Beast Talker

We traversed through the forest, stamping through the twigs and leaves. The brush crunched under our footsteps, leaves and branches swung into our faces through the breeze and we had to shove them to the side. We walked carefully, cautious of any monsters that may be away from the cave that we were heading to; so far, we hadn’t heard any suspicious sounds in the forest. The track was a little muddy from the light drizzle that had came last night, providing a reprieve from the dry weather that we had been plagued with recently.

After walking for some time, we reached the two felled trees that we had been told about in the village inn. They were facing in alternate directions, forming a wedge shape that pointed into the forest. We stopped for a moment and rested on the logs, Rayall and Sara ventured into the surrounding trees, searching for any nearby monsters. They found none and returned to the group, having recovered our energies we left the track and delved into the thick woodland.

We crept slowly, making sure not to break any of the branches under our feet as we got closer to the cave. We came to a clearing that led into a deep ditch, at the end was the dark mouth of a cave. There were three beasts outside of it, padding across the earth and occasionally stopping to tilt their snouts upwards and sniff at the air. One was looking in our direction suspiciously, but we seemed to be hidden in the trees. By the look of their thick coats, their sheer size, the scratches that seemed to mar their faces, the wild look in their eyes and the sharp claws, there was only one thing that they could be. Savage Wargs.

They looked to be guarding the entrance, we wouldn’t be able to get through without first defeating them. I glanced towards Rayall who would be able to use a ranged attack, the thought occurred to me that we should all really learn how to use a bow. It would come in useful for times like this when only two of us could attack from a distance. “You get the one on the right, I’ll go for the left one” I whispered, not wanting to alert the wargs.

He nodded his head, and I stepped forward, placing a hand on Korin’s shoulder, “Be ready for the other” I warned him. He grunted a snort of understanding and gripped his axe in both hands. We crouched forward and I readied my mana in my hand, aiming at the savage warg. It would be risky, when I was in range of the monster, it would be able to see me and could pounce towards me. From what Anoir had said, savage wargs were dangerously fast.

Its head jerked towards me; I was seen. I fired my lightning bolt towards it and quickly began to ready another before I looked to see whether it had landed or not. A fireball hit the other warg, scorching the coat and knocking it onto its side. My lightning bolt had hit the warg, but only in the leg, it had slowed down and was still coming towards me. I fired my next bolt and struck the chest, dropping it down.

The third had made a bee line for Korin as he went forefront in our group. The dwarf raised his axe in both hands and raised up as the beast jumped towards him, the metal cleaved through the belly and cut it open, spraying dark blood down onto him.

The fight was over quickly, my adrenaline was still pumping as my eyes darted around for more enemies. Rayall walked up to the warg that he had hit, it was whimpering on the ground, a large burn mark on the coat. He plunged his sword into the heart and finished it off, we left their carcasses on the ground and approached the cave entrance. “Hello” Korin called out, his voice echoing through the rough walls.

“You think there might be any more behind us?” Sara asked, looking around but there was nothing to be seen except the greens and browns of the landscape.

“We could wait a bit” I suggested, “but we haven’t seen anything else in the forest so far, I think they might all be in the cave”

Cleo nodded her agreement, but we all waited for a few moments outside of the cave as we made our final preparations and regained our mana. Korin found a branch on the ground and wrapped a cloth around the head of it, dousing it in oil and asking Rayall to light it aflame. He handed the torch to Cleo; she was our weakest fighter and would have us to protect her so that she could hold it aloft to light the way.

We walked through the cave, the light of the torch flickering off the walls and making the shadows dance before us. We encountered more monsters on the way, goblins hissed at us and ran towards us before we cut through the skinny bodies. Rock Mites came from the walls of the cave and attacked us with their pincers, protected by the rocky carapace. Our swords clanged off of them, but our abilities had greater effect, Korin’s boot also managed to crack the protection and splatter their insides.

