Hello again! I am feeling much better today.

Nothing really snaps you out of an funk like violence. It burns away all the fears, regrets, and doubts in a bright blaze of awesome carnage. Temporarily that is. I do not recommend beating up your friends and loved ones when you get frustrated, but when you have reached the end of your rope. When all you can think of is self doubt, fear of the future, and regret about the past. Then maybe go punch or kick a sturdy and inanimate object.

Or assault a legion of the damned.

Thats what I did today. Seems like the patch of blighted land we had fought on two days ago was just the edge of a massive bubble of blighted fun. Inside lurked horrifying monstrosities of twisted flesh. Dead and rotted amalgams of animals and people. Twisted chimeras that leak pus and spit flies.

Seriously gross things. They look much better as ash, and they showed up just in time to draw me from a spiny shell of depressing and demoralizing thoughts.

Onica was right. There is no reason that those things we destroyed must be my lost troops. I was seriously out of it a whle before I even saw them. As for what called me there, I haven't a clue. I do know my troops are dead and gone though. Somewhere, maybe not here, they fell. I will find out. I will avenge their deaths if they have not already been avenged, and I will lay their bodies to rest if they have not already gone Home.

I have a purpose now. A solid and concrete goal.

Still have absolutely no idea how I will go about reaching my goal, but that's a problem for future me!

Anyway, where was I? Twisted chimeras, right.

We were greeted this morning not only by the beautiful sunrise, but also a twisted wreck of rotted muscle holding together a tortured construct on innumerable bones.

I lurched over a hill, toppled clumsily down the short rise, and fell directly into our campfire. I should mention that Julius and I compete to see who can make the bigger campfire. So thats why it fell into a towering inferno that reach roughly ten feet into the air, and had long since reduced the poor soil under it to glass. Lena, Onica, and Fen couldn't stand closer than twenty feet from its edge.

So when this thing fell directly into the middle of that fire its already shaky grasp on life was, ironically, extinguished. A Short gout of black smoke and some cracked bones and teeth were all that remained. 

Then a hundred more similar but terribly different beasties came shambling over the hill. Fen fired first. A blinding flash of lightning leapt into their ranks. Skittering from one rotted mobile carcass to another. They exploded. Lena joined in by sweeping a nearby river over the left flank of the oncoming Rotlings, just named them, and froze it into a macrabe display of twisted flesh and bone. I actually don't know if that killed them or not. It certainly killed them when Onica smashed the ice, and its frosted friends, into finger sized chunks. Lena scooped up this glittery shrapnel and tore into the remnants. Onica entered the ice storm and dance within it. Smashing and slicing any Rotling she could get her hands and weapons on.

Julius and I entered the fun and games with twin blasts of fire. Mine swept side to side, aiming to consume as many of the front ranks as possible. Julius' punched through the first rank, and then kept going. He drilled a ashen path directly into the heart of the oncoming Rotling host.

Then we broke out the tinglewood, and the fun really began. Over the small hill was a massive army of Rotlings. Far as the eye could see they claimed the horizon. A blue snake, a black-red golden crowned rabbit, and a firey red goat smashed deep into their ranks. Once I reached what I assumed was roughly the middle of the army I dissolved the Ivers Dream from one goat into a rampaging herd of them. Fire, hoof, and horn smashed and burned away all the Rotlings around me. 

Fen and Onica dashed about them. Flashing lightning and blades ripped the enemy around them into shreds. A blue mist drifted into being along with a possibly haunting, but definitely squeaky melody. Lena was trying out her flute I suppose. Inside the oddly blue mist there was silence besides the music(?). As it drifted past its receding edge showed the ground coated in ice, with mounds of shattered Rotlings atop it. A combo sound and ice attack maybe?

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Julius charged around wildly. Razing the enemy with sweeps of his Tyrants feet and flame. Occasionally he would rocket skyward, and crash into a mass of them with awesome explosions of heat and fire. Craters and ditches followed in his wake.

In a fit of inspiration I recalled my goats, turned them into small swordsmen with firey red swords, and led them in a brutal and controlled march into the guts of the enemy. We swept, slashed, and stabbed our way through any resistance.

