Chapter 30

I felt a deep sense of urgency and desperation to save the being, as soon as the creature locked eyes with me. I could somehow feel the beings grief and sadness for the humans in the cages that were meditating, and looked to have been starved for quite a while. I also felt a deep sadness for the monsters in the cages that were devouring sacrifices brought in by the cultists. It made no sense, why did the creature pity and mourn for these monstrous beings as well? Looking back at the monsters cages, I took a closer look at the monsters themselves, hoping to uncover some hint for why the being mourned for these abominations as well.

The monsters devouring the sacrifices looked pale, with skin stretched so tight it looked to be ripping at spots, and pulled over their meatless bones. They were exceptionally gaunt, and seemed to be in constant pain and agony. When they weren't feeding or hunting they clutched their stomachs in torment and eternal starvation. Each of them were exceptionally tall, with the shortest being at least nine feet. Being so tall, and thin, they looked frail, but once you looked at their massive modified mouths, and quarter sized teeth, you would understand, these are killers. If they had anything at all in the cage with them, it was devoured, and the people who were sent in earlier, were consumed completely. The beasts even ate their bones and clothing, anything that even had hints of blood on it was completely ravaged.

None of this seemed to relive the beasts hunger though, as the moment they were through devouring a sacrifice, they began to crash against the cage, attempting to free themselves to hunt again. They hit the walls with such force that it would shatter a normal man’s bones, or kill them outright, but even this had no effect on the emaciated fiends. Upon closer inspection, I finally noticed that one of the monsters was wearing a satchel that looked identical to the ones worn by the tribesmen in meditation. It was at that moment that I heard an unholy wail, and spotted an indigenous man breaking his meditation, and screaming in pain like a madman. Looking below the man, I could see the frantic eyes of the massive elk creature trying to calm the man down and encouraging him to return to his meditation, but it was too late. The man cried out in pain punching his stomach and cracking his ribs and bones, until he saw the tied up sacrifice thrown into his cage. With eyes like a ravenous wolf he pounced on the woman, holding his head up for a moment to scream, “Forgive me, I cannot bear the pain any longer, I am not worthy!” Pulling his head forward and crunching into the human in front of him.

The forest god underneath began to writhe and convulse on the floor almost like it had been severely wounded. Big tear drops fell from its eyes as madness began to envelop its consciousness. Seeing the pain the entity was in was almost unbearable, but it was at this point that I heard a voice I will never forget. A deep, visceral, and dreadful voice, began speaking to the forest god below. “Why are you still fighting?" "Isn’t it better to just admit defeat and disappear?" "It would be better for you, and much better for those who follow you." "Plus I would get paid much faster.” Looking up to the ledge overseeing the entirety of the operation, I finally noticed a bizarre…man? The man was wearing a pen striped black business suite, with a black tie, and handkerchief in his front pocket. He would look like an Old Italian mob boss, if not for the fact that he had no distinguishing features, in fact, he had no features at all.

This was because I could only see his suit. His head, neck, hands, and any other part of him that would normally have skin and other human features was enshrouded in darkness. It looked bizarre like a kind of black flame swirling and dancing around the entities head and hands. Despite not seeing his features, I still felt a cold, narcissistic ego driving the entity forward. “Watch your people and despair, little god! One by one, I will break them, until you are weak enough to kill! It may not be your fault that your father made an enemy of Thokk, but it wasn’t her fault that your father chose her name and life to ruin either! Make this easier for what is left of your children and fall in despair!

The great beast finally stopped convulsing on the ground and locked eyes with me once more. At that moment I felt like I was in a dream. I could see the great elk in front of me kneeling to me and begging for me to help. Then the dream shifted and Janet was next to me and the elk, and it tapped her dead body with its beautiful antlers, and she had awakened. Tears rolled down my eyes as I saw her opening her eyes and pulling me into her embrace. The dream shifted again where I saw a cage separate from the rest on the level that the elk was on. Inside of the cage was a malformed man with a chieftain’s headdress. I immediately broke the chief free and broke the metal mitts around his hands stopping him from moving them. As soon as his hands were free he began to use a strange forest magic to envelop us in vines and trees and somehow stopping the darkness. We continued forward breaking as many locks free from the natives as I made my way to the forest god, breaking the pen free with the help of its people. Snapping back into reality I was still in the same initial spot that I was before the entity locked eyes with me, but now I made up my mind. If this creature could help me bring back Janet then I have no reason not to help it even at the cost of my own life.

