"Why am I going on this mission again?" thought Grim. He was a Gremlin, one of the less popular races in this land. He and another Gremlin were on their way to a special place in this god damn desert. The other gremlin is called Gix and had a wide berth. Most people called him Old Fatty Gix.
Their clan sent them to rescue some lost Gremlins in a valley. They drove through the desert dunes with their motorized rovers. Gremlins, you see, didn't have a lot of magic expertise, but their artificers were the best of the best. Even better than the dwarves.
Hix drove one of the rovers with Gix on the backseat, while Grim drove his rover by himself. Slowly the desert dunes gave place to rocks and cliffs while they closed into the entrance of the valley.
Suddenly both of their rovers stopped, and Hix said, "So, as of this point its marching time, because our rovers won't help you at this point. I will be waiting here until one hour before dawn. If you both aren't back by then, I will drive back alone". He was right. At the entrance to the valley, two cliffs were facing one another, and there was only a single rocky path along the right cliff, which lead into the valley. Rarely you would see plants growing in some cracks in the stone. The track wasn't that long, maybe 300 to 400 feet till you came to a plateau spreading between the cliffs. On the left side of the path, a deep canyon awaits you. You couldn't see the bottom of the ravine if you looked down.
Grim and Old Fatty Gix made their way through the path as suddenly a part of the track before them crumbled and slid down the ravine. Grim and Gix were looking at one another. Grim began, "I guess we have to jump fatty. I will go first and help you from the other side if you need it.". Gix looked crestfallen, but his face changed to a determined look very fast, and he nodded. Grim walked a few feet back to get enough speed. And then he ran, jumping at the wall to his right side, right hand touching the side of the cliff. His feet were running along the wall. As he was losing speed, he jumped, pressing his feet into the wall, falling onto the other side with a flip and landing on his feet. With a tiny sign of a grin on his mouth, he turned around and took a knee at the edge of the path. "Ready when you are, fatty.", he said. Gix had fear in his eyes, clearly seen by Grim, but he began to run, jumping at the edge of the hole in the path.
He nearly made it, but it was not enough. Panic struck Gix, is this the day I die? But out of nowhere, two hands clamped around his right arm. And with a cry of desperation, he was heaved out of the hole, flying through the air, and landing heavy beside Grim face down. They both breathed a sigh of relief. Gix said out of breath, "Thanks, Grim, without you, I would be dead at the bottom of this fu****g ravine right now.". Grim waved his hand as if to say not to mention it.
They both began to stand up and walked further along the path until they brought the ravine behind them and stood finally on the plateau.
The plateau was vast, and single rocks were laid at different places on it. But the most disturbing fact about this plateau were the statues. There were thousands of them, and they were life-sized. Grim and Gix knew that these were not ordinary statues; these were people who didn't make it out of this plateau before the sun rose. Both of them followed the way to the left of them. They had a navigation device that could find rovers of the gremlins. They walked past a curve and slowly entered a cave. The bizarre was that it wasn't dark in this cave. The crystals at the side of the cave were the reason for that. Those crystals were called light stone, and with a bit of mana, they would begin to shine. The kind of mana defines the color in which the gems shone in. The gems in this cave were shining in a mixture of black with strokes of violet in between. Grim shuddered at the thought that this was a sign of black magic, the worst kind of magic. It was centered around shadows, pain, and death. Gix had fear written on his face, looking frantically right and left. They both had goggles to protect their eyes in daylight, but in this cave, they didn't wear them, because they could see as good in the dark as in sunlight with their glowing yellow eyes.
Slowly they entered a wide opening in their path. The sealing of the cave 30 to 40 feet above their heads. And a gruesome sight presented itself before them. Spread on the whole floor were corpses of different animals and humanoids in various stages of decay. In the middle of the cave, they found the lost rover. But they also found a living creature with an arm sticking out of its mouth as it made contented chewing sounds.
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At the same time in another place on the plateau….
