Artefact Hunters: Ikimono's Mirror

     It took some work with their map and compass – work that was harder when one lacked hands – but Brynn and Hanso had managed to find the road leading to Chiaki. It was small and cobbled, with just enough traffic that the duo had opted to stay out of sight by walking through the nearby treeline. That was an agreement that they’d managed to scratch out in the patches of bare earth at the roadside, and Brynn was again thankful that they’d found a way to communicate.

     The sounds of civilisation picked up as they trotted parallel to the road, which was just visible past the thick foliage. Brynn could hear the clatter of carts and the voices of Neopets calling out to one another as they went about their daily business in town. She crept up toward the roadside to get a better view.

     It was hard to tell the size from her vantage point, but Chiaki did seem quite a bit livelier than Kasuma Village had been. Already she could see festival lanterns adorning some of the shops and hanging from the big gate leading into town, and business seemed to be booming. Ryuji had described it as a trade hub of sorts for goods being exchanged within Shenkuu. Its location – nestled in another valley, right on a major river that cut through this part of the mountains, and less than a day from the capital by winged ship or carriage – doubtless helped with that.

     Among the well-kept buildings just past the gate, Brynn thought she could see a stable and carriage house. She glanced back at the sound of rustling in the bushes to see Hanso emerging beside her. With a low grunt, she turned her head to slip her writing stick from where she’d tucked it under the strap of her bag.

     “Rides ahead,” she wrote into the roadside dirt, along with an arrow pointing toward the stable.

     Hanso cocked his head in thought as he read the message. He looked up to squint in the direction she’d indicated, then nodded with a snort.

     “Onward,” he wrote beneath her message.

     The two of them didn’t bother hiding themselves while going into town. They wanted to be seen at this point, after all. Brynn tried to project calm and easy confidence as she stepped past the threshold of the first few buildings. It was a trick Hanso had taught her. People were less likely to question why you were somewhere if you looked like you were supposed to be there.

     That didn’t stop all of the attention. “Momma, what’s that?” a little Wocky girl called out, pulling at her mother’s skirt with one hand and pointing at Hanso with the other.

     The girl’s mother paused from browsing a shop’s wares to peer at him. “I… think that’s called a Nuk, dear. I wonder where the owner of those Petpets is…”

     A couple other passers-by stopped to look too, giggling or pointing out the unattended Petpets with their mysterious luggage. One of them was a Brown Ruki standing just outside the stable, with a rake in hand that he’d just been using to spread out fresh straw for its occupants.

     Brynn walked right up to him with a soft, nonthreatening rumble. Once his attention was focused on her, she turned her head to grab her writing stick.

     “Well, what do we have here?” the bemused Ruki asked, leaning down and putting a hand a few inches from Brynn’s face. “You certainly don’t look wild.”

     Brynn started at the proffered hand in confusion. The Ruki apparently took that as an invitation, because he started scratching her behind the ears. She stiffened. What is happening right now? Is this guy petting me?!

     Hanso was starting to make some very strange noises. Brynn couldn’t be certain, but she was almost positive he was laughing at her.

     “Here, let me get that for you,” the Ruki said, pulling Brynn’s stick out from under her bag and tossing it to the side. “You must feel better without that stuck in your little ensemble, huh?”

     The loss of her writing implement shook Brynn out of her stupor, and she grumbled and ducked out from under the Ruki’s hand. He pulled it back, but now he was looking at both Petpets with a contemplative frown.

     “What do you have in those bags, anyway?” he muttered half to himself.

     Hanso was starting to clear some straw away from the outer stable floor, but the straw was laid out thick, and it was taking him some time to open up a usable patch of dirt. The stablehand didn’t seem to notice.

     Instead, he reached over to try and grab Brynn’s satchel.

     Brynn’s eyes widened, and she scrambled back before the unknowing stablehand could get the satchel open. ‘Don’t touch that!’ she growled in a panic, hackles raised and ears pinned back to really get the message across.

     The Ruki yelped and stumbled back, drawing the attention of just about everyone around him. The door to the carriage house opened, and a portly Yurble leaned out.

     “What trouble have you gotten into this time?” she asked the Ruki.

     “These Petpets just walked up to me, and now that Biyako’s threatening me out of nowhere!” he cried. Hanso looked up, body tense and ears quivering. “They’ve got these strange bags, but I can’t find their owners anywhere!”

     The Yurble frowned and stepped outside, eyeing the satchel Brynn was wearing. “That bag looks expensive,” she mused. “Whoever owns it might pay a pretty ‘point to get their Petpets back. And that’s assuming these are their Petpets. They could be trained as thieves, in which case we could really get a good reward for returning the stolen goods.”

