A Bushel of Trouble
The following day as I walking with my group to gather plants for cooking I was keeping an eye out for any ingredients I needed to get the brilawell made. The note had read…
12g of spider silk
2 long melon husks
1 bee’s nest
The glow of a large berie
A tooth of a deep cave beast
The spider silk I got from my brother’s bedroom and the melon husks from dinner last night. The bee’s nest and berie shouldn’t be much issue. It was the cave beast tooth that brought me worry. Your not gonna find that laying around and I wasn’t quite fit for combat I admit.
“Your looking much more happy lately.” Storcha said to me. Her long red hair dangling just above the daybreak spice. It blended in nicely with the orange and red leaves.
“Really?” I asked with a crooked smile as my eyes wandered up and behind her. A bee’s nest hung from a tree. Knowing theres nothing I could do now, I would wait till later.
She raised her head to catch my line of sight with inquisitive green eyes. “Mhm, I can tell. So whats changed?”
I diverted my own eyes and a short awkward pause grew before something came to mind. “Busalin is back in season which is nice.” She squinted at me and I could tell she wasn’t buying it.
“Stop chatting and get to picking. You in particular got two baskets to fill.” The group leader called out. We both jumped and went back to scavenging.
“You shouldn’t be getting in such trouble. It makes you a target.” Storcha muttered.
‘In a way that saved me for now. I still need to find an excuse eventually.’ I thought to myself and then shifted the topic. “How about we meet up sometime? Its been awhile since we did that.”
A smile crossed her face. “Oh that would be lovely.”
We both went back to picking while chatting about various topics.. Admittedly it did cause the time to go by a bit faster.
—————
After the picking was over, I dropped off my bushels, managed to sneak out before being asked to do another task and went back to the bee’s nest.
I reached the picking area and put out my arm, felt the humidity collect from within the air and shot a burst of water that struck down the nest from the tree. I jumped behind a large rock and waited. A flurry of buzzing sounds let out from behind me and didn’t get any softer.
“Ow, ouch, owie.” I yelped out loud as the pain of many small burns and bugs moving within my clothes began. I jumped out and started running, well it was more like hopping around madly in a direction to build up static electricity in my body and I released it.
Bad, bad, bad idea. I thought to myself and started moving faster. The cloud of bees was a ways back as I dove into a batch of tall weeds. My body started burning as a dead bug rolled out from my sleeve and into my palm. Its tiny fur was a light pink with strips of yellow and black. Its bug eyes a dark blue and a saggy gland sack where a stinger should be. This wasn’t a bee.
The weeds around me caught fire as I realized these were actually dracas. A much more viscous, fire breathing cousin to bees. The fire parted as I sprayed it with what little water I could muster from the humidity and bolted off.