The Rotlings never stood a chance.

Which is probably why their ugly big brothers decided to show up. Where the Rotlings were primarily bones held together by rotted muscle. These nauseating nuisances were twitchy lumps of slightly less rotted muscle. They moved faster and hit harder than the Rotlings, and they seemed to have been designed to have as many jaws, claws, and fangs as physically possible. They clawed, bit and roared at us. 

We destroyed them. I still haven't decided on a name for them yet. They were truly fierce, but they couldn't get through our tinglewood shells and swords. Onica proved to be too fast for them. Dodging and dicing them as Fen assisted her with timely gusts of wind to carry her out of danger or blasts of lightning to protect her back. They make a very nice duo. 

After those came these bloated sacks of organs that spewed various noxious fluids at us. They didn't make much of an impact. Except when we figured out that if you hit them in their main sack with a fireball or lightning bolt while it was engorged to its maximum size it would trigger a meaty explosion. Those explosions coated their unfortunate allies in the sizzling juices they spit, and reduced them to bubbling pubbles of stinky scum.

Then came the Drymen. Stick thin and very flammable. The Drymen looked like dessicated husks of people with black brandings of crooked and sharp runes scarring their otherwise dull brown wrinkly skin. They would wave their arms about and howl tonelessly. As they did so ice spears, fireballs, rock bullets, or wind blades would spring into being around them and then get launched at us.

We responded appropriately. With excessive force and possibly gleeful salvos of our respective arsenals. They crumbled into dust under our figurative and literal heels.

Finally was the Super Dryman. Towering at eleven feet or so tall. This Dryman looked roughly similar to the others. Only taller, and its black marks leaked a sickly purple light as they shifted in esoteric patterns over its body. It cackled a shrill and dusty laughter and with a wave of its hands the world shifted. The earth shattered and the skys dropped. Clouds clinging close to the ground and lighning running through them in threatening webs of violent light. Sharp odd angles of stone reache into the clouds and lightning crept onto the land and closer to us. Fire surrounded us in curtains of twitching purple that licked at our minds before our bodies. Black frost started to cover the cracked earth entombing the deceased and promising the same to us.

As I was struggling to regain some footing and continuing my slaughter of the enemies around me I felt its disgusting dead eyes run over me. A shudder ran down my spine as its mouth creaked open again in a sneer. A dry breath of air crept over its dusty teeth.

Then Onica ripped its head off after Fen stunned it with a lightning bolt before it could begin its monologue. 

I guess I was overreacting to its theatrics. Nothing much to it despite the cool intro.

Shortly after that all the undead things redeadified. Then the sun set. We had been fighting all day.

Super relaxing day!

We ate the last of the dragon for supper and then turned in. 

Tonight I will sleep on top of my satchel. Preventing any would be journalers from writing in you.

Goodnight!

*****

Hardly a challenge. The Food-giver rolled off of its hoarding sack after snoring for a minute.

Try harder next time.

Glorious battle was had today. 

I was victorious. As I always am.

*****

Hiya Mr. Book! 

Big bro is back to being his silly self.

As if sleeping on top of his purse would stop any of us!

Today was lots of fun! 

I got to practice my flute and I danced a lot!

And dinner was delish, finally!

Bye-bye Mr. Book!

*****

The Fool is a great warrior and cook, but a terrible sneak.

This is good. A man without weaknesses will be envied and destroyed in time.

I have seen it happen to the best of Chiefs. They can face armies, famines, plagues, and the plotting of their enemies. But they cannot defeat the knives hidden in the hand of 'friends' that are wielded with smiles. 

Envy and pride kill Kings. It is just a matter of which comes first that is up for debate.

 *****

The hat is talking.

The hat is still talking.

Still talking

...

...

...

...

...

Still talking.

I am walking away now. I doubt it will notice.

The hat makes a wonderful partner in the Dance. It is vicious, brutal, and efficient. Why it behaves so differently outside of the Dance is beyond me.

Farewall, Fen. I hope you learn to write soon.