Vraxious—The Forsaken Lands

  It hadn’t taken terribly long to gather everyone after the hangovers wore off. Edward had gotten himself into the local high-level woodworker's shop, and after seeing the quality of instruments he could craft, Vrax had to pry him out of the damned place after buying him a new violin just to get him moving.

  Vrax had caught up with his dad for a bit while Jonathan’s starstruck ass practiced with Martha. His blatant fawning over her had somehow endeared him enough to earn a damn lesson. So William Vrax and Edward watched that painful event while Torvald and Stereos gathered supplies.

  Red...Red had flat out left town to find Vrax’s capitol without waiting like he was explicitly supposed to. Why? Because he ran his mouth around Cedric again and fled to avoid another ass whooping like last time. So now all of them were galloping into the forsaken lands on their mounts, trying to get to the Ravenous grove as fast as they safely could.

  Red was tier two, but that didn’t matter very fucking much in the forsaken lands, especially when he was supposed to be bringing a cart filled with building supplies. The cart they had run across less than two hours into their trek busted to shit and clawed open by something.

  That something was a crispy corpse in a now scorched section of the forest, but Red had just left the damn cart and forged ahead. Vrax and the others spurred on a bit faster.

  Vrax unleashed Duchess and the devourers to fly along with them. Between that Vrax’s guidance and the fact that all of them were on frankly absurd mounts, they were making unprecedented progress.

  Vrax pulled up short as they reached the edges of the ashen stands and its ever-burning ground. The world ahead of them was lit by a sickly bluish haze of smoke and fire as the very ground revolted and trees that should have burned out a millennium ago refused to be reduced to ash. Something vaguely humanoid peeled itself from a cerulean pit of fire and ran silently into the distance after unseen prey.

  Fuck, it's great travelling this fast; this must be how Feldwin feels all the time.

  “Alright guys, at this pace, if we want to be ballsy, we can shoot through that clusterfuck and be home by late night if we are lucky. Here on out is where it starts getting real dangerous, though, thoughts?”

  Jonathan shrugged. “Honestly, so far this really hasn’t been too bad.”

  “Yeah, well, I did lead us around a tier two trap spider nest and around two swarming fields, and we managed to lose the spine slurper that was following us, so yeah, by how bad the first stretch normally is, we really have been lucky.”

  Jonathan turned pale. “A what was following us?”

  Edward looked over. “Is that what kept whispering into my mind to ‘fling myself to the release of darkness’?” I thought I was just having a panic attack because of, well...” Edward gestured at everything around them and then at his adapted horse that was currently chewing on a sparrow.

  “Yep, you really have to get your levels up if you can. Put a few points into mental resistances,” Vrax said with a consoling pat on Edward’s shoulder.

  Torvald just shivered and shook his head towards the fire. “Honestly, I vote we go around. I’ve experienced the special hell that is this place without you as a guide, and honestly, if we get unlucky and run into the wrong thing, we could easily lose one of the newbies.” Torvald pointedly looked at Edward and Jonathan. Jonathan looked offended; Edward smiled in thanks.

  Stereos pulled his horse closer to join the conversation. “I agree with Torvald; the risk is great, especially to myself and Edward. And if Edward were to perish, I’m fairly certain she…would kill us all.” Everyone looked around, and sure enough, Duchess was still in sight, looming from behind a tree, making sure nothing was hunting her favorite musician. She let out a short, mournful, mimicked violin note and skulked back to hunting nearby animals.

  “I really still don’t feel comfortable with that…whole thing…” Edward pointed in Duchess’s direction.

  “Welcome to the club,” Vrax said in agreement. “We’re going around a new way because last time I went south I ran into a fucking Fae, and, uhh...if it had any friends, that’s going to be a really shitty fight.”

  Vrax took them on a long, cautious loop north of the ashen stands. He had not explored here very much and wasn’t sure what to expect, but he figured it would be better than burning teleporting undead. Nightfall was approaching as the terrain slowly shifted from struggling vegetation choked by eldritch fumes into thick blankets of green.

  The trees in this stretch had long died, giving way for a vast, impressive swath of plants that grew upon the corpses of others. Moss rose to nearly their shins and crashed over nearby trees. In some places it was so thick the very trees bent from the oppressive weight of it.

  Vrax looked around nervously; the groundcover here was so dense that almost anything could be hiding. The utter stillness around them didn’t do anything to calm him. The only noises were the occasional warble of malice or an uneasy whinny as they silently picked their way forward.

  Duchess even seemed cautious, slowly floating along behind them. Vrax held up a hand for everyone to stop as the vegetation grew even denser and seemed to fully crash over a large cluster of fallen trees, creating a mazelike warren they would have to navigate.

  “Hmm, alright, it’s almost dark. Everyone’s eyes on a swivel. I don’t like this place. I’m going to scout a bit forward and see if that clusterfuck leads to a deathtrap or a decent way forward,” Vrax whispered and then leapt from Malice. He sprinted silently across the moss with his talents aid it felt like running across a cloud half a stride off the ground.

