Within the thicket of the tree's above, Kalika laid in wait for her prey. Her black hair with noticeable white strains, hung loose. She wore a newly made, wolf-skin garments.
The fur garments were black and grey that hung with its paws crudely tied together with some leather rope. The paws hung, draped over her bosom like a necklace to be displayed. And just below that was a newly made white fur bra, that was crafted from the rabbits she's killed. The same could be said with the black fur skirt, made of rabbit that draped down to her knees.
She kept her golden eyes fixed on a single point below her where a blue glowing magic crystal stood.
after some time of waiting, a horned deer with two huge antlers made their presence known. It approached a nearby, glowing crystal. And without hesitation, it broke a chunk of it off with its teeth, consuming the very crystals with an audible crunch.
With the deer distracted, Kalika made her move. Like a natural born professional, she dropped down, stabbing the deer in its throat.
It dropped hard to the ground, wiggling and writhing as it bled out. It continued to be twitched and struggle for some time, cling to its fleeting life, until the lights in its eyes left.
Kalika got up, exhaling from another hunt finished. She then turned her attention back to the magic crystal. "I wonder why those things like to eat these crystal..." Out of curiosity she touched it. It slowly dimmed, and after a few seconds it became gray.
She looked at it a little disappointed. She then broke a piece of the large crystal off, and out curiosity she chomped into it. To her surprise it was softer than expected, But also very crunchy.
"It's sweet…"
"GRHAAHHHH!!!" Kalika is ambushed from behind by a goblin with a makeshift axe!
She dodged, letting it strike the large grey crystal. its axe dug deep into the crystal, despite his small stature, he pulled it out with ease. The green pointy eared goblin readied itself to go on the attack again.
quickly scanning the area, she found an entire horde of goblins surrounding her. "Wow, There's more of you 'things' now, than yesterday... Are you all here to avenge those other groups I killed?"
She glared at the goblins that surrounded her, she then perked a smirk. "Good. I was starting to get bored..."
They all attacked at once, Swiping and swinging their poorly crafted weapons!
Kalika unfazed, blocked and dodged their attacks, seeing the glaring patterns in their movements. compared to fighting these goblins versus those fights in the prison, they're attacks were as simple as they got.
She proceeded to cut the neck of the first, kick the face of the second and throw her dagger into another. Another goblin came roaring in with its sharp stone rock, cutting through Kalika's leg.
The pain felt numb as she winced. The subtle pain quickly subsided as her leg healed. using this opportunity, she conjured her dagger back in hand, stabbing it straight into the head of the goblin. The twitching goblin was thrown into a crowd of his companions.
They stumbled and climbed over each other like a horde of desperate rats and charge back in all at once. through the rampaging goblins. In fact, it was like they were becoming more predictable with their actions.
Slowly this ambush was starting to become more of a game to her, as more goblins continued to pour from the dark recesses of the forests. one by one, one after another. They all lines up for the slaughter.
Limbs and heads flew in the air and their blood decorated, not only the ground, but Kalika and the deer she preyed upon. smile slowly formed followed by her maniacal laughter.
Hearing her laughter and seeing another of their comrades stabbed in the head, they finally realizing the one-sided slaughter they were all running into. They all froze. in an instant they all bolted away.
"Where are all of you going?" Kalika laughed.
She cut the head off of one of the fleeing goblins and sliced off the leg of the another. the others were too fast, escaping back into the darkness from whence they came.
Glancing back down to the goblin, who's leg she cut, she watched as it tried to desperately squirm away. She found it surprisingly amusing to watch the goblin's feeble attempt at escape as she approached it.
Catching up with the goblin she stepped on its back hard and watched as it writhed and shrieked in pain. she pushed harder, then harder until an audible pop followed by a now limp goblin.
slowly that smile she was had, faded as if it had never existed.
Kalika groaned in disappointment. "Why are these annoying things so weak?" She sighed and quickly slice the back of its next, assuring its death.
"Oh well..."
She glanced into the dark part of the forest, seeing some red beady eyes peaking from the darkness. she could tell that whatever was in the darkness was weary of her. she glanced at one of the goblins corpses and tossed it towards the red eyes.
After a minute or two of waiting, she could hear the devouring the corpse from whatever beast was hiding.
Despite her newly blank expression, she curled a subtle smile. She sat down herself down, simply listening to the beast eating like it's never eaten in its life.
