Chapter 7: The Master of the Cursed Lands

“Come on, come on, come on! Where the fuck is it? Where the fuckin’ shit is it?!”

A slew of filthy curses and vulgar language spilled from Arleen’s pretty lips as the naked Cat-girl fumbled blindly for her query by the campfire.

Screams and thuds of bodies and foot pounding into the dirt filled the terrified Cat-girl’s sensitive ears. The elated howls of the monsters stalking through the fog sent her pounding heart rate soaring.

[Status: Terrified]

[INT, DEX, AGI, PER, WIS, Suppressed By: 90%] [Mental Faculties reduced by: 90%] [Positive Experience Gain Reduced By: 90%]

[Biological Ability Activated: Adrenaline]

[END, STR, VIT Buffed By: 70%] [Inherited Augmentation: Blood of the Cat (AGI Buffed By: 50%)]

Arleen’s hands trembled, and her knees buckled beneath her, her knobby limbs crashed to the ground, sending lances of hot agony up her thin legs. The terrified Cat-girl barely registered the pain as adrenaline roared in her veins, her entire being instead focused on the odd blurs and shapes of hastily discarded clothing littering the dust around her.

A thunderous roar from one of the monsters was replied by the shrill report of a small kinetic holdout revolver. The deafening sounds disoriented Arleen, making her already obstructed vision swim as the clearing devolved further into bloody chaos.

I gotta find it! I gotta go faster! Why is this takin’ so damn, fuckin’ long?!!

She didn’t dare look up from the scattered gear and clothing around her. Many of the Poachers and crewmen she had been…. Servicing… were literally caught with their pants around their ankles (with several balls deep inside her) when that horrible scream interrupted their “sexy fun-times” and sent them scattering like roaches caught under a light. In their haste many of the poachers left much of their gear and clothes where they lay.

This brings Arleen to her current situation, in the middle of a slaughter fumbling her shaking fingers through pockets and pouches in search for a key.

The key that goes to the shackles holding her fellow Nameless in this very same clearing infested with hungry fog-monsters.

A shriek and the wet squelch of ripping flesh dully rung in the back of her mind as a body flung in from the swirling wall of mist and sailed over her hunched form. The corpse splattered and tumbled into the fire, extinguishing the flames and plunging the clearing into darkness as the stench of cooking meat and boiling blood choked the air and caught in Arleen’s throat.

No, no, no, no! I can’t see! Come on! Please!

As the light died despair flared hot underneath her terror, sending the sickening venom of fear spewing from deep in her chest into the pit of her stomach. Hot tears welled up in her eyes.

Hopeless…

Something cold brushed against her finger.

The Cat-girl’s heart flinched in disbelief, her hand cautiously curled around the small shaft of a battered iron item.

Tears spilled down Arleen’s shallow cheeks, though this time they rolled around the drunken, wild grin on her face.

The Key!

Countless howls thundered through the heavy mists, the terrible screams shook deep in Arleen’s bones.

The next moments were a blur for Arleen. It was the sort of spinning nightmare that would haunt her thoughts as she lay awake years from now under a blanket of cold sweat as “what-if’s” danced and kicked her tormented memory.

Arleen’s only anchor was the frigid iron key digging into her fingers and palm as she pressed her precious cargo to her bare chest and scrambled through the carnage of bodies and howling shadows.

Somehow, in some way, by some miracle, Arleen made it, even though she didn’t remember how. she made it!

Withered arms caught her as she fell. She saw Rufus, the kind old human, smile at her through her adrenaline-fueled haze.

[Status Change: Terrified -> Scared]

[INT, DEX, WIS, AGI Suppressed By: 70%] [Mental Faculties Reduced By: 70%] [Positive Experience Gain Reduced By: 60%]

Arleen felt some of the weight of fear lift from her mind. Her thoughts flowed clearer and even though she was still scared shitless she wasn’t alone anymore. She had allies, she had an anchor to hold her fast.

Speaking of fast…

“Quick!” Rufus spared a glance around the veiled mayhem and death screams obscured by the unnaturally thick mists. “The key Darlin’! Quick!”

“R-right!” Her fingers were heavy with fright and trembled still. She fumbled the key as it fought against her infuriatingly rebellious digits.

A painfully tight hand snatching her wrist and pulling her face first into the dust interrupted Arleen’s struggle.

One of the humans, a reedy, scarred bastard with a nasty scowl of disgust on his toothy maw, whipped her around and plowed a fist into her face.

