As I approach the ape's corpse once more I try activating my harvest ability, a feeling of lightheadedness hitting me before a prompt appears in front of my eyes and I become grounded once more.

(Soul harvest conditions not met. Must look into the eyes of the chosen subject to activate.)

I nod along and crouch over the cooling form before turning it so that its already pale eyes are opened in a death stare of surprise facing towards the sky. I take a deep breathe and activate harvest once more before the feeling of floating re encompasses my body and everything fades to black before I hear the sounds of metal slamming against rock.

"Stupid beasts you understand orders yeah? Intruders to homeland found, job is to capture some for sacrifice. Need more workers failure not tolerated. Move!" Growls out a clammy voice as my eyes look up into the face of a Froglike creature. Its body is covered in rough warty brownish skin that shines with a slimy substance, a bulging throat expands and contracts as it talks while disdain shows in the two eyes the sit in the center of its face. The creature literally looks like a bullfrog but as it kicks me I feel a deep pain and anger towards the creature before lowering my head and walking backwards.

I dash through a large stone city, many of the buildings falling apart or completely reduced to rubble. I glance to the left i see the emaciated forms of several lizardmen, their once well muscled bodies showing pale scales as their skin hangs off their frames loosely. I grimace as I shake my head and look to the right and see a large fire several times larger than my pack, A large fish creature impaled on a spear roasting over it as its arms are skewered nearby. Its lizard like legs and tail completely run through as the smell of its roasted flesh wafts over me before a huge brute throws a stone into my face and starts screaming strange words. As I make my way through the broken city I see several more of the frog creatures yelling at various creatures of other races or laughing brazenly at the cruelty inflicted. One of the frog men used a spiked whip to flay open the back of a much smaller frog person with blue skin, the smaller creature crying out in anguish before collapsing in a pool of blood.

I finally reach the outside area and hoot loudly before I hear the shuffling of tree branches and my pack appears. Many of them hold malice in their eyes as scars show through their thin fur, the packs bodies thinner still as lack of food slowly kills us. But we have orders! New prey! If we can kill one and feast then the master and smaller masters wont know! I hoot out my hunting call and smile as the pack returns the call, a sense of bloodlust spreading through our family as we dart through the tree's towards new prey. Pack moves quickly through branches, we stronger together, smarter than stupid frog brutes. But frog brutes have Master and Master much stronger than all so we follow. We prove worth and then one day we in charge of frog brutes and eat them and fish creatures. We find weak prey and be sneaky, we win this way and prove worth.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

We see group of prey under us, they struggle through mud, loud, easy to find. Fish man lead group but I know truth. I see how other prey rotate towards small furry man. He leader of prey. I kill prey leader and eat him and I gain more power. More power means I kill frog brutes, gain freedom. I lead other creatures. I focus on leader and use sneaky mind attack.

Everything fades back into focus and I'm back in my own body, looking into the glazed eyes of the ape monster below me. I remember its anger and the sights of that ruined city, the Bullywug torturing and forcing other monsters to slave away, the roasting corpse of the Catswisk over the fire and the rapidly bleeding out body of the grung after being whipped. I close my eyes to try and remember everything that I saw through the beasts eyes and realize I saw other monsters joining the cruelty as well. An ogre, larger than Wug throwing a rock at the ape, its body glistening with scales as small fins moved along its bald head. A hunchbacked old woman with sickly green skin ripping still raw flesh from the bone of some creature, the fingers and hand still attached to the dismembered meal. I remember cries for help or moans of anguish constantly going off in the background as the ape made its way outside and the smell of rotted flesh and burning flesh mixing together in the air.

After a few more seconds of concentrating I open my eyes and take a deep breath before calling everyone to order. As I begin telling them of what I saw with my harvest skill I can see the jovial mood turning serious and the faces of everyone showing worry or anger at the description of slavery that I witnessed.

"The creatures you described sound like normal swamp dwellers that are known to be violent and nasty. The ogre would be a Merrow, nasty creatures that live in aquatic area's and that love to raid and kill other humanoids for food and fun. A bog hag to by the sounds of it and one that isn't even attempting to hide herself means that she's even more dangerous. Plus it sounds like they've been collecting slaves for this so called master and that many of the creatures here are either forced to work under him or forced into slavery until they die." Harold says as I nod my head in agreement before we start trying to decide what our course of action is now. After a few minutes of debate we decide to keep cautiously moving forward in the hopes of maybe finding a friendlier group instead of turning back with nothing to show for it. After we spend a few more minutes trying to loot the bodies we decide to just leave the corpses there since the fur is so disgusting its not worth taking and there's barely any meat on the creatures to harvest. I notice Sheer cutting off a few of their hands and yanking out some fangs before nodding happily and moving back into the group. As we make our way deeper into the swamplands I can't help feeling a chill run down my spine at what else we may encounter in the future.