by Rhys Thomas
From Marisa’s perspective I watched lefty’s musket dipped as he lifted the flare above his head to ward of the encroaching darkness. I saw why I couldn’t see outside of a few feet of me. A dome like a thin curtain was surrounding me and the lobster, the glaring light emitting from the flare flexed around the dome. No light other than natural light penetrated through, so to the three men all that stood before was more darkness.
To me and my unwanted companion in the dark veil, all that greeted us was the shuffling feet of the grouchy men.
*Marisa am... Am I seeing this right?* I asked her, wanting to clarify. I received a mental nod as the left side of my vision bobbed slightly.
*Yes, my love. Those that live in the sludge tend to use illusions to bait and lure, or this case trap them. Once their unwitting prey steps within, the creature will spring and drown the victim then consume them.*
I nodded silently, I was aching to move, having only set down in this world, my ass lands straight into the trap of a creature made by the things I have to fend off. Not only that but three armed men were about to join my impromptu tea party.
All I could think about was if I could salvage their gear once they fell within. Blinking off our shared sight, I focused all my attention back on my lobster friend.
*I can break through the veil, right?*
*Of course, is as easy as walking through. The veil itself isn’t physical; It’s just an illusion after-all.*
I drew into my thoughts for a few seconds, I knew my only recourse meant using these men as a distraction for my escape. The only thing I didn’t like was that the torch-bearers musket and any extra ammunition could really come in handy.
*Marisa, inform me when they’re within 5feet of the veil,* I told her through our connection.
*Yes love,* I waited. Cursing my stupid luck for falling right into this at the start of my journey no less.
I needed to go north get split from my wolf, then travel west to Pharum-something in search of help. But so far all I’d done was waste time sitting here pretending not to exist. I was broken from my thoughts a moment later when lobster-bro gave a sharp crack of its claws and dipped in even lower into the sludgy filth we bathed in.
I was still dick swinging in the breeze for those of you taking notes and a thought wormed it’s way in just before Marisa’s. Was there any sludge in my ass?
*They’re within five feet now,* her voice snapped through my worry and I prepared.
“Something ain’t right Darrick,” the Aussie whispered followed by that distinct rub of his ass.
“You fuckin cowards, if we find this lootin’ suma’bitch. I’m- I’m gonna tell Gideon how fuckin-perthetic you were. Then you’d learn to listen to the great-barrier hunner.”
Then I watched as the veil shifted on the entry of our guest’s, the sudden blinding flare threw me off balance and I had to squint through the onrush of tears. The influx of the sudden brightness destroyed whatever night-vision I had accumulated in the past few minutes.
But I ignored it and spun around as fast as possible and threw myself at the three-men. “Holy! Fuckin’ sh-” whatever cursing lefty was doing cut short when the massive pincer; scything through his neck, bisected his head. The lobster sprung into the frenzy as it hastily battered aside the headless body. The Flare fell uselessly to the ground only to be stomped on by one of the lobsters many legs. The flare sputtered as it was buried in the sludge and the uninvited darkness enclosed around us once again.
I on the other hand ducked beneath a thrusting spear tip with a curse. The man jabbing at me opened his mouth and hissed like some feral cat, behind me a low build of hiccupping moans rose. I chanced a quick look and saw Righty swing his chipped blade at the thing; only for his sword to embed in the creature carapace. Unable to remove it he tried to withdraw, but a thick tooth claw clamped around his forearm and crushed. Righty screamed, a lot. His pistol fell to the ground forgotten in his daze of pain.
Hissing at me, the man took that opportunity to flick his spear at my legs. I imagined he wanted to wound me, leave me for the lobster and make his escape. I knocked the spear shaft aside but took a shallow slice along my outer thigh, my hand twisted gripping the probing spear and I pulled.
I yanked the spear towards and behind me, mustering enough strength to stall the motion quickly and spin the shaft out of hisser’s grip. The momentum of this action not only caused hissy to stumble quickly passed me, but the shaft spinning and twisting from his grip made the man shuffle closer to me where I planted a foot square in his chest and kicked.
