In the Throes of Adventure | Tar Pit Troubles
Casper sat on the narrow shoreline drumming his fingers in the rough gravel beneath him. The cave mouth behind him leeched the smell of rotting flesh and hot earth, which clashed with the dank seaweed massed on the shoreline, and the particularly salty sea air assaulting the back of his mouth. When Sage, Bentbranch, and Kiyoshi finally dropped down from the slight cliff above him, he stood up, fished a sheet of well-worn parchment from his bag, and flicked it.
“Bentbranch, this has got to be the shoddiest Adventure Brief I’ve ever seen!”
Bentbranch grinned. “It’s going to be a certifiable adventure!”
Casper sighed and read the parchment aloud.
“To the Bravest of Adventurers:
I have a reliable tip about a particular goodie to be found in the Tar Pits. At its very depths there lies a small bush, and this particular bush bears a Devil’s Pomegranate only ONCE per year.
I am far too old to make the journey, and wish to pass this secret onto another.
Travel carefully!
Reward: What you find on your journey.”
Casper paused at the end and shook his head. It had been Bentbranch’s turn to pick their adventure, but the reality of this one wound Casper’s nerves like a Coiler around a coconut tree.
He took a deep breath and sobered up — that strange Gooey had proven both competent and useful in the past. Bentbranch just had a very different way of seeing the world; and it was a way that made Casper deeply uncomfortable. Trusting others had come hard enough, when it came to trusting Bentbranch… whether he did or not was still a toss-up.
“Guys, the risk on this one is 100% on our shoulders. Do we want to do this?”
Casper tried not to stare too hard at Bentbranch, who remained unshaken by the terms of the Adventure Brief.
Kiyoshi, not one to speak first, raised his hand. “I, uh, think we should, erm, do it. We ended up not even… uh… *cough* getting paid for the last gig we, eh, did.”
Sage shook a fist at the ocean, still resentful at the creature that had disrupted their gig at Coral Cove a few months back. Since that had all gone sideways — and the subsequent notorious reputation they had earned from it — almost nobody in town was willing to give them a fair shake. Their options were basic fruit gathering requisitions and apparently whatever wild legend hunt this was.
After a few moments, Sage simply nodded at Casper, who in-turn nodded at Bentbranch to lead the way. This was his quest, so he would take point as they ventured into the dark, disgusting, and deeply unsettling Tar Pits.
The quartet pushed into the cave, regarding the goopy skeletons of long-dead animals that all seemed to be fleeing. Casper stopped to inspect some of the picked-clean bones. As he ran a finger across an almost polished feline skull, he noticed the ragged and deep claw marks trailing from the mouth of Tar Pits entrance — they weren’t very old.
Inspecting the paws of the creature, he caught a whiff of hot bone.
“Hey, you guys go on without me, I want to check something…” Casper scowled and scratched the right side of his mask.
The other three shrugged and ventured deeper into the cavern, disappearing into a dimly lit mausoleum full of black, oily pillars decorated with ribs, femurs, and vertebrae of seemingly long-dead creatures who were unfortunate enough to fall through the weakened ceilings of these loosely connected rooms and caves.
Alone now, Casper sat back and watched his object of study — he found it peculiar that the skeleton seemed hot, with fresh nail marks gouged into the floor. The back half of the skeleton was slathered in a long string of black goo that trailed down below the winding and narrow walkways that allowed traversal of the Tar Pits.
Peeking over the edge closest to him and hanging a bit of himself upside down off the edge, Casper saw the mass of bubbling, hot tar below — and he was certain there were tinges of red beneath the surface. Letting his view focus a bit further away, he swore he could make out other tendrils of tar all throughout the lower level.
His curiosity satisfied for the moment, he pushed himself back up from the lip — something was very much not right. The skeleton had shifted during his distracted investigation.
Not only had the goo shifted back to reveal the feline’s tail bones, the skeleton had been dragged closer to the edge; the distance wasn’t far, but it was noticeable. Casper’s eyes widened as the sound of slow, steady dripping hit his ears.
And as suddenly as the realization had hit him, his vision flipped upside down and stale air whipped at his face as a black tendril wrapped itself around him and dragged him deeper into the reeking Tar Pits.
The tar probably wasn’t tar, after all.
Kiyoshi shuffled down a narrow, dark, and tar covered hallway with tiny steps. No matter how many adventures he went on with his friends, the impending sense of doom that scratched at the edges of his mind left him on the verge of cold sweating constantly. He would talk about his problems if he could, but prolonged speech had proved difficult for him — at least I don’t stutter up here, Kiyoshi tutted to himself.
He looked back at Sage and Bentbranch. They seemed unbothered, Sage frowning deeper and sighing louder with every one of Bentbranch’s yippee! noises as he tossed Curled Twig in the air. Kiyoshi smirked and quickened his pace as he saw a dull light twinkling ahead.
