the bird problem
School that week was BORING. Compared to being an elven warrior, a spell casting lizard, and Aloice squared going to school was boring. Lydia managed with her boredom by pushing herself to constantly perform academically better than her rival James Dorado. It was some competition and normalcy that Lydia found relaxing. But even so, the starside called, and come Saturday they were all there, in front of the job board.
“Rouge birds? Seems easy. And it’s just out of Starside too! Adventure!” Samantha squeaked.
“Yea, adress is for a place called… sea foam rest.” Lydia had a small blackberry looking phone out. Unfortunately normal phones didn’t work in the Starside, so Lydia took one for the team and purchased a cheap Starside phone. She held onto it dearly because she knew Samantha would lose it or Aloice would cover it in Hatsune Miku stickers… and then lose it. The journey wasn’t difficult, just a few miles walk really. But the entire vibe of the area changed from 1930’s metropolis to a seaside town. The air was even humid and the houses looked more like they belonged in a fantasyland. Although there was still that same level of technology trundling around on the road.
The sea foam rest was a building that stood out only due to the fact that it was two stories tall. The wooden sign that hung out over the sidewalk was easy enough to identify, the ocean wave shape imprinted with the golden words of the establishment. The trio entered to a moderately busy tavern, filled with tough looking anglers and a woman behind the bard pouring some kind of alcohol.
Lydia was the first to sit at the bar, not waiting for the other two as she waved the woman over and asked “were you the one that put up a job posting about the birds?”
“Yes I was, are you interested?” She replied.
“Yes, what can you tell me about the birds?” Lydia asked, leaning in a little, glancing over to see Samantha struggling to clamber up into the barstool.
“Not much I’m afraid, what I do know is that seemingly at random, flocks of birds are attacking people. The docs are empty and people are scared to go out. The sailors have had the worst of it so you should ask them, there’s some in here. And there’s a vet down the road that’s been keeping some of the birds that went crazy.” The woman sighed, “if you can help solve this the whole town would be grateful.”
“Has anything else strange been happening?”
“There’s been a few murders but the Marshall isn’t releasing any details, so you’ll have to ask him directly. I would suggest going down to the doc first, see if you can find anything.”
“Thanks.” Lydia said, just as Samantha settled down in the barstool. “I’m gonna ask around, you guys get some food.” Lydia got up and began walking around, asking about both the birds and the murders. Most of the sailors didn’t seem to know anything other than the birds were crazy and went for the soft tissue first. But there was one especially old sailor who told a story of an angry sea witch named mad maud. But the old tale didn’t really seem all that helpful.
“The trio then left for the docs and beach. It was shockingly empty. The Starside was such hustle and bustle and here was a ghost town. A tumble weed is all this place needed to be complete. A long row of beachside stores, bright blue sky, a river that was maybe two miles wide, and nobody in sight. Well except for on a small boardwalk. About six people, and what was very obviously standing around a corpse covered with a black tarp.
“Thats scary.” Aloice said blankly, pointing at the gathering.
“I bet the sheriff is one of those guys.” Lydia added, “let’s go talk to them.”
“Murder mystery? Awesome.” Samantha cackled, skittering after the other two. When the boardwalk began to thump with the footfalls of the trio the folks on the boardwalk turned around to look.
“What are you three doing?” One of the men asked, walking forward.
“We’re here about the bird problem!” Samantha answered proudly.
“Adventurers? We could use your help actually.” The man said “I’m the sheriff, call me Mitchel. With these murders going on we need to make sure nobody is out here.”
“What happened to them?” Samantha asked, peaking around Lydia to look at the covered corpse.
“Sure you wanna know kid?” He asked, glancing back at the tarp.
“I mean while we’re here, we should investigate everything, extra ears and eyes n all that!” Samantha’s tail was twitching at the end, anticipation building in her body. Lydia and Aloice were both just tense.
“His chest was opened like an oyster, it looked like an animal attack. His heart was missing as well, just like the other 3 murders. We have no idea what kind of animal would do this though.” The sheriff sighed.
“Can I see? I’m really good at animals. Maybe I can identify something.” Samantha looked a little too excited. Although when the sheriff pulled the tarp back hesitantly, Samantha was instead filled with horror. Aloice refused to look, turning away. Lydia looked on stoically. Samantha threw up. It was truly horrifying. With a strength beyond anything natural something had broken the sternum and ripped the whole ribcage open like a book, revealing the interior of the body.
The open cavity was full of blood and organs. And it already smelled like rot. Samantha’s sensitive nose got the worst of it. But she managed to steel herself.
“Claws like… a hawk of some kind.” Samantha mumbled, “but the heart was removed by canine teeth. But these wounds on the face? They’re not claws or anything. I- I don’t know.” Samantha shrugged, “there’s no animal I know of like this.”
