Interest Check: Foxbond Chapter 1

Salutations, readers!

Still no blurb for this story, but I'll be honest, I'm probably going to be waiting until the last minute before Foxbond goes up on Royal Road to make one. But! I will be posting the first five chapters today.

Fair warning, I'm not sure when I'm going to continue this story, only that I plan to this year if there's enough interest for it. I wrote these chapters back around September or so and have been daydreaming about Foxbond ever since, so any and all feedback is appreciated. Characters, system, prose, story, anything. Even "This isn't holding my interest, this is where I jump off" would be good. I can handle it.

So, here we go! The first chapter of Foxbond, and I'll be getting the rest up within the hour.

<Cause of death: incompetence. Obviously.>

“By the Goddess, Kurix,” Baern groaned as he knelt next to a trio of partially-eaten bodies. “It doesn’t matter how true it might be, you don’t need to be so callous about it.”

Baern released a puff of air from his mouth as he ran his fingers, tanned and slightly burned from days of traveling, through his short, red hair. As a somewhat lanky individual, he knew he wasn’t getting the corpses out of this cave and back to the village without substantial trouble. The decision to leave them for others to retrieve was an automatic one. Frowning, he turned towards his partner, the Soul Beast named Kurixevinear. 

The fox that had telepathically spoken to him was a purple so deep that he would have been black if it weren’t for the faint glow of his fur. Tendrils of shadows, lighter in color than the most of his body, flowed off of his back like a cape. He scratched himself behind his ear, unperturbed by the sight in front of them. His eyes, pure white, made him seem bored.

<Hey, this is on them, not me. I’m not the one who came out here and couldn’t kill one monster. There were three of them, so there’s plenty of blame to pass around,> Kurix haughtily huffed, looking at his partner. <I told you this job was going to get morbid. Called it from the moment it was thrust upon us.>

Suppressing a sigh at Kurix’s insensitive remark, Baern returned his gaze to the bodies. While death wasn’t new to either of them, it still wasn’t pleasant by any means.

Two men and a woman with sandy brown hair, brown eyes, and a look of pain and fear on their faces despite being dead for at least a couple of days. They each wore leather armor, though it didn’t seem like the quality was very good based on the sheer number of toxic green quills sticking out of them. Only a few were stopped before they pierced skin.

Their bodies were still in a state of rigor mortis, and Baern knew it wasn’t natural. Each corpse had been hardened to an almost stone-like consistency. The effect was more powerful where the quills were bunched together, and the skin around the puncture marks had turned black and let off a sickly sweet stench.

Baern reached for the closest body, his sleeve sliding up his arm to reveal a tattoo of three wiggling, purple tendrils on the back of his hand and wrist; the mark of the Carded. He plucked a green quill to examine it. There was no trace of the poison it had once delivered.

A monster had been coming dangerously close to the farms a few days prior to their arrival in the small village of Talsmark. While no people had been hurt, an alarming number of livestock had gone missing, dragged away by something that left large, cat-like prints in the soil. It had been becoming bolder with every passing night, and it was only a matter of time before someone was taken.

The village didn’t have its own monster hunting guild, but there were a few Carded. It wasn’t much of a defense force, but they had been enough to clear or deter most monsters for years now. These three had been sent out to follow their newest predator to its nest and take it out while it was sleeping.

Just didn’t work out for them this time, Baern thought to himself.

They had found the cave the monster was using as its lair, a massive and messy hole in the ground with crushed bones scattered all over the place, but that was as far as they had gotten. Their corpses, nibbled on by blunt teeth instead of sharp ones more befitting a predator, marked their failure.

When Baern and Kurix stopped for the night, the innkeeper offered to pay them to scout things out. Not to get into an actual fight, but to check out the situation since they hadn’t returned after leaving for a few days. The duo agreed, though they both decided that scouting wasn’t all they were going to do.

Baern shook his head as he stood up. “They were caught off guard,” he defended, gesturing towards their wounds. “Most of these quills are in their backs and sides, indicating that it was likely a surprise attack.”

<I fail to see how that matters,> Kurix said, standing up. His bushy tail flicked lazily behind him. <The innkeeper guy—>

“Roan,” Baern offered.

