Beware The Horrors

However, his anger was short-lived as an interesting scent invaded his nose. It was a sweet metallic smell that made his stomach rumble and mouth water. He instinctively moved his head to track where the smell was coming from, before taking a step forward.

~What the hell am I doing?~ he thought, catching himself right as he was about to break out into a sprint.

~I can't have my body moving mindlessly on its own,~ he thought to himself, before covering his nose.

However, that did little to deter the intense hunger he was currently feeling. It seemed that his mouth was also capable of interacting with the scent, as a sweet delectable taste washed over his tongue.

~Perfect body my ass,~ Edric cursed, before squinting his eyes in the direction the scent was coming from.

"But it's not like I was doing anything right now anyway. To begin with, I'll have to find someone to explain how the economics of this area works before I attempt to set up shop," he whispered to himself, before slowly heading in the direction of the scent.

He doubted that he was the only one who could smell whatever that thing was, and in a forest this creepy, danger was sure to be close by it.

However, he was sort of counting on that fact. He didn't know too much about fantasy settings, as most of his time had been dedicated to running his various business ventures but he still knew enough to know that monsters meant loot.

And although he had no idea what purpose soulgems served, Edrea had quoted them at a value of 2 gold each. So to Edric monsters were now nothing more than particularly dangerous cash cows.

*

After running at a moderate pace for several minutes, he began to hear a chorus of gut-wrenching cries coming from up ahead.

As he got closer, he noticed several figures come up in the distance. Though he couldn't quite make out the exact details, he was certain that at least three of them weren't human.

They were unnaturally shaped creatures, with multiple limbs and a pitch-black colour. 

Wary of the oncoming threat, he approached slowly. 

The monsters had attacked a convoy of some sort, as three wagons lay on the side of the road, completely damaged.

The horses that had been used to pull them were missing limbs, however, it seemed that the monsters had no interest in ending their suffering as they were left to bray in agony -their blood dyeing the orange carpet of the forest floor.

Edric was able to get quite close due to the numerous trees providing good cover. However, he didn't dare intervene in what was going on just yet.

It seemed that the 'delicious' scent that had brought him here was blood. This would've been a shocking revelation on its own -seeing as how the mere smell of it had brought him such intense hunger- however, the scene in front of him was enough to displace that notion.

The creatures had run a pike through one of the humans who had been travelling in the convoy. And they had done it in such a way that they avoided vital organs so that the man would bleed to death instead of dying outright.

The man's wails blended perfectly into those of the eery forest, making it hard to discern which was his. 

Though this wasn't the most horrifying part. 

As he screamed he released a cloud of black smoke, so devoid of light that it seemed to absorb some of the light around it. The black smoke burnt the flesh, made apparent by the seared skin all over his face.

And what did those abhorrent creatures do? They danced around the dying man as if it were some ritual.

~What even are they?~ Edric thought to himself as he stared at one of the creatures.

It had no eyes and a single circular mouth that took up the entire area of its face. As it danced around the screaming man, it opened its mouth wide, revealing an abyss outlined by rows upon rows of jagged teeth.

"P-Please, kill me," the dying man whispered, apparently having run out of energy to scream.

The creatures looked at each other for a moment, before one of them stepped forward. It held out one of its pitch-black limbs, before morphing it into a blade.

~Are they made of liquid?~ Edric wondered to himself, noticing that their skin seemed to be moving even as they stood still.

"P-please," the man whispered, somewhat relieved to see the creature's actions.

Sadly, he would get no reprieve. The creature simply cut off a leg, prompting the man to let out yet another scream.

The other creatures scrambled to get the man's leg, the winner of the quick skirmish devouring it in a single bite.

~Disgusting,~ Edric thought to himself. As much as he wanted to be safe, he couldn't stand idle whilst these creatures did this.

There were still four other humans who were currently huddled up around a tree just to the left of where all this was happening. He couldn't understand why they didn't run, seeing as how they were still conscious, however, he wasn't just going to let these creatures have their way with them.

Of course, Edric didn't think himself a hero. However, anyone who had once been a human would understand that leaving them here could become a recurrent nightmare you wouldn't be able to escape.

~But I don't see any gems on their foreheads,~ he thought to himself.

Edrea had claimed that it would take her five minutes to deal with a single gem horror, so taking on three of those was probably out of Edric's current skill level.

However, they didn't seem to have any, so did that mean they were even weaker than one gem horrors?

As Edric pondered this, the man who had been placed on the pike stopped screaming, and his body lay limp in the air.

Seeing this, the monsters stopped their dance, before rushing over each other to get to the man's corpse. They tore him apart as if he were made of bread, devouring him in mere seconds.

Next, they pointed towards one of the remaining humans huddled up next to the tree.

It was a little girl who looked to be about 10.

~By the gods,~ Edric thought to himself in disgust.