Vraxious- The Forsaken Lands
Vrax looked at the dreadfeast clutching a shimmering black and red gem coated in gore that it had dug from within the Urgoth. Mana cores, or mana gems—they had several names, but they came from either monsters past the first advancement of level twenty-five or from rare mineral deposits in mana-dense areas. They could do many things. The most common kind could be used as a reservoir for mana, allowing you to cast spells beyond your means or continue using skills when your own mana was gone. That kind was single use and very valuable.
“Do Not eat that!!!” Vrax shouted, stumbling towards the dreadfeast and its shiny new toy. It looked at him, let out a chuff, and swallowed it in a single gulp, not bothering to chew.
“Aww shit, your debt just ate a thing that could have gotten you out of debt!” Torvald joked he was standing still letting the nobles ring stymie the last of his bleeding before he got back to it.
“AAGAGHhhh…” Vrax made a vague throttling gesture at the Dreadfeast, who just honked at him like an actual goose and dived back inside the corpse it was on.
“Sooo…are we continuing on, or…did you want to work on your gold management skills first?” Torvald prompted sarcastically.
“Just...let me gather what’s left of my garden real quick….fucking expensive ass…hides all goddamn fight…” Vrax went around gathering the plants that weren’t in tatters, while angrily muttering to himself about ungrateful pets. He paused slightly as Sunshine slid across the rocks near him, trying to get at a butterfly nearby. He let out a deep sigh before he added the monstrosity.
[Stigmata Garden 8/12]
[Lurker mushroom]
[Maneater Daisy]
[Sunshine](Two Slots)
[Adapted Vein Diver Dandelion]
[Adapted Vein Diver Dandelion]
[Adapted Vein Diver Dandelion]
[Retriever Hive]
Oh…..well, the dandelions multiplied, and I lost most of the lurkers. For some reason Sunshine takes up more space now? Probably crossed either a size or maybe a power threshold after that last fight. But the big one, and kind of terrifying…it takes longer, but the Maneater Daisies will multiply, even hidden away in the stigmata garden. I'll do some more investigating after we make it to the broken-ass mill.
They rested a small way away from the scene of the battle for about an hour to let their mana recover. Unholy snuffling and growls came from the area that held the corpse; that massive bounty of meat would turn into a battleground before the night was over as dark things crawled forth, drawn by the smell of blood. They very abruptly decided it was time to get going when two large creatures started roaring challenges at each other in the distance. If something was that loud in the Forsaken Lands and not dead yet, it’s because even by this place’s standards it was scary.
They rushed farther down the streams, trying to avoid the rapidly closing monsters; one had a deep, bone-rattling growl that made it hard to breathe. That one was behind them. The answering trill ahead suddenly cut short, followed by a geyser of golden-red blood that shot so high into the air they could see it above the treetops. In its place the nearby trees creaked in fear, and the brooks burbling waters started lazily ignoring gravity, with random small balls of water and dirt lazily drifting around in the air.
“Vrax, what was that?" Torvald asked, spooked, as the laws of nature broke around them; a tree rushed through its seasonal cycles in a matter of seconds before simply melting and then reforming, slowly dripping in reverse like hot wax.
“Oh gods no, how can that be so close to town?” Vrax practically tugged Torvald sideways, angling them toward somewhere they very much didn’t want to go, but it was much better than running into the approaching cataclysm. The very air above them seemed to solidify into fractured pieces of reality, scattering the sunset’s rays across a vast swath of the woods; where these rays touched, reality broke. Somethings changed: river rocks turned to swaths of scintillating purple butterflies that descended immediately to cannibalize each other. Water transmuted to streams of lava, sending sudden waves of steam and fog throughout the trees.
“Vrax, what the fuck is it!?” Torvald shouted while dodging one of the now rainbow-colored rays of reality-twisting magic as it seared into a tree next to his mad dash; cold, appraising eyes popped from the bark where the ray struck, watching them flee with dark interest.
“Do Not PRAY, just run, Torvald! Whatever you do, don’t look at it if it comes into the open. We can make it to one of the sewer ruins nearby and hope it leads east!” Vrax huffed, running along, darting from rock to rock across the brooks and islands. Roots rose to aid his mad dash through the muck, the very life of the lands around him twisted by his talent, providing unending stepping stones across the treacherous ground.
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Torvald followed behind him, launching himself with a mix of superhuman leaps and midair charges. Together they tore through the muddy forest, flying by many other beasts too busy running themselves to continue the cycle of predator and prey. Everyone here now was prey to the thing that was coming.
They gained on it, eventually outpacing the broken sky as darkness descended, and Vrax and Torvald slowed into a cautious jog. Vrax was straining every bit of woodcraft he had to guide them safely at this speed in near darkness. He slid to a stop on top of a large mossy rock that fell away into a steep but short cliff overlooking a small, half-buried ancient ruin. Behind them the rays of a sunset appeared frozen into a cloud that drifted their way, lighting the forest behind them still with its mockery of what once was.
“Shit, it’s still coming. Torvald, get ready to fight. We have to get to cover. If we keep running blindly like this, we are going to end up dead before that thing gets to unmake us. So whatever made its nest down there, we have to go through, and right now.” Vrax said, trying to catch his breath. The Dreadfeast halfway hid behind his shoulder, looking towards the approaching “storm” behind them.
