Mantle of the Gods

Justia was furious.

“You're not keeping that thing!” She pointed at my decoration.

“I just want to try something.” I made the motion of crossing my heart. “I won't bring it inside the barrier but I think it might keep monsters away from our camp.”

I looked around at the other three people inside the barrier but they showed no indication of offering any help. I hadn't been allowed to come over the fence and I didn't trust them not to try to destroy it if I put it down.

“Why would you think that?” She demanded,

“While Rix and I were picking berries.” I looked around to see if our red-headed companion was going to help out. Unfortunately for me, it looked like she was staying away. Wherever she was. “We didn't get attacked once and we were alone for over an hour.” I looked at everyone again, “You guys had at least one monster show up, didn't you?” The looks they gave each other confirmed it.

Justia shook her head. “Yes but how did you get that thing?”

“I ran into it on my way to the berry patch.” I said,

“How did you get it like that?” Ether joined the discussion.

“I pushed it in the water.” I said.

“You?”

Edward didn't seem to believe me.

“My Power stat is eight.” I lied. I would have to remember that I told him that when I saw our teacher, so that whatever illusion he was putting over my stats would reflect that.

“Why haven't you been helping out with the hunting?” Aelin demanded.

“Because we only have two weapons.” I said

“Why didn't you take the ax and give Justia the bag?”

Our white haired tank seemed to have a small grudge against our Healer.

Justia cut me off before I could respond.

“He's not used to having a weapon…,” She was suddenly on my side of the argument we were having with each other, “from being a Porter.”

“And you are?” Ether scoffed,

Justia motioned towards Edward, “As Nobles, part of our training includes using basic weapons.” Justia began, “As well as the basics of every other class.” She shrugged, “But most of my training was focused on healing and recovery because both of my parents were Healers.” She nodded at Edward, “I'm guessing most of your training was focused on melee weapons, probably swords since both of your parents are Hitters?”

Edward nodded, but looked upset by the reminder. It was probably because we had taken away his broken sword, but given his earlier outburst, I wasn't going to take it away from Rix and give it back to him.

“If you know then why did you take the blade from me?” He demanded, “Why did you give it to the ghost?” I assumed he had given Rix a nickname, which was actually kind of fitting given that she was always disappearing.

“Because if things went sideways.” I planted the forked stick in the ground behind me. “I could always pick up one of these.” I picked up a fallen limb and swung it in front of me, “And I do a lot more damage than she could with it.” I looked at each of them, “We don't know for sure that these things,” I poked the frozen monster, “are the only monsters out here. What if there is something else that isn't quite as easy to beat as these thorny things?”

They looked at me like I had been thinking ahead when in fact I had really just made all of that up. Honestly, I had a bad feeling that now that I had said something we were going to see a different kind of monster. Though as far as I knew from working at the Zeb dungeon, there was only one kind of monster on each floor with the boss floor monster just being a bigger, stronger version of the floor monster.

“That's good thinking.” Justia broke their silence. “Because we don't know what else spawns on this floor.”

I tried not to look surprised at her words because the only dungeon experience I had was from the one in Zeb. She might know more about the dungeons. In fact, I expected that she knew a lot more about the dungeons even if she had never been in one. I poked the hanging ornament.

“Is everyone going to leave this alone while we test it out?”

They all looked at Justia to see if she was still going to object.

“It stays on that side of the barrier.”

“Of course.” I nodded, “I wasn't planning on bringing it over there anyway.”

Justia called attention to the sling bag that the other three were still eating berries out of.

“What are we going to do about that?”

“What do you mean?” I didn’t understand her question.

“We can't leave the bag here.”

“Why?” I didn’t see a problem with leaving the bag at camp, other than having to carry crystal in my pockets again.

“What if another group comes through and takes all of our crystals?”

The thought hadn't occurred to me and apparently, it hadn't occurred to the other three either.

“We'll just have to leave the berries here.” Aelin picked up the bag and started to dump the berries out on the rocks that were beside her.

Rix was beside her in an instant and grabbed her hand.

“Don't.”

Edward let out a little squeal as he backed away from her.

The red-headed Shooter dropped a pile of six pieces of tree bark on the ground. Each one was the size of her hand.

“Wait.” She ran into the woods. In a few moments, she came back with a larger one that was a good 8-inch square and slightly curved. She got two smaller rocks and put it under the curve to brace the bark so that it wouldn't rock then poured berries onto the bark until she filled it. She had only stacked maybe a quarter of what was left in the bag

She looked at the blonde, “I'll bring more.” She was gone longer but when she came back she had five more bark plates the same size. She laid them down around the fire pit and poured out the remaining berries onto them.

“There.” She tossed the sling bag to me, “Wash it.” She crossed her hands and sat down.

“All right then.” I started turning the bag inside out, “As soon as I get this cleaned up we can go back to hunting.”

“Why?” Edward demanded,

“Because, what do you think Trent is going to say when he shows up if all we did was make a fence and hunker down behind it?” I looked around, “I have a feeling that with us being locked in here, he's going to expect us to have been hunting even more of these things every day than we have been.”

I saw the reluctant agreement on most of their faces. Rix was still as unreadable as ever but Aelin looked excited.

“Let's do this!” She jumped up “Who's ready!?!”