Pete swung, his blade whistling as it cleaved apart the air at a speed that no normal man could muster. Surprise replaced the smug grin as his dull weapon met no resistance, overextending his reach as the clone of Chaos simply side-stepped, without so much as a glance in his direction.
"Are you quite done?" The red robe asked in a tone of condescension, as he folded his arms behind his back. Pete roared, lashing out with a whip-like motion, his blade arcing in a flashing blur toward the man's mid-section. Grant ducked fluidly, allowing the sharp blade passage above him, then spun, hands behind his back, in a way that caused his leg to lash out with a powerful spinning kick. Pete's world tilted, until with a painful thud, he hit the ground. "Really?" The red robed man asked, staring down at him.
"Little red man fast." The big barbarian rose back up, sulkily, his blade hanging loose beside him.
"Little red man will snap big ugly man's wrist if he tries that again." The response eliciting a soft chuckle from the Barbarian as he turned his attention over to The Keegan.
"You in trouble, big ugly man." He called, tossing the useless blunt weapon as The Keegan frowned at him in annoyance, though clearly unsure of what to say.
"If you two are quite done fucking about?" Saz spoke up sharply, starting to move off toward the exit as the rest fell into step behind them, her massive wolf padding along beside her silently. "We need to get going, if we leave right now, we can make it to Duketna by Sundown."
"No." Grant spoke up, hurrying to fall in beside her. "If we take the same route as The Peel, we take the same amount of time to travel the same distance he has travelled. We will gain nothing on him, merely continue in a journey parallel to his."
"We?" Saz hissed, stopping.
"Well, you didn't say no." He grinned, as Saz grunted. "We need to cover more distance, in less time."
"How?" Royston surprised himself by asking. "I ain't going back into that fuckin' nowhereland." Grant frowned.
"Nowhereland?" He paused, then shook his head. "Actually, don't care." He turned back to Sarah. "We take the emerald path." The woman snorted, rounding on him with a sneer.
"The Emerald path?" She asked, her eyes twinkling dangerously. "As in the abandoned road that cuts through the Green City? The road that drives its travellers to suicide? Not a single person in over a century, has made it through and survived. At least, not for long."
"I vote no, to kill-yourself road." Meat-sweats held up one hand as if calling a vote.
"Actually, there is someone that's survived the trip." Grant shot back, ignoring the bandit leader entirely. "Me."
"You." Saz looked at the man in disgust. "You're telling me, you've made it through the emerald. Unscathed." Grant shrugged.
"Mostly." An uneasy look crossed his features, but it was gone as quickly as it arrived. "Taking the Emerald will save us more than a month. The alternative is to trek the Ridge, crossing at the jagged point, which involves a lot of ropes, a lot of climbing, and a lot of camping. Oh, and snow. So much fucking snow."
"You can get us through?" Saz pressed, the rest of the group content to stay silent, allowing the woman to take the apparent lead.
"Probably." The red robed man answered with another shrug.
"Probably?"
"I can't guarantee that the weaker willed won't succumb to the whispers, but I can provide you all with the help that will give you the potential to escape the other side." He met Sarah's eyes, the woman chewing on her lip as if torn, before she began to swear loudly.
"Let's go." she snapped irritably.
"You sure that's a good idea?" The Bone Baker asked timidly, Sarah's expression folding into one of fury at being challenged, though softened quickly. She sighed.
"No, but he's right. We don't have any other option. The portal bought us some time, but every moment we hesitate, the Peeler gains. We'll be exactly the same distance behind him, when he reaches the serpent queen and hands over the goods."
"But we'll be alive." Royston offered, helpfully.
"Alive, and unpaid." Her response causing the rotund man to blink quickly as the meaning of her words sank in.
"That means no bourbon?"
"None." Sarah confirmed, Pete fighting a chuckle as he watched the middle-aged man's eyes alight with horror.
"Then what the fuck are we waiting for? For Chaos's sake, man. There's worse things out there than Death!"
"Such as a life without bourbon?" The Bone Baker asked with a frown of his own.
"See? He gets it." The mage sighed, though remained silent.
The Emerald road, it appeared, had been named quite literally. A great expanse of glittering gemstones, cut into slabs as wide as Pete's arms could stretch, ablaze with a brilliant green fire from within as they refracted the overhead sun.
"Surely that can't be real?" Meat-Sweats asked with jaw hung low, running his eyes over the incalculable waelth lain before him.
"Oh, it's real." Grant confirmed. "Not that it matters." A raised eyebrow from the Bandit leader prompted the other man to continue. "The road wasn't made by us."
"Us?"
"Us, humanity. It's always been. From the first moment mankind stepped foot on this world, the Emerald was already here, already present."
"How? Who built it?" The Keegan, despite his hideous visage, hulking figure, and guttural growling voice, actually seemed rather intelligent. The poor beast. Giving that man a brain was like giving a mouse a full-size broadsword. Useless.
"No one knows. Whoever it was, was long gone before we arrived."
"Why does this matter?" Meat sweats cut the man off impatiently, tugging free a belt knife as he attempted to slide the blade beneath the emerald slab, then frowned as it refused to sink into the dirt.
