Four years later.
The mage Roland looked beyond the walls of Fortunia nervously. Just within his line of sight was a phosphorescent fog bank that towered above the tree line. He couldn’t see it from here but knew from firsthand experience that sickly greenish tendrils stretched out from the fog bank as if they were fingers drawing it ever onward. The mist was here, despite four years of fighting it at every turn.
He wanted to flee. So did every reasonable person at the city. But they couldn’t. The city was nestled in a valley between nearly impenetrable mountains guarding the fertile farm land beyond. If Fortunia fell so would the majority of crops for the kingdom. They had already lost everything that was past this point.
A flash shone in the fog followed by several more leaving an eerie fading afterglow. With each flash disturbing shadows that were not tricks of the light could been seen even from this great distance. The spawn… it wouldn’t be long now.
Roland swallowed. The war had been a slow invasion that neither side could affect directly. The spawn couldn’t survive long outside their corrupted mists. Mages on the other hand couldn’t safely transverse into the mist without dire consequences. Without entering the mists to destroy the source the corruption couldn’t be stopped. That was why the army of nulls was assembled.
A horn blasted rang through the night, its tone low and deep. Roland sighed. Although he wasn’t entering the mists he was offering ranged support to the nulls on their suicide march. He left the wall filing in with the other mages.
Row upon row of kin of all types stood at attention armed with cheap blades and even cheaper armor. There was even the rare magicless human among the ranks of the kin. Behind each squad stood the mages. Some support specialist others range combat. None of them were healers. There was no point. Where the nulls were going there was no coming back. The mages would flee if things looked bad. They were valuable assets. The nulls were not.
“Move out!” The Mage General shouted his voice amplified by magic. Slowly the army of nulls started their death march. Of course they were fed many lies about how they would be heroes and that what glory awaits. It was bullshit. Roland knew it and so did they. Most would never return.
The march wasn’t long. All too soon they neared the mist. Already signs of its corruptions could been seen. From the mist countless root like appendages stretched out. Each of them a sickly gray with veins of phosphorescent green pulsing in them in time with an unseen heart. At the end of the roots would lay the source of the mist.
Commands shouted from all sides and the mages all cast various fire spells burning the corruption away. The roots howled like a wild beast and retreated into the foggy depths. The resulting smell was a sickly combination of waste and burnt flesh.
Once all the visible tendrils were burnt the mages began unleashing fireballs into the mist at random. Fiery explosions blew part of the misty wall apart. But with each attack thin line of hellish energy weaved around in impossible patterns drawing the mists back together once more.
This part was standard practice for fighting the corruption. Burn the tendrils away and slow the spread. But they would come back. They always did. What was odd was the lack of spawn. Usually groups of them would swarm out trying to drive off the intruders. Or at least blasts of corrupted energy should be assailing them. Yet, nothing happened. Roland didn’t like it.
Five more minutes of bombardment and not a single response. Roland was sweating at this point. Not only from nerves but from mana lose. He was competing with other nearby mages to absorb the ambient mana. Per his training he backed away from the army to accelerate his mana absorption. Focusing inward he augmented the vacuum in his diminished mana pool. As the draw began to increase a commanding voice boomed over the army.
“Infantry forward! Follow the tendrils and destroy the source! Retreat once that has been done.”
The nulls mobilized fearing the mages behind them just as much as the corruption ahead. With obvious reluctance they moved forward. Within minutes the army was lost to sight.
“Good luck,” Roland whispered. He knew they’d need it.
Martel tried to choke down his fear as he entered the mists. He didn’t want to be here, but then, none of them did. The filthy mages had been starving them out. At the time he was convinced there had been no other choice. He couldn’t watch his family starve. Now though, he wondered if there wasn’t some other way. This place was bad. That sounded stupid even in his own head. Of course this place was bad. It was corrupted! But even so the place felt wrong. The ground felt fleshy or perhaps mossy. It had a spongy feel to it and sunk slightly with each step. That alone made him want to vomit. Add in the visibility of only 30 feet in any direction and the atmosphere was positively crushing. It was literally crush as well. There was so much moisture in the air that he was reminiscent of swimming. And the smell… he was glad he wasn’t a kin with a more sensitive nose. Otherwise he would have vomit just like the kin next to him did.
