by Eddie Patin
"Go, go!" he hissed. "Get around the tree! Be quiet!"
Now, brimming with adrenaline, Jason obeyed. He dropped the OCS to his side and clicked off his AK-47's safety, shouldering the weapon and forcing his finger to stay off of the trigger, despite his growing fear. He didn't hear any crashing, thumping footsteps. He didn't see any massive, swaying bipedal forms. Letting Riley encourage him around the root structure, Jason saw that Morgana looked a hell of a lot less afraid than he felt. Her green eyes were narrowed, and she was quick on her feet, following Riley's lead.
The four of them orbited around the tree until Riley stopped them with a gesture.
Then, Jason heard low, grunting words come from the other side of the tree trunk.
"He'll kill us if we don't!" something said with a half-bellowing, half-belching voice.
"We make him happy this time! You'll see!" the responding voice was still thick and forceful, but slightly higher in pitch.
"What we find out here?!" another asked. Its voice was as deep as the first, but nasally and buzzing. "Nothing here but rats and bugs!"
"Voro will not kill us. He loves us!"
Jason saw shadowy movement through the cracks in the huge root structure. He could hear their steps now. The creatures—whatever they were—were heavy. They had to be giants. It was a group of them, too!
"Not always," the first voice replied. "Not anymore."
The heavy footfalls made the spongy ground under Jason's boots vibrate. He tried to imagine the monsters on the other side of the tree, thinking back to images of ogres and ettins from DnD. His knees felt like jelly. He took a deep breath to try and keep from letting his breathing get out of control.
Jason caught a whiff of a terrible smell on the wind; something rising above the odors of mud and sulfur. It was a rotten, acrid smell like garbage and meat left out in the sun for days.
The higher voice added, "Never know now. We must find a pet he likes. We will! Voro will be happy with us!"
"What is there to find in Shattered Swamp?" the low, buzzing voice replied. "Nothing new. Strangers all gone ... or dead."
"We will find something!" the higher voice exclaimed. "We must!"
Jason could tell that the unseen giants were moving past them. He looked at his teammates. Riley and Gliath were frosty and waiting, ready for action. Morgana listened with her green eyes wide, but she didn't show an ounce of fear on her face. She held the AR against her shoulder, but her right hand held the grip lightly. Jason imagined that she would dramatically prefer her magical sword.
"Come on!" Riley suddenly whispered. "Around some more!"
He encouraged them all farther around the root structure. Ring around the root-cage, Jason thought. His heart was hammering in his chest and neck. The giants' speech became harder to understand as they wandered farther away, but Jason had given up on understanding by then. He was focused on the faint, dark shapes he saw through the shadowy recesses of the roots. He felt at the lava key on his left wrist...
Finally, Riley stood straighter and relaxed, lowering the muzzle of his rifle.
"Gone?" Morgana asked. "I want to see!"
"Yeah," Riley replied. "Two giants."
"Only two?" Jason asked, following Morgana as she crept around the side of the root structure to look at the backs of the monsters that had passed them by. "But I heard at least three voices."
Sneaking around the trees, Jason swallowed when he saw footprints before him in the bog that were far larger than any human's. They weren't T-Rex-sized or anything, but they were perhaps three times bigger than Jason's feet!
When he ducked around the tree to look, Jason caught sight of two creatures—still visible for the moment but hazy in the mist—each broad and thick with huge shoulders. The departing giants—well, they were more like ogres, really—were maybe eight feet tall and scantily dressed in primitive garb that Jason couldn't really make out from this distance. They carried spears a little longer than they were tall. Through the mist, all he could see was the shapes of their bodies, heads, weapons, and make out a little about their clothing, but it was hard to see more. The giants' arms were too long and bulky. It was difficult to make out their heads from behind because of their thick backs and trapezius muscles, but as he stared...
The giants each had two heads.
Ettin/ogre hybrids, Jason thought. Ettins in DnD were way bigger that those; about as big as a hill giant.
