Hunter policy #10232:

When encountering foreign entities in unexpected locations, we have determined over the compilation of innumerable examples that it’s best to not threaten or aggravate the entity. Each instance such a route was chosen, we had to pick up the pieces of those hunters foolish enough to threaten a being of unknown origin or strength.

Now that I was aware of the flames, it was like the entire evening was reinterpreted. Those wolves hadn’t come searching for food. They were running away and I threatened them into a fight. I was an obstacle. Guilt and shame writhed in my guts as I tried to find the source of the fire between the thick lapses of fog and smoke. After a few seconds of squinting into the darkness, I caught a glint of amber light.

I heard voices come from that direction. They carried on the wind like an omen of death. Screams. Human screams.

I started toward the blaze. My foot cramped from how I had to flex it just to mitigate the worst of the pain. I carried on, determined not to let whoever was in trouble deal with it alone. I needed some redemption this night. Soon, I caught a few words, largely curses, from at least three different voices. One was definitely feminine, while the others were harder to discern. Flames danced in the evening air and smoke billowed in huge waves through the thick bush I traversed.

Nearing the source of the fire, I made out three figures. Two wore the simple garb of commoners like myself, while the other had on the strangest assortment of finery I had ever seen. Stranger still was that the eclectically dressed man was waving a fiery branch at a waterfall.

And the waterfall moved.

I leaned against a maplewood and attempted to catch my breath through the thick plumes of ash that coated large portions of this area of the forest. I watched the odd fellow slash back and forth with his stick, and the waterfall shifted and dodge out of the way of his reach.

“What the—” I got out, but anything I might’ve said to justify or excuse this peculiar sight died when I saw the state of the other two people. Both humans, they were drenched. Worse, water started to snake up their clothes and toward their mouths and noses. The woman screamed and the man tried in vain to brush the water droplets off the two of them.

The stick-wielding man turned at their panicked outcry, and the waterfall lunged for his face. Without looking, he dodged out of the way without even trying, like he anticipated every unnatural movement of the water right before it happened. The skill and confidence he possessed were on a whole other level. I immediately assumed him an Orion, perhaps a retired one, but I didn’t see a lick of enchanted material across the dense rivulets of his fine attire.

He held up the branch in front of the woman and the water retreated like shadows. I limped toward their gathering and the man with the fire grinned at me.

“Good! You’re awake. Take this,” the man said cheerily as he handed me his impromptu torch. I grabbed it with my gauntleted hand, but even with that additional strength, the wood was positively titanic in weight. Hands free, the man took another, even larger branch, from off the ground and lit it with a few quick strokes of flint and steel. It caught immediately and soon the man was off waving at the waterfall.

“Who’re ya, missy?!” The other man asked in a frantic tone. His accent was odd, but not wholly unfamiliar. He kind of sounded like Charles when he first moved in with his uncle.

Farmers, maybe?

“I’m Thea Shade and I’m an Orion,” I offered in my best approximation of a professional tone. The two humans scowled in confusion at me. The woman dressed me down with a single glance.

“You don’t much look like them Orions. They don’t stand for improper attire,” she argued plainly.

“What are you—” I looked down and noticed the wretched state of my clothes, not the least of which was the flapping cotton exposing the majority of my right thigh. “Oh, shÿnka, get over it. Lemme help.” I held out the branch and the woman backed away. Water continued to snake toward the two of them, but most of the magical tendrils were intent on getting to her. She scrambled back.

“Kill that nasty demon!” She squealed. The man stomped uselessly on the water that pooled around the woman. “Help me!!!”

I shoved the fire toward the water and it retreated slightly, though not as much as before. Behind us, the richly dressed stranger shouted terrible insults at the body of water.

“Fish piss in you, you oversized pond!” He bellowed in a voice that sounded like he was dueling some nobleman. “I’ve seen tears larger than your paltry surface area! Granted, they were from a nice lady dragon, but that’s besides the point!”

I gazed back at him.

“What’s with that guy?” I asked aloud.

“Stop getting distracted and help me!” The woman screamed even louder. I shook my head and shoved the fiery branch back at the pool of water. It wrapped around the large stick this time and started to pull.

“Well, that’s not good,” I muttered as I tried to yank my weapon free. The fire was dying out with incredible speed.

“Don’t say that! Help us, Orion!” The man yelled beside me.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“I’m trying! Can’t you both just run? It’s gotta be easier than staying near that thing!” I pointed at the source of this commotion.

“We tried, but that there water nearly drowned us in a wall, it did!” By the man’s panicked expression, I knew any further attempts at convincing them to run for it would be a waste of time. The woman gurgled. She clutched at her mouth, but water was already entering her nostrils and lips with a vengeance. She writhed on the ground and the man and I pulled her from the puddle while she gagged on the water.

I focused on that sensation in my gut and clenched. There was barely any power left there, but I opened my palm anyway and shot at the water on the ground. It burst apart with huge clumps of dirt and the man screamed in surprise. The water, however, splashed in dozens of directions and what remained on the woman fell limp. She coughed up an ungodly amount of liquid, but finally started to breathe in great, ragged, gasps. Her eyes were bloodshot as they met mine.

“Kill that demon!” She choked out. Unsure of how, exactly, to do that, I simply nodded. I clutched my ribs as they shouted their protest in my mind and limped toward the gentleman in purples and pinks.

