Beastlord Scout

The road ahead was unkind.

Abraham sat atop Chop's armored thorax, one hand resting on the bone staff that now rarely stopped humming. It had grown quiet for a few hours after they left the Vault, but the moment they crossed a moss-choked stream, the staff began vibrating again—subtly, as though sniffing out something beneath the surface.

The jungle canopy arched high overhead, filtering gray light into shimmering green. Vines twisted like serpents around ancient stone pillars, ruins long reclaimed by the earth.

Moss blanketed the trunks of towering trees, and the air was thick with humidity and spores, each breath like inhaling green fog. Abraham wiped sweat from his brow and looked over the strange parade that followed them.

The undead entourage, an increasingly odd procession of skeletal and semi-rotted beasts, trailed behind him and Chop with eerie coordination.

Skeletal birds flitted silently from branch to branch. A fox with a jawbone too large for its skull limped along. A bear missing most of its flesh lumbered forward, its empty eye sockets locked on Abraham.

Tess, sitting behind him with her blade over her shoulder, kept throwing side glances at the entourage.

"I feel like we're a very cursed circus," she muttered, trying to swat away a buzzing insect. "Don't you think?"

"I think that's an insult to circuses," Abraham replied. "At least they have snacks."

She snorted but didn't argue. "I'd even take a sad bag of peanuts right now."

They camped that night at the edge of a shallow ravine overgrown with thorny ferns and twisted brush. Abraham sat cross-legged by the fire, experimenting. The squirrel skeleton that had claimed his shoulder as its throne became his first subject. He sent it leaping into the trees with a mental push.

"Go. Climb. Return."

To his surprise, it obeyed. It darted up the trunk of a tree and vanished into the canopy.

Tess leaned against a log, arms crossed. "Creepy, but cool. If you start naming them, though, we need to talk."

"I already named this one 'Chitter-bones.'"

Tess groaned. "Of course you did."

Minutes passed. The forest was alive with noise—too alive. The nocturnal chorus of insects and frogs sounded almost organized. Then came the click-click-click of tiny bones.

Chitter-bones dropped from a tree onto Abraham's lap and rattled its jaw. Abraham frowned.

"Something's out there," he murmured.

"Something big?" Tess asked, drawing her blade.

"Or clever. Or both."

In the pre-dawn darkness, they moved. Abraham left half the undead to guard the makeshift camp. The rest followed, a macabre phalanx of claws, fangs, and exposed ribs. The fog curled between the trees, veiling the path ahead like a curtain waiting to be drawn.

Birds circled above—real ones—and cried warnings Abraham didn't understand but somehow felt.

Then the forest opened.

Ahead, a massive clearing spread in unnatural symmetry. The ground was torn and scorched. Trees had been pulled from the earth like weeds, their roots dangling in the air. In the center, a wide crater smoldered faintly, its scorched edges etched with symbols that shimmered in the haze.

Abraham approached, staff raised. Every footstep made the hum intensify. Tess followed, scanning the perimeter with tight lips and sharper eyes.

Then they heard it.

A crackle. Dry leaves. Something moved beyond the far side of the crater. Slowly, deliberately.

It was a man. Or something that used to be a man.

He staggered into view; his limbs bound with thick vines, his skin stretched thin and gray. Moss grew from his chest and arms, mushrooms sprouting from his cheeks. Vines slithered out from his mouth like parasitic tongues. He took three slow steps before collapsing, face-first, into the dirt.

Tess grimaced. "He's not yours?"

Abraham shook his head. "No. Why should I raised something as ugly as him? I don't even know how he became like this."

The staff reacted violently, a burst of necrotic energy blasting from the tip.

The corpse disintegrated in a whisper of spores.

Then came laughter. High and lilting, echoing from above.

Tess whipped around, blade drawn.

From the trees, she dropped—an acrobat of bark and bloom. A woman whose skin rippled with living moss, her limbs twined with ivy, her eyes glowing green with ancient awareness. Her hair was a cascade of flowering vines, and insects buzzed lazily around her.

She landed on a jutting root and balanced there like a predator poised to strike.

She purred, her voice honeyed and cold, "you're very loud."

Abraham blinked. "Who are you?"

She bowed low with exaggerated grace. "Name is Lysara. I am a Warden of The Jungle. And you're trespassing."

Tess took a step closer. "She's planty. That can't be good."

Lysara chuckled. "So rude. But correct. You reek of death. It offends the green."

Abraham tightened his grip on the staff. "We didn't come here to offend anyone."

"No," Lysara said, stepping lightly across the crater's edge, "but your power ripples across the land. Bringing the unknown catastrophy. The jungle is listening. And it doesn't like what it hears."

Abraham opened his mouth, but she raised a hand. Vines erupted from the ground in a protective ring, blocking the undead beasts behind them.

"Let's not fight," she cooed. "I simply want to understand the boy who woke the Bone Vault."

"You know about the Vault?"

"Oh, darling." Lysara smirked. "Every living thing knows. The ground shook. The balance trembled. You roused something very old."

She stepped closer, her voice lowering. "And I'm here to find out if you're a threat to the Green Court or not."

"What's the Green Court?" Tess asked.

"The jungle," Lysara replied. "And all its hidden rulers."

The vines around the clearing shuddered, and from the shadows, shapes moved—creatures not undead, but not natural either. Hybrids of plant and animal. A wolf with bark for fur. A snake made of thorn-vines. A stag with mushrooms blooming from its antlers.

Abraham looked into Lysara's eyes and saw no malice, only ancient calculation.

"What do you want from me?" he asked.

"To see," she said simply. "If you are the harbinger of rot… or the one who lead it."

"I hate cryptic task description," Tess muttered.

Lysara turned and vanished into the forest without another word. The creatures followed.

The clearing grew quiet once more.

Tess exhaled slowly. "Well. That wasn't terrifying at all."

Abraham watched the trees where Lysara had disappeared. The staff in his hand pulsed steadily, almost in time with his heartbeat.

"I think we just got noticed."

"Meaning?"

"Probably got an ambush in the future."

"No welcoming ceremony, I guess."

***