Chapter 50: The Ravine
The Ravine
’I know I said we’ll deal with everything smoothly, but how exactly do we do that?’ That was the thought Xander had as his squad along with Sparrow’s squad headed in the direction of the Ravine.
Sparrow had come at the crack of dawn to call them, and the two squads set out, getting past the walls and following a path that led to the Ravine.
Thankfully, the moon set before the sun rose, so Mia was able to bring Curtis back from wherever he had been, and the result had been very... tearful.
Xander glanced at Curtis who seemed more subdued than usual and sighed in his heart, recalling how the taller boy had been a tearful mess as soon as he regained consciousness.
***
"I’m sorry! I’m sorry!"
"Wh-Whoa!"
"H-Hey now..."
Falael and Aubrey looked panicked as Curtis prostrated himself in front of Xander, his entire body trembling as he went and apologized incessantly. Xander—to his credit—didn’t let himself get flustered as he sort of guessed this would happen, but that didn’t mean he was unaffected.
Dropping down to a knee, Xander held Curtis up by his shoulders, and Curtis immediately averted his gaze, his face flushed and stained with tears, refusing to meet Xander’s eyes.
"Curtis, talk to us." He said in a tone far gentler than he was used to, but he made it work, somehow.
"Yeah man. Talk to us." Falael said, also coming closer and getting on a knee. Aubrey followed suit.
Seeing this, Curtis let out a choked noise and closed his eyes tightly.
"I was... so scared... of being looked at differently... of being discriminated against..." He wiped at his eyes to no avail.
"Lycans... aren’t a truly... sentient race. No one would accept me as I am, a-and the thought of you guys... treating me differently if you knew..." Hearing this, Xander huffed.
"Curtis, do we really seem like the type of people who would treat you differently just because of what you are?" Xander paused. "Well, besides Falael."
"Hey! What’s that supposed to me—"
Ignoring the indignant half-elf, Xander continued.
"We are a team. But more importantly, we are your friends. We don’t care what you are. And most importantly, we would have helped you if we’d known ahead of time." He shook Curtis lightly, forcing him to open his eyes.
"But you need to tell us these things first. I’m not saying you should bear every secret you have to us. Lord knows I have plenty. But if you’re struggling with something, we’re here for you. Okay?" Xander said earnestly, making Curtis’s eyes widen
"Yeah, and... sorry for calling you out the way I did. I could have probably eased into it rather than stating what I noticed like I was reading a report. I was just shaken by what I’d seen and was coping, I think." Aubrey apologized, making Curtis stare at her in shock, like he couldn’t believe why she was apologizing.
"... I guess I should have noticed something as well..." Falael mumbled, admitting fault tasting bitter in their mouth. "I always saw you as some... emotional puppy, or something. It never really hit me that you might be struggling as well, so I never bothered to look. That’s on me." They paused, then started to add.
"Granted, the suppose the nickname puppy is a lot more fitti– Ow ow owww!" Falael’s words were cut off as Xander grabbed their ear and twisted it much like how a mother would her child.
"You guys..." Seeing how sincere everyone was, Curtis’s eyes filled with tears again, then he started bawling like a child. The action startled everyone to panic as it was clear they thought they made it worse.
However, in reality, Curtis felt an immense weight get lifted off his shoulders. And unbeknownst to the group, one conversation had brought them even closer together.
***
’Sigh, what a mess.’ Xander sighed inwardly as he recalled the scene. If he was being honest, he’d take fighting a rampaging Lycan over dealing with complicated emotions any day. Still, he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t something long overdue.
"We’ll be arriving there soon. You see that guard tower?" Sparrow’s voice snapped Xander out of his reverie, and he looked forward to see that, indeed, a guard tower a few hundred meters away sat on a slope.
The group gave affirmative answers, and Zeke spoke.
"The tower overlooks the ravine. Its just an open field besides that, so it’s not hard to spot anything that might approach." As he said this, the group reached the base of the guard tower, and just like Zeke had said, past the slope was a large open field. However, in the center of this field was a massive Ravine that looked like a scar in the earth.
