Black Waves, Fire, and Bells

----------------------------------------

On a certain day in a land molded by strife and blood, a young woman found a secluded corner for herself, away from the monsters and politics just for a little while, she would return before dusk fully takes the daylight.

The lady takes careful leaps down heaps of stone down the shoreline, careful to not dirty her beige trousers and, thankfully, dark brown combat boots, holding onto her tricorne hat as she makes her way down.

Soon enough, her boots touch down upon the golden sands of the beach. She lets the ancient breeze of the sea waft around her, blowing her brown coat gently with the wind and letting her black hair softly push against her cheek. The lady adjusts her dark vest and white blouse and brushes away whatever debris her clothing had caught during her descent, and she presses onwards to approach the beckoning waves.

It was a beautifully peaceful sight that contrasts the dreadful and alien environment not far behind her. Black, murky waters as far as the eye can see; crashing down against both each other and against the nearby stones along the beach; contrasted with the vibrant blues and violets of the horizon.

Laying her saber by her side, Alaine sits down on the soft sands and silently observes the rare sight of peace in a chaotic world.

“Beautiful view isn't it, Noble Lady?” From behind her calls the deep yet soft voice of a man and mercenary she calls a good friend.

She looked behind her to see an older, gruff looking man of darker complexion wearing a bulky set of rigid steel armor covering him from his shoulders to his toes; the center of his breastplate and the back of his gauntlets are adorned with faintly glowing white gems.

The man places a hand over the sheathed longsword on his hip and unclips it from his belt. He moves closer to where Alaine sat and mimicked the girl's actions by taking a seat on the beach, though on a nearby stone instead of the sands, and laying his still sheathed sword right by his side.

"Tired of escorting nobles now are you, Mikarr?" Alaine calls over to her friend, both still staring towards the horizon.

"...Just for a moment of respite, Good La–", Mikarr was suddenly cut off by Alaine's annoyance making itself known. "Hey! Would it kill you to drop the formalities? We're alone for heaven's sake! I’m sick of you referring to me so formally…" A response which Mikarr finds himself to easily retorts back with even a sly smirk; "My, but I still haven't gotten used to this eloquent speak, Fair Lady… you know I accidentally call you casually even in front of people of importance, so I'm simply ingraining the practice, see?"

Alaine stared incredulously at her mercenary friend for a few seconds before looking away with a flick of her hair and a scoff. “Tryhard…” she murmured, barely audible to the mercenary, who softly chuckled in return before going back to staring towards the darkening horizon.

Alaine at this point had become completely mesmerized with the peace and dragged her legs closer to her chest, not caring for the sand being kicked up and dirtying her coat and trousers further. Eventually, her eyes start to drop and wander without any goal, but they eventually catch the sight of wood and steel kept in a leather holster on her left.

"Mikarr, you've traveled far and wide as a merc, right?"

Mikarr broke from his trance and snapped his sights to the noble on the sands.

"Of course, you know I'm a veteran merc; why do you ask?"

Alaine struggles with the holster for a bit until fishes out what she wanted to offer him.

Her prized 6-shot handcannon; its grip carved from the finest wood and its frame molded and made with the highest quality steel.

She shows the weapon off to Mikarr, emphasizing how its body seems to glisten in the horizon's light, and how firm and natural it feels to grip the weapon in your hand.

"Beautiful weapon, but wha–", Mikarr's question was quickly hushed when the young noble pointed the barrel directly at his head.

But then, she flipped the handcannon in offering. "Have you ever got your hands on a handcannon, Mikarr?" Alaine asked.

After a few seconds of staring, Mikarr eventually takes the handcannon from her and fiddles around with it; admiring its craft and respecting its strength as a weapon. Eventually, Mikarr replied, "...Not exactly, none that I had my hands on were loaded, sometimes they were even completely destroyed."

After a few more seconds of fiddling and clicking, Mikarr eventually asked why he was handed such a priceless weapon.

“I want you to try it out, duh.”

