Dirty Rotten Seizure

by Andrew Bardsley

  I was looking around, slightly preoccupied with the splendor and impressiveness of the world around me, when I felt a sharp, powerful stabbing pain in my back. Then all at once, several more stabbing pains hit my back. A howling scream came unbidden out of my mouth. I fell over with pain emanating from my back and rebounding all over my body. I suddenly felt as if the sharp objects in my back were being pulled, but instead of them ripping out of my flesh I felt myself pulled backwards with them. It was like being hooked and reeled in like a fish.

  Still in too much pain to be aware of what was happening, I felt my body being pulled toward the edge of the highway. I noticed that Arlen had reacted and was now running toward me with a looked of determination. He was just about to grab me with his outstretched hand, but then I toppled over the edge of the wooden road in the tree canopy.

  I looked up at the sky and as if in slow motion, started to fall. At first I saw a flash of light green as I fell past the upper canopy, then passing the shadow that was like a cover over the dark forest underneath, I fell into the gloomy interior of the forest. When I looked up, the green light from above started to fade.

  I wondered if I would stop falling when the I ran out of rope, so I was expecting to feel a sharp, snapping pain. After a few seconds of nothing happening, I guessed that whoever had pulled me off the canopy highway must have dropped the rope. The rope and whatever was attached to me was still falling with me.

  Right to the bottom of the forest, then, I thought as I was in freefall.

  Waving my arms as if I was trying to fly, like a natural instinct had taken over, I turned my face upwards. The first thing I felt was the smashing of my back across what I guessed was a rather thick and solid branch. After that my life was full of more pain; I was smashed from one branch to the next like a rag doll as I fell into the darkness. This continued for a while until finally, my head hit something very strong and solid and thankfully, I blacked out.

  --

  When the blackness of unconsciousness receded, the next thing I knew I was lying in mud with a foul stench. I pulled my head out of the watery mud, on my knees and fighting to breathe. When I managed to get my breath, I threw up some of the water that tasted as bad as it smelled. I found myself gasping for breath for a few seconds, then eventually cleared the mud out of my eyes. I tried to look around to see where I was, but all I could see were dark outlines in the blackness. I noticed that some of the outlines were moving ever so slowly.

  That’s not good, I thought as I tried to focus on the movement.

  Still trying to understand how I was doing, I felt that the whole of my body had fully healed from the fall. The arrows or whatever they were must have been pushed out of my body, as I could feel nothing cutting into my back.

  Now that my eyes were getting used to the darkness, I saw the movement get quicker. This made me wonder about what was out there. To be ready, I pulled my war axe out of my inventory. With the axe in my hand I was about to cast a light spell to bring light to the gloomy darkness, but before I could form the spell one of the dark outlines that I could barely see rushed toward me. Within a fraction of a second I swung my axe at the moving blackness, hoping for a hit. This thankfully resulted in a solid hit that cut into whatever was attacking me. I felt a solid thud, and then in the darkness heard a screech as if something had been injured. Across my face I felt more wetness as some liquid splashed over me. This time it was sticky and tasted of iron, which I immediately spat out.

  Quickly, before anything else could attack me, I created a light orb and thrust it up into the air. This lit up the surrounding area with a bright white magical light. I found myself in a pool of light as the orb rose up like a rising sun. Now I had my first view of the surrounding area, I saw that I had fallen into a tangled web of many twisted dark roots of trees set into the mud.

  As I scanned the area, creating more orbs of light, it looked as if I was in a three-dimensional maze with thick tree trunks thrusting out of the ground. The trunks were massive in size, some of them close to a hundred meters across. From the center of the trunks, growing straight up into the air, were many thick and undulating roots spreading out in a network that seemed to form a web across the land. Where I was it was muddy, but I could also see dryer areas in the distance.

  This is like some medieval nightmare - a maze of dark forest and dangerous monsters, I thought.

