Contrary to what Alice expected, they weren’t immediately assaulted by a murderous mob of monstrous animals. All in all, the first ten to fifteen minutes of walking were rather peaceful.
It played hell on everyone’s nerves. Despite Olivia’s reassurance about the supposedly low-level fauna of the outer Blossom, Alice wasn’t all that convinced. Why would stronger creatures not dwell closer to the border with mistfall, if it was where all the tasty human-shaped food dared step inside the accursed forest?
It made Alice’s hair stand on its end, and her immediate reaction was to draw her blade, which drew looks both from Noah and Arwen, as Olivia and Julian were apparently too busy advancing to look back.
Alice had no idea about actually using her blade in skilful combat, thinking about it more as a needlessly over-engineered toothpick. Stab, stab, and hope whatever she hits bleeds.
“What is it?” Came from behind her as Noah adjusted the grip on his choice of armament, a winged mace with a dull shine to it. As he did so, Alice noticed how Arwen gave half a step away from her, which elicited a frown from Alice.
She’d deal with whatever bullshit that had been later on.
“Something is not right,” answered Alice. Sure, the path they had taken across the blossom had been particularly well-trodden, if a bit overgrown, but what unsettled Alice more than anything was the sheer, abject absence of any defining geographical features. The entirety of the forest was composed of the red canopy above, rustling crimson-coloured grass on completely flat ground, and the blood-red bark of the strange trees that dotted the woods. The curtain of leaves above them wasn’t particularly dense, but it had just enough thickness to hide something within its foliage.
Alice felt a pressure on the back of her neck as goosebumps ran across her spine, and she instantly stumbled forward, running on pure instinct.
Alice's eyes widened in dreadful wariness when she saw a blob of yellow-reddish slime splatter on the ground just where she had been, splaying out like a spider's web. The attempt to entangle her was quickly followed by a shrill screech coming from the branches above. Quickly, the group converged around Alice and Arwen, forming a three-point formation with the two casters in the centre of it.
The screech continued, rising in pitch and volume, slowly acquiring a warbling quality to it, like an old radio that had weathered one too many years. Soon, they found the source of it, even if Alice wished they hadn’t.
A dog-sized spider fell from the canopy above, and started running circles around the group, intermittently emitting the scream they had heard before, and Alice wanted to retch when she saw how it was doing that.
The hideous thing was a fleshy monstrosity, with too many joints on each of its way too sharp legs, going by how it left gouges on the ground with each step. Its abdomen was a brownish-red mess of entangled vines and deep-red, twitching lotuses.
A perpetually screaming, featureless face appeared to be unnaturally grafted where its insectile face should be.
The spider stopped, everyone within the group mutely staring at it, and Alice desperately wanted to look away when she saw the face starting to bulge, tortured, muffled wails coming out of the monster as its mouth opened, probably preparing another web blast, Alice guessed.
A sharp, quick look at where the first blast had first fallen saw the ground around it smoking slightly, the web itself bubbling softly.
“Scatter!” Shouted Olivia, and Alice complied immediately.
That’s when everything turned from dire to hellish.
Another two spiders silently fell from behind them, pincering the group from two different directions.
Alice cursed when she saw them, and noticed how everyone still was too engrossed with the first monster to care about what was going around in the backline.
With a grim purpose and her blood burning within her veins, she stepped away from the security blanket numbers gave her, and walked towards the two horrors.
The first one tried to flank her, but she stopped dead and pivoted on the spot, always keeping her two opponents in her range of vision. If they hoped to pick her off alone and then go for the group’s backs, they had to take her out first without alerting the rest.
Already, half-screamed words and shouts rang behind her. She couldn’t risk a glance, but she trusted the four of them could deal with a single monster.
The spider that had been trying to flank her, upon seeing she wouldn’t let it, started charging in a beeline, directly towards her right side. The other one leapt on top of a tree trunk as she saw its face bulging, and Alice prepared herself to dodge the incoming projectile.
There was no strange sense of focus nor single-minded purpose within her. The only thing Alice cared about at the moment was how the blood sang in her veins, spurring her ever forward, to charge and maul and slice and inflict the highest agony she could.
Unthinkingly, she activated [Torment] the moment the charging spider got inside its range, barely ten feet across.
The monster staggered and missed a step as the aura washed over the surrounding area around Alice, and she smiled as it had trouble advancing, finally sliding towards her in a twitching ball of limbs, stopping at her feet. The very air around Alice seemed to come alive and swirl around her foe, constricting and roiling with a malice she hadn’t seen before.