The last click of the cylinder loudly resounded in his head as he froze at Alaine’s intentions. Alaine let him take it in slowly, and when he finally registered what she had said, he responded just as expected.

“Are you being serious!?”

“Jeez, no need to be so loud about it”, Alaine teased.

“But… this isn’t just some handcannon, it’s a 6-shot! Not only that, but it’s a NOBLE’S 6-shot!”

“...And as a noble, I permit you to use my handcannon!”

The exclamation drove Mikarr’s excitement over the stars, to grip such a precious weapon and be able to FIRE it is only something most weapon-nuts like him could dream of!

Mikarr shot off to the edge of the coast, pointing the handcannon to the faraway waves, intending to blast holes right into the murky blackness of rocking waters.

At this, Alaine shot straight up and ran to him, yelling at the top of her lungs:

“Oi bastard! At least let me see how you do!”

He gave Alaine a light chuckle as he allowed her to catch up, and as she ran to his side, Mikarr demonstrated what he had learned from the many years of Alaine showing off, either on the range or in a close call.

Mikarr pulled back the hammer until he heard the cylinder click into place; a simple action primes the weapon in a pinch just like that.

“You know what comes next~... Pull the trigger!”

Alaine saw that glint in his eyes when she announced her excitement; that infectious anticipation that she had grown accustomed to, but never resisted.

Mikarr fingers the trigger, barely restraining himself until finally… He takes proper posture and steadies his breath.

His eyes sharpened to the quaking waves, aimed, and squeezed.

It was over in an instant, and faded just as quickly. The hole in the peaking waters, the deafening bang, the flash in the muzzle… Flooded in, echoed, and fizzled respectively. But his excitement… it remained.

“Ahhhh! You barely even flinched from the recoil! Incredible, Mikarr! Simply Incredible!” It was Alaine that spoke up first, many seconds after the echoes of the shot dissipated.

Then, she quickly swiped away the handcannon from Mikarr’s still hands, not intending to waste any more shots than one.

Despite this, the mercenary has yet to even twitch.

“Um, you okay there Mikarr?”

Finally, awakening from his blissful stupor, Mikarr spoke.

“That was incredible… I have no words for that experience, observing you fire it off puts a fiery admiration for such power in my heart, but having pulled the trigger myself… Incredible…”

Alaine gives him a cheeky grin in response, it was exactly the reaction she was hoping for.

“Relax friend, you didn’t even fire one of those specialized ammo, or even shot at one of those specialized dummies, those ones that are enchanted to constantly emanate a barrier that would make even cannonfire ineffective. Perhaps you could test those barrier’s limits.”

At the mention of those things, Alaine swore that she could see a bit of drool coming from Mikarr’s mouth.

She chucked. “Now now weapons guy, we still have a mission to finish; we could try all that out once we’re done with this place.”

Mikarr’s response to this would be to give her snark and flash her with a heightened arrogance that he has grown to cherish as part of their banter… But all was interrupted when they both heard the distant sounds of tolling bells steadily getting louder from their right.

Mikarr grabbed the noble girl’s shoulder with haste and semi dragged her with him. “We must hide, quickly!” he cried.

Alaine of course, did not argue, and scampered away with him behind a crag jutting out close to the shoreline, but far enough away from the path of whatever is coming their way.

They hid and lay in wait for whatever is coming across the shore to pass.

“I thought the place was totally void of monsters…” whispered Alaine, to which Mikarr nodded in agreement; there was no sign of commotion or movement the entire way to the beach, nor was there any noise at all except for the ocean’s, which makes the sudden appearance of tolling bells quickly closing in on their side of the shore so… jarring.

It only took a few more minutes for the source of the bells to appear in their area, the deafening cacophony of bells and… clinking chains making its presence obvious.

Taking a deep breath, Mikarr has had enough of not knowing what the enemy is, so he decided to take a glimpse.

“I’ll take the plunge and take a quick look, stay put, Alaine.” The young noble nodded, gripping her handcannon tightly in case of engagement.

