Flynn’s arrow cut through the skull of a ravenous fleshy monstrosity. Its charge was arrested mid-step but its momentum still carried it onto the bulk of another taken-beast, shoving the monster right into the path of his men’s waiting spears.

  Alsias was first to the prize, his spear finding purchase in its eye socket. There was a wet squelch before the air filled with the beautiful sound of the monster’s agonized screams, mingling with the others of its kind dying around it. Morgen – one of his archers – was quick to capitalize on the opportunity, landing an arrow into its open maw.

  The monster jerked, its one good eye wide, before it stilled.

  The two looked up to him then, their expressions searching. He met them with amused pride, and they beamed like children. Flynn couldn’t help but chuckle before he turned away. Around him, the rest of the battle churned. Sthrillas’s alves fought like iron, their bodies links in a massive chain slowly tightening around the spirit’s home.

  They’d slaughtered their way through four attacks now. Three of which had proven hefty meals for his group to dine on. Already, the results had proven themselves quite delectable.

  Three of his level fives had climbed to six, including Mielvieu. Academic though his bearing may be, the elder was every bit filled with the same vengeful fervour as all the others, and his knife had been bloodied just as thickly.

  Flynn had seen the least action of the whole group, maybe even the whole expedition, his only kills those few monsters that dared to try and interrupt the battles of his troop. All in all, it’d been a slaughter more than a battle thus far, but he doubted that their good luck would hold. Already, he’d felt the strength of the monsters increase with every inch they took into the twisted bastion of the spirit of the forest.

  Here, the mushrooms weren’t even recognizable as such. Stalks curved in bizarre formations, and the air was alive with all manner of foul smells. The flesh beneath them was nearly black, and there was a putrid squelch that followed their every step. Even his Quietstep Footpads couldn’t muffle the disgusting feel of the ground sinking all too deeply as they walked.

  It wouldn’t be much longer now, he knew. The monster’s power was in the very air itself here, and he felt at all times at least a few monstrous presences looming around the periphery of his senses. Eventually, Sthrillas ordered to expedition to a halt.

  Ahead, Flynn saw what must’ve doubtless been the entrance to the spirit’s lair.

  A tangle of mushrooms the size of buildings twisted and woven together, their stalks forming into an arch inclined backwards at an angle. The flesh of the ground rose up beneath it, connecting to the stalks with tendril-like fingers.

  Within its white fleshy frame loomed a thick darkness that led deeper into the ground. Alves were no strangers to venturing in the deep, but even they saw the dark for what it was. A promise of death and carnage. He could feel them stood tense and uneasy all around him. Throats dry and eyes full of grim expectation.

  Still, they carried out their duty with soldierly dedication.

  The supply wagons were unloaded and a makeshift camp created right before the lair’s entrance. Sharpened stakes were raised and defences prepared. As the work continued in the background, Sthrillas gathered his expeditionary leaders and formed a scouting force of ten of the expedition’s most brave and nimble alves to venture first into the cave.

  “I ask much of you, comrades, I know. None of you signed up to risk your lives behind our walls, but such is the situation as it stands. I need to know what to expect in there, and I can only trust you to gather that information for me. I will not command you to do so, as your master. I will only ask. Will you do this for all alvenkind?”

  They did not even hesitate to agree. These were alves ready and willing to die for Sthrillas. Flynn could see it in their eyes. It was admirable, but ultimately unnecessary. He hadn’t planned to reveal his magic so soon, but he’d not let the expedition waste valuable lives when he had a far better alternative.

  “I can scout it without risking a single life. Not even my own.” he said, piping up for the first time since the meeting began. He half suspected that the possibility that he might have possessed a less dangerous means of gathering information might have been the whole reason that Sthrillas had invited him to attend in the first place, the sneaky bastard.

  The man seemed entirely unsurprised as all eyes turned to Flynn. “Oh?” he said with the start of a smile. “Do tell.”

  Flynn gave him a withering look.

  His Illusionary Self came into being without a sound, announced only by the startled yells and gasps of the alves around it. They stared at his perfect clone with a mixture of wary surprise and awed shock mingling across their faces. Only Sthrillas looked purely amazed, not a trace of fear on his chiselled features.

  He stepped close, a hand slowly outstretched towards it. “Go on” said Flynn with a wry smile. “He won’t bite... much.” A jolt of amusement coursed through him as the man quickly flinched back his arm, alarmed.

  Flynn grinned, as did the clone. The youth raised an arm and poked it wholly through the image’s chest before he explained its nature, and its uses. He then explained his plan. It’d been simple. The clones would go in, and untouchable as they were, could freely scout out the terrain without caring for whatever danger they met along the way. They couldn’t go far, constrained as they were by their durations. Nine minutes in and then nine minutes to return with two minutes to explain as much as they could, but they could freely repeat the process as they pushed further and further inside.

