The spear was a dead shaft of wood, tipped with sharpened True Silver.Apexus did not treat that as a simple observation. It was a fact he felt with his hands and in every motion he executed. The weapon pierced through the cold air, then found the white fur of the moose they had been hunting. Though the animal was by no means weak, it utterly lacked the capacity to react to the charging Monk.
The weapon was driven artlessly into the neck of the creature, sliding by the vital artery. Before the animal could throw its head back, beginning a pointless and painful struggle to prolong its life, a throwing knife of True Silver pierced the hide of the animal just beneath the chin. The knife trembled from the power of the heartbeat it interrupted. Blood spurted around the gleaming edge, dripping into the white snow as steaming red.
The sudden difference of pressure within its veins dazed the creature. Its wound motion completed, the moose’s antlered head rose up into the air before then dropping to the ground. The last vestiges of consciousness drained from its eyes. Gravity pulled it to the ground. The walking ton of meat slammed into the frozen ground. It was still alive, but that was a temporary affair. Even if the party did nothing, the moose would simply fade away without torment.
Apexus carefully applied his Rippling Palm to the forehead of the creature. Shockwaves travelled through the skull and into the brain behind, shaking the remaining activity out of the grey matter. Desperate breathing seized. Prey turned to food.
“Awful form,” Reysha told her man and reclaimed her spear. The Nightblade struck a couple of poses, stabbing at the air in mimicry of all the motions the Monk had made during the hunt. Even copying him, she made fewer mistakes than he had. “It’s seriously fascinating.” She straightened back up, putting the butt of the spear into the snow and the grass beneath. “You are literally and figuratively a fucking liquid and yet you move like a rolling boulder when you use a weapon.”
“A beyond apt metaphor. I do feel like I am just mass in motion when I have to point something that is not me.” Apexus looked at his hands, turning them one way, then the other. “So what was different that time?”
“Could be your Common Art?” Reysha suggested. They were approaching the Level at which it was typically acquired, be it by learning or instinct.
“Then what are its rules?”
“Something about improvisation? You were using the icicle at hand after all.”
The humanoid chimera did not respond. He could not place the feeling properly, but it had specifically been the spear that he had been confident with, not improvisation.
“Hey!” An unknown voice echoed through the trees. Quickly, a group of three men broke through the trees. They were dressed in the thick leathers necessary for the weather, armed with crossbows and hunting spears. One of them, his equipment of visibly higher quality, was a dark elf. He was in his younger years, more of a boy than a man. Since elven aging slowed around 21 years, that visible age could be trusted.
“Waddup?” Reysha responded flippantly.
“You are hunting white moose in the Lordswood!” The boy declared, clearing his throat against the annoying breaking of his voice that even late puberty sometimes dictated. “Do you have no respect for the rules?”
The Nightblade grinned widely, revealing her sharp teeth. “Not really.”
“Reysha…” Apexus let all of his reprimanding disappointment flow into that singular word.
“Ya do the talking then.”
Apexus faced the trio, who were still approaching. The two humans had their crossbows lowered but loaded. The implicit threat hardly fazed the humanoid chimera. He let them come closer with the same disregard any apex predator had for smaller animals moving around them.
“Your woman knows little of respect, neither for nobility nor rules,” the lordling spoke.
“This is true,” Apexus agreed readily, to the redhead’s not-so-quiet snickering. “What rules are we in breach of?”
“A foreigner…” the lordling groaned, proceeding in a ‘holier-than-thou’ tone that had the two men shift nervously. They were looking at the dead moose and the two uninjured adventurers with caution. “The Lordswood belongs to the castellan. All the game and plants therein are not to be hunted by the commonfolk.”
“Why not?” Apexus asked.
“Are you daft?”
“Milord…” One of the guards gathered the courage to bow down and whisper into the noble’s ear. “I believe it unwise to antagonise them. These may be of the Inevitable party.”
The suggestion had the lordling straighten up. Fostered superiority met reality and crumbled into dread. He cleared his throat. “May I ask who you are and what adventuring party you are associated with?”
“Apexus and Reysha. As you have correctly guessed, we are members of Inevitable.”
The trio froze up for a moment, both at being heard and because of who they were dealing with. Clearing his throat, the lordling continued in a haughty but nevertheless diplomatic tone. “Excuse my rudeness, I was not aware you esteemed guests were around here. I ask only that you hold back on hunting to what is necessary.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” Apexus spoke. He meant it neutrally, they took it coldly and collectively shivered in fear. “Why should we not hunt here?”
Seeing no way forwards but the truth, the lordling answered. “Nature needs its reserves to recover, so the Lordswood serves as both a place of safety for the wildlife and as a rare area for sport.”
“And why are we allowed to hunt if the commonfolk aren’t?”
“…Because you aren’t commonfolk?” The lordling couldn’t stop himself from delivering the answer with adolescent sass. Once it had slipped past his lips, he watched Apexus with a mounting sense of dread.
Apexus was silent. Not because he wanted to intimidate, not in the slightest, but because he was wondering what this truly meant. Were rules this flexible? What was their purpose if they did not apply to most? Could a rule that applied to all ever be just? Could a rule that did not apply to all be? The questions were quite difficult.
“Thank you for the answers,” Apexus ultimately said, then picked up the moose. The three hunters were beyond validated in their concern, watching the giant of a man almost effortlessly hoist a corpse onto his shoulder that usually would have been transported with a sled or wagon.
“Later.” Reysha flashed them a malicious smirk, waved, then followed after him.
The trio would not sleep that night.