And, with that said,
Chapter
2: Monsters
Mina and
Celine started to edge away from the Goetians but Daryl was frozen in place,
her eyes so large that they threatened to burst out of her skull. A fireball crashed in the distance and the
demonic infants began to run wild, loosing a feral a scream before bounding
towards the three girls.
Grabbing
Daryl’s arms, Mina and Celine turned and retreated through the forest, pulling
their friend after them. A quick glance
back confirmed for Mina that they were being pursued. Hundreds of the creatures were charging after
them, with their mouths twisted into hideous grins as their bladed arms and
legs sliced through the evergreen trees.
After a few
seconds, Daryl managed to compose herself enough to match her friends’ stride
without Celine or Mina pulling on her.
Together, the three girls quickened their pace and managed to put some
distance between themselves and the Goetians.
Mina turned her head to check on their pursuers, however no sooner had
she done so than she crashed into something tough and sinewy.
Holding her
hand to her forehead, Mina looked up from her spot on the ground and saw fifty
creatures covered in downy white fur approach her, Celine, and Daryl. Though they walked on two legs like humans,
they had cloven hooves for feet, long faces with a tuft of hair hanging from
their chins, and curved horns coming out of their heads. What caught Mina’s eye, however, were the
pikes and halberds clasped in each of their hands.
“More
Goetians…” Mina whispered. She and the
others tried to sidestep the furry creatures but froze when they heard the
hideous screech of the bladed Goetians behind them. Turning around, she saw that the malformed
infants had stopped in their tracks.
Though they watched the girls with cruel, slitted eyes, Mina noticed
their gaze would occasionally shift to the fifty white furred Goetians in front
of them.
After looking
from one group of Goetians to the other, Daryl sank to her knees. “W-we’re trapped,” she whimpered, wrapping
her arms around herself.
“Maybe we can reason with them,” Celine muttered. Holding her hands over her head, she
cautiously approached the furry Goetians.
“Hey! I don’t know why you’re
here, but we don’t want any trouble! We
just want to get through!”
One of the creatures let out a loud bleat and pointed his
weapon at the infantile Goetians. The
child-like creatures let out a high pitched squeal in response.
“It’s
useless!” Daryl cried. “These Goetians
serve Telnumbra! W-we can’t reason with
them!” she sniffled, her entire body quaking with fear.
Hearing this,
the white furred Goetians began to bleat angrily at the girls until a shrill forceful
bleat cut through the air. Everyone
froze and the furry Goetians parted to form a path. A cloven hoofed, white furred Goetian that
was larger than the others stepped forth, wielding a huge black axe with a
matching black breastplate.
“Humans…” he bleated,
looking from the other Goetians to Mina and her friends. They bleated back at him, but he grunted and
let out an angry snort. “No. Remember master Dem’s words. We are to protect those from the village.”
The larger Goetian hefted his axe in the direction of the bladed creatures and
yelled, “Cut down anything that would harm the humans!”
With a
resounding bleat, the white haired Goetians leapt over the girls and proceeded
to hack and stab at the bladed infants, forming a wall behind Mina and her
friends.
“Th-they’re
protecting us?!” Daryl stammered, wiping tears from her eyes.
“I guess it’s
not too surprising,” Mina whispered to herself.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been saved by a Goetian, after all.”
“Yes. We’re here to save you.”
The girls spun
around to see a man with bright orange skin and a long black pony tail standing
behind them. He had stubby black horns
protruding from the front of his head and cloven hooves instead of feet. The only piece of clothing he wore was a
dingy black loincloth.
“Please, don’t
be afraid,” the orange skinned man whispered, reaching out and touching Daryl’s
cheek. “We’re here to protect you…” As he spoke, a sweet smelling pink smoke wafted
out of his mouth.
Color sprang
to each of the girls’ faces and their eyes began to go out of focus, as they
inhaled the pink smoke. Kneeling down
next to Daryl, the man opened his mouth to reveal a forked tongue that was bulbous
and grotesque.
A bleat from
one of the Goetians behind them snapped Celine out of her trance and her eyes
widened when she saw the man’s tongue slither towards Daryl’s mouth. Raising her arms, Celine shoved him back with
her elbows. “D-don’t be fooled!” she
panted, wiping sweat from her brow.
“He’s not one of them!”
“Little
bitch!” the man howled. His muscles and
hair crumbled away to reveal a bald man bent from age with a bulbous stomach
and tendrils coming out of his arms and legs.
“Well, if the subtle approach won’t work, then I’ll be more direct!” he
slavered, pointing a finger at Celine.
The tendrils on his arms shot out and wrapped around Celine’s wrists,
ankles, and neck before lifting her into the air.
“Celi!” Mina
yelled, pulling and biting at the tendrils like a wild animal. “Put her down!”
“No chance in-!”
the creature started to say, but stopped mid sentence and jumped back in
surprise when a giant mouth full of razor sharp teeth slipped out of the ground
in front of him, as if the dirt were no thicker than air.
Opening wide,
a blast of water shot out of the mouth and doused the orange skinned Goetian
completely. A long brown tongue snaked
out of the mouth carrying a thin figure with short brown hair who was swathed
in a thick crimson cloak, on top of it
“What’d you do
that for, little girl?” the Goetian smirked, even as the water on his body
began to freeze due to the low temperature.
“If you wanted some, all you had to do was ask!” he snarled, flinging
several tentacles towards the cloaked figure.
“I am not a goddamn girl!” the young man
screamed. Flinging out his right arm,
which was covered in bandages, the figure shot a spout of water out of his palm. The water engulfed the Goetian and his
tendrils, freezing almost instantly. Ice
crept up to the Goetian’s neck before stopping. “How’s that taste?!” the young man
snickered. Stepping off the monstrous
tongue, he snapped one of the frozen tendrils like it was a twig. “Not bad for a ‘little girl,’ huh? Just what did you expect, anyway?” he
snorted, wrapping his bandaged hand around the Goetian’s neck, “Did you think I
was just gonna let my satyrs get ambushed?”
“Damned…brat!”
the Goetian slavered before the young man fired one last blast of water at his
head, freezing him solid.
“N-Now a
conjurer, too?” Daryl stuttered. “We
really are being invaded!”
“Would you
shut up?!” Celine yelled before turning to the conjurer, “Hey, kid! Can you get me down?”
