Ar'Kendrithyst

When everyone was healed, they stood over the unicorn corpse.

The unicorn was ten meters tall and ten meters long. It was an expanse of burned flesh, black fur, and tangled intestines. Its crown of horns glittered in the afternoon light. Whole and undamaged, it might have been a majestic creature if not for the tentacled maw and the horror it inflicted upon all those it met. Like this…

Like this, it was a sign of improvement. The monster was dead. Jane and her teammates had survived the encounter. With a bit of healing afterward, everyone was whole, too.

But there was something wrong with this unicorn.

Jane said, “It’s much too big. This is one of the ones we should have run from. There’s dragon essence in there.”

Bett said, “Maybe. I’d still like the body. I can deal with a little dragon essence.”

“Are you sure?” Jane looked around the group. “How do you two want to do this?”

Marric said, “I just got my Class.” He smiled wide, saying, “I’m good to hunt more unicorns, but I’ll need a few hours to get back to my post and pick up some Ability Quests from a registrar I trust.” He looked to the unicorn. “You two fight over it. I don’t have a stake in this race.”

Scallion frowned. He said, “I don’t like mucking around with dragon essence, Bett.”

“It’s really not a big deal.” Bett said, “I can handle it. All I have are slime forms.”

Jane asked, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but taking in any dragon essence at all opens you up as a target to the hidden dragons of the world.”

Marric said, “Simplistic, but true enough.”

“Exactly, Bett,” Scallion said, looking at Bett with eyes that said a lot more than his mouth.

“That is overly simplistic. It’s fine.” Bett looked to Scallion, saying, “It’s fine.”

“I’m unwilling to take this risk.” Jane said, “I think we should just sell it, that way no one risks the dragons.”

“This monster is a catch.” Bett stared at Jane with with her big purple eyes, saying, “If you’re not willing, then let me stand up and take that risk. I’m almost at [Lightwalk]. I’m sure this would put me over the top.”

Scallion looked away.

Jane relented, “Okay, fine. If you want to risk this… I relinquish any claim. I can take the next one. Hopefully it will be smaller.”

Bett squealed in happiness. She hopped once, then said, “I’ll make it up to you, Jane. We’ll get another one, for sure.” She flopped into a gooey ball of crystalline light as her voice came out of the air, “This’ll take me a while.”

Jane chuckled once, asking, “Crystal Slime?”

Scallion said, “Took us a year in Portal to find one. Light slimes are rare enough; might as well go for the prettiest one.”

Bett rolled toward the unicorn, saying, “This is going to get messy. I gotta eat the whole thing,”

Marric said to Jane, “You and I can scour the rest of the bodies.”

Jane looked away from the unicorn, saying, “Sure. We can do that.”

As Jane and Marric walked toward the battlefield and Bett vanished into the corpse of the unicorn, Scallion stepped toward them.

Scallion whispered, “Thanks for this.” He added, “This unicorn is the last step for us. After we’re all satisfied with enough hunts, Bett and I are going to the islands and leaving this life behind. It’s time to start a family.”

Jane smiled. She nodded as she walked with Marric toward the battlefield.

She asked, “So which ability did you pick out? You get one for completing the Class, right?”

Marric smiled, looking forward. He said, “Mind Mage unique option.”

“Don’t tell me then.” Jane asked, “You guys have your own secret society around the world, don’t you?”

“People think that.” Marric frowned a little, as he said, “But it’s… Well. It’s not a society. You see...” He said, “The class ability I picked? It’s a minor aura. All it does is check to see if people are under mental influences. For the most part, this is all Mind Mages do.”

Jane asked, “How would you know in the case of a reacher’s [Thought Fog]?”

“Trade secret, but I can tell you that it takes training, which I have.” Marric added, “We got all the reachers, Jane. Today’s fight really is over.”

Jane nodded, silently, wanting to believe Marric.

- - - -

It took ten minutes of walking, but Jane and Marric arrived on the battlefield. Scorched land and severed bodies littered the prairie. It was a gruesome sight, and smell. Entrails and blood, shit and fear. The scents of horror layered a gentle western breeze, as the late afternoon sun turned slight hills and scattered corpses into long shadows.

