Unending rain poured onto them. Whether it was day or night, it didn’t matter.
His long black hair stuck to his back as water flowed down it. His mediocre garb that barely covered his body weighed heavily on him as well. Since he didn’t have any boots, he didn’t have to worry about water getting in them but having to wade across muddy land made for a poor experience.
Mud got in between his toes and sometimes if he wasn’t careful, his entire foot would get stuck like how it did just now.
He used every bit of his strength to yank his right foot out only to find it not working. Come on foot. Get out of there already!
His companion began to laugh as she sat on his shoulder. “Having trouble, are you?” I’m this close to tossing you off my shoulder.
Rather than commit an irrational action, he focused on freeing his foot from the small pit of mud. With all of his being, and with the help of his two arms and hands, he pulled and pulled and pulled until finally, his foot became free. While his foot managed to get free, he hadn’t prepared to counteract that force once freed which resulted in him being caught off guard. As a result, his body fell backwards forcing him to land on his rear end in the mud.
The mud got into places he preferred they wouldn’t be. He slammed his fists into the mud looking straight up at the weeping sky. “I’ve about had it with all of this rain!”
No response came from the sky, of course. It didn’t care for his anger towards it or the fact that he couldn’t stand it raining anymore. It just stared back, laughed at him, and kept raining.
In a fit of defeat, he fell fully backwards lying in the mud allowing the water to fall down the entirety of the front of his body. How many more days, or potentially weeks of this will I have to put up with? It had been raining for a week straight and it didn’t appear eager to end any time soon.
There was no edible food out here. No water to drink besides the rainwater. If there was one positive about the endless rain, it was that he was able to quench his thirst a bit. But other than that, he couldn’t see anything other than negatives.
“Come on, I think there might be shelter ahead of here.”
“You’re just lying to me,” he said.
“No, really. It’s really faint but I think I see a settlement or something up ahead.” A settlement of all things out here? Who would ever think to do such a thing or be able to even survive?
Lar must’ve been messing with him. He decided to pull himself up while he sat in the mud. He squinted his eyes looking through the hazy horizon up ahead. Perhaps Lar’s eyes were better than his since he couldn’t see whatever it was that she saw. “I don’t see anything.”
“Then we might as well go and see. Come on and get up mister.”
He let out a sigh and resigned himself away to entertain the possibility that Lar wasn’t simply toying with him.
For several more miles, he trekked through mud, nearly slipped and fell at least a half dozen times, and found himself having to stop and wrap his hands around a tree to prevent himself from flowing down a river that would’ve gladly swept him away. When he became brave enough, he carefully navigated the river by moving onto surfaces that hadn’t been fully submerged.
By the time he made it to where he didn’t have to worry about dangerous river-like flowing water, the terrain began to change from the rather open sprawling land to a more confined and restricted stretch of land. Rocky terrain appeared to his left and to his right keeping him down a narrowing path. Dead trees began to surround them and surprisingly, a tower of sorts did in fact begin to appear up ahead that the trees didn’t hide.
So, she wasn’t lying after all.
A rough path appeared amidst the clearing. He walked down it finding it a bit more bearable to wander on.
As they neared the relative area that the tower existed within, a wooden wall surrounded what must’ve been a settlement as Lar suggested spotting earlier. He neared the wooden entrance that was left open. The inside didn’t appear occupied as far as he could tell either.
His gut gave him a bad feeling about this place. It told him that they ought to move on, and not bother going in.
“I get the feeling we should move on from here.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Not sure. It’s just a gut feeling.”
“Aw, come on. Look at all the buildings with roofs in there. We’ll be able to get dry and have a break from the rain.”
He very much liked the idea of being able to get dry for a bit. They could start a fire, get warm, and have a grand ol’ time like in the weeks before the unending rain came.
His instincts kept suggesting to walk away from this place, but his feet carried him past the open gated entrance anyways. The inside was just as empty as the outside, or so it appeared. A dozen or more structures lay within with a moderately sized black tower in the middle. The structures themselves were rather simply made. They mostly had thatched roofs and simple wooden walls. On each and every building he could see, a strange star-like emblem was carved onto flat square wooden posts. The seven-pointed star-like emblem looked quite strange to him. It was crudely designed without its shape being even. Whoever carved them did so in a rather rushed manner.
But one thing he began to notice was that since they were inside the small settlement, his breathing became a lot easier. He took a deep breath finding the air clean and non-toxic. The greenish fog visibly didn’t exist within this settlement for some strange reason.
Frankly, he didn’t care why. He was just glad to get a break from breathing in the toxicity.
“Do you recognize these emblems?”
Lar observed the symbol as they walked by one posted onto a post outside a small hovel. She raised a paw to her chin. “I can’t say I’ve seen it before.”
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Every building they walked by had it posted outside. However, while his mind wondered about the emblem and its potential meaning, his focus quickly shifted toward the changing color of rainwater that flowed down the sunken path running through the settlement.
Strands of red flowed to him running by his feet. His body tensed up as he thought he knew what the source of this red color was.
He went further in keeping an eye out. When he looked to his left, he spotted a corpse with blood being swept away by the rain.
That body is relatively fresh by the looks of it. I knew coming in here was a bad idea.
As if to make matters worse, a terrifying sound erupted. He carefully motioned over towards a hovel to his left opening the front door. In a rush to get in, the door hesitated but eventually opened fully allowing him and Lar inside. He closed it shut and wandered over to a small window. Whilst looking out, he began to spot a strange misshapen figure wandering around with its head twisting around unnaturally.
What the heck is that thing?
