Primordial Things ((Solo))

Thousands of tiny bubbles floated to the top of the stagnant waters of the fetid pool, some popping, but most hovering there on the surface of the swamp in clusters of twenty or thirty. The tiny air pockets fanned out as the water's surface started to gently swirl. Barely noticeable at first, the water's current began to gain momentum, and the bubbles spiraled inwards in neat lines until they revealed the form of a gathering whirlpool. They congregated in the foaming center which roiled as the water level sunk lower and lower. Then, there was no water left, only a black, tarry mud and the faint fizzing sound of greasy bubbles. No lampreys or snakes flopped about in the mud. Nothing natural lived in that part of the swamp at all, where no sunlight ever penetrated the tangle of trees, briars, and vines. It was an ancient place, and the thing that lived there was older than the marsh itself.

The muddy crater where the great stagnant pool once lay was almost fifty feet in diameter. The slime and ooze quaked and quivered as the primal roar of some bestial, non-human thing shook the mud and trees alike. High over head, carrion birds took to the skies in fear and would never again return to their nests near the center of the bog. The world shook again and the mud surged as another terrible roar echoed forth from seemingly everywhere at once. A great round form began to rise from the muck like a tumor growing wildly out of proportion. Then, it sank with harrowing moan, causing more methane bubbles to gurgle up through the mud, causing a great tainted stink to fill the air.

***

The black rubbery tentacle, thick as a man's thigh, slithered around her neck, and she knew it could have lifted her head from her shoulders if that was its intention. It had done so before on countless occasions. It might, for all she knew, be planning on doing it again now. The psychic pain it inflicted on her when she died in that state clung to her soul on waking, causing migraines, bleeding from orifices, and a more subtle scar that none could see, but was real as any to her.

It did not decapitate her though, and she did not awaken from the tangible nightmare. Another tentacle, vibrant red and purple like a poisonous jungle frog, crept along her bare belly leaving a trail of grey slime and making her stomach queasy. It crept higher, the girth of a human wrist, slithering between her breasts and coiling around her shoulders counter-clockwise to the larger one that choked her. Several more strands of ropy sinew knit themselves together around her torso, binding her arms to her sides, and a final stubby pink one, ripe with warts, bound her ankles. As a collective, the appendages lifted her into the foetid air, and a mass of rot, the size of a foothill loomed before her.

Higher still, she was carried, to the summit of the spongy flesh mountain, and from that vantage point she could see the hellscape that ran on in all directions. Rivers of myriapods, with billions of wriggling legs and colorful bodies flowed like jungle waterways, and knots and tangles of fungal rot rivaled the greatest forests of Raiaera in scope. The entire world around her was one of disease and madness, and she babbled incoherently, drool and spittle dripping from her mouth as she gibbered.

An eye in the mountain as large as a monastery, opened wide, and then several smaller eyes opened around it in a cluster. They were the yellow of puss, with great patches of foecal browns and splatters of mucousy blood-red. To say the pupils were black was to reach the end of the way human language could describe things. They were not simply black, but the color of incomprehensible oblivion itself.

The mountain of rotten flesh peeled back its top layer, the eyes folding back and giving way to a colossal maw. It had millions of visible teeth like needle spires, and had the depth of eternity. Somewhere deep within, a roaring inferno churned. A wave of hot toxic stench washed over her with the force of a hurricane and it rippled the soft skin of her face, threatening to flense it from her angular cheekbones. It spoke no words. And all of them at once.

She knew what it was saying.

It was threatening her with the knowledge of the 10,000 torments it had prepared for her in the afterlife. She shuddered and voided herself in terror. She gibbered her remorse to the dark entity, in spite of knowing it was incapable of empathy or mercy. She could feel its hunger. She could feel its lust to force itself on the virgin world above. A world that thought it knew suffering, and was very, very wrong.

The tentacle around her neck slackened.

***

Her eyes opened, and they were a rich emerald in color. She was nude, sitting cross-legged in a patch of brown grass – an island in the midst of a part of the marsh that was mostly submerged. Her hands rested on her muddy knees, palms up and her index fingers and thumbs formed rings.

She could still feel the slimy living ropes binding her skin, and her stomach did back-flips. She broke her meditation truly, placed a palm into the sharp brown swamp grass, leaned over, and vomited. The second roar emitted from far away in the heart of the swamp, and she knew it was what had awoken her from her trance. She heard the flight of birds overhead, and the splash of countless marsh-things diving into the obscuring safety of the water.

The Witch rose to her feet, legs shaking. She wiped the sick from the corners of her mouth, and her calculating eyes scanned her domain. She understood her task, and understood the consequences of failure.

