When the Elf scout returned to the city, he was met with faces full of anxiety; no one had ever wanted to believe that the prophecy of old was true.
He was under strict orders to not disclose what he had experienced while in the depths of The Dreaded Place. He didn’t need to tell the common folk of what he had found there for them to know the truth; the look on his face betrayed everything. As he passed the commotion he was unable to meet the eyes of his family and friends, he felt guilty for no good reason, regardless of such things he had a duty to give the report to the venerable elders.
There high up in the ancestral tree, in the grand hall, were gathered all the people of importance. It was just so that the importance in this society came with age, and many of those gathered here were at least past two-hundred years; some older – ancient even. Hence, he was neither surprised nor offended to see venerable elders asleep during a crisis of this magnitude. At least the high chief was wide awake.
He cleared his throat and spoke loudly so that even the most ancient could hear him. “The darkness has awoken.” He was surprised at the sound of his own voice; he sounded so shaken his voice was barely recognisable.
“So the divinations were correct.” The chief replied flatly as if he expected the bad news.
The scout nodded. “And it’s spreading like a sickness. Destroying and corrupting the very jungle it has spawned from.”
“Only a true evil would do so - eat its own mother.”
“What do we do chief? Do we try to fight it?”
“But can we win?”
The scout shook his head. “It’s likely too late.”
“Then we must weather it. Our ancestors did, so shall we.”
The scout wasn’t too sure about it; they didn’t see the things he saw so fleeing seemed like a better option but he knew that the elders would be too stubborn to leave their ancestral forest.
He didn’t want to disagree with the elders either way. “If we must… Then let me explain in detail of what exactly I have seen.”
The high chief and other venerable elders perked up. The keen looks of the pillars of elven society felt oppressive. He had never felt so important in his entire life. A scout like him, in normal circumstances, was of low status in this society. However, things were changing, for better or worse.
He took a deep breath and spoke of horrors he had witnessed in great detail.
The elders were known to be stubborn and resistant to changes, under their rule barely anything seemed to change. This time, to the surprise by many, was different. A great many changes were implemented. The living wood was used to grow the walls around the city, surrounding it completely. The gatherers were no longer permitted to leave the city, no one was except the scouts. Most importantly everyone had to learn how to use a bow, even the women and the children.
The sages and other wizened people buried themselves in dusty scrolls looking for a magical solution in ancient texts.
Everyone had a role to play. His role, obviously, didn’t change much, he was still a scout. No, he was The Scout now, after all, he was the best, so he continued to do what he excelled at. It was his daily routine to inspect the forest, to scout for any changes and then no matter how minor report back to elders. He took great pride in this important mission.
The days went on and there was nothing, and then more nothing. Until there was something…
He had found the Apex Panther, the king of this forest, literally ripped in pieces. The sight was so vile he failed to keep his breakfast inside. His otherwise steady hands began to tremble in fear.
“Stop it! This is not you.” He tried to calm himself.
It was impossible to stay collected. To slay Apex Panther was no easy feat, the animal was known as the king of the forest for a good reason.
“…and here it lays dead.”
There was no stronger creature in the entire forest, so it meant only one thing.
He began running back to the city, the elders had to know. Everyone is in danger!
In his mad dash, he had almost made a critical mistake. He was lucky to be saved by his unique perk. An overlay superimposed on the sight of usual trees and vegetation blinked in his vision. He recognised the red spider-like shapes. He had detected enemies, they were only meters away.
He stopped a tad bit too quickly and tumbled to the ground. He rolled breaking the fall, he had made a mistake but his scout skills saved him once again – no sound was made. He had stopped just in time to remain hidden.
The red overlay was no longer needed, he could see the hostiles with his plain vision. He climbed up the tree to see better. He was right, he knew the enemy, they were spiders dressed in blue cloth. But there was something else right in between the spider formation. And that thing scared him more than spiders did. It walked on two legs like an elf would, but it didn’t look either like an elf or even human. It looked like a twisted mockery of a human. Instead of skin, it had black scales and its head resembled that of a lizard. The scout concluded it to be another spawn of evil.
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However disturbing the sight of a humanoid monster was, this was not the worst thing he was observing at this very moment. There, right beneath the scaled monster was something that could only be called a Divine Guardian, the embodied spirit of this forest. This was a holy animal all elves recognised and revered, only a select few lucky elves were able to meet this elusive creature. Its appearance however was well documented and he had no trouble recognising the forest spirit. And there it was, laying in complete submission under the boots of this twisted creature.
And then, as the true evil would, the twisted creature slaughtered the Divine Guardian in cold blood.
The scout could feel sad tears flowing down his cheeks. He wasn’t one to cry easily, actually, he had never cried before. This was terrible, but not the worst he had seen yet. He sat in the tree petrified and observed the horrors which kept getting worse and worse with each passing second.
…
While he was away from the farm new spiders have hatched; he welcomed the message [Farming +1500exp]. It was a moment for celebration, however, seeded deep into his mind was a worry that new hatchlings won’t recognise him as their rightful king. He was away for quite a while so they might have even elected a new king!
