Bluerimth river beckons the weary eyes of faraway travellers. Its cyan tint contrasts with the dark greenery of the pine forest and the grey highlands surrounding it. Its banks are made up of bronze-red gravel and yellow sand hinting towards the richness of ores hiding beneath the surface. The strange colour of the water doesn’t make it undrinkable, though it gives it a metallic aftertaste. Natives claim that it gives the water character others just lack. The river flows in-between two hills, eroding its way into the dirt. Following closer to the source it loses its narrow and fast traits, becoming wider and slower while providing natural beaches on its bank. On one of the shores there is a recently lit campfire.
Even though the place seems welcoming, there are few travellers around these parts and finding a campground is rare. Although freshly used, it was left unattended for several hours as the fire is about to burn out. Near it lies a half-opened backpack propped against a rock; it’s filled with all kinds of tools that keep you alive in an environment keen to weed out the unfit. Besides it there is a leather case with two notebooks in it, as the owner had a mind that wandered. There aren’t many other things suggesting who might have abandoned the campsite with all these tools, except the footprints in the sand leading towards the river.
The tracks lead to a picturesque scene. The water here is deep and dark contrasting beautifully with the yellow sand. There are reeds doting the shallower parts, housing various small critters of the forest. The grass rustles and the trees swoosh in the wind, carrying aloft several birds as they fly past. A sword lays carelessly abandoned on the beach, clashing with the serene scenery.
A thin shape rises from the dark depth of the river. The overall figure is humanoid, but it is covered with blue tinted scales and its head is oddly big and pear shaped. This is because the beast’s mouth must be large to house numerous rows of piranha-like teeth. Its appendages are webbed indicating that the creature is also aquatic in nature. This is a common sentient predator called a ‘murkling’. It’s named so for its tendency to lay ambushes in murky waters. As the monster places its weight onto the shore it starts struggling to drag a corpse behind it.
The corpse is also humanoid, but not human. And though one could mistake it for a stout and short man, it belongs to a different species called ‘dwarf’. It’s a magical race of people who tend to live underground. They are inclined to be isolationist, sedentary and rarely found travelling under the open skies. This one is a male and still fully dressed in his traveller’s garb. His clothes are absolutely soaked in water and his beige shirt's sleeve is dripping red with blood. His arm has been stabbed by something sharp. Although the dwarf's face is completely destroyed, there are still hints of a black beard clinging onto his sturdy neck.
He is most likely the owner of the sword laying there. His physique is one that belongs to a fighter. Dwarves are famous for extensive dedication to one craft, so he must have been a formidable foe. He has chosen a path of a duellist; facing his opponent in honourable one-on-one fights, for combat of not only strength, but also wits. If killing was an art, then he was the artist.
But how could a scrawny scaled beast bring down a dwarf this sturdy and weathered? In head-to-head combat surely the artist of the sword should win. The answer is simple yet unfair: the murkling has ambushed the dwarf while he was out gathering water from the river. This intelligent creature relies on paralysing their prey with poison coated claws, after which they drown their victim and feast on the river floor. Usually, the body of the prey is never found, but it seems like this murkling decided to announce its victory to the world by dragging the unfortunate soul back onto dry land.
Or perhaps the beast cares about no honour nor is concerned with recognition, it was simply struggling to keep the river from carrying away his precious game. Now the murkling is nervously examining its surroundings and straining its hearing to make sure the place is safe to feast in. After a moment, a faint smile is visible on the creature's face.
The following is not for the faint of heart - oh there's a piece of it flying through the air - and includes visuals of a very grotesque nature. One would be fine without imagining the webbed claws ripping into the dwarf's stout torso, shovelling organs and meat bits into the living waste pit this monster regards as its mouth. Of course, it's perfectly alright to ignore the frankly distracting chewing as it proceeds to the meaty thighs. The strong smell of iron in the air, on the other hand, should not be left unnoticed as it has brought some hungry swamp dogs to the scene.
It takes a bit for the murkling to spot them, as it has readily abandoned its awareness and is preoccupied by the meal. But when it does, it's clear that the nearby growling cannot be coming from the already dead dwarf. Now it's time for a decision: to retreat or to stand and engage in an honourable battle for the right to feast?
