Life in a new Kingdom

Caleb looked at the large creature with the empty abyss in its sockets. The layered breathing sent waves of chills through both of them. Knocking an arrow on his bow, he draws back and fires a shot at the Stalker. It pierces the body but doesn't react to the slight sting. Tilting its head in response, it looks at its chest and then back to Caleb. A high-pitched click of its mouth. Moving its mouth in conjunction with the clicks, it lets the fog of illusion spill out of its body.

Lukia gets to her feet while drawing an arrow to fire. Caleb grabs her arm and stops her from releasing the arrow.

"Don't fire needlessly! The Stalker will take any chance when our guard is down to strike! It uses illusions to trick its prey into making mistakes and then killing them instantly. Try not to breathe in the mist; it will cause its illusion magic to take hold." Caleb wraps a piece of cloth from his bag around his face. Lukia, in turn, reaches for her scarf and is about to tie it around her face.

"Are you sure you want to do that!?" A sudden voice screeched right in front of her face. The twisted face of the skinless Stalker's large head poked through the mist to torment Lukia. The initial prey that didn't fall into its trap made her its top priority to haunt. Caleb turned to see Lukia staring at nothing and yet to cover her face as she stared wide-eyed as the mist entered her body.

"Lukia! Get your scarf or something on your face now!"

Before Caleb stepped toward the distracted woman, he felt a slight pain rake across his back. It was hot at first, but the moment he touched the area where the pain originated, he felt a cold slime oozing through his light armor—another one of the Stalker's abilities. Using witchcraft and alchemy, it can produce a slow-acting numbing agent within its body, creating a slime-like substance to seep into the skin of unsuspecting victims.

His brain started to tingle as the nerves in his body began to fizzle and fire off warning signals before slowly stopping. Without hesitation, Caleb draws his dagger to slice his thighs, arms, and chest. The toxin of the slime has begun to travel through the bloodstream. Opening wounds on his limbs and torso, allows for blood to travel to those wounds, helping release the toxin in his body faster.

While distracted in his current predicament, Lukia seemed lost in the haze. The mist had started to consume her, leading her through a massive hallucination. Voices of her parents and companions called to her. Attempting to resist such obvious tricks caused the voices to grow even louder, drowning out her own thoughts. Until she felt a warm hand clasp her own. Looking to her side, Caleb holds onto her with a worried look.

"Snap out of it, we need to regroup with everyone else if we are to take this thing down!" His voice was soothing to her. It was almost like it was the only thing she should focus on to clear her mind of the voices. His eyes stared through her, hoping to pull her in the direction toward their camp. Of course, this is something she needed to get help. Her feet dragged a bit, but she started to move.

Further consumed by the mist, something stabs her shoulder. The pain knocks her sense of reality off. Her shoulder bleeds a vibrant purple before turning pink. A sickening feeling wells inside her stomach, Caleb still holds her hand, trying to drag her through the mist. The knife in her shoulder started to spread the painful feeling, her own arm began to twist in Caleb's grip.

A voice rang out and reached her ears, causing the world around her to flash. Stopping her from moving any further, the voice became clear. "Don't let it take you away!" Lukia jerks her arm back, she reaches and pulls out the small dagger in her shoulder and stabs at the hand wrapped around her own. It punctures and causes the Stalker to screech from frustration. Shifting its body forward, it slams the end of its tail into her, sending her into the air, blood running down her nose.

Caleb moves his slowed body to summon a barrier to catch her in the air, then lets her fall into his arms. Each of his wounds slowly turns blue, highlighting the toxin being flushed from his system. Placing his hand on her forehead, casting a healing spell over her wounds, she regains her strength. With a quick motion, Caleb lifts her scarf, wraps it around her mouth, and ties it off.

"It's fast for its size. Stabbing it while it was distracted by holding onto you left it open. It won't make the same mistake twice unless we can play it off. Stick close to me, and don't trust everything you see. Can you get up?"

The dilation in her eyes starts to fade, and she softly nods. Reaching for her bow, she knocks an arrow and fires it behind them, hoping to catch it off guard, but only an echo of laughs of different voices bellows from the mist. The creature is watching them and is enjoying every second of playing its games.

"How do we fight something that hides behind fakes?"

"For once, I really don't have a good plan against this thing. Any monster manual or history book regarding this creature has barely any information on the Stalker. However, it has a higher sense of intelligence due to its birth. It thrives off toying with us with its magic, and we can possibly use it to our advantage as long as we slow down how much we inhale this mist." Caleb looked around frantically, holding his breath whenever he could. Both of them were surrounded and infected with the magic; it was a battle of attrition. Could their minds resist the effects long enough to fight it off would only test their resolve.

"Just great... Something we need to plan on the fly. How do we determine if it's an illusion or real?"

"It won't be obvious; the more you inhale of its mist, the more you'll hallucinate, causing the illusions it sends you to be even more real than the last. Use that dagger and cut yourself a few times. Bleeding and pain help dull the effects and expels it through our blood." Listening to his advice, she takes the dagger he threw into her shoulder to leave deep enough cuts for them to bleed enough.

Seconds pass by, with their bodies aching from their wounds; Lukia tries to observe to the best of her ability where the creature might be—examining the ground as barely as she could in the obscured vision of hers. Hoping to sense or spot some correlation to its camouflage, she might figure out how to identify it.

"Cover me, Caleb! I'll figure it out!" Caleb reaches to grab her, but she slips by to act as if she is trying to escape; she spots a sudden shift in the mist, indicating the Stalker has begun to move. If she could tell which direction it approached, she could counter it with her longsword.

"Don't split from me! It will just charge you-" Caleb spots the mist moving around. The main weakness of this creature is its unbelievable size. If it must produce this illusion from its body, then you can spot when it begins to move while using its ability.

Seeing the pattern in front of him, Caleb draws his bow and fires a shot which strikes the Stalker from attacking her from behind. The eerie roar from this horror has it flicker briefly, showing its proper form again. Lukia slashes her sword across its belly and flips over it. Its tail attempts to smack her until Caleb strikes its neck with a single arrow.

Blood shoots from the wound, and it turns around, hitting a massive tree instead, causing the enormous lumber to smash into the ground. Blowing the mist away leaves an opening for the moment. Caleb removes his glove and points his hand at the torso of the Stalker.

"Lightning Bolt!" The thunderous roar of the magic envelops his entire arm before it quickly propels to the palm of his hand, gathering together to form a beam of pure electricity that shoots out and strikes the Stalker in the chest.

The explosive power shatters the creature's skin, causing flakes of blood to splatter all over the ground. The long tongue flops out of its mouth as it stumbles around, dazed by the critical hit to its chest. A stream of smoke emits from Caleb's blistering hand. Blood slowly pours from his palm; out of pure instinct, he has overdone the spell and ripped off some of his skin with a single bolt of lightning.

"Is it...running away?" Lukia asks while turning her head to see the looming Stalker above Caleb. A large grin across its face, bearing none of the damage they had believed it did. Its jaws begin to open wide, aiming for the unaware Caleb...