Pov Eclipse

Strange things were happening again, but I’ve gotten so used to the human antics that this is starting to turn into a normal thing. Silven for some reason started sleeping, and the golden furred human was making strange movements and talking strangely over Silven while crouching. Jack and Slow were currently talking about something called a ‘king’ and ‘kingdom’, I am guessing king is just a shortened version of kingdom, but the two of them kept switching between the two words so I don’t really know. The human wearing a cloak was just looking at me while it towered over me.

I was currently next to Silven as Jack told me to move off Silven, something that confused me, but I didn’t bother asking, or well I didn’t have the ability to ask questions due to lacking any sort of noise making organs-

Wait, don’t crickets make sounds with their wings?

Excitedly I rubbed my big wing with my smaller wing on both sides and that amounted to absolutely nothing. Not surprised, I stopped rubbing my wings and pondered if I could make sounds with any of my other body parts.

Annoyingly my thought process was broken by the caped human as it kneeled.

“What are you...?”

It mumbled as it reached out its arm which I noticed was armored and tried to pat me.

If this was any other time, I would have happily received it, but currently I was in a not great mood. I took a few steps back, and the human stopped seemingly surprised.

Yeah, that’s right, I’m doing my own thing now.

The cloaked human made a strange sound before pulling back its hand. I didn’t bother waiting to see if it was going to do anything as I had other better things to do, like adventure!

With a quick turn I started walking towards the exit to the room...

Hm?

Something was blocking my path? No, it must be that my body just stopped responding to me, no worries! I must’ve unintentionally entered torpor...

No that’s wrong...?

I could move my body in a different direction other than the exit.

But why?

Then an idea popped into my head, even though last time I saw darkness and appeared somewhere else, I'm going to try the run and leap again! Anything is better in a room filled with humans that were discussing with me before with such intensity. They remind me too much of Zoltan.

With a sense of determination, I backed up dramatically and started moving quickly towards the exit and jumped over whatever was blocking my way.

And then I stopped, to put it more precisely, I stopped midair, and no amount of wiggling caused me to go back to the ground.

Feelings came and went, I felt confusion, anger, amusement and lastly joy as I concluded that I must’ve learned how to fly and am currently hovering; it’s weird that my wings aren’t moving though.

Maybe I don’t need my wings? But the knowledge I was given tells me that no insect can fly without wings... Some leap far like the ones from the Orthoptera order... But they don’t hover. I could assume I’m just special like that one worm that grew huge, I can’t wait to meet him! Anyways I'm getting sidetracked. I don’t think I’m that special, the knowledge about my order never told anything about hovering moths. Maybe-

My thought process was broken as I heard the cloaked human make a weird noise as it struggled to say something.

“I can't anymore... pfft, I’ve never seen a creature who expresses so much emotion through body language. Creature, I’ve been placing a wall of iron wires in front of you. Sorry but you can’t leave until this situation is fixed.”

Wall of iron wires?

Confused, I looked very closely around me, and that’s when I noticed the almost invisible lines covering the area in front of me, with some tied around me. Whenever I tried to look for the origin of the wire, they all went around me and back, my guess to the human. This design looked similar to what an arachnid is capable of, but I’m not too sure, the knowledge that was given to me went briefly over what an arachnid was and their 15 orders.

Just as I was contemplating if humans were just overly evolved arachnids, I was slowly lowered onto the ground. With my feet finding purchase once again, I debated on whether I should try to escape again, or if I should sit still.

Ugh humans and their want to constrain my every move.

I reluctantly chose to sit still and wait; my only amusement was the beeping blue rectangle.

18 minutes and 3 seconds until forced evolution, please choose:

Young Moth Of Revenge [-Expand-]

Young Death Moth [-Expand-]

Young Life Moth [-Expand-]

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Young Calamity Moth [-Expand-]

Young Moon Moth [-Expand-]

At least you’re giving me a choice. Hm, young moon moth sounds nice, if I remember correctly, the moon is that big object in the night sky. The other choices? I don’t know what any of those are, and I won’t bother asking because this is my choice!

With no further thought, I raised a single leg and tried to make contact with the blue rectangle, except that didn’t work. My leg just phased through the rectangle, I tried a few more times before just giving up.

I don’t understand, do you want me to pick an option or not?! Just, give me the damn young moon moth evolution!

Suddenly I was engulfed in a blue light, and the rectangle finally took in my decision.

Thank you for choosing, beginning evolution.

What's weird was the rapidly approaching darkness-

Pov Andrew

It all happened so fast, at one moment I was watching a strange creature tap the air with increasing anger, then the next second I was blinded by a blue light that filled the room. Once the light disappeared, everything and everyone had their weapons out or were preparing a spell.

