<< Lucifer's Waltz - Secession Studios >>
Kaius woke with a deep sense of foreboding in the pit of his stomach.
With the forest's perpetual darkness, he wasn't even sure if it was morning but some unknown sense of urgency pulled at the back of his mind, rousing him from sleep.
Whether it was the decade he had spent thrown into every conceivable life and death scenario that he could imagine or simply just the fact that the forest had fallen abnormally and eerily quiet.
His skin prickled in discomfort, the hairs raising on the back of his neck when he slowly and silently lifted the entrance of his shelter to peer out into the darkness.
At first his eyes were unable to pierce the dark unable to make out a single thing except for an odd shimmering in the air like fine, silvery lines streaked across his vision.
But once he activated the light rune at the end of his makeshift torch, he reeled back in shock.
Something had been here whilst he slept, leaving thin ropes of sticky webbing, blocking both the path ahead of and behind him.
They ran from branch to branch in wide intricate nets, encompassing the entire area, but mercifully, his tent, where he had spread the scattering of salt, was largely untouched except for a few strands tied to the centre pole.
Kai raised his hand and made to reach out and touch on of these strands to detach them.
But just when his fingertips were about to brush against the delicate thread, a large figure twitched at the edge of his senses, just outside of the small circle of pale, white light.
He closed his eyes briefly, using every ounce of his willpower not to jump back, scream or touch the web.
'Crap, crap, crap, crap...what did I even do? I didn't say anything bad, I swear! Or was it the offering? Do you not like wine? This feels like a giant overreaction!'
He took a slow, deep breath, careful not to make any noise or disturb the webs around him and made a swift decision.
The tent would have to stay.
It would mean he would have no shelter from this point on, but he was only 2km away from the marsh; he could even see where the mist was growing thicker, just ahead of his current position.
Once he made it past that final hurdle, he would be in the Witches Grove, where hopefully, they would help him return or at least allow him to trade for a new form of shelter.
He also needed to get off of this path, abandoning the green route, without disturbing either the webbing or the thing that had made it. The thing that was currently - hopefully - fast asleep, and not hungry enough to have torn through the canvas to eat him when he was lying still and defenceless for several hours.
Kai reached inside of the tent and pulled out his pack, inch by inch, gritting his teeth against every rustle and clink that it made.
When he finally held it in his arms, he took a moment to calm his nerves and tried to think.
Kai was typically prone to act first, consider the ramifications later, in almost every aspect of this life. But this time he didn't feel that hacking his way through the situation with a cheap blade was going to solve anything.
And yet, unable to at least curb his burning curiosity, he angled the light just slightly and turned his head to peer into the shadows.
He spied the edge of a thick, misshapen leg, covered in fine red hairs.
And then, just as the pale light shifted further, two glassy onyx eyes with bright scarlet red irises stared back at him from a grotesquely humanoid face, reflecting the image of his mortified expression like a black mirror.
Kai whipped his head back and shifted the light away, his heart hammering in his chest.
'...nope. Big nope. Big hairy nope.'
If he was unsure whether Demons dwelled in this particular forest before, he was certain now. And if this was the God of Traveller's idea of a warning then Kai would give her anything she wanted in penance.
'Who said you were overreacting? Certainly not me. No ma'am. You react however you want to react. And all those other Gods? They're nothing compared to you, you're so great! The best God around!'
He continued to plead and pray inside of his head as he crouched down, shining the light across the ground and thanking the angels for the wide gap, just large enough for him to crawl underneath and reach the line of trees.
He started slow, careful not to make any sudden movement or sound.
The Demon's eyes were open but it did not appear to be hostile towards him just yet, or perhaps it simply slept with its eyes open.
'Or maybe I don't look tasty enough...hah! Shows what you know stupid Demon, I bet I'm delicious.' Kai shuddered, pushing his pack along the forest floor ahead of him and crawling after it, flat on his stomach.
