It scampered across the parched Therilonian landscape, bounding over shards of rock and jumping nimbly across fault lines that left gaping cracks in the ground. Bright eyes shining, bushy tail quivering, it ran up a twisted, withered excuse for a tree and watched the four travelers as they passed by.
Zelgadis stared at the squirrel, sitting happily in its leafy home. She didn't quite understand how squirrels were thriving in the harsh land of Therilon. She would have thought that its dessication, its few, pitiful plants and trees, and the rocky ground that looked as if it had been twisted and tortured by massive hands until it cracked and shattered, would provide a hostile environment for such normal creatures. But despite all that, she had seen dozens of the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed rodents. They seemed to be everywhere.
Squirrels were just about the only normal creatures Zelgadis had seen so far, except for a few goats being led down a dusty path by a muttering goatherd. Mostly, the animals that she and her friends had seen were strange, dark, twisted things, that scuttled away almost as soon as they were seen, as well as the occasional black dragon flying high overhead, and of course the untold numbers of monsters that they'd been fighting against ever since their arrival in Therilon.
The squirrel got bored with watching the travelers, and rustled away through the tree's branches. At this tiny noise, Lina jumped and whipped around, searching frantically for the source of the sound. Seeing the squirrel, she relaxed marginally before once again nervously scanning the skies.
Zelgadis had never seen the flame-haired sorceress so tense, so jumpy, before. She always seemed to be glancing upwards, as if she were expecting the next attack to come from above. What is Lina so worried about? wondered Zelgadis. It's not the black dragons. Dozens of those have already seen us, and flown past... Lina's reputation as the Dragon Spooker was coming in mighty handy, and for once she didn't seem to mind one bit.
Of all four travelers, only Lina had been to Therilon before. Only she had known beforehand the kinds of dangers they'd had to face once they passed its border. She was an invaluable asset; she remembered the locations of troll nests, for example, and dragon hatcheries, and other kinds of places that were best avoided for obvious reasons. This saved them all an awful lot of time and trouble.
Though Lina could lead her friends around most of Therilon's worst dangers, her memory wasn't flawless, and so far their voyage through the Fallen Kingdom had been far from uneventful. Zelgadis remembered with horror one particular cavern they'd stumbled into, full of hundreds of huge winged things with horrible fangs that had swarmed them in seconds. Lina'd had to cast the Dragu Slave five times in a row; together with a couple of Ra Tilts from Zelgadis, they'd all just barely managed to clear away enough of the horrid creatures to make their escape.
Other nasty surprises had popped up with alarming regularity. An exceptionally frightening one had occurred just a couple of days ago. A mass of thousands of eyeless creeping creatures had exploded from a sandpit almost directly below the travelers' feet. Zelgadis, shuddering, could still feel their clammy fingers grasping at her shoes.
As if the natural dangers of Therilon weren't bad enough, every couple of hours some freakish creature would launch itself directly at Zelgadis, intent on the murder of 'Princess Amethyst'. She was seriously getting tired of it, especially now that the attacks were becoming more and more frequent. How many of these blasted monster fanatics are there? wondered Zelgadis bitterly. At the rate we've been killing them, they should've become extinct by now.
It wasn't just Lina who was jumpy. Everyone was at least a little on edge; in Therilon, it was impossible not to be. The four friends, as they walked on past the squirrel's tree, nervously kept watch for the next danger to be fought or, if possible, avoided.
Amelia, eyes narrowed, scanned the rocky, splintered ground surrounding them. Whispering quietly, so as not to attract any more attention than absolutely necessary, she said, "Nothing's attacked us or tried to eat us for almost half an hour. That's not normal."
"I know," replied Lina, also keeping her voice low. "And the terrain's been getting greener - "
"Hah," interrupted Zelgadis quietly. "Now it's a rocky wasteland with some bushes, instead of just a plain rocky wasteland."
Lina continued with her sentence, undeterred. "Now that there's more ground cover, more trees and bushes, there's more places for all sorts of creatures to hide."
"Yeah, like squirrels," was Zelgadis's contribution.
Lina shot the violet-haired girl a dirty look, but said nothing. Over the past few days, the former chimaera's emotional stress had manifested itself as an increasing tendency towards extreme sarcasm. Lina was prepared to tolerate it for the sake of their friendship, but she could only tolerate so much. "Now that we're getting to marginally fertile land, we'll start running into people. If I remember right, there's a little inn near here, so hopefully we won't have to camp out tonight."
Lina's hope was mirrored in everyone's tired eyes. All four friends were grimy, exhausted, and sick of the constant monster attacks they were forced to face. The protection of an inn would save them from having to deal with the nocturnal beasts that hungrily roamed the Therilonian wastelands at night.
A good night's sleep, for the first time in more than a week! Zelgadis thought in anticipation, her sarcasm completely forgotten. Ever since we crossed the border of Therilon, the nights have been crawling with nightmarish things. It'll be a nice change to not have to worry about them anymore, even if it's only for one night.
Gourry was plodding along, saying little, in as glum a mood as Zelgadis had ever seen him. Like Amelia and Lina, he was deeply affected by the malevolent aura that pervaded Therilon. They'd been getting used to it slowly ever since arriving here over a week ago, but it was the kind of dark, hateful presence that couldn't easily be ignored. Only Zelgadis was immune to its harmful, wearying influence. Only Zelgadis, who for some reason had turned out to be the lost Princess Amethyst of this godforsaken land.
