"Donovan..." It was the first thought that came to mind; in the most literal way possible. It was the very first word that popped into his head.

Unfortunately, however, his second thought was rather indignant, which he himself barely recognized as saying; something along the lines of "OH GOD OH FUCK OH CHRIST-" Donovan found himself tens of thousands of feet in the air, with grey, rocky ground stretching to the horizon. To his dismay, he had appeared in what looked like the worst possible place to be stranded several thousand feet in the air, the wind rushing past him.

Donovan barely had the presence of mind to realize this as he desperately searched for some kind of solution to his unsolvable problem, only; there wasn't one. The only variation in the landscape was in shades of grey, which fit humorously well given there wasn't any black and white solution. Even if there was something that could help him get a grasp over this unusual situation, it's rather difficult to make out anything when you're-

Donovan hit the ground with a red, gooey, bloody splat.

~

Thankfully, the blood wasn't his own. Well, most of it at least.

"Gah, fuck..." Caked in gore, Donovan sat up from where he had made a rather wet landing into the open ribcage of an animal. It was so large that it was like he had plummeted into a cave. A rather moist one, at that. His only way of light was the sky visible from between massive bones. "Haaa..." Donovan took a deep breath, causing him to take in the foul air. Regretting it the second he did it, the sheer stench made him retch immediately, vomiting into the ground. Because nothing here can settle for being normal, it exfiltrated his body as a white and viscous liquid. '...odd.' He silently thought to himself, trying to settle his stomach before even daring to breathe again.

He took a moment to finally look at his situation calmly; at least, calmer than hoping for dear life that you won't fall to your death. He was not only naked, but he wasn't anywhere recognizable, let alone... "What was the city called again?" He tried to recall what had happened yesterday, or even before he fell from the sky, but somehow came up blank. Yet, when he thought about things like cities, people... civilization? He understood it fine. "New York...? No, that isn't it..." He could remember certain details, like the capital of New York, New York, which he found rather humorous in hindsight.

Paris. The Eiffel Tower. Red Wine. Baguettes. Insultingly stereotypical images of what a Frenchman looks like. Mimes. Mime and Da- Nope, that memory was definitely scrubbed too. It was almost like he could remember everything but who he was, or even where he had been born. All that came of it were fuzzy, uncertain images of a nuclear family that didn't feel right but was the only knowledge he could go off of; the caring Mother, the stern Father. An annoying, clingy, yet doting sister. Concepts that felt relatable yet didn't help him that much, like barely grasping at a low-hanging fruit.

You could tell there's more to see, but you simply can't reach it.

Pondering the latter family member, it was only after something red and gooey fell on Donovan that he came out of his sudden-onset-brooding syndrome, glum at his sudden-onset memory wipe. He wiped it from his hair, which was already painted red, as was his hand- really, there were layers upon layers of redundancy to that action, but he felt he needed to feel some small victories or he was going to puke. For now, he supposed, getting out of whatever the hell he was in would have to do. Staring up from the pit of blood, into the uncertain motes of light that indicated the sky above, he could only guess what would lie in store for him beyond it. 'Whatever it is', he thought, still covered in blood from head to toe, 'It has to be better than this.'

-

As incredibly perturbed as Donovan was, his urge to exit the flesh pit was much stronger than his urge to, most notably, cower and pray. He got to work. His entire body wrapped in blood thick enough to be mistaken for clothes in the dim light, Donovan began the difficult task of clambering out of whatever god-forsaken creature had cushioned his fall... only cushioned. No matter how large the creature, falling into it at terminal velocity wouldn't be pretty however you spin it. Especially given that, well, corpses aren't known for being pretty.

It was soft enough, however, and he only came out of it heavily bruised and covered in blood... 'Better than being dead.' He thought absentmindedly, contemplating exactly what he had fallen into. He turned to look upwards, and it seemed like the fleshy walls reached at least twice his height. It was high but not too high, he reasoned, inspecting them for footholds.

Unusually, there were two sets of ribs, the second larger than the first. What he found to be the most odd, however, was the fact that he was looking at a caved-in spinal column- not some soft belly- with the bottom separated from the top through sheer savagery. Whatever had killed this thing burrowed in and ate them from the inside-out, leaving only the bones and the tougher flesh lining the skin. 'At least it came with a built-in ladder.'

