The Last Dainv-Chapter 25

The Last Dainv-Chapter 25

A couple of days had passed since Gale killed the forest predator. All the broken or cracked bone armour and spears replaced with new ones. Gale sat by the smokers, collecting the meat into a pouch he had made with the leather of the beasts.
"Is everyone good?" Rachel asked the group just outside of the stone tower.
"As good as we'll ever be, I guess," Ollie looked at Anna and Dmitry. The two that had went down no longer looked pale. They looked more energetic after staying near the campfire for the past couple of days.
"They're fine now," Annett said. "Is our
little demon
good to go now?"
"Don't call him that," Rachel narrowed her eyes at Annett.
"Just trying to lighten the mood. It was a compliment," Annett said.
"Time to move out then." She turned to Gale near the edge of the border of the stone tower, "Gale, are you ready to go?"
Gale nodded.
"You think the base camp is ok?" Ollie asked.
"They'll be fine as long as nothing as big as the one Gale killed attacks them." Rachel gathered up her belongings, a small pouch and a worn out zip-up hoodie. "Let's think of the best. All of them are also counting on us finding the exit rift."
She was right. No point in worrying about the camp when the whole point of this expedition was to find an exit for them anyway.
"Ollie, you're up." Rachel said.
Ollie took out the red marble. Flicked it up with his fingers. It spun in the air for a second, then dropped down.
11 o'clock.
"Alright, onwards to adventure, my lads. May Najm guide our path and bless us with a fine tavern so we may drink the finest of ales. May he rid us of the interference from the Ancient Entities, whatever whatever." Ollie started walking to where the red marble pointed.
"Shut up." Annett shook her head.
"Wait. Who is Najm? And what do you mean by ancient entities? Can these
entities
be cut?" Gale asked.
"Don't pay attention to him, Gale. That's just a reference to a stupid game," Rachel put her hand on his shoulder.
"Fine." Gale grumbled, following the rest of the group. Anna, Dmitry, and Alex walked a step behind him. A stupid game they say when there could be more ancient entities like that blue moon over there. These people really had no sense of urgency.
The group walked through the forest for hours. Silence fell on the forest. More eerie than usual. Gale didn't like it. Silence felt like the forest screamed at him, warning him of the danger, yet nothing came. Not like last time.
"Finest ales, you say? Bet you can't even handle your alcohol." Annett smirked directly at Ollie.
"You see, you would be correct if it weren't for something a literal magical device called gun syringe." Ollie said.
"Oh? Relying on external BS to keep your alcohol?" Annett chuckled. "Najm isn't going to like that one."
"Quiet," Gale said from the back. "Can't you hear the silence is too silent?"
"Welp, Najm is guiding our path. Quiet definitely means safe forever until we get ambushed. Ow. What was that for?"
Annett had laughed too much when Ollie said that. "Shut up, that's too much. Laughing might get us caught." Annett looked back at the rear, then sighed. She slowed down during the walk to meet Gale. "Hey, could you… maybe sometime teach me how to make a fire on my own? We have Rachel, but, y'know. Can't really-"
"Yeah, I can teach you. When we get to another break." There was no thought to it. The more people that knew how to be self sufficient the better. He looked back at Anna, Dmitry, and Alex, all worn out from the countless hours of hiking.
"Let's take a break here then. Annett, come on. I'll show you." Gale said, approaching the dry bark of a tree they stopped by. Crouching on the forest floor, he saw bits of small twigs, and small enough branches that could be used for friction. Annett hovered close by to where he crouched, watching him.
"First, bark and its fibre is best for the tinder." Gale ripped off the fibres from the bark he gathered. "Next, friction. We produce heat by rubbing two sticks together."
Gale arranged the two sticks together, rubbing the two in a perpendicular motion. Smoke started coming from the static stick, immediately, he put the fibre on the smoking area and blew. The fibre caught the heat, turning into an ember as it used up the fibre as fuel to become a small fire in his hands.
"There. You got fire. Make sense?" Gale asked, watching Annett's expression. Even as someone as socially inept as him could tell she had fun watching his demonstration.
"You wanna try?" Gale asked.
Annett looked at him, "So first, bark, ideally with fibrey like stuff in it. Then twigs or branches that could be used for friction, right?"
"That's right."
Ollie came over. "Didn't think your muscle head actually had some brain cells to remember all that. Good job."
