“I’ve got it,” I said, walking past him. I emerged from behind the wagon, hands raised. “Easy, Eckshaw. We’re both still here. You can tell your monstrous mistress that we aren’t interested in her playing any games with our minds. We’ll kill her foe, for your sake, but don’t think for a second that we’re going to trust her.”
Eckshaw slowly nodded, his mouth curved into a deep frown. “You’re playing a dangerous game with my people’s lives,” he said. “She will make good on the threat. I’ve seen it before.”
“I don’t think the Eldest is stupid. Because that threat only exists for as long as she’s alive,” I said. “And if she kills one kid, we’ll sure as hell make sure to stop her from taking any more down. She knows that.”
“Don’t think others haven’t tried,” Eckshaw grumbled. “But…peace is preferred. The Eldest has stated that you are to kill its foe before you return to the village. Or else.”
“Lead the way then,” I said, gesturing widely for him to take point. I wasn’t about to argue with this man. Not when there were lives on the line. The Eldest was afraid, I knew. It couldn’t track our movements now, so all it could do was rely on Eckshaw as its mouthpiece. Although…how did it find me, I wonder?
The man stared at us for a moment. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but decided against it, opting to instead turn around and march forward into the darkness, green flame raised high.
Trig just looked at me and mouthed the words. “I hope you have a plan.”
I shrugged helplessly at him and motioned for him to stay close to me. The enemy couldn’t learn my plan if I didn’t even know what it was. I just hoped that whatever fiend we were about to face would prove to be identical to the Eldest. The more we could learn killing that thing, the easier we could take her down.
Our wagon was about the only thing making noise as we wandered through the dark. The creaking, the pots bubbling and the automated potion collection system whirring accompanied our steps and provided a pleasant distraction from the oppressive darkness all around us.
I had thought returning to this place would be of little difficulty. That having escaped it once before, I would feel more confident and comfortable in the shadows. But those thoughts proved to be little more than fantasy, for walking through the woods, I felt nothing but anxiousness at every corner. Being under the sun one moment and back in the pitch black realm the next seemed to discourage me more than anything. How I yearned to turn around and just escape this hellhole. But there was too much at stake to really entertain that idea. Instead, I just focused on all the good we were doing here.
“Woah!” Trig said, breaking his hour long silence. I snapped to attention to see that finally, the landscape had changed from the perpetual maze of giant trees and chest-high bushes. There was a single slope in front of us. A decline leading downwards. The first change in elevation we had seen here.
“Here it is,” Eckshaw said as he raised his green torch high. “Below you will find the pit where the wretched beast lives. It exists for no other purpose than to feed, but just as the Eldest, it is too bloated and sluggardly to wander the woods searching for meals. Instead, it marks its prey and lures them here. One by one, they march into its open jaws. A vile and disgusting creature.”
Though he used strong words in his speech, I could hear little emotion from him. Eckshaw spoke almost as if he were reading from a script.
“Well? You ready?” Trig asked as he leaned over the edge of the slope, looking down. The darkness seemed just as thick as anywhere else, impenetrable and foreboding.
“No,” I replied, walking next to him and raising my bow. “But don’t let that stop us.”
Chapter 23
Eventually the ground beneath our feet vanished. The grass and dirt instead became covered with bones of all types. Femurs, ribs, skulls and spinal columns littered the floor to the point of becoming its own terrain. So deep were the bones that when I shuffled my boot into the pile, looking for the actual ground, I could only find more skeletal remains.
“It’s a veritable graveyard here,” Trig whimpered, his voice pained and afraid. I did not wish to tell him what I observed about these bones that made them especially disconcerting. To the regular eye, they just looked like bones, but to one with medical training, it was easy to see that the marrow had been torn out and sucked dry. The beast that had created these bones had stripped every inch of food and nutrition from them, leaving nothing left.
“How many people do you think this is?” he asked. “Thousands? It has to be thousands, right?”
