《Risen》 Chapter 1: Done Spitting People Out ¡°Get up!¡± a voice shouted amongst a sea of screams. ¡°You need to get moving! It¡¯s not safe here. We are under attack.¡± My thoughts began to race as I gasped to consciousness. My body ached, my skin itched, and it felt like I had the world''s worst sunburn. I looked around as panicked people were running in all directions. Immediately around me were mangled corpses ripped apart and the ground was saturated in blood. ¡°What is going on?¡± ¡°Get out of here!¡± the voice said again as what looked like a mix between a bat and a leech fluttered around my shoulder and in front of my face. This creature appeared to have a slimy leech-like body about a third of a meter long, a pair of bat-like wings, and a maw of lamprey teeth. Around the maw were six eyes and it didn¡¯t have any arms or legs. ¡°Run!¡± it shouted at me. I jolted to my feet, scared of the creature in front of me. Then I heard a shriek to my side. As I turned to see what new horror I was hearing, I saw what appeared to be a long scaly lizard with wings crash down into a crowd of scrambling people, then whip its head around while spewing fire and incinerating dozens of people. It had a body that was about twelve meters long, a pair of taloned feet, a pair of great wings, a horned head with teeth about as long as my arm, and a tail that ended in a cluster of spines. It was a Wyvern! I began to run through the waist high grass in the opposite direction of the Wyvern. I was in what appeared to be rolling, grassy plains. Thankfully, in the direction I was already heading, there was a tree line about a half kilometer from me. ¡°This is either a wonderful or terrible idea.¡± I said to myself. If that Wyvern starts a forest fire, it could be the end of me, but it is the only cover I¡¯ve seen on these open plains. As I reached the tree line, I took cover behind a tree while I caught my breath. My lungs were on fire and I needed to figure out if that Wyvern was going to turn this into a terrible idea. I lifted my head after a few breaths and saw the Wyvern taking off again, this time with people grasped in its talons. I also noticed what appeared to be a massive vortex, about twenty stories tall and just as wide. It looked like someone tipped a whirlpool over on its side. It consisted of blue and white swirling lights and instead of sucking stuff up like a vortex, people were coming out of it in droves, tightly packed, shoulder to shoulder. How could I have missed that massive thing? It must have been behind me when I came to. Why are people still coming out of it with the Wyvern? Why don¡¯t they go back? Then I realized that the people coming out weren¡¯t panicking until about fifty meters from the vortex. They were coming out of it in a zombie-like daze, then as they were coming out of that daze, they were seeing what was happening and starting to panic and couldn¡¯t turn back with the crowd of people behind them. There must be thousands of people and they just keep coming. How many have already died? How many were going to die? My knees gave out and I collapsed against the tree as I started to hyperventilate. ¡°What are you doing?! You can¡¯t stop here!¡± The leech-bat flew in front of my face again. ¡°Holy dragon shit!!¡± ¡°Yes! That is what you will be if you stop here. Run!¡± the creature yelled at me. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡®Is this creature what is speaking to me?¡¯ I thought as I rapidly looked around me to see if anyone else was talking to me, but everyone remotely close to me was either running into the woods or stopping at trees to catch their breaths like I had. ¡°Yes, I¡¯m speaking to you. Now get up and run!¡± ¡®Wait, I didn¡¯t say that out loud. I didn¡¯t see the creature use its mouth like it was forming words. It just had its mouth open and panting. Is it communicating telepathically?¡¯ ¡°This isn¡¯t the time for this. RUN!¡± I got up and headed deeper into the woods. As I did, I heard a continuous rumble and felt faint tremors in the ground, slowing me down from the instability. ¡°The astral gate is collapsing, I can sense it. That means the creature will start hunting as there are fewer people grouped up. It will go for the ones out in the open first. You have until it comes for those that came to the forest.¡± ¡°Wait, who are you? What are you? What is an astral gate? Why is there a Wyvern here? Why are we appearing here? Why am I here? Where is here?¡± ¡°You need to focus. I don¡¯t know how far that creature is behind us. We may have time for your questions once we get through this.¡± ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± I need to focus on surviving this first. If I don¡¯t, it¡¯s all a moot point anyway. I began to move with haste as the rumbling came to an end. As I was heading deeper into the woods, I began to hear some shouting and saw a rather muscular looking man, who stood about two meters tall, waving people into a large crack in the ground. They must have found a cave to bunker down into! I began to head in that direction. ¡°No, not that way! See all of those people? There are too many grouping up. The creature has been going after groups. They will be found and killed in there.¡± ¡°Good point. Let¡¯s keep going then.¡± Despite the mountain of a Human now shouting directly at me and waving me over, I continued deeper into the woods. After some time, my legs gave out and I collapsed, my legs throbbing from exhaustion. I lay there a moment gasping for air. ¡°Do you hear that?¡± ¡°The Wyvern? No, I can¡¯t hear it anymore or the screams.¡± ¡°Shh! No, listen.¡± I forced my breathing to slow so I could listen better. Then I heard what sounded like an echo of a stream or brook. Then the noise was overshadowed by a loud crash followed by screams and the whooshing sound gale force winds. ¡°Well there is the Wyvern and screams you were missing. It must have found that cave of people. We need to hurry and find the stream. It will probably be an underground stream so look for cracks or cave openings.¡± I could begin to smell smoke in the air. The Wyvern must have started a fire nearby. I frantically searched for where we were hearing the stream from. ¡°Over here, I found it! Jump in and I¡¯ll attach myself to you.¡± As I was running over, I thought to myself ¡®how is a leech with wings supposed to attach itself to me? It doesn¡¯t have any arms or legs. Will it use its wings?¡¯ I was about three meters from the hole that the leech-bat was hovering by when I heard a whooshing followed by the cracks of tree trunks next to me. ¡®It¡¯s the Wyvern! It¡¯s found me!¡¯ I dove for the crack in the ground and as I did the leech-bat bit into my shoulder with a sharp pain that immediately went away, followed by a loud inhale behind me, a cold rush of water as I plunged into the subterranean stream about a meter down into the cave. Then I heard a loud whistling gale as the water began to boil around me. Thankfully this was a relatively fast moving stream and I was quickly carried away from the cave entrance and the Wyvern. That being said it was now pitch black and I began to tumble through the stream as I bumped into unseen walls, floors, and ceilings. I quickly lost all orientation. Then I lost my breath as my chest got slammed into a rock and I breathed in boiling water. Then everything went black as I slammed my head into another rock. Chapter 2: I Thought That I Had A Lot Of Questions I abruptly came to, laying on my back on the shoreline of a river, this time instead of sharply inhaling air, I violently vomited water as my body purged my lungs and stomach of water. I was freezing and my body warmed in the afternoon sun. How long was I out for? The stream must have run out of the cave at some point. Now I found myself on the shoreline of a wider river in some wooded hills. ¡°At least there is cover here and I¡¯m not in a forest fire. I hope that Wyvern is nowhere near by.¡± I managed through chattering teeth. ¡°It isn¡¯t.¡± I whipped my head up to see the leech-bat hovering nearby. ¡°You! You bit me!¡± I looked awkwardly down at my shoulder not seeing any marks. I felt around with my hand and couldn¡¯t find any traces of a bite. ¡°I did. I needed to escape with you or we would both die.¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t I have any traces of that bite then? What is going on?¡± ¡°I bit you so that I could enter your body. In the process, I healed my entrance point. If I wasn¡¯t attached to you, it would have taken me a long time to find you on my own. If that were to happen, it could have been a long time before I would have been able to resurrect you again.¡± ¡°Whoa, whoa, WHOA! This is all too much. Let¡¯s start with you resurrecting me AGAIN. When have you resurrected me?¡± ¡°I mean that the Wyvern, as you call it, killed you. I thought I would have more time before you manifested me, but alas, that was not meant to be.¡± ¡°Just stop! For every answer you give me, it is creating ten more questions. What do you mean by ¡®the Wyvern killed me?¡¯ I distinctly recall escaping it through that underground stream.¡± ¡°Yes, we escaped after you died. You were killed shortly after you came through the astral gate. Regrettably, it appeared in close proximity to the Wyvern and it began attacking people as they came out.¡± ¡°So I died¡­ but I remember waking up in that field.¡± ¡°Yes, you woke up from dying. When you died, it manifested me and I couldn¡¯t wait to resurrect you. We were too exposed and I couldn¡¯t wait with the Wyvern in the immediate area. It was simply too dangerous to leave you there in the open.¡± ¡°So when I gasped awake, it was you resurrecting me?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t you say you could attach yourself to me by entering my body? Couldn¡¯t you have hidden inside me and waited for a better time to resurrect me?¡± ¡°I could have, but there was a lot of chaos going on and I figured that we just needed to get out of there. I wasn¡¯t sure if I could guarantee my safety by hiding in your corpse, so I decided to awaken you immediately.¡± ¡°That¡¯s pretty sound reasoning. Now what do you mean that I manifested you? What are you?¡± ¡°I¡¯m your Familiar. Your death is what manifested me.¡± ¡°My Familiar? Like a magical creature bound to a person?¡± ¡°Yes. I¡¯m your Familiar. I¡¯m bound to you.¡± ¡°How? I didn¡¯t summon you. I don¡¯t have magical powers. Plus since when are Familiars real? Since when are Wyverns real? Now that I¡¯m no longer in the middle of everything, how is any of this real? Magic and dragons are just stories. What is going on?¡± This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°I was bound to you and came into existence when you passed through the astral gate. I didn¡¯t manifest until your first death, but I was with you when you came out. At that point I became physically manifest and could begin interacting with you.¡± ¡°Does that mean all of those people the Wyvern killed are going to be resurrected?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. I would assume that if they also had Familiars, then yes. With how many people there were, it is possible though, but I wouldn¡¯t expect everyone would have had bonded Familiars.¡± ¡°Why not? We all came through that gate. You said that was how you came into existence.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know much, I¡¯m not that old and didn¡¯t have time to learn much before everything happened. I was made from you when you came through the gate.¡± ¡°How could I have created you? You¡¯re a leech-bat. I¡¯m a Human. If I created you, wouldn¡¯t you be Human?¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t create me, you manifested me. I am a reflection of your being and your power. Power that you can access through me.¡± ¡°Are you saying that I¡¯m some kind of soul sucking leech? That¡¯s rude! And what is this about power? I don¡¯t have power.¡± ¡°You do through me. It is how I resurrected you. When you came through the astral gate, you somehow became tied to the astral and as a result, manifested me.¡± ¡°How do you even know all of this? Didn¡¯t you say that you didn¡¯t exist until a few hours ago?¡± ¡°I know this, because it is what I am. I am a Familiar, a gateway between the astral and a bonded Human. Also, I don¡¯t know what hours are.¡± ¡°An hour is sixty minutes and a minute is sixty seconds. They are measures of time. A minute is this long.¡± I counted out sixty seconds at a steady pace. ¡°Sixty of those are an hour and there are twenty four hours in a day. Actually a day is a full day/night cycle. It just so happens to be twenty four hours. Do you understand?¡± ¡°Ah! I get it now, then by that reference, it has been a few days. You died again in the underground river and there was no point in resurrecting you just so that you would drown again, so I waited until the river let out of the cave and you washed up on shore. By my estimate, it has been at least three days, but I didn¡¯t have much to reference in a dead body in an underground river. It may have been more or less.¡± ¡°Shit! I died again? That long ago too? This is all too much.¡± ¡°I am sorry.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not your fault. You¡¯ve been nothing but helpful and I don¡¯t even know your name.¡± ¡°That makes two of us, I don¡¯t know your name either. I had expected to learn more about you before you manifested me, but the Wyvern attacked immediately as you exited the astral gate.¡± ¡°Wait, what is my name? Why don¡¯t I know my own name? Actually, I don¡¯t really remember much before waking up in that field in front of that vortex. Why don¡¯t I remember anything but at the same time still know stuff like how time works?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure. All I know is that as soon as I came into existence, when you came through the astral gate, you were being attacked and died. It would have been nice to observe you before being manifested, but I wasn¡¯t that lucky.¡± ¡°You keep saying astral gate, what is that? Why am I here?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know much about the gate other than we came out of it together. It is where I began and don¡¯t know much more about it than a creature knows its source.¡± I laughed. ¡°Source? You mean a mother?¡± ¡°Maybe. What is a mother?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not going to give you the birds and the bees speech right now, but creatures are born from their mothers. A mother is someone who incubates their baby until it can live on their own and then raises it until it becomes self-sufficient.¡± ¡°I suppose that is an accurate summation.¡± ¡°I guess that makes us brothers in a way. Well, we can¡¯t go on not using names for one another. How about I call you Morrow [mawr-oh], since you seem to be my future and way forward?¡± ¡°Great! But what should I call you?¡± ¡°How about Yore [yohr], since I appear to be a ghost of a forgotten past.¡± ¡°Yore.¡± Morrow tried saying. I like that. But what is a ghost?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s focus on what to do next. I can catch you up on what I do know and explain concepts and what stuff means as we travel.¡± I looked down at myself and realized how torn up my clothes were. ¡°We should get moving again. I don¡¯t want to die out here again and I need new clothes. At the very least I need food and shelter.¡± ¡°I agree. I don¡¯t think we are in danger from the Wyvern anymore. Between all of the other people that there were, and the distance we traveled, we should have escaped it. However, there could be other dangers out there. What are clothes, food, and shelter?¡± ¡°And I thought that I had a lot of questions! Let¡¯s follow this river. If we do, we are bound to find civilization, or at least the sea that it empties into. We can talk along the way.¡± Chapter 3: More Surprised Than Shocked A large muscular man woke up naked with a gasp, sitting up right as ash fell off him. He began to cough heavily as he had inhaled some of the ash in his gasp. He looked around him. He was in a shallow stony cave surrounded by burnt, smoldering corpses and smoke, only making his cough worse. He began to heave as his body tried to vomit as it dawned on him that the ash he had inhaled was the burnt people he found around him, but he had nothing in his stomach to purge. ¡°Are you unwell?¡± a voice crackled to him. Once he stopped heaving, he looked up to see a creature in front of him. This creature was like a mix between a snake and an eel, about half of a meter in length, round, and slimy. It had the head of a snake with two blue lines running down the length of its body that seemed to dimly glow. He looked around and there weren¡¯t any other living things in this cave. As he looked back at the snake-eel, he noticed it making eye contact with him. ¡°Yesss, you. You should be fully recovered.¡± the voice crackled again. It sounded like a snap of an electric arc, but repeatedly like something making contact with a power line. ¡°What are you? How are you speaking to me?¡± the man asked the creature. ¡°I am your Familiar. I manifested from you, so we can share thoughts with one another. We should leave this place. The creature that did this left, chasing others a while ago, but I can¡¯t tell if or when it will come back.¡± ¡°Alright, we can table this for now. Do you know where we should go?¡± the man asked between coughs. ¡°No¡± the creature crackled back. ¡°I guess we should go take a look then.¡± The man stepped out of the cave and looked around. The trees immediately around the cave were cinders and fire was spreading to the woods around him. The air was hot and thick with smoke and his cough continued. There was then a roar from within the woods. ¡°Well, we aren¡¯t going that way.¡± The man coughed out. ¡°Come on.¡± He extended his arm out to the snake-eel to offer it a ride. ¡°You¡¯re not going to bite me if I carry you, are you?¡± ¡°Yesss,¡± it crackled as it bit his open palm. ¡°What the hell!¡± the man said, startled. The bite only hurt as it punctured the man¡¯s skin. The snake-eel seemed to slither its way into the bite. ¡°What did you just do?¡± ¡°Did you not offer to carry me? I merged with you. Now you may carry me.¡± ¡°That isn¡¯t what I expected. I meant that you could ride on me, not inside of me.¡± ¡°As your Familiar, this is the easiest way for you to carry me. It will also protect me from the fire and if you are attacked.¡± ¡°At least buy me dinner first, or maybe start with your name.¡± The man said to the creature. ¡°I don¡¯t have one,¡± its voice crackled back inside of his head. ¡°Let¡¯s call you Am [am] then. You have quite a bite,¡± the man said and began running. It wasn¡¯t too long before the man collapsed while running, coughing and gasping for air. The woods were all a blaze around him and the air was thick with smoke. His lungs felt like they were on fire and like he couldn¡¯t catch a breath. He was suffocating from smoke inhalation! ¡®This isn¡¯t good!¡¯ He thought, his vision getting blurry as he laid there and coughed. His vision went dark and his body gave out. Next thing he knew his eyes were wide open and he gasped for air, inhaling a bunch of smoke again and starting his coughing fit all over. ¡®What was that?¡¯ ¡°I can¡¯t wait for the fires to subside, that beast is still out there, you¡¯ll have to keep moving,¡± Am crackled. ¡°Right,¡± the man coughed out. ¡°Don¡¯t speak, you¡¯ll just breathe more in. Just think instead.¡± ¡°Like this?¡± the man thought? ¡°Yesss.¡± The man began crawling through the woods, trying to stay low where there was less smoke and heat. He finally made it to the edge of the woods and into the tall grass which the fire hadn¡¯t spread to yet. Then he heard a loud whoosh and flapping sound as a shadow passed over him. He looked up to see a massive beast. A Wyvern! An honest to god Wyvern! He couldn¡¯t believe it. It began to circle. Had it spotted him? Was this the beast Am was talking about? It must be! Then from nowhere, several arcs of lightning struck the great beast with loud cracks of thunder. Not from the sky though, it was a clear day if you disregarded the plumes of smoke coming from the blazing woods. No, it came from the ground. The Wyvern roared from the pain. The man poked his head up in what would be thigh high grass for him and he saw them, a group of what appeared to be six Giants! They were about three meters tall and armored with plate mail of various colors. One had copper colored armor, four had bronze, and one had gold. All had sheathed longswords on their hips. To the man, they would be completely unwieldy. On their left arms, they had kite shields with some kind of sigil the man couldn¡¯t make out from this distance. To him, they¡¯d have been the size of tower shields. ¡®Giant knights?¡¯ He thought to himself. He watched as three of them, two of the bronze and the one copper, held their arms back like they were preparing to throw javelins. Electricity arced from their hands as they did so, then they threw their arms forward and lightning arced from them to the Wyvern. It roared over the thunder as the bolts impacted the Wyvern and it dropped from the sky. All of the knights drew their swords and rushed over to where the Wyvern had fallen. Each stride they took shook the ground and the plate mail klanked like gongs being rung. With the length of their legs, they made it to the Wyvern just as it was getting to its feet. The gold knight threw another booming lightning bolt at it as it turned to them, hitting it in the head dazing it. Three of the bronze knights thrust their great swords into its chest in unison, as another of the bronze knights swung at its ankle, and the final copper knight tackled the Wyvern''s tail just above the spined end with his shield and began hacking at its tail. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. This squad was trained well. One was focused on disorienting the beast, while two disabled its mobility and defense, and the rest dealt mortal wounds to it. They weren¡¯t messing around and seemed practiced in their movements and timing. It wasn¡¯t long before the Wyvern collapsed dead on the ground. Its right foot was cut off, along with the end of its tail, and a large pool of blood was rapidly growing from multiple chest wounds. Then dark smoke began to rise from it and seemed to gather into something tied to the waste of the gold knight. The Wyvern seemed to deflate down, leaving behind its scaly skin, bones, spines, talons, and teeth. ¡°What in the world was THAT?¡± ¡°It appears that they slew the beast.¡± Am crackled. The man stood up and began walking over to the knights, completely forgetting about his nakedness, as they began breaking down what remained of the Wyvern¡¯s corpse. It took him a while to get close enough to call to them, after all, he wasn¡¯t three meters tall like they were and his strides were less than half of theirs. When he was finally close enough, he called out to them. ¡°Hey there! Thank you for dealing with that beast. If it wasn¡¯t for you, I think I¡¯d be its dinner.¡± The squad of Giant knights turned to look at him. ¡°Look! This nature fucker must have gotten caught with his pants down. He doesn¡¯t have a scrap of clothing on him. Don¡¯t let him expose our position. Take care of him.¡± ¡°With pleasure,¡± the copper one breaking off tail spines said as he got up, a spine still in his shield hand. ¡°Shit!¡± the man said as he realized they weren¡¯t here to save anyone. They were just here for the Wyvern. ¡°Did the big bad Wyvern smoke you out little elf?¡± the approaching copper knight taunted, holding back his sword arm as it began to crackle. The knight threw the lightning bolt with a thunderous boom at the man and hit him directly in the chest before he had a chance to even react to the approaching knight. The man looked more surprised than shocked. Besides a tingling at the point where the lightning bolt connected with his chest, there was no pain, no burning, nothing. He thought that had been it, that he was going to die, but the bolt didn¡¯t even phase him. The knight stood there, as stunned as the man. ¡°You need to fight,¡± Am crackled in his head. ¡°What in the name of the Astral?