Vinny led them on a path that took them generally south. Sometimes the trail would curve or reroute for reasons he would not explain beyond, “Dangerous that way.”
The next day was dank and gloomy. They could hear a storm rage overhead above the canopy. The rain that fell below was strange. The canopy above created rivulets and channels that generated a patchwork of dry patches and mud puddles below. Streams of water ran down the tree trunks. The boys hunkered down next to a blue-black pillar of the tree. Finger-long thorns pricked out of the tree bark every few centimeters. Thumb-sized ants scuttled between the thorns, milking them for poisonous sap. Vinny told them that as long as the tree was undisturbed, the ants would not attack. It was called an Ant-fang Tree.
They waited out the downpour under the broad cup-like leaves of the Ant-thorn tree. They could hear thunder and catch flashes of lightning, but the air was still below in the forest. Mist gathered along the ground and built into a thin fog. This put Vinny on edge as he knew that several sorts of monsters stalked the mists. The Forest Kingdom was only ‘civilized’ in particular areas. Vinny was decidedly avoiding those on their path.
Once the storm front moved past and the rain reduced to a trickle, Vinny led the way. The trio closed ranks, keeping within eye and earshot. Tag was of no help. The fog obscured too much for the spirit to see. Wali took a few moments to cast a spell on himself that shifted his vision to detect heat signatures. Most of the world took on shades of pale blue-white, with a haze of a lighter color overlaid that was the fog. That made moving more difficult, but he could see darker yellow forms that were Yacob and Vinny, respectively. This did not turn out to be all that useful in the fog. He could not see further, and it made him stumble more. He wondered how a certain interstellar man-hunter did it.
Switching out of that, he tried something else, spontaneously mixing mana through his Senses Glyph, Clever glyph, and then by whispering a word, he focused his hearing into a precision tool. He motioned for the others to pause and took out a small bell which he tied to his calf. The tiny tinkling sound cut through the area. Sound waves bounced off of hard and soft things. When his ears picked up the sounds, they mixed with the spell he had created and generated an overlay in his mind. Where the fog blocked his view was revealed as a rippling form of the objects there. As he termed it, this “sonar” was complicated for him to grasp at first, but it soon proved invaluable.
He caught the ripples of the air around the swarm of beasts as they flowed through the mist. They looked like manta rays, with broad flat bodies that flapped wing-like appendages as they moved. Three whip tails flowed behind them, and a lamprey mouth was on the underside. They moved silently through the mist, and Wali could not see them through the fog as they came. The sonar exposed them. Each was a meter wide from wingtip to wingtip.
“Three flyers incoming. Flat things with three tails.” Wali said in warning.
“Damned Mist Leeches. Don’t let them grab onto you. They’ll chew a hole into you and suck out your innards. Be still if you can. They sense movement in the mist.” Vinny said as he froze in place. He was drawing out a pair of black metal short swords. Yacob also moved to be still, the skin across his arms and up his neck taking on a stony gray cast. Wali readied Gale and waited motionlessly. The three creatures slid through the mist toward Wali and the crew.
One of them was revealed in a moment as it sliced toward Yacob. It was a pale gray, perfectly matching the mist itself. There seemed to be no sensory organs. The three tails were over a meter in length and flowed behind the Mist Leech flapping manta body. The other two circled around the trio. The one approaching suddenly flicked a tail at Yacob, who instinctually blocked the attack. The movement set the other two Leeches into the attack.
All three swooped in at Yacob; the closest grabbed onto Yacob with the prehensile tails. Each was thick and strong, a grasping appendage that tried to wrap around a part of Yacob. With one arm, one leg and his neck grabbed, he struggled as the wings moved to envelop him. The circular mouth was filled with rows of short saw-like teeth. The mouth slammed into his breastplate, and the sound of bone grinding into metal could be heard. The other two beasts also tried to latch on, one on a shoulder and the other on his back.
Yacob was fully ensconced in the creatures. He could be heard shouting something unintelligible as he tried to free himself. Stone was rising around his legs; he was trying to protect himself by encapsulating himself in stone. Wali and Vinny did not simply allow the creatures to eat the big man. Wali discarded Gale as he might accidentally shock or pierce his friend while trying to save him. Drawing one of the ivory daggers, he stepped to Yacob and grabbed one of the tails wrapped around him. Vinny had done likewise. Both attacked the thick muscular tail with the blades. Wali’s blade chewed gobbets of flesh out and quickly severed the tail. A muffled screech of pain was heard from the Leech. Vinny’s blade was magically sharp and sliced cleanly through one of the other tails wrapped around Yacob’s arm.
