The mist (1)

After a full night of resting, the party left its camp as soon as the sun rose. From afar, they had already noted the expansion of the largest murloc tribe, which had constructed new habitats on the Death Bay, murloc workers who cut bone trees and supplied the tribe with raw materials. 

After careful observation, Ourin learned that the murloc tribes were much more sophisticated than they originally thought. Murlocs could swim and would rely on marine creatures to feed themselves, be it human seamen who were unlucky enough to cross their paths or fishes of all sorts.

However, only five out of ten murlocs were warriors. The rest were workers. They built walls and huts, as well as towers that could reach up to a dozen meters in height. They would collect resources too, under the protection of warriors and transform these resources into weapons, traps and even linen armours. 

The bigger a tribe, the more complex its hierarchy was, and the more developped it became. Demographic power was often turned in brighter ideas and diversity. For murlocs, it also meant more shamans, more warriors, more workers and a much better civilization. But murloc tribes were not unified. It was even common for them to enter in bloody battles over the scarce resources of the island. Rather than fighting bone wolves and strange magical creatures, it was much easier to fight fellow creatures of the same species.

If the party was not greedy, they could come back with the observations, and they would receive their due. However, Ourin wanted to kill murlocs. It was his only condition to join the party, and even though he was just a level 1 acolyte, his value in the party was tremendous. He was the one buying time for Baerys and Willem to cast their spells, and without him, they would die whenever they encountered a swarm of enemies, be it murlocs or other creatures in the wild that lived in large numbers. Just like Ourin was dependant on them to get accross the island and take down large predators, they were reliant on him. In other words, his value was not to be underestimated.

Since both Willem and Baerys needed him, it was not like they disagreed with his conditions, which were anything extravagant. It was not strange for body refinement acolytes to search for fights, as battles were the best stimulant for the body on a cellular level. Entering a state of high stress and adrenaline repeatedly stimulated the life force of knights, and made it grow. In fact, most grand knights never once used a magical stimulus to reach their realm. They merely fought over and over again in battles, surviving, and growing stronger in that way.

It was not like Baerys and Willem were against the idea of fighting. They had much to gain from this too. The both of them studied under Magus Aerys. Mutant murlocs were highly valued for his research and it was one of the reason why they were able to get such 'easy' and 'rewarding' missions. Based on what he had heard, Ourin heard that many of the apprentices who had joined the Mercifura academy along with him on the Keying ship had already been gravely injured in missions, barely escaping with their lives in the best cases, or dying altogether.

"This is our target", Willem spoke, pointing at a small wooden tribe of murlocs. From afar, they could tell it was a crude and small tribe. The workers seemed unorganized and skinny, probably from a lack of nutrition. The warriors wore nothing but crude wooden clubs or even rocks directly. 

"What's the plan?", Baerys asked with a smile, her positive energy irritating Ourin

"We will ambush their warriors when they go out for hunting. Our goal is not to destroy their tribe. Last time, we killed twenty warriors, which is roughly five parties. We will try to increase that number to twice that number. We will let Ourin fight, and only support him when necessary, in case something unexpected happens", Willem spoke

Ourin nodded. The more they worked together, the better they understood their teammates. The original suspicions was now transformed into a semblance of trust. Of course, Ourin knew better than blindly trusting his teammates. He had heard stories of acolytes stabbing their party members in the back, but the penalties far outweighed the benefits. First of all, losing members would give you a bad reputation in the tower and make it less likely for you to find a new party. Accidents happened to the weak after all.

Plus, even if you could get equipment, selling it would only get you killed. 

Just as they moved forward, however, Baerys felt vines closing in, and hissed in fear. The sun had just risen, so the bone forest seemed very eerie and dark still. Neither Willem or Ourin sensed a thing, before it was too late. Baerys immediately screamed, but it was too late. The vine encircled her body, and thorns started to grow, piercing her pale skin, drenching the soil in a crimson colour.

Ourin was the first to react, unsheathing his sword and cutting through the vines. With his metallic gloves, he managed to withdraw the spikes from Baerys' body, but it seemed like they were poisoned, as Baerys was losing consciousness. Taking a small vial of antidote, Ourin cursed: "Damn it, it cost me a magical crystal"