¡± the knight exclaimed. ¡°You didn¡¯t charge it enough,¡± one of the bronze knights shouted to him. ¡°The shorter the charge, the less it does. Do we really need to send you back to training?¡± The knight held back his hand again and began to charge another lightning bolt. The man let out a battle cry as he began charging at the Giant knight which startled it and caused it to drop the Wyvern spine, as he readied his shield. After charging the lightning bolt for a few seconds, he hurled it with a crack of thunder at the charging man who was still about a meter from him. Again, the lightning bolt didn¡¯t appear to do anything to him which startled the Giant even further. The knight drew his sword and stepped back from the charging wild man and his foot caught and he fell backwards. The man grabbed the dropped Wyvern spine and leaped to try to wedge it in the plate mail between the helmet and the chest plate. He slowed as the Giant thrust his sword through his torso, but was still able to stab the knight in the process. Sadly, the man had lost too much momentum when he was skewered by the knight and the Wyvern spine only slightly penetrated the base of the neck. The knight grabbed the spine, not letting it penetrate any deeper. ¡°Crazy elf! Die for your rebelliousness!¡± the knight shouted in the man¡¯s face. Things were going dark again, when Am¡¯s voice crackled through. ¡°Use the electricity. Kill him.¡± The man envisioned energy flowing through his hands, using the spine as a conduit into the knight and past all of the armor plating. In that moment, all of the stored energy from both lightning bolts he was hit with, along with a little extra was sent into the base of the Giant knight¡¯s neck. The knight convulsed violently as the electricity not only struck him, but created a circuit with the sword stabbed into the man and continued electrocuting the knight with the full force of the charge like an animal stuck to a high voltage electric fence. The knight¡¯s flesh began to burn in the armor and smoke began to rise out of all gaps in the armor. The air began to smell of burnt hair and flesh. After a moment, one of the other knights threw a Wyvern bone and knocked the man off of the knight, breaking the circuit. Am crackled to the man as he laid there. ¡°Do you wish to live now?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± He replied with his dying breath. One of the bronze knights cautiously approached the skewered man while the others investigated the corpse of their fallen comrade. He lightly kicked the sword, testing to see if he too would be shocked from the contact. When he wasn¡¯t, he apprehensively grabbed the hilt of the sword and pulled it out of the man¡¯s torso. Now that he was closer, he also noticed that the naked man wasn¡¯t actually an elf. ¡°Hey! This one doesn¡¯t have pointy ears. It¡¯s got ears like ours. He¡¯s almost like a halfling of one of our kind.¡± The knight shouted to the others. As the knight was distracted, the hole in the man¡¯s torso closed with a crackle of electricity and the man sat upright with a sudden gasp of air. The knight just about jumped out of his skin and skidded back, not sure what to think of the moments ago, dead man. All of them had swords drawn and ready to put the man back down. ¡°What are you, creature?¡± The gold knight asked. Not exactly understanding what was going on, but noticing five Giant knights with swords drawn around him and one dead one on the ground. ¡°I thought I was dead there.¡± The man said bemused. ¡°You were. You were skewered like a wild boar.¡± The man, remembering being stabbed in a gambit to fight one of the knights, looked down to where there should have been a sword. There was nothing. Not even a mark. It was like he was never stabbed to begin with. The man got to his feet, the knights tensing, readying to attack again. ¡°I don¡¯t know what is happening. I¡¯m a Human, like all of the other dead in this field and in the woods.¡± ¡°What is a Human? We don¡¯t know of your kind. You appear to be halflings of our people.¡± ¡°Who are your people?¡± ¡°We are the Giants, the strongest of the races. How do you not know of the Giants?¡± ¡°Like I said, I¡¯m Human. I¡¯ve never known Elves to be real. We¡¯ve had Giants before, but that is usually just a really tall person.¡± ¡°Do all, Humans,¡± the Giant tried the word, ¡°ignore death so brazenly? Yorm [yohrm], go check some of those other corpses!¡± One of the bronze knights rushed to check some of the nearby corpses while the other knights began looking around while keeping their swords readied at the man. They were wondering if they were about to deal with a horde of these new creatures. ¡°No, not that I¡¯m aware of,¡± the man responded. ¡°I really did just die then,¡± he thought to himself. ¡°Yesss, you did and I resurrected you.¡± Am crackled in his head. ¡°No sir,¡± the bronze knight named Yorm yelled over to the group. ¡°These seem to be remaining dead and they aren¡¯t Elves either. They must be more halflings¡­ I mean Humans.¡± ¡°By Astral! It must be a rapture.¡± The gold knight said to himself. ¡°Is your race a warrior race? How long ago did you arrive here?¡± ¡°We have some warriors, but many are not. I was coming to thank you for slaying that beast when you attacked me. As for arriving, I woke up in a cave surrounded by corpses and being hunted by that Wyvern. I don¡¯t remember beyond that.¡± ¡°I apologize for that. We aren¡¯t currently on friendly terms with the Elves and mistook you for one. That being said, we will need to bring you back with us. Men, we need to bring word of this to Sol [sohl]. There are most likely more of these Humans arriving. We are in rapture protocol now! Capture any additional living Humans that we find on our way back. Leave the dead to the beasts, we don¡¯t have time for them.¡± Two of the bronze knights sheathed their swords as they moved in to restrain the man. ¡°What is your name Human?¡± ¡°My name?¡± ¡°Yes. What others of your kind call you.¡± ¡°Vol [vohl]. Call me Vol.¡± ¡°Come with us Vol. We have questions about your people. And someone give this Human some clothes from the dead. They won¡¯t need it anymore.¡± Chapter 4: Prepare To Subsidize On the side of a great mountain, within the Titanic [tahy-tan-ik] Mountains rested a city named Atlas [at-luhs]. The city walls connected several of the lower peaks halfway up the great mountain Titan [tahyt-n] and the city itself was carved out of the faces of the mountain in which it sat. Grand structures were erected in some of the dales, ravines, and valleys on the mountain. At its peak was a palace which the Giants referred to as the Seat of Atlas. Here was the capital of the Giants and home of their rulers. A Giant in gold plated armor and a plume on the top of his helmet like a mohawk, entered a hall with massive stone columns, and a huge hole in the top of a rotunda. Directly beneath the rotunda, in the center of the hall, was what appeared to be a sundial, despite being indoors. Stationed between each set of columns was a gold plated knight. At the back of the hall were two thrones, one with the head in the shape of the sun and the other with a head in the shape of a crescent moon. To the side of either throne stood a black knight and on the throne of sun sat a Giant clothed in robes, and had a crown in the shape of the sun cresting the horizon. He was speaking with others before the throne. As the gold plated knight approached the throne, he removed his helmet and called out. ¡°Father, I bring you news.¡± Knowing that his son wouldn¡¯t be so informal if his news was meant for a wider audience, Sol, the king, waved off the others and they dispersed to various parts of the hall, past the golden guards and columns. ¡°Solaris [sohl-ahr-ihs] my boy! What news do you bring me?¡± Sol¡¯s voice bellowed out and echo¡¯d among the hall so that all knew that they weren¡¯t to disrupt time between the King and Prince. The Prince approached, kneeling before his father, until Sol approached and embraced him in a hug. In a quiet voice, so only Sol could hear, Solaris spoke to his father. ¡°Father, we are receiving word from the hunting parties that there has been a new race discovered and have enacted rapture protocols. Several parties have sent word ahead that they are bringing groups of what they are calling ¡®Humans¡¯ back with them.¡± ¡°Has there been any difficulty in gathering them?¡± Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°No father, early reports are suggesting that they are mostly crafts people, specialty focused ones like the Dwarves. It may be beneficial to ally with them. Unlike the Dwarves however, they seem frail. They have a likeness to us, but are less than half our size.¡± ¡°Ah, very well! Perhaps we can build a stronger alliance with these people than we¡¯ve been able to manage with the Dwarves. Being more of an Elf build, they probably can¡¯t labor as hard as the Dwarves, but that can be overcome with numbers. This sounds more like a matter for your mother and sisters and their arts of diplomacy. Send for your mother Luna [loon-nuh] when she awakens at dusk.¡± ¡°Very well, father. I have also received a report of at least one of their warriors being brought. The report was¡­ unsettling. I fear there may be more like him.¡± ¡°Come now boy, what was unsettling about this report?¡± ¡°They said that they initially mistook him for an Elf. There have been a number of incidents where our people have slain many before realizing that they are a new race.¡± ¡°Yes, that could be problematic, but may also be used as a show of strength and may actually gain us more favorable terms. Make sure your mother is aware.¡± ¡°That isn¡¯t all. In this report, they slew the warrior while also losing a copper in what appeared to be a draw. Then, unexpectedly, the seemingly dead Human arose and came back to life. The soldier who brought the news referred to him as a Risen.¡± ¡°I see. Yes, this could be a problem if there are more warriors like this Risen. Send word to all hunting parties that if they encounter more of these Risen, to bring them back and treat them favorably. Make sure that this hunting party in particular is notified and treat this Risen as a guest upon arrival.¡± ¡°My thoughts as well, father. I have already prepared a missive in expectation. I will send word at once and appraise mother upon her waking.¡± ¡°Good my boy! If the story is true, then these Risen must be won over. They will naturally lead the others in time if they don¡¯t already. Now go, send word. I will bring my council up to speed and prepare for negotiations. We can¡¯t let such potential slip through our grasp like we did the Dwarves.¡± Solaris turned and left at his father¡¯s bequeath. ¡°Come my council, and I will share the news of a new rapture!¡± Sol bellowed so all in the hall could hear and the others in robes returned to the thrones. Once everyone had regathered the king began to speak. ¡°Solaris brings joyous news of a new rapture. A people kin to the Elves in appearance, but a kin to the Dwarves in culture. From what I¡¯ve been told I think these would be a fine people to align with for labor. What areas can we prepare to subsidize to them?¡± Chapter 5: My Safe Word Is Gentle Yore and Morrow were traveling along the river bank, heading downstream. The banks were pretty lush and they once again entered some woods. The sun was beginning to set and they were chatting as they traveled. Yore had spent most of the time explaining concepts to Morrow who was surprisingly curious and fascinated to learn all that it could about Yore and what he knew. Morrow didn¡¯t seem to really have a grasp on any basic concepts, but quickly disseminated what Yore taught him and rapidly began to piece together other concepts as his understanding grew, that being said, his lack of experience on any of the topics showed through in his naivety. ¡°So if these ¡®politicians¡¯ aren¡¯t that smart, why choose them to rule, especially if they have such corrupt tendencies?¡± ¡°It is a matter of the choice that people are presented with. If the only options are all bad, then people are just picking between the lesser of evils.¡± ¡°In that case why not choose better options for leaders?¡± ¡°Because the ones that become options are the ones with money and political power to become an option. It is a real problem with democratic forms of government. That being said, there is an even longer history of more terrible forms of government.¡± ¡°So democracy is the lesser evil people have chosen as a form of government?¡± ¡°Pretty much. It gives people the illusion of power through choice, but those presenting the choices still hold all of the cards. It at the very least allows for minor wins, which are somewhat better than the totalitarian regimes before it.¡± ¡°I think I see. So if we run into more Humans, they will most likely be led by these politicians?¡± ¡°Maybe. My hope is that the Wyvern wiped out all of those bastards.¡± ¡°Wouldn¡¯t that create one of those ¡®power vacuums¡¯ you had mentioned.¡± ¡°Yes, but if people are being sucked through those vortexes, then there are already power vacuums for those who come out and survive and those who would have remained behind. You can¡¯t have thousands of people just disappear and have things run normally. The impact to labor alone could ravage the economy unless it was neatly contained pockets of industry.¡± ¡°Fascinating!¡± ¡°Let¡¯s change the subject. As happy as I am to answer your questions, I don¡¯t know if we will run into any other Humans. That Wyvern did a number on the people that came with me, unless there are more like me. Let¡¯s talk about those magical powers you said that I had.¡± ¡°Alright, what about them?¡± ¡°You said that ¡®I had powers through you, being that you¡¯re my Familiar.¡¯ What powers do I have and how do I use them?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. They are your powers.¡± ¡°That is less than helpful. How about this; how is it that you can resurrect me?¡± ¡°That isn¡¯t really your power. That is mine. As long as I¡¯m here, I can anchor your spirit to your body and regenerate it.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re a soul anchor, making me haunt and possess my own body for all eternity?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what most of that means. It has to do with your soul, yes.¡± ¡°In other words you shove my soul back into my body like someone who dropped a cookie on the break room floor, before someone else notices?¡± ¡°Yes? I make sure that your soul doesn¡¯t leave and I restore your body to a functioning state. I don¡¯t know anything about cookies or breaking rooms. I do try to do it when other creatures won¡¯t notice. It wouldn¡¯t help if things kept killing you as I resurrected you.¡± ¡°Ok, that makes sense. But if that is your power, do I really have any power then? If so, how do I figure out how to use it?¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure that you do. It will be something that you will intrinsically know how to use when the time is right. Until then I¡¯ll keep you alive¡­ Well, I¡¯ll keep bringing you back at least.¡± ¡°Very funny. You know, for an ignorant soul sucking leech-bat thing, you¡¯ve got insults down pretty well.¡± ¡°I assume I get that from you.¡± ¡°Ouch!¡± Yore abruptly stopped, hearing something. It sounded like clattering. ¡°Shit! Are you sure you don¡¯t know what my powers are or how to use them Morrow?¡± ¡°I do not.¡± ¡°Alright, get in me then. I¡¯m afraid I may need to be resurrected and don¡¯t need whatever is out there going after you as well.¡± Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Morrow flew over to Yore¡¯s hand and burrowed into his palm. ¡°I don¡¯t know if I¡¯ll ever get used to that.¡± The noises were getting louder. It sounded like a battle was happening. Yore could hear roars mixed in with the clattering. It must be getting closer. He took cover behind a tree wide enough to keep him out of sight and peeked around the edge. He could see what appeared to be two Giant knights, probably three meters tall, both copper in their coloring, fighting what looked like a shirtless man with a long face and horns. He was just as tall as the knights, but much more bulky and muscular. It was hard to see much else through the trees. It appeared that the knights were tag teaming the man-beast, pushing it back in his direction. One would block the creature using its great kite shield, while the other would attack, and the first would follow up with a counter. The man-beast was parrying the swords with his arms and horns like a kung-fu master. They were now getting close. They were about 12 meters away. The knights clearly had the upper hand and were keeping on the pressure. That was until during one of the knight¡¯s counter attacks, the man-beast deflected his sword with a horn and with the same motion, gored the copper knight through the chest with the other horn. The knight screamed out in agony as the man-beast proceeded to thrash his head about with the knight getting flailed around like a rag doll. The other knight knew he didn¡¯t have a chance and turned in Yore¡¯s direction and started to flee. The man-beast, enraged now, smashed the gored knight¡¯s corpse against a tree, breaking its own horn off in the process. It roared out in pain and anger. It picked up the corpse of the knight, whipped it around, and flung it at the fleeing knight who was about four meters from Yore¡¯s tree now. Yore, ducked back behind the trunk of the tree as a loud crash rang out like two gongs colliding together. Both knights¡¯ bodies crashed to the ground next to Yore. ¡°Shit!¡± Yore quietly cursed to himself. The still living knight tried scrambling to his feet, but couldn¡¯t keep his balance and ended up crawling towards the river and down the bank. The dead knight was all twisted and mangled from the thrashing this creature gave it and still had the beast¡¯s horn impaled in its chest. Yore could hear the loud thudding of rushing hooves pounding closer. ¡°Shit, shit, shit!¡± The man-beast leaped over the fleeing knight and with its fists held high in the air, brought them down in a horrific crunch as it pulverized the back of the crawling knight. Up close, Yore could make out the man-beast¡¯s features. It had the torso of a well built man, and the head of an ox with only one horn now. It wasn¡¯t just shirtless though. What Yore initially mistook for pants was fur that went from its waist down to its hooves and a thin tail whipped from below its spine. ¡°First a Wyvern and now a Minotaur? You have to be joking!¡± Yore thought to himself. The Minotaur stopped whaling on the fresh corpse and turned to Yore. ¡°Fuck me!¡± Yore said. Then looking at the front of the beast, now knowing with full certainty that it indeed had no clothes to speak of said, ¡°but not with THAT! Dear god, put that thing away man!¡± The Minotaur snorted back at Yore and then roared at him. ¡°I guess we are doing this. My safe word is gentle!¡± Yore yelled out. The Minotaur raised a fist and swung at Yore. Yore did all that he could to dodge the swing by ducking and he felt the wind from the swing pass over his head. ¡°That would have taken my head clean off if it made contact!¡± Yore thought. ¡°GENTLE! GENTLE! GENTLE!¡± He shouted at the beast. Yore dodged two more swings, doing all that he could to not be deleted with a single blow from this beast. ¡®Damn! I wish I had a weapon¡¯ Yore thought as he pictured a knife in his hand. Then, blood seemed to seep out of his hand and condense into a rough, rusted, and very jagged iron dagger. Yore felt a little light headed. Was this it? Was this his power at work? He didn¡¯t have time to consider the tetanus shiv that he had just created and lunged under and to the side of the Minotaur¡¯s double fisted downward swing. While passing its leg, he twirled the knife around and stabbed it into the Minotaur¡¯s hip. Something was wrong though. As the knife entered the creature¡¯s hip, Yore felt it hit bone and then snap. The knife was too brittle! He didn¡¯t really know what he was doing when he created it and hadn¡¯t thought of how strong it would be. The Minotaur roared in pain, and reached down and grabbed Yore who was distracted by the knife breaking. The Minotaur hurled Yore out to the side and he flew about 4 meters before colliding with a tree. Yore felt ribs crack as he fell to the ground and the air escaped his lungs as he landed with a thud. He gasped for air and a deep pain rang out in his chest as the pain of breathing hit him. Yore held his side in reaction to the pain from his broken ribs as he used his other arm to painfully push himself up. The Minotaur got him real good with a simple toss, but now he had a plan. He knew what he could use his power for. Which meant he had a chance to live this time. Yore envisioned a shortsword in his free hand, double edged, sharp, sturdy, solid. Blood seeped out of the gashes on his side, across his body, down his arm, and began to form a shortsword in his free hand. The Minotaur snarled at him and took a step in his direction and stumbled a bit. It looked down at its hip, realizing that Yore¡¯s stab to its hip had somewhat immobilized it. ¡°I did say gentle, but you didn¡¯t want to listen.¡± Yore got out through gritted teeth. The Minotaur roared at Yore and began to charge on all fours at him as Yore¡¯s shortsword finished forming. Yore took a step forward, beginning his own charge when his head began to spin from dizziness and instead stumbled into the Minotaur¡¯s charge. It gored him through the chest and pinned him to the tree. Every rib in his chest burst from being sandwiched between the Minotaur''s skull and the tree. Yore started to lose consciousness as his body turned cold, his blood running out of the hole in his chest and down the Minotaur¡¯s horn. The Minotaur tore its horn out of the tree, whipped its head around, and threw Yore off of its horn. Yore landed about 5 meters away and was shocked awake briefly from the pain of the impact on his shattered chest. Yore looked at the beast as a lightning bolt struck it with a thunderous boom. Three copper knights appeared and formed ranks and got into battle positions. Yore focused on the Minotaur, hating that he was going to die again. Hating the Minotaur. Hating that this was his life now. He stared at the wound in the Minotaur¡¯s hip. He wanted it to bleed. He wanted it to get sick and die. He hoped that the injury he had caused would be the cause of its demise. With the last moments of consciousness before Yore¡¯s death, he noticed that the Minotaur was roaring in pain as its hip began to bleed much more than it should have, especially with the broken knife still in it. It also had black veins spreading out around the wound. Yore lost consciousness and died as he saw the knights move in to attack the beast. Chapter 6: I Think I Might Actually Be A Soul Sucking Leech Yore once again woke up with a gasp of air, this time inhaling some dirt since he was face down on the ground. He briefly coughed heavily and sat up. The sun was rising. It was morning. There was a bit of a nip in the air and Yore shivered. Yore felt around his chest. He was back to normal! No shattered chest, no broken or even cracked ribs. He could breathe normally again, without any pain. He didn¡¯t have a hole in his chest where he was skewered. However, he was still dizzy. Morrow fluttered in front of him. ¡°You really did yourself in that time.¡± ¡°What are you talking about?¡± ¡°You used too much of your own blood to create those weapons. You nearly caused yourself to pass out mid fight. You practically gave that¡­ ¡®Minotaur¡¯ your life.¡± So that¡¯s what happened, Yore realized. He had drained himself of blood to create those weapons and in the process weakened himself. ¡°What happened to the Minotaur and those knights?¡± ¡°The four of them made quick work of that Minotaur as it tried to flee. The wound you gave it in the hip really slowed it down and gave them a strong advantage.¡± ¡°Four of them? I only saw three.¡± ¡°Yes, there were the three copper knights that engaged it in melee with a fourth that threw lightning at it. That one was bronze.¡± ¡°So that¡¯s what happened. I wondered where that bolt of lightning came from.