of the species. They were scavengers that blended in perfectly with tree bark and could flatten their bodies to avoid detection.
That was fairly benign.
They were also a Common Grade spider, and barely considered a magical creature, as their only supernatural ability was their ability to disguise themselves so perfectly.
Fortunately, Rae felt like explaining.
[I talked to them, and they’re very sorry for stealing from me. But we have an agreement. I will leave webs here for them to use, and exchange, they will keep anything from climbing up our tree while we are away. Then when we have to go for a long time, they can take over our den until we return.]
That would likely end poorly for the box tree spiders when another group came here and saw the fort, but for some time, they would be able to live in peace, and the stronger webs that Rae made would trap prey much more effectively than the ones they could make themselves.
They weren’t actually web building spiders, they were burrowing and hiding spiders, and they would either ambush the weak or scavenge other monsters’ kills.
[I will warn the others when they wake up.] Karl informed her.
It was a quiet morning, and by the time that the sun came up, there still hadn’t been a large-scale appearance of monsters. Karl was still dutifully watching, but there was nothing. Their area was only five kilometres in either direction, and he could see it all from here, but the spawn hadn’t happened at the same time.
Slowly, the others woke up, and everyone turned to Karl for the morning update.
“Nothing major to report. Rae has a working agreement with a group of Box Tree Spiders to look after the tree and the webs while we’re away, but the spawn hasn’t happened yet. I don’t see much of anything out there.
There were a few small signatures we didn’t get to yesterday, but I haven’t seen any influx of monsters yet.” He explained.
“That’s fine. It’s not a precise thing. They will show up at some point today. We just need to keep watch on our area and keep the numbers down. If that means we leave later in the morning, we will take advantage of that to get a bit more rest.
Can you send Hawk out to scout the edge of the surrounding regions as well? Just in case everything spawned outside our area. If he sees anything, we can radio it to the other teams, so they’re not caught by surprise.” Bob suggested.
“I think so. From a thousand metres in the air, Hawk can see quite a distance, and he should be able to tell if there are any large monster groups moving through the surrounding zones.
Five kilometres isn’t all that far for his eyesight, though he might not be able to track mice from that far away.”
That made Hawk laugh a little. Indeed, five kilometres was too far to find mice from. But it was close enough, he would have no problem finding goblins and wolves. Ogres couldn’t hide from him even from twenty kilometres away unless they could hide under the canopy of the trees, and on one side, that wasn’t even an option.
Hawk headed up to get a proper view of what was going on in the area, while Karl heard helicopters in the distance. The others didn’t seem to notice, but it was more than one, and they were coming from multiple directions.
“Hey, how often does an area like this get supplies and reinforcements? Do they cycle through a portion of the people every few days?” He asked.
“No, why? Normally, there wouldn’t be any more activity in the area until we leave.” Doug replied.
“There are multiple helicopters headed in this direction. Some from there, and more from here and here.” Karl explained, gesturing toward the noises.
“Can Hawk see them well enough to tell us what they look like?” Doug replied.
“He can’t see them at all. I can hear them, though. If the seniors from the Academy had either a really good or bad time, they might account for one or two of them, but they’re coming from multiple directions.” Karl informed the others.
“That is strange. Perhaps there was a delay with some of the teams. Can Karl see anyone else in the area? Humans that is.” Bob asked.
[Three groups of humans are active in the distance. The ones we met yesterday, one between us and the camp, and one more on the far side of those, further down the river. I can see their campfire from here.]
Karl relayed that and Bob nodded before answering. “There should be another group beside us, but there isn’t. It might be groups showing up a day behind.
They might have just reused the same helicopters, so not everyone got picked up on the same day. To keep this level of control on the area needs a lot of people, and there are only so many Elites.
Once they feel that it is under control, they will move us further apart with larger areas to cover.”
