UnwillingEldritchHorrorofFortune
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Chapter 184: The Village Part 2 (Aspirant POV)
🕑 Added 2024-09-01 00:33:24 +0000 UTCVictor cursed at the way that the squads were assigned, but there was nothing he could say about it. The only consolation that he had was that at least his group had a slim chance of finding those hidden rewards, if, of course, he could just somehow shake the damned spy that was assigned to “assist” them, since their resident alchemist would be staying behind with the rest of the noncombatants.
The way that the Squads were broken up was simple. Eric had all of the production Aspirants stay at the village square, while Squads 1 and 2 were staying with them to serve as bodyguards, and as reserve members in case things went south. Individuals from Squads 4 and 8 had been distributed to fill in the missing numbers, since they were the groups that had casualties, while Eric made sure that each Squad had someone he trusted in them.
His excuse was to shore up the overall combat strength of the Squads, but everyone knew the real reason for those placements. They were there to ensure that no one monopolized any treasures, but without a way to refute the logic behind his assignments, there was nothing the rest of the Aspirants could do but accept his orders. And of course, their leader would be staying behind as well to coordinate their forces. With only one individual with long range communication abilities among their numbers, managing so many Squads was going to be a challenge.
But with so many people to keep track of, and with so few resources available to do so, it also means that it wouldn’t be too weird if something were to happen to Eric’s spy… Victor shook his head; that was strange, he had almost considered sabotaging his own team for the mere chance of extra prize. That wasn’t like him at all, it must be this damned creepy atmosphere affecting his mind, the physicians back home did warn him of mental pollutants.
But those were worries for later. Victor sighed and moved back to his own Squad; Nicole, Wayne and Vivian were rearing to move, and now that Vincent was gone, their group of five should move faster at the very least. That just left the gloomy man sitting slightly off to the side. Benjamin McNiel, Eric’s damned number one bootlicker, was looking at his newly assigned Squad with undisguised contempt. Victor supposed he couldn’t fault the man for clinging onto Eric, Ben’s supportive abilities were already growing into the stuff of legends, but he needed to be paired with someone else to truly shine. That naturally meant that he clung to Eric, because as long as their leader grew in strength, he too would rise with him.
“Let’s get going,” the new Aspirant muttered, “We’re wasting time, and we’ve only an hour or so left by the time we reach there.”
“It’s one pearl,” Wayne spat, “And we know roughly where it is. Unless you’ve put no points into dexterity, then we’ll find it in a matter of minutes.”
Ben gave a mocking laugh. “Says the man who almost lost an arm. I’d say you need to work on your perception capabilities more than anyone else here.”
Vivian frowned and spoke up. “Hey! There was no way we could have-”
“Enough,” Victor said, his tone stern, “Benjamin’s right, we need to move now. It’ll take us 5, maybe 10 minutes to reach the destination, but don’t forget we need to come back to the square as well. Move, everyone.”
Wayne snickered. “At least that deadweight’s gone.”
Victor ignored them and moved to their designated location; sometimes actions were more useful than words. The others followed naturally, and just as Wayne had said, their speed was greatly increased since everyone here was specced into combat. They ran down the narrow dirt path and down a small hill. Broken wooden fences lined the road, and as they continued to walk deeper into the village, the vegetation grew more and more unkempt. The trees grew so dense that all sound was cut off, and the ominous feeling grew to unsettling levels, but Victor forced himself to continue. The small group of five only slowed down when he saw the first landmark.
“Well’s right next to the abandoned stable,” Victor mumbled, “And there’s three huts about a few feet away…” he nodded. “We should be in the right area.”
He didn’t like how tall the grass around here was, the weeds stretching over six feet tall made it almost seem like they were walled in. Worse, the darkness and ever present fog made it hard to keep track of their location, and the same dreary scenery bled into each other.
“Set up lights here,” he commanded, “I don’t want us getting lost when we’re searching.”
With a well practiced motion, the team all took out various portable lights and set them up in pre planned locations. Not one instrument was out of place from the diagrams on Victor’s map, and the man couldn’t help but grin in satisfaction at his team.
“What’s the plan?” Vivian asked, “Do we split up?”
“No,” he answered quickly, “We have some time still,” he checked the countdown, there was still a little over an hour remaining, “I know that the mission said we have some time to rest without that creepy moon up, but something’s telling me that we’re not completely safe. We stick together for now, scout the area.”
“Agreed,” Nicole said, she had been oddly quiet so far, but she always was the most sensitive to these things. “I’m feeling… I don’t know, I feel like we’re being watched. Something’s not right.”
Ben scoffed. “No shit, blondie. We’re in a fucking nightmare village! Not right, that’s a laugh. I’d be concerned if something was right!”