¡± ¡°They slew the creature not that far from here. I could hear the roars as they killed it. They came back and found you and the other corpses. They took their bodies away, but left you and your sword behind. They didn¡¯t seem to care much for it. Is this what you meant by something being trash?¡± ¡°Har, har, har. In a way, I suppose. My sword would have been nothing more than a big knife to one of them and wouldn¡¯t have fit their grip well. It is more like, ¡®one person''s trash is another man¡¯s treasure¡¯ sort of thing.¡± ¡°Interesting.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a saying that we have, meaning different people find different values in things. What may have no value to one person, may be the most cherished thing for another.¡± ¡°Does that also mean that you are trash since they didn¡¯t want your corpse, but wanted their own fallen.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t you a delight? But to them I probably am. They most likely wouldn¡¯t have any use for a random corpse, but many people value their own dead. Militaries where I come from try to recover bodies of the fallen so that their families can honor them and properly lay them to rest. I¡¯d imagine that is why they took their own dead.¡± ¡°I wonder what was up with their different colored armors. I wonder if it is a rank thing,¡± Yore mused allowed. Yore dizzily got to his feet, picked up the blood iron sword the knights had tossed away, and let Morrow lead him over to where he said they killed the Minotaur. All that they found though, besides signs of a struggle, was an impression in the ground where they seemed to have slain the beast and lots of fur. ¡°That¡¯s odd. They must have taken the body. It¡¯s weird that they would have left mine then. Unless they have uses for the parts.¡± Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°Maybe you really are trash if they wanted that thing and not you.¡± ¡°Thanks Morrow,¡± Yore said, tiring of Morrow¡¯s repetitive jab. ¡°You know jokes aren¡¯t usually that funny after the first time.¡± Yore was bemused by this. It just didn¡¯t make sense to him. Why take one body but not another, unless they really couldn¡¯t do anything with his but could completely use the Minotaur¡¯s for parts like the native americans used to back home. Maybe being Human was why they didn¡¯t take him and they just didn¡¯t have any use for other random people and it would be sacrilegious to use other people for parts. But why not take his sword then. They could have at least melted it down. Maybe they didn¡¯t think there was enough there for the effort. He was clearly missing something. We could try to find them and ask them, but a corpse walking back into the middle of heavily armed Giants didn¡¯t seem like a wise idea. ¡°I guess let¡¯s get moving again.¡± Yore said to Morrow. They set out, once again heading down stream. Yore was hoping to not stumble upon those exact soldiers again, but maybe another squad. The last thing he wanted was to have his corpse taken by them just to get killed every time Morrow resurrected him. As they traveled, Yore recalled the fight and what he seemed to do with his powers as they chatted. He held out his hand and envisioned a little iron ball, no bigger than a pebble. A small amount of blood seeped out of his hand and formed a rigid, rusty iron ball. Yore then envisioned it to be smooth and polished and the ball smoothed out. The color was a mix between iron and blood red, but perfectly round and smooth. He then envisioned it morphing into a tiny blade. The iron ball elongated and formed a sharp tiny blade like a small arrow head. ¡°You really seem to be getting the hang of that.¡± Morrow said. ¡°It¡¯s like you said, I instinctually figured it out. During the fight, I needed a weapon, even if it was just a knife and before I knew it, I had one. As crude as it was, I then figured out that I needed to also focus on the properties. My mistake was creating too big of an object.¡± Yore held up his sword in the other hand, inspecting it. ¡°Now that I¡¯m thinking about it, I wonder if I can reclaim what I¡¯ve used.¡± Yore focussed on the sword and envisioned it turning back into blood and re-entering him. It then proceeded to melt down and seemingly disappear into his hand. The dizziness disappeared and he immediately felt a bit warmer. ¡°Whoa!... Hey Morrow, why didn¡¯t my blood get replenished when you resurrected me?¡± ¡°I figured you made that sword for a reason and I didn¡¯t want to reclaim it like the rest of your blood when resurrecting you. I thought that you might need it and you would replenish your missing blood over time anyway.¡± ¡°Interesting,¡± Yore said and thought it over for a moment. Then he concentrated on the tiny arrowhead still in his other hand. He envisioned it growing to the size of any actual arrowhead and blood once again seeped out and it grew in size. Then he envisioned five more and once again blood seeped out of his hand and formed five perfect duplicates of the first. Then he envisioned them spinning and morphing into a kunai. To Yore¡¯s surprise, the arrowheads did exactly that! They raised into the air and spun as they merged into a kunai and gradually slowed their rotation before landing back into his hand. Yore stopped walking as a realization dawned on him. ¡°What¡¯s the matter Yore?¡± ¡°I just realized that I have more control over my blood than just forming and reforming objects. I can give them motion, give them different properties.¡± Yore thought back to the moments before his last death while he stared at the Minotaur. ¡°I think I poisoned the Minotaur with my blood knife.¡± Yore recalled the Minotaur bleeding pretty profusely from the wound as well. ¡°I might even be able to control more than just my blood.¡± Yore looked at Morrow, the leech-bat. ¡°You were right. You said that you were a reflection of my power. I jokingly asked if that meant I was a soul sucking leech. I think I might actually be a soul sucking leech. Or at least a blood sucking one.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad that you¡¯ve accepted who you are as a person.¡± ¡°Fuck off! But really, I think I might have some control over other creatures¡¯ blood. Also, that was a better joke than just calling me trash again.¡± ¡°Only one way to find out! Try in the midst of battle, pass out and die once again!¡± ¡°You really are an ass hole, you know that?¡± Chapter 7: Are The Noises Necessary After a while of traveling down stream, Yore stopped. ¡°What¡¯s the matter Yore?¡± ¡°There is a bear in the river,¡± Yore said in a hushed voice. The bear hadn¡¯t noticed them. It was fishing and they must have been downwind of it. ¡°Is this where you try something stupid and die again?¡± Morrow asked in a lowered voice. ¡°Yep!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mean it, please don¡¯t die again Yore,¡± Morrow pleaded as he merged into Yore¡¯s shoulder once again. ¡°Thanks, I¡¯ll try not to.¡± Yore crouched behind a nearby bush in case this didn¡¯t go according to plan. Yore envisioned blood seeping out of the bear. Nothing happened. He envisioned the bear¡¯s blood forming a warhammer, heavy, dense mass, smooth double sided head, with a long shaft that ended in a hooked grip. Still nothing. ¡°Huh. Maybe it needs my blood as a catalyst or something.¡± Yore looked down at the kunai that he had been playing with after discovering that he had kinetic control over it. In his off hand he envisioned a sturdy blood knife. ¡°I may need this if this doesn¡¯t work. Shoot, I may need it if it does.¡± Once the blood knife finished forming, Yore envisioned the kunai hovering just off the palm of his hand and spinning. It did as he envisioned. He moved his hand around a little and it stayed hovering just off of his palm, moving with his hand. He then threw his arm out and envisioned the spinning kunai launching out of his hand and into the side of the bear below the shoulder. The kunai launched at the pinnacle of Yore¡¯s throw with more speed than a professional baseball pitcher throwing a ball and found its target right beneath the bear¡¯s shoulder. The bear stopped pawing for fish and roared out in pain. Yore then envisioned the bear heavily bleeding from the wound just like he did with the Minotaur and the bear started squirting blood out of where the kunai was lodged into it. The bear however turned toward where Yore was hiding and was now rushing at him. ¡°Well shit!¡± Yore prepared his knife. The bear leaped over the bush at Yore. Yore dodged to the side and the bear swiped after him with its claws catching him on the arm leaving deep gashes. Yore screamed out in pain and tried to back away. He focused on the bear¡¯s wound and envisioned it becoming poison and spreading. Yore couldn¡¯t see under the fur if it had any affect on the bear, but figured if it worked for the Minotaur, it should work on the bear. The bear was furiously swiping at Yore as he backed up and dodged. The bear wasn¡¯t giving him any good openings for him to counter with his knife. That was when Yore remembered the kinetic control he had over his kunai and he envisioned it ripping out of the bear and returning to him. The bear roared in pain, but the kunai didn¡¯t come loose. It must have been too implanted to really do what Yore wanted. The bear did begin to limp on the arm closest to where the kunai was implanted. That means the blood poisoning must be working at least. Then the bear stood up and swiped down at Yore. Yore dodged to the side, but the bear snapped at him and caught his scratched forearm in its mouth. It bit down hard on his arm. Bone crunched and Yore screamed out in pain once again. Yore stabbed the bear in the neck with his blood knife and envisioned the knife piercing through its entire neck. Blood gushed out of the knife¡¯s entry point and a mist burst out the other side of its neck as a red cloud. It roared in pain, but didn¡¯t give up his arm, biting back down even harder as more bones cracked. Yore then envisioned the bear¡¯s blood mixing with his blood knife and becoming a shortsword. He could then feel the grip of the knife turning into a pommel and hilt. Shortly after, a blade emerged from the other side of its neck where the mist had burst out. Yore tried yanking down on the sword to cut through the bear¡¯s neck, but he had stabbed it in the center and the hide was too thick to just tear through. The bear in turn swiped at him, clawing down his face. Yore screamed in agony and lost vision in one eye. ¡°This isn¡¯t good. I¡¯m trapped within mauling distance of this beast,¡± Yore thought. ¡°I need to either drain all of its blood or grow this blade big enough to slice through its neck.¡± Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Yore envisioned the shortsword becoming a massive bladed sword, like one of those impossible video game swords that were bigger than the person wielding it. He envisioned it to be sharp and dense. The shortsword began to grow. The pommel extended outward. The hilt grew wider. The blade began to widen and lengthen. The bear began to shrivel. Its jaws began to slacken its grip on Yore¡¯s arm and started to slump to the ground. The sword became heavy and slowly was lowered to the ground as it overtook what Yore¡¯s one arm could carry. It continued to grow until it grew out of the bear¡¯s throat. The bear¡¯s eyes rolled back as it died and continued to shrivel into a husk. He did it! It worked! Yore killed the bear and actually lived! Morrow¡¯s voice echoed in his head. ¡°That was a close one. You look pretty rough, but you survived. I¡¯m proud of you. Now, would you like me to heal you up or would you like to do it yourself?¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°I mean that, like when you re-absorbed your sword earlier, you can absorb the blood you¡¯ve claimed from the bear to heal you now. You should be able to feel it. I certainly can.¡± ¡°You¡¯re right, I can. Give me a shot at it.¡± As Yore pulled the bear¡¯s mouth off of his arm, he focused on the blood in front of him. There was the blood kunai still lodged in the bear under its shoulder and the monstrosity of the sword that lay on the ground. There was also the bear¡¯s blood and Yore¡¯s blood that had spilled on the ground. Other than that, the bear was empty. Yore must have converted all of its blood in the process of making this greatsword. Yore envisioned the blood on the ground, the kunai, and greatsword melting back into blood and re-absorbing into his body. They did as he pictured and seeped across his body to the open wounds on his arm and face. Bones reset and reformed. Torn muscle re-knitted itself. Skin closed up like two zippers coming together. Yore could even feel his eyeball reforming itself inside its socket. His vision came back to his eye and he felt great, like he was at 100% after a great night¡¯s sleep. He also wasn¡¯t feeling thirsty or hungry, which he had started to feel after walking downstream for half a day after his last resurrection. He could feel that all of the blood on the ground and the kunai had been completely reclaimed, but there was still much of the greatsword that remained. He wasn¡¯t sure if his body could absorb all of the excess that was here or if it would even be healthy too. He might blow up like a tick if he tried. ¡°Hey Morrow. Do you have any ideas what I should do with the rest here? I don¡¯t think my body could contain that much excess blood, but I really don¡¯t want to waste it, especially if I¡¯m going to make myself pass out by creating weapons mid-fight. I would like to use the excess instead, but I don¡¯t have a good way to lug around all of that weight in blood or blood iron.¡± ¡°I could absorb it. I am famished after bringing you back so many times.¡± ¡°Of course you can,¡± Yore said, his voice steeped in sarcasm. ¡°What more should I expect from a half leech, half bat hybrid?!¡± ¡°So I can take what¡¯s here? You can use what I have at any time. I won¡¯t need to consume all of this for myself, but can maintain the rest.¡± ¡°Yeah, go ahead.¡± Morrow flew down and latched onto the pummel of the greatsword and started to make a sucking sound. ¡°Really? Are the noises necessary?¡± The sword began to melt down into blood and seep up the handle and into Morrow¡¯s maw. ¡°That is disgusting. I can¡¯t watch or listen to this.¡± Yore walked away until Morrow was finished and fluttered back to him. ¡°All done?¡± ¡°Yep! And now we have quite the reserve to draw from so you won¡¯t need to throw your corpse at your enemies anymore.¡± ¡°Great. Now I need a knife to salvage what I can from this hide to replace my clothes.¡± Yore could feel the blood contained within Morrow. He drew on it and envisioned a good sized fileting knife, sturdy and sharp. Blood mist began to seemingly appear from nowhere around Yore¡¯s hand and condensed into a knife as he imagined it. ¡°So you were the problem all along?¡± Yore jabbed at Morrow. ¡°Well if you fed me more often, maybe I wouldn¡¯t be.¡± They both laughed as they really started to enjoy one another¡¯s banter. Yore took most of the afternoon trying to skin the bear without damaging the hide. He did a pretty good job. To his surprise, the knife never really dulled. Yore believed that it was a result of his power forming and maintaining the forms of the objects he created. Sadly, he couldn¡¯t salvage any of the meat from the bear. Apparently sucking all of the blood out of an animal dried it out pretty badly. At this point it wouldn¡¯t have even made a decent jerky. Something Yore will need to consider in the future if he doesn''t want to rely on draining blood from creatures. People typically frowned on that sort of thing and called you a vampire. ¡°Am I actually a vampire?¡± Yore thought to himself. ¡°No, I don¡¯t rely on it. I was hungry earlier, but I wasn¡¯t craving blood. I think it can just be a more direct supplement. But maybe that is how vampires actually operate. Who knows.¡± The bear was massive. Way more than what he needed for just clothes. Yore cut strips off from what he didn¡¯t need for clothes and fashioned a satchel and waterskin that he sewed together with strands of blood that he then turned to solid iron. This worked as a nice substitute for string since he could control the blood so discreetly. It was also excellent practice in control and would be a great unexpected reserve if he ever needed to draw on them and reform them. No one would see it coming. Yore filled the waterskin with water from the river and tossed it in the satchel. Before heading out though, Yore formed a spear with some of the reserves in Morrow. Yore didn¡¯t want to perform his blood magic in front of anyone in a dangerous situation if he didn¡¯t have to. He figured it would be best to already have a weapon in hand rather than having to form something on the fly. That and there were always stories from where he came from about people looking down on blood magic. Pretty much in all of the stories involving it, blood magic was on par with necromancy, witchcraft, vampires, werewolves, and other dark arts. The last thing Yore needed was to be eternally hunted as a heretic wherever he was now. Enough things have already succeeded in killing him. He didn¡¯t need whatever civilization was out there trying to do the same. Chapter 8: Sir, Yes Sir Along a coast, where a river let out into an ocean, Humans began to gather from several astral gates. There were about 150,000 people that were beginning to build crude shelters out of the resources in their immediate area, mostly wooden structures from the nearby forest that the river ran out of. This gathering Human settlement was being led and orchestrated by a United States Air Force Brigadier General, U.S. [yoo es] Arnold [ahr-nld]. He and his staff were operating out of a hastily constructed log cabin as a temporary headquarters while they planned their settlements layout. ¡°Sir Arnold. Captain James [jeymz] Ryan [rahy-uhn] reporting in.¡± Captain Ryan stated as he marched into the General¡¯s conference room and snapped a solute. The General, who had been in discussion with several other staff officers, looked to the Captain and said, ¡°At ease Captain. Give us your report.¡± Captain Ryan eased his stance, pulled out a notepad from his pocket and began to read out a list of details. ¡°People have stopped showing up for now. Current head count is at 143,736. This does not account for those who decided to not stay with their arrival groups or that have left since arriving at Alpha [al-fuh] Base. Of those 143,736 people, 35,158 are military personnel from Nellis [nel-is] Air Force Base, which also means 3,487 personnel are MIA. These personnel were split between two of the three portals making up Alpha Base¡¯s population. We assume those missing were either left behind at Nellis, came through different portals, or deserted before reaching Alpha base.¡± ¡°Captain Ryan, please inform the scouts to keep an eye out for further Nellis personnel. Have them approach with caution if found. If they seem lost, escort them back to Alpha Base. If they seem off in any way, report their coordinates back here for further consideration. Major Thompson [tomp-suhn], please have the staff bring me a list of better name suggestions for our settlement. Every damned military leader that arrives is going to name their blasted settlement ¡®Alpha Base.¡¯ We can do better, and as the Captain just stated, we are more civilian than military here.¡± ¡°Yes sir!¡± both men stated in unison. Captain Ryan continued his report. ¡°Regarding technology and tools, as it was assumed, only what was on a person at the time of departure remained on them. No vehicles, structures, or other large equipment emerged from the portals with individuals. That being said, any hand tools or weapons on personnel at the time of departure appeared with them. Electronics were completely disabled, but came through intact. We assume that the portals have an electromagnetic field strong enough to even disable shielded electronics. All cell phones are bricked, including all civilian phones that we¡¯ve checked. Regarding weapons, it appears that anyone on duty with their sidearms still have them and anyone on security detail still have their M4 rifles. Ammo is limited to what was on personnel at the time of departure. This means that current counts have us at 1,238 M4 rifles, and 12,568 M18 sidearms. All sidearms only have a single magazine of 9mm ammo, where we have 3,714 magazines of 5.56mm ammo. In total, that is 111,420 5.56mm rounds and 213,656 9mm rounds. All have been turned into the armory and recorded. As per regulation, no one had more than was allotted for their given duty at the time. That being said, we¡¯ve re-distributed firearms to those on guard duty and those in scouting parties. Guards have been granted an M4 rifle with half a magazine, or 15 rounds, and an M18 sidearm with half a magazine, or eight rounds. Three man scouting parties have been formed, one with an M4 rifle with half a magazine of ammo and two with M18 sidearms with half a magazine of ammo.¡± If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Yes, it appears that our regulations have limited what we were able to bring with us. An unfortunate situation, but more fortunate than most who appeared. Let¡¯s figure out alternate weapons and limit the use of firearms. Immediately halt any firearm training for the time being, if it hasn¡¯t already. We will at least need a way to manufacture more ammo before we begin training with them again. Good thinking to whoever started conserving ammo. We will need to make it last until we have sufficient alternatives and a better understanding of the threats of where we are.¡± ¡°Done!¡± Another officer to the side stated. Captain Ryan continued once more. ¡°As for initial scouting parties that were sent out when we arrived from the portals, teams have started coming back in. It appears that aside from hostile wildlife, some threats have been identified. Reports say that two portals have been discovered. These portals are unlike the ones that our people appeared from. Instead of massive, blue and white vortexes, these were described as purple black vortexes, both roughly the size of a garage door. However, neither have destabilized and vanished like the ones we came through. One of the portals had creatures appearing from it. The creatures appeared and engaged the scouting team while they were investigating the portal. Report says that they were six greenish humanoids, about three feet tall, four inch long ears, long nose, mangled teeth, malnourished with lanky limbs, and they had crude weapons such as wooden spears and rusty machetes. All but one of the hostiles were eliminated. The remaining one was captured and is being detained outside of Alpha Base. Also, all of their weapons were brought back. The report states that when the hostiles were eliminated, they broke down into dark smoke that evaporated leaving their skin and bones behind. These remains were also recovered and are being looked into. Some of the more fanciful on the scouting party have dubbed them ¡®Goblins,¡¯ sir. After seeing the live one that they have tied up and caged, I find it hard to dispute the description.¡± ¡°Goblins?!¡± the General stated more than asked. ¡°Yes sir. That is what they appear to be.¡± General Arnold thought to himself for a moment. The wildlife that they had encountered was slightly strange, variants that people weren¡¯t familiar with. However, Goblins were a whole different story. And the fact that they were armed, even with crude weapons, meant that they were at least semi-sentient. ¡°Is there anymore to your report Captain?¡± The General asked. ¡°No sir. That is all that I have.¡± ¡°Good. Major Thompson, put together a security detail. I¡¯m going to go see our prisoner. Captain Ryan, form two squads of six men to watch those portals. Tell them not to engage any more exiting the portals unless they are engaged first. Preferably, don¡¯t let any Goblins know that they are there. If more emerge, they are to send word back and to follow them. We need to know if they are encamped somewhere nearby. If they are engaged, capture what they can, but not if it puts our mens¡¯ lives at risk. If any more are killed, bring their remains and equipment back, some extra tools may be beneficial, and perhaps we can learn something from the corpses.