“I figured it’d be like that.” The sheriff sighed, “with the ocean right here sometimes things from everywhere float by.” The sheriff put the tarp back over the corpse and stood up “you kids sweep the beach, look for anyone who might still be out here, we’re going to clean this up.”
Samantha shook off what she had just seen, spitting out what remained of the bile in her mouth. Lydia stepped forward and lifted the tarp again, taking a few photos of the corpse before covering it again. “We’ll keep this quiet.” Lydia promised.
The trio was quiet as they walked the boardwalk, weapons at the ready in case anything happened. Samantha was still pushing the gruesome sight out of her mind, while Lydia was churning the mystery of the murder over in her mind. Aloice was all too overwhelmed and was pretending to be ok.
“What are those seagulls doing?” Aloice asked, pointing across the beach. Both Samantha and Lydia snapped out of their minds to see a flock of maybe 30 seagulls attacking a wooden crate. As the trio picked up the pace and approached, they could hear a child crying from inside the crate.
Samantha acted first, chanting words in a language nobody else could understand and thrusting her hands outwards. A gust of wind blasted out from the small lizard and sent the birds scattering away from the box. But now they had a new target. Lydia ran forward, trying to lift up the heavy box, to get the child out of there. But it was heavy, very heavy. At this point the seagulls had recovered and were now all diving after Samantha who dropped her concentration on the spell and began to run.
“TAKE THIS!” Aloice shouted, thrusting his hand out. Suddenly in the air a spectral bell in a bell tower manifested and rang, sending devastating energy at the seagulls, knocking a fair few out of the sky. But the seagulls still made it towards Samantha and began to peck at her, drawing a surprising amount of blood with their vicious attack. Thankfully Samantha was able to protect her eyes by ducking down and swinging her stick around wildly.
Aloice had some seagulls start to fly at him as well. He pulled his arcubus out and fired. You’d expect for a gun to be ineffective against a flock of seagulls but his aim was true, and three birds in a row were ripped apart by one of the bullets. But still seagulls made it to aloice and began to peck and scratch him as well.
It was then that Lydia was able to heave the box over and there was a small child. Brown hair and terrified blue eyes. Without saying anything Lydia grabbed the kid by the arm and pulled him along with her as she ran towards one of the shops for cover. The seagulls took notice, flying after Lydia and the child. Aloice began to run for the same cover as well while Samantha cast a spell, allowing her to speak to and understand the seagulls.
“Why are you guys doing this!” Samantha shouted at them.
“THEIF THEIF THEIF.” The seagulls were shouting, paying no mind to Samantha who had to chase after them on her little legs. Aloice and Lydia had caught up with each other, Lydia was swinging with one of her hand axes while Aloice was firing at the seagulls, considerably thinning the crowd but not fast enough.
“FRANK!” Samantha shouted, putting her arm out. The little psudo dragon who had been fighting with a particularly hardy seagull flew back towards Samantha and landed on her arm. Samantha cast a spell but before releasing it, she stored it in Frank. “TAKE IT TO THE HEART OF THE FLOCK.” Frank squeaked and flew off like a bullet, his scales humming with energy. He flew into the heart of the flock and suddenly released the spell. A massive wave of energy blasted out and… only two seagulls fell from the sky.
“DUDE!” Samantha shouted. Frank squeaked back with a pout. “Sorry! I know you did your best!”
Meanwhile Lydia and Aloice had holed up in a recessed doorway with the kid behind them. Lydia had her great axe out and was smashing great big swaths of birds using the flat side of the blade. While Aloice took five out in a row with one shot. Samantha of course couldn’t see them holed up in the alcove so she assumed the worst. as the birds continued shouted “THEIF” and “EGG”
All that Aloice and Lydia heard was “I’m coming guys!” And the skittering of lizard feet on sand, that suddenly turned into the thump of hooves. Suddenly a massive brown hair majestic black main horse reared up in front of them and stomped out the two remaining seagulls. Everyone except the horse was screaming. The horse was just naying and doing that horse lip thing until Lydia realized that this horse is Samantha.
“SAMANTHA! We don't speak horse!” Lydia shouted. Samantha quickly transformed out of the horse form. It was honestly kind of nasty the way her bones snapped and cracked back into place and shape and her skin shifted back to that of her small kobold form.
“We won!” Samantha cried excitedly.
“Samantha, not the time.” Lydia scolded as she turned to the crying child, “we need to get this kid home, can you tell us your name?” Lydia crouched down besides the child’s small form.
“C- Caden.” The kid sobbed.
“Where do you live kiddo?” Lydia asked gently.
“B-by the sea- seafoam.”
“The Seafoam rest?” Lydia glanced back at the other two. Caden just nodded. “Let’s take you home.” Lydia finished, putting her hand out to help the kid up. He hesitantly took Lydia’s hand and got to his feet.
