Lettuce's Night of Warptide

That’s what I think sometimes. But not when it actually happens. Because I’m frozen in place.

Warptide was supposed to be an event that has nothing to do with me. Magic wasn’t something I dabbled in and neither were horror stories of times past. I humoured it though. Set out offerings, put on a simple costume, maybe. Anything to lift my spirits that were low due to seeing everything wither and die around me. Still, even in death nature had ways to look beautiful.

I was sat at a river bank that evening. My first Warptide. I was watching darkness fall over the burning red canopy, waiting for the day to pass.

Shrieks.

Definitely, I could make out loud, panicked voices from the town behind me. It wasn’t just the occasional loud voice. It was much like the sound of the river but chaotic. Voices bubbling and mixing together, changing in volume. I didn’t want to turn around. I kept facing straight ahead, trying to convince myself that it was just a normal part of the season. That I just didn’t understand.

The leaves behind me rustled in the wind and the muscles on my face tensed.

It’s just leaves.

Convincing myself that everything was fine, I turned my head.

Bright. It was bright. And it wasn’t just the rustling of the leaves. There was a faint crackling of flames. Further away, separated from me by several lines of bushes and trees, was a body of bright, colourful fire moving toward me. The crackling; it was more akin to laughter.

My whole body became rigid and all I could do was stare.

And that’s why I ask “why is freezing up part of my genetic code” but if I could think about such a thing at that moment, I’d surely rather think about running. I don’t know how it is for others; because others get frozen in fear too. But for me, I just see what’s happening. I understand it all. In fact, I understand more than I normally do. I notice everything. Yet, my thoughts are just as still as my limbs. I can’t tell if I’m shaking or not.

The light was blue. It had a face within the dancing body of fire. That body floated a bit above the ground and bobbed in the air as it got closer. The shape was ever-changing, but always retained a face, clawed hands and a torso that ended in a wisp. Honestly, it looked… Nice. But I can only say that now.

The crackling got louder and whether it was an illusion or not I think I actually started to hear mocking laughter as well. At the same time, I’m sure my eyes only grew wider. At some point, my eyeballs might have actually popped out of my skull. But no matter how I joke now, I assure you I had no such thoughts on the day itself.

How close did it get? When I try to recall, I can’t say. It felt like all I could see was that blue, laughing wisp at the end. Gradually, my empty thoughts started to fill with indiscernible whispers. I broke into a cold sweat and, for the first time since I saw this creature, I thought about what might happen to me.

What is that? Really, what could it possibly be? And why would it approach me?

My throat clenched, my head grew heavy with voices, and my eyes were dry from not blinking at all.

It crackled and laughed. And I just stared at it.

Suddenly, the ground beneath me disappeared. My vision became just a streak of blurred-together scenery. “GET LOST!” A female voice shouted as I landed heavily, the pain shooting through my body and snapping me to awareness. I propped myself up on my elbows to look at what was going on behind me.

The blue wisp was crackling away as ever but was still, while a blue, quadruped wyngro snarled at it. “Get lost, I said!” she shouted at it. That wyngro! I recognized her from when she was a baby. It was Anina – someone you could count on to step up to a challenge. I watched her in envy as she circled the flame. Her eyes were fixed on it with not a single trace of fear in her gaze. I got up slowly, as if moving fast might attract its attention. I was confused, as everything I had observed in this time demanded my mind to analyse it all.

While my mind was catching up on events, Anina was keeping the thing in check. I found it kind of odd that she also kept a certain distance too. But, yeah, pouncing on fire didn’t seem like a great idea even then when I could barely piece a decent sentence together. If I’d had my wits about me, maybe I would have realized that we were in the perfect location to take advantage of the relationship between fire and water.

I didn’t have to though.

All I could do was notice that Anina had lured the wisp very close to the bank (meaning the wisp hadn’t yet gotten all that close to me yet after all) and another body appeared from the darkness. It was a sturdy, yet sleek dark green body that shot out of the forest and lunged into the river with incredible force. The impact resulted in a loud splash, spreading large droplets all around. Right then, a bigger body followed right after and created an even taller wall of water to rain upon the shore.

