Elis caught up to the group.
Her steps slowed—transitioning from a light jog to a steady walk—as she got closer to them, catching tidbits of a conversation they were currently having.
"...a thresher should feed us for a while longer."
"Maybe."
Elis was able to catch the idea of the conversation almost immediately. They were talking about hunting threshers which she assumed would be happening soon. They were running out of food.
"Abel, are you sure you're up for it?"
"Thresher hunting? Yeah. I'm sure all of us together—the four of us—are capable of taking down a thresher."
"No- I mean… are you willing to do the, uhh, cooking process?"
"I forgot about that…"
Abel looked off to the side with visible dread on his tired face. It seems he forgot that—during their unfortunate stay in the depths—he had been the cook.
The depths did not allow fire—at least, the flames not conjured by mantra, like burning wood using flint and steel. Because of this, the group needed to get creative and find unusual methods for preparing what would be completely inedible food.
Thus came the importance of Abel's galebreathing and the thundercall of Silque—the man with golden markings—to make tough, raw, and unimaginably putrid meat edible. The latter made it edible, the former made it palatable.
And then there was Red. That was his name.
How could Elis have forgotten?
'What was I thinking about?'
Right, pressure cooking.
Silque's thundercall was the foundation of their cooking method. Being a thundercaller, he always carried a device made out of a special alloy with particularly high resistance. Running a current through this tool using his thundercall would allow him to produce heat—which they would then use to cook the food.
On top of that, Abel's mastery over gale allowed him to create unreasonably high pressures in open environments. For example, he could create an extremely concentrated point of air without any walls or enclosures. This, in conjunction with Silque's thundercall proved to be useful in gelatinizing collagen—the connective tissue which makes meat tough—and tenderizing the meat.
Basically, the two of them worked as a song-powered pressure cooker. Without Silque, the meat wouldn't even be edible in the first place. Without Abel, the meat would be too tough to even bite a portion off.
Then thing was, though, Abel often expended a large sum of ether every time they cooked—much more than Silque. He would often be left exhausted after the process and, in turn, almost always got the first, and largest, portions.
"I mean… I'd rather go through that than be hungry. Nobody likes being hungry. I can train my proficiency in galebreathing too."
Abel replied after that earlier moment of contemplation. He was usually like this.
"Mister Optimism over here."
"Am I wrong? Or do you want to do the pressure cooking?"
"Hey, I never said being optimistic was bad!"
Abel paused before responding to himself, disregarding Elis' remark.
"Speaking of which, you should train your galebreathing. You've been slacking."
"Yeah, okay, whatever…"
Elis looked in the opposite direction. A downside to a bright outlook oriented mindset was also a brutal bluntness. That was just how Abel was, though.
"There."
Silque called from her side. Turning in his direction, she saw him pointing in the distance.
A group of threshers were where his fingers pointed.
"We should separate them." Elis said. "You still have leftovers, right, Abel?"
Abel turned to her. Specifically, Elis was mentioning the backpack-like sack he wore on his back—which was full with their rations.
"I dont know…"
"Would you rather fight all of them?" Silque remarked.
Abel paused. Before he could respond, the dark-haired member of the cohort spoke first.
"I'll set the bait."
***
A line of dried, pungent smelling thresher meat was laid out in a not so inconspicuous line. The group hid behind the cover of a fungus-tree stump.
Elis had never seen an organism quite like this one. It really was just a really large mushroom. She could literally dig into the flesh of the fungal lifeform with her hands—it was that soft. Still, it had enough rigidity to support the weight of its broad, dark-tan cap.
"I hope we don't have to wait long." Elis remarked.
"Me neither."
They didn't have much meat left. Elis figured that they should have gone hunting much sooner so that they wouldn't run out of rations.
Usually, after successfully taking down a thresher, the cohort would set up camp near its carcass, since the size and weight of their bodies—well, mainly just the usable meat—was too cumbersome to carry around.
Speaking of which… they should probably figure out how in the depths they would escape this hell. Obviously, they weren't going to stay down here forever.
Right?
Before she could continue that thought any further, a sudden shifting of sand caught her attention. The swiping of claws against the dark-sapphire grains got closer and closer.
Eventually, the thresher got close enough for Elis to hear its breath.
Woosh!
A blade of pressured air traveled closed the distance between the cohort and the thresher.
Slash!
Upon attempting to penetrate the tough hide of the thresher, it dissipated. The blade of wind left a visible mark on the thresher's skin—but it wasn't deep enough to expose the flesh beneath its skin.
The cohort ambushed the lone thresher as it let out a piercing shriek.
Elis drew her broadsword from its sheath. It held the same luster as Abel's armor, but its edge could use some sharpening. Her steps kicked up handfuls of sand into the thick, damp air of the depths.
"Crap!"
Abel called out from in front.
'What happened?'
He was the first one to move; He was the one who had casted the blade of gale in the first place, after all.
But what did he-
"Oh shh…"
Ah, that's why.
The thresher wasn't alone.