A Soldier's Life - 368 - Blood Harvest (minor edit 3-29-25 +200 words)

Chapter 368: Blood Harvest

Helena was off collecting two of the horses that had broken free in fright. But everyone looked alive and healthy as the chimera primarily focused on me.

“How are you still alive?” Lesna’s voice echoed many people’s thoughts.

Benito chuckled as he sat up. “Told you he would kill it.”

Blaze snapped at him, “Stop trying to bet on Eryk’s survival in the middle of a fight!” He softened, grinning at me. “At least do it before the fight actually starts.”

Benito was a little terse, not seeing Blaze’s humor, “No one even wanted to wager.”

Sylph interrupted my friends’ banter, “You look like you just crawled out of a dragon’s arse. How are you alive?” She repeated the question.

I reached up to scratch my itchy scalp, and my burnt hair crumbled under my touch. My eyebrows were the next victims of my probing hands. My face felt sunburned, and I was probably lucky I forced my eyes shut when the blindness pellets ruptured. I started taking inventory of myself to make sure none of my artifacts had been damaged.

My little dance as I explored my body was probably amusing to my companions. My leather armor was dried, cracked, and still hot to the touch, but fortunately, the dimensional belt looked unaffected. My spider silk gloves felt hot, and I guessed the anti-fire runes had worked overtime. Relief flooded through me as my possessions were fine and I was now just extremely ugly. My hair could grow back in time, but death was permanent.

I sent aether to cool and heal my exposed skin. Lesna was on the other side of the dead chimera. “I think it was actual dragon fire,” she shouted for everyone. How she snuck over there without me noticing was unknown. We all walked the horses around to the circle where I had been standing when the dragon’s head covered me in a torrent of flames. The ground was solid and glass-like.

Castile tapped the hard ground. “Maybe. I have seen stone walls melted and fields turn to magma rock from dragon fire. This reminds me of it but on a much smaller scale.”

I gazed at the hulking chimera, blood still oozing from it. “It looks pretty impressive in scale to me.” I sighed, “I need to harvest the blood for my alchemy before it coagulates. Lesna, can you please ensure Helena returns with the horses?”

“You’re an alchemist?” Sylph was impressed and astonished.

“I dabble,” I replied. “Why don’t you keep an eye on the halfling?” Castile nodded at Sylph, and the legionnaire hurried the protesting halfling off into the darkness. Blaze pulled Benito to stand watch while I worked. Benito was slightly limping but otherwise appeared well from the lesser healing potion. I had four dungeon healing potions, but he could wait until we encountered a healing mage.

The collector appeared in my hand when I was confident they were out of sight. Selene gasped, “Is that…” I ignored her as Castile whispered to her. Selene was an ally, and I hoped saving her life had earned me the right to my secrets. I hadn’t revealed that I had her aether shield amulet because, truthfully, I didn’t want to give it back. It had saved my life too many times.

I balanced the collector over the heart as I activated it, several eyes looking on as thick azure aetheric smoke was pulled from the creature. I could tell it was going to form an apex essence, and I was just hoping for any magical attribute. The shiny white apex-sized pearl was a pleasant surprise. I rolled it off the shield and into my free hand.

“If you are not truly a mage—you probably don’t need that,” Selene said, licking her lips lustfully at the sphere. It reflected light from Lesna’s beacon still above the camp.

Castile spoke up for me. “It was his kill; it is his prize.” Selene looked disappointed but nodded as the essence vanished into my mouth. There was no point in waiting. Icy tendrils of power flowed through my aether channels, and when they reached my core, they heated and retracted all the threads into it. Pleasurable pain surged as the aether stretched my core. I was sweating and smiling as it finished its work.

“I bet that was as good as it looked,” Selene said, amused at my reaction. “You said something about blood? Do you need help?”

I looked back at the recently slain beast. “Yes, but probably just from Castile. We can't hang this to drain it, so can you squeeze it with your shadow chains?” I asked Castile. 

“I am nearing my limit of aether for now. I drank the potion you gave me to keep restraining the beast,” she admitted. 

“What potion?” Selene asked interested.

“A mild aether restorative,” I replied as two potions appeared in my hand. “Efficacy is six months, and it restores a relative one hundred aether points.”

“Mild!?” She said incredulous. “To a mage, this is more treasured than a greater healing potion!” I handed her one and the other to Castile. “Where did you get this?” Selene asked, studying the syrupy golden liquid.

“I brewed them myself,” I replied as empty wine bottles appeared in front of me. I only had five large glass bottles and was debating whether to dump something else to fill them. I only had two bottles of Elven Ambrosia, which I would hate to dump in favor if the blood. I looked at the two mages who were entranced by the potion. “I am going into the dreamscape to read about chimeras. I will not be gone long.”

Castile nodded knowingly, and I reached inside my armor to send the aether shield amulet to my space, pretending I was retrieving the dreamscape amulet. Selene’s eyes were fixed on the amulet; she had attended the Telhian Mage College, so she was most likely familiar with the artifact. Her pale green eyes widened as she followed the amulet while I lay down. Castile was here, and I needed to be quick. I heard Selene mumble, “Sylph is going to have to get in line…” before I entered the dreamscape.

