Redemption – The Third Era

[…]

We were advancing inside a long tunnel, Alìa stopped many times to study some traces on the ground and along the walls. She said that something was wrong. Ernam got close to her and they talked for a while. Kimbar reached them, I don’t know what they said to each other, but after some minutes our marching started again with the Damas in the first position. At a certain moment he waved us to stop, disappeared behind a horseshoe bend, we heard a terrible warning shout and after a second she came up again running, her face in flames and her eyes dilated: “Nest!!” she shouted coming towards ourselves. The silence after the bent was broken by terrible screams and ripping grunts. I saw Ernam drawing his big vitrified sword and placing his legs on the ground in a defensive position. Behind me I felt a wave of ‘tension’ that did brush against me and my hair stood up on my neck, the psychokinetic ones were getting ready. Alìa overstepped Ernam and placed herself in front of me. She took off her small axe with a serrated blade that she was wearing on her belt and the steam gun that was switched on with a hiss and a scorching puffball of vapour. Then, the doors of the Abyss opened in front of us…

Ernam rushed on the first monster that appeared in the tunnel, cut off one of his upper limbs with a powerful blow and right away another creature came from the same direction. A burst of green light arrived from behind my shoulders and hit the second beast piercing part of its shoulder and chest, inundating the cave with the stink of burning flesh and with terrible screams. Helena the corruptor had come into action. Some more Xintar came up, I haven’t even been able to understand which type they were from, I just know that they were frightening. Kimbar shouted something and soon after an iridescent energy shield appeared where there was the corridor’s bent. Some of the beasts were able to get through before the shield was completed, but the ones that followed them clashed on it and, while shaking and shivering, they moved away a bit, waiting while behind them some other beasts showed up. It seemed they knew that the shield would have given up sooner or later letting them go their way … how could that be possible? At the same moment I heard a choking scream from Kimbar, I turned back and saw the Tamiara flying against a wall that was bristling with uneven rocks and then collapsed to the ground almost fainting. From the shoulders of the Xintar that had hit him, it appeared the long dagger with an obsidian blade of the Vampire that slaughtered his throat flooding me and all the others, including the creatures that were around her, with greenish blood. Alìa shot, knocking down one of the Rixeens that had jumped on us. The sudden thud made by her weapon, made ourselves and the Xintars jolt. Trag slipped behind some specimen’s shoulders, I didn’t know what it was, and hold its shoulders with his bare hands, the beast shouted so high that almost broke our eardrums and rushed on him biting his arm, then collapsed to the ground with the mark of the metabolist Graunt hands engraved on its skin, which consisted of many small blisters dripping blood and a yellowish fluid. I took off my sword, shining and fresh from vitrification and … I stood still. I felt somebody’s hand that hold me from the hood of my cloak and was grabbing me from behind. “Stay behind Salk! – Helena shouted – You are obstructing my view!”
The Vampire had no longer anything beautiful on her face. Her features changed completely, the lower side of her face was pushing forward as a tiger or something of that kind and her teeth … her teeth were all upfront barbed and sharpened. Immediately I moved away from her, as if she was a far more dangerous beast than the ones that were attacking ourselves. I may be wrong but when she realized that, she seemed to be amused by my dismay. She raised her hands up and shouted as if she was making a great effort. From her fingers some basking yellow flashes busted bypassing Kimbar’s shield and hit three monsters dragging them to the ground. A plume of smoke came out from their chests.
From the corridor’s bent other creatures were coming up and the wounded ones around us were about to recuperate, ready to launch another assault.
“Go backwards! – Trag shouted – Go backwards!”
We started pulling back. A small specimen, maybe a cub, crawled swiftly along the rocky wall to hit us from the side, I saw it and without thinking I pierced with my sword the middle of its ribs. He tried to grip my hand with its claws and when I pulled back my blade, it collapsed to the ground, gnashing its teeth and staring at me with a hated look, however still alive. Ernam cut off its head with a cutting blow and pushed me to the bottom of the line. If Kimbar hadn’t grasp me on the fly, I would have fallen. I must admit that the Tamiaras have an excellent recovery when they are knocked down in a fight.
“We got to go away! – he shouted in order to be heard above the confusion – Alìa, get us out of here!”
The Damas reached me and Kimbar at the end of the line, while she kept on shooting to the creatures that were surrounding us: “How long that shield will last?” he asked the psychokinetic.
He looked at me, grinded his teeth and then answered the scout: “Too less.”
The girl shouted to the others to follow her, tightening up and trying to ward off the attacks of those creatures, we came back on our steps. We reached a hall from which various tunnels were branching off and from one of these a group of half a dozen creatures popped up, amid them one Skegar, one of the most dangerous type of Xintars. The purple scales that were on its body were something wonderful and the crest of horns of the same colour on its head and around its shoulders was almost brushing the ceiling. Something inside me broke, but also inside all the other ones, judging from their reactions.
“Oh no …” I heard Kimbar whisper. He stretched his hand and held the blade of my sword. A blue electrical charge traversed the weapon and some tangling went through my hand going up my arm. The sword was sizzling with energy. He moved away and started searching through his pockets in a convulse manner.
“Kimbar, they screwed us! – Ernam reached us almost breathless and turning his back to us pushed away one of the Rixeens with a hit from his big sword – They are coming from the tunnel that leads to the closer exit, Alìa must find another way out, get the kid out!”
“I can’t find my awrmis crystal anymore! – the Tamiara shouted answering him, while he kept on searching through his pockets – It must have fell down when they threw me against the wall!”
“You have a bag full of them, use them!”
“This is not the way it works Ernam, I need the big one to open up a portal and I cannot find it!”
Those two stared each other for some moment, completely dismayed. Trag landed on his back in the middle of us with an open wound on his chest. Instinctively I bent down to help him, but he ordered me to stay behind, while with his hand, freed from his huge spear, covered his wound, closed his eyes and his eyelids started trembling. A wither shade of pale came out from his fingers flooding the gash on his chest stopping immediately his blood loss. Ernam helped him to raise up when he gave him his hand.
“You got to do something more, Trag, – the berserk told him – it is not enough to stop the bleeding, you must close the wound!”
“Do you think this is the right moment, Salk?!” without saying anything else the Graunt got his spear while he deepened its shining awrmis tip in the belly of another Xintar that launched another attack.
From one of the various tunnels converging in the hall we heard the sound of powerful nails scratching the stone and the graceless grunts of other creatures approaching. Alìa’s face whitened reaching almost the diaphanous paleness of the vampire: “They are all coming here to protect the nest! – she shouted with her voice cracked by panic – We shall spread out and find another entrance!!”
At that moment another swarm of breasts burst into the hall. Ernam launched the most frightening scream I ever heard in my whole life.
For a moment all those creatures stopped as if they were frozen and for a second a complete silence fell. Then Ernam screamed again: “Ruuuuuuun!!”
We launched ourselves in every available direction as if gone crazy.

