Trenton’s eyes fluttered open. It was pleasantly warm, a gentle breeze falling over his tender skin. At his back, he felt the gentle pinpricks of thousands of little blades of grass, a sensation he hadn’t felt in many months. Overhead, the sun was surprisingly bright, the sky a brilliant blue hue, clouds full and puffy stretching off over the horizon.
It reminded him of old summer days playing in the garden with Delis, splashing about in puddles of water formed by the hydromancers whilst racing around, trying their best to catch each other. He remembered all the fun they had, the stray moments of joy in his otherwise woeful tale. He remembered the laughter, the bright giggles of innocent children, pain not even a slight thought anywhere in their minds. He remembered the peace, the sanctuary he’d once had.
Then the crashing weight of reality set back in on him. His leg, the one consumed by that black substance Wimbleton exuded, smarted something fierce and, no matter how he tried, his right foot wouldn’t move. What the hell happened? What was that?
Memories of the morning's events swirled in his mind, Benevolent’s soldiers, the pain, Wimbleton, and that sickly black and red substance. If Trenton was right, if that stuff was what he thought it was, then what exactly did that make Wimbleton? What happened to him? Questions upon questions, and not an answer in sight. No use toiling over it then. He needed to make sure everyone lived still.
“It’s waking up! Don’t just stand there Harrold, do something!” A woman shrieked.
“What’d’yah want me to kill it?” A man, presumably Harold, responded.
“It came from nowhere. It’s a demon!” Another woman cried.
“Someone get Mally!” A younger boy called out.
“Hide the children!” An older man called out.
Trenton removed his hand from his eyes, sitting up and gazing about. All around him, a band of dirty looking elvish folk stood dressed in bonnets, dresses, and tunics: some holding pitchforks, some torches, and others babies swaddled in very tight looking blankets.
He looked to be in some sort of smaller village, rolling hills sparsely decorated with trees in every direction, plowed fields filled to the brim with crops of every variety, and ramshackle huts and houses spread a little ways from each other. Stretching in between the buildings was a simple dirt walking path, hills leading up to a smattering of small cliffs lined with pointed trees to one end of the village. From the top of the cliffs, a little waterfall descended, crashing gently over the rocks, giving the pleasant hum of rushing water to the air.
“I-” Trenton started, drawing another chorus of screams from the elves, some even shouting something along the lines of “it talks!” which is not a sentence Trenton ever expected to be directed towards him.
Just then, the sound of whipping winds rose around them. Just like when they first met, Avardis plummeted through the air, spinning wildly around, unable to right himself. The villagers all scrambled in fear, dropping their weapons on the ground as they scattered. Trenton, meanwhile, simply sat and watched with mirth. Avardis slammed face down into the ground a couple feet away from Trenton, forming a small crater the shape of his body in the ground.
“You alright there, bud?” Trenton remarked, watching Avardis struggle to a seated position.
He paused for a moment, looking around, then down at himself, then back at Trenton, “Yes. I have had much practice falling recently.”
Trenton chuckled, “You don’t say.”
“This place is unfamiliar. We are no longer in Ruvalth.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure a place called Ruvalth even exists anymore.”
“Elaborate.”
Trenton shook his head, rising precariously to his single remaining foot. He extended a hand out to Avardis, which he took graciously, “Nevermind. Do you know where the others are? I figure they’re around…somewhere.”
“No. My fall preoccupied my mind. I-”
Below them, the ground started to shift and crack, bubbling upward like something was trying to, very poorly, dig its way up. Trenton and Avardis stepped back, watching as a hand broke through the dirt, then another, and then a head. Piece by piece, Leo rose, coughing up lungfuls of dirt.
“Why-” Leo wailed, pausing to violently hack up a small rock covered in blood, spit, and bile, his whole body convulsing from the effort. “Why was I teleported down? W-why was that even an option!” He gagged, taking Trenton’s hand and pulling himself fully out of the ground.
“Sorry, Leo. I’ll make sure you get a hot bath and some nice food tonight,” Trenton reassured.
“...thanks.”
“The head does not look okay,” Avardis chimed in.
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Trenton looked down at Raligoth, noticing his slacked features, sagging skin, and general lack of heat. Was…he dead? Could he even die? It wasn’t like he had vitals to check. Maybe he just needed a bit to recover. They did teleport quite a ways, afterall…probably. It was unlikely they’d be able to do that again anytime soon if it came down to it. They’d need to be more careful from there out.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine. We should-”
“MOLE MAN!” One of the villagers blared, pointing at Leo’s dirt riddled form, drawing another panicked cry from the rowdy bunch, which rose and mingled with those of another, quickly approaching mob.
The other group collided with theirs, angry and frightened citizens mixing together until all that existed was one great mass of villagers, Millie, Maria, Karfice, and Kiva getting thrown towards their inner circle in that order.
Millie clung to Trenton’s leg, burying her face into his clothes, while the other girls tried to calm the crowd around them, Karfice simply sitting down in the grass and watching the clouds overhead. They were quite pretty.
