Chapter 3: Hunted

Down the tunnels and corridors, they went. After much talk they went left. They had seen the tracks of the broken ones go in the opposite direction, so this was the best choice.

They had packed all the food they could in some packs that the catnappers had so they had quite the sum for two little girls. Down the tunnel they went for hours.

The first bend split into three paths and they had to try and figure out which way to go. It wasn’t an even split. The left path was farther away from the other two. The other two could be considered a whole separate tunnel as well.

The front one went mostly straight forward and the other one went down. They passed on the one that went down and chose the forward facing one.

They continued forth on their way. But not until they found yet another split and with this came another round of discussion. They fought about which way to go until they remembered that they were probably being hunted.

They looked at the six splits and looked back at each other. The widest seemed like the way to go. Like said, it was the widest but also went up. This seemed like the safest path.

They continued to go until they found themselves in a cave. Said cave opened up into a dark cavern with a wet sound dripping in the corner. The two of them were carrying torches the whole time and now their torches finally faded.

If that wasn’t bad enough, then a deep growling sound came from their side. It seemed like they weren’t alone. A great padding sound came from the source of the growl, and it seemed like it was walking toward them.

It stopped only a couple of feet from Aisling’s head and a BIG SNIFF was heard. She felt the things breath on her skin, and she tilted her head back. The breath followed but didn’t do anything other than that.

It backed up and a THUMP was heard as it seemingly sat down. Aisling looked in the direction of the sound. It seemingly just sat there. Without a care in the world. They continued forward and Aisling decided that light was more important than the mana coursing through her veins.

She summoned a spirit of light, and it took all her willpower to look over at the big thing in the, now, lighted up room. There sat a big mammal thing. She didn’t have the slightest clue on what it was.

She looked over to her companion for information as she seemed to know more about animals and the like than her. It was then that she noticed the look in the girl’s eyes.

It was the same look that she had had when she saw the Broken ones. She was infatuated with this random animal.

“it’s a Wumplebirve!” shouted the young girl, “it’s an animal that lives off of mana only. Its fur absorbs the mana in the air and turns it into chi for the body to use. They are blind and their strongest sense is smell,” she turned back to her traveling companion, “it’s docile.”

The Wumplebirve turned it nosed and ear-petaled face to Sylvia and snorted. It’s massive head and small frame looked like a cartoonish ground sloth. It opened its mouth in a yawn to reveal a wide array of different types of teeth.

Sylvia looked to Aisling like she wanted to say, “can we keep it?” But she had to stay strong. They only had so much time until the Broken ones came for them.

Aisling told as much to her friend, and she deflated. She had to spend about an hour explaining that they only had so much time before they got caught. That stopped her whining and renewed her vigor.

After they came across multiple bends and such the cave finally opened up into a grand cavern. Said cavern had a hole in the top that was spilling sunlight. A small waterfall also spilled from the ledge of the opening.

The cavern had a multitude of tunnels stretching for as far as the eye could see. That wasn’t much as the tunnels still were mostly underground. But it was the sight of light that they hadn’t seen in forever that got the girls excited.

This excitement was short-lived as they heard a sound. Said sound was that of an animal. The two of them looked to the noise and saw that the Wumplebirve. It was sitting under a tree that had grown and broken through the roof of the tunnel.

The two girls breathed a collective sigh of relief. Sylvia ran to the plumb beast and hugged the guy. He seemed to like being hugged as his species was basically a capybara in mood and let out a borth.

Sylvia giggled at this and looked back at Aisling.

“he’s so cute. I want to keep him. Or should we give him a name?” she asked.

Aisling shook her head and let Sylvia choose a name for the big lug.

“I’m going to call yoouuu… Dennis!” she told the animal that wasn’t even capable of speaking his new name.

…

“I can’t hear them, but my pets can,” Venator mumbled to himself.

His pets had just heard the footsteps of a small girl running over uncovered ground. In the caves his pets couldn’t hear them. But it seemed like that they were now in some sort of uncovered tunnel system.

He still had no idea where that system was, but he figured that his pets could figure it out. After all, they could hear the girls. And they could also hear a strange animal that Venator hadn’t seen or heard of in a long time.

A Wumplebirve.

…

Aisling didn’t know how to react to what the young girl was saying. She was spouting facts about the Wumplebirve. The facts were coming so fast that she couldn’t speak.

Even if the young girl could speak then she would probably, accidentally, ruin the mood with a line along the lines of; “Why do you know so much about the Wumplebirve?”