The ruin below them was a simple compound; one large, water-tower-like stone oval jutted up from murky, grass-covered ground, long shattered at the top. A stone wall that was once mighty now sat only waist-high, crisscrossed with black flowering vines. The smooth stone top of a roof with a crater in the center leading inside the building sat only a few feet above the grass. Moss long ago having taken over and carved its way inside. A faint blue glow was visible inside the building hiding under the soil. Alright, I really fucking hope that this is actually an aqueduct waystation and not some random storehouse, or we are going to be stuck in there until...IT…passes.
Vrax clambered down the cliff; it was a bizarre experience, the moss hardening as he gripped it, making the climb down laughably easy compared to how it should have been scaling a slick mossy rock face. Torvald simply leapt, and Vrax turned his head mid-climb to see the big bastard sailing outward, spinning slowly in midair and using his [Immovable Object] skill in a fascinating way. Torvald almost seemed to tease the mana out, half activating the skill over and over before canceling it, his leap changing to a halting glide until he rolled to a stop unharmed. Uhhh...holy hell, Torvald can't die from falling if he has mana. Oh no, he is going to use that to dramatically leap off everything.
“Oh hell yes, I’ve been wanting to try that for a while!” Torvald said in a hushed tone up towards Vrax.
Once Vrax was down, he and the Dreadfeast crept through the tall grass, practically invisible in the darkness, the dull green glow on both of them simply melting in with the occasional strands of luminescence strewn throughout the vegetation here. Vrax glided over the wall in a sharp vault, crouching just short of the roof to scan for signs of monsters.
Uncomfortably transparent spiders the size of his fist scuttled in and out of the hole in the roof, squirrels, lizards, and other small prey visible in their stomachs. Near the far edge of the roof, a small meaty pile of sludge quivered. There was even an extra dark shadowed divot in the cracks across the roof that occasionally snatched the spiders into its dark abyss as they passed. Finally, an angry-looking jet-black dog with no visible eyes or ears lapped at the moss with a fang-filled maw. But none of this set off any alarm bells for Vrax, as he mentally went over the diverse ecosystem present in just this small patch of the compound.
Don’t poke the slime; stay away from the shadow frog. It will leave us alone if we don’t wave our hands around like idiots. The spiders...well, I'd rather just not anyway, but unless we find the broodmother below, they aren't even a threat. Need to let Torvald know to leave the Fool's Hound alone; if he attacks that and triggers its transformation, we...might well be in trouble. Wait, why hasn’t that rabbit been grabbed by anything yet?
Hopping unevenly across the middle of the roof near the opening like it was injured was a small white rabbit with a thick puffy coat. The dreadfeast looked at it and let out a slight growl. Uhh...the psychopath hasn’t grabbed it yet, so that’s definitely not a bunny...or...fuck me… Vrax looked at the nearly transparent veins that occasionally pulsed with a black-grey liquid trailing from under the rabbit's left ear that led away from it and back into the building below. He motioned for Torvald to join him.
He addressed his friend. In hushed, hurried tones the approaching “storm” started to light the top of the not-so-distant cliff with reality-twisting light. “First, just ignore the wolf; as long as you don’t attack it, it won’t bother us.” Torvald’s eyebrow raised at that as the honestly rather creepy canine walked silently closer to them, lapping at more moss on the roof. “Ignore it; next we are going to jump down that hole, and there is one of two things waiting for us. I don’t know which one it will be. That rabbit is either the lure for an adventurer's bane mimic, and we are probably dead. Or that thing is being puppeted by a fucking Blood Marionette, and we are also probably dead, but if we lose, we get to be a problem for everyone else after it turns us into its crusty sock puppets.” Vrax said in an oddly humorless deadpan, The Fool's hound was snuffling the Dreadfeast without any sign of concern, a distracting background.
“Can we just look for another place to hide?” Torvald asked, starting to glance off into the dense foliage around them.
“Nope, no time.” Vrax's eyes caught the edges of the storm's source as it reached the top of the cliff face; only his mental resistance saved him, letting him rip his gaze away and back towards the roof. His eyes and nose dripped blood flecked with the rainbow light of the trapped sunset. “Torvald, look at the hole and nowhere else and jump in right now, or we die.”
Torvald’s face etched into a grim frown, and without another word, he threw himself over the rabbit and into the hole.
It took every bit of Vrax’s willpower to put one foot in front of another; he wanted nothing more right now than to gaze back into the warm, comfortable embrace of the perfect sunset. But he knew that way led to madness, and if he was lucky, death. When he had ripped his gaze away, he had seen just a part of its true face; there was no warmth within that...thing...there was only rage at what it had lost and the desire to rebuild itself. Vrax didn’t know how he knew this, but he was certain of it. He tipped forward, letting gravity send him into the safety of blue-tinged darkness and away from the all-consuming golden light of madness, words flaying his mind as the light washed past him.
“I used to be beautiful, did you see me? DID YOU SEE, WHAT I USED TO BE? LOOK, GAZE UPON ME! WHAT DO YOU SEE?!”