It was little more than a slap, but it was fast. Damaia moved to counter it, her own palm striking outward with every ounce of speed she possessed. Palm struck palm time in time again, the familiar rhythm slowly escalating until -
“What are you doing?” Lucas asked, trying his best to hold back a sigh. Damaia and the boy sitting across from her paused in perfect unison, keeping their eyes firmly fixed on one another.
“Winning!” she chirped happily.
“Nu-uh!” The boy, who couldn’t have been more than 8 insisted. “Nobody’s faster than me! I’m the patty cake CHAMPION!”
Lucas took a deep breath, slowly letting it out as he tried not to laugh in the boy’s face - or Damaia’s for the matter. “I’m sure this is of the utmost importance,”he said slowly, “but we’re moving out now. You planning on coming to the front with the rest of us?”
“Nah,” Damaia said easily. “I’m gonna walk with Noah and his mom today. I promised I’d show him some of the cool stuff my mom makes!”
“Her mom’s a toymaker!” the boy said excitedly. “A really good one, from the capital of… uh..” He screwed up his face as he tried to sound it out. “Meal ah see?”
“Close! But you gotta say it a little faster,” Damaia corrected. “The first part is Mil not Meal. We can go over that another time, though. I gotta grab my stuff. You can go now, if you want. I’ll be right behind you!”
“Do you have a good reason for playing patty cake instead of literally anything useful?” Lucas hissed softly.
As Noah disappeared from sight, Damaia’s grin fell from her face.
“The longer we take to reach a town, the more scared people get,” she said somberly. “Especially for the people who’ve lost someone. Noah lost his dad and his little sister in the raid. I figured having someone who could at least fight back with them might help keep them calm when we went into the spooky cursed woods.”
Lucas felt like a jerk before she’d even finished talking. Of course she had a good reason for what she was doing. He really needed to learn to shut up until he’d had his second coffee. “Sorry,” he muttered, flushing slightly. “I’m just…”
“We’re all on edge,” the felblood interrupted. “Don’t worry about it! I gotta go grab my bag and find Noah. See you when we make camp again!”
Lucas nodded silently as she ran off. He was really bad at this whole ‘having friends’ thing. In fact, he was beginning to wonder if he was just fundamentally incapable of holding a polite conversation. Thankfully, it seemed he wasn’t the only one having an issue with that.
“We’re going in today,” Andrew snapped at Vivi, his patience having reached its limit. “I’m not wasting half a day of travel over your superstitious nonsense!”
“7 is a significant number,” Vivi shot back. “If we camp within the woods tonight, we’ll be tempting fate! And if my memory serves, it was that superstitious nonsense of mine that had me telling you to build the escape tunnel that saved all our lives!”
Lucas groaned. It was the 7th day of their march towards Twinwater, and since the moment they’d woken up, the aging innkeeper and his elven friend had been bickering. From what he’d been able to gather, Vivi seemed completely convinced that the story tropes plaguing most of the old heroic tales she’d memorized were laws of nature, rather than storytelling devices. She placed a great deal of importance on seemingly ordinary things - in this case, the number of days they’d been traveling.
“We can’t waste time,” Andrew argued, his teeth grinding together as he tried to get her to see reason. “We barely have enough food to last the trip as it is. Adding another day to our trip means having children go hungry!”
Vivi hesitated at that, but shook her head. “We can hunt for more food!” she insisted. “The risks involved-”
“We already reached the edge of the Bleakwood!” Lucas snapped, marching forwards to stand between the bickering pair. “Andrew’s right, Vivi. Going any farther may be dangerous, but staying here is hardly any better. If we don't get moving , we’ll end up spending an extra night in the woods, and that’s more likely to kill us than anything else.” He couldn’t help but feel guilty when he saw how quickly Vivi gave in after that.
It’s not that he was lying, exactly. He was absolutely right to say that delaying would be a disaster - he simply chose not to explain the real reason why. He absentmindedly checked his pack, gently patting the silver chains he carried with him. He’d need them soon, one way or another. He only hoped they would be enough.
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Like most places on the continent of Sigillum, the Bleakwood came by it’s name honestly. The omnipresent storm clouds hovering over the awful place made even the brightest of summer days seem gray and miserable. The tall, pale trees that comprised the forest were leafless, the grass was tinted a dull gray in the few places it still grew, and what few creatures could be found there were vicious and cruel. Worse, the borders of the forest grew each year, spreading outward bit by bit and devouring the once verdant landscape.