¡± ¡°Sir, yes sir!¡± both men once again responded. ¡°Dismissed.¡± The two officers went their separate ways to fulfill their orders as the General prepared to go and visit their new prisoner. Chapter 9: Its Feral Sir General Arnold and his security detail arrived where the Goblin prisoner was being held. They were in an opening in the woods about two miles out from Alpha Base settlement. There were four men surrounding a wooden cage, each of them with a holstered sidearm and a fifth man that the security detail checked in with. Nearby, laid out on the ground were the other Goblin remains and their weapons. The officer that the security detail was talking with appeared to have cut open the remains of one of the Goblins. It was like the Goblin¡¯s skin was a jacket that had been unzipped. Inside was a skeleton and next to it was a black stone. In the wooden cage was a Goblin, squirming around on the ground with its wrists and ankles cuffed and then hog tied together with zip ties. It wasn¡¯t gagged and was hissing while frothing at the mouth. ¡°Soldier, tell me why this creature is so heavily restrained.¡± ¡°It¡¯s feral, sir. The scouting team brought it back cuffed, but it wouldn¡¯t stop thrashing around the cage we put together for it. We honestly thought it would hurt itself. If it got a chance, it would definitely try to hurt us or others if it got loose.¡± ¡°I see,¡± the General said, crouching down to the Goblin. ¡°Can you understand me?¡± He asked the creature. The Goblin looked up at him while continuing to hiss and thrash. ¡°We don¡¯t want to be hostile toward you or your kind,¡± the General continued. ¡°If you can be civil, we would like to establish relations with you and your people.¡± The Goblin began making gibberish noises, semi-mimicking the General, but in what sounded like a mocking voice. The General raised an eyebrow. ¡°Do you know what I¡¯m saying?¡± The Goblin spit at the General and hissed. The glob of spit landing on the General¡¯s insignia. The guards stepped between the General and the cage. ¡°Stand down men.¡± The guards moved back to each of their corners of the cage. ¡°Has this creature shown any signs of reason or communication?¡± Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ¡°No sir. It has just hissed and occasionally spoken in gibberish, usually in a tone similar to something one of us said something in. Spitting is new though, but none of us has tried talking with it. It has been feral since it got here.¡± ¡°Did any of the scout team that brought it back say anything about any intelligence from it or its companions?¡± ¡°These four were actually part of that scouting party.¡± The officer replied. ¡°Sir.¡± One of the guards spoke up. ¡°They all seemed feral like this one. As soon as they came through the portal, they seemed surprised to see us and then went berserk and attacked.¡± ¡°Did any of them show any sign of comradery?¡± ¡°No sir. We shot the first two that charged us and the other four behind them trampled their bodies as they were falling. It was like they were fighting to be the first ones to kill us. They had no regard for one another, just blind rage at us.¡± The General let out a sigh. ¡°Very well. There is no reason to keep a prisoner then and waste manpower better used elsewhere. Especially if such aggressive hostiles are out there. You are all to report back to Alpha Base immediately, with the gear that was recovered. Get some rest and wait for orders from your COs.¡± The General walked over to the weapons, picked up the wooden spear, walked over to the cage and stabbed the Goblin in the eye. It immediately spasmed for a moment and then went still. The General tossed the spear to one of the guards who caught it. After a moment, the Goblin began to leak black smoke as it appeared to deflate. Instead of the dark smoke dissipating, it wafted over past the General to the black stone next to the dissected Goblin remains and seemingly disappeared into it. The smoke itself had a foul odor to it like rancid flesh. ¡°Is that what happened before, soldier?¡± ¡°No sir. Before the smoke just disappeared like steam.¡± The General and officer walked over to the stone and looked at it. Instead of being a solid matte black stone like before, there seemed to be purple and black swirling together. ¡°Officer, where did you get that stone?¡± ¡°General, it was inside the Goblin remains. I had just opened it up and removed it when you had arrived.¡± ¡°I want that stone studied and the others dissected as well. See if they all have them.¡± ¡°Sir, yes sir!¡± The men began gathering everything up to haul back as the General turned to one of his guards. ¡°Inform Captain Ryan to rescind the capture order that I gave him. These creatures don¡¯t seem anything but hostile. Tell him that if there is a friendly one, to capture it at all costs, but the rest are to be put down if engaged.¡± ¡°Yes sir.¡± The General and his security detail then departed to return to Alpha Base and begin planning what to do with the found portals. If such hostile creatures resided so close to their current location, then they needed to be dealt with for the safety of everyone at the settlement. Chapter 10: Playing The Canary In The Coal Mine ¡°Alright men.¡± Brigadier General U.S. Arnold shouted out to the eighteen men before him. ¡°Previously our preliminary scouting teams found what appeared to be two portals similar, but different, to the one that we all came through. One of them produced very hostile creatures that we are calling Goblins.¡± None of the men snickered at the thought of fantasy creatures being real since they all arrived through a massive vortex and were now being briefed by a General. They all took the news seriously. ¡°After capturing one of them, we¡¯ve determined that these creatures are openly aggressive at the sight of us and are emerging far too close to Alpha Base to be acceptable for the safety of everyone here. We then sent a team to investigate the portal they were emerging from. In doing so, we have discovered that the portal can be entered. The team did some initial scouting on the other side. There is what appears to be woodlands on the other side. However, instead of anything local, there appears to be different trees and vegetation on the other side, meaning that it is connected to another location entirely. The scouts reported finding three encampments of Goblins on the other side, all within a five mile radius. Each camp contains 16 to 25 Goblins, for a sum of 63 Goblins. These creatures have crude weapons, such as wooden spears and iron machetes. We are sending the eighteen of you as a raid team to strategically eliminate any threat in a pre-emptive strike. You will all be armed M18 sidearms, along with 68 rounds of 9mm. One soldier from each team will be given an M4 with 160 rounds of 5.56mm. The exception will be Team 3 who will be fully kitted with rifles and sidearms. As it is now well known, we are limited on these supplies. You are to use them sparingly unless your life depends on it. Every bullet fired is one less that we have. Stealth tactics and non-firearm based tactics are the preferred methods here. That being said, a single gunshot could bring the attention of all three camps to you. The plan is to strike two of them simultaneously and gauge the response of the third before neutralizing it. If you are all successful in neutralizing both camps incognito, each of your team leads have been given a flare. You are to use the flare once your targeted camp has been eliminated. We anticipate Team 3¡¯s camp to move quickly once the first signs of engagement are broadcast which is why they will be better equipped. Their targets will be nearly impossible to quietly neutralize.¡± ¡°Sir.¡± Captain Ryan spoke up. ¡°Yes Captain?¡± ¡°Couldn¡¯t the flairs draw the attention of other creatures or even other unfound camps?¡± ¡°That is correct Captain. A big issue that we have right now is a lack of information. We are not just trying to eliminate a threat here, but also gauge how dangerous that threat is and if there are additional ones that we haven¡¯t come across yet. I am not going to lie, there are more unknowns than we like to operate under, but this is how we begin to find out more. This means that this operation has an unknown risk to it. Although these Goblins appear to be a minor threat based on first contact, we don¡¯t yet know what they are truly capable of or if there are others out there.¡± This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. ¡°Thank you sir.¡± ¡°In addition, we also discovered that each of these Goblins contain a black stone inside them. When another dies in close proximity to one of these stones, something is absorbed from it into the stone, altering the stone itself. Each of your team leads have been given one or two of these stones from our first contact with them. You will report back if they reproduce this effect during the operation and to gather more of them from the fallen if things go smoothly. This however is a secondary objective to eliminating the threat and gauging the threat. Once again, Teams 1 and 2, you are to eliminate your camps. Team 3, you are to observe your camp¡¯s response before eliminating your camp. If you are overrun, fallback or send word back through the portal. We will have 60 armed personnel stationed on our side of the portal if things go sideways. If there are any other questions, direct them to your team leads, they have already been briefed with what details we do have. You have one hour to gather your gear before heading out. Dismissed!¡± The crowd dispersed in groups as they began discussing with one another and asking their leads questions. ¡°Sir, Captain Ryan.¡± ¡°Yes, Airman Roberts [rob-erts]?¡± ¡°Sir, we are the Air Force, we aren¡¯t trained for ground combat like this. Why send us?¡± ¡°Because we are trained for this Private. Everyone here has gone through bootcamp and has combat training. Further, do you see the Army around?¡± ¡°No sir.¡± ¡°How about any marines?¡± ¡°No sir.¡± ¡°That is because they are either back at home drinking beer on their porches or have been deployed to another location entirely. In their stead we are the most equipped for something like this, unless you expect civilians to protect you, a soldier?¡± ¡°Sir, no sir!¡± ¡°Captain, you saw these creatures, right? What should we expect in capabilities?¡± ¡°Good question, Staff Sergeant Ramirez [rah-meer-ez]. I don¡¯t entirely know. I saw the corpses brought back and the prisoner we had taken. From what I saw, their fighting capability should be that of a young teenager. However, the prisoner seemed feral. So us being Team 3, we will have the most difficult job since we won¡¯t get a chance to silently sweep our camp, so stay on your toes.¡± ¡°Sir, what was that about the stone that the General was talking about?¡± Asked Ramirez. ¡°Yeah, I only got one. The other leads got two. I think it was because we have a higher risk for our team.¡± ¡°Can we see it sir?¡± Asked Roberts Captain Ryan pulled the stone out of his pocket and held it up. Everyone on Team 3 stopped to look at it. It looked like a piece of obsidian. Matte black, with a bit of a gloss to it on some sides. It had jagged edges and smooth sides. ¡°I wonder what it is.¡± Roberts mussed. ¡°My guess is a bloody kidney stone, now let¡¯s get ready to head out.¡± ¡°Sir, yes sir.¡± Team 3 got out while choking back some laughter. It was good that Ryan¡¯s men were in high spirits enough to laugh. Ryan didn¡¯t have a good feeling about this mission and didn¡¯t like taking on unnecessary risk like he was being ordered to. As the General stated, there were a lot of unknowns in their situation and Ryan didn¡¯t like playing the canary in the coal mine. Author Announcement Due to a number of circumstances hitting our family all at the same time. I will be going on temporary hiatus until I have more time to write once again. My best guess is that I will take two weeks off as we deal with everything, but may take longer if unexpected complications arise, especially with the holidays rapidly approaching. Worst case scenario is that I continue writing over the holidays, but don''t release more chapters until January, giving me time to do the appropriate editing. For those curious, the preventative circumstances are: Please note that I already have up to chapter 25 written, but not cleaned up and edited. I also already have plans for the next 7 chapters in place, but aren''t yet written out. So there will be more to come! If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding! Cheers, - TC Crane Chapter 11: It Was A Slaughter The sun was setting and all three teams were assembled just outside of the black and purple portal, along with the contingent group defending this side of the portal. The teams were all checking their gear and making sure that they were prepared for their mission. Major Thompson stepped up to the groups and spoke. ¡°Alright men and women, this is it. Remember, we aren¡¯t just here to neutralize a target. We are also here to gather information. Take note of anything and everything. After the primary objectives are met, begin the secondary objective. We need to gather more of these stones for study and to understand what they do and their relationship with these creatures. If you come across more camps than initially scouted, use your discretion to either eliminate the additional hostiles, or fall back here. Move out and godspeed!¡± With that, teams Guillotine, Sawblade, and Overwatch approached the portal aperture and entered one team at a time. Once on the other side, the teams split up. Based on scouting reports, Guillotine''s target was 4 miles northwest of the portal, Saw Blade¡¯s target was 5 miles northeast of the portal, and Overwatch¡¯s target was 3 miles due north of the portal. Team Overwatch was assigned the closest camp to give them time to begin observations. The General wanted to know what the Goblin¡¯s typical behavior was and how they responded in an emergency. It wasn¡¯t long before Overwatch was in position outside of the Goblin camp. Four of them, including Captain Ryan, and Staff Sergeant Ramirez, climbed trees on the northwest and northeast sides of the camp so that they would be in strong vantage points if the camp''s Goblins moved to reinforce either team Guillotine or Saw Blades target. The remaining soldiers, including Airman Roberts took cover in the foliage at the southwest and southeast corners of the camp. This left them in position to rapidly respond if the Goblins headed for the portal or either of the camps. Captain Ryan counted the Goblins in their camp. There were only 16 in Overwatch¡¯s camp, just as the report stated, which meant that none of the Goblins had moved camps since they were initially scouted. That, or if they had changed camps, just as many showed up as left. Ryan began fidgeting with a quarter in his pocket as he observed the Goblin¡¯s behavior and waited. Most of them were clustered in groups of three or five. A few were cooking what appeared to be rats on skewers, others were asleep on hide skin bed rolls, and the last ones were squabbling and brawling with one another. At least he hoped that they were brawling. The last thing Ryan wanted was to have to report on Goblin mating behaviors. He shivered at the thought and continued fidgeting with his quarter, rifle readied and waiting for the other teams¡¯ signals. * * * Team Guillotine got to their camp next, being a bit closer than team Saw Blade to their camp. Guillotine took stock of the camp. There were 25 Goblins in their camp, which matched the report they received. That meant if the other reports were correct, there would only be 22 Goblins in Saw Blade¡¯s camp. Much like team Overwatch¡¯s camp, the Goblins were divided up into groups of three to five doing similar activities. Guillotine picked a group of five Goblins that seemed to be moving around, searching the forest floor for something. Guillotine approached through thick ferns and readied their combat knives. They halted when the group of Goblins all began running from the camp in a zigzag line, like they were chasing something. Guillotine crept after them, positioning themselves between the group and the camp as the group of five Goblins ran further from camp as they pursued whatever poor creature had been spotted by them. One of the Goblins dove at the ground and all of the others followed, pouncing as they reached the first Goblin. A moment later they were standing back up, with what appeared to be a rat the size of a cat held by two of the Goblins. The two were tugging it back and forth and soon the other three got to their feet and joined in the squabbling. Team Guillotine quietly surrounded the distracted Goblins and in a quick and quiet motion, reached up clamping their jaws shut to muffle any screams and to expose their necks. They slit all five of the Goblins¡¯ throats in unison. They pulled back on the Goblins¡¯ heads, both pulling them to the ground and widening the gash in their necks. The Goblins dropped the torn apart rat and clawed at the arms holding them as they quietly passed away, only making choked gurgling noises as they died. After a moment, all of the Goblin corpses began to deflate with black smoke leaking out. It smelled like a mix of burnt bile with hair. However, where three of the smoke clouds dispersed and dissipated, two of them gathered to team Guillotine¡¯s leader¡¯s hip pocket. Team Guillotine¡¯s lead made a face like he was about to be sick, then pulled the obsidian stones out of his pocket and they now had a shifting black and purple swirl to them. He put them back in his pocket and they moved to the next group. Team Guillotine repeated similar tactics on the rest of the groups, picking off three to five at a time depending on which one would be less likely noticed. However, these times, all of the corpses just deflated with the black smoke dispersing. They no longer interacted with the obsidian stones held by the team leader. Team Guillotine had just killed the group that were cooking more rats of unusual size around the fire and began to move in on a group of four Goblins that were wrestling each other when a red flare rose up in the night sky about three miles east by northeast of them. It was team Saw Blade. They had neutralized their camp. The Goblins immediately stopped their brawl looking up in the sky at the flare. They were dazed by it, not quite sure what to think of it. That was when three were tackled and immediately stabbed in the bottom of their chins. The fourth Goblin turned in time and jumped at its assailant, latching onto its head and began scratching and clawing at his face. Pop, pop! Two M18 gunshots rang out. Both 9mm rounds hit the Goblin in the side of its ribs. It fell to the ground off of the torso of the man it had latched itself onto. The Goblin squirmed in agony, not understanding what had happened to it. Its eyes turned to one of the men that held the firearm in his hand. The Goblin fought through the pain, screamed and began to lunge at the man. A third pop rang out and the Goblin dropped to the ground with a bullet hole in its forehead. The man holstered his sidearm, pulled out an orange flare gun and fired it into the sky. He turned to his team. ¡°Guillotine¡¯s primary objective is complete. Bandage Airman Brown [broun] and get him back to the portal then wait there for us. If you see Goblins, fallback through the portal and warn them.¡± Someone was already bandaging Brown¡¯s face where the worst gouges were. Turns out Goblin claws were pretty sharp and infection would be a concern with how disgusting the creatures were. ¡°Airman Grace [greys]. Get your ass up a tree with that rifle and keep an eye out for more hostiles. The rest of us need to round up these crystals and weapons. Pile the remains up men. We will begin hauling them back to the portal last.¡± * * * Team Overwatch had been watching their camp''s activities. Ryan still wasn¡¯t sure if the Goblins were fighting or mating and was ready to be done with this mission when a red flare lit up the night sky to Overwatch¡¯s northeast. All of the Goblins, except the ones asleep, stopped what they were doing and looked at the flare in a daze. After a moment, they heard a distant pop, pop. Shortly followed by a third pop. Then another flare rose up in the night sky. All of the Goblins then turned to the noise and hissed, the ones asleep woke up. They all began speaking gibberish and hissing as they scrambled. The Goblins began scrambling over each other, grabbing nearby weapons and heading to both of the flares in the sky. How they split up was chaos. They effectively were in a mad dash and decided which one to go to based on which one had fewer Goblins already rushing in that direction. They ultimately divided up into nine heading northwest toward team Guillotine¡¯s flare and gunshots, and seven heading northeast toward team Saw Blade¡¯s flare. As the Goblins began leaving their camp in either direction, gunshots began ringing out. Bang! Bang, bang! Bang! Bang, bang, bang! Four of the Goblins heading to team Guillotine fell and three heading to team Saw Blade fell. Not yet dead they were writhing on the ground in agony. The remaining Goblin groups of five and four stopped in their paths, looked up in the trees where the noises came from, and spotted four of Overwatch¡¯s riflemen and hissed. Bang, bang! Bang, bang! Shots rang out from behind them in the camp and two more from each group dropped. The Goblins turned to face their new foes when six more shots rang out from all of their surrounding enemies and the rest dropped. Ryan, Ramirez, and the other two riflemen of Overwatch climbed down out of their trees and the team began finishing off the Goblins that were still writhing on the ground with their combat knives. The ones that had already died to their gunshot wounds were already deflating with putrid black smoke. One of the Goblin¡¯s deflating near Ryan had its smoke absorbed into Ryan¡¯s obsidian stone in his side pocket. The smoke hit him and he started heaving his guts out from the smell. ¡°Hey Cap, I¡¯m glad they made you hold that thing. This stuff smells bad from afar. I¡¯d hate for it to seek me out like that.¡± Airman Roberts quipped. After Ryan stopped puking his guts out, he got to his feet. ¡°I¡¯m glad you think so Roberts, because you are now on recovery duty.¡± Ryan pulled out his flare gun and fired it into the air. ¡°Ramirez, Windler [wind-lur]! You two, get back up those trees and keep any eye out for any reinforcements. The rest of you gather the corpses for Roberts to dig these stones out of.¡± ¡°Fuck!¡± Roberts exclaimed. ¡°You should learn to keep your mouth shut.¡± Windler said as he slung his rifle over his shoulder and began to climb a tree again. Ryan and the rest began dragging all of the Goblin remains near the campfire as Roberts began cutting them open and removing the obsidian stones from inside them. They all appeared to be located inside the ribcage, around where you would expect a heart to be. However, all that was left inside the corpses were bones and gooey, stringy flesh that tied the insides together. It was like all of the muscle and organs evaporated into black smoke leaving mostly calcium and skin behind.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Roberts was just cutting into the last of the Goblin remains when both team Guillotine and Saw Blade showed up, both dragging Goblin remains behind them, using the hide skin beds as tarps. ¡°Hey Captain, sounds like you had quite the firefight over here. Everything go smoothly?¡± Team Guillotine¡¯s lead called out. ¡°Yeah, the Goblins were more stunned by team Saw Blade¡¯s flare until they heard the gunshots. That whipped them up into a frenzy and they started heading toward both of your teams. We expected as much and were in position to put them down quickly, but not quietly. It seems like any signs of life enrages these creatures. What happened to two of your squad?¡± Captain Ryan asked. ¡°Sorry about that. One of the fuckers latched onto Brown¡¯s face when we moved on the last of our targets. That is why I resorted to using my sidearm. I sent Grace to escort him back to the portal and to stand guard by it.¡± ¡°Understood. We are just wrapping up here. Right Roberts?