As the water splashes and the murkling bravely swims away, a single line of thought bubbles up in the head of the beast: ‘that juicy, delicious meat was going stale anyways...’
Murklings, much like swamp dogs, are pack hunters. And it's quite rare for the scaly beast to be chased away by the one of the weakest predators of Yarmae's Valley. Normally when murklings and swamp dogs meet, even on land where aquatic beasts are at a mobility disadvantage, murklings usually win. But this time the number advantage was against the scaly beast and it would lead to a dire defeat.
‘If only I had my pack with me...’ The murkling dwelled on his bruised ego. In fact, he had eaten many a swamp dog in the past. ‘That bastard! He took my pack away! And after I threw him some good grub and even offered a female!’ He recalled how his close murkling companion suddenly attacked him, when he was dividing the spoils of a recent hunt. As he was the alpha, he always selected the best pieces for himself to ensure his strength. One of the beta males finally took issue with this, when he got an unsatisfactory share and went on a frenzy, clawing at him and swiftly making the alpha surrender. The victor claimed leadership of the pack and the new hierarchy was set.
‘If I wasn't caught by surprise, surely, I would have won!’, the beast bubbled angrily.
Given that he was at the bottom of the pack’s pecking order after his defeat, he had been unable to recover his strength. All he got was scraps. Thus, after his wounds had sufficiently healed, he abandoned the pack to hunt alone. Unsurprisingly, he faced aggression when he entered the hunting grounds of the other murkling packs. There was no place for him in the Orsut lake, all there was left to do now was to follow the outflow river and to hunt prey there.
It's not an impossible place for murklings to live in, and some packs even hunt there, but the constant flow introduces additional challenges. It requires more energy to drown the prey and to keep it from getting dragged away by the stream. Additionally, the strong currents require the prey to be devoured on land where murklings are most exposed. The biggest problem for creatures like this in rivers is the making of their nests. Murkling young cannot swim against the flow and must be kept in the shallow parts of the river. With few ways to escape and survive other predators, rearing in rivers is very dangerous. As such, most murkling packs find it hard to survive past the first generation.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
However, this valiant murkling was not looking to establish a new nest here, he merely wanted to recover his strength and get his pack back. But as it was, he couldn’t even chase off some swamp dogs.
While swimming and cursing, he caught a strong and now familiar scent. ‘Another dwarf! Ah, many dwarves!’ The beast decided to follow it. He knew well enough that he could not defeat a group of dwarves by himself, but he was not planning on a fair fight. He planned to kidnap one of the dwarves and feast on them somewhere downstream. Dwarves are not fast creatures by nature and terrible swimmers. He learned this tactic when he was living in the Orsut lake as it was situated near a dwarven settlement.
Unaware travellers came often to refill their water-skins and water their beasts of burden, giving murkling packs an ample chance to strike from muddy shores while hiding between the reeds. Snatching unsuspecting cave dwellers was one of more successful strategies they employed. Whether it was the pack animals or the dwarves themselves, it was always a good catch. Though, they couldn’t do it too often as the dwarves were tricky trappers and had already eradicated a few packs in the past.
‘Might this be another settlement?’ There are no other murklings around and so these dwarves would be none the wiser for these ingenious tactics. The beast smiled.
He swam and soon found himself before a dwarven made stone canal. This made him suspicious and hesitant. The murky river water was clear enough to spot him lurking from beneath the surface. But the catch is far too enticing to pass up and it seems like no-one is watching the waterway.
The canal itself was well kept and its entrance was cleaned out from reeds. The floor and the sides of the channel were made from large rectangular chunks of grey stone. The uniformly cut grid made the colour of the water even more clear as the chunks on the surface turn light blue when underwater. It led to the mouth of a cave, which was semi-circular in shape reminiscent of a Roman archway. Not that the murkling had a clue what a roman was or how they tasted.
As the beast swam along the canal, he suddenly felt a strong current pulling him towards the mouth of the cave. The swimmer resurfaced and grabbed onto the edge of the waterway as it was less slippery. The strong flow disappeared as quickly as it appeared, Leaving the murkling puzzled by it. He even considered abandoning the endeavour all together, but then noticed that the cave itself was dark. This meant that it was perfectly safe to at least investigate, as he would be invisible underwater, and he had senses that allowed for vision even in complete darkness.
