*knock-knock-knock*

After Orion rapped his knuckles against the door and then stood back to wait for the old man to answer, the two of us patiently waiting on the big house’s porch.

But the old pile of bones didn’t answer, just leaving the two of us standing there for an uncomfortably long time.

“Should I knock again?” Orion wondered as I started getting frustrated, driving me to lean over and slam the door with my fist. Much to the surprise of both of us, the door just… opened, it wasn’t locked, and it squeaked as it slowly swung open, revealing a dark and unlit inside.

Orion hesitantly peered inside, the light from outside revealing a derelict house, dirty bowls and cutlery discarded on the floor, the tables were precariously stacked to the brim with trash, and it smelled like something died in there.

You barely even see the wooden floors through the layers of trash, the supporting beam in the middle of the room had been draped with dirty laundry that never got the chance to dry properly, some sort of vegetation visibly growing on the cloth.

It seemed that the old man was hoarder.

“Do we… go in?”

*nod*

Orion took his first step inside, his shadow cast over the garbage dump of a room as the man carefully placed his feet so they wouldn’t end up in a bowl of mostly eaten spoiled slop. When I noticed the scraps of food, I almost gagged when I saw the colourful bursts of mould sprouting in some of them. But the brave archer ventured forth anyways, managing to get to creep through the room until he got to one of the doors on the other side, pushing it open to find the elder sitting in the same rocking chair as before, covered from the waist down in crusty blanket.

For a short moment I wondered how this grandpa had managed to move his chair inside, and then quickly discarded the thought when I released something a bit more important, how was he living in this filth?

The fireplace had been filled debris, sticks and dirt, probably having fell down the stone chimney. The whole house seemed derelict and cold, like it’d been abandoned for years, and it’d become a tombstone marking where people once were.

“w-what are you two doing” A horse voice whispered, the sudden question almost making jump out of my skin as I looked over to the sleeping old man, seeing that his bloodshot eyes had opened while I was looking around, his saggy face twisted with ire.

“Looking for you” Orion stated, his voice low and even as he turned towards the messy old man, his tall stature easily towering over the elder.

“w-w-what do you w-want troublemaker?” The old man continued to stutter, Orion pausing for a moment while he thought about it, his stern eyes never leaving the quivering old dog.

“Is there anyone willing to trade for supplies?” Orion articulated slowly, elder quivering upon hearing the words, shaking as he tried to hold something in.

“HA, HAHAHA-HAAAaaaaaaa. Supplies? Here? Have you seen my dying town?” The old man rhetorically asked, leaving both Orion and I stunned.

I mean should anybody really be so amused that the place he’s in charge of is literally falling apart?

“There’s nothing? Then could you point us in the direction of another settlement.”

“wait-wait-w-wait, t-there should be a trader coming through soon. They should have the t-things you need.” The elder hoarsely sputtered, the flaps of his cheeks disgustingly swinging about as he talked.

“Two or three days till he arrives, then you could buy all the things you need, for a price.” The elder quickly stated, glancing at us occasionally as his gaze skittered about the room, becoming nervous as Orion lorded over him, with his bow still strapped to his back. It also really didn’t help that Orion’s thinking face was just him squinting a bit, making him look even more disgruntled.

Even I started feeling bad for the mad old hoot when he started shivering hard enough it sounded like his bones were rattling, so I gently tapped Orion’s head with a claw to remind him to get a move on.

“Would the trader accept meat to barter?” Orion asked, the elder hesitating for a moment before nodding, Orion turning and leaving the moment his question was answered, taking the both of us out of the disgusting home.

Though I do have to applaud Orion’s skills, managing to keep your shoes clean while walking through this amount of trash is impressive. From my perch I realised something else about this disgusting house, there weren’t any bugs, and really there should be, even if the food has been most scrapped away, there should still be cockroaches and critters climbing through the sea of trash.

Do they just not have bugs in this world? I really, really hope so.

But returned to the world of the living and away from my thoughts as Orion stepped back outside, allowing me to bask in the morning sun, that somehow failed to warm me up properly.

“Should we go hunting for food?” Orion asked me, I considered looking for someone to buy lunch from for a moment, before realising that that was a dumb idea considering what the elder just said.

