Witch of Fear [Mild horror, Isekai High Fantasy]

A hush enveloped the Gloomstruck; the woods themselves holding a breath. Color leached from it, leaving naught behind but an eponymous nature. Spider-leg roots sprouted from trees that twisted upwards like strangling hands. Closing the gaps between was a carpeting wall of needle-thorn briars. 

Somber was the atmosphere of both wild and civilized beasts.

Even with their differences, the adventurers hadn’t wished death upon their compatriot guards. A binding sheet had wrapped the fallen. Now they awaited an inferno to carry them to ash and glory. But that’d have to wait, for these woods were far too dangerous to call such attention down.

A fact Autumn learnt sooner than she’d have liked. 

The convoy had traveled only slightly further away from the ford before camping down. Holes and scars lined the wagons. Quills had lodged deep into the woods and torn gaping holes into their covering leathers. Holes that’d have to be fixed before they re-entered the pounding rainfall of the flooded coast. 

Luckily, Autumn’s magic was back on the table, if only slightly. Her repair charms had their wagon pristine, looking better than ever. 

The sounds of activity from the riverside drew Autumn’s attention, and with nothing else to do, she wandered over. There she found the burlier members of the convoy, Nethlia included, gutting and harvesting three Quillodiles that had made the mistake of chasing them. Crimson dripped from the hanging bodies down into the hungry dirt. They had split the beasts from throat to groin. Most of the offal they kept: heart, kidneys, liver, tongue, and even the brains got preserved for transport, wrapped in salt and leather. 

Autumn hadn’t encountered this aspect of adventuring before; her meat came wrapped in plastic. Of course, she’d butchered a goblin before, but she didn’t count that as nobody would eat the foul things.

Sharp and barbed foot-long quill spears were harvested from the crocodilian skin. Rapid and efficient cuts then separated skin from flesh and meat from bones. Salt and leather wrapped the meat for transport. When they got to Bogward, they would divide the profits for selling them among all the adventuring groups.

The oaken necklace weighed heavily in Autumn’s pocket.

All told, the butchering took less than an hour.

Now, a dark carpet of night settled over the Gloomstruck, wicking away what little sunlight they had. Campfires burned low, casting flickering shadows as the watchers took their places amongst the wagons. Autumn sat back to back with Nethlia as the pair paid close attention to the darkness. 

Nary a sound issued forth. Whatever predators this dread-place housed stalked in silence. It wasn’t a sound that alerted Autumn to the danger, but a smell. An awful smell. A familiar smell. One that haunted her mind and dreams: the heady, cloying perfume of the fae.

Lightning coursed through Autumn’s spine. 

Autumn quickly sent a creeping whisper into Nethlia’s mind. [Danger, I smell fae.] 

Instantly, Nethlia straightened, her eyes sharpening as she scanned the dark foliage. An unnatural quietness crept into the atmosphere. It grated on the mind. Seeped into the ear. With…Utter…Silence.

Suddenly, a deafening crack split the night. Autumn’s feet trembled as the ground thumped under the tremendous impact of felled lumber. A twisted tree came crashing down as something monstrous pushed its way through. More trees cracked and crashed as it grew closer and closer.

“Quickly! Douse the flames!” Nethlia whisper-shouted. 

The quaking had woken the rest of the camp, and they scrambled to fulfill Nethlia’s command. Snuffing firelight and leading frightened Agoroths off the path, out of sight. Behind tall trees and inside covered wagons, everyone hid and held their anxious breaths. With her heart hammering in her chest, Autumn scrambled into cruel briars to curl under a knotted root. A familiar refuge.

A bitter dark enclosed the camp, leaving only hushed breathing behind. Crack. Crack. Crack. Trees continued to break like gunshots in the distance, growing ever closer. Until finally, they stopped.

A new hush descended. None spoke or whispered. They didn’t even dare to shift. 

