Chapter 253: Old Horrors |
“Whoa, you are not doing so well…” I said as I scanned him. He had seen better days. The mask was cracked in three places, fabric caked with dust and the layered insulation bubbled where ether had eaten at the seams. That getup offered about as much protection against ether as a fishing net does against wind.
[Power Word: Heal] I cast casually. Light licked along my hands, thin as a spiderweb, and slid into him. His skin pulsed, the bruises knitting themselves. Whatever latent ether rot clung to him peeled away in flakes of blue smoke and drifted off hissing like a small dying things. He stood stock still, eyes wide and unblinking.
“Now then, you talk?” I asked as I loomed over him, letting my shadow swallow half his frame. My tail settled on the loose sand and I could feel him flinch through the vibrations in the sand.
“Don’t eat me…” he rasped.
“Yeah, of course. If I wanted you dead, you would be. Now then. I have to ask what you were planning exactly? Running off like that.” I grinned, baring too many teeth. He swallowed, the motion visible beneath his cracked mask.
“Home sick…” he lied. His vitals fluttered, a tiny spike under the skin of his throat.
“I can tell when you lie,” I said. “I can see everything. Like how your heartbeat leapt when you said it.” My grin widened, playful and a little too sharp.
I peered closer. “You were going to run home and eat pie,” I guessed, and watched for the tell. Nothing. “Run home and tell everyone about the big scary gold monster,” I tried, and his pulse jumped like a trapped animal. There it was.
“Alright, before you do that and force me to eat you, how about a deal?” I sank down as if taking a seat on an invisible stool. He blinked up at me, wary.
He hesitated, then forced his voice out. “What deal?”
“First, tell me what you are doing out here. So I can figure out how we can help each other. It is a deal, remember? You scratch my back, I scratch yours.” I said as I made a little scratching motion with one of my arm blades.
“I am looking for relics,” the Vulpus said, voice trembling, words tasting of fear and something else, guilt, perhaps, though buried under exhaustion.
“Hmmm.” I tilted my head slowly, the motion deliberate, a predator’s curiosity. “What for? Dangerous place to scavenge, no?” My voice carried a lazy amusement as I looked him up and down.
“Rent…” he murmured, barely audible.
“Rent?” I echoed, leaning forward, my reflection glinting in the cracked lenses of his mask.
“If I don’t pay rent my family gets kicked out of the city,” he muttered, tone half-defensive, half-defeated.
“Ah,” I said, drawing out the word with a quiet grin. “So you’re looking for relics to sell or barter then.”
“Perfectly rational. I passed by some ruins earlier, they looked like they might still have something left, but if I’m honest…” I said, remembering the desolation, the looted shells of old ruins, the faint hum of spent Ether still clinging to their bones. “They’ve been picked clean. Like carcasses stripped by crows.”
Then I looked back at him, grin widening “Still, scavengers always find a way, don’t they?”
“After all, sometimes you just need to look in the right place…” I murmured and flicked my wrist. The air rippled like heat over metal as I shaped a spell into form. Light condensed in my palm, first a trembling outline, then a solid weight. When the glow faded, an ether resistance amulet hung from my clawed fingers, its core stone pulsing faintly like a captured heartbeat. It wasn’t a trinket. This one could survive the Font itself, let alone this thin soup of fog.
I jingled it lightly, the gold chains chiming in the still air. His eyes tracked it instantly, pupils dilating like a starving hound’s. The faint reflection of the amulet danced across his cracked mask, and for a moment, I could smell the shift in him, fear curdling, thinning, and finally giving way to want.
“Tell me, Vulpus,” I said, my tone slipping into something almost playful as I twirled the amulet around one finger, the chain glinting like a captured sunbeam. “What’s better than a deal you don’t know?”
His gaze flicked up to meet mine, uncertain, the question hanging between us like bait on a hook.
I caught the amulet mid-spin, the metal singing softly against my claw, and let it dangle again, swaying gently between us. A grin split my face, sharp and amused.
“The deal you do.” I laughed, low and warm, and the sound curled through the fog like smoke, half promise, half threat.
