The Jade Forest

The night ended with tension, and the next day the fire had died down to a pile of smoking ash, and the silence around it, and the crushing weight of their new reality. Kivarus, who required no rest, was already awake, lounging on the back of the wagon like a king on his throne, watching their clumsy efforts with an expression of amusement.

They set out as the sun began rise over the mountains, their path now leading south, towards a forest to save the world. The initial days of the journey were a trial in social friction. Kivarus was no longer their prisoner, but he was a far cry from being their friend. He was a constant annoyance and his version of "helping" was to act as their personal sarcastic critic.

“You swing that axe like a cheap farmer,” he commented one afternoon, as Baro cleared a fallen log from their path with a series of mighty, grunting blows. “All muscle, no thought. You expend enough energy to drop a forest just to deal with a single tree. It’s terribly inefficient.”

Baro’s face turned a shade of crimson. He whirled around, planting the head of his axe in the dirt. “You got something to say, hornhead? Why don’t you hop off your high horse or cart, whatever and say it to my face?”

Kivarus just smiled, a slow, condescending curve on his lips. “I would, but I’m afraid your solution to our disagreement would involve a great deal of shouting and swinging, and I’ve had quite enough of your primitive theatrics for one lifetime.”

The tension was so thick Baro could have smashed it with a hammer. It was a pattern that repeated itself daily. During their nightly strategy sessions around the fire, Keito would lay out meticulous plans of engagement for potential threats.

“It’s a sound strategy, if you assume your enemy has a code of honor,” Kivarus would interject, examining his fingernails as if bored. “You fight like a textbook, knight. Which is excellent, if your enemy has also read it. Raketh has not. He will not meet you on an open field. He will poison your water, turn your allies against you, and burn the homes of your families while you’re busy polishing your sword. Your honor is a weakness he will gleefully exploit.”

Keito’s jaw would tighten, the criticism striking a nerve because he knew, on some level, that the demon was right. The rules of war he had lived by his entire life were useless here. Even Corin’s quiet stoicness was not immune. The half elf was always quiet, his movements silent. One evening, as he was cleaning his bow, Kivarus spoke from the shadows.

“That’s a fine bow,” the demon said, his voice soft. “Elven make, but with a human touch. Sturdy. Practical. A weapon meant to be used, not just admired. A mother’s love is a powerful thing, isn’t it? Such a shame it couldn’t protect her.”

Corin’s hands froze. A flicker of pure pain flashed in his violet eyes before being extinguished, replaced by a wall of ice. “Speak of my mother again,” Corin said, his voice a whisper, “and I will put an arrow through your eye, contract or no.”

Kivarus just chuckled. “There it is. A little bit of fire. You’d be twice as deadly if you let that passion guide your aim instead of burying it under all that silence.”

But it was Elysia who drew the demon’s most intense focus. He seemed fascinated by the nature of her power. One night, as she practiced under the moon by a stream, trying to follow Keito’s lessons on control, he approached her. Umbra, perched on her nearby branch let out a low hiss, his purple eyes narrowed.

“Still playing with water bubbles, I see,” Kivarus said, his voice a purr. “So gentle. So… passive. A shield. A barrier. A soft push. You have the power of the ocean at your command, and you use it like a small stream.”

Elysia blushed, turning away from him. “I’m learning control.”

“You are learning to restrain yourself,” he corrected. “That is not the same thing. Your power is not just a gentle tide, but you can unlock the abyss.” He raised a hand, and the water in the stream before her began to churn. It coalesced into a rapidly spinning, high pressure drill of water that tore into the riverbed. “That is also control,” he whispered, his voice close to her ear. “The will to move, and also to destroy. Raketh and his kind will not be defeated by gentle pushes. You must learn to crush, or you will be crushed.”

The water drill collapsed, and he was gone, leaving her alone by the stream, her heart pounding with a mixture of fear and a strange, exhilarating curiosity. He was tempting her, showing her a darker, more violent path, and the most terrifying part was that a small piece of her knew he was right. A few days later, they needed supplies. They approached a mid sized town called Stonehill, a fortified settlement with high, grey walls. The atmosphere inside was tense. The people moved with paranoid energy, their eyes constantly darting towards the shadows. The usual buzz of a market town was replaced by hushed whispers and suspicious glances. In the town square, a priest with a wild look in his eyes stood on a crate, his voice ringing with panic.

“The darkness gathers!” he preached to a small, frightened crowd. “The faithless and the heretics have opened the door, and only absolute devotion to the Sanctum can save us! Report any strangers! Question any who do not offer prayer! The shadow wears a friendly face!”

Keito’s face was annoyed. The rhetoric of the Sanctum was spreading fast, turning common folk against their neighbors, sowing fear in the heart of the continent. They bought what they needed, their faces hidden under their hoods, and left as quickly as they could, the priest’s paranoid ranting following them out the gates. The further south they traveled, the more apparent the world’s sickness became. The vibrant green of the landscape began to look different, the trees a little more sparse, the air a little heavier. Then, one afternoon, they smelled it. A foul stench of rot carried on the wind.

