Of Arms and Arcane
Chapter 231

AN: If you like what you are reading, you can help by giving my novel Rating.

When it was deep into the night, I was up on a third mountain peak. It had taken a few more hours than usual due to the harpies I had drugged before going to sleep. I seemed to have messed up their sleep cycle, but that was not the only thing that bothered them.

What got them really worked up was that their nests were lacking a lot of their coveted shineys, and I guess for harpies, a nest was just not a nest if it was not decked out with shiny gubbins. This led me to witness another facet of harpy society, which was something I like to call “The acquisition of the shineys.”

There were three main ways to get shiny besides finding it themselves. The first was stealing shineys from other nests, which flows into the second way, fighting for it. One harpy would try to pull a fast one and snag a shiny from another nest, but if the thief is caught, they would scuffle over it until the loser is pinned, and the winner flies away with the shiny. The third and most interesting way to me was bartering, it seems like harpy society has developed a rudimentary form of bartering food for shineys.

Once I noticed that they actually bartered, I began to see the differences among the various nests. Each nest had a theme of its own. Besides shiny items in general, some nests featured fabrics in different or mixed colors, others incorporated metal plating that used to be body armor surrounding their nests, and some displayed a more macabre theme with skulls of various species encircling their nests.

This makes me wonder if they barter their shinies with each other to match their nest’s theme.

However, that was beside the point. The main issue is that because the harpies slept later, I have less time to raid these nests. Depending on the location of each nest, I might not even get to raid a second peak tonight.

***

As the sun peeked over the horizon and just before the first squawk or chirp came from any harpy waking up, I had barely made it down the mountain and into the cover of the trees. To gain as much ground as possible away from the harpies, I risked discovery in the case that any of them were sensitive enough to feel it, and activated my aura to speed away.

By the time I buried my loot and got back into my tree, the other harpies were checking in on the drugged harpies of the two peaks I just raided last night, and like yesterday, the Harpy Queen was checking in on my newest victims.

And despite harpies being slightly smarter beasts, they were still kind of birdbrains and went about their day after the Harpy Queen confirmed my newest victims were fine. But the Harpy Queen herself, even from my somewhat distant view, even through the spyglass, I could recognize true intelligence in her movement and action.

My hunch about her intelligence was confirmed as she stood watch on one of the mountain peaks I had raided last night. There was a pattern to my raids, and it only took the second time for it to happen before she became cautious. Besides the harpies on the peak that the Harpy Queen was now keeping vigil over, which made those harpies slightly nervous, life went on as normal for the other harpies as if they had forgotten that four of their mountain peaks had been robbed of their shinies.

Even as the sky darkened to night, I could still see her silhouette contrasted against the moonlit sky.

Now, I could wait her out, but I wasn't willing to spend days waiting for the heat to die down. I was still going to strike tonight; it just meant I would strike elsewhere.

After all but the Harpy Queen fell asleep, I kept observing for an hour and saw that besides grooming herself, the silhouette of the Harpy Queen did not leave the mountain peak.

That just meant I would need to do some night trekking around to the other side of the mountain range to reach the other side of the outer peaks. The downside was that I only had enough time to clear out one peak, just in time before sunrise, yet I still did not find what I was looking for.

This was going to be a problem because I have a feeling that the Harpy Queen may step up security now that she no doubt discovered one of the peaks on the other side of the mountain range had been raided.

But that was not my biggest problem. My biggest problem was that I ran out of anesthetic incense. I did not expect this job to take this long, but now I have a good reason to back off and let the heat die down while I make my way to the town I saw along the way to find an alchemist. Hopefully, they have what I am looking for.

***

When I got to the town’s alchemist, they indeed had what I was looking for, but the problem was that they would not sell it to me.

Unlike the alchemist back in my hometown, they knew me and did not question what their lord’s son needed with powerful anesthetic incense. It turns out that what I have been using to put the harpies to sleep is a highly controlled drug, and the alchemist could land in some prety deep shit if caught selling it to a passing mask-wearing nobody like me, especially since I was in another lord’s territory.

So, like any reasonable person, I decided to grease the wheels of commerce by greasing the alchemist’s hands with gold. And wouldn't you know it, I just happened to stumble upon quite a sum of money while climbing some mountains. Funny that.

When I tried to bribe the alchemist, I initially found him to be an upstanding citizen when he refused my bribe. However, after some pleading and cajoling, I discovered that he was not as upstanding as I had originally believed. It turns out he thought I was a narc trying to catch him in an illegal act.

It took a lot of talking and a few more gold coins before he relented, giving in to greed and providing me with what I needed. The moment I got the incense and more antidote for it, I quickly made my way out of town in case that alchemist had any funny ideas about shaking me down for more gold.

***

I eventually made my way back to my favorite tree to watch the harpies and waited for night to fall. As I studied their activity throughout the day, it seemed like things had gone back to normal, which made my job easier without the Harpy Queen on alert.

When the mountain peaks became silent, I moved out again.