The dead, broken branches littering the forest floor scraped and cut into his skin as he made his way, but Kai ignored it.
He strained his ears for any sign that the thing had moved, continuing to pray and thank the God of Travellers when there was mercifully no response.
And then, just as he squeezed his body underneath a particularly low hanging thread of silvery webbing, it touched against the fabric of his shirt.
Kai bit into his arm to stifle a pained scream when a droplet of moisture burned through his shirt like acid and directly touched his exposed skin.
He stilled for a long moment when the clack of its long, deformed legs met his ears in response to the slight vibration.
No further movement came.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he continued to drag his sore body underneath the final stretch and finally, off the path.
When he did so, Kai rolled over onto his back and allowed himself a few seconds for his heart to settle, breathing deeply through the dissipating surge of adrenaline in his system.
He pulled himself up from the floor and checked his shoulder.
His skin was red raw and already blistered, but otherwise it did not appear to be particularly deep or troublesome. Who knows what would have happened if he'd have started thoughtlessly cutting or tearing his way through the acidic webs instead.
Kai breathed a sigh of relief, 'That...wasn't so bad. Ha! Stupid Demon doesn't realise it just passed up a tasty treat.' He grinned, making a step further into the treeline just as another thought crossed his mind before he could repress it, 'Piece of cake.'
He froze in his tracks, horror etched into every line of his face, 'Oh no...'
The quiet clacking of chitin-covered limbs came from behind him and Kai promptly slapped himself across the face, "Idiot!" He yelped, snatching his heavy pack from the floor and immediately racing off into the forest without pausing to look back, "I'm sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry!" He pleaded, to no one in particular, vaulting over fallen branches and weaving in and out of the thick trunks.
He had hoped that the deeper he ran, the closeness and width of the trees would slow it down, it was roughly the size of his tent after all, surely it couldn't weave between them as agilely as he could.
But the ominous clacking grew louder.
With his heart in his throat, his lungs burned and his muscles ached as he ran, praying that it was the right direction and with only the vague sense that the marsh had to be close when the fog started to swirl thicker.
And all the while the clacking of limbs, and the snapping and creaking of breaking trees grew louder still.
Kai refused to look back, even for a moment.
Even when he spied a break in the trees ahead; an eerie green light that filtered through the smallest gap.
Even when he felt something sharp brush against the back of his leg, instantly tearing at his trouser leg.
Kai didn't stop to turn around.
He dove towards the ray of light, crashing onto the soft spongey floor, twisting his body around at the last moment to pull the blade from his hip.
He held it in front of him with fierce determination, his teeth bared.
But as though the beginning of the marsh was acting as a strange barrier to the Demon, Kai only caught a glimpse of warped, misshapen front legs and two large black eyes, their glassy surface widening in a gesture that almost resembled fear.
It shrank back into the darkness as Kaius stared after it, panting heavily against the burning in his lungs, before collapsing onto his hands and knees as soon as it was out of sight, and the clacking of its limbs had faded into the distance.
'Fuck me...that was close. That was way too close.' He gasped, struggling to catch his breath and collect his thoughts.
He had yet to turn around and view where he had ended up, but once his heart had settled and his lungs no longer protested against every draw of breath, Kai turned his head and looked out over the Marsh of Spectres.
True to its name, the 10km wide encirclement, appeared to be a large expanse of waterlogged earth, with a clear, if overgrown, path that wound through the centre.
There was also light here, albeit an unnatural and eerie semblance of light that broke through the sparse outcropping of dead, twisted trees, reflecting back off the green grass and mossy coverings with that soft green radiance that he'd spied as he ran from the Demon.
Taking a final, steadying breath, Kai slung his pack over his shoulder and fixed the strap back across his chest to steel himself.
There were three clear rules for traversing the Marsh:
1. Stick to the path.
2. Do not touch the water.
3. Stay awake.
And one final advisement, that was not exactly a rule, from the few who had successfully made the journey:
Do not converse with the Spectres.
**