Chapter 13 of Questionable Destiny

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Edward grabbed the knife stuck in Evan's back, and pulled it out in one quick tug, and blood immediately started gushing out of the wound. Hugh and Alyva pulled off his shirt and vest, taking anything that could get in the way of the healing process.

Ed put his hand on the wound, feeling the blood running against his palm. He put a second hand on top of the first, and let a wave of heat run through both of them.

The heat burned into Evan's wound and singed some of his fur. He gritted his teeth and grunted in pain, which then turned into a scream.

Alyva put her hand on Evan's head and let her magic work, turning the burning pain into a numb tingle.

The heat closed up the open blood vessels, and once Edward could feel that the blood mostly stopped running, he took his hands off of the wound.

"There should be a mostly clear looking potion in my bag, could you get that for me?" Edward asked, looking at Alyva.

Alyva stared at Evan's blood drenched back, but quickly averted her gaze when turning to Ed's bag, looking for the potion he described.

"Is it this one?" She took out a clear, watery potion, with a light hint of green. One he made back when Evan killed the bosoar.

"Yes, perfect, thanks."

He opened the small glass bottle, and the awful smell immediately hit his nose, and when he started applying it to the burned wound, the smell filled the entirety of the immediate area.

"What the hell is that thing made of?" The corgi covered his nose with his hands.

"You don't want to know," Ed said, "what's important is that it protects the wound from infections."

The corgi shook his head and went back to his place outside of the wagon, where the smell at least wasn't quite as strong.

Ed applied the potion with a piece of cloth he cut off his robe, so he wouldn't have to touch it himself, and carefully patted the burned area.

He finished up and put his stuff away, before checking up on Evan. "Are you okay? You think we're good to go?"

Evan looked up at him weakly, but nodded, so Ed gave the corgi a signal to get going.

Edward sat down, and Evan crawled towards Ed to put his head in Edward's lap.

"Heh, how the tables have turned, huh?" Ed said, running his hands over Evan's head.

"Yeah, I guess so," Evan responded, and started hugging Edward's leg, eliciting a chuckle from the cat.

"So, uh…" Alyva shifted around. "What's up with the spreading woods? What's so bad about them?"

"Monsters," Evan said without elaborating, leaving that up to Edward.

"Yeah, the spreading woods are inhabited by more monsters than usual. The plants also grow in unpredictable ways, making the woods harder to traverse."

"And there isn't a way around we could take?"

"Considering our destination is right in the middle of the woods, no. The town itself is protected by a wall, and also has priests blessing it, which is said to keep the monsters away."

"I see…" Alyva turned around to look through one of the holes in the wagon. "I suppose it's best if we keep an eye out for danger then."


The ride stayed uneventful for about another hour, until the wagon abruptly stopped.

"Something wrong?" Alyva asked.

"One of the perids got stuck in a vine," the corgi responded.

"I'll deal with that." Edward got up, carefully putting Evan's head back on the ground before jumping out of the wagon and rushing to the animal.

The perid, an equine creature with grey skin, had a long, thorny vine wrapped around one of it's front legs, presumably some kind of greenbrier. Though the animal's skin was too thick for the thorns to do anything.

Greenbrier is known to be very easily influenced by magic, and as such, Edward shouldn't have much of a problem taking care of this.

He placed his hand on the vine, a soft glow bleeding through the plant as it loosened up, almost as if it relaxed. The vine carefully unwrapped itself, and once it stopped touching the perid's leg altogether, Ed let the vine slip out of his magic's grasp.

He stood up and looked at the perid, which looked right back at him, staring at him with its six yellow eyes, as if trying to thank him.

Ed softly put his hand on the perid's forehead, feeling the two bumps that would eventually form into horns, when he was suddenly dragged down.

He fell on his back as the vine pulled on his leg, wrapped around his ankle and piercing through his clothes with its thorns. The vine's grasp got tighter and the thorns scratched Ed's skin.

As the thorns dug into him, he pulled out his dagger and cut through the vine with a single swing.

The grip on his leg softened, and he untangled the mess on his leg. The other half of the vine thrashed around wildly, and Edward slowly crawled away, before getting up and walking back on the wagon.

"We're good to go again," Ed said, and the wagon started going again.

The atmosphere darkens the deeper it goes into the forest. A sense of uneasiness fell over the group, bleeding into their veins and minds.

"Is it just me, or does this place feel… off?" Alyva asked.

"Definitely not just you," said Edward, "I've been around here several times, and it seems like with each time this place feels more wrong. Unnatural even. It feels like there is more earth magic around here than even most holy places."

"And do you know why that is?"

"No idea. My best guess is that this forest is cursed, which seems like it's most other people's best guess too. Where that curse comes from though, nobody seems to know."

