by Rhys Thomas
On the west side of our compass was an athletically built man in a grey and black hero style jumpsuit, his blonde hair had a disbelieved look to it and his bright yellow gaze flicked about impatiently as he kept rolling his neck.
I guessed that our talks were coming to a climatic finale as someone said something and I gave a decisive nod, a second later a blue hologram appeared at the centre of our table showing some colossal monstrosity, an abyssal terror. Its enormous body dwarfed smaller planets, there was a vastness to the horror that seemed to lengthen and stretch even over planes.
Numerous eyes and mouths lined its thick tentacles of the darkest black and dotted in pinpricks of starry light.
It was like the crossbreed of a gelatinous blob mixed with an octopus—or that sand thing that ate Boba Fett in Return of the Jedi.
“Her sleepless eater,” my voice seeming far older and hardened with some finality, my eyes closed as a prayer escape my lips.
A part of me knew that thing was an inescapably horror, but it’s master the being who made it, was far, far worse.
So prematurely ended my second-ish day on Viria.
~*~*~*~
I awoke again to a bright new day on Viria.
My mind was a feverish haze as my body had finished the miraculous repairs come sunrise. There was a pale whitish glow of the early morning reflecting into the nomads lair off the rock walls. I once again like yesterday, felt the surge and heat of power.
Marisa was close by and guided me through the routine I was becoming familiar with. I distantly felt Ariana enter the room from one of the leading passages. She said nothing and went about her work.
I did discover something new though. Drawing my will and mind into my body, I decided to just circulate power throughout my runes, then draw that same power back into my body. At first there was a strain and I had to steel my determination to allow this to work. In a sense I was recycling power through and back into me, the runes acting as a battery.
Fill them, flex my will and withdraw the power back
Every time I did this though I came to realise that I was drawing back less power each time. The recycling method made it so that I was leaving behind small fragments of power, like residue. The runes would flare with active life a few seconds and then slowly fade as the residue dissipated or seeped out of the rune and outside my body in an excess of heat.
The most interesting part I found was that the capacity of my runes was actually far larger than I first realised, and I suspected that it could be endless. My only problem was that I still couldn’t shut the gate so to speak on my runes and cut off the power dormant inside. The smaller runes arching behind the shell of my ears worked differently than those on my arms.
I couldn’t understand why, these runes didn’t set alight with elemental fire, instead they somehow projected that power and energy into my senses. My sight and sense of taste became more acute, my hearing or sense of smell weren’t really affected, but I imagine that had to do with the dormant primal entity sleeping in my soul.
My primal body was also weakening me, and I guessed that once I was powerful enough; we could assimilate once again and become whole.
I finished my brief meditation, by feeding the flame to Marisa and got up. “So, we all set to go?” I asked Ariana once I was done with training with Marisa.
“Yes, just considering whether we should take these furs the ogre had piled as a bed. They smell fairly bad and itch like a flea ridden bitch but they’re better and far more comfortable than that meditative pose you were doing slump against the wall.”
“Wait you got to sleep on the ogres bed and had enough furs for blankets?”
She nodded solemnly. “I was going to ask or carry you to the bed, but Marisa decided she wanted your place instead.”
My eyes narrowed at the dragonling as she crawled creepily out and into the exit passage. “Oh, I’ll get my revenge, you sneaky chicken,” I said with a maniacal chuckle. “So, further on then?” I asked.
Ariana nodded, “yes. We should stick to the original plan and try to search for this settlement. We’ll desperately need something warmer soon or it will be of no use continuing.” She folded all of the fur blankets and handed them to me, “sent these away, then we move.”
I did as asked; warping the furs to my inventory. Stretching my arms, back and neck; I felt the satisfying pops and cracks. We left the nomad’s lair behind and moved on back the way we’d come yesterday and took a right instead, heading to the dried gully and not the dead ogre.
*We should’ve cut the nomads horn off. We could’ve either sold it or used it as bounty if we ran into any ogres searching for roaming nomads.*
*Well thanks for that late advice chick, it was much appreciated,* I thought back sarcastically, her head lowered guiltily.
*I was worried about you,* she thought to me quietly.
I reached up and smoothed the feathers of her neck, *I know, I’m sorry.*
The cloud coverage ranged far and hung high over the peaks of the mountain looming before us. They melded from a wide outspread dark-grey and grew whiter the further in and towards the peak they went.
I couldn’t quite make out any discernible features of the mountain so far, as the forest seemed to encompass a wide range of the area.
We made good time as we walked, but our footing and pathways became even more angled in our ascent. The higher we walked and moved; the more intense the sounds of nature came.
We listened as streams of water loudly cascaded over icy and moss-covered banks. We sat by one such stream to rest our feet and Marisa took her chance to catch some prey. Numerous species of birds could be heard calling to one another, soft breaks and crunches echoed mutedly through the teeming forest.
I wasn’t tired but my feet ached fiercely. “Well this is nice,” Ariana commented as she slumped down beside me. The forest was certainly more alive the higher we climbed, odd really.