     Brynn looked between the two stable workers, still growling. The Yurble started to advance on her, arms spread to catch her if she ran past, and gestured for the Ruki to hem her in from the other side. She started backing away from the stable before they could corner her, but she’d attracted enough stares by now that other pets on the street might soon step in to ‘help.’

     If one of them managed to get her satchel open, she’d have much worse than the local Petpet control to deal with.

     Hanso, all but forgotten by the stable workers entranced by Brynn and her silvered satchel, let out a snort and charged at the Yurble. He bashed into her with lowered horns, taking her by surprise and knocking her over.

     The outburst of action drew concerned shouts from the onlookers, some of whom started running up to assist. Hanso leapt over the prone Yurble’s form and bolted away. Brynn likewise ran through the brief opening before confused, concerned, or just overly curious citizens could close in on either of them.

     The two of them kept running until they were out of town, off the road, and back in the concealment of the forest. The townspeople’s shouts hadn’t followed very far, but that felt like a small mercy to Brynn as she and Hanso collapsed in a small clearing to catch their breath.

     There was no way they could go back to Chiaki after causing that kind of scene. And if there was a chance that anyone they approached might go after Brynn’s satchel and see the volatile artefact within before she or Hanso could warn them away, that meant no town was safe.

     Until they reached Min at the Imperial Palace, they were on their own.

     Hanso trudged through the forest with all the enthusiasm of a man convicted, and he should know what that felt like. This was the fifth time in the past two days that he’d found himself hoofing it (now literally) through the Shenkese wilderness. If that accursed artefact had just stayed tucked up in a nice little nook where Brynn knew to protect herself before reaching it, he’d be back in the palace convincing her to stick around for the festival by now.

     Instead, they were looking at days worth of forest-trudging, with neither vehicle nor steed to make their trek through the mountains any easier.

     Beside him, Brynn kept a steady pace, eyes and ears alert and paws beating out an even rhythm. She’d found a replacement writing stick and broken it down to a manageable size before slipping it between the satchel and her back. It didn’t look too comfortable, but she didn’t seem to mind much. Actually, it looked kind of like she was wearing some woodsy version of her sword.

     Hanso let out an amused little huff. So, you plan on slaying any monsters with that thing? he imagined himself saying. Or maybe, With that knight’s march and a big pointy weapon at your back, it’s a wonder the folks in Chiaki didn’t recognise you outright. Petpet or no.

     Brynn’s ear twitched at the sound he’d made, and she cast him a glance. He tried to smile back, exuding the same level of playful confidence that he imagined himself voicing. But it felt as weak in his heart as it did awkward on his long muzzle. He wasn’t sure she even caught the attempt.

     He felt the smile drop. Brynn had been short and to the point in all of her communications with him since they’d left the cave, even though she’d found a way to use words again. She didn’t want to talk, and Hanso didn’t dare push for longer conversations while they were planning. She was mad enough at him already. He didn’t blame her. Her own transformation might have been a freak accident, but what they were dealing with now? That was all his fault.

     Maybe he could lighten the mood now, though. He had the means. Heck, this writing thing had given his hooves a good use. He could share his jokes with her, and she could laugh (or whatever a Biyako’s approximation was), and then maybe this whole extended hike wouldn’t be so bad.

     He cast his gaze around, trying to find a nice patch of dirt for his purposes. Hmm… There were quite a lot of rocks and roots in this forest, huh?

     He slowed down to get a better look around, reasoning that they needed a better idea on how to find writing space anyway. Brynn’s ears perked as she watched him stray from their path a little, and she let out a questioning rumble. Or at least, he thought it sounded questioning.

     Wait, what was over there? Hanso cocked his head and drifted over to a lane of tramped-down foliage. It seemed to be some kind of natural trail used by larger Petpets making their way through the forest. And where there was a trail, there was likely to be exposed dirt.

     Hanso turned his head to make sure Brynn was still with him. She was following a few paces behind, and he was fairly certain that the look she was making now was a confused one.

     Eh, it wouldn’t be for long. He let out a self-satisfied snort and turned back to start clearing forest detritus away from a particularly promising spot. With a forehoof, he brushed aside leaves, a few pebbles, a weird little twig sticking out of the ground –

     Something snapped, and all at once, Hanso felt his foreleg yanked a good three feet off the ground. He cried out in surprise as his remaining hooves twisted out from under him, causing him to dangle painfully from the joint above the ensnared one.

     Brynn let out a distressed growl and ran up to him. She caught up at about the same time that he managed to get more-or-less balanced on his hind hooves and looked up to see just what had a hold on him.

     It was, quite literally, a snare. The loop that now held him captive was made with sturdy vine that had been camouflaged among the leaf litter on the Petpet trail. He wasn’t sure he would have seen it even with his proper Ixi eyes.