“Can I ask him a question?” Samantha asked quietly.
“As long as you don’t scare the kid.” Lydia growled at the small lizard.
“Ok, the birds where calling you an egg thief? Do you know anything about that.” Samantha asked. Caden’s eyes went really wide as he watched Samantha, hiding behind Lydia. “Can you tell us anything about it?” Samantha asked, leaning so she could see the kid.
“No…” Caden said unconvincingly.
“Kid you’ve gotta tell us.” Samantha said, her pupils narrowing. The kid burst into tears once again.
“Samantha!” Lydia scolded, “he’s a kid! Don’t intimidate a kid!”
“Don’t look at me!” Samantha said innocently.
“Aloice, talk to Samantha about Hatsune miku lore, keep her busy.” Lydia snapped.
“YES, Samantha, did you know that Hatsune miku…” aloice began to babble. Lydia kept the kid away from the grumbling Samantha and the babbling Aloice as they made their way back to the Seafoam rest, bloody as they were. they stumbled in during the dinner rush and the woman from before was behind the. At still. She glanced up, hearing the door, and upon seeing the trio and the kid dropped what she was doing and rushed forward, wrapping her arms around Caden.
“Caden, where were you! What happened?” She asked, looking the kid over.
“If fine mom, the birds were being mean and they squashed the birds.” Caden explained.
“Oh my god, thank you so much.” She cried, “he was supposed to be in school, I had no idea- you were supposed to be in school young man.” Caden froze up and his eyes went wide.
“There is another thing, the birds were calling him an egg thief." Samantha added.
“Egg thief huh? Did you steal an egg?”
“…no…” Caden said, averting his eyes from his mother.
“Caden this doesn’t have anything to do with that boy Elliott?” Caden's eyes somehow got wider with this.
“I’m going to go have a talk with my son. MARK, THESE THREE GET A FREE ROUND!” The woman shouted to the man who’d replaced her at the bar, grabbing her kid by the wrist and pulling him up the tavern stairs presumably to where the rooms were. The trio was at the bar for over an hour. All of the cups were a pint, and Lydia and Samantha had the same amount of drinks. But there was obviously a large size difference between the two.
“I like mead.” Samantha mumbled, her snout stuffed inside of the mug. She was standing on the barstool and swaying around drunkenly while she attempted to drink.
“I think you’ve had too many.” Lydia said, pulling Samantha’s fourth cup away.
“Nooooooo, you’ve had just as much as me.” Samantha groaned, keeping her claws around the mug. Although she immediately stumbled and fell out of her chair.
“Yes but I’m three times your size.” Lydia said to Samantha on the floor, “seven foot tall and such.”
“I will fight you!” Samantha squeaked in rage, “I am, NOT DRUNK.”
“You are drunk.”
“NUH UH!”
“If you can get in that barstool I’ll believe you.”
“Oh yea? OH YEA? ILL CLIMB IN THIS CHAIR SO HARD.” Samantha jumped and landed on her ass. She scrambled back to her feet and tried again with the same result.
“Samantha, would you like help?” Aloice asked. He was decidedly sober, seeing as he’d only had some apple juice.
“I DO NOT NEED HELP!”
“What’s happening down here?” Caden’s mother asked, glancing at the three.
“The lizard is shitfaced.” Lydia answered.
“How many has she had?” The woman sighed.
“3 and a half.”
“Get the drink Mark.” She instructed the man who’d filled in for her, “my name's Adeline by the way, thanks for saving my kid from evil seagulls.”
“No problem, I’ll just never look at seagulls the same way.” Lydia chuckled.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to figure out how to make all the birds come back to normal. Maybe it’s got something to do with the egg he and his friends found, he apparently made a pact with his friends to hide it. One of his other friends has it, Sally is her name I think.”
“Alright, I think that we ought to rest up first though before we go find anyone. Those seagulls did a number on us, and the mead did a number on our friend.” Lydia glanced over at Samantha who had successfully made it up into the chair and was being served a drink. Although not a normal drink, it was red like cranberry juice and kind of sparkled.
“She’ll be fine in a few moments, just watch.” Adeline smirked. Samatha, having forgotten about her indignation, happily took the drink and gulped it down as fast as her little body possibly could handle. She was standing there smugly for a moment while standing on the barstool. Then the smile fell from her face and she looked around, suddenly stable on her feet.
“Oh shit, I was drunk as hell.” Samantha said, “why am I sober? And why am I so tired?” Samantha sat down in the stool and flopped her head down on the bar, promptly falling asleep.
“She won’t even have a hangover tomorrow.” Adeline snorted, “for everything you did I’ll set you three up with rooms. Anything I can do to help fix this bird problem.”
“That’s really generous of you, we’ll see about doing everything we can.” Lydia picked Samantha up who stayed asleep, “I’ll get this gremlin to bed.”