The dwarves rushed out of the camp. There was a massive army surrounding them, waiting to attack them.
"Quickly! Translator! We need to speak with these people!" Yelled Gob.
"Yes sir!" Came the reply.
There was a flash of light, and the group should now be able to understand the language of the enemy.
"What should we say?" asked
"By the gods why is there such a large army?!" One dwarf said, terrified.
The army proceeded to vanish before their eyes.
"Who did that?! That scared us half to death!" Another one shouted angrily.
"Calm yourselves. Now listen carefully." Said gob. "Our mission here is complete. Our orders were to find the natives of this planet and try to negotiate peace between our races, as well as PEACEFULLY make them join the greater galaxy under the gods. It seems as if some kind of magic is in place to make us panic. Thus far, we have only had one death. For a world nobody has returned from alive, and with the will to share what he saw there, this is a very good death rate. Take out your notebooks, and write what you have learned on the planet, and I don't mean the professional notes you have written about the plant life and animals I mean ab-" gob was interrupted by one of the fighters of the group.
"Sir I do not mean to interrupt you, but something either made an army disappear before our eyes, or made an illusion of an army to scare us. This isn't the time to write notes, this is the time to contact the other groups and share what we have already written just in case we will not leave this planet alive." Said one of the calmer expeditioners of the bunch.
*Sigh* "Very well, go ahead and send your observations back home. But please keep what I say in mind. If any of the other groups turn out to be dead, we may want to consider leaving this planet as soon as possible. This planet, and it's inhabitants do not want us here." Replied Gob.
Soon after that, some of the dwarves arrived at the temporary head quarters of the expeditionary forces on Terra and delivered all they already written down about the planet.
Luckily for those who went to report, they arrived just in time, because what was about to happen in all the other bases would go from unpleasant, to down right hell.
And you better believe we are going to tell the story of one that has had hell.
On the surface, nothing seemed amiss. The sky remained blue, the sun shone brightly overhead, and the grass swayed gently in the wind. A gentle breeze blew through the fields (at the bases near fields of course), sweet-smelling flowers. There was no warning for what to come.
They have been on this planet for a long time now, and yet they have seen almost none of the horrors it had to offer.
It gave them time. It put their colleges in traumatic situations, and almost never risked their lives. But the planet was running out of patience. It wanted the aliens out, and it wanted them out now.
Gob was walking around the camp looking at the faces of the frightened explorers who had faced the attacks of the alien inhabitants of this planet so far.
The dwarf explorers were trying to figure out what was going on. They couldn't remember the faces if the soldiers from what was presumably a large illusion army. Infact, no one could remember almost anything about it, except for the fact it was outside of their camp, and was pretty big.
Not the armor, not the weapons, nothing.
Something bad was going on, and Gob knew it.
As the leader of this outpost of the exploration, it was his duty to find out what was wrong.
He walked in the forest with two well trained guards right besides, and several others trailing behind.
Suddenly, he heard a loud roar coming from somewhere nearby.
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"Is someone else hearing that?" He asked nervously.
One of the men nodded, and pointed into the woods.
But there wasn't anything there...or rather... there shouldn't have been anything there. Whatever it is, it might be gone by this point.
One of the guards stepped forward, and started to walk toward the source of the sound.
Gob followed him quickly.
Before long, he found himself standing in front of a huge cave entrance.
Inside the cave, was a massive jungle temple.
The walls were covered in vines, which grew thickly enough to completely hide most of the structure itself, at least from the entrance to the cavern.
Several creatures stood around, staring at the dwarfs with wide open eyes. Their bodies were similar to that of elves, though slightly larger, and their ears were less... Sharp.
These were not elves. These were something much stranger. And something even more dangerous.
They were intelligent beings, no need for questions. And they were strong. Very very strong.
