102 Wood Runner - Dryad's Nightmare
The heart of the forest was shrouded in darkness. Scattered, every living thing has spread,
fear approached. Animals couldn’t find a safe place and midges subsided, hid. Dryads were
the first to scene this terrible feeling - the heartbeat of the wood, it stunned their thoughts,
prevented staying sane, most of the younger dryads fell unconscious.
The trees were moaning, screaming, pulling out their roots, destroying themselves for not
to hear it... him...
The ritual has been complete. Some strangers have sneaked into the wood, straight to its heart,
and summoned the otherworldly, one from the highest cast. Faceless. He could ruin a lake or
a forest like this all by himself, especially when no one expects such a thing, and won’t even
know. By the time rumors appear, it will be too late.
They called it the “Forest of doom”, leaving this place.
One from the high dryads still tried to resist the madness, suffering in agony, and could act
soberly. She scented the nightmare nearby, soon very soon it will be next to her, and she ran
as far as eyes could see, ignoring the pain, being horrified, how the wood was suffering. She
couldn’t stop her tears and knew that she was the prey and one of the ones who still possibly
could save the forest, if she could manage to survive. But how to survive and help the others,
others… who are probably dead now…
And these thoughts only made the pain bigger.
She should survive at any cost - for the woods, for her sisters, for mother earth. She must,
repeating that time after time, until she realized that “something” approached her, but the edge
of the wood was still far away. She turned around and got the site of the devouring darkness
through the trees, that swallowed and crushed them by its way.
She ran stronger, faster as it was possible, leaving bloody trail behind. Next time, when she couldn’t
stand to look again - she saw more - a lot of thorns, hands or paws, she couldn’t make it out
from here, several extended heads with bottomless mouths.
Time was running out, it was up to fight him here or to get a backstab a bit later. She harshly
turned around and hurled a spray of magical thorns upon him. Unfortunately, that just slowed
him, not even knobbed to something.
His riposte strike was a released swarm of thin-boned hands willing to split dryad apart, but they
hit only leaves and branches. She ran farther.
But the hunt has stopped - the dryad managed to make a perfect trap for her enemy - a cage of
trees, completely binding him by impenetrable thickets.
And of course, she ran, ran faster, draining her last energy, which was running out very fast.
The Faceless fussed, tearing and crushing the magical cage. It wasn’t a big deal for him though
but it took those tiny precious pieces of time, time of his reap.
When he finally managed to break free, he realized that the dryad’s trail had gone out cold, but
perfectly identified where the biggest fear of the forest was. There he went.
The keeper of the forest ran onto a hilly meadow under the remains of the night and due to
overstrain fell asleep right there, where she stood. The ground slightly absorbed her, giving the
opportunity to mask her a little bit, but it wouldn’t save from him…
Her fantasies, thoughts and fears burst out in wild vortex, which roamed between past, present
and future.
The amulet, once entwined by her mother, began to sting her noticeably and awoke her from
oblivious sleep. She understood that she hadn’t escaped far, but there were no forces left to even
stand up.
And there was no need in it, perhaps now. Not far away a fearsome fight held between the Faceless
and... The druid?! Human druid! She is saved! Or not? There was a rumor among the leaves that
someday a man with a power of the earth would come here and perish all the illnesses away.
However, there were only a few who believed in such a prophecy amongst the enchanted forest.
They’ve exchanged lunges of magical swords and sharpened ectoplasm bones. The acrid smell
of corrosion wandered the air and interfered to breath. The drops of unknown substance falling
from the spirit made the stone corrode.
The druid won a tiny second and made a benefit of it creating a cross-like spike out of the ground
which pierced him and separated into four ridiculous parts. They moved chaotically and were
unconsciously destroying everything. There was no problem to deal with that afterwards.
Upon the complete banishment, the air pressed and collided in a fearsome ring, that stunned and
blinded all around, and disappeared instantly.
Afterwards druid slowly turned his sight to a dryad. She feared what yet to come next …