He grabbed a hold of the nearest, lowest rib, twice the width of his head and a little taller than he was. He pulled himself just high enough to get both arms on it, almost dangling over the other side. He then swung one leg over the top of it, skidding off the first time. Memories of rock climbing came to him. Not that many, but even with the scant few he had, he quickly realized that even in these conditions, getting out would be difficult. He would have to try harder.

As he did so, he pondered how exactly he hadn't broken any bones in that fall. This was possibly the best place someone could fall in in a deserted wasteland, but people have died in better conditions than him. He should've at least felt some fracture, but he felt- 'Like clockwork...?' He thought as he felt himself abiding by muscle memory he couldn't place the source of. Both confused and suddenly pleased with himself, he began the next step without hesitation.

When he had gotten the second leg over the top and tried to stand up, however, it suddenly shook, tossing him off as not only the part he found purchase on collapsed, but the entire section of bone that his foothold was attached to completely collapsed. He crudely slapped his hands against the sides of the corpse as he fell, futilely attempting to gain purchase as the sounds of bones snapping and shifting filled the air. 'Why am I still falling? How could- oh shit-'

This then led to a cascade of events in which he toppled over along with a good-sized part of the corpse, falling, sliding, and eventually tumbling out of the side where he had attempted to climb out of. Completely naked the whole time, mind you. His weight had apparently been the last straw, causing a good portion of it's side to break open like a dam of blood where he was just along for the ride.

~

When he opened his eyes, he was met by red-tinted, mid-afternoon light.

So, good news, he wasn't in some massive dead guy’s chest cavity anymore. Bad news, he instinctually gasped for air as soon as he got up, but he accidentally swallowed a good amount of the blood which had gotten in his mouth, causing his stomach to have the strong urge to empty it's contents.

Which it promptly did.

~

One puke break later, he wiped his mouth- still stained with blood, as was the hand he wiped it with- okay, we're not doing this song and dance again- and glanced over at the corpse. His eyes were drawn to an obnoxiously large rupture, still slowly spewing a growing puddle of blood, where several ribs had fallen or tilted over due to the stress. Whatever he did, it did significant damage to the corpse. Far more than he felt was even reasonable, honestly. Decidedly, he walked closer to it, to get a better look at it. 

Facing down into the rocky soil, it was large and humanoid, with dark gray skin wherever it wasn't covered in clothing or long-dried, open wounds. He wasn't sure if this was because it was its actual skin, or because it was a rotting, putrid, desiccating corpse. As for what it wore, it was hard to tell past the blood that soaked the entire front… no, back of its body, but it was some kind of black leather, with a simple tunic underneath. The pants were made of the same fabric.

First things first; he would have to identify what it was for sure. As in, look at its face. The entirety of the head was obscured from this side, however, due to a turban. Unlike the clothing, which was patched together in place, the head covering was, blood aside, considerably well-kept. It was bathed in a light-green color, wrapped around the entirety of its head to keep away the sun. He mentally noted the possibility of making it into strips for use in his own clothing. 'Now, let’s find out what poor sod I fell into.'

He was about to start towards it, but had the presence of mind to check on his surroundings first. He noticed something upon closer inspection, however; large amounts of dirt simply laid out across the landscape, and taking a look at soil not yet stained red by either him or the corpse, there were large animal tracks throughout, along with miniature craters that further indicated some kind of supernatural altercation.

Some kind of feeding frenzy, perhaps? But why didn't they simply pick the animal clean? Or... did they run away from something? He couldn’t recognize what animal made them, but they were all nearly identical in shape, dismissing the possibility of it being some other animal. 'Could it have been humans? I can imagine them leaving indiscernible tracks after scaring off the pack.' 

There was also, of course, a massive Warhammer fashioned out of bone, stained in red and purple blood the size of a telephone pole lying nearby. Possibly the source of the craters, though it wasn't quite big enough to have made them itself. However the unnaturally geometric sigils laid across it interested him, so he made a second mental note and left it for later. He had bigger fish to fry.

