Into The Valley Of Compulsion

Leaving the city of Aestilgard was like stepping out of a warm room into the cold of the night. The gentle, rolling hills that cradled the city gradually changed, their soft green slopes changed to rugged, pine filled valleys and winding paths of stone. The journey was long, stretching from days into a week, then two, but it didn’t bother them….It made them a unit, a strange and unlikely family. Time was marked not by a calendar, but by a series of unforgettable moments, snapshots of their growing bonds.

In a high mountain pass, they came upon a village of herders, their only road to the lowlands completely blocked by a massive rockslide. Baro looked at the wall of stone as if it were a personal gift. He spent the better part of a day there, his enchanted axe ringing like a great bell, his laughter echoing through the valley as he reduced boulders the size of houses to manageable rubble. It was simple, honest work, and in the grateful eyes of the villagers, he found a sense of purpose that had nothing to do with fighting for his life.

Further on, they found a family stranded on a muddy track, the rear wheel of their cart shattered. Keito knelt beside the broken wood. He laid a hand on it, and for a split second, a shimmering silver light enveloped the wheel. To Elysia’s astounded eyes, the splintered pieces of the wheel seemed to come back together. In that brief window, Keito braced the break with a thin, shimmering sliver of metal he seemed to pull from the very moonlight, leaving the wheel stronger than it had been before. He simply nodded at the farmer’s astonishment.

Heidi, for her part, remained a walking confusion. In the small villages they passed through, she was awkward and shy. The village children were always drawn to her warm, smiling eyes, but she would hold back, her laughter hesitant. Elysia could see the conflict in her new friend’s face…the deep yearning to connect, shadowed by the constant, gnawing fear of the other person living inside her, the juggernaut she couldn’t fully control. But one evening, when a pack of hungry wolves circled a shepherd’s flock, that other side broke through. She planted her feet and, with a single, guttural roar, stamped the ground. The earth itself shook, a deep thud that sent a visible tremor ripping through the soil, and the wolves fled in absolute terror.

And under the silver light of the twin moons, Elysia and Umbra would practice. The baby dragon was growing, his scales now the size of gold coins, his wings strong enough to carry him in short, clumsy bursts of flight. Elysia would draw water from a mountain stream, her control now fine enough that she could weave it into complex shapes. Umbra, perched on a nearby rock, would playfully bat at them with small, puffs of shadow flame. It was a shared game that was also a lesson for him. The water no longer felt like a foreign power that burst from her in panic, but like an extension of her own breath, a friend.

The closer they got to her home, however, the more Heidi’s smile seemed to dim. The cheerful facade she maintained for the sake of the others began to crack, revealing the dread beneath. "It’s just through this pass," she whispered one afternoon, her voice trembling as she pointed towards a gap between two snow covered peaks. "The village of Oakenworth."

They moved through the pass, and the village lay nestled in a valley below. It was exactly as Heidi had described it, large, sturdy longhouses built from whole timbers, smoke moving from stone chimneys, pens for mountain goats, and a wide central clearing for gatherings. Everything looked normal. It looked peaceful. And that was the most terrifying thing of all. As they descended the winding path into the valley, the stillness became too much.

“Something’s wrong,” Baro whispered, his hand resting on the long handle of his axe. “It’s too quiet.”

They moved deeper into the village, their boots crunching softly on the dirt path, the sound breaking throug the silence. And then they saw them. Goliaths. Dozens of them, standing utterly motionless in the streets, in the doorways of their homes, in the central clearing. Their massive bodies were as still as the mountain stones around them, their gray skin looking dull and lifeless. Their eyes were open but vacant, staring blankly at nothing, their faces devoid of expression.

Heidi let out a small, choked gasp, her hand flying to her mouth. Her eyes, wide with horror, darted from one frozen figure to the next. "That's Orla's house," she whispered, pointing to a house with carvings of bears on the door. "She… she just had a baby." She saw a tall woman with a long, grey braid, standing perfectly still near the central fire pit, her hand frozen inches from a water bucket.

“Mother…” Heidi’s voice cracked. “These are my people…”

She took a shaky step towards the woman, her hand outstretched. "Mother, it’s me! It's Heidi!"