I was quickly in the scorpion room and pulled three books to my hand with a thought for any references to chimeras, ignoring Oscar’s barks for attention. I laid out the three books and quickly paged to the relevant entries. Relenting, I scratched Oscar’s ears as I read. 

The first book was about the Telhian dungeon I knew of. Skimming the passage, the chimera there was not as large as the one we had killed. The draconic head was also green and breathed a caustic poison gas—not fire. The book gave information on what to harvest from the aberration and some hints on fighting it.

The second book was an Elven alchemy book referencing all the uses of the chimera’s blood. Not useful at the moment, but fairly extensive. The third book was in Telhian, which I never remembered flipping through. It detailed the various types of chimeras, but the entries read more like fables and legends with no locations of sightings mentioned.

One variant had two dragon heads, one with ruby scales that breathed fire and the other dragon head with sapphire scales that breathed lightning. Comparing the scales to gems didn’t make the creature more appealing. As I skimmed the variants, I did learn that it was always the central head that controlled the body—and it was always a lion head. Then, I found a written passage at the bottom of a page.

I wish to contribute my own observations to this text of this vile creature. It is known chimeras first appeared in the land just before the war with the Titans. Therefore, I speculate that the arrival of the demonic tide likely contributed to their creation somehow. In my alchemy, I have found that their blood shares characteristics similar to those of the shoosuva demon hounds found in the Infernal Tunnels Dungeon. It is clear that the aetheric magic holding these abominations together is heavily influenced by demonic magic.  -Marcus Arminius Flamininus, Medici Legionnaire of the First Legion

There was no way the book in the Mage College I had paged through was 2000 years old and from the time of the First Legion—maybe some of those books in the Mage College were a few centuries old, but not two millennia. But then again, there was magic to preserve books and copy them as well.

It had been about ten minutes, and I should return to the others. I just quickly referenced a book on the Infernal Tunnels and found that the dungeon core had been destroyed, according to records, around 2000 years ago. This suggested that the note could possibly be from a medicus of the First Legion. While all of this was interesting, I needed to return.

I sat up to find Castile standing over me and Selene a dozen feet away, staring into the darkness beyond the light. Castile had been ready to remove the amulet from my grasp if needed. I nodded to her as I stood. “Did you learn what you needed?” She asked. 

“No references to anything this large and powerful, but I did learn what is valuable.” I walked to the chimera and continued, “The blood is by far the most valuable resource. The scales from the dragon's neck and head are a close second—used for shields and armor. The meat is toxic, and as for the pelt—well, the pelt of a typical chimera is prized by the dukes and counts of the Telhian Empire, but I do not know its value outside the Empire.”

Castile scoffed, “I am sure every citadel with one on display has the resident count ready to tell a long-winded tale of how their ancestors obtained it personally.” I laughed at her sarcasm and got to work on the chimera. 

My arms were coated in thick blood, and my skin itched from filling the five wine bottles. They had been freshly blown, so they were not contaminated. As I was finishing, the others returned, all horses accounted for. 

They watched as I tried to pry the crimson scales from the draconic head, but even my runic weapons were having trouble. The crimson scales did ripple in the light and appeared to be slightly flexible. When looked at up close, the edges had dozens of lines, indicating they were layered over time—like growth rings on a tree. The base of the scale linked to the epidermis with a rubbery fascia, but it was difficult to leverage even a single scale up to sever the connection. After fifteen minutes, I had six scales from the neck—and there were hundreds.

Castile noted my struggles. “Against a true dragon, even runic weapons are mostly useless, just scratching them with no penetration. Since this chimera breathed something close to dragon fire, maybe the scales are close too.” 

Lesna’s light globe winked out, plunging us into darkness. In my estimation, it had lasted about an hour and a half. “Do you want me to renew it?” The halfling’s voice echoed from somewhere.

I stood, shaking my head at the futility. Maveith’s thin, runic skinning knife would have been the best tool for this work. I sighed, “No. The sky is graying. Let us continue with our pursuit. I will catch up to you, after I wash the blood from my arms.” Blaze nodded in understanding, getting the group mounted and moving. After washing my arms, I mounted Ginger and left the corpse of the two-headed chimera behind.

When I caught up to the group, Blaze was at the back, and I settled in next to him. “You know, you look ridiculous,” he said honestly.

I ran my fingers over my patchy hair and beard and frowned. Some scalp was exposed, and it was annoying not to have eyebrows. I knew my hair follicles were healed—maybe I could stimulate some growth as I had done with my teeth before. As the sun crested the plains, my beard and hair slowly grew while I focused my healing. Blaze didn’t notice at first, but when he finally did, he laughed. “You look more ridiculous now.”

I pulled out a mirror and laughed as well. My hair had grown back, but the black mane was wild and thick. My eyebrows were bushy, and my beard and mustache had varying lengths throughout. “I just need a haircut,” I laughed at my ridiculousness.

I pulled out the compass and checked—the pull was maybe slightly stronger. We had closed some distance but not much. I just hoped the open savannah didn’t harbor more monstrosities like the chimera and the otherworlders from Earth didn’t get themselves killed.

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