Hideous Ichor Chapter I - The Avatar

Hair darker than his shadow, eyes looking like two shiny black pearls in a pool of white, skin paler than snow, thin blood red lips, and torn garments of black material, in typical commoner fashion. Carter of the Pale Mountains was a half breed paleman. Who awoke in his hut of mud and straw with a unfamiliar pain at his sides. Breathing was hard for him at first, there was something constricting his chest, feeling at it he touched something odd, it was a part of him but alien. .

"Too tight," he said.

Noticing his shirt was torn to shreds and littered the floor of his hut, he looked down at himself and let out cry of terror. Seeing his torso that resembles that of a spider, lean muscles covered with a thick coat of soft hair that went up and down his torso. Wrapped around him in a in a vice grip were long spider legs that stuck, two at each of his sides. Wincing in sharp pain, Carter felt them move to his command, and with pained grunts stretched them outwards, something in his spider legs creaked loudly as he stretched them out. After a sudden loud snapping sound he felt them ease, and after a initial sting of pain he felt the pain grow numb and fade away.

'What happened to me?' he thought.

Sitting up on his bed of straw he tried to remember what happened last night, but wouldn't remember clearly. The last thing he recalled was walking eastern on the pale mountains as he usually did, since he could crawl he'd walk further and further away. Each time making progress before returning home, last he left he remembered coming across a stranger who he couldn't recall exactly whether it was a man or women. No one face he remembered matched the figure, it was as if he or she was all of them at the same time.

After feeling the pain wash away and wanting some fresh air he stepped out of his hovel on wobbly legs in his bare feet. As his hard soles touched touched the crisp mountain snow he felt a peaceful calm come over him, making him unburdened by his worries.

"I am waiting in Dwoveland." said a gentle voice.

Turning his head around in all directions Carter tried to see where the voice was coming from, but he didn't see anyone.

"Go east my Avatar, to vale between the mountains, you'll find the darkness that will lead you to me." continued the voice, "there you'll see the Devil's Clutch, I will await for you at its peak."

'The Devil's Clutch, such a place I do remember hearing long ago. I forgot much of it until now,' Carter thought as he started his fire outside to ward off the chill. 'East of the pale mountains is the Nigro pass, which separates the Pale Mountains separate from the Charred Mountains.'

Back before Carter's people left to go farther south he remembered the stories they told of Dwoveland, a land of red sky which drove people insane. Ghost stories would be told of demons, witches, and spectres that haunt the cursed land, and that sometimes people go there without really knowing why, as if compelled by a supernatural power. Remembering such stories gave him a headache, perhaps he should forget it and go back to his life.

"A life of what?" Carter asked himself.

Never in his life did he have friends, he'd always felt distance between himself and other people, and then his brother left when his parents were dying, they died quiet time ago, and he wondered if his brother knew about them. Turning his gaze northwards as he felt the fire grow Carter looked at the distant northern mountains, wondering if he'd ever see him again. They were half brothers they had the same father who settled in the Pale Mountains with his mother, his brother was someone he might've considered a friend at one point. Then he left him alone when their parents were dying of the frost disease.

'Friends don't do that,' he thought 'and neither should brothers.'

After his parents died his people left and he didn't care that he choose to stay behind. For some reason he wanted to stay, and by some compulsion travel eastward, that feeling returned and he was more aware of it, he wanted to go till he reached the end, and this time he wouldn't turn back. Something was happening to him, besides the spider legs growing out of him, he was being guided somewhere, since he was born he felt as though he was being looked after. Someone or something was guiding him so that he could one day reach them for a purpose, whether it would bring him joy or misery he didn't care.

Allowing the fire to burn itself out in the cold weather he was used to, Carter started to get ready for his journey.

'I should really leave before it gets dark' Carter thought.

Going into his hut he gathered up food he stored away, and a flask of mountain, he put that into a satchel he slung around his wore around his waist. Putting on tough leather boots, and a thick wool cloak to cover his torso, since he could no longer wear his shirts, he walked outside to look upon his home one last time. Folding his spider arms around his torso, he gazed upon his home, and saw not to far away a huddle of other huts where his people once lived. Rotted away from disrepair and harsh winters, Carter wondered how long his home would last when he was no longer there to look after the place.

A thought came to his mind that he should pay respects to his parent's burial mound, but he couldn't stand visiting it even before, getting his fill with sentimentality he left his past behind. Walking east in the snow covering miles in a short time due to his memorization of his often used routes eastward. Moving eastwards passing the sun as it went westward Carter looked back and saw he was nearing the farthest he has ever been from home. Whatever was ahead would be unknown, continuing on even as the daylight was dying out, leaving leaving him alone in darkness.