My adrenaline addled mind was screaming with the craziness of this whole thing, another part deeply buried was calm and considering.
The lobster having finished decapitating Righty had turned its focus on hisser who was mumbling in spurts and hisses as he tried to reorient himself at my feet. The lobster flashed over with a screaming moan to land between us and lashed out wildly. I managed to bring my newly acquired spear to bear but a solid and forceful blow crashed into the shaft splintering and breaking, and then into me.
I sailed backwards several feet clear of the veiled darkness and crashed into the ground ass over end as I tumbled over and over till, I stopped. I sat slumped over, as pretty yellow star danced around my head.
The screaming, snapping and crunching sounds brought me back to full wakefulness. Struggling to my feet in the distance I saw a line of trees way outside of the sludge and made for them.
I held the broken shaft of the spear in one hand. A glance told me I had the stupid end and the musket which I wanted was most likely swallowed by the sludge. The short distance to the trees, the screaming had stopped; all that filled the nightly noise was the cooling song of leaves and branches bristling in the naked wind.
I felt cold now and tired as I moved and slumped over by a tree. The adrenaline drained all normalcy from my body making me hyper-aware, but now it just felt like a toll.
*Al?* Marisa mental voice soothed me.
*Yeah Marisa I’m here. God that was awful,* I replied and groggily wiped a hand over my face.
*Just wanted to tell you that I’ll be setting down by you, I didn’t want to startle you is all.*
I smiled slightly at her concerned voice, *come on down beautiful, I’m feeling pretty worn out as is.* My eyes squinted and I fought against passing-out, I felt dead tired for some reason other than the fight. Maybe my body is still acclimating to whatever had been done to it.
A flapped of beating wings and the thump of a body touching down nearby informed me of Marisa landing. I wanted to open my eyes, but they just squinted further till all was darkness.
In that darkness I expected to see monstrous shapes of lobsters and men moaning and cackling. Instead all that surrounded me was an empty void, similar to my dimensional plane.
Oddly though was that I felt wholly conscious. I moved further within, I wasn’t whole in body though, so I more drifted through.
The room shifted with me as if I was walking on the outside of a hamsters wheel. After some of monotonous shifting through the darkness I stopped as a presence wavered through the air like a scent given form. The scent was that of earth, roots and fallen leaves. I knew by instinct whom this scent belonged to, but there was a separation between us. An invisible barrier. We belonged to one-another, but we could no longer share the same form. The scent impressed on me to go with all haste and see these witches.
He worried that my health would deteriorate if I did not.
The message passed, the presence softly faded away and dreamless sleep claimed my conscious mind.
Chapter Three
Waking to a heavy sweat, my body felt clammy and feverish. A weight shifted on my chest and I looked down to see a small feathered dragonling about the size of a small dog curled up and asleep.
The sun’s rays filtered through the branches above. They painted yellow spots along trunk I leaned against. Blinking several times and rubbing at the dryness of my eyes. I got a better look at Mari
sa, a trickle of shaky purring sounds rolled through her stomach and chest. Her scaled skin was a light-bronze and between each scale were sleek ruffling feathers of a dark red, giving her an odd pallet in terms of contrast.
She had four-legs each ending in clawed toes. Her tail was much like the rest of her body except that the feathers were smaller and dyed an even darker red.
She was from my estimations about two feet long in body, with her tail being a foot and a half in length. Her head was also remarkably wider than her neck.
“Well, she is only half dragon after-all,” I muttered thoughtfully.
Sweat beaded my forehead and brow slipping down my temples to irritate my eyes. Something was most definitely wrong. I felt drained almost to the point of delirium.
A dark green shape breezed through the treeline to my right in a blur and then vanished. Had anything really been there?
