****************

Wyatt Graves

We all take a short rest by the log that I set Johnny on when I saw Otto firing his guns at that weird flying guy. My whole body is sore from that fall, and I listen to Otto recount his and Blake's escapes while he bandages his gunshot wound and burns. Blake doesn't have to do the same because she walked over to the first man and devoured some of his Vigor to slowly heal herself. She can only do it to dead people she's already stolen from.

"I booked it the second that Johnny admitted he couldn't handle it with that callout. Just put my head down and ran for the destination. I was debating on coming to help you so we could make sure the lantern is with us, but I lost track of you very quickly with that bird guy on me. I think I mostly wore him out during our run, but he started out much more dangerous with roughly three times as many of those feathers. What about you, Wyatt? How did you find Johnny?"

I just shrug as I give a short explanation leading up to me finding Johnny.

"Ran from those two people who were after me as fast as I could. Ended up attracting the attention of a Letiche by accident which one went after. Then, I fought the second for a little before hiding underneath the water. Held my breath, for I swear, almost five minutes before they finally left. Then, I stumbled until I found Johnny slumped behind a tree with horrible wounds."

Otto nods at my recount as he finishes covering his wound and putting some kind of ointment on it.

"We're all pretty hurt besides you, Blake, so you're gonna have to take the lead from here on out until we make it to the reeds. I'd guess it should only be another day or so of travel after that chase, but we need to go immediately. Who knows when that old lady will show up for Johnny again."

Agreement passes from me as I pet Dakota, who's just recovered from that shockwave from the one man. Blake just gives a short hum as she stands up, and her spirit comes from her back to watch behind her. I think she named it Nall or something.

We quickly stand up from the short sabbatical and get moving once more toward the Laughing Reeds. This time, however, I share the burden of carrying Johnny with Otto with one of his arms over each of our shoulders. Neither of us can figure out what happened to him, though. As we walk, Otto keeps throwing out guesses, and I refute what I can.

"Maybe he was able to just outrun her?"

"No way. That lady is way too fast. She was able to dodge his bullets the last time they fought."

"Hmmm… Maybe he wounded her badly enough that they split, each running for their lives."

"Not impossible, but I still think it's unlikely. Johnny never wanted to fight her before because he figured he'd lose nine times out of ten."

A few more guesses are thrown out, and even one by Blake suggests a third party entered the fight. None make sense, though, so we just continue on our way, constantly looking out for Darkstep and the other Hunters that are still alive.

As we move through the swamp, though, a sense of unease starts to creep over me. The air becomes thick with the stench of decay, and the trees hang heavy with moss and vines. Most of our travel so far has been subsumed with the stench of dirty water and moss; only during combat has it changed to gunpowder.

The ground slowly becomes even more soft and squelchy than ever before as Blake starts to slow down in her movements at the front.

"I—I— I think we're coming up on a d—den. If w–we were in any situation, I'd rather go around, but something tells me we don't have t—time."

I see Otto nod to her words as if he understands perfectly, but I'm left confused and speak up.

"What's a den?"

Otto twists his head toward me slightly with a short answer.

"A gathering of dangerous creatures, like snakes or crocodiles. A haven for rot and death."

"Okay. I guess that makes sense. But isn't Sinscreak a human territory? Why is so much of it dangerous?"

Blake laughs with a snort at my question before becoming anxious about doing so. She tries to explain herself.

"I–I uhh didn't laugh at you. Just uh, your question. Only a few territories are actually safe all the way through. The only condition for us to "claim" one for ourselves is to ensure no other races have large communities within them. It has nothing to do with the monsters inside."

Her response lets me know just how fragile humanity truly is. We lay claim to so much land, but how much do we truly own? This swamp is certainly not ours. It is the wilds. My sharp questioning is run dry the second we notice something after her answer. The marsh around us has gone entirely silent. Now and then, we would typically hear the croak of a frog or toad or the rustle of a snake in the trees, but now, nothing exists beyond our breathing.

This foreboding sense that begins to overwhelm us makes even Blake hesitate in her next decision, and she's lived here most of her life. Her voice goes quiet as she makes sure it only reaches us who are around her.

"The—the den's really close, but I think whatever is behind us is as well. Let's just get a move on, okay?"

She starts to move as the trees become even denser, and the path we walk on becomes increasingly narrow. At the very least, however, one thing is on our side as the water level that has almost permanently been to our calves has now shrunk to our ankles.

The dense canopy primarily blocks the sun, leaving us in the dark. I start the flow for Nightvision so that I'm not hit with any surprises. My unease, however, only continues to rise. It feels like someone is watching us. Maybe even multiple people. Or multiple things.