Alyva stared outside, her bad feeling not lifted whatsoever, as she watched the trees and other plants get bigger and more tangled into each other the deeper they got. She could swear that she saw eyes looking at her from the dark.

After a few more minutes, Evan sat up, having gotten uncomfortable laying on the wooden floor for so long. This comes much to the concern of Edward.

"I don't think you should sit like that. Or even move this much in the first place."

"Heh, we really have switched places in being concerned for each other, haven't we?"

"I've hit my head, you got stabbed, those things are barely compareable."

Evan shrugged and leaned against a crate. "Besides, I need to be on the lookout afterall. Who else is gonna shoot the monsters in the eye?"

Edward shook his head, but couldn't help but smile. "You can still have your glory moment on the way back out. You know, after we visited a healer."

Evan sighed with a smirk. "But what should I do until then, if I can't play your hero?"

Ed chuckled and put his arms around Evan in a very soft and careful, but loving embrace. "You're always my hero."

Evan joined in on the chuckle. "Getting cheesy again?"

"Hey, you started."

"Uhm, guys? I don't want to interrupt you, but…" Alyva drew the attention of the others towards her, directing it outside.

Edward got up and looked outside, following Alyva's gaze up.

A big, bug-like creature flew high above the wagon, seemingly following them. Like an eight foot tall flying grasshopper, but with a few too many limbs on each side. Three pitch black eyes stared down at the wagon.

"Should we be worried about that?" Alyva asked.

"I'm not sure," Ed said. "It looks like it's only observing, and doesn't intend on attacking. You can tell that based on the eyes."

Alyva looked at him. "So… What do we do?"

"Hard to say. If we attack it, there is no doubt it will fight back and call for help. Our best bet is to hope that it doesn't attack us first, at least until we get into the protected area."

"Or we could shoot it," Evan said from behind. "You're talking about a locuth, right? That means if we hit it in the eyes now, as long as it's not trying to attack, that should take care of it."

"So the eye is its weakness?" Alyva asked again.

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Evan said. "A locuth has two states, observing, and fight or flight, which can be told apart by the eye color.

"In fight or flight mode, a locuth is fast, strong, and aggressive, and can communicate with locuths from miles away. If one of the eyes gets pierced while it's observing, its body can't properly adjust to the fight or flight mode anymore.

"So what I'm saying is, we should take out the threat before it becomes one."

"That sounds like the best idea," Alyva said.

"Except," Edward argued, "we need to be entirely sure that whatever we shoot hits the eye, and causes enough damage. Because if not, then it will attack us with no doubts."

"How good for you that you're with the best hunter of Sanctia." Evan grabbed his bow and an arrow and stood up.

"You're no doubt a great archer, but we both know you won't hit such a small, far away target while you're both moving," Ed said.

"Uh, well… it's not that far away anymore," Alyva said, looking at the locuth that was slowly but surely coming closer.

"Well, I'll take that as a sign." Evan stepped towards the nearest opening, but stumbled as a wave of pain shot from his back.

Edward grabbed Evan before he could fall. "I think you should sit back down."

The wagon suddenly shook under the weight of the locuth, and its mandibles cut through the roof like scissors through paper. It pushed its head through the hole and stared around.

"I changed my mind, shoot it!"

But just as Edward said that, the black eyes turned into an uncanny shade of green, almost blending in with the rest of its body.

"Too late." Ed reacted quickly, stretching out his hand and blasting a burst of flames into the monster's face, which retreated its head out of the wagon.

"Damnit. Okay, we need to think fast now," Evan said. "We need to kill it before it can-"

He was interrupted by a loud shrieking from above.

"-call for help…" he finished. "... Well fuck."

"Okay, you three stay down here and protect the wagon from nymphs. I'll take care of the big one." Edward climbed out of the hole in the roof to face the locuth.

"Alright then," said Evan, "Alyva, you try to keep the nymphs away and I'll try to shoot them. Hugh will take care of any that get too close."


"Let's do this." Edward stood on the unstable roof. The locuth had taken off again and hovered over the wagon.

The creature let out another scream, but was cut off by Edward throwing a fireball into its face.

The scream turned into a deep grumbling as the locuth fell behind, but it pierced forward again as if trying to tackle Edward.

He dodged, but fell off the wagon while doing so. Before hitting the ground though, he shot a vine out of his arm which wrapped around several of the locuth's many legs, and used it to swing himself on the monster's back.


It was only a few moments until more locuths swarmed around the wagon, tese ones about half the size of the bigger one, and without any wings. Alyva pushed away as many as she could, but was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of the bugs.