My hands fell on Marisa’s comforting presence, the warmth of her living and breathing body calmed my rapidly increasing breath. The somewhat feverish temperature still weakened me but as my hand smoothed along Marisa’s flank, I felt the folds of her wings, the purring from her chest increased. I could feel the hardness of her body and the smooth tear drop scales beneath the soft bed of feathers.
But I needed help quickly.
I poked her in the side, “get up chicken. I need your help,” I said my voice becoming breathless. Instantly Marisa uncurled and stretched arching her back my cat, except for the wings stretching out. I noticed as well that the underside of her body had no feather’s only scales a dark-muddy shade of bronze. She blinked her orange ringed predatory eyes and tilted her head curiously.
*Marisa, I don’t feel too well,* I sent to her as my breathing sped up. The pulsing heat I was feeling all throughout my body seemed increased ten-fold on my admission. Her voice came through gentle and calm to my torrent of chaotic thoughts.
*Alaric. listen to me very carefully okay?* She sent, moving up my body till her draconic head pressed into mine. I gave a small quick nod. I could feel my heart pumping within my fingertips.
*Close your eyes, and just feel everywhere around you and within. Stretch your mind throughout your body, feel the warm as it spreads. Now follow that warmth seek it out and go to where it came from.*
I did as instructed closing my eyes. How could I follow heat?
The answer came through the pulsing of my heart, I followed each drowning beat, its tempo kept me focused and blocked all else out.
I became lost for a time; searching and scouring, pinning down each obtrusive invader, each section where the temperature of my body was concentrated the highest.
When all were found I realised I was stuck. Withdrawing my senses to the outer layers of my body, I noticed I could feel the runic markings on my flesh blaze with the heat, though it was only the runes on my arms and behind my ears that felt physical and tangible to me. The others were simply buried and dormant, waiting for activation. The warmth and heat seemed to follow my presence and I got an idea. Gathering and pushing the accumulated heat out through the activated runes on my arms using them as an outlet.
I instantly knew I’d fucked up somehow when my eyes snapped open, as searing hot flames erupted, engulfing my arms.
Springing to my knees, “fuck!” Dislodging a squawking Marisa as she was thrown from my chest. I began slapping as at each arm in a frenzy, not realising how stupid it must’ve looked trying to put out one flaming arm with another flaming arm. But the fire wouldn’t dissipate. I thought about burying my hands, but the ground was cold and frosted, hard to the touch. Before I could clown even further, I heard a loud intake of breath and saw Marisa stood there sucking in a deep breath as her chest expanded. No, she was breathing in the flames on my arms.
The conjured torches emblazing my arms flowed from them and into Marisa’s draconic mouth. I stumbled backwards and fell hard on my bare ass. My arms were a smoking mess, yet beneath, they were unburnt and unscarred. The runes along my hands and arms were alight with a bright jade green glow.
Whiff’s of smoke trailed from the runes, yet they were cold and solid along my skin. Foreign to me, like a pair of pants too tight and needing to be worn in.
After a hot minute I looked at the ever-patient feathered dragon sat on her haunches like a knowing monk.
“What. The fuck. Was that?” I said punctuating my word deliberately. Her tail swished about and my eyes followed it as it curled around her legs. Her wings would twitch every now and then as if she was constantly testing the muscles of her back.
*That my dearest, was you absorbing a small quantity of power with the new day,* she replied matter-of-factly. My eyes twitched in annoyance, I was bare-to-world-naked and about to argue with a small dragon-chicken about why I’m suddenly self-immolating.
Instead I just took a breath and accepted it. “Okay, how do I stop myself from catching fire then?”
*Unfortunately, the answer is time. Time, practice and control will give you results. Till then you’ll have to suffer through this everyday till you learn to regulate the power throughout your body and rune’s.* She sent with a mental sigh, not one of annoyance but of helplessness.
I thought about how sweating was all about excess body heat and control of the body temperature. Before I could voice the thought though Marisa shook her head, *will not work, this is magical remember? Sweating won’t help you. This is about generating power through your runes. If you check your ‘Identification Tab’ you’ll see that your proficiency is the same as your gage now. Eventually you’ll have to experience the other elements my love, they won’t be as chaotic as fire but will depend on how your will, will shape them. Then they’ll prove more difficult.*
I blinked, nodded like I understood what any of that meant and climbed to my feet. “We should move,” I suggested, and Mari bobbed her head.
