Slayers. An interesting profession that many of the uninformed confuse with hunters, adventurers, or explorers. Hunters can be anything from your common trapper to people who are specialized in tracking down and killing dangerous beasts. They stick to beasts as prey, however, and often are hired by the rich for their services in order to acquire a trophy. Adventurers are those seeking adventure! Treasure, or the lure of reward is what drives these people to delve into dungeons and dangerous territory. Next are explorers, those that for the most part are just looking to go where few have gone before. They are often the ones who have drawn the maps and written the guides. There is of course overlap between all of these, but I find slayers to be the most noble, but also least appreciated of these professions, or maybe callings. Slayers are the ones that hunt those that threaten people. It could be beasts, but usually it is other things. Ogres, trolls, rogue orcs, and wild goblins. Slayers when they hear of people going missing will go and find the predator responsible and put it down. They are feared and shunned by many, but it is they, not adventurers or hunters, that protect the towns and villages too small or poor to afford protection.
(Quailor the Quiet. The Ways of the World, Excerpt from the chapter pertaining to Slayers).
I was once again grateful for the fine netting that hung from around the brim of my wide hat as I flicked another mosquito off of the mesh. I couldn’t see nearly as well, but that seemed much better than having to constantly swat at the plague of flies and bugs that hovered around my mentor’s head. I had thought that the bugs had been bad when we were just making our way along the riverbank, following the faint trail left by some creature that had dragged in a few fishermen from the small village of Connor’s Bend. Tracking the creature to its den had led us from the river into this marshy pond that seemed to be rapidly spreading into a small lake. From the terrain I could tell that this used to be forest as some trees were still standing despite the water now covering the roots. We made our camp at the river’s mouth and as dusk approached my mentor broke out his line and tackle.
“Wade, I think this is the first time that I’m trying to bait out a man-eater with actual bait.” My mentor, Jeremy, said with a hard laugh. To someone else it would look like he was relaxing, but to me I could see how his eyes kept careful watch for any sign that something bigger than a fish was taking interest.
The first disappearance had taken place nearly two weeks ago and the second a week after, so hopefully the creature’s pattern would hold. I had strung my bow, arrow nocked, and sat a bit farther back from the bank than he did, sitting on the ground it would be difficult for anything in the water to see anyone other than him. In his hands sat the simple fishing rod, but also in one hand he held his dirk ready in case the creature was sneakier than we anticipated.
The croaking of the frogs grew with the darkness and as the sun dipped beneath the horizon, but still lit up the sky, I noticed lights far off in the swamp. I frowned but couldn’t make out what they were at this distance, looking like lanterns or magelights more than fire.
“What are those?” I asked quietly, my voice just loud enough so that Jeremy would hear me.
“Not sure.” He was silent for a moment. “One more cast and then maybe we’ll try to investigate.”
“Ok,” I replied, “will be too dark for a bow soon anyways.”
He slowly reeled in the line before casting far out into the water, before jigging it back towards us across the surface. I noticed that I had been distracted by his fishing and quickly scanned to see if anything had changed in other parts of the swamp. All seemed still, but I couldn’t see anything beneath the surface now that the light was fading. Suddenly there was a splash and my gaze shot back to the fishing line that had become taut. Jeremy took a more stable stance and began to fight with the fish.
“It’s a big one! Boy, keep an eye out to see if this commotion brings in anything else.” He shouted commands as his attention was taken by the fish. I rose to a kneeling position and readied the bow as I made a noise of affirmation. Scanning the water again I didn’t see anything else, a quick glance at the line showed that the fish was truly putting up a valiant fight, and absently wondered what kind of powerful fish could be lurking in such a small pond.
Then breaking the surface in a jump revealed a thick pike longer than my arm. The fish sent up a spray as it fought the line, and just as I started to look away to continue to scan the water, I saw something break the water behind the giant fish. At first it looked somewhat like a floating log, but just as quickly as it had surfaced it dropped back beneath the surface leaving only a few ripples as proof of it ever being there.
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“Did you see that!” I hissed urgently, rising into a crouch and getting ready to draw in case I saw it again.
