Chapter 73: Chapter 73
Torvald Glenn – The Forsaken Lands
The bear staring Torvald down was fucking magnificent, like a titan from his favorite childhood legends. The bear stood taller at the shoulder than even Torvald’s impressive height; the earthy brown claws it had rended through the earth below it effortlessly as it charged forward. It didn't even have fur; instead, interlocking plates of bark draped down it like layered barding. And on that barding was a literal tapestry of life woven into the beast's very skin.
That tapestry of plants across the bear's back was an incongruous tangle of root and leaf. Glowing bulbs drooped, nearly touching its snout. Writhing, snapping, clam-shaped flowers constantly fluttered with its every step, and rising above it all sat the tree. It was something that hurt Torvald on a spiritual level to look straight at. Its branches wound in on themselves impossibly and endlessly; it was both all the colors of the rainbow and none at the same time. Torvald tried to focus on the non-Euclidean coniferous again and gave up when his eyes started trickling red.
He braced as the beast neared its charge, an imposing challenge even for Torvald, but he would not be swayed; he would not falter. The bear opened its mouth in a roar that sheared all other sound from the forest with its depth. Then a point of blue light so bright it cast its own shadows began forming in its mouth as it charged. Torvald cocked his head, hammer still at the ready. “Wait, is it about to...AAGGHHAH,” Torvald screamed as a beam of pure blue destruction sprang from the beast and washed over him.
Torvald exploded from the beam of energy, blindly charging into a tree with such force he sheared off the top half on impact. He spiraled off into the grass, throwing himself back to his feet, weapon raised.“Wait, I’m fine?” Torvald said in confusion. He did a small circle looking at himself; his clothes weren't so much as singed. The bear finished its crashing charge, still tracing the beam of power directly into a particularly golden patch of spiraling succulents. Wrathfully and without mercy, its claws tore into the scraps of the plant that had survived its onslaught. By the time it was done rampaging through the small patch, all that was left was a fine misting of golden sap and a large puddle of that shimmering blue goop.
The bear chuffed and nosed into the blue goop for a moment before thudding down onto its rump and slowly rolling back and forth in the puddles. It was careful to adjust and make sure everything in its garden got a nice healthy coating of it without being knocked off. Torvald was staring, eyes squinted, mouth slightly open, and his hammer hanging loosely in his grasp, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.
“Are we going to fight…?” Torvald asked the bear loudly. It languidly licked its snout clean of the blue honey and stood back up on all fours, shaking a shower of pollen and non-Euclidean leaves that shimmered in the air before they hit the ground with a strange snapping noise. Torvald tensed again as the bear ambled towards him completely unbothered and snuffled right at his face.
Torvald slowly reached out, giving the mighty beast a cautious pat on the head. It playfully batted back at him hard enough to send him staggering back before licking at its paw. “Huh…well, if you aren’t going to try and eat me, wanna go for a walk? That plant murder beam seems pretty dang useful. Torvald began slowly walking away with the odd bear lumbering behind, curiously snuffling at the underbrush but keeping pace. He turned back to his new companion. “Hey… You know, I bet you would make a great mount for a mighty warrior...bearsbane riding a bear...has a nice poetic edge to it, like a legendary warrior should...”
Vraxious—The Forsaken Lands
Vrax skirted through a scummy culvert underneath a bridge that connected two of the city districts. The stone aqueduct he was in had long gone unused but did still have a small ankle height of water running in it. He didn’t want to cross over the bridge; it was just too exposed. Instead, he planned to scale back up the side of it and get a good look at this unexplored area before he plunged in.
Vrax launched from a low sprint up the aqueduct wall and kicked off, reaching out to latch onto the cracked stonework of the bridge's support pillar. He quietly scrambled up using the cracks as handholds until he was just below the bridge's railing near the unexplored side. He moored a foot into the crack and slowly eased himself over the edge just enough to peek ahead.