Mikarr lifted himself up and placed a hand against the crag, almost gripping it. He placed his entire body flat against the stone, planning to slowly slide himself towards its side, approximating where the monster probably can’t see him, but he can see the monster.

He slid to his right… he slid further, a bit further…

He skirts around the crag until he finds his eye capable of peeking around the corner, what he sees is something quite appalling.

The monster was humanoid, standing- or rather hunching at around 10 feet, as its back seems perpetually curved at an angle to the point its head blocks half its body from view due to how low it hangs.

Speaking of its body… it’s armless, and the entire creature is wrapped in golden chain and wreathed in golden bells interlinking with said chains; perpetually ringing despite the fact that the monster is currently not even moving. Same goes for the chains, which clink despite the monster seemingly being frozen in place.

“...What the heck is that…” are the only words that Mikarr could muster.

Looking back at Alaine, and then looking back at the monster, he sees that it has no eyes that peek from between the chains, so Mikarr decided that the both of them could silently get away.

"Alaine, we could get out of here without a fight, it seems blind," Mikarr whispered hastily; Alaine understood that the next best thing to do was interpret a quiet escape route through all the sand and stone.

Escape would be unbearably slow whichever pathway she chooses, giving more time for the monster to find them in one way or another, so she proposes a more daring solution…

"Do you have anything to throw that makes loud noises?" Alaine asked, to which Mikarr massages his temples, knowing exactly where this is going.

"Yes… but if this backfires, I'm blaming you."

A diversion… A fantastic way to divert an enemy, given that they are either unsuspecting or stupid, and by the divinity of all the Lords he hopes that thing to be both…

Mikarr rummages through a small satchel latched onto his belt and takes out a small sack. From that sack, he took out a single silver ball, about the size of his thumb. Mikarr looks at the small ball and back at the where the monster is; the diversion must be precise to give them the maximum amount of time to get out.

Mikarr rolled the ball across his palm and took a deep breath before deciding that it’s now or never. He lept from cover, threw the ball far behind the monster, and it hit a faraway piece of stone jutting from the sand.

The ball shattered… and from it came a shrill cry that even made Mikarr want to cover his ears from the deafening screech of the Shrieker Bomb.

But the diversion worked, it caught the monster’s attention, and despite the fact that the shrieking will only last a few seconds it’ll just be enough for both him and Alaine to get away without a fight.

So they ran, ran as fast as they could to get away from the monster behind them, not once looking back… until their ears felt hollow.

There was no sound, no screeching, they didn't even hear the sound of their boots grinding on stone as they ran up the stony slope. Mikarr dared look back… it was facing them, but something changed.

No bells tolled, no chains clinked, and yet it was facing them. He heard Alaine call for him, but that too sounded so muffled that he couldn't quite make out what she was saying.

Then, the bells all across the being's body began violently shivering all at once, making no noise, as if the clappers within never even existed. Just as suddenly as the shivering started… it all stopped, all at once, all was still as the stones beneath him… then came movement from the mouths of the bells.

Every single bell stayed still as something began to emerge from each and every one of them… soon, it became clear that a limb- a wing of gold was sprouting from the maw of the bells… then another… then its face, the face of a human infant.

From each gold bell comes a single gold infant crawling out, each with wings rather than arms. They crawl to the side of their respective bells and… they all turned their heads towards the noble and the mercenary.

By this point, Mikarr was frozen solid in fright, but it was only when the infants let go of their perches and started to fly is when his senses finally kicked in, realizing just how bad things are.

Mikarr looked towards Alaine to find that she too was stiff in fear; he quickly made his way up to her and shook her awake from her spell, and her very first reaction from being released of her cold blood is to raise her handcannon and blowing one of the infant's heads off… a bad move.

All at once, the hollowness in their ears was released, and they both bore the full brunt of the golden flock's horrible screams.

The flying monsters shot towards them faster than they anticipated, but Mikarr's veteran reactions just barely caught up with the urgency of their situation as he raised a transparent barrier with a hand in defense, leading to a few of their flying attackers to procure dents on their heads and cracks on their bodies as they slammed themselves against the defensive spell.