Once he was done with his cursory scan of the perimeter, he finally walked around to the other side of the corpse, a bloody set of footprints trailing him.

As he made a violent red semicircle around the head searching for an angle, he quickly discovered that they simply were facing downwards, their face pressed into the soil. He wouldn’t know what he was dealing with unless he saw the face, but unfortunately, it wasn’t visible without shifting it somehow. How was he even going to do that? 'Do I even need to do this? I mean, it would give me some context clues at least.'

The giant humanoid’s head was as wide as his entire body, and the neck was too taut for him to simply push it so it would face him. It would be like trying to roll a boulder being pulled away from him by an industrial-strength winch. However, his gaze was drawn to it's wounds. It was already abused with a myriad of scratches and bites, which even cut to bone. 'Bone... it didn't make sense how easily I broke the corpse, are this creature's bones particularly weak after death, perhaps?'

An idea formed in his head. He might be able to get a glimpse of it's face just yet.

~

He loosely dragged the massive Warhammer fashioned from bone three times his size against the deprived soil, finally reaching the ginormous corpse.  He pushed and teared aside what cloth he could- the remainder proved to be too tightly woven for him to make a dent in it- to leave a clear path to the neck, and had wedged a chunk of bone in a part of it's neck where it had recieved a nasty wound large enough for his purposes. He had a plan, and it was only possible because of whatever had made this weapon so much lighter than it should have been. Carefully avoiding the gaping hole in the middle, he dragged the hammer up to the nape area, and positioned himself exactly where he would need to be.

And so, his plan clicked into place. 

He pushed upwards on one end of the hammer with all his might, sitting it upwards in an Herculean feat of strength that caught even him off-guard, having just righted a hammer at least ten times his own weight. Unfortunately, as soon as he lost focus, his aim fouled and it fell harmlessly to the side. Before he could even curse his ineptitude, however, it hit the ground with a much louder smash than it's size suggested, and saw it leave a massive gash in the soil, the sound echoing through the empty landscape like the hammer of Thor himself.

He admired the size of the crater he had made, whistling in apprehension. 'Whelp, at least I know it could work. Sure hope I didn't piss off any proportionally-large moles, I have enough to deal with as-is.' And so, he tried once more. He imitated his previous actions, but this time he tested the limits of his newfound strength, which he attributed to the weapon somehow. 

A bit of adrenaline and some torn muscle fibers later, he barely shifted aside enough to avoid being turnt to paste by the handle as it soared past him, carrying it's momentum. He gave it an inch, he recieved a mile. Just as it went into slight free fall, just at the edge of the torso, he felt his entire being lurch forward at a sudden speed, the hammer becoming much heavier with his hands still attached. 'Oh SHI-'

The sound of weak tendons and thick bone being pulverized sounded out, and Donovan couldn't tell if they were his or the giant's for a good moment. When he came to his senses, he was sprawled out just beside the head, having fallen to the right. In a bit of a daze, Donovan looked back at the corpse, and was frightened to witness a massive, beady, and... honestly disgustingly dry eye staring right at him, less than a foot away from him. A Cyclops of myth. In the flesh… or pieces of flesh, anyway.

As the realization set in with Donovan, another joined it; he wasn’t on Earth. Not anymore. The evidence was literally staring him in the face. But he had more questions, ones more relevant to his immediate situation; “How... long have you been dead?” He thought out loud. It was hard to tell past all the chaotic evidence, but it couldn’t have died too long ago, right? It was smelly, but that was just the gore of it; it hadn't quite rotten. The eye hasn't been heavily damaged by insects, either, though there might be very few to do so. How would he pinpoint that? There has to be a way…

In a moment of inspiration, however, he recalled something that would give him a rough indicator. He searched for a means to do it in this low-tech environment, and his eyes soon fell upon the clothing that remained. Tearing off two thick pieces of fabric, he began vigorously rubbing them together. He wasn't sure if this would work, but after a few minutes of rubbing these two thick sheets of cloth that were half the width of his arm, he could feel the static clinging to his skin. Now, where does he test this? He needs a sensitive muscle that will give him some kind of reaction, especially given the size of this creature.

