I brace myself for the pain that I know is going to happen any second now, but the pain doesn’t come. Instead, some kind of invisible force hits the creature, knocking it off course and away from me. I watch in horrified fascination as the same invisible force seems to pull it apart, scattering the pieces all around us in a bloody splattering.
I should probably run, the invisible force could easily turn on me, but I find myself rooted to the spot as I watch. When it is thoroughly pulled apart and very definitely dead. I see the grass dip with the weight of giant feet as it pads its way over to me, but I still can’t see it, and I still can’t make myself move.
Weirdly enough, I’m not scared, or even worried. I’m just curious.
So curious, that I make Asael disappear into his single sword form, although I don’t allow him to disappear completely, I’m not stupid.
For some insane reason, I start to lift my hand, almost as if I want to stroke it before I think better of the action, and begin to pull it back. Before I can, though, a soft, wet nose that feels kind of like a dog's nose, nudges my hand gently. My brain compares it to a dog’s nose, but I have never seen, or rather felt, a dog’s nose that is this big. It’s bigger than my whole hand, and I try not to let the obvious size of it panic me.
It just saved my life by killing that last backward knee walking thing. I’m also reasonably certain that if it wanted to eat me, it would have done so by now. I slowly begin to move my fingers, and then my hand, so that I’m stroking the side of its huge head. It has soft fur, and I try really hard to make sure that I don’t accidentally poke it in the eye or something. I don’t imagine that it would be very receptive to pets if I did that. Whatever it is, it seems to like the pets though as he or she leans into my hand asking for more, and making me smile.
A few moments of pets later, my necklace vibrates. The beast in front of me gets taller, and I realize that, impossibly, it was lying down or crouching or something, and it wasn’t at its full height, which means that it is even bigger than I initially thought. My wonder at his size gets pushed back though as he lets out a warning growl. Instinctively, I know that it’s not directed at me, but that it’s warning of a threat nearby.
The air around the creature shimmers for a merely a moment and I get a glimpse of the same kind of creature that bit me in Luesidious, I don’t have time to question it, or double check, as not only does it disappear again, becoming invisible, because two more of the backward knee walking big mouthed creatures come charging at us. He clearly picked up their approach long before I did. Immediately, I turn to the one that’s closest to me, somehow instinctively knowing that the creature will take care of the other one. WhileI swing and dodge the arms of the attacking creature, I see the beast easily and quickly tear the other one apart. The creature that’s attacking me is determined, and my attention needs to focus on the thing trying to eat me, rather than the one that is trying to help me.
The thing swings for me, with a weird clicking squeal, that grates on my ears and makes me want to cover them with my hands, which I’m assuming is what it’s aiming for. It’s a really good distraction technique, and one that almost gets me. I swing for it with Asael, pleased to find that it apparently can’t make the noise when it’s fighting for its life. There’s something different about this one, it’s stronger than the ones that I fought under the trees, and it seems more vicious. Which I know probably doesn’t make sense since they’re all trying to eat me, and that inherently makes them vicious. We fight back and forth for a while; each time it makes a swipe at me, it gets closer to actually harming me, and I’m beginning to tire now as well.
I need to end this as quickly as possible.
Finally, I see the perfect opportunity for me to behead the fucker. It’s a risk, it means I have to get far closer to the creature than I would like, but I have no idea when this opportunity is going to present itself again, and I can’t risk not taking it and having to fight for longer. Especially since I’m losing momentum and getting tired now. With my decision made, I wait until it tries to attack me again and then dive toward it, rolling on the floor and popping back up well within its reach. As my sword arcs upward, the backward knee walking thing grabs one of my arms. I yank it free as the pain registers, but put it to the back of my mind so that I can continue on my original task.
The head drops to the floor with a thump, and I kick it away from the body, as I look down at my arm where the creature grabbed me. My eyebrows rise slightly when I see that where it gripped me, its hand has burned through several layers of my clothes, all the way down to the skin, and has left behind an angry burn in the shape of its hand.
Ouch. That’s going to need healing by Doc, and the sooner the better, hopefully. For now, though, I need to focus on other things. Like the invisible creature and see if he needs help.
I turn back to the creature to see if it’s okay, and maybe see if I can figure out how the creature from Luesidious is here, because I’m pretty sure that it’s the same one. Although, I don’t know how I’m sure. Turning around, I suddenly feel the now familiar feeling of the portal pulling at me, and sure enough, I soon find myself back in my room.
I sigh.
I guess that’s another mystery that we’ll have to add to the ever-growing pile. Not once did I feel threatened by the creature, but even when it bit me in Luesidious, I had no desire to harm it, which is odd when you consider that I should have wanted to defend myself.
Chapter Seven
Neith
Looking around the room, I’m disappointed to see that the guys aren’t in here, which probably means that they are still on their task. In theory, I should be able to watch it, but I have no idea how. I guess I could find Mabel and ask her, but the first thing that I want to do is shower and put on some clean clothes. We didn’t get the chance to do anything like that this morning, since we had a slow morning, enjoyed breakfast, and then Mabel came to tell us that we were doing tasks. We pretty much got pulled straight in after that.
Well, I did. I don’t know about the guys.
Grabbing another outfit that is pretty much the exact replica of the one that I’m currently wearing, minus the burn holes and dirt, I head into the bathroom and get into the hot and steamy water. As I let the water wash away all the dirt and grime, I realize that the trial that I have just done hasn’t takenvery long at all, which means that I should be able to enjoy the shower without fear of being pulled into a task. It also means that I may be able to explore the castle a bit more. Maybe I’ll be able to find more paintings of my parents. Or perhaps even books? That would be really interesting and give me proper insight into who they were.
It also means that as long as I can find Mabel, I should also be able to watch the guys. Although if their tasks are anything like mine, I’m not sure how well I’m going to cope with watching it. I think I would rather watch it than not watch it.
I think.
The voices seem to start murmuring in an amused way at my circling thoughts, and I roll my eyes. I’m going to focus on one thing at a time. The first is the shower, which I am absolutely determined to enjoy because it is very likely that I’m not going to get to enjoy a shower like this until we get home. Then I will go and find Mabel and ask her how I can watch the guys. I am assuming that I can watch them since they can watch me. It would be a bit one-sided if they could see me whenever I did a personal task, but I couldn’t see them.
I tilt my head as I think about it, temporarily forgetting that I’m in the shower, and ending up spluttering and wiping the water out of my eyes as I nearly drown myself.
That may have been an exaggeration.
By the time I get out of the shower, I am well and truly ready to see the guys' task, or even see if they’re back yet. The more I think about it, the more worried I am about them. Because of this, I get dressed quickly, being careful of the burn on my arm, which, although painful, is manageable, and then head to the door of my room to find Mabel.
Coen
Iwonder if I could leave them all here, and allow their own stupidity to kill them? If one of them dies, does that mean that we all fail?
Musing on that thought for a moment, I decide that it isn’t something that I want to risk, despite wanting to see them dead. I can’t risk that one of them dying would mean that I fail as well, and that I wouldn’t be able to see Neith and the guys again.