And then the mood would shift to either sad or more invigorated. So, she didn’t want to say anything. She even liked this part about her new friend. The simple fac that she could find so much enjoyment out of a weird animal was rather cute.

Was our darling little Aisling developing a crush on little Sylvia? I don’t know. And neither does the author. He wings half the stuff here.

As they both were looking at Dennis the Wumplebirve, they didn’t notice the slight tapping coming from behind them. But the beast in front of them did. A Broken one had snuck up on Aisling and she didn’t have any idea she was going to get snatched.

But as She looked at Dennis, the animal looked back at her, and it seemed that there was a gleam of something in his eyes. The Wumplebirve darted forward and tackled the thing.

Now that they were in the light, she could see the form of the thing. For while in the darkness a Broken ones from shifts every time your gaze lets up from them. This includes blinking.

If you blink while looking at them, a small detail changes. What detail changes isn’t controlled by the thing, but it helps keep people and the things they hunt second guessing.

Aisling rushed to her friend that she was second guessing only that morning and hid behind her. She still had the mind of an adult man, but the body was changing that.

Of course, she still had the knowledge of being an adult, but her maturity was only that of a child. If she wanted to, she could try and act like an adult, but right now she didn’t feel anything like bravery.

But Dennis was feeling something. For people of the above do not know this, but he was just as intelligent as you or me. Wumplebirves are Sentient, plain and simple.

They simply don’t speak like you or I. This is because our voices are too loud, and they only hear loud ringing when we speak. But they know this. They don’t mind the ringing as they know that it isn’t humans’ fault that their voices are like that.

As Dennis tackled the thing the two girls looked around for an exit to run to. But there was none. There was no way that they would escape.

“What do we do? He’s fighting that thing all by himself. He might die! What do we do?” Sylvia asked.

Aisling didn’t know. She ran through all the situations that she could think of and came up short. What does she do? What does she have that can win this fight?

The sword. She had a sword. The sword she stole from the filth that had put the two of them in this situation. The filth that brought her pain. They had nearly enslaved her.

As She griped it in two hands and looked at her stance. Rage filled her head. Pain and anger clouded her eyes. The only thing she knew as of this moment about whoever was chasing them was scum.

They wished the two children harm. They wished to do harm to the two of them. What kind of monster was this. What kind of monster decided taking two children from their homes and families was a good idea.

Anger

Pain

Chaos

Home…

She wished to go home. She wished to stop whoever this was and go home. That is all she wanted. That is all. She didn’t wish for pain. She wished to be treated like a child and be treated with kindness.

She had never felt this in her past life. So, she wanted to know what it was like. She wanted to feel the love of a mother. She wanted to feel the loving hands of a father.

She breathed in and out. Pain and anger gone, it was now only a deep lonesome feeling, right in the middle of her heart. Her stance that she had copied from Hollywood stars crumbled.

That was until she felt a hand on her arm. It slid down to her hand and lifted up the sword she had. She had forgotten who was there. It was her friend who she had never even thought of as an acquaintance.

Sylvia. She was here, right by her side. The only other girl she knew. The only person that had felt that pain of losing her home, if only for a week. But they had shared that week together.

The girl then realized the fight wasn’t over and looked forward. Dennis wasn’t harmed, yet. He had avoided a majority of the attacks and dished out massive damage.

But he was slowing down. And Aisling couldn’t afford to let this harmless lug die. She straightened her knees, braced her back and looked to her side. There was the girl that was with her the first time she took a life.

Of course, the girl had only screamed and done nothing else, but still. The mere fact that the girl didn’t run as soon as the coast was clear, showed she didn’t fear Aisling, wasn’t going to leave her as soon as the chance showed itself.

She pointed the tip at the beast of a thing and wondered how its blood would feel on her hands. Would it be smooth, or gritty; Sticky, or watery. She slowly inched to her opponent. She leveled her sword at the thing and chanted a spell in her mind.

Her body filled with energy and powered up. She used so much mana that steam began to rise off of her. Aisling darted forward and stabbed into the things side. It screamed in pain.

Blood gushed forth and her mind raced. The smell of the things blood was like that of men. What was this broken thing’s deal? What was it. She knew what it wasn’t though. It wasn’t all that unappetizing.

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The minor spirits she had made pacts with screamed for this thing’s death. In exchange her mind grew hungry for blood. Her antient heritage shining through. Her mother had once shared a story with her.

She was apparently a descendant of a god. An old god of Ireland. She didn’t inherit his skin shifting power, but she did inherit his bloodlust. This god she had never heard of.

