Solbearers: Part 7- The Forest

Following Cassandra's dream the group found themselves deep in a forest in Vermont. They still technically had daylight but in the dense forest made it far darker than it would be. Buibui enjoyed this but the rest of the group feared they were at more risk of an attack.

"Sensing any vampires Buibui?" Cassandra started "They'd be small, the ones in my dream were like hobbits".

"A few but none of them are small" the group heard Buibui in their heads.

The group formed a circle facing outward, scanning for signs of danger. Before long the trees and bushes began to rustle and strange clicking noises became more and more intense. Horrible blind creatures with three-part mouths were approaching them. Some tall, fat and lumbering while others scampered quickly on all fours. Cassandra was having little luck with her harpoon gun as its ammo did little to slow the fat ones and would not pierce the hides of the thinner ones. She defaulted to using her knife and stuck close to Buibui as he tore through scores of new enemy. Shinji and Chen fared better than Cassandra. Silent but synchronized Chen smashed skulls while Shinji cleaved the creatures to pieces.

They were severely outnumbered but held strong. Suddenly an immense bird creature landed on Buibui, pinned him to the ground and embedded its beak into his back. Buibui rolled knocking the great bird off of him but it pushed the hunting group out of its tight defensive formation. He conjured and shot his spectral webbing into the Birds Eye's but still caught a talon carving through part of his gut. Cassandra and Chen were becoming overwhelmed and though still racking up kills Shinji feared he could not reach both or even one of them quickly enough.

"No Inti! I think that's a friend!" A voice rang out. And then gunshots rang out. And then arrows. This thinned out the enemy ranks and once the bird and Buibui stopped fighting each other the enemy vampires were all killed soon after.

Cassandra looked over at the man who turned the tide for them. Tall, handsome and oddly familiar. He looked just like the vision that the lamprey vampires tried to lure her with.

"Sorry about Inti, I let him get ahead of me because these ticks aren't even armed. My names Jesse" the man introduced himself.

Buibui and Inti were already laughing with Inti's wing on Buibui's shoulder by the time Cassandra replied with "I think the boys have already moved past it. I'm Cassandra, and this is Buibui, Shinji and Chen. What brings you out here?"

"Me and Inti hunt tick vampires like the ones we just fought with but lately this area has had stories of something different. I think that's why Inti keyed in on Buibui but to be honest most of the stories have been about something smaller than the ticks" Jesse explained.

"little 3 or 4 feet tall ones?" Cassandra said almost interrupting.

"That's what I've heard, have you seen some?" Jesse asked.

"In my dreams. I mean visions. I know it sounds crazy but I'm not crazy" she said gradually becoming more flustered.

"We both hunt vampires, you're friends with a giant spider and I'm friends with a giant bird. I'm not going to write you off for some visions. Do the visions also have you looking for tunnels? And can we hunt together?" Jesse proposed.

"Why not? We clearly make a good team" Cassandra responded while trying not to smile too hard.

Little did they know that the 6 of them would be working together for much longer than tonight's hunt.