After scraping some blood off the ground, just like the unknown intelligent being did, the team carefully continued with their descent down the slope towards the basin. 

 

Aside from continuously more stable energy fields, the team also noticed that the air and the mist seemed to get denser, which caused the visibility to become lower and lower, and the gravity was also getting noticeably stronger. This was probably partially due to the increasing density of materials and substance down the slope, it could also be the thin aura that was present and covering everything beneath the clouds.

 

“What could be the source of this aura? Could it be the same thing that killed those two beasts?” Tony Barnes asked.

 

“It’s possible, but it’s a little bit too unrefined to be the case.” Professor Kapur scraped some moss from under a rock and put it inside of one of her many enchanted silk pouches: “Normally, auras released by living creatures, including humans and elementals, tend to be more pure and single purposed, it’s mostly due to expediency and energy efficiency. But the aura here, it seemed to be more or less chaotic and purposeless. So my guess is this is an aura naturally released by the special energy environment here, or it could be the remnant of something quite powerful.”

 

“Yeah, but what could be this powerful?” Glenda Grimes also took some samples of local vegetation: “This realm is still very close to Earth, if something this powerful had been here, it would have had some impact on Earth directly or indirectly.”

 

“Which is the reason I lean towards the first possibility.” Professor Kapur cast another floating spell on herself, since the increasing pull of gravity made the previous one lose power too quickly.

 

“Keh keh keh keh…” a strange sound suddenly appeared from a distance not that from where the team was. This caused Tony Barnes to immediately draw his blade shield forward and readied his battle position.

 

“What is that?” asked Dorothea Clarkson: “That’s not a normal sound.”

 

“No it’s not.” Tony Barnes hesitated for a short while and said: “Sounded like… like the sound a person would make after his throat has been slit.”

 

“That’s… oddly specific.” Glenda Grimes and Josephine Wong looked at Tony Barnes with a weird look.

 

“Past battlefield experience. Nothing fancy, whole lotta trauma.” Tony Barnes shook his head with a serious frown on his face: “That aside, this sound does sound awfully like it.”

 

“Keh keh keh keh keh...” the source of the sound came closer, and they saw some kind of shadow with a bizarre shape walking towards them, in an equally bizarre fumbling way.

 

The team immediately kept the bodies low and hid behind any obstacles they could find, while still keeping an eye on the bizarre shadow walking towards their position.

 

After around half a minute, they finally had clear visibility on what it was: it was some kind of creature made of bones, rocks and slime, the main part of its body was a giant bone, like a tall animal’s shin bone, and its manly “limbs” were made of smaller bones, rotten tree branches and round stones. Thick slime of colors dark green and dark red was all over the bones, rocks and tree branches, connecting them and helping them move like a whole organic body, like the tendons and muscles of this creature.

 

“What the ...fuck?” Josephine Wong cursed with confusion.

 

And all other team members seemed to share her sentiment, knowledgeable and experienced as they were, none of them could make out what this creature is on the spot.

 

The creature stopped when it got to a place, then it turned to another direction and started walking that way. Thus the team of five was able to see the back of it - it was similar, that the back of its body was also made of bones, tree branches, rock and slime, only mushed together differently.

 

The strange sound came from the “head” of the creature, where air was coming out from a hole on the top of the shin bone and producing bubbles of the dark green and dark red slime, thus the sound was similar to that of someone with a slit throat.

 

“It’s not dangerous, is it?” Glenda Grimes said: “I felt like it’s… just wandering around like some kind of zombie.”

 

“There is no part for a brain, nor is there any energy core like the elementals.” Professor Kapur had her eyes fixated on the weird creature, now slowly wandering away from them: “The only thing I can think of, is that this is some kind of magical construct, just happened to gain the ability to move and wander around.”

 

“The slime.” Dorothea Clarkson and Glenda Grimes said at the same time.

 

“Yes.” Professor Kapur said: “Let’s follow it. Be careful and keep our distance.”

 

The team moved out of their hiding places, and proceeded along the trails of that bizarre creature. Luckily, the creature was not that fast on its “feet”, the team did not have to go any faster than they’re comfortable with in order to catch up.

 

“Click, click, click...” another periodic strange sound came from something ahead, and the team of five saw another strange shadow beyond the mist - it also had an irregular shape, and also seemed to be moving in a strange way.

 

When the team got closer, they found that the other strange shadow was also a creature of bones, tree branches, moss and the same kind of dark green and dark red slime. The clicking sound it made, was from the two pieces of bone that collided into each other every “step” it took.

 

“Okay. This is just crazy.” Josephine Wong chuckled, she was utterly confused and slightly amused at the same time: “Is someone playing some kind of game here?”

 

“Look, there.” just this moment, Tony Barnes pointed at something in the direction towards the center of the basin.

 

Something seemed to be disturbing the “peace” of the mist in this place - it repeatedly gushed out streams of air, clearing out a lot of the mist in the air, then it created some kind of vortex and sucked the mist back to the same place.

 

“Boom!” a loud thunder cracked above the basin, and rain started to fall.

 

The rain was not heavy, but it was enough to clear the mist out, making the environment much more visible.

 

What the team saw first, was that there seemed to be around ten to fifteen strange creatures of slime wandering across the slope around the center of the basin.

 

The second thing they saw, was that there was a creature with a long body, four claws and dark scales, coiling at the center of the basin. Strong gushes of hot air were shooting out of this creature’s nose every time it breathed.