  Vrax’s enhanced hearing picked something up as he grew close to the tangle of fallen logs. He tried to peer into the few holes through the vegetation that looked like they led to hollow spaces buried under the wood and moss.

  Fucckk…I'm going to have to climb in there to check, aren't I? Well, no, no, I'm not, but I am going to look. If we can just wind through this, I’m fairly sure there’s an old Elysium waystation that would work to camp at. Assuming it's still standing and nothing has moved in that is…

  Vrax leapt onto one of the nearest trees and slowly climbed across its outstretched branches with practiced predatory grace. Its branches extended squarely over the edges of the tangle where he had heard something. Vrax perched with one leg extended far back on the branch for stability as he quietly searched his pockets for something to toss down. He would be damned if he was going to stick his head under a moss-covered log in the forsaken lands and hope for the best.

  Finally his hands settled on an empty, slightly cracked potion jar that he honestly wasn’t even sure why he was still saving. With a frown of concentration, Vrax lightly tossed it down towards the opening. It softly bounced once, then twice, before falling into the gap. Vrax held his breath waiting, but nothing changed.

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  Huh… really thought something was going to… Oh, fuck...

  A gnarled claw covered in moss that seemed to grow from the flesh itself grasps the outside of the log with a wet noise, followed by another as a disturbing humanoid figure pulled itself from under the log. It looked like its organs had long ago been scooped out of the chest cavity, and in their place a small pulsing mass of vine and root glimmered with a yellow light hanging loosely from its ribs.

  The two sets of arms both ended in strange articulating scissoring claws that constantly opened and closed on the end of each of its fingers. Idly cutting swaths of vegetation free from the surroundings as it pulled its gangly frame to its full height.

  The thing loomed as its dexterous clawed toes sunk into the rotting wood, and it stretched its long neck upwards, vertebrae popping as the neck craned around like a coiling snake. A human-shaped skull crowned the top of it, but its mouth split open in the middle of the jaw and clacked sickly around so many sharklike teeth the jaws couldn’t even close properly.

  Well, that’s new…

  Vrax kept perfectly still as more of the horrific things began clamoring from within the moss. All silent except for the snapping of their necks and jaws. And the bone-on-bone slicing sounds were made by their hands. The first to rise locked its angular skull’s sunken sockets onto the rest of Vrax’s party in the distance.

  Yep, I—uhh—I don’t think we just get to go around anymore. Let’s see what the hell those things are; there’s quite a few of them. [Bloomcore Puppet, Elysium Fleshborn Tier-1] (Lvl 37) [Threat: Moderate] What the hells..well the armor isn’t giving me a pissy kill-them tingle, so they aren’t undead. Best guess, the plants are puppeting the corpses of old Elysian bioweapons. Man why do so many things here puppet or dead things…I guess there are a lot of dead things, to be fair.

  Vrax took another good look at the things below him and smiled wickedly as he pulled a jar of smelter moss out of his bag and checked to make sure he had remembered to add another adapted one to the menagerie this morning. Vrax slowly unscrewed the jar and poured mana into it as he adapted the moss in the jar. He had to drop the jar as it started growing so hot that the glass was getting soft.

  All the Fleshborn’s heads twitched unnervingly towards the jar as it thunked down into the moss out of sight with a hiss and the slight wisps of smoke. Heads extended over hungrily on far too long necks to peer into the now slightly burning patch of moss.

  The first head to extend all the way over the jar’s landing point was immediately lunged upon as the glowing green smelter moss leapt up and crawled across the head, down the neck, and into the main body in a hissing crackle. Bone shattered at the sudden temperature change. And the core of plants inside the thing shriveled in on itself violently as it was cooked.

  The smelter moss oozed off the now still smoking body and disappeared beneath the thick blanket of moss as it crept towards the next horror. Vrax smiled, seeing that yes, the burning plant was very, very effective against the other less burny plant.

  He shuffled farther back on the branch and activated his stigmata, melting a swath of the forest and lightly falling into the chaos. He had summoned another Adapted smelter between himself and the half dozen remaining Fleshborn.

  The nearest lunged towards him in a grinding blur of janky movements. It ran into the smelter moss mid-sprint and was dragged down like it was snared by a net of hate and fire. Vrax readied himself and brought his spear up to fight whatever got past the moss. Behind him he could hear the sounds of fighting, so unfortunately it looked like the few he was fighting weren’t the only ones.

  Vrax ducked under a pair of arms that whipped a horizontal slash at him. The other pair stabbed upwards. He deflected one with the angled haft of his spear and let the other glance across his stigmata barrier while he levered the spear tip deep into the thing's planty core. A burst of miasma erased the thing puppeting it inside its chest, and his foe fell forward limply, dripping black across the deep green surroundings.