     Gritting his teeth, Hanso straightened out the leg as well as he could and used his free forehoof to try and slip the snare off. He bleated angrily at the contraption as he did so – ‘It is completely unfair to have random traps out in random parts of the woods where I’m not looking for them; traps should stay in the spooky dungeons where they belong; I have had enough trouble and humiliation for one day, and I refuse to become some hunter’s trophy!’

     Alas, the snare did not listen. Its loop was too tight around the base of his hoof, which flared out a fair amount at the end, for him to push it off.

     Brynn placed a gentle paw on Hanso’s flank, as if trying to calm him down. He settled himself with one last annoyed snort, though he sure didn’t feel much better. After a calculating look at the snare, Brynn reared up onto her own hind legs. She could only balance like this for a moment, but with her longer body, she managed to grab the vine just above him in her teeth.

     With their combined weight, the branch that was holding the snare up started to bend. They managed to get the looped end down until Hanso could put three hooves on the ground. He held the fourth up just enough to take the extra pressure off, and made a small closed-mouth grunt of relief and gratitude for Brynn’s help.

     Meanwhile, she put a paw on the vine between her jaws and the branch and started pulling down against it, trying to bite through. Judging by her repeated yanks and small, frustrated growls, though, the vine was a bit too tough for that.

     Hanso thought through the supplies still in his pack. His dagger was unavailable. He’d been wearing it when he jumped into the magic mirror pool, so it had gone… wherever the rest of his clothes had gone when he transformed. He tried not to think about that too much. He did have a small utility knife in the bag, though, for cooking and other basic survival needs.

     He bleated once to get Brynn’s attention. When she glanced back at him, though, he realised that he couldn’t twist around to get into the bag in this state and he didn’t know how she could get a hold of the knife without letting go of the vine and sending him flying.

     Instead, he decided to try loosening the knot. Now that the snare wasn’t so tight on him, maybe he’d manage to get it so he could slip it off after all.

     He bent forward to start poking and prodding at the knot. As he did so, his ear caught the sound of distant voices that his and Brynn’s commotion had previously drowned out.

     “– telling you, that Petpet call was like nothing I’ve ever heard in these woods. And it definitely came from this way.”

     “It sounded a little… I dunno, Baaba-ish. You think we caught someone’s missing livestock?”

     “Eh, too deep for a Baaba. I bet we got something more exotic, like a Caprior.”

     “Why not? We had two Alkenores last night, before somebody left the latches loose and everyone escaped.”

     “Yasu, I swear, if you keep blaming me for that, I’ll –”

     Hanso and Brynn shared a wide-eyed look. No way. Not them again.

     Hanso had just been prodding at the knot before, trying to more or less coax it loose. Now, though, he went all in with his teeth while Brynn did her best to keep the vine steady. He tested and tugged at bits of vine, and in a few seconds, he managed to get some of them loose. While the poachers’ voices drew nearer, he leaned back and tried to push the loop off of himself again.

     “What the –?!”

     Hanso paused for just a half-second to look back down the Petpet trail. The three poachers had just stepped into view, and were now staring at the Nuk and Biyako working together to escape one of their snares.

     The Nimmo’s eyes flashed with recognition, then narrowed.

     “You,” she spat, pulling out her bow and glaring venomously at Brynn. “You’ve cost us one campsite already, and I’m not about to lose you again. Forget guard duty at some mansion, you’re going to be someone’s coat!”

     While she was talking, Hanso had gone back to working his forehoof out of the snare. It finally slipped free, and he and Brynn let go of the vine to make a run for it. The bent tree branch snapped back into place, the vine whipped around, and Hanso could hear the Skeith yell out in pain.

     Hmm. Shame they didn’t get the Nimmo instead.

     Hanso and Brynn bolted down the Petpet trail until they reached an opening where they could make some headway into the forest proper. Even if it was easier to navigate, there was too much risk of more snares somewhere along the trail.

     Hanso held his head low, and his wide curled horns made something of a buffer as he crashed through the underbrush. He just hoped they wouldn’t turn against him and get tangled in something. Beside him, he could hear Brynn’s heavy breaths as she leapt through underbrush and around trees, Ikimono’s Mirror bouncing against her back.

     There weren’t any arrows flying through the trees, which Hanso took as a good sign. Before he could dare hope that they’d lost the poachers, though, a piercing Pteri whistle sounded far above and only a little behind them.

     Great. The Pteri – Yasu, was it? – had gotten high enough to keep tabs on their progress. As he ducked under a low branch, Hanso wondered for a moment whether they could lose her beneath the trees somehow. Probably not, crashing through the forest at their sizes.