<Yeah, like I said, the innkeeper guy told us these people were bonded to two Boulder Hares and a Gluttonpede,> he continued. <The bug, sure; I can understand that being ambushed. But the bunnies? I had a hard time sneaking up on that one we killed, and I’m built for that kind of thing. These three were obviously running in fear.>

Baern lowered his head and resisted the urge to run his hand down his face. “If anyone asks, I’m telling them the ambush story. I’m not saying they died because they turned tail and fled.”

<Hey, you do whatever feels right. I’m just calling it like I see it. And what I see are a trio of—>

Kurix suddenly lowered himself to the ground, his ears alert as he turned towards the cave’s entrance. He sniffed the air for a few seconds before backing up to the wall. Baern, knowing this look, followed after him.

“It’s here?” he asked to confirm.

<Obviously,> Kurix stated. <I’m picking up cat, human, and poison, along with something I think is a dying bear. Probably the meal after this one. Use my spell, mana man.>

Baern had started casting even before the Soul Beast demanded it. He closed his eyes, imagining the scene as it was. The dark rock, black fur shed alongside bones, gouges cut in the stone from claws. The minute details weren’t locked in his head, but it was enough for him to feel comfortable.

When Baern breathed out, magic flowed from his body. An illusion that only he and Kurix could see through appeared inches away from their noses. The cavern beyond shimmered as though they were looking at it through a haze of heat, allowing them to see the other side. Anyone looking at them, however, would see the wall. Or what he could remember of it, at least.

<You’re getting faster,> Kurix praised. He jumped outside to get a look at the spell. It took him only a second to glance over the Illusory Wall and nod before returning. <Well done! I might have to start being proud of you sooner than I thought.>

Before Baern could respond, a shadow covered what little light the cave’s entrance let in this early in the morning, and he closed his mouth. It was here.

The monster’s head appeared to be that of a middle aged, bald man with a large underbite, but its lithe body mimicked the form of a black leopard. Its claws, long and deadly, clacked loudly against the stone floor, though that was the only noise it made. Instead of a long, slender tail, there was a wide, flat one with several rows of black and green quills, many of them missing.

It carried a fully grown brown-furred bear in its mouth. This wasn’t a monster, but some animal that couldn’t escape in time. It was limp, but full of quills and its limbs twitched in a disturbing manner.

<Giant Stone Quill Manticore, just like you predicted,> Kurix said, shifting back and forth on his front paws in excitement. 

“It was the most likely culprit given what I found out from my uncle’s journal,” Baern whispered.

<Sure, sure. This should be fun. Hard, but winnable. I'm looking forward to knocking it down.>

“You want help?”

The fox looked up at the Carded incredulously before scoffing. <Yeah, I’d love for you to join a fight against an orange core monster while ours is still red. It doesn’t matter that you’re basically only a little better than the average person. Do you really want to be in my way that badly?>

“Wow, forgive me for asking, your majesty,” he replied sarcastically, barely audible even to himself. Regardless of how he felt, the Soul Beast had spoken. His gaze returned to the manticore. “Even for something with Giant in its name, it really is pretty big, huh. Think it’ll drop a card?”

<Definitely smells like it. Now, get the deck ready.>

“It’s not much of a deck when you won’t let me put cards in it.”

<Kurixevinear’s third rule,> Kurix countered.

Baern rolled his eyes before raising his arm. The tattoo on the back of his hand glowed, and words appeared in the air in front of him.

[[Preparing deck for Combat Mode.]]

True to Baern’s word, what they had for battle wasn’t much of a deck. Two cards appeared in his hand after the tattoo’s light dimmed. Energy circulated through the Carded’s body, and Kurix’s fur seemed to stand on end as he became energized. His excited shifting came to a stop as he lowered his front end, ready to pounce.

The manticore had stopped in the middle of the cavern to toss the brown bear onto the floor next to marinating corpses. Its human nose pushed up against the animal’s fur and it breathed in deeply before looking away. There was no worry about the pair being discovered by the monster’s senses, as they were only slightly better than the average person’s.

After taking a long sniff at the trio, the manticore opened its mouth, showing off two rows of rotting, blunt teeth, and started removing the quills from the corpses. Once it was done, the monster would start feeding. That would be the best time to strike.

<Okay, I’m going in,> Kurix announced as he bounced back onto the wall, putting all four feet on it.