There was no recognition in the woman's eyes. But something did change. A flicker. A twitch in her hand. And then, without warning, a sound ripped through the silent valley… a single inhuman shriek. It was a sound of pure madness, and it came from the throat of every Goliath at once. The blankness in their eyes was instantly replaced by a burning red. Their faces twisted into rage. Heidi’s family, her friends attacked.

Their training took over. They moved as one seamless unit. Baro let out a joyous roar and met the charge head on, a grin of savage delight on his face. "Come on then, ya big lugs!" he yelled, his massive axe swinging. He wasn't aiming to kill. He swung the flat of his blade into a charging Goliath’s chest, the impact sounding like a hammer hitting an anvil, sending the giant staggering back into two of his brethren. Keito was opposite of Baro. A huge stone headed hammer swung for his head. Keito flicked his wrist, and the hammer began to glow. It exploded in silver light, as he drove the pommel of his sword into the Goliath’s head, causing him to crumple to the ground, unconscious but alive.

From the edge of the fray, Corin was dashing through chaos, his movements fluid and graceful. An arrow made of solid ice shot out and froze a Goliath’s foot to the ground, causing the charging warrior to fall forward. Another, made of wind sliced an axe handle clean in two, the heavy stone head clattering uselessly to the ground. He was dismantling them, taking away their ability to do harm with every shot.

And then there was Heidi. The sight of her possessed people, of her own mother charging her with a murderous snarl, had shattered the last of her restraint. The switch flipped. The warm, gentle girl vanished, and the juggernaut erupted. She met her mother’s charge head on, her fist lashing out. The impact created a sonic boom that echoed through the valley. Her mother was thrown back, stunned but thankfully not seriously injured. Heidi didn't stop. She stomped her foot, and the earth split beneath her, sending fissures out to trip and unbalance the goliaths nearest her.

Elysia cheered her on as her herself was a master of water. She threw up wall of solid water to block a charge, the force of the Goliaths hitting it with a series of dull, wet thuds. She flicked her wrists, and spears of hardened water shot out to knock weapons from hands and shields from arms. As a group tried to flank Baro, she created a swirling whirlpool on the dry ground that pulled them to the side and dragged them off their feet, their legs tangled in a vortex of her making. Above it all, Umbra was a flash of black scales and purple fire. He darted through the air, too fast for the lumbering Goliaths to track, blasting the ground in front of them to make them stumble and fall at every moment.

They were doing it. It was crazy, but they were holding them back.

And then, everything changed.

It started as a feeling, a subtle shift in the air that made the hairs on their arms stand up. Then it became a pressure, a physical weight that settled over the entire valley. The air grew thick and heavy. Their movements became sluggish, as if they were fighting through mud. The very ground beneath their feet began to shake… thin, spidery cracks spreading, not from Heidi’s stomps, but from an invisible weight pressing down on them. The Goliaths were the first to fall to the pressure. Their eyes flickering with confusion and pain. One by one, they dropped to their knees with strained grunts, their massive bodies forced to the ground, struggles futile against the immense pressure.

Elysia felt her own magic falter. A wall of water she was holding up collapsed into a puddle at her feet. The density of the air made it impossible for her to maintain its shape. A deep sound blasted through the village, a sound so low it vibrated in their bones and rattled their teeth. It came from the largest structure at the heart of the village, the chieftain’s house.

BOOM!

The heavy, iron door of the house exploded outwards off its hinges, reduced to a cloud of splinters and dust. A silhouette appeared in the doorway. It took a step out into the light, and every member of the party felt fear.

He was tall and built with a lean build. His skin was the color of cooled volcanic rock, and across his chest, arms, and face, a series of cracks glowed with molten orange light pulsing like a heartbeat. Two long horns, black as night, swept back from his brow, and a long, wild mane of ash colored hair fell down his back. But it was his eyes that held them captive. They looked at them as if they were nothing more than interesting insects.

Every step he took made the very air ripple and distort. The weight intensified, forcing even Baro to one knee with a pained grunt. The ground around the demon’s feet cracked and buckled under the sheer pressure of his existence. He surveyed the scene… the kneeling goliaths, the struggling heroes, and with an expression of boredom… he spoke, and his voice was the mixture of alluring and scary enough to make the ground shake.

“Small ones…” a slow smile spreading across his face, a smile that held no warmth. “You’ve climbed so high, only to drown beneath my weight.”