Turning to the
trio of girls, the young man let out an indignant yell, “You want some
too?! I’m not some little kid, I…wait…” stroking
his chin, the young man raised an eyebrow when he saw the girls. “What in Shanadia’s name are you doing
here?! Vincent told me all the
villagers’d be evacuated by now!”
“How about we
talk after you get me down,” Celine called out.
The young man scowled at her and opened his mouth to speak, however
before he could Mina got between him and Celine.
“We got pinned
down by fireballs on the road to Steadfall,” Mina added. Getting down on her knees, she touched her
forehead to the ground. “Please…can you
help us?”
“Sure…I guess,”
the young man snorted. With a snap of
his fingers, flames suddenly engulfed his left hand. He chopped through the tendrils holding
Celine and held out his arms to catch her.
When she dropped into them, however, his arms gave out from her weight and
he collapsed in the dirt with Celine on top of him. “Oomph!” he grunted, struggling under the
bronze skinned girl. “Gerrof me!”
“Jeez…for a
guy you’ve got no muscles, do you?” Celine snickered, pulling herself up and
holding out a hand to the conjurer. The
young man batted her hand aside before getting to his feet and brushing himself
off, glaring angrily at Celine as he did so.
“Is now really
the time to be making such comments, vagabond?!” Daryl snapped. “Please, forgive my uneducated friend,” she
added with a bow. “I am Daryl, an
apprentice to journeyman priest Angelo. Since
you are clearly not involved with the attack on Gesthal, we would like to
request your protection under the mutual cooperation clause of the armistice
between Telnumbra and Lucaria,” she quickly recited from memory
The conjurer
gave Daryl a blank stare and raised an eyebrow.
“Huh?” he grunted.
Before anyone
could clarify, a huge Goetian burst out of the ground a short distance
away. It skittered about like a bug on
innumerable segmented legs and had a long body covered in armor that glistened
like polished steel. The creature turned
towards the girls and Mina saw that it bore a gigantic human skull for a head. Opening its mouth, the Goetian hissed at the
four of them before charging straight for the brown haired conjurer and the
three girls.
“Charybdis!”
the young man barked.
The giant
mouth from before leapt out of the ground, revealing itself to be little more
than a lump of fleshy tendrils connected to an elongated jaw, and rammed into
the giant armored Goetian. After pinning
it to a tree, the mouth opened wide and took a large bite out of the Goetian’s
armored side. An unearthly shriek escaped
the Goetian’s bony maw. Green blood
dripped from the wound in its side and from the teeth of the creature the young
man called Charybdis. However, the insect-like
Goetian wriggled free of Charybdis, leaving half its body behind in the
process, and charged at Mina and the others.
The conjurer
threw himself in front of the girls and put both of his hands up. A barrier of flames formed in front of the
four of them, which the creature rammed into.
Though Mina and the others were unharmed, the armored Goetian reared
back and slammed into the barrier again and again. Each time it did, the conjurer staggered
backwards from the force of the monster’s assault.
“I can’t hold
this for long!” he yelled at the girls. “You three need to get out of here!”
Before Mina or
Daryl could respond, Celine grabbed both their hands and pulled them further
into the forest, away from the conjurer and the warring Goetians.
“What are you
doing?!” Daryl snapped. “Even if he is a
Telnumbran, he could help us! We could-”
“Were you even
paying attention?! He could barely fend
for himself! We’d just be a liability,”
Celine snapped, pulling her two friends behind a large tree. Panting hard, she looked behind them and took
a deep breath. “Okay…if Goetians have
entered the forest then we need to find an exit as soon as possible. That way’s no good,” Celine jerked her head
in the direction they had come from, “So let’s try another.”
“Celi, can you
tell if any more are coming?” Mina mumbled, her heart thumping in her ears. “I feel like something’s close by.”
Closing her
eyes, Celine pricked up her ears. After
a few seconds, her eyes snapped open and she threw her arms around her friends,
pulling Mina and Daryl down into the snow, just before a set of fangs bit
through the tree they had been hiding behind.
A shadow fell
on the girls and they all looked up to see an apocra three times their size holding
the trunk of the pine tree in its jaws.
The front of the creature was covered in downy fur with front paws that
ended in claws and an overly large mane of hair around its head. However, the apocra’s back legs were
segmented and bent backwards, like those of an insect. Spitting the tree aside, it let out a feral
roar and rushed at the three girls with blinding speed.
“Duck!” a voice
behind them called out.
Mina and the
others fell flat to the ground as a thorny whip pierced through the tree in
front of them and slashed the apocra’s furry snout. Momentarily disoriented, it stumbled past the
girls and crashed headfirst into another tree.
The girls saw
a man with purple skin and pointed ears garbed in a tunic made of furs and
pelts step out of the undergrowth.
Pulling his whip out of the tree, he stroked his trimmed black beard and
eyed the trio suspiciously. “Kids? Huh…this doesn’t seem right,” he mused aloud,
scratching his shaven head.
The apocra
shook itself awake and bared its fangs at the man’s back. “Behind you!” Celine called, raising her head
from the ground.
With a
careless flick of his wrist, the man lashed his whip around the apocra’s head
and gave it a tug. His muscles tensed
and veins popped out of his arms as he threw the creature over his head and
slammed it into the snow.
“You don’t
need to worry about me. Dealing with
apocras is my specialty. But thanks
anyway,” he nodded and flashed them a reassuring smile. Both he and Celine sniffed the air for a
moment and their eyes widened.
Before either
of them could speak, a huge, fleshy, dome-shaped mouth burst out of the ground
next to them. Several long tendrils protruded
out of the creature’s jaws and one grabbed hold of Mina’s foot. It jerked her into the air, dangling her over
its open maw.
“Mina!” Celine
called. Jumping to her feet, she charged
towards the apocra only to have the purple man grab her shoulder and toss her
back to the ground before placing his fingers to his lips and blowing out a
shrill whistle that echoed across the forest.
“Celi!” Mina
called, looking from her friend to the mouth below her.
Underneath
several jagged layers of teeth was an eyeball.
The tendril turned her about, like a butcher examining a choice cut of
aurox meat, and the eyeball split down the middle to reveal the creature’s
throat and uvula. Just as the tendril
dropped Mina into the waiting mouth, she saw something zip through the trees
and snatch her up in midair.
