Aether Beasts

The rest of our trip lasted for a few more hours, and we ran into plenty of different types of beasts, far odder than those on the first floor and any I'd ever seen in our world. From giant crab spiders to a beast that looked very similar to a tree, but when prey was close enough it would split open to reveal a creature from a nightmare. It was like a large man except its upper body was just a vertical mouth open and full of razor-sharp teeth. What was more disrupting was its method of attack. It had three tongues all tipped with razor-sharp blades that were coated in paralytic poison. It had seemed extremely resilient at first and non of our attacks seemed to pierce its wood-like shell until we discover that its core was actually visible if one looked closely enough. Knock it out and the beast died, it also helped that it didn't move very quickly, in fact, a snail probably moved faster than it, even with the size difference. Zirani had said it was an ambush predator and relied on its ability to camouflage to kill, which made sense.

We also ran into a few more Murwog groups and at one point we'd had to sneak around a group of twenty. We were strong, but against those odds, none of us thought we come out unscathed, which would be a very bad thing since Zirani had not yet made any powerful healing potions. The herbs on the first floor hadn't been useful in the making of those types of elixirs or pills, but the herbs and plant life on this floor would along with much more since there was so much of it. I swear I must have seen a new type of plant every minute or so, and each time we did, Zirani would stop and if she needed it then we collected as much as we could and stored it away.

On and on we went, searching the floor, fighting the occasional beasts, and collecting plants and herbs. It was looking like it was going to be a boring and normal outing, or as normal as trekking through an underground exotic forest in an aether tower could be.

That was when we came upon it.

I let out a sigh as I gazed over the remnants of what had been a small twin horn camp, and just like before the clothes were laying around, as though the people had just vanished.

"Twin horn," Sandra spat.

"What the hell is happening to them?" Misty asked. "Why are there clothes just around."

"What if they got naked, or changed," Sandra suggested half-heartedly.

"In the open?" I replied. "They have tents, and why does everything look so off. Look."

I pointed at what was a cooking pot on top of a now-dead firepit. "There's stew in it, and clothes on the chairs. It's like they changed in the middle of things."

"Or were taken," Zirani growled. "Come here."

We walked over and I pressed a hand to my mouth as the other gasped. There on one of the piles of clothing was a blob of pale flesh, half-smooth, and the other half a face of a young man, his eyes wide, and mouth open in a silent scream. The half face was only partially pale which bits of normal colored skin here and there.

"It's like the abominations," Sandra noted. "Is that… you don't think that the abominations are the twin horn arcanists do you?"

"Maybe," Zriani replied. "We not going to be sure until we actually run into some living twin horn members."

"What exactly did they do?" Mist asked with fear in her voice. "I mean did they change the tower or was it something else?"

Zirani sighed and shook her head. "I don't know, but they're moving up, and making camps. This is only large enough for a few people and there are most likely more like on the first floor. Why are they splitting up?"

"Help us."

"Hm?" I turned to Misty. "What was that?"

"Help us."

"What was what?" Misty replied. "I didn't say anything."

"Please."

"That." I swung my head in the direction of the faint voice and saw something coming towards us behind a few bushed. "We have company."

The others turned to face the thing slowly moving towards us, and an uneasy feeling rose in my gut as its voice got louder, and changed. It had been distinctly male the first time, but now I heard a female voice, no not a voice, voices."

"It's taken us."

"Please."

"Stop the crawling, please stop the crawling."

"Help us."

As the large shape grew close and more visible I felt my hands begin to shake and bile rise in my throat. My heart began to race and I felt the color drain from my face rapidly as it push its way through the brush and into full view.

"No." Sandra's voice was a whisper. "No."

"W-what is that."

"An abomination," Zirani said in a cold voice, and I turned to see her eyes void of any emotion, though throat our bond ran rage, disgust, and fury.

It was similar to the abomination we'd fought back on the first floor but while that had been a blob with no features, this was anything but. Flesh molded together, bodies of people combined into a mass of limbs, body parts, and most horrifying of all, mouths. There were no heads on the twisted flesh, just parts of a face from eyes, noses, even ears, and mouths. Mouths that were moving and pleading.

"Help us."

Patches of pale color dotted the horror, but it was mostly normal skin, albeit twisted and combined.

I heard the sound of vomiting and glazed to see Sandra on her knees, puking up her guts. I wasn't too far behind, but I managed to hold it off even as every part of my mind screamed. I'd seen many types of beasts, but none, not even the abomination from the first floor, could hold a candle to the sheer horror of this thing, this abomination.

