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Energy Eater - Chapter 40 - Fort Ennis
🕑 Added 2024-09-25 00:29:14 +0000 UTCI walked toward the fort carrying some of the meat from the Crookstrider in my bag. That wasn’t something I was going to share with the people who lived here. After all, what I got were my own spoils. But showing up without anything to prove that the monster was real would be stupid. So my solution was to take one of its hooves. Even if they didn’t believe that I had killed one of those creatures, they would still see the proof that something did die.
Fort Ennis was just a few minutes beyond the city, which sounded a bit strange since that would mean if an Eater was around, they could easily find the fort. Maybe the people here had a way to hide themselves, like we did back in the Hidden Horn Village. Or they might have some sort of protection or a bunker that could keep them safe. There was also the possibility that they were stupid, I mean brave enough to think they could face an Eater and win.
Either way, I understood how people could feel safe in a place like this. Fort Ennis was surrounded by a massive structure, about 7 meters [22ft] tall. Or at least, that’s what I could see from here. An enormous wall made of a patchwork mixture of wood and stone. The barrier had clearly been reinforced over and over, now almost 10 meters [32ft] thick. It wasn’t the kind of thing that would have been built in a few days or even a few years. It was likely that, over the decades since the end of the world, the people who settled here had slowly created and reinforced that wall to protect themselves.
As I approached the fort, I noticed the lack of sound, at least at first. But as I got closer, the noise became more apparent. It was still very muted, but a few things caught my attention. The sound of hinges slowly opening and closing, knives being struck against a wooden board, and the ever-so-slight whispers coming from beyond the barrier. While walking toward the structure, an arrow hit the ground about a meter [3ft] in front of me. Looking up, I saw five people standing above the wall, four of them with arrows notched and ready to fire, while one in the center that just stared. I opened my mouth to speak, but the man in the center raised a finger in front of his lips, gesturing for me to stay silent. He then pointed at me, and raised his hands, making the parallel to his face. After a moment, I assumed I was supposed to do the same thing, so I did.
With a nod, he grabbed the rope behind him and rappelled down the wall. I could hear the bows being drawn just a bit tighter, the sound of the strings straining barely audible. Keeping my hands up, I waited for the man to descend. It was fortunate my staff was in my bag, as the presence of a weapon might have made things even dicier. I was confident I could run if they started firing, but I wasn’t entirely sure I could survive an arrow to the back of the head, even with my healing abilities. And I had no intention of testing that today.
'Sys, keep an eye out for anything interesting. Especially the presence of SP in strange places.'
[Acknowledged. System has detected SP presence on the wall itself. However, System is unable to identify the reason or function of said particles.]
'On the wall?' Again, my poker face betrayed me. As I glanced toward the man still rappelling down with a frown, one of the archers fired an arrow that landed about 30 centimeters [11in.] in front of me. They quickly readied another arrow, staring me down with rage in their eyes.
I shook my head and kept my hands up, careful not to make any sudden movements. They seemed a bit tense, so it wouldn’t take much to provoke them into attacking me.
After what felt like an hour, but according to the System was only a minute, the man finally reached the ground. He unclipped something from his harness and gave a double tug on the rope, which slowly pulled back up. Now that I had a chance to look at him, I realized he was a handsome man. He wore old, beat-up jeans with a black harness around his waist and chest, a flannel shirt that was maybe one size too small because of his muscles, and a long ginger beard that reached just below his neck. His hair wasn’t quite short but not long either, pulled back to create some volume on the top of his head. He also had beautiful green eyes.
Once the rope was halfway up the wall, he took a few steps toward me, still standing well beyond my reach, and spoke in a deep, smooth voice, "Hello. Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
"Hi," I responded carefully, keeping my voice low, "I'm a traveler, trying to explore what's left of the world. I mean no harm, but if possible, I would like to stay for the night, just to have a safe place to rest my head."
"You travel alone?"
"Yes. The people I traveled with were killed by Eaters. I was the only one who survived, and now I’m trying to honor their memory by finishing the journey we started together," This was a story I had prepared on the way here. I didn’t want people finding out about my connection to Madison or the Hidden Horn Village. More importantly, I didn’t want anyone going after Pops if they figured out what I could do.
"It’s very dangerous for someone to travel alone in the wild. You know that," the man said, suspicion clear in his voice.
"I do. But I already lost my home once, so staying in one place isn’t any safer. Instead of sitting around waiting for something to kill us, we decided to see what was left behind."
The man nodded, "So you’re that type. Okay. I’m afraid we can’t let you enter. We don’t have enough supplies to feed another mouth without hurting our own survival."
"Oh, I’m not asking to get in for free. Although, you’ll need help to bring back what I hunted," I said, pointing back toward the city in the back.
"You’re a hunter?"
"More out of necessity than anything else. I saw one of those strange horses back in the city."
The man frowned again, his muscles tensing. "And you hunted one of them?"
I let out an awkward chuckle, hoping it would seem natural. "Not quite. That thing saw me and came after me. While trying to escape, it ran headfirst into one of the pillars in a building. The structure wasn’t stable. Debris fell on top of it, killing the monster. It was more dumb luck than anything else, but I guess you could say I’m good at running away," a flash of sadness crossed my face as I remembered the Eater attack in the Hidden Horn Village. Even now, with my current strength, I'm not confident I would do things differently if they happened again. This wasn’t intentional, but the emotion seemed to help sell my story.