Though her
heart was pounding madly, Mina managed to turn around to get a good look at her
rescuer. The apocra’s body was roughly
twice her size and covered in fur with four legs bearing pawed feet. Two giant feathery wings kept the creature
aloft while the only thing keeping Mina up was her dress, held in the apocra’s
beak. The apocra alighted next to the
purple skinned man and gently dropped her onto the snowy ground.
“Mina!” Celine
and Daryl called out together, running over to their friend’s side and hugging
her.
“You don’t
need to worry,” the purple skinned man said.
He reached out and petted the apocra on its feathery head. “My griffons’ are well trained. Your friend will be fine.”
Mina and her
friends looked back at the purple skinned man as the apocra with the
dome-shaped mouth let out an angry snarl.
Tilting its mouth towards the girls and the purple skinned man, the
creature glared at them, its eye turning a deep shade of red. Raising itself up on four spindly legs so
that it towered over the three girls and their rescuers, the apocra lashed its
tendrils at them. With a few quick
flicks of his whip, the purple skinned man batted the attacks aside before
cupping one hand around his mouth and letting out an almost flute-like call.
“Okay…” Celine
panted, holding tightly to Mina’s hand before addressing the purple skinned man.
“You’re clearly not trying to kill us…so…what’s next?”
“Just stand
back,” the man said with a smirk, “and leave this to my wife and children.”
“What’s that
supposed to-” Daryl stammered, only to be cut off by a howl in the distance.
Four muscular
forearms shot out of the trees and grabbed the spindly legged creature. One by one, the arms tore the legs from the
apocra until it was nothing more than a bloodied mass of flesh lying on the
ground, mewling pitiably. Out of the
undergrowth, a huge blue skinned woman with aquamarine hair appeared, towering
over the girls and the purple skinned man.
She shoved the spindly legs into her mouth and ground them into dust
before swallowing what remained in one long gulp.
Slithering
further into sight, Mina saw that she wore a cloth around her waist and a tunic
to cover her four breasts. However,
Mina’s eyes were drawn to the long scaly tail which came out of her waistcloth
where her legs should be and which split into two tails at the end. The female apocra stopped only to brush her
hand against the purple skinned man’s bearded face. A hint of purple came to her cheeks and she
smiled before turning back to the bloodied remnants of the apocra with the
dome-shaped mouth. Unhinging her jaw, she
shoved half of the bloodied creature into her maw at once before biting down
hard. The girls averted their eyes in
horrified disgust, but the purple skinned man merely smiled pleasantly at the
carnage.
After
swallowing hard, the huge woman tossed the rest of the creature aside. Before it had even touched the ground, nearly
two dozen apocra, bearing the torsos of blue skinned women with long, scaly tails
where their legs should be, swarmed out of the forest and began consuming the
remains.
Wiping blood
from her lips, the four armed female apocra wagged her finger at them and
barked out, “Don’t push! You’ll all get
more than enough if that fool keeps sending his apocras to the slaughter,
so-Angie! Don’t butt your sister out of
the way! You apologize now, young lady! I raised you to be a better lamia than that!”
“Ummm…what…what
are we watching?” Mina mumbled, rubbing her eyes in disbelief.
“A mother,” the
purple skinned man snickered. “Girls,
we’ll have another wave coming in soon, so finish up, okay? And don’t forget about the myrmecoleon over
there,” he pointed to the downed apocra with the furry front half and the back
half that resembled an insect.
Daryl’s eyes
were wide with terror as the apocra swarmed past her and began gnawing at the
myrmecoleon. “Has this whole forest gone
crazy?!” she squealed, “I…I just want to go home!”
After taking a
bite from the myrmecoleon, the giant four armed apocra turned to the four girls
and looked them over. “Dakon, who are
these three?” she murmured, her voice soft and conciliatory.
“I’m not sure. They just appeared out of nowhere,” the man
named Dakon muttered, rubbing the griffon under its feathery chin.
“Hey! We’re the ones who’re confused!” Celine
barked. “Just what’s going on here and
who are you?!”
Their
conversation was cut short by a tiny apocra bearing six insect-like wings and a
frail, humanoid body that fluttered out of the forest and perched itself on
Dakon’s shoulder. It whispered something
in his ear and he nodded, stroking his beard before turning back to the large
female apocra.
“Ecchi, we’ve
got a wave of undead coming. These
three’ll be in danger if they stay, so can you take them out of the forest
while the kids and I take care of things here?”
“Alright,” the
four armed apocra muttered, “Just be careful, dear.” Before the Mina, Daryl, or Celine could
protest, she scooped them into her arms and slithered off into the forest with
surprising speed.
“Just who in
the goddess’s name are you?!” Celine called after she had regained her
composure.
Cradling them
delicately in her arms, the huge woman smiled.
“My name is Echidna. Now, I don’t
know who you three are, but, unfortunately, you’ve stumbled into a war zone,”
she sighed, glancing back in the direction they had come from, “So much for
Aeon’s plan of diverting the raiding party away from the village.”
“If you’re
working to protect the village, do you know anything about our families or
friends?” Mina called out as bravely as she could, “We got separated from them,
so-”
“There’s a
barrier over Gesthal, so they should be fine.
You three need to worry more about yourselves,” Echidna murmured.
She slithered
past a few lumbering apocra with leathery brown skin that were quickly pounced
upon by a troupe of winged apocra that had talons and feathered bodies, but
human heads and torsos. The woods began to thin and Echidna looked back to make
sure they weren’t being followed.
“I’ll try and
take you out of here, but-agh!” Echidna let out a grunt of surprise as a horde
of skeletons and reanimated corpses leapt out of the ground and grabbed at her two
tails. “Dammit, get off me!” she howled,
trying to slap them away even as more sprang up and clung to her body. Before she could shake them off, a gigantic
blade of flame carved a huge gash in the ground in front of them. Swerving to avoid the gash, Echidna twisted
herself into a ball and shielded the girls with her body as she crashed headfirst
into a tree.
The impact
threw Mina out of Echidna’s arms, straight into a large pile of snow. “Miss Echidna?!” Mina called, lifting her
head and shaking excess snow from her clothes.
Panting hard, she looked around and put a hand to her thumping chest,
trying to quiet her rapidly beating heart.