“Easy, Trig, focus,” I said, raising my torch, ignoring what was crunching beneath my feet as I walked. “If we aren’t careful, it’ll be our bones added to this collection soon enough.”
“How can you be calm here?” he hissed. “I’ve never seen this many people, alive or dead!”
Indeed he was correct about this. The sheer amount of skeletons in the area was so big that it was plausible that a small city had been devoured here. But was this creature we were hunting the cause of so many dead? A small, foolishly hopeful part of me wondered if maybe it actually subsisted on bones for survival and scavenged for these body parts. Once we reached the walls made out of skulls and only skulls, I began to doubt that was the case at all.
“Luuurrrrrrrr,” breathed a deep, human-like voice in the distance. The sound echoed all around us, bouncing around off of the various walls made out of bone and skull.
We both dropped down out of instinct, adopting stealth stances, but of course, such a thing was in vain. The two large torches mounted on my backpack gave me away instantly, as did the torch in Trig’s hand. No matter, at least being lower to the ground would make us harder to target.
I motioned for Trig to standby and quickly moved towards the source of the sound. More walls of skulls and other bones appeared before me, slowly rising up higher and higher as I continued. These walls seemed to serve a purpose, for eventually, they were on both sides of me, creating a maze of sorts.
I moved as cautiously as I could, trying to keep my feet from making noise, but the perpetual shifting bones beneath me rattled a great deal while also causing me to stumble every now and then. As I navigated this terrible maze, a prickling sensation touched against the back of my head, as if something were trying to get its way inside of my brain. The golden band on my Tyndel charm began to glow a little, indicating that it was protecting me from something. The beast was close, but unable to affect my mind. This was good.
I peeked around the corner to find an expansive area, filled with more skulls and bones, as well as actual human corpses. The bodies were naked, bloated and grey, looking as if they had been dead for some time. A wretched stench greeted me, the all too familiar stench of death. This open area was a giant square, with dozens of braziers scattered about, green flame flickering from them. These braziers were identical to the ones we had seen back at the Eldest’s village. How very strange.
“Luuuuurrrrrrrghhh,” came the voice again, this time close enough for me to pinpoint it. I inched closer to the flames, keeping my body low, trying to get a glimpse at what was ahead. Finally, the massive, bloated frame of a beast came into focus. It was sitting in the dead center of the expanse, its long, slug-like body coiled tightly into a circle, like a serpent. Unlike the Eldest, it bore no resemblance to humanity.
The closest this slugbeast came to resembling a person was its upper torso, a pathetically small, skinny cone of flesh, with two beady eye stalks and a single, two-fingered hand. This ‘head’ I guess, was at the top of the mound of flesh, slowly moving up and down, almost…lounging around. That’s how I’d describe it anyway.
The beast took notice of me and stretched its hand towards me, too sluggish to actually get up and move in my direction. It bellowed once more, the sound coming from beneath the creature’s body. Hideous, grotesque but…not as dangerous as I had feared. Or was it luring me into a false sense of security?
I could se
e another entrance on the other side of the expanse, with walls of skeletons leading presumably into another part of the maze. A perfect spot for a flank.
I let out four long whistles, followed by two sharp ones, signaling to Trig that I had the enemy in my sight, but we needed to ambush it from another angle. A shrill birdcall came back. He acknowledged the plan and would search for an opportunity. Hopefully he could find his way through the maze in time.
Until Trig appeared on the other side to provide a flank, I would wait to strike. Instead, I focused my mind on the beast and waited for my Mystic Vision ability to kick in. Slowly, a hue of purple energy began to form around the massive slug’s body, followed by a flash of words in front of me, informing me of the situation.
Element of the Orphine
Elemental Immunities: Mental attacks of all forms instantly fail.
Elemental Resistances: Highly resistant to water, sonic and ice attacks.
Elemental Weaknesses: Takes double damage from fire attacks.