More monsters attacked us, and we cut through them with hardly any more damage than torn clothes. They were all relatively easy monsters to defeat, none of them gave any trouble and barely put up a fight. I couldn’t imagine why they had caused enough trouble for a contract to be put on the one responsible for their presence, in Blue-Rock my mother would have been able to deal with them easily enough.

It was a straight path through the cave as we went deeper into the ground, we had no need to split up and kept close together until we came to a great cavernous room. There were stalactites dropping from the roof of the cavern, dark shadows flickering from every inch. So much of the room was blanketed in darkness and shadow, at the far end of the room was the entrance to a tunnel that led even deeper underground.

Footsteps pounded across the stone, echoing through the cave from the direction of the tunnel. A man came out dressed in cheap and tattered brown robes, they were simple and seemed to be meant just to cover him and not provide any decoration. “No, no, no, no” he shouted at us, “What have you done? You have to stop” his face was stricken as he stared at us in horror.

“Is he the rogue adventurer?” Korin muttered to us as the man came closer

“I don’t see how anyone else could be down here and still alive” Sara whispered back

He stopped a few paces away from us, “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked dismayed at us for some reason.

“We’re killing the monsters, and I think we’re here to arrest you to” I said, still holding my sword in my hands as I looked at him. “Are you going to surrender, or do we have to **** you to stop this crime”

“NO!” he shouted, tears were pouring down his face, “They need me, they need me. I’m taking them home, they don’t belong here” he blabbered, his gaunt face and sunken eyes made him look like a mad man. His words did him no aid either.

“Shut up, you’re crazy. Just come with us and we won’t have to hurt you” Sara said, her eyes darting around the cave.

“You’re killing them, they haven’t hurt anyone and you’re killing them” he dropped to his knees and was sobbing. “They just want to go home” he wailed.

There was a movement above us and Rayall’s head jerked upwards, “Arachnyl’s” he warned us. He quickly launched a fireball in their direction, the flames lit up the shadows between the stalactites and showed a group of Arachnyl’s crawling across the roof. As the flame hit one of the monsters, it let out a hissing sound and a group of them dropped to the ground.

We all readied our weapons and turned to face them, “NO!” the man screamed as Rayall danced around and sliced into the body of one of them. I sent out a fire spout that lit the thin layer of fur on the monsters and set them hissing once more as they burned.

Korin moved in and finished them off as they writhed in pain, still burning on the ground. “YOU MONSTERS!” the man shouted, rising to her feet, his grief replaced with anger. “They just wanted to go home, why are you all… all so… savage” his voice faltered , the anger remained though.

He moved his hand into position, as though holding a sword, though his hand was empty. Suddenly, a sword of fire appeared in his hand, the flame illuminating his mad face. “I won’t let you hurt any more of them” he said with resolve. He swung the sword through the air and sent a wave of fire towards us.

We dodged backwards, dropping down to below the heat as it flew over us. I readied a lightning bolt and fired it towards him, I expected it to hit him, but he simply waved his empty hand, and it curved in the air. The bolt darted away from him and blasted into the wall of the cavern, sending out an explosion of rocks.

“What the hells was that?!” I exclaimed to no one in particular as I readied my weapon.

“Looks like a deflection ability” Rayall said as we began to separate and surround the man. He swung the inferno in his hand widely, looking around at all of us with a wild look. His breathing was ragged, and he lunged it towards me.

I didn’t know what to do, avoiding a sword of fire was not something I had trained for. I jumped backwards and tried to whack my sword against his, it passed through the fire, distorting it slightly but it reformed once it had passed though.

Korin tried to come up on him from behind, but the man whirled around, swinging the blaze at him. The dwarf’s beard caught alight, and he began to whack at it until the flame had gone out, leaving singed ends.