The mercenary and the noble both saw a pause in the onslaught, an opening that the two exploited flawlessly. Mikarr lowered the barrier and casts forth a column of searing Soul Fire from his left hand, making the golden flock back off further and scorching those caught in the column of his bluish white flames; the counterattack was quickly followed up by a flurry of slashes and bullets as Alaine shot forward and clashed with the flock head on.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Alaine! Cover me!" Mikarr cried as he engaged with his longsword and made quick work of what he could reach by slashing at wings or severing heads in an incredible all out assault.

Alaine, of course did what he said and tried her best to cover his openings, a task made difficult with an empty handcannon, forcing her to use magic against waves of enemies.

Alaine hacked against the solid gold bodies with her saber and casted her own flames in her attempts to get the golden infants to back off, every other spell she tried were simply too ineffective against these monsters.

Eventually, the crowd thinned, and they finally had the chance to flee! Until… a shadow loomed over them that rapidly grew larger and larger…

They jumped away just in time for the large body of the hunched beast to thrash itself upon the rocks they stood upon.

Its remaining golden kin screeched in its stead and charged at them while their guard was downed. Alaine managed to react just in time to dodge and slash away at the onslaught, now more wary than ever now that the big one has joined the fray.

Mikarr meanwhile… was not so lucky, as two of the winged infants smashed themselves squarely in his chest, taking the wind out of him and inciting more of them to dive at him to exploit this moment of weakness; but even winded, Mikarr acted fast and brought about a quick counterattack by getting the monsters to hurt themselves upon the newly erected barrier between them, and just as quickly as the barrier was hit it was immediately dropped in favor of a blue flame that scorched the stunned flock.

Mikarr moved to help Alaine but had to dive out of the way of the giant monster's thrashing, sending rock and rubble everywhere.

"Mikarr! Help! I could only hold for so long!" Alaine cried, barely managing to weave and slash against the congregating horde of gold that's slowly starting to cover her entire view.

Attempting to shake the heat off her, she tries to summon a wave of Soul Fire to disperse the enemies until a wing smashes against her knee… Then another against her stomach… She saw wings close in on her head, too winded and hurt to conjure or even swing in retaliation; so she decided to bend low and duck under the soaring nightmare, its attack missing by a needle's length.

Mikarr looked on in horror as Alaine was put in checkmate; he sprinted as fast as he could with the thrashing beast hot on his tail, flourishing his blade as he leapt directly into the fray with wild abandon, killing what he can and carving a quick escape for the two of them.

The pair tumble around the rocks as they struggle to make an escape; Alaine was limping from her injuries, so Mikarr had to do what he could to fight and flee at the same time. He raised his blade and summoned a barrier once again, leading to a few more monsters killing themselves upon impact… but it simply isn’t enough to block the huge chained fiend as it dragged its “neck” across the rocks and swung it across the barrier, shattering it instantly and throwing the two right back into the sands.

The remaining winged infants zoomed in as Mikarr remained prone on the sand; he raised his hand to conjure Soul Fire in a desperate defense… but it seems he was beaten to the punch as Alaine did so herself, consuming the flying monsters in flames and leaving them as charred corpses, eliminating the last of the bell monsters.

Breathing heavily, Mikarr gasped for words to say for his savior. “...Thanks… thought I was… done for there…"

Alaine shook her head. "No time for gratitude, the big one is still on the attack."

Alaine hastily tried to get up until she buckled under the damage she sustained. It hurts, and she thinks her knee and a few of her ribs had broken from the hits she took. Mikarr meanwhile fumbles for something in his belt-satchel as he eyes the hunched over monstrosity slowly figure out exactly where they landed by simply smashing its "face" into the spots where it thinks they are.

Time is running out as the beast begins to smash closer and closer towards them…

Alaine meanwhile isn’t just going to take in the scenery of their fast approaching demise doing nothing; her handcannon flies into her hand with practiced grace and her quickloader is fetched just as quickly.