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Yacob yelled as the stone reached his waist. The smell of burning flesh filtered out from between the Mist Leeches. Wali and Vinny each lopped off another tail, and the Mist Leech on his back fell away, bubblegum purple blood streaming from its tail stumps. It flapped weakly a few times before falling to the ground. The beast on its shoulder pushed off, and Yacob’s face was revealed. He took a deep breath and breathed a gout of fire into the beast attached to his chest. It also tried to retreat, but Yacob had it gripped in a stone fist. Vinny leaped to the side, slicing through the retreating Mist leech. The blade passed through its wing, separating it from the main body. It flopped to the ground, writhing and shrieking.
Wali began to cut away one of the remaining tails. Yacob had another plan; he gripped the beast and pulled it away from his breastplate. Inhaling again, he breathed flames directly into the Mist leech’s lamprey mouth, cooking it from within. It shuddered and went limp. Yacob threw it to the side as Wali asked, “You okay big guy?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” Yacob replied, looking around warily. Wali scanned the area for more attackers, only finding the dying Mist Leeches. They quickly dispatched those. Wali examined Yacob; Captain Hollis’ old armor had held up pretty well. It now bore a target-like series of concentric rings on the chest, another on one of the shoulder plates, and the lower back. Yacob’s forehead had a nasty-looking abrasion from where one of the tails had gripped him. He was otherwise just winded.
Vinny said to the man, “Fire breath? That was pretty amazing. Good move, that one.”
Yacob replied, “I figured something out just now. I can only have one type of magic active on the outside. I can have the other type active on the inside, though.”
Wali shook his head. Yacob’s talent for discovering new ways to use his magic and implementing it without formal training was outstanding. Yacob was a “Natural Talent.” These people’s innate affinity for their inborn magics made them powerful practitioners. The ability to have breakthroughs of this nature and to immediately exercise that insight made them fearsome opponents. Somehow they were also well-springs for their own mana, not needing to draw so much on the outside mana to create stores like Wali. There were still limits, which was the purpose of Yacob’s bracer that Ana had refined. Yacob could draw on more fire and earth-aspected mana than Wali could of any mana. He couldn’t do all the tricks that Wali could. His few tricks could be done far more often and powerfully than Wali could enact.
Wali clapped Yacob on the shoulder, “Looks like you get to be bait for those if we find any more. That wasn’t too bad.”
“Aww, no, I guess,” Yacob said, resigned to his new role as Mist Leech bait.
The trio set out through the mist. They had a few more encounters with Mist Leeches and some enormous trapdoor spider, and the three of them soon fell into a rhythm of battle. Yacob tanking, with Wali and Vinny acting as strikers. They didn’t get off without injury, but with Yacob’s armor and growing skill with changing his skin to stone, he was tough to kill. The trapdoor spider was seen through Wali’s sonar and was avoided.
By late afternoon they had left the slowly clearing mist. They found a decent-sized Hollow Cedar and decided to take a break.
For another four days, they proceeded like this. Daily rains brought mist; mist brought out Mist Leeches and other hazards. It made for slow going, but it was clear they were far deeper into the forest. The land started to gain some texture now. Deep ravines, steep draws, and winding ridges caused them to slow their pace. The plant life also began to change, broad-leaf plants became more common, and the greenery shifted toward a cloud forest climate. They began to hear strange hooting calls and ululating howling that carried through the massive trees. The trio could not tell how far these calls came from. Vinny told Wali and Yacob that they mainly came from several varieties of monkeys that lived high in the canopy. Most never went out of the canopy.
They had to begin hacking their way through some of the underbrush at this point. Thick ferns, dense thorny shrubs, webs of mossy vines, and the like blocked their path. It was far simpler to cut through than track around some of these dense clusters of the bush.
The Hollow Cedars had been left behind, and they were often forced to camp in the open. Sometimes they could locate a small gully or overhang to protect themselves from some of the weather. Sometimes Yacob would be forced to dig them out a small cave or erect a pillar to camp upon.
One morning as they exited their temporary cave, they were greeted with a sight that chilled them to the bone. Sitting quietly just a few meters away from their hide was a massive black predatory cat. Larger than a draft horse, the dinner plate eyes were golden with flecks of blue. It was sleek, and its coat glossy. Paws larger than two spread hands, claws like short swords sat retracted. It did not seem hostile. It sat there calmly as the trio climbed out of the hole. It was hidden through some magic before revealing itself to the surprised trio of young men.
The trio was careful not to make any sudden moves not to provoke it. They could all tell that it was an ancient and powerful Spirit Beast. It spoke with a decidedly feminine voice, sultry but cold. It was not angry, nor was there any killing intent that they could feel. She asked, “One who walks with spirits, one who is cursed, and one with a soul of magma. What are you doing in my forest?”