He had already settled on the fingers, which were just barely under the corpse. The only problem was getting to one of the hands. He was just able to reach out to touch one the width of his head with both hands, and, to his amazement, it gave a very, very small twitch, almost too small to notice if he wasn't looking so intently.

What this told him was that this corpse hadn't been dead for at least six hours. But that was based upon human forensics. For a significantly larger creature? He could estimate it to be proportional to that, give or take; this situation was just too exotic. Either way, he was looking at a creature that had much of its spinal column caved in roughly a day since he fell. 

Was it really a coincidence he fell directly into the corpse? It was large enough that he could've easily fell into it on purpose, but he wasn't even able to notice it before it would've been too late. It was by a stroke of luck that the corpse didn't give him a reverse spinal tap to the head as he fell. It was food for thought, at least; what would be even better, however, was actual food.

Turning away from the forensic scene, he needed to find a way to survive here, and he had a few options; live inside the corpse, and possibly subsist off of it, or leave to avoid any other predators. He wasn't too concerned about the filth, nor that whatever pack animals had torn a hole in the corpse would come back; they had made off with the sustenance they wanted, as it seems, and if they were smart- and afraid enough of whatever was here- they wouldn't try eating any more of the rotting corpse. Despite what he said, it was only getting worse as time went on. In fact, it might help against larger predators, given how undesirable this corpse was.

What did concern him was what scavengers might come to eat the remaining flesh on the corpse, namely, the massive eye. He wasn't sure if it would be the normal size, or if it would be up-to-scale with the cyclops here. They might see him as the cherry on top to this carrion buffet, and wouldn't have trouble clawing through the corpse to get to him. Though perhaps if they were small enough, he could even hope to hunt them.

He was, however, also concerned with the two most important facets of survival in this situation; shelter and water. He could last without food far longer, especially if he quickly found a place to stay out of the sun. The blood was better than nothing, bacteria and all, especially if it didn't have as much time to rot as what he originally thought. Plus, more obviously, he was looking at a decently-sized shelter.

Behind that was sustenance. He could possibly use something of the cyclops' for kindling, and, if things were really dire, even eat the corpse. Although most of the innards were vacated, chunks of flesh remained. He was looking at a most gruesome yet effective survival shelter, ready for the taking, so long as he had the guts to do it. The cyclops certainly didn't, but that suited him fine.

The only real question was; stay and face ensured safety and danger, or explore the unknown? The blood would only last him a little bit before it rotted too much to be anything but diminishing returns, and he didn't know if he could fend off whatever came after him. Would he face a danger he somewhat knew, or risk the chance of finding a better opportunity that lies beyond?

It was a tough choice, as either would likely be fraught with danger. Before he made a final decision however, he moved on to continue looting the corpse. Regardless, he would need to scavenge what he could. To his surprise, though, Donovan soon discovered that he had more of a bounty on his hands than he initially thought.

Thoroughly inspecting the corpse this time, he realized why the corpse was facing down, with their hands under them; they were tightly clutching some kind of flat leather bag that was hard to make out in the darkness underneath the corpse. He tried to reach out to it from the side that hadn't ruptured, but it was simply too large to reach the middle where the backpack was, and he wouldn’t be able to pull it out from under the full weight of the corpse. He did, however, get a tad closer to better identify it; sure enough, it was a massive bag the size of a small car.

"I suppose that discounts foul play, here..." The blood-soaked Donovan thought out loud. Leaving the animal tracks aside for a moment, if someone killed this cyclops, they would've at least turned the corpse over to take the bag. No, it was likely some kind of pack animal that he shuddered to think could predate something this massive.

Looking inside the corpse through the side passage he ‘created’, there was a lump he previously didn’t notice near the middle of the cavity; directly under which was the bag. He also saw a ginormous sleeping bag attached to it, which he could potentially use to cover up the top of the corpse or even use as a carpet.

Donovan decided; he would leave the final decision of shelter for later. Either way, he needed those supplies that were inside. But first, how would he get to them? Looking at the corpse again for clues, his eyes soon fell upon the bump hiding his prize; specifically the one inside the corpse. An effective, if bloody, plan formulated in his head. Turning it over and over again in his mind, he sighed into the empty landscape, 'Why must I do these things?'