We couldn’t get close to him without him swinging the fire at us and any abilities that we sent towards him were deflected away. Sara grabbed the corpse of one of the Arachnyl’s with both hands, dropping her sword as she raised it in front of her. She held it forth and charged at the man, he turned and as he saw the arachnyl, he wavered. He dropped down the sword for a moment and Sara collided into him, dropping him down to the ground. The sword disappeared.

As he fell down, his head dashed against the side of a rock on the ground and began to bleed. He didn’t move as he lay on the ground and a heavy puddle of blood surrounded his head. “Shit, I think he’s dead” Cleo said as she looked down at him. She crouched and touched the wound, “Yeah, there’s nothing left” she confirmed, shaking her head.

Sara’s face paled slightly at the sight, “Ay, it wasn’t your fault lass” Korin said to her, “He probably would’ve got us if you hadn’t done that. He just took a bad fall is all.” She nodded her head in understanding.

Korin crouched down and inspected his hand, pulling off a ring that had the face of Cleonora on it, his temple ring. He looked down at him again and closed the eyes of the corpse, “Man went crazy” he muttered.

A noise sounded from the tunnel that the man had came from, a terrible shriek that vibrated in my ear drums. My blood ran cold at the sound, I had never heard anything so terrible. “What was that?” Rayall muttered as we all unconsciously began to step backwards to where we had come from.

A swarm of shadows emerged from the tunnel and as they hit the light they resolved into figures, monstrous figures. A minotaur was in the lead, a swarm of shrieks fluttered through the air behind it, more monsters even more devastating a creature than what came before it emerged from the tunnel, charging towards us. It didn’t take us long to reach a decision, we ran.

We barrelled back through the way we had come; I was worried that we may trip over the uneven floor, but we had **** but to take the risk. I glanced back and they were still following us, getting closer to us, closer to killing us.

The mouth of the cave was nearing us, the light pouring through to us. I looked behind me again, they were even closer now, too close. I panicked and dropped my sword, turning around with my mana readied in both hands. I launched two of the most powerful lightning bolts I had ever conjured at the roof. A large crack appeared, and I readied two more, firing them at the crack. The rocks collapsed inwards, sending an avalanche of stone downwards and blocking the path of the monsters.

I gasped as I looked at what my hands had done, the sound of roars and screams on the other side were muffled by the debris. I was exhausted by what I had just done, I had used up all of my mana in four lightning bolts, I didn’t think I could even do such a thing. I lifted my sword up from the ground and sheathed it, gasping as I sat down on the ground.

I looked around and saw that Rayall was on the ground next to me, his leg stuck under the rocks. “Shit, are you okay?” I asked as I started towards him. He nodded his head with a pained expression, clutching at the leg.

“Yeah, my leg isn’t though. Good thinking, collapsing the cave, they would have killed us” he said as Sara and Cleo rushed forwards. They started to pile rocks off of where the leg was trapped and pulled him out. The limb was a mangled mess, blood seeping onto the pants and twisted at a strange angle.

The girls examined the wound for a moment, using a knife to cut the material of the trousers. They jerked it in a quick motion, eliciting a scream from Rayall but the leg looked to be at a normal direction. Their hands began to glow as they healed him. When he was healed enough, they helped him out of the cave, and we sat in the open air of the ditch.

“Is everyone okay?” I asked, looking around at everyone, “besides Rayall I mean”

“Course I’m bloody not” Korin roared as he clutched at his singed beard, “Look at what he did to me” he shouted as he gestured to the burnt ends.

Sara sighed, “You’re fine Korin” she exasperated, still tending to Rayall. “But yeah, I think we’re all okay Aucus. That was a close one”

I nodded my head solemnly, “I’m sorry Rayall, I didn’t mean to…” I trailed off and looked at his leg pointedly.

“It’s fine Aucus, you probably saved all of our lives” he said, “You can just help me back to the village” he added with a smile.

I tried to stand up from the ground but fell back down before I could rise all the way. My mana was fully drained, and I had no energy left, “I think that’s gonna have to wait a bit”