Grab and Run

JP with Lucian, Winteroak, and Omni

They headed quietly toward the village, weapons in hand. Voah knew Tarmen’s hand signals by now. He was asking her to halt and he moved into a forward position for observation. He waved her on when he was sure the coast was clear.

It seemed like most of the mould-folk were calling it a “night”, but they could see a group of them still huddled together near a small fire pit. Their tents and huts appeared to be haphazardly built with an array of found materials such as stone, hide, bone, and wood. And they seemed to be made primarily for personal privacy rather than shelter.

The adults were drinking from small cups and laughing quietly. Across the way, Tarmen and Voah spotted a mould-boy and girl being scolded and shooed away from an area and sent off to bed by a mould-woman, probably their mother.

They determined that it must be the area allocated for food stores. The kids were probably sneaking snacks and other such items so that was the direction in which Voah and Tarmen headed next.

It was the jackpot. A veritable smorgasbord of strange foods kept in clay pots, urns, and vine baskets.

Keeping himself from silencing his raging stomach, Tarmen focused on the bread they had found before. It was their only surefire way to combat the spores and they would need it.

While the pack was still damp, he shoved the food within anyway. He wouldn’t complain about taste at a time like this. He did grab a few of the other foods to test, though bread made the majority of his handfuls.

They grabbed small amounts of jellied cakes of algae and little smoked fish.

Voah stuck her hand into a pot of earth with live beetles and worms skittering around inside and quickly pulled it out, shaking it off.

There were small urns full of a dark syrupy liquid that smelled sweet, next to that, a basket of dry roots and a decorated shallow basin full of egg clutches. The same ones they saw in the beast’s den. The mould-folk must ingest them to get drunk.

While the two inspected the mould-folk’s larder like two children in a sweet shop, they didn’t yet notice the rat-like hound creature that was sniffing its way over toward them with a mould-man following along. It was an ugly hairless thing with sharp teeth that could be seen outside its jaw and unnaturally large eyes.

Just as it started to make a low coughing bark, Voah speared it in the side of the neck. It would alert no one but its master who came around the corner of the structure. She was on him before he knew what hit him. With little food in her stomach and feeling a bit hung over from the fight and the alcohol, the adrenaline that pumped through Voah’s veins gave her another boost she didn’t know she had. It also made her stomach drop. She held her hand over the man’s mouth, waiting for Tarmen to take him out and as she did so, she got a whole face full of spores.

A quick slice across the neck and the man was silenced. He helped Voah hold the man down as he struggled in his dying moments, each second adding to the paranoia of being discovered. When Tarmen finally felt the man go limp, the two stashed him in the snack hut.
The man’s panic had kicked up dirt and spores, coating the two of them in the dreaded stuff. Tarmen knew this had started a timer for their sanity and signaled for a quick exit.

Once again, Voah’s vision spun. Every sound seemed to be flushed out and then rebounded and exaggerated. The sound of the man’s throat being cut was even more sickening with this auditory distortion. They didn’t have time to waste now as they laid him down and headed out together, Voah’s hand on Tarmen’s shoulder. She looked at him with a question that asked if he was good.

She took a deep inhalation as they headed into the very few dark recesses of this cavern. All the while as they moved, the sounds of their own footsteps seemed much louder than they were, increasing the anxiety of being heard. Their were very nearly to an exit on the opposite end when a couple of mould-men returned from the dark carrying nets and a pole between them. Freshly hunted rodents, bats, and fish hung from the pole and they had to crouch down low to avoid their sight.

Then Voah heard the sounds of swordplay and raised voices. Her friends Alexis and Gonyual were calling her. ‘Wait!’ they shouted.

Voah immediately halted and turned back to look but nothing had changed. The men walked as if nothing was happening. The others still huddled with mirth by the small fire.

Tarmen grabbed her by the arm to drag her along. She was definitely hearing things again.

Suddenly from the far corner of the cave, from the place Tarmen and Voah had emerged from, a loud piercing undulating scream echoed across the stillness. Immediately they saw some of the Neph-Kin take notice and be on alert. They followed the sound to find the woman who they had escaped from perched atop a rock raising the alarm.

'Oh no...' This time it wasn't a hallucination. So much for stealth. That was their cue. The two of them broke into a run into the tunnels ahead, luckily there were still some luminescent fungi and mould to light the way for a while but they knew it wouldn't be long before they ran out of this natural subterranean light. It was a curse AND a blessing. They would soon need to relight the torch or find a good hiding spot in the darkness. Although Voah wasn't thrilled at the idea of sitting around playing hide and seek with the mould-folk, she wasn't keen on running for miles with tireless hunters in her wake. She was starting to panic.

'No no no!' the internal struggle was weighing on her. 'Push yourself.' she heard herself say, then again in the voice of Yan'Dian. His eyes... They were suspiciously similar to Gonyaul's eyes. Those calming doe eyes she could fall into again. She gasped, pulled from her memory and nearly falling in real life into a dark abyss to their left if not for Tarmen's quick lead on her.