21st Letter: Strange Changes, Strange Enemies, & a Strange Mist

General Summary

Dear Scha’ar,
I woke this morning from a very strange sleep. A deep sleep. But not restful. I had dreams. I remember they were strange, but I can’t quite put my talon on them. I remember an invisible Sylvan I tried to track...he got away when I was distracted by food…I remember another dream with Ingoria being attacked by some strange shadowy being. And a feast. There was a feast! I ate so much. The only detail of the feast that I remember was a roasted raven, who I ate over and over again, but who didn’t fill me.
Dreams are strange, yes?
Then Alyona explained…Ingoria, Baermak, and I had changed into were-rats. Apparently the creatures we encountered in the sewers had infected us with their foul disease as they died. We transformed under the full moon last night. And stalked Vessyr and Alyona.
We attacked them.
Very aggressively.
They wisely fled, avoiding a confrontation, and leaving us to our own infernal chaos.
Baermak resummoned Edgar, who had disappeared during the night.
Apparently…apparently he didn’t disappear so much as get killed by me.
Part of me is glad I don’t remember the night.
Also...also I am very glad I didn't kill Vessyr or Alyona. I am sure they would have put up a good fight, but neither is a match for me alone, much less with Ingoria and Baermak by my side.
Ingoria claimed to have killed (and eaten) a … from what she could tell of the corpse, it was amphibious, with a blue-ish belly and rudimentary clothing.
A Kek'ni? Could it have been? Perhaps the legends are true.
I was tired, sore, hung over. I felt terrible. In fact, the three of us all felt terrible, but we as a group decided to continue our exploration. Edgar and I soared along the coast to the delta, him  vigilantly keeping me in his sight at all times (from a safe distance), and me apologizing without pause. I didn’t see much on our little mission, except for a distant spot completely obscured by cloudy mists. As I stared at the swirling mass it struck me: that mist had hung there for our entire journey. It had been there yesterday when I scouted. And the day before. Every day!
That’s when Edgar interrupted my reverie to tell me that something very large was approaching the rest of the team.
I discontinued my search and headed back to the team, who were safe, then flew off in the obvious direction of the loud crashing noises.
Sure enough, I found a gigantic lizard, walking on two legs, smashing through the forest and headed in our direction. It seemed to be chasing something.
I circled around to get far in front of it, then hid in the underbrush, hoping to spy what the gigantic hunter chased as the prey passed in front of me. I didn't wait long! Though it passed not 20 feet from me, I couldn't see the prey, as it moved too fast and was obscured by foliage. But there was certainly something! It swung through the foliage, moving from tree to tree.
Purposefully.
I realized that what it was did not actually matter. What mattered was that it was purposefully leading the creature toward the team.
When I arrived the team was arranged around a large cenote. Actually behind the cenote, away from the charging monster.
After several tense moments listening to the approaching behemoth, trees disappearing in front of us as it came closer, the thing came smashing through. Two small amphibious creatures preceded it, diving into the cenote. I had hoped the lizard too would fall into the cenote, but it did not. It came to us.
So I shot it. My arrows sank deeply into its flesh, but…such a huge beast! Alyona and Vessyr charged it, shooting and smashing it. Alyona backed away after pounding on it, putting as much distance between them as possible, but she had attracted its limited attention and it turned and chased her down, huge steps echoing around us. Determination hardened her eyes as she sprinted away, but the beast took two giant steps and I saw it lean down, mouth wide. She had no chance; it snapped her up like a person plucking a salmon from a shallow jetty.
All I could see of her was her staff protruding from its jaw as it reared back up.
I concentrated, not allowing the rising panic to overtake me, focused in, and landed two more arrows in quick succession. Alyona screamed in pain as the beast chewed on her. The team closed in and Baermak shouted to her, reminding her of the story of the runaway.
At this, Alyona shouted with joy and appeared several feet from it, behind Baermak and her grandfather.
Baermak's stories are amazing.
Alyona wasted no time, immediately pummeling it in the side as blood soaked her clothes from within. It sounded like she broke a rib. Or two.