“What do you want?” he asked, voice small, tentative.
“Simple, really,” I said, grin sharpening. “You run back to your little city and you do not tell them about me. Say the monsters out here are thinning, like they are killing each other. Say the fog is not as dangerous as they think. Spin it pretty, put a pause on the panic.” I twirled the amulet between my fingers until the chains sang, the little metal sound cutting the silence into neat pieces.
“And of course you get this.” I dangled the amulet in front of him.
He swallowed, found a scrap of courage, and spoke, “I have one more condition.”
“Oh? Interesting,” I said, leaning lower, letting the shadow of my face brush his.
“You leave the city alone. Do not harm it,” he said.
I laughed, a short, amused burst that showed too many teeth. “Of course. Why would I ask you to spread the word if I planned to destroy your little city? That would be poor form.” My grin widened, half reassurance, half edge.
“So do we have a deal, little Vulpus?” I asked, holding the amulet closer, letting it swing within his reach so the gold skimmed the air between us.
He stared at the pendant as if it were an offering and not a bargain. His fingers twitched inside the ragged glove; a thin, tremulous sound left his throat. Finally, he nodded, the motion stuttering like a faulty magitech speaker. “Yes. I will say it,” he whispered, voice small enough to be swallowed by the fog.
“Good.” I let the chain slip through my claws and into his hand. “Remember exactly what to say, and say it plain. No flourishes, no warnings, and definitely no mention of a gold-feathered monsters that heals people for sport.”
He swallowed, I could see the lie forming its new shape, dressed in enough truth to be believable.
“Break that deal,” I added softly, “and witnesses tend to disappear.” It was not a threat dressed in thunder. It was a fact handed over like a coin.
He tucked the amulet beneath his shirt as if it might burn him, then took a few stumbling steps back toward the path that led home. I watched him go until the fog swallowed his silhouette.
Then I spread my wings and shot into the air.
I did a quick sweep of the surrounding area at the edge of the fog, engaging my invisibility beforehand to make sure I'm not spotted. I went from city to city exmaining their frail metal frames. Like weak shacks going to be blown over, many had cobbled together walls yes of steel and sheet metal. Their guards patrol on the walls ever watchful and for good reason.
Like that bandit camp over there. Looks like they were preparing for a raid…
Tell you what, for old times sake…
◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.♚.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦
“What the fuck is this…” Captain Wyatt muttered, scanning the wreckage of the bandit camp.
It was a mess. Melted metal. Tents caved in. Scattered limbs where bodies should have been. Some bits were still burning.
Whatever came through here didn’t just kill. It butchered. And something had eaten half the corpses.
He lowered his rifle slightly. Not from comfort. Just thought.
“Keep your eyes open, rangers.” His voice was steady, but low. “Whatever walked…” He paused. His boot scuffed against a long, smooth depression in the dirt.
He crouched, ran his fingers across it. The soil was compacted in a clean wave.
“...Slithered through here is hungry,” he said. “You see anything big or fucked up, you sound off. I want no surprises. Not today.”
“With respect, sir,” one of his NCOs replied, prodding the bottom half of a corpse with his boot, “if whatever did this shows up, I’d wager we’re already dead.”
“Love the vote of confidence, Sergeant,” the Wyatt said dryly.
“Just calling it like I see it, sir.” his NCO replied.
Wyatt gave a small grunt. “Let’s just make sure we see it coming, then.”
He stepped past the broken body and motioned his squad forward. “Sweep the perimeter. I want full coverage and no blind spots. Whatever this was, it didn’t come through quiet and it sure as hell didn’t leave clean.”
Captain Wyatt approached the body pinned to the wall. A bone spine as long as a sword jutted through its chest, buried deep into the stone behind it. Serrated edges ran the length of the spike.
He crouched, studying the wound. Poisoned. No question.
The corpse told the story. The whites of the eyes had turned black, like polished coal. Dry black blood streaked the fur along his cheeks, trailing down like tears. More of it had crusted around the muzzle, lips split, foam frozen mid-spasm.