¡± ¡°Yeah, I just pulled the last of our stones out¡± ¡°Hey, at least you have a pair now.¡± Windler shouted down from the tree. ¡°Stow it, airman.¡± Ryan shouted up at Windler. ¡°Sir, I see movement coming from the north.¡± Ramirez shouted down. ¡°Looks like three hostiles heading this way fast.¡± ¡°All riflemen, pick a tree and climb. Call out any additional reinforcements, but hold fire until ordered. Everyone else, grab one of those spears. It looks like there are either some stragglers or there were more camps. Ramirez, get me positions. Spotters, I want hand gestures for directions. You will be our plan B if needed.¡± Captain Ryan ordered and everyone began moving. Remirez gestured in each direction the inbound were coming from. The six men on the ground, including Guillotine¡¯s and Saw Blade¡¯s leads, grabbed spears and moved into position for the first approaching hostile. They were more Goblins. The first popped out of the ferns into a clearing right in front of the six soldiers wielding spears. They made short work of it. The next two Goblins were closer together and the six spearmen split into two groups of three and made just as quick work of these Goblins. The Goblins made it fairly easy for the soldiers as they practically charged in and impaled themselves on a spear while the other soldiers stabbed them with killing blows. A knocking sound on a tree trunk signaled more inbound. This time six were spotted. The spotters gestured where exactly they were coming from, which were all from the north, but scattered out. The spearmen engaged each, dividing up as needed if they were approached by Goblins close enough to one another. Then more knocking sounds came from the trees. This time 20. The spearmen repeated the process, never splitting up into less than pairs. One by one they slaughtered all of the inbound. Then there was even more knocking, except this time there were 27 from the north and 11 from the northwest. Ryan knew that this was a bad sign. This must have meant that there were definitely more camps and they responded to all three flares so they were beginning to come from team Guillotine¡¯s and team Saw Blade¡¯s original targets. At this rate they would be overrun in no time. This time, instead of the spearmen splitting into pairs, they created a small phalanx line with their spears and let the Goblins come to them. The Goblins began to flank the sides of the phalanx and Ryan gave the order. ¡°Fire at the flanking hostiles!¡± A clap of rifle fire rang out from the eight riflemen perched in trees and six Goblins that were moving around the spearmen¡¯s left flank immediately dropped. Another clap rang out and the remaining five moving around their flank dropped. Several more gunshots rang out as individuals from the larger group from the north tried to move around to either of the spearmen¡¯s flanks. After the wave of Goblins was slaughtered, Captain Ryan called down. ¡°We are getting overrun here. Ground crew fall back to the portal. Tree crew, climb higher and hold your fire. They don¡¯t seem to be noticing us up here until we open fire. We will hold back and observe the enemy and will fall back once we get an opportunity.¡± ¡°Affirmative!¡± Both team Guillotine¡¯s and Saw Blade¡¯s leads shouted back. ¡°Sir, next wave inbound. It¡¯s a lot and coming from all three directions.¡± Windler called over to Captain Ryan as he was climbing higher up. ¡°Get moving men. Fall back!¡± Ryan ordered and the spearmen on the ground began to make their way back to the portal. Not too long after the spearmen left team Overwatch¡¯s camp, Goblins came rushing in from all three directions. There were well over a hundred of them. It was chaos in the camp as the Goblins were looking around for the intruders, none of them noticing the soldiers high up in the trees. Then one of the Goblin¡¯s squeaked out, noticing the trail of the retreating spearmen. The horde of Goblins all rapidly pursued them south toward the portal. There was a second horde that showed up that continued on through after the first one. This one had a little more than the first horde. However, most of them came from team Guillotine¡¯s and Saw Blade¡¯s camps, where only about a dozen or so came from the north. It appeared that there were a significant number of other encampments out there that were further than the scouting team had gone. Thankfully, the General had prepared for this and had a response waiting just on the other side of the portal. Ryan gagged at the thought of all of that black smoke in one area. Then more reinforcements were spotted. These only came out of the northeast, where Saw Blade¡¯s camp was. The furthest from the portal, but the closest to all of the undiscovered Goblin camps. There were about 25 of them, but instead of mostly naked scrawny green Humanoids. These were armored in jagged iron plate armor. As they got closer, Ryan noticed that they weren¡¯t fully covered in armor. Their thighs and biceps were exposed, but they had helmets, chest plates, gauntlets, boots, and shields. They carried spears and had a machete attached at their hips. He could see the green skin on the exposed areas. They were still Goblins. Except for maybe one. The one that led them was about five feet tall, was armored like the rest, but instead of green skin, it had a brownish skin. It didn¡¯t have a shield or any of the weapons the others did though. Instead it carried a gnarly looking battle axe. This must be the vanguard bringing up the rear of the forces. These weren¡¯t blindly charging ahead. They were moving at a steady pace and with purpose. They were taking in their surroundings as they moved through the camp and stopped in the center by the fire, looking around. With two hordes moving through before them, the camp was in shambles. Everything had been scattered and trampled. There were too many tracks to make heads or tails of at this point. The piles of Goblin corpses had been scattered as the hordes climbed and trampled them on their way through with no respect for their own dead. The leader, who Ryan figured to be something akin to a Hobgoblin, from what he heard of from games, books, and movies, was taking note of how many Goblin corpses there were in this camp. After all, they not only killed the original camp dwellers here, but had also dragged the remains from the other two camps, and held off a number of waves of assaulting Goblins. With one hand this Hobgoblin picked up one of the deflated corpses that had been cut open and had the stone removed from inside and examined it. It held up another deflated corpse, this one not cut open, but skewered by spears, with the other hand and examined it. The Hobgoblin dropped the one killed by spears and looked closer at the one cut open. It then stuck a finger through one of the bullet holes in what would have been the skin from the Goblin¡¯s back. It pulled its finger back out and looked through the hole and then tossed it aside. Ryan was fidgeting with the quarter in his pocket, which was a really bad idea at this moment. He shifted to pull his hand out of his pocket and support his rifle again when a branch under one of his feet snapped and he had to catch himself from falling out of the tree. The Goblin vanguard looked up at Captain Ryan in unison and the Hobgoblin let out a roar as it drew its gnarly looking, mangled iron battle axe. The rest raised their shields and spears. They then noticed the others in the trees and moved into a porcupine phalanx formation around their leader. The Hobgoblin shouted something at them in its language. Ryan knew that this was a challenge. However, this was the first real sign of intelligence from the Goblins, so he shouted down at the Hobgoblin. ¡°Can you understand me?¡± The Hobgoblin repeated the gibberish noises, but louder this time. Clearly challenging Captain Ryan to come down and fight. ¡°I take that as a no then?¡± The Hobgoblin once again repeated what it said before, except this time pushing his way out of the phalanx and over to the tree Ryan was in. ¡°Men, ready.¡± The Hobgoblin took a swing at Ryan¡¯s tree with its battle axe, cutting a hefty chunk from it. ¡°Aim!¡± Ryan shouted as he looked through the scope of his M4, as he aimed it at the head of the Hobgoblin. The Hobgoblin took another swing and another chunk out of Ryan¡¯s tree. It then let out a roar and prepared a third swing. ¡°Fire!¡± Ryan pulled the trigger as a thunderclap of rifle fire rang out. The Hobgoblin dropped immediately dead as the 5.56mm bullet penetrated his helmet and passed through his brain and out the lower back of his skull, splattering brain matter on the ground and Goblins behind him. The Hobgoblin fell to the ground with a clatter. Along with their leader, seven other Goblin vanguard dropped. However, they weren¡¯t immediately dead. They were all shot either in the torso or somewhere along the shoulder line based on the angle of the rifleman targeting them. That being said, they were all writhing in pain, reaching for their bullet wounds. Their armor, too thin and poorly made to protect them from rifle fire. The rest of the vanguard scattered and began to flee in all directions as more gunfire rang out picking off the rest as they fled. It was a slaughter. These Goblins didn¡¯t stand a chance against superior weapons and tactics, even when they showed the capability for some strategy. Where the real threat came from was the numbers of Goblins and their rabid ferocity. Ryan climbed down out of his tree as the incapacitated Goblins slowly began dying one by one from their wounds. All of the dead, including the Hobgoblin, were now leaking black smoke. As Ryan reached the ground, the Hobgoblin finished deflating. Ryan slung his rifle over his shoulder and pulled out his combat knife. He first cut the straps to the Hobgoblin¡¯s chestplate and removed it. He then cut open its chest and found the obsidian stone inside of it. However, this one was bigger than the one that was provided to him. Not by much, but noticeable, where the rest of the ones they had seen from the Goblins were all the same size and roughly the same shape. Ryan removed the stone from the Hobgoblin¡¯s chest and there was a rumble in the ground. Ryan shoved the stone in his pocket. ¡°Hey Captain. What was that?¡± Ramirez asked from his tree while looking around. ¡°It¡¯s nothing good. I think it¡¯s time for us to finally leave this camp and carefully begin making our way back to the portal.¡± The rumbling grew and the ground noticeably began to shake. The tree Ryan was in cracked as a seam from where the Hobgoblin was hacking at it connected to the other side of the tree. With loud cracks the tree began to fall and came down with a loud crash. The rumbling and shaking abruptly stopped. ¡°It is definitely time to get out of the trees. Is anyone hurt?¡± Ryan asked. Everyone sounded off as they climbed out of their trees. No one was injured. ¡°Alright, let''s get back to that portal and get out of here. I don¡¯t like that rumbling and we¡¯ve drawn enough attention to anything that is still in the area on this side.¡± Along their way back. The earthquakes became more frequent and stronger. They occasionally would have to stop to dodge falling trees and to prevent themselves from tripping during the earthquakes. It was eerie. There was no sound of birds or small forest animals disturbed by the earthquakes. The only noise was them making their way back to the gate, the rumblings from the earthquakes, and the sound of trees falling around them. Chapter 12: The Experts Captain Ryan, his men, and the rifleman and woman from teams Guillotine and Saw Blade emerged from the portal aperture which was now fluctuating and showing signs of instability. The sun was beginning to rise above the treeline. What they stepped out into was the remnants of a massacre and over 60 firearms pointed at them. Ryan quickly called out. ¡°Overwatch reporting back.¡± ¡°Are there any more pursuers?¡± Major Thompson called out. ¡°Not that we are aware of.¡± The weapons were lowered and team Overwatch stepped away from the unstable portal. Captain Ryan and the others looked around at what appeared to be a bloodbath. There were hundreds of deflated Goblin corpses everywhere. They appeared to have all been slaughtered as they left the portal. There must have been both hordes here. Some soldiers were removing obsidian stones from the remains and piling the remains that had already been cut open. There were also piles of weapons being gathered. The entire area smelled of blood and death. ¡°Were there any casualties or injuries Major?¡± Ryan asked the CO. ¡°No, but we used more ammunition than we would have liked. Based on Guillotine¡¯s and Saw Blade¡¯s reports, there seemed to be a few more camps than were scouted. What else happened after they left?¡± Out of nowhere the unstable portal appeared to collapse and snap shut out of existence. It was just gone with nothing left behind, just like the gates that everyone came through on their first day. ¡°For one, we apparently figured out how to close these things.¡± Ryan quipped back. ¡°It appears so Captain. Report back to Alpha Base for a full debriefing.¡± ¡°Yes sir.¡± ¡°Dismissed.¡± Team Guillotine, Saw Blade, and Overwatch began their walk back to Alpha Base, leaving the defense team to clean up and pick clean the Goblin remains for anything useful. When they got there, they had found out that the top brass had landed on a new name for the settlement. New Nellis. The idea was that anyone familiar with US military bases would realize that this was a military settlement and that they could seek protection here. Further, if there were soldiers separated from their chains of command, it was easily identifiable as a place they could check in and re-integrate into the surviving chain of command. When the teams got back they went through a full debrief as promised. Ryan reaccounted what happened with team Overwatch, then what happened once the three teams met back up, and what finally occurred after they were overrun. The General¡¯s staff was pleased at the report, both on the enemy and the obsidian stones. Even more so at the connection between killing the Goblin leader and the closing of the black portal, which they had named a Hostile Portal or HP for short. They branded the Hobgoblin an HPAE, or Hostile Portal Anchor Entity, since it appeared to be what anchored the Hostile Portal to the woods outside of New Nellis. They also started calling the Goblins HPEs or Hostile Portal Entities. The top brass were also very interested in the reports of how the obsidian stones only seemed to collect one HPE¡¯s death. They were also fascinated with the larger obsidian stone provided by the HPAE that Ryan had killed. They were curious what the bigger size meant and if it could hold more HPEs¡¯ deaths or not. Brigadier General U.S. Arnold was particularly interested in the discipline and coordination that the Goblin vanguard had exhibited. Based on the report, the Goblins clearly had a language that they used, Humans just had no idea what it was or how to translate it. Meaning, if they could figure out how to communicate, diplomacy was a possibility, although an unlikely one based on how openly aggressive the creatures appeared to be. After the debrief, the teams were given warm meals and rest. * * * The next day there was a briefing again with the General and teams Guillotine, Saw Blade, and Overwatch. Apparently scouting teams had been sent into the other Hostile Portal to see what was inside it. The reports were that on the other side was a cave system. So far, there had been no creatures spotted leaving this Hostile Portal. So three scout teams had been sent to further investigate when the raid on the first Hostile Portal was launched and none had returned. Currently they were 6 hours overdo. The General¡¯s staff feared that there may be more of these vanguard level Goblins, Hobgoblins, or something else that they haven¡¯t seen yet in there. What they were prepping the three teams for, was a rescue mission. They were to recover the scouting teams and any intel that they have gained on this Hostile Portal. What they did know was that the cave seems to be a long system of tunnels. Since the only teams with any potential intel were the ones missing, the brass had decided to send in the experts for the rescue instead of other teams. They wanted to minimize the risk of losing more personnel, equipment, and most importantly ammo. Ryan felt that the use of the word ¡°experts¡± was a step too far. They had been on ONE raid. Granted, it was the only raid on Goblin camps in Human history as far as Ryan knew. But he definitely felt the smoke being blown up his team¡¯s ass to get them to walk into a bad situation. They had three hours to prepare and they went to grab a bite to eat before grabbing their gear from the armory and departing. ¡°I don¡¯t know, I think that we handled the hippies and their big hob just fine last time.¡± Roberts joked. ¡°Shut up. They are HPEs, not hippies. You know the military loves their acronyms. Also, we are to refer to the Anchor Entities as HPAEs or Hostile Portal Anchor Entities, not what race they are.¡± Ryan bit back. Roberts was good at pushing Ryan¡¯s buttons and Roberts knew it. ¡°Sure Captain, but doesn¡¯t referring to what they are, better describe the threat? Knowing if we are about to run into a Hobgoblin instead of more Goblins is way more informative than calling them HPEs in general. Especially when we don¡¯t even know which is the HPE and which is the HPAE until we kill it and the whole place starts crumbling around us.¡± Ramirez retorted. ¡°You do have a point there. At least stick to protocol around the brass. I¡¯ll put in a request to loosen the grip on combatant identifiers. I think the brass is just trying to grab onto any form of order that they can. It¡¯s been tits up since we all arrived and the last thing the powerful want is to lose control in a situation like this. But I¡¯ll see what I can do.¡± ¡°Thanks Captain.¡± * * * Later that day, teams Guillotine, Saw Blade, and Overwatch arrived at the other Hostile Portal aperture. Team Guillotine however had a replacement while Airmen Brown was on the mend. Major Thompson once again was there giving them a quick briefing. The briefing included the roster of the Scout Teams, their orders if they are found alive, what to do if they were found dead, and what to do if they weren¡¯t found at all after 12 hours. Pretty much if they were alive, the raid teams were to be escorted back for debriefing. If they were found dead, the raid teams were to recover their equipment, and if they weren¡¯t found at all, the raid teams were to report back. The teams embarked through the HP¡¯s aperture. On the other side, they found themselves in a fairly large tunnel. It was about 50 feet wide and about 30 feet tall, with stalactites hanging from the ceiling at various lengths, some meeting the stalagmites that formed beneath them on the floor, creating stone columns. The walls and some of the stalactites had a pale moss growing on them, clearly deprived of sunlight. At the end of the chamber they were in, the room split into two smaller tunnels, only about eight feet in diameter. ¡°How do we want to split this Captain Ryan?¡± Asked Guillotine¡¯s lead. ¡°The tunnels look too small to stay grouped up as a single unit.¡± ¡°Yeah and it would take us too long to not spread out our search. Team Guillotine and Saw Blade, take the bigger tunnel on the left. Overwatch will take the smaller one on the right. If you find another split, diverge there. If you find more splits, break up into teams of three men and go for 10 minutes. After that time, double back and determine where you want to go as a team. We need to search as much area as possible, but with an unknown danger, we shouldn¡¯t split up too much and make ourselves vulnerable.¡± ¡°Understood. Guillotine, Saw Blade, you¡¯re with me. Let¡¯s get moving!¡± Said Guillotine¡¯s leader. ¡°Overwatch, we are going this way.¡± The team leads shared their plan with their men and began their search through the tunnels. After about six hours of searching the tunnels, team Overwatch rejoined after checking separate branches. ¡°Ramirez, what did you find down your path? About seven minutes down ours we found another split and headed back.¡±Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°Sir, we found an M4 and some shell casings where the tunnel seemed to open up into one of the larger chambers. The magazine was half spent. I think it belonged to one of the Scout teams.¡± ¡°Well that¡¯s the first sign we¡¯ve come across, so let¡¯s take your path.¡± The entire Overwatch team moved down the path Ramirez and his part of team Overwatch had previously explored. They reached the point where Ramirez reported finding the weapon and shell casings and continued onward. Where the weapon was found, the tunnel opened up wide like the chamber the HP spit them out in. This one was much longer though. This chamber had lots of crags and narrow openings. Some in the walls, some in the ceilings, and some in the floor. All of them ending in darkness where their flashlights couldn¡¯t reach. Airman Roberts spoke up. ¡°Do you hear that sir? It sounds like skittering.¡± Ryan motioned Overwatch to stop and listened. He could faintly hear what sounded like knives tapping and scraping across stone. The faint noise abruptly stopped. Ryan waited a moment. Nothing. Whatever the noise was, it wasn''t there anymore. Ryan motioned Overwatch to continue. After a few more minutes of walking, they all suddenly heard the noise again. This time much more clearly. Overwatch halted and listened as the noise echoed in the tunnel. It sounded like it was coming from every direction. Suddenly the noise sounded like it was moving away and getting quieter and once again abruptly stopped. Overwatch slowly moved forward as they came to the end of the chamber where the space shrunk down and took a hard left. As they turned the corner, the narrow tunnel opened up into a massive chamber. Along its walls were dozens of other tunnel entrances. Then, out of nowhere, Overwatch heard the sound of gunshots and screams. The noises echoed off of the walls, but were coming out of the tunnel next to the one that they had just emerged from. Ryan, Ramirez, and Roberts readied their weapons and flashlights down the tunnel, while the rest of team Overwatch kept eyes on the rest of the massive chamber. Then two unarmed bodies turned a corner down the tunnel and ran at them. They were part of team Saw Blade and they looked terrified. ¡°Behind us!¡± one of them shouted as what looked like a scorpion the size of a large dog turned the corner behind them, skittering on the wall after them. ¡°Get to your right!¡± Ryan shouted to them as he motioned. They did as ordered and the three that were aiming down the tunnel let out a controlled burst of rifle fire. The noise loudly rang out and echoed through the tunnel and chamber, having an amplification effect like being in an amphitheater. The scorpion¡¯s carapace burst as the 5.56mm rounds found their target. It fell from the wall, to the floor, landing on its back. Its legs curled up like a dead spider. The men reached team Overwatch, out of breath and mortified. ¡°Fucking scorpians man! I hate bugs!¡± One of them got out. ¡°They got David.¡± The other said. ¡°What do you mean, they?¡± Asked Ryan. ¡°I mean, they were swarming out of cracks in the...¡± The man got out before a stinger shot out of a crack in the wall of the tunnel and caught him in the back. His face was in sheer pain and horror. He let out a small gasp as he squinted his eyes through the pain. The other soldier jumped back out of freight and all of Overwatch readied their weapons. The pierced soldier was then pulled to the crack in the wall, getting lodged in it, his shoulders being too broad to fit in the crack itself. Everyone jumped back from the crack as a snipping noise started and the soldier began whaling out in pain. Overwatch didn¡¯t have the angle they needed with the soldier''s body filling the crack completely. The snap of bone could be heard over the man¡¯s screaming as his left shoulder folded in on itself. His shoulder nearly cut all of the way through. He was lodged even further into the crack. Suddenly, BANG! A shot rang out and the soldier stopped screaming and went limp. Ryan had shot him in the head, putting him out of his misery. ¡°Here they come!