That's why Jason had heard more than two voices. It was like four people having a conversation.
"They have two heads!" Morgana exclaimed next to him. Jason smiled at her and saw that Morgana seemed actually excited. Riley and Gliath casually walked up behind them.
"Let's move on," Riley said. "Hopefully we can avoid dealing with any of those frukers."
"Yeah," Jason replied. "Find the troll, take his head, and get back to R&R, right?"
"Zappo."
They started off. Jason led the way, following the 'troll compass' on his OCS. 2.6 miles wasn't very far at all, and the ground was fairly easy to traverse, even moist as it was. He never shook away the dread simmering in his guts about those giants. He kept his eyes peeled as they followed his OCS, startled by every sound along the way.
"Might want to keep close to the root structures," Riley said at one point, "in case we need to hide again."
"Good idea."
The 'distance to troll' ticked down tenth by tenth of a mile as they went. They were a mile and a half away from their target when the black storm came back.
Just like before, the maelstrom flew in from the south (according to Jason's OCS), and it swept in with an almost unnatural fury, darkening the world around Jason immediately and battering the Reality Rifters around as they took cover against a tree and its bulbous cage of thick, above-ground roots.
As the blackness settled in and pelted them with stinging, hot rain, Jason readied his OCS to scan the will-o-wisp things—if they were to return—but they never showed up.
A few minutes later, the storm moved on, leaving the group huddled against the tall network of roots surrounding the nearest tree trunk. When Jason could see again, he looked at the others. The other three Realty Rifters looked fine. He looked down at his OCS and—
Jason suddenly made out the chitinous face of a huge insect right in front of him. It squirmed out through a gap in the roots from the pungent darkness around the tree base like a quick worm. It was covered with natural armored plating and propelled by dozens of long, spindly legs tipped with hooks. The incoming bug was like a huge, fat centipede, green and purple, and the size of Jason himself! It made skittering sounds as it emerged from the darkness, multiple long feelers extending from its insectoid face. The thing regarded Jason with several beady, black eyes like marbles as its pedipalps and complicated mouth fidgeted and slid back and forth on itself...
"Fuck!" Jason cried, falling backwards onto the muddy ground.
There was a bright flash of red light. Jason felt a wave of heat on his face. The bug's face exploded. Steam burst from where its eyes and mouth had been and parts of its head were on fire, immediately smoldering and filling the air with black tendrils of smoke. Jason smelled nothing but the stench of burning chemicals. He felt some of the goo from the big insect's splattered head on his face.
The fat centipede thing collapsed half-way out of the root structure right in front of Jason. Its face smoked and burned on.
Jason looked at Riley just in time to see the cyborg slinging his blaster back into its holster.
"Get up, Jason," Riley said. "Let's get the job done."
Jason laughed and scoffed, climbing back to his feet. He reached up and wiped the bug spatter off of his face, then looked at Morgana. She was watching him with a smirk. Jason felt his face grow hot.
He turned to Riley. "Thanks, man."
"No problem, Jason. Lead on."
They continued, following the OCS. When they were a half-mile away from where a troll was supposedly waiting, Jason stopped.
"A half-mile ahead," he said, scanning around up ahead with his eyes.
The terrain had changed. The constant swampy forest of drier bog-ground and endless towering trees with messy and complex root networks around them was thinning out. Looking ahead and down, Jason saw the land open up and slope downwards toward a wide valley. There were larger pools of muddy water choked with red algae, and a vast clearing stretched from left to right along the tree line of the bizarre woods. The clearing was maybe a mile wide, dipping in the center before sloping up and ending in another forest on the other side.
A thin mist hovered above the bog for as far as Jason could see. Now, finally breaking out from under the canopy of the mushroom-shaped trees, he could see the sky more clearly. It was overcast. Jason couldn't make out a sun anywhere. The entire atmosphere was uniform and dreary.
