The team's footsteps echoed in the darkness as they followed Black, the goo creature. The red light drew ever closer, the only source of light in this shadowy space. The liquid creature was constantly trying to maintain a human form, only to destabilize again and again, giving a strangely disturbing spectacle to the group watching it.
Glenn, who was leading the team in following Black's... tracks, felt something tug at his right sleeve. He turned to find Tarana's worried gaze searching for assurance in his eyes. The young man answered her unspoken question with a silent nod, then moved towards Wilbur. The knight in armor was trembling like a leaf, a pitiful sight compared to the arrogant man who had entered the forest first, now hiding behind his shield.
'Is that his weapon or his fluff? How did this guy ever become a Gold-ranked Fixer?" Glenn couldn't help thinking, judging the frightened man. Diamanes scoffed in his mind.
'You know, not many people lived through the same kind of harrowing experiences as yours,' He slowly began, smacking his lips in Glenn's mind, '...And this is one of the scariest things one can chance upon. Even I am not as terrifying as whatever is in there.'
'Can you stop trying to worry me? The more I hear you saying it's something more horrible than you are, the more I feel like my death has been decided once I jumped in that damned hole,' Glenn complained, his lips twitching as he struggled hard not to show anything outwardly. Black suddenly stopped, the goo making its body freeze like a disturbing sculpture made of dark ice. The red light coming from the distance shone on the creature, making it seem like a black-red crystal shaped unnaturally.
The young man stopped in turn, Tarana and Wilbur not moving either. The black goo creature seemed to sigh weirdly, and the liquid on the ground separated, letting the team see an object previously hidden underneath the darkness. Black seemed to make way, inviting them to take a look. Glenn raised an eyebrow but didn't ask anything and approached the revealed item.
It was a heavy woodcutting axe, its blade crescent and sharp looking, the red light shining on it ominously. The edge had darkened strangely, and a few veins of similar blackness infiltrated the blade. Glenn picked the tool up, feeling the smooth but used wood handle under his touch. Black didn't seem to care, showing a...sad expression. It was hard to tell with its, well, liquid face. He felt an irregularity near the pommel and looked to find two words: Half-Moon. The axe was well-balanced, and it felt natural in his hands.
'I'm not going to refuse a free weapon, even more, when I lost mine,' The young man pondered, studying the black veins striating the blade.
"Jack..." The words came out of the creature with a note of regret and sadness. Slowly, Glenn felt as if he could piece the jigsaws together, but that he missed one important piece to do so. He shook his head and made the axe twirl in his hands. Tarana grabbed him from behind with a worried and doubtful expression.
"You're sure you want to use something this...creature gave you?" She asked with a concerned gaze. The young man shrugged, slipping the axe in his belt.
"Why bother–cough–giving me something that could help fight it off?" Glenn answered softly, unbothered. He could just throw the thing away if he wanted, even if he felt strangely sad at the idea.
'There seemed to be powerful emotions filling this axe,' Diamanes commented with a curious tone. Black suddenly dissipated from its congealed form and fell back toward the red light, starting the walk again toward it. Glenn nudged at the entity for more information about those "emotions".
'Well, it's pretty simple. It's a common occurrence in places with a lot of Mana, and it's also how truly magical gear is created,' Diamanes began, making Glenn's curiosity climb up a notch. That's the process of creating magical weapons? How did that work?
'Mana is an energy that makes the impossible possible. It's not rare for weird and seemingly inexplicable things to happen when Mana is involved,' The entity continued, taking on a voice similar to a teacher's saying his lesson to his students, 'In this case, it seemed like the owner of this axe had a deep attachment to it, but met his demise because of it. It's rather unclear, but something important happened, combined with a powerful flow of Mana, which made for this weapon to get special properties,' Glenn could imagine Diamanes making a smug smile, proud of his explications.
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'How interesting...Why did you never bother talking about such a thing?' The young man asked while following Black, keeping his guard up. His right hand was naturally resting on top of the blade of the axe, ready to take it out at any moment's notice.
Diamanes scoffed.
'Not my fault you never asked. Oh, and for your information, that purple blade you carried around before losing it during the brawl at the tavern? That was such a weapon,' Glenn's mind went blank for a second, and he almost spat curses next to him before remembering that even uttering a word was torture for him. Damn it...
The young man endured Diamanes' laugh without a word, clenching his teeth while keeping his eyes on the black goo creature and the red light they were traveling toward.
"Is it me or we've been walking for a while already?" Wilbur's voice broke the silence, but no one bothered answering him. Glenn suddenly felt the ground move in a very subtle way. No, it was probably closer to a soft shaking, as if it had moved slightly. He looked down to see that the black goo previously avoiding their feet was now touching their boots, creating small ripples at each of their movements. Glenn's gaze followed one such ripple, finding it colliding with another small undulation. He looked up toward the direction the ripple came, but he could find nothing that wasn't darkness. He raised his feet curiously, discovering that the goo was a little sticky, but didn't have any strength to stop him from moving. It was just some weird sticky goo, seemingly.