"Aiden," Zirani said seriously. "You know what to do."

I nodded and pulled my glaive from my ring. I almost dropped the thing as my hands shook.

"Help us."

"Crawling, gods, please stop the crawling."

"Why is so dark, master you promised."

I felt Misty's hand grasp my shoulder as I began to walk towards the thing.

"Be careful," She said softly. "We don't know if it will attack."

I nodded. "I will."

My footsteps felt heavier than ever as did the weapon in my hand as I marched closer to it. I steadied my hands just in case of an attack, but nothing came, only the sound of voices, confused, scared, and lost voices, some old, and some so very young, younger than I.

"Will you help us?"

I froze with my glaive seconds away from striking. "Me?"

"Help us."

"Crawling, crawling, Crawling!"

There came no response so I continued with my task and took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry."

The blade came down and pierced straight into the flesh and the sound of tearing which usually was only a mild disturbance, if any at all, almost brought me to my knees. Scream assaulted my ears in a dozen different voices, but I pushed on, and on until almost all of my weapon has disappeared into the flesh. I felt it hit something and the voices abruptly cut off, and just like the abomination on the first floor, the mass of flesh began to fade in ash.

"Thank you."

It was so faint that I couldn't be sure I'd heard it, but I didn't think about it for long as I fell to my knees and began to puke. For several seconds I emptied the contents of my stomach and as I finished I felt a gentle hand of my shoulder.

Zirani smiled down at me sadly, no pity, or judgment in her eyes, just sorrow. "Come on. We're done for the day. We've mapped out enough of the floor."

She turned towards Sandra and Misty, who was weeping softly. "You three need some rest."

The walk back to the treehouse was completely silent, and no matter how hard I tried not to think about it, no matter how hard I tried to push it away, the image of that thing kept popping back up into my head, and each time I had to press a hand to my mouth.

When we finally arrived back Zirani had us gather in the Dining room. I looked over at Sandra and Misty who both looked as awful as I felt, although there was also anger in their eyes and disgust.

"What the hell was that?" Sandra asked with a growl.

"What the twin horn is doing," Zirani said. "You might have not sensed it but I did. That thing had multiple cores, although there were faint, fainter than any I've ever felt like they weren't even there."

"And?" I asked. "What does that mean."

"They were all low-end first cores," Zirani replied. "Like most of the fodder you fought in the war."

"Slaves?" Misty asked.

A dark thought hit me, followed by half a dozen more and I looked over to see a grim expression on Zirani's face. "The camps."

I didn't want to think about it or picture it, but it tried to remember how many mouths there had been and how many sets of clothing had been at the camp.

"The damn monsters," I muttered as the numbers matched. "They're using their slaves. That thing was the arcanists at the camp we saw, or what had become of them."

Zirnai nodded with a sigh. "I suspect this is all a part of what the head remnants of the twin horn are doing. Why create these camps, perhaps a made-up reason to get the slaves and servants to act quicker or go along with their plans with little resistance, and then… I don't know, but this is something. I just wonder what happened to the rest."

Sandra frowned. "What do mean?"

"That was just one," Zirani explained. "On the first floor we ran into many camps, yet saw only one abomination and it might very well be the same here, where are the others, or better yet, were these left behind because they're defective?"

"I think I'm going to be sick again," Sandra groaned.

"For what reason?" Misty asked though it was more to herself than us.

"That's the golden question," Zirani said as a look of determination appeared into her eyes. "One thing is clear we need to get you three stronger and up to the third level, because I have a feeling when we run the twin horn, we're going to come across something unknown, and most likely dangerous."

We didn't eat that night since none of us thought we could keep our food down though Misty did drink from me a little. The bath that time was actually welcome as the pain took my mind off the horror we'd seen temporarily.

That night my dreams were of a pale creature, the same from many nights ago, sat on its throne of writhing flesh a smile on its face.

"Don't judge it too harshly," He said in that smooth yer grating voice. "That was but defective stock, and thought the others made for lesser materials, they shall still be enough to allow for a rebirth. Just wait, child of—"

"Aiden!"

My dreams were shattered by Ziranis's voice and my eyes shot open. "Huh?'

"You were tossing and turning." Zirani sounded worried. "Was it the dreams again?"

I sighed. "Yeah, and like always I forget straight after."

The rest of the night was blissfully peaceful thankfully and I woke the next day, refreshed and ready to continue our training.