  I had fallen into an area of ground that had smaller vines from the roots of many trees around me. Beside me was a large creature with a snake-like body, about a half-meter thick. Out of the front of its face, dark red blood was flowing - a red stream of liquid being pumped sporadically and turning the wet mud red.

  Whatever the strange creature’s face had looked like, I’d never know as it was not there anymore. I guessed that I had been lucky as my axe had cut its head in half. I looked at my axe blade and thought I looked like a gruesome hangman. Horrifyingly, there were bits of flesh dangling from the edge of the blade.

  Beside me, the long creature jerked a few times in the muddy water which sent ripples across the surface. I hoped that its body was in its last death throes, but was alarmed enough to start slashing at its long body with my bloodied axe several times, just to make sure it was dead. Soon I was covered in blood and gore from my panicked hacking at the now dead body.

  Thankfully it was not moving anymore, so I had a chance to finally stop and take stock of the situation I’d been pulled into. I looked at my body, and the first thing I noticed was that my clothing was a complete mess. I could deal with that later with a repair spell, so clothing was not a problem this time. Trying to move slightly, I found I was stuck in mud that came up to my knees. I could feel the suction of the mud as if it was pulling me down further.

  Now that I could see, I saw that in the black mud little worms were starting to swim up toward the monster’s dead body. Most of the worms had some kind of teeth at one end of their bodies and they were starting to burrow into the exposed flesh. This was turning the dark water around its body red with blood.

  That’s gross, I thought. Let’s get to some dry ground.

  Moving was more difficult than I would have hoped for. I had to pull my legs out of the mud while holding onto the body of the snake-like creature. With a lot of pulling and shoving, I managed to get a hold of a sturdy root and started to climb. After some strenuous effort, I pulled myself onto the root that fortunately was mostly dry.

  Feeling as if I had just finished lifting weights, I clambered higher. It was then that I saw several larger snake-like creatures moving through the mud toward the monster's corpse. They moved in a swerving motion, sending ripples of water that disturbed the dark surface. These creatures looked to be twenty meters in length and a half-meter in diameter.

  Not wanting to risk it, as they would be hard to fight all at once if they reached me, I shot off a white-hot fireball, about the size of a football. It smashed into the head of the first creature. When the second fireball formed in my hands, it shot off into the darkness as a white streak, leaving a trail of hot plasma behind it. When the fireball hit the back of another large head, I saw it burn through the skin as the creature reared up into the air. The mud splashed around and spread over the whole area with the rearing creature. I saw its mouth open as it was consumed in burning flames. It looked like a smaller version of the creature that the orcs had defended against on the wall. Its mouth was filled with concentric rings of teeth. The burning fireball soon shot through the back of its head, engulfing the mouth in flaming plasma.

  With its head aflame the creature fell into the mud, but the fire was so hot it continued to burn under the water. Not wanting to have to fight the large worms with my axe, I kept shooting off fireball after fireball until the whole area was a mess of giant, burning worms.

  I had hoped that his would stop the influx of creatures. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect as more and more worms from all around came swimming and slithering to the area. Looking from the vantage point
of my branch, I was able to see that below there seemed to be a feeding frenzy. The living worms fed on the dead ones that were twitching in the mud, producing a large red pool of blood that in turn was driving every living thing in the muddy water into an escalating mess of blood and gore.

  Thinking that it was best to get out of this location, as it seemed that I could be here forever killing the massive worms, I started to move. I ran up the tree root until I came to a junction in the root network. I kept moving to higher ground, hoping I had evaded the monsters.

  With the light following, I found myself making my way to a large platform of interconnecting roots that I had spotted in the distance. From the looks of it, it had some level of ground that looked dry. Thankfully it stretched for about two hundred meters above the mud.

  When I arrived at the dry ground, I was just about to relax for a few minutes when I saw some type of creatures’ heads pop up from long, grass-like material.