So much for Bentbranch leading the way.
As the trio arrived at the dull light, they were met with a sprawling swamp full of reeking tar, filthy, bubbling springs, forests of dead trees, and sagging reed patches. Most Gooeys stayed away from the Tar Pits — and this certainly was not what any of them had expected to come across.
What in the Elder Goo? How is all this possible underground?
Kiyoshi scratched the beak of his mask and took it all in. Where there should have been open sky was a mass of steam and fog, and the dull light that shined from the area was produced by the glowing film covering the cave walls, walkways, and bones sticking out of the tar.
“Ever wonder if something just ate the Tar Pits?” Bentbranch quipped.
Kiyoshi stiffened at the implication. The glowing film everywhere, the unnatural heat…
“Don’t be a coconut head, Bentbranch. There may be giant sea monsters, but there’s nothing big enough to eat and absorb a whole cave system,” Sage growled.
“You don’t know that! We could very easily be in the belly of an oversized Sizzle Toad, and this could all be hallucinations during our gruesome death throes!”
This time, Kiyoshi grimaced and gagged — but after composing himself finally spoke. “On an, uh, strictly logical note, erm, our lands would be, *cough*, riddled with, hm… crippling earthquakes.”
Sage gestured at Kiyoshi as if to say See? He gets it!
Bentbranch grinned and strutted forward.
“What were you two looking for again?” Bentbranch said while he cocked back and launched Curled Twig into an outcropping of petrified trees.
Sage and Kiyoshi both glared at the oblivious Gooey and turned toward the direction they assumed matched “deeper.” Ahead of them was a narrow path lashed with strings of black tar. Sage whistled to get everyone’s attention.
“Oookay! I’m going to cross this land bridge. I see a handful of other paths, and I want you two to each take one. Meet back here in a few,” Sage barely finished her command before she carefully stepped onto the tar slathered bridge.
Kiyoshi turned to Bentbranch, who suddenly seemed concerned.
“Curled Twig hasn’t come back yet…” He twirled his fingers and tugged at the almost invisible aura construct connecting Bentbranch and Curled Twig. The tiny figure must be caught in the trees.
Bentbranch huffed and plopped onto the ground — apparently deciding to ignore Sage’s orders.
Kiyoshi felt the knot in his belly winding tighter as he considered the situation. Taking the wider path off to the right, Kiyoshi strode toward the maze of rotting, sagging reeds.
Behind him, four black tendrils slithered out of the bubbling pools to snatch Bentbranch. Kiyoshi turned around, thinking Bentbranch was coming to join him — but the oblivious Gooey was nowhere to be found.
Before stepping into the maze, he shouted for Sage.
“I’m fine, Kyioshi — whoop!”
Thinking nothing of it, Kiyoshi lifted his head and shoved handfuls of reed stalks aside. The moment he was surrounded by reeds, a long black whip edged with bones careened through the air and cleaved the tops of the reeds. Squishy, rotting debris covered Kiyoshi as the boney whip contorted into the head of a serpent with glowing red eyes and hundreds of tiny teeth.
He knew the creature’s form well. And its presence was the furthest thing from good news.
Black Rot! How did that get here?
Kiyoshi screeched and bolted deeper into the threshed reeds. If he were remembering his studies accurately, the Black Rot was a magical oil serpent that had once threatened the Fae kingdom. Its unique ability to siphon aura from its prey made them especially dangerous for the Fae — with their aura being vastly superior to the average Gooey, one captured Fae could feed the Black Rot for months.
While it was thought that Black Rot were more of a multi-headed, singular creature, Kiyoshi often wondered if its multi-headed nature was a poor assumption. Perhaps the Black Rot were more like other serpents — nesting together for warmth. And given how warm the Tar Pits were…
Kiyoshi’s eyes bulged as the truth of the situation sliced into his back. The Black Rot was more than one serpent! While the one larger whip had risen from the bubbling waters, another had emerged to catch Kiyoshi off guard.
Its bone-pricked tail was evidence enough that they were not the same beast! But why hadn’t it tried to siphon his aura?
Where his back was lashed had also been where his bag was fastened… full of Sage’s aura pearls. Kiyoshi whipped around to find three medium-sized Rotlets — this discovery would need a new classification for the under-studied animal — snapping at each other, vying for the fire magic pearl.
The Rotlets oil-like bodies squirmed, shrunk, and expanded at random. So much so, that they seemed more like potential energy given form. Kiyoshi jumped to look above the severed reeds a few times, just to make sure he wouldn’t be interrupted. Quietly reaching for his bag while the adolescent serpents were consumed with claiming their magical treasures, Kiyoshi snatched back his jar of aura dust.
