Weaver's vine made for excellent rope. It was soft and flexible, securely binding without cutting. Fyn flexed his wrists behind his back and admired the way the vine didn't loosen in the slightest. It would have been an exceptional material for a hammock.
"You're pretty good at knots," Fyn said over his shoulder, shuffling down the trail, "Have you had a lot of practice tying people up?"
Behind him, Grace snorted, "My mother was a Sailor. She used to make me practice for hours. I hated it, but it's been a nifty trick to have."
Fyn nodded in agreement. A branch stretched out on to the trail. Unable to use his hands to push it aside, Fyn twisted his torso to avoid scratching his bare skin. The action caused the line connecting his wrists to his ankles to tighten. He would have fallen if Grace hadn't grabbed his shoulder to steady him.
"Thanks," Fyn said without sarcasm, "we could probably avoid situations like this if you let me put on my shirt."
"What? And give up the view? Nah," Fyn could hear the smirk she wore in her voice, "Besides, you're less likely to run without the shirt. Count yourself lucky to still have your boots."
She made a good point, Fyn thought, eyeing the underbrush. The trees grew closer together in this section of forest and the brush was heavy. Plenty of thorns on those bushes too. He'd probably lose a nipple trying to run through it.
"So what do you do anyway?" Fyn asked, "I mean when you aren't adventuring and kidnapping. What's your class?"
"None of your business," Grace pushed his shoulder, not hard, just a tap, "Can't you go any faster? I thought you had gotten used to walking like this."
"Sorry. I spent my whole life learning to walk normally. You'll have to forgive me if it takes more than an hour to learn to walk trussed up," Fyn rolled his eyes, ducking his head under a low-hanging branch.
"Come on, what's the secret?" He tried again, "You know I'm a Gatherer. What are you? And how did Sophie figure out my class and level? Was that a skill?"
"We aren't on a stroll here, you know," Fyn heard Grace spit, before she added, "Sophie has Target Analysis. It's a pretty useful ranged weapons skill. It takes time and works best if the target isn't aware of the user. It can reveal weaknesses and strengths when you max it out."
Fyn's ear perked up, soaking in the information. He thought it was interesting that Grace was willing to talk about Sophie's skills but not her own class.
"So…" Fyn started, seeing the clearing up ahead. Suddenly, Grace jerked him to a halt and spun him around. Pushing him up against a tree, she leaned in, looking Fyn in the eye.
"You're running out of time," She said, her breath warm and fresh on Fyn's face, "Tell me everything you know about the unique, and I'll let you go right now. We're pretty sure it's nocturnal. You have about three hours until dark, then there's no going back."
"I don't know what you expect," Fyn's breath was hot and fishy. He watched satisfied as Grace wrinkled her nose. He wondered how she maintained her oral hygiene out here in the forest but figured it wasn't the right time to ask, "I'm a level 2 Gatherer. I don't have any skills like Target Analysis. Even if I had seen a unique, what would I be able to tell you?"
"Size, shape, quirks, eating habits," Grace listed, tapping his chest for emphasis. Fyn expected her to go on, when her finger brushed against the firestick hanging from his neck, and Grace paused.
Lowering her head, Grace sniffed at Fyn's skin. He pressed himself harder against the tree, but she didn't seem to notice. Tapping against the pouch at her waist, Grace's hand suddenly held Fyn's shirt. She brought it to her face and took a deep whiff.
"Great," Fyn moaned, face twisting in disgust, "not only a kidnapper but a freak. I'm warning you lady, if you try anything, I've got a full bladder, and I'm not too proud to bite."
Grace only smiled at him, "You've been eating a lot of fish, Fyn. A lot of cooked fish. Your shirt smells of smoke. Underneath all the other nastiness, that is."
Fyn frowned as Grace shook out his shirt and held it up.
"And you haven't been sleeping on the ground. Either that or you've been washing your shirt, which I doubt, since it reeks," Grace chuckled.
A sharp retort was on his tongue, but before Fyn could unleash it, Grace kicked his feet out from under him. Landing hard on the ground, Fyn knocked his head against the trees.
Wincing, Fyn's eyes closed and teared up. Forcing them open, Fyn saw Grace move to the edge of the tree line, peering out into the clearing. When she came back, she squatted in front of him, forearms resting on her knees, her face was lit with an elated smile.
"When we spotted you this morning, we assumed you had been sleeping rough under bushes, eating twigs and bark," Grace shook her head slowly from side to side, "but you haven't, have you, Fyn? There's no sign of a fire in the clearing, and we already checked all around for camps. That means we missed something. A cave maybe? Behind the waterfall?"
Fyn concentrated on the lump forming on the back of his head. He tried not to give anything away with his expression, but Grace's smile only grew. She never expected him to respond to her questions, always asking and finding her answers in his body language.
"You've been warm and dry, with a fire and lots of fish to eat," Grace cupped her chin in her hand, staring at him with unblinking eyes, "Does the unique like fish, Fyn? Have you been sharing your dinner with it?"
Fyn slumped back against the tree, the bark rough against his skin, "Is that a skill of yours? Mind Reading? Or Interrogation?"
"Reading people is something I picked up, but my class helps," Grace's eyelids slid shut, her lips pressing into a line. When her eyes opened again, she said, "I'm a level 9 Drifter. My first passive is Fortune Seeking."
The confession caught Fyn off guard. He wished he could check his status to read up on the Drifter class, "That sounds a lot better than Freshly Picked. Why tell me now?"