The cadets jostled each other, shoving and play-fighting among themselves, about to finally be free from the harsh tutelage of their drill-sergeants for the first time in months. An equal split of human and dracari – those born of dragon blood – the cadets were consolidated by tabbards boasting the crest of Suthaain, capital city of Dheathain. They crowded around Arkault, the dracari who was their self-proclaimed squad leader. Cadets were largely left to govern themselves on their own time, and were evaluated on how successfully they did so, but did not have true hierarchy. Still, Arkault was boisterous and strong, and fell easily into a leadership role. He cleared his throat, his voice only recently having stabilized from the squeakiness that plagued those going through puberty.

“The special assignment posting is up. Only four names on the list,” he said to the group to build suspense as there were many more than four present. Most looked dismayed. “Heh, Private Arkault Greyscale, obviously. Private Ovin Brightwing, surprisingly,” he said before being jarred by a rough elbow from a green-skinned scale-caste standing beside him. He continued: “Private Giselle Toulette. Finally, a little sex-appeal,” he said to a reception of raucous laughter.

“That's Private Second-Class, Lizard-Dick,” a bright young woman countered to even greater laughter.

“And Private Tummus Lotner, 'cause... I guess every squad needs a guy with glasses. The rest of you sandbags are out of luck,” Arkault concluded, turning around with an aire of finality. Those gathered other than the four mentioned, bowed their heads in shame and returned to their bunks to mope.

“What's the assignment?” the inquisitive Tummus spoke up. He was squat and the short-shaven hairstyle of new recruits did not suit his rectangular head or the rolls of extra skin on the back of his neck, or thick gold-rimmed glasses that weighed heavily on the bridge of his nose. He was bright-eyed, but homely.

Private Brightwing cut in front of Arkault to take a closer look at the postings board. The two dracari had a budding rivalry, but shared a bond of caste that the humans couldn't possibly understand. “Awwww... Man! What a boring bunch of bunk,” Ovin stated flatly, and yielded his spot to Giselle who wanted to read it for herself.

“The East Highway is being vandalized. We're supposed to catch the vandal in the act and bring them in for trial. Wow. We get a week off guard duty... to take up guard duty... on the fringe of a swamp,” she said for the benefit of the group – secretly she was no less pleased to be accepted for the job as it all but paved her way to Private First-Class.

“Guard duty, with extra mosquitoes,” Arkault said glumly.

“It isn't just guard duty,” Tummus, who usually found reason to be chipper, interjected. “Guard duty is standing around waiting for something to happen, but hoping nothing does. This is a real mission. What if it's bandits? Or monsters? Better sharpen your spears boys and girls. We might just see our first real fight!”

“Hah! My spear is ALWAYS sharp,” Ovin said, retrieving his polearm from the rack near the entrance to the barracks. His initials were carved into the redwood haft. “ALWAYS,” he shouted with a powerful swing, and “SHARP,” he stated with a returning swipe.

Arkault flopped onto his bedroll and closed his eyes. He suspected that the “mission” wasn't going to be quite as glorious as Tummus had optimistically stated. Giselle climbed onto her bunk above his, kicking him on the way, but he didn't give her the satisfaction of appearing bothered.

“Better get some sleep, boys and reptiles. We're heading out at oh-five-hundred,” the human female cadet said officially, like a superior giving an order.

Ovin returned his spear to the rack and prepared to do just that. “Uh, what time is oh-five-hundred again?”

“You're lucky you can fight Ovin, cause you're not much to look at and only slightly smarter,” the human answered, before closing her eyes and falling immediately into a shallow sleep, the way only someone in the army could.

***

They marched two by two, not even trying to disguise the proud grins they bore. Their leather armor was handed down from previous classes of cadets, but to them it was prevalida plate. They carried spears that were theirs to keep and maintain until their army careers were finished. A standard issue gladius was displayed openly without a scabbard on their hips, pressed against their tabbards with a belt. They felt like knights off to crusade, and their eyes were filled with dreams of the glory they would bring to their city and families.

“Company, halt!”

“Fuck off.”

“Guys, this looks like a pretty good place to set up camp for the night.”

“I stole some cheese from mess when you guys were packing...”

***

“Ovin, you got the short straw, so you're on watch, the rest of us will grab forty,” the charismatic dracari delegated. He and Gisele were the only one's trying to keep things stringent anymore, the others already devolving to childish habits and fancy. Tummus had already taken his armor off and it propped up the pillow on his bedroll that he was already making good use of. Ovin pouted over drawing watch.

Gisele savored a sandwich she packed, knowing that after that night, they would have reached the marsh, and it would be iron rations and wet socks for many days. She kept the fire hot and contemplated removing her armor too. It would probably be the last time for a while she'd be able to do so in relative safety. It itched terribly and cut off the circulation in her shoulders. Arkault must have been thinking something of the same sort, as a heavy leather bracer clattered to the fire-side, and then the other. Ovin scratched his neck with his blunt claws, muttering, then grabbed his spear and headed for the perimeter of camp.