This god didn’t exist on her earth. But his legend lived here. She began to sing a lullaby. As this god was one of the kinds that children feared. But the truth was far more tragic, he was cursed and turned into a Lynx and hunted.

The Reason, He was a wielder of a blade. The Blade of Emner to be exact. He killed those who threatened piece but was tricked into killing a king. This king was well liked and as punishment, he was turned into a lynx.

As a Lynx he lost the blade and couldn’t keep his sanity. He killed and killed till a man by the name of cú chulainn, he was a demigod with his own share of problems, slew him out of pity.

Aisling had been told this when she was just a newborn by old man spirit. She didn’t know why he had told her this then but now she did. Her mother had sung a lullaby and infused it with her chi.

Her mother didn’t know this was happening, but Aisling could feel it. And now she sung her lullaby.

“In the Emerald Isle's embrace, a tale of old I bring,

Of a man with a fateful fate, to the stars his soul did spring.

A shape he took, a lynx he'd be, under moonlit skies so clear,

A myth that echoes through the land, to a lullaby, draws near.

Hush now, hush, my child, rest your head,

In dreams, the ancient stories spread.

A man turned lynx, his spirit free,

Underneath the sacred tree.

In forest deep, he roamed alone, a creature proud and wild,

Yet his heart still held the memories of when he was a child.

Cú Chulainn, the hero fierce, with strength that knew no end,

Met the lynx beneath the moon, on paths they both would wend.

Hush now, hush, my child, rest your head,

In dreams, the ancient stories spread.

A man turned lynx, his spirit free,

Underneath the sacred tree.

Oh, the lynx with eyes so wise, shared secrets of the past,

Of battles fought and friendships lost, of love that couldn't last.

But Cú Chulainn, with sword in hand, could not break destiny,

And with a tear in mournful eyes, he set the lynx soul free.

Hush now, hush, my child, rest your head,

In dreams, the ancient stories spread.

A man turned lynx, his spirit free,

Underneath the sacred tree.

In twilight's glow, the lynx did go, to the realm beyond the veil,

But whispers say, when stars dance bright, you can hear his mournful wail.

So close your eyes, my little one, let this lullaby take flight,

And know the lynx's spirit soars, beneath the silver light.

Hush now, hush, my child, rest your head,

In dreams, the ancient stories spread.

A man turned lynx, his spirit free, hush, hush, hush…”

…

Venator could not believe it. One of his pets was slain. No matter, he could always get another. But the thing was that it wasn’t slain by the Wumplebirve, it was slain by the little girl he was chasing.

He had his pets go back into the cave structure and he gazed at the two children from his vantage point. He was looking at them from the branches of a tree overlooking the tunnel structure.

He had done his far share of research about the caves the lackeys used. He found it led to an old elvish tunnel network. The elves thought that hiding underground from the humans was going to save them from the, now, native Irish.

They had colonized this land after being forced out of Scotland by the Gaelic Scots. This whole thing was debated by modern historians though. Most of them didn’t believe that there used to be elves in Ireland.

He looked to the Wumplebirve and then hid after it narrowly spotted him. This whole situation was getting out of hand. He needed to get those kids and bring them back to the King so he could feel better about himself…

He just realized she was chasing after kids. If his dead wife could see him, she’d cut off his member. She was very kind, yet temperamental. If someone bad mouthed her nieces or nephews she’d just straight up kill them.

But she was dead by his own hands. He wasn’t scared of her anymore. So there, HA! Stupid woman, the old sea hag. She couldn’t even bear any children. That was the whole reason he married her.

He was getting off track again. He looked back at the group and realized they had moved on. They had left the body of his dead pet behind and ran off somewhere he couldn’t see right now.

Fuck…

…

Aisling didn’t know how long that presence was there. She didn’t know if that was the handler of the thing she had just killed. Though, she did know that Dennis was nervous and that meant something to her.

They quickly ran from their spot under the ceiling of one of the actual cave tunnels. The easiest place to find them was the brick tunnels so they chose to not run away with the aid of them. They chose to run away under the normal cave tunnels.

They had gone left from their spot and arrived at a rather normal looking spot. This tunnel was on the right side of the place they came from, that being the tunnel that led to this strange pathway of stone brick passages.

They ran for as long as their little kid legs could carry them. They ran for what felt like hours off of the fumes of their past meal. They could barely walk after some time of this. But they didn’t stop for a minute.