Every splash nearby makes me turn and look at it just to make sure it isn't Darkstep returning for our lives.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

And after a few more minutes of walking through this dark, I feel Dakota beside me growl and try to get big. The three of us instantly start looking for danger on ground level, thinking that it is a Hunter, but it isn't until I look up and see the glint of yellow eyes do I realize the actual danger.

All around us, yellow vertical eyes peer at us with ghastly intent from trees, bushes, and even underneath the water in some spots. We're in a den of snakes. I draw Intervention and activate Chain Eyes to see if they possess any Sigils, and to my own frustration, almost all of them do. Multiple are even shackled by oranges and yellows.

I aim my shotgun and let out several blasts as I yell at my companions to run away.

"Run! They are all Sigiled!"

Otto curses back at me as he helps me pull Johnny.

"Of course they all are! Why else would a den be dangerous, you nitwit!"

The fire from Intervention lights up our surroundings as well as killing many of the snakes with their dying hisses, but there are so many more. As we run forward, they start to drop down on us and slither toward us if they miss.

Blake does what she can to protect above us with her grasping bandages alongside the hair from her spirit that was bonded to her. She blocks most of the falling ones, and Otto gets the rest. He uses his injured arm to draw several lines of wire that he plants above us, utilizing the wood from the trees. He quickly ties it off with his teeth while he runs. The length of wire slows and cuts all the snakes that try to fall on us as we run.

I struggle to help as I have to help carry Johnny, and I only have one arm, but Dakota picks up the slack for me. He rips off the heads of several 1st and 2nd Sigil snakes that dart out to bite me or Otto while at the same time distracting the few larger 3rd Sigils during our dash away.

The snakes keep coming even as we run for almost a full minute through the muddy, waterlogged ground that pulls at us with every step we take. Somehow, though, only one of us gets bit as we run, and it's Blake. She gets a tiny bit on her forearm that she promptly tourniquets so hard that it stops all the blood flow. She aims to not worry about the venom for a minute or so. I know that it's not the best way to treat poison, but it's a decent way to stop it from reaching your heart.

Eventually, we start to see the trees above us open up, and Blake reaches down and grabs onto a snake with that pitch-back hair of her spirit. Then, she uses one of her skills to devour the snake's Vigor as she immobilizes it. After that, she clears the tourniquet and uses her Vigor to clean the wound.

While she's doing all that, Otto and I are clearing out any of the snakes that have deigned to follow us. I am forced to use several more cylinders of ammo from Intervention to prevent any more venom bites. Just as Otto kills the last with a well-placed rope dart on the second to last that he then swings to also hit the last one with, we all take a series of deep breaths.

We made it past the den.

I take a moment to relax as I look back up to the sun that now reaches us, but as I do so, I hear a whistle. One that kind of sounds like an arrow moving through the air.

The second my brain makes that connection, I snap back into action. My head goes down, and my eyes scan the surroundings as Chain Eyes, the most effortless skill for me to activate, comes into being. A little bit in the distance, I see a glimmer of dark blue. The archer. And right after I notice her, I notice her arrow. It's heading straight for Blake.

I drop Johnny and jump at Blake, knocking her over and having the arrow zoom past at the last moment. But these arrows aren't regular. This one turns right back around and comes at the both of us now on the ground. But we aren't alone.

Otto takes his turn and hits the arrow with a well-timed and well-placed rope dart, and the arrow turns around, which forces it to hit a nearby tree with the disruption, causing a minor explosion of wooden shrapnel. He looks to be and yells.

"What the fuck is that!?"

I scream back at him as I quickly get up and pull Blake with me.

"That archer lady I told you about! She must've heard the gunshots!"

"Fuck!"

Otto slings Johnny over his shoulder as he starts our escape once more with his rapid reactions. But a second arrow is already on its way for him.

Blake tries to handle this arrow as she throws her spirit in the way of it, making the thing detach from her and consolidate in front of the projectile. The arrow slams straight into the spirit and explodes with a silvery light as Blake yells at us.

"F-Follow me!"

She runs deeper into the swamp without hesitation as I see her spirit fade from the explosion and disappear entirely. She just sacrificed it to help us get away. Ruthless, but needed.

Otto, Dakota, and I follow after her as we run away from the ever-approaching arrows. Whenever one gets close, I turn around and shoot at it with Intervention until it either explodes from the shotgun's wide splash of fire or I'm forced to dodge to the side and let Blake handle it with her controlled bandages.

Otto is entirely on carry Johnny duty, not to mention that the bullet in his shoulder is slowing down his defenses. Dakota keeps snakes, crocs, or other beasts away from us as we run. But I do notice in the distance that the man whose kneecap I broke is standing beside the archer lady.

Dammit! They're both here.

