John ‘The big dog’ Marquis was having a lovely nap while his junior workmate stood watch over him. At least standing watch in the technical sense that Myles would not let anything bad happen. The watchman du jour was poking his boss with a stick he had found nearby.
“John”. said Myles as he continued to poke. “John, we need to get going.” Myles poked a few more times before John Marquis sat upright, awake and alert once more.
“To big to fail Myles! I just smashed a giant pig and thats not a euphemism.”
“I’m not even going to unpack that.” Said Myles, wondering if this ‘community’ that kept being thrown around had an HR department. “Anyway, stop rolling around in the humus.”
“Stop talking nonsense Myles, this isn’t a Greek restaurant.”
Despite liking the man, Myles did momentarily question the Arkwright & Fletcher hiring managers abilities. He held out a hand and pulled his boss upright.
“In the absence of any skanky bars and your assurance regarding the lack of euphemism I’m going to make an educated guess and say you fought some kind of pig monster.” reasoned Myles.
“Fought? Myles it was a glorious battle, the thing started small like a tiny pig but it grew huge like my bank account after the Christmas bonus. I thought I was done for but after the pork chop supersized itself my suit finished syncing the language and all these options opened up. Next thing I was slicing it like a Sunday roast with this big fuck off scythe. I never thought a farm tool could make such a magnificent weapon.” John materialised the weapon in his hand and gave it a twirl before returning it to his sub-space inventory. “We sized each other up, I looked that pig right in its beady pig eyes and…”
The explanation of the fight carried on for several minutes with elaborate hand gestures and not a single bit of hyperbole… probably. Myles let his boss carry on as he was obviously proud of himself and deserved a show of support.
“So how did you beat your one Myles?” John asked with genuine curiosity.
“I made it hit a tree, then stamped on its head until the thing was dead.”
“Lame” said a disappointed John Marquis. “We are superheroes now, do better. Make it more epic!”
“What was lame” Asked John Barrington as he strolled up behind them very carefully not wearing anything that clashed with his armour.
“Myles is being boring.”
“What! Myles stop being boring.”
Gritting his teeth and counting to ten Myles tried very hard not to be tempted about the fact that where they were, no one would ever find the bodies. Myles decided that next time John Marquis passed out he would draw a cock on his faceplate. John Barrington soon caught them up with details of his own post separation fight albeit with some of those details carefully missing.
“So what’s the plan? We should get something nailed down before this place decides to separate us again.” Said Myles reasonably. “How do we kill it? and will it send more wrong looking animals after us?”
“Kill on sight is still the objective, we do that by causing severe damage to the central area, it will be the part that looks most ‘off’ but when in doubt, start smashing things… and keep destroying any constructs, making more will cost it.
As if answering a challenge several abominations stepped out of the, three were known to the armoured warriors. The bear, the pig and the tiger. four more beasts loaded behind, some kind of brutish marsupial, a haggard looking rabbit, a big fat bird of prey and a huge horse like animal. This was not going to be a good day. The three Trigger users covers each others backs. John Marquis summoned an impressive scythe. The shaft was the same dark green as the armour with a thick deadly looking golden blade. John Barrington summoned his sword into one hand, it was what Myles now recognised as a Khopesh, rather than the scimitar he original thought. The second hand was now filled with a sleek futuristic looking pistol. Myles’ friends were ready for the battle to come, weapons in hands and ready to fight to the bitter end. Myles had a really good stick.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The fight was hard, but with the three back to back there were no blind spots to exploit and the strongest three creature constructs the eldritch wood could create no longer held any surprises. Little by little the hollow puppets of the child eating woodland were ground to nothing. The second wave met the same fate. By the third the creatures were noticeably smaller… The thing was running out of resources. However one of the things they had heard came to pass, the eldritch location began to get desperate… it began to adapt. instead of larger monstrosities. It send a legion of much smaller bears, presumably keeping to the same model conserved resources. A wave of seven became seven hundred. Marquis was probably the best suited to this task, reaping the tiny yellow bears by the dozen as the marauding beasts lunged forward to meet the bade of his scythe. Barrington displayed marksmanship practiced beyond the normal lifespan of a human. Each shot landed dead in the middle of a tiny bears head. Myles had been putting as much into his inventory as he could, his stick had barely lasted into the second wave, so the least he could do was play clean up. He did however take every opportunity to punt little yellow bears as hard as he could. He gave himself ten imaginary points anytime he made one burst, five if he took a head off, but only one if he sent it to the back of the horde.