¡± The man from Saw Blade shouted as he moved into the larger chamber with the rest of Overwatch. About a dozen of the creatures turned the corner down the tunnel and were skittering along the floor, walls, and ceiling toward Overwatch. Another loud snap sounded out as the now dead soldier¡¯s other shoulder folded in and he disappeared into the crack in the blink of an eye. All of team Overwatch took aim down the tunnel and opened fire in controlled bursts, killing two or three of the scorpions at a time as they focussed on the closest ones to them. Soon the tunnel floor was littered with scorpion carapaces and members of Overwatch backed further away from the crack where the member of Saw Blade had been pulled into. Then more gunfire rang out from another tunnel. Ryan, pulled the sidearm out of the Saw Blade soldier¡¯s holster and shoved it in his hand. ¡°Come on soldier, you¡¯re with us now.¡± Overwatch moved to the tunnel where all of the gunshots were coming from, some keeping eyes on the tunnel they just left and the rest of the tunnels that led into the chamber. This time three members of Guillotine, including their leader, turned the corner. They stopped at the corner, saw Overwatch, turned back, fired down the tunnel, and then continued running toward Overwatch. What followed them were close to 40 scorpions of varying sizes. Some as small as a cat, and some as big as a Great Dane. As Guillotine reached Overwatch, they spun around and dropped as all 10 soldiers opened fire on the ensuing horde of scorpions that crawled along all of the surfaces of the tunnel. Corpses were dropping from the front lines, but didn¡¯t slow the scorpions on the floor down at all. They proceeded to crawl right over their brethren in their effort to reach their pray. Soon all of the pursuing scorpions were dead and filled the tunnel floor. ¡°What happened down there?¡± Ryan asked Guillotine¡¯s lead. ¡°We had just met up with half of Saw Blade when they started surging from the cracks in the tunnel. We immediately lost two men in the initial ambush, one from each team. Then they came up from both of the tunnels we came from and forced us this way. We lost the rest of the Saw Blade members and two more of our own to further ambushes along our way here. We must have killed dozens in the tunnels while they chased us, but more kept coming out of the cracks.¡± ¡°That means that we are all that is left. We are clearly outnumbered and unprepared for this. We need to get out of here and report back.¡± Ryan said while carefully considering all of the information that was just shared to him. ¡°Any of these tunnels could hold swarms of these bugs. Let¡¯s take the way back that Overwatch came from. We heard skittering, but were never attacked. I¡¯m concerned that they are riled up down the tunnels Guillotine and Saw Blade took.¡± ¡°I¡¯m good with that plan. Let¡¯s get the hell out of here.¡± Just then they heard more skittering echoing down the tunnel from where Guillotine just emerged, then from several of the other tunnels around them. ¡°Sounds like we really stepped in a hornets nest here Cap. We better get moving.¡± Roberts said nervously. ¡°Agreed. Back the way we came, men!¡± Overwatch moved back toward the tunnel they initially emerged from as the skittering from all around them grew louder and louder. They all re-entered the tunnel Overwatch came from and rounded the corner into the chamber before the room where all of the tunnels converged. As they rounded the corner, they stopped as they noticed the room was covered in white silky threads. ¡°Ramirez, did we take a wrong turn?¡± Asked Ryan. ¡°No sir.¡± Said Airman Windler. ¡°I kept my eye on the tunnel we came out of the entire time. I didn¡¯t want us getting lost or surprised.¡± The skittering behind them was getting louder. ¡°Shit! Alright, forward it is then. Don¡¯t touch the threads, it looks like spider webbing and we don¡¯t need to get stuck in that now too.¡± The team began to make their way through the room, trying to avoid the strands of webbing. Most of it was big thick strands, similar to the size of rope, but with patches between some of the strands that were reflective white when a flashlight shone on it. After a few moments, they safely navigated the webbing to the other end of the chamber. However, the exit was covered in the reflective white patches. Ryan pulled the magazine out of his M4 and used the barrel to chop at the webbing. They were right, this was sticky like spider webbing. It took several more moments for Ryan to hack through the sticky webbing with his rifle. Once it was clear he turned to order his men through. ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here.¡± As Ryan gave the order and the men turned to file out of the chamber and into the tunnel, a scorpion the size of a station wagon silently dropped down from a huge crack in the ceiling on a strand of webbing, none of the men with their backs to it noticing a thing. ¡°Good, I fucking hate spiders!¡± Roberts got out before he was impaled by a stinger the size of a folding chair. Roberts looked down at the stinger sticking out of his chest as he coughed up blood. His body was then thrown back over the massive scorpion, into the chamber, landing in some webbing and getting tangled up. ¡°Open fire!¡± Ryan got out as he let go of the rifle stuck in the webbing and drew his sidearm. The men filing into the tunnel all turned as Airman Roberts¡¯ body got yanked out of the group and thrown across the room. They all brought their arms to bear and opened fire. The scorpion shielded its face with one of its massive claws. Bullets just ricocheting off, as it reached out with its other claw and in an instant, cut Guillotine¡¯s leader in half. Then moving that claw to shield its face, it reached out with the other claw lightning fast and snipped at another soldier, this time not shearing him in half. Instead it picked the soldier up and brought him to its face where it opened its maw ringed in lamprey teeth. The mandibles on the sides of its maw, spreading to fit the soldier inside its mouth as he screamed for help. It closed its claw, cutting the soldier in half, dropping the torso into its maw and letting the soldier¡¯s legs fall to the floor. ¡°Everyone out!¡± Ryan yelled over the gunfire and everyone began moving backwards into the cave. Captain James Ryan was the last to move into the tunnel. As he did, he turned to run like the rest of his soldiers. Staff Sergeant Ramirez turned and locked eyes with him, his face stricken with horror as a sharp pain pierced Ryan¡¯s back. The pain spread to his lung and peck as he felt the stinger pierce all of the way through his chest. The pain was then cranked up as he was yanked out of the tunnel at mock-fuck and thrown to the other end of the chamber. Pain erupted from the hole in his back and along his spine as he hit a wall and then tumbled through the webbing, colliding with several of the dog-sized scorpions along the way. Ryan¡¯s chest was on fire with a searing pain. He couldn¡¯t feel his legs. He knew that the impact crushed his spine. His torso, arms, and head all felt tingly like they were asleep and he couldn¡¯t move them. The scorpion¡¯s venom must have a paralysis effect to it. All he could do was lay there in aching pain, screaming in his own head in shock and horror as everything dimmed to black as the soldiers and their lights moved further down the tunnel, leaving him to his fate. Once all of the light had left the room, the walls began to glow a fluorescent green from bioluminescence from the pale moss that clung to various surfaces. He could see that in the dark, the scorpions had a striped blue glow pattern on them. He could see moving blue lines in the cracks in the chamber''s surfaces as more scorpions poured out and pursued the soldiers down the tunnel. Ryan¡¯s vision began to go fuzzy as he lost consciousness. Chapter 13: A Bloody Morning Star After a few days of following the river and hunting some wildlife along the way, Yore looked much more like a gruesome survivalist. His clothes were additionally torn from numerous fights with bears and wolves. However, he now wore crude hide pelts over his torn clothes and carried meat that he had dried in his satchel. He knew that the scent of the meat was what kept attracting the bears and wolves to him, but he knew he needed to learn to fight better to stop dying so damn much. Honestly, he had gotten pretty good over the last few days. Yesterday he had fought a pack of six wolves and came out with only one bite and a handful of scratches. He was getting better at controlling multiple blood weapon projectiles such as kunai, darts, and daggers while fending off any attackers. He would start with an opening attack that usually surprised the group and then would go in for the first creature that would recover from the disorientation. It seemed like an effective strategy and he could use the initial injuries to poison the creatures, making the rest of the fight easier for him. Now he was strolling along the river, chewing on some bear jerky, chatting with Morrow. ¡°Hey Morrow,¡± Yore said. ¡°Do you think that there were other portals that brought people here? We haven¡¯t seen any more people since that first day and I¡¯m wondering if we were the only ones.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure,¡± Morrow replied. ¡°I¡¯ve been with you the whole time and like you said, we haven¡¯t seen anyone else. But I think it is possible. Do you want there to be more of your people here?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. It would be nice if I wasn¡¯t the only survivor, but I also wouldn¡¯t wish the travesty that we went through on anyone else. People were dying before they even knew what was going on.¡± Just then, they heard a clicking noise that seemed to echo through the woods. Yore stopped in his tracks and listened to try to hear where it was coming from. While doing so, Morrow entered Yore¡¯s body as part of their pre-combat routine that they had developed over the past few days. More clicking noises came. Then Yore heard some shuffling off to his right and saw a trail of tall undergrowth swaying as a creature moved to flank him and he readied himself. Then he heard a screech from above. He turned his gaze upward and saw two Mantis armed creatures leaping at him from the canopies. These creatures looked like xenomorphs from some scary movies Yore had watched in his last life. They had elongated heads, razor sharp teeth, and a pair of bladed arms. They would be about a meter tall standing, and about a meter and a half long. Yore dubbed them Mantises based on their arms and lack of a better name for them. Yore side-stepped one of the two leaping down on him and thrust his spear into the open mouth of the other, while simultaneously launching blood darts out from his hide skin cloak at the first leaping Mantis and the one flanking him through the undergrowth. The thrust spear entered into the second leaping Mantis¡¯ mouth and spear head exited out the top of its head, the spear head guard stopping the head from traveling down the spear shaft and the Mantis¡¯ body going limp on the spear as it loosely dangled from the end. Yore twirled around, the spear morphing in his hand as he did so, letting the Mantis it held fall to the ground. The spear re-morphed back into its original shape, but backwards from how Yore had been holding it, the spearhead now at the other end of the shaft. As the spear was pulled out from the Mantis, a geyser of blood sprayed out of its mouth with it. The spray formed dozens of tiny blood darts that shot out in the direction of the flanking Mantis, while Yore plunged the new spearhead into the side of the Mantis that missed its leap on him.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. As the spear pierced the side of the Mantis with a loud crunch as it punctured the creature¡¯s carapace. Blood iron spikes then burst out of its torso in all directions with an array of crunches as the carapace ruptured from the inside out, making the Mantis appear like a bloody morning star. It let out a screech as it died. The spikes then retracted and Yore pulled the spear out of its torso and reformed it to have the spearhead at the front end once again and turned to the Mantis flanking him through the brush. As the third Mantis stumbled out of the brush at him, slowed and injured from all of the darts, he spartan kicked it in the side of the head. Its head twisted with a loud crack as Yore followed up by skewering it in the torso and bursting blood iron spikes out of it, just like the second Mantis. Yore retracted the spikes and withdrew his spear, readying himself for more, but none came. Then the bodies began to deflate, with black smoke escaping from their corpses. The smoke however didn¡¯t disperse into the air, instead it gathered around Yore as his body began to absorb it. The smoke smelled putrid like someone was burning the corpses from the inside. Yore gagged as he was inundated by the foul smoke. ¡°Morrow,¡± Yore coughed out. ¡°What was that?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure, but I feel invigorated by it. What about you?¡± Once all of the smoke was absorbed and Yore stopped gagging from the smell of it. Yore took a minute and reflected on his senses. He did feel good. It was like he just woke up from the most refreshing night of sleep. ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re right Morrow. I feel good. Well aside from wanting to hurl my guts out from that smell. But other than that, I feel refreshed. How come the other animals didn¡¯t do that when we killed them?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. Why don¡¯t we check their corpses and see if there was anything different about them.¡± ¡°Good idea,¡± Yore replied as he moved closer to one of the corpses. The body seemed hollow, like all of its insides had simply evaporated, leaving its carapace behind like an empty shell. Yore gravely looked at it for a moment, hesitating to get closer. ¡°I swear, if there are face hugging spiders in these woods, we are turning around Morrow!¡± Yore cautiously got closer to the corpse and looked inside the burst open chest cavity from his morning star burst. He could see something glisten in the sunlight that shown down through the wooded canopy above. It was about where he would have expected the creature''s heart to be. He reached inside the hole in its chest and pulled out what appeared to be a black stone, about the size of his palm. It looked like obsidian. ¡°Hey Morrow. Do you have any idea what this is?¡± ¡°There is a familiarity to it, but I¡¯m not sure. It¡¯s like I should know what it is, but don¡¯t. Sorry Yore.¡± ¡°No worries, just checking. Either way, I¡¯ll gladly take gemstones from creatures. After all, it doesn¡¯t seem to have any blood left for us to take. Maybe we can sell these if we come across a town or something.¡± After mentioning the lack of blood to Morrow, Yore inquisitively looked over to where he had killed the third Mantis. It still had the blood darts stuck in its carapace. Even the ones that he had formed using the first Mantis¡¯ blood. With a thought, Yore recalled the darts and they flew back into his hide skin cloak. ¡°That¡¯s funny. The blood weapons I created during the fight didn¡¯t evaporate into that awful smoke. I wonder why that is.¡± ¡°It is probably because you claimed that blood to make weapons out of it and it no longer belonged to the creature. It¡¯s like the blood I¡¯ve absorbed from your previous fights. I sense that it belongs to us now and not the creatures it came from.¡± ¡°Hmm. I guess that makes sense. We¡¯ll have to try draining one completely before it evaporates and see if that affects how much smoke comes out of these things. Anyway, I guess we should check the other corpses and see if they have gems in them as well.¡± Yore checked the remaining two corpses and each of them had a similar obsidian gem, roughly the same size and shape as the other one. He collected them into his satchel and they began to move once again, this time in the direction that the creatures came from, leading them away from their river, but in the roughly same direction. Morrow didn¡¯t reemerge, seeing that they were now on the hunt and wanted to avoid unnecessary danger. Chapter 14: Anthony Bear After traveling about 30 minutes, Yore and Morrow came across a gruesome sight. In a small clearing, there was blood splattered everywhere. It looked like someone tried to paint the clearing in blood. However, there were only two Mantis bodies and a Human arm that Yore could find. ¡°Well, it appears that there were other survivors. Whether they are still survivors looks unlikely,¡± Yore said solemnly. ¡°Hey, if people made it this long after the Wyvern attack, it is likely that there were other survivors or even other portals like you were asking.¡± Yore perked up. ¡°You¡¯re right. This is too fresh to be from over a week ago, and we are too far for this group to have likely wandered here from our portal. There must have been other portals!¡± ¡°I agree,¡± Morrow chirped with Yore¡¯s excited attitude. ¡°Maybe next time you won¡¯t die alone!¡± Yore jubilance ground to a halt. ¡°Very funny Morrow, but you¡¯re with me.¡± ¡°That doesn¡¯t count, I¡¯m a part of you. It is like you¡¯re dying with yourself by your side.¡± ¡°That¡¯s just sad.¡± ¡°That is what I¡¯m saying.¡± ¡°Prick!¡± Yore looked over at the Mantis remains. They were already hollowed out, however one of them had its skull crushed and was missing an arm. The other one had a third arm shoved into its chest and was most likely the missing arm from the first mantis. Whatever happened here looked like it had been a brutal fight. The only non-Mantis remains was the Human arm, but there was way too much blood to be one person¡¯s. The Mantises must have dragged off the corpses afterwards. ¡°Hey Yore, why don¡¯t you see if these bodies have gems in them like the others we killed.¡± ¡°Good idea Morrow!¡± Yore checked and sure enough, there were gems in the chests right where the others had been. Yore added them to his satchel and began following the tracks most likely left from the dragged off missing bodies. After a couple of minutes of cautiously following the tracks, Yore heard something. ¡°Psspt! Psspt!¡± Yore looked around for where the noise was coming from and was then hit with a stone. Yore whipped around to the direction the stone hit him from and saw a man behind a tree waving at him. A SURVIVOR! Once they made eye contact, the man held a finger to his mouth making a shushing gesture and waved Yore over. Yore got the message and obliged. Cautiously he made his way to the man. When Yore reached the man, he saw that he was a beast of a man. He was about two meters tall and built like a bear. His clothes were torn and he was all scratched up and wielded what looked like a Mantis¡¯ claw arm. ¡°Are you hunting these aliens too,¡± the bear man asked Yore. ¡°Haha, I thought they looked like aliens too,¡± chuckled Yore. ¡°Yeah, I was attacked by a group a few kilometers back and then found a bloody mess a little ways from here.¡± The bear man gave Yore a funny look. ¡°You seem to take slaughter pretty light-heartedly,¡± the man admonished Yore. ¡°Those monsters tore my friends apart, not too far from here. I killed two while they were slaughtered and chased them back to this here portal. That was three days ago. Ever since I¡¯ve been hunting smaller groups that have been coming out, but a bigger one hauled my friends¡¯ corpses back to their portal two days ago.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry for your loss,¡± Yore said. ¡°My names Yore and I would be happy to help you if I can.¡± Yore extended a hand to shake. ¡°Anthony [an-thuh-nee] Bear [bair],¡± the man said as he took Yore¡¯s hand and shook it. Yore thought how ironic it was that the man looking like he ate a bear, had Bear for a last name. ¡°We shouldn¡¯t stay here,¡± Anthony said. ¡°The portal that they come from is less than a mile in that direction. We should get to shelter and see what we can do for one another.¡± ¡°Agreed,¡± Yore said. Yore thought to himself that this must have been an American if he was using the imperial system of measurement instead of metric. Or maybe he was from the UK or Australia. Either way, he understood both, so he knew what Anthony meant.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Yore followed Anthony as they cautiously and quietly left the area. Anthony led Yore back to a cave opening in a hillside a few kilometers away. Anthony had clearly made camp here. ¡°So tell me,¡± Anthony said. ¡°You look pretty prepared. Were you a trapper or something before the portal spit you out here a few days ago?¡± ¡°A few days? I¡¯ve been roaming around for over a week.¡± ¡°So there were other portals then! We were wondering if ours was the only one. Do you have any idea where we ended up or what those creatures are?¡± ¡°I might be the only survivor from mine. I¡¯m not sure though. A Wyvern attacked as we got dumped out of mine and it¡¯s been one thing after another ever since. I have no idea where we are. I¡¯ve been following the river downstream and haven¡¯t come across any recognizable landmarks or cities. I¡¯m starting to think we aren¡¯t even on Earth anymore.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry. Did you come through with family or friends? When we arrived my friends and I decided to follow the river downstream and my brother and his friends decided to follow it upstream. We were supposed to meet back up after a week to decide which way to follow or sooner if one of us found civilization. You didn¡¯t happen to come across them did you? My brother¡¯s name is Thomas [tom-uhs] and looks a lot like me in size and facial features.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know if I came through with anyone. I don¡¯t remember much about myself or family before arriving here. Also no, you¡¯re the first Human I¡¯ve come across since arriving. I¡¯ve seen Wyverns, Giants, Minotaurs, bears, wolves, and those Mantis alien things, but no other Humans.¡± ¡°Wyverns, Giants, and Minotaurs huh? It definitely doesn¡¯t sound like Earth anymore. You¡¯ve had one heck of a run if you¡¯ve already seen all of that. Lucky you¡¯re still alive!¡± ¡°Yeah, you could say that.¡± ¡°What have you been eating to survive? Those Mantises, that you call them, all have their meat dissolve when they die. I¡¯ve been eating nuts and acorns that I¡¯ve been able to scavenge. Those Mantises have killed and dragged off any nearby meat.¡± ¡°Here, I¡¯ve got some bear and wolf jerky. Take your pick.¡± ¡°Really?! You¡¯re a lifesaver Yore!¡± As Yore pulled out some of each and offered it to Anthony, Anthony took it all and started horking down as much of it as fast as he could. ¡°This is delicious compared to what I¡¯ve been having! I could kiss you. Thank you so much!¡± ¡°Here wash it down with some water. It¡¯s really dry. I didn¡¯t know how long I¡¯d need it to last which is why I turned it all into jerky.¡± Anthony took the waterskin and took a few big gulps before shoving more of the jerky into his face again. ¡°Hey Anthony, what is your plan for those Mantises?¡± Yore asked him while he ate. Between mouthfuls Anthony replied, ¡°I¡¯ve been trying to kill the ones that go upstream. I figured I¡¯d hold out before heading back to meet with my brother and his friends, that way the Mantises don¡¯t surprise them. I also figured I could whittle down their numbers, but there are just so damn many of them. They usually travel in packs of three to six though. I¡¯ve been just picking off the packs of three and hiding from the bigger groups.¡± ¡°Have you been collecting the gems from them?¡± Yore asked, pulling an obsidian gem out of his satchel and handed it to Anthony. Taking the gem to look at, Anthony replied, ¡°No. Where have you been getting those?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been pulling them out of their chests after their innards dissolve.