A Poisonous Look

[Hysteria]

closed

Mountains hide many secrets. Sometimes they are small, tunneling through rock and dirt. Sometimes they are large, striding stone corridors or traversing the mountain side. Even sometimes further they are lying dormant, caged or buried within the rocky peaks.

Inside the jagged Twilight Mountains lay one such secret. It’s location was no mystery; the diseased dragon had been killed by Aleraran forces and left to rot within the mountains. The secret was the source of the dragon, and what had caused its disease. Some cared not however, they sought only the treasures that such a find could make them. Poison by the litre poured from the dragon. If one could fare the disease and capture the liquid gold, one would make a fortune from death.

Talen knew things about the dragon that many others did not. He knew of the war that disturbed the dragon. He know if the bird that bled poison and danced in death. He knew that the dragon has been seeking its own death when it crossed into the cursed lands of Reira before attempting to enter Alerar. He also knew that it was a matter of time before Dragon’s Folly, the valley in which the creature’s body remained, was captured by a force that would seek use it for ther own gain. It was this knowledge that caused the smallest Captain of Ixian Knights to act.

Perhaps it is irrelevant, perhaps it was a passing whisper of the darkness that called Talen. Like a spider crawling through the leaves, the thought worked its way into his mind. The dragon’s death was an omen of plague; of pestilence. The storm was over with the work of a few mercenaries. Could that truly be called a storm? What spider carried such ill intent?

[Hysteria]

Talen arrived at the mountain just after the first few rays of sunlight dances across the snow covered peaks. The valley was nearly impossible to get to, unless one had an airship, or more magical means. Talen’s form appeared on a rocky outcrop on the southern side of the valley. Below him was a sea of green gas, looking the world like a scum filled pond. Talen’s boyish features were calm as his blue eyes looked over the sea of poison.

What is calling me…? he wondered.

The youth was more than a child. His powers extended from the material realm into others, and it was little effort for him to pull his of goggles from the pocket of another realm back into this one. The dark tinted glass appeared first in front of Talen’s eyes, as dark tendrils of shadow twisted outwards and wrapped securely around his face.
Through the polarised lenses Talen couldn’t make out anything different about the gas. The surface was eerily calm; indeed higher up on the valley sides Talen couldn’t barely feel any wind entering the valley. It seemed both a blessing and a curse. On one hand it stopped the gas from leaking out of the mountains, but it also meant that whatever was happening in there was hidden from view.

Talen lifted his gaze to the mountainsides that towered over the valley. There was still some signs of the recent battle. Bits of airship clung to the mountains, and there was a series of dark dashes that formed an odd line along one mountain. Talen mused that this was where the dragon had struck, twisting like a top as it fell it had struck the mountain with tail and head over and over. Given the angle of the dashes and the the way the mountain sides came together he could surmise a rough trajectory of the dragon. Talen would be coming from behind and crossing over the beast’s half-buried body.

Talen reached back and scratched an itch on his shoulder. He didn’t like wearing heavy clothing, but not even he was immune to the cold of snow capped mountains. His hand dropped to his side and he was ready. Rough direction to travel in, his goggles and coat tied firmly, and grin on his face, Talen jumped down from the rock into the snow, and began labouriously trudging down the valley.

[Hysteria]

The gas had an odd sweet taste to it. Talen had no face mask or protection other than the goggles. They were there incase the gas had a corrosive edge, but it seemed at least for the moment that it didn’t. Talen had no need to combat the poison directly, his body was not susceptible to such material realm issues as poison. Just as how you couldn’t poison a stone, so too could you not poison Talen.

Inside the swirling green mist currents pushed and dragged the gas. The top layer hid the ebb and flow, the closing and opening folds. Talen moved slowly, making sure his own crunching foot steps were light on the snow. The texture had changed underfoot, now it was more compressed as ice and poison melded together. Talen assumed that just a small amount of the ice he was standing on would kill a normal person.

A few minutes passed by and Talen was still surrounded by nothing but ice and green. His carefulness was starting to dull and his foot falls heavier. Speed was taking over caution as he continued to sense nothing around him.

*crack*

“AAaaaaaaahhhh!” Talen screamed out in pain and shock.

The ice under him had cracked and his right leg had falled through. Beneath the ice was a corrosive poison, and it ate away at Talen’s leg the moment it had fallen through. Talen kicked and pushed himself backwards, dragging himself out of the ice. His leg felt like it was on fire. His body started to shake, he could feel himself going into shock. With a feeling of dread he looked down at his leg.
There was only bone. The acid had stripped the flesh and muscle in moments and left a blackened bone, still bubbling away as the calcium oxidized before his eyes. Beneath him a pool of blood spread as the artery that reach down the inside of the leg pumped blood into a vacant circulatory system. Talen pushed himself backwards, the pain rising to agony beyond anything he had expected. He could feel himself getting light headed, but he needed to get away from the edge of the ice.

Two metres he managed to drag himself, a long trail of blood smeared across every centimetre. Talen fell backwards, his vision dimming and head spinning. He tried to focus on drawing in more energy from within. It was slow at first, he felt himself start to fill from within, then it spread down to the tattered remains of his leg. The bleeding stopped as muscle and bone started to regenerate. Veins spread through the tissue like roads through a town, and finally skin rolled down over the complex system.

For a few minutes Talen just lay there. At first his eyes were closed and the vision of his leg, bereft of flesh, hung in his mind’s eye. He sighed into the poison gas as he opened his eyes. Talen was no stranger to death, but he had never gotten used to the pain. That seemed to be what separated him from Jensen. Talen couldn’t throw away a life like the enigmatic immortal. The irony now, as Talen lay surrounded by the immortal’s handiwork was lost. Jensen had brought down the dragon, and died in the process. The next day he was up, trying to save the life of one of the people who had contributed to the dragon in the first place.

Talen pushed himself up to a sitting position and scanned around. His cry had been loud, but nothing seemed to answer it. This time rather than push himself up to his feet, Talen floated into the air. the youth’s bare white leg was quickly covered a dark pant leg and boot as his clothing materialised. The youth moved forwards again, hovering over the cracked ice. He wanted to find a pool of the liquid to inspect, but he past on one that had just eaten his leg.