They had a ton of muscles and the skin of some of them was blackened for some reason. Black black, not black like dark brown, not black like ash, but black like the darkness of the empty void of space. Those with the black skin were clearly the leaders of whatever group they belonged to. They had to be. There was no other reason for one to look so unique compared to the rest of them right? Although, some of them had bigger muscles and more magical power...
They also seemed to have great magical powers.
Each of them had enough power that it might take a whole team experienced adventurers to kill one based on magic power alone, even the weaker ones.
The guards drew their swords.
"Stay calm. Stay close together. Don't let them see you, this is a fight we cannot win no matter what sort of tactic anyone here can make." Gob whispered quietly.
"I believe these are some the intellectual life forms of this planet" said one of the guards next to him.
"Are you sure? They seem pretty dumb to me?" Gob said in a sarcastic tone.
The guard did not seem to notice the sarcastic tone and said "I'm absolutely positive sir."
"Alright. Let's enter slowly." Gob said, moving towards the mouth of the cave. As soon as they entered, however, the guards stopped abruptly, and backed away rapidly.
"What's going on?" Gob whispered.
"Look at what they're doing." One of the guards said.
They turned around, and saw a couple of the creatures holding spears with yellowish green tips.
it appeared as if they were preparing themselves to fight.
"What are they doing? Why are they here, and why are they preparing to fight?" Asked one of the guards.
"I don't know. But I have a feeling that whatever they are preparing, it probably involves us to some capacity, infact I might even bet a drink on it." Replied Gob in a nervous tone.
Gob sighed heavily. This situation was getting worse and worse by the minute.
"Get ready everyone, we're leaving." Gob whispered a little bit louder.
Once again, the guards readied their weapons and moved cautiously into the jungle away from the cave.
Once they were sure they were far away enough so they couldn't hear them, Gob ordered an immediate retreat to the camp.
After a few minutes, they finally reached their destination safely.
When they got there, however, things weren't exactly safe anymore.
Because the dwarfs have forgotten one of the most important things during an exploration... Showing the monster (or monsters) where is your camp isn't such a good Idea...
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in another dimension, in a place were true horrors come to life, a being called Azathoth watched as the last of the of the ships the gods sent to aide the exploratores fell apart upon entering the atmosphere of his planet.
"So custodian finally had enough of their crap..." He mumbled in amusement.
Those beyond the reach of the creator were technically immortal beings. In order to create new life, they needed to absorb energy from the universe, and then use it to produce new life forms known to most as demons to aide them. Or, as they like to call themselves, "employees".
They supplied the "employees" with energy through a connection, to their masters, or as they call them "managers", and this "corporate ladder" goes on and on, until you reach him, the horrific monster, the myth, the story of pure negative emotion by the name of Azathoth, the master of the group the mortals that live on Terra call "the horrors", or as the employees like to call him, the "CEO" of the "company".
Upon killing a mortal, the employees receive a small strength boost, while most of the power goes to the managers, that strength boost goes up the corporate ladder until the "CEO" receives a tiny bit of the strength of the dead enemy, but he does get a lot of bits of strength boosts, so it is fine. The amount of strength changes accordingly to the power level of the dead person. The employees call this power boost "raise" of their "salaries".
When killed, the employees will remain dead for some time, before reviving with a bit less power.
And guess where the "corporation" attacks with 98.6% of it's power (according to the graphs of the administration department)?
You guessed it.
Terra, the home of the human race.
Azathoth smiled bitterly with hundreds of mouths. His plans were working perfectly. Emphasis on "were".
All those years of waiting for them to finally evolve, all the way from single cells, to watch them survive on this horrifying planet, only for custodian to show up and ruin it.
But, it has been proven that the war helps both the humans AND the horrors grow stronger, as well as there being the cultists, (or customers as the employees call them), which sacrifice others to gain a power boost from the horror they sacrificed the person to (which the employees call an investment), or in order to get some artifact, usually a weapon (Which the employees call a product).
But enough with the ramblings of an old horror, because this looks like it will be interesting...