“Careful out there, whatever this is, it has venom. By the looks of things, it's not pretty if you get hit.” Captain Wyatt said.
Wyatt continued moving through the camp, noting the sheer devastation. Melted gear, collapsed shelters, bodies torn apart or folded in on themselves like paper. It wasn’t just violence. It was efficiency. Whatever came through hadn’t killed for survival. It had cleaned house.
His mind turned. Whatever attacked most likely came from the fog.
They had what, twenty years? That was the estimate. The fog creeping east, swallowing town after town, eating up the outer rim city by city. At first it was slow, people held out, tried to live on dead land, pump from poisoned wells, pretend it wasn’t happening. But one by one the lights went out. Towns dried up. Roads cracked. The edges of the map frayed and curled like old paper left in the sun.
Eventually, the line would give. And when it did, they’d have to do the old mass exodus dance again.
Probably another resource war. Another quiet culling. There wouldn’t be enough food or water further inland. Not enough clean reservoirs, not enough logistics. Just too many mouths stacked against too little supply. Best case scenario, it happened gradually, a slow depopulation, controlled retreat, systems intact. You move industry first, then agriculture, bleed the population east over a decade or two. Let it all fold quietly.
But if the fog started spewing horrors like this?
That wasn’t something you could outplan. That wasn’t a migration. That was panic. That was roads clogged with desperate families, checkpoints overrun, supplies looted or burned. That wasn’t an exodus, that was ruin.
“Any survivors?” Wyatt called out.
A chorus of negatives echoed back from the squad.
Whatever attacked this place had been merciless and hungry. There were far more patches of blood than there were bodies. Whatever it was had eaten half the camp and left the rest to rot.
Wyatt stepped over a split crate and glanced toward the remains of the old watchtower. It hadn’t collapsed. It had melted. What was once a structure of reinforced steel was now just a warped pile of hardened slag, slumped over like wax left too close to fire.
“Think we can fight whatever did this?” one of his NCOs asked as he approached, eyes still sweeping the wreckage.
“We don’t even know what this is,” Wyatt replied. “And judging by what’s left of this place, normal tactics won’t cut it.”
The NCO let out a short breath. “Maybe we strap explosives to our chests. If it eats one of us, we detonate inside the mouth.”
Wyatt glanced at him, then back to the slag heap. As fatalistic as it was, the plan had merit.
“File that under last resorts,” Wyatt said. “But yeah. Keep that idea on standby.”
“But for now, I think we need to get our hands on those anti-armor rifles. The ones locked up in Ranger HQ.”
“You think command would actually give us those?” the NCO asked.
“Maybe,” Wyatt said. “They were built for killing big game. Not many left in circulation, but considering this camp got turned into a buffet, I’d say it’s time we started using them as intended.”
“What about ammo? We still got those enchanted shots?” the NCO asked.
“Nah. We ran out decades ago. Now it’s just hard brass and good aim.” Wyatt paused, gaze sweeping across the dunes. “Gotta hit the joints probably. We can’t make more. Lost the spells in the Fall.”
He grimaced as he lit a cigarette, shielding the flame with his hand against the dry wind.
“So what now Captain?” another NCO asked.
“Collect samples, scavenge what you can. Careful for the spines, I got a feeling those cut fingers off easily.” Wyatt grumbled.
He knelt next to a spine just left in the dirt, as long as his arm, serrated and long like a sword. Whatever can fire this at speed must have alot of power and be quite precise as well, judging by some of the corpses he found impaled perfectly in the chest and sent flying into a wall.
He had heard Captain O’Neer was heading to Ranger HQ with a delegation of humans of all things. Well, knowing O’Neer if he is abandoning his post in the east to come here, it means these humans from beyond the mountain wall must have something worth considering.
As much as he held onto his scrappy Vulpus pride of independence and grit, he couldn’t help but feel the walls closing in. The fog creeping close, death following closer, monsters emerging and famine encroaching.
With a sigh he poked the blunt back of the spine with his boot and muttered.
Hope the humans have better ideas than us…