Deaf

Once I reach the first floor I look around to see if Ubam has returned. He has not.

''Vun can you go look for Ubam, we need to get going right now, I will wait outside''. The sun is setting and I need to get a couple of things before night comes, namely the oil and herb needed for the trap. Even if I don't quite understand why it is needed I will not skip a step.

It does not take long before my two guards return. ''Are you done?'' I ask Ubam. He rotates his shoulder blades and says. ''Of course Boss, I came as soon as you called''. Good for you.

''We're going to the closest apothecary, Vun lead the way, I will be using a bit of magic so do not be alarmed''. They do not react and just start walking, we've known each other for a few weeks now so there is a certain amount of trust present.

Now if my plan is to work I need to try out something, I need to create another flyer, but unlike before when I just 'burp' it out this time I concentrate and try to hold the 'burp' in a lot more before creating the bird.

Still, it went as usual, the only strange thing that happened is the effect of using magic with my cloak on, as it fully covers my body from the neck down, when the purple light came out of my hand I looked as if I had underglow neons.

With the bird created I make it fly out from underneath my cloak which causes it to flutter before settling back down and sticking itself together with the magnet-like edges.

My guards took notice of my actions, only each of them paid attention to a different thing, while Ubam was staring at the shining purple bird flying away, Vun was staring right at me.

''Keep going, we need to get back before nightfall''. We continue our journey.

It does not take long before reaching the apothecary and purchasing a basket full of the herb, it is quite common so it only cost me a handful of coins. I also asked for oil but he did not have any. In fact, I've never seen oil since I got here.

Thankfully my guards came into action and cleared out my misunderstanding about oil. Namely, they do not use vegetal oil but animal fat-based ones, so they use lard or butter or something.

This made it very easy to acquire, just visit any random food stall and take it, easy as that.

With the two items in hand and darkness quickly setting in we head back to the mansion.

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I wake up early again, the sun is not even up yet so I am in pitch-black darkness. This is what happens when the sun sets at like 7 or so a clock and you have no entertainment, even if I sleep for 10 hours I still wake up in the middle of the night.

So it is time to get back to my routine. I get up from the ragged bed and head over to my armchair next to my desk. The temperatures are freezing so I light up the fireplace on the way. I still have a firesteel so it is quite easy.

As usual, I sit down in the armchair and stare out my great window. The whole world is white, every house and every street is covered in a pure white blanket of snow. There is no one to clear out the streets so they will stay like this for a time.

After several minutes I close my eyes and 'pull', surprisingly something resists my pull, the bird still exists, this is the first time I went to sleep with a summon running around. It seems that they don't disappear.

This experiment consists of figuring out my control over the summons. Before I went to sleep I told the bird to fly in the direction of the village where I first arrived.

As it still exists I try to connect with it, I close my eyes and pull harder, the world around me changes, it turns a bright purple that fights against the darkness acting in a similar way to night vision.

Then I open my eyes, metaphorically speaking as I still had them closed, and see something I did not expect, the village of Myrth. I never pulled so hard on the connexion so this never happened before.

The whole world is in purple and black, no other colors are present, also for some reason after a certain distance everything goes black, this is probably the limit of my vision.

The bird is perched up on top of a tall building allowing me to see most of the village, from the healer's house to the main hall. I wonder how far Myrth is, it takes around 3 days on foot on the worst road ever created so at the very least 50 kilometers and my summon got there overnight, no, probably earlier, while I was asleep.

Sadly everything is not perfect, I can feel the bird weakening slowly, probably due to the distance between us, intuition tells me that it won't last past sunrise which is a few hours away.

It actually worked, I can control the summons from very far away, they are ideal scouts, the utility amazes me, I just need to work on controlling both the bird and my body at the same time, right now I can only focus on one of them at a time.

While planning ahead and staring out at the darkness a crazy idea pops into my head. Let's pay a visit to an old friend. I am already here anyway, might as well see how it's doing.

I push down the feeling of dread rising up and control the bird to fly towards where I imagine the lair is. Due to the limited view range, I can only guide myself by the road on which I first arrived here.

It does not take long until I can see the forest, and even less time until the top of the watchtower comes into my vision range.

My heart is beating in a crazy fashion but I don't stop and land on top of the tower. I focus as hard as possible on my surrounding but there is nothing, the snow looks undisturbed.

I make the bird run a couple rounds around the watchtower, every time it finishes a circle it flies lower and lower until finally, I reach the entrance.

With courage I did not know I had I push the summon as hard as possible and have it fly in through the gate and then immediately upwards. The movements where so fast and sudden that they affected the structural integrity of the bird, it would not last long.

I have it perch upon the large candelabrum hanging from the ceiling. Then I look around, the hall did not change much, dirty and full of chairs of all kinds thrown around everywhere.

I can see where I slept before, the remains of my small fire in the corner of the room, they look undisturbed. Yet there is something missing, the thing I came to see is not here.

The bird can no longer fly and it is about to disappear so I take a last look around the room, starting from the left corner going to the right one, up and down the room, and then directly down, there is nothing inside.

The last spot I did not check is above me, but there is no way for anything other than a bird to be up there, ill look just in case.

Directing my senses above me I feel my blood freeze and muscle spam, my hands start trembling so hard that it sounds as if a woodpecker started hitting my desk.

Directly above me, probably not even a meter away is a head crowned by majestic antlers, its mouth slightly open with the teeth in full view. It is the same thing I see in my nightmares and yet it feels different. It feels much scarier, much much scarier.

I wonder how long it has been there for, probably since before I got in, did it feel the bird get closer and hide up here?

The creature is hanging by the ceiling using its oversized arms and resting its lower half on the sidewalls, I swear it was not here when I got in, I stared right at the chandelier while flying in.

Ignoring my inner turmoil the creature takes a deep breath and releases the air right at the bird, I can feel it being pushed back yet I hear nothing. The creature most certainly roared right in my face yet I did not hear anything.

The stupid bird is deaf!

No, it is not deaf, I just cannot receive sounds only images, the creature probably fumbled its way behind me in a very noisy manner and I did not hear anything.

Seeing that the roar did not affect the summon, the lips of the monster move slightly, did it just speak? This thing is getting more and more dangerous by the second.

Feeling that the bird is about to disappear I take a rather suicidal decision and make it jump right at the things eyes.

Now, the wise move would have been to retract my connection to the bird and let It do its thing, I am not wise.

So as the bird was heading towards the head of the creature it opened its mouth, the jaw seemed to almost dislocate and open a whole 90 degrees allowing me to see all the way inside its throat.

Then just snap, my senses return and I fall off my chair, in a sweating fumbling mess.

That was a memorable reunion.