  At first I wondered what they were, but then one of the creatures rushed out of the grass toward me. It had waving tentacles all around its body which they seemed to be using to navigate, but I guessed that my bright light was a beacon to them. The head of the creature was poking out of a dark shell that was about the size of a small horse. The top of its head had very large eyes and a beak-like mouth that was snapping at me.

  In reaction to its speed, I moved backward up one of the larger roots and threw a fireball that hit the top of its shell. Unfortunately, the fireball only splashed across the shell and left some black burn marks. Moving further back, I saw that several more monsters were rushing toward me. All of the shelled creatures were snapping with their sharp beaks that looked like they could take a serious chunk out of my flesh.

  Quickly manipulating my magical pathway, I started to cast my ‘Blazing Spear’ spell again and again as I was retreating higher to get away from the charging creatures. Soon I had several bolts of fire in my hand. Now that I was prepared, I started to throw fireballs into the open mouths of the snapping creatures. Thankfully, the first wave of creatures was dealt with more easily as their heads exploded. Soon the blood and bits of head were splattered everywhere while the large shell bodies fell to the ground.

  I thought that maybe now I would get some respite, but soon the second wave started to appear from the dark grass platform. This time, I cast the immobility spell several times to cover a large area that the creatures were traveling through to get to my location.

  That should slow them down, I thought, as I began to cast the ‘Blazing Spear’ spell to blow off their heads. As I started to kill the creatures, I noticed that some of them were quick enough to have gotten their heads inside the shells. In a wave of fire energy, the spells splashed against their outer shell armor.

  With a sigh of frustration, I could see that there were more creatures coming from beyond the area of the immobility spell. I decided that it was time to move again, so I started to run along the tree roots to get away from the creatures, wondering where I would find safety in this dangerous area of the forest.

  Maybe I need to climb higher, I thought.

  As I ran along the root network, I headed for one of the large tree trunks soaring into the darkness above me. I was hoping for some way of getting higher in the forest, as the dark depths had certainly lived up to my dangerous expectations.

  Around this tree trunk were many dangling vines that led up the side of the bark surface. When I arrived at the tree trunk, I heard a splash in the water beneath me. Looking down, I saw several large worms exiting the water as they moved up the roots that I was standing on.

  Not good, I thought. How the hell do I get out of here?

  As if in answer to the question in my mind, I heard a whistle from above me and looked up into the darkness. I saw a female figure gesturing with her hand for me to climb up the vines on the surface of the tree trunk. Seeing that the creatures would soon be close enough to attack me, I quickly grabbed the vine that was closest to me.

  Luckily, I had gained a lot of physical strength while being in this world and so I found the vines easy to clamber up quickly. They were dry and rough in my hands as I pulled myself up, using my feet to walk up the bark of the tree. The bark was so tough that none of it came loose from my feet pushing into it. I was grateful that I was still not wearing shoes, as this made it easier to grip the surface as I climbed.

  When I looked up to the woman above me, she shouted, “Cut the lights! You’re bringing every monster from miles around!”

  Flicking my eyes around and below, I could see that what she was saying was terrifyingly true. Not only were the worms slithering toward me from the mud, but I could see other creatures moving quickly along the root pathways. I released the magic from all the light orbs except one. Most of the area fell into darkness as black as night. With a surge of power, I sent the remaining light shooting off into the distance. As it moved quickly away it slowly faded until no light could be seen from my location. Then I released the magic illuminating the final orb. Now that I was in full darkness I kept climbing up the vines, using only my touch to figure out where I was going.

  After a few seconds of climbing in the darkness, from above I saw a small red light flicker into luminescence. It was just enough to guide me as I climbed up to the woman above me. When I looked up, I could see an outline or her. She wore armor and was carrying a bow that was slung over her shoulder. When I reached her, the red light lit up her face. She had a half-smile on her face that looked forced, as her expression was also one of nervousness.

  “Salihn, what the hell are you doing here?” I asked when I recognized her.

