[https://i.imgur.com/IgLgxmL.png]

WARCAMP

PARK SQUARE, THIRD RING

[https://i.imgur.com/IgLgxmL.png]

Annabelle stood out in the cold. A heavy fog had rolled into the warcamp and soured the mood of the people. That and the all present snow. This early, no one was singing and the goddess appreciated that. Not least of all, because those songs were also aimed at her lover. She stretched her arms and legs, testing the range of motions when a sudden wash of divine energy struck her from out of nowhere. Stumbling forward, she attuned to the divine essence and realized with bafflement that there was only a handful of them left.

Obviously, the one in the sky was still there, it stared down on them even through the heavy fog. Three more remained in the center and one more was in the Third Ring but in the rapid transition towards the Second Ring. Something was out there, hunting the same prey she was after. Seeing as she herself was a source of it as well, it stood to reason she’d soon come face to face with whatever did it.

A cough drew her mind back to the real world. Shal-rin stood next to her. She had to take a step back, just to see all of him. Along with him, there were several dozen men and women in armor, wielding a variety of weapons that seemed scavenged in their haphazardness. Immediately, she felt threatened. She spread her fingers, ready to summon her weapon at a moment’s notice.

“Relax”, Shal-rin said and laughed, “We’re not here for trouble. Rather, we’d like to learn from you. Do us the honor and spar with my most promising soldiers, if you will.”

Annabelle looked them over and allowed her eyebrow to rise just a bit. She then nodded.

“Thank you. What’s your choice of weapon then?” Shal-rin said.

“A scythe.”

The large man let out another laugh, “We don’t have a practice weapon for that.”

“Bind two sticks together”, Annabelle suggested.

Leaving the large man to get things sorted, she refocussed her attention on her surroundings. Off in the corner, she could see Tharia and gave her a small smile. The small girl waved and then resumed talking with some person Annabelle hadn’t seen before. A touch of cold air brushed against her skin and she looked back up at the sky. What an ominous fog this was. It completely drowned out everything past a few meters with a strange red glow that came from the false star above.

She held out her hand towards the false star and then clasped it shut. While it had appeared impossible just a few weeks ago, after all, she had seen and done she was now convinced she’d find a way to deal with it and all the other things. Especially a certain truth she had repressed just like Tharia had taught her. In time, she would need to face her former husband. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted him to be an unrecognizable monster or enough of himself that she could get clarity from his death. Most of all, she wanted to know why it had all happened.

Another man suddenly walked up to her. He had cheap looking armor on and held an identical set out to her. Without much ado, she slipped it over her clothes and then took up the makeshift scythe. It really was just two sticks of wood tied together. Just to make sure, she tested the bindings and found them satisfactory for a bit of sparring.

The first to step up was a man of about forty years. His scruffy beard gave him a mature look but his pudgy body betrayed him as someone that had spent most of his life inside. He introduced himself as a captain of the Anti-Verholden alliance and then held up his practice sword and shield. Almost immediately Annabelle judged him an amateur. Both his legs were too close to each other and he held his shield in a way that it blocked his own sword.

“Well then, the first match begins... now!” Shal-rin said.

Immediately, the man with the shield shuddered. He gritted his teeth and puffed up his chest. Ridiculous. Annabelle decided to end it quickly. Two steps were enough to bring her into range. She had set her feet apart with one step forward to balance herself. The wood-scythe came up for a high swing, she twirled it with just enough speed for him to notice and defend himself from it. With a panicked look, he hid his sword behind his shield and then tried to block. Annabelle leaned her weight into the strike and enforced it with a quick step forward.

The shield was easily pushed in and smacked the man against his head. Befuddled from the strike, all Annabelle had to do was to kick away his legs, sending him down into the thin layer of snow. He grunted and smacked his own practice sword against his nose. An ugly crunch rang out when it broke from the impact.

She grimaced upon seeing it, but Shal-rin laughed and then dragged the poor man back on his feet. He patted him on his back while Annabelle watched quietly. Shal-rin then turned around and raised his voice.

“Take in what you saw. That’s the difference between training and having been out there for months. You know better than to neglect your footing”, he said and then waved towards a young woman wielding two wooden swords. She heard Tharia’s voice nearby.