I just gave Orion a nod and decided to try and remember if there were any clues from the conversation with the old man.

A-a-a-and Orion forgot to ask him anything about a strange monster…

Oh well, its not like he’d give us any straight answers about it, the crazy old kook would probably just spout some sort of nonsensical rant if we tried.

So I just stayed quiet as Orion took us into the forest, the man smoothly taking out his bow as he marched towards the line of trees, looking confident as ever.

 

…

 

Orion waited patiently as his prey slowly moved into the clearing, the animal mostly resembled a deer, but with a couple clear differences. While it a normal set of stretching antlers, it had another pair of that grew just behind the first pair, the ivory growing along the neck’s sides and top, forming something inbetween neck armour and tangled branches that allowed for some restricted movement. The one other difference between this creature and a normal brown stag was its fangs, two of its teeth jutting out from its top jaw, the vampiric fangs curved and around four inches long.

[using <appraisal>]

[Vampire Stag – Level 7

A breed of carnivorous deer

Perhaps one or two thousand years ago a new breed of the common deer emerged from the depths of the Divian forests. They resemble their cousins in most regards except for their notable fangs and scavenger tendencies. They are omnivores and take advantage of the left over remains of other meals while still consuming vegetation, eating the best of both worlds.]

The hunter, Orion, let out a tense breath and raised his bow, an arrow appearing on its string as he drew it back, the wood creaking as it bent. Everything was ready for Orion to send the arrow deep into the heart of the animal and whilst it might look fearsome, nothing survives and arrow through the heart for long… ignoring all of the unnatural shenanigans the two of us have been through.

And then in an instant the hunt ended, the arrow had disappearing from Orion’s hand, the string thrumming as the tension was released. The fletched end of the arrow’s shaft only just sticking out of the side of the stag’s chest as the animal staggered around, eventually collapsing as blood pumped out of the new hole in its chest.

“GOOO-OD SH-OT” I happily shouted my spot a few metres back, breaking the peaceful stillness of the forest with my shouts, feeling ecstatic that I finally have some sort of food within reach, a growing dragon like myself needs breakfast, and my belly is still empty.

“FI-Na-LLY” I commented, Orion glancing at me with a slightly disgruntled stare and reminding me of the previous attempt at getting something to eat. Which I may or may not have ruined by getting a bit too excited while on top or Orion’s head and falling into his face and causing him to fall over, scaring off the skittish prey. So, I skittishly looked away while Orion rolled his eyes, letting him get the win in our silent staring contest as he went to go fetch the stag’s corpse.

Orion promptly got to work with his knife, much smaller than the golden dagger from before, but that cursed thing was still stuck in that snake’s mouth, and hopefully that serpent would never get it out.

I watched with a bit of detached interest as Orion slowly and carefully skinned the stag, slowly removing the hide and putting it aside before moving onto the rest of the body. After a few minutes of watching his methodical work I got bored, so I decided to fiddle with my necklace instead, picking at the piece of ivory with my claws.

It still gave me the shivers whenever I remembered ‘bonding’ with this thing, the original string had radically changed the moment I’d picked to bond with the item, the necklace exploding into mass of leather strips that went straight for me, diving for the base of my neck.

For a moment I thought that it’d tried to strangle me, but after my panic had passed I realised that it had just turned into a chocker-, *cough*, a thick collar of laced leather strips.

Which was bullsh!t to say the least, but what can I do now? I did try to get it off before, but the magic necklace refused to be removed no matter what I tried, and it can’t be taken off even in the system.

So now I’m stuck with it.

*sigh*, at least it didn’t look too bad.

“Hungry?” Orion asked, I looked over and saw that he’d finished cleaning up the meat, a pile of offal sitting to the side while the harvested meat was hung from a branch, the blood slowly dripping off of them.

I waltzed over to where Orion was already setting up a campfire and plopped myself by it, igniting the pile of twigs with <spark>. The archer chucked me a slice of the stag’s muscle, and I snapped out of the air with my mouth, but just before I started wolfing it down without a shred of decency I forced myself to slow down.

Before I lose my humanity again, I’ll be in control and not turn into a rabid animal, I don’t want to creep Orion out again.