As I reload Intervention with my fifth to last cylinder of ammo, I yell to Blake.

"How close are we!? There are two of them!"

She glances back at me as she starts to stutter, unable to answer.

"I–I— Uh… I…”

Otto shoulder-checks her as we run, trying to get her to spit it out because we can't waste any time. We need to know if we need to fight or not. Once I run out of ammo, these arrows are going to get us quickly. Otto and Blake can only deflect so many, and I can only survive a few at most without dying.

"Speak, dammit! We don't have all day! They're everywhere, and it's hard to see! We need to go now, or we'll die!"

Otto's force gets her to finally speak as she squeaks out her information, but his wording is slightly exaggerated.

"I'm not sure! The water level is starting to rise, though! So we might be close to a place with reeds!"

Otto and I share a glance at her words, and we make a decision together, but he is the first to react. Run. Combat is not worth the risk; someone will die. I can sense Ether swirling around him as a multitude of skills are activated, and the man starts booking it with the hope that the Laughing Reeds are nearby. We have come so far in the past day or so, much further than everyday travel through Sinscreak.

I follow up Otto with my own skills as I use Rapturous and Struggers Defiance. As I do this, I lean down and have Dakota jump onto my shoulders. The weight almost makes me fall over, but I recover with steady feet and sweep Blake off her feet with my left arm before running as fast as I can.

I take a gamble and ignore the whistling arrow, instead merely moving my body so that the arrow will hit me. I gamble on the effect of Rapturous to protect me enough from the foreign Ether to get me some distance away so that she can't just keep shooting at us.

My feet carry me forward despite the weight that I bear. Whistles come at me from the dangerous arrows of Ether, and the first few are thankfully caught by Blake and her bandages controlled by her Ether. But that only remains the case for a bit. After multiple failed attempts, the archer switches up her techniques. Ought to expect at least this much from a 6th Sigil.

The first time she does is when Blake goes to preemptively detonate an arrow with an imbued bandage, but before she lands the hit, the arrow splits into nine. Then, these nine projectiles slam into my back and explode with blinding pain.

Fire shoots through my whole body as I stumble for one step, half fall for another, and then regain my balance with gritted teeth. Rapturous is decreasing the damage from the Ether, but even then, the impact is brutal. I can feel my back being split open like a whip with nine lashes.

This lady is at least a thousand feet from us, yet she is so accurate and able to manipulate her Ether so deftly from this far. It must be that Willful Strand kind of manipulation Virgil mentioned so long ago. How else could she reach this far?

I push myself forward despite the pain knowing what will happen if I stop. Those arrows will kill me, and if they don't, that other man beside the archer will.

With this force in my mind keeping me going, I take the impact of several more of those split arrows. I take the force and can keep going, but the moment Blake misses a full one is when I'm taken down, the explosion sending me straight into the mud ahead, let alone the damage to my back.

Blake is thrown out of my arm, and Dakota is thrown into the bushes beside me. The woman quickly stands and looks ahead, hesitating in her decision as she glances back at me. I grit my teeth and try to stand, but the feeling of electricity coming from my back stops me from pushing myself up.

Dakota sees this and comes over to me, grabbing onto my shirt, and tries to pull me away from the danger as another arrow comes whistling.

I see Blake keep looking back and forth, continuing to hesitate before making her decision. She takes a step away from me, making my heart drop in betrayal. But after only a short step away, she covers her hand with a red glow that I've only seen before in the one man during the fight in the town square, Vigor.

She stabs her hand into one of the trees before ripping off a slab of bark from one of the nearby trees with this hand covered in red like a knife through butter before throwing it directly in the arrow's path, having it take the explosion. Then, she approaches me and throws me over her shoulder before running. I attempt to get up on my own, but whatever that arrow is doing leaves some lasting damage that will take some time to fix.

I see Dakota run after us as fast as he can, the loyal fox never for a second thinking about leaving me.

After only a few more seconds of running, though, the surroundings begin to change. The water grows higher, almost reaching Blake's knees and forcing Dakota to swim. This helps the two evade the arrows by using the water, but what really starts to concern me is how the trees change and how mist starts to creep into my eyes.

The once tall and strong trees that have braved the murky waters of Sinscreak for millennia turn gnarled and twisted. The ends of branches look more like spears than natural bark.

But even those gnarled trees start to disappear, and as I turn my head to look forward, I notice that they are replaced by odd constructions of dark wood that grow straight up out of the wood like the grasping fingers of a god.

The mist makes everything behind us past fifty feet disappear, and the arrows from the lady quickly fall in volume before disappearing. And it is only when everything falls completely silent do I realize something; I cannot hear the splashing of Otto and Johnny anymore.