She unloads the cylinder, reloads, and primes just in time to see the wonderful fireworks blooming across the beast’s top half and hear its sweet cries of agony, all courtesy of Mikarr.

Alaine smiled with wild glee at the fiery opportunity in front of her.

‘Bingo!’

She unloaded her handcannon straight into the monster, to which she responded by quickly reloading again and firing wildly for a second time.

Mikarr fed into this destructive loop by throwing the very last of his bomb stash, blasting the monster back and allowing more bullets to pierce into the fiery mass.

Eventually, the fire dies with the firing, and the scorched chains fall off of the monster’s body. Each blackened bell and chain unceremoniously thuds onto the sands below, slowly unraveling the final opportunity they need to finally kill the nightmare.

Alaine chambers her final rounds and cocks the handcannon in anticipation… but what she did not anticipate is what would happen when the final chains unwrapped around its… “face”.

She felt her head begin to ache and her eyes begin to quiver and bulge, tears rolling up, down, and through her eyeballs.

She felt the very bones in her arms crawl and pulsate, twist and grind, breathe in and out.

It escalates, her arms begin hyperventilating. Her eyes begin violently shaking. Her head was maddeningly heavy.

She wants to look away, but she can’t turn her neck, nor shut her eyes. She was frozen and completely helpless to her unfortunate fate.

She feels something snake up her legs, she dares not look down, as that would mean looking away.

Her handcannon remains stiffly aimed at the enemy, and yet it remains as such. Trigger unmoving.

She could take the shot, the last shot.

She painfully tries to twist the handcannon towards herself, twisting until her wrist dislocates.

Yes, the handcannon now aims directly towards her left thigh, just barely.

This was enough, more than enough for Alaine.

The young noble pulls the trigger and shoots herself in the thigh. She yells in pain, but the reaction is just enough to pull herself out of the demon’s trance; she twists away from the monster and throws her handcannon to her other hand as the beast roars in fury at her escapade.

She glimpsed her friend, seemingly as nonfunctional as she was when she stared into the monster’s visage; limbs twitching madly and his head stiffly trained onto the beast, a statement to his helplessness.

Alaine practicality buries half her face in the sand as she aims her handcannon to the approximation of where the monster is, she is blind to the target, and she is down to her last four shots.

For her fifth, she will save that for her friend’s shoulder. Maybe he can limp away from this ordeal once he’s shot back into reality.

The monster roars and stomps its way towards the two prone bodies in the sand; good for Alaine as she now has a good guess to its precise location thanks to the noise, but all in all bad as she could hear the creature quickly closing in on them.

‘Now or never!’ Alaine fires her shot and is delightfully greeted with the sounds of stumbling feet and moans of pain. A sure hit, but not an assured kill.

Alaine fires her second shot, the beast is heard stumbling backwards.

The third shot was a hit, but perhaps she aimed too low as no feedback came from the beast, only the sound of a bullet punching through tough hide.

She heard the beast veer the direction of where her feet lie. Alaine fought the instinct to sit up and take a look and instead turned her body the other way, not that it really changed anything.

Down to her fourth bullet, her hopes for killing the monster before resorting to her fifth has slimmed to a needle’s width. Regardless, the girl grits her teeth in defiance and takes her shot at the slowly approaching nightmare.

A very audible squelch and a crack could be heard from the beast, clearly her bullet hit something vital, she just wasn’t sure what exactly; it doesn’t matter to her in the moment though, as she heard how the monster stumbled backwards and shriek out in pain, but it is clear to her that it has not fallen, she has failed to kill it.

She turns and looks over to her fallen partner, whose eyes are still fixated on the monster despite its change in position; she will have to give him one heck of a painful awakening.

Mikarr grunted and wheezed in response to having his shoulder shot, yet his first response was to immediately look towards his friend, who lies prone in pain, exhaustion, and worry.