Jane and Marric began the heavy work of sorting through the bodies.

Jane conjured white sheets across the ground as funeral shrouds for the dead people. Marric telekinetically moved the long limbed bodies of the vinespawn and reachers into an uncoordinated pile. These reachers had no rings on their fingers; they were young, with arms only several meters long.

After twenty minutes of sorting through bodies, the monster corpses were stacked and burning with a [Cleansing Flame]. Marric switched to helping Jane with the human bodies. She had only gotten halfway through them all.

After an hour, all of the human, incani, and orcol victims of the unicorn were laid in their shrouds, and covered. All thirty-seven of them. There were no dragonkin. Jane tried to think if she had ever seen a dead wrought body; she had not.

Most of the unicorn’s victims were completely nude, with wounds of all sorts. All of them were skinny and shoeless, with bloody feet and a form that could only come from a forced, constant march, with zero food or care for themselves. Some of them were brain dead well before the fight. The rest were a mix of cannibals, and people too strong to leave alive on the battlefield. Of those that did have clothes and items on them, Jane and Marric took their personal effects and laid them on top of the shrouds.

Jane did not envy Marric, Scallion, and Bett’s side of the unicorn fight; they had had to kill people because Jane couldn’t kill the unicorn fast enough.

Marric sat beside the tenth body that had items on it. He knelt next to the shrouded corpse, his hand touching a twine and stone bracelet on the white covering; the only item recovered on the otherwise nude body. Teal magic covered his hand, and the item. After a moment, the glow faded.

Marric said, “The same town as eight of the other nine. The unicorn called to them in the middle of the night. It told them to bring it their children, or kill those around them, and then to serve it until their own death. She brought the beast her twins. They were only four months old.”

Jane breathed calmly, letting the horror wash off of her.

Marric stood up, blinking hard. He said, “I’m going to stop there.” He turned back to the body just before the young mother. A guild badge laid upon that white shroud. “He’s the only one with a badge.”

Jane said, “You going to try again?”

Marric said, “No. That one has been through too much to get any pertinent [Object Reading].”

A telepathic signal came to Jane. Bett’s voice was slightly excited, ‘I’m done. It took well. Do you guys want to see it?’

Marric said aloud, “Absolutely not.” He quickly wove a group connection, sending, ‘No unicorn form in this part of the world.’

‘I figured as much—’

The air shifted purple. Bett and Scallion stepped onto the field, next to Jane and Marric.

Bett continued, “—but I had to ask.” She held up a small, prismatic horn; one of the unicorn’s smaller spikes of its crown. “I got [Lightwalk] before I could finish the whole body. No mental abilities, though. I knew I wouldn’t, but it was still odd.” She tossed the small horn to Jane. “Here.”

Jane caught the small horn. It was only six inches long and without any twists, but it caught the light like a prism, holding onto the energy within, shattering white to color inside of itself. “Thanks.” She could not smile standing beside corpses, but she managed to say, “That’s great.”

Scallion looked across the field at the rows of bodies, then back to Jane to say, “Let’s send them off?”

Marric said, “I’ve gone through ten that still had clothing and items on their person. They all seemed to come from the same place except for this adventurer.” Marric gestured to the body behind him. “We can just turn in his badge, after we burn the bodies.”

Bett’s joy faded as she saw the bodies, and then it gutted. She nodded, saying, “Of course. The ground is still wet enough to grow a proper pyre. Anyone else got [Grow] besides Scallion and I?”

Jane said, “I do.”

“Me, as well,” Marric said.

“Let’s make a pyre for… forty bodies, then?” Bett asked, “How many, exactly?”

Jane said, “Thirty seven.”

- - - -

The adventurers laid thirty seven white-wrapped bodies onto grass that had been [Grow]n to the size of bamboo, and stacked high. As the sun dipped below the western horizon, Jane lit the fire, then bloomed it large to catch under every corpse. Soon, heavy smoke lifted into the sky. Scallion gave an oral prayer to Phagar, asking the god of death and time to ferry these poor souls to wherever their destiny demanded.

The fire would burn well past sunset, but the adventurers left long before then.