I grinned at this revelation. Fire attacks were easy to come by for me and Trig used fiery explosives, so this would be a short fight. No more wasting time using trial and error in order to figure out an enemy’s weakness. Now I could get to the most powerful method in the least amount of time.
Right on cue, Trig appeared on the other side of the maze, his red torch flickering in the darkness. My enhanced perception could see that he was quite pale, having been shaken by walking through a literal maze of death. I wondered if he had seen something else within the maze, something that wasn’t in the way of my own path. Or perhaps I had just become so jaded to this insane world that walking through a maze of bones didn’t affect me as much as the normal person. After all, Trig really didn’t go out into the field as much as I.
He chirped a ready sound and I nocked four arrows on my fire bow, drawing back the string tightly. The large body of the beast would make hitting it quite easy. I waited a beat, to see if the Orphine would do anything, but it simply continued stretching out its hand at me. It seemed that without the ability to affect us with its compulsions, it was helpless.
I fired, watching the four streaks of flame crash into the large slug’s body, embedding themselves in its flesh.
“Aghhh!” Trig screamed as he collapsed to the ground, holding his chest and stomach. I lowered my bow and looked at the young man to see that he was bleeding profusely, his armor untouched.
“What hit you?” I called out.
“I don’t know,” he whimpered, falling over onto his side. He wrestled to get his chest armor off, to reveal what was causing the bleeding. Much to our horror, as he pulled his tunic open to inspect the wounds, four holes had manifested themselves upon his chest and stomach. Arrow wounds to be exact!
“Oh damn it,” I said, looking back at the fat beast. It still hadn’t moved, but its eyes seemed quite pleased with what had happened. Somehow, this thing had transferred the wounds from its own body to Trig’s. Indeed, the arrows sticking out of the beast hadn’t drawn any blood whatsoever.
“First my ears,” Trig grunted as he chugged a potion, “now my chest. You just love to hurt me, don’t you?”
“I had no idea!” I stammered. The wounds were closing themselves up rapidly on his body, but that did little to comfort me. If I had fired a heavier shot, or…or if I had struck where the creature’s heart would be, it could have killed Trig. How could we fight a monster that could transfer its own injuries to our allies?
The young man shook off his wounds and rubbed his chin, holding up a grenade in his hand. “Now I’m afraid to use this.”
The Orphine let out a deep, unsettling glurp sound, but otherwise did nothing. Its eyestalks merely leered at me, waiting for us to take the next move.
I raised a hand to stay Trig’s action. We didn’t know what we were dealing with here. The Eldest was intelligent, but what about this Orphine? Did it understand its actions enough to lure us into a false sense of security? Or was it so psychically powerful that it didn’t really need a main offense? If it could redirect all attacks through this link…I don’t know how we could take it down.
“You should leave,” I said. “Maybe distance will sever the connection.”
“Uhhhhh…” Trig stammered as he turned to face me, raising the bomb high. “Something seems to be happening here…and I can’t seem to uh, yeah I can’t control my limbs.”
Leap! Josiah’s Storm urged me, sending energy through my legs just in time. Trig’s explosive came hurtling towards me, exploding in midair. A burst of heat washed towards me, but I was far enough away from the impact point to avoid injury.
“Come on, Trig, block it out!” I yelled.
“It’s not a…not a mental thing, I don’t think,” Trig said as he staggered forward towards me, moving like a marionette doll. His blades were raised high, ready to fight me.
This wasn’t good. The Orphine was now in control of Trig or at the very least, his body. Damn…the Fylk charm didn’t seem to block out this level of control spells. Well…I couldn’t afford to let my ally start killing me in the middle of this fight.
“Just try to understand why I’m doing this,” I said, drawing a single arrow and nocking it, aiming my bow towards his hamstring.
“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” he groaned as I released the arrow. It sailed through the air, striking him right in the leg.
To our right, the great Orphine let out a deep groan of agony, rumbling so loud it caused the ground to shake. Blood poured down from the side of its body and Trig, much to my surprise, remained upright.