Aisling passed Sylvia a piece of jerky. It tasted like pure salt but neither of them cared, they were simply too hungry to care. Dennis kept looking back the way they came, as if he could see the Broken ones chasing after them.

They then came to a split in the tunnel. Dennis took the left and the two girls followed suit. It soon became clear that he had traversed this passageway all his life.

If they were going to run away from the beasts, then they needed all the cards they could play. They kept going and they soon came to another brick tunnel system. It looked rather similar to the past one except this one had an underground lake.

What Aisling saw was astonishing. It looked like a convenience store. Well, a unfamiliar type of store to Sylvia, this was right up Aisling’s alley. She walked up to the broken door and looked inside the place.

The words on the signs and labels of the isles told her that it wasn’t from earth. Well, not this earth. It was from the elves, for the elves from Ireland were incredibly smart.

They rivaled the dwarves in engineering might, and the Germans in the study of war. That was not to say they didn’t know of comfort, as shown by this place.

Aisling looked for a place that all 21st century people knew off, the restroom. She hoped that this place had such a thing so they could actually get their behinds clean.

Sylvia looked all around the place. Since she wasn’t familiar with the concept of a convenience store, she followed Aisling. The two girls found a restroom, Hooray.

The bad news is that it was a men’s room. No matter, Aisling was more familiar with a men’s room anyway. She walked in and as Sylvia walked in after, so did Dennis. She looked back at the Wumplebirve.

“No Dennis, you can’t come in. I Know this is the men’s room but there are two ladies in here. And also, it’s weird for another animal or person to come in here. Could you stay outside?” she asked if the Wumplebirve.

He complied with the demand and stepped out. She thanked the lug and tugged Sylvia in. She looked to the isekeied protagonist and Aisling showed her the stalls.

“What is this place?” she asked Aisling, and Aisling complied.

“This is a restroom. It’s a place where you pee and poop. I hope to God that the toilets still work,” she said.

She whipped around to look at the stalls and opened the doors. There, she found toilets. These looked to be normal toilets. They weren’t in disrepair at all. Aisling suspected it had something to do with the cleansing spirits around the place.

After all, they had been here the whole of 200 years. She thought that her luck was about to run out but, they flushed perfectly well. She was shocked to see them flush better than her past lives toilets.

“What did you just do?” asked Sylvia.

“I flushed the Toilet. It’s the way you get the… I guess the right word would be sewage, out,” she explained.

Sylvia nodded at this then pointed to the roll of toilet paper. She asked what it was, and Aisling told her it was a paper one would wipe their behind with. Sylvia was shocked by this as no one had thought of using fragile paper for that purpose.

Aisling was the first to use it as she actually had to go to the bathroom, and she closed the stall door. Sylvia waited till she was done, and Aisling got a bit nervous. There was only one stall, and she didn’t know if it would clog or not.

After an awkward pee and wipe she stood up and slipped her pants and underwear back on. Don’t get any funny ideas, she looks like she’s six. Like, legitimately, don’t.

She flushed, and it didn’t clog. Thank God. Next, Sylvia used it and she asked all kinds of normal questions for someone who hadn’t used a toilet before. Of course, Aisling hadn’t prepared for these questions.

When she was done and they both walked out of the restroom, Dennis walked in. They heard the stall door open and minutes later, a flush. He must have had to go too.

Aisling then realized that the food she was looking for was probably not there, so she scrapped that idea, and they left the store. As they went, Aisling could have sworn she felt a pair of eyes lose sight of them.

…

Venator stretched, he had lost them yet again. Their stench had magically vanished, and his pets had lost their scent. No matter, he just had to find the Wumplebirve… its scent had vanished to. Guess he would have to use magic he hadn’t used in years to find them.

He was getting tired of this.

…

The three of them had been walking for hours. Maybe days and they still couldn’t find the end route. Dennis seemed to have lost his way and the two kids were hoping for anything to happen.

They were starting to run out of food and Aisling was running out of mana. They didn’t know if they could stop or not. If they did, they would get caught or lose time. If they didn’t stop then they would die walking.

It really was a pickle they had found themselves in. If they didn’t find their way out soon then they would have to deal with both of those probabilities. They soon came across an underground apartment complex.

Aisling looked on in shock at the building. She, in her wildest dreams, never imagined a full-blown apartment. Now you may be wondering, “Zog’s typing brain thing, what about the convenience store?!”

You’d be right to ask why she would have a different. But this is incorrect. This apartment complex is the size of one of those big, soviet Russia complexes. This thing was massive. Like, an elder scrolls dwemmer ruin massive.

