Artus closed his eyes and braced for impact, feeling pain on the side of his face, which went numb, and then quickly filled with pain once again. He could taste the blood in his mouth, obviously cut from the inside, which was to be expected from being hit. It wasn't even a second later, until he felt the weight of the man being lifted from his lower body following a short cry of pain. Artus opened his eyes and saw the man on the ground, being kicked by Rose.
Aha...time to give what's coming to them... Artus groaned, massaging his cheek as he slowly got up, a tad dizzy. He figured now that Rose was here, it would have been a good time to deliver some well needed retribution. However, just as the situation was beginning to heat up, it quickly 'cooled' upon the entrance of Tim. A quick jolt of light shot into the area, freezing Rose's feet to the ground, just as she was about to give the woman a pummeling.
"Is violence the first thing you turn to when you have a problem?! You're worse than the Spectres!" Tim yelled, hastily running to the strangers, helping the fallen one up and checking out their wounds. Artus just stood there, now a bit more relaxed, although slightly annoyed by Tim's unnecessary involvement. He clutched the side of his head, trying to wipe away the blood from his red-stained lips.
"Oh, Rosie. What have you gotten yourself into this time?" Valmiro suddenly approached, using the heat from his magic to melt the ice away freeing Rose's movement again, before quickly taking a step back out of caution, presumably as Rose was going to be fuming as always. Luckily Kenna was aware of this, and used some sort of enchantment to soothe Rose down a bit and avoid another scuffle from breaking loose.
“Ughhh…” Artus groaned, massaging his cheek where a bruise was already starting to form. “Consider yourselves lucky that the only violent one is her…” Artus said, looking at the strangers whilst referring to Rose. “A few more minutes and she would have messed you up pretty good.” Artus tried to regain composure after the whole ordeal, approaching the strangers who were also trying to stand back up from being knocked to the ground, one of whom was being treated by Tim.
“You guys are crazy! Was she trying to kill us?!” One of the men shouted angrily, getting up and massaging his shoulder.
“We’re crazy? You guys attacked me first!” Artus pointed to the man lying down on the grass, where Tim hunched over his body trying to heal him up a bit. “And he was the one who drew a weapon!” He exclaimed.
“Symon over there was just trying to teach you a lesson. I mean, you got him pretty riled up.” The man rubbed his head, as he helped his female ‘accomplice’ up as well. “We don’t usually like it when people talk about killing creatures so cold-heartedly. Not to mention, you
did look kind of suspicious wandering near the Spectres like that. But I guess we were also t” The man said, pointing at the dead monsters on the ground.
Teach me a lesson? Artus groaned to himself in annoyance. “Suspicious?! Oh come on, I was just standing there. Besides, why would that bother you so much?” Artus furrowed his eyebrows, getting ready to grill the strangers with a heap of questions.
“We’re wildlife researchers. Empathizing with creatures sort of comes with the job.” The woman spoke, rubbing her head out of soreness. “Right now, we are trying to study Spectres. People have a habit of eradicating them, so their numbers are on a decline. Naturally, you stuck out to us.” The woman spoke in a calmer tone now, and sounded almost apologetic. Artus just nodded his head in acknowledgement, but didn’t say anything. He definitely wasn’t going to get mad over a scuffle. After all, what’s done is done.
“Researchers?” Artus mumbled to himself quietly. It did strike him as being odd running into researchers in the middle of nowhere, but just before he could ask more questions, he heard loud mumbling coming from the man that Tim was tending to. Symon was his name, if Artus heard correctly.
“I…didn’t know you had back up…” He spoke, almost slurring his words. Symon put one hand on Tim’s shoulder for support, groggily trying to get up. Rose definitely gave him a good beating, as he still looked like he was going to fall to the ground at any moment. “What are you all doing here? What’s your business in these woods?” He asked, in a non-aggressive tone. It didn’t seem like he was trying to pick a fight anymore, which sat well with Artus. Most likely he did not want another beating, but judging from his face, it was obvious he was feeling a tad bitter about it.
“Just travelling. We need to pass through here to get to our destination.” Artus gave them a simple answer, not wanting to give a backstory nor a real reason for being in the woods. There was a brief pause in the conversation, as the strangers said nothing more, and just looked around as if they were wondering what to do next. Artus was going to suggest they all just leave and part ways, until a voice shouted from the area where the carriage was located.
“Hey! Hey, is everything okay?!” The voice belonged to Hammel, most likely trying to see if the group was okay, due to making a racket.
