An Unwavering Craftsman

The monster had no name. Not personally, nor even its species. No creature capable of using language had ever laid eyes on it, or at least, not for long. And for those that had briefly seen it, giving it a name had been the last thing on their minds.

It had no idea how old it was. After the first few decades, once it was secure and its position unassailable, the years had bled together. Its earliest memories were of fear and blood, forever driven by hunger, trapped with those who were equally driven. Kill, eat, kill and repeat. No rest or respite. In the earliest days, there was juicier, sweeter prey, but it was limited and the competition fierce. It ran out soon enough, leaving only prey that tasted awful and that could fight back.

Nevertheless, the monster continued to fight and continued to eat. Sometimes wounded, but never badly enough to interrupt the hunt. On and on it went until one day all the food ran out, even its fellow monsters consumed in their entirety. There was no life remaining on the island, which had been reduced to bare rock and barren soil.

The monster circled the island, finding only the ocean. It couldn't cross, but the hunger remained. In despair, it retreated to the centre of the island. In desperation, it tore off its own legs, swallowing them down in the hopes of satisfying the endless craving. Perhaps it did, for a time, but the emptiness always returned. Again and again, the monster tore pieces from itself and devoured them, yet it never died. Even when no meat was left, and the bones had been shovelled down the ever-lusting maw, the malice and hunger of the monster remained. A monster no longer of flesh, but of spirit and will alone.

It wrapped itself in darkness, sating its hunger by feeding on light. It spread its will across the island in the form of a malevolent fog that sapped the life from all it touched. Alas for the monster, there was nothing there. No life to consume. It could only wait in the silence and stillness, drinking in the power that the source-lights shone down upon it. But it wasn't left alone for long.

The bugs came. Sweet meat, wrapped in metal. The monster watched them land and step into its domain, and it sucked them straight out of their metallic shells. More came. They, too, were consumed. Another came, this one shining with bright flame as if the antithesis of the monster's cloak of shadow. Flames that chased away the shadows and burnt away the fog.

Once more the monster knew fear. A predator was coming for its life, and its abilities were useless. In desperation, it searched for another move it could make. Another option.

It spun out its shadows, and from them built lesser versions of itself. Monsters that it had been, once upon a time. It set them upon the wielder of flame. Her fires consumed them. One, ten, a hundred, a thousand, but the monster of shadow was old and strong. Too long had it been left undisturbed. When ten thousand came, the flame was finally smothered. The monster reached out, surrounding the aggressor with its shadow, and it fed.

And it kept on feeding.

It was the sweetest meat it had ever tasted, and even better, each time it fed, the meat regrew. Again and again it consumed her, wrapping her in its shadow, imprisoning her in the darkness and silence. It ate and ate until, for the first time in its life, the monster was satiated.

The monster slept.

Its prey escaped. She had been right there, in the heart of the shadow, free, the monster insensate and defenceless, and yet she hadn't harmed it. She couldn't; her mind was broken, devoured by the shadow even as her body was reborn again and again. She fled instead, and she brought her fear with her. The monster was never disturbed again, aside from by foolish glory-hunters. Hardly enough for a snack.

It soon hungered once more, an extra spice added by the memories of once being full. It sought out the sweet meat it had fed off before, but was still bound to its island, and she could not be found. It called for her, but she did not answer. The decades dragged on into a century, then two, without change, and the monster despaired of ever satiating its hunger again.

The closest source-light went out. The monster knew nothing of the affairs of the world, or what led to its destruction. All it knew was that the light it had been feeding on diminished. Once again, it knew fear. Would all the light disappear?

Another one vanished, and then the last. The monster watched on as the world changed. A new light emerged, but this one wasn't the same. Brighter, able to pierce the vapours of the monster, yet not satisfying. There was no nourishment to be found in it, but this time, the monster didn't care.

The seas had gone, and for some reason, it felt stronger. It could expand.

It reached out and found more sweet meats. None as sweet as the one it remembered, that it sought, but good enough. It reached out further and further, consuming all that it touched, and now it moved to consume the six bugs that had willingly entered its domain. Sure, they seemed strangely resistant to its attempts to drain them of their life, apparently not even noticing, but thus far, they'd only brushed up against the outermost reaches of its will.

Perhaps they'd regrow, like its favourite meat, the last bug that walked with impunity through its territory. It looked forward to cocooning them in its shadows and finding out.

Damien was getting nervous. While standing, he couldn't see his own waist, let alone his feet. He had no idea where he was treading. A dozen times he'd been ambushed by the smaller monsters, too quiet for him to detect and low enough to be completely hidden in the mists. They hadn't managed to hurt him yet, but they only needed to be lucky once. He'd taken the time to produce some more rigid plates of mana to wear over the top of his usual outfit, not wanting to leave any gaps for a stray fang or claw to intrude.

The monsters came in waves, each bigger than the last. Despite his boosted physical abilities, he was no fighter. He was getting tired, yet he couldn't see any way out. His greatest hope was that Fleta or Shigeo would find and slay whatever monster was nesting here. It would still be a pain to find them afterwards, but at least the fog should disperse. Hopefully. At least he had some second hand knowledge from living in the household with two famous adventurers. Lana and Greenhair didn't even have that, and had there been anything divine out there he trusted, he would have prayed to it they were both okay.

