The deadlands

Reyna held on as she bounced around on the lizard-creature's back, gazing around the landscape they now found themselves in. She laid eyes upon a barren wasteland; the ground was solid, with several large cracks throughout, and little to no vegetation. Instead, what she saw, scattered throughout every direction, were gigantic bones. All from creatures she didn’t recognise; skulls, ribcages, hands, feet, tails and more all towered over them, along with hundreds of smaller skeletons interspersed throughout the land. As she observed the inherent graveyard before her, she nervously spoke to the man in front of her.

“I can see why you call this place the ‘deadlands’ now.”

Zayden kept his eyes fully set on the path ahead, barely emoting as he spoke back.

“The deadlands separate the borders of each kingdom, and unlike them, no elemental energy runs through it. Plant life can’t grow, and you can’t replenish your energy naturally, so you’re more likely to perish than survive out here.”

The lizard slowly came to a stop as Zayden pulled on its reins, turning around and holding out his hand towards Reyna.

“Give me your artificial elgrima for a minute.”

Although she didn’t appreciate his bossy tone, she couldn’t exactly say no either. She concentrated, and her crystal appeared with a flash of light in her hand, soon being passed to Zayden. He looked straight into it, and spoke with a bit more agitation.

“Hey, I know you’re watching; where do we meet up from here?”

With another flash of light, the artificial elgrima gleamed, soon showing the face of the elderly lady in its reflective surface, with an unimpressed look on her face.

“Are you people always this brash? I’ve sent someone on their way to meet you; all further negotiations will be done through them. Go to the dragon’s skull, and we’ll all get what we want.”

Having the information he needed, Zayden didn’t desire to extend their interaction any more than necessary, chucking the crystal back into Reyna’s hands.

“Okay, we’re done.”

Nodding with affirmation, she held it close to her chest, and it soon dissipated inside. She looked back at Zayden who turned to face the front again, eager to move forward.

“Alright, I know where we’re going, so it shouldn’t take that long before this is all ove-”

He froze in an instant as his eyes turned to the side. Before she could realise what he was looking at, he drew a knife from his side, and her eyes widened as it sped towards her, closing her eyes in a panic. As her vision went blank, she heard a small squeal and an uncomfortable squelch grace her ear. Opening her eyes, she saw a vile little creature next to her face; star-shaped and squid-like, with a large jaw in its centre decorated with dozens of teeth, and a knife shoved directly inside of it.

Zayden grunted as he swung blade, and the squid-like creature flew onto the dry ground, wiggling and squirming as it quickly scurried away.

“Ew, what the heck was that thing!?”

Reyna began frantically brushing off a couple pieces of slime that had landed on her face, whilst Zayden quietly watched the creature leave as he brushed the juices off his own weapon.

“It’s a baby Hidreuze; they’re the one type of creature that can survive in these lands. They can leech energy out of other's elgrimas, which is easy to do when you have so many still skeletons around for easy pickings; that one must have been attracted by using yours just now.”

”That’s … unsettling.”

Reyna tried her best not to imagine a bunch of slimy squid things suckling on the remaining bones of once-living beings, whilst Zayden sheathed his knife back onto a black scabbard at his side without much bother.

“Their very nature tends to disturb a lot of people, but they’re just creatures like any other, trying to survive.”

“What possible reason would someone have to come to a place like this anyway?”

“This place has a large variety of skeletons, including those that went extinct far before living memory; you get a lot of people coming out here for research, or sometimes you just get idiots who think they stand a chance at crossing into other kingdoms.”

He began to hold his head down as he finished his sentence, as if reflecting, although Reyna didn’t dare prod any further. He soon shook it off, steadying his head as he tightened his grip on the reins.

“Right, anyway, even if I prefer not to kill them, we’ll probably still encounter a fair amount of them as we go, so it would be in our best interest for you to learn how to defend yourself.”

He cracked the rains as the giant lizard sped off, approaching a large skeletal ribcage planted in the ground. Arriving next to it, the creature stopped, and Zayden leapt off, stopping Reyna from doing the same by putting a finger to his lips. Once he’d confirmed that she would stay still, he pressed up against one of the giant bones, carefully leering his neck around to see what awaited them on the inside. Several Hidreuze were latched onto the skeleton's inside, most of them small, with one particularly large specimen hanging above them on the structure’s ‘ceiling’.

 Zayden drew his knife and hardened his gaze as dark energy began to glow around his chest. In a flash his body disappeared into a shadow, dashing into the insides of the giant ribcage. The shadow sped up the side of one of the bones, reaching the middle where one of the smaller Hidreuze was attached, instantaneously extracting an arm out of the shadow and striking a tentacle with his knife. The creature fell, and proceeded to flee.

Zayden’s shadow form quickly spread across the rest of the skeleton, striking and deterring the other creatures in similar fashion. He arrived in the centre on the structure, popping out of his shadow form and landing on his feet as he stared up at the larger Hidreuze hanging directly above him, its own shadow covering him entirely. Zayden drew another knife from his other side and threw it straight up, piercing one of the creature's tentacles; it wailed and lost its grip, beginning to fall down.

Worry grew on Reyna’s face as it pummelled straight towards Zayden, but he simply grinned, and just before the creature slammed into the ground, disappeared into shadow. As the creature squirmed from its impact, a singular arm reached out from the floor and ripped the knife out from its flesh. The creature squirmed even more violently, and attempted to strike the arm with one of its tentacles, but it sank back into the ground before it could connect.

The shadowy-pool spread across the floor to encompass the entirety of the creature’s body, and from another side, the arm sprung back up, and struck another tentacle, once again retreating before the Hidreuze could land a hit. Then, two hands came out from the shadow, grabbing onto one of the tentacles tightly as a voice echoed out.

“I was hoping you would have ran away by now, but I suppose this is how it has to go!”

With the creature firmly in his grasp, Zayden’s shadow started to move, carrying the big Hidreuze along with it. It gained speed as it went, moving out of the ribcage as it went faster and faster. Eventually, he pulled the creature down, sinking it into the shadow entirely before being shot back out, flying off into the distance and smashing into the side of another large skeleton. It fell to the ground, gradually pulling itself back up, and finally crawling away.

Zayden’s shadow moved back towards the ribcage as Reyna ran towards him in amazement of the powers she just saw. They met in the middle, with Zayden fully jumping out of the shadow and brushing himself off as he looked towards her.

“Alright, now that we have a safer space, let’s get you training.”