“Ready yourselves,” a call from his group leader came. It was quite but with his long rabbit ears it was easy to hear. The army stayed close together following the ground tendrils as wisps of pale green light floated around, as if suspended in the thick fog.
“Charge!” Came the command and the army of nulls yelled. More out of their own fear than anything else. They rushed forward eagerly to get the job done and get the hell out. Quicker than most Martel was soon ahead following the path of tendrils. It wasn’t bravery on his part, rather fear if he got stuck in the group he wouldn’t be able to maneuver at all.
His heart thundered as he dashed on. The thundering continued and Martel realized it wasn’t his heart but some type of steady beating further ahead. Suddenly screams came from behind followed by wet tearing sounds that easily penetrated the mists. He could only go on.
As he and a few other soldiers ran on the mist began to thin. It was still thick but not unnaturally so. Even as the mist thinned the floating green motes grew brighter. The light from them almost painful as he maneuvered to avoid large clusters.
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Suddenly a black cat-kin ahead of him came to an abrupt stop. Martel joined him when he saw what lay beyond.
A pod was the immediate description that came to mind. It was massive. Four stories tall it had pulsating gray flesh with thick green arteries that moved in synchronization with the steady beat. At the base thick root like tendrils collected into a massive support structure.
A fucking heart, Martel realized in cold dread. The source was a heart. His hands reflexively tightened on his spear when dozens of spawn rose from the ground. He hadn’t noticed them at first. They were same sickly gray as the roots. The figures were roughly humanoid but that was all they had in common with the kin. They lacked all features. No hair. No eyes. No nose. No mouth. No indication of gender. They had two basic limbs for arms that end in what could only be describes as a half-witted child’s attempt at creating hands. Their legs were elongated roots that disappeared into the tendrils. If he hadn’t just seen them move he would have sworn they were carved statues.
Several long moments went by and the figures didn’t react. Perhaps they were stuck? Martel dared to hope. That was when they burst open.
Martel did vomit this time. The figures were inside out. Several shriveled organs the size of large eggs throbbed as they pushed a bright green fluid into the surrounding muscles. Multiple hearts beat in time with the mist source as they twitched. Random protrusions of yellowed bones acted as natural weapons sprouting from all over their body.
Worst of all were the faces. Each creature had at least two some as many as four. The eyes were all bright green that could be seen despite the distance. The mouths were irregular lines which spasmodically opened and closed reveling shark like teeth. The noses or lack thereof were empty holes filled with blackish pus.
Suddenly more screams came from behind. As if that was some sort of signal the figures moved. They were fast. Faster than they should be. Faster than Martel.
The black cat-kin screamed in combination of horror and desperation as he lunged forward his spear aimed at the nearest spawn. The creature didn’t bother to dodge. As the spear pierced its body as it continued onward giving no indication that it had been harmed at all. With boneless fingers that moved like snakes it grabbed the cat-kin pulling him into an iron embrace. The three faces began to feed. The cat-kin shrieked in mind breaking madness.
Martel fled. He had dropped his weapon and ran. He wasn’t even aware of the soldiers dying around him. He wasn’t aware of his direction. He wasn’t aware of anything other than the desperate need to be anywhere elsewhere.
Left! Right! Jump! Martel ran on. He didn’t stop until a sharp tug on his foot arrested his motion. A distinct crack and twisting pop immediately followed by numbing pain causing him to fall flat. Coughing Martel looked back. He expected to see a tree root or some other obstacle ensnaring him. It would mean his death but his mind could comprehend such an end. What he could not understand was the mouth in the ground holding his foot securely. Or the long tongue that that was sinuously wrapping around his leg. As he watched too full of adrenaline to feel much at this point the tongue climbed higher reaching his knee all the time entangling him further.
“This is a nightmare. It can’t be real,” Martel sobbed. He half expected to be woken by his younger brother Toren as he jumped on his bed.
