An Unwavering Craftsman

Damien ducked the fangs of a large spider monster, taking the opportunity to stab a few of the little ones crawling around its legs. His body was burning from the effort of fighting for so many hours, and he was bruised, but nothing was broken, and no fangs had pierced his armour to deliver their cursed venom.

The larger spider hissed, raising a pair of legs in preparation to skewer the interloper, but then paused, wobbling precariously. Damien took the opportunity to take some distance, the larger spider vanishing back into the mist as he retreated, then taking the chance to rest, even if it was only for a few seconds.

The spider re-emerged from the mist, but not because it had moved. Rather, the fog was clearing. No, when Damien looked around, he realised it was flowing away. Thanking whichever of Shigeo or Fleta managed to reach and slay the responsible monster, he kept his eyes on the giant spider, stabbing it through the head when it charged towards him.

Over the next few minutes, the mist cleared completely, revealing a wide, flat area of barren rock, littered with corpses of the monsters Damien had slain. Any monsters that were still alive were tearing into the corpses, feasting on their flesh. Some were even fighting each other over the food.

He hadn't seen or heard the monsters behaving like that before. Previously, they were obsessed with attacking Damien, and while their teamwork was minimal, they'd never attacked each other or shown interest in the corpses. It was as if a single driving force had gone. Whatever was responsible for the fog must also have been controlling the monsters.

Damien climbed to the top of one of the large monsters' corpses, using it as a vantage point to look around for the others. In the distance, he spotted what appeared to be a cubic spider. Knowing it wasn't something he did, and thus was likely the work of one of the others, he made his way there.

It turned out to be a shelter. It had no door or windows, but someone had obviously slotted chunks of monster exoskeleton together to make it. Damien knocked, to no response. Of course, the monsters had been knocking the entire fight, so obviously any occupant wouldn't respond. He shouted instead.

"Lana? Is that you in there?"

The shelter went, "Mmmrrrrr," giving Damien flashbacks of the time he'd tripped over her asleep on their doorstep, coupled with relief that she'd survived.

"Seriously? You're asleep?!"

"What's all the shouting? Is it over?"

"Mostly. The fog's gone, and the spiders are attacking each other instead of us, but we all got separated. You're the first one I've found."

A few high-pitched plinks came from inside the makeshift hut, before all four walls fell outwards.

"Ouch," said Lana, as the roof hit her on the head. "Any idea how to find the others?"

"I found you by climbing high and looking for anything unnatural. I suppose we can repeat that? Or make a signal of some sort? Maybe set some of these corpses on fire?"

There were plentiful corpses nearby, despite Lana doing her best to avoid combat, simply because all the monsters trying to breach her shelter had turned on each other when the mist cleared. Lana looked at them dubiously. They seemed to mostly be chitin and black ooze.

"I'm not sure how well they'll burn, but I suppose we could try."

"Wait... Get ready! We have incoming."

Damien spun around to where he could hear thudding in the distance, surprised to see a dozen of the large spiders walking in lock-step.

"Looks like they haven't all turned against each other," said Lana, readying her hammer.

"Umm..." said Damien, eyeing the head of the leading spider. "Actually, I think these spiders have another master."

Lana squinted into the distance. "Is that... Grace? She's riding the spider? I thought she couldn't control the big ones?"

"Apparently she found a way," said Damien, seeing no reason to disbelieve the empirical evidence in front of his face.

The pair waited for the squad of monsters to arrive. "Grace! Glad you're okay!" called Damien.

"And you likewise. Not that I had any doubt. You have the blood of an adventurer, whatever your class says. Now, would you two care for a lift?"

"Yes please," answered Damien instantly, glad to give his aching muscles a rest. "Although, do you happen to have any idea where we're getting a lift to?"

"Tell me, how many birds are there in the sky?"

Damien looked around, examining the bright blue sky. "One?" he answered, focusing on a distant speck. No, that would be silly. How could birds survive here? There was nothing but barren rock and monsters. There would be nothing for them to eat. It could be another monster, but thus far they'd only seen the two species of spider, and they certainly couldn't fly. Since there was only one, it was more likely to be something else. Or rather, someone else.

"Onwards to Greenhair then!"

By the time they reached him, Fleta and Shigeo had turned up there too, Fleta having no issue identifying the flying Greenhair, who had since descended to join everyone. Lana jumped off her spider to give him a hug.

"Anyone hurt?" asked Fleta, to a chorus of denials.

"It was close though," said Damien. "I'm not sure I could have held on for much longer, so thanks for ending it."

The others looked at him in surprise, and he recalled that Lana had been asleep. Greenhair had just flown out of range of everything. Grace had seized control of a spider army. Fleta and Shigeo were, well, Fleta and Shigeo. "Wait, was I the only one who had any difficulty?"

The group nodded.

"Well, now I feel inadequate," he muttered, before noticing the way Shigeo was scratching the back of his neck. It was a tell he hadn't seen since he'd slain the dragon. "What are you so embarrassed about?"