“We mean you no harm!” Kiva shouted, hands in the air.
“She’s lyin’! I can see it in her eyes!” One famer shouted, raising his pitchfork into the air.
“Kill the wench! No one tramples on our land!” Another added, a thunderous roar of “kill the wench” billowing out from the rambunctious crowd.
“Oh those bastards. I’ll kill ‘em,” Maria muttered, eyes twitching.
“No no no, no killing. They’re scared. We can’t just slaughter anyone that slightly inconveniences us,” Kiva said, holding Maria’s arms down.
“We are very capable of-” Avardis tried to say, but Kiva clamped her hand over his mouth, giving him a death glare unlike any other.
“I don’t suppose we’ll be able to reason with them,” Trenton said. “We’re better off just trying to leave.”
Kiva nodded, “Agreed. Avardis, could you-”
“WOLVES! EVERYBODY RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” A shrill voice of a buxom little woman called out.
Instantly, the villagers booked it for the hills, pushing eachother out of the way to run further into their little village. Over the hills, a small pack of giant gray coat wolves came charging, some of whom’s mouths already dripped with saliva and blood. They bolted towards the village with remarkable speed, a single gargantuan wolf, the size of a small shack or so, leading the charge.
“Leo?” Trenton nodded towards the boy.
“Right,” Leo stepped forward, raising a single hand into the air, around which 5 large motes of fire swirled.
Then, with a sweep of his hand, Leo launched the 5 motes, each one growing to twice the size of even the gargantuan wolf. They blitzed towards the pack, swallowing whole the wolves before they had the chance to divert course, nothing but charred corpses left in their wake.
“You missed one,” Avardis stated, raising his hand to the side where a single wolf had attempted to flank.
It backpedaled on its hind legs, doing everything in its power to scramble away from them, but Avardis was a little quicker. He clenched his fingers together before thrusting them open, the wolf’s stomach exploding outwards in a burst of air and viscera splattering everything in a 15 foot radius from the wolf’s corpse.
“Is that all of them?” Kiva asked, confused by the small size of the incursion.
“Looks it, but,” Trenton’s eyes scanned the direction the wolves ran from, feeling the great pounding against the earth, “it also looks like they were running from something a little bit bigger.”
Some 30 feet in front of them, from the air, a gray skinned the size of a small building at least landed, having just jumped clean over the hills to reach them. It had a peculiar build, Two elongated legs like the mix between a frog and a horse, which bended at 3 distinct points, two bulky arms like a gorilla, and an flattened head with one long ridge running along top akin to an inverted hammerhead. Along its malformed and unusually skinny chest, it had visible chitin plates, as well as at select points on its legs, arms, and head. The creature looked one part imposing to two parts pitiable, its body something of a freakshow.
A little ways off, atop a hill with a good vantage point, the villagers slowly came to a stop, gathering together to watch the kids fight. For as much fear as these villagers had, it didn’t seem to be backed up by much sense…or intelligence. They hooped and hollered, cheering them on despite their clear vitriol present just a moment ago. The beast leaned forward and landed on all fours, watching them closely with its two bulbous eyes, hesitating to approach as they formed together, ready to fight.
But before either group could make a move, a silky deep voice echoed out through the village, bounding between the ramshackle wooden huts, “Say, you kids don’t look like you’re from around here.”
A beautifully sculpted man with slightly wrinkled, scarred, deep blue skin, black hair with gray streaks tied together behind his head, and a bright, charming smile stepped forth. He had rounded ears like a man and the broad build of a warrior, but carried neither armor nor weapon, clad only in a simple beige shirt and baggy, ripped pants.
Without the slightest bit of fear in his heart, the man approached their group, stopping in between them and looking up at the beast, which had taken a couple steps back as he approached.
“Carvomisc’s, they’re called, creations of the Collector. Course, this ones an early version, hence why it looks the way it does. The moment he figured out how to make better ones, he simply dumped the old ones off here. We get ‘em every now and then,” the man said, locking eyes with the carvomisc the whole while he spoke.
It was hard to believe this thing was a carvomisc, its form not nearly as grotesque or complicated as the last one Trenton saw, but it did have a certain mutated, unnatural look about it. At least this one wasn’t trying to take his eye from him.
“Is…it going to attack? It doesn’t look very friendly,” Leo asked, body tense.
The man chuckled, taking a step forward as the beast reared to its hind legs, looking fit to leap away, “Not with me here. My presence deters most monsters from approaching, but,” in one swift motion, the man plunged his hand into his chest, drew out a brilliant one-sided, one-handed, clockwork axe coated in thick black lines, and swung it in a clean arc overhead, decapitating the creature without even touching it.
The carvomisc’s body collapsed to the ground in a growing pool of crimson blood, head dropping cleanly into the man’s left hand. He planted his axe into the ground, turning to face them, the hinges of his mouth twisted down somewhat, a grim light echoing within the chambers of his soul.
“...not as much, lately,” the man said, taking a moment's pause before looking up at them again, some of his energy returned. “The name’s Mally. I’m the caretaker of this village.”