Vrax was starting to notice a theme to the way the city streets were planned out. Almost all of them were arranged like the spokes of a cart wheel spiraling out from central points of interest. Like the garden market Vrax had made into his new home. The bridge was no exception, leading right up to another point of interest within the city. One that Vrax was practically giddy about exploring thoroughly in the future.
Please, please let that be what it looks like…. Ahead of Vrax, the jungle-like flora had spread through the street aggressively, tearing buildings in half with nearly impassably dense stands of thick-leafed trees and winding carpets of violet wildflowers. Peeking from within an absolute tangle of vegetation and rubble was a worn-down stone wall. Past the wall, Vrax could see every size and shape of metal cages and enclosures as far as his eyes could penetrate the vegetation.
Gods I hope that is an ancient zoo. As much as Vrax wanted to just rush ahead and see what kind of glorious monstrosities were still alive and thriving in an ancient zoo a thousand years later, he tempered his excitement. Vrax glided over the top of the bridge and weaved through the vegetation on the street, taking cover behind what once was a watering trough of some kind that now had an angrily purple fruit tree sticking from it proudly.
The jungle ahead wasn’t empty; from here Vrax could see a small herd of deer placidly grazing. Right next to them was a pair of mist runner deer with their beautiful crystalline antlers shining in the midday sun. They were all peacefully coexisting with a rather confusing swarm of creatures.
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None of the swarm were even remotely uniform in body size, ranging from a melon all the way up to a wine cask. Most of them were rounded and fuzzy with tiny, uselessly stubby paws. Oversized eyes placed seemingly randomly on their stubby bodies. Some had floppy ears and dense downy coats; others had random tufts of fur unnervingly placed at random on the mewling creatures. Some of them were absolutely adorable, like obese little puppies and bunnies. Others just looked wrong…
Vrax was stuck staring at one that looked like the gods had made a mistake; it had one giant oversized eye and three fluffy tails that swished back and forth as it chirped like a damn baby chicklet. What in all of the seven hells are those things? There is no way something like that could survive here.
At this point Vrax was so used to if it's cute it almost certainly wants to eat you that he didn’t budge an inch towards the teeming swarm of fuzzy…things meandering about in the jungle ahead. Instead, he focused on [Predator’s Gaze]. The results were...confusing [Flurmf Tier 3] (lvl99). That can’t be right...that’s insane.
Vrax froze as something fuzzy touched his foot; he looked down into three wide, sad-looking eyes. One of the flurmfs was nuzzling his leg; it was so ugly it was cute with its garish red fur and useless little paws windmilling towards him like it wanted to be held. Vrax relented; if this thing was really a tier three monstrosity, he was dead anyway. Reaching down, he picked up the strange creature; it made a happy coo.
“Huh…” The thing purred in Vrax’s hands as he crept past watering truge he snagged slightly on something but when he looked back he couldn’t tell what. Vrax narrowed his eyes at his passenger and ran a hand through the air behind it. Sure enough, it snagged on a thick rope-like umbilical trailing from the back of the creature that was entirely invisible. “Oh yay...you are just a lure for something awful.” Vrax slowly set the flurmf back down and began skirting forward; he had to go this way anyway.
The swarm of creatures fearlessly trundled towards him as he crept past the front of the zoo. It was extremely concerning how they always knew where he was; the foliage around practically shrouded him as he passed through it. The deer were still totally unaware of his presence. He made it about halfway past the zoo with a horde of nearly forty of the eclectically colored monstrosities bobbling along behind him, mewling and chirping for his attention.
Vrax scampered up the side of a fallen building that had spilled into the street, trying to get a bit of breathing room. He was thankful he did; a malevolent creature rounded the street ahead, nostrils twitching hungrily. The horrific form of a Voruk crept around the corner, its draconic head twitching from side to side as it scanned for its next victim. Vrax practically stuffed himself into the bit of moss on the roof, adapting it to cover him like a blanket.