Before Baern could tell him to wait, the fox shot out from behind the Illusory Wall. The manticore wasn’t paying attention to anything except its meal, but there was no way it wouldn’t pick up on the footsteps coming its way. It shifted and hissed, arching its back to make itself look bigger before it saw the creature small enough to crush under foot running its way.

Baern felt his partner draw on his mana to cast another of the Soul Beast’s spells, Phantom Duplicate. Three clones of Kurix ran out of the original. Two moved to flank, heading around the manticore, while the third and fourth stayed together. One went low while the other went high, jumping into the air towards the enemy’s throat.

In an instant, the manticore was on high alert. It swiped at the fox that ran in front of it while its tail slapped the ground, swatting the one running behind. The first one jumped, avoiding the claws but the second wasn’t nearly as lucky. It disappeared the moment the tail struck it.

The monster stumbled as Kurix landed on its neck, biting and tearing into its fur with teeth and claws. Sounds of panic and pain erupted throughout the cavern in the form of a disturbingly human wail, and the monster’s back leg kicked forward in an attempt to dislodge its assailant.

Before it could connect, Kurix scrambled upwards and jumped towards the manticore’s head. His claws began to glow bright white as he activated another spell, Hardlight Claws, causing them to lengthen into devastating blades. They sliced easily through the skin, but before he had a chance to do any real damage the monster shifted, lowering its front half.

Its tail stood straight up, pulsing and vibrating before the top row of quills shot out with loud pops. They skimmed the skin of its own head, but were otherwise expertly placed. Three of them clipped Kurix’s back foot while two more got stuck behind his knee. Red blood spilled out of the wound, but quickly evaporated into the air. He stumbled before using his front claws to jump. The Soul Beast leapt towards the wall.

Baern picked from the two cards in his hand. This one had the image of a brown, cart-sized rabbit with twisted ears and twin horns coming out of its forehead. Its body was made of stone, making it incredibly heavy despite its high agility. Most of the picture was grayed out except for the legs, indicating what kind of evolution it would impart.

Boulder Hare

Red Core Beast

Exp: 28/100

Evolution: Hind Legs.

Mana Cost: Low.

Primary Attributes: leg strength/defense up.

Secondary Attributes: defense up, speed up.

Spells: Stone Leap.

Without hesitation, Baern tossed it at his partner. The burden on his mana core grew as the card started pulling energy from him so it could activate. It came with a constant strain as the cost would last for as long as it was activated. This much wasn’t going to drain him dry, though. Not with just one card.

Despite being at such a long distance, the magic item sailed through the air without deviation. It touched Kurix just as he spun in midair, and he began to change.

The fox’s haunches transformed starting with his feet, changing from vulpine paws to that of a Boulder Hare. His fur shortened as it retracted back into his body, and his skin began to harden. The quills that were still embedded were pushed out by the time Kurix hit the wall, his rabbit fully encased in stone.

The rock wall behind him cracked as he leapt off of it, heading straight for the manticore’s head.

Now that the monster was no longer surprised, it leapt backwards and lashed out with its paw. Kurix put his paws out in front of him, reaching for the pads between the long, dangerous claws that were almost as long as he was tall. Two of them ripped into his fluffy tail, but he managed to get in another strike with Hardlight Claws before he was swatted away.

<Oh, you are going to pay for that one!> Kurix screamed indignantly. His blood, which was actually mana, turned to steam and began evaporating without a host to contain it. <No one hurts my tail and gets away with it!>

The manticore screamed again as it looked at its paw. Blood was starting to flow past its eyes and it freely dripped from one of its pads. The scream turned into a growling, sputtering hiss as it turned towards Kurix, raising its tail again.

<Bunny hop!> Kurix demanded.

While the Carded had been practicing spellcasting as his primary mode of combat, he understood that there were some things that he was just too slow at. Because casting magic himself with his own mana cost less than giving it to the fox to use, becoming a faster caster was one of the first stepping stones towards his goals.

He also understood that now wasn’t the time to practice as Kurix flew towards the wall. He granted the use of mana, sending it out of his core and along the chains of their bond.