I breathed in through my nose and made myself take it bite by bite, at least the stag tasted better than rat. I slowly munched on my slightly-above-average steak as Orion got to cooking his over the campfire, using his knife like a skewer to hold the meat without burning himself.

Yet again I wondered where this archer had come from, I still didn’t know a single thing about him, other than he’s a skilled hunter.

I quickly finished the rest of my meal and licked my lips clean of the dripping remains of the stag, looking over at Orion to find him staring at me with one slightly raised eyebrow, like he saw something strange.

I glanced down to find myself covered in blood and specks of gore from when I was eating, realising that I didn’t notice that I was getting this mess everywhere when I was eating.

Something a toddler would do, and it isn’t exactly… normal behaviour.

F#ck.

 

…

 

Eventually we left the warm summer forest and returned to the impossibly cold town, still just as cold as before and almost as abandoned. This time, when we walked through the barren streets I felt… uneasy, like someone was watching me.

A similar feeling to when you walk down a hallway with people in it and maybe there was something in your hair, or your clothes were messy, you weren’t really sure. But you could feel everybody looking at you, noticing everyone trying to be polite and not stare, but they still glanced at you when they thought you wouldn’t notice.

Even though the street was empty, I could still feel those unsettling stares on me, giving me the urge to dig deeper into Orion hair and hide in his locks. Even though I was feeling skittish, Orion was still marching onwards without fear.

I peeked out at the houses on either side of the road, trying to see if there were people hiding behind the wooden shutters, but even with my improved vision I could barely see into the dark houses.

On Orion’s back was a newly made sack that was once a stag’s hide, where the rest of the meat from the hunt was stored, the smoked venison letting out a tantalising smell.

Maybe it was just my improved sense of smell, or the meat could’ve just had a strong sent, but it was certainly helping me get my mind of off the feeling of being watched.

By the time we got back to our temporary residence I had managed to finally see something in one of the houses, a pair of glinting eyes hiding behind wooden shutters, the red pupils quickly disappearing the moment I spotted them.

Are there other people in this town?

The mystery deepens.

Thankfully when Orion closed the door I felt the stares stop, finally allowing me a moment to relax as I let out a tense breath. I relaxed my stressed hold of Orion’s hair and fell onto the straw mattress of the nearby bed, sinking into the prickly hay as I thought about what just happened.

There was definitely someone in one of those houses, but why did they hide away indoors?

And why did they only show themselves now?

Could it be the food that drew their attention?

It could be that, Aylin’s mother did look starved this morning and the rest of the townspeople could be suffering from the same problem.

But why didn’t they come out to eat, hunt of farm?

Why waste away in your homes?

…

Oh right. The monster.

I internally sighed as I thought about my loose string of logic that held together in theory. I hoped I was right, because that makes the whole villages numerous problems solvable with one slain beastie.

At least the monster shouldn’t be too strong, compared to the dungeon, things should be much calmer out in the world.

Well, that’s if my video game logic holds up, and I really hope it does, for my sanity and other, *cough*, ideas.

I eventually unstuck myself from the bed and glanced at Orion, who was staring out between our closed shutters and at the house across the road, the one with a pair of antlers hanging above the doorway.

Which one was that again?

Right, it’s Aylin’s.

“SO-MME-t-Hing WROOO- *pant* *pant* -NGG?” I tried to ask, running out of breath on the last word.

“Thinking…” Orion simply explained, leaving me sarcastically wondering if him being able to think was the problem. But it did seem like something was bothering him as he sat down his stoic face scrunched a little bit.

“Should we see the monster tonight… Let’s not try to fight it” Orion planned, his sentence leaving me confused as I stared at him with a raised eyebrow.

We need to fight the monster to get rid of it, it’s not like we can ask it to buzz off?

“We’ll scout it out first. Then fight.” Orion explained when he saw my incredulous look.

Fair point.

With Orion’s simple plan laid out, we both sat by the window facing the street on a couple of rickety chairs that’d been left in this derelict shack. We waited there with the broken watch in hand, patiently watching to see if it started ticking.