Predictably, Anina was soaked. But so was the wisp. It got noticeably smaller, the flames flickering feverishly as it tried to retain its shape. It was moving slowly away. But as if that wasn’t good enough, Anina started shaking off the water on her body, sprinkling the last attack on the flame demon. The wisp retreated to from where it had come.

Anina straightened proudly and smirked looking satisfied with the trio’s work. The other two climbed out of the river and did as she had done before, covering her in water again. The huntress shivered and grumbled, “Stop that!” The bulky black wyngro grinned while the dark green one only showed a small smile.

“You okay?” After shooting a quick glare at the two, she stepped towards me with concern.

With a few second delay, I nodded hastily and blinked a bunch. I was finally back to reality but had no idea what I should do now. I wasn’t that familiar with these characters or anyone really. Moreover, I had no idea what that fire creature had been and as I stood there I realized that the town was still really, really loud.

I must have had a look of utter confusion on my face. Increasingly so, as all three wyngrew came closer and I spied even more appearing behind them. “That was a close one, huh—uh… Lettuce!” Anina shot me a reassuring grin but it had little effect on me as I was preoccupied with observing the movement behind them. Noticing this, she hurried to explain. “Oh, uh, this is my merry band of super heroes!” she laughed. The bulky one grinned proudly at her statement, even thumping her chest. “These are Cameo and Artemis. We have gathered a little team going around protecting wyngrew from the fire wisps.”

“Oh… Nice… Nice to meet you..?” I remembered some manners and raised a side of my face into a smile; I even managed to raise an arm as if to wave. I placed the names on the faces – Anina the blue huntress, Artemis the dark silent one and Cameo the bulky black one. Anina pointed at and introduced the others too but I no longer remember who they were. I think the moment she did, I immediately forgot.

Artemis nodded in response to my unsure greeting. Cameo was too friendly for my liking though, getting in close and patting me on my shoulder. I jerked back as soon as she did. I imagine my face scrunched up so much, that the message became extremely clear to her and she withdrew immediately.

“Um, thank you for saving me but… What’s going on?” Not knowing anything made me tenser than I needed to be and lashing out at my saviours was something I wanted to avoid.

“Oh, I guess you don’t know,” Anina looked surprised. It seemed some major developments had escaped my notice. She was more than happy to catch me up on the situation, all eyes on her. “You know that creepy sealed up underground sanctuary? Apparently, someone broke it open and now all the surrounding areas are getting overrun by these wisps.”

“W-what?!” I surprised myself, letting out such a loud voice. I had heard stories surrounding Warptide but I had not been convinced they were true. “So what are we going to do?” I grabbed my face in worry and looked to the trio for answers.

Cameo turned to Artemis. Artemis turned to Anina. She nodded knowingly and turned to me. “The king has already sent his troops and a call for help. We’re supposed to find these funny-looking rock things to seal the sanctuary. And that’s it! Easy, right?” she smiled. Artemis sighed but I think she agreed with her because the look on her face was nothing but calm. Cameo was particularly enthusiastic.

After what had happened, I could at least feel safe with these three. I let my hands slip off my face as I considered my course of action. “I want to look for them,” I said. While hiding in the river seemed like an appealing and safe idea, I rather wanted this too-real horror holiday to return to being something more easily ignored.

Cameo seemed like she wanted to clasp my hands to welcome me into the team but she stopped just short of touching me, stomping the ground in front of me instead. Anina looked a bit surprised at my words, somehow. “Heh, sure! It’s a request for everyone after all! We’ll be on the move looking for others who need help so you can be an extra set of eyes and look for the rocks,” she said loudly so everyone behind her could hear.

They chattered amongst themselves and somehow before I knew it we were moving in an unorganized mass, everyone looking every-which-way. I tried to keep my distance wherever I could, but more time had to be spent scouring the shrubbery for… Rocks?

“Hey, so what do these rocks look like?” I raised my head and looked around. My more familiar trio were closest, walking in front of me.

“With runes,” Artemis said gruffly, after checking that Anina hadn’t noticed my question.

The description was pretty weak but made it clear that this was no easy task. But with every single able wyngro looking, there was probably some hope. I didn’t understand why the rune stones would be found just anywhere that everyone had to look, though. But I didn’t understand a lot of things so I didn’t dwell.