Some hours have gone by and I had no news of the other ones. I don’t know how long those creatures did run after me, I never thought I’d be able to run for so much. I have been compelled to stop in order to take my breath and relax my muscles, but now I have to recuperate and look for an exit, I have rested enough.

[To be continued…]

Atmospheres of the Third Era

We have decided to inaugurate a new section of our Blog, entitled ‘Atmospheres of the Third Era’. This section will contain short tales and stories coming to us from the Redemption The Third Era‘s world. This will allow you to learn more about the vast world where the Game is set, its main characters, places and all its people lifestyle.

Halloween is coming and we want to start this new section with a story having a little bit macabre sense. Here you can find a taste of it. The rest of the story will be published on Friday, 30th of October, while the end will be on 31th of October, our little way to celebrate with you the horror night!!!

Enjoy!

The Diary (Part I)

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Dear Diary,

… it seems a foolish beginning to me, but I believe this is the most appropriate one…

I never wrote a diary and quite frankly I have always found the idea of keeping one quite ridiculous, but when I opened my back pack to get a food ration and I saw this little notebook and the pencil I couldn’t resist.

Following the expedition inside these caves has been the most wrong decision I ever took. The Master Ivoré of the Fighters was clear about it, she told me not to do it because I wasn’t yet ready, but I wanted to come anyway. The other members of the group were all expert Xintar Hunters, or at least that is what I believed when I decided to follow them and now I don’t even know who has been left alive.

I knew it would have been dangerous, but coming back to Suntears with a precious piece of equipment taken from the scales of a Xintar, would have portrayed myself to the eyes of my Academy companions like a hero, now instead I feel like a perfect jerk.

Everything has happened so quickly that my recollections overlap, despite the fact that just few hours have gone by.

We were in formation and were going through a narrow passage. Alìa was opening the way, the Damas scout, was checking the marks left by those beasts going from one shadow to the other, then came Ernam, my berserk friend, a Salk like me, I was the third one in the column, behind me there were Trag, the enormous Graunt metabolist, Kimbar, the psychokinetic that came from the forests of the Tamiara and closing the line there was Helena, the corruptor Vampire. I felt safe, Ernam had told me about them and about the expedition they were setting towards those ‘damned caves’, they were a group of adventurers very well trained and experienced that have already worked together gaining various successes. I told them I would have liked to join them, it seemed a great way to spend my last weeks of vacation before the last Academy year started. Ernam answered that it wouldn’t have been appropriate, that it would be very dangerous, that I could become an obstacle for the other guys and that I would have had all the time in the world to gain experience and then become a Xintar Hunter for all purposes. I must have preyed to him crying like a child, because he finally accepted. The other welcomed me like some kind of a lucky charm mascot, even the vampire proved to be friendly …in a matter of three days we left and when we sighted an entrance to the Caves I wasn’t any longer scared by her …

At the beginning everything was fine, a handbook expedition. Alìa gave us some weird luminescent sticks, three each, that allowed us to see in the darkness of the underground without drawing the attention of the beasts with a powerful light, she recommended to turn on one and wait until it would be consumed, before using the next one, not to damage them and return them at the exit because once we had gone back to the Chasm she could recharge them.

Everything seemed to be perfect…

We met some tiny Rixeen, … I have never seen anything more frightening, a muddle of fangs, claws, horns, quills and scales as tall as me … and this was one of the smallest Xintar species … The ‘did’ tear it down and I helped them in a ‘valiant’ way, as the Tamiara pointed out laughing. We met some other Rixeen and we have even torn down a Rudurck cub (I confess, My Diary, that when he appeared in front of us, despite having seen it in various study texts, I almost shit in my pants, and that was just a puppy!). When the fight was over my duty was to take out from his entrails the glands that produce venom, it seems they are paid very well on the market, what the books or the Masters do not say is the vile stink that comes out of the bowels of these creatures, I think I didn’t throw up only because Trag, the enormous Graunt, was close to me in order to check that I wouldn’t pierce the glands ruining them. At the end he nodded solemnly saying that I had done a great job, then showed me a heap of rocks behind which I could throw up in privacy.

I began to feel like a ‘real’ Hunter, when everything collapsed …

[To be continued…]