“Get up, Mikarr, you have two good legs on you…”

Mikarr shakes his head profusely. He looks towards the legs of the beast slowly lumbering towards them, as if it knows it has won the fight. It suddenly lurched forward, forcing Mikarr to look away and Alaine to close her eyes shut.

Mikarr leaps into a stance away from Alaine; the beast roars furiously to this act of futile retaliation. Despite the agony he endured, he is already looking to find a way to bring down the monster before him.

“Mikarr please! Run now!” He heard Alaine cry out, but he won’t allow himself to be the only survivor; he has a duty to fulfill as a hired merc, and a good, stubborn friend to save.

He tries to take any glimpse of the monster, but it constantly shifts its neck to get him to look at its true self. He closes his eyes and expels flames from his hands as he did with the golden flock. He heard nothing in response, and in fact he swore that the beast seemed to be laughing at him for his foolish effort.

Suddenly, it charged him, and Mikarr dodged further away from Alaine as he saw a chained foot crash into the sands where he once stood. Mikarr responded in kind with an attack of his own by dodging right into the monster’s blindspot between its body and the arc of its neck; having had glimpsed the monster’s pale, vulnerable skin from where its chains got blasted and burned apart, he rushed with his longsword and swept against the giant torso in front of him, creating deep gashes.

The monster groaned and stomped Mikarr away from its blindspot, but the damage was done and Mikarr was up for another round once again. He weaved closer to its neck, making sure that it wouldn't be able to shift its “face” close to his own and striking again, this time on the vulnerable spots of its left thigh, causing the monster to stagger backwards.

Mikarr wasn’t going to let up, he continued his attack by diving between the legs of the creature and slashing at the thigh, getting the monster to keel over slightly at the wounds. Mikarr knows that killing the monster by a thousand cuts just won’t be possible, so he spotted an opportunity in the form of a low hanging chain broken around the monster’s waist and decided to clutch onto it for leverage. He clings onto the chain for dear life as he boosts his feet off the ground to fully clutch onto the back of the monster; then he decides to make his climb, longsword in hand to stab for more leverage.

The monster noticed, of course; its violent thrashing evidence of its awareness, trying to get its attacker off its back but failing miserably as Mikarr’s longsword continued to stab its way upwards.

In the end, with no more chains to cling onto, Mikarr couldn’t continue further with just his longsword, so he decided that now should be a good time to unleash a flurry of stabs and slashes to bring the nightmare down.

Mikarr made sure that the wounds ran as deep as he could make them, painting his armor and longsword with a familiar ichor in the process. Good progress made, but even stabbing into where its spine should be does nothing but enrage the being further. Mikarr roared as he gave up on attacking the back, giving it one final stab before leaping off.

‘Even on parts unprotected by chains and bells, it still won’t die…’ Mikarr is exhausted, he knows at this rate he won’t be able to fight any longer. He dodged a kick, and a stomp, and another kick, a bash of its neck, and finally had to look away from its horrific visage. Mikarr is panting heavily.

He rushes in and makes upward cuts across its neck whenever he can, he makes deep cuts across exposed parts on its legs, and then its stomach and chest, but again he is forced back by its “face” and is led to dodge more of its stomps and kicks.

Really exhausted now, dodge kick, dodge stomp, dodge charge, dodge leaping stomp. Swing in retaliation, swing, swing, swing, sw- the damn thing doesn’t even respond to wounds anymore, only rage.

He could see at least two bullet wounds on its torso and three around its neck, courtesy of Alaine and her “missed” shots, and many more slash wounds and even some explosion wounds done by him, but it seems as if nothing even happened to the thing; it moves like it always has.

It. Just. Won’t. Die.

Mikarr decided to use his most destructive spells to attack at a range, still nothing. His most flashy and most powerful spells barely did anything more than blast the beast backwards. He is straining himself heavily at this point, every move and every spell hurts to do; he looks to Alaine still lying in the sand, exhausted and in pain; he shakes his head, trying to shrug off his mounting exhaustion.