Arkault unceremoniously flopped into his bedroll, now clad only in his tunic, breaches, and combat boots. He kicked a wide foot out around the campfire.

“Private Toulette, help your squad leader take his boots off.”

Gisele took one hand away from her sandwich, still chewing, and pushed the dracari's leg into the fire. He withdrew it immediately. Sweat glinted in the fire light on her close shaven head. She had a handmaiden's cheekbones, and a soldier's grimace. She finished the last few bites of her sandwich. Ovin Brightwing's pilfered cheese had really been what it was missing, and she ended the meal with a satisfied sigh, and sucked the stray mustard off her finger tips.

Arkault leered, but said nothing. The dull grey scales that grew on his brow and joints caught the light of the fire like Gisele Toulette's sweat. He eyed his companion a few moments longer while she was oblivious. “Its not bandits you know. Or monsters. I asked around, and people say there's some crazy hermit who lives on the road. Some shaggy old guy or something. He just... lives there and trashes the road cause he's bored or something,” the muscular dragonkin said, resigned to removing his own boots. He sat in the middle of his bedroll by the fire, fidgeting with the laces.

Tummus Lotner sat up, and propped himself on his elbow, palm resting on the ample flesh of his cheek, now very interested in the conversation. “I heard something of the same. Its not a single old man who lives on the road though, its a harpy! A monstrous woman with talons and a bird's feathers, who preys upon male travelers. She sabotages the roads, and waits for them to come to a halt, then seduces them with a song. She draws the unwary man to her nest with the illusion of being a beautiful woman, and she enchants them into having their way with her. Then, just when they're getting close to finishing, she dispels the illusion and forces them to look at her terrible face while they fertilize her! She cuts off their hands and breaks their knees with a mallus, hobbling them so they can never escape! She breeds with them again and again until she lays a clutch of eggs which hatch into new baby harpies, which THEN proceed to feed on-”

“That's enough private,” Toulette said curtly.

“Private Lotner isn't scaring you is he Gisele? If you need to, you can move your bedroll over beside mine. I'll keep you safe,” Arkault taunted across the fire.

“Let's get one thing straight, Frog-Dick,” Gisele began evenly, her eyes already fast shut. “I don't fuck reptilians. Not now, not ever. If you have a problem with that, I suggest you take a walk and help Brightwing on watch.”

“Which is it Toulette?” Arkault shot back angrily. “Am I an amphibian, or a reptile?”

“If you ever find your real parents, you can ask them, orphan-boy,” the human woman responded coldly without missing a beat. “Good-night, Private Lotner.”

Arkault collected his boots in a huff and padded away from the fire to join Ovin Brightwing.

“Goodnight, Private Second-Class Toulette,” Tummus said cheerily.

***

Krung-rung-rung-rung rung. Krung-rung-rung-rung.

The steel tip of Ovin's spear rested on a small rock in front of the large one he himself sat upon. He turned the spear, and with a flick of his wrist, he spun the weapon like a top, which sounded musically on the rock for a short moment.

Krung-rung-rung-rung-rung-rung.

He looked up from his spear, surveiled the horizon around the hill with his superior night-vision, then looked up at the approaching Arkault who bore a scowl. “Can't sleep?” he asked.

“Are dragons amphibians or reptiles?” Arkault Grey-Scale asked, finding his own rock to sit upon near Ovin's. He also bore his spear, but had not bothered donning his armor again.

“Toulette again huh? You should just lay off her. She's not interested in you, and she only starts that anti-dracari shit when you're hitting on her,” Ovin said, uncharacteristically serious.

“Doesn't it bother you? That thousands of years ago our ancestors slept on beds of gold coins and magic weapons, and she talks to us like that?” Arkault responded, incensed.

“Plenty of the humans in Suthainn don't like dracari, and are pretty vocal about it. Its the age of humans, or whatever. She's not one of them though, she just knows how to get under your skin is all. She's army, like us. I trust her as much as I trust you.”

Arkault let it go at that, and the two young dracari warriors stood watch for a few hours before Arkault finally decided to turn in. He stood up to leave, and heard the krung-rung-rung of Ovin's spear once more. Private Brightwing turned to him, still bearing that uncharacteristic seriousness on his green face.

“It doesn't matter if dragons are reptiles or amphibians. We aren't dragons.”

Arkault, defeated by the pessimistic statement, returned to the camp to put wood on the fire before he got some sleep. He looked at the humans, Tummus snoring rhythmically, and Giselle, completely buried under the sky-blue cloak that were standard issue to all enlisted men and women in the army of Rheathainn. He could not tell if she was awake or asleep. He watched her for a few moments, then fell into a restless, dream-filled slumber.

