It didn’t matter where they went within the lands covered in green fog. He felt destined to never find anything to satiate the constant hunger that at times, overwhelmed him.
He put his right hand against his stomach bracing against the hunger pain.
What does a guy like me have to do to get a meal out here? There must be something edible out here somewhere.
“Are you alright?” Lar said whilst atop his shoulder.
“Yes,” he muttered with the thoughts of smoked meats appearing in his mind. He could see a nice cooked chicken with perfectly golden brown skin along with spices and herbs rubbed all over it to give it a bit more flavor. He thought of how nice it would be to bite into a juicy piece of meat and have it explode in his mouth.
“You sure you’re alright? You look like you’re dying.”
“I’m just hungry.”
“You said that yesterday and the day before that.”
“And we have yet to find anything to eat, so you shouldn’t be surprised.”
Lar ran her paw across her head. “Sure, but I have to be honest, I’m a little tired of hearing you complain about food all the time. Just try not to think about it. It’ll help I promise.”
Just try not to think about it, huh? How am I supposed to do that when my stomach feels like it’s ready to shrivel up and die?
The hunger pain wasn’t all that consumed his thoughts. He hadn’t had a drink of water in weeks leaving his lips cracked and bleeding.
Immense starvation and thirst were quite the sensations. Though he had lost many of his memories of his past life, he still possessed certain facts or truths about the world and the conditions that bound mortal souls to the mortal realm. Humans for instance weren’t supposed to live past several days of no drinking. They could live a while without food, but eventually, death was inevitable.
For him however, he had not died from extreme hunger or extreme thirst with that old body he awakened in whilst spending time in that jail or in the youthful body he had possessed for some weeks now. He just kept living and wondered how and why he could manage such a feat.
From afar, he began to notice a structure looming up ahead. It existed on top of a flat dirt surface and appeared quite large. And despite the green fog all around that obscured faraway places, he could still make it out well enough during the middle of the day.
“What’s that over there?” he asked.
Lar stuck her head forward. “It looks like some kind of temple.”
“Should we visit it? We might find something useful there like food or water.”
“Actually, now that I think about it, you might just be right.”
“Really?”
She hopped off his shoulder and began walking ahead of him. She nodded her head eagerly. “If we’re lucky it might have a holy water source that’s still active. If not, well, then you’ll have to stay thirsty.”
They had no other choice than to visit the temple. However, as they reached the entrance, he found giant metal doors that stood way up above his own height fully closed. They appeared thick and had beautiful patterns etched into the dark gray metal. The temple itself was made out of old blocks of smoothened light tan stone, unlike the metal doors.
“This temple just had to be sealed,” Lar said from down below. She put her paw up to the door and pulled it back away. “It also appears to be sealed additionally with magic. There’s no way we’re getting in there without trying to climb over the walls themselves.”
“What kind of magic is keeping this entrance locked for all this time? It must be abandoned right?”
“To any other human particularly, yes. I suppose there could possibly be familiars living here, although I doubt it. As for what kind of magic is keeping it sealed, it’s some kind of magical ward and a particularly powerful one at that. Come to think of it, this is a strange ward. I’ve never seen one like it before.”
There was but one thing to do.
Try to open it himself.
He put both of his palms onto the two metal doors that sealed the entrance to the temple. As he did so, a strange sensation pulsated against his palms. A mostly translucent ripple ran across the entrance and the door began to open as he continued to push against it.
“Huh? What the heck? You’re actually capable of breaking the ward?”
The entrance began fully opening exposing the inside of the temple. “Look at me, I’m pretty great, aren’t I?”
She gazed at him disapprovingly.
Inside the temple, the floor was noticeably covered in dirt. With a long period of abandonment due to the conditions within these lands, it was not unexpected. Even a statue that stood at the back wall had dust and dirt gathering atop it.
They walked towards a left entryway that led to the same area that the right entryway would’ve brought them to. They made it outside into the temple’s courtyard only to spot a corpse hanging from a tree. Their body dangled there before them with dried blood settled beneath their body. They had been stabbed numerous times and in one place, a dark dagger was sticking out of their heart. They also had other entry wounds from an unknown weapon that pierced through their body with ease leaving dozens of holes throughout it. When he motioned over to see behind the hanging body, there were blown-out holes out their back which were much larger than the ones in the front.
