Ofis was in charge of the team keeping an eye on the large abomination that wandered too close to the endlands border, and much to his dismay, it didn’t leave and he was the unfortunate one tasked with leading the monitoring team.
It had been loitering in the area for two weeks when something happened. The scout on guard woke him up, yelling about some giant squid, and sure enough, when Ofis got out of his earthen burrow, he spotted it.
It looked like those squids he used to fish for in his childhood, except the mantle seemed to have a metal sheen like that of brass, and the tentacles appeared translucent, as if made by water. Oh, and of course it was flying and its mantle is nearly as long as the abomination, though significantly more slender.
By the time he had fished out his spyglass from his inventory, he got to see two more of the squids descend from the layer of clouds and join the first one in circling the abomination. Of course the abomination began flinging the usual assortment of random spells, but the metal mantle appeared to just shrug the attacks off, and the tentacles that were hit just reformed, even if broken.
Then, with the coordination expected of a hunting pack, the squids turned and attacked the abomination with their tentacles, quickly detaching all the abomination's limbs by a combination of whipping their tentacles at the smaller limbs, and grabbing and pulling the larger ones.
Unable to look away from the ruthlessness of these sky squids, as he labeled them in his mind, he observed them more closely, noticing the intricate patterns on their metal mantles and the temporary layer of ice forming wherever a spell hits.
His reverie was cut short by the team's runner reporting that he’ll make a run back to the border station to warn the rest of the border guard. He didn’t even wait for Ofis’ go ahead, a breach in conduct, but understandable given the situation.
After the runner’s rapid departure on the back of his wind-ostrich, Ofis ordered the rest of his team to take as many notes as possible while observing this new threat. This new threat appeared to be a pack hunter that hunts abominations for food, given that they are consuming the remains of the abomination that worried the kingdom enough that a dedicated scout team was assigned to it.
An hour of vigorous note taking later, the sky squids appeared to be satiated and separated from their meal and circled the area for a moment. A painfully loud bell chime, which was so deep that Ofis felt it more than heard it, emitted from one of the sky squids, and was quickly followed by two more chimes. This appeared to be some communication as the first one separated from the other two, which promptly retreated into the ever present layer of clouds in the endlands.
The first one however, set off towards their location, flying only a dozen or so meters above Ofis and his team, allowing them to really appreciate its sheer scale, before disappearing into the clouds like the rest.
During the flyby, Ofis noticed an unpleasant feeling coming from the sky squid, while not as bad as abominations, it was definitely noticeable. It was not until he was halfway back to the border that he managed to place the feeling, undeath, the sky squid felt undead.
The kingdom needed to be warned of this new threat, and soon.
King Amaury sat in his chair and listened to the report of a new threat in the form of these so-called sky squids, delivered by Ofis, a border guard previously tasked with observing an unusually large abomination that threatened to cross the kingdom's border.
Alongside him were several high ranking nobles, several academics and knights, as well as the premier warrior in the country, Clyde, an unrivaled wind-warrior that has achieved the ability to fly, giving him an edge in combat, as well as a way to get close to these sky squids.
Once Ofis had completed the report, he left the room, letting the other people get on with the plan to deal with these undead sky squids.
Many opinions were shared, some confident in Clyde, some not.
The meeting goes into the night, but the only real plan they come up with is letting Clyde do the initial confrontation with whatever ranged support can be provided from the ground.
The scylla lich Indra flew her Hunter class ship towards the world tree. The tentacles bundled up to increase the speed of travel. Her second in command, a magically gifted merman named Ilaki, manned the telescope and spied on the large tree in the distance.
An hour after undocking from the city, they entered the oasis proper. It always used to feel refreshing to enter an oasis, but after being promoted to hunter, which included becoming a lich, that feeling went away, though on the positive, that abhorrent feeling the abominations gave off also went away.