"Right, but you don't expect me to believe your word, do you? Do you have any proof of what you're saying?" the man asked.
"I do. There's a hoof in my bag that belongs to the monster. It's still fresh. Can I?" I gestured to my pouch dangling from my waist.
"No, let me," the man replied and took a step forward.
I quickly took a step back, keeping the same distance from him, "Yeah, no. I'm not going to let someone I don't know go through my stuff. Can I take a few steps back so you know I'm not trying to pull a weapon and attack you, then take out the hoof and show it to you?"
The man thought for a moment, "Fair enough," He raised a hand and held it up in a fist, signaling to the people above to hold their fire.
I took that as a sign to move. This was a bit of an annoying song and dance, but I supposed this was the kind of thing I would have to get accustomed to since I was traveling. After putting enough distance between us, I produced the hoof from my bag and walked back over to the man in the flannel, "Here you go. Sorry, it's a bit dirty on the top. I tried rubbing some leaves on it so the blood wouldn't get all over my stuff."
Still holding his hand up, the man approached and took the hoof from my hand, "You said it looked like a horse? Was it as big as one?"
"More or less. The size was similar, but the length was strange. It was the size of a full-grown adult horse, probably one or two heads taller than me."
The man paused and looked toward the city in the distance, "And did you hear any loud noises today?"
"Just the one from the debris falling down."
He nodded again, "Okay. I don’t think we need to butcher out there. If there’s still enough of it left, we might be able to let you stay for the night. Follow me," the man paused and made a couple of hand signs toward the people on top of the wall.
'Sys, try to memorize the signs they’re using,' I told my personal assistant. It might not be useful, but maybe I’d be able to understand their conversations.
[Acknowledged. System will also attempt to find a pattern in that form of communication.]
'You're the best,' I thought, holding back a smile.
"Sorry for all the tension. We've had one of those weird horses attacking our people lately. They're usually not this aggressive. Everyone's a bit on edge. I'm Christopher, by the way, but you can call me Chris."
I smiled. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Sabrina." Sorry for using your name, Mom, but I don't think I should be using my real name so close to Madison. I can’t really explain why, it just gives me a bad feeling, "Are those kinds of horses common? I’ve never seen anything like that, and the people from Madison didn’t mention them."
"Oh, you stopped by Madison? How’s everyone down there? We sent some supplies not too long ago."
"They’re actually leaving. I found them a day before they started traveling. Apparently, some Eaters attacked whoever was taking supplies to them. They mentioned an Eater hive nearby. They just gave me a few supplies they couldn’t carry, and we parted ways."
"A hive? Are you sure? I never heard anything about that," the man frowned.
"Could the horses have anything to do with that?" I pressed. I had never heard about creatures like that before, so any information I could get would be helpful.
"I'm not sure. Those horses are new. The first one showed up a year ago, but it was just a rumor. A month ago, we saw another coming from the west. Over the past couple of weeks, more of them started appearing. They only turned really aggressive a few days ago. Before that, they would just defend themselves but not hunt us down."
"I see..." The timeline matched when the Hidden Horn Village was destroyed. In a way, it made sense. That’s how ecosystems worked. If a new predator was introduced, the prey would tend to move away if they had that option. But the bigger issue was when they became aggressive. That seemed to line up with when Pops and I discovered the hive. Could that be related in some way? Could the Eaters be controlling other creatures to attack people? Or was it just them lashing out in anger? It could be even worse. It might be some kind of disease like rabies caused by the Eaters themselves.
I was still mulling over those ideas as Chris approached a seemingly unassuming part of the wall. There was a small brick slotted at eye level against a wooden frame. He put his hand into a section of the wall covered in foliage and tugged on a rope. A few moments later, that brick was removed by someone on the other side. They exchanged another set of hand signs before the wooden frame slowly opened, revealing a large corridor that went all the way through the wall.
Chris gestured for me to follow, but once again motioned for me not to speak. It didn’t take much to understand why. The ground was covered in moss and foliage, and everything was very moist and vibrant. However, the walls and ceiling formed an arch, and it was clear that any sound would cause a loud echo. Once we passed beyond the barrier, another door closed behind us, blocking the passage. I noticed a few strands of colorful fabric attached to a rope. It seemed that this was their silent doorbell.
Inside, there were fewer buildings than I had expected. Everything was close together, but there were also large open areas that could have multiple functions. The ground was covered in a lush coat of grass, clearly well-kept, and people seemed to make sure not to disturb the foliage as they walked. It also helped to mask our footsteps, though I could still hear some of them thanks to {Predatory Sense}. People walked around with smiles or frowns, having hushed conversations that felt similar to the ones we had back in Hidden Horn Village. There were no signs of a recent Eater attack or anything like that. All in all, this was a nice place. Even with the looming wall surrounding us, it felt peaceful and kind.
"Sabrina, welcome to Fort Ennis," Chris said with a smile as he gestured.