It was easier to look than it would have been in summer. The foliage was much sparser and so a quick whisk through some branches allowed for enough visibility to check for magical rocks. It was dark though. The last bit of light had already disappeared and there was only moonlight to guide us. I had to take extra care and hope that those runes glowed with magical energy.

From an observer’s perspective, I probably looked like a quadruped like the other three. My face was almost one with the ground – I had to concentrate so hard. My hands patted the ground all around me as I moved steadily onwards. All I could hear was the rest of the band exchanging brief words and shouts; maybe there was a wisp they had to fight off. Actually, they seemed to get louder.

“LETTUCE! LOOK OUT!”

Before I could ascertain whose voice it was, I realized that my hand was sinking lower than my other one. That is to say, there wasn’t any ground to put it on. I went into shock as my weight transferred to the front and I tipped over a ledge. I let out a shout but it was cut short by needing to grunt in surprise as I found the ground again – there was a slope rather than a steep fall – and I rolled downwards. Maybe I should count my blessings because I didn’t plummet to my doom or crash painfully into a tree stump or big rock. It was a bumpy ride anyway and scary too since I couldn’t make myself stop. As much as I tried to grab onto something, it was no use. Gravity was calling me and I responded by rolling even faster.

My speed dropped though. Eventually the movement changed from a frantic roll to a slow slide as the ground evened out. I lied there completely still and opened my eyes slowly. To my head, it was as though I was still spinning and I squeezed my eyes shut until I felt steadier.

I heard a body sliding on the ground and steps. When I finally dared look, I saw Artemis staring down at me with a serious, wide-eyed expression.

“I… I’m okay… I think,” I answered so she wouldn’t have to ask and got up slowly.

“Lettuce! Are you alive?!” Anina called from the ledge and I waved up at her. It was pretty high up and I could barely make out her shape. Realizing she might not be able to see me, I shouted back at her to let her know I hadn’t died.

I had several scrapes on me from what I could feel but I had no trouble standing or moving. Placing a hand on my chest, I let out a sigh. “That was scary…”

Artemis was in agreement.

It was slightly lighter down here – only slightly. Further from the slope was a rock face. It seemed like it ran really far all the way to the town. It reminded me of the legends from when our ancestors supposedly lived in hiding from mutants. Could there be a hollow living space behind this wall? I think Artemis was wondering this too as she was examining the wall as well.

“We’re going to look down here!” I walked closer to the slope and shouted as loudly as I could.

“OKAY! Artemis, look after her!” Anina shouted back. Artemis didn’t turn to her but Anina didn’t wait for a response anyway, and so we ended up separating. We had been on a course in a certain direction so we were soon going to converge anyway if we followed it.

Artemis and I seemed to have a silent agreement on this as we continued our search. With less of us, I was at the same time more at ease and more afraid. There were more layers of “defense” around me before where the outer layers would be there to essentially keep the wisps away from me. Now it was just Artemis.

I raised my head every-so-often to check for eerie chuckling fireballs. But as I did so, I noticed that Artemis was sticking pretty close to the wall. For safety? Something else? I failed to ignore it and so I checked on her every time I checked for wisps.

Crackling.

I didn’t mistake the sound for rustling leaves this time. My body straightened, “Artemis!” She was already aware, her gaze fixed on the faint, red light coming from opposite the wall. I rushed over to her. “H-how do we..?” I couldn’t bring myself to finish that because I didn’t want to face the possibility that there was nothing to use against it.

“Run,” she said simply.

She didn’t start before I did. We didn’t run fast since the wisp didn’t seem to be in a rush either. But it appeared to start picking up speed, as if it locked in on us. This made us abandon our search but that could wait.

Artemis seemed adamant about following along the rock face. At this time it occurred to me that if the legends of those times were true, then maybe there was an old entrance here somewhere. An entrance to an old home.

Getting trapped in one didn’t seem fun… But maybe there would be a rune stone there! Emboldened by the possibility, I focused more on the wall than I did our pursuer. Looking ahead, I didn’t see any indentation, even taking poor visibility into account. Then I looked higher.