“Celi? Daryl?!” she called
out. A low groan came from the snow
around a nearby tree was the only response she got. Scrabbling over to the tree, Mina frantically
dug through the snow. When she found a
corner of Daryl’s purple cloak, she redoubled her efforts, ignoring the
throbbing pain that ran through her hands from digging in the ice cold dirt. A sigh of relief escaped her lips when she uncovered
her friends’ faces. “Are you two
alright?” Mina murmured, reaching down to help them up.
“Mina…run…” Celine choked out, pointing behind
her.
Mina turned to
see a dozen skeletons and several reanimated corpses brandishing weapons at
them. What little flesh the undead had
barely clung to their bodies and they hissed and moaned like wild beasts at the
trio before fanning out to surround them.
“Daryl, can
you do anything? Holy magic is supposed
to fend off the walking dead, right?!” Mina called, frantically shaking her
purple haired friend’s shoulders.
“I…I can’t fight
undead yet! I’m not ready!” Daryl
whimpered, clinging to Mina like a little girl as tears fell unbidden from her
eyes.
Patting her on
the back, Mina softened her tone. “I…I’m
sorry, Daryl,” Mina murmured. “It’s
alright. Just…just help Celi up and
we’ll make a run for it, okay?”
“Mina!” Celine exclaimed when one of the
reanimated corpses lunged at her.
Mina gasped
and pushed Daryl away from the corpse, but before it could sink its rotted teeth
into her skin, a circular saw blade suddenly whipped past her, slicing the corpse’s
head off. The body fell to the ground,
lifeless. A figure covered in a wooly
brown cloak stepped out of the forest and the saw blade rushed towards it,
pulled by a thin cord connected to a strap that was attached to its wrist.
“You three
okay?” the figure called out.
Long beyond
shock, the three girls could only nod numbly as they watched the figure step in
front of them and raise the blade at the assembled undead.
“Well, that’s
good at least,” the figure muttered, pulling back the cloak’s hood reveal a
young woman with smooth green skin, a mostly shaven head, save for her long,
braided brown ponytail, pointed ears, and two small fangs in the bottom of her
mouth that stuck out above her lip. “But
I’ll be damned! Didn’t believe Dem at first
when he said he saw three girls runnin around in the forest. But here ya are.”
“Who…no,
forget that,” Celine mumbled. “What are
you?”
“Name’s
Yuka. I’m a neeg workin with the other
folks you’ve seen around here,” she smiled, even as the corpses and skeletons
charged her. Flicking something on her
wrist, the circular saw began to spin and she whipped it out on its long thin
cord, effortlessly slicing through several skeletons at once while talking with
the girls. “See you’ve noticed my little
toy. Invented it myself. Whadda ya think?”
“A neeg…”
Celine hissed, narrowing her eyes at Yuka.
“What’s one of your kind doing out here?!”
“Well…that’s a
fine howdya do…” Yuka sighed, slicing through the remnants of the undead before
pulling her blade back. “I’m here cause
Dem asked me ta look out for ya. Then
again, maybe he thought he’d get chewed out by Aeon if he let ya die…either
way, I’m glad I found ya,” Yuka said, holding out a hand to help them up.
Celine gritted
her teeth and batted the hand aside.
Before she could raise her fists, however, Daryl grabbed hold of her and
said, just loud enough for her and Mina to hear, “Celine, now’s not the time to
let old wounds to be reopened…this woman can help us, so please…!” Daryl’s eyes
were tearing up again and her hands trembled when she held Celine’s fist.
“Celi, it’s
alright. Look at her,” Mina whispered,
glancing up at the smiling neeg, “She’s not like the ones you escaped from.”
“What’re you
lot whisperin about?” Yuka mumbled.
Before they
could reply, new creatures sprang out of the ground, but these were unlike the
skeletons and reanimated corpses from before.
Their bodies were gaunt and emaciated and their skin was purple from
decay with veins sticking out of their arms and heads. Snarling and slavering at the four of them,
the purple creatures raised rusted weapon and began to fan out around them with
surprising speed.
“Ghouls…” Yuka
bit her lip. Pulling a blocky container
with a fuse out from under her cloak, she snapped two rings on her left hand
together, which sparked and lit the fuse.
“Sorry, but looks like this is all I can do for ya,” she grunted,
tossing the sphere at the ghouls. “Get
ready ta run!”
An explosion
burst out of the sphere, momentarily deafening the girls and kicking up a screen
of smoke all around them. Fanning smoke
away from her face, Mina coughed and looked back at Yuka, who had drawn the
ghouls away from them and was fighting the undead off with her spinning saw
blade.
“Ya need ta get out of here! If these things bite ya, it’s all over! So get goin!
I’ll hold em off,” she cried, kicking one of the ghouls back only to
have another one lunge towards her.
Grabbing her
friend’s hands, Celine lingered for a moment, as Yuka pulled back just before
one of the ghouls bit her. Narrowing her
eyes, Celine tore her gaze away from the neeg and dragged Daryl and Mina away
from the battle. Though they stumbled at
first, the girls ran until the sounds of the saw blade biting into trees and
flesh faded from their ears. Dropping to
one knee, Celine tried to catch her breath while Mina and Daryl collapsed in
the snow, panting hard and covered in sweat.
“I…I can’t
take another step!” Daryl grunted, holding her hand to her chest. “If something else pops out, it can have me…”
“Don’t say that!”
Mina snapped, panting equally as hard.
“I bet we’re almost clear of the forest, so just…just…” her voice
trailed off when she saw a mass of flesh, vaguely humanoid in appearance, that
was easily twice their height and engulfed in flames, push its way through the
trees. It looked down on them with a
head that seemed to lack eyes and raised a pudgy, malformed hand in their
direction.
Trembling
uncontrollably, tears sprang to Mina’s eyes and she began to frantically edge
away from the creature. “N-No…no, it…it
can’t be…” she whispered, her voice dying into a rasp. “Stay away from me!”
“Mina, is
that…?” Celine murmured, glancing back at her wide eyed friend.
“Oh, goddess…”
Daryl cringed behind them.
Putting
herself between the other two girls and the monster, Celine held her hands out
to either side. “Stay back! We don’t want any trouble, so just leave us
alone!” she yelled.