Her scream of pain was cut off as her nose broke and blood blossomed from her nose and down her face and throat.

“Gimme the fuckin’ key!” The dreg screamed, his red eyes rolling madly in his skull. “I’m getting’ out first!

The human snatched at the key and wrapped a hand around the cold iron. Even through the incredible pain in her nose and her convulsing lungs Arleen fought her assailant, bucking her naked hips and pulling her arms away.

Her blood spattered into her eyes, so she didn’t even see the fist until it had already smashed into her cheek, knocking the Cat-girl senseless and sending her world spiraling and her ears ringing.

Cold metal links pulled hard around her neck and panic and fear spiked hard in her chest as the chains choked the breath from her lungs. Her nerveless fingers clawed at the metal links helplessly as she was lifted from behind by the shackles wrapped around her neck.

“Don’t ye come any closer!” spittle flew from the human’s mouth as he glared madly at Rufus, the old man half stood to jump to Arleen’s aid.

The human hauled his hostage higher and Arleen gurgled as tears sprung once again from her eyes.

In one of the dreg’s hands the key glittered. He pointed it at the old man snarling at him.

“I-I unlock my chains first.” The dreg said. His emaciated muscles already trembling from holding his strangling hostage up. “I unlock my… fuckin’ chains first or- or your kitty cum-dumpster dies.”

Rufus growled.

“Fine. FINE! Unlock your gods damned chains. Just let her down, gods fucking dammit!” the old man snarled, his knobby fingers curling as he fought the urge to crush this selfish prick’s throat.

The dreg stared at the furious old man with wild eyes as he weighed his options-

-when his head exploded.

A gnarled spear of twisted wood and ash zipped from the depths of the fog and struck the dreg between the eyes and gorging a bloody trough across Arleen’s cheek.

The spear’s speed was so vicious it sailed through the dreg’s head, his skull split and detonated like a watermelon struck by a shotgun slug. Blood, flesh, and pulverized bone slathered and painted Arleen’s head and back in a crimson shower.

The Cat-girl hit the ground hacking a coughing, the headless corpse dragged her down into a gruesome tangle of limbs and pumping blood.

“THE KEY!” One of the Nameless eyed the glittering iron like a starved animal.

Like a trigger being pulled the entire chain-gang launched themselves into a mad tangle of chains snarls and naked limbs as they fought over the key like rats caught by the tail.

The next few moments were a panicked eternity for Arleen. The hot, sharp press of bony bodies squirming, punching, grabbing, and biting tugged and hit her.

The pain was only made worse by the slain dreg’s gritty blood making every touch and motion slick and gritty with the thick, coppery fluid and every time she opened her mouth to suck in a desperate, strangled breath blood or bits of dreg brain choked her.

“ENOUGH!” A gravelly and pissed off voice roared over the scuffle.

With unnerving ease Rufus, the “frail old man”, lifted the orc couple from the dog pile, casually tossed a grabby beast-man away and easily pried the key from half a dozen fumbling hands.

193 years old or not, he was still level 72 for a reason.

Rufus held the key up victoriously.

“Aight, shut up and git in line!” He snapped.

Another scream and a screech of feral delight ripped through the forest.

Rufus raised an eyebrow. “Unless ya want to stay here of course?”

His reply was a few whimpers and the obedient shuffle of bodies getting in line.

Rufus made short work of the other dreg’s manacles as a pair of trembling hands reached out and pulled Arleen from where she lay.

The bloody, gore clothed Cat-girl looked up into Lydia’s wide brown eyes. The Wolf-girl’s lips were curled and her nose scrunched as she fought a terrified sob from slipping her lips.

“A-are you okay?” Lydia rasped.

“No.” Arleen tried to wipe the blood and grime from her eyes but gave up soon after, the crimson filth on her fingers only seemed to make things worse. “C-can you fuckin’ help me?” She whimpered with her blood gummed eyes helplessly shut tight.

Pity fell over the wolf-girl’s petite face. “Sure. Hold still.”

Arleen tilted her head up and Lydia carefully rolled her thumbs over her face. The Wolf-girl fought the urge to squirm and gag as she felt the grainy viscera stain her hands.

“Done.”

“Thanks.” Arleen’s emerald eyes fluttered open from behind the mask of crimson dyed filth molded to her bone-thin face.

“Are you… hurt?” Lydia asked delicately. “L-like.. you know.” She finished lamely.

Arleen did know, but to spare her friend’s adorable innocence she refrained from giving her usual, blunt answer.

