He listened to the wheels spinning on the dirt road. From the back of the vehicle, it was hard to hear anything but the quiet, rhythmic breathing of those around him. Looking up and around he gazed at all the individuals around him. They all wore a similar outfit, leather and blacked plated armor trimmed with faint and worn gold trim. The vehicle has a similar look, however it was quite a bit more steampunk looking, with rustic black metal plating. A single light at the top of the interior lit up the back cab in a soft goldish brown light. It had grating over it, as if it would be poked out.
"Why'd you join the crew kid?" A voice broke the delicate silence, Ram looked up and across from him was a gruff looking man awaiting his response. Apart from the armor were large brimmed down hats. They reminded Ram of an upside down pot, however its odd shape had its purpose.
"Money, Adventure or Power?" The man to his right added, he had a long grey beard.
"It's always one of those isn't it? Or a way home..." The gruff looking man replied, he added the last part solemnly.
"Money." Ram said flatly. He didn't elaborate, he didn't see the need.
"Fair enough, need money to live.. remind me what generation are you from" The gruff old man said, It had been a little over a month since Ram fell into the Decaying Realm as the locals had taken to calling it.
"43rd Generation" Ram replied shortly.
"Damn a little over thirty five years since I got fucking stuck here" The gruff man spoke quietly more to himself then anything. Ram noted to himself that if it had 35 years that made him a part of the 36th generation. Ram's leg bounced rhythmically, shifting his eye's side to side. The cramped space was suffocating.
"Tell us how you got here kid, and how's the Old World?" The gruff man spoke, at the mention of the Old world everyone slightly perked up and turned their attention towards him.
"Ah well, The hatched hunter's do a good job at keeping the decay at bay in the Old World, still being treated as superheros.." Ram couldn't think of much else to add on the Old World that they probably didn't already know. So he ended the sentence there and shifted his thoughts. "For myself, I was fairly lucky, I fell not far from here in the Blue Canyon, and was able to escape it to an expedition team that was just starting their journey." Ram finished, he didn't need to add the rest, they already knew how the story went. The expedition team guided him to the city, then went on their way.
"Now I'm just trying to make living expenses while I wait to hatch" He added quietly, he lost most of their attention the moment he started talking about himself. These old bastards were only interested in the Old world, they had long but given up on going home. However Ram was not like them, he was going back home. No matter the trial given... He reminisced on the process as if visualizing and manifesting the results to come true.
I'll hatch my larva, gain its power, complete the hatching trial and go home.
Ram's thoughts drifted to his immediate goal. He has learned in school that Trials could be anything, some had been tasked with hunting a specific monster, others had to reach a certain destination. For the unlucky ones they had to kill someone, or be told to fight something so far out of their league it might as well have been sucide. He put his finger to his eyes and gave them a gentle rub, thinking about it was irritating him. Trying to guide his emotions he thought about the possible power he would get, and how he would be a badass hero. Though he would never mention that last part to anyone, hardly even to himself.
"We're getting close" A voice from the front cab came to them, he caused a glimpse of the small plates shutter closing as looked over to the voice. He was reminded why he was here, to dig and scrape away at the rot, the ashy decay would bring all sorts of beasts and maggots close to town. The makeshift city was hardly together as is, he thought. Still it had to be done, and was mostly safe. They even had a hatched here too just in case.
The gruff man's voice softened "Do you miss anyone kid?" Then he paused for a touch, too ram it looked like he was reminiscing.
Ram paused, his eyes flickered to the red streaked forest outside. "Not particularly? Do you?" Then his eyes returned to the ground of the vehicle, he pondered the metallic floor.
"My wife... We had just had the wedding before I ended up here" he replied a grave silence falling over them for a minute before he added "Don't miss your folks?" The gruff man said, trying to relieve the tension he had created.
"Nah." Ram had a strange relationship with his family. He didn't want to think about it, focusing on the present helped him keep going forward. He rubbed his aching hands together.
"Well okay." The gruff man said, asking no further questions. Leaving Ram to dwell, trying yet again to shift his mind to something else Ram looked outside the tiny horizontal windows of the vehicle. The view would've been gorgeous had he not known where he was. The tree's leaves were red as was the grass, a crimson red. Unlike anything he had ever seen, the bark was a deep black. The branches looked like obsidian, the trees were tall but gangly. There was a soft gray fog that obscured most of his vision.
Sorta beautiful in a creepy way?
Ram thought to himself, soon the truck was pulling to a stop.
"We're here...Please put on the safety equipment" The driver said from the small window separating them, he was sorta their manager. They gathered their equipment, Ram set the circle hat on his head and it covered most of the top half of his vision. But it helped them blend in from things that were flying so he wouldn't complain. Putting a hand on the scraper he was loaned he got up. Then one by one they filed out, he then got a view of the rot.
That's way nastier then I imagined
Ram was disgusted by the smell and the look, he put on the black plated mask he had been given. He understood what it was for now. Thick, rotting veins of a gray flesh sprawled across the forest clearing, their grotesque ashy texture was matte under the foggy sunlight. The veins came to a circle inside a large ground pool of black viscous fluid in the center of the veins. The larger sections of the veins were up to Ram's chest.
Are these meat scrapers really gonna do anything?
"Can't we just burn the rot?" Ram said eyes defining to another one of the guys.
"Sure if you want monsters up the ass" The old man with the gray beard said. He raised his meat scraper above his head, then bearing it down. It didn't sound or look as bad as he expected. The meat was carved like ashy butter. Ram decided to ignore the viciousness of it, and press and a little further.
"How does that work?" Ram asked further. He hadn't tried to ask any questions when he signed up, he was more worried about not losing the place he was being loaned.
"The smell. Maggots and Gnats are attracted to the smell of the burning rot, besides there's valuable stuff inside the flesh" The old man said bluntly, this brought more questions to Ram's mind but he didn't want to have to ask anything more of the old man. Ram began scraping away the ashy flesh and tore away fast and easy, to Ram's surprise. Soon Ram was able to collect a large clump, he began to wonder what they were gonna do about the large pool of it. He peered down, into the viscous pool. As he peered. Something began to bubble, as he watched he thought he saw something move? Feeling a bit frightened he spoke up
"I think something's in the pool?" Ram piped up loud enough for others to hear.
"Nothing can survive in that stuff, not even a dragon could last in it." One of the workers said back. He seemed annoyed with Ram, that might be true but Ram knew what he saw. Ram felt the instinctive urge to back away, so he put some distance between him and the pool. The surface of the pool rippled unnaturally, bubbles rising and bursting with a splat. Ram's pulse quicked, his pupils dilated, muscles tensed. Then without warning, the black fluid erupted In a violent spray, splatter across the clearing.
What is that!?
Ram froze, panic gripping him as his thoughts raced. There at the center pool a tall dark figure stood. Towering over the tree's, it had a long gross skinny body. Its skin clung tight to its boney frame.
At the top of its torso sat a skull-like head, eyeless and crowned with two massive, jagged protrusions—too irregular to be horns. Its impossibly long arms dangled like broken branches, swaying as it moved. Then, the creature's hollow face turned in Ram's direction.
A shiver ran down his spine as he stood paralyzed, unable to look away, unable to move. Like a child he was utterly terrified.