Annett chuckled at his tease, "I'm still from a family, dumbass."
"Yeah, yeah," Ollie yawned. "Hey, what about those smoker things you use? Wanna show us how to make that one? Really useful, by the way."
"Making fire is enough, showing how to make those things is bothersome," Annett said.
"It's fine," Gale said. He started from the basics of how smokers work, then the ideal way to create a smoker with a pit at the bottom. Both Annett and Ollie were captivated by the demonstration like kindergarten children during story time. Rachel watched over from the side with a soft smile, watching Gale.
Suddenly, a twig snapped from afar. Anna, Dmitry, Alex. Check. Not any of them.
"We should keep moving," Rachel squinted her eyes, her head darting to where the snap came from.
Ollie raised the red marble, falling forward at 12 o'clock.
"This way," he said.
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Gale activated Distort in the rear just in case there was anything behind them that tracked them. He let out a Breath of the Void, feeling something tugging at the tendrils of his senses. It wasn't any of the familiar predators of the forest he felt. It was something else, something patient, and he didn't want to find out.
The group pushed forward, pace increasing with Ollie moving faster. Gale kept a watch on Anna and Dmitry as they were the only ones that struggled. Alex was relatively fit and small, allowing her to move easier on the uneven ground of the forest.
A shriek from the sky pierced the air above the canopy. Gale recognized that hell-like voice, the faceless crows he had met at the branch when he first arrived in this world.
A deafening boom shook the forest, shaking every tree around them as leaves rained down. It was the same sound of the blue moon's lance they heard at the giant tree. It had struck something in the distance.
Ollie reached for the red marble in his pocket. His hands shook and shivered as he fumbled, flicking it up into the air. The small orb spun, then fell forward in the direction of where the blue moon's lance had impacted. Everyone paused their legs, looking at Rachel for a decision.
Gale stepped forward. "Whatever the blue moon hit should be dead. Let's keep going."
His words seemed to ease Rachel, but not the others.
"Yeah… let's keep going," Annett's voice audibly trembled.
Ollie didn't even say anything, the same for the 3 mundanes.
The group once again moved through the forest, this time taking point with Ollie at the front. They soon neared the impact site, and the forest had changed. All the trees around here had their bark burnt, blackened as if a fire had broken through this place. Smoke still rose up from the burnt bark, enough to make their eyes tear up.
Gale held up a hand, signalling the others to stop. Just ahead, the trees opened into a clearing. At its centre lay a massive, smouldering crater.
"Stay here," Gale whispered. "I'll check it out."
Before anyone could say anything, he activated Distort on his skin. His body blurred into invisibility and then moved forward.
The scorched earth crunched beneath his feet as he walked up to the crater. He reached the edge, looking down into the bottom. At the centre lay nothing. No corpse, no remains, no blood, no nothing. Just burnt earth.
He crouched, ran his fingers through the burnt earth. Pinched it and held it up to his nose. Smells like charred earth. Sounds about right. Was it even worth licking? Probably not.
A twig snapped behind him. Gale spun around, bone sabre pointed at the potential threat until he saw it was just Rachel.
"Gale? What is it?" she asked.
You scared me,
but Gale just shook his head. "It's empty. Like… burnt earth."
Sigh. Couldn't really say anything other than that.
Rachel frowned. "But we all saw the beam. We heard the impact. The Blue Moon doesn't do that for no reason."
The rest of the group came through the clearing after Rachel.
Gale put his sabre away. "We need to keep moving. Whatever happened here, the beam might've hit something that left."
"Agreed. Let's go." Rachel glanced back.
"Well, crazy thing. We gotta go that way," Ollie pointed straight through the crater.
"Lead the way." Gale said.
Ollie took front again, leading the way through the burnt ground. The ground below felt warm through their shoes. Must've been hotter with just bare feet, or even the makeshift shoes that the camp members used.
Dmitry's voice mumbled from the back, audible enough that Gale heard it from the front, though that might just be Breath of the Void feeding him his voice from afar. He looked back, seeing Anna beside Dmitry, walking blankly, staring at the ground behind the older man.
"Can't you make him stop? He's going to attract monsters." Alex tugged at Rachel's sleeve.
Rachel shook her head. "I can't do anything about it. He's already... damaged. Forcing him to stop might make things worse."