It became real when the tongue gave a sharp jerk pulling his entire leg into the open maw which promptly closed. The agony finally registered as it began to slowly chew.
“ARRRRH!” Martel screamed. He screamed at the violation to his body. He screamed at his impending death. And he screamed at the loss of his sanity. He only stopped screaming when a second mouth seized his head, the wrapping tongue blocking his airway.
From a distance it would have been a confusing sight. Two unseen forces tugging on a thick piece of spaghetti. Neither one wanting to share as they continuously fought over the delectable noodle. The battle only ended when the hypothetical noodle tore in half. Each greedy participant sucking down their portions before going still once more. In the end nothing remained to show where another kin lost his life.
Roland didn’t like this. It was too quite. His mana pool was full again after ten minutes of effort and he was back to the front line. Waiting. Other mages were fanning out along the mist wall burning all the tendrils they could find. Here though they waited for the infantry to return… Well at least some of them should return. There was nearly 3,000 nulls total. The loss of half was projected in the worst case scenario. So where were they?
Just as he wondered this a shape was seen in the mist. Roland tensed. Was it some kind of spawn? As the figure drew closer the distinct humanoid shape became clear. A moment later a blue scaled snake-kin stumbled out of the mist his left arm missing. No one went to help him. There was no way Roland would get near the mist for some null. Apparently everyone else thought likewise as the kin stumbled toward them. The snake-kin was female which was obvious as her mail shirt was gone as well as most of her clothes. Beneath her breasts was a ghastly wound that she held with her one remaining hand.
Roland looked away. He didn’t do so out of any sense of modesty or compassion. He did so because she was already dead. Even as the officers rushed forward, now that she was a fair distance from the mist, to interrogate her Roland turned his attention back to the mist wall. That was why he didn’t see the explosion that tore the kin apart from the inside out. The force of the blast knocked him off his feet even 20 yards away. Pieces of meat rained down from above, none of it recognizable. Yet what took all of Roland’s attention was the surge of spawn rushing from the mist wall.
A collection of nightmares. That was what Roland thought as they emerged. Some were horse size spiders with the grinning faces of humans. Others had the torso of humans but from the waist down they were a writhing mass of tentacles. One of the most disturbing kind was a massive human shaped head roughly the size of two carts that crawled on the ground with countless insectile legs. All of them had one thing in common no matter their shape or form. They all had the same sickly green eyes that glowed with a soft luminescence.
Roland screamed as he scurried backwards unleashing a mana bolt at the nearest spawn. The spider like creature exploded from the magical attack. His reprieve was short as more and more spawn came. They were the tide. Unstoppable. Unending. Inevitable.
Roland tried to get to his feet but his leg buckled under the weight. Collapsing to the ground he looked down. A twisted piece of metal had imbedded itself in his upper thigh. It was just bad luck really. Perhaps one of the officer breast plate had shredded in the explosion. It could have been anything really. All that it matter was that it was his death.
He screamed in both rage and denial. From his prone position he unleased fire blasts and mana bolts as fast as he could. As the other mages fell back erecting mana barriers those unlucky enough to be in the open were quickly caught. Roland was no exception. After blasting a two headed crocodile like creature head off, a tendril wrapped around his bad leg. The pain was so intense that he lost focus as it dragged him into the mists. He gasped knowing what fate awaited him. Drawing on the last of his mana he readied an explosion to use on himself when the overwhelming pressure settled upon him. It squeezed his mana back into his well and held it steady.
“NOOOO!” Roland cried knowing he was damned. The spawn around him were careful not to hurt him further. Roland had no such restrictions. He reached for his belt knife to use on himself but hands, tentacles and all manner of appendages that had no name restrained him as he was pull deeper inside. With no recourse left as he was stripped naked, he turn his sight inward toward his mana pool. Helpless he watched the mist mana entered his nearly empty pool, drawing the corruption in with it. Before he had even reached his destination, where he would be changed beyond recognition, his eyes had taken on a sickly greenish glow.