Grace sat in the middle of a swarm of melltirryn, all doing their best to defend her from a trio of the larger monsters. Normally they'd have had no chance, but her abilities as a [Beast Tamer] were strengthening them and weakening her opponents. They were still dying in droves, but were nevertheless bringing down spider after spider.

And if half her minions died in each fight, a quarter would survive two. An eighth three.

There was a reason she wasn't fighting herself, beyond the simple fact that she couldn't see her opponents. While she may not be able to seize control of the bigger monsters, if a monster she already had control of were to evolve, [Unbreakable Bond] would ensure it wouldn't regain its freedom.

A veteran of seven battles for its life was the first, burrowing into the side of the monster it had just taken down and feasting on its flesh. It grew, far more than the food it had consumed should have permitted, causing the dead monster to burst apart as the living took its place.

Grace smiled, putting more effort into keeping that one alive. While she could revive it, it would take twenty-four hours. She wanted an army of them long before then.

Lana curled up on the hard rock, taking the opportunity to nap. She trusted in the others to fight. Her job was simply to stay alive.

Monstrous spiders, both big and small, pounded on the walls of the shelter she'd built for herself, all ineffectually. The chitin of the larger spiders had been considered a usable material by her [Smithing] skill, and with the tools she had to hand, she'd been able to fashion it into walls and a roof. With its resilience boosted by her [Runic Engraving], there was no way the monsters could breach it.

Fleta and Shigeo sped through the mists together. The experts that they were, they hadn't allowed the cursed blood to break their rope. Now they just hoped they could end the threat before the others were injured or killed, but it wasn't going well.

"We're going in circles," complained Fleta, staring at a carved mark in the rocky ground that she'd made herself half an hour earlier.

"Shit!" swore Shigeo. "We need to end this now. We're being led by our noses. It's not going to stop until it wears us down."

"I know! I swear this fog is alive."

"Is it worth trying to blow it away?"

Fleta shrugged, not expecting it to help but not having any better ideas.

Shigeo lifted his sword, which began to glow with a white light as he charged his skill.

The fog fled, rushing away as if sucked up by a vacuum.

"Huh? But I haven't even done anything yet!" he complained, as the sun shone down upon them once more.

Greenhair floated high above the fog. While the group lacked enough potions of flight to supply everyone, he had a stash of potions of his own, and flight was among them. [Permanency] could indeed be applied to it, leaving him safely out of danger. At least until he died of dehydration; he had a few days of rations in his pack, but mid-air wasn't a great place to find water sources, short of him inventing some way to bottle up a cloud.

In his view, Fleta's order to dispel their flight had been a mistake. They should have searched the island from above. Of course, hindsight always helped; had the fog not had the unnatural malice behind it, a conscious will attempting to separate and disorientate them, her choice wouldn't have been such a strategic mistake. Even floating out of it had been strange; he'd focused on making himself lighter than air, but he'd felt as if he was dropping or moving sideways. Only by ignoring the sensations and trusting in his potion had he burst out of its confines.

From his vantage point above the mists, he could see their heart. An area of foul darkness, a couple of hundred metres across. The others would be stuck at ground level. The only way they'd get there was if the source of the mists permitted them. As the only one able to approach it on his own terms, he floated his way there.

He was far slower using the potion of flight than when being pulled by Fleta, and the journey took most of the day, but the sun was still in the sky by the time he reached his goal. The next problem, then, was what to do now that he was there. Diving down seemed ill-advised; he had no idea what was there, and willingly walking into one trap was already one too many. Instead, he poked around in his potion supply.

He had poisons, but what would they achieve? The monsters here withered the land they trod on, and bled corrupted fluids that poisoned the land far more surely than anything Greenhair could produce. They were almost certainly immune. Worth a try, in the absence of other ideas, but not his first choice.

He needed fire to burn away the mists, light to dispel the darkness. Blessings to heal the curses. Alas, holy water was the domain of priests, not of alchemists. Fire, though, was something he could manage. A potion of inferno, concocted from the blood of a rerckitten mixed with ash created from the flames of Brenhin-Tân. Whether their provenance made any difference to the potion, he had no idea, but it surely wouldn't hurt.

Neither would [Permanency], letting the flames burn forever.

Greenhair hurled the concoction at the ground. It never reached that far, exploding on contact with the darkness, and setting the shadows themselves aflame. The inferno blossomed, and the shadows writhed. They twisted and squirmed, pooling over the ground as if trying to snuff out the fire, but still it burnt. Pillars of shadow struck out, trying to grasp at Greenhair, but he was too far above, safely out of their grasp. The fog drew in and rose over the shadows, trying to smother the flames, but still they burnt.

Greenhair watched on in bemusement. He'd been trying to target some monster hidden in the darkness. He hadn't realised the darkness was the monster. An incorporeal beast, yet one that could still burn.

By the time the flames receded, there was nothing of it left.