I wonder if the proximity of the brood mothers nest warded of animals from this far arrange or if was the nomadic ogre. “Can I ask you something Alaric?” Ariana broke the silence
“Sure,” I said in reply and smiled her way, “shoot.”
“You don’t talk much about where you came from. What was it like? If you don’t mind me asking that is,” she said a bit sheepishly.
I admit my smile faltered slightly; but I gave her question some real thought. “I don’t mind. Hmm... Well my world; is a relatively small, 70ish% of the planet is ocean, which we’re constantly polluting with our trash. We’ve covered the majority of the lands natural beauty my world has, with massive infrastructures, housing and power plants.” I paused, I had never really been an eco-warrior, mainly because I consider it way too late to make any real change.
We were screwed before we even knew it.
I carried on, “we’ve slowly bled our world of its resources and now the planet is brimming at the edge of a global catastrophe caused by our excessive need to further ourselves.”
I paused for a breath, “now don’t get me wrong I’m no eco-warrior, it’s in humanities theoretical genetics to constantly build and improve ourselves, to one day reach the furthest heights. All the while hoping that we don’t reach so far that we burn ourselves in the pursuit of our goals.”
“Sounds like you didn’t like it there,” the scout queried.
“I loved it for what it was, even during my stilted and monotonous days. We live but we just don’t feel alive, if you get what I mean.”
She nodded at my explanation and stood, with me following reluctantly behind. “Would you go back?” she asked.
“I actually don’t believe I can.”
“Well if you could, would you?” She pushed.
“No,” I replied instantly which made her blink in surprise. “You see I wasn’t exactly happy with how my time ended there. Or how I was dragged away from Earth. But I made my choice to come to Viria—yeah Ra’al might’ve had to have push me towards accepting this. But my frie
nd Wyatt he, uh...” I said and started to feel uncomfortable, so I looked down my boots—yep my feet were still there. “He sacrificed himself for me, because he stupidly believed I would do something great with the life he’s given me.”
To my surprise Ariana stepped towards me and laid her hand gently on my upper arm. Giving it a reassuring rub before she moved forward again with a small sad smile on her face. Her black locks were pulled into a loose braid that hung down her spine and just above her tight pert ass. Her hips seemed to sway more as she walked, as if having noticed I was watching.
“I’m not entirely sure if I’m meant for greatness,” I carried on. “And according to Marisa, I’ll be even more powerful than Ra’al.”
She slowed and allowed our pace to match evenly. “What was he like—the Observer I mean?”
“Weird mainly,” I answered with a grin, “not even half as good-looking as I am.”
“Ooh, is that right?” She said with a laugh. “You’re considered handsome were you come from?” She exclaimed in mock disbelief—at least I hope it was.
“He’s a bit full of himself. Ra’al just wants me to rid Viria of the Shi’en, hopefully before the being that sent them returns,” I said, turning the subject discreetly away her question.
She nodded thoughtfully, “we have ancient records and tomes in the library at the order that tell of the Shi’en. They describe how they’re an amalgamation of people and animal at the start. But once their master saw the end was in sight, it turned it’s creations into true horrific beasts.”
“Yeah? Ra’al mentioned something like-”
*Al? You and Aria might want to come and see this, so hurry,* Marisa interrupted me, and I looked off in her general direction concerned. She was up ahead of us, scouting the way. I quickly turned to Ariana, “Marisa said we should hurry and catch up, it sounds urgent.” She nodded and we began scrambling over half buried stones and mossy boulders.
*What are we walking into Marisa?* I sent to the dragonling.
*I believe I found the settlement we were on the lookout for. Or at least, the remains of one.*
“Shit,” I cursed under my breath. I didn’t bother with shared sight as we were on the incline leading up to the rise that would grant us an unobstructed view.
“It doesn’t sound good,” I said to the Valakharian scout whom gave me a stoic nod.
“We’ll see soon enough,” she replied. A few minutes later we crested the rise that overlooked a small valley where the village—if it could be called that—was centred in.
“Fuck...” I whispered hoarsely. My knee’s threatened to buckle at the sheer sight before us.
Down below us laid the crumbled remains of a small hamlet. It’s walls collapsed and ruined, bodies in various states of dismemberment and death littered everywhere.
A torn apart torso with its intestines spewing like bloody ropes beneath it was impaled on the pencil thin lumber wall. I felt bile rise in my throat; but I forced it down with a will.
We quickly ran down the sloping valley, not even bothering to be cautious. The treeline surrounding the hamlet had been chopped away, used for the useless wall that had surrounded the hamlet. We deftly avoided stepping on intestines, body parts and waste as we moved to the hamlets broken wooden gates.
Marisa was crouched atop the arch of the entrance, grim feelings spreading across our bond. The remains of door were ruined; one-part of the door was flat on the ground but at an angle, it’s lower half still connected to the wall by a thread of cordage. A foot-wide hole was punctured through it. The remaining gate held a bar of thick rectangular shaven wood raised slightly in its iron brackets.
“Who or what could’ve done this?” Ariana said quietly as if raising her voice would raise the dead.
