The Trunic Forest was thick here, a dense canopy of ancient, moss-draped boughs that strangled the sun.
What little light broke through the gloom came in sharp, accusatory rays, spotting Gerald's worn leather clothing as he moved. He paused, closing his eyes. The corner of his lips curled up as he inhaled deeply, sniffing the cool, damp air with a scent of pine, wet earth, and something vaguely metallic that could only be found in this part of the world.
He could live here, he mused, if it wasn't for the crazy ugly neighbours. A shame they couldn't just pick a different career path than bothering humans. The silence… He loved the silence.
It was a heavy, watchful quiet, broken only by the crunch of their own boots on the leaf-strewn forest floor and the sound of the annoying human with him.
"So, what will you do if you…" Fitz pointed at his crotch as he walked backwards, facing Gerald, his voice a low conversational murmur. "…lost your dick while fighting one day."
Gerald growled a little knowing the pleasant moment he was having had already been broken. He opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow at his companion. "Lose my dick? Why the fuck would I lose the strongest part of me."
A thick, low-hanging branch blocked their path. Fitz didn't break stride, cutting it clean off with a smooth, upward stroke of his Broadsword. The shing of the steel was obnoxiously loud in the quiet. "I don't know. Accidents happen."
"Well, not to me...," Gerald scoffed. "I'd rather lose my head. Imagine losing your dick? Your story would be over before it even began!" he said with a grin.
Fitz nodded, accepting the answer, then his expression sharpened. He raised a fist, signalling Gerald to stop. The man's senses were uncanny and he had always been the pair's ears... the group's ears. Gerald often joked his own were shot from too much loud tavern music, or perhaps from that sonic creature he'd fought in his youth.
"What?" Gerald whispered, his hands instinctively gripping the carved handles of the two battle axes that rested on his back.
Fitz crouched, pressing a gloved hand to the damp earth for a moment before sniffing the air again. "Vibrations. Something heavy, not far. And… there. Unusual wind. Smells like Ash. Were we on the money?"
Gerald's smile was sharp, all predator. "Let's hope so." They had tracked the string of disappearances from the farmlands to this remote, untrodden area. The trail of broken branches, oddly melted foliage, and the faint smell of soot had led them here.
The forest felt… weird. It didn't feel natural.
Gerald had a theory that the whole forest was a sentient being itself. Of course, plants had life, but he judged that there was something more to this place, a slumbering, indifferent consciousness that watched them pass.
They pushed through a final curtain of thorny vines to the edge of a small cliff, looking down at the fields below. It looked fine, beautiful even—a sprawling meadow of vibrant red grass swaying gently in a breeze. But something was deeply wrong. The wind that brushed their faces on the cliff didn't stir the grass below. The movement was a uniform, repetitive wave.
Gerald might have just shrugged it off and judged it was the forest playing tricks again, but he knew these parts. Trunic forest was a creature of habit, and a postcard-perfect field of red grass wasn't one of its wonders.
"It's an illusion," Gerald said, his voice flat. He took out a small glass container filled with shimmering blue liquid. "Whatever made it is down there, and I bet that it has already spotted us."
"So, not a Heatghost then." Fitz's hand was now resting on the hilt of his broadsword.
"Nope. Maybe something even worse, if it has that much power. Enough to maintain an illusion this large, this constantly. This will be annoying."
"Shouldn't we have brought the others?" Fitz asked, his concerned expression clear.
Gerald rolled his eyes and didn't say anything for a while. He uncorked the bottle, poured the contents into his mouth, and chanted a brief, guttural prayer under his breath before he spoke.
His pupils dilated, the blue liquid staining his lips. "They made their choice to retire. Weak. Cowardly. They ran from their destiny." As an orphan who'd clawed his way to survival, Gerald had no patience for those who willingly gave up a fight. "If you are scared, you can sit on a tree and shoot my arrows from afar like a good boy."
Fitz scowled and raised his middle finger at him as he also took some thing similar from another glass bottle.
Just then, they both felt a sudden, oppressive spike in the temperature. The air shimmered. The illusory field below them warped, and two orbs of molten rock—flaming coals the size of a man's head flew from coming straight at them.
Gerald smirked. "Showtime!" He didn't jump away. He jumped down, straight off the cliff. Then he unsheathed his battle axes, one in each hand. "Is that all you got?" he roared into the air. "Clearly you should focus more on your attacks than your illusions because…" he paused as he plummeted past the shimmering surface of the illusion.
The idyllic field vanished. "I see through it all and guess what, fucker…"
The blade-like forelimbs, superheated and sharp as obsidian, came straight at him, hard and fast. Gerald grunted, crossing his axes to block the scythe-like strike.