He attacks, dodges, weaves, dances across, doing everything he can to fight and stay alive, but victory seems so out of his reach, not even in sight. Eventually, he took a grave misstep, one unrecoverable, and was sent flying with a kick directly into the stones that he and Alaine once tried to climb to flee this horrible encounter.

He saw blackness at the edges of his vision and blurriness overcome his sight. He felt his broken ribs and dislocated shoulders, and maybe even a fractured skull. The fight wasn’t even close; he sees the giant figure despite the blur of his vision, like a vulture waiting for him to turn into a corpse.

He felt for his backup knife strapped onto his leg and grabbed it with what little energy he had left. Panting heavily, he glares at the figure before him, stationary, in waiting for his death. Mikarr wheezes in agony, even taking a deep breath is a horrible pain.

He shouldn’t have chosen to stand his ground, to fight. He should’ve run when he had the chance; he wasted the opportunity his friend made for him. Now, they will both die here.

Mikarr knew he would bite it eventually, so in one last act of defiance, he takes a hard look at the monster’s visage, burns it into his memory as the very last thing he will see, and throws the knife as hard as he can.

It was terrible being in this position again, having to feel his eyes and arms scratch and ungulate within themselves. Having to feel the bones, the tears, the blood consciously. It feels so odd, and alien, and painful, horribly painful.

He closes his eyes, feeling the pain cease, the screaming of the beast fade, and feel the world around him float into nothingness.

----------------------------------------

Mikarr awakens to light gleaming a shade of green through the thin fabric of what appears to be a wholly green tent, and the bustling of people moving in and out of his view.

“He’s awake!” A man says, partly covered in gray metal armor with red fabric accenting it.

Many other people come to his view, all carrying scars, armors, and weapons unbefitting of the medical tent.

“Medical..?” He’s alive, just how is he alive?

He tries to sit up but the rest of the other people- fellow mercenaries, gather around to get him to lie back down.

“Mate, stay down while you’re still out, you’ve suffered a heck of a beating,” a drinking buddy of his piped up to say amongst the whispering crowd, leaning closer to him to get to his ear. “Tell me what happened once you’ve recovered, I wanna know how it went down, especially after we recovered that thing’s corpse.”

Before Mikarr could pry any further, a certain girl shooed everyone out of the way aside from his close friends and comrades. “Mikarr! Oh thank the Lords you’re alright. I thought after the damage you sustained you wouldn’t wake up…” Alaine rushed over to his side, and quickly began filling him in on what he’s missed (and berated him for the last stand on the shore).

Apparently, a full month had passed, with Alaine awakening far earlier than him, a mere week’s worth of recovery thanks to the proficiency of their medical team, however the injuries Mikarr had taken during his battle against that… thing, risked a total paralysis of his body and a total comatose.

Lucky him, Mikarr supposes.

He questioned of how they were rescued and why none have come after multiple shots were fired. “We didn’t hear anything! Cross my heart!” Is what he heard constantly, wording varying from person to person as he asked this same question to all those that visit him. Apparently, nobody heard anything at all on that quiet night, even those that stayed up for nightly duties around camp. It was only when a mercenary and a leisurely noble heard a horrific, inhuman scream come from the direction Alaine and himself had traveled towards, and so they gathered a hastily made team and rushed out to check the situation, only to find a dead monster and two thoroughly knocked out victims. The monster was taken under wraps, and the noble and mercenary were swiftly taken for medical treatment.

When Mikarr eventually recovered some of his strength and was discharged from the medical tent, he asked Alaine to take him to where the corpse of the demon was kept, to which she hastily yet hesitantly complied. She took him round the back of the camp to a once open field, normally used for exercise and training, where there now sits a large tent, with nobles, mercenaries, and scholars flooding in and out.

Alaine insists that she would stay and wait for him outside, she’d rather not see it again, and admittedly, Mikarr was hesitant too despite being the one to request the little trip himself. When he enters the tent, the corpse of the nightmare is set right at the center of all the hustle and bustle. He examines the unraveled corpse, but dares not look at its face… not again. But as he noticed more and more people surrounding the head of the monster, he cursed his curiosity for getting the best of him and directing his attention to the monster’s visage. He takes a small glimpse amongst the crowd… and sees nothing, just a pale slate, not unlike a white ceramic plate.

