Twisted Goddess part 2

Days passed, but they had yet stumbled upon any sassan, or other intellectual creature. Only weird trees and rocks. No roads, nor any signs of where to head if one wanted to find any safe place from the elements.

Satifa spotted something. She turned around as she thought she saw something moving.

"Keep walking...." whispered Gadaric," I have a plan"

Gadaric started to snap his fingers in a beat and slowly but surely, Satifa also spotted the well-hidden beings stalking them. With Gadaric divine power, they had been caught in Gadaric's mirage and were following a fake version of the pair.

In the distance, the tall shadows of what appeared to be humanoid figures could be seen, flitting between the weird trees and strange rock formations. Their movements were sporadic, unpredictable, like wild animals yet possessed a certain gracefulness. It was clear, they were no sassans or any normal beings, but something unnatural, like the ground and trees itself.

Satifa whispered, "Gadaric, who or what are they?"

"No idea," Gadaric whispered back, "but they are not just any native beings. They're conscious of their surroundings. They think they're trailing us."

As they continued, Satifa couldn't help but notice the familiar pattern on their skin - the same as the weird fruits they had encountered earlier. Were these beings a product of the land or the very essence of it?

"We need to find shelter," Satifa uttered. "Once the mirage wears off, they will realize we're not there."

Gadaric nodded, "There," he pointed towards a large, looming cave up ahead, "We can take refuge there."

They swiftly made their way to the cave, using the strange landscapes to their advantage.

The cave was deep and they dwelled further in they found traces of some people who had taken refuge in the cave. Puts and pans, pieces of cloth.

Suddenly, a soft, muffled voice echoed from the depths of the cave. "Who goes there?"

Satifa and Gadaric froze in their tracks, eyes darting to pinpoint the source of the voice. Gadaric raised a hand, signaling Satifa to be quiet. The atmosphere felt heavy, with a thick tension enveloping them.

Emerging from the darkness was an old, haggard sassan man with a long, unkempt beard and ragged clothes. His eyes, though cloudy from age, possessed an uncanny sharpness. Around his neck hung several wooden amulets, one of which bore a striking resemblance to the puppet of Erlik they had encountered earlier.

"Who are you?" Gadaric asked.

"If someone comes into their home, they usually should be the one to introduce themselves first....." the elderly sassan said.

Satifa stared at Gadaric waiting for his response.

"My name is Gad....."

"My name is Hafral. I have lived here for many years. For this..." the man interrupted.

Gadaric felt pissed and Satifa spotted this.

"We mean you no harm Hafral. We just came here for shelter," Satifa said.

"It is rude to interrupt someone when they are talking.....It can even mean death," the elderly sassan named Hafral said and looked menacingly at the two of them.

"And who's death.....?" Satifa asked, ready to fight back.

"Mine most likely as I am not divine like you two....."

Now Satifa was as well pissed off. The old man was just either delusional or wasting their time.

"What do you two want? This is my house and home" he then muttered.

"Look, we're not here to claim your home or steal from you," Gadaric began, trying to keep his cool.

Satifa added, "We're being followed. We'll leave once it's safe."

Hafral squinted at them, sizing them up. "Lakhmids, eh? Dangerous business you're venturing into. What do outsiders like you want with them?"

"Aren't you a lakhmid yourself?" Satifa asked.

"Bah.....Never and they do not exist anymore even. All this land stands for is a bulwark, to keep the dead puppets of Erlik away from the land of the living. Lak Ahm as its warden forgot about the living real people ages ago,"

"Everything in this land has been made so that crossing through would be near impossible. Those things you encountered are the creation of Lak Ahm. The terrorys, monstrous beings with limited intelligence, attack anything that moves. Lak Ahm created them to destroy the puppets of Erlik, but at the same time they made sure the lakhmid lands were unhabitable..."

"Has it always been like that?"

"Hah...no. Before the time of you humans....before the death of Cyrus the all mighty. Erlik was a well-behaved child, but now, she doesn't care and Lak Ahm never had much love for many in the first place. And we mortals...stuck in the middle."

"So this land became their battleground?" Satifa asked.

"Yes and Lak Ahm, the goddess of these lands twisted it and created what you can call the great imbalance."

"The great imbalance?" Gadaric asked.

"The imbalance," Hafral whispered, looking at the ground, "Lak Ahm has the divine power to distort things. Not break, never break....but distort, twist, and even to some extent mutilate. She twisted the land to be inhospitable, and when the puppets or Erlik. All those deemed to be punished by the gods march north, trying to escape the lands, Lak Ahm destroys them while Erlik just laughs as they wash up back to her shores again, to be placed inside a new puppet, for the cycle to continue."

"Why did Erlik suddenly change?"

"Well, when you kill the head honcho god, as you humans did with Cyrus...things start crumbling down pretty fast," Hafral said in a furious tone.

"And what about you?" Gadaric asked.

"I just didn't have nowhere to go. The original people of these lands died a century ago at least or moved out. I just was pushed out of Nimrud as I had done crimes and could not return. So I live here, in my little hell...Nowhere to go....."

Halfral then snapped and yelled, "What are two humans doing in Lakhmid land and my house!"

He had forgotten about the last conversation almost completely.

"We need to find the goddess Lak Ahm, though that doesn't sound so appealing right now....." Satifa said.

Gadaric, trying to soothe the seemingly volatile sassan, responded, "We have business with her that's unrelated to this land or you."

Hafral tilted his head and squinted, trying to remember the prior conversation. "Lak Ahm? Ah, yes. That is one crazy bitch of a god. She lives in the dead center of the land. Just follow the twists and curves of the landscape. The weirder it gets, the closer you will get to her palace."

"We should leave at dawn," Gadaric said and listened to the rumblings of the outside "The terrorys seem less active during daylight. They already are moving away."

Hafral snorted. "You assume daylight brings safety? The only safety here is what you create for yourself."