Hot, foul breath gusting in a powerful snort, swaying the trees and souring their leaves. A great and terrible beast emerged from the woods, baring gleaming sword-like teeth in a long Draconic snout. Thousands of red, wet, glistening eyes blinked on an elongated skull which was crowned by a pair of twisting antlers, flowered with poisonous blooms. A crimson lion’s mane of matted fur swung with the motions of a long serpentine neck. 

The Fairy Dragon sniffed and searched as its thousand curious eyes locked onto the outwardly abandoned camp.

Autumn regretted wanting to see a Dragon.

A dread vortex swirled about the camp, fed from the terrified beasts and mortal souls. Every step the Draconic monstrosity took sent a ripple of cloying miasma through Autumn. She felt almost too full, her mind shuddering under the influx of primal terror. Before them stood an apex predator, something born to hunt and never hunted, and beastial minds screamed a warning of danger. As if they needed the reminder. 

Furrows were carved into the dirt track as the Fairy Dragon thundered closer. 

Captain Ekrus hid within the lead wagon, his hands gripping tight around his axe. Resolve washed away the fear inside his heart as putrid breath rotted the leather between him and death. 

In a move of pure idiocy and desperation, Autumn pointed her wand out into the Gloomstruck. Purple dread magic zipped off into the distance, the magic lighting up the twisted, hungry trees as it went. 

The Fairy Dragon whipped its head to follow the jinx, the thousand eyes narrowing in suspicion. It sniffed the air, tasting the trail of fear as it escaped. With a low, guttural roar it lumbered off in pursuit of what it perceived as escaping prey. Trees shattered in its wake. 

When the sounds vanished into the darkened woods the convoy released a collective breath. 

“Good…Good thinking.” Nethlia spoke with a shaky voice. 

“To be honest, I didn’t think that’d work. What even was that? Some sort of fae monster?” Autumn asked. 

“That was a Fairy Dragon. Some call them Stag Dragons or Nightmare Dragons. They’re not full-blooded Dragons, thankfully, or it’d be smart enough not to fall for that trick. Especially if it’d fought adventurers before.”

Autumn gulped. 

“Not a full Dragon?! It was massive!”

“Don’t get me wrong, that thing was at least a half-blood or more, but full dragons are far larger and fly. A full Dragon hasn’t been seen in a millennium, thank Nusraura.”

The pair began hurriedly packing up as they talked, the rest of the camp doing likewise. While it was exceptionally dangerous to travel at night, there was a high likelihood that the Fairy Dragon would discover the ruse and return. The convoy didn’t want to be here when it did. 

“What happened to the Dragons?”

Nethlia hesitated. “Well…the tales say one of the foul gods consumed them all.”

“Foul gods?” Autumn asked. 

“Shhh! Not so loud!” Nethlia hushed Autumn. “It’s taboo to talk about them. I shouldn’t have even mentioned it.” 

The conversation stalled rather abruptly. Everyone mounted back up on the packed wagons and continued on in the stifled twilight.

---

 

In the end, the Fairy Dragon didn’t return. 

They traveled in haste throughout the night and the subsequent morning, arriving tired at the edge of the Gloomstruck with time to spare. 

A fresh drop of water trailed down Autumn’s spine, causing her to yelp. Now that they were out of the canopy’s protection, the everpour returned with a vengeance. 

The Restless Mire lay ahead. Fetid wetlands that stretched as far as the eye could see were broken up by dense groves of billowing swamp trees and thick mists. The stench of peat and millions of decaying and rotting things clouded the air. Not even the pounding rains could cover it up. A fresh wave of noise met Autumn, that of frogs, birds, and great hordes of insects. 

To the east lay a small wooden port of only a dock, a stable, and a tiny inn. The sight of an inn made Autumn want to curl up and sleep, but there was no point in resting here when the village lay just beyond the water. 

Tied to the weathered docks were a myriad of punted boats and a small cadre of boatmen that awaited their arrival. They looked strange, almost shamanistic; layers of hide and cloth obscured their bodies, while skulls of beasts adorned their faces. Hollow black sockets stared expressionlessly at the approaching adventurers. 

Autumn had to admire the unease-inspiring look.

