Frontier Chef: My Cooking Skills Are Broken-Chapter 14: The Ossalakas

Ezra kicked the charging furball in its helmet.

The bone broke in three pieces and the Ossalaka tumbled backwards into six of its kin, knocking even them onto their fur sides.

The rest of the beasts lunged in retaliation. Ezra kicked two more before they overran him with their spears and shivs. Each jab was a fork poke, none of them drawing deep blood.

Paper cuts, if Ezra was being honest.

But there were thirty of them and they were unrelenting.

’Their damage is ticklish at best. But prod a meat bag enough and it’ll be spilling out in no time.

I’m not keen on finding out how long.’

A dagger caught his calf, followed by another nick at his hip. Two of them jabbed at his ankle from opposite sides like they’d practiced the move.

He stomped and one of them scattered but the other stuck its shiv in between the nail of his big toe and he yelped.

> HP: 149/210

Ezra backed up until his heels hit the girl’s body and tripped over her. Before he could do anything, twelve paw hands grabbed his shoulders and yanked him across the dust.

The pointy spears came again. Three nicked his abdomen, two poked at his crotch, and the sharpest one was finding an angle at his eyes.

Half of them were on the bird girl now, testing or gauging her own hostility, no less. One of the furballs started picking at the keepsake in her navel.

His right eye met stone.

"You little shit!"

The one poking at his eye finally made contact and Ezra tried to wiggle free again but more paws held him down now.

They kept chanting, "Ossa, ossa, ossa," and the bystanders were still banging on their drums.

Even through all of that, the quest pulsed at the edge of his awareness.

> Failure: Death (either party)

’These things are semi-sapient, so they know fear. They’re loud, but what if I’m louder?’ 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Ezra fed heat into both his palms, feeling the excess sweat of his body draining as the heat built hotter and hotter.

> SP: 12/205

The strangest feeling happened. He’d felt it whenever he had a bad dream, sleep paralysis. That moment before jolting to life when he would let the volts build in his spine then let loose all at once and wake up panting.

He applied the same method and fire blew out from his palms, burning two, no, three of them at once. All three dozen of them winced and dropped their weapons, their eyes going wide and frantic.

Their chanting stopped altogether.

Ezra took the opportunity immediately and jumped to his feet.

The three burning Ossalaka were running in circles, fur on fire and tail charring up already with every second. They kept wailing and bolted sideways through the pack, slamming into their own tribemates, trailing smoke and sparks.

Ezra aimed his palm at the ones standing near the girl, but the Ossalakas there were too busy watching their brethren burn in flames. Actually, all of them were watching the burning furballs.

"OSSA! OSSA! OSSA!" The burning Ossalakas dropped and rolled, then came to a stop. The rest cautiously circled around the burn victims, their paws bare and tails curled.

The three Ossalakas lay in the dust, breathing faintly and twitching like roadkill.

Then one stood up, then the next.

Then all three.

Their paws reached as high as they could, their heads tilted back and mouths open.

"Ossa..."

They said it quietly and aimed the word at the sun.

’Time to fucking go.’

Ezra took her right arm and started pulling.

One by one the rest of the Ossalaka followed. Weapons hit the dirt, bone daggers, shivs, spears, rib-clubs. Thirty Ossalaka flattened themselves facedown in the sand with their ears pinned and noses pressed into the ground, all of them oriented toward the sun.

The nearest one peeked out from its supposed prayer. Its yellow eye tracked from the sky to Ezra’s hands, to the shimmer of heat still bleeding off his palms. Then did the motion all over again.

"Ossa," it whispered, and this time it whispered it to him.

The rest peeked and the whispering spread.

Thirty yellow-eyed faces lifted just enough to see his hands.

’Not. Fucking. Good.’

Ezra pulled the bird girl a few more steps until even his legs gave.

> SP: 2/205

He’d used too much SP in the span of a minute to dispel their attack. Worse yet, the buff from the berry he ate was running on empty at four minutes now. And the rest of the berries were lost in the sand.

A few of the Ossalakas burped. Of course they found them and ate them all. They were the more fidgety ones, bouncing up and down from worship and frantic jumps to and from.

High on the Sated passive, probably.

"Hey, can you move?" Ezra said, pulling the girl by the shoulders one last time.

> SP: 0/205

They both hit the dirt, Ezra on his back and the bird girl’s chest over his. Her leg fell between the mold of his thighs and settled.

"I’m all out of juice," Ezra said. He glanced from the bird girl’s lazy eyelids to the Ossalakas bowing up and down, ears perked up. "Well, my SP—I mean, my muscles need recovery." He paused at her open lips. "And it takes a good thirty seconds before I’m confident I’ll outrun these fuckers."

Her green eyes found his and held. She’d regained her consciousness now. "No...good. Branch nearly grazed...my spine. Can’t move. Need healer. Potions."

’Well, shit.’

The Ossalaka were still on their knees. Some had their paws raised, others were pressing their noses into the dirt. The fidgety ones bounced between worship and sniffing the air where the smoke trail lingered.

None of them had picked their weapons back up.

Whatever this was, it was holding.

For now.

"I could... help," she continued. The bird girl pushed off his chest and fell onto her back. She leaned into him for leverage. "I summon. You draw. They die."

She brought her palm out.

"I guide, you loosen."

The dust around them vibrated, then dispersed all at once. The body of the blue bow was beginning to form in her palm, though it was slower than before. Made sense, given her condition.

"Wait," Ezra said. "They’re not fighting. They’re... they’re fucking praying."

She held onto the bow, the muscles on her bare arm still defined despite everything. "Doesn’t matter. Pull."

> SP: 24/205

’Just barely enough.’

He did as she said. The texture of the glowing blue string was like putting his fingers under liquid oxygen, barely registering until the frostbite announced itself.

He never imagined it would be cold. Everything about it screamed hot.

Ezra pulled back, and past a certain threshold the arrow evaporated to life, already primed against the bow’s slanted edge.

"Keep going."

"Even more?"

"Do it, brute."

He pulled it as hard as he could, putting his entire back into it. The veins in his arm were nearly about to pop. The arrow was a bolt of blue lightning now, eager to be set free.

’How the hell can this woman pull it twice without a fucking afterthought?’

"I have the line," she said. "Let loose."

Before Ezra did, the ugly Ossalaka was standing over them.

The club met his forehead and he saw darkness.