  There was one more rushing towards him. The other two currently had adapted moss swimming through their bodies in a steaming cloud of vaporized blood and plant matter.

  Vrax let it leap at him and stepped forwards and diagonally to skirt just past its dangerous flail. He slapped a hand across its torso, leaving a miasmic mark, and then after ducking another blow, pinned its foot to the ground with his spear and managed to hit the Smite mark once again with his free hand, intensifying the glow.

  Vrax dropped backwards as the awful thing’s neck tried to snake around him, its teeth gnashing wildly. He snapped his fingers on his way down, activating the primed smite, and the fleshborn burst from the navel up, sending its now free head whipping off into the trees.

  Vrax turned to go help his companions, but it seemed like they would be okay without him. They faced about the same amount as he had.

  Edward had started playing a jaunty tune that wafted around the mounted combatants in a noticeable waver of mana that pulsed with each pull of his violin. Whatever he was doing had made Jonathan even faster than he normally was. He had leapt from his mount and pinned one to the ground with a halberd. His boot held its neck in place while he flensed another that was trying to reach him piece by piece with his spare halberd.

  He stepped off the pinned fleshborn and let his whips crash downward to pry its core free from flesh in a shockingly violent motion. At some point in the last day, Jonathan had added wicked thorns to the vines that they used to great effect for purchase. Jonathan advanced forward in an aggressive blur, driving the manic foe straight into the moss, and didn’t stop slashing until it went utterly still.

  Torvald had finally pulled that giant wicked javelin he was carrying around off his back and took aim with a huge smile. He braced against the saddle of the bark bear and heaved it towards a sprinting foe with such zeal that the foliage it rushed by was torn free. It wasn’t a good throw, hitting on just the edge of the fleshborn’s shoulder, but it didn’t matter. The massive barbed tip had expanded mid-flight, and the projectile ripped the creature roughly in half.

  Its head landed in the distance, and the core was flung, God knows where, leaving a slightly twitching pair of legs as Torvald pumped a fist in victory and leapt off the bear to retrieve his weapon. “That one! I’m keeping that one; it was fantastic!” Torvald boomed excitedly.

  The last two fleshborn had the dubious honor of choosing to try and eat the frantically playing musician. His eyes were closed as he weaved side to side in beat with the pull of the violin string. Edward didn’t even glance in their direction as he opened his eyes to play a single long trailing note of loss, a note that gave even Vrax chills.

  Apparently the duchess could actually fly fairly fast; she had just chosen not to for sheer dramatic effect. The First Fleshborn was torn into the soft loam with a devastating slash of her tail carrying a terrifying amount of momentum as she careened down from above, simply knocking one tree nearly from its roots in her haste.

  The other leapt for Edward hand’s extended and claws screeching as bone rubbed against bone hungrily. Vrax got to finally see what happened when Duchess wasn’t just trying to fuck with her prey.

  Her tongue shot out, snaking around its legs and head. Then wrenched it backwards, simply tearing the head free with her first tongue. Then her tail screamed through the air with an enchanting whistle, bisecting the entire creature from the neck to groin. Finally, three claws grabbed each of its halves, all pulling apart at the same time.

  Vrax’s jaw dropped. Duchess had torn its head off, cut it in half, and then torn the halves apart before the fucking thing had even hit the ground because she had just been trying to make sure something was damn well dead for once instead of trying to terrorize everyone.

  Even Torvald stopped as he got a slight misting of what used to be part of a Fleshborn.

  Edward whipped gore from his violin as Duchess happily twirled and started mimicking his previous tune. He shook his head and just kept playing to say thanks for saving him.

  Stereos finally managed to get his horse under control; he had unfortunately spent most of that fight trying to not be thrown off into the greenery. He looked between the chunks of monster and the completely unbothered Duchess happily engaging in a bizarre duet.

  “I would like to reiterate, if the bard dies, I firmly believe we all are next.” "Stereos," said with wide eyes.

  Everyone else nodded violently in agreement. Vrax waved a hand towards them. “Hey guys, there’s actually a building over here.” He pointed towards the crest of a doorway just peeking out from under a log that was displaced during the fight.

  “Might... uhh... be where the elysian horrors came from though…” Vrax said, obviously still wanting to explore it.

  Torvald shrugged and pried the javelin out of a boulder it had finally stopped in. “Meh, I got my spear back in the game. Worst case, we kill some shit, get some levels, and then get to actually cook because we have some damn shelter.”

  Jonathan laughed darkly. “No, the worst case is we get fucking eaten.”

  “Actually, the worst case is probably that we are assimilated into some strange form of undeath that we are forced to endure for an indeterminate but potentially infinite amount of time.” Stereos said gravely. Jonathan gave him the most ‘why would you say that’ expression he could.

  Torvald shrugged again. “Yeah, I still vote mystery doorway. I really want to get to heat up my leftovers tonight; they aren’t great cold.”