 

 

…

 

 

 

…

 

 

I was walking through my school, the bustling groups of other students excitedly talking to each other in a fervourus whispers, everybody anxiously waiting to go into their first exam. I found a spot for myself a good distance away from the entrance, enough to have a bit of my own space away from the other people.

I sighed as I thought about the upcoming exam, this year had been a long one, not necessarily hard, but a slow burn that slowly wore away at me, leaving me feeling drained and tired constantly.

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that the holidays were just around the corner and with it all of the lazing around at home I could ever need. Away from this loud and rowdy school and back home to read all of the books I’ve been putting off.

Sometimes I wished that I could tell some of my friends about my hobby, but reading isn’t exactly a 'normal' thing to do, who likes to spend most of a day reading?

“Hey %#$@!”  A familiar voice cried out, causing me to look up at the loud male teenager, his face strangely blurred and unidentifiable, a vague caricature of my average mate from high school.

“You ready for the exam” he asked, confidently chuckling as I nervously laughed along with him.

“I think so?” I very unconfidently responded, my cheap joke getting a chuckle out of my friend before we settled down and started talking about random topics, trying to dull the anxious edge of the exam.

Eventually more and more of my faceless friends joined the group, a dozen people that felt familiar, yet I couldn’t recognise them. They all started chatting amongst themselves and I quickly found myself standing on the outside of the circle, excluded from the conversation by a wall of bodies.

I tried to get back in, but my friends must’ve not heard me asking to let me back into the conversation.

I tried to make a joke that I knew would at least make someone laugh, but nobody acknowledged it, leaving me wondering if no-one heard me and I should repeat it.

Or maybe they just ignored me…

I sighed and let them talk without me, taking a step back so I could think to myself for a moment as I felt the overwhelming wave of achy exhaustion swell.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose as the slight urge to cry began to build up, feeling the swirling pressure of negative emotions right behind my eyes.

I took a deep breath to try and stabilise myself, slowly pushing down the feelings that’d been haunting me for years and I indulged in my old habit of trying to ignore them. But the feeling of a rough hand on my shoulder broke me out of my reverie, the hard grip and uncaring shaking of my shoulder forcing me to acknowledge it.

“WH-” I began to angrily shout, a hand quickly clamping my mouth shut as I slowly grew more aware of my surroundings, seeing the old decrepit house and remembering that I wasn’t in high school anymore. The last dregs of the dream faded as I finally remembered where I was, I wasn’t that sh!tty attempt of a teenager anymore, I was a dragon.

A sort of sweet relief flowed through me as I realised that what I experienced wasn’t my reality anymore. I glanced up at Orion, the man still holding my mouth shut as I regained my bearings as he silently pointed at something beyond the wooden shutters.

I quickly realised that I’d fallen asleep on our stakeout and might’ve missed the monster, so I pushed Orion’s hand off of me and stood up on my chair. I needed to put my front two paws on the windows ledge just to be able to see out, like a child poking their head up to see out of a tall window.

I peered through the gaps in the shutters and saw the empty street, I glanced up at Orion, getting annoyed at him for waking me up without a reason.

But before I could complain Orion pointed at the end of the street, forcing me to push my face against the shutters to get a good viewpoint of the end of the main road.

The town had a simple design, one main road with houses sitting on either side, many smaller paths branching off between the crowded houses to get to the ones at the back. But the most important thing right now was the far end of the main road, it opened up to the forest and in those trees was a large, hooded figure.

It was massive, not only in the overwhelming height but was just as wide as they were tall, it was cloaked, fully covering them from head to toe, the black tattered cloth in the shape of a dome. I wondered what it must look like underneath the robe for it to take such a strange shape, like half of a sphere.

It began to shamble into town the moment I spotted it, walking about in a strange awkward gait, the best way to describe it was a maimed hopping motion. Like a rabbit’s back limbs mixed with a spider’s spindly legs, the cloak budging and twisting in weird ways as its limbs pushed against the edge of its cloak.

But the person- no, the thing was relaxed and sauntered slowly into town, walking down the main street like it owned it. As it approached us the atmosphere grew cold and still, a chilling breeze begun to blow, a soft wind that made me shiver, a sort of cold that went straight though you and made your bones numb.