“Huh…I didn’t feel that!” Trig said. His eyes brightened at the realization. The attack link worked both ways. Attacking the beast would hurt Trig, but attacking Trig would hurt the creature. “Shoot me again,” he said, pointing right towards his heart. “And make it lethal!”
His enthusiasm for becoming a human pincushion was admirable, but I had to think ahead here. The Orphine wasn’t stupid. It had to know that its ability would be found out at some point, right? So…what if this was a trick? Part of a way to get me to willingly kill my own ally. After all, now that the link was proven to go both ways, what reasonable hunter wouldn’t throw everything they had at their partner?
I decided to call this creature’s bluff, praying that it worked. I slung four arrows at once and aimed them right at Trig. He had suspiciously stopped lurching forward now, making me think that the beast had severed the link already, in order to see me kill my own teammate. I aimed, waited a beat and redirected my shot in a split second, burning mana to give my arrows extra speed.
The flame arrows crashed into the Orphine’s chest hard, streaks of fire burning its hideously bulbous flesh. It let out a shriek of pain and began to thrash its enormous body left to right, green blood oozing from the holes sticking out of its torso.
“Hah!” I shouted in triumph, readying up another shot. The beast was writhing in pain, but something told me to hold my fire. I had no way of knowing if that pain link was active again. I had caught it by surprise the one time, but would I be able to pull this off again?
Chapter 24
The Orphine, having taken quite a bit of damage from my attack, was no longer content to simply sit and laze about. It grunted and gurgled with great contempt as it recovered from the flame arrows, then began to uncoil itself. Its large body seemed to flop out and unfold as it began to snake and slither its way free from the long circle it had wrapped itself into. The beast groaned considerably, green blood dripping everywhere as it began to slither towards me.
Propping the long creature up was thousands of little centipede-like legs, skittering as they struggled to support a beast of such size. The creature’s movement was not graceful, but as it continued to unfurl itself, it picked up speed.
“So…what’s the plan?” Trig asked as we both backed away from the creature as it expanded outwards, its flesh stretching out to take up more and more space.
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“Not sure…” I said, waiting for the beast to take its first move. Too many unknowns here. The beast was lethargic, yes, but it was gaining energy quickly. Would its psychic powers increase? Would the attack link still exist?
“I’ve got an alternate plan,” Trig said, reading my uncertainty. He pointed towards the bronze braziers that kept the green fire alive and well. “Kill the lights and run. Let uh…that shadow thing take its meal.”
I grimaced at that idea. It was a solid plan for killing the creature, sure, but the body and the Bloodpoints would be gone as well. Worse yet, we wouldn’t learn its weaknesses. Still, could we afford to get into a scrap like this?
“Trig, leave,” I ordered. “Go back to the wagon and wait.”
There was only a moment of hesitation and then, footsteps crunching on bone as Trig fled the area. He knew better than to argue with me in a combat scenario. Time was limited. The Orphine was spending a great deal of energy uncoiling itself and was seemingly distracted, still stretching itself out. My ally had precious little time to clear the area, to get out of range of the beast’s telekinetic controls and thus, out of the danger zone. Hopefully out of sight would also mean out of mind for this thing.
As Trig ran towards the exit, the Orphine attempted, in vain, to block him. It lurched upwards and fell on the path in front of him, but the young hunter leapt clean over its grey body, disappearing back into the skeletal maze.
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” I said, raising my bow at the beast as it swung its long body towards me. It began to inch towards me, no longer relying on the skittering little legs to carry itself forward. Instead it merely raised its front half upwards and lurched forward, like a worm. The undercarriage of the creature made me shudder, for hundreds upon hundreds of long oval mouths were beneath, all opening and closing. Each time the beast lunged upwards, I could see the various mouths dripping wet with green saliva, no doubt starving for a taste of my flesh.
Monster Hunting 401: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure Page 13