He didn't know where he was. The temperature around him was definitely under 10°c. Cillian Naze felt cold, and his body was hurting, which after further examination could be caused by the stones and rocks that were enveloping him. Through tiny spaces and cracks between these, he could see the moonlight seeping through. Cillian tried to lift some boulders to get out of his stony prison, but he underestimated the weight of said boulders and fell again. After turning his head around to search for a way out, Cillian finally found a space between Rocks that was big enough to let him crawl through.
Approximately 5 minutes later, he stood before the bunched-up rocks that were his sleeping place. He wouldn't have slept there if it wasn't of utmost importance. He didn't want to become another attraction to this dessert of statues.
About 10-15 meters across from his position, he noticed an odd-looking tree. And what was even odder than that, the tree wasn't there before he went to sleep. It was as big as an apple tree but had far fewer branches than would be reasonable. The tree was standing there and had a boulder leaning onto his left side. After further investigation, Cillian found a face on the right side, which looked like it was sleeping.
Cillian took a step back and gave for the first time after waking up a good look at himself. His red-brown trench coat was covered in dust. Fortunately, his various weapon handles were in god condition as well as his other stuff. His face was also smeared with dirt and grime. So, he made a light scratch on his hand and let his blood drip out. And with a thought, more blood began to spill out. But, opposed to what you might think, the blood started to coil around him and with a sudden movement cling to him and turn into ice, basically making him an ice statue. After that, it again began to melt, and all the dust and dirt were washed away with it.
He let a little bit of blood drop on one of the sword handles. With a sudden 'whoosh,' a blade of ice extended from the cross-guard, tiny particles spilling from it and moisture in the air turning to vapor around it.
With the blade formed, Cillian began to poke the mysterious tree-face. "Hey, Tree-thing, wake up!" he shouted, all the while poking at the face with the ice blade.
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'I am one of the Ancient Forest Guardians. My name, I have long forgotten. The last month I was standing here, in the middle of the desert, to think and meditate. As I came to this place, the bunched-up rocks were already there, but I would never have imagined that there was a human in between those rocks. This human began to poke me with his strange sword and rudely demanded from me to wake up. Can you believe it, me an ancient Guardian to be so rudely spoken to? But, as I am a benevolent one, I don't accuse him. Why should I, he is not worth the effort. He was asking me now if I wanted to come with him, out of this desert. First, I intended to decline, but my intuition told me that I would miss out on something outstanding.
My intuition wasn't wrong…
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Cillian thought that the tree-thingy could be a useful helper, which is why he asked it to come with him. After a little time, it accepted, and he wanted to help it get away from the rock that was leaning on it. That rock had at least to be as heavy as a horse or more, but the tree-thingy just swept it away as if it was nothing. Cillian told himself in quiet that he should never get on the wrong side of this tree.
So after they decided which direction to go, they went away from that place. After a series of Statues, they got into a dead end, but after looking around, they found something mysterious. One big wall of the stone cliff looked different than the others, like crystal or something, but unnaturally smooth. Cillian knocked onto the wall and thought it sounded thin.
After thinking a little bit, "Step back tree-face, I will try something!" he said. He cut himself and formed an ice-pickaxe out of his blood. With a loud crash, the pickaxe was swung against the smooth wall, and suddenly there was the deafening sound of glass shattering. A big dust cloud was flowing away from what was once the wall, and the duo saw something disgusting.
The whole floor was littered with corpses and limps. And in the middle stood a beast, which Cillian identified as a Ghoul. These beasts were creatures that would be created at places with a high concentration of dark mana. Considering the number of corpses and statues in this dessert, Cillian wasn't surprised. The ghoul was at the moment facing a little Gremlin, which had two knives in his hands. Surprisingly they hadn't noticed the breaking of the crystal wall.
Cillian also saw a fat Gremlin, which was hiding in a corner, pathetic. He and tree-face were slowly sneaking around to avoid the sight of the gremlins and the ghoul because he found it troublesome. But as if Karma wanted to slap him, he stepped on a broken bone, and the sound of breaking bones echoed loudly through the cavern. The ghoul suddenly stopped moving and very slowly turned his head in their direction.
Cillian only said one word, "SHIT!".