An outcropping of rock stood directly in the travelers' path. It was topped by a scraggly bush that had somehow gained a foothold in a crack in the rock. The patch of shade cast by the rock and hardy bush fell on the bleached bones of some creature that had been unfortunate enough to wander into Therilon.
The four friends circled around the bones, which had been picked clean and white by hordes of hungry little creatures since their owners' death. Big enough to be those of a horse or cow, the bones lay unmoving, mute testament to the sheer deadliness of Therilon.
As she passed the bones, Amelia half-tripped over a small stone lying in her path. In frustration, she kicked the pebble away. It skittered along the cracked ground and knocked into the lifeless bones.
With a whispery roar, the bones sprang into life, jolted awake by Amelia's stone. They weren't the bones of a dead creature. They were the bones of a living creature with transparent flesh, able to disguise itself as something long since dead and harmless. Just another one of the dangers of Therilon.
The half-unseen beast tottered onto its spindly, bony legs. Transparent teeth, razor-sharp, were set into its bony jaw. Huge ghostly eyes filled its sockets and fixed the foolish travelers who had woken it with a baleful glare. It moved suddenly, the only noise it made being a rustling like dry paper as it launched itself at its prey.
Lina was instantly alert, ready to launch a Dragu Slave at the creature. She held herself back, however, and let Gourry meet its charge with his sword. In Therilon, the use of powerful magic was extremely unwise, unless absolutely necessary. Any powerful spells could potentially attract the unwanted attention of all sorts of dangerous beings. Still, it was best to be ready for anything.
With a dry crack, Gourry's sword hit the monster in the leg. The bony monster shrieked, a thin sound of sheer agony, and lurched to the side. Zelgadis had already unsheathed her own sword, and aimed a blow at its neck just under the skull, where she assumed its throat would be. She slashed with all her might, and colourless blood spurted everywhere. The creature, dying, let out a few whispery gurgles before crashing to the ground. Its life fled as quickly as the blood gushing through its greatly slit throat. Soon it would be nothing more than the dry bones it already ressembled.
Lina let the magic she'd gathered for her Dragu Slave bleed away harmlessly. It had turned out to be unneccessary; the semi-transparent beast had only been a minor danger. But there had been no way to tell that in advance. If Gourry had been unable to harm it, and if Zelgadis and Amelia had had similar results with progressively more powerful offensive spells, Lina would have had to blast it out of existence.
Blood, sticky and smelly despite its transparency, coated Zel's and Gourry's swords and clothing. Zelgadis wiped her sword on her by now filthy cape, getting most of the blood off before sheathing it. She brushed a strand of violet hair out of her eyes, inadvertently smearing blood on her face. "There had better be hot baths at this inn of yours, Lina," she muttered, after giving up trying to wipe herself clean. She was already covered in all sorts of gruesome, crusty stains from all the other creatures she and the others had been forced to fight and kill. Her clothes seriously needed washing, almost as much as she herself did.
Leaving the bones behind, the four travelers continued on their way. It was only a matter of seconds, though, before Lina frantically motioned everyone to a halt. "Can you hear it?" she whispered.
Sure enough, Zelgadis could barely hear a faint faraway sound, of many shambling footfalls hitting the ground. Amelia recognized the sound too. "Trolls," she whispered. "In the distance."
"A lot of trolls," added Gourry wearily, ears cocked.
"And they're coming this way fast," said Lina, annoyed. "Just what we need. At least no Wyrms've spotted us yet..." She whipped around and spied a huge crack in the ground, partially sheltered by boulders. "Quick, in there."
Only a few sandworms lived in the crack, and they were easily dispatched with a mid-sized fireball. The four travellers hid themselves in the now-empty crack. No one debated the wisdom of Lina's decision. Trolls were hard to fight and near-impossible to kill, and in Therilon they roamed in huge packs. It would take far more time and effort than they could afford to take care of these trolls, so as usual, avoidance was the best tactic. In Therilon, it was foolish to go looking for trouble, when all too often it came looking for you.
It took less than a minute for the first trolls to arrive. Exhausted, the four friends could only hope that the roaming creatures didn't sniff them out. Luckily, the huge beasts seemed to be well-fed; they didn't notice the hidden travelers, and they even passed by the half-transparent monster's bleeding carcass. This, however, prompted all kinds of horrific speculation about what the trolls had recently been eating...
At least seventy to eighty trolls lurched past the impromptu hiding place. When they had finally gone on their shambling, grunting way, the four humans breathed a great sigh of relief.
"We were lucky," said Lina in the faintest of whispers. "But we'd better lay low for the next few minutes, just in case those trolls start feeling peckish and turn back."
As the trolls' retreating footsteps faded away into the distance, Zelgadis suddenly sprang a question on Lina. Keeping her voice low, the violet-haired girl asked, "What's a Wyrm?"
Lina tensed up. "What do you mean?" she whispered harshly.
"When we first heard the trolls, you said something about how at least no Wyrms have spotted us. So what's a Wyrm? Just another kind of monster? Or what?"
In complete silence, Lina sat and stared at the rocks in front of her. Zelgadis was about to ask again when Lina finally said, "You don't want to know."
Amelia, looking faintly worried, tried to join in. "But what if we - "
"You don't want to know." Lina's tone of voice lent a sense of finality to her words. No one could bring themselves to argue with her. "Come on, let's go."
Lina led the others out of the crack in the ground, and around the sheltering boulders. Once the four travelers were safely on their way, a tiny rustling could barely be heard on top of one of the boulders. A little creature poked its head up, watching them leave. Then, blinking its bright eyes and fluffing up its tail, it scampered back to the safety of its favourite tree.