They came to a fork in the road and saw the source. The Serpent's Run, a major river that Corin had told them was famous for its crystal clear water and massive, silver-scaled fish, was now a pool of black sludge. The water was thick and oily, bubbling with a grey gas. The banks of the river, for fifty feet in either direction, were a wasteland of death. The trees were petrified. The grass had been reduced to a black muck, and the decomposing bodies of fish and animals littered the shoreline.

“By the moons…” Keito breathed, his hand covering his nose and mouth.

Kivarus looked upon the scene. “This river flows from the heart of the Jade Forest,” he said. “The poison has already reached here and is spreading. Raketh is further along than I thought.”

The corruption was so strong that Elysia could feel nauseated… it made her want to retch. She reached out a hand, trying to summon a small sphere of purifying water, but the moment her magic touched the corrupted air above the river, it recoiled, sending a jolt of icy pain up her arm.

“This isn't right, I can't control it.”

They spent hours searching for a place to cross, but the blight stretched as far as they could see in either direction. Finally, they found a place where a massive tree had fallen across the river, forming a makeshift bridge. As they began to cross, the black water below them began to bubble. The attack came without warning. Two massive shapes erupted from the sludge. They might have once been giant mountain bears, but they were now something far worse. Their fur was gone, replaced by a leathery hide covered in glowing orange sores. Their claws were elongated and jagged. A deep, gurgling snarl ripped from their throats as they heaved their massive bodies onto the bank, their gaze fixing on the party with hunger.

“Stay Back!” Corin shouted, his bow string already pulled back. “Aim for the sores! It’s the only place they’re vulnerable!”

The two monsters charged. Baro met the first one, his axe cleaving deep into its shoulder. It just oozed more of the black sludge, and the creature didn’t even seem to notice the injury. It swiped with its claws, and Baro was forced to back up, his strength ineffective against a creature that didn’t feel pain.

The second bear charged towards Heidi and Elysia. “Get behind me!” Heidi yelled, her other self taking over in a flash. She lifted her arms and locked onto the beasts paws, her smaller frame bracing itself, and actually halted the creature’s momentum with a grunt.

“The thinking isn't working knight!” Kivarus yelled at Keito, who was trying to find a opening. “Improvise!”

Keito’s eyes narrowed. He sheathed his sword and thrust his hands out. A blast of silver energy enveloped the head of the beast Heidi was holding back. The creature’s snapping jaws kept eating the silver energy. In that moment of opportunity, Corin fired. An arrow of fire flew through the air and struck a large sore on the creature’s neck. The bear shrieked as the sac burst, spraying black liquid everywhere.

Meanwhile, Baro was still locked in a struggle with the other beast. “Elysia!” he said.

Elysia’s heart calmed. She looked at the monster, she thrust her hands forward. A blast of water, pulled from the air around them, spinning into a high pressure, rapidly spinning drill. It slammed into a large sore on the bears leg. The sac exploded, and the creature roared in pain, its leg buckling. Baro seized the opening, his axe now glowing with energy as he enhanced it, and brought it down on the creature’s head, finally offing the monster.

The other beast, now enraged, shook off the effects of Heidi’s grip and charged again. But they were ready for it now. Working together, they created a swirl of both Corins arrows and Elysias water drills all aimed at the glowing sores. Finally, with a last, gurgling cry the second monster collapsed into a mound of flesh. They stood there, breathing heavily, covered in smelly ooze. After crossing the river, they traveled for three more days through the landscape that kept getting worse. They had finally arrived at the edge of the Jade Forest, and it was a graveyard. A vast, outer ring of a once lush forest was dead. Deeper within, however, they could still see it, the vibrant green of the uncorrupted forest, a small piece of life holding on.

They found the path that was supposed to lead into the forest’s heart, but it was blocked. A wall of thorny, black vines blocked the entrance. The vines writhed slowly, secreting a thick, black sap that sizzled and smoked where it dripped onto the ground.

“We’ll have to cut our way through,” Baro said, hefting his axe.

But before he could take a step, the ground began to tremble. A sound echoed from the forest before them. The wall of vines retracted as the earth split open, and from it rose a creature. It was a Golem Guardian, and it was as tall as the highest houses from Heidi's village, its arms as thick as trees. But it was grievously wounded. The right side of its body was healthy and vibrant, covered in lush, green moss and dotted with small, blooming white flowers. The left side, however, was doused in corruption. The wood was blackened and splintered, with the same black sludge as the vines.

It did not see them as saviors. Its one good eye was clouded with madness. It saw them only as more invaders, more sources of the unbearable pain that was consuming it from within. It let out a roar, a sound that sounded like cracking wood. It raised a fist, large enough to crush their wagon and everyone in it in a single blow. The maddened, corrupted protector of the Jade Forest, the very thing they had come to save, was about to destroy them, and if it did, it would die itself and that would be be the start to the end of the world.