She looked all around the outside of the place, and soon she decided to go inside. Sylvia followed here inside the building. She looked around at the strange interior. It confused her how this massive thing could fit underground.

If possible, could they get people to map out this place and live here again. That was the thought prosses of her as the daughter of the baron. He very much had drilled into her that the people that they were weren’t the same as they are now and that they needed to look out for the people.

As if reading her thoughts Aisling went up to the second, or should I say first lower level. Yes, the building was built upside down. She went to the receptionist desk and grabbed a key on the desk. It read something that Aisling couldn’t read.

She and Sylvia decided to go to the second floor and try to get the key to some doors. Room 1. didn’t work. They tried the next door and no dice. They then tried the third door and it surprisingly worked.

She opened the door to find something astonishing. The room was rather bare except for a bed and a bedside table. On the bed lay a case. She went over to the case and cut open the leather strap holding a thing closed.

Why would she do so? It’s a mystery box, why wouldn’t you? In it lay gold coins with the faces of elves on one side, and a weird sword on the other. The coins were very intricately decorated.

It looked like the coins were molded by an expert artisan. Sylvia looked at the coins and gasped. She thought that her good friend’s jaw would fall off if she kept it open like that.

“Do you know what these are?” Sylvia asked.

Aisling shook her head. She had only been alive in this world for 3 years. None of that time she had been used to reading about extinct Elven countries. Of course, old man spirit used to tell her about history, but she lost interest when the majority of the recent stuff started to become boring.

The old stuff was full of heroes fighting tyrants and villains slaughtering heroes and becoming the heroes in their own stories. It was so fascinating that it was all she thought of when going through the rest of her schooling.

They had to move the history to the end of the day when they learned of this. Back to the point, she didn’t remember most of modern history. In fact, she couldn’t remember the name of their current king.

It was a rather embarrassing fact that she was so bad at modern stuff. She knew a lot about old history and antient history, but not modern. Sylvia looked at her in astonishment. She didn’t know what to say. It was simply Ludacris that she didn’t know.

“These coins belong to the old Underwell Elves. They used to live all over the Mythril isle. They then tried to invade Scotland but a group of Irish ancestors who were a warrior band kicked them out and took all the land for themselves. They then ran underground and stayed there for hundreds of years,” she explained.

That info didn’t sit well with Aisling, but she kept that to herself. She decided that grabbing some off the coins was a good idea. Her family was running out of money. She didn’t want to run out of money, so she grabbed three handfuls so as to not weigh her down much and closed her sack.

Sylvia grabbed some too and then they decided to wait there and relax a bit. If they locked the door and stayed here, then it might take a bit to get in here if they came barging in.

They closed the case and hefted it down to the ground. They were still young, so it was quite heavy. If they had to sleep somewhere safe, then this was better than outside. They had only been able to sleep because they had Dennis.

Speaking of, he was sleeping on the floor. He hadn’t been able to sleep for a week now and it was starting to really get to the Wumplebirve. They looked at each other and leapt on the bed.

The bed was the softest bed they both of them had ever laid on. In fact, Aisling would say it was better than her bed back on her earth. Now, they nearly fell asleep right there, but something caught Aisling’s eye when she sat up to stretch her arms.

There was a bathroom. She could take a bath. She could get rid of the smell that permeated everything about her. Shye got up groggily and looked back to her friend that was already asleep on the bed.

She wouldn’t let her friend stink like this, so she grabbed her feet and pulled her off of the comfy bed and to the bathroom. She didn’t even wake up to the sound of the bathtub filling up.

And yes, it worked. There was also a shower head in the tub, but she didn’t want to merely shower. She wanted to cleanse herself and her best friend. She wanted to get rid of the rotting smell from the both of them. Blood had splattered all over them and the stench had gone away.

But that was only after they went to the bathroom in the convenience store. Aisling’s nose had PTSD of the smell and she couldn’t get rid of the fumes in her memory. She hoped that this bath would fix that.

…

Sylvia woke up to the sound of water and the feel of rags against her skin. She opened her eyes to find her best friend, naked, in the bath with her. Of course, they were both only six, or looking like it anyway, so there was nothing weird about them bathing together.

Aisling had already taken off her clothes, so she was rightfully embarrassed. It only made sense. The bath was rather full since both of the girls were in it together. She looked down at the soapy water that had been made a light, translucent light brown from the blood caking their skin.

A slight shiver went down her spine as she thought abought the song that Aisling had sung. It unnerved her…