There was no need to worry because he had received a hero’s welcome. Young hatchlings were happy to meet their master, sniffing at his trousers and chirping in their shrill but cute voices.
“I have found civilisation!” He announced proudly to everyone gathered. “But what do we do with this knowledge?”
Of course, even if thousands of eyes were watching him keenly there still was no reply. He knew what needed to be done, but first things firsts.
“Carry the spoils to the storage.” He ordered his spiders, the ones who were already halfway within the completion of the order.
“Oh and the little boars, don’t hurt them. I will build a pen to keep them.”
He did just that, it was a simple task of hammering some wooden poles and tying a net of ropes in between. Then he released the squealing animals into the pen. They didn’t seem all too happy, probably still scared of the spiders.
“Here-here, now, you need to get used to this.” He dropped an armful of TomGrape fruit into the pen.
The little boars were suspicious of the unfamiliar fruit. They cautiously sniffed at the food using their short snouts. Then, soon enough, they were devouring the offering with great gusto.
“I knew you will like it. Everyone does. Just wait until you try slug jelly.”
With that, his future source of meat was secured.
With this done he performed a, now routine, lookover of his farm. Everything was in order, the buildings were maintained, the fields expanded and the jungle cleared. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except for Johny, he expected the little slug to make some trouble; he was a known troublemaker. He didn’t expect it to devastate the BlueDust fields. That, and the fact that he no longer was little, no, he was as big as the boars he had fought.
“Johny! What did you do you glutton!” He put on his best angry face and scolded the slug.
The slug wiggled its antennas towards him and the shades of blue ran through its see-through body. It was showing colours to him, Johny did that then he was happy.
“Aw, you missed me. I can’t be angry with you, you are just too cute.” He patted the overgrown slug. “But you need to watch your appetite. Now, where is all that jelly?”
A bigger slug equals more jelly. At this point, he had no qualms about milking Johny for it. The size of course made the task so much easier. All of this milking stuff implied that Johny was probably a female slug, but who cares. The slug was just Johny in his mind.
He licked heavenly jelly from his fingers. “It’s as tasty as ever. Thanks, Johny.”
The field of flowers is pretty much gone, but in turn, he has a whole tub of slug jelly.
“I better reward my companions. They have defended me well.”
He went to look for the troublemakers. Usually, they would just follow him around but this time they seemed to be busy sorting the gathered loot.
He had found half of them in his shed. They were by his chair waiting for him.
“Where is the rest of you? What is going on?” He questioned the peculiar behaviour.
“X-Plo-R” The biggest of them chirped.
Then did it grow so much? No, wait, did it just talk?
“Did you just talk?”
The spider just stared at him with all of its four yellow eyes.
“The day must have exhausted me.” He brushed it off as tiredness. “If they are gone, it means they had finally found a job they like. You should follow their good example.” He spoke to the large spider.
It didn’t reply.
“Oh well. I am off to bed.” He shrugged it off.
He quickly fell asleep. In his dream, he dreamt of his kingdom. It was growing bigger and bigger. It would be a good thing, but he found it harder and harder to manage it. There was so much to do, so much to manage and direct but there was only one of him. He felt so stressed he began to feel inadequate as a King. In his dream, he ran away from his kingdom leaving his people to govern themselves. It didn’t turn out the way he had hoped it would, the spider turned against the spider. There was violence and discontent and the budding civilisation crumbled before it could bloom. Once pristine TomGrape fields withered to nothing and with no food everyone died. He felt so bitter and displeased with his cowardice, but mostly bitter.
He woke drenched in a cold sweat, then he spat a bitter wine out of his mouth. “How did that find its way into my mouth?!” He wondered looking accusingly at the multiple spiders, the ones who refused to be employed.
This was not the first time they pulled a prank like this. One jester was good fun now and then, but a bunch of them… He just wished they found jobs soon.
Maybe if he took them for another expedition, the rest of them will find something they liked. Speaking of which: “I still don’t know where your friends went.” He worried slightly.
“X-Plo-R” The perpetrator and the leader of the pack chirped a reply.
This time he was sure he heard it. “Explore? To explore?”
The spider chirped in affirmation.
“So you can talk!”
The spider nodded its head.
“And you can understand me?”
It nodded again.
“A man of few words, eh?”
“…”
“This is great. Brilliant even!” He was both happy and angry, ”Now you can find jobs and stop pranking me. Even better, let's find your friends before they make trouble.”
He didn’t want them to attack the city by mistake. After all, he planned to be friendly with them, even if they were most likely elves. Put hatred aside and love your neighbour and all that, plus he was curious.
Just as he was about to run after the rogue explorers he had second thoughts.
“I shouldn’t rush this… Stop, we all, stop. How, will I even find them to begin with?” He posed a question to the largest one.
It gave him the spider equal of a shrug.
“If they make trouble, I guess I will need to apologise and hope for the best.”
It seemed like a better plan than running around for a wild goose chase, the jungle was just too big and with luck, his spiders won’t even encounter any hostiles.