“That won’t
work, Celi!” Mina cried, tugging on her friend’s cloak. “This thing isn’t like the others!”
The blob of
flesh reached out to capture the three of them, however, a gigantic hand of
bone shot out of the ground and held it still.
A huge skeleton with thicker bones and more craggy features than a human
crawled out of the ground and put itself between the blob of flesh and the
girls. The skeleton grabbed the blob of
flesh and began to grapple with it, forcing it back while a little girl dressed
in a black robe that was a little too big for her strolled into sight, twirling
a toy scepter in her hand.
“Phew, that
was close,” she giggled. “When uncle
Dakon and aunt Ecchi told me you’d gotten lost, I was worried. Glad I found you,” the girl said, bowing her
head to them. She had a cute, innocent
face, with coarse, black hair that went halfway down her back.
“Di-did you
summon that?” Daryl stammered, crawling over to the little girl.
“Of course,
silly. Who else would?” she laughed and
tapped Daryl playfully on the forehead with her toy scepter.
“Kill it…”
Mina let out a barely audible hiss.
“That…that thing is a monster! Kill
it!” she screamed as tears poured out of her eyes.
“Huh?” the
little girl tilted her head and looked back at her skeleton, which was still
grappling with the giant mass of flaming flesh.
Suddenly, two
more flaming blobs of flesh burst through the woods. Tackling the skeleton to the ground, they pummeled
it relentlessly until it was smashed to bits.
The little
girl’s smile faded and she held out her tiny scepter, which transformed into
quarter staff that was taller than she was.
Tapping it on the ground, she placed her hand to the dirt. “Fair’s fair,” she smirked, “If you get
reinforcements, so do I!”
After the
little girl had placed her hand to the ground, a giant sphere of bones burst
out of the earth in front of them. Skeletal
hands, legs and skulls shot out of the sphere, attached to chains made of bone,
and encircled the monsters. With a snap
of the little girl’s fingers, more bones sprang free of the sphere and wrapped
around the creatures, completely engulfing them. The bones squeezed the blobs of flesh harder
and harder until an audible crunch could be heard and blood began to leak
through the bones.
“Well, that’s
the end of that,” the little girl laughed, dusting her hands off and smiling at
the three girls.
“N-necromancer…she’s
a necromancer,” Daryl whispered. “Look
at her…she can’t be more than six years old, but-”
“Mina?” Celine
mumbled, looking over at her friend, whose mouth hung open and whose body was
shaking uncontrollably. “Mina, are you
okay?!”
Mina’s eyes
focused and she cast Celine a vacant glance.
Fresh tears began streaming down her cheeks, but before she could reply,
half a dozen more flaming lumps of flesh came into sight. Flailing about in terror, Mina let out a
heart stopping shriek and broke into a run, leaving her friends and the little
girl behind.
Without
looking back, Mina tore through the forest for several minutes until she
tripped on a root and fell face first into the snow. Lifting herself up on her hands and knees,
Mina began to weep and beat the ground in impotent rage. “I…I ran…” she sobbed, pounding the frozen
earth until the bottom of her hand was bruised and bloody. “I ran!
I ran again! I…I left them to
die! I…!”
Suddenly, a
hand caught hold of her arm before she could strike the ground any more. Turning her head around, she saw Celine wipe
a patch of sweaty blonde hair out of her eyes as a relieved smile crossed her
lips. “Found you,” she panted, pulling
Mina close and wrapping her arms around the fourteen year old girl’s shoulders.
“Goddess,
please…no more running,” Daryl grunted, leaning against the back of a tree.
“Y-you came
for me…?” Mina fumbled with the words as tears continued to stream down her
cheeks.
“Well we
weren’t staying back there with a necromancer!” Daryl snapped. “And what kind of question is that?! Of course we came for you!”
Scrunching her
eyes shut, Mina began to cry like a baby, clinging to Celine as if she were her
mother. “Celi, I-I’m so-sorry! I di-didn’t mean t-to r-run…I di-didn’t
w-want to l-leave you be-behind, I-” she bawled.
“It’s
alright…we’re still alive and we’re still together, so it’s fine,” Celine cooed
in Mina’s ear.
After a few
minutes, Mina settled down and began to breathe a little easier. She leaned against Celine’s chest and Celine
patted her on the head. Dabbing at her
eyes with her cloak, Mina pulled away from Celine and stumbled to her feet.
Mina’s legs
were shaking uncontrollably, so Celine put Mina’s arm around her shoulder while
holding onto her waist. “Daryl,” Celine
said, glancing over at the purple haired girl resting her back against a pine
tree. “We need to move.”
“Wh-what?!”
Daryl panted.
Closing her
eyes for a moment, Celine cupped a hand around one of her ears. “Can you hear
that? Something’s coming…”
“I can hear it
too,” Mina whispered, when a dull stomping reached her ears. “It sounds like…footsteps!”
The ground
shook and the needles of the evergreen trees rustled as a large shadow
approached the girls. With a thunderous
crash, the trees to the right of Mina and the others were torn asunder by a
giant, spiked mace. Stepping over the
shattered tree trunks, a huge, bloated corpse bearing a single, rotted eye in
the center of its skull snarled at the three girls.
“Oh. It’s just one of the walking dead,” Mina
almost laughed in relief.
“Can you
walk?” Celine whispered.
“I…” Mina
stammered, her legs still quaking.
The one eyed
corpse raised its mace to strike the pair, but Daryl staggered over to their
side and threw her hands out in front of her, forming a thin barrier of light
between them and the undead. When the
mace crashed into the barrier, it shattered in an instant, but momentarily
forced the corpse backwards.
“Th-that’s all
I’ve got,” Daryl panted, falling to her knees.
“I can’t go on.”
“But…but we
can’t just let it end this way!” Mina cried.
“Celi, help me with her, maybe we can-” as she tried to help Daryl up,
Mina’s legs gave out and she fell into the snow.
The one eyed
corpse raised its mace again, but before it could crush them a dozen stone
spikes shot out of the ground and impaled the creature. Darting out of the woods, a man garbed in a
hooded black cloak leapt into the air and threw both of his hands out in front
of him. Mina saw the air in front of the
man’s hands distort before the corpse’s head was blown apart. Without its head, the body went limp, propped
up only by the spikes.