“Ah! Artemis, look!” I pointed upwards as I slowed our pace. Artemis looked to where I was pointing – up along the wall somewhere in the middle there seemed to be a spot that was much darker than it ought to be. “Maybe that’s an entrance?” I looked to her and she returned my gaze with a nod.

When we got to the spot below it, we stopped, looking for a route up the wall. It wasn’t smooth, but there wasn’t anything like clear steps either. Maybe there were in the past but now we had to face the trials of rock climbing. Artemis looked at me as if to check if I was good to go. I didn’t say anything, instead looking back to see the wisp. It was still coming after us and it was gaining ground fast.

“Anyway, let’s try and go up! I’ll try to keep up with you,” I gestured to her to start climbing and after a brief pause she obliged. She was quick. Climbing seemed to be totally her element. After there was enough space, I started to climb too. I was nowhere near as fast. As I grabbed onto a jutting stone and pulled myself upwards, pain shot through my muscles. I clenched my jaws and kept climbing. That tumble had done more damage than I had realized. Afraid to fall, I didn’t want to rush, but the crackling of the wisp entered earshot. It was a floating flame that could likely scale this wall no problem. I could feel my blood turn cold, fingers and toes grabbing on with all my strength. My mind was starting to get empty, the last thoughts being curses towards my awful, awful survival instincts.

“It’s okay.”

I looked up. Artemis was already at the destination, peeking from the entrance into the wall. She held out her purple claws, far out in front of her. I stared and saw her release an ordinary stone from her grasp. As it fell, it fwooshed behind my head as it fell down. She kept doing this. Then, finally, my senses returned to me and with a rush of adrenalin I climbed up to her the fastest I’ve ever climbed.

“The rocks don’t work,” she said to my collapsed body beside her. I breathed heavily and rushed to check on the wisp. It was halfway up to us.

“Thanks anyway,” I whispered between breaths and rushed her inside. However, it was completely dark. I stopped, staring into the gaping darkness. “Uhhh…” I looked at Artemis but all I could make out was her silhouette. I saw her turn around and just sit.

I stared at the starry sky outside. Then I saw the red light of the wisp illuminate the entrance. “Oh! The wisp will show us the way!” I exclaimed and peeking at the silent wyngro beside me confirmed that it was exactly what she had been waiting for. She turned to face the darkness again and we began moving.

Though it was great we had a solution, I actually wanted out. Unknown darkness in front and a fiery monster behind – it was a precarious balance of staying in the ideal position between the two. My heart was beating a mile a minute and my only peace of mind was how calm Artemis seemed to be.

Then, the path widened and the light spread out a bit. I couldn’t quite make out the shapes, but it was a mess of broken… Stuff. There was something that looked like a table of sorts, and on the ground there seemed to be something like a rug, maybe. In any case, I didn’t care what any of it was. I was frantically picking up broken bits of rock and wood wherever the light could reach, hoping to find anything with a rune on it. I could sense Artemis behind me, acting as a barrier between me and the wisp. She pushed me onwards whenever the wisp got too close and I got even more frantic.

We were up against a wall then, perched atop a pile of broken, old furniture. I was digging through it, muttering “where are you, you stupid rock” like a chant. Artemis was now uncomfortably close. A clear sign that the wisp was way too close too. Dread filled my entire being and I didn’t dare turn around. I looked everywhere but behind me. Finally, I looked up.

Looking up seemed to be the theme of this night. My eyes widened as the red light danced around the wall, highlighting the edges of something that looked like a panel. My arms shot up to reach for it before I could think. I scratched at it with my claws, pushed and pulled. I could hear thuds and crashes behind me – Artemis throwing things at the wisp, I’m sure.

Finally, something clicked. I have no idea what I did, but the panel was part of a revolving mechanism or something. I stared in anticipation.

A light.

It was a light.

A faint, soft light.

But in this darkness, even with the spirit behind us, that light seemed fairly bright. Artemis stirred and I finally dared to look behind me. The wisp didn’t move, even that mischievous grin seemed much more docile than before.

