Emily fell face-first into the snow bank, but with so little time, she couldn’t afford to remain still. Kicking a leg out, she blindly flipped onto her stomach and bolted up from the ground. Not even a breath later, a club crashed down where her head had been mere moments ago. Snaking a hand forward Emily gripped the little gremlin-like creature by the ankle and whipped its one leg out from underneath it.
Emily hopped on top of it, blade already drawn. Slashing it across the hand that had held the club. The thing screeched dropping its weapon, but Emily shut it up with a set of teeth to its throat.
All of this had happened so fast, one moment Emily had been walking beside Alex, and then the next he stopped and cocked his head.
“They’re coming ready yourself for battle.” was all the warning she got before Alex disappeared into the treeline.
Emily was so surprised, she had still been searching for him when a group of four gremlins creatures had come over the hill.
The moment they spotted her, they gave what Emily would call a war screech and charged. She had taken down the first one pretty easily, and the husk in the snow was the second but the other two crashed into her as she looked up from her most recent ‘meal’.
One of their clubs crashed into her shoulder eliciting a yelp from her, while the other tried to rip off her ear with its teeth.
Emily could only leverage her larger mass to fall on top of the one currently trying to nibble off a piece of her ear, bringing the knife and plunging it into the thing’s jugular. When it released her, Emily swung a wide hay-maker at the other one.
Unfortunately, the blasted thing then blocked with the club and Emily’s knuckle cracked against the rough bark of the deadwood. The pain only made Emily more vengeful, kicking out at the thing's knee, Emily reached forward and grabbed the thing. Pulling it to the ground and maneuvering behind it so that she could get it into a chokehold. Emily wasn’t skilled in this area but she certainly knew that if enough force was allied to the neck it would stop breathing, and that’s all she needed right now.
The world turned upside down as she leveraged her height to apply more pressure on the gremlin’s neck. The position also gave her an upside-down view of the clearing, where another creature was approaching from. It had a rock raised as if to throw it, but then Alex fell from the trees, –or from her perspective the sky-ground– plunging two daggers into the gremlin’s collarbones.
The thing dropped as Emily felt the one in her arms go still.
Righting herself, Emily prepared for the next combatant. However, Alex stood in the center of the space frowning at her. He didn’t look worried and she realized it was because he’d taken out three additional gremlins she hadn’t seen.
“What was that? Why didn’t you hide like I told you?”
Emily cocked her head and looked over at the gremlin which still had her dagger in its throat.
“Hide? You just said to get ready, which is what I did.”
Alex’s eye twitched.
“Standing out in the open like a Millo bird is your plan of attack? We can’t afford to get into skirmishes like this every time.”
Emily refused to admit she was in the wrong, he should have told her what he wanted, not expected her to smell his thoughts. But she kind of understood what he meant, if every engagement was like that, they were playing with their lives. Stealth was probably the best idea in the situation.
“Fine, I’ll keep that in mind.”
Alex nodded.
“Please do, elves may be weak but if their numbers get too great we’ll have to retreat.”
“Look I said that I would, no need to get- Wait… elves? Like the fancy nature people with the bows and stuff?” Emily asked as her curiosity got the better of her annoyance.
Alex was getting ready to move again but he paused to glance back at her in confusion.
“Elves are anything but fancy. Indeed, they can adapt to any environment, and a few more powerful variants have been known to use bows, but they’re most certainly not people.”
Emily hummed as she digested this, pulling the dagger out of her dead prey.
They had been traveling for only a couple of hours but already it looked like they were burning through the day. Finding a place to stay before night fell would be necessary soon. It got a hell of more dangerous when the night fell as that’s when the real beasts came out.
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However, Alex had not elaborated on what those were.
He was already moving out of the clearing, so Emily cleaned and sheathed her blade, setting out after him.
The two traveled for another couple of hours with Emily trying her best to be stealthy. They did come across a few more gremlin-elves but they chose to skirt around them.
If they’d had more time, Emily would have loved to grab a couple as a snack. As things were, she had enough life force stored up to release around six or seven blood shots, but even that paled in comparison to her previous strength. Her blood shaping was far cheaper to use when the stuff was readily available. That's why Emily had been content to take on the blood cultists, she was a perfect matchup to their magic.
Emily had thought about taking some for herself but human blood didn’t have the longest shelf life, so lugging around a barrel of blood did not appeal to her.
At a certain point, they were just crossing an ankle-deep stream when Alex suddenly ducked into the recesses of a hollowed-out tree, pulling Emily with him and slapping a hand over her mouth.
She was about to ask what gives when she saw his face, she only just met the guy, but she could tell he meant business. The solemn expression that had spread across his face was locked towards the skies.
