A bright flash of light blinded Malcolm, accostumed to the grim setting of Erebus, and suddenly a mix of strange feelings assaulted him simultaneously. A luminous warmth, opposite to the cold cavern system he usually strolled by yet much unlike the heat that a fireplace could provide. For a moment he thought he went blind due his sight been accustom to the pitch darkness, maybe the occasional dim light of magical devices and candles, yet this bright that assaulted his eyes made him drop to his knees and cover his face with his hands. Then, in the ground he inspired the grassy, flowery smell and felt revolted by the sweetness. For the nostrils that smelled the mist of death and decay the sudden apparence of what mundanes would percibe as perfume throwed him off his bearings, coupled with the dissiness that having been teleported had caused him.
He took a few breaths, and eventually the surprise subsided. He looked up and panic came back triplicated. In front of him a full squad of armed mundanes were marching towards him coming from a wooden-walled city of medium proportions. Modest or not, for him a single unarmed Tenebri getting his bearings while still under the sunlight, it was like seeing the troops of death angels sent straight from the heavens' citadel. The mundanes were even bearing the sigil of one of the many false gods! Malcolm's tactical mind quickly made a summary of his many battle experiences, commanding several regiments of troops through enemy territory, he counted his resources and strenghts and measured them against the enemies, then he made the most strategically sound move: make a run for it.
"Quickly! It's trying to run away!" The mundane-human-captain shouted to the others, also humans Malcolm surmised but not entirely sure, and they quickly started to catch their pace up.
"There's no shame in living to fight another day!" thought Malcolm as he dashed through the flowery plains. His mutated feet, half-beastly and half-something-else trampled the daisies and the poppies, and in his wake a clear path of decay followed closely. Zigzaging for what seemed an eternity, he kept glancing back to keep tabs on the human pest while trying to recolect his thoughts. The night fell and the caress of moonlight shone bright on his mane, and the chill of the wind coupled with his extersion promped Malcolm to seek shelter. As his keen eye glanced the landscape, unobstructed by the dark, he quickly found what he was seeking for.
The entrance to a cave was half hidden beneth tall grass, and on a closer inspection little footprients, as if of children, clearly marked their way into the cave. Ducking, he entered the cave. The familiar environment seemed to soothe his crispated nerves, but soon this calm would be broken by the sight of the things that reside within the cave. Grouped, close to one another as if to keep warmth the children-like creatures morphed their blistered faces into expressions of fear, they huddled against the wall as if defenseless yet this apparance was deceving: Malcolm saw that at the end in their sickly-pale hands, purplish fingernails dripped a disgusting, slime like subtance. He was in no hurry to find what that thing was or what i could do to an organism. He rose his hands in the air and tried to elaborate some conforting words that the plague bearers did not understood, then when all comunication bridges seem to be down one of the creatures eyes lighed up and he started sniffing the air like a dog on a trail.
Slowly, he approach Malcolm, still a bit fearful, and Malcolm's lion features winced in disgust as the thing touched his body with his nose, closely followed by others. Soon, he was surronded like a candyman by the infant deformities, all probing and smeeling him, looking for something unseen. Few moments after, one dropped to his knees and rose both hands as in praer toward the confused lion, he finally sigghed in relief as the creatures backed away from him. The leader of the creatures, the one that's been the most deformed by the disease, with a huge green liquid-filled blister protruding from his head, crawled his way into the innermost parts of the cave. Malcolm sat, and thought what to do now.
'I'm clearly in mundane domains, and my presence has been exposed. If the humans are as tenacious as in the other parts, I can expect a full search party hunting me down, hounds and all. I'm not safe here, not do I feel comfortable being surrounded by these beings. The stench of rot clings to them like a beacon's shadow, and there are disease and poisons even the Gift cannot conteract" He tried to lay down but the beady eyes of the plagued made him sit back up.
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"They seem to like me somewhat. If I can find a way to direct them, then maybe their stench will mask my trails. Maybe if I hide in the innermost part of the cave...? No, the party might smoke me out. What about traps? No, no time. Come on, Malcolm. Think. This is war, you're in a trench, and they're coming for you. Think fast, think fast. The cave. The cave is a natural chokepoint, I could take a few of the diseased with me and leave the rest here to cause a diversion, due the trail the search party will surely assume I'm hiding here, but in reality I will be far away. Just need to find a way to comunicate with the plagued and see how to make some stay and some follow me. Also, I need to move fast. The search party can't take long to start trailing me. Another sleepless night, it would seem." He sighed. And just as he was about to start working on a trap, the plagued that had crawled into the cave returned dragging a body with him.
The smell of decayed meat soon filled the room, and had Malcolm not be used to the presence of more advanced states of the Gift, he might had been knocked unconcious. The plagued pointed at the crest in the skeleton's battered shield, and Malcolm was struck at the resemblanc between him and the heraldic. A Growling horned lion. The creatures cheered at the sight of the symbol and presented the remains to Malcolm, he search them and found the shield, as battered as it was, and the hatchet, dull and a bit rusted, even parts of the armor that were thight fit and didn't even cover the whole area they were supposed to, were one hell of an upgrade from his having absolute nothing state. He poked the blade, testing for sharpness and looked at his now protected chest and shins, nodding deeply. "this is still not enough, not for a direct confrontation. The guards that chased after me were in the dozens, the search party could easily triple that amount. I'm not ready, not yet." He thought to himself. He shivered. The creatures were still staring, all five of them. He thought that maybe more riches could be hiding in the deepest parts of the cave so he made his way towards them. Any help would come in handy while persuing the defeat of the mundanes.
As Malcolm delved further into the cave, an impending sense of dread assaulted him. The stench of the diseased permeated his nose; the space surrounding him grew narrower, and the shadows thickened. Soon, even his feline eyes couldn't make out the shades, and his only guide was the touch of the stone walls. The minutes stretched out, and Malcolm saw - or rather heard - the creatures squirm in crevices they'd dug out barehanded from the walls with their bare hands. He was wrong; there weren't just five. Many more hid in the cave.
After a moment, the space widened, and the faint, dim light of an ember reflected on the pile of corpses at the center of the cave. The bodies, melted by whatever malady had been inflicted upon them, dripped their unholy liquid into a small pond, from which one of the creatures drank. Malcolm had seen the gift corrupt psyches beyond recognition; he'd seen parents quenching their newfound dark desires on the flesh of their children. He'd seen formerly pious folks gather and torment a mundane with a thousand tools born of hellish, otherworldly realms, and the glint of madness-induced pleasure shine upon their eyes. But the image of that bald, waxy creature on all fours, slurping on the pooled decomposition, was one that would never leave him.
He pretended blindness and kept moving forward. The silence suddenly hung upon the cave like a ghost, a chill of foreboding that made Malcolm shudder. The creatures did not follow past the feeding room, and a clicking noise made clear why: they did not dare step upon this place.
A touched, corrupted being started rising behind Malcolm's back, and as he turned, he saw a being so twisted that trying to assert what it was originally was tantamount to an impossible task. Hands sprouted from the fleshy sides like the feet of a centipede; an oozing slime reflected the orange-reddish light of the embers, intensifying around the strange protrusions and bumps that occurred without sense or logic, as this was a being born of a madman's nightmares. Yet his victim did not focus on the forearm-sized, needle-shaped, razor-sharp teeth around its gaping mouth; instead, his victim's eyes showed hope and relief.
"There's another Gift!" Malcolm breathed out.