Who didn't like magic? I liked magic. I thought I liked magic. And here it was! Magic! Plenty of it in the form of human ruins in the distance!
Ah! I fell to the ground and heaved. I had made it!
Just a bit more effort and this whole nightmare would be behind me. Come on! Ah! I got back up and forced my tiny legs forward.
We were fairly sensitive to mana, us caparaces. In that we were so used to lack it that when there were some, it was like breathing again! Escaping an endless torment we had completely forgot about, only to force ourselves back in it.
Go away, mana! You are chasing the great voice!
If we had mana, we could not talk to the great voice! Not that it talked to us anyway but still! I had to purge all that magic away from me! Ah! And embrace decay!
Ah yes! The human ruins.
They were just stupid walls all breached and broken that waved around, one inside the other, slightly taller each time until they grew steadily into a tall hill that was all flattened.
There! That was... Rike? Something something about those walls having been shimmering, and gems and stuff, and the big chains not having been there before. Let's go!
Those thoughts in my head were the worst.
This part had been a port. A wide, semi-circular wall had defied waves of water long gone. Now the basin just dried pointlessly as a dry expanse. A few caparaces held on the walls, saw me approach and moved toward my path.
Other monsters were likely further inside the ruins, making this desolate place a haven.
My peers bunched on me the moment we met.
"Are you the one?!" They were all excited. "Are you carrying the stone?"
"We have looked for the human!" They also said. "He was here not long ago!"
"It's best you missed him, he wants all of us killed!"
I knew that part well enough already, but news travelled slowly so of course they would repeat it! As for me, I had not even had the occasion to talk yet.
So I cut them off and lowered my head.
"Take the stone." I ordered.
"Why?" One wondered. "You look like you can keep going."
"Take the stone!"
I was shaking! But also, I needed this to end. I needed this so badly! Anyone else, carry that weight! Not me, not me!
They were making me languish! Eh, take a clue from the shaking insect! Make it quick!
Ah! Finally! Finally... Finally...
...
Help me! What was this, I knew it would hurt to ingest the stone but it was so much worse! Ah! Ah! I was going mad with pain!
So that's why he wanted to get rid of it!
And now look at you, throbbing like that! Why did you do that!? You could keep going! I could... You could keep going!
"Are you okay?" Another caparace asked.
No! No I was not okay at all! Ah! Ah it was like getting eaten alive and wait, no, that was our routine, I mean getting absolutely crushed... Okay I was running out of ways to describe it!
I could do this! Just calm down, I could do this... Okay! Ah! Okay...
I was done thrashing. They waited for me to get back up and stagger a bit.
"Okay!" I exclaimed. "Let's find the human!"
We already knew he had left those ruins, now to learn where he was headed. Because there was really no point in just trying to run after him, he was way too fast! He had two big legs and I had... these tiny things.
Thanks, realm!
Ah! Still hurting! But I could move, that was all that mattered.
"We should go back to the lair. The others will tell us what they found."
"Good plan!" The others approved.
Terrible plan, because it meant crossing the ruins and those were full of monsters! But I really needed to move or the pain in my body was going to kill me.
And maybe, in the lair the stone would be safer than here.
So we went back to the wall to follow it, our chitin shells serving as camouflage. Not that, for now, there were any monster to see us.
And I found myself rediscovering those ruins. That was... Rike? So that place had a name. Crazy! I had spent so much time here, like, whole days and never heard of that!
How did I know that anyway?
Humans had lived there some forever ago! And protected their mansions with a wall... and then another... and another! And the inner walls had to be taller to the point where they started to build a town over the previous one, and so on to form the current tall hill.
Mansions were forbidden from reaching the walls' height! But of course, it was different for floating walls where humans, mostly wizards and craftsmen, could live in glorious towers.
And back then the top of the hill wasn't this smashed, flattened mass of debris but tall golden spires defying the sky!
"Eh! Don't fall behind!" The others complained.
"Coming!"
You try running with a boulder in your belly! But they were right, we needed to make haste. We had left the ancient port through a smaller gate made of three consecutive arches. All was crumbled and decayed so we could go as we pleased!
Now, however, monsters lurked.
And the human had ordered them to kill all caparaces! So it was a dangerous game of hide and seek with them. Any beast bearing chains, we had to avoid at all cost.
Ah! I stumbled once more.
"Hurry!" They pressed. And then: "Stay with her, I will go scout."
I was going to get us all killed. But the pain! Ah! Losing the stone was unthinkable! It would be like having the great voice silenced, it would be... the end of the realm!
No! Get ahold of yourself! The great voice would always be there!
We pressed past vast gardens - how did I know that? It was just less stone among the broken stones around. But past them and through a street. Ahead was a faint etch on the wall telling us which way to take.