The cards gave the Soul Beast the expertise he needed to make sure that he could always use whatever magic they granted as quickly as possible. In the case of this particular Boulder Hare, he gained the spell Stone Leap. The moment he felt the mana reach him, he expended it.

Twisting midair, a ball of stone roughly half the size of the fox himself materialized underneath his back legs. The manticore shot more quills towards Kurix but, thanks to the impromptu shield, only one grazed his shoulder. It wouldn’t be enough to poison him.

The fox kicked at the stone ball with all of his strength, shattering it. He shot forward, landing on the wall again. The strengthened claws on his hind legs easily entered the rock, allowing him to hang awkwardly while he assessed the damage he was about to cause.

The shards of stone shot back towards the manticore. Its hissing growl stopped as it lowered its head to avoid the sudden projectile. Shards of stone embedded themselves in the manticore’s back and some in its tail.

“Careful of the tail!” Baern yelled. “There's valuable parts in it!”

The manticore’s head snapped towards the Carded, its wide eyes searching the area for its source. Behind the barrier, Baern shifted but otherwise did not make a sound. He had confidence in the Illusory Wall between them.

Not only that, but Kurix wouldn’t let him get hurt.

Launching off of the wall again, the fox aimed for the manticore’s head. The sound must have alerted it, because the monster leapt away, spinning and fanning out its tail.

Baern raised the second card in his arsenal, prepared to use it when the moment was right

Kurix twisted in the air so that his stone legs would take the brunt of the attack, and he yelped when the tail struck him. The majority of the quills had broken against him, but a few were sticking out of his unprotected flank. He was sent flying towards the ground, sliding into a pile of bones with a loud clatter, sending dust and fur everywhere.

From the debris, three fox/rabbit hybrids emerged and ran along the ground. The manticore hissed and backed away, trying to keep them all in its vision, when they all rushed forward at once. Baern kept his eyes on the bone pile and saw Kurix sneaking away.

The fox had removed the poison quills that had pierced him, but he had a heavy limp. His eyes met with Baern’s for a moment as the decoys played keep away with the manticore, and he gave his partner a nod. The Carded lifted up three fingers, then two, then one as the illusory doubles were pounced on and destroyed.

Baern threw his last card, sending more of his mana to his partner.

The Steelscalin was a human-sized creature covered in thick metal plates and had long, deadly claws. Its picture on the card was of one jumping out of a hole in the ground. Its body was hunched over as if it were about to curl into a ball, which would have provided it with a lot more defense.

It was one of the first things Baern and Kurix had killed after their bond was made, followed shortly after by the Boulder Hares that were common in this area.

Just like how the Boulder Hare card was mostly grayed out, the Steelscalin was as well, leaving only its shiny steel claws and forearms available for evolution.

Steelscalin

Red Core Beast

Exp: 68/100

Evolution: Arms.

Mana Cost: High.

Primary Attributes: arm defense up, claw strength up.

Secondary Attributes: defense up.

Spells: Fast Burrow.

[[Triad Attack: Illusory Piercing Spiral is now available.]]

Sitting back on his haunches, Kurix waited as his forearms began to change. Everything underneath his elbow bulked up, swelling to nearly twice its size as his fur retracted and hardened into metallic scales. His claws elongated, growing to three times their size. It looked awkward, but he held himself well. The manticore locked onto Kurix and growled before pouncing.

Another, larger request for mana came to Baern that would nearly wipe out his reserves. He knew they would be cutting it close, but trusted his partner not to miss. The monster had sustained damage, and there was a very real chance they would have to flee if this attack didn’t connect.

Either way, this fight was about to be over.

Kurix’s body flashed with a white light as he spent the newly received mana. Not on Fast Burrow or Stone Leap, but a Triad Attack.

Those were unlocked when under the effects of at least two cards. Every triad was different and could cause a plethora of different effects depending on which evolutions were in play. They could be devastating attacks, solid defensive measures, even support moves designed to turn fights around in an instant.

With a combination of Kurix being a Figment Fox along with the Boulder Hare and Steelscalin cards, the result was Illusory Piercing Spiral.

A finishing move.

The Soul Beast’s body flashed for a second time as he looked up at the airborne manticore. Its mouth was wide open, ready to eat the smaller creature whole. Blood was covering one of its eyes, partially blinding it. Claws were extended and its tail was held high, ready to do its job.