¡± ¡°I never thought to look in their chests. I¡¯ve been using their arms as weapons, but they seem to be hollow once they evaporate into smoke.¡± ¡°How have you been dealing with that awful smoke when they dissolve?¡± ¡°That¡¯s easy, just stay away from their corpses. I only recover their arms while fighting them or after the smoke has cleared. That stuff is rancid!¡± Yore realizing that the smoke didn¡¯t seek out Anthony like it did him, thought for a moment whether or not to tell him about his experience with the smoke. ¡°Hey Yore, where did you get your spear from? Did you get it from the Giants or Minotaurs that you mentioned? It looks like a tetanus pole to me, all rusty like that.¡± ¡°Yeah, I got it from the Minotaur. The Giants I mentioned ended up killing it and leaving its weapons behind. Along with the spear, I also got some daggers that are just as gnarly looking.¡± As Yore was talking, he morphed all of his blood iron darts into daggers in his cloak and then opened his cloak to show them off. Anthony whistled. ¡°Those do look gnarly! I wouldn¡¯t want to scratch myself with one of those.¡± ¡°Yeah, if it wasn¡¯t for those Giants, I wouldn¡¯t be armed at all,¡± Yore lied. ¡°Thankfully one Giant¡¯s trash is another man¡¯s treasure.¡± Anthony chuckled at Yore¡¯s quip. ¡°So would you like help killing those things Anthony? I¡¯d be more than happy to split the gems with you. I¡¯m not really sure what they are worth, but they seem to be like they could be worth something to whatever civilization is out there. Maybe those Giants have a use for them.¡± ¡°Yeah, I really don¡¯t want those fucking things getting too far and finding my brother¡¯s party. Plus I really hate them after they tore my friends apart.¡± Any mirth that had been between them, now leaving the room as the conversation turned back to the heaviness of death. ¡°Do you have a plan,¡± Yore asked Anthony. ¡°I¡¯ve been just picking off the small groups because it is just me out there fighting. Based on your stories, you seem capable, but I haven¡¯t seen you in action. I think we should take on a group of three or four and see how plausible it would be to take on the bigger ones.¡± ¡°I can get behind that. Let¡¯s do it,¡± Yore agreed with a joyful fa?ade. Yore wasn¡¯t sure how he would explain absorbing the smoke. He knew it had to do something with having a familiar and Morrow¡¯s unknown familiarity to the gems. He hoped the problem would solve itself or that Anthony would be accepting once something weird happened. ¡°Let¡¯s head back to where we found each other then. I don¡¯t like leaving the river open for too long,¡± Anthony said as he got up and grabbed his Mantis arm. ¡°Let¡¯s do it,¡± Yore agreed. Chapter 15: Huffing Monster Smoke As Yore and Anthony reached the area that they had met, they saw three Mantises leaping from tree top to tree top. Both Yore and Anthony crouched in the brush. They hadn¡¯t been spotted it seemed. Anthony tapped Yore¡¯s shoulder and Yore looked at him. Anthony gestured for three up high and one or two down on the ground and waved them back. Yore shook his head and silently gestured that he had the three up top and Anthony should take the two down below. Anthony gave him an unhappy glare, but eventually nodded in agreement. Yore burst into action, launching three blood iron daggers out of his cloak, making it appear like he threw them. All three found their marks with crunches as they pierced the chest carapaces on the three Mantises leaping between trees. One slammed into a tree with a screech and hit the ground with a loud crunch. The other two missed the trees they were jumping to and skidded across the ground. Yore started focusing on poisoning their blood as the two that skidded got to their feet and reoriented themselves. However, Yore couldn¡¯t poison the blood of the one that slammed into the tree. It must have died on impact. Yore picked up his spear and started to run to the two that were recovering from their falls. Two Mantis heads popped up out of the brush to look at their fallen brethren and saw Yore moving to intercept. They took off to flank him before he reached the others. That was when Anthony popped out of the bush in front of one of them, swinging his Mantis claw like a baseball bat on the rushing Mantis, cleaving it from shoulder to side, immediately killing it with a loud crunch as the claw cleaved through its carapace. The second ground Mantis turned to where its brethren was just cleaved in two and leaped at Anthony, claws primed and ready to stab him. Anthony continued his momentum from the swing to whirl around and bolted at the second ground Mantis. He ducked low and to the side as it stabbed straight down at him and he cleaved its leg off with a swing of his claw weapon. As the Mantis landed from its leap, it fell and rolled where it missed its leg to land on. It got up, holding itself up on its claws now that it couldn¡¯t stand on its legs. Anthony smiled at the beast, knowing that he had it, now that it needed to use its claws to stand. The Mantis screeched at Anthony as he rushed it, Anthony holding his claw in the air, ready to skewer the Mantis. The Mantis tried to raise its claws to fight back and collapsed instead. Anthony plunged his claw into the base of the neck of the creature, stomped on one of its claws, let go of his claw, grabbed the creature''s other claw, and then proceeded to curbstomp its skull. Each stomp was answered with a loud cracking sound until a final crunch rang out as its head caved in. Anthony pulled his claw out of the neck of the creature and began to move in Yore¡¯s direction. As he did, he watched as Yore twirled his spear with a Mantis stuck on the end around and flung it off at the second Mantis he was engaged with, both the corpse and the living one falling to the ground in a heap from the impact. Yore then plunged his spear in the chest of the incapacitated Mantis, finishing it off. Anthony slowed his pace as he reached Yore. ¡°Where is the fifth one?¡± Anthony asked as he reached him. ¡°It died on impact from hitting the tree and falling to the ground.¡± ¡°Are you sure?¡± Anthony asked worriedly. Just then, the Mantises started to break down into smoke. As they did, most of the smoke gathered on Yore, and Anthony quickly stepped back, shocked. Then, scrunching his face from the putrid smell, Anthony looked down and saw that the smoke from one of the Mantises was gathering in his pocket, where he still had one of the gems that Yore had handed him. Anthony pulled the gem out and dropped it as he fell to the ground vomiting from the foul odor.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Yore looked at Anthony with pity as he endured the smell himself. The smoke was much more concentrated on Yore being that four out of the five creature¡¯s smoke was gathering on him as his body absorbed the smoke. After all of the smoke was gone, Yore approached Anthony. ¡°Are you alright? That stuff is god awful!¡± Anthony finally recovered and looked back at the stone that he had dropped. Now it had a cloudy swirl to the obsidian of the stone. He picked it up and held it up to Yore. ¡°It is a lot more difficult to avoid that stuff when you are carrying these,¡± Anthony said, holding up the gem. ¡°Yeah it is!¡± Yore agreed. ¡°I¡¯ve never had any on me before this, so that was a new experience.¡± They both looked at the gem inquisitively. ¡°I wonder what¡¯s up with it,¡± Yore wondered aloud. ¡°It feels strange,¡± Anthony replied. ¡°My hand is tingly holding it. It¡¯s almost like we charged it with that smoke like a battery or something. I kind of like it.¡± Anthony gripped the stone a little harder, enjoying the sensation. Then, abruptly the swirls began leaking out of the gem in the form of smoke. It slowly gathered around the stone and then began to move towards Anthony¡¯s face. ¡°Well shit!¡± Anthony exclaimed as the smoke proceeded to enter his nostrils, and mouth. Yore quickly stepped back, afraid to be in the splash zone if Anthony hurled out more jerky. Anthony dropped to the ground, gem still in hand, and began dry heaving, as there was nothing left in his stomach. After a moment, smoke stopped coming out of the gem and Anthony was able to recover. The gem, now back to its matte obsidian appearance. ¡°Are you alright?¡± Yore asked Anthony, concerned for him. ¡°Yeah. Surprisingly so. I actually feel great aside from puking my guts out. These gems that you¡¯ve found are both the best and worst thing I have felt since we arrived. What the hell are they?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, but that looked pretty awful. You can keep that.¡± ¡°We should check these corpses for more.¡± ¡°Really? I wouldn¡¯t think you¡¯d want to go through something like that again.¡± ¡°No, but it is kind of worth it. I¡¯m not hungry anymore and I feel pretty refreshed. It¡¯s really miserable at first, but after that it¡¯s great. What about yours? Didn¡¯t you say you had more of those stones? I saw the smoke gathering to you too. You should try one.¡± ¡°No thanks, you didn¡¯t make that look all that fun.¡± ¡°Your loss. You said that we could split these right? I¡¯ll take the ones from the two I killed.¡± Anthony hurried off to where he killed his Mantises. While he did, Yore looked in his satchel and saw that one of the two gems he still had on him had a smoky swirl to it. The other one was matte obsidian. Yore must have directly absorbed the smoke from the three he killed and the other one Anthony had killed must have been absorbed by the gem. Yore then turned and collected the gems from the three that he killed and the weapons he had thrown at them. Anthony then came back to him. ¡°It seems like when you kill these things, they leave empty gems and killing more charge the gems you already have. Fascinating! Want to hunt some more down? We tore through that group of five pretty easily.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s slow down a bit. You¡¯re a little over excited, like you¡¯re hopped up on something. The last thing we need is for one of us to get relaxed and get one of us killed.¡± ¡°I think you¡¯re right. I¡¯ve never been high before, but if this is what it feels like, I understand why people do drugs.¡± ¡°Sure, but drugs also cripple and kill people. Maybe ingesting monsters isn¡¯t the healthiest thing for the body.¡± Yore was concerned. He felt replenished like Anthony, but definitely didn¡¯t feel high when he absorbed the smoke. Maybe his body processed it differently. Maybe it was because he absorbed it directly instead of from a gem. He wasn¡¯t sure what to think of it or why the experience was different. But he was glad that Anthony hadn¡¯t noticed that he was absorbing the smoke directly and asking questions about it. ¡°It feels pretty healthy, but I get the point. Especially about getting relaxed. My friends died to these things the other day and now I¡¯m the one taking it too lightly. Thanks Yore. Let¡¯s go back to my camp and take a bit. I want this to wear off before we fight again.¡± ¡°Sounds like a plan. You should probably have something to eat again so that you have something else to throw up the next time you go huffing monster smoke.¡± Anthony let out a guttural laugh that echoed out. ¡°That wasn¡¯t that funny. We should get going,¡± Yore said as he was looking around. Then there was a loud screech that rang out in the woods. ¡°Shit!¡± Anthony exclaimed. ¡°Here they come,¡± Yore said, preparing for combat. Chapter 16: Chuckles Yore and Anthony were heading back to the camp to see if they could hide out instead of fighting a swarm of these monsters. Best case was that they could get away undetected and continue gorilla tactics. Not-so-bad case was that they had to fight off a small group or two. Worst case was a huge swarm had their location and were bearing down on them. They were about half way back when Yore stopped in a clearing after seeing a lot of movement in the underbrush. He guessed about six of the Mantis creatures were heading in their direction. He didn¡¯t see any up in the trees though. They may have been rushing too fast for them to climb and leap their way to them. This seemed more like the Mantises were in a mad dash for them. Out of the corner of Yore¡¯s eye, he saw more movement that was still a ways out. Anthony noticed that Yore had stopped. He turned and saw the inbound hostiles. Anthony came back and prepared his Mantis claw. ¡°If I go down,¡± Yore said, ¡°leave me. Get out of here and get to safety.¡± ¡°No way. I caused this mess, I won¡¯t leave¡­¡± ¡°Fucking do it!¡± Yore snapped. ¡°We both don¡¯t need to die.¡± Anthony reluctantly nodded, respecting Yore¡¯s wish and understanding the sentiment behind it, unaware of the difference in danger between the two men. If Yore died, Morrow would bring him back, but there was no guarantee for Anthony. Not unless he turned out to be like Yore and was hiding a familiar of his own. With that, the first Mantises reached them. Yore opened by throwing daggers at the first two Mantises, which slowed them down. Yore then threw a few small darts that Anthony hadn¡¯t seen before at the remaining four, not doing much to slow them down even though they found their marks. ¡°I¡¯ve got these, focus on the next group to the left,¡± Yore said as he shot off toward the group. Anthony turned and saw the group of three and moved to engage them. With Anthony focused on his own group, Yore felt a bit more confident in using the blood mage fighting style that he had been developing. Yore threw his spear at the Mantis in the lead. It pierced its chest with a crack and a bloody morning star burst from its torso and was already retracting by the time Yore reached the spear shaft and was twirling around to swing at the next Mantis. Mid swing, the spear reformed itself into a warhammer. The hammer made contact with the second Mantis¡¯ head and with a loud crunch splattered the once head. The splattered blood from the eviscerated head shot out and formed thin arrow shafts that all pierced a third Mantis. Yore wasn¡¯t holding back. He just found another survivor and he¡¯d be damned if he was going to let him die and be all by himself again. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen you fight like this Yore,¡± Morrow quipped. ¡°I¡¯m really impressed.¡± ¡°Not the time buddy,¡± Yore thought back at Morrow. ¡°Right!¡± After disintegrating the Mantis head with the warhammer, Yore let go of the weapon and it flung off into the distance. He grabbed a leaping Mantis¡¯ arms, right below the serrated parts and spartan kicked the mid-air Mantis square in the head while pulling on the arms. The head crunched, the arms cracked, popped, and detached. The fourth, armless Mantis fell to the ground and Yore, with a thick blood iron boot stomped once on its skull, caving it in with a loud crunch. Yore dropped the Mantis arms and kicked out his foot at the fifth Mantis, the blood iron boot melted and shot out, forming a sword sized javelin that punctured the Mantis¡¯ head and morning starred as the hammer came swirling back in, now reshaped into a saw blade that bisected the sixth Mantis in one elegant movement and imbedded into a tree. Yore recalled all of the blood weapons back into his cloak in the form of daggers and darts, and reshaped the saw blade back into a spear and grabbed it. Yore then turned to Anthony, who had already killed one of his Mantis¡¯ and was in a standoff with the other two, each waiting for the other to make a move before pouncing into action. Anthony knew he was in trouble as soon as the momentum died after cleaving the first of three Mantises. Pretty much, as soon as he moved to attack one of the remaining two, the other would leap on him and kill him. Out of nowhere, a spear pierced one of the Mantises and pinned it to the tree behind where it was standing. The other Mantis leaped into action, but Anthony was ready and stepped to the side while swinging his Mantis claw like a bat, cleaving it in two at the stomach and it fell to the ground. ¡°Seriously?¡± Anthony said. ¡°You¡¯re already done with yours?¡± Anthony turned to face Yore, who was painted in Mantis blood and saw the carnage behind him. ¡°What the fuck happened?!¡± Anthony exclaimed. ¡°Now isn¡¯t the time. There are probably more on their way.¡± That was when a roar sounded out. This one similar, but unlike the screeches they had heard before. This one was more guttural and deeper in tone. Both Yore and Anthony looked where the noise came from, coming from the same direction as the original group that Yore massacred. They saw a seven foot Mantis, with four claw arms and a crowned shaped head come stomping their way. It was accompanied by four of the regular Mantises, all in a wedge formation. ¡°Well this doesn¡¯t look good,¡± Yore said. ¡°My safe word is chuckles.¡± This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Anthony turned to Yore as Yore took off. ¡°That¡¯s not funny.¡± ¡°It¡¯ll be if we survive this!¡± ¡°No. I really don¡¯t think it will,¡± Anthony said as he went after Yore. ¡°I¡¯ll take the big one. Keep the small ones off me.¡± ¡°Got it.¡± Yore threw daggers at the two Mantis on the big ones left and darts at the ones on its right. The daggers hit the two on its left right between the eyes and they went down immediately. The darts hit the other two, but they didn¡¯t slow down. Yore thrust his spear at the big one, which caught and redirected the spear with its bottom two claws. It then swiped at him with the top two. Yore ducked beneath the swipes. Yore reformed the spearhead into a scythe blade, but the monstrous Mantis snapped the spear shaft in the middle, flinging the scythe end off to the side. Anthony started great with his Mantises. By the time he had reached them, they seemed sluggish and he had immediately cleaved the first one in half. The second one didn¡¯t hesitate though and had pounced on him, pinning him to the ground. It proceeded to try to stab at Anthony¡¯s face. He was using his claw weapon to deflect its stabs. Yore had reformed his half of the spear shaft into a shortsword and he had tapped into his reserves to form a shield on his left arm. The monstrous Mantis wasn¡¯t leaving any openings for Yore. Between having four claws and having a larger stature, it kept Yore on the defensive, forcing him to have to block, parry, or dodge its many furious swings at him. Yore managed to fire out some darts, however they couldn¡¯t penetrate the Mantis¡¯ carapace. Instead, Yore tried firing high velocity blood iron arrow sized needles at the creature. These actually succeeded in piercing it. The needles melting down and invading the Mantis¡¯ blood stream, which also left open wounds for the Mantis to bleed from. The large Mantis was infuriated by this tiny creature''s ability to evade its claws and still fire projectiles at it. It swung wildly in anger. Just then the black smoke began to rise from the three corpses surrounding them. One moved toward Anthony and his pocket that contained an empty gem. Noticing Anthony held his breath. Regretfully, the putrid odor of the smoke didn¡¯t seem to have an affect on the Mantis on top of him. Yore also noticed the two corpses worth of smoke wafting his way and thought to himself, ¡°not now! I really wish this stuff would fill these gems instead of swarming me.¡± Just then, to Yore¡¯s surprise, the smoke moved toward his satchel instead of surrounding him. However, this distracted Yore and the large Mantis took notice of the opening and it took a hard and fast swing at Yore¡¯s shield. The shield dented inward and everyone could hear the snap of bone as Yore yelled out in agony. The Mantis capitalized further on the opening and swung its lower left claw in an uppercut, catching Yore in the gut, skewering him and lifting him off of the ground. Panic set in. This time, not just the fear of death as Yore¡¯s natural self preservation instincts took over, but also the fear of loss. Yore had hoped that he had just made a friend and now, without him to defend Anthony, he didn¡¯t think Anthony would survive this encounter. Yore looked over at the Mantis pinning Anthony down and focused on its blood. He had already infected its entire system with his blood poisoning and it was very sluggish, but Yore feared that wouldn¡¯t be enough. He needed to give Anthony an out. Yore focused on the blood flowing through the creature''s veins. Pinpointing the blood flow to its brain, Yore gathered some of his claimed blood in its neck along the path and formed iron chunks, stopping the flow to its brain. The creature shook its head a bit, the toothy maw going a bit slack on its left side. It then went limp on its left side and collapsed. Anthony capitalized on the creature''s sudden weakness as it suffered an unexpected stroke, pushing it off of him and stabbing it with his claw weapon. He looked over to Yore, who was now suspended in the air by a claw through his gut. Anthony could also hear the sound of thudding footsteps getting closer. Yore looked Anthony in the eyes and said ¡°run!¡± as the large Mantis swiped with one of its upper arms, decapitating Yore. Just then a crack of thunder boomed out as lightning struck the large Mantis in the side and it dropped Yore¡¯s limp corpse to the ground. Anthony, shook himself out of the daze he found himself in, fighting off the shell shock and hurried over to Yore¡¯s headless body. He wrapped his arms under his armpits and started dragging the corpse back towards his cave. As he did, three Giant knights appeared, two in copper plate armor and one in bronze. The large Mantis roared out as the bronze knight rushed it, while the two coppers moved to guard its flanks. The Mantis furiously swiped at the knight, but in one motion it ducked under the Mantis¡¯ swipes and cleaved its right leg off. As the Mantis fell to the ground on its side, the knight raised its huge sword above its head and brought it down, decapitating the Mantis. As the massive creature died, more deep roars rang out in the woods towards the Mantis¡¯ portal. Were there more of those hulking monstrosities out there? Anthony wasn¡¯t sticking around to find out as he continued dragging Yore¡¯s corpse away. The bronze knight turned to the other two and said, ¡°The Ant incursion must be nearby. Keep an eye out for more of their warriors. We need to enter and slay their queen to close the portal before they get out of hand.¡± And with that the knights took off in the direction of the roars and toward the Mantis portal, not paying any attention to Anthony as he hauled off the corpse. After a while, Anthony finally reached his cave with Yore¡¯s headless body. He finally put it down, just outside of the cave and collapsed to his knees in sobs. ¡°It¡¯s all my fault. I attracted them. I was so stupid. You were just trying to help.¡± Anthony sobbed. ¡°I couldn¡¯t save my friends and the first person I meet, I end up getting him killed. I guess the least that I can do for you now is to burn your body so that they can¡¯t haul you off like the others. Then I¡¯m out of here, there is no way I can fight those things.¡± Anthony got to his feet and started scavenging for large sticks to start a fire. Once Anthony left, Morrow emerged from Yore¡¯s neck, where his head used to be. Blood began filling the hole in Yore¡¯s gut as well as starting to form a new head, hair and all. Once his chest had finished filling in and his head regrowing, Yore sat up with a gasp. Yore looked around frantically. Realizing he was back at Anthony¡¯s camp, Yore turned to Morrow who was now fluttering nearby. ¡°Morrow, where is Anthony?¡± Yore asked. ¡°What happened to him?¡± ¡°He dragged you all of the way back to his camp,¡± Morrow responded. ¡°He just left to get wood to burn your body. I really didn¡¯t want to revive you from cinders, so I brought you back as soon as he was out of sight.¡± Just then Anthony, who had just returned with an arm full of large sticks, dropped his bundle as Yore made eye contact with him. ¡°What the fuck?!¡± Anthony got out. ¡°Hey there chuckles,¡± Yore awkwardly said to him. Chapter 17: Head On My Shoulders ¡°Hey there, chuckles,¡± Yore awkwardly said to him. ¡°That¡¯s still not funny! How the hell are you alive?! Your head was missing! I watched it get cut off! And what the hell is that thing?!¡± ¡°Listen, I can kind of explain.