Dmitry's voice crescendoed, words now clearer. "The Father shall put the heathens to torment. The spirits shall erase the darkness. The filth of this world shall be cleaned by the angels."
Gale snapped. A person asking to be saved by a god? It was hilarious in this situation when a blue moon could be considered a literal god of this world. He spun to the back, grabbed Dmitry by the collar, and
stared.
Dmitry's prayer cut off mid-syllable, eyes locked onto the boy holding him. Then silence.
Gale nodded and let go of the old man. The group continued its hike, and the forest began to change. More and more of the scenery became scorched and destroyed. Towering trees that they once thought couldn't be toppled over laid on the ground with their trunks snapped in half. Half of the trees were burnt, with embers still on their leaves.
Annett coughed, covering her mouth with her sleeve. "What is this place?"
"Should we turn back now? We could just call this a dead end," Rachel said as she saw a hole right through one of the giant trees.
"This has been the strongest pull from the red marble. There's a risk the next whiff it gets will be months away," Ollie said.
"I can deal with one forest predator myself, we should be fine," Gale said.
The group continued trudging through the environment that got hotter, to the point that even Gale had started sweating. That was until in front of them was a giant tree laid on the ground, blocking their path. It was at least 20 feet tall.
"Hold up," Ollie said. He pulled out the red marble again, flicking it up for it to point forward.
Gale looked right and left, but somehow he couldn't see the end of the tree. The group walked right for a couple of minutes until giving up.
Rachel squinted. "We can't see where it ends. We'll have to climb over."
Gale nodded.
"Twenty feet, give or take. Dmitry and Anna first." He moved to the rear, letting out Breath of the Void to scout the area.
Dmitry's hands shook as he gripped the rough bark, his breath ragged as he climbed up. Anna didn't fare any better. She struggled to hold the handholds that were already clear on the bark. Only Alex looked like she was a monkey climbing a tree.
Ollie, Annett, and Rachel climbed behind the trio.
"Careful," Rachel guided Anna's foot to a stable hold in the bark of the wood. "We've got you."
Annett quickly climbed up to where Dmitry was and held him by his belt, supporting him through the climb.
"Just a little further," she said.
The group finished climbing, and then Rachel shouted at the top, "Gale! We're over the tree! Hurry up!"
Gale glanced at the woods once more before jumping up a couple of meters as he dug his hand into the bark. The push lobbed himself over. A single motion was all it took for him to get over to the top.
He saw the view from where they were at. Scorched and burning earth all around, looking much more devastated than on the ground. He grimaced at the reality of it all.
Gale looked down, dropping onto the ground at the other side. He met Rachel's eyes as he softly landed.
Ollie pulled out the red marble again, its glow seeming brighter in the gloom of the ravaged forest.
"This way," he said.
"So much for that tavern," Annett said.
"Ah, but the journey has not ended!" Ollie said dramatically.
Anna's shoulder slumped. She stumbled, coughing violently. Alex moved to support her, but Gale was faster. He caught Anna before she could fall.
"We need to rest," Rachel said, her own voice raspy from the smoke.
Gale shook his head.
"Not here." His eyes pointed to the smoking earth below them. "We need to find clearer air."
They pushed on, their pace slowing as fatigue set in for Anna, Dmitry, and Alex. The forest was still quiet, something wasn't right. Since the beginning, this kind of silence had always led to danger.
After what felt like hours but was likely only minutes, they stumbled into a small clearing. The air here was marginally clearer, and the ground cooler beneath their feet.
"We'll stop here," Gale said, helping Anna sit down on a fallen log. "Catch your breath, but stay alert."
Gale paced the perimeter, examining tracks at the borders of the clearing. Looks like no beast had passed by in the past couple of days. No sign of smaller creatures as well, if they even existed. However, the feeling of being watched still settled on him.
"What do you think happened here?" Rachel asked him as he was crouched examining days old tracks.
"The blue moon… it probably targeted this area repeatedly in the past couple of days. But I don't know what…"
"How did we not hear it?"
A piercing cry shattered the silence. Branches and leaves from the canopy above fell as a giant bird plummeted from the top into the middle of the clearing. It had feathers as deep and dark as a crow's, except with the height of about 2 stories, almost as tall as the tree blocking their way. Where its second wing should have been, only a burnt stump remained.
It turned to Rachel, showing its face with only a thin slit for a mouth and no other facial features. The faceless crow.

Chapter 25