Grondyl and Fortissia, the two nations that had claim to the foul place, sent in teams of adventurers each year, desperate to clear the monsters that called the place home and try to contain its growth. But no matter how many skeletons and monstrous spiders were slain, the cursed place produced more, and no measure taken to halt its growth was ever successful.
It was the sort of place no sane person would enter, Lucas mused, unless they were, say, hiding from a horde of Devourers that had just torn apart their village. The hybrid beasts tended to avoid the place - and for good reason. He wasn’t happy about entering the foul woods, either! He supposed he was at least satisfied with the way the villagers were handling the situation, though.
He found that most civilians, when put into a dangerous situation, tended to either jump at shadows or walk blindly into danger. The people of Westwind, in sharp contrast, proceeded with care and caution. They stuck close to the few amongst the group who, like him, had seen combat before, staying alert and quiet, focused solely on survival. Even the children seemed quieter than usual, only occasionally whispering to each other and their parents as they strode through the deadly forest.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The tension amongst the villagers seemed to ease slightly as the sun set that day, as if they’d managed some great feat just by surviving the first day.
Lucas knew better.
It was a few minutes past midnight when the howling started. He muttered an oath as he rolled out of bed, strapping his breastplate on as best he could and grabbing his glaive. “Werewolves!” He shouted, waking as many people as he could. “We must be in their territory! Get torches, grab anything you have that’s made of silver and stick together!” He barked orders left and right, the commanding tone of his voice cutting through the grogginess of the waking villagers. He spun around as he heard another howl, closer this time.
His heart thundered against his ribs as the massive creature surged forward into the camp, feral eyes gleaming. The 8 foot mass of muscle and dark gray fur bounded towards him, its yellowed fangs bared in a hideous snarl, but he stood firm. His hand, wrapped in the silver chains he had kept in his pack, moved almost too fast to see. His fist slammed into the foul creature’s jaw with enough force to shatter bone, stopping the monster dead in its tracks.
Fire and silver were potent weapons against werewolves, but unless you had magic, nothing else could really hurt them. Steel couldn’t pierce their hides, and they didn’t even notice blunt force from anything weaker than another lycan. As a result, werewolves weren’t used to feeling pain - especially when hunting humans. So when Lucas whipped the loose end of the chain forward, catching the beast just above the eye, it took a step back, snarling in pain and surprise and snapping at the air. It tentatively took another step forward, lashing out with its claws, but it barely managed to touch the hardened mercenary as he moved inside its reach and landed a devastating strike to its ribs.
A thin line of blood marked the place where its claws grazed his cheek. He pulled on the flicker of pain, using it to fuel what came next.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” He said gruffly as crimson light arced from his hands and coated the silver chain. Crackling sparks of the same hue snapped and hissed against the werewolf’s fur as he struck again and again, pushing the beast back with each blow. It must have realized it wasn’t going to be able to win in a battle of brute strength, because it leapt back and fell on all fours.
Lucas had expected this.
The crimson light wrapped around his makeshift weapon flared as he quickly unwrapped the chain from around his hand and threw one end towards the beast. It dodged out of the way, but that was fine.
It had never been the target.
The chain, guided by the shimmering red light, wrapped itself around a log just behind the creature. Lucas pulled with all of his considerable strength, tripping the beast as it tried to capitalize on his ‘mistake’ with a sudden lunge. It rolled on the ground, turning back towards him as it rose to its feet in fury, but it was too late.
A rusty sickle sliced its throat as Jubel arrived, ducking under the retaliatory claw swipe that came his way. The beast clutched at the wound, but had no time to flee as a fist sized ball of flame struck it in the eye.
“Sorry,” Damaia said cheerfully, “but you’re kinda being a dick, so I’m not that sorry. I could fix it for you if you apologize for trying to eat people though!”
The werewolf - and everyone else in earshot for that matter - looked at her as if she’d grown a second head. “What?” She asked, her sincere confusion plainly apparent. “Just because we’re fighting doesn’t mean we have to be mean about it!”
“Because calling them a dick is so polite,” Vivi said dryly as she waved a hand towards the creature. “Lycans that feel like bargaining will usually approach in human form. This one’s angry and hungry - it won’t back off easily, and we shouldn’t let it if it tries. Werewolves almost always-”
“-hunt in packs,” Lucas finished. “But this one’s a tad skinny, and his fur’s in bad shape. I’d guess he’s hungry specifically because he lost his pack. Not that it matters. It’s going to die here one way or another.”
“Void take you,” Jubel hissed under his breath, pointing at the beast. It leapt aside as a black ray shot towards it, nearly invisible in the depths of the night.