Ingoria, hidden in some bushes, landed arrow after arrow in its other side while Vessyr shot at its head.
Two more arrows from me, and now I had drawn its attention. It charged through the group, kicking Vessyr's spider and skirting past Vessyr and Baermak…to get to me.
That thing was fast, Scha-ar! Really fast!
I have never been bitten like that before.
A spider bites and it stings. That's it. Unless it's a J'rohq spider, but...anyway. A spider bite is nothing. A dog bite will leave a mark. Perhaps you'll get an infection. Larger beasts can do significant damage. But...
It's mouth enclosed my entire body, teeth like boning knives piercing my fine leather. The pressure so great I could barely breathe. The monster’s mouth stank of fetid meat.
My vision began to swim.
I could not even react. In that dark maw I still held my bow, as if I could shoot it from inside.
The crack of Vessyr’s gun reverberated through the jungle, the only sound I could pick out above the rancid breathing of the beast and the ringing in my ears, and suddenly we fell. As the lizard's head hit the ground its teeth sank even deeper and I winced.
Catching my breath I heard Alyona cry out sharply and then...silence.
Its mouth hung open wide enough for me to escape, but several serrated teeth caught on my armor, keeping me pinned far longer than I preferred. Twisting to my left I dropped from its jaws, crouched, and leaped into the air, spreading my wings. The little frog-beasts were all around us, two having crawled up from the cenote, and two more having appeared from the forest behind us.
One had felled poor Alyona, already badly wounded, one was engaged with Ingoria, and two were closing with Vessyr, Baermak, and Boris the spider.
Alyona, the Kek'ni’s tongue wrapped around her throat, was unconscious. Having succeeded in taking her out, it dropped her to the ground, and I shot it. It batted at my 1st shot, partially deflecting it, though the arrow still punched into its shoulder. It didn’t see the second arrow.
Vessyr charged forward, healing his granddaughter as Baermak sprayed some strange, green mist at one of the ones from the cenote.
Alyonna murmured as the one I shot looked up at me, leaped into the air, climbed the tree next to me, and leaped across toward me. I tracked it as it ran, but could not line up a good shot before it was too close. So very fast! I started to sling my bow so I could draw my sword but it was far too fast for that, even, its tongue reaching out for me. I dodged the tongue, but not its fist.
When I woke my team was concentrated around the one who had dropped me. Baermak was looking right at me, and nodded slightly.
The Kek'ni make a strange, bellowing croak and I could no longer move.
The team pounded the Kek'ni around me, beating one into the ground.
I could only watch. I tried, but I had no conscious control over my body. So I watched. Vessyr suddenly ran away, but everybody else continued to attack the two remaining next to me.
One fell while I struggled to regain control. With feeling slowly coming back, I jumped up and took quick stock: two Kek'ni remained. The one closest to me, surrounded by my allies, was in very bad shape. The other, which did not look to be badly wounded, was fleeing.
Concentrating tightly on its back I sent two arrows one after the other between its shoulder blades.
Vessyr walked up behind the one close to me and shot it in the back of its head, then turned to fire at the fleeing one. It sensed the incoming fire, spun, grabbed the missile, continued its spin, and flung the bullet back at Vessyr! It missed him, but still, it was a very impressive move.
Regardless, it needed to die.
Ingoria shot it with magical fire as Baermak cast a spell, adding wounds to it, but still it slipped through the trees, swinging from branch to branch, using vines where the trees were too far apart.
Alyona darted out from below me, honed in it, ran it down, and threw it to the ground, punching it cleanly in the face. It stopped moving.
Done.
All of us badly wounded, I created my rope trick and we all hid out to recover. As we watched from safety, looking down out of the cozy bubble, the forest below came to life, predators and carrion feeders feasting on the giant felled lizard.
Baermak sent Edgar to check out the cenote. Nothing was immediately visible, but he could see something submerged in the central pool. Rested, I flew in and tried to see, but couldn’t make anything out in the gloom.