"Do you like it? then you can have as much as you want. I can't say that I enjoy the taste myself though... they taste a little rotten in my opinion..." Kalika spoke.
after a little while she threw another towards the beast to see what would happen.
She heard nothing.
She grabbed another corpse and investigated the source of the eyes. Not long after, the sudden dragging in the dirt was heard. Clearly the beast was trying to make off with the newly acquired food.
Pressing on into the dark, Kalika eventually came across a huge wolf. But not just any wolf, the same one that had attacked her and Donavon about a week prior.
It was easy to tell with the scar it still had on its body. It was a glaring detail she still remembered when it escaped.
As the wolf caught a glimpse of her, it stopped and growled. The wolf stopped, growling at her.
It looked like it's been starving for a while but still had a strangely plumped stomach.
Undeterred, Kalika continued her approach to the wolf. She got within mere inches of the dangerous beast and reached out her hand. Seeing this, the wolf lashed out, chomping hard into Kalika's neck and pinning her down. In single motion, it killed her.
As Kalika's black blood flooded the ground, it quickly ceased, and to the wolfs shock, Kalika started petting it. It could only watch on as Kalika's neck completely healed leaving no scars in its wake.
as she continued to pet it, she sat back up with her unreadable expression. "Your fur... feels nice," she said.
She then pulled the goblin corpse, still in hand, closer to the wolf, setting it aside the other half eaten corpse. Kalika's actions seemed to only confuse the wolf further as she started to converse with it.
"You've been following me for the last couple days now, haven't you? If you're looking to get revenge, you can forget about it. You can't kill me, especially in this dream of mine… I can't die. Even if I wanted to, I can't."
Kalika turned her uncaring gaze to the far away ceiling of the huge pit, she watched the shimmering of the colorful sky. The blue, the red, the brown and green as cascading and mixing together forming other colors she hasn't seen in a while like her favorite color, purple.
"Hmmm…. I wonder if at some point I can die in this dream…."
Kalika went back to petting and feeling the fur of the wolf, who was still unsure what to do.
"Go on… Eat." Kalika said.
She conjured her blade, frightening the wolf. She then proceeded to cut an arm off the goblin and presented it to the large horned wolf.
"Here. Take it, I'm not going to kill you."
With great reluctance, the wolf actually took the arm, beginning to gnaw at it.
"There you go." she gave a pet, praising the monster.
She watched on, blankly as it continued to devour the goblins she gave. "You must feel alone now, now that your entire pack is gone... Don't worry... I'm sure you'll find more wolves like yourself in no time. Maybe... you'll even... die.... happy..."
Slowly, Kalika drifted off, and before she knew it, she was napping on the tough fur of the wolf.
Waking up, she found that the wolf was no longer there, along with the rest of the goblin's corpses. Luckily, the deer she hunted was still intact. She gave a small sigh of relief. "It's a good thing that wolf did take my deer, otherwise I would've had to continue hunting..."
Kalika paused for a moment, as if thinking. "Actually, was there wolf actually there..."
"Probably not..." Without wasting further time, she grabbed the deer and departed back to the cave.
She watched on as she traversed, seeing the fauna frolic and scurry away. She even saw some strange mucus-like blobs that roamed around aimlessly. The one she was watching was eating away at some of the yellow grass and deadly flowers without a care in the world.
She remembered trying to keep one as a little pet a few days back, but it didn't work out. The glaring problem that it would eat anything and everything it could simply to annoying for her to manage. especially since it'd always eat away her hand whenever she tried picking it up
A horned rabbit suddenly charged at Kalika but was easily dispatched in a single move of her blade. She didn't even flinch, instead she glance back at the head that was now separated from the body. She watched as several of the slimy creatures acted like vultures and ate away at the newly made corpse
With little interest in watching, she pressed on back to the cave.
After some time of traveling through the forest, she made it out and traversed wide plain of yellow grass where the cave sat in wait.
Finally making it back, she found Donovan working hard on his project. His chest was visible as he wore a crude wolf's coat that looked a little worse than Kalika's along with freshly made fur pants.
Donovan was tying together some flat logs together. he wiped his forehead, finally finished with whatever he was working on. Glancing up to see the source of the dragging noise he saw Kalika.
"Ah your back." he said.
Kalika dropped the deer at his feet. "Will this be enough?"
