CHPT 387: Mysteries Unveiled, Horrors Awakened.....

The Tangent had become a blurring virulent storm of paranoia. Paranoia that soaked into Claude's very being with every extra mile he traveled through the snowed over jungles. Every shadow, every den-- every cliff that loomed overhead could've hid another series of horrors and alarming outliers. Anything. It was all a danger beyond that of a simple Silver Ranked Tangent.

Cyclopses in a Jungle Tangent. He should've turned tail and ran right then and there. But where would they have gone? The desert? The small patches of forestry full of low level Monsters? Claude would've been chasing Ursula as she ran to the closest City within an hour. And then the Detectives would be on them like blood on fangs. And he would be responsible for the deaths of many.

Two bad decisions. Two wildly differing outcomes. All under the Full Moon.

"[Remember to maintain you're focus. Remember your trigger. There's no gain in your panic. You know where she is. And whatever is out there, has no idea where you are. Keep that anonymity and strike only if necessary. Something about this place has changed.....]" Arne said.

Claude followed his ghostly guiding hand, centering himself as he darted through the packed jungles at speeds he'd never reached so casually before. At his back, the canine pack followed, freshly empowered by the Cyclopses they had slain-- some had even seemed to evolve, growing to larger sizes and gaining new traits uncommon to their respective breeds. That fact did nothing for his nerves.

Arne was right. The Tangent was different. Nothing had exactly changed on a physical scale. But Tangents were response in ways far beyond just that of the physical. It was in the air. The way the rivers ran below him as he scaled them in single bounds. The way the clouds began to collect overhead, rumbling and twisting with wild bolts of lightning.

He shivered before pushing his body to move at faster speeds towards where he knew Ursula was headed.

The scream.

***

After running another few miles, the jungles had thinned considerably and gave way to grassed over valleys and twisting trails of flowing rivers all descending from the mountains ahead. He could now smell her, and see her massive footprints in the grass ahead. She wasn't far. He could feel her tiredness growing.

Suddenly it all made sense. Sure she was driven in part by instincts and the influence of the Moon, but she was also an Arctodus Lupine. More bear than Claude was despite both having the beast within them.

She was looking for a cave to find solace in. Just as Claude once had done after a night of consuming Goblins under the Full Moon.

With that understanding in mind, he cleared the valleys and began scaling the mountain in search of cave entrances. All the while, the pull of the Moon strained his mind and fed on his fear of what was sharing the space with them.....

Minutes passed agonizingly. Stoned floors and cliffsides were left scratched and scared by Claude's pawed feet as he leapt and climbed higher and higher. All the way until the ground below became a plain sheet of green that gave way to the barren mountain.

Suddenly, he slowed and rose to his feet. Walking on two legs for the first time in miles. He was completely silent on the stone walkway. The shadows shifted and roiled behind him as the rest of the pack caught up, noses to the floor and tails raised.

He could smell it as well.

Blood. Old. And flesh, rotting and infested with old fear.

Only a few feet above.

His snout rose, following the smell. The sounds. He'd almost missed Ursula appearing at his side sluggishly. Tired, disoriented.

Claude cast her a quick glance before his eyes rose back up the mountain. In the silence, he could hear raspy breaths.... words. Unintelligible. Too silent, sounding almost like a foreign language.

Despite the scream he'd heard earlier, Deaths Ambience was little more than a distant tune in the back of his mind.

The rest of the pack was at a similar state of lacking agitation. As if there were no dangers within the Tangent once again.

No matter. There was in fact something inside....

He could feel it. And he wouldn't take any risks. He needed to escape.

"[Claude--]" Before Arne could finish his words, Claude burst up the mountain, rising two levels in a blur. His spears drawn and shrouded in the green flame of his Aura.

The rest of the pack stayed in response to his mental commands, leaving him standing alone at the entrance of a cave.

It's wide berth and shadowy entrance reminded him of Fenrir's prison-like home that was cut into the giant mountains of the Astral Realm. So dark-- so cold and downtrodden.

The sound of breaths grew louder-- quickened as if the source noticed him.

The unintelligible words grew.

Now he was sure he didn't understand.

"[That's.... they were here the whole time. Oh dear....]" Arne spoke in fragments.

Claude didn't bother to try and understand with his mind twisted by the moon and the urge to protect his pack by eliminating every threat within the Tangent.

He stepped into the cave impulsively.

The smells grew, wrapping his snouted head in a miasma of humid death and fear that made him both want to gag and consume. He could feel the warmth of dozens-- hundreds of bodies. In the darkness-- he could make out lumps, foul smelling and old. Mangled hair shimmering from the glow of his aura shrouded spears. It looked so fine-- so beautiful even in death.

Bodies. They were all corpses. Seemingly human. As he walked further into the cave, his glow shined on poreless skin, perfectly tanned-- blessed by the sun and cursed by the violence he couldn't begin to imagine. Cuts marred their flesh, arms ripped clean off bodies..... legs rolled in silence. Heads with faces removed. It was so grisly. So horrifying he didn't know if he could take it in the light of day.

Not when it reminded him so much of the home of horrors. The home where the HellBred Arachnoid had played him into unveiling the corpses of an entire village from their demonic webbed sacks.

It was similar.

The inhuman violence. Completely detached from anything rational. Anything sane.

"What did this to you....." He found himself whispering as he silently walked through the cave.

There were children among the bodies...young women. Brothers. Fathers cradling their families in ruin.

"Who did this....?"

"....Malogrim"

Claude jumped faintly at the raspy feminine voice in the distance. The breaths familiar. The very one that lead him in the cave.

He could see the source now, in the distance, against the wall of the cave and eight feet off the ground. In the dark, her round eyes reflected the light like a cornered cat. And from the glow of his spears, he could make out her silloute..... her clear skinned face and shimmering silver hair that told nothing of how old or young she was.

The scent of blood spilled from her body in droves. But no fear unlike the corpses. Her head hung weakly while the rest of her body remained upright and open as he she were suspended in the air. Forced to remain by something holding her there.

"Malogrim..." She said again, revealing a set of pure white sharpened fangs behind her pink lips.

Definitely a different language. And as he grew closer to her, suddenly seeing the greatsword plunged through her stomach and staking her to the stone wall, he knew why.

It all made sense.

Arne's previous rantings. They never left. They were here the whole time.

"She's an Elf.... they're all Elves...."