The Weird and the Unknown

Falko saw the get closer, he was exhausted after fighting for so long, but he held on. His bardiche cut clean through two of his enemies and he had a time to take a breath. In front of him was an endless horde of enemies, he and his comrades fought on this choke point, which was the only way that they could hold on. Out of nowhere a blue and red light covered the battlefield. The enemies trembled with fear and then fled in panic. Falko was too exhausted to think clearly and then he fell to the ground.

Falko smelled something burning, he opened his eyes. His surroundings have changed, he was in some sort of forge and the pain came. To him it felt like his right hand was melting or someone stuck it into lava. The heard someone calling his name, he focused on the voice and tried to listen what it said. It was a deep and rough voice and it said:

“Falko wake, hey Falko wake up.”

Falko opened his eyes and he saw Sylvan talking to him. It looks like it was a dream, but what a strange one. Of his enemies he only remembered that they were many and their height didn’t reach his shoulder. What a weird dream.

It was still dark, but it should soon be twilight.

Falko bathed in a nearby river and washed Marush, before eating breakfast with Falko and Sylvan.

After that Sylvan led the way to an attack site. It was already twilight when we arrived. The site was as described by Sylvan, broken and smashed trees and some big patches of dead grass from the acid. They all looked for tracks, but couldn’t find anything that looked remotely like tracks. Before splitting up Sylvan assured both of us, that only small animals are living in this valley and no predator that could kill them.

Sylvan watched in the middle of the valley, while Ulf and I each took one end. Sylvan told us that he could contact us through his magic as soon as he knew where the attack was happening.

Because this thing wasn’t attacking every day, Falko thought they had to wait some time, maybe even days, bit soon after I found a spot to watch my end of the valley, I heard the sound of breaking trees. Soon after, a hole opened in the tree besides Falko and the sound of a voice came from it.

“Falko, it’s me Sylvan. Can you see the attack site? I already notified Ulf and we are both on the way. Try to at least get a look of it.”

It seems this was Silvan’s magic.

Falko moved through the forest towards the noise, he still could hear trees breaking and sometime he could hear a whiz and bubbling, most likely from the acid.

As Falko got closer he slowed down and finally he was sneaking and looking through the green of the forest. It took him some time to, but he could see the thing and thing was the best word he had for it, as he knew nothing that looked remotely like it.

It is around two meters tall, grey in color and walked with four legs, but not like an animal but the legs are more like two pairs of legs. From the hip, one pair is slanted towards the back and one pair towards the front. The torso above the hip is ball like and from it multiple tentacles come out. It has no neck and its head is another smaller ball which is on top of the torso ball. On each side it had two tentacles, one above the other and two tentacles side by side at the front and one at the back.

While Falko was watching and looking at it, it already smashed a few trees and then, beneath his two front tentacles a gap opened. The gap is full of teeth and from it came a ball of green goo. As the green goo hit a tree, Falko could hear a whiz and bubbling. It seems this green goo is acid.

The thing turned and then spat another ball of acid, but this time it was flying towards Falko.

Falko jumped to the side and evaded it, but he made too much noise and the thing found him. He knew he could not remain at a distance, as it could just spat acid at him and he could not retaliate. He dashed towards it, his bardiche in spear stance as he wanted to engage it in melee as soon as possible. The thing defended with his four tentacles on the side while trying to bind him with the two at the front. The bardiche pierced into the tentacles and violet blood sprayed out of them. It seems it didn’t expect such a strong attack, as it jumped backwards and no longer tried to bind Falko. As it landed it spat out a ball of acid. Falko evaded it, but it splashed against a tree besides him and some of the acid splashed on his left face. Falko ignored it as he had no way to deal with the acid right now and wiping it would only spread it on his face. The pain made him close his left eye; he hoped Sylvan could maybe help him with his magic.

Falko tried to stay behind trees and rocks and dashed towards it. He again got in melee range and he swung his bardiche, trying to carve into the ball like torso. It jumped again and at the same time it was trying to hit Falko with some of its tentacles. Falko got hit by one and thrown to the ground, but he was also able to lop off one of its tentacles.

As the thing landed on the ground, roots that moved like snakes were coming out of the ground, trying to bind it. As Falko looked up he saw Sylvan coming through the forest. The thing saw Sylvan, it destroyed the roots and ran away, escaping into the mountains.

Falko was still on the ground, he sit up and said to Sylvan.

“Don’t chase it, it is too fast. Besides it left tracks for us to follow.”

Falko pointed at the trail of violet blood.

“Sylvan I got hit by the acid, can your magic help?”

Sylvan moved closer to Falko and said.

“Yes, let me see what I can do.”

He removed Falko’s helm and then moved his hand onto Falko’s face. Falko could feel the warmth that spread through his face, relieving his pain. A shortly after that Ulf arrived. Ulf talked with Sylvan while Falko rested.

Ulf and Sylvan both came to Falko and asked him what happened and what it exactly looked like. Falko told them all the details he knew and the asked them if they knew what that thing is. Both Ulf and Sylvan had no idea and Sylvan told us to go back to the camp from last night, while he was going to ask a friend of his about this thing. He told us that this friend knows nearly every being in these mountains and he hoped with his friend could identify this thing.

While Sylvan travel to his friend, we both went back to where we slept last night. Sylvan also told us he would need at least two days to get to his friend and back.

After arriving Ulf looked at my face and said.

“It looks like the helm caught most of the acid and only the skin around your left eye got hurt. Sylvan’s magic healed it almost completely. Open your eye and let me see how it looks like.”

I opened my left eye.