Looking ahead again, Jason figured that the troll—according to the OCS—should be in sight. He was certain that a half-mile ahead would put them in the middle of the clearing, but he didn't see a troll down there. The bog was pretty open in the middle of the valley, but full of pools and natural earthen mounds.
The ground was pretty much the same outside the forest: chunky, soft, wet bog, thick with those brown and green bush-vines and sloppily decorated with strands of red algae. The root knees that had been so prevalent in the woods eventually tapered out, disappearing after a hundred yards or so down the slope from the tree line. There was something new here, too. All around the pools of red water were thick and raspy blades of grass that grew taller than Jason's head, intermingled with stalks that might have been cattails on another world. Here, the cattails were long, straight shafts with nothing on their tips. Jason thought back to the ettins' spears. They might have used those stalks to make their spear shafts.
A trio of low-flying giant mosquitos buzzed by, pausing near the Reality Rifters as if to consider them for a meal. Jason aimed his AK at one of them, hoping that he wouldn't have to fire and give away their position so close to the troll.
The bugs flew on.
Jason sighed then turned to Riley.
"You wanna use your flying disc to maybe scout out what's over there?" he asked. "I can't see anything a half-mile ahead. It's just all bog."
"No need," Riley replied. "I can see just fine. There's a cave mouth up ahead. The ground swells up a little there, and a big hole goes down into the ground. Can you see it?"
Of course. Riley's cybernetic eyes could zoom.
"Troll cave..." Jason muttered to himself. He couldn't see it. He strained, but he didn't see anything down there resembling a cave.
"Yeah. Let's go," Riley said.
"So tell me about the troll," Morgana said. "You all seem to know what we're up against, right?"
"I think so," Jason said. "If it's ... um ... like I'm thinking, then it'll be about as tall as those ettins we saw, be really freaking mean and dangerous, super hungry, and will try to tear us to pieces."
"Great," she replied.
Jason went on. "Trolls have really big claws, know how to use 'em, and the worst thing is they regenerate really quickly after taking damage."
"That's right," Riley said. "Nasty frukers. We'll wanna shoot the hell out of 'em, then, you can use Dawnbringer to chop its head off when it's down. Sounds good, girly?"
"It's Morgana," she said.
"Okay, Morgana?" Riley amended.
"I can also take its head," Gliath said with his low voice.
Jason looked back at the leopardwere who'd been silently moving with them. Gliath stalked along without a sound like a dark ghost. The odd metal case that Skinner had given them for the troll's head was slung to his body and bounced lightly against his back.
"Yeah, I know you can, buddy," Riley said, smiling back at his feline friend. "I reckon either one of you should be up for it, depending on how shet goes down."
"Yes, Ranaja."
They set out to cross the distance, leaving the forest. Now, out in the open, Jason found himself feeling very uncomfortable and exposed. If any of those ettins came after them, they'd have a hard time hiding with the only concealment being occasional copses of tall, flat grasses around the water.
Near the larger pools, the sulfur smell became even stronger.
When they approached the troll cave—Jason could see it clearly now and it scared the hell out of him—they all spread out, stalking up to the cave mouth with weapons up and ready.
Jason felt something hard between the sole of his right boot and the spongy ground. He looked down. All around the cave, stuck in the mud, were bones. They were big bones. Jason stood still for a moment and looked around, identifying a few larger-than-human skulls, some of which had a single, squat horn growing from the forehead.
Jason saw a single skull that was obviously human.
He stared at it and cold fear bloomed in his belly.
"Jason," Riley said, snapping him out of his dread. The soldier was looking at him. He was waiting near the cave's mouth with his Marlin 1895sbl pointed inside.
"Look," Jason said, pointing. "That's a human skull..."
It was quiet here. The constant drone of the insects and small, croaking animals had died down when they left the woods. Or, Jason thought, was it when we neared this cave? He could hear the continuous trickling of flowing water. Jason looked at the cave's mouth—a diagonal entry into the shallow hill—and realized that water was running into it from the surrounding area.
"The cave's full of water," Riley said. "Wanna find another troll?"