When all eyes were gone, and the only beings around were bugs and field rabbits, another came to the funeral pyre. He descended on the ash and the bones with the touch of the divine. Bones became ephemeral, vanishing from under the ash. Ash became the food for new life to grow. Then he left, quick as he had come.

- - - -

Marric went back to his preferred registrar, back across the mountains in the morning. He returned after a few hours, ready to continue the hunt.

“You came back.” Jane said, “I had doubts.”

Marric smiled, saying, “I was held up by a thief and a pair of guards.”

Jane said, “I don’t know if I believe that.”

- - - -

Marric, Bett, and Scallion stood beside Jane, as Jane held the small unicorn spike up for the old lady behind the guildhouse quest counter.

The old woman, in a less than professional way, said, “Ach. Good on ye’ then. You’ll be wanten more unicorn quests, will ye? You selling that horn? Tis only worth a few hundred.”

“We want more unicorn quests, but we’re not selling this.” Jane put the spike in her pocket, then spoke for the group, “Any quests that you get.”

“Sure thing.” The woman stamped Jane’s team’s papers with a large ink stamp, ‘complete!’, then spiked the paper onto a nearby metal rod. She asked, “Where you be hanging out? In the lobby with the rest of the schmucks?”

“Aye, ma’am,” Jane said. “We’ve gotten pretty good at Wizard’s Towers.”

The old woman smirked, saying, “Go on, then. Rohn’ll want to speak to you later, I’m sure.”

The four of them went to the lobby and found a good table.

- - - -

Scallion’s head laid on the table as he gently snored. Marric laid down a ‘5’ against the Tower’s ‘2’, but Jane quickly laid down a ‘5’ of her own, snatching up both Marric’s card and the floor card.

They had finished lunch an hour ago, purchased from the guild restaurant. If there was one thing Jane was glad for about Killtree it was that the guild restaurant was pretty darn good. Now, they were back to playing Wizard’s Towers, for about the hundredth time. They weren’t the only ones killing time. Every other table in the twenty table room held a similar group of people waiting for something to happen.

Guildmaster Rohn made his first appearance of the day, walking into the lobby in his off-white armor. He looked around. He spotted Jane’s group. With every eye in the room on him, he called out, “Jane. Marric. Bett. Scallion.”

While the rest of the room groaned, Bett had already jabbed Scallion awake by the time Rohn called out ‘Jane’. Marric and Jane quickly shoved the cards back into their boxes, then followed a very awake Bett and a half-asleep Scallion down the hall, where Rohn had already disappeared.

In a room at the end of the hallway, Rohn stood beside his desk, and another stood beside Rohn.

From the tips of his shiny black boots, to his tailored black pants and jacket and the perfect quaff of his grey hair, this older human man, with piercing blue eyes, was clearly a man of wealth and power. He held himself upright and firm while his gaze traveled from Scallion, to linger on Bett, to pass over Marric, to land on Jane, and stay there.

Rohn spoke in a professional way, “This is Baron Blackfield. The unicorn you killed rampaged through his land. He is here to thank you and ask you a few questions, if you would be so kind as to oblige.” He said, “He already knows who you are.”

“Thank you for your service.” Blackfield said, “You were very thorough with cleaning up the bodies. This is not how it is done around here, but I will not fault you for your religious practices. I just need to know if you came across a young woman with dark red hair, lots of freckles, and a bracelet made of red twine and riverstone.”

Jane flinched. Blackfield noticed. His face seemed to fall as his eyes watered.

Marric said, “Yes. We did.”

Blackfield said, “That’s... That’s…” He calmed. He said, “Thank you for avenging her.” He turned to Guildmaster Rohn, to say, “Thank you. I recommend them for the advanced list.” He turned back to Jane, saying, “It was a hard thing you all pulled off. That unicorn must have survived a dozen years of raids on Killtree to get to that size. I don’t know how you managed to do it, but I suggest you keep your methods secret. There are those who would follow you and assault you in the middle of your attack, hoping to kill both you and the monster.”

Marric said, “Thank you for your words of warning, Baron. We will take them very seriously.”

Blackfield nodded. “Quite. And now I must be off. Thank you again for coming to this land. If you four are ever in the need for some assistance with the law or whatnot, I will owe you one.”