It looked to be dozens of miles long and a few miles at its widest. Granted, this width reduced significantly as the end of the Ravine to just a few hundred meters.
While he couldn’t see the bottom, Xander could make out some openings he assumed were the nests for various creatures.
Before he could inspect further though, Ragna suddenly walked to the base of the tower and smashed the side of his fist into one of the supporting beams, causing the whole thing to shake precariously, and a few startled helps could be heard from inside.
A moment later, a shoulder looked out with a livid expression.
"Ragna, you bastard! What the hell are you doing?!" He yelled as he adjusted his helmet that had nearly fallen off, and Ragna just laughed heartily while his teammates rolled their eyes.
"It’s our shift to clean the Ravine this time. Just letting you know." Sparrow shook her head and walked on ahead. The soldier clicked his tongue and glanced at Xander and co for a moment before retreating back into the tower.
’I feel like the term Lunatics is slowly making sense now.’ Aubrey noted as the group continued.
As they neared the ravine, Bodhi slowed his pace and fell in stride with Xander.
"So, you gonna demonstrate what you explained to me yesterday?" The older guy said with barely masked excitement, and Xander smiled earnestly and nodded.
"Yup. Gonna be the perfect opportunity..." The two of them began chatting, drawing the attention of both squads.
"Hey, since when was Bodhi so chummy with the newbie?" Nash whispered.
"I recall that he went to meet him earlier last night. Guess they bonded over swords or something." Zeke shrugged.
Sparrow and Ragna shared a look, but said nothing.
Finally, though, the group reached the mouth of the Ravine, it sloped downwards for quite a while before reaching the floor, and along the sides of the Ravine were numerous holes which were monster nests which various demonic beasts crawled out of. Some were fighting with each other, some were mating, other were eating, and so on. The ravine walls were also covered in all sorts of fauna and vegetation, some not-so-friendly.
’Hm. This doesn’t seem to terrible.’ Xander thought as Sparrow spoke.
"The stronger demonic beasts are near the center of the Ravine. Dealing with them isn’t impossible, but we’d need to divert quite a lot of manpower from the other fronts to pull that off. So the job here is simply cleaning up the excess beasts to prevent a beast tide, but not so much to draw the attention of the big boys." At this, Xander rubbed his chin.
"Why don’t the stronger beasts just charge out at once? I don’t think they have the same reservations as us." He asked.
"To be frank, they don’t get along with one another. Each has it’s own territory in the ravine, so they appear to be at a stalemate and keep each other in check, stopping any from making a significant move. However, the moment an external threat appears, they will act in tandem, so we can’t easily exploit this fact." Hearing her explanation, Xander nodded calmly and stared at her.
She stared back.
"... So, now what?" He waited for her.
"Huh, I half expected you to just go in." She said, sounding genuinely surprised.
’What do you take us for...?’ His lip twitched, and Sparrow just shrugged before pointing.
"The task is in your hands this time."
"... Huh?" Xander and co gave her a dubious look, but she just smirked.
"You heard me. We’ll observe. So you guys are in charge of the cleanup this time. We’ll only assist if you start to mess up."
’In short, they are using us as free labor.’ Falael grumbled through telepathy.
’It sure feels that way. But you don’t actually seem that annoyed.’ Aubrey glanced at them, and the half-elf huffed.
’... Well I haven’t gotten any action since I got here. So at least I finally get to do something.’ They admitted. Xander chuckled inwardly before speaking to Sparrow.
"Alright. But if we accidentally attract one of the stronger demonic beasts then don’t blame us." He said half-jokingly, but no one laughed.
"... Damn, tough crowd." He forced a cough.
"Oh, you were joking." Sparrow sighed.
"Yeah...? Wait, did you think I—"
"Go and do your job." Her stern voice made him click his tongue.
"Fine..." He turned to his teammates and they went down the slope a bit.
But only just a bit.
"... What are you guys doing?" Nash narrowed his eyes, and Xander just looked back at him with a smile.
"Taking advantage of geography." At that moment, Aubrey let an arrow fly.
