"We studied the doorway's fae signature Miss, we are 96% sure the doorway has no danger Miss."
Miss, my shiny ass--
Listen here, you Corpo-tards.
All your scientists are wrong. Your data, your predictive AI, all shit in the drain. The only thing they managed to get right were the mineral veins.
This cavern of a Doorway was never empty.
It's the lair to a crazy fae monster, some giant's pet or something, too fast for a single clear visual.
All I did was cut off some of its fur. The rest of us were ripped apart in minutes. Minutes. We had a dozen Epsilons!
For Sidhe's sake, don't send the next group of poor chooms without a few Deltas, maybe even a Gamma.
Heh, even at the worst end, there is always a bright side eh?
I swear upon the Sidhe I will haunt your Corpo asses, if my brother and his family are not living like royalty, when I look up or down from hell or heaven.
Well, I guess that's it. I'll miss ya T-Bone.
Carrie 'the Silver' Edge, out.
--Final Transmission, First Exploratory Party (All Deceased), Sybahware Doorway #24, [Hamelin, Outer Arcadia City, 195 years ago]
***
The air hummed with a peculiar charge.
Miles was vigilant for anything unexpected, but despite his best efforts he had overlooked the subtle decline in the terrain. It was only when the lush foliage gave way to rock and stone, he noticed that the ground sloped downward, slowly but surely lowering the elevation.
The trees were mostly unchanged, indifferent to the harshness of the earth beneath them. Their trunks were shaded darker, but continued to loom over the undergrowth, casting long, oppressive shadows. At least this forest held no grudge against him.
Miles was on guard, moving with slow, careful steps, when he noticed a cluster of trees ahead, somehow only half the height of the forest and forming a small forest of its own.
This was a massive depression into the earth, a yawning chasm leading down into a valley of some sort. The same towering trees that populated the rest of the forest, seemed stunted and dwarfed here, their true height concealed by the sheer drop of the land.
Miles estimated the valley spanned only over a few square kilometers.
No wonder he had failed to notice this when he had surveyed the forest from the treetops.
That was when he smelled it.
The acrid stench of old blood, old enough to have become the exact opposite of appetizing. It evoked a sense of dark dread within him but to Miles it was also a reason for relief.
‘There are blooded creatures in this forest then.’
There was hope, hope that he would not have to resort to hunting rats in the Hordred maze just to survive.
With that, Miles drew in a deeper breath, pulling upon the threads of scent and sifting through the layers of despair and decay.
There was something else here, he was sure of it.
It took some time, but finally beneath it all, he found it.
It was similar enough, hiding among the other scents, but it was also different.
The decrepit scent of an ancient death, Interweaved with indignant rage and haunting regret.
The emotions carried here were more palpable than anything he had ever smelled before. It was as if the very air mourned this supposed loss.
Miles let out a nervous breath as he ventured closer, crossing the last of the distance and reaching the very precipice of the chasm. As he gazed into the descent before him, his eyes were immediately drawn to what could only be the source of everything he had sensed…
Laying scattered among the trees and forestry were ivory white bones, towering a few dozen meters high. The most prominent of these were a set of gigantic spine and ribcage bones, enshrouded in a thick cloak of moss and vines. A quartet of similarly elongated bones, limbs perhaps, were positioned far, but positioned precisely at four corners of the valley.
It took a moment of observation to notice the pattern. ‘...It all forms one skeleton?’
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Miles’ eyes traced over the outline of the skeleton of this… creature.
These weren’t just bones, but a monument of some ancient leviathan.
The only fae species he knew of that could reach such a scale was… ‘Giants?’
Yet the more he observed, the less it seemed possible. The skeletal formation here was not reminiscent of anything resembling an enlarged man. It was more in line with some manner of quadrupedal.
The first terrifying thought that occurred to him was that this monstrosity was… a rat, but thankfully, the skeletal structure was nothing like a rodent. It was not even remotely similar to the Hordred Rat Digger skeleton he had studied personally.
No, this massive skeleton belonged to a creature that was more… canine-like. Perhaps even lupine.
Miles snorted at the idea.
His mind must have been influenced by his recent encounter with mind world wolves. There was no way there could be a species that rivaled the largest fae known to mankind…
But as he pondered further, possibility whispered otherwise. ‘Perhaps not a wolf, but what if it were a Wurkan? A Werewolf?’
Miles let out a breath.
Yes, it was possible. He knew nothing about them after all. But thankfully, whether there had been monstrous wolves prowling this Doorway mattered little, when it was now reduced to a silent fossil.
Satisfied with the logic, Miles steeled his nerves enough to descend into the valley below.
There was no easy path downward, so… he simply leapt off the edge, surrendering himself to gravity.
At least until he fought back with nameless movement, surfing over the jagged edges of earth, nearly slipping and breaking a bone (twice), and landed upon the grassy earth with a bone-jarring thud.
The moment he set foot in the valley Miles felt the cold grip of the strange, vibrant winds. The valley seemed no different from the rest of the forest, other than the enclosed earthen walls of the valley that surrounded it of course.
Yet there was also the persistent, overpowering scent of death, and a strange sizzle in the air as if a discordant buzzing.
Intrigued, Miles grabbed on to the most recent scent thread and pulled...
Blood. Rotted and expired, crusted with age.
With only a moments consideration, he followed after it.
Miles had thought it would be a simple task to track the blood, but somehow the trail ended up leading him on a maddening chase through the forest and skeletal remains, weaving around in an intricately confusing, looping path.
