Chapter 19
[https://i.imgur.com/qMr7uU6.png]
Mad Dogs silently traveled through the fog into the unknown. The silence was their only companion as they carefully tried to find their way forward.
They would not be able to tell that under their legs lays dormant an Eldritch monster if not for the blue window following them everywhere where they looked.
After an hour of wandering, there was no change in their surroundings. They just walked and walked, but nothing changed. There was no change in the eerie fog around them. A monster under them was as flat as ever and silence encompassed their small, armored group. There was no difference in the landscape and it didn't matter how hard they looked for some special landmark. Everything was exactly the same.
“Say, how large is this Fallen Eldritch Forebear?” Orla suddenly broke the silence.
“We should not speak,” Linus said to her, “Our words might reach ears they’re not intended to.”
“Don’t be silly. We will not be able to keep silent all the time we gonna spend here,” Orla rebuked.
“Linus has point,” Jack said supporting Linus, ”We really should keep our words to a minimum until we get a better understanding of what we are dealing here with.”
“We are dealing with riftkin. You don’t need to be a scholar to know that, silly,” Orla laughed nervously, “You better answer my question. How big can this bear possibly be?”
“Forebear,” Jack corrected her mistake.
“Forebear, werebear, one bear,” Orla waved her hand dismissively.
“It is a different word for an ancestor. We are probably walking on the grandfather of those monsters we slayed before,” Jack said, “You know, in my world, there are many beliefs of how this world operates. When people didn’t know any better, they believed in silly notions only the human mind can conjure up. Some said that our world is held up on the shoulders of elephants, and these magnificent elephants are standing on a giant tortoise.”
“What are elephants and tortoises?” Linus asked with wonder in his voice.
“They are exotic animals from my world. Considering that you have horses, wolves, and bears here, I assumed you would have elephants too.”
“I have never heard of them,” Linus shook his head, “But I, of course, don’t know every animal on Rosmorre.”
“Elephants?” Orla said.
“What about them?”
“Are they so huge, they can hold all your world on their shoulders?”
“No, not even close so. But this silly belief came from a long time ago,” Jack said, “But suddenly this worldview doesn’t seem so silly anymore.”
Mad Dogs continued walking in the same direction as before with a silent determination to find anything of note.
After an hour of walking nothing changed.
After one more it was still all the same.
After one more even Jack, who was unshakable up until this moment glanced around him with worry hidden inside his steel helmet.
“Zaun, are we really going in a straight line?”
Zaun just nodded his head in affirmation.
Zaun was tense and his senses were focused on their surroundings. He was trying to catch any sound or movement coming from outside, but everything was still. The only sounds around them were their own rattling of armor and footsteps on the ground below them.
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Even wind was absent. Not even a tiny breath of it. The fog was still and unmoving.
Yet after hours of travel, Zaun finally was able to see a difference in their surroundings. It was a difference so small it would be impossible to tell without Zaun’s sharp, enchanted senses.
The fog around them was getting thinner. And the light from above them was getting dimmer.
By the time they finally decided to camp and rest for the night, changes were so obvious that even Zaun’s less attentive comrades were able to pinpoint a difference in their surroundings.
The fog was leaving more and more space for them to observe. Sadly with the retreat of the fog, the oppressive feeling this place gave off didn’t diminish. Quite contrary.
With the same dark dirty ground in their vision field, they felt even more and more out of place here in this alien plane. This eerie place, this strange plane of reality wasn’t theirs. It was a feeling of wrongness. Feelings of horror and despair slowly crept into their hearths.
Mad Dogs huddled together and ate dinner in silence. They didn’t unpack the tents. There wasn’t a need to, as sleeping bags were enough for the warm air around them. Linus didn’t even have his sleeping bag, but he was comfortable enough. He used the fabric of Jack’s tent as a barrier between himself and the wet ground below.
There was no need for a grand camp with a bonfire and defensive palisade as they still have yet to see even a single riftkin roaming this awful place.
Linus was first to hold watch while rest tried to sleep, and after two hours he gave his post to Orla. After Orla’s watch, this duty fell on Zaun. And after Zack, it was Jack’s turn to guard their goodnight sleep.
Jack watched his sleeping party with a smile. The fog retreated and the Eldritch plane around them showed its true form to Jack.
And Jack found it beautiful.
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“Time to wake up princesses,” Jack said, but there was no need for his words as Mad Dogs were already up and ready to fight.
Tremors signified the start of something new. Mad Dogs got up, rolled up their sleeping bags, and looked around awaiting their fates with breath held.
During their rest fog disappeared fully and before them expanded the Eldritch plane in all its grandeur and glamour. But in all honesty, the landscape wasn’t the most impressive one. Even Riftlands back on Rosmorre felt more impressive than disappointment which which was in front of them right now.
It was the same damp dirt, which supposedly was part of the Eldritch monster under their feet. The same dirt stretched on all sides up until the horizon. There was no wonder that their walk through the fog didn’t bring them to any special place, as there was no special place or point of interest. Everything as far as the eye could see was the same. Same flat dirt ground all around them.
Sunlight was no more, but right now their path was illuminated by countless moons and stars. The sky was full of different moons, Linus did a quick count and there seemed to be at least 15 of them. Strange sight only gave this place an even more dreadful vibe.
But the attention of Mad Dogs was not on the alien sky or even more alien lands all around them.
Their attention was focused right under their feet as the land continued trembling.
“Did bear finally get tired of our company?” Orla wondered aloud.
“No,” Linus said, “Tremors are barely felt. If Eldritch in size of the world would move, we would know it.”
“Then what is happening?”
Their question was answered instantly as all around them riftkin made their appearance.
Faces of Mad Dogs paled as Eldritch creatures crawled out from the underground with no hurry in their movements.
The monsters were abominations. They were perversions of humans' darkest imaginations. Creatures were all the same. Bundles of disfigured human arms with blobs of flesh in the middle of each. Many red eyes were placed on this disgusting blob of flesh with no particular pattern.
Hundreds of thousands of creatures crawled out from the underground in the lands around them. It was a menacing horde of bundled flesh appendages and shining red eyes. Every member of the horde stretched most of their arms up toward stars and moons and started chanting in a language no mortal mind could comprehend.
Eldritch creatures had no mouths or tongues, yet words were uttered, and mana started seeping from the sky into abominations on the ground. Mana fed into creatures granting them sustenance and experience.
It was feeding time in the Fallen strata.
Fallen Eldritch Priest – Lvl 45
Quick appraisal showed that their levels were all beyond level 40, which classified them as tier III creatures.
Mad Dogs of Rosmorre watched the scene in horror. The land before them turned into a hellscape in just a few seconds. It didn’t take a long time for the closest Eldritch Priest to notice their presence and turn its gaze toward them. But there was nowhere to run. They were surrounded by countless creatures.
More words in strange language were chanted and now every Eldritch Priest around them was looking at them.
Thousands of eyes gazed at Mad Dogs of Rosmorre with bloodlust, surprise, and hatred.
“It was nice to know you,” Linus said solemnly.
“Haha!” hysterical laughter escaped from under Jack’s helmet and washed over riftkin around them, "Smile puppies! Smile!"