“I don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to find out either,” I replied, and she looked startled for a breath as if she hadn’t realised, she had spoken aloud.
The stench of rot, waste and the metallic scent of blood and guts became stronger once we were at the entrance. I almost heaved my stomach at how overwhelming the smell was to my senses.
I gently pushed the door Marisa was perched upon, but there was some resistance to my attempts. I looked up at Marisa quizzically, she nodded.
*They’re a few body’s huddled up against the door,* she sent to me and I could hear the disgust in her voice. Not for the dead but for the act that made them horribly so.
I wanted to take a deep breath to steel my nerves but knew that doing so would only result in me vomiting on my boots. Ariana stomped down on the still threaded hanging wooden gate and pounded it forcibly and loudly to the ground.
I could hear carrion bird’s cawing territorially as we entered and interrupted their feast with our presence. They took flight.
The first sight I saw nearly dropped me then and there.
The two halves of a small girl in a tanned yellow dress, it was soot stained and coated in thick amounts of blood. Her messy brown hair was matted in blood, mud and possibly bits of other people. The girls scalp was torn apart at the back of her head slightly revealing the thin layer of flesh before the skull.
Her grey-blue eyes stared blankly up at me, her face was dirty, and blood trailed from the corner of her mouth down cheek and pooled beneath her head.
The way she had been ripped apart was so gruesome. Her lower half consisted of everything just beneath her ribcage. So, we could see the bloody organs of her stomach and liver as well as the small white curving bones of her ribs.
Her intestines were spewed out of her lower half.
But her eyes, so pleading, desperate and haunting, like the horror of her final moments were forever burned within her retinas.
That made me flinch the most.
I warped one of several fur blankets we’d grabbed from the ogres lair and laid it atop of her. Just before concealing her, I closed her eyes.
“I hope you find your peace on the shore of dreams little one,” I said, the words fitting but not my own.
Wyatt’s, I realised.
“Let’s keep looking,” I said to Ariana who just kept staring at the now covered girl. “Hey...” I said quietly to her and tapped her arm lightly, she jolted out of her sombre thoughts and looked to me. “They’re dead, there’s nothing we could’ve done to change that. We weren’t even here, nor did we know,” I said basically repeating back my words to Marisa’s question.
It was a good lesson to understand.
Change the things we can and learn to accept those we can’t.
What concerned me the most wasn’t Ariana but myself.
I knew Marisa was scouting around in search of signs as to what could’ve caused this. So, I examined myself, my emotional responses to the bloody chaos who’s after-party we had arrived late to.
I felt a veritable torrent of emotions. Sadness, regret, determination, contempt, anger and grief.
The grief part hit me the most though. The girl and her listless dead eyes felt vaguely familiar to me.
And it was like a memory was gnawing at the edges of my mind; trying to worm it’s way, itching to come to the forefront and show me a memory not my own. I didn’t want it. Not now at least.
“Al...” Ariana said as I had to force my eyes shut as my temples throbbed sending a dull electric pain coursing through my eyes. “Alaric?” she asked concerned and I quickly jammed the heels of my palms into my eyes and rubbed at them.
I fought the memory away, as I consumed my mind with numerous other pointless thoughts. The Valakharian scout gripped my shoulder with her surprising strength and kept me still as I swayed, unbalanced by the sudden intense on-rush.
I would deal with this later.
“I’m…I’m okay. Sorry that... Just a migraine. I’m better now,” I explained blinking several times down at the scout as she practically hugged me to her.
She looked deeply into my rapidly blinking eyes for several long seconds and then nodded. “Okay. Let’s look around and then get out of h
ere. The dead haunt their final resting places sometimes and I certainly don’t want to deal with ghouls.” I nodded agreeing with her completely, not even bothering to ask about the ghoul-thing.
We moved further on into the ruined hamlet.
We found more bodies in different stages of dismembered death. A stomach-churning paste of hair, brain and shattered skull bones of heads that been crushed and grounded in the floor.
Some even still had an eye, or their lower jaw still intact. A few were even crushed directly over their necks and lower jaws leaving the upper half of their faces and head untouched but bloody.
“Could… Could an ogre have done this?” I asked once I had managed to keep my rising bile down and took a quick breath.
“Maybe, but I just don’t see it though. The houses are almost all intact and the ogre we fought against didn’t seem to mine throwing it’s weighed around,” Ariana speculated. We did pass one house however where there was a large breach in the thatched roof. The door to the house was wide open and bloody with hand prints, gouge marks and smudges. A glance inside showed the dinner table smashed to pieces and several bodies cut up and slumped over dead.
Some of the bodies we had seen and passed with their head’s crushed also had small round puncture wounds in either their calf muscles, chests or lower backs. Yet, there were no signs of the offender at all. No markings or deep foot prints, which crossed out an ogre being the culprit. *I found evidence of what did this my love and Al, you’re not going to like it one bit.*
I looked at Ariana with an arch eyebrow and she nodded having received the same message from Marisa. *Okay, where are you?* I thought back and she told us. *Alright hang tight we’re just around the corner from you.*