Chương 28: Chapter Twenty-Eight: Rabbitine

No matter how hard Hollis tried, the rabbitine always managed to stick its head out of the cloth sack he had put it in. It didn't seem rushed or panicked, just curious about where they were going. He would watch the critter as it worked its head out of even the slimmest hole, seemingly able to push its fluttering nose out of any opening large enough for its whiskers. Then the ears came, and that was the end of it. Hollis was running a free taxi service for a large, lanky rodent.

"Something tells me we aren't going to be able to raise these things in those hutches," he said to Royle after explaining the problem. If the hare wanted to leave the bag, it easily could have. Why would the hutch be any different?

"It was a good cover story, Hollis," Royle said.

"It really was." Sure, the rabbitine hunt was an excuse to leave the hospice in a search for clues about the fog, but he also thought it might work. Even when Hollis tried to empty the bag and let the troublesome creature go, he turned the sack inside out only to find the rabbitine was not inside, that was, until he stopped looking. Then, the hare stared up at him (and all around every other place because rabbitine eyes saw so much) from inside the bag like it had been there the whole time.

The creature had no survival instincts at all, it seemed. Perhaps, Hollis thought, it had a sense about people and could read the two men's character and thought they would not hurt it. That would be incorrect. When winter came, even the softest belly would get hungry. Still, Hollis didn't kill the creature, despite ample opportunity. They exited the northern woods to an evening view of Beckett's Sound. The world seemed dark after having spent so much time in a forest lit on fire, but the town was especially dark.

After all, it was meant to be lit with torches and even electric bulbs here and there. There was a time when the darkness was a solved problem in that place. In fact, when Hollis had played the game, it wasn't a problem at all.

"Tell me about the lighthouse," he said. The amber glow of the giant stone tower across the stormy sound had kept the town alight all night not so many years ago. Now, it was dark and distant, like a giant grave marker no different than any other ruins in the area.

"I don't know," Royle said.

"Whatever happened to it happened by the time I showed up. Got extinguished maybe fourteen years ago. Some people tried to relight it, I think, but it didn't last long if they did." The timeline wasn't ideal. Fourteen years earlier, the lighthouse had gone out, and the fog didn't show up until six to eight years after that. It wasn't exactly a strong causal connection. But the thematic connection was inarguable. A deadly sea fog and a derelict lighthouse.

Now that he knew that light could keep the danger at bay, there was no denying the possibility of a relationship between the two. Yes, Hollis would need to take a look at the ancient lighthouse. He had seen it mentioned in various pieces of lore since his time there. It had to be significant.

"Worth checking out," he said.

"It better be," Royle said.

"Better be worth our lives because that is what it might cost. The strait has gone wild. I'm not sure taking a rowboat over would work too well. You didn't sail Beckett's Sound without a large ship and harpooners at the ready even back in the day. Going around the cape to get there would be almost as dangerous, but that's your best bet." Then that was what Hollis would have to do.

It would mean a trip north and then a hazardous hike east over some of the rockiest, most forbidding terrain he had ever seen, with waves crashing from both sides and as many predators as the western wood.

"Sounds like an overnight trip too," Hollis said.

"Might get a better look at the fog than we might otherwise want."

"Well, no one said you had to come," Royle said.

"I'll tell you what I find." He trotted ahead back toward the canyon hideout. Hollis had to jog to catch up while Willo flew in circles around them both. The rabbitine in his cloth sack stayed along for the ride. ~-~ Tawny, who had a collection of plants that would rival most lawn and garden stores back on Earth, took to the campfire moss almost immediately.

"It's thirsty," she said, as she cultivated a large carpet of the stuff down the side of a cliff near her squash mounds. It was true cultivation, not just activating a latent growth ability. She had given it enough Spirit to come to life with a roar and, as she put it, a thirst.

"It lacks in its ability to draw water from the river upward. We'll have to feed through some of the grapevine to keep it moist."

"Sun'll kill it," Otis added as he stared at the false fire. The irony of a plant that produces flame needing an abundance of water and shade was not lost on Hollis. He thought that because the canyon only received direct sunlight for around seven hours because of the cliffs on either side, it might be the ideal location for the stuff. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. It didn't take long for Otis to be proven right. [Naturalism lvl. 6] Moss lacks roots and a vascular system, leaving its delicate tissues vulnerable to scorching and preventing photosynthesis. Without a canopy of trees, it was not going to be viable. Tawny claimed she could feel the plant revolting at the heat within an hour of giving it life. The connection that she had formed with it by giving it Spirit, it seemed, still fed her information. She had similar connections to the other plants in her garden. She sat on a large rock and stared at the plant for hours.

Hollis hesitated to interrupt her, though he wished he knew what was going through her mind. It was a plant that could drive away the fog. If ever there were a miracle in the hands of a woman like Tawny, this was it. Hollis had already deposited the rabbitine in its hutch. That didn't stop the creature from glaring at him from under the wide leaves of a pumpkin that he passed by moments later. He thought he was seeing things.