Edgar dove into the water to get a better look: it was a squishy sphere. Edgar was able to lift it up to the surface of the water. I took it from him and set it down for the team to inspect.
Orange/brown, somewhat soft, about 15” in diameter. It had a somewhat sweet aroma. I have never seen anything like it. It seemed to have a waxy coating.
Vessyr started scraping at it, and below the wax was a layer of leaves. Below the leaves seemed to be fire clay. We cracked the clay ball open and leaf-wrapped packets rolled out onto the ground. A surprisingly wonderful smell surrounded us; spices, vegetables, fish. We opened one, and each packet contained a partially fermented fish cake! The team wanted to chuck them back into the water! But I insisted we keep them.
They smelled so good I decided to try one, and it was not only tasty, but quite invigorating!
We decided to make camp early. It had already been a long day of battle and exploration, and three of us were still exhausted from last night.
While we slept the apes attacked.
Alyona woke us.
The two apes were quite large; in fact, these were likely related to the ape we had seen in the mouth of the giant lizard earlier.
As they charged in I focused on the closest and thwp thwp thwp stuck three arrows deeply into its left pec. Surprisingly it did not go down, but...I had unfortunately drawn its attention.
It threw a boulder at me.
A boulder.
When I woke I rolled out from under the boulder and looked around. Both apes remained standing and Boris was nowhere to be seen. One of the apes had closed with Alyona while the other charged toward Vessyr.
I stood up, aimed carefully, and shot two arrows into the chest of the one swinging its fist at Alyona, both embedding up to their fletching. It howled in rage, baring its teeth and glaring right at me. Remembering what happened last time, I simply dropped to the ground.
Perhaps it should have ignored me and kept its attention on Alyona.
Shots rang out and I saw Alyona charge forward through the brush. An ape howled and then crashed to the ground.
It was over.
We moved a safe distance from the battle and found a new campground.
And rested.
Truly rested.
Finally.
I did not turn into a were-rat. So it only happened on the one night of the true full moon.
We resumed our exploration the next morning. From the air I saw more cenotes, but nothing else of interest. As we got to the delta, Edgar and I, we saw several figures impaled on spears, lining the bank of the river. I couldn’t make out exactly what they were, but they were bigger than the Kek'ni and smaller than people. No wings.
I decided to explore across the river. I didn’t see anything, but I did get hit by an arrow. I saw where the arrow came from, but oddly could not make out anything, anything at all, in that location. I had no idea who had shot me. These are likely the creatures impaled on the spears. The enemies of the Kek'ni.
We rested for another night.
The next day while dropping out of a rain cloud I spied somebody…some creature peeking out from a treetop, looking around. It looked fairly lizardlike.
It didn’t see me.
Then it ducked down and disappeared.
I ignored it and headed to the mist, right up to the edge, then headed back to the team. It looked to simply be mist. Explaining what we had seen, we took a look at the speared corpses, but they were so decayed that it was hard to tell if they were lizards or not.
The next day Edgar and I headed straight to the mist. The mist itself did not rise from the ground, as if from a lake, bog, or swamp. It fell, instead, from the sky.
I flew in.
A short distance inside the mist I almost flew straight in to the vertical face of a cliff. It rose nearly straight up, covered with moss and colorful fungi, the mist flowing down around it; a waterfall of fog flowing through this beautiful, verdant cliff side.
Up.
I flew straight up the cliff. About 150 feet above the canopy I reached the top. As I crested the cliff the moss and fungi gave way to familiar trees, and I flew in even farther, leaving the edge behind me. At perhaps the very center of the plateau the mist billowed forth, flowing steadily through the forest and over the edge
I asked Edgar to head in and explore further. He did. I waited for his return, at which point the both of us would head in.
But return he did not.
I waited as long as I felt comfortable, but still he didn’t return.
I headed back to the group and explained what I saw, and Baermak explained that Edgar had seen a ruined city! A huge cauldron with waterfalls along the sides, spilling into lava, and a ruined city! We had found it!
Then he saw a bright light and that was that.
Time to write this letter and rest again.

Report Date

31 Dec 2022