“Y-Yeah, everything’s fine!” Artus shouted back, assuring Hammel that there was nothing to worry about.
“There’s more of you?” The other man asked, surprised. “What is this? A travelling circus?” He seemed annoyed by the fact that there were more members of the party, but if anything, Hammel and his family couldn’t really be counted.
“Har har, you’re so funny. That was actually our ride. You don’t think we’re all travelling on foot do you?” Artus crossed his arms, arching an eyebrow at the strangers. “Our horses refuse to move for some reason, so we were trying to kill some time, until you came along.”
“Your horses?” The woman put a hand under chin as she began to think. “You…think it could be related?” She suddenly asked, turning to her peers. This question seemed to have intrigued the other researchers, as their faces lit up with curiosity. They stood there thinking for a short while, before the woman turned her attention back to Artus. “Hey, you think we can look at your horses?” She asked.
Artus gave look of shock at first, before shrugging. “They’re not really our horses, but go ahead, I guess. But what did you mean by saying it was related to something?” He asked, pointing the way back to the carriage.
“I’ll explain it, but let’s see the horses first.” She responded, as the group began to make their way back to the carriage.
~
“Oh wow, they look magnificent!” The woman sped up, hastily jogging towards as they reached the carriage. She approached the horses, stroking them in admiration.
“Uh, hey, who are these people?” Puzzled, Hammel looked at the researchers in a slight frenzy. His wife looked a bit confused as well, and after everything that has happened, Artus didn’t blame her. Last thing she wanted were more people hitching a ride.
“Just some people we met. They’re researchers, and said they wanted to look at your horses.” Artus shrugged at Hammel and his wife, before approaching the researchers who were busy observing and examining the steeds.
“Where are all these people coming from?” Inora exclaimed, rolling her eyes at the sight of everyone. It was bad enough for her that she had to deal with the travelling misfits, but now adding animal activists to the mix was certainly taking its toll. After a few minutes of just standing around idly whilst the researchers did their thing, one of the researchers spoke up.
“Hmm…well, they are definitely spooked.” Symon said, petting the horse.
“They’ve been acting like that for a while now. Mainly around this area and the grasslands. Sometimes they’ll panic, or just stop moving altogether. Sort of like right now.” Hammel replied.
“Look at how tense they are. The muscles look stiff, and the ears are pinned back.” The other male researcher spoke. Artus looked at the horses, and quite frankly couldn’t tell they were tense, but saw the ears laying flatter than usual. “It’s not so bad right now, but you can tell they are in a defensive state. If it was worse, they would be panicking, and their eyes would be wide open, and white.” The researchers continued to pet the horses, who just whinnied gently in response. “Horses are cautious about new places and situations, which is most likely why they have stopped.” Artus already had a hunch that the reason they stopped moving was because the horses felt uncomfortable, but hearing it from the researchers made him more sure of himself.
“But why? Only when the Spectres were closeby did they ever act like this. And these horses travel all the time, so why is this new ‘situation’ causing them to act like this?” Hammel, although interested in what the researchers had to say, still wanted more answers.
“That’s something we don’t really know.” The woman shrugged, looking at Hammel, and then the group.
“But what we do know, is that your horses aren’t the only animals acting weird. We’ve been camped out in these woods for a few weeks already. The fauna have been sparse to say the least. Not to mention the Spectres. They are supposed to be mainly nocturnal, but they’ve been out during the daytime more frequently. Same for most of the other nocturnal creatures as well.” Symon was the one talking now, putting his hand on his chin to think. Artus was very intrigued by their analysis of the wildlife in Moll Wood, giving his full attention to group.
“Why do you think that is?” Hammel asked.
“Honestly, we’re not sure. Something would have to force this behavioural change.” Symon replied, taking another pause. Artus leaned against the carriage, staring up at the sky. He obviously didn't have the knowledge of a researcher, so he couldn't really say anything of significant value, but it was interesting to think about. "But if your horses were scared of the Spectres before, then chances are that's why they have stopped right now. They probably feel threatened, so I would think your best bet is to just wait until nightfall." Symon shrugged.
"Ughh I thought as much." Hammel nodded his head in disbelief.
"Until nightfall? But what are we supposed to do until then? There's nothing to do in this forest." Artus complained.
"You could always give researching a try." One of the researchers smiled, looking at the group. "It's just a suggestion. Plus you never know what you'll find." The man smiled once more, offering the group to accompany them in their exploration of the forests. Artus thought about it for a second. They did got on the wrong foot earlier, but he still wanted to see what the others had to say about it.