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JULES
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Chaos ensued. Jules went after the lone harpy in front of them. Cyrus and Katarina attacked the largest two bats. The Guards did nothing, and Whiskers cowered between them all in the battle. Jules slashed at the winged beast and exchanged a gash to the face. His friends made easy work of the first two bats and attacked more. The harpy flew for two of the Guards and grabbed them in her talons, and another large bat took off with the third. The beasts pulled them into the Shrine’s shimmering gate. The Party made easy work of the remaining monsters, and their carcasses littered the ground.
“Does anyone know how we got here?” Whiskers asked.
“I heard music,” Jules said.
“Beautiful music,” Cyrus added.
“It was alright,” Katarina said.
“Well. Guess we ought to go save them?” Jules asked.
“We can empty their pockets for the trouble,” Katarina said.
“So what do we do, just walk through it?”Jules asked. Rukia peeked her head out and whispered something to Whiskers.
“No, no, Jules. You either get pulled in or you have to say the password. Stand back.” Cyrus cracked his knuckles and took a wide stance. “Let’s do it!" Nothing happened. Cyrus shrank into himself. "Damn That Painter… He tricked me.”
“Step aside, you fool.” Whiskers sat before the massive gate. “Open Sesame!” Again, nothing happened.
Rukia fell out of the backpack, cackling madly. “Told you I’d get you back when we first got here, you son of a bitch!”
“Damn little Fox…” Whiskers scurried away behind Katarina.
Jules approached the gate. “Yeah, pretty sure we just walk through it—”
“Jules, wait—the rules,” Katarina said.
“We can’t know them until we enter.”
Jules ran through the gate. He started to fall, and kept falling, falling, falling. Air rushed past him, throwing his long, tousled hair all about. His eyes watered and stung while his stomach churned. A message appeared before his eyes in Sylvan Runes, some of which he didn't know. A shrill voice read the text aloud in Common.
> «« Shrine Rule: Only one Member of your Party is allowed to capture the Shrine. The Vessel shall belong to that Party Member. All other Members of their Party will be left behind, trapped here forever. »»
>
>
>
> [Shrine Hunting — Quest Objective COMPLETED: Learn about the Siren's Cove Shrine.]
“Oh shit.”
Jules slammed facedown onto wet ground. Before he got up, he knew he was all alone; Rukia had fallen from his pack before entering. He slowly rolled onto his back, then arched up as the cold water spread. Dammit, that was a mistake. Now I’m soaked front to back. He smelled the salt in the air. The harsh sun beat down on him. Not a cloud in the sky. Or at least the part of it I can see. The rest of his vision was blocked by massive stone walls all around him. He heard a soft song off in the distance. Beware the Siren’s calling…
Guess I better go follow it.
Jules walked through the massive labyrinth, around a few corners. It wasn’t long before he heard chaos nearby, but for some reason he didn’t care. He just had to follow that song. He wound through the maze, with no idea where he’d been or how many times he’d repeated a corner. He simply wandered. Jules' only benchmark was that if the song got louder, he was going the right way.
She sang in a language he couldn’t understand. Not Common, not Sylvan. What, then? But he felt the emotion behind it, the highs and the lows. He even knew what she sang about, or so he thought.
Something about hope. Hope for a power to control destiny, or is it fate?
Hope to stop the Apocalypse, to protect myself? And Envy. …Envy? No, Kat.
The song faded, so he ran quicker, desperate to cling onto it. He heard others shouting again and yelled at them to shut up. He rounded another corner and crashed into its back.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
The monster reared its hideous head a full 180 degrees from its neck. It was an ugly, rounded beast, with webbed feet and hands, a long whipping tongue like a tail, or a flail. Tears streamed down its face. Grave Hag. Jules sprinted away from it, damn the song to hell.
The murderous, rotten stench of it punctured his nostrils, and the sensation alone overtook the smell of saltwater and the song. Its tongue lashed out at him and smacked him a few times. Each hit ripped strips of flesh clean off of him. He passed another corner and ran into the opening. The hag followed him out just one step. It took one look at him in the open and fled in the opposite direction.
“Ha, you coward.”
Jules turned around and understood why it had taken flight. Hundreds of harpies crept from their nests and roosts. The smell was even worse than the Grave Hag—death, rot, feces, damp molted feathers sizzling in the sun. They swarmed and shrieked. It really pissed off Jules.
“You bastards are in the way of me and whoever the hell is singing that song!” The music reverberated in his skull, dug deep into his mind, turned into more of a frequency, of a sound.