The baron blipped away in a shattering of yellow light.

“That was fast,” Bett said.

Guildmaster Rohn said, “The nobility are very busy.” He continued, “Since Baron Blackfield has recommended you for the advanced list, this also means that you are eligible to cast magic in the city, as long as you keep it quiet. You can [Teleport] in and out of the guild if you want, but if I see you abusing this privilege then it won’t just be your rights I take away.” He added, “And that team from the other day that killed the first unicorn of the season has already died, to the man. You get first shot at the unicorn that took them apart.” Rohn tapped a folder on his desk. “If you want it.”

Jane said, “We do.”

“I thought you would.” Rohn handed the folder over to Jane. “You might have to track it for a bit, but it’s out there. It’s smaller than the last one, but don’t let size fool you. They’re a lot faster when they’re smaller.”

Jane took the folder. She turned to her team. “Back to base?”

Bett said, “Yup.”

Scallion put his hand on Bett’s shoulder, then said, “See you there.”

Both of them vanished in a blip of purple. Marric left with a nod, and a teal blip. Jane followed.

- - - -

Bett sat on one end of a long bench in the sun on the mountain slope, leaning back, soaking up the rays. Scallion and Marric sat inside on comfortable seats as they [Scry]ed for the unicorn. They had been at it for the last two hours. It was a nice day to be outside, and since Jane was not equipped to [Scry] over time or distance like Marric or Scallion could [Scry], she went outside to join Bett.

Jane sat down beside Bett. “Did that unicorn have dragon essence?”

Bett sighed out into the sky. “Yes.” She said, “This has happened before, though. It’s not a big deal for me. I just gotta wait it out and take some appropriate precautions.”

“Wait it out?” Jane was genuinely confused. “Dragon essence goes away?”

“Yup. It’s the only one that does.” Bett looked to Jane, scrunching her face quizzically. She looked away, saying, “If you want to be a Polymage this is some important, hidden knowledge that you gotta know.” She said, “If you make yourself meek and mild or if you’re around other, stronger dragons, your dragon essence drains away. If you’re the biggest shit for a thousand kilometers or more, depending on your level of essence, then your dragon essence grows. If you have a low dragon essence, nothing happens. If you have anything except a low essence, then you’re stronger, faster, smarter, and you live longer. Dragons are only immortal because of their unique essence. This is why they’re always hunting each other. Either for territory or for essence.”

Jane listened, her eyes going a little wide. She had never heard this much about dragon essence before.

Bett continued, “If you get low dragon essence and you stay low, it will go away in about a month or two. Quicker, if you take certain steps. You can figure out whatever steps work for you on your own. That’s too personal of a conversation, for me.” She added, “Anyway. Even if you get rid of it as soon as you can, you still go through withdrawl.

“It’s horrible. Puking and shitting everything out, all the time. But it will pass. It’ll take a month, but it’ll pass.” She said, “I’ve done it before. No big deal.” She continued, “Going from the first tiers of [Dragon Body] to zero will make you feel like you want to die, and that lasts for a year. Healing doesn’t work on this sort of pain. I haven’t done that myself, but I’ve heard the horror stories.” She stressed, “But going from high dragon essence, to less, will kill you.”

A breeze blew across the mountainside, warm and comfortable.

Jane said, “Thank you for that. I didn’t know.”

“I could tell.” Bett said, “I only told you because you’re going for Polymage. Best keep that knowledge under your shirt, and to yourself. There’s a lot in there I didn’t say, and I won’t say. But you’re smart enough to figure most of it out, I think. Don’t go spreading that around, either.”

Jane said, “Good advice.”

Jane sat on one side of the stone bench. Bett sat on the other.

Jane asked, “Is your water slime bigger?”

“About double the size.” Bett said, “I want to try for ooze. Having a core is way too much of a liability. How’d you manage to do it? You didn’t actually kill an ooze and then try to eat it, did you?”

Jane said, “I gathered forty flame slimes in a depression in the ground then I ate them all as a flame slime. I retained the mass, and meditated away the pain while the transformation occurred. It was still painful as fuck, but I woke up as an ooze. My core was gone. I also got 5 points for successfully transforming a Familiar Form.”