She, along with the rest of her crew observed the lush forests that stretched out far below them, and saw how it gave way to pastures and corn fields as they continued their travel. The high altitude scouts had informed them that they would be passing over the capital of a primarily human kingdom, as well as a large lake on their journey to the oasis’ world tree and had asked them to scout a bit in the lake on the way past it because of the difficulty of doing so from a high altitude.
The second in command worked in conjunction with two other crew members to add detail to the map provided by the scout as they would be flying closer to the ground.
Soon enough the apparent capital grew close and the second in command noted the significant buildup of combattant, though also noted that none of them were likely to be a problem for Indra and the ships defenses.
This buildup of combattant seemed to grow restless as they approached, running around and preparing spells. The most threatening of them seemed to be a powerful stamina mage that flew up to intercept the ship, though the elven mage seemed to only be on par with the second in command, which is to say decidedly not a threat to Indra and her ship.
Seemingly in a fit of bravado, the flying mage amplified his voice with magic so that the populace below could hear him.
“I, Clyde the amazing, shall protect the kingdom from this foul sky squid!”
After his short, and quaint though Indra, speech he launched a blade of wind, powered by a large chunk of stamina, at the mantle of the ship. In response, Indra froze the outer part of the water that covered the mantle, creating an ablative shield that’s dampened by the water behind it. Even though the barrier har less mana than the projectile, the projectile was stopped, shattering the layer of ice, which simply melted back into the rest of the water.
The result was that Clyde the amazing flew in place dumbfounded that his attack was harmlessly rebuked. While he didn’t think it would fell the beast, he at least thought it would cut into its hide. In response Indra spread out all of the tentacles made of enchanted water and tipped with deadly ice blades and struck Clyde from multiple directions at once.
To his credit, he managed to block the strike of five of them, Impressive given his four limbs, but alas, even one of the strikes would be enough to cleave him in half. Indra then collected his parts with the tentacles so that the crew could look at the level of enchantments in his equipment to use as a rough estimate of the level of technology in the kingdom.
Given that the kingdom was not in the plan, and also not a threat, Indra simply flew onwards, following her mission.
King Amaury was standing on the balcony of the castle, overlooking the border of the endlands which lay far in the distance. His old face is stained with age and worry, but his majesty remains.
The early warning system had informed him that one of the sky squids had crossed the border of the endlands and was heading directly towards the castle, seemingly ignoring everything else.
It did not take long for the beast to come into view as its shiny mantle reflected the light of the sun. And it moved fast, only barely giving Clyde time to fly to the correct altitude.
He watched as Clyde gave a short speech before launching one of his strongest attacks at it. The hope turned to horror as the sky squid shrugged off the attack, halted its movements near him, tore him to shreds and consumed his remains.
Luckily the beast didn’t have any interest in the rest of the population, and simply continued towards its target, though King Amaury didn’t take a breath until it was nearly at lake Kuwardts, where it disappeared into its depths.
They were not ready for this new threat, was the consensus during the next meeting.
The ship’s mantle pierced into the clear water of the lake they were tasked with investigating, not even splashing the water thanks to a combination of magic and its sleek shape. Indra simply piloted it toward the deepest point, trusting the crew to note down what was needed.
After a while, her second in command pointed her in the direction of a few settlements of scylla and mermaid. While they would not be initiating contact for now, they would be noting down their presence for future investigation. The people only panicked a little and did not attack, which is better that the response of the kingdom they passed.
They encountered no major predators in the lake, though a lot of squids made this lake their home. One of these squids was an aggressive magical monster, but it was quickly dispatched, and quite tasty once the chef on hand prepared it.
Leaving the lake behind, after spending a couple hours at rest, the only thing between Indra and the central tree was the dryad’s forest. Matriarch Aziza Azempton had explicitly ordered her to never attack the dryad, nor anything the dryad protects. The reasoning for this is two fold, firstly the dryad’s are bringers of life that makes the endlands habitable, and secondly, when push comes to shove, they are some of the strongest beings in the world and they only get stronger as they age, which is what leads to the expansion of their oasis.
