Dreadful truths

After some minutes of scrubbing and dousing his smelly clothes in water, he stopped and wrung them forcing out most of the water the clothing had absorbed and there, he threw them up above on the roof to dry.

He walked back to the front and saw that Elessar was still in the position he had left her, she gazed into the darkening sky, Finrod could tell that it was almost nighttime.

"Ohh! They look marvelous on you, Finrod, you should keep them." She blurted once she noticed him.

Finrod smiled wryly scratching his head.

"Father got them in a human city far west, you should have seen him describe the humans and where they stayed, I've never seen him so excited." She said and then let out a sigh.

In the village amongst the people, mutters escaped the mouths of the villagers as the scout team passed through their huts heading to the chief's abode.

The team comprised five stealthy Funari, well once five as they were four now. The creatures walked past their people with frowns and bad looks like they were harbingers of death.

"Hmmm…" Finrod noticed the commotion and looked to his right where he saw the Terians out and mumbling amongst themselves as the group passed.

"Ahh, they are back. I would have been with them had I not been searching for you."

"Looks like they had an important business."

Elessar took her eyes off the darkening sky and gazed at Finrod, "They were to scout for anomalies other than demons and the transformed, we can't be too laid back thinking only demons are our enemies."

Finrod immediately thought of the massive towers he saw in the distance and the giant structure of many hands. He shivered thinking about how outclassed he was. He clenched his fists and furrowed his brows.

'I have to get stronger.'

The team of Funari reached their destination and they met the chief expectant of their arrival outside his hut. He had conjured up seats out of vines for them to sit on knowing that they were bound to be exhausted.

"Riter, he's…" He spoke.

"He's dead." One interjected.

The Chief looked down at the grasses with a flash of sadness on his face and then immediately abated it away, he was the chief and he couldn't show weakness in this dire moment.

"We went east past the abode of the elves, and we found no elves as we scouted. We did find a multitude of demons feeding on the wildlife, those transformed and those not. It was a disgusting sight, we also took down the demons we could kill. Days after scouting, we found a uniquely powerful entity. No! Not just one, we found two of them by a strange obscure tower of black that is alien to the forest, I'm certain it wasn't built by the elves nor the humans. Two powerful creatures were around it like they were protecting it. Those creatures, they are well outside our league chief, we stand no chance against them and the tower felt like it contained a great cataclysm waiting to be unleashed."

The chief's eyes widened in surprise that he remained silent minutes after the Funari was done speaking.

The Funari who spoke was a tall scrawny Funari man of the rogue class. He was browner skinned than most Funari and his antlers were absent from his head and so were the others, they had cut them off not to draw attention and to blend better with the environment.

"And Riter? How did he die?" the chief braced up for the terrible news, he took a deep breath after asking the question.

A bead of sweat streamed down the head of the rogue when he heard the question, he looked at the ground seemingly ashamed.

"At first, we thought he was kidding when he claimed that he thought that he had swallowed something strange after we drank from the river we encountered, we all drank from the river and none but him felt strange after drinking there. Then he began to show signs of weakness, which we noticed but urged him to move until a day later when he couldn't move, he was hot and he had issues breathing then suddenly, he began bleeding from his orifices. We were about to call off the mission to get him back to the village for some healing when not long after he began bleeding, large brown-red worms tore through his guts killing him, he had been in so much pain and we couldn't tell, the worms ate him inside-out."

The chief had his hands over his face as he imagined the horror he went through, he was close to crying for his brethren but he stifled it.

"We have to progress at a much faster pace, the odds are greatly not in our favor. We cannot abandon our ancestral home, especially not after the deaths that went away to sustain it." The chief said with the sternest look he had ever worn and the team uniformy nodded in response and left soon after.

"We will have to push ourselves much further, we can grow much faster in strength with the system bestowed on us, I won't allow ourselves to be at the mercy of the humans" Neska muttered to himself.

Back at the hut with Finrod and Elessar, the two of them chatted about fighting demons and Elessar narrated her passive skill that had formulated her aura to be warm and attractive to creatures with a lower sense of will.

"Pouka had been a companion before the advent of the demons and the system and I think my bond with her was what triggered my options, especially that of the Tamer. Na'se on the other hand was a bad fly, he had transformed and had turned aggressive." She chuckled and lifted the transformed bug from her shoulder onto her right palm.

"He attacked me as soon as he saw me and after minutes of dodging his red beams of energy, he gradually got less violent and then he stopped and allowed me to converse with him with my active skill 'listen' and ever since then, he has grown to be my trusty friend." She said with a smile and rubbed the head of the hairy black fly.