Quickly, he returned to the hutch only to find the rabbitine still there munching on some alfalfa that Hollis had stolen from the horses. It wasn't clear what brand of sorcery this creature was fully capable of, but Hollis had ideas. The inspector told him that rabbitines had a mix of abilities depending on the various species of rabbits and hares in the colony.

He would need more points in Taxonomy to untangle it fully, but the fact that they had a space manipulation adaptation that allowed their hiding trick gave him a hint at what was happening. He left the creature in the hutch and returned to the gardens where Tawny was using campfire moss to craft torches, no differently than how starter was used in the game. Otis helped. His hands might have been gnarled, but he was good with them.

"Five torches in a day's work isn't where I want to be," Tawny said, "but we can't mass produce this stuff. It's troublesome." She nodded over toward a pit she had grown some in. The moss, which was supposed to be gray and black with glowing embers, was a dusty green color instead. It really did need a delicate touch.

"That should be enough to run some tests," Hollis said.

"This forest was covered in it. Not only had the fog not taken the animals there, but there also weren't any large predators at all. Could be promising." Tawny seemed to be searching for words to argue with him, but instead she said, "Could be." Hollis wasn't going to extol the virtues of his discovery until they had confirmed that the false fire had the power it seemed to. In Periapt, there was always room for misunderstanding nature. They couldn't risk that if they were going to rely on it.

~-~ He spent the rest of the day running water for the skipagans and trying in vain yet again to give his future walking stick Spirit. He was up the canyon north of the hospice where he had chosen to grow the sour gum root. He hadn't had the time to work on this project since getting back from the explorer camp the night before. His day had been spent on the common toils of fishing and farming. Now he had an hour before sunset to attempt to bring his chosen roots to life. It wasn't going well.

Tawny had told him that he needed to feel the strain on his Spirit so he could identify it and exercise it. So far, he had failed. [Medicine lvl. 2] While the human body produces Spirit, it is not clear if any of its innate mechanisms use the resource. What is clear is that having this resource drained is fatal. The exact cause of this death is unclear. Spirit is thought to be a reservoir for energy used to replenish other Vitals when they get dangerously low.

People have been known to survive severe conditions that would otherwise be fatal on the back of this phenomenon. The medical implications of this remain the domain of mad science and witchery. [Folklore lvl. 4] It is said that a human will expel its Spirit upon death and live disembodied for a time. Some claim that this is the workings of dark creatures toying with the remains of the dead, but others claim that humans are deeply spiritual once they have nothing else left to be. That didn't seem like a solution.

Still, he made several good faith attempts to give life to the plant. He worked until his hands began to bruise from providing so much Blood. His mind was tired. Every part of him was. He had hoped to have crafted his own walking stick before his journey to the lighthouse, but that was only aspirational. He only needed the two legs underneath him. He lay back on the grass that grew around the roots of his future walking stick.

In his attempts to give life to the roots, he had accidentally stimulated everything in the area. He wasn't being precise. It was time to stop. Night was on its way, but night always came to the canyon before anywhere else as the sun's angle became more extreme. With the darkness came bugs. Moths, mosquitoes, dragonflies, and gnats. All kinds of animals that basked in sunset as darkness approached. Willo tried to dance with them, but they were not hospitable to it.

They didn't glow, nor did they appreciate the bug that did. Willo eventually rested on Hollis' chest as they watched the twilight. With the bugs came the insectivores, including one that Hollis recognized. It was a bat made, it seemed, of complete darkness. It didn't eat the insects, but instead drained their Spirit. This was exactly the kind of creature Tawny had said he needed to employ, one that could feed on his Spirit until he started to feel it. How did one ask a favor from a bat?

He settled for simply watching the creature, hoping he could learn something from the way it effortlessly drained the insects just enough to knock them out of the air, but not enough to kill them. If it killed them, it would go hungry the next night. The dance of it was brutal. The bugs fell in clouds down into the canyon and rose back minutes later like little amnesiacs going about their day as if nothing had happened, even if they were a bit slower.

The bat eventually eyed Willo's blinking tail, and it triggered a frenzy in the creature. It attempted to close in and feast. Willo, however, was well-practiced at dealing with this type of threat. He created will-o'-the-wisps, exact copies of himself that flew at the bat with extreme vigor. The bat attempted to feed on the glowing illusion, but seemed to hiccup instead of feeding as the illusion broke, leaving the bat with a belly full of air. This alone was enough to entertain Hollis for a while.

The creature of darkness was swift and devious, but not clever enough to understand what Willo was doing. Eventually, it gave up on feeding on the Ghost Light Beetle or any other bug in that area. It flew off looking for simpler prey.

"Good job, buddy," Hollis said. And he meant it because as he looked at the inspector, he realized that Willo's display had cost him. His Spirit meter was down two points. Spirit ▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱▱ [9/11] Willo knew how to use Spirit. Of course he did. That's what allowed his illusions to act like a living version of himself. Interesting, Hollis thought. Very interesting.