He used the immense impact to push himself to the side, twisting in mid-air and landing in a crouch on the burnt land. Fitz landed a few yards behind him.
It was a field of ash now, the charred earth still smoking. In the centre, a monster of nightmares. The Coalmantis. It had an affinity for flames and got its power from melting and absorbing humans.
Gerald's gut clenched. He saw scraps of scorched clothing and bone fragments mixed with the ash. Deep down, he hoped. He had hoped that the missing women would be alive. What a waste.
Still, he understood why the women were taken. The fertilized eggs of a woman were what the female Coalmantis used to feed her foetus. It was pregnant. At least, it was a female.
Fitz, landing behind the creature which towered over them at three metres, whistled. He nimbly dodged a secondary swipe from a smaller limb. "It created the illusion to fucking fertilize its egg?" he shouted. "Why are all mantises weird?"
Gerald spoke back as he wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead, his eyes never leaving the monster. "I think they're called Mantes! And I'm glad it's just this fucker. Imagine if it was the giant male?"
Fitz shivered at the thought, parrying a gout of flame with his broadsword. "Hell no! Boy, am I glad the one who fucked her died cumming inside or we'll be cooked… Literally… And it's both Mantes and Mantises, you idiot!"
"Just get the egg sack and leave this old bitch to me!" Gerald roared.
A deafening screech came from the maw of the harrowing creature. Then it moved at a speed too fast for normal humans to perceive. But Gerald Harlan wasn't a normal human.
He had grown up an orphan and realised early that he could sell felled monsters for money. He hung out amongst adventurers and did nothing except train, learn about several creatures, and learn how to kill them.
To him, the journey here was the only chore. The fight was the reward but knowing the women they came for were gone left a sour taste in his mouth.
Gold, he had that and even when he didn't, he could always make more but humans took time to create, to grow, and some bug bitch had decided to sacrifice them for her bug bitch children.
He blocked the scorching slash of the Coalmantis' bladed forelimbs. His twin enchanted battle axes—runes etched into the dark metal glowing with a faint blue light—absorbed the elemental heat, preventing the blades from melting. Plus, they were sharp and durable.
He ducked and weaved, a brutal dance. He intentionally pulled the creature's aggression, drawing it away from the smouldering burrow where Fitz was.
If she caught wind of their plan, she would definitely ignore him and go after Fitz and that is exactly what Gerald wanted. He just didn't tell Fitz that part.
He saw Fitz out of the corner of his eye, hastily placing the last of the hot, black, fist-sized eggs into his spatial box—a flickering rectangle of blue light that hovered in the air beside him.
Gerald saw his opening. He crouched, ducking a lateral strike from the babe, and propelled himself under her massive thorax which looked awkward. He pushed off the ground, twisting and swinging up with both axes, severing one of her six, lactating nipples.
She screeched, a sound of terrible, agonizing pain, and turned to shred the human who dared to hurt her. But then her multifaceted eyes wandered far ahead. To the burrow. Her babies. Her eggs. They were gone.
In a fit of blinding, maternal rage, she flew at the intruder who was in the place where her eggs used to be, ignoring her previous opponent completely.
Fitz hadn't noticed what was happening. He was facing away from the battle, closing his spatial box, when his ears picked up an approaching sound. A terrifying, thrumming sound. Getting louder and louder. He spun quickly and saw a disgusting, fanged maw opening just a few feet in front of him.
It was too late to dodge or move away at the speed it was approaching. "Oh shit!" he said, his eyes widened in genuine terror.
The next second, the Coalmantis's head, severed from its body, slammed into the ground, rolling towards him. He jumped out of the way and missed the bulk of it, but the head followed, and one of its antennae pierced the rock right behind him, stopping the fanged mouth inches from his face. The creature's body crumpled in a heap just beyond.
Gerald landed heavily, his axes dripping with green blood. He had come up behind her, jumping to her blind spot in that moment of rage, and cut off her head cleanly with a single, heat-charged swing. Just as he had planned. He loved killing monsters, but he was already pissed off because of the dead girls. 'What rotten luck... Hope they found peace,' he thought.
"You okay, buddy?" he said, walking over and lifting the massive head by its antenna to toss it aside.
Fitz came into view from the rubble, brushing ash off his tunic. He had a nasty, knowing look on his face that Gerald ignored.
"Maybe we should never try that again. I need a drink and two fine werewolf women."
"Yeah… of course," Gerald answered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Fitz's eyes widened. "That was the plan, wasn't it? You used me as bait!" He threw a heating rock straight at Gerald. It hit him in the chest but just bounced off his bulging muscles. Gerald just shrugged and walked up him.
"Your coward ass would have argued and I didn't have the time," he shot back, already inspecting the eggs Fitz had secured. "Besides, you're fine. Stop whining."