"Because those aren't slabs. That's a pillar. Each one of those green squares is the top of a pillar, so tall, that the bottom has never been found."
"So we hack it off." The banding called, flipping his blade, then slamming the pommel into the green stone, to no avail.
"Good luck. Whatever the builders did to that rock, made it stronger than anything we know of. Everything has been tried, without so much as scratching the bastard stuff." Meat sweats grunted his understanding, sighed, then returned to the others. "Now. I need you all to listen very closely." The group fell silent, moving closer toward the red robed man. "you're going to see a lot of strange things as we start on this route, but the main thing to remember is to never leave the emerald road." He paused, meeting every pair of eyes. "The things you see will do everything they can to get you to step from the green, and you must resist. You will see things that you will never forget, things that will get under your skin, and change you forever-"
"Can I return to my earlier point of 'I vote no, to kill-yourself road'?" Meat-sweats called, the red robed man staring at him in irritation.
"The moment you step from the Emerald, you are dead." He paused again, throwing a harsher stare at the bandit leader than he did to the others, as if daring him to speak once more. "Not in that moment, not right then, but to step from the Emerald, is to invite death to dine on your soul. He may take his time to make the visit, but he will come. Do you all understand?" A few sullen nods, before they began to move once more, hesitating before the first great green stone.
Pete grunted, shouldering past the others as he grew tired of their cowardice, boot rising, then falling atop of the first stone that crackled with a green spark upon contact.
"Peter." He froze in confusion, then looked about himself.
"What is it?" the chubby man called. Pete looked about once more, but finding nothing. Strange. He could have put a full weight of gold on the fact that he had just heard his mother's voice, despite it being an impossibility. The woman hadn't even been born yet.
"Is nothing, chubby man. Come, let us get you some exercise, perhaps lessen that large belly." He called back, grinning devilishly as the chubby man muttered under his breath, then stepped forward. The same green flash flared upon contact, then the man froze. Royston frowned, looking off to the side, then shook his head and continued.
"Peter." Pete spun, knowing full well that this time, he hadn't imagined it. That was the voice of his mother. "Peter." Sure enough, stood just a short distance away within the waist height brown grass, was his Mother.
"Mother?" He whispered, quiet enough to keep the word private.
"My boy." The woman smiled, spreading her arms warmly as if awaiting an embrace.
"It's not her." Sarah spoke quietly from beside him, her presence causing the big man to jump. He frowned, blinking away the strange trance-like state that the arrival of his unborn mother had prompted, remembering the little red-man's words. in fact, now that he had regained some element of what little wit he possessed, he could see a strange number of anomalies on the woman before him, the creature masquerading as his mother. Her jaw was just ever so slightly too long, and her mouth too wide, as if the jaw itself would detach as she spoke, elongating terrifyingly,
"Foul spirit." He roared at the thing, who smiled eerily, then vanished. "Pathetic." He rumbled, shaking his head. "Weak willed fools perish upon these stones, not men. Not us." He growled, pushing away the mental fog that had begun to creep up on him once more. In fact, it wasn't just a mental fog, a literal fog had somehow enveloped the group as they had walked, how, he had no idea, they had only been on the road a few mere steps. Pete paused, turning back toward the direction they had come, then froze in shock. "Little man." He called to Grant, the red robed man's eye haunted as he tuned them from off in the misty distance to meet the barbarian's own.
"What?"
"How long?" Grant blinked, though somehow managed to understand the big man's question. Perhaps as he himself had traversed the road before, he kew of the strangeness of the journey.
"Two days." He replied. "I think. It's hard to keep track. I've seen two moons since we arrived, though that is not to say there has not been more. Time... Time doesn't work as it should here."
Pete cursed. How had he managed to function those past two days. To him, the journey had been fleeting, mere steps taken onto the green, only moments ago, but in reality, entire days had passed. He paused, casting an eye over his fellow companions, noting the same haunted look of fear in the eyes of each.
"No!" Meat sweats suddenly screamed, falling his knees, his eyes locked to his own hands as he turned them over before him. "No! I didn't know! I didn't know!" He continued to shout, tears streaming down from either eye, even as Pete helped him back to his feet.
"Silence." The barbarian boomed, more due to lack of anything real to say, though the sudden volume seemed to work, Meat-sweats shocked from whatever vision he had been lost in.
"How..." The Bandit blinked groggily, glancing at his hands in confusion. "Where..." Then noticed once more the emerald stone beneath his feet. "Oh, right. Thanks." Pete nodded, releasing him, just as Sarah sprinted past.
"Silence!" Pete roared, lunging for the woman with one massive hand, but he was too slow. A bright green spark arced out from the sole of Sarah's foot as it parted from the Emerald, then with a thud, she was off the stone. She paused, terror widening both eyes as the woman looked behind her, as in pursuit, before she bolted into the mist.
"Fuck." Pete grumbled, watching as Hank the wolf slipped silently into the gloom behind her.
Should the crew leave the Emerald to rescue Saz? Should Pete go alone? Or at all? Sarah's fate is in your hands.
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