“Strange… there are no wounds on the head at all, only the rest of its body. I could’ve sworn I threw my knife too; maybe they retrieved it from the corpse? Better start asking then…”

Mikarr asked and asked for a knife that nobody knew was thrown, Mikarr was stumped, and headed back to where the slain beast’s head lies.

Mikarr now begins to ponder in front of the monster’s corpse, “Odd… Maybe I should ask elsewhere for my knife. But now, looking at this thing’s head reminds me of how… off the situation had been. Did throwing the knife while looking at the monster kill it? It never slowed down once, it just simply dropped dead, simple as that...”

Unbeknownst to the mercenary, quiet footsteps slowly approach him from behind.

“It is fascinating, isn’t it Mikarr? Its face is totally unlike how you described it… A total opposite in all honesty, as what you described was basically impossible to imagine.” A posh and condescending voice spoke to his left, helping him break off from his focus on the monster’s faceless features; he turned his head away from the beast’s to see a glasses-wearing noble clothed in a black suit with gold accents, taking quick looks between him and the beast.

Mikarr looked at him suspiciously,“What of it, mister..?”

“Greyfield of Toria, at your service,” the now-named Greyfield said as he took Mikarr’s hand and shook it delightfully. “Ah, I must clarify, I did not mean to be rude there, rather I am actually impressed that you managed to bring down such a ruthless tyrant such as this being,” Greyfield exclaimed.

“Mhm, now will you keep praising me or are you going to skip straight to the point?” Mikarr callously replied, though it did not perturb Greyfield in any way, and if it did, he was very good at hiding it.

“I see… Well I’ve come over to inform you that we have a likely theory as to what this thing is and why it appeared… Well you see–”

“It’s Voidborne, right?” Mikarr cuts him off, yet his abrasive response received no surprise nor praise from the black wearing noble.

“Indeed, came to that conclusion yourself, I assume?” Greyfield replied, his voice and facial features giving no way for expressing even a hint of emotion. A completely neutral facade.

Greyfield continued, adjusting his glasses as he did so, “It appeared that it hailed from the ocean, judging from its human-esque flesh carrying features likened to that of fish’s. This, along with why nobody seemed to have noticed the presence of a Nihilio Occurence, appears to be enough evidence to conclude why this accident happened in the first place.”

The clarity given by Greyfield opened Mikarr’s eyes, “Ah! Right! The damn ocean hides Void activity!”

Suddenly, like a machine construct, Greyfield ‘activates’; his face and voice popping with excitement, “Spot on lad! It’s also why the thing doesn’t at all look like a local monster!” Greyfield congratulated him, before moving behind Mikarr and creeping close to his face, and whispering directly in the mercenary’s ear.

“So I guess the best takeaway you could possibly get from this is: Best stay away from the roaring black blood of the gods… wouldn’t you agree, Mikarr?”

And then the noble left, swiftly and discreetly, with not even a sound of his footfalls to distinguish amongst the crowd.

He left before Mikarr could even pull out a weapon… not that he had any on him, he could barely make a swing after all.

“Damn weirdo… Why call the ocean the blood of gods?” It creeped Mikarr out, and he told Alaine of the weird encounter too. “Definite weirdo, that said, I don’t know every noble under the sun! So I don’t know him at all,” Alaine replied with some pep, but clearly a facade to shake off the creepiness of both being near the monster again, and having heard of such an odd encounter from Mikarr.

Mikarr agreed, and he would agree till he fell asleep, still thinking of that encounter.

It was a peaceful rest for them, at the very least. Goodnight Alaine, goodnight Mikarr.

Neither of them dreamt that night, and Greyfield would continue to examine the beast that lies north to the camps. I will continue to examine it, the Voidborne.