  “I’ll tell you later, but first we should be getting to a place of safety. You seem to have caused a feeding frenzy for the mud creatures. This will cause creatures from miles around to come here. It’s best to get out of here, unless you want to deal with hundreds of monsters all at once.”

  I nodded my head in the strange red light that glowed from a wooden rod that she was holding.

  “OK - follow me, then!” she said with a shy smile.

  Salihn had been perched in some of the lower branches of the trees. Amongst the network of branches were hanging vines that I had used to clamber up. I watched her use the branches and vines to move off into the distance with her red light. Watching her, I wondered at how quickly she was moving and I felt inadequate for not moving like her. When I tried to, I was not surprised to find out that I was not nearly as nimble and had nothing like the dexterity she had. She moved fast, using a combination of branches and vines in more of a dance, while I moved slowly and feeling very much out of my depth.

  She looked back with a frown when she saw my lack of progress and indicated with her hand to move quickly. I tried the best I could, but she kept waving at me to speed up.

  Eventually she came back, looking worried. “Valkin, you may be able to survive the influx of creatures the feeding frenzy has brought, but I will not.”

  I was about to ask why she was calling me ‘Valkin,’ but then a noise came from behind me and I just decided to move off quickly. This time I went faster, taking greater and greater risks in a bid to keep up with the fast-moving elf. Suddenly, I got a notification that I had developed a skill for moving through the forest. Thankfully the skill seemed to help as I increased my speed and took more risks. Several times I nearly fell out of the branches as my foot slipped, but managed to recover my footing - although every time I nearly fell, I got a worried look from Salihn.

  Clambering across the branches went on for a good half hour as we got further away from where I had killed all of the monsters. Just when I was starting to think that we were safe from them, I saw that Salihn had stopped.

  When I got close to her she’d extinguished her red light. She looked into the distance with a worried expression on her face. I looked off to see what was worrying her so much. Following her gaze, I could see a bright white light appear through the trees and the figure of a woman who seemed to be flo
ating above the ground, approaching all the creatures that were congregating some distance behind us.

  Salihn moved her mouth close to my ear. I could feel her hot breath as she said, “Trust me, you don’t want to fall into his woman's hands, Valkin. She’ll eat you alive!”

  The woman who she was taking about was floating over the forest’s mud level, growing closer to us. Several bright globes were spinning around her. When she got close enough, I saw her face and recognized her as the platinum-haired woman who had been with the duke. I thought she looked like an angel as the lights around her glowed, showing off her elegant figure. Every now and then a monster would rear its head out of the mud, only to be struck by a white, lightning-like discharge from one of her hands.

  Wondering if she was here to rescue me, I was about to shout out to gain her attention but then I saw the look on her face. It stopped the shout before it left my lips. She was angry, but what was surprising was the desperation in her face. I looked for a second as she passed. The expression was as if she was on a hunt and once she found the prey, it had better watch out.

  Salihn was beside me and I felt her tremble slightly as the spectra of the woman passed into the distance. When she was out of sight, Salihn whispered in my ear, “Thanks!”

  She kissed my cheek then, and moved off. As she relit the red light, we moved through the branches of the forest. Instead of climbing upwards, we headed far away from the mess that I had caused.

  Chapter Five Some Time Alone Together

  At some point in the endless clambering across branches, Salihn stopped and moved closer. I could feel her body up against mine as she whispered in my ear. “There’s a safe hideout that I use close by. We’ll go there so we can talk.”

  I nodded, happy to get out of the dark underbelly of the forest. I had been getting better at moving around the branch network, but still felt very much that I was slowing her down. She grabbed my hand and led me slowly across a branch. Her hand was trembling and I wondered if she was nervous, as she kept glancing back at my face. Soon we were moving toward a solid-looking nest of branches that I guessed hid the safe location. She ducked under the large nest that closer up, looked more like a building. I felt her cast a spell and channel it through her free hand. All of a sudden, a hole in the network appeared.