"We didn't end it," said Fleta. "I have no more idea what happened than you do."

"I believe I can solve that mystery," said Greenhair. "I located the monster that was the source of the fog and dropped a potion of inferno on it. It did not survive."

Damien stared at the elf. "Wow. That's a complete failure for our family, then."

"I do not see it that way. Your family are responsible for my abilities and my presence here. If Sir Shigeo were to slay a monster with his blade instead of his fists, would you call that a failure too?"

Damien found himself faced once more with Greenhair's rather different take on life. He was more than a sword, obviously, yet it was true he wouldn't be here without them. But by his own logic, if Shigeo killed a monster with his sword, shouldn't the credit go to the blacksmith? Or maybe it was just some of it?

"Putting all that aside, shall we get out of here? We even have transport."

Fleta frowned. "There are still so many monsters here. Chances are good another one will evolve if we leave them."

"We can't kill all of them," pointed out Damien. "We'd be here for years."

"No... I suppose not, as much as it rankles to see monsters and have to leave them alone."

Most of the group mounted Grace's spiders and set off towards Jurelli once more, but the black mists leaking from their mounts raised another problem. "No way can we bring these into civilization," pointed out Shigeo. "They'll need slaughtering the moment we reach anything that isn't bare rock."

"A pity," said Grace, petting the head of the spider she was riding. "I had an option to take a feat that would prevent any bound monsters from causing harm to their surroundings. Then again, if I'd taken it, I never could have kept these under control in the first place."

Despite Shigeo's comments about leaving monsters alive, none that drew anywhere near the group survived. Fleta was out, scouting around the group and bringing down anything that came near. Damien wondered if she was trying to make up for needing to rely on Greenhair to take out the leader, or if she was just committed to her job. Either way, they weren't bothered again until they reached the edge of what had formerly been the Isle of Mist.

The barren rock gave way to barren soil, and Shigeo declared it time to slaughter the spiders. While they'd set foot onto another island, the state of the ground implied the monsters had done the same. They continued to encounter monsters, although it thankfully looked like they'd turned on each other out here, too, and they only came across individuals and corpses.

Alas, not all the corpses were of monsters.

"A melltirryn didn't do this," said Fleta, looking at the mummified remains of a hunter, found among a copse of withered trees. Both the human and the trees looked like they'd been dried, with all moisture sucked from them. "It could be one of the bigger ones, since I didn't recognise them and don't know what they can do, but they haven't showed this sort of ability so far."

"The ones I was controlling couldn't do that," said Grace.

"I think it was the fog," said Shigeo. "Remember that disturbing, oppressive feeling it gave?"

"Then without our protective equipment..." started Lana, not needing to finish the sentence.

"Yup. That would have been us."

"Don't make it sound that bad. We were only at the edge of it. If it had been dangerous, I'm sure we could have reacted," said Damien.

Shigeo frowned and didn't answer. At the rate the fog had been expanding, he wasn't completely sure they could have done anything. In retrospect, flying over it would have been the best option. An analysis that Greenhair would have been most pleased with, if Shigeo and Fleta ever spoke it aloud.

It wasn't just the lone hunter, either, but they passed entire consumed villages before getting out of range of the corruption.

"Any idea what island this was?" asked Damien as they finally stepped onto green grass.

"The little one south-west of the Isle of Mist," answered Fleta. "Sorry, but I don't remember what it's called. It's mostly farmland, with no big cities. No large forests, or other unoccupied areas, either, so they never had much of a monster problem."

"No, or they'd have reacted better to the fog," said Shigeo. "Those villages should have been evacuated the moment the world changed."

"That's unfair," said Damien. "It's not like anyone had training for what to do if the Other invades."

"Monsters don't care about fairness. If you remember anything, my boy, remember that."

"Speaking of the Other, it appears to be almost night time, if I am reading the movements of that... large source-light correctly."

"I'm pretty sure that's the sun," supplied Damien.

Greenhair peered at it, his protections working hard to protect his eyes. "I see. The sun was never taken away from the world. Rather, the world was taken away from the sun. Either way, once it moves further down, it will be unable to supply light, and we will once again see that."

"Just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's not there," said Damien. He was sure he could see movement beyond the sky, even if no-one else seemed to, and he was sure he could feel the thing watching.

The next few villages they stumbled upon as they sprinted across the land had indeed been evacuated, with no signs of any dead. They settled down in one for the night as the sun dipped below the new horizon, and Arach-achanol once again appeared in the night sky.

Damien found it hard to look away as one eye after another glanced down at him, each one pressuring him with the weight of inevitability. The rolling tubes of flesh flexed in the sky, appendages that Damien had seen tear islands from the seas, and yet it didn't spare so much as a thought for the humans killed by the Isle of Mist's monsters, even though it could have wiped out the entire island with an equivalent of a finger flick.

How had the Five ever convinced such a detached, dispassionate being to grant them power?