Out of the
forest, a muscular, bare-chested man with pointed ears and long orange-gold
hair strolled into sight wearing only a set of dark green trousers and a flippant
smirk. “They never learn, do they?” he sneered
at the corpse.
“The raid
should be winding down,” the man in the black cloak muttered, “We should go
support the others.”
“Hmm? Hold a moment.” The bare-chested man looked
behind him and laid eyes on the three girls, panting in the snow. “My, my…what would such pretty young ladies
be doing all alone in these woods, hmm?” his voice seeped with saccharine charm
as he gave them a deep bow.
All three
girls blushed deeply, but before they could respond to him, the man in black
buffeted him on the back of the head and sighed. “Is now really the time, Gadius? Anyway, look at them! They’re children. Far too young for…wait…” the man turned to
them, his pale face barely visible underneath his hood. “What are you doing here?!”
“We’ve been running
for our lives!” Celine snapped. “Can
either of you help us?! Or at the very
least, can you tell us where the edge of the forest is?!”
“Do you know
these girls?” the man named Gadius raised an eyebrow at the man in black.
“No,” the man
in black retorted immediately. “Nothing
like that.” Turning is glance back to
them, he knelt down on one knee and Mina could see a hint of silvery hair
underneath his hood. “Who are you?”
“Honestly,
Vincent, you have no class,” Gadius sneered.
“I wonder what Austarine sees in you.
That’s not how you treat a lady.
You should introduce yourself first before asking a young lady for her
name.”
Wagging his
finger at Gadius, the man named Vincent said, “As if I need advice from a
womanizing jela-vey like yo-” He stopped mid sentence and they both looked back
in the direction of the propped up corpse.
The ground rumbled, knocking snow from the branches of the trees. The sky above the tree tops began to glow
crimson.
“Something’s
coming,” Celine whispered, trying to help Mina to her feet. “Something big. We should leave while we still can.”
“Think it’s a
Goetian noble?” Gadius mumbled to Vincent.
He
nodded. “This one won’t go down easily. Gadius, see to the girls.”
Turning to
face them, Gadius flicked two of his fingers upwards and a dome of solid rock
sprang up around the three of them.
“Hey! Let us out, you bastard!” Celine banged on
the rock, producing little more than a dull thump.
“Wait,
Celi. I…I think they were trying to
protect us,” Mina whispered, touching her friend’s shoulder.
“Maybe,
but…ugh, I can’t think straight!” Daryl groaned, propping her back up against
the dome’s wall. “We’ve almost been
sliced up by Goetians, eaten by apocra, and smashed to bits by undead. Yet, the ones who’re trying to save us are these
Telnumbrans?! I mean…has the entire
world gone mad?!”
As if in
response to her query, the man in black was catapulted through the dome’s rock
wall before crashing into the snow behind them.
Scrambling out
of the dome, Mina lifted Vincent’s head and peeled back his hood. Without it, the man seemed remarkably pale,
but also fairly young. Only a few
strands of silver hair poked out from under a white bandana he had wrapped
around his head, but what caught Mina by surprise were the two fangs she saw
jutting out of the top of his mouth.
Climbing
through the hole Vincent had made in their prison, Daryl recoiled when she got
a good look at Vincent’s face. “Mina,
get back…he’s a teythen.”
“He looks
hurts. Daryl, can you heal him?” Mina
mumbled.
“Why would I
heal a-?!”
“Not all teythens
are bad, Daryl!” Mina snapped. “I knew
several when I visited Ahri and my father even worked as a cartographer for a
few!”
“Then you
ought to know that holy magic cannot be used to heal my kind,” Vincent muttered,
slowly opening his eyes.
“Are you
alright?” Mina whispered, taking his arm and helping him to his feet. Holding out her arm, she added, “Do you need
any-?”
“No,” Vincent
quickly interjected, lowering Mina’s arm to her side, “But thank you.” He
patted her shoulder and smiled, though one of his eyes seemed to have a nervous
twitch when he looked at her.
“Uh…guys?”
Celine stammered. Mina, Daryl, Celine,
and Vincent all turned their gazes towards the immense shadow which had fallen
on Gadius.
Standing over
him was a creature easily ten times his size with a mottled black and red body
that somewhat resembled a human.
However, the creature’s head looked like an upside down cone with
crimson hair spilling out of the top.
The giant was garbed in a cloak of fire and wielded a giant flaming
sword.
Gadius had his
feet planted in the snow and it looked like roots had sprung out of his legs
and buried themselves in the ground. All
around him, vines and branches were growing out of the trees. With waves of his hands, Gadius flung them at
the giant, trying to entangle its massive legs, but each time the vines and
branches touched him, they burst into flames.
Gadius raised his hand and water began to rain down on the vines to
extinguish the flames. However, no
matter how wet the branches or vines became, the moment they touched the giant,
they were set alight once more.
“Gadius, you
need to stop using the trees!” Vincent called.
“Use the rocks! They won’t catch
fire!”
“Brilliant suggestion,”
Gadius sneered, “but that won’t be enough!” the jela-vey retorted, cupping his
hands together and raising them above his head.
“Well, I guess it doesn’t hurt to try!”
A boulder
leapt out of the earth, leaving a small crater in its wake. With a wave of his hand, Gadius sent the boulder
catapulting into the giant’s head. The
boulder nailed the giant Goetian in the eye and he let out a roar of pain. Holding his free hand up to his eye, the
Goetian tried to sweep its sword along the ground and engulf everything in
flames. Gadius raised another hand and
one of his knees, balancing on one foot as he did. A wall of water and rocks shot out of the
ground, barely holding back the giant’s sword.
Dashing past
the girls, Vincent leapt over the dome and raised both of his hands in the
direction of the sword. The air in front
of him distorted and an unseen force slammed into the flaming blade. The giant staggered backwards from the
combined attack. Glaring at Vincent and
Gadius, the Goetian snarled at the pair, spewing flaming saliva all around and
setting the forest ablaze.
“Doesn’t look
like we’ll be able to take him down if we keep holding back,” Gadius muttered,
planting his foot back into the ground.
“Should I finish it?”
Glancing back
at Mina and her friends, Vincent gritted his teeth and muttered, “Give me a moment
to get them clear of the area.”
“If you do
that, who’s to say more of Agni’s forces won’t find them before we do?” Gadius
turned and looked over at the girls as he plunged his hand into the ground and
pulled out a gigantic fist of hardened rock.
