TJ happily allowed anyone else to tell the tale of the hunt and everything that transpired. He was tired, and only halfway through the return jouro the town had he finally been cured of the damned Frostbite affli. Even so, the chill persisted in his bohough the attack he’d sustaihat pierced pletely through his body was almost cauterized by the chill of the wendigo’s frost, TJ felt his own blood slowly seep down his side. He found a couple s to staunch the bleeding on each side of his body. As he pulled his shirt down and tried to tie the rags in a way so as to press down on the wounds as best as he could maanton ambled up, his pte in hand.
“I want some vegetables already.” TJ joked as he tried to adjust to sitting fortably while his whole body ached.
“Don’t expect it. Unless we find something out there, we’re protein heavy until someone figures out how to grow food.”
“Damn. hought I’d miss a sad.”
Stanton merely grunted as they both tucked into the javelihat was already getting to be ing after just one day of eating it with every meal. They ate while the residents that hadn’t gone on the hunt watched the rendition, pletely enamored with Zig’s retelling of their journey and struggles. She took desperate bites betweeences, inhaling the meat after just one or two chews. It was quite impressive, if TJ was to admit it. After a particurly enthusiastic bite, TJ groaned aled bato his chair while gingerly cradling his aggravated wounds.
“You o get that healed.” The old cowboy scoffed as he looked at TJ’s bloodstained shirt and shoddily ed injuries.
“I know. It’s no rush though. Others have got it worse.”
Stanton obviously disagreed and grunted.
“Fine. You want to take me out into the cold and heal me up? Are there any trees nearby that offer enough of their lives to get me all healthy?”
“Quit your snark, kid. I’m too damn tired to deal with it.”
TJ grinned and stopped talking. Zig’s enthusiastic retelling of their journey had just revealed the wendigo’s trap and, though the result was obvious, given the wendigo’s dead body and there being no dead hunters, the fiery-headed woman was a good enough storyteller that a chorus of gasps erupted as she decred, “They’d prepared for us!”
“We o talk to Laura about all this.” TJ spoke just above a whisper to Stanton. He just looked at TJ in response, waiting for an expnation.
“Today shows we ’t just treat this like a merry hunt to go on every day. They’re learning what we’re doing and adapting to it, and we’ll o ge something or else we’ll have too many casualties to sustain real growth.”
“What do you think we should do, Mr. Smarty?”
“I dunno. It just o ge somehow.”
“Well, kid, you talk about problems all day long. If you don’t have anything to do about the problems, you’re just pining. If you want to talk to Laura about this problem, you some ideas to the table. o stress her out with something she ’t trol.”
“I don’t want to have to do all that. I just want to see Junior. I’m not made for being in charge of people like this anyways.”
Stanton’s jovial face shifted. A hard scowl filled his wrinkled face, and he spoke in a deadly serious tone. “Once we get out of here, you talk about ‘not made for this’ or ‘don’t wanna’ that. You decided to make the good decision of f hundreds of people out of their fort zones and into battle zones. You’ve go and proven yourself as, if not the absolute premiere fighter in this Tutorial, then at least the top five. Now, you’ve gotta live with the fact that people are going to take your words seriously. If you walk up to Laura and say that we’re in deep water and you have no pail to start bailing out the water, then more people will be vinced we’re on a sinking ship.
“You made yourself the representation of people who have adapted themselves to this hell. Everyone will follow your lead, so you ’t just walk around and start saying ‘woe is me’ or they’ll do the same.”
“I don’t want the responsibility.” TJ knew he was whining, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Once upon a time, I might have said that’s what makes you a good person to have it. Don’t think that any more, but even so, you’ve got the authority whether you like it or not. Gotta do something with it.”
TJ grumbled as he took another bite of his tough javelina pork chop. After a mihought, he answered Stanton’s unspokeion. “Yeah, I’ll think about it tonight. I have a lot to do until then, so maybe I figure some sort of a solution out by m.”
“I bet Laura’s going to want a meeting with everyone who went out tonight.”
“And she have it with everyone else. I’m going to try to process the rest of the wendigo cws and horns tonight. If I’m out on the front lines all day every day, I’m going to o make things some time. You take care of it. Or literally anyone else.”
Stanton bowed with a grunting ugh, a certain twinkle in his eye that made TJ miss his gramps. The little levity drained what little unjustified anger remained in TJ as he finished off his meal and pushed back from his seat. He hadn’t been paying attention to the story, but eyes flew to him as Zig tinued her retelling.
“Things were looking grim as the moe its own panion!” Gasps rang through the audience. “It was restored to full health, and its foul magics returned! As fog filtered through the air, chilling everyohin 100 feet, we all wondered if we were going to die. Well, all of us except for the valiant TJ! Without a thought for his own safety, he threw himself at the wendigo! Scales cttered and bones creaked as he sacrificed his owh to tie the beast down for just another minute, just another sed. It roared and lifted or’s body to shield itself as it dealt a killing blow to TJ. Yet, here he still stands, unwilling to accept death as a possible oute! Though he ierced all the way through, he tio hold the moill, keep it from approag the weakened Acolytes hiding behind.