Most of Evan's arrows could only barely make it through the exoskeletons, and the locuths that were hit this way kept going with arrows stuck in their bodies.

Several nymphs reached the wagon, which came to a sudden halt. Hugh swung his axe into one bug's head, splitting its skull in two.

Another nymph jumped against the wagon and clung against it. In an attempt to open another hole to pass through, the nymph bit through a wooden beam supporting the wagon, instantly snapping it in two.

Hugh heard that and immediately swung his axe around. The swing landed in the nymph's back, and painted the ground in its green-blueish blood upon pulling out.


Edward let the vine grow tightly around his left arm and the locuth's body, to ensure he couldn't fall off, and secured it by having it wrap around itself.

He let his other hand run over the bug's right side until he felt a small hole in its exoskeleton. He grabbed his dagger and thrust it inside the breathing hole. As Ed tried to pull it out, the bug suddenly jolted to the side. He lost his grip on the dagger and watched it plummet towards the ground.


Right as Evan took another arrow, a nymph jumped at him from the back, knocking him to the ground. It went in for a bite, but Alyva stomped on its head, turning one of its eyes to mush, and threw it out of the wagon with her magic.

She kneeled down next to him. "Are you okay?"

Evan only grunted in pain, and Alyva placed her hands on his head to ease his pain.

That's when another nymph jumped onto the wagon, this time on Alyva's back. Within a split second, Hugh grabbed it by its legs and swung it around. The legs ripped off as the rest of the body got catapulted outside into a group of other nymphs.

Alyva managed to push away two more nymphs that were getting dangerously close, before helping Evan up and giving him one more healing rush of magic.


With his dagger gone, Edward had to improvise. He created a big icicle in his hand, which he then used to stab another breathing hole.

The locuth's air sacs filled up with blood, and it thrashed around in pain and panic, but still stayed surprisingly strong.

It flew to the side, crashing itself and Edward against a tree. Edward lost his grip, now only being pulled along by the vine.

Ed looked down at the abyss he was hanging over. He could probably survive a fall from here if he was lucky, but it would probably be best to avoid that. More importantly though, he saw the wagon being overrun helplessly beneath him.

He focused, letting all his power flow into his right arm as he stretched it out. With a calculated push, he set the scenery below in fire with the biggest flame burst he could possibly create, all while leaving the wagon at least mostly undamaged.

After an exhausted gasp, he grabbed the vine again and dragged himself back onto the locuth, panting for air and hoping for the end of this to be near.

He tried to create a new icicle, but at this point his magic had been completely drained.

"... Fuck it." He reached for the next hole, and began furiously clawing at the exposed skin.


With the nymphs now burning down in an inferno, keeping them away was much easier now. While Alyva put out the fire that did hit the wagon, as well as keeping away any new flames, Evan and Hugh killed as many nymphs as they could.

The way their skin burned made it much easier for Evan to spot weak spots in the locuths' exoskeleton. And while hitting those spots was easier said than done, especially with the panicked, erratic movements of the nymphs, almost every shot from here on ended up lethal.

Hugh was much slower with his axe, and barely hit anything anymore. That's until he put the axe down and decided to smash these bugs with his fists. Skulls got cracked and legs ripped off, all with nothing but sheer force.


Edward scratched the breathing hole into nothing but a gash of flesh and blood. He forced his hand deeper inside, scratching its lungs open from the inside.

When he pulled out, his hand was covered in blue blood, his fur drenched in it. But he didn't stop there. He climbed further up, and forced his hand into the locuth's neck.

His claws dug into yet another breathing hole. The locuth desperately thrashed its head around in a futile attempt to save itself.

But its last moments were already set in stone, as its blood filled lungs caught up to it. Getting too weak to keep flying, it crashed down.

Edward braced himself for the impact. His body was thrown around a little and got shaken up, particularly hurting his left arm, but he made it through the fall surprisingly well.

He glanced around as he untangled the vine on his arm. Most of the nymphs were dead, and he found a clean way through the flames. He charged through and jumped on the wagon.

"Are we good to go? Wait, where's Hugh?" He asked.

"Hugh, come back, let's get the hell away from here." Evan yelled towards Hugh, who was still ripping apart the remaining nymphs.

As he came back, he stretched a handful of nymph legs out towards Edward. "Could you use these?"

"Uhh. Maybe?" Ed said and took his 'gift'. "I suppose it's decent enough potion material."


The team gave the very overwhelmed corgi a sign to get going again, who did so without hesitation.

"Well, we're almost in Woodlash. Let's hope their healer won't be busy," Evan said, rubbing his back.

"Whatever happens, we'll make it work," said Edward and put an arm around Evan

"Their relationship is… Admirable," Alyva thought to herself. "If only I hadn't thrown mine away…"