“I’m sending
word to Aeon,” Vincent muttered. A piece
of his shoulder dissolved into two rodent-like creatures which flew into the
air on a set of leathery wings. “He’s
not far from us. I know that he can protect
them.”
The giant bore
down on them again, trying to cleave Gadius in half, but he caught the blade
with rock covered arm. “I hope you’re
ready, cause this is your big chance!” Gadius grunted. With a mighty heave, he was able to fling the
giant’s sword backwards and unbalance him.
While the
giant was distracted, Vincent raised his hand in the direction of Mina and her
friends. “Hold on, you three!” he
called.
When Vincent
raised his hand, Mina, Daryl, and Celine were lifted off their feet by an
invisible force and thrown backwards through the forest. Despite the speed at which they were thrown,
they always swerved away from the trees and avoided the flames entirely. After breaking free of the forest, whatever
held them dissipated and the three girls fell onto the snowy earth. From there, they could see several of the
large monsters, including the flaming giant, still battling within the woods.
“Are we
finally safe?” Daryl asked, flopping onto her back.
“I doubt
it. We should probably keep moving,”
Celine replied.
“Feel free…I’m
spent…” Daryl groaned.
“Daryl…” Mina
sighed.
“Princess, if
you want to live then get your ass up and start marching!” Celine snapped,
pulling Daryl up by the collar of her cloak and slapping her. “It’s not easy trying to keep all of us alive
with you grumbling all the time! So shut
up and get moving!”
Mina tried to
force her way between them. “Celi,
stop! I know we’re all tired and scared,
but fighting, isn’t the way to-”
“You’re
right…I-I’m sorry,” Daryl mumbled, rubbing her red cheek. “I…I’m just not used to any of this! I’ve only read about monsters like these in
my books. I didn’t think I’d be facing
them this soon!” she mumbled, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Umm…I-I’m sorry,
Daryl,” Celine lowered her eyes and let go of Daryl’s cloak. “Look, let’s just get moving.”
“Not so fast!”
the three of them looked up in exhaustion and horror as a Goetian, wreathed in
flames and almost as big as the fiery giant from before, flapped down in front
of them.
It bore two
massive, leathery wings engulfed in fire with claws coming out of the tips and the
Goetian’s mouth was full of long, pointed teeth, despite lacking a bottom
jaw. It glared at them with eyes like
burning coals, before speaking. “I doubt
you know anything, but I was told to explore all avenues…” the creature growled
in a voice that sounded like flesh being shattered under stone. Scratching at its pointed ears, it sent a
cascade of sparks down on the three girls.
“We’re looking for something…special.
Would you know of any magical items in your village, or-”
Mina’s eyes
widened and she glared at the Goetian.
Her heart began pounding and she stumbled to her feet. “St-still haven’t f-found it, h-has he?” she
spat, breathing hard and shaking uncontrollably. “Well whatever you’re looking for, it’s not
here! So just…just leave us alone!” she
screamed, before her legs finally gave out and she collapsed on the ground.
“You don’t
know? What a pity…” the flaming Goetian hissed,
reeling back its claws to strike at them.
Celine and
Daryl clung to Mina and the three girls scrunched their eyes shut as the
creature raked its claw at them. A
moment passed, but the claws never touched them.
“Are you
unharmed?” a cold, emotionless voice called out to them.
Opening their
eyes, Mina and her friends saw a figure swathed in black holding up the
Goetian’s claw with a hand of bleached white bone, his other hand calmly folded
behind his back. Mina’s mouth opened and a dry, terrified squeal escaped her
lips when the figure turned around to look back at them. Floating several feet off the ground was a
skeleton that lacked legs or a pelvis, garbed in a hooded black cloak that
trailed down past his body. His eyeless
sockets filled with green flame and he opened his lipless mouth once again.
“Did you hear me? I asked if you three were unharmed.”
“Another
one…at this point, nothing can surprise me,” Celine put a hand over her eyes
and laughed out loud.
“You…you
idiot!” Daryl hissed as quietly as she could.
“Do you have any idea what that thing is?!”
“Huh?” Celine
glanced over at Daryl, who was shaking in place. “Well, he saved us, so he’s probably with the
others, right? What’s it matter?”
“What’s it
matter?!” Daryl almost forgot to keep her voice hushed, “That creature is a
soulless monster with power equal to a Bishop!
Possibly even greater! It’s a-!”
“L-lich…” Mina
whimpered, her heart thumping so hard it sounded as if it might burst from her
chest at any moment. “He’s…a lich…”
“Hmmm...I
suppose that would be a yes,” the figure mused.
Turning back to the Goetian, whose claw was slowly being encased in ice
as he held it, the lich threw him back with ease. Floating higher into the air, he addressed
the creature. “What is the purpose of this
raid, Zotz? What is it you are searching
for?”
“As if I’d
tell you! Hehe, you know he would skin
me alive if I let something slip, oh great and powerful Frozen Shade…” the
Goetian called Zotz sneered.
“I see,” the
skeletal figured nodded. Raising one
bony hand, he held it out to the flaming Goetian. A wave of ice erupted from his palm, crashing
over Zotz and extinguishing nearly all his flames. The giant Goetian was encased from the neck
down and writhed in his frozen prison.
“Now, once more,” the lich emotionlessly muttered. “What is your purpose here?”
“Gragh! Damn this…this burns!” Zotz shrieked. “Fine!
We were told to find something special for Agni!”
“Agni…” Mina
stammered, wrapping her arms around her legs and digging her nails into her
skin.
“What is he
looking for?” the lich asked.
“I don’t-agh!”
Zotz’s words were cut short by a spear of flaming bone and muscle that pierced
his heart. A red circle with a pentagram
in the center that was filled with runic characters appeared underneath the Goetian’s
corpse and sucked him into the ground before disappearing.
Looking into
the distance, Mina saw that the spear had been hefted by one of the lumbering
blobs of flaming flesh, which now approached the lich flanked by nearly a dozen
others. With a sigh, the lich descended
to the ground and folded both hands behind his back. He started to float towards the girls, but stopped
when Mina began to tremble uncontrollably and clambered behind Celine to get
away from him.