That caused Emily to freeze and prepare to fight, it was then that she heard the sounds of wings flapping against the air.
At first, she thought it was a bird but the sound grew in strength until it became overwhelming. Every thump shook the area, sending gusts through the top of the trees.
Whatever it was, it was big.
A high-pitched roar ripped the silence of the forest to shreds as something descended nearby. Emily felt tremors running through the earth, but it was further away than she’d expected.
Suddenly a second roar joined the first, this one had more bass to it.
The two cries intermingled as though fighting for dominance, and then the real battle began.
The sounds of earth being overturned and foliage being crushed under the pressure of two large bodies could be heard, even in the distance.
Flesh thumped against bone and yelps of pain joined the cacophony, but neither Emily nor Alex moved. Whatever this thing was big enough to shake the surrounding forest and, Emily was not in a condition to be able to handle it, so they hid.
All too soon, the sounds of the bass roar pitched into death-throws and then faded completely. It was then replaced by the wet sound of flesh ripping and a gullet swallowing it down hungrily.
Minutes that felt like hours passed, but then the winds picked up once more and drowned out everything before fading into the sky.
Neither of them moved for a couple more minutes but finally, Emily managed to rip Alex’s hand off her mouth.
“What the fuck was that?”
Alex glanced at Emily and looked in the direction the sounds had come from.
“Follow me, and for the love of the Five, be silent.”
Alex moved out from their hideyhole and crept forward. Emily stepped up beside him and watched for any signs of the thing returning.
They continued only a couple dozen meters from where they had hidden and entered a clearing with a cave entrance buttressed up against the stream. The space looked about as bad as the destruction had made it sound. Earth was upturned, scattered with claw marks; almost all the plant life in the area was flattened, with the exception of a few older trees.
Near the opening of the cave, something had clearly been dismembered, with only the smallest scraps of grizzle and what looked like porcupine quills remaining nearby.
Emily stopped but Alex moved toward the cave entrance, kneeling by the remains.
The entire area was blanketed with the stench of burning meat, coiling its way into Emily’s nose. It hung in the air like a choking miasma, demanding she flee before its origin returned.
“Alex, we should get out of here. Who knows if it will come back, or what the blood might attract.”
Alex held up a hand as he continued to look through the remains.
Snorting to herself Emily’s eye flickered to the sky and she took a step into the clearing, making her way towards him.
“It looks like this was a shard boar, an annoying creature for hunters to take down. The good news is they are solitary and this one does not look like it was nesting.”
As he said this Alex pointed to the open cave.
Emily ground her teeth together, he wasn’t getting it.
“That's interesting and all but shouldn’t we get going? The carcass will draw other things here.”
Alex shook his head.
“Not for a couple of days yet. No, a wyrm kill is exactly what we needed.”
Emily looked at the man as though he needed help, but he continued.
“You smell it, don’t you? That burning scent? The thing that attacked was a Wyrm, it gives off a scent that marks its kills. It's what makes us feel like this. However, it's even more effective against beasts. It will keep night wanderers away from this area, we’ll camp here for the night.”
Emily wanted to argue, but in all honesty, the guy seemed confident and she was in an unknown land. Looking up at the sky, it was around late afternoon but they would have needed to start finding a place to bunker down soon anyway.
The smell was vile, but Emily could ignore it if it gave them a safe night's sleep. Shrugging her shoulders, Emily began to wander toward the cave entrance, being careful to search for signs of life inside.
As she entered she saw the cave was not deep, she could see to the back wall from the entrance. At most, it would protect them from the worst of the elements, and with the fresh kill outside, it made for the perfect sanctuary
Just like Alex had said it was empty; the guy was still inspecting the remains and gathering up the quill-looking shards.
Deciding to leave the guy to his musings, Emily began walking around the perimeter of the den. She simply started off by kicking a rock as she thought about what she had just learned but then she decided to collect firewood.
So on she went around the area looking for the dryest pieces of kindling.
The fact that she had never seen anything like this wilderness had been made terrifyingly obvious at this encounter. Yesterday she had been wandering through the snow without knowing how much danger she was in.
If she were at her peak Emily was confident she could have dealt with whatever came their way but she wasn’t, and just how fragile this body was, was becoming painfully apparent.
There was no shortage of lab-grown monstrosities in her old world, but this was an entire food chain with a different biome. And she wasn’t at the apex yet.
Emily resolved herself to get stronger faster, she needed to grab every advantage she could get. Turning back to look at Alex, Emily began moving towards him once more.
It was time to ask some questions and get some real answers. Her life depended on it.