Baern watched everything unfold, but he knew that what he was seeing differed from what the manticore saw.

Kurix leapt forward, his body hazy like a mirage, and left an afterimage behind that followed a split second later. The main body was invisible, mimicked perfectly by the illusion he left behind. The steel scales on his forearms raced up to his shoulders, and his snout and claws twisted into a drill shape.

Thanks to the invisibility, the only thing that tipped the manticore off that the image it saw wasn’t the real fox was the broken ground he left in his wake, his powerful legs propelling him forward. In the air, he began spinning, going so fast that his body became a blur even to Baern’s eyes.

The manticore prepared for the attack, but hadn’t expected it to arrive early, and the fox missile drilled into the cat monster before it could twist out of the way.

Its scream was intense and abrupt as Kurix pierced through the monster’s chest, spine and everything in between, narrowly avoiding the tail as he struck the cavern’s ceilings. Deactivating the attack before he could dig too deep.

Baern and Kurix watched the manticore’s death throes, one from behind an Illusory Wall and the other hanging from the ceiling with his Boulder Hare claws. While it didn’t seem likely that the monster would get back up again, it wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility.

[[Combat is now over.

Experience gained.

Boulder Hare: 10 exp.

Steelscalin: 4 exp.]]

Taking a breath, Baern hunched over and put his hands on his knees as he dropped the Illusory Wall. Kurix let go of the ceiling as the Carded dismissed the magic transforming him, and the fox was back in one piece by the time he hit the ground.

Baern’s core wasn’t completely empty, but it was close. It started filling again with every breath he took, sucking in ambient mana from the environment. The monster lair was thick with it, more so than the forest they had gone through to get here, and it was only a matter of time before he would feel comfortable trekking back to Talsmark.

“Grab the quills and the manticore card, will you?” Baern requested as he stood straight. “I’ll take care of the Carded.”

<Sure. I’m really excited to see what the cat thing dropped,> Kurix replied, stretching his limbs and checking his tail to see how much fur had been cut off. <Do you have enough mana left to heal me?>

“Manticore, not cat thing. And you’re lucky that you can just dematerialize and come back in full health,” Baern complained before shaking his head. “But not yet. Give me a few minutes.”

With a nod, Kurix began rummaging around the fallen body of the manticore as Baern walked towards the trio. They were now free of quills thanks to the monster’s actions, but that didn’t cause their rigor mortis to end.

He pulled the quills out of the bear, though; there was no reason not to give it a chance to fight off the poison and survive.

By the time Baern knelt next to the other humans, he felt excitement followed by crashing disappointment come through the bond he had with Kurix. “Bad card?”

<We are never using this,> Kurix huffed.

“What is it?”

The fox trotted around the monster’s body, a card in his mouth, and sat next to Baern. He spat it out in front of his partner, who picked it up.

<I refuse to allow it.>

Baern tried not to laugh as he looked at it. He failed, shaking his head before tapping the card onto the skull tattoo. It disappeared in a flash of light.

[[“Stone Quill Manticore - Tail” has been added to your deck.]]

<But my fluffy tail!> Kurix whined.

“It can only get stronger by using it,” Baern reminded him.

<My fluffy tail!>

“We can’t make it better without putting mana into it, and that means giving you a flat, toxic tail.”

<Fluffy!>

“Kurix.”

<Tail!>

“Kurixevinear’s third rule,” Baern countered, now happy to throw it back at him. “We only add cards to our deck if we kill it. That’s what you said and what I agreed to.”

<Must we?>

“There's a three card minimum for the preliminaries being held in Hewspara,” Baern said. “You know this, you know we're unlikely to find another monster like this on the way, and you won't let me buy cards because of your rule. The chance that a man eater would drop what we needed is literally the only reason why we came out here. So, yes, we must. Goodbye fluffy tail.”

That earned him a glower from the fox before Kurix snorted and went back to pluck quills. Baern didn’t think the levity he felt was proper for the task he was charged with as the Carded extracted cards from the tattooed hands of the corpses, but he wouldn’t apologize for it, either.

For ease of finding the rest of the chapters (if you're starting here), this is a link to the Foxbond collection, which should be populating soon: https://www.patreon.com/collection/1526115

I hope you enjoy!