Shaking his
head, the lich turned around and put his hand to the ground. A creature made up of the bones of countless
apocra sprouted from the earth. It
supported itself on thick, craggy leg bones, while innumerable skulls coiled
around its torso. Slowly, the skulls
unraveled themselves and leered at the flaming masses of flesh.
Flying into
the air once more, the lich swept his hand over the area and water sprayed out
of his palm, dousing the flames which cloaked the blobs of flesh. The lich pointed at the blobs of flesh and the
motley creature of bone sprang to life. It
charged at the lumbering monsters, shooting off skulls connected by chains of
bone that encircled and bound the masses of flesh. When they had all been caught, innumerable
claws sprang from the skeletal monster and it proceeded to rend the blobs of
flesh asunder, one at a time. The lich
descended to the ground as more flaming masses of flesh appeared on the
horizon.
Mina slowly
got to her feet and saw the next wave of monsters approach before turning her
gaze to the lich and his creature of bone.
Barely able to control her trembling, she saw the lich glance back at
her, his eyes glowing with green flames, and he gave her what might amount to a
smile had he still borne a face. When
she saw this, Mina’s eyes widened and she frantically shook her head back and
forth. She began to edge backwards
before breaking into a run. Grabbing Celine
and Daryl by their arms, she pulled them after her with strength born of sheer
panic.
“Wait! You must not go that way!” the lich called.
Mina barely
heard him, focusing solely on putting as much distance between the three of
them and the skeletal figure as possible.
After several minutes of intense sprinting, the lich and his opponents
vanished from sight.
“Mina, you
need to stop or you’ll kill yourself!” Celine called, pulling her to a halt.
“Okay, what
was that?!” Daryl snapped, though her heart still pounded almost as loud as
Mina’s. “What’s with you, Mina?!”
“Can’t…can’t
stay here!” she cried, collapsing in the snow and wrapping her arms around her
legs. “Can’t let the lich get me!”
Celine and
Daryl’s expressions softened and they gave her a warm hug, which eased Mina’s
terror somewhat. Helping Mina to her
feet, the three of them looked around.
Though the crimson flames that burned in the forest could be seen
reflected on the clouds, the forest itself was a fair distance away from them. Through the clouds, they could see the sun
setting in the distance
“C’mon,”
Celine muttered, “It’ll be night soon.
We need to try and find some cover.”
Scanning the horizon, she pointed to a glimmer she saw in the
distance. “There! We might be safe over there!”
“What did you
see?” Daryl shivered, stumbling along through the snow while still trying to
support Mina.
“It was metal…possibly
a door of some kind!” Celine called as the wind picked up and fresh snow began
to fall around them.
The three of
them headed over to what appeared to be a plain iron door, but noticed that it
wasn’t connected to anything. Running
their hands on either side of the door, however, the girls discovered that
something solid was in front of them, but concealed from sight. Grabbing the door’s handle, Mina and Celine
pulled it open, revealing a dark hallway made of stone.
“This is a bad
idea…” Daryl stammered, as the two girls peered inside.
“I don’t
care,” Mina swallowed hard and looked behind them, “We… we need to get away
from that…that thing!”
“Let’s go,”
Celine shuddered, ushering the other two inside, “No matter what this place is,
it beats spending a night in the snow.
Trust me,” she added grimly.
As they
stumbled through the warm darkness, Daryl held out her hand and a sphere of
light sprang formed in her palm. “Hehe,
guess I’ve still got a little life left in me…” she chuckled joylessly as they
walked through the empty stone hall.
For a moment,
silence engulfed them before Mina tugged on her friends’ arms like an errant
child. “I…I’m sorry. I’ve been crying and screaming like a scared
little girl all day. And now, we’re…”
“Don’t worry
about it,” Celine said with a smile. “We
understand. Besides, we’ve been
screaming our heads off too.”
“Though…it
must have been hard seeing those fleshy monsters again,” Daryl sighed, holding
a hand to her heart. “But you weren’t
the only one spooked by that lich. If
you hadn’t run, I probably would have,” Daryl smiled at Mina and gave her hand
an affectionate squeeze.
“I thought I
was over all this, but…”
“You’re
stronger than you give yourself credit, Mina,” Celine muttered. “I know from experience.”
A smile
finally made its way back onto Mina’s lips just before another iron door came
into sight.
“Any idea
what’s on the other side of this?” Daryl said.
“Can it really
be worse than what’s out there?” Celine jerked her thumb in the direction they
had come from.
“As long as I
have you two, I don’t care either way,” Mina said, stepping forward and pulling
on the door handle.
When it
opened, they stepped into what seemed like daylight. Closing her hand around the sphere of light,
Daryl stepped through the door with Mina and Celine.
They seemed to
be standing at the edge of another world.
All around them, various different landscapes from all over Serano appeared
to somehow be stitched together. There
was a desolate valley to the west, with a black river running through the
middle, while to the east was an immense forest, filled with several bizarre
buildings that towered above the trees. Sheer
rock walls bordered the entire area, and a small mountain range seemed to reach
up to the sky beyond the forest in the east.
However, their eyes fixed upon one sight in the distance. Like a giant snowflake which captured the
last dying rays of light before dusk, a tower of shimmering crystal sat upon a
hill in the center of the landmass.
While Celine
and Daryl gasped in shocked surprise, Mina wiped a tear from her already bleary
eyes. “It’s…it’s beautiful,” she
murmured, falling to her knees.
The joyous
moment abruptly ended when a strange clicking sound became audible all around
them.
“Does anyone
else hear that?” Daryl said aloud.
“Yeah…I’d know
that sound anywhere,” Celine grimaced.
“It’s neeg machinery!”
“Wh-what?”
Mina mumbled, looking up at Celine in confusion.
“We need to
get out of here,” Celine grunted, grabbing Mina and pulling Daryl back into the
hallway. Before they got halfway through
it, however, the floor beneath them buckled.
The girls only had time to look at one another in wide eyed panic before
the ground collapsed out from underneath them, sending the three girls
spiraling into an abysmal black pit.
As she fell,
Mina felt herself lose hold of Celine.
Though she frantically looked from side to side, she was unable to find
either of her friends. “Daryl! Celi!” Mina frantically cried out, her eyes
fixing on a sliver of light that came from where they had fallen. Gradually, the sliver of light disappeared
and Mina was engulfed in darkness.