     Hanso had no idea which way they were going now. He and Brynn hadn’t gotten too far from Chiaki yet, so maybe they’d find someone or something that would force the poachers to call off the hunt. He spared as much attention toward finding such a thing as he could while trying not to stumble over some jutting rock or root.

     The extra attention paid off about a minute later, when he heard the faint sounds of more voices somewhere off to the side. His ears pricked. Farmers? Travelers? Heck, he’d take them looping back around to town at this point.

     He managed to catch a few words: “Poachers,” “hunting,” “out this way.” He snorted in frustration at the thought of more of them, and considered heading the opposite way. < P>But then it struck him: poachers probably wouldn’t be referring to themselves that way. And he hadn’t been the first person to complain about them to the local guards.

     Acting half on pure gut instinct, and dearly hoping he was right, Hanso skidded around a tree and started charging straight for the new voices. From the corner of his eye, he saw a confused Brynn pause for half a second before following just behind him. Somewhere overhead, Yasu whistled some signal to her partners in crime.

     Around another tree, between two scraggly bushes, and – there! He counted about five-odd pets, two of them armoured in what looked like local Guard uniforms. That was a good sign. Probably.

     An arrow hit the tree behind him with a muted thunk. Hanso snorted and redoubled his charge.

     “What the –” a wide-eyed Kacheek – one of the uniformed ones – shouted as Hanso and Brynn rushed past him. His and the others’ attention was quickly stolen by the Nimmo crashing through the underbrush behind them, however.

     “Hey – Hey! Hands where I can see them, by order of the Chiaki Guard and the Petpet Protection League!” someone barked, behind Hanso now.

     “Wha– Officers!” he heard the Nimmo call out, her voice a delightful cocktail of desperation and obviously faked innocence. “My, uh, my Petpets just ran off, so I was –”

     Hanso skidded to a near-stop and started to turn; now that the immediate threat was over, he kind of wanted to see how this played out. But he hadn’t anticipated just how closely Brynn was following behind him. Before he could catch what happened next with the poachers, she slammed into him.

     The two of them went tumbling over rocks and roots and each other. Hanso got the wind knocked out of him as the larger Biyako practically flipped over him, and he could hear the sticks snapping and rocks crunching beneath them both.

     After a moment, he regained his breath and started to get his hooves back under himself. As he did, he looked over to see Brynn almost on her back, shaking her head a bit and catching her own breath.

     His heart plummeted when he realized that the satchel containing Ikimono’s Mirror was underneath her, and he was forced to ask himself whether it was really just the rocks crunching.

     Brynn groaned and rolled onto her paws, still shaking her head. That had been a nasty tumble, but she didn’t have any injuries, and Hanso was already getting up and looked fine as well. She didn’t know why he had stopped like that, but she figured it was her own fault for tailing him so closely.

     Back behind them, she could still hear the poachers trying – and failing, by the sounds of it – to talk their way out of being caught red-handed. It didn’t sound like anyone was coming to investigate where she and Hanso had gotten to. Still, she didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out whether the guards and the PPL had seen enough to decide it warranted searching for the mysterious Petpets.

     When she looked back to signal Hanso that they should get moving, though, she realised that he was wide-eyed and trembling. She sprang up to her feet and stepped forward to see what was wrong.

     In response, Hanso let out a weak bleat and leaned forward in a jerky, almost hesitant motion. He still looked physically unhurt, but he was staring straight at her – no, at her bag.

     Brynn realised with a start that the satchel was now hanging down against her side. The side that still smarted a little from where she’d hit the ground moments ago.

     She returned her partner’s fearful look. Would Min be able to figure out a reversal spell if the artefact was broken?

      Heart racing, she pulled the satchel off of herself and practically tore off the catch holding it shut. Tense, she lifted up its upper flap and peered inside.

     Ikimono’s Mirror peered back at her, glinting in what fading sunlight reached it. She couldn’t see any cracks or other signs of breakage. She reached in and ran a paw over the surface, slow and gentle to avoid cutting herself on any unseen cracks. The mirror felt smooth and whole, and though she may have been imagining it, she thought she could sense the faint tingle of magic.

     Brynn let out a heavy sigh of relief. Hanso had stepped up to see the mirror for himself, and he sagged with the reassurance that it was whole and unbroken.

     He was still shaking, though. Brynn still felt a bit shaky, herself. After re-securing the satchel and affixing it back around herself, she gave him a gentle, reassuring headbutt. ‘It’s okay. We’re okay.’

     That seemed to help a little, and he stood back up and followed her away from the arguing voices behind them. They would need to reorient themselves again, and they were almost out of daylight. So they would want to take it easy for the moment, not that Brynn minded after everything that had just happened.

     Only for a moment, though. They still had a long road ahead of them.

To be continued…