Alice stepped forwards and raised her sword, intending to plunge it deep into the abdomen of the abominable creature. Just as she was raising her arm, her foe screamed in a pitch and volume higher than ever before.
Alice, stunned, took a faltering step backwards, and then screamed as a ball of corrosive web slammed on her left arm, covering half her torso and sizzling. The parts uncovered by her armour started burning, and that burning started spreading across her flesh, numbing it.
Alice laughed as she screamed, and [Torment] washed over the arachnid with refreshed vigour, the small horror now completely curling in on itself, wails of agony coming off its monstrous visage.
Curiously, Alice felt a connection within her, reaching out and towards the spider inside her domain. She curiously tugged on the thread just as the second spider charged towards her, a second web bulging on its too-human throat.
The spider at her feet wailed as Alice felt every burn on her body flare, and Alice laughed harder as the agony overtook her torso and she fell, kneeling and panting.
The second spider stopped just shy of her domain, apparently smarter than its horrid cousin, who now found itself uselessly thrashing on the ground. As the still-functional spider finished gathering enough web and started aiming at Alice’s face, she extended a hand towards it, a singular word spilling forth from her lips, red hatred dripping from her tongue.
“[Oppress].”
The chains shot forwards with considerably more speed than before, and the spider tried to repeatedly dodge with zig-zagging small jumps to no avail. The cruel chains sought out its body, and eventually, grabbed onto two of its legs. That was the beginning of the end for it, as the chains dragged it back and towards Alice, the hooks and edges on every link cutting and scraping its flesh raw, trains of profane blood staining the ground for less than a second before the grass absorbed them, leaving it pristine once more.
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The second spider joined the first one in the throes of torment, thrashing and screaming considerably louder.
Alice now felt two tethers and smiled as she yanked both of them at the same time, her own wounds flaring up in screaming misery.
The two spiders didn’t fare better, with maddened wails and what almost sounded like sobs coming off their bodies, and Alice sneered as she delivered righteous payback for her own wounds.
Tired of the screams, she pointed at the still-enchained one, seething. “[Ruin].”
The chains clinked and rustled as they suddenly squeezed with the strength of a maddened deity, blood spurts and guts spilling forth from the suddenly dead horror. Alice stared at the other one that was suspiciously quiet and saw the spider curled on itself, completely still as drool and foam spewed forth from its hideous maw.
Alice stared at it with disgust as she skewered its torso while still kneeling. The spider gave one last shudder and spasm before going completely limp.
Alice’s brain finally registered that there were no more sounds of battle behind her, and she glanced backwards, noticing Julian and Noah hastily washing their torsos with some of the water from their canteens, the webbing sliding off them and leaving singed spots in their armour.
Alice noticed how Olivia was stomp-stomp-stomping on the other spider’s corpse, entirely unaware of the fight that had gone down just behind her back,
What made her blood boil was how Arwen was halfway turned to her, armour completely pristine and with her back resting against one of the trees. When she noticed the bloodied girl looking at her, Arwen shrugged. “No Ether.”
She wanted to scream, to get up and run her through, peel off her skin and bathe in the screams.
It was clear the little shit was lying and didn't know what she was talking about. Alice had experienced Ether withdrawal not even a day ago, and it had left her wheezing on the ground, feeling as if someone had torn out her still beating heart with their bare hands.
She breathed in, then out. She couldn’t let intrusive thoughts win, not this time.
That didn’t mean she didn’t want to rip off an arm or two though.
She let her backpack fall off her back as the webbing ineffectually sizzled against her armour, slipping through some of the cracks and burning her skin. The patches where it had first hit had acquired a very angry blood-red tone, blood flowing down freely, then lapped up by the carmine grass. The clothes beneath her armour were now filled with holes, completely unable to withstand something like that.
Moving the entirety of the left part of her torso was completely out of the question, the adrenaline and thrill of combat now fading and leaving only ravaged flesh in its wake.
With difficulty, she grabbed her canteen and poured water down her arm and chest, the webbing rapidly sliding away and dissolving.
There was a blinking notice within her vision, and she brought up the notifications she hadn’t paid attention to whilst in the middle of combat.
The changes made her smile despite her ravaged body.
Victory!
You have killed two [Shrieker Spider]s.
You were out-numbered, out-leveled and alone. Bonus granted.
Level-up.