Victor could feel the frustration welling within his compatriots, but they knew better than to antagonize Benjamin. He had too much standing back in the city, not to mention his close ties with Eric here. One wrong move or word out of place would mean that Victor’s Squad would have the worst assignments going forth. Still, Victor wasn’t the only one who thought that something was up, although he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Either way, he trusted Nicole’s intuition, and it’d saved his life on more than one occasion, so for now, it was best to stay alert.
Victor laid out the map around the center of their makeshift lights and went over the plan. “That’s the area we’ve been given,” He began, pointing to the rows of dense foliage that made the perimeter of their zone, “There’s no reason to doubt the old man’s words, so the pearl’s here somewhere.”
Ben rolled his eyes at the obvious information but didn’t otherwise offer a quip.
“We’re here,” he pointed again, this time in a clearing near the middle of their search area. It was the only open space. “The fog and the darkness makes it next to impossible to see anything, so we go in a spiral. How many lights do we have left?”
“More than enough,” Wayne answered, “My inventory’s filled up with every type of light source imaginable, what with every Trial being at night.”
“Then we mark our way as we go,” Victor continued, “We’ll get this whole place illuminated by the end, and we can do some preliminary searching while we move.”
“At least there’s one smart one here,” Ben said with a smirk.
“Ben-” Vivian began.
“We move now,” Victor said over his friend, “Nicole, you help Wayne set up, Ben-”
“I’ll help search,” he interrupted, “I’m more perceptive than all of you here.”
Victor forced down a frown. Benjamin was clearly volunteering himself for that role in the hopes of finding something to fetch back to his little master. “Fine, Ben will search with Wayne and Nicole, while Vi and I will stand guard. Go.”
Without another word, the team moved into a natural formation, with Victor leading the way, followed by the Nicole, Benjamin and Wayne making up the middle of the line, and Vivian taking rearguard. The group made slow, but steady, across the small enclosed area, and by the 15 minute mark, they had already illuminated close to 60% of the space. Things were going better than expected…
“Hey, what was that?” Nicole stopped dead in her tracks, causing everyone else to do the same.
“What was what?” Benjamin asked.
“That! That noise.”
Victor had to really concentrate to hear what Nicole was talking about, but there was a distinct sound of… footsteps crunching on the leaves? Yes, that was definitely what it sounded like, albeit muted from the fog.
“I don’t hear anything,” Vivian whispered, “Are you sure it’s not just the wind?”
“No,” Victor added, “It sounds like footsteps.”
Benjamin frowned. “Hm… you’re right… Think it’s just a small deer or something?”
Victor rolled his eyes. “You said it yourself, we’re in a nightmare village out of a damn horror movie. Do you honestly think there’s woodland creatures here?”
He grunted a response, trying to look nonplussed, but Victor could tell that the man was tense. According to Alexis, there should be no other lifeforms around aside from that old man, and unless he had escaped the notice of Eric and his people to sneak here, then there was something else stalking them.
“Move back to the clearing,” Victor whispered, “We’re not sure what it is, but we stand a better chance fighting in the open, in an environment that we’re at least somewhat familiar with.”
“Move slowly back, got it,” Nicole whispered back, “The things we fought earlier didn’t seem to have any intelligence, we should be-”
A loud cackle broke their conversation.
“Did you say intelligence?” a horrible, deafening croak of a voice said from the unending gloom, “I’ll have you know, I am a certified doctor!”
The group of five tensed up immediately and readied for the worst as a huge, hulking figure started to emerge from the dense fog. Its horrible visage becoming clearer and clearer as it came into the measly glow of their portable lights.
Victor visibly blanched as he saw its face, a grotesque skull of half chewed, rotten flesh stitched together with metal barbs and cabling. Its red and yellow teeth forced into a rictus grin by fishing wire that fed into a rusting metal cage that encased the thing’s head. It’s voice was escaping from its exposed windpipe, and every weeze of its breath spewed out rotten, yellowing puss from that horrid opening. The rest of this thing, this “doctor” was just as bad. It’s body was a patchwork of scars and burns with entire sections of its skin missing at times. The crude facade of a surgeon’s uniform was a bloodstained mess, with various arcane apparatus poking out of the thing’s body.
“Holy shit…” Ben muttered, “Do we… do we run for it?”
Victor forced himself to be composed. He had seen other monstrous creatures before, here and in the prior Trials, but nothing came even close to the horror that engulfed him now. The doctor exuded an aura that was almost suffocating, and Victor immediately commanded his team to consume one of their expensive mind-cleansing potions. Those had put a hefty dent in his pockets, but the effects were immediate. That feeling of fear disappeared in a heartbeat, but the subsequent battle would be unavoidable.
“Everyone, we fight,” Victor said, making up his mind, “There’s no way we’re going to be able to make it back to the others with the fog, not when we’re being chased. We fight. There’s one of it, and there’s five of us.”
“Formations, everybody!” Wayne yelled, “Ben, you’re in the back, support Victor!”
Benjamin wisely chose not to object at this time.
“Let’s get this shit over with!”