“Did she read one too many novels? Are you fine with your people being beaten bloody?” the young girl asked the giant man.

“They’ll survive. Right now, it’s imperative that they realize the brutality of combat”, Shal-rin replied and followed it with a loud shout to start the mock-battle. Yet before it could start, the sky suddenly darkened. A huge shape flowed through the fog, leaving behind a mess of screaming and panicked people.

“Fogeater!” the soldier with the broken nose screamed. Upon his shout, all the warriors suddenly threw themselves onto the ground. Annabelle slowly turned around and saw that everyone, save for her and Tharia were lying flat on the ground. She also noticed a marked absence of Shal-rin.

“You need to lie down, it will pick what it can get first!” the man with the broken nose whispered up at her. Annabelle shook her head and then glanced towards Tharia. They had never once met a monster laying down and they wouldn’t start now.

A large grimace suddenly formed out of the fog. On first glance, it appeared like a human female if not for the size and the strangely elongated features. Black eyes stared down on the ground. The fogeater opened the mouth and revealed a row of pin-shaped black teeth. It instantly fixed on her and Tharia. The mouth formed into a grin.

“Eat”, it said with a strangely high pitched voice. A moment later, large hands pushed against the fog as if trying to pierce a veil. They scratched at it until a clawed finger broke through. Soon, the veil of the fog tore open and allowed a large and plump body to slip out of it. It still had a feminine shape but was covered head to toe in white feathers, except for the face. The thing also had wings, although these seemed to be made out of the fog.

Another squeaky voice suddenly drew her attention. It came from the direction of Tharia’s staff.

“Anna, Tharia, careful. It’s an elemental projection, not the true body.”

Annabelle took another look at the fogeater and tried to recall if Sisi had looked this grotesque and misshapen when in her full form. A sudden swell of fog right next to them made her jump to the side and drag Tharia long. The fog suddenly manifested into a chitinous claw where they had been.

“Eaaaaat”, the fogeater growled and flopped over onto the ground, sending shockwaves through it. Going by the crunching sound, some unlucky sap died right there. As if it were throwing a tantrum, the monster stomped it’s chubby legs onto the ground, each time sending out another tremor. Suddenly it looked up and grinned with its weirdly human face. It smashed the head directly into the ground and from one moment to another, it shrank down to human size until a woman floated in the air, carried by a beautiful feather gown, with her head in the ground.

“Hunger”, the ground around them said. The figure leaped up into the sky. Its attack came not even a breath later. Lightning fast, the white bird-woman creature slammed directly into Annabelle. She blinked and suppressed her shout of pain. The bird-creature dragged her up until they could see the ground no more. It then unfurled its wings and let Annabelle go with a mad cackle.

The goddess reacted in an instant. She held up her right hand and summoned both, gloves and Scythe at once. The weapon hooked directly into the flesh of the bird-woman and got stuck while her gloves gave her strength to hold on. The fogeater sagged from the sudden added weight. It flapped the white wings while the fog around her started to manifest into sharp edges but they were falling too fast for them to be of any use to it.

Stolen story; please report.

While on the way down, Annabelle wasn’t idle. She tried to swing herself up and felt the ring loosen from her finger. It sailed off into the sky. She gazed after it and grunted.

“What a useless piece of trash.”

Unimportant. She scrunched her hand directly into the face of the creature. Bone snapped under her fingers and the beast let out a broken scream. No matter how much it spread its wings and tried to stay stable, soon they both reached the ground. When Annabelle saw a tent underneath, she let go. It broke her fall, the same couldn’t be said for the bird-creature, it carried on with momentum, impaling itself on a tent pole.

Just as Annabelle got up, another face showed up in the fog. This one looked older and less feminine. Like the first, it was born from the weather around her, quickly manifesting into another bird creature. It spread its wings and stared at her with its black eyes. The goddess slid down the side of the tent and got ready to fight when a strange glint caught her attention. It was the bloody ring falling from the sky. When it fell directly towards the monster, Annabelle had to suppress a laugh. What was that going to do? Her laugh froze when the ring passed directly through the creature, leaving a finger-sized hole where it had been. She lost all intention to be amused when the ring kept falling through the ground as well. It passed everything it touched, leaving nothing behind.