Since the journey ahead was impossible for the heavy wagons and beasts, the convoy had to stable them here and carry only the essential gear. Autumn patted Kira goodbye before piling into a boat beside her party. 

The boatmen slowly pushed them through the murky waters towards the village in the distance.

Bogward was an eccentric-looking village. Dominating its center was an enormous willow tree. Tattered streamers of moss, reed, and cloth hung from its boughs and ran slick with rainfall. Beneath the canopy, the villagers had built a majority of their homes and businesses. Despite the foggy gloom of the swamp, the buildings were bright—painted in sky blues and sunflower yellows. From the center, a spider’s web of rickety walkways radiated outwards in all directions to connect outlying buildings built upon long stilts in the foul-smelling mud.

The intense eyes of the Mireguard watched the approach of the adventurers and guardsmen. They either stood atop watchtowers or strode through the muck on long stilt-legs. Large beaked skulls hid their faces underneath great feathered hooded capes. Armors of chitin clad their bodies overtop loose linens. In their hands they held either long poles tipped with one half of a serrated crab-claw or large longbows of supple willow.

While not outwardly hostile to the new arrivals they were wary. At all times Autumn felt eyes upon her. 

A group of locals were awaiting them when they docked at the edge of the settlement. At their head was a pair of elders, a demon and demoness. They approached only once all the adventurers had disembarked.

“Welcome to Bogward, adventurers and Duskguards. I am Low-Page Zarrut and this is my wife, Akarr.” The elder demon introduced the pair. “I’m afraid you won’t find much of a welcome here these days. Many of us have lost loved ones to the goblin menace. However, the Drowned Tyrant Inn is available to house you for the night. Perhaps we might speak with your captains in the morning?”

Captain Ekrus stepped forth and greeted the pair. 

“We welcome your hospitality and vow to end the goblin blight once and for all. Unfortunately, it is my duty to inform you that just last night we came across a Fairy Dragon in the Gloomstruck.”

At this, the surrounding demonfolk broke out into concerned mummers. 

“Fortunately, we could get away without incident, but are rather exhausted and hungry, so that inn sounds lovely right about now.”

Although concerned over the news of a Fairy Dragon so close to the village, the elder nodded amicably and gestured over to a handsome younger Inferni. 

“Certainly. My son, Malthor, will guide you to the inn. He’ll also be guiding you to the goblin encampment tomorrow, as he was the one to discover it.”

Malthor looked to be one of the Mireguard, based upon his armor of chitin and feathers. He waved off to a nearby walkway. 

“Follow me, the Drowned Tyrant is just nearby.”

The Drowned Tyrant’s name was apt, as the building had been formed out of a behemoth of a skeleton. Rising out of the swamps to lay half-submerged on clumps of ground were the bones of what must have been Swamp Dragon, or at least something with the blood of one. Wood had been molded in between the ribs to create a barrel-like main chamber, and the great gaping jaws served as the entrance. 

“Welcome to the Drowned Tyrant. Legend has it that a great hero slew this Swamp Tyrant in the first age of the empire,” Mathlor said as he gestured to the inn. 

“Is this a Dragon like the Fairy Dragon?” Autumn whispered to Nethlia.

“Hmm, I think so. I’ve never seen a Half-Dragon this big though. It might actually be a young Dragon, but who knows?” 

Nethlia shrugged. 

Teeth bigger than Autumn hung overhead as they passed into the inn. Nobody had to duck to enter; the beast was that massive. Inside the literal belly of the beast was a single large chamber, the very back divided off for the innkeeper’s home. A spine ran down the ceiling and hung with lantern lights. The walls alternated between rich browns of wood and the stark white of bone. 

Autumn pondered if a necromancer would love or hate this place.

A large fire pit that served as both a source of heating and a kitchen dominated the center of the hall. Currently, a stew was brewing in large chitinous pots. The smell was heavenly. 

As this inn was just one large chamber, they were to sleep beside the fire. Along the walls lay piles of cushions and pillows to facilitate this. So, with a yawn breaking her jaw, Autumn found herself a prime spot beside the fire.