FUCK, fuckity fuck. I still don’t stand a goddamn chance against those things. I guess I'm just going to stay here until it's done murdering its way through this block. Vrax watched tensely as the six-legged draconic horror prowled forward, its clawed tails whipping around behind itself excitedly. Its thick head swung towards the deer uncomfortably near to Vrax. It exploded into motion, moving far too fast for something so large, scuttling over and through trees in a cacophonous burst of violent intent that broke the relative peace of the street.
Birds shot upward in a cloud as the Voruk blasted into the middle of the herd of deer. They didn’t stand a chance, barely even turning to run before its tail snapped outward too fast to track, claws on the end crunching into spines, legs, and ribs. The Voruk roared a challenge across the street while its writhing prey was hefted aloft above itself. Yep, still absolutely fucking terrifying.
Vrax looked on dumbfounded as the flurmfs started all dottering towards the Voruk. Uhh guys...what the hell? Even the Voruk paused for a moment as the swarm surrounded it, cooing and pawing at it like they wanted to be petted. Then it swept its free tail around itself in a crescent-shaped slash that was so fast the air snapped. A swath of the fuzzy little abominations disappeared into a strange purple mist of blood and flesh. Official source ıs noveⅼfire.net
Vrax caught the slightest movement on the edge of the street; a large two-story building covered in ivy shifted slightly, and then one of its windows blinked briefly, revealing a person-sized yellow eye that gazed towards the scene of carnage.Vrax identified the eye [ Flurmf Mimic Lord Tier-3](lvl99). Oh... If Vrax could have, he would have dug himself deeper into the rooftop he was currently hiding on.
The Voruk started tearing into one of the still struggling deer, ending its flailing with a savage pull of its powerful neck that ripped the top half clean from the deer, and then it choked down the massive bite without chewing. The flurmfs kept swarming from all over the jungle towards the Voruk. What was a mass of thirty or so was rapidly turning into hundreds as they crawled from every doorway and from under every single stump in the area. A few pulled themselves from hiding in the rubble near Vrax, wandering over the top of him towards the Voruk.
They assembled in a circle slightly outside the Voruk rows and rows of flurmfs eerily blanketing the entire overgrown street, not a single one of them looking the same. The Voruk went from being annoyed to recognizing something was very, very wrong, dropping its prey and snapping out threateningly. Every single flurmf suddenly stood stock-still and began cooing in unison, a low, oddly threatening chorus so loud that Vrax slapped his hands over his ears in pain.
Then they all floated upward, arms extended outwards, the damned rumble of their voices shaking the very stone of the city. There was a pause as the floating swarm was perfectly arranged into a dome around the Voruk, and their song cut off abruptly. Then they all exploded at the same time; a rain of blood trailed down onto the startled voruk. The mimic had dropped all pretexts of stealth.
Where once there were flurmfs held aloft by invisible strings, now there were hundreds of thigh-thick tentacles with a meat-hook-like bone protrusion on the end. They all struck at once; the impact knocked Vrax straight off the roof he was on, sending him tumbling down the shifting rubble into the street below. The Voruk screamed as it was wrenched from the ground by hundreds of stride-long meat hooks dug into its flesh and bone.
Vrax watched in sheer astonishment as the Voruk was torn through trees and walls and across the cobblestones, dragged straight up to that two-story building. The building's front folded open into a wide shark-toothed pit. The Voruk was unceremoniously torn into hundreds of tiny pieces as the hooks all pulled apart at once. Then the scattered fragments of what Vrax once thought of as the apex of this region were tossed into the cavernous maw before the Mimic calmly folded closed again, its tentacles fading once again from sight. Holy hells, I want one….
A newly born flurmf popped from the brush next to Vrax and cooed at him.Vrax resisted the urge to pet the nightmare and did the only sensible thing in his current situation. He ran as fast as he could, as quietly as he could, away from the building-sized eldritch menace.