Raid (8)

"There's a Lair here..? Where?"

Everyone was staring at me, waiting for me to reveal the entrance to the Lair that I had found thanks to the mini map in my system window, which was currently doing its best job to make me look like a fool as I looked around, trying to find it too.

There was clearly a marker here that denoted a Lair, so where the hell was it..?

We were standing in a rare clearing inside the heart of Yngrave at the moment, the leaf cluttered ground, roots that slithered across the ground like snakes and the dark shadows cast thanks to the thick canopy above us made that a more difficult task than it needed to be.

Checking my map once more, I zoomed it in as far as I could before walking towards the location it had marked, which was beneath the woven blanket of vines and roots that rested beneath the thick trunk of one of the trees, making me frown as I crouched down and began to gently peel away the thin pieces of different woods.

"I never said it was a Lair, just that I heard something over here... this forest is too quiet, so any noise above the subliminal level of the background noise is suspicious... besides, this is the first clearing we've found..."

The Valrock Talonmaster frowned at that, but he remained quiet as he began to look around too, not arguing with me and instead searching the other side of the clearing, looking for tracks or anything else to explain the 'noise' I heard.

Of course, I knew there was actually a Lair here, but there was no obvious entrance around us at all, and the lack of any signs of life besides the flora was concerning; was it that deep beneath the earth, or perhaps above us..?

Where could this Lair be?

Willing the roots to untangle themselves, I pursed my lips as I uncovered a large patch of dirt, and at a quick glance it wasn't anything at all, almost making me look away and begin searching elsewhere, but then I noticed something...

The earth of a forest was usually packed and riddled with various organics of some kind; leaves, twigs, acorns or other sorts of nuts, and usually something that was once alive, be it insects or animals, all of which was packed hard into the ground and creating a 'solid' surface that needed some effort to loosen up and retrieve whatever from.

But the earth beneath the blanket of vines was smooth and utterly loose, as well as completely barren save for the singular pale red shoot that was growing in the middle, which... looked very foreign, even in a forest of reds and purples.

Add onto that the familiar sweet scent that lingered around it, as well as the soil being relatively wet and sticky, and well... it clearly wasn't exactly something that was completely natural, and after having seen the man from earlier sprouting special flowers from his corpse, I was more inclined to think that.

So, I turned around and looked for an Animus Warden, hoping that they could come over and take a look at it and figure out what it might be, but as soon as I turned, I caught sight of that Valrock Talonmaster from earlier being yanked into the forest, roots and vines encasing his head and dragging him from the clearing in a single, violent tug.

A few others saw it, but we all heard it; the sickening snap of his cervical vertebrae being pulled apart, the crunch of his right arm and ribs against the tree, and the muffled cry of agony that escaped from the cocoon around his head.

But that was all, because a moment later he was gone, dragged into the forest and completely gone from our line of sight, the darkness around us becoming far more inky and sinister as we heard the wet crunch of something taking a bite from him, finishing him off completely.

Something inside the forest around us, which had so quietly and easily taken someone as strong as a Talonmaster before any of us could even react; even the Animus Wardens were a moment too late as they tried to save the man.

"To the center! Shields! Keep your eyes peeled!"

The swift shouts of our leadership revitalized us as we scurried into the center of the clearing, gathering up together and creating a ring that would allow us to look around at the surrounding trees in hopes of catching the monster before it could strike again.

As we gathered there, the sounds of adrenaline fueled breathing began to flow like water as we stood together, our eyes raking over the tree line as we searched for whatever it was that that was hunting us now, the various shadows and shrubbery playing tricks on the mind as a mild paranoia settled in to help keep our minds attentive, though for right now it just made us believe there was something just at the edge of our vision, lurking just out of sight and evading detection with terrifying ease.

My heart was pounding in my chest as I grasped the hilt of my wooden blade with both hands, my knuckles going white as I tentatively looked this way and that, the sheer amount of adrenaline pumping through my veins heightening all my senses as fight or flight kicked in, but since there was nothing to run from that I could see - and stepping foot into the forest was certain death - I remained where I was, steeling myself for now.

The darkness only got worse as time went on, and as the thought crossed my mind I took a step back and raised my hand, casting [Fae Light] and illuminating the area around us in bright light, allowing us to see further and witness the ocean of vines and roots that the forest had become in such a short time.