Melchior’s Grand Tour: the depth of the woods [8]
The griffin screeched loud as a roar, threatening to pounce. The group screamed back at it: the tension and the frustration built up exploded out of their lungs. They charged messily, almost stepping onto each other, waving their weapons like flyswatters. The griffin held the position until an arquebus shot aimlessly in the air. Those people were loud, angry, and unwavering: the beast chose to run away. First, it retreated by foot, and then since the mob was on its tail, it flew away, disappearing in the canopy.
The group panted and looked at each other with pride. Each one promised to themselves to go on. They had to find the other dwarves, a way to send Trina back to her home, and maybe get some answer.
Aminta couldn’t find traces of the dwarves in such confusing and alien undergrowth, but she figured out how not to get lost: she picked some of the mushrooms that grow on her and used them to make a trail. She could always sense those small pieces of “home”.
It was supposed to be early afternoon, but the sun was already setting: it seemed an ulterior proof that they moved miles and miles west in an instant. In the warm light of the evening, they met many exotic and unfamiliar plants and animals and also more unsettling sightings. They found objects trapped inside plants or rocks. They were wands, amulets, and other magical tools. There were also people: a tree and a wizard lady were fused together in what looked like a teleporting accident. She was dead but still intact: possibly she met her strange fate just yesterday.
Among the trees, the group found another of this displaced object, one very large and in need of an inspection: a ship.
Once they get a little closer, Melchior thought it might be one of those that set sail from his town, searching for the land beyond the ocean. Melchior entered the ship’s hull to give a better look and get confirmation of his suspicions.
Melchior found the other dwarves instead: not all of them, just the Chief and the Amim guard. They were petrified, as their stoic demeanor would not let them shake, but the terror would not let them react.
After seeing some familiar faces, they finally relax a bit and start to tell what happened to them. They didn’t realize the group left behind was under attack and continued their climb to the top of the skull. As they passed the threshold and entered the woods, a bizarre and horrible beast was waiting for them. They were attacked, viciously: the deputy and the scout were soon grabbed by the tentacles of the nightmarish being. Only the arrival of a griffin, angry and territorial, offered them an opening for an escape. The Chief and the guard, the only two survivors, wandered the woods until they found refuge in this impossible shipwreck.
The group, now reunited, decided to camp inside the ship. The chief told them what they saw in the woods while looking for food and water. Two things they might want to explore tomorrow.
A LUMINOUS POND. A small lake with a “line of light” in the middle like someone cut the surface, and from there, blue magic erupts. They saw some other boats around the bank and seagulls with shark heads.
A MONSTROUS TOWER. On a marsh, near a grove, there is a weird tower made of flesh or something that looks like it. The top of the tower has a pitch-black solid shape and the rest of the building seems to pour out of it. The meat substance moves slowly, and some baby and women shapes appear and vanish, like liquid sculptures.