“You remind me of my Uncle Ferniculus!” The man shouted as he waved his giant stick. “More piss than person, says I!” I stepped around pockets of burnt grass and fire-riddled branches. Smoke and steam billowed from the oddest fight I had ever witnessed. Around us, trees were starting to light with infernos of their own as the man and the force of nature cast shrapnel from their weapons of choice. Boiling water hissed. Coats of ash fell.

I had no idea what to do.

The being of water and fury shifted as I approached. The man yelled a war cry and lunged for the beast. It shifted supernaturally out of the way, its body caving so as to not touch his mighty flames. It was then that I saw it.

A purple thing pulsed in its core, and with the light of the fire near it, I saw a deep indent where something oval had once been. I didn’t pay the absence any mind as realization hit me. The man was trying to attack this watery monster’s core. I hobbled forward, my target now in sight. While they fought, I circled around to the back of it. The man backed the creature up against a giant tree consumed with fire. Smoke rose through the sky like it too wished to escape this great and terrible situation.

Absently, I wished I could join it. It would be so much easier to flee weightless through the air than deal with whatever this was. The creature let out a sound straight from the abyss. It rang out like some hellish mix between a wail and water boiling in a teapot. Burns scorched its back, and with a gelatinous shift, it phased through the tree. The fire was quenched and I was suddenly very close to the creature.

I didn’t waste the opportunity.

I punched forward and a kinetic blast rocketed forward. It smashed into the center of the undulating beast, but missed that magenta core I aimed for. A hand yanked on my free arm.

“Please! She’s drowning!” The man yelled as he practically hauled me toward his partner. Right then, the watery creature turned and three massive tendrils of water fused together and speared at us. I threw the man down and we both hit the ground just as the projectile sizzled over us.

“YAH!” The other stranger barked. He raised his branch and swept it straight through the creature. It cried out again and I clutched at my ears as the noise drilled into my mind. Groaning, I tried to get up, but it was useless. The sound was too loud—too close. It bombarded my mind until all that was left were the impressions of pain and anguish.

“WHAT IS THAT?!” I yelled to anyone who could hear me. Surprisingly, it was the finely dressed, though now firmly drenched, man that answered. His face was carved into a grimace, but his voice was loud and enunciative.

“It lost its heart!” At his proclamation, the screaming man next to me halted in his cries and paled. The young lad scrambled toward his partner and I crawled to follow him. The woman was still. Water laced around her like a woven basket of death. I had no target to aim at when I reached the sprawled out woman. It was strange—it was only as she laid still that I noticed just how beautiful she was. Encased in water, she reminded me of those stories my dad told me about ancient nymphs as clever as Gloomstalkers and as radiant as the dawn.

The young man snatched at the water, but it was all in vain. She was dead.

“No, Laney dearest! Wake up! Wake up!” His eyes met mine. “You were supposed to save her!!!”

I backed up, confusion and fear fogging up my brain much like the fog and smoke was in the forest around us.

“HUZZAH!” The other man bellowed. He swung his wooden stake one last time and smashed it directly into that liquidy monster. The twenty foot tall behemoth cascaded down in a mighty rush and swept its killer away. He giggled lightly as he spiraled around several times until he landed just a few feet away.

At the creature’s death, the casket of water dissolved into the charred grass around the woman.

“She’s dead, you rat-pissed hunters!” The man screamed at us as he clutched Laney’s limp head in his lap. Sobs wracked his body and he rocked her back and forth.

“She's barely dead, old chap,” The man offered in a kind tone that insulted the situation. Even I choked on my retort as I whirled to face him where he now sat nonchalantly.

“Barely dead? What’s that supposed to mean? Dead is dead, you aristocratic airhead,” I spat at the man. He spun onto his feet with a whimsical twist of his feet and smiled graciously at me.

“There’s dead, like dear old Coldor, and there’s barely dead, like that poor sop over there.” He strolled over to her with an odd gait. He extended his fingers out dramatically and then laced them together. Elbows locked, he knelt down by the woman and started to pound her in the chest with his opened palms.

“What the hells are you doing, man?!” I yelled. I tried to push him off of the woman’s corpse, but it was like I was shoving the high wall.

“STOP IT!” The young man sobbed and he too tried to press his weight against the man’s rhythmic movements.

It was useless.

The gentleman started to hum a quick and light melody like we weren’t even there. His hands moved with practiced speed. The farmer reached for his lover’s limp hand and held it to his heart.

“I’m sorry, Laney love. I’m so, so, sorry.” His voice was barely louder than a whisper.

“Ahh, there we go,” the gentleman declared. At his sudden proclamation, the woman lurched and convulsed. Water burst from her lips and nose like a dam breaking, and she curled into a tight ball while her body excised the liquid.

And in her convulsions, one of her hands opened. A large oval pearl that glowed magnificently in the combined light of the moon and coals fell from her grasp. It landed with a soft thud on the grass beside her.

Darkness swept over the gentleman’s expression.

“Leave, murderers. Never return to this forest.”

I halted at his sudden threat, my nerves raw and alert at the return of imminent danger. Inwardly, I consoled myself with a final thought as I geared up for my third fight this evening.

Now would be a great time to turn into smoke.