 

---

 

“Not yet!” Shouted a heavily armored man tugging a massive, sand-shaded wolf. He was the largest and most imposing of five other men, dressed head-to-toe in armor with a cloak laid overtop, each one pulling on barbed hooks to keep the beast from moving. If they were made of normal steel, or the men pulling had the strength of a normal man, this would’ve been a futile effort on a creature this large.

But these were not normal men, nor were they normal chains.

“Give it a second…” They strained to shout, arrows of various sheens burying themselves in the large creature periodically, dripping with various poisons and paralyzers concocted to heavily limit it. Each of the men’s muscles strained heavily, visibly swelling up in response. The handles each of them were holding suddenly glowed with energy, slowly growing in brightness, before they gave the final order.

“Now!” In unison, each of the five hooks-on-chains crackled to life with electricity, glowing lightly before giving the wolf a high-voltage shock. This however didn’t stun the creature, it merely made it panic more. Straining its eyes at its captors, the arid beast soon turned to the smallest of the knights, and made the abrupt decision to put pressure on what it thought to be the weakest link.

This proved to be a critical error as when it gnashed at them, it was unexpectedly met with a high-powered kick to the face that was even enough to stun it temporarily. The young man’s metal greaves soon began to release large amounts of steam as a result, visible even in the heat. Before it could recover, bright light soon filled its vision, not as a mere flashbang but as an all-encompassing laser that sheared the entire top of its head off, instantly ending it's struggle.

The resulting laser was twice the size of the average human being, filling the sky briefly before dissipating as abruptly as it came, even cutting through a far-off cloud. The one who had delivered the stunning blow to the wolf simply stared past the top of the head and through where the laser came, enraptured by the visceral scene. Shaking her still-crackling metal rod into the air, she shouted out in glee, “Did you see that? I-``

''DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH WE COULD’VE SOLD THE HEAD FOR!?” An irate soldier bellowed, cutting them off abruptly.

Before they could make a bigger commotion, they were suddenly interrupted as well, by an archer with a steely gaze and chin. “We’re already being paid a king’s ransom just for being here, why do you care about that?” Squatting atop the felled beast with a sizable longbow strapped to his back, he was merely level with the sizable man.

Narrowing his eyes at the roguish element, the soldier just scoffed in response, “The brain alone would have bought each of us a tract of land and a lord’s title! Who knows the next time a solitary one will just wander south? This bi-”

“Seymor.” Spoke a familiar voice in a cold tone, from directly behind him. Turning his head to face them, large man suddenly didn’t feel so large anymore as they immediately recoiled at the even larger, dark-toned woman who appeared even more suddenly than the rogue, who himself was nowhere to be seen anymore as she nearly crushed his shoulder plate in a vice grip from behind as if to keep him from escaping. “I will abide by you lecturing her if it means her highness learns from her mistakes for once, but you will address our grace by her proper title.” He didn’t even avert his gaze, as though the predator before him would sense his fear. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, and he made no motion to remove her grip, allowing her to continue. “Am I clear?”

He gulped, but resolved himself and responded as best he could. “Yes, Lady Guard, I was s-” “Am I clear?” She cut him off once more.

He shifted in his plate armor uncomfortably once more before realizing what she meant. “Yes, Lady Guard. I… uh.. apologize for not addressing you properly, third of… Third from our majesty, Princess August…” He nearly sputtered out, before hurriedly moving along to inspect the corpse, leaving large frantic marks in the rocky, sandy soil. She was about to start after him, but the young girl responsible for finishing off the beast tugged at her sleeve before she could.

“Was that necessary, Tia?” Asked the young lady, a bit frightened herself at how easily she talked down to the seven-foot tall, heavily armored man. She stared down at August a moment, the young woman’s height barely reaching up to the large woman’s bountiful chest. ‘Tia’ sighed, “Yes it was, you need to set an example.” Her mischievous smile betrayed her immediately after, however, causing August to give her a stern look. “...was it necessary to do it in that way? Perhaps not.” She continued, chuckling, soon causing August to join her as well.