But I was distracted by something else. Where the creature was, there was a deformed ball the same size as the creature, what was stranger was it looked exatcly like the moon high above, but the only difference was the constant blue pulsing.

It seemed everyone else noticed the deformed ball, but no one made a comment until Jack raised his voice.

“Alright everyone, how about we move to another room?”

I heard murmurs of agreement as the undead started filing towards the exit, giving the deformed ball a wide berth. The only ones that couldn’t move were Steph and Silven, Steph didn’t even seem to notice anything happening as she didn’t flinch once, all her attention was focused on Silven.

By the end there were only a few undead left, two of the undead were some forms of knights, one of them was headless and missing an arm, and the other one just seemed empty, there were two specters that stood with the empty knight, their forms were ethereal. Lastly there was about 4 skeleton archers, a weird choice for a high level undead, but this guy was a newbie so not too weird.

I wasn’t too interested in staring as I have faced such undead before, what I was interested in was whatever the creature turned into. As a safety precaution, I covered the deformed ball in a large amount of iron wires and moved to the far end of the room, which prompted the specters and knights to move up in between the three of us, with the specters staying a bit further. The archers stayed where they were.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more guarding outside the door, these guys were smart for being so young.

“Don’t attack immediately, just be on guard.”

I called out, keeping an eye on Silven’s condition. The creature and Silven seemed fairly close, would be a shame if it died.

“We know, Eclipse didn’t seem hostile before, we are just doing safety precautions.”

The empty knight replied.

The creature’s name is Eclipse? How interesting to be called after a legend.

In a church far away

“FATHER, I BRING GRAVE.... NEWS!!”

A young man comes rushing into a warm and welcoming office, he is wearing a black and white priest robe and his face is showing tiredness and fear. He breathes heavily as he looks over at the old man sitting behind the desk, his face is warm and comforting.

“Child what grave news do you speak of? I will be sure to pray for you whatever the news is.”

The old man stands up and walks over to the young priest with a reassuring smile.

“No father, this... this isn't about me... this is about the...”

The young priest barely makes out as he catches his breath.

“What is it child? Come take a seat and tell me.”

The old man pats the young priest on the shoulder and leads him to a leather chair.

“Here I’ll get you some tea.”

The old man says calmly as he struts over to the side where a table with cups for tea sat, after the young priest steadies his breathing, he continues.

“Father, the glyph, it turned black, it's what you warned us about.”

Silence filled the room, which was broken by glass shattering, as the old man drops the cups of tea he is carrying. Their contents spilling onto the floor and drenching the old man’s shoes in boiling tea. Yet he doesn’t flinch.

“Father!?”

The young priest hurryingly jolts upright and rushes over to the old man's side. The old man however has a hazy look. His face is as pale as a ghost.

“Are you sure my child...?”

His voice is weak.

“Yes father.”

The priest says slowly, as he is now guiding the old man to the chair, the old man is silent throughout and the young priest stays quiet as he takes off the shoes of the old man and wipes the tea off in haste, in fear that the old man may suffer permanent damage.

“My child, call all the paladins and all the priests, once you have finished that, get me an audience with the emperor.”

The old man says slowly, the young priest confused by this couldn’t help but ask.

“Why is the glyph turning black is causing such a national emergency?”

“The Brood Mother has given birth.”

With those words, the young priest face turned as white as the old man’s.

“Father isn't that just a fairytale to scare children?”

The young priest hesitantly asks, not sure of what to do in this situation.

“No, my child, unfortunately no...”

With those words from the old man, the young priest runs out of the office as fast as he can. The old man stays quiet, disbelief still on his face.

Somewhere far away

The wind howled through the empty streets filled with signs of decay, the dead trees danced in the wind with creaks and splintering, a building toppled from the force of the wind. Ash and dust that hadn’t moved for ages rose from its slumber and flowed with the wind. The wind carried through the destroyed city without a care. Nothing responded to the wind.

The wind flowed higher and higher before it breached the ruined castle gate with enough force to blow the gate from its hinges and force it to land far away from the entrance, the mess it caused went unnoticed.

The wind continued with greater speed as it turned to a loud shrill. Yet nothing answered the wind.

The wind continued, destroying everything in its path, shredding suits of armor and skeletons left to rot.

It quickly burst through the last gate and entered the throne room, suddenly it stopped, everything that was carried by the wind fell onto the floor, turning lifeless once again. Something has answered the now calm breeze.

With a crunch and a pop, old, withered bones started moving. They started gathering on the overly ornate throne, which was covered in pitch blackness. Not too long afterwards, the forgotten kingdom turned silent once again, yet something was different. Something was back.

A small white flame lit up where the withered bones went to. Hoarse laughter filled the halls of the forgotten castle.