*Oh, love? You’ll need to be careful during the night though.* I grimaced, wanting to punch something. What now?
“Why?” I asked her aloud.
*You’re new in your power at the moment and without daylight your practically human. You’ll not be able to even draw from a source without training. So essentially, you’ll be weaker at night. Because you’ll not have a constant source fuelling your body.*
In summary I wasn’t quite superman. “Right, anything else?” I asked her, but she shook her head. “Okay… Right, all I’m basically wearing right now is a belt,” I started uncomfortably, glancing down at myself as I crouched and scratched lightly at the scales and feather on Marisa’s neck. She hummed in delight completely oblivious to the one-sided discussion.
“So, I’m going to need clothing, food and water. A bedroll maybe… And a weapon that isn’t a wooden stick,” I counted off the items with my fingers but couldn’t see the broken spear haft anywhere in sight. Sighing, I finished scratching Marisa and patted her side as I got moving.
We walked through the wood’s for a few minutes, and I came to the realisation that I wasn’t cold at all, guess that regulating an external heat through and then out of my body warms me right up.
*Do you think those people from last night were from this Bastion place?* I sent to her.
*I don’t know. Why, you worried?* She asked me, and I nodded.
“What bothers me is all the necessary equipment I’ll need. I don’t exactly want to show up as a stranger at a town full of people like those three we saw last night. There is also the fact that if I show up like I am, and those within the town that knew the three-men, knew where they going and don’t receive word of them, they’ll start to suspect that something’s amiss.”
*And the stranger whose wondered within recently will be their first suspect,* Marisa said confirming my train of thoughts.
*We need somewhere else. Was there any other settlements within walking distance of us.* I sent to her and Marisa nodded at me.
*Stop here for a minute Al, I’ll take a look.* She sent to me and then crouch low on the ground and pounced up with her
wings spread wide, three hard beats later she was flapping in ascend. Her sleek body was small in comparison to her wingspan, which was at least two and half feet wide on both sides
I blinked into our shared sight and watch as Marisa banked to her right in a slow circle showing me our surrounding’s. About 10-kilometres to our right and south of our location was the settlement of bastion a large lumber walled town build on the edges of a cliff, at the base of which was the sludge-like sea that looked like frozen obsidian waves in the daylight. Several chimney’s puffed out columns of smoke and I frowned recalling something Ra’al has mentioned.
*I thought fire was making people go mad?* I sent at the sight of the chimneys and various cookfire smoke.
*That’ll change now that your here. In time people will learn to no longer fear the voices in the flames,* she sent back in a sorrowful tone. I could make out worn pathway’s that were the equivalent of roads. A few torn and abandon wagons dotted the road near the entrance to Bastion. Each a pincushion of arrow and spear shafts. Marisa circled to face north, the climb and terrain going steeper the further up and eventually becoming mountainous.
Luckily about 4 miles from me was an abandoned farmhouse. *It seem empty to me and long since abandoned, but we may find some use there for us.* I nodded and set off at a leisurely walk, no need to rush, fall and snap my neck. Marisa chuckled at my thoughts and a moment later she set down on shoulders her tail wrapping lightly around my neck, her body resting along shoulders.
Soon she he was effectively, a snoring weighted scarf. I gave her the mental equivalent of a sigh.
*What? You interrupted my beauty-sleep and the meal you fed me needs time to digest,* she explained, in a way which made it somehow my fault she had to chow on a cook breakfast. Reaching up I gently scratched her neck and my feathery familiar made happy coo’s in my mind and ear. I walked continuously for about an hour. Not once did I stop to rest, I felt remarkably fit, hale and well rested, and I wondered at the abnormality rating for my strength and stamina I’d had on my ID Tab.