Finally we where allowed to enter the forest of corrupting, to try to help our kingdoms and bring fame and glory to our families. Even with the bad weather threatening the royals still managed a hasty goodbye wave as well as a band playing music to see us off. We would be hiking into the wood to a small fortified cave that would act as a camp for our first week.
From this cave we would send out our scouts to look for beast tracks so we could still retain order, maintenance, health and fitness till it was time to show our newly gained skills. Sadly my newly found peace had within a night changed dramatically, with this venture into the unknown, my past decided to visit.
As night fell my dreams started out with warmness and familiar faces, my father hands, Eric's strong back and then my mother's embrace. Then everything begin to blur and change, my mother embrace still gave me warmth but I felt so much smaller all of a sudden.
Her skin turned darker her eyes shone bright with the same golden shine as my own, her hair was the color of tree bark. When I heard a sound to my right, I turned my head to see who it was. A man was sitting upon the same log as us his hair was the color of a green pasture and his eyes were sky blue.
There was a giant gem sitting in the middle of the campsite that sparkled in a variety of infinite colors. More beautiful then the largest camp fire. Another two pairs of people sat on the other side holding each other's hands.
Many wild animals came and seemed to bath in the gems light, showing signs of the peace they found by visiting. Wounds healed and both carnivores and prey behaved respectfully without showing aggression or fear. They know these were in balance with nature as natural as the trees and streams.
Then I saw a giant clawed paw reach out of the darkness and carve the man's face across the fire in half. His mate scream was cut short as the claw tore through her chest and finally through the end of the log they sat upon. Only stopping when it dug into the ground throw earth into the air and leaving a gash upon it.
The mother that held me screamed and started to run into the woods following the animals as they ran from the corrupted ones. The man who felt like father grabbed the gem and made it fade away somehow taking it with him. The others sprung into fighting stances and then I could wee them no more as the darkness and trees blocked my view.
We ran so fast it felt as if the wind assisted us and the trees and bushes bowed and swayed out of our way. My mother had a strange light start to shine out of her chest as I heard a howl close behind us, I screamed out loud in a beastly cry for help. It's breath steamed in the air, unnatural, impure and corrupted, a beast in pain.
My mother throw me high into the air and suddenly the world misted, a claw sliced through and hit my chest trying to pull me apart. The world turned black as blood sprayed my face. I woke screaming from my dream, it was so real I tried to wipe the blood from my eyes only to find none.
Eric pulled me into his arms and tried his best to calm me, to try to determine where the danger was coming from. His large sword glowing with gem power ready to kill who ever was hurting his Goldy. Our fellow party mates scattered so to not become collateral damage.
Everyone in the whole hunting party shivered at my scream and then Eric's instant display of ferocity. Both our powers had glowed so bright they rivaled the Commander staff. Melissa took this chance to undermine our achievements and over the next few days her campaign against me was token up by a few more party groups.
Even through the dreams continued we did our best to cope, me by cutting off my fear as best I could. Eric by trying his best to make me feel safe. But after a while, he was getting to be a bit to confining, I could not even go more then five feet away to go to the bathroom.
Finally I wrote about my dream to my father and mother and asked what they thought, perhaps they were memories from the time before I came to them. Strangely by doing so I was able to conquer some of the fear and able to open more of my senses to the dream without being loss to the feat and pain in it.
A week later when they found beast marks nearing our location I was certain that the dreams were from my past. Secondly that these beasts had killed my family and were unnatural in their creation. Lastly I was now certain that some pieces of memory were still missing and that they were very important, and that's why they were repeating.
We suited up and got ready to fight, getting into a diamond shape with the commander in the front rear. Our party was to the right rear of the commanders troops and we followed procedure and quietly followed the scouts to the spotted beast.
This beast seemed to be from a tiger type beginning but it now had four front clawed arms. It was younger then the one Goldy had seen as a child and it luckily had a thick hide but no scales. The front party unit separated creating a giant circle around it and chased it into our core.
We soon found that its weak spot was its stomach area, back of its legs and rear flanks could be pierced the rest was to tough a defense without a server use of gem power just to create scratches upon it. Eric managed to stab it in the right eye by stealing a spear from Joey, one of our spear men.
We were victorious in less then a hour due to its small size and our fitness. still over twenty ended up getting burns from its blood. Another thirty obtained wounds from severe to minor scratches. The Commanders men processed and stored the Beast gems and parts within the back most part of the cave that had a frozen stream to keep the parts fresh and usable.
We were able to retrieve over 45 small gems and some shards as well it was a great start for our group. Everyone seemed to just ignore the twenty that got the fever and were dying due to the poisonous blood they were exposed to. Goldy and Eric gave the guards a break the second day to go eat. Goldy snuck insider and gave them the prayer of healing.
The next day the doctors were astounded because their people were getting better instead of dying. They called it a miracle and made guesses about maybe it was due to it being a baby so it's blood would not be as poisonous. That night they celebrated their survival and the scouts second discovery of a beast marks.