Further ahead we slipped under a fallen tower and stone debris of what had been its crystals. Those fragments, crystal? They were way too big!
We were approaching the next wall. Best not to go through the gates themselves and use the breach. Time and again shadows of beasts, rumors of their steps and growls had forced us to to improvise.
But our scout was making it easy! More etches and we reached the collapsed section that would let us through the first layer of the wall.
"Stop." My companion warned.
I could sense it too. Our scout's trail stopped there. Which meant something had happened to him.
What should I do? What should I do?! I was terrible under stress! And carrying the fate of the realm didn't help with that!
"Other monsters will come. Let's go through anyway!"
He wasn't wrong. Sure, this now felt like an open trap but a detour would only delay us. So we rushed in! Through the breach and into the ancient passageway, then past a broken window to the space between two walls.
I watched the caparace with me getting suddenly pierced by a black tentacle.
Ah! Trap! Trap!
But I was too terrified to move! Yeah, even with the weight of the realm in me I could not budge! The insect was squirming, one shake and he went limp! Another shake and he fell into pieces.
I was dead! I was so dead! Fleeing? Where?! Rushing? Fighting? Ah! Fighting! Yeah, sure, me and my legs were totally going to prevail!
The monster herself leaped down and onto the carcass to crush it with her paw.
A... tenacl? Ah! That slender, striped gazelle with a crescent crest for a head used to be a butler for outdoor activities. Thanks, useless knowledge! How about a way to not be its next prey?!
She was chained, which meant she was definitely on the hunt for us.
Eh, big girl? We don't have... Ah! She had seen me! She was turning on me and the black tentacles were growing form her back again.
I could practically count the seconds that remained before...
I had dodged it! The tentacle had hit where I stood but somehow, some kind of crazy instinct had made me hop and avoid it! Another tentacle, another hop, it bashed my shell but I was running away!
Quick news! A caparace could outrun exactly nothing! Okay, rapts, maybe, and even then I would not take bets!
I was running through the passageway, the beast right after me and its tentacles lunged! Two hit my shells. I tumbled! Crashed on the ground, pushed myself and dodged yet another tentacle that made the bricks burst where I had stood!
Alive! I was still alive and more importantly, the stone was still safe! For now!
But now running was not an option, what could I possibly do?!
The tenacl emitted fierce vibrations. That was her way to scream. Okay now the whole ruins knew where I was, thanks! It approached to just crush me and...
The whole passageway burst around her, shredding the gazelle with stone spikes!
What!? Had happened!
All of a sudden I felt so much weaker! But I needed to get out immediately, dragged myself back up and rushed through the passage until another breach let me out!
Another tentacle whipped and cut me in mid-air! It snatched my cracked shell and pulled me to the ground with a crack!
Ah!
I shook myself up, only to be dragged by the tentacle. Watch out! I can make stone spikes! Maybe! But the new tenacl didn't even bother to approach because two greyhounds did, two massive, rocky lizards with heavy metal skulls.
Tell the great voice I was sorry for failing it!
Next thing I knew we had all frozen in fear. A bellow like no other had surged from behind us all and now we could feel hooves shaking the ground at each step.
All the other monsters turned to meet that threat. A minotaur! What kind of monster even?! A three meters tall minotaur with a black coat and oozing strength! Just his sight made me wish I could turn into smoke!
Oh, it was worse than that! Like the deep knowledge of just how absurdly doomed I was now.
The beast approached and neither the greyhounds nor the tenacl, nor the three cat-rats that joined them dared attack first. So he charged them and sent them flying with just his fists! Dodged the first tentacles and let the rest hit his arm only to snatch them and have the beast fly and crash!
He could submit them all just by smashing the ground! The shockwave was enough to have their bodies crack under the pressure!
And he... wasn't killing them? The minotaur hit so as to break the chains, then kept hitting the freed monsters into a frenzy. Only satisfied once they attacked blindly, at which point he submitted each of them by holding their face and searing his will on them.
I watched him do in complete disbelief. And also pure terror!
That beast was invincible! And rather than reduce the number of threats had had formed a little army for himself! An army that, once obedient enough, stayed behind him as he turned.
Toward me.
Hello, big guy, there is no need to - stay away! I can, the rocks, boom! Okay that was a lie so please don't come closer!
He picked my trembling body with his fist and just one slight pressure would have cracked me open like a nut! I was so terrified I should have fainted, but something kept me well awake. Ah! The stone! He was going to destroy the stone!
Anything but the stone! You touch it and I will scratch your thumb until it slightly itch you!
He looked at my helpless struggle and grinned.
No no no no no no no!