Tick…                                   Tock…

Somehow as the mysterious thing got further into town, the place got even more quiet, stillness becoming even more apparent, like the dead of winter, when thick snow blankets everything and not a living thing can survive without hiding away in a burrow.

When the world is too harsh to survive, so every living thing can only wait for the snow to go away. It was an atmosphere that demanded you lay still and wait for death, that trying to go against the oppressive will of winter and its blanketing cold was futile.

While I was busy trying to figure out this strange sensation that came with cold wind and the strange thing’s presence, the thing arrived in the centre of town, allowing me to judge its height and width, both being around three metres.

Tick… Tock...

As the monster started getting closer the watch started getting louder, forcing Orion to shove it back into a pocket to muffle it, the sound becoming barely perceivable.

The monster slowly looked around the houses, until it eventually saw something that interested it, walking up to Aylin’s house and reaching up with a covered arm, touching the antlers that’d been sitting above the doorway.

 

[using <appraisal>]

[<appraisal> failed, must be able to see the target]

 

I swore internally as my attempt to figure out what it was failed, the cloak it was wearing revealing a pretty big flaw with <appraisal>.

They crouched down even more, the robe spreading out even more as they plastered themselves to the ground, I watched silently as a hand emerged from the black cloth, a gnarled, bony and blackened fist knocked on the door, breaking the fragile silence with three loud nocks.

Orion tensed in his seat, ready to get up and race over there the moment the thing knocked on the doors, ready to intervene. But I stopped him by turning and putting one of my talons in front of his face, trying my best to remind him that we were here to figure out what this monster was.

He glared back at me, questioning me with his eyes as to why I didn’t want to stop it.

If it tried something we were right here to intervene, but first we needed to understand what we were looking at.

Something Orion pointed out earlier, the dumbass.

But before we could continue our silent argument the door the thing was squatting in front of slowly opened, revealing Aylin and her mother quietly standing in the doorway.

The mother pushed her daughter forwards, the chubby little girl shivering before the massive, cloaked thing while her mother held her there. The thing peered closely at Aylin, reaching up with its black mummified hand toward its head, taking off the long hood of its cloak.

Underneath the cloth was a yellowed and blackened skull, what I could only assume was skin a long time ago was still sticking onto the skull, like a heat-shrink plastic wrapped around an oddly shaped object. The skull was long with an elongated snout, gaps where the ears and nose would be, with long sharp canines lining the jaw bones.

It stared at Aylin intensely, even though it had no eyes to look at her, I could tell.

It leaned in closer and stuck the tip of the skull into Aylin’s face and sniffed her, and even though it might not have a nose, there was no mistaking it. Even though the skull was obviously a relic of something dead, it still seemed alive, the piece of bone was animated and still portrayed the actions of whatever it was doing, just as well as a living beast.

As if it was still alive, even though it should be impossible.

 

[using <appraisal>]

[A Wolfish Wendigo - Level 21

An innocent fully corrupted by a poorly worded wish

A monster born of desperate desires, it embodies a depressing sin and tells a story through its existence.

A story that usually starts in winter, an unusually cold one, where conventional food had been a wishful dream for months, where the wind bites you and hunger gnaws your belly. Where there’s hungry people desperate enough to eat anything.

When you’ve been trapped in your small cabin by the unrelenting snowfall for weeks, when your cabinmate begins looking at you with hungry eyes, like they’re eyeing an irresistible meal.

So, to make sure they don’t kill you and gut you for their next meal, you do it first.

Because you had to… Right?

You. Had. To. Survive.

Then as you begin to rationalise it, making it make sense, the madness dripping into your brain like a leaky roof, the loneliness and isolation making it all feel… normal, mundane. Eventually the routine of finding stragglers in the storm and dragging them into your hideaway becomes a habit. As the wendigo fever settles into your brain, you don’t even notice your flesh melting away, your body rotting, until you’re an empty sack of skin and bones, until the feverish desire to go out and hunt down more prey, becomes instinct, and your only wish.

The taste of the marrow becomes sublime, the raw guts tantalizing to think about, every part of the human body a feast to be enjoyed to the last drop.]

 

While I read the systems words the Wendigo stared off into space seemingly contemplating something, making the shivering Aylin even more nervous.