“This body has been dead for a while,” Lar said examining the body for herself. “For at least a few weeks by my estimation.”
The tree itself had not been spared from the carnage. The trunk had noticeable damage from projectiles that had gone through the hanging man’s body. There were no signs of anything remaining from whatever had done this, however.
“What an odd thing to find,” Lar said. “But I say we search through this place ignoring this oddity and see whether we can find ourselves a holy water source.”
“Go right ahead, I’ll join you soon.”
While Lar went to search for a source for them to drink out of, he continued to observe the hanged man.
He lifted up his hand and pressed his fingers against their mostly skeletal chest. A flash of memories ran through his head.
What the? They happened too quickly for him to make sense of them. All he could really make out was seeing this person in several different contexts with one involving them laughing.
As he pulled his hand away, the incomprehensible memories went away as well. And before he could gather his thoughts, several crows flew down and began to gather on the tree.
Caw. Caw. Caw.
Due to the last time he had encountered crows, he found it strange that they reappeared. Each of their tiny beaks pointed towards him. They kept cawing enjoying the banter they all shared amongst one another.
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“Lar!” he said telepathically.
“Ow,” Lar replied back. “If you’re going to use telepathy try not to yell.” Since they bonded their souls together, they could communicate with their thoughts but only if they were relatively nearby each other.
“Sorry, but I think we might have a problem.”
“What is it?”
“Come back out to the courtyard and you’ll see.” These crows remind me of the ones that greeted me outside the jail. Could they be the same ones that chose to attack me back then?
By the time Lar came out to greet him once more, the entire tree was covered in crows from top to bottom. There had to be hundreds of them and more kept coming to greet them.
“Geeze that’s a whole lot of crows,” Lar muttered aloud.
“I ran into a bunch of crows before right outside the jail and I’m getting the feeling that these are the same ones.”
“I think you might be right!”
From way up above, a body came swooping down at a rapid pace. It was far larger than all the other tiny crows. It was big enough that he thought he was going to be crushed by it. However, as he thought to try to throw his body out of its way, he fell backward.
His back skidded along the dirt in the courtyard and stopped. He then noticed a white-haired woman on top of him and dirt exploding outward from several meters up ahead where he had just a second ago stood upon.
The naked woman looked up at him and then stood right up exposing their backside. What the heck? Wait a second…
“Is that you Lar?”
“Of course it’s me! Who else would it be? Oh yeah, that’s right. I forgot you don’t know hardly a thing about our nature for some odd reason.”
“I—” So familiars can appear like humans too, not just animals? “I suppose you’re right.”
“Let me handle this since you don’t have any real way of fighting right now.” She stretched out her right arm and hand allowing for a shaft made of aura to manifest into their reality.
While they both prepared to fight the manly figure with a crow’s head, he couldn’t help but notice how beautiful Lar was in their chosen human form.
She had long white hair running down her exposed back. She had pale skin and when she had looked at him briefly before standing up, their eyes were yellow like a cat’s.
“Stay back,” Lar yelled back towards him. The weapon she was summoning appeared like a fauchard. When it fully materialized she gripped it tightly and began to assault the creepy creature with human and crow-like features.
The tiny crows gathering in the tree cawed continuously as they both began to fight.
He couldn’t help but notice how agile and fast his companion fought. They kept up with the crows’ attacks that chose to fight with its body rather than using a weapon as an extension of itself like her.
Lar’s fauchard went swiping horizontally towards the crow managing to send a large gash across their chest. It was a deep enough gash that blood gushed out and the creature backed away. As Lar prepared to send a killing blow towards it, a swarm of tiny crows hit up against them sending their beaks into her naked skin.
She began killing the tinier crows as best as she could but unfortunately, as she did that, several crows disappeared into their main opponent as they hit up against their body. The injuries that this monster had sustained disappeared as the tinier crows disappeared into it. With their body recovered, they did not hesitate to resume the assault towards her.
With a quick block with the shaft of her fauchard, the force sent her body hurdling out from the creature intent on murdering them both. Lar managed to keep grasping the fauchard as her body landed gracefully elsewhere.
The duel continued with the creature taking more injuries from her. However, just as it had done before, every injury was healed as the crows hit up against their body disappearing into it. So long as these annoying crows kept doing that, it would be able to keep fighting indefinitely or so it seemed.