The darcari said little and formed the back rank while the humans walked infront. Gisele was the only one dry while the other three were faintly miserable and slogged through the unfriendly rain that has started just before sun-up. Maybe it was cruel not to have said anything, but then again, the dragon kin were always boasting of their superior eyesight, and only she noticed the darkening clouds at sunset the evening prior.

They all huddled under their waterproof military cloaks now, and maintained a two by two rank on the road, as clear savannah slowly grave way to flood pools and obscuring trees. Private Lotner was eager to inform the troupe that the swath of low or no vegetation stemmed from a time when Suthainn was just beginning to creep up the enormous trees on which the city balanced percariously. Opting not to harvest the sacred trees for their wood, they instead began a large scale logging operation where they planned to build the road West. Abandoned within memory of the last generation as the need for wood became obsolete, tall grass and a few sickly trees found a hold there again, a twenty-mile circle of grassland, before which the land grew wild. Swamps, jungles, and the colossal ruins of ancient civilizations, lost to time, all that and more could be found in the domain of Rheathainn, perhaps boasting the greatest ecodiversity in all of Althanas.

The soldiers listened to Tummus' recounting of the regions geography, some less willingly than others. They laughed together as he detailed the regions seasonal weather; rain, with a ninty-percent chance of more rain. Humid. So humid. The folk who boasted draconic heritage adapted easily to the tropical weather, and were known to be quite fond of the heat though the low-born Scale Caste dracari had near as much skin as humans, and almost as much need to stay dry.

The patrol stopped for lunch in a copse of enormous curling ferns which were thick and leafy, offering ample protection from the elements. They were suprised and a bit suspicious to find the spot empty. Tummus found it strange that there were almost no mosquitos to be found but the marjority ruled that he should shut up and count his blessings, so he did. They ate sparingly and didn't bother to contest the soaked area for firewood. They were somber as they munched their jerky and whatever scraps of perishable food they had left.

Giselle, fed up with a though spot on the beef she was gnawing on, tucked the remainder of her lunch into a leather beltpouch for the road, and sought out Private Lotner.

“What does our route look like from here? Are we close? Or should we consider waiting out the rain here and think about getting a fire going and drying our kits up a bit?”

The dracari folded their arms and listened, minding their boots. Both were wondering what rank one had to be to requisition a wagon for missions.

“We made good time just keeping our heads down and marching through the morning. Twenty-four miles from the barracks by my guess? In about six miles we'll come up on the bridge that leads to the lowlands. Thats where the marsh starts. The road runs through it at its narrowest point but it stretches out forever to the North, and kinda wraps around the highland like a belt,” Tummus explained with the aire of a school instructor. “If you keep following the road West, there's a few farming villages out that way, and then nothing for a good long while. But you don't need to worry about that. Every piece of information we have says the culprit is living near the stretch of road where the bridge is-”

“So we can make a dry camp under the bridge and start our search from there,” Toulette concluded.

Ovin Brightwing shook his head. “What do you mean, like, make our camp in the water?”

Tummus laughed. “No no. Think of the bridge as... more of a big ramp supported by beams. It connects the highlands to the lowlands, because otherwise it would just be a steep, impassable cliff and youd have to detour around to the south for days before you found a suitable place to safely get up, and forget about trying to get a wagon up here, heh,” he finished, snorting.

Ovin perked up. “So, there's no water under it.”

Arkault, feeling the weight of his importance lessen by not putting in his imput, chimed in. “No dummy. No water. I'm pretty sure a different arm of the road goes under it. The one that leads North through the swamp. I saw a map once that showed just how many colonies failed because the land or natives, or local mosters pushed them back. Theres roads everywhere now that just lead nowhere. Forgotten enterprises, or, farming settlements that just died out'” he ended on a more mysterious note.

“Spooky stuff,” Ovin said flatly. “So why send four soldiers, who were just recruits last year, to go deal with this? Why not a whole contingent of the army?”

“Probably,” Private Second-Class Toulette began. “Because anything more than that is a waste of time, and they're aware how perfectly capable we are of apprehending a lone vandal, and putting down any lurking goblins on the way who might leap out and try and devour private Brightwing.”

The troupe laughed, not necessarily because they thought it was funny, but to supress any feeling other than being completely up to the task. They were soldiers now, and they bore rank that made it official. Some of them had dreams of being officers, or specialists. Some had grander dreams, of being great heroes. Such thoughts and fancies help to mask the very real possibility, that the reason command had saw fit to send a handful of promising cadets to deal with the task was because they were an expendible resourse when prodding frontier of the dangerous land.

They were young, and brave, and chose to have faith in their leadership.

“Okay team, packs hoisted in five, I want to be sitting beside a fire while the sun's still in the sky,” Arkault stated, clapping his grey hands. The four fledgling soldiers, steeped in basic training, were marching again less than two minutes later, Gisele once again working her piece of jerky.