“My hips and… ah… nethers hurt.” She admitted. “I’m sore too, and bleedin’, mostly from my knees ‘n shit, but I’ll live.”

“Hey girls!” The beast-girls turned to see Rufus waving them over. Lydia was the last of the dregs still chained. “Git over here so we can get the hell out!”

Lydia noticed that more than half of the dregs were already gone, vanished into the mists, the other half or so were huddled by the river itching to flee from the frantic battle raging just out of sight.

“Where are the others?” Arleen asked as Rufus fiddled with Lydia’s manacles.

“A group of ‘em took off already. Guess they thought the faster they run the better off they are.” Rufus grunted as he freed the wolf-girl from her metal bonds and the chain snaked to the ground with a loud clatter.

“Well ain’t that the best option?” Arleen asked. Lydia shuffled away from the old man rubbing her blistered wrists.

“Sure.” Rufus shrugged. “But that only works if ya run in the right direction. Those bubbleheads ran downstream. The way out is up the river.”

Arleen’s eyes widened and her feline ears snapped to attention.

“We gotta stop ‘em!”

“It’s too late honey.” Rufus shook his bald head sadly. “They are long gone, and I’m gonna have my hands full with just the ones here.”

Suddenly the old man’s wispy eyebrows furrowed as he stared down at the chains.

“Wait a minute.” He stooped over and scooped up the very end of the chain. “Where did that creature go?”

Dread spilled down the old man’s spine. In his gnarled fist hung the shorn remnants of shattered pair of manacles. I knew it. I knew something wasn’t right with that guy.

“What happened?!” Arleen gasped. He was strange sure, but he didn’t seem dangerous. “Did the monsters get him?”

Before anyone could answer a terrible scream split the air. It sounded so close, the horrible images of unseen monsters stirred at the edges of their minds as the wet crunch of bone and flesh squelched against maws of countless teeth.

“We gotta go.” Rufus whispered hoarsely. “We gotta go NOW!”

The survivors surged onto the stream’s bank, Lydia with them.

Arleen however, hesitated. her head turned to the brutal carnage, her eyes searching desperately for their missing number.

“Honey,” Rufus pulled the stubborn cat-girl by her arm towards the river. “There is nothin’ more you can do. He is gone.”

Arleen glanced at the old man’s desperate face. “But-!”

She never got to finish her protest. One second, she was struggling against the old man’s steely grip, the next she was spinning, thrown bodily across the dusty ground like a careless afterthought.

Rufus lost his hold on the girl when a speeding mass slammed into him at full charge, his bones creaked in agonizing protest.

The dregs look up in to see a nightmare of bone and twisted plant-life spilled from the fog. A horror of thorns and desiccated flesh with the legs of a horse and the body of a man, though what was once living had long since been torn from its sundered form.

Its skin looked more like a shredded canvas pulled taut over a frame of twisted roots and bone. A sickly green orb pulsed in the creature’s chest through like an unholy heartbeat through the massive tears in the creature’s dried flesh.

On reflex Rufus activated his observational skill and the blood drained from his face.

[Observe] [Level: 43]

[Avatar of Kern] [Thorn bound Undead Centaur] [Level: ???]

“Well, fuck.”

The undead abomination craned its skull around to lock empty sockets with Arleen’s terror filled eyes. Branches of thorns slithered and twisted grotesquely around the skeletal monstrosity’s mummified innards. it stretched out a decayed hand as the wicked thorns slithered down its arm and weaved into vile spear.

Arleen wordlessly cried out as Kern’s avatar clomped towards her. The cat-girl scrambled desperately away from the horror, her heels digging into the hard dusty floor.

“Hey! Tall ‘n ugly!” With a momentous effort Rufus shakily climbed to his feet and shouted out a challenge to the creature. Without turning the rest of its body the centaur’s skull spun on its neck like an owl.

That’s just fuckin’ wrong.

The old man took a step back and felt his heel knock against something. It was the spear that had killed the dreg trying to steal the key. The twisted shaft of unnaturally sharp wood was still embedded in the thief’s naked corpse.

With a firm yank Rufus freed the weapon from the ground and leveled the spear at the grinning skull.

“Come on!” Rufus snarled.

Rufus was experienced, you didn’t get to Level 72 by being a chump, but no amount of experience could prepare him for the unnatural way this undead abomination moved, nor its speed.

The centaur’s spine twisted and contorted like a viper uncoiling to strike. Its front hooves left the ground as the rest of its bend over its rear limbs and with the speed of a snapped rubber band the centaur thrust its thorn spear like an arrow towards a bullseye.