“We have to kill all the other crows,” he said telepathically as he kept his distance from the fighting.
“I know that,” she replied quickly and blocked another attack. Her fauchard went up slicing an entire part of their beak off. A slew of crows went to aid the creature continuing to heal it. If it didn’t have them it would’ve been dead already.
There must be something I can do. He thought of his options and found it difficult to come up with a solution. There were just so many of them.
And then the solution came to him. Wait, there might just be something I can do.
That same oppressive force he had used against them briefly came to mind so he tapped into it a bit directing it towards all of those crows who kept cawing and assisting the grotesque one. Each and every one of them filled up his sight. The ones who flew above, the ones who swooped down to heal, and even the ones who just sat up in the tree watching the spectacle. They all became the targets of this oppressive force that he didn’t fully understand or grasp.
Everything went silent. He could not even hear himself breathe. He channeled this force or energy forcing them all to become enveloped in it. Though he could not see it with his eyes, he could sense it surrounding each of the crow’s bodies.
Their cawing stopped and all the crows fell over onto the ground. The dueling stopped for a moment as the half-man, half-crow appeared mortified with what had been done to its most loyal supporters.
Now kill them.
Lar screamed and sent her fauchard in an upward arc. It came hurdling down at them and sliced them diagonally down the shoulder to their waist. The monster let out a wretched scream and fell over dead on the ground as it no longer had allies to heal it.
There, it’s finally over.
He let out a sigh of relief. The fauchard Lar had summoned began to disappear. She was noticeably dirtied with a bit of blood but not all that much. In truth, she had managed to avoid any nasty blows or injuries. If the fight had gone on for much longer he did not expect such a fate. She would’ve likely tired and lost at a certain point so long as that monster had crows to keep sacrificing themselves to heal them in that manner.
“I was not expecting to fight one of those today,” Lar said. “Oh and by the way, thanks for killing all of those crows. How’d you do it though?”
“No idea,” he said truthfully. “It was that same force I used on you briefly that made it possible.”
It looked as if a chill ran down her spine. She shook her body and looked down briefly before looking back up into his eyes. “Just promise to never use that against me ever again. You can keep using it on crows though.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.” So long as you don’t do anything that warrants it.
“Good. Now then, I never did get to tell you since that jerk decided to come swooping in all of the sudden, that I just so happened to find a holy water source that is drinkable.”
“You did?”
She nodded her head. “It’s not food but at least it’ll make you feel a bit better.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get at this point.” He might still have to go hungry, but that didn’t mean he had to go thirsty as well.
They both drank from a pool of holy water that managed to not become spoiled. The water basin had arcane runes etched into the foundation. He drank so much, he had to pee at least five times within an hour at a certain point and even wake up in the night to go.
As he got up to pee yet again, he thought he heard his companion walking up from behind.
“Decided to change back into your cat form?”
She looked up at him as he finished urinating out in the courtyard that was still covered in dead crows.
“I am particularly fond of this form as of right now. That may change in the future, however. We familiars are not always particular about keeping the same appearances forever.”
“I mean if I could change how I looked, I’d be doing it every day.”
His companion laughed a little. “It doesn’t really work that way. Changing forms that are well established is quite easy but to modify the appearance itself or to take on another animal form is quite taxing on our bodies. We can make such dramatic changes if we desire but at the cost of our livelihoods.”
“Really? There’s that much of a cost to it?”
“Yes. Familiars do not change forms by way of magic. We instead utilize our souls to accomplish such feats as is our nature.”
“Huh. Well, I had no idea.”
“What a surprise,” she said sarcastically.
They both laughed and headed back inside further into the temple. They had chosen to sleep in a small enclosed room. It wasn’t much but it sure beat sleeping out in the elements like they usually did every night.
Tomorrow we’ll be back out there without a roof over our heads. I hope one day that we’re able to have one above us regularly. Oh, if only that could happen soon. I sure would like that. And of course to be out of this fog. I really don’t enjoy breathing this toxic atmosphere day in and day out. He leaned to the side with his head on the ground feeling himself losing his consciousness. I wonder where I’ll end up. Will it be someplace nice or maybe someplace bad? He let out another yawn and began to exit reality. I hope wherever I end up, it will all turn out alright.