The Hunger Hiding Within The Shadows

The Verdant Shroud had been less lively than Renji had expected. Indeed, everyone seemed a little more on edge. Everyone was looking around for something that simply wasn’t there. Renji kept quiet, but he was on edge. He didn’t know if the others felt it, but he had the overwhelming feeling that they were being watched. Whatever was watching them, it was hungry. In the stories he would have read at home, Renji would have expected something like a dragon to appear, but no matter how hard he looked he saw none. No matter how many times he looked around, though, he couldn’t shake that feeling. Even Haru seemed to be scared. However, if whatever was watching them wasn’t going to make a move, then they’d simply continue forward—they couldn’t afford even a day’s delay, though as they set up camp for the first evening, Renji had realized one more gaping flaw with their plan: Just how were they going to assault Barathûn?

“There were no little critters. Even the creek didn’t have any fish in it. Could you tell?” Hestia asked Nemi, who had gotten to work straight away on creating magical wards and barriers around their camp. “Of course. Something isn’t right, perhaps an invasive species found its way here, or…” Nemi gulped loudly, as if swallowing the very idea would eliminate it as a possibility. Something moved into this forest, and it had wrecked the ecosystem. “Well, it’s a good thing we brought plenty of supplies. There were some edible plants and vegetation, at least, but there won’t be a lot of meat to today’s meal.”

Getting their tents set up, Mariel managed to get most of the work done herself before the others finished pitching up their own tents—and she still had time to help Nemi with hers when she was done. Fire-pit ready, all they had to do was assemble their portable grill and let Hestia get to work. “The smell of it all won't attract any predators, will it?” Mariel asks Hestia, gesturing to the hearty concoction Hestia was putting together in her pot. “Ordinarily, yes, but Nemi promises that the smell shouldn’t go beyond her barriers. Nothing should be able to see or smell us from here, and anything that did bump into the barrier would get spooked and go the other way.”

The atmosphere was uneasy at first, but as everyone gathered to eat, everything got a little lighter. It took a moment for the ice to break, but it was Mariel and Nemi that eventually got everyone talking, and from there the conversation flowed smoothly. Even Renji’s worries had begun to melt away, even if just for a while. When he would finally settle into his tent, though, he continued to feel uneasy. Holding Tiamat’s holy symbol close, he prayed to her for guidance. He did this for so long that, eventually, he fell asleep, her holy symbol still held tightly in his right hand. However, he was startled from his slumber by her very voice. “Wake up!!” She cried desperately. Grabbing his rapier, Renji ran outside—and what he saw chilled him to the bone.

Whistling loudly, the girls all shot awake. “A whistle to signal danger,” they agreed. The sheer magnitude of what they saw when they each exited their tents bewildered them all. “What is that!?” Mariel’s voice cracked, stumbling backwards from the pure recoil of what she saw.

Three long tendrils were tapping at the bubble. Each of them was the width of a man, but each had the appearance of rotten flesh. They audibly sniffed around the barrier, tapping against it, searching for something. The middle tentacle, pulling back, suddenly expanded. Opening along the middle, multiple maws could be seen, gnashing and biting at nothing as it slammed against the barrier, trying to break in, but to no avail. “You said that whatever would touch the barrier would get startled and go away, right?” Hestia had started to panic, pulling out her self-defense knife, she was quaking from the horrific thing before them—though she was far from the only one. “I-I meant that for animals! I don’t even know what this thing is!” Nemi’s voice quaked. Each of them watched, hoping that this creature would give up and go away, but it didn’t give up. The other two tentacles began slamming into the barrier, and petrified though Renji was, he knew they had to do something.

“Nemi, that barrier isn’t going to last long! Use a fire spell! Burn it!” Renji had his sword at the ready as he created a tower shield of stone with his left hand. Keeping it on the ground so that its integrity remains stable, he braces against it, and gestures for the others to join him. Once all of them got behind the shield, they waited patiently for the first signs of the barrier’s destruction to appear. Sure enough, three more firm strikes came, and the first cracks began to show. Nemi could try to maintain the barrier, but they’d just be exhausting her while they were trapped within this barrier. It was better to take the offensive advantage while they could. Conjuring that same fiery ball she did when Renji was kidnapped, it loomed over their head, ready to let loose a beam of flame. Suddenly, the first tentacle burst through the barrier, and Nemi didn’t miss a beat—“Pyrovectus!” A powerful beam of flame erupts from the orb, enshrouding its target in flame. A horrible shriek pierced their ears—but not from the tentacles—something from beyond the trees.

The tendril whipped back and forth, trying to escape the overwhelming flames that lingered upon its putrid flesh, but there was nothing it could do. The tentacles retreated back, and for a moment, all as quiet. However, that same overwhelming urge that they were being watched struck Renji once more. Swallowing hard, he looked around them while everyone else was focused on where the tentacles had come from. Finally, he saw it. A hulking form that had leapt from the trees was heading their way—something massive that would surely destroy the barrier. “Run!” Renji shouts, lifting the stone shield to intercept the beast. It began to crumble, but it would last just long enough to be met by a powerful claw that would send Renji flying back and out of the barrier.

The rest of the barrier crumbled with its entrance. The three tentacles, one now shriveled like bad karaage, perched at the creature’s rear, arching forward like a scorpion’s stinger that were ready to strike at a moment’s notice. The body of the beast resembled a lion, but the face looked like that of a man—or at least it might have looked like that once. Eyeless, the creature’s head “looked” between all of them before focusing hard on Illya. Unable to contain its salivation, its mucus globs through razor-sharp teeth that stain the very ground it touches, wilting the grass beneath it. It gurgled, its body twitching unnaturally as it assessed its prey. “By the gods—it’s corrupted! A corrupted manticore!!”