Ebonscale Ablaze

"Mar...cus," Beatrice spoke weakly.

To this, the boy replied with visible pain in his eyes.

"Shh. It's going to be okay... We're okay. We just need to get out of here and we'll be free."

He spoke these words more as a way to convince himself rather than the woman he was now supporting to her feet.

Marcus wrapped her one good arm around his shoulder as he began marching towards the direction of the west gate. He couldn't bear to look at her mutilated body right now, and so he only looked forward, and because of this, failed to notice Beatrice staring at him with an unreadable expression. If one looked very carefully though, they'd be able to catch the faintest hint of a smile on the woman's cut up face.

One might ask themselves where the other two creepers were right now. Did they just disappear and allow the two to escape scotch-free? Of course not.

***Few minutes prior to Marcus's arrival***

When Marcus had finished his final preparations at the bar, the fire had already spread throughout the town and was continuing to spread quickly between the old-wooden buildings.

He arrived just in time to see Beatrice slammed into the jewelry shop and became immediately enraged. His eyes grew darker and his expression went cold. He grabbed the bag on his back, he'd acquired while scavenging the town, and pulled out three bottles.

Two of the bottles were a little over half-way full and had a relatively damp towel acting as a lid. Marcus moved towards a nearby building that was on fire and lit two of the towels attached to the bottle.

After doing so, he stared at the two creepers, who had switched their focus from Beatrice, after noticing their fellow monster would finish her off, to the skinny dark haired boy that had delivered himself to them.

The creepers were indeed afraid of the fire as Marcus hypothesized, but it would be a few minutes before it reached them and cut off their escape to the swamp. This was an ample amount of time to kill and devour the puny-human child in front of them. So they rushed at him whilst he was doing something near one of the fires.

Little did they know, Marcus was well aware they were headed towards him as a tentacled arm shot past him. He barely managed to dodge the attack and in doing so was given enough time to throw one of the bottles in his hand directly in front of the two creepers.

*FWOOOSH*

A wall of fire separated him from the two monsters who instantly stopped in fear of the flames. The one who had launched a tentacle at Marcus earlier had its arm catch fire and fall off due to trying to retract it through the wall of flames.

It roared out in pain for its now burning arm and moved quickly to sever it before the fire could spread to the rest of its body. It glared at the human responsible for its injury, but instead of being afraid, its prey stared right back at it with its cold-emotionless-pitch-black eyes.

It couldn't understand why the child before it wasn't afraid of its retaliation. Was this boy insane? It was an F-rank monster. No novice rank mage or fighter would ever hope to challenge its might. Yet here he stood, unmoving and unafraid.

At that moment, the creeper started to feel an emotion it'd never felt before. An emotion that it should never have felt in the face of such a weak and pitiful existence.

That emotion was fear.

The creeper felt fear. Fear from the tiny human that still carried another flaming bottle in its other hand.

It was already bad enough the fire was steadily inching closer to it, but this human had ways of spreading it further with the bottle in its hands. The fire already claimed one of its arms and it was unwilling to let it claim another.

The creature let out a far less threatening roar as it and its companion turned to make its way to the swamp. However, Marcus had no plans of letting the ones responsible for his pain leave without exacting his revenge first.

When Marcus visited the bar he stumbled upon bottles of alcohol. Most of the bottles he'd found were empty or barely had any contents left within them, so he had to pool together what little remaining alcohol was left. In doing this, he filled three bottles full of alcohol and placed towels inside each one to create his own impromptu Molotov's.

He tossed another bottle that cut off the creepers' escape and caused the two to be surrounded by a circle of flames.

They cowered back from the fire and shifted their disgustingly-frightened faces to Marcus and let out two guttural roars. Marcus only looked back at them with the same cold expression he'd had earlier.

Unfortunately though, he had to leave them there since he had bigger fish to fry. A part of him regretted missing out on watching the two creatures burn, but he had other priorities. He needed to get to Beatrice.

When he arrived to the scene of Beatrice screams of horror and saw as the creature lowered her into its mouth. Marcus ran towards the creature in a rage. He took his final make-shift-Molotov and threw it directly at the creeper's face.

The last bottle he threw contained the most amount of alcohol and this made the flames especially more volatile and potent to the swamp creeper.

A roar of pain was heard as the creeper writhed and rampaged while the flames raged all over its body. It was obvious it was in an immense amount of pain as it dropped Beatrice and was only focused on the flames now blazing across its body.

When he went to retrieve Beatrice, his cold expression vanished and some light returned to his eyes. Sadly, he'd taken too long, and it seemed she was on her last leg, so Marcus moved quickly to retrieve her and get her out of the town before it was engulfed in flames.

He wasn't sure about what happened to the other two creepers as a portion of the wall that surrounded the town where they had been was now torn down. He assumed they escaped the encirclement but not without receiving third degree burns in the process.

As far as the burning creeper behind him went, he didn't have the mind to care about it right now, as it roared in pain. He couldn't afford to stay and watch its suffering either, so he and Beatrice turned their backs to it and headed in the direction of the western gate.