User blog:Ziharku/Log 21: In The Dark (part 2)

More and more, we find bodies, and in this a path towards whatever it is that had been killing our comrades. After the fifth corpse I stopped checking for the pattern that could be found in bodies previous and, I assume, would be present in each we continue to find: entirely drained of blood. Still cloaked by magic we press on unnoticed by the Undead creatures that plague these waterways. Many of the men and women have opted to stay out of the waters to avoid pitfalls and such, while others decide against the hassle of avoiding physical contact with roaming beasts by keeping their boots wet. So far, so good in that aspect. The last thing we need is to engage in a lesser beast only to have whatever it is that’s killed our people sneak up behind us unawares.

…….

The voices stir slightly, murmuring within. This isn’t the fright they showed in fighting the Hydra nor the lack in confidence that shown in the start of my fight with Raubahn. I can feel something…but I don’t know where it’s hiding. As I try and get a lock on the shape, I can only feel the shadows on the walls. Perhaps it is some deadly shadow waiting for the dark to consume us, only the light keeping it at bay. From every direction I feel eyes….but how can this be? With nary a source of light for this foul location no creature could retain its sight. No creature has so much as glanced at our party even for the heat of torches.

An echo. A laugh. Screams. We hear this from the passage ahead of us, and so we hasten our pace to meet the sound. A turn, we see the end of the hall, but the Corsair motions for the group to hold. Walking to the head of the group at his nod, I see grimly what the source of sound was. Two Mithra and a Hume fought ragidly against a large group of Dabilla. Nasty creatures, those. Via Linkshell, I questioned our lack of action when a sudden chill took me. I fell to my hands and knees, as those close staggered at my seemingly meaningless fall. There, just ahead. In this chamber we would find the perpetrator of so many fallen fighters. I could feel its aura laughing with delight as the Dabilla lash out felling one of the Mithra. Blind with rage the Hume swung his great sword in circles cutting a path and suddenly, stopping. A hand, grasping his sword lightly, having caught it as though it were merely handed over instead of swung with intent to kill. The aura finally showed its shape, and thus it appeared. Tall, black and red, and with wings that resemble a wyrm’s, the beast stood grasping the Hume’s weapon with easy. Lifting it higher and, thus the Hume who refused to release it, the beast flicked the Hume aside and into a nearby wall. The Dabilla jumped on him in an instant, his screaming lasted no more than a few seconds before they killed him or got to his throat. A lone Mithra left, she stood backed into a corner.

I watched the creature as it uttered a low hum, almost a command, to which the Dabilla responded with some gnashed barking and charged her simultaneously. This was no mindless being, this must be some twisted Beastmen to have trained the Undead dogs to do his bidding.