Not so useless after all. Annabelle resummoned it onto her hands while the bird creature shuddered in pain. It was still alive but bled profusely from a centimeter thick tube of nothing through its body. The goddess took aim and then threw the ring with a force augmented by the gloves. It glinted through the air and then pierced straight through the skull with ease, leaving another coin-shaped wound. This time, the bird-creature collapsed on the ground. Annabelle quickly dismissed the ring before it could continue its path of absolute destruction.

“Annie!” came Tharia’s voice from not that far. Following her instinct, she headed for the direction of the sound and soon found Tharia fighting two of those bird creatures. She was somewhat outmatched but kept those things on their toes. Golden dust glittering in the air would toast them the second they lifted off the ground. Yet these things seemed to be aware of that. Fog mixed in with the dust and suddenly shaped into a long spike. It shot directly for Tharia, but when the staff squeaked, the small girl instantly moved to the side. Her fairy dodged the spike but came into range of a bird-creature.

Annabelle stepped into range and resummoned her scythe into her hands. She didn’t give her opponent time to think, her weapon just plain cut off the head while it was distracted by Tharia. In the meantime, the small girl had tripped the other opponent and was in the process of hammering the staff through its skull. Much to the protest of Sisi.

“These are a bit easy”, Tharia said, breathless.

“Not for the others.”

The goddess pointed to the people on the ground. They were deathly afraid. She noticed a man stare on in horror as the person next to him was snatched off the ground by another bird creature. He still had the same gaze, when the body smacked back down moments later. Sounds of eating reached her ears and when she squinted, she saw some of the bird-creatures snacked on humans, while their comrades remained quiet on the ground.

“Why don’t they fight back?” Annabelle asked in confusion.

“Shock, Annie. When something so far beyond your comprehension comes for you, you can only hold still and hope it passes by. I know. My brother is one such horror.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed another bird-creature manifest out of the fog and she suddenly remembered something. The first of them had blown fog underground and then hundreds of smaller ones had appeared.

“Sisi, you said it’s a projection”

“Aye”

“Then the small ones?”

“Manifestations, like my fire. I’m sorry, but she should be dead. This isn’t possible”, Sisi said.

Tharia chimed in on their conversation, “So no matter how many of the bird-things we kill, there will be hundreds more?”

“Unless we find the source”, Annabelle suggested. When she witnessed another one plop out of the fog, she punched her left hand into its face before it was done forming. A pile of blood collapsed onto the ground. All around them, loud screams echoed throughout the camp, screams of pain and panic mixed in with loud pleas for survival.

In the middle of all that, a loud voice boomed out and easily drowned all the sounds.

“Fear not, for we are righteous. Stand up, my brothers and sisters. We shall bring the fight to them!” it was the voice of Shal-rin.

As if pulled up by invisible strings, all around her men and women stood up from the ground. They scurried for any type of weapon they could get their hands on. Annabelle blinked in Tharia’s direction and the smaller girl shrugged her shoulders. Tharia looked just as confused as Annabelle was. The attacks let up almost instantly and the bird-monsters appeared seemed sluggish. They made weak attempts at attacking someone while stumbling directly into the path of weapons. Before long, the slaughter had turned into a triumphant victory.

“What did we just see here?” Tharia asked, “What in the gods cursed abyss did just happen?”

Annabelle and Tharia followed the stream of people while the fog slowly lifted from the camp. What had sounded like a complete loss, turned out to be mostly structural damage to various tends and equipment. Soon, the fog was replaced by the usual low hanging stormclouds. They passed happy faces and dancing people when they reached Shal-rin. He stood on a large pedestal and held a bloodied halberd in his hands.

“Sisters, brothers! We have survived!” the large man shouted and the camp echoed with a likewise scream.

“You, dear, you’re a brave soul”, Shal-rin said and pointed towards a woman in the front, “and you, brother, you’re a brave soul too. The world would be a better place if all were as brave as those that I call my family. That’s what you are to me. Family.”

He earned loud cheering while Annabelle felt a strange anger nestling inside of her. She took a look at Tharia and saw the small girl narrow her eyebrows. Fairy’s left hand wrapped tightly around the staff. Tharia caught her gaze and then quickly shook her head in a gesture to be quiet.