“It sought to strike him again, perhaps a truly fatal blow. How could he survive? He’d never let it go and promise the safety of his friends. Caught between a rod a hard pce, the decision was made for our valiant hero. Charlie rushed in, ax held high and with a mighty blow, halted the deadly strike. The wendigo screeched in agony, uo believe our tinued efforts, and as…”
TJ stopped paying attention, instead walking to Penny, who sat nearby, enraptured by the story. He tapped her shoulder and she jumped, startled.
“Oh, TJ! She’s such a good storyteller I almost believe her. There’s no way it was quite the way she’s telling it, though, is there?”
“There’s some embellishment.” TJ nodded. “ you do me a favor?”
“Course, honey.”
“Would you heal me? I think I’ll be ok, but I might have some bacteria or whatever that needs some help.”
“You really were hit by the bony devil?”
TJ raised his shirt, showing the bloodied rags.
“Oh, why oh didn’t you say anything? You tention the moment you got here!” Granny Penny didn’t keep her voice down at all, and begaing attention from others around them. TJ tried to point at Zig, to get them to tio listen to her story, but as they saw him there, sp wounds to support her story, the whispers grew and exploded.
The storytelling Zig quickly realized what was happening and jumped into the distra. “So selfless is he that he let all the rest be healed before him! Someone, is there someohat heal our poor TJ?”
He shot the redheaded woman a gre, which she returned with a toothy grin. The witew what she was doing, and was enjoying it. A couple people, Disciples he was sure, approached with ed looks. Penny was the first to y her hands on him and TJ fought to suppress a grimace. A wash of healing energy flooded through him, and once she was exhausted, Granny Penny stepped back. The , Jordan and Rebekkah, the Disciples from his first hunt that m, both id a hand on his shoulders, and more healing flooded his body. More and more hands touched him, and oJ saw that his HP was full, he raised both hands and spun in a gentle circle.
“That’s enough. I’m good. Thank you.” He raised his shirt and pulled away the bloodied rags to dispy his healed, if still filthy, skin. “Enjoy yht, but I need some rest. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
TJ didn’t wait to hear a response before walking out the firehouse. The crowd tinued speg about something or other, but, too unfortable with the hero worship, TJ merely grabbed the wendigo’s corpse and dragged it back towards the home he and Stanton were currently living in. The darkness of the night was a wele ge, and TJ felt he finally wasn’t being dissected by hundreds of eyes. As he walked, the chorus of night creatures lulled him from his worries. An owl called, and though it was too cold for the crickets to sing, the movement of something small through the brush both set his mind at ease and made it race wildly. It couldn’t be an enemy or something, right?
He forced himself to calm down, instead making his way home as quickly as he could mahe Javelina hides were still outside g, and TJ dropped the wendigo corpse by the door befathering them all up to hand again ihen, his first task plete, he turo the real purpose of his work for tonight. To say nothing of the new corpse he’d just lugged home, the materials left over from the first wendigo still remained, nine fingers and one whole horn. Nearly a foot of curved horn remained of the other, the point ing to a wicked spike. TJ saw the possibility immediately and, after stoking a fire in the firep the ter of the house, settled down to carve.
Though he khat he could use Wind Manipution to cut the horn into his desired shape, TJ didn’t want to influehe material any more than he already had. Instead, he painstakingly cut the horn into a nine inch-long pick. Then, realizing he didn’t have a haft for the on he was creating, TJ looked down at the first wendigo’s body. It didn’t stink, strangely enough, but even so, TJ wao deal with it faster than the newer one and dispose of the body. Thus, with a less disturbed stomach than he’d expected, TJ cut the bones of the wendigo’s arms and legs free. When he looked at the fyed body, though, TJ knew he was dohere might have been more materials that he could salvage, but at this point, it was too gruesome.
Taking one of the bones from the wendigo’s forearm, TJ cut and drilled a hole until he’d fashioned one big enough to have the wendigo’s bone serve as a haft to the ick. After hammering the boo the socket he’d carved, TJ finally cut a small se of one of the horn offcuts into a long thin wedge. He drove it into the top of the haft, making it snugly fit into the haft and making sure the head wouldn’t fly off so easily.
Having done so, TJ felt that he’d nearly reached level 9 in Savage with this test endeavor and looked at the rest of his grisly materials id out in the living room. There was still so much left to do, and TJ was sure he could get at least one more level that night if he tried hard enough. He refused to check the description of the on he’d created, instead choosing to check the results of everything he did at the same time.
With a sigh, TJ rolled back his sleeves, rolled his neck, and rolled on to the item he wao try to build.
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