Brushing her hands against her thighs, Grace stood up, exhaling through her nostrils, "No class has a great first passive, but they are all good in one way or another. Fortune Seeking sharpens my instincts, gives me hunches, and helps me make connections."
She said it wasn't great, but Fyn thought that sounded incredible. It was much more handy than a skill that kept herbs fresh or let you point north more or less accurately.
Grace kicked at the ground, "Lately, since Lucas died, in fact…"
She stopped and looked down at Fyn sharply, "You didn't find his body. You were there when Sophie… dealt with him."
Fyn silently corrected her use of the word "dealt," changing it to, "Murdered." He didn't say anything. Grace had been making a statement, not asking a question.
Grace licked her lips, "Since Lucas died, all my instincts and hunches are screaming that this job is a bust. I can't understand it. The man was unreliable, completely unimpressive. Bram and Sophie are both second tier, D ranked guild members. The loss of one Fighter doesn't affect our combat strength at all."
"Now I get it," She planted her hands on the hilts of her daggers, her brown eyes sweeping over Fyn, "While Lucas was alive, the task was always going to fail. He was never going to lead us here, just use us to kill a few packs of blood wolves until Bram gave up and packed it in."
Taking a knee next to Fyn, Grace brushed his bangs back with her right hand, smoothing his hair. She then scrubbed her palm against her thigh, presumably to remove the grease.
"My hunch says, when Lucas was alive, we were safe, but now that he's dead, we're walking into a fight we can't handle." Reaching down, she grabbed a handful of dirt, and rubbed it between her palms. Tapping her pouch, Grace produced a canteen, which she rinsed her hands with.
Fyn wanted to object, his hair wasn't that dirty! Instead, he gritted his teeth, "Why tell me all this?"
Putting the canteen away, Grace shook her hand, scattering droplets of water, "To find a way out of this mess, I need more information. I need you to trust me, to tell me what you know."
Fyn lifted his feet an inch off the ground and pointedly looked at the vines wrapped around his ankles, "Your sudden confession has filled me with an overflowing sense of trust."
"One way or another, Fyn," Grace sighed, "You are involved now. Bram and Sophie have too much riding on this to let you walk away."
Fyn didn't have a skill to enhance his instincts. He resolved to change that if he got the chance. With Fortune Seeking or Danger Sense, he might have avoided this predicament.
However, the meager instincts he did have, made Fyn inclined to believe the blond woman. Grace had been playing the bad cop to Bram's hero persona, but she felt more honest. Under his friendly exterior, Bram was hard and cold. Grace was precisely what she appeared to be. She hadn't been kind or overly cruel. She was trying to survive.
"You should trust your instincts," Fyn said, partly to himself, though he looked at Grace, "You've got me tied up and helpless, and I'm still… warier of Ricky than I am of you."
"Ricky?" Grace's thin eyebrows came together as she frowned.
"I had to call him something," Fyn muttered. Clearing his throat, "He's small, with white fur and blue eyes. He looks like a cross between a weasel and a rabbit. Ricky is smart, fast, and his claws can rip through things I can't hack apart with a knife."
Grace made a whistling noise through her teeth, "That doesn't sound so bad."
"Then I'm telling it wrong," Fyn responded, leaning to the side and flexing his hands which were starting to go numb behind his back, "I've shared a cave with him for a week, and never seen where he sleeps. He only comes out at night, and other than taking a few fish from me, he hasn't shown much interest."
Fyn tilted over onto his side, stretching his body as much as the bindings would allow. He kept Ricky's aversion to water to himself. It was a small resistance in the face of a situation beyond his control, but it eased the guilt in his gut slightly.
"That's it?" Grace prompted when Fyn didn't go on.
"What else could there be?" Fyn snorted, maneuvering his way back into a sitting position, "Level 2 Gatherer, remember? I can name most of the edible and medicinal herbs around here, but I don't know a thing about animals… or trees. Do you know about trees?"
Grace had tuned him out. Biting her lip, she tapped at her forehead with the tip of her left index finger, her left thumb pressed to her temple. Fyn watched, trying to pretend he wasn't worried about the thoughts brewing in Grace's head.
"How do you fish?" Grace asked.
"Carefully," Fyn answered automatically, "The fish around here have teeth."
"I mean," Grace said, biting off each word with precision, "What do you use to catch fish?"
"A long stick and some string," Fyn's heart dropped into his stomach at each answer Grace pressed him for. Maybe Fortune Seeking wasn't as amazing as he anticipated. By now the skill should have been screaming to leave, but Grace was still in planning mode.
"I have to let Bram know about this," Grace stood and brushed off her knee. She turned and sped off without another word.
"I'll wait here," Fyn called after her.
Once Grace was out of sight, Fyn tipped onto his side again. Grunting and wiggling, he attempted to grab hold of his knife. The more he strained, the more the vines pulled at his wrists. By the time he managed to put a finger onto the hilt of his sheathed blade, Fyn had lost all feeling in his hands again.
"Why is she so good at knots?" Fyn complained. Flipping onto his back, he began to search for a sharp rock.
As his fingers combed the grass, discarding pebbles and twigs, Fyn wondered where he went wrong. Had he not mentioned the jaws capable of crushing bone? When he said fast, did Grace not understand that he ment blindingly so?
Ricky was scary. Fyn didn't need a fancy skill to understand that. The only fortune to be found here was in a quick exit before someone pissed off the local weasel-rabbit.
"It's all going to end in tears," Fyn sighed. Rolling over to a new area, he kept searching for something sharp. His only hope was to be long gone by the time Ricky woke up.