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Looking at the creature one last time I gave the entity a fierce scowl hoping to show that if it lied to me I would be the first to kill it. Seeing this, the creature nodded its head in acknowledgement. Looking around one last time to see the distribution of the cultists and enemies, I put Janet down softly and unfashioned her bow and arrow, tying them to myself along with the remaining Molotov cocktails. Hoping not to alarm the enemy too quickly I began by walking calmly to the back corner that was the closest to a crane and its operator. Putting my hand up and waving at the controller kindly, I began walking up to the cabin where I began acting like I couldn’t hear the man from the engine noise. He unlocked his cabin and opened the door slightly, and I slid my long sword into his skull, after I pulled it out behind the door. Immediately getting into the crane I realized my first mistake. I had no idea how to operate a crane. Fortunately, the crane was already on and the joy stick seemed self-evident, but going up and down might take a second to figure out.

Putting on the crane operator’s hood and cloak I began to operate the crane to the best of my ability like it had been doing before while I learned the bare essentials. The friendly wave seemed to work again for some unknown reason after I bumped into a few cages and almost crushed one of the cultists. Fortunately, it did not take too long to figure out the basics as I put my plan into action. Unfortunately though, it was going to require a few sacrifices. Lowering the crane cage to the nearest loading section for the cultists to walk into the cage with the sacrifice, I began to pick up pairs of people. However, I did not stop once I had a cultist and sacrifice loaded into the cage and put it down into another loading dock where another cultist was waiting. Once the pen was lowered the cultist looked somewhat confused but years of indoctrination had made his mind weak to reason and with a severe aversion to questioning authority, and right now the crane operators were the top of the hierarchy. Stepping inside of the cage, I made three more trips, gathering a modest group of five cultists and five sacrifices, when I decided to stop dancing on the knifes edge, and begin.

I think the group were beginning to fight their programming by the time I started my plan as I noticed a few of the crowded cultists was making an attempt to get my attention and the attention of others, but it was too late. Extending the cranes boom, I winded back the arm, and full throttle began to swing it into the piled up crates and cages making the stage. “AAAHHHHHH!!!! NOOOO!!” I could hear the screaming and panic from the cultists and victims. “At least you get to take them out with you, I’m sure if I could ask you guys if you were willing, you would say to do it, but on the off chance you wouldn’t be willing, well…. That sucks.” I couldn’t help but to talk to myself to drown out the screams. The first crash caught the, “Stage” by the corner and tossed several big cages off of the pile. I could even see one of them with one of those monsters in it breaking out, and rushing to the nearest cultist and ripping his throat out with its bare hands. Once it was out of the cage it became exceptionally fast, almost to the point of not being able to keep up with its movements. Pulling the bent cage back for a second swing blood was pouring from the bodies lying on the bottom, as I pushed the arm to full swing and, crash, another section of cells were tossed aside, falling to the ground or deforming enough for the things inside to come out. The entire stage began to panic as the tall abominations began pulling people up by their arms and eating them head first. I exited the crane once my, “wrecking ball” was out of commission.

Running towards the center of the stage and attempting to use the knocked down cages as ledges for me to make my way down I was almost immediately stopped by one of the twelve foot monstrosities I had released from its cage. Seeing it staring at me with bloodlust its eyes and huge mouth and teeth as it drooled saliva and blood from its previous meal I was fairly certain I was about to die. Tempting fate in my desperation I thought to myself, well, at least it can’t get any worse. Almost immediately I noticed a small black dot on the center of the creature’s chest. It too noticed the dot, as it began trying to swat it away like a fly. This turned into it trying to claw it out as the dot became bigger and bigger and I began to notice a swirling motion to the dot. Growing rapidly, the circle grew into the size of a baseball and then into the size of a basketball, quickly compressing the material of the monster near it, into itself. Screaming in agony, the beast began to try and escape as its arms and legs were sucked into the swirling black void until nothing was left but the void. Staring in awe the void began to stretch and shift until it became the shape of a man in a pen striped suite with a black tie and handkerchief.