“Ay. Looks like it’s taken the bait. Be ready.” My mentor’s voice was calm, but I could hear the tension underlying his words. I tore the hat from my head and ignored the bugs as I strained my eyes for another glimpse of the creature. However aside from the fighting fish all was still. Slowly the fish weakened in it’s struggles, and Jeremy brought it closer to the shore. Then it suddenly veered to one side and the line tangled on some fallen branches laying along the bank.
“This is it; the beast will strike as soon as I reach the bank!” Jeremy called as he lay down the rod, dirk held at the ready and leapt down into the shallows. I moved to the side so I would have a clear shot and drew back the arrow. As soon as his feet splashed into the shallows a form burst from the river and reached for him. It was bipedal, though thinner than a human. Even in the near-dark it looked slimy and covered in algae and weeds.
I loosed the arrow and it hit home in its armpit just before the creature tackled my mentor. The pair grappled in the shallows, and I watched as he stabbed furiously at the creature. Dropping my bow, I launched myself forward and tackled the creature off of Jeremy, bowling it over into the shallows. I landed in the water and floundered for a second as it was deeper than I had expected. Before I could regain my footing on the rocky bottom something grabbed me and clambered on my back. The extra weight pushed my head deeper into the water and I began to struggle wildly as the need to breathe overwhelmed me.
Suddenly the direction of the weight was reversed, and I came up gasping and coughing. Continuing to splutter for a moment I quickly remembered what we were doing and clambered to my feet slipping on the slick river rocks along the bottom. Stumbling back to the bank I saw that Jeremy had managed to wrangle the creature back up onto the bank and I tried to climb back up after them but slipped on the wet grass before scrabbling in the mud for a moment and dragging myself back up onto the embankment.
I stood and sucked in a deep breath, that gave me a moment to remember the hand-axe hanging from my belt. The strap released and I pulled it free. Jeremy was still struggling against the creature, ‘tenacious thing,’ I thought as I approached. Raising the axe, I let out a warning shout.
“Watch out!” Jeremy rolled out of the way, and I brought the axe down in a heavy chop. The creature had managed to get a limb in the way but cracked beneath the force of the blow. ‘Feels like chopping wood.’ Raising my axe again I chopped again this time sunk the head into its head. I twisted the haft to tear the weapon free and then chopped again just to be sure it was dead and then stood, chest heaving as I sucked in breath.
“Well done, son. Well done. All over now.” I could feel my blood pumping in my ears as he dragged me back towards our camp. I was shaking, my clothes all of a sudden felt constricting, the damp unpleasant. My fingers scrabbled ineffectively at the laces, and I began hyperventilating as I struggled to free myself from the constricting embrace. Suddenly a hand caught mine and held it tightly while another hand found the back of my head and dragged me into a crushing embrace. I struggled for a moment before relaxing and sucking in a deep breath and letting it out to drain the tension out of me. “That’s it boy just breath. We’re alive and the beasty is dead. Take a moment and then let’s get cleaned up.”
**- Next Morning-**
In the sunlight the creature looked much smaller than I expected. It was also a lot more like wood than anything I had anticipated. It looked like a water drenched log had become covered in algae and weeds and then decided to copy a human’s shape. It creeped me out.
“What the fuck is this thing?” I asked as I stared at it with my mentor. He was breaking apart it’s bark-like exterior around the arm I had broken and looking at what lay beneath.
“To be honest with you Wade,” He paused for a moment, “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen or heard of one of these in all my time as a slayer. I was expecting a river troll, or a vodyanoy, or maybe even a bunyip, but I have no clue what this is. There isn’t even flesh beneath its skin, which is more like bark, it’s more like waterlogged wood, sort of spongy. And then there were those strange lights out over the water last night.” I had forgotten about those after the excitement.
“What do you think those were?” I asked, something about the memory of them filled me with unease, though I just remember being curious last night.
“I’m not sure, something else I’ve never heard of, but you know what new things popping up usually means.” His tone was grim.
“Dungeon?” I asked, though now that he had led me to it, it seemed obvious.
“Looks like Connor’s Bend is going to be a lot busier in the future.” He muttered while gazing out at the growing pond. I followed his gaze and for a moment saw a sinuous, scaled shape break the surface of the water far out from shore. “Time to call in the adventurers. I have a feeling that this thing,” giving the strange corpse a kick, “isn’t high on the dungeon’s food chain. Better to let someone else waste their life delving a new dungeon.” At his grim words my throat suddenly felt dry and swallowed thickly.