He froze, and silently took out his axe out of his belt, straightening his hold over it. The sudden gesture made the other team members tense up, and they tightened their formations more closely. Tarana took out her two falx swords, while Wilbur held his shield like some kind of lifeline. Black seemed unperturbed, moving forward without a single care.
"If there is a ripple..." Glenn didn't end his sentence, but Tarana and Wilbur both understood what he meant by that. They kept on following the black goo creature without a word, ready for anything to surge out of the darkness. Their steps were much noisier now that they were stepping in the dark liquid, but they couldn't do much about it. Glenn's gaze went back to the ground, and he found another ripple colliding with theirs. And another. Followed by another. Soon enough, the group was surrounded by silent movements disturbing the surface of the black goo, not making a noise or even an appearance, the only proof of their existence being the small, unremarkable ripples.
'Something is coming...' Diamanes silently commented. A sharp, whistling sound suddenly came out of the darkness, a sad music that seemed to be played by a flute. The raid team froze, including Black, perking their ears out to try and understand where the noise came from. A warm feeling on his cheeks made Glenn touch his face in puzzlement, only to find out that he was crying. His eyes were tearing up uncontrollably, and a deep sense of despair and longing choked his heart. He looked at Tarana and Wilbur, finding out that both of their faces were similarly covered in tears.
"What...What is going on?" Tarana sniffled, wiping off tears after tears. The music suddenly stopped, as if her question had scared the musician. Dread suddenly pushed down on the shoulders of the team members as they instinctively kneeled. Glenn instantly recognized this feeling: it was the same thing he experienced back when he first met Diamanes but in a much more horrifying way. His neck's muscles tensed up as he struggled to raise his head to meet the source of this dread. Red light shone on his face, his eyes widening in horror when he found out what emitted it.
Hanging in the air over the ground was a gigantic, horrible, red heart striped with black lines pulsing disgustingly, pierced from up to down by a black, stone pillar, engraved with illusory writings. Connected to the heart were hundreds of dark branches connected to the corpses of animals and...humans.
"Lumberjacks..." said Glenn silently, still affected by the pressure of the nameless entity. He stepped back unknowingly when he noticed something abnormal, something horrible. The corpses were... breathing, and now that he'd noticed it, he couldn't help but listen to their breathing.
Listen to their whispers, which combined to create one strange, sad music that sounds like it's coming from a flute. Behind him, Wilbur suddenly vomited, coughing uncontrollably. The knight managed to take a peek out at this hellish scene but deeply regretted it. He crumpled to the floor, shaking with all his limbs.
"What the hell...what the hell is this?!?" Wilbur screeched, his eyes bloodshot and rolling back in their orbits. His sanity was on the brink of breaking, and he rolled himself into a ball, putting his trusty Rampart between him and the sight of whatever that was.
Glenn's eyes were still stuck on what could only be described as a macabre spectacle, the heart feeding on the corpses like a tree would with its roots...
A tree...? The young man looked down at the axe he picked up, feeling as if the tool named Half-Moon wanted to cut whatever that heart was, a well-hidden, formless will remaining in the item. It was hard to describe how he could understand that, but it was the feeling the axe gave. The dark goo monster, Black, raised a slimy limb toward the heart, trembling with rage and hate.
"HACK!!! IT!!! DOWN!!!" He roared, before dissipating back in the goo on the ground, disappearing amidst it like he had never existed. The red heart gave a sudden beat, a gigantic drum that hurt their ears. A feeling of confusion washed over Glenn, before being absorbed, somehow, by the axe. Glenn breathed in and out, as the pressure was also reduced thanks to the axe influence. His chest was still tight, but he could think, and more importantly, fight.
"Did...Did the branches just move?" Tarana blurted out from behind, making the young man look back up. And indeed, the branches were trembling ever so slightly, fluttering softly. They suddenly jerked together and moved the corpses, no, the humans and animals they were feeding on toward the group, not unlike some horrible tentacles. Most of the humans were dressed in rough linen pants and checkered shirts, while a few others had armor on, both steel and leather. The common point between all of them was that their faces were wringing with intense pain and that they were breathing out in this strange flute sound.
One of the corpses opened his eyes suddenly, startling Glenn, and, with an expression filled with despair, pointed at the axe, his hand trembling from a lack of strength.
"Hack...me...down..." He seemed to use all his strength to utter these three words, sighing one last time before his head fell back on his chest, resting in everlasting peace. Glenn felt a shiver run down his spine. He had recognized the corpse's voice. It was the same as that of Black, the goo creature who had guided them to the red heart.
The same.