It was only after he had completed five whole circuits around the edges of this valley, slowly nearing the center of the forest, that he realized the trail of blood permeated every corner of this forest, forming a disturbingly organized pattern of endless circles.
Enough was enough.
Since he now knew where the goal was, he set course straight to the heart of the valleyed forest.
The incessant buzzing grew louder, revealing that it had nothing to do with energy in the air. Instead, this was the first sign of animal life here, a grotesque symphony played by an orchestra of rot-flies, a species of fly known to feed only on decay and death.
Any curiosity Miles had about the insect presence was muffled by the overpowering smell of blood.
A tang of old metal, sharp and bitter.
He ventured closer, the stench grew stronger, and the air became cold to the point that the hair on his skin stood on end.
The monstrous spinal and rib cage bones stood here, absorbed into the forest by invading vines and moss. From the distance, he had failed to realize that the source of the stench came from here, from within the small cave underneath the giant spine and ribs.
With a deep breath, Miles walked inside, entering the shadowy depths of the skeletal remains.
His enhanced eyes adjusted to the dark shadows in an instant.
Covered in patches of pus, viscous and foul, dripping with grotesque, toxic fluids were… corpses, malformed bodies persisting in various stages of decomposition. They were precariously balanced, impaled over wooden spikes that entered from one end and mercilessly speared outward from the mouth.
He could smell it. They were not ancient or old, they were recent. A month or two at the most.
Miles stumbled, backwards.
His eyes flitted over the mounds of shattered bones and discarded pikes around and nearby. The number of dead here were far more than what remained impaled over spikes.
This valley was not some simple geographical anomaly. No, it was a tomb, for the ancient dead and the present.
***
The air was thick with the stench of festering death, nauseating. The atmosphere reeked of suffering, torture, and a sense of hopeless misery that clawed at his heart.
Although Miles was outwardly unaffected, he could feel the cold grip of dread tightening around his neck. It wasn’t the corpses that unnerved him—it was the horrific manner in which their lives had been reaped.
Shaking his head clear, Miles decided it was time to take a few steps back, outside the dark rib cage and its eerie dead. But as he began to retreat, he... blinked.
Perhaps it was an effect of the horrors he had witnessed, or perhaps he had simply wanted to clear his vision.
Either way the world changed, and what he felt looming over him was an immense presence. A giant that shamed giants, overwhelming to the point that it made him feel insignificant, like an ant before a towering colossus.
Miles swallowed, but he still dared to raise his head.
The creature was as monstrously immense as one would expect, with a base of ghostly white, all of which was corrupted with festering wounds of sickly black. It was quadrupedal, like the skeleton it had formed over, but the remaining specifics of its form were obscured by unstable, shifting energies.
Perhaps awed by the sight of this monstrous being, for a second time, Miles blinked.
For a fleeting moment, the air around the behemoth overhead flickered. Chains—the same he had seen before, entrapping the Hordred rats—but this time shackled around the neck and limbs, binding it to this valley.
The chains rattled ominously.
As if it had felt his gaze, the presence lowered its head and fixed its gaze onto the ant that had dared to stare.
Every fiber of Miles’s being screamed to cower, to flee, but he summoned all his will to remain standing.
Their eyes met, his own locking with… a pair of giant yellow orbs, speckled with black dust.
The intensity of those eyes was so much so that he was forced to blink again. And when Miles opened his eyes again, the presence was no more, and everything was as it had been.
Just him, giant bones, and rotting carcasses.
Miles simply wiped at his eyes.
These strange visions were getting more frequent, and somehow, he was getting more and more accustomed to them.
Usually, there were just that, but this time something had changed.
As if a muscle he had not known existed had been activated, he felt a response from some nascent, intuitive sense, alerting him to a presence his five senses had missed.
Miles snapped around, away from the deathly bone cave, towards a sudden burst of color.
A deep azure like the depths of an ocean, rustling amidst the trees.
Of course, it was that little girl again and the moment he saw her, she raised an index finger to her lips, as if gesturing him to be silent.
Miles almost shouted at her, but for some reason he did as was advised.
She pointed, with that same finger, upwards.
Miles carefully followed the direction but saw nothing other than the canopy above them.
He looked back down, confused.
‘What?’
The girl's hair was orange now. An impossible yet natural color, like a setting sun.
If nothing else, this confirmed her hair that truly was on the fritz.
The strange fae child gestured upward, as if telling him to go into the sky.
And before Miles could move to do so, or do anything else, she stepped behind the nearest tree.
His enhanced senses had always drawn blanks when interacting with this strange girl, and it was with strange confidence that he knew she had vanished again.
Miles’s mind swirled with questions, about the nature of this mysterious existence, her illogical presence, but...
He stepped backward, preparing himself.
With a soft exhale, he rushed forwards, pounced onto the nearest oak tree and began his ascent, quickly scaling it and coming to a stop amidst the highest branches.
First, he glanced through the canopy, searching for anything in particular just in case.
As expected, he found nothing out of the ordinary.
With that, he was fairly confident that this was what he had been asked to do.
Miles wasn't sure why he had decided to follow her advice. It was entirely possible the girl was some type of manic fae (like pixies) and had just thrown him some meaningless information to send him on a wild goose chase but...
He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Perched amidst the branches and foliage, Miles set his gaze upon the forest down below, waiting.