This Sound…
The harpies swarmed together like a vicious tornado and closed in on him, all alone. Gray flames erupted from his eyes.
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ENVY
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Kat shrieked for bloody murder as she fell. Her hair flailed around in the wind behind her as she fell face-first and occasionally in her eyes. She looked around desperately for something to hold, to grab onto, to slow her down, to help, to do anything—And then she saw her savior. A stern-faced Rukia from on high pummeled right toward her. Rukia drew her four little limbs in to her sides, like some aerodynamic circus freak barreling straight out of a cannon. Kat turned her body around midair. The wind bent her into a U-shape, and she caught Rukia right in her gut. They grabbed hands and flopped out to their stomachs again and spun around in a circle, crying with each other and screaming. Never seen Rukia like this. This must be it. This is how I die, the stupidest way an immortal, unkillable thing finally kicks the—
SMACK!
They both belly-flopped into a puddle of mud. Kat rolled around a bit, holding her abs and ribs. Rukia got to her feet quickly.
“Yeah—Girl power!” Rukia flexed her scrawny arms in different poses. I wish…
I wish I had died…
Kat finally got to her feet and dusted herself off as she looked at the impending stone walls. “Did you see anyone else?”
“Uh, you mean like her?” Rukia pointed behind her.
Kat turned and saw the Grave Hag. It tilted its head at them, then whipped its tongue out and shrieked a battle cry. The girls shrieked themselves and ran away. The poisonous, barbed tongue lashed Kat and Rukia a few times, but they ran faster still. Dammit, I should have made that Resist Poison Potion last night!
They rounded corner after corner, and ran past an entry to a wide, open space, but they blazed on around more of the maze's intersections. After they gained some distance, Kat stopped at the end of a mid-length run of the labyrinth. She knelt down and spread her arms out wide. When the Water Hag came into view, Rukia howled in terror.
> « Thunder » [₹9,200 // ₹10,000]
Kat clapped her hands together, and a sonic boom blasted the Hag’s ears. Stunned, it screeched and ran away the way it came. Kat thought it was crying as it ran away, but they ran to a safer distance before they stopped to catch their breath. The background melody slowly ramped up.
Rukia must have heard it, too, because she perked up. “Kaizen?” the fox called out. She sat, wagged her tail, and panted.
“What, do you hear him?” Kat asked.
Rukia’s pupils grew huge. “Yeah, he said there’s hundreds, no, thousands, of balls and squirrels—this way!” She darted off.
Kat called out after her and followed. Not long after, Kat halted in her tracks. The song was clear as day, and she understood it. It was meant for her. So you’re saying that if I just find them, my parents and Whiskers, they’ll embrace me? That’s all I had to do this whole time? She wanted to drop to her knees, in the simplicity of it all, the disbelief, but she ran after Rukia, toward the song. Everything they both wanted was around that corner—
Rukia was right. There were hundreds, no, thousands of them, all different sizes. But they weren’t balls, or squirrels. Bats. Giant bats. Some swarmed together, others hung upside down. More and more left their nests to take flight in the skies. A small group approached them first.
Rukia flew through them like a bolt of lightning. She sliced them apart at least a dozen at a time. Kat could barely keep up with her. “Kat! Look at all these balls!”
“Uh, yeah, Rukia. Get them all.” Kat marched through the encircling bats, both grounded and flying. She knew they were monsters, but she didn’t provoke them and they didn’t attack her. A pair of exceptionally giant bats guarded their two babies. Mom, Dad, Whiskers… And me.
Kat approached them. One of the parents shielded their young with a wing. Kat reached out. She got too close, and they attacked. Kat defended herself, but didn’t fight back.
Jules landed in front of her, his eyes clearer than the blue sky. She thought for a second that he had wings, but that was crazy, because Jules didn’t have wings, and she didn’t see them anymore, anyway. He just had really long arms, almost down to hit feet, and his fingernails were filed to points.
“They’re not real, Envy.”
"Of course they are," Kat insisted. Jules grabbed one of the parents' faces and pried open its jowls. Rows of fangs lined its mouth. "Stop it, Jules—"
Jules ripped its head off, then slayed the other parent by thrusting his hand-and-claws through its chest. Kat tried to stop him, but she was too powerless, she couldn’t fight back. She fell to her knees. Jules went for the children—for Whiskers, and then for her—or at least the bat that represented her in the song.
“Jules! How could you!?”
“I’m not, either." What? “Real, I mean.” Wings erupted from his back and the illusion disappeared. The Siren gripped her in its thick talons and flew off, claiming its first victim. Before she passed out, Kat saw Rukia, abandoned and alone with the growing swarm.
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