The Tempest of Raiaera

The High Elves of Raiaera know to never venture into the Red Forest. A place where a great many dangerous creatures reside.

Even so, some elves, be they brave or foolish enough, seek to brave the deadly Red Forest and come back out alive. But one incident occurred there; one stranger than many have come to expect of this accursed place.

Not that long ago, six men entered the forest searching for a boy who had escaped their grasp. The boy was a runaway and he retreated into the dreaded Red Forest in a desperate attempt to seek refuge from these men who wished to sell him to the highest bidder.

The men pursued the boy, not wanting to lose their product or for its value to drop. They figured the boy wouldn’t have gotten far with all of the dark creatures one encountered the deeper one traveled.

During their search, though it was the middle of summer, one of the men discovered some ice and sleet where they suspected the boy had ran off to. The oddity of such a thing didn’t escape them.

Just then, the leader of the group had called out that he had found the boy. It would seem the boy had finally decided to accept his fate instead of continuing deeper still into the Red Forest.

Something seemed a little unusual about the boy however. One of the men could’ve sworn the air around the boy seemed to catch the light and glint a bit, as if there was some kind of mist.

The leader of the group walked closer to the boy and grabbed him by the arm. There was a high-pitched giggling and then a sudden flurry of icy scales and moth-like wings.

The men could see this was no resident of the Red Forest. It was something far worse.

They saw with horror that the creature had five multicolored eyes and six clawed arms. Its wings were lined with feathers and membraned with black veins.

The rest of the men had heard something like a sickening crunch. And then, with a loud thud, their leader's corpse laid strewn about them, his ribs and lungs ripped out of his body.

The creature lunged towards them and began to eviscerate the second man. The four remaining men attempted to escape but the third man was piked by a large icicle from the ground.

A flurry of snow appeared before the fourth man as his head was turned 180 degrees. The fifth man tripped and had his skull repeatedly crushed against the ground.

It would seem the final man was to be the only one to escape. He saw the forest exit just within his reach but all that made it out was his head.

The boy, the one the men had meant to capture, would leave the forest unharmed. His only thought was a question as to what the creature had done to the men.

Beware the Red Forest. Beware the Tempest of Raiaera.

I will be your Judge for this thread.

Pros
- You went for a shorter style, and for something like this, it works
- It honestly feels like someone is actually telling the story

Cons
- Honestly it was too short to see too much of your particular writing style, though that's the nature of the beast
- You went for graphic descriptions of the mutilations of the bodies, and a couple of them, particularly the one where the man's head was turned backwards, didn't have any oomph to it
- This is a personal one, but I'd have gone with this being told by some old elven woman around a campfire or something, so it would feel even more like one of those ghost stories you tell around a fire.

Overall score 5/10 stars
200 EXP rewarded, 50 GP rewarded

EXP and GP added. Welcome to level 2