As the two joked to one another, a man approached Tia from behind, heard before he was seen. Adjusting the straps on the large metal backpack of his, he spoke. “Excuse me Lady Guard, but I did another scan of the area as you requested, and we’re close to the source.” He pulled off his backpack before removing a PDA strung into it with wire, facing it towards her “It’s roughly 80 kilometers to the southwest, and the ambient magic has dissipated normally. I’m not picking up anyone else either, so it looks like we’re the first ones to get here.” He shrugged. “Guess nobody else is out hunting this thing, and I don’t blame them.”

Once again, her lips curved up into a smile, a glint of greed in her eyes. “Good. We should reach the Clandestine-Class by...”, she quickly ran the numbers in her head, “Tomorrow evening." Abruptly, she pulled out a palm-sized, purple metal slab from her pocket just a few millimeters thick, along with a hexagon-shaped chisel the size of a pencil that began to glow with blue light.

She muttered under her breath as she did this, clearly annoyed at something. She soon turned to face them once more, however. "I'm using the VIO, is there anything else of import?" The Reconnaissance Officer shook their head, "No, nothing that I haven't..." As the reconnaissance officer was speaking, he began looking past the tall woman, tilting his head in confusion at what he was looking at. She only took the hint at the sound of frantic footsteps kicking dust clouds into the air and turned to see a dressed in robes from head to toe, panting heavily behind her.

"WAIT- *cough* no. One... second..." It took them a moment to gather themselves, hands on their knees and back arched in exhaustion. "Scrier? Has something changed?" The mess of robes simply shook their head, "No... and that's the... that's the problem. The, um, epicenter of the class-7 beast has barely moved. I just thought my output was off, and so I checked again using what magic was left from the corpse, but no, it hasn't moved more than ten meters from uh, from where it... originally..." He stopped his explanation, finally looking up as the Lady Guard literally began seething with rage.

If the large woman was holding a pencil and not what was essentially a hunk of metal shaped to look like one, it would've snapped right there as veins visibly bulged in her hands and face. She stood like that only momentarily, as, to her chagrin, the two men began backing away from her in fear. Seeing this, she breathed in, and out, steadying her hands. Then, her utensil began glowing azure once more.

She pressed it to the metal, inscribing a message in very small writing, yet at an incredibly proficient pace. Not in English or even any language of earth, but the language of magic. Well, one of them anyway. The slab of metal began literally glowing with energy by the time she pulled her pencil from it, at which point the pencil finally cracked from the pressure. 

The Scrier flinched as Tia began walking towards him with a completely neutral expression, handing him the still-glowing slab. She didn't simply drop it into his hands, however, and waited for him to grab it, his hands wreathed in a similar glow to the pencil as he hurriedly tucked it into a pocket of his robes. "It should shed it's magic within an hour. If you want to make more accurate calculations, do them by then. Report any other changes." With that, she simply walked off, back towards the princess who, disinterested in the conversation, had gone to watch the soldiers butcher the corpse, much to her attendants' dismay.

Still watching her saunter off, the recon officer asked a question that lingered in the air like napalm, "Uh, what did she write?" The robed figure took it out of his pocket again, his hands covered with better formed gloves of magic. "Erm..." He replied, still reading it, "She requested at least one elite unit and a squad of antimages, by teleportation..." He bit his lip, "I can only assume that if it wasn't a class 7 Beast as we thought, it can only be a rogue mage. If it's a rank 7, perhaps even an... Archmage." He shuddered just at the thought.

 

---

 

An even bloodier Donovan sat munching on some beef jerky, his hands rinsed off, and with a sudden chill running up his spine. He glanced warily at his surroundings, sitting on a rock not too far from the corpse, but came up empty. “Must be my nerves…” He thought, taking a sip from a canteen half as large as he was, more tipping it into his mouth than drinking it. “Well, at least I don’t have to worry about supplies anytime soon…”

The backpack, along with a copious amount of heavily frayed rope, sat in front of him as well. Although, the sleeping bag attached when he had originally moved it was conspicuously missing from it. As he finished his meal, he looked intently at the solitary wad of soap he had to his name, sitting on another rock not far from him. With survival sorted out so quickly, he had the luxury of time. “Finally, some reprieve.” Before he did anything else, he’s going to do the one thing that’s been on his mind since he got caked in gore;

Bathe.