Vivi hummed under her breath, spinning towards the creature with her rapier in hand as it ducked low to avoid the deadly ray, lashing out with the shimmering wave of force wrapped around the blade. The muffled thunderclap was still agonizingly loud to the werewolf, sending it toppling to the ground as Lucas leapt forward. He wrapped the chain around the beast’s wounded throat, pulling it tight with all his strength.
Had the chain been made of steel, he’d be forced to strangle the beast for far longer as its curse attempted to keep it alive. With the silver chain binding the curse itself, the process took far less time. The creature struggled at first, but with the others there to help pin it and the serious wounds it had already suffered, there was never any question of how it would end. Less than a minute later, it lay still, its windpipe crushed and fur matted with blood.
With the massive predator slain, the people slowly returned to their bedrolls, eager to get some sleep before dawn arrived.
Sleep took hours to finally claim Lucas, and his dreams weren’t nearly as soothing as he’d hoped. They were dark, full of fire, howls, and gnashing teeth. Sharp claws blurred past him, and fangs tore into his flesh as he tossed and turned.
It was little wonder that he woke abruptly later that night… and of no surprise to him that he was not alone.
The mercenary rolled out of bed and grabbed his glaive in one smooth motion, leveling it at the unfamiliar man that stood over the nearby campfire. He radiated a calm confidence as he stared at Lucas, clearly unintimidated by the glaive pointed his way. In spite of his age - for Lucas knew without knowing how that he was ancient - he looked as hale and healthy as Lucas himself, if not even more muscular. He brushed a lock of long, silver hair out of his face and gestured to the tree stump on the opposite side of the flame.
“Sit. We should speak, child of sun and moon.”
Lucas tightened his grasp on his weapon. “Why do you call me that? Who are you? How did you get past the sentries?”
“Sit,” the man repeated in a deep, rumbling voice, “and speak softly. Those resting here may be deaf to me, but they are most certainly able to hear you. It would be most uncourteous of you to wake them again after the difficult night they’ve had. Know that I mean you no harm, young warrior. Had I ill will against your group, I would have destroyed you all before the sun set.”
There was no anger in the man’s voice. In fact, it was the simple, casual way he spoke that sent a chill up Lucas’ spine. “W-why are you here?” He whispered, his hands thankfully steadier than his voice.
The weathered old man smiled, the flickering flames cast dancing shadows across his heavily scarred chest as he gestured to the empty ‘seat’. “To speak to you. Now sit, child of sun and moon. You are running out of time. But I suspect you already know that. Does silver even help anymore?”
Lucas felt his blood run cold. The old man knew. He moved without thinking, taking his place opposite the muscular old man. “How do you-”
“You have many questions,” the old man interrupted, “but I have little time. I have work to do, if you wish to guide these people safely through my forest. As such, I must ask that you wait for a while longer to speak, and simply listen for now.” He paused for a moment, waiting to see if Lucas would try to speak again. When he was met only with silence, he continued.
“I am called the Watcher,” the old man said. “Though some call me other, older names. I’m here because I had been hunting that stray - but you were able to handle it for me. By way of thanks, I’d like to tell you a secret.” He grinned, showing teeth just a little too sharp to be human.
“There is a place, not far from here, where there was once a temple of Lunasa, the moon Goddess. The sacred springs that run throughout that temple have unique powers - and if you drink from them, you may free yourself from your curse. There is no reward without risk, however. You must drink these waters on the day of the full moon, before the sun sets, and should you prove weak of spirit, the cure may well kill you.”
Lucas scowled. “What’s the point of a cure that can kill you?” he growled.
The old man simply kept smiling. “Ordinary medicines can kill people as well, you know. The difference is that medicine may kill you if you use too much. The cure I speak of will only kill you if you falter in your resolve. I only wished to make sure you were aware of all the options available to you, child of sun and moon. Whether or not you make use of the sacred spring is a choice you must make for yourself. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be off.”
The old man abruptly stood, turning away from the camp. “Wait,” Lucas protested. “I still have more questions!”
“And I still have dozens of wolves to run off,” the old man shot back, “but you don’t hear me complaining. We will meet again, should you live long enough. When we do, I will answer any question you ask of me - so long as I am able.” The man’s body seemed hazy and indistinct in the darkness, as if shrouded in fog. When he spoke next, his voice seemed deeper than before, and though it may have been a trick of the flickering firelight, he seemed taller, too.
“Farewell, child of sun and moon. May you succeed where so many others have failed. Bonam fortunam.”
And with that, he was gone.