¡± ¡°Oh? You can KIND OF explain? You better do a lot better than that!¡± ¡°Alright, stop shouting and hear me out. I haven¡¯t told you everything. We just met. You know, first date rules.¡± Anthony quickly shut up, realizing how loud he was being and what trouble that had already brought them. ¡°Ooo! That¡¯s a good one,¡± Morrow quipped. ¡°Oh god,¡± Anthony cried. ¡°Why is that thing screeching like that?¡± ¡°Screeching?¡± Yore mused while looking at Morrow. ¡°Can he not understand you?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so,¡± Morrow answered. ¡°I¡¯ve only spoken to you in private before. This is a first for me.¡± ¡°Anthony, this is Morrow,¡± Yore introduced. ¡°Morrow is. Well. He is my familiar. He kind of brings me back when I die. Well, not kind of, he entirely brings me back when I die.¡± ¡°When you DIE?!¡± Anthony repeated. ¡°Shh! Yeah. It¡¯s been a rough week. I just didn¡¯t mention before how rough it¡¯s been. I¡¯ve died¡­ Morrow, how many times have I died now?¡± Yore asked Morrow. ¡°Four times,¡± Morrow replied. ¡°Four times,¡± Yore repeated to Anthony. ¡°The first time was immediately coming through that portal with the Wyvern. I don¡¯t really remember that one since I hadn¡¯t really come to yet. The next time was also to the Wyvern. It boiled me alive and drowned me in a subterranean river. Then I died to that Minotaur, and now I¡¯ve died to that big Mantis thing.¡± ¡°Ant thing,¡± Anthony corrected. ¡°Some Giant knights showed up, killed it and called them Ants.¡± ¡°Giant knights you say,¡± Yore repeated. ¡°Were they about three meters tall¡­ er, about 10 feet tall and have copper or bronze plate armor?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Anthony answered. ¡°The one that killed the big Ant had bronze. I don¡¯t remember the others, but there were three of them. I was trying to get us out of there at the time.¡± ¡°Man, those guys can never show up on time, can they?¡± Yore said to himself. ¡°Do you know them?¡± Anthony asked. ¡°You mentioned them before.¡± ¡°No,¡± Yore answered. ¡°They showed up as I was killed by the Minotaur before. I¡¯d like to talk with them for once, but they kind of need to arrive while I¡¯m still alive for that to happen.¡± ¡°Ok, back to this whole dying thing,¡± Anthony refocused on the topic at hand and looked warily at Morrow. ¡°You mentioned that this thing¡­¡± ¡°Morrow¡± Yore corrected. ¡°...that Morrow brings you back from the dead and is your familiar?¡± ¡°That¡¯s right.¡± ¡°Did you summon it¡­ him or something?¡± ¡°Not really. As I understand it, he kind of hitched a ride on me as I came through the portal.¡± ¡°So I can¡¯t get one if I wanted to come back from the dead?¡± Yore hesitated, not sure if he should divulge details about Morrow. Anthony gave Yore a glare as he saw his hesitation to answer. Yore decided it wouldn¡¯t hurt since it wasn¡¯t like people could force a familiar to appear without first dying. ¡°Morrow told me that he couldn¡¯t manifest until my first death. That death is what brought him past just a bound, and into physical being. I think.¡± Yore looked at Morrow and Morrow wriggled as he fluttered in his form of a shrug. ¡°More or less,¡± Morrow confirmed to Yore. ¡°More or less,¡± Yore repeated to Anthony. ¡°So I won¡¯t know if I have a familiar that magically brings me back to life until I die?¡± Anthony asked in confirmation. ¡°Pretty much. Yeah.¡± Yore confirmed for him. ¡°Well, hello Morrow,¡± Anthony said to the leech-bat creature as he wiped the tear stains off of his face. Morrow screeched and wiggled back in response. ¡°Is there anything else I should be aware of other than the fact that you can¡¯t really die?¡± Anthony asked Yore. ¡°Oh, I can die. It just doesn¡¯t seem to stick,¡± Yore joked. ¡°But yeah. Try not to freak out.¡± ¡°Something more freaky than you coming back from being skewered and decapitated?¡± Anthony asked with horror in his eyes. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ¡°Maybe?¡± Yore answered with uncertainty. ¡°I¡¯m also a blood mage.¡± As Yore spoke he lifted his hand and blood came pouring out of him and formed a rusty blood iron spear in his hand as he grasped it. ¡°Those weapons weren¡¯t crude ones the Minotaur had made,¡± Yore stated hesitantly. ¡°I¡¯ve been creating them from my blood and the blood of the creatures I¡¯ve been fighting.¡± ¡°HOLY SHIT!¡± Anthony exclaimed. ¡°Wait a minute! Were you manipulating that Ant that had me pinned? It went all funny before you got killed.¡± Yore grimaced. ¡°Yeah, I poisoned its blood when I hit it with my darts. That¡¯s why it seemed sluggish. Then, when I knew that I was about to die, I needed to give you an escape, so I think I gave the one that had you pinned a stroke.¡± ¡°You what?¡± Anthony asked, amazed. ¡°I formed small iron pellets in the veins in its neck, blocking flow to its brain,¡± Yore answered. ¡°Why the hell didn¡¯t you do that to that warrior Ant you were fighting?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t really think of it until I needed to give you a way out and didn¡¯t have weapons as options. At that point I could have done it to the one I was fighting, but I was all but dead and you were pinned. I figured Morrow would bring me back, but there was no bringing you back if it killed you while I was down,¡± Yore said candidly. ¡°Wow,¡± Anthony responded. ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t mention it. You¡¯re the first person I¡¯ve come across other than those knights and you seem like a good person. If nothing else, I need a bit of that. Morrow here is kind of an ass hole.¡± Morrow screeched back at Yore. ¡°Yeah, well you didn¡¯t necessarily come with an instruction guide on how to use magic to stay alive, now did you? So yes, I keep dying. Thank you very much.¡± Anthony chuckled a bit. ¡°You know, you two aren¡¯t that bad. Mind if we stick together, at least for a bit?¡± ¡°Absolutely! But first we should go back and see if we can¡¯t make contact with those knights. They seem pretty capable from what you and Morrow have told me and we could use all of the help we can get.¡± Anthony looked nervously at Yore. ¡°Yeah, after you were killed, there were more roars from warrior Ants coming from the direction the portal was in. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m up for more fights with those.¡± Yore looked guilty. ¡°Listen, I was holding back a bit. Don¡¯t get me wrong, those warriors are a tough fight, but I wasn¡¯t sure how someone would react to the whole blood magic thing, so I wasn¡¯t going all out. Plus now I have a new trick that I learned with the stroke and all. At the very least, I can¡¯t leave those creatures to kill more people. You can stay here while I go and clear them out. If I die, I¡¯ll come back and be fine. Then I¡¯ll come get you once they¡¯re dead or I make contact with those knights.¡± Now it was Anthony¡¯s turn to look guilty. ¡°No, you¡¯re right. I¡¯ll come with you. If someone had cleared out those Ants before, my friends wouldn¡¯t be dead. I can¡¯t just leave them knowing they will attack someone else wandering through here, or if they go abroad. The nest needs to be eradicated. The knights did mention a queen, so at the very least we need to kill her to prevent more from spawning.¡± ¡°Sounds like a plan to me. Morrow, you ready?¡± Yore asked. Morrow screeched and then flew at the hole in Yore¡¯s shirt where he had been stabbed. Morrow bit him and quickly dissolved into Yore¡¯s flesh. Anthony was astonished at the sight of it. Yore winced. ¡°Sorry, I should have warned you about that. Being my familiar, Morrow can enter and exit my body at will. It doesn¡¯t hurt much more than an initial stab of pain from his bite, but I¡¯m pretty used to it at this point.¡± Anthony gave Yore a look like he was a crazy masochist and they headed out. Yore and Anthony had spent a significant amount of time talking at Anthony¡¯s camp after he had dragged Yore¡¯s corpse back there. On their return to the spot where their previous fight had taken place, they took it slow, staying on high alert for any Ant groups. Surprisingly, they didn¡¯t come across any along their way. When they got to the spot where Yore had been slain, they found the deflated corpses of four ants and the warrior ant. There were also Yore¡¯s weapons still in the remains, his broken scythe, and Yore¡¯s head. Which to Anthony was shocking to see an exact duplicate of the face, now regrown on Yore¡¯s shoulders. To say in the least, it was jarring. The head and weapons seemed to melt down into blood and seep in a path back to Yore. Anthony looked at Yore, not sure what to say or how to react. ¡°It¡¯s best we don¡¯t leave those things lying around,¡± Yore awkwardly stated. ¡°Plus I don¡¯t look that bad. I have a head on my shoulders and am doing just fine.¡± Anthony turned back to the scene and realized that all of the corpses had deflated. Even the warrior and the one that had him pinned. Neither of which had deflated by the time he had dragged Yore off. ¡°I think we missed out on gathering the essence of the warrior and the one you gave a stroke to,¡± Anthony stated. ¡°I guess they disperse if there is nothing around to gather them. Yore checked out the warrior Ant. Its chest had been cut open and there was no gem inside its chest cavity. ¡°Or, those knights harvested them while we were away,¡± Yore replied. ¡°Do any of those bodies have gems in them? This one is missing. I¡¯ll go check these two.¡± All five of the corpses in the immediate area were cut open and gems were missing. ¡°It definitely looks like someone already looted these,¡± Anthony said while breaking off a new claw arm to use as a weapon since he had left his to drag Yore off. ¡°Here,¡± Yore said as he handed Anthony a rusty blood iron longsword. ¡°It¡¯ll fare better than their claws and I can affect the blood of those that you cut or stab with it. It will allow me to assist you, even at a distance.¡± ¡°Good idea,¡± Anthony agreed as he tossed away his new claw and took the gnarly looking longsword by the hilt. ¡°Got a sheath for it?¡± ¡°No, but we can make one out of animal hides next chance we get,¡± Yore said. ¡°How about an axe instead?¡± Anthony asked. ¡°It¡¯ll be easier to carry around and I¡¯m better with them anyway. I chopped a lot of wood growing up.¡± The longsword morphed in Anthony¡¯s hands, into a two headed battle axe with curved edges. At the end of the shaft, between the heads, was a gnarly spike that jutted out. The grip was smoother and conformed to Anthony¡¯s grip, fitting far better than any wood cutting axe he had ever previously held. ¡°Thanks! This is perfect,¡± Anthony praised. Yore and Anthony headed in the direction of the portal. The air was deafeningly silent. Along their path, there were dozens of deflated corpses of both the regular Ants and a few warrior Ants scattered here and there. After a bit of travel, Anthony stood up straight and started looking around in a confused manner. ¡°What is it?¡± Yore asked. ¡°The portal should be here,¡± Anthony said. ¡°This is where they were all coming from. It¡¯s just gone.¡± ¡°I¡¯m guessing that the knights took care of it then,¡± Yore responded. ¡°Were there any other portals nearby that they were coming out of?¡± ¡°No, this is the only one that I was aware of.¡± Yore shrugged. ¡°What do you want to do then? I don¡¯t think there is anything else for us to handle.¡± ¡°I guess let¡¯s head back upstream to see if we can¡¯t find my brother¡¯s group,¡± Anthony answered. ¡°If the Ants are gone then I want to try to find them again.¡± ¡°We can do that. Do you have a rendezvous to meet him at?¡± ¡°Yeah, there was a spot where we planted a flag made from a torn white t-shirt and a big stick not too far from the river. That is where we were supposed to meet after a week.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s get moving then.¡± Chapter 18: Y鈥檃ll Are Traitors Vol had been riding in a makeshift, enclosed wagon that was pulled by large lizard creatures that the Giants rode. The Giants called these lizards Drakes. Vol was carted around like this for several days on his way to a place his captors called Atlas, stopping at mid day to eat and drink, and again at night to rest. Several times a day, they would also stop to add more people to the wagon as others met with them. After the first day, they needed a second wagon. On the third day, three more wagons joined theirs. On the fourth day, they were met with crowds of people, who were being marched along, too many to carry in wagons. Vol''s guess was that there were thousands. His captors turned out to be actual Giants, not just in description, but that seemed to be their actual race. Their armor colors seemed to signify ranks. The copper ones seemed to report to the bronze and the gold seemed to be in charge. A number of squads of Giants had joined their caravan with the humans that they had rounded up. Each squad had various compositions of ranks, however there was always a bronze or gold that led a squad. The Giants didn¡¯t talk to any of the humans individually. The most that they ever said to them was how long they had left until they reached their destination, which was apparently a city in the mountains. They could see the mountain range from the valley that they were crossing, but were told it would still be at least 3 more days. They would also tell everyone when a new group joined, that they were being brought to see the king of these lands, a Giant by the name of Sol, to get situated into shelter and be given purpose in these new lands. There were lots of rumors being spread around by the people in the caravan. The most popular theory was that we were no longer on Earth anymore and that those portals brought us all here, which apparently there were many. Each portal apparently dumped thousands of people off in random locations. Some in calmer settings, and some in the midst of monsters that proceeded to tear groups of people apart. Vol realized that he had just been unlucky, being in the latter group. It didn¡¯t sound like there were any others that survived the Wyvern. From what he heard, most of the hostels encountered were Minotaurs, Goblins, some earth devouring Worms, and one unfortunate group that were dropped off in Spider infested woods. There weren¡¯t many that survived the spider nests, but the 19 who had were added to Vol¡¯s wagon. He didn¡¯t know if there were others in the Caravan though. The other groups sounded like they had fewer casualties since there were fewer creatures to flee from and less traps that impeded escapes. However, all of the groups that were attacked got scattered in every direction and only handfuls from each group were present and each had wagons. The majority of the caravan came from a more peaceful portal that the Giants had discovered and had promised shelter, food, and answers if they would come with them. Not all came along, but many did. Vol had tried asking some of the Giants questions on the first couple of days, but was ignored each time. Thankfully Vol had Am, who had remained hidden within him. They kept each other company as Vol explained what he knew about himself to the familiar and Am explained what he knew about familiars and what that meant for Vol, which arguably wasn¡¯t very much. Later that day, they entered a valley between two mountains and as they rounded the base, everyone could see it. A massive stone wall connecting several mountains. The only thing they could see above the wall at this low altitude was a city that stretched up the peak of a single mountain in the center. It was the tallest peak that they could see and at the top appeared to be a grand palace. ¡°There it is,¡± called one of the Giants in gold armor. ¡°Atlas! It will still take a few days¡¯ travel at this speed, but we will arrive soon enough. * * * After two days, they reached a massive set of gates within the wall. Once through, they followed a road with huge stone buildings on either side. Buildings that were so big, that they hid all that was behind them. They didn¡¯t have side streets or alleys that you could look around either. Every now and again there were people sized doors that seemed to be between where two buildings met, but mostly there were massive doors, clearly made for the height of the Giants. All Vol could see, once in the city, were the massive buildings on either side of him. They lined the road until the road curved, the massive wall behind them, and the city built on the mountain side that stretched up so high it was the only thing that could be seen above the buildings around them. This city was truly a marvel to behold! The streets were clean. All of the structures were white and gray stones. The craftsmanship alone was splendid. This capital truly put any government building or architecture from Earth to shame by comparison. It all made Vol feel small, like a tiny mouse caught in a trap. It was both splendid and suffocating all at the same time. * * * After another day of traveling within the walls of Atlas, the caravan reached the base of the mountain where the road widened into a massive plaza that seemed to wrap around the base of the mountain. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Here they let all of the people out of wagons and asked for the Risen leaders among the people. Everyone looked around at one another, not understanding what the Giants had meant. The gold knight that led the squad that slayed the Wyvern came and retrieved Vol. He led Vol up onto a platform and spoke. ¡°This is one of your Risen. Those who rise up from death. Who else here is one? We will take you to speak with the king.¡± Everyone seemed more confused. No one had heard of people coming back from the dead before. Then someone raised their hand and stepped forward. Then another, then two more, four more. Before long there were about 30 that stood before Vol and the gold plated knight. Then someone shouted from the crowd. ¡°They aren¡¯t our leaders. I don¡¯t recognize any of these people. They can¡¯t speak for us, we don¡¯t even know if they can truly come back from the dead.¡± The knight turned to Vol and asked, ¡°May I?¡± Vol quickly realized that the knight was asking if he had permission to kill Vol. Vol¡¯s initial reaction was horror, but it wasn¡¯t really a secret. The knights already saw him resurrect. So who cared if other people saw it. Perhaps it will assist them in talks with the king if fresh proof was provided. ¡°Hey Am, be ready to bring me back,¡± and then Vol nodded at the knight. The knight drew his sword and shoved it through Vol¡¯s chest like the copper knight had on the field with the Wyvern, piercing Vol¡¯s heart, causing it to burst in his chest as the sword passed through his chest and out his back with the crack of breaking ribs. The knight pulled his sword back out and held Vol¡¯s body up to the crowd by his neck like a prized animal, fresh from the hunt. The crowd gasped in horror. Panic ensued. A crack of thunder boomed out as a lightning bolt was discharged into the air and the crowd ducked for cover. The gold knight spoke, ¡°behold your Risen!¡± The bleeding from Vol¡¯s chest stopped as the hole sealed itself, apparently on its own. Then Vol¡¯s eyes shot open as he sucked in a breath of air with a gasp. Vol reached up to the hand holding him by the back of his neck as he felt like his head was tearing off of his shoulders from his own weight. The crowd gasped again in fright at the sight of Vol¡¯s resurrection. The knight put Vol back down on his own feet. Vol began rubbing his neck where he had been held by and looked back at the knight with an awkward glare and the knight shrugged back at him. Immediately seven of the 30 that had stepped forward as Risen, slunk back into the crowd, either not wanting their bluffs called out, or not wanting to be the next example made in front of the crowd. Vol noticed that each of the supposed Risen were from one of the wagons that contained people from groups that were attacked when appearing. That must be how they knew. They had died during the attacks and manifested their familiars. Oddly enough, all of their familiars seemed to be hiding like Am at the moment. ¡°Hey Am,¡± Vol thought. ¡°Can you confirm that each of these Risen also have familiars?¡± ¡°Not without me exposing myself and them choosing to do the same. But this feels like a dangerous situation, and as a familiar, it feels safer to remain inside you and undetected,¡± Am answered. Then the man from the crowd stood back up and shouted. ¡°These Risen aren¡¯t Human! Mankind can¡¯t raise themselves up from the dead! We will not accept these imposters as our leaders! As an elected official of the Tennessee State Senate, I will speak to the king on behalf of Humanity.¡± Another man stood up. ¡°As an elected Congressman for the state of Kentucky, I too will speak as a leader for these people.¡± The Senator glared at the Congressman for being one upped, but these Giants had no idea how Human politics worked. He could definitely spin this to his advantage as long as he got a seat at the table. 11 other elected officials from various states and countries also stood up, self nominating themselves as speakers for Humanity. Vol noticed that all of these so-called leaders came from the group that didn¡¯t have any trouble upon arriving from their portal. If there had been politicians that arrived at the more hostile portal sites, they probably died quickly. An old saying came to mind; ¡°natural selection.¡± Vol feared that these politicians were bad news. The Giant in gold armor behind Vol spoke up, ¡°Very well. You 13 can come as well. Those of you who choose the Risen as your leaders, please follow the bronze knight to the left. Those of you who choose the elected officials as your leaders, please follow the bronze knight to the right. We will set up separate camps for you as we take your leaders to see our king.¡± About 70% of the crowd of people moved to the right, choosing the elected officials as their representatives. The other 30% moved to the left, choosing the Risen as theirs. When the Senator saw this he couldn¡¯t help himself and shouted at the 30% who had chosen the Risen. ¡°Y¡¯all are traitors to Humanity! The lot of you! May the Lord have mercy on your souls as lucifer scours them in damnation!¡± He spat venomously at them. Some from the 30% made unkindly gestures at the Senator and jeered at him. Some simply booed at him. Many just quietly did as they were told. Of the 70%, some cheered at the Senator. Some mocked and jeered back at the other crowd. Others looked ashamed at their choice in leader but had already committed, and again, most just did as they were told. Some people from both sides hurriedly changed their mind and shuffled to the other crowd. The knight spoke once more. ¡°That is enough. Your people have made their decisions. There is no reason to cause an uproar.¡± The Senator turned with a smug look and walked with the other elected officials, now following the gold knight as he led them towards the base of the mountain. The group of leaders stayed divided into two groups as they walked. There were the Risen and there were the Politicians. The knight brought the 37 leaders to five huge carriages, clearly built for Giants, and pulled by a team of Drakes. The Politicians tried to split up into four of the five carriages, but quickly left two of them when Risen stepped into the carriages, not wanting to be near them. They instead ended up splitting the Risen evenly across three carriages and the Politicians split up evenly between the other two, making a fuss about space while they did so. Then they were all off, led by the gold plated Giant knight up Atlas, the mountain city of the Titanic Mountains. Authors Note With my day job in game development picking up, I will be going on temporary hiatus. I''m not done with the story of Risen yet, and even still have a number of chapters written, but unedited. Currently I have written through chapter 26 (8 unpublished chapters). In addition I also have another 9 chapters planned, but unwritten. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. However, lately I haven''t even had time to edit what I have written. I will be picking back up where I left as soon as I can. Thank you for your patience and loyal reading. Cheers, TC Crane