The only source of worry the beast felt: was the origin of the strong current. He imagined a monster trying to suck him in, as it lay in ambush. But he figured such a being would not be kept by the dwarves. The pack animals the dwarves had were slow, dumb and docile. ‘The weak dwarves wouldn’t have a beast that ferocious around, the monster would have eaten them by now.’ the murkling thought. After waiting a little longer, he approached the cave opening and then he lingered just a moment more before entering the cave.
The cavern itself was spacious and housed a huge pool of water. It was also not natural in origin, although looking at the ceiling it seems the cave was. The basin was quite wide and partitioned by stone walls into three sections.To do maintenance and expansion works you need partitions dry of water, so this mechanism was designed to drain them independently. The stone wall opposite from the cave opening had metal gates connected to a pulley system. And as it happens, the section directly to the right was currently drained and it seems like the dwarves had begun working on an additional partition.
All of this naturally mystified the murkling, as he could not comprehend what it was for. Underwater he scanned the grey stone floor for the monster responsible for the currents. The floor was not made from stone chunks as the canal was, instead, it was artificially smoothed out and flat. One thing was for certain, there was nowhere for the monster to hide.
‘Had I imagined the current? No, I couldn't have... I must catch a dwarf and leave quickly!’ The bravery of the beast shone like a star in the darkest of nights.
After looking around, he caught the scent anew and followed it to the edge of a pool section. He heard no sounds and decided to peek above the surface. He could see the drained-out partition clearly. There was a mass of stone chunks still not cleared out laying in a huge stack, beside which there was some heavy equipment. This would indicate that there is a lot of work yet to be done. Above the level of the pool, sharing the same wall as the cave mouth and running parallel to it, was a platform and a tunnel. It was used for removing stones from the drained-out part. The beast didn't comprehend this either. He was simply disappointed by the fact that there was not a single dwarf in sight.
Just as he was about to leave, he heard a sound of metal grinding against metal. The murkling instinctively began to flee, only to be caught by the same current as before. Even this excellent swimmer could not escape it. One of the large metal gates opened in the main partition and a huge mass of water was quickly sucked in.
‘The monster!’ The beast thought.
With a bang the gate shut as quickly as it opened. The murkling was carried away into a large stone funnel. He tried grabbing onto the side as he had done before, but the rock was far too slippery and angled, so the current dragged him further. He tumbled and slammed into the wall of the funnel, back first, and was carried down deeper.
‘Fuck! I must have lost a few scales there...’ an annoyed grin was on the beast's face. He painfully moved his back, floating in the now still water as he tried to check what damage he suffered. To the relief of the monster, it wasn't more serious than a painful bruise.
He observed his now calm surroundings. The murkling was submersed in a very deep round pool. The walls were made from metal sheets, each welded together to form a fully sealed surface. The floor had a grating and was on the same level with a metal door frame. On the opposite side of the door, just above the grating, there was ten centimetres in diameter, pipe leading out of the chamber. The pipe was currently shut.
‘This is definitely not a monster... Those bastard dwarves! They set a trap for me!’
He swam to the surface. The hole he was washed through was about three metres above the surface. He dove down to the bottom of the water tank before quickly accelerating to the top. His head broke through the water’s surface as he leaped into the air, catching onto the corner of the hole. But there was nothing to grab on and he fell back into the water, making a loud splash. After a few more failed attempts the realisation struck - he was not getting out of here through there.
Instead, he decided to investigate the bottom of the tank and the walls thoroughly. He found no way out. The only thing he saw as an exit was the door shut at the bottom of the tank. There was no telling when the door would open, what would come out when it did or whether he would be sucked in again.
He decided to enter a hibernation state, a special ability murklings developed as a means of ambushing prey, just above the door so he could attack anyone coming out of it. In this state they could spend hours without air, completely stationary, while using extremely little energy as their senses strengthen. When murklings enter this state, they tuck both their legs and their arms under them. They function as springs and when they are near a prey, they just pounce.
A few hours go past before the murkling hears a metallic squeaking. It came from the pipe at the bottom of the tank. The murkling reluctantly approached the pipe and felt water flow into it.
‘They are draining this place! They must know about our weakness on dry land...’
“I shall not humiliate myself! This will not break my fighting spirits you bastard dwarves! You are my food, not the other way round!” He screeched incomprehensibly.