53. Map maker
It had been a day since the accident in the armory. A day of peace. Where no monster showed up and tried to kill her, and she wasn’t suddenly assaulted by some strange impossible thing cropping up. It had been nothing but rest, recovery, and sparring with Haet. Who, no matter how badly he beat her, assured Celia that she was doing great.
She didn’t really believe that. But she appreciated the spirit of it. She appreciated the practice. As, only after few rounds against the astoundingly tough scorpion, she had learned a few things about herself.
Namely that she fought too roughly. Unrefined, like she was a mindless animal. Whereas, Haet fought with intention, every strike thrown with a precise goal in mind, deconstructed his opponents where they were weakest and opening up other avenues of attack. He fully utilized every aspect of his kit to make victory possible.
Celia, on the other hand, did not. And according to Haet, it was because she was afraid. Afraid to lose, afraid to die. Afraid to stop and breath instead of just rushing ahead.
Which, according to him, was a very common thing among almost all Beyondlings. An in built fear he called it, one that directed them to default to instinct in the face of danger. He also believed that it was why his crew still hadn’t reported back to him or even checked on Sel’ci.
“Might ambush.” Were his exact words at the time.
Words that remained on Celia’s mind upon stepping outside. Eyes scanning the surrounding area for any sign of exactly that, an ambush. But none came. Their little camp established around Sel’ci seemed to be - at least for now - safe. Either because E-10 was off hunting the other members of Haet’s crew, or was licking his own wounds. Of the two options she preferred the latter, for obvious reasons.
Though, she didn’t think things would be that easy. They often never were. Nor was the task set out before her: Killing E-10. It was a lofty goal considering how strong the hydra was. But Celia’s options were limited anyway. It was either hide and wait for the three days to pass and hope that E-10 would keep his word and let her go. Which seemed very unlikely. Or try and sneak out of the forest, though considering his warning she would bet that he had countermeasures against such a thing.
So really, that only left trying to kill him. Or at least wound him enough that escape didn’t seem more like a dream than an actual possibility. Either way, she would need help to do it.
And that meant finding the rest of Haet’s crew and coming up with a plan. A crew that was presumably scattered throughout the forest in hiding. Like Celia herself had been doing just a day ago, only without the excuse of carrying Dreg around.
Though she couldn’t blame them, just thinking about fighting E-10 sent a shiver down her spine. A shiver that quickly transformed into rippling waves across the surface of her posterior. Which she ignored, partially for focus, so she could come up with a plan to find the rest of Haet’s crew. And partially because Vice was whispering some very *distracting* thoughts about it.
She did her best to put the implications of such a thing out of mind. Though it was rather difficult, seeing as Vice was essentially an alternate version of her mind and had access to all of her thoughts. She was also loud.
Fortunately, Celia was not alone in her plight. As Discipline - thankfully - possessed almost the exact same opinion about her “twin’s” antics. She was also far more versed in the art of ignoring her as well, and helped Celia to make a map of the forest based off the look she had gotten of it from up in the air earlier.
That did not make it a good map, however. As neither Celia, nor discipline had a single bone in her body for the art of map making. No further evidence was needed than the scrawling on the ground that superficially resembled the forest. Well, it was mostly a circle with very ugly bushes and a smaller circle that represented a lake within it.
It was a good thing she had drawn it then, and not someone else. As she wasn’t sure she’d be able to figure any of it out otherwise.
Questionable art skills aside, she immediately set to work circling all the areas she intended to investigate first. Locations that were either dense in hiding spots, or just seemed unlikely to be checked at first. After that, she began crossing out everywhere else that, in comparison, seemed like a terrible place to hide. Either because they were far too open, and therefore held no reason for anyone to be there. or because they seemed to be soaked in dangers of their own.
Like a small patch of forest to the south absolutely swarming with carnivorous plants. And by carnivorous plants, she meant giant nearly ten foot tall behemoths that looked like they could take down Haet if he wasn’t so fast. Or strong. Or competent.
But the more she thought about it, the more she reconsidered the idea. Surely there was someone amongst Haet’s crew brave, or stupid, enough to hide somewhere so hostile. And if they could survive that, they would probably be pretty useful in the battle against E-10.
Which promptly brought Celia back to another one of the issues she would need to solve.
Convincing them to fight the hydra rather than continue trying to hide.