Jason's mind flew to the Spare Air attached to the side of his pack. Maybe they should head in, anyway...
No fucking way, he thought.
"Okay, hang on. Let me look," Jason said, pulling up his OCS again. "I'll bookmark this spot, too."
Jason made a bookmark called 'Troll Cave'. He made sure to save the coordinates of the temporal dimensions as well. After that escapade with the minotaur, there was no telling whether or not he might have to go back in time after a random catastrophe.
"Incoming," Riley said, looking off into the distance. "More ettins."
"Here?" Jason said. "Shit."
"Let's get close to the cave," Riley said. "They're sort of heading this way, but not directly."
There were ettin bones all over the ground. Jason imagined that the ettins might try to avoid passing directly in front of the cave.
"Okay," Jason said, edging his way closer to the cavern entrance. As Jason stepped closer, accidentally kicking a large bone on the way, he saw that the entrance to the cave was, indeed, submerged.
There's a troll in there, he thought. The OCS said so.
As all of the Reality Rifters moved closer to the cave entrance, Jason saw the ettins emerge from the mist. They were a good distance away still, but he was sure that they'd be able to see the four of them if they didn't hide right away. Ettins were supposed to have really good perception, right?
This isn't DnD, Jason thought.
Well, they still had two heads. Twice as many ears and eyes.
Then, just as Jason was able to count five two-headed giants heading their way, he saw black clouds swallow up the horizon behind them.
Another black storm swept in...
Chapter 10
"Can you see, Riley?" Jason shouted above the noise of the storm. "Where are the ettins?!"
The air became as black as pitch and the noise of the cyclone of darkness pressed in on Jason's artificial eardrums. Gusts of spinning wind threw stinging warm water into Jason's face. He kept his AK-47 shouldered and stayed as close to the troll cave as he dared. The surface of the submerged cave mouth tumbled and spit under the blasting weather.
Morgana was close to him. Every few seconds, Jason felt her left hand grab his arm as if making sure that he was still there.
Gliath was gone; lost in the black. He was probably standing right next to them.
"I can see some!" Riley shouted back, leaning in close to Jason's face. "My HUD's getting a l
ot of interference, but they're still out there. They're not any closer, looks like!"
Just then, Jason saw the spooky blue lights appear in the distance of the deepest, darkest area of the horizon. In the tumbling black vapors and stinging rain, Jason squinted and watched the bobbing blue orbs of light as they danced in the spinning gloom. He saw two of them. Then, there were three, all drifting through the maelstrom as if immune to the gales and roaring storm.
One of the blue balls was growing larger.
With a stab of cold fear, Jason realized that it wasn't expanding in size. It was coming closer.
"Will-o-wisp coming in!" he shouted to his friends, raising the muzzle of his rifle. He put his front sight on the bobbing blue ball of eerie light, not knowing whether he'd be able to hurt it or not. Was it incorporeal? Was it physical? Could he shatter it? Or was it made of light and his rounds would just pass right through without doing any harm?
The biting weather hurt Jason's eyes. Taking a quick breath against the pressure of the wind trying to force swamp water down his throat, Jason took a moment to quickly reach for the web of his left hand and switch his night vision on. His right eye was flooded with pale green mixed with swirling darker shades that blotted out the distance. It didn't help much, but the will-o-wisps appeared as shining beacons.
He aimed at the center of the one floating toward them...
"Wait!" Riley shouted. "Hold your fire!"
Jason realized that his finger was on the trigger and he was about to squeeze off a round. Adrenaline flowed through his system like flames through the rafters of a building on fire.
He lowered his muzzle.
"Here it comes!"
"Don't shoot! You'll draw the ettins in for sure!" Riley shouted.
Flipping his rifle back into safe with numb fingers, Jason let his AK drop to its sling then drew his lightning gun. The electron particle pistol wouldn't make a boom like his rifle. He aimed at the incoming bright ball of crackling light with his night vision eye, looking through the gun's strange iron sights. It was coming in fast.