Acolyte of Pain [1.2] up to [1.5]
+3 Vitality, +4 Power, +1 Control, +3 Free per LV.
Total: +9 Vitality, +12 Power, +3 Control, +9 Free
Skill-up.
[1.2 Mindtap] up to [1.5].
[1.1 Let Them Scream] up to [1.3].
[1.1 Torment] up to [1.4].
[1.1 Opress/Ruin] up to [1.3].
Vitality
11→
20
Power
16→
28
Control
10→
13
Alice left the free points alone, mind still overloaded from the combat. Even then, she could feel her injuries closing ever-so-slowly, the more minor burns now nothing but fingernail-sized scabs.
“Oh my god are you alright?!” Came the shout from a horrified Olivia who was now rushing towards Alice, who ineffectually waved her off before she came much too close, which Olivia ignored completely as she kneeled at the shorter girl’s side.
Alice recoiled as Olivia’s hands started to glow with a golden hue, skittering backwards and away from the light, the Ether inside her core roiling and roaring as her skin crawled. To anyone else, it might have looked like a comforting light to be embraced and cherished, but Alice saw nothing but the golden fires of complete obliteration.
Alice didn’t know why she had such a reaction to the other girl’s Ether, and she didn’t really want to find out the reason, at least not now.
“I’d rather not. I’m fine, see?” She gestured to the small burns, even as the bigger ones still left a trickle of blood flowing downwards.
“You’re still bleeding—”
“I have bandages,” firmly spoke Alice, warily watching the blonde’s hands. She’d turn on [Torment] in a heartbeat consequences be dammed if she came any closer.
“Alright,” hesitantly nodded Olivia, her face scrunched in apprehension.
Olivia still stayed near Alice when she started to take off the top part of her armour, the process being a lot more gruelling now due to the burns covering the gaps where the leather hadn’t covered her flesh completely. At least the armour itself looked undamaged, if a bit discoloured in some parts.
Olivia looked like she wanted to help, but Alice waved her off as she forcefully took it off and slowly started applying the ointment and bandages that came with the basic survival kit they had been given. The ache lessened immediately, and Alice sighed, the feeling going from a painful oil burn to a mild annoyance.
Her spells had left her body feeling raw all over, and she welcomed every bit of reprieve.
“By the gods,” someone murmured, and Alice raised her head, noticing Noah and Julian coming closer and examining the scene of the fight.
“You fended off two just by yourself?” Asked Noah, and she nodded, not in the mood for small talk. Despite the consequences of the battle, Alice had never felt so alive, so free, as she had felt when her life had been on the line. It was intoxicating, it was addicting.
It was something she wouldn’t let go of. The ache to just get up and keep searching for foes, exploring hidden corners and coming out on top of whatever horror made it its home was almost overwhelming in its intensity.
So, she acted on it, getting up on wobbly knees and unsure footing. As she tried to stabilise herself Alice placed her hand on the nearest treetrunk, her gait steadying moment by moment. “Well? What are we waiting for?”
Looks of unease were thrown all around, and before she could forge onwards, on her own if need be, a rumble and a deafening screech shook the woods. The group paled and turned tail, away from the tremors and the screams that sounded suspiciously akin to the Shrieker Spiders from before, but much louder.
“Run!” Screamed Olivia, and so, they ran. There was one issue though, the screams and tremors were coming from the direction they had come from, meaning they’d had to circle around whatever was making such a commotion.
The rumbles worsened by the second, to the point where Alice struggled to hold her footing and not fall over, possibly sealing her fate.
As the group fled, they passed through a strangely wide clearing, all the blood-red grass near the centre nowhere to be seen. The entire scene set Alice’s mind on fire, the sense of wrongness permeating the very ground making her want to scream and run in the opposite direction.
But the group forged ever forwards in front of Alice, crossing the clearing. She risked getting left behind and torn to shreds if she turned tail. A stone of dread sat in her chest and she started to sprint, aiming to overtake Olivia. She didn't want to be the last one if something came up from behind.
But, instead, her feet hit empty air.
The last rumble and screech shook the earth even more violently than any of the previous ones.
Then, something beneath the clearing gave way just in front of Alice, a gaping, yawning pit of pure darkness opening wide in front of her just as she was stepping forward.
The last view she had of the group was the turned backs of everyone but Olivia, who was slowly turning towards Alice, her eyes widened and her hand slowly reaching forwards.
I didn’t even get to—
Then she slammed her head on a rock while falling, and everything went dark.