Lar hopped off his shoulder shifting into their human form and summoned their fauchard just in case that thing found them. The naked creature with slick obsidian-colored skin and a head that snapped around at a moment’s notice bent down towards the path they walked on. It ran its sharp three-fingered hand on the wet ground with their newly made footprints. Its head snapped over towards them. He dunked down beneath the window hiding himself from its sight. He didn’t know whether it spotted them from within the dark hovel, but if it had, he expected that it would wander over them eager to kill them.
Lar looked him in the eye gripping their weapon more tightly. He really needed a weapon of some sort so he could try fighting. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had any luck finding one quite yet, and nor was there an obvious one inside this hovel besides a grimy frying pan.
Their strange high-pitched noises caused his ears to hurt. He chose to lift his head up just barely so he could see out the window. The creature began walking over closer to them. It’s definitely coming for us. It must know by those fresh footprints that new guests have arrived. What great timing for us.
He pulled back from the window and positioned himself towards the back of the hovel as Lar was fully prepared to defend him. His eyes stayed watchful of the door noticing a shadow beginning to appear where the light entered at the bottom of the misshapen wooden door.
His heart began to pound. Blood flowed and he found himself truly afraid of this creature. The creature that looked like half a man and half a crow was quite frightening in its own way. This thing, however, truly struck fear in him due to its crude and twisted appearance and head that snapped around strangely.
The shadow stirred near the door and as he thought they were going to open it and come in to greet them officially, a loud noise erupted from its mouth. He covered his ears and saw the shadow fleeing from the door.
He went to the window seeing it running off somewhere further into the settlement. Not knowing whether they would have another chance, he took Lar’s hand and began to rush outside back to the entrance of the settlement so they could get the heck out of this place before it noticed they were indeed gone.
However, while he would’ve liked to have made it that far, he stopped as the creature went over towards the entrance revealing itself once more. He ducked into cover hiding themselves against an outside wall of some person’s hovel even though he knew they had spotted him.
Now it had sight of them and chose to stand near the entrance to keep them stuck inside this creepy settlement. It didn’t want to lose fresh meat nor could it afford to.
He quickly found himself startled as another one of them appeared around the corner of the hovel directly ahead of them.
“Stay behind me!” Lar stepped ahead of him menacingly. The creature dug its sharp feet into the mud but chose not to immediately attack. Instead, it kept its distance while it eyed her weapon.
It began to laugh and snicker as it stood there a fair bit away. Lar chose to rush for it. As she sent her fauchard towards it, it contorted its body in such a way as to avoid it. It backed away and kept laughing.
A bell began to resound. It came from the top of the tower in the center of this settlement. “We might ought to go to the tower,” she said.
“Let’s go then,” he said rushing towards it.
More of those things began to appear merely by observing them rather than attacking.
They saw the tower and at its front entrance, a faint rippling wall of energy appeared more noticeable the closer they got to it. As they stood right at the entrance, an old figure stood within the darkened tower. With a simple wave of their hand, the energy faded.
“Come inside, hurry!”
They both went inside. The old man gestured once more causing the entrance to have a barrier of sorts form once more to keep the entrance secured.
After all that running, he caught his breath. Outside a half a dozen of those creatures looked at them and snickered to themselves while the one he originally saw which was also quite a bit larger than the others stood completely upright and silenced the smaller ones with an ear-piercing tone.
The smaller ones fled and the large one walked away until it was completely out of sight.
“Worry not,” an old voice muttered aloud. “So long as I’m alive, they won’t be able to get inside this tower.”
He turned around only to see the old gray-haired man putting a hand on his abdomen. They grimaced and held onto a crude metal staff that helped keep them upright.
“You need any help?” he asked.
“No, I’ll…I’ll be fine.”
You sure don’t look like it. The old man wore bloodied gray robe-like attire that had turned more into a rust color. He may have suggested that he didn’t need help, but he certainly looked like he needed it.
“You two came here at a bad time I’m afraid,” he said gripping a chair near a table at the bottom floor of the tower.
“Did we?” he said, “I hadn’t noticed.”
The old man smiled and grimaced further in pain. “My name is Darold Highwetcher. I am, or rather, was a sorcerer at the Liall Sorcerer’s University.”
“Was?” Lar said amused.
“Yes. I was shall we say, kicked out of the university. I am still technically a sorcerer, just not one that the university would consider one of their own.” I wonder why. Although he doubted whether he ought to inquire considering his poor condition and the circumstances they were currently in.
Along the inner walls of the tower, numerous steps led up to the very top that wrapped around towards the highest level. The space at the bottom at least was roughly six yards all around the square-shaped enclosure.
Darold pulled the chair back and sat down breathing in heavily. Sweat trickled down his brow and he rest his staff at an angle against the table.
The man himself had enough wrinkles that counting them all would be a real struggle. He had a thick long gray beard and appeared feverish.
“How is it if I may ask,” he said in a tired kind of way, “that you are here? No human alive should’ve been able to reach this settlement unless you possess the right spells.”
He shrugged his shoulders not knowing truly the answer to his question “I don’t really know,” he said. “I can tolerate the fog for whatever reason.”
“Tolerate.” Darold began to laugh. “What a funny notion. Those monsters can spawn and sometimes tolerate the fog long enough to wander these lands, but I’ve never known a human to tolerate it the same way they sometimes can.” He began to cough to the point of his sickly face turning red.
While at first he hadn’t noticed it, since he felt somewhat safe within the tower, he began to notice that the same emblem posted outside every structure they had come across within the settlement was also at the center of their chest on their robe. What truly is the meaning of this emblem? Perhaps I ought to ask before they are most certainly going to pass from this life to the next.