"Yeah, this should last us another couple of days for the trip tomorrow. It really doesn't make things easy with Bjorn's huge size." Donovan took a closer inspection of the deer, seeing all its unique features "A-anyways I'll see about preparing this for the trip, just rest up for now and I'll have supper prepared.
********
Later that night, he finished carving up the spoils of Kalila's hunt. The stone knife quickly vanished soon after. "Looks like I finished just in time." He said to himself.
He glanced over to Kalika who was watching the food slowly cook into a charry golden brown. Smelling the freshly cooked meat in the air, Donovan quickly cleaned himself up and check the food.
He set aside a few of the sticks of meat and passed the others around to both Kalika and Bjorn. With their food received, they all enjoyed the food for the night.
Despite Kalika's continued reluctance to interact with Bjorn, the atmosphere around the fire was peaceful. Perhaps because everyone knew it would be the last night they would sleep in this cave.
"Once it hits daylight we'll leave. You have everything you need?" Donovan said.
Kalika stared at him for a moment before turning her head. "Yes."
"Alright. Then we're settled."
How do you two plan on bringing me out of this cave in the morning?" Bjorn asked. "You don't plan on dragging me, do you?"
"We do." Kalika said. shortly after she returned to eating her meat stick.
An awkward silence followed and a cold sweat ran down Donovan's face, surprised by her pure bluntness. Meanwhile, Bjorn could only sigh hearing this.
"D-don't worry, I made something to help transport you down the road."
With her first helping done, Kalika took another of her stick from the fire. She stared at it for a solid minute.
"Here." Kalika said.
To Donovan's surprise, she held out the meat stick for him. "A…Are you sure?"
She nodded her head yes. "I… Just wanted to thank you."
She put the stick in his grasp, and he took it. "Thank you? For what?"
Kalika didn't answer. Instead, she got up, leaving to attend her favorite corner of the cave, where it was dimly lit. She laid in the makeshift fur bed, going to sleep.
Donovan looked at the food she gave. He didn't place much thought into it, instead he chose to smile acceptingly and enjoyed the newly cooked food.
Bjorn, seeing this, said nothing. Instead, he glanced carefully at Kalika, somewhat curious.
"I have a question." Bjorn spoke. Donovan turned, and listened.
"Yeah?"
"How do you two expect me to travel with you. You've been talking big about your big idea but you haven't explained a thing yet about it."
Donovan glanced away nervously, scratching the side of his head. "O-oh that... uh well...."
********
"Here it is!" Donovan presented his new creation with pride.
Bjorn's eyes almost twitched looking at it. To him it looked like a glorified sled, decorated with animal fur. It also had leather straps for his arms that were crudely put together. It also had some their supplies hooked up on top, leaving more than enough room for Bjorn.
"Since you can't walk around, we kind of do have to drag you like Kalika said before. I tried adding wheels, but uhhh…" Donovan glanced over to a pile of failed attempts at actually making a wheel.
Bjorn looked at Donovan more pitifully. "How pitiful..."
"Hey, don't look at me like that!" At this point Donovan wanted to die from embarrassment.
"I suppose it can't be helped, This'll do for now." Bjorn continued with a sigh. "There's a town at the end of the path just outside this region. You can probably get some craftsman there that could help there."
Donovan gave a sigh of relief hearing this. "That's good…"
"The only problem is that the travel will probably take a few more days then expected."
"That's fine." Kalika said. "Just get in so we could get going. The sooner we leave the better."
"Fine. Bjorn shimmied himself and laid into the makeshift sled. he brought his arms through the makeshift harness, finding it sturdier than expected.
Donovan grabbed one end of the rope tied to the sled. "R-right! Kalika you ready?" Donovan peeked for Kalika, only to find that she already had the other end of the rope.
Without warning she began pulling the sled by herself. Donovan quickly followed, helping take some of the stress off her.
Kalika glanced back at the cave. "Goodbye cave…"
Kalika then glance back to Bjorn "Hey, Bjorn." Kalika called. "what's the name of that place we're going again?"
"It's a town called Berg. The dirt path ahead will lead us there. As I said before, it'll take us about a week." He explained.
"Berg... Where have I heard that before...?" Kalika wondered. "Oh, well. it doesn't matter."
With those last thoughts, they continued their departure to terrains unknown. pushing past the forest and onto the main dirt path.
Back within the darkness of the forest, red beady eyes watched them carefully from afar.