  Flynn had even unsocketed Explosive Finale for obvious reasons.

  The alves seemed hesitant, wary of his strange and unknown magics, but Sthrillas was a more practical sort and approved the plan without fuss.

  “I admit, I had expected you to use your construct as a scout. Not summon more constructs.”

  Flynn shrugged. He’d considered the idea, but unlike the images, Cheek could very much be harmed, and he didn’t want to risk it being out-of-commission for the fights to come. He needed his little buddy by his back, and the little bow preened in delight as he sent that thought along their link.

  It took half an hour for the expedition to finish assembling the whole of their defences, and only then was he allowed to send out his scouts. The five images came into being, cocky smiles on their faces, and after a theatrical bow sped away into the depths of the lair.

  Eighteen minutes later and all five had trickled back to relay what they’d found. The descriptions had been short, voiceless as they were. All they could do was answer yes or no as quickly as he could voice the questions. Sthrillas joined in half-way through, and after the last image had faded away, he turned to his advisors and started to compile the data into a report.

  Flynn made a second set of images and sent them in to fill in the blanks the others had missed. He did so once more before Sthrillas had deemed that they knew enough to make the plunge. Of the two hundred alves, it was decided that a hundred and fifty would join the delve whilst the others remained at camp.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Flynn found his group quickly once the order started to spread. All eleven of them stood stoically where he’d left them, hard looks on their faces. Even Lenny looked willing to put his knife to the test. Good. They’d need that attitude to carry them far.

  Flynn expected the following hours to be long and arduous.

  The expedition formed up in ranks, the most heavily armoured of them moved to the front, with Flynn and Sthrillas close behind with the rest, and then without any pomp or glorious speech, the cohort-chief signalled the start of their march to slaughter. Whether it was the monsters, or theirs, remained to be seen.

  ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

  Sthrillas’s strategy was simple, and its name was encroachment. The plan was to steadily push deeper and deeper into the tunnels whilst building manned waypoints in their wake. They would leave four alves in each waypoint equipped with something he’d not known existed in this land, but as a youth of the twenty-first century was personally extremely familiar with. A cellphone.

  Or rather, a weird mushroom-like fantasy variant of it. Flynn had inspected the thing with no small amount of nerdly love, his mind momentarily harkened back to campaigns he’d played involving similar contraptions. Its operation involved magic, and its range was limited, but it was long enough and easily used that they could equip each waypoint with one, creating a linked chain all the way back to the main camp.

  Each waypoint was a node in their net, allowing them to push steadily deeper in without total risk of being surrounded. That had always been a fear, he’d been told. The spirit was a tricky creature, and no amount of preparation could be said to be enough.

  They wound their way through twisting tunnels, the walls around them abhorrently textured mushroom flesh. It was gloomy, but not pitch-black. The walls glowed with a bioluminescent light, enough that they could pick their way through without much issue. A dank, fetid stench hung in the air, its vileness only made tolerable by his lead-nose trait. The others weren’t as lucky.

  Flynn saw their faces waver between green and gray from the odour, but no one complained or allowed it to distract them from the march. His clones had found that the path ahead of them was clear, but they were still wary. Innumerable little holes too small for a person or beast to fit through dotted the walls like swiss-cheese. But it was enough for a critter.

  He’d initially discounted the danger posed by a thing that could only be as large as his arm, but Sthrillas hadn’t been so dismissive.

  “Disease is a favoured weapon.” the cohort-leader had told him, and that’d been enough to make him swallow back his dismissal. He was not dying to rabies after all this.

  Their only advantage in the tunnels was the fact that it was spacious enough to allow them to comfortable walk paired in twos with room to spare for more if needed. Dangerous quarters were better tolerated with another friendly body next to you.

  His senses stretched to their maximum; Flynn kept a keen eye out on his surroundings as they marched. For the first half-hour, they were allowed to trek deeper unmolested. No one considered it a lucky break. If the spirit wasn’t attacking them yet, it could only mean that it was preparing for an opportune moment before it did.

  And that moment came soon enough.

  The mushroom walkie-talkie bloomed to life, a voice erupting out its nozzle at a volume that earned a wince from the whole expedition. “Attack! Waypoint four is und-”

  The voice cut off. Sthrillas wasted no time in shouting out the order. Shields raised, they doubled-back as fast as they could. The first outpost they came by was fine, four alves huddled together in defensive positions, eyes peeled with unblinking focus. It was the next where they came upon a gruesome scene. Alves, or parts of alves, laid strewn about. Their heads were missing, but enough remained that...