There was no need to hesitate. I reached into the opened up space and grabbed the stone inside it. I held it in my palm and looked at the rune, the glow of which was now getting drowned out by the red. The symbol looked kind of like a pair of reed with a dot below the leaves enveloping them.  Really, it was just two lines, another line below them and a dot. I turned around and showed it to my companion.

“We did it, Artemis!”

Her face seemed to brighten as she looked at the rune stone. We exchanged satisfied looks, then planned our escape. The fact that the spirit didn’t come any closer meant this rock really had some power packed into it. How long had it been here? How much magic did it have left? I had so much I wanted to know but no one to ask.

We circled the wisp much like how Anina had done to the blue one before until we were back to the path outside. As soon as the escape route was no longer blocked by a being of terror, I began to recklessly trot towards fresh air. The rune in my hand didn’t seem like it was glowing anymore. I could hear Artemis behind me.

“OW!” I yelled out as I was forced to stop due to pain announcing that she had stepped on my tail. I glared at her but she was unaffected and lifted her foot so I could move again. “You can just tell me to slow down,” I complained.

The wisp was likely still following us, but with the rune stone we were probably protected. What we weren’t protected from though, was the descent from this cave.

I peered over the edge and gulped the cool autumn air. It was quite a ways down. Artemis looked at me inquisitively and all I could do was grin sheepishly. She waited and I assumed she wanted me to go first so she could follow me and stop me from falling instead of me falling onto her head.

With the magical stone in my mouth, I faced the rock face and lowered myself down. I found footing with my right foot first, then bent my knee to look for one with my left. As I thought, Artemis kept the distance between us small so that she could make sure I don’t meet the ground too soon. I took my time, double-checking each step I made. It was hard. The relief of escaping the wisp and fulfilling our goal made my body’s fatigue and injuries to overtake my mind as number one priorities. No matter how I reasoned that there’s still more danger, my whole being seemed to just want me to drop down and rest. I paused a lot and I don’t think my dark wyngro companion was happy with that. It might have been my imagination though. It might have been my own frustration spilling over. Wanting to rest sooner, I unconsciously started to rush.

Artemis slammed me into the wall, grabbing my scruff while struggling to hold on herself. My feet had knocked out some rocks. I kicked around, looking for somewhere else to stand but to no avail. The stone in my mouth prevented me from speaking or crying out. I was stuck flailing my legs like an idiot, which didn’t make Artemis’s job any easier.

“Hm?”

It was faint, but I’m sure it was Artemis. I stopped moving in case she said something. As I looked up at her, I saw her raise the claw she had been using to hold onto me.

What?

Betrayal! My eyes went wide, my body froze, despite a limp body being more likely to survive an impact. But Artemis became smaller. My mind was empty and Artemis was getting smaller.

I waited for impact.

“Mph!” I grunted. It was much softer… Rather, it wasn’t an impact. I was caught!

As soon as my mind snapped awake at the realization, there was a fall. A brief one as two black paws held me close. I looked up to see a happy Cameo.

“Nice catch!” Anina’s laughter.

As soon as I knew I was safe, I started to flail, trying to get out of the big lug’s hold. After a brief struggle, she finally let me go.

“You have a thing for falling, hey!” The blue wyngro walked up to me then stopped in surprise. I took the prize of our search out of my mouth and held it out in front of her. Cameo was up immediately to have a look as well and we were soon joined by Artemis too.

“You—You two found it!” Anina shouted but quieted down soon after. I thought she’d erupt into dance or something. But rather than that, she actually seemed to pout a bit. “You guys found it…” she said again, quietly, while peering at the rune stone.

Artemis was taking a better look at it. “Seriously, you should have told me you were going to do that,” I grumbled at her. “I was gonna die from a heart attack before I even hit the ground!” She shrugged. Of course. It turned out okay, after all.

Cameo patted me on the back and I shot a glare at her immediately. “I ALMOST DIED!” I shouted and she jumped back, startled.

Anina started laughing.

Needless to say, I wasn’t fun to be with up until we turned the rune stone in to a guard.

STARRING
My Lettuce
Feligriffin’s Anina
Battyniconi’s Artemis
ticticai’s Cameo

Word count: 4587

7+6/69.5 coins