Bett winced. “Fuck. I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“I never planned on going with a slime form so I never really researched slimes, or oozes for that matter.” Jane added, “Until I realized it was a possibility. And then it was just… It was what I needed to do.”

“I had a friend… years ago. They did what you did and it did not go well.” Bett said, “We had to put him down.”

“… Sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks.” Bett looked out across the horizon. Fields of flowers stretched out across the land below the mountain. “He failed to complete the transformation… 25 years ago, by now.”

Jane watched the flowers with Bett for a while. Eventually, they spoke of different monsters. Bett loved her slime forms. She had several, from water, to wind, to iron, to crystal. If she was going to go for an ooze form, she would have chosen a Crystal Ooze, but that would be impossible. Finding forty crystal slimes? When it took a year to find one? No thanks. Her second choice was wind, just because [Air Body] was already so useful. Jane was still partial to her own, non-slimey list, though a water slime would make getting [Water Body] a lot easier. Prismatic Octopuses, which were native to Bett’s Archipelago Nergal, were great on paper, but according to Bett they were shit in practice. All those soft, wiggly arms were easy enough to control, but controlling the skin of the Prismatic Octopus to better blend in with your surroundings? That took years of practice. To top it off, they weren’t that fast in the water. Not compared to a water slime.

Marric eventually came out of the house, saying, “Found it.”

- - - -

Killing the second unicorn went a lot faster.

Jane knew, this time, exactly what would happen when she plopped onto the scene. And this time, when the world around her turned to fake trees and false flowers, and the five meter tall unicorn tried to stomp her from out of nowhere, Jane flowed upward, blasting the unicorn with fire rivaling a furnace.

The unicorn took off running, while Marric and Scallion controlled the revealed battlefield, and water slime Bett harried everything she could reach with her precision blasts of cutting water. She tried to slice the fleeing unicorn, but her slice went wide at the last possible second. Jane slunk into shadows, popping up around the unicorn for the second time. This time Jane’s fire furnace attack was too much for the creature. The unicorn fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Jane smothered the unicorn, diving into its tentacled maw, reaching down into the creature to fry it from the inside out.

Jane had killed the unicorn within a single minute, releasing almost all of the people it had dominated. Marric, Scallion, and Bett had already killed all the monsters.

Pure confusion filled the battlefield as people turned on each other, some of them monsterized and already cannibals, the others just dominated into committing horrible acts. No one had any idea which was which, so Scallion trapped the ten survivors in individual gravitational bubbles. Some of them screamed and cried, hovering in their own private holding cells. Some of them roared and demanded blood. None of them were quiet.

Marric went around, checking the people. He executed four he identified as monsters, while the other six were let go. None of them gave any indication that they were thankful for the rescue, and since they were in the middle of nowhere right now, all six of them demanded help getting back to town.

Jane, as a human, said, “Of course we’ll help you.”

Scallion said, “We already gave them conjured clothes. The nearest town is only ten kilometers south—”

A dirty man in conjured, clean clothes, said, “You will take responsibility for us!”

A dirty woman in conjured, clean clothes, said, “That aren’t my home! My home is back that way.” She pointed north. “And it’s gone! I demand money to start a new life.”

Scallion muttered, “Oh holy shit I’m going to kill them.”

“You and what fuck’en army, bloke!” said a young man. “That one-corn couldn’t kill me! You think you gotta chance in hell! Come get it!”

Scallion splattered a [Cleanse] across them all. Jane winced, as thick air tore away dirt and dried blood. The yelling started again, louder.

“How dare you cast magic at us!”

“I aught ta kill ye!”

“Now the monsters can smell us, ya daft arsehole!”

Scallion yelled at the people, “I’m done! Fuck you!” He blipped away in a shattering of purple light.

Marric and Bett both raced to say, “Bye!” first.

Marric vanished in teal. Bett vanished in purple.

Jane blipped over to the unicorn corpse, which she still hadn’t the chance to eat, then [Stoneshape]d a deep hole, carrying the corpse with her underground. She closed off the entrance, save for a pair of holes leading to the surface. One quick transformation later and she was a shadowspider.

She spent the next half an hour eating the monster in peace, starting with the brain and the heart.