  Flynn glanced at Sthrillas. The expedition leader said nothing. His face was wrought with a steely calm as he studied the gore, seeking something only he knew of. “Astralien.” the man said simply afterwards.

  The high priest nodded. Stepping forth, the holy man conducted a quick ritual before he gestured with his arms. The mushroom walls twisted and churned, pits opening up to consume the remains of four alves until they closed back up leaving the ground untouched once again. “May chains raise them to her holy embrace.” he said softly.

  “All waypoints report.” barked Sthrillas into his contraption.

  “Waypoint one steady.”

  “Waypoint two steady.”

  “Way...”

  “...”

  Save for the fourth, every other waypoint was untouched. Stranger still, none of them reported seeing any monsters at any point. It was like the attackers had come...

  “... from the walls.” finished Sthrillas grimly, his gaze affixed onto the walls around them. “Either that, or they possess the power to cloak themselves from our senses. Either way, this was a message.”

  “A message.” questioned Astralien.

  “Mhm. Why had it targeted waypoint four, and not the first? Not the last? Why the one in the middle?”

  Flynn knew. “It wants us to know that it can strike any of our waypoints. It wants us to think that it can show up anytime, from anywhere. It’s messing with us.”

  “Indeed. It wants us at unease.”

  “I’d say it succeeded.” remarked Flynn. He spoke from them all when he said as much. He could hear it in their heartbeats, if not see it in their faces.

  “This changes matters. We can no longer afford to station men at waypoints if they can be taken from any angle. They’d be easy pickings. Rosart, send word to all other waypoints to abandon their positions. Let them take post at the entrance to the lair.”

  “Our communicators will not work without the waypoints to bounce off of, lord.” responded the alf, Rosart.

  “I know.” admitted Sthrillas unflinchingly. No one said a thing about that. There wasn’t even a murmur, but the implication was obvious. They would be cut off, but the cohort-chief would much rather that than risk losing any more men. Flynn could not blame him. In his place, he would’ve made the same choice.

  Still.

  “If they trap us, we’ll have no way of asking for backup, or even letting word get out.”

  “I know. But there can be no retreat from this. That is the duty given to me. The only way I have is forward, even unto death.”

  Flynn swallowed. Not words that prompted great confidence in him, but he said nothing more.

  “Astralien, have your priests reinforce the walls as we go henceforth. Let us not make it easy for them to take us by surprise.”

  “It can be done, but it will delay our advance as well as tire out the priests. More rest breaks will need to be instated.”

  “Do it. I’d rather be slow than dead.”

  Amen to that. The command was repeated down the line, and the expedition set off once again into the dark. Their pace was glacially slow compared to before, but that was the price paid for safety, and he couldn’t blame the man for paying that cost in full.

  ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

  The next two hours passed by in a tense but bearable calm. There were no more attacks in that time, but no one was fooled by the false peace. Everyone knew that an attack would be coming. They were just waiting for the nail to drop, and no one more so than Flynn.

  He was constantly surveying the area around them with his Monster Sense, seeking the slightest hint of an unwanted presence. Occasionally he’d send out his Illusionary Selves to scout out the areas ahead and behind to check for traps.

  He found nothing, and that only made him irater. Why was it delaying? What was it waiting for? There must’ve been something that he was missing. Some grand scheme lurking around them.

  "It is grating, is it not, great Flynn?” asked Illsien as the elder worked his way up to his side, his voice barely louder than a whisper “The worst thing about battle isn’t the battle itself, but the wait that leads to the battle. And this seems to be a long wait.”

  “Yeah, it is. I mean, it’s a good thing that we haven’t been attacked yet, but another part of me just wants to get it over with.”

  “Yes, it is the same with us all. I remem-”

  “Wait.” Flynn froze, his arm raised. Sthrillas stilled, as did the rest of the expedition.

  “What is it?”

  “My clone...” The one that he’d sent to scout out their front. It’d popped. He’d felt it go out. There was only one reason it would’ve done so. Almost immediately on the heels of its disappearing, he felt the clone at their back pop as well. Just as quickly, he felt a presence intrude upon the edge of his senses, and then another from the other side. One ember became two, then four, then five and six. Ten, thirty, forty. Worse, they were coming from above and below and to their either side, crawling through the walls and the ground and the ceiling and everywhere else.

  Flynn swore. “They’re coming! Front and back and through the walls! They’re all around us!” he hollered. Sthrillas barked a command without missing a beat and the expedition immediately split into smaller defensive squads, shields up and spears out. Flynn quickly took his place with his own group, Alsias and the rest in the front with the elders and archers in the middle, and him and Cheek to either side. He stole a moment to quickly slot his Explosive Finale back into Illusionary Self, because it was evident he would have need for its firepower soon, and then it was all that he could do to wait for the tide to wash over him He didn’t have to wait long.