As the legion of tiny bears lay dead, bits scattered around the detritus of the woodland floor John Barrington started to panic.
“It’s re-absorbing the parts to make more… there should be more corpses…the big ones have gone too!” He looked around the battle site. Now things had calmed down he could see there were not as many of the things puppets as there should be… If it was able to recycle its hunters they would be in deep trouble. Kill on site may need to wait, this would be vital information to get back to the community.
“Oh, no, thats just me. I’ve been sticking everything in my inventory was we fought.” Said Myles
“How? that shouldn’t be possible, the suit should only take it Fae parts and the suits own items.” Said john Barrington.
“After I stomped the tiger to death, I picked it up and pulled it in, I thought it was just operating like a regular fae…”
“No, no.. this place ‘is’ the fae, the things in it are just stuff from our world it has animated. Like the shell of a hermit crab or a chimp using a stick, no one is going to then take that stick and put it in the monkey house at a zoo,”
“What if it was a really good stick?” Said Myles, asking the real questions.
“No Myles. Not even if it was really good stick.”
“Myles had a really good stick earlier, I think he lost it in the fight.’ Said John Marquis helpfully.
“You are putting not fae things in your inventory Myles, and that isn’t even the only mind blowing revelation here.” John Barrington spread his arms to gesture at the battle site. “Remember how many whistlers I could handle at once Myles, now look at how much you just casually put away”
Looking around the battered woodland Myles saw the truth in his mentors words. He had not been thinking, just acting on pure instinct. He had supposed the eldritch entity might be able to reuse its creations so he had not wanted to leave its resources just laying there. But he had taken in most of the bigger creatures including bears, tigers, what he thought was some kind of owl beast and what was probably a kangaroo…maybe and so many of the ugly little teddy bears he had lost count. He should have been full by now, well not full, that wasn’t how the sub-space inventory worked, but there should have been on cool down while all that stuff processed.
“I know I can’t say for sure… But this feels like a Trigger thing and not an ‘I was dead for a bit’ thing” said Myles, nailing the articulation. ‘But I…” Myles stared off into space as something took shape in his brain “have an idea, it is pretty mental. But it might be the solution we need right now.”
“Okay, I’m listening” Said john Barrington,
“I can’t tell you, just get ready” Said Myles. “I mean, right now.. get ready”
Concentrating as hard as he could Myles remembered how his inventory felt, what happened when he used it to store something, but this time not a small construct or shards of Billunben armour but bigger. John had said that this thing used the stuff around it as tools, Myles locked onto that idea, took hold and drew in… He started pulling in the location itself, everything it had touched was dragged into Myles storage space. The two Johns had to dodge trees rocks and broken constructs as it was all pulled into the inventory.
“Bloody hell Myles! Warn us next time.” shouted John Barrington over the crashing and ripping as the local scenery was stored inside Myles’ inventory.
“Is it me or is this place shrinking?” said John Marquis
“It defiantly is, whatever Myles is doing seems to be working”
Focusing, Myles pulled in harder and faster. His friends had to dodge a lot of debris and miscellaneous landscape as the process reached conclusion. Then they saw it, with nothing left to hide in, just a bare patch of ground, the grotesque brain like blob, floated there, the tendrils growing from it reached for earth and sky but faded into them near the end, merging with the very space.
It was mad. How dare these things come into its territory and take its home. All over some children, humans were shit, with shit lives and it made them happy! They had to pay for that happiness by feeding it but living on this shit world was so disgusting it was doing them a favour. It would…
The thing failed to finish that last thought as an already red stained foot drove right through it from top to bottom. Its tendrils were cut one after the other with great haste by a huge bladed weapon. It felt blasts of energy hit it all over leaving a trails of pain and damage. The remainder of its life was lived in a symphony of pain and confusion. It had nothing left to fight with. The fae that was a place of horror died.
“Dibs on the gross brain” Said Myles.