The reason Indra had been ordered to visit the world tree at the center of the oasis, was to inform the dryad of Azemptons arrival in the oasis. This was done mainly out of courtesy, but the amount of magic powering the flying city of Azempton could cause problems for the dryad, so such things are to be hashed out before the city can enter the oasis proper.
The dryad’s forests are always beautiful, and carries a flair that’s unique to the dryad that cultivates it. This forest was not the usual lush greenery, but a variety of different colored trees, including yellow and pink, of varying intensity. The world tree in the center had bright blue leaves that oozed magic. It’s fairly normal for these trees to be very magical in nature, as they are the anchor for the dryads.
As they closed in on the tree, the forest moved, as if preparing to protect itself. In response Indra slowed down and emitted an as non-threatening aura she could manage, which seemed to calm down the forest around them.
Once up close to the tree, she stopped completely, landing on the ground, letting the ship’s tentacles spread out a bit and holding the mantle upright.
Someone would then go out and greet the dryad, and while normally it would be the second in command’s responsibility to do negotiations as the captain of hunter class ships basically never leaves the ship, partly because a lot of people have adverse reaction to undeads of their power level and partly because as the sole pilot of the ships they need to be ready to react, but when meeting dryads it was important to be honest about your state of being. Dryads could act aggressively towards undead, but were mostly fine with intelligent undeads. They would also usually act carefully around someone as powerful as a Hunter.
Indra let go of the ship’s core, left the metal mantle, and swam down the tentacle closest to the tree’s stem. Just in front of the tree, stood the Dryad. Hair the same color as the world tree’s leaves, skin as green as fields of grass and a magical aura even greater than Indra herself.
This would be the first time Indra did a meeting like this, but she has been extensively informed of how they usually go. There is no guarantee that the dryad will speak at all, but they normally do so in a sing-song voice that usually doesn't reflect their power.
Sticking her torso out of the water of the tentacle, Indra begins by waving to the dryad, which hesitantly waves back at the smiling Indra. That is good, she didn’t immediately attack, thought indra.
“Hello.” Indra gently spoke out to start the conversation.
“Hello.” The dryad answered back in a high pitched, melodic voice.
“My name is Hunter Indra, what is yours?”
The dryad looked at the undead squid lady that came out of the bigger undead metal and water squid. It didn’t particularly like undeads as they tended to damage its carefully cultivated forest, but these ones did not attack its work.
She even spoke to it, introducing herself. The dryad responded with the pleasant sound it had taken as its name, which seemed to slightly confuse her.
She tried, but failed to reproduce the noise, and settled on calling the dryad Melody. The squid lady was not the first to do that, so the dryad did not mind.
What it did mind though, was the fact that these powerful undead heralded the arrival of several more of equal power, and one that’s magnitudes more powerful. They would come in a city like the humans build, but apparently flying in the sky. Who knew cities could fly? The dryad thought after the squid lady spent some time explaining what would be coming.
The dryad was still worried though, since the big metal squid was almost as powerful as the dryad, so one much stronger could really do some damage to its forest. The squid lady did promise that they would not damage the forest at all, and would be mainly trading with the people living outside the forest.
That latter bit was explained by a fish man that also came out from the metal squid. He was less flowery in the language than the squid lady, but was also decidedly alive, so the dryad liked them about equally.
After a long discussion between the dryad with the very pleasant, but also very much unpronounceable name, Hunter Indra and second in command Ilaki, they had successfully conveyed their plan of action to stay in the oasis to gather food and potential immigrants from the lake, maybe even some land dwellers to join the settlement on top of Azempton. Mineral resources can for the most part be collected in the endlands, so food and other organic matter is prioritized when visiting oases.
Since the discussion was over, Indra and Ilaki retreated to the ship and left for Azempton. The human kingdom seemed to be in an ever greater uproar on the way back, but no flying elf this time.
Soon enough they left the oasis and disappeared into the clouds of the endlands where Azempton waited as it had reached the edge of the oasis while Indra talked with the dryad.