“Do you know who is not brave?” Shal-rin spoke. While his speech was bad, the sheer charisma in his voice made it an event in itself.

“Do you know which brood is so heinous, that it would send monsters and nightmares against their own species?”

The large man slammed his halberd into the ground, sending loud tremors through it. He was surprisingly strong. Waiting for just the right timing, he whispered a single word.

“Verholden”

The crowd heard him regardless. Soon, everyone was chanting the family name like a curse until Shal-rin clicked his tongue. He held up a flag with the Verholden family sigil on it as proof, even though it could have come from any and all manner of courses. Not least of all the storehouse they had been in yesterday.

“Brothers, sisters, I feel your rage. This can’t stand. What say you, we bring them to their knees?”

Loud and thunderous cheers drowned out every other noise. Annabelle walked closer towards Tharia and then pulled her close. The small girl showed no expression on her face, yet she kept her fingers wrapped around the cage of the staff. Why was she doing that? In the meantime, Shal-rin had quieted the crowd once more.

“My family!” the large man screamed at the top of his lungs. From somewhere, large drums thumped, “Tomorrow, we go to war!”

[https://i.imgur.com/ZPzywxR.png]

It had taken them a while to find a place that wasn’t flooded with dancing and drinking people. Tharia felt her feet hurt from all the walking and socially enforced dancing she had to endure on the way back to their tent. On one side, she understood the need for joy in these grim times and surprisingly, only a handful of people had died to the fogeater. Still, the situation didn’t sit right with her, not after what Sisi had whispered. Tharia sighed.

“Annie, listen. Those weren’t Godbeasts or monsters”, Tharia began, “They were elementals. A single one, to be precise.”

“I thought as much”, Annabelle answered and sat down on the floor of their tent. Tharia quickly followed and leaned her back against her. She was exhausted, physically and mentally.

“So what do we do about it, Annie? The way this looks, it seems like it was all planned out. Could be my family but why would they suddenly stop? Unless it wasn’t them. But why would the alliance attack itself? That’s even dumber”

Annabelle shook her head and send her silver hair flying. Tharia couldn’t resist giving her a quick kiss on the neck that she answered with a smile.

“It makes sense”, Annabelle said.

“It does? Can you give me that in a complete sentence?” Tharia asked.

“Uh”, Annie began. Tharia quickly put a finger on the lips of the goddess.

“Please try. I love your voice, it’s captivating.”

“Okay I mean uh, what I say is”, Annabelle began again and then swallowed. This time, with a much slower speaking pace, she struggled to put together a sentence. Tharia listened closely.

“I meant it’s not dumb if you consider that someone might be in control of the Fogeater. They’ve lost a dozen people but gained morale and determination that’s worth much more. These people are now lusting for their war. Remember, he said it’d be in two days. This was preplanned.”

That single sentence had taken much longer than it should have, but Tharia was proud that Annabelle had gotten it out in mostly one go. She quickly wrapped her arms around her and smiled. Yet their moment was ruined when the tent was opened and a shivering pale mess of a young boy stumbled inside.

“I s-screwed up, I messed up”, Ravid stuttered. He held something in his hand. The boy stumbled over towards them and then fell down to the ground, where he tried to regain his ragged breath. Wordlessly, he pushed the object towards Tharia. It had the size of a head and was wrapped in a piece of cloth. Tharia carefully removed the cover until she saw a white glow come out of it. Quickly continuing, she suddenly realized what she held in her hands. A tiny white sprite covered in feathers.

“After I saw what he did with her, I stole her from him”, Ravid said and snatched back the sprite, “He forced her to do magic for him with needles ending... in... chains with strange words that run away when you look at them... that makes no sense, does it? Please help me!”

Tharia looked at Annabelle and smacked a hand against her own forehead.

“Yeah, sure we help”, Tharia said and sighed, “It's kinda our thing to walk in on messes and leave drenched in blood. Usually, it’s monster-blood but I’ve got a feeling we won’t have that luxury this time.”

[https://i.imgur.com/ZPzywxR.png]

End: Into the fog, once more | Coming up: Scary monsters