Rufus barely parried the lethal blow. The old ranger made sure to angle and deflect the centaur’s heavy strike rather than take the blow head on, but even then he barely managed to shift the Undead’s spear from its path towards his chest.

It’s too strong!

“Fuck!” Rufus threw himself away as the thorn spear whistled through the space where his chest was a split second before, but not in time to escape the razor-sharp point tailing a nasty cut across his chest.

Somehow the old man managed to keep a grip on his spear. He hefted it in one hand and probed his bleeding chest with shaking fingers.

His momentary lapse in focus cost him.

The undead pulled its spear back and swung it like a baseball bat at the old man’s head.

Rufus saw the thorn spear’s shaft speeding towards him from the corner of his eye. He barely got his own weapon up in time to block but the undead centaur was just too strong, the level gap was too enormous.

The thorn spear impacted with the force of a speeding train. The vicious blow shoved Rufus’s weapon into his flank, knocking the old ranger out cold as he tumbled boneless into the shallow stream.

“No!” Arleen screamed. She watched as the old man’s body vanished into the swirling mist, leaving only her and the centaur.

A whimper slipped from her trembling lips as the undead monster turned its hollow sockets back onto the cat-girl. With agonizing slowness it raised its thorn spear.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl, the sensation bizarre for the cat-girl as moments of her miserable life flashed before her eyes. Faded memories of her mom, much more recent, sour memories of her hated father and half-brothers, with only a handful of tiny pinpricks of happiness in between.

Arleen knew she didn’t have a good life, but as she watched helplessly as the undead monster’s spear hiss towards her heart, she realized that she had never been happy.

Why?

She watched as the spear plunged towards her chest, she just prayed she bled out fast.

Only, it never made it that far.

A blackened skeletal arm shot from the swirling wall of fog and the gnarled, bony hand wrapped around the thorn ridden spear shaft, stopping the wicked blade cold a hairsbreadth from her naked chest.

A horror in the vague shape of a shadow of a man, a monster in blackened human skin with a curtain of filthy hair and a missing arm loomed out of the fog.

It was the strange creature, the one Arleen thought killed just a moment before. The cat-girl hadn’t been scared of him. Sure he was weird and unusual but he was gentle and kind towards her and had somehow even saved Lydia!

The creature she saw now was anything but gentle.

A river of blood dripped from his body. His hair and cragged beard were slick with crimson. The stench of death and gore hung onto him tight as a shroud. It shredded and burnt garb was stained and clung to his bones, though instead of smaller it only made him more terrifying, an unholy abomination stripped of its humanity.

A devil.

But the devil’s voice was the same as the kind creature Arleen had first met. A soothing brassy husk that rolled through the air like a far-off thunderstorm. The voice carried a subtle power, a humble wisdom-

-and a feral, primordial rage.

He didn’t speak Common, the universal language of the Castaway Isle. What he spoke was older, more archaic, yet strangely familiar.

Most words Arleen failed to understand, but some remained the same she noticed, even in Common.

“Kneel.”

The undead centaur’s empty sockets whipped to face the blood-soaked devil. A rattling screeching snarl curled from its desiccated chest and it tugged its thorn spear, its hooves digging into the dust.

The devil kept his hold on the spear let the centaur pull him a step forward.

The hairs on Arleen’s nape stood on end as magic suddenly thrummed joyously around the one-armed devil.

“Ic beÓt KNEEL!” With a harsh shout he stomped his forward foot and Arleen cried out as the ground trembled causing Kern’s Avatar to stumble.

The devil snatched the spear and the centaur buckled to its knees bringing its skull eye level with the devil.

Every sound in the clearing died. The monsters hidden in the mists fell silent and Arleen felt every eye turn to the devil and the centaur.

The undead creature’s jaw rattled and worked as if straining to pull out words from the cracked and ruined bones.

“Frigea…”

The dusty, unnatural voice that rasped from the Undead’s dried lungs was filled with awe and disbelief.

“How…?” It rasped.

The devil snorted, mostly in laughter.

What he said in reply to the foul undead was lost on Arleen but it seemed the devil had saved her this time.

The devil muttered something else at Kern’s avatar and shoved the kneeling centaur’s thorn spear away. He turned and come over to her, she was still on her back, her arms splayed out to keep her weight of her tail.

He stood over her and to her surprise offered his hand to her.

Arleen hesitated, and for good reason, but when she looked up to meet his eyes she lost herself.

His eyes glowed. Though it had been hard to tell with the off-putting ambient light from the fog the devil’s gaze shone with an eerie, haunting blue and gray, like a will o’ wisp from the stories her mother had told.

She was enraptured, enough to make a fool of herself at least. She had been staring dumbly up at him for the past half-minute like an idiot.

“T-thanks.” She stammered and took his hand.

She felt fresh blood squeeze from where the spear’s thorns had pierced his palm. With an unnatural strength the devil practically lifted her from the ground and set her back onto her feet, her eyes refused to leave that glowing blue gaze.

The undead centaur’s snort of distain slapped her back to reality.

“Go.” The devil pulled his gaze from her as the centaur’s soulless eye sockets burrowed into her.

“Thank… thank you.” Arleen bumbled.

The devil flicked his eyes from the glaring undead back to her. He gave her a light shove, pressing against her palm.

“Go.” He murmured one last time before he turned his back to face the centaur.

With a whispered Word of Power and a sweep of his arm the devil pulled the fog around him like a curtain and he, along with Kern’s avatar, vanished from sight.

Arleen stared out into the swirling fog for a moment longer when she noticed her hand felt heavier.

When she opened her palm a silvery medallion with a tattered hood and staff glittered back up at her. The strange man had given her his sigil.

Why?

“Arleen?”

The cat-girl pushed those questions out of her head and with a tiny breath to steel her nerves and a strange sense of awe she slid the sigil’s shining chain around her neck and let the metal settle between her modest breasts. Strange as it was, the medallion’s weight was a comfort to her.

Arleen rushed to the water. Much to her relief the cat-girl found Lydia kneeling in the shallow water with Rufus’s head on her lap to keep it above the water.

The frown that pulled at her lips told Arleen that Lydia wasn’t very happy about having to touch the old human but it did warm her heart a little to see the wolf-folk was at least grudgingly willing to put her prejudice aside to help.

“How is he?” Arleen splashed through the shallows next to them.

“How should I know?” Lydia snorted. Despite her displeasure the wolf-girl’s shoulders did relax at seeing her friend alive.

“M’kay.” Arleen grabbed one of the old man’s arms and started pulling him from the water. “Shit he’s heavy. Help we?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

With a little grunting and straining the girls managed to pull the old man from the shallows. Arleen found his spear stuck in the shore and relatively undamaged. She took it gladly, the twisted white wood that made up the shaft and blade appealed to her, not that she could use it..

“Where are the others?”

“Here.” The orc couple crawled from beneath an overhang further along the water’s edge. Several more of the survivors trailed after them. Arleen saw several of the dregs holding stones and a few feeble branches for makeshift weapons. They still looked terrified, hell Arlen definitely still was, but they at least calmed down.

“We need to get out of here.” Arleen curled Rufus’s arm over her feeble shoulders and looked up at the other dregs.

Every eye was trained on the shiny medallion settled on her chest. “Well? What are ya fucking starin’ at? Help me carry him!”

The male orc blinked and with a grunt hefted the old man’s weight to his own shoulders, taking the burden from Arleen.

Though they were itching to speed from the area they had to take it slower until Rufus would hopefully wake up. The old man had some nasty bruises on his chest and hands along with a small cut on his head where he had struck a river stone.

“What happened over there?” Lydia’s whispered question demanded an answer, one that Arleen wasn’t exactly sure how to put into words the skeptical wolf-girl would understand.

“Ya know the weird guy that saved you?”

“Sure.” Lydia shrugged. “He got eaten right?”

Damn, that was pretty callus.

“Well, he’s alive.” The wolf-girl’s eyes bugged out in disbelief. It was Arleen’s turn to shrug. “He said somethin’ to one of the monsters, gave me his necklace and let me go.”

“Why would it do that?”

“I dunno…”

“Figea.”

Rufus sputtered and coughed a glob of blood, stopping the group.

“Rufus! Oh thank the fuckin’ gods!” Arleen ducked under his free arm and held a hand to his chest as he caught his balance. “You okay?”

“I will be.” Rufus hacked and spit out another glob of blood.

“What did you just say?” Arleen asked curiously as the old man got his bearings. “You said somethin’ as ya were wakin’ up.”

“Figea.” Rufus repeated. “That was the Avatar of Kern we met back there. It said the word Figea.”

“So what?” Lydia asked rudely.

“It’s a word from Old Common. An ancient tongue.” Rufus glanced back to where they had came, his eyes searching the fog wearily as he spoke.

“Figea, it means Master.”