He sprinkled some into his hands, drawing a rune circle in front of him. Its myriad lines and shapes were a complex ritual spell that Serin, the Beast Tamer taught him — properly magical creatures could be contracted rather than just enchanted.
However, Kiyoshi wouldn’t get far with the Rotlets even if they were tamed.
While nobody had seen Black Rot since the downfall of the Fae, Kiyoshi was pretty sure the stories about them would lead to an angry mob of Sages coming after him, for such an act. This was partially why Serin lived in the foothills between Stickweave Forest and the Owlkin Massif — he could keep all sorts of contracted devilish beasts without trouble.
Kiyoshi used nearly all his aura dust as fuel for the ritual. He’d have to hurry this up, as it occurred to him that his friends might be in trouble. With the contract fueled by aura, Kiyoshi whistled, and used the flowing ball of aura he created to draw the rune of “Command.”
The noise and pale light shook the Rotlets from their treasures and their eyes flashed gold for a moment.
They roiled forward, their oily bodies rippling and threatening to spout all manner of sharp objects. However, the moment they touched his rune circle, Kiyoshi willed the Command rune to slam down, caging the serpents in the contract circle.
Serin had told Kiyoshi that this particular ritual shifted something in the mind of the creatures they contracted with — perhaps the influx of aura allowed their minds to rise out of animalistic instinct?
Either way, the three Rotlets stiffened, suddenly more aware, and more relaxed. Their gaze had softened. Their bodies coiled around each other, and before Kiyoshi’s very eyes, their bodies formed into one, though the three heads remained!
Angling together into a singular point, they looked to the air and pulsed out their own aura. Kiyoshi’s Command rune shifted slightly to “Accept.” The Rotlets had accepted Kiyoshi’s contract! However, something felt off…
Greetings Master Kiyoshi. We are Nagibanu, Fragments of Rot.
Telepathy? Cold sweat rolled down Kiyoshi’s back, stinging the wound from Nagibanu.
“I… I… Don’t, ehm, understand, Nagib-banu,” his hands quivered as he motioned to dispel the contracting runes.
A strange magic has forced us to splinter into individual fragments. The Black Rot is no longer, and can no longer, be fully of one mind.
So the hive mind hypothesis had been correct after all.
However… We are still capable of lesser combinations. And we fear that your companions may have suffered a terrible fate at the hands of our kin.
“Nonsense! My, ehm, friends, *cough*, are powerful. Do you, uh, know where they, eck, are?” Kiyoshi stood and gathered his things back into his bag. Tying off the severed strap, it hugged him tighter than he liked.
Follow us, Master.
The much larger Rotlet surged forward, and in a blink had already crossed over to the next island. Kiyoshi waded through the reeking water and clambered onto the dirt. Nagibanu gazed at him patiently.
Perhaps a ride, Master Kiyoshi?
“Just… Kiyoshi. Please…” He huffed and pushed himself upright from the muddy ground to find Nagibanu had flattened itself a bit into the shape of a crude sled. Just enough for Kiyoshi to climb aboard and hold on as the serpent surfed across the still waters surrounding them.
“So, was all that, eh, tar… Black Rot?”
Some, but not all. We are somewhat unclear on the nature of how this all came to be. All we remember is impish laughter rousing us from our slumber. Then, we were no longer whole.
Laughter? Kiyoshi shivered at the thought of something causing the Black Rot to awaken and split.
The duo crossed across the wide, stinking cavern and careened over a black waterfall. Kiyoshi peered closer and spotted red eyes mixed with the slow flowing tar — even though it rushed as a waterfall, it created a muted slopping sound rather than the roar of rapidly moving water.
As they slid down the rather tall tar-fall the occasional Rotlet head would snap out of the tar, bony teeth ripping at the air.
After some time, they entered the lowest point of the Tar Pits. Where they spotted Casper, Sage, and Bentbranch unconscious and dangling from the ceiling — Rotlets keeping them suspended.
The room itself was wide and tall — winding and twisting, as if the cavern had been shaped by a large, writhing mass. Kiyoshi’s companions hung almost fifty feet above where he and Nagibanu came to rest. Overlooking the pool was a threatening mass of angular, shiny oil shaped like a seat.
And atop that seat sat a little girl with Fae wings.
“Oh look Tsuki! It’s the last of those obnoxious, magical boogers… Let’s squish him.”
The tiny Fae girl pulsed with evil energy — Void magic. She clutched an angry-looking doll to her chest as she squealed with glee. The crazed child raised a hand, and her throne curled and wiggled into the form of an over-sized serpent with hundreds of heads.
“Who… who are, eh, you?” Kiyoshi failed to sound even remotely brave.
“My name is Kyrie! And I’m going to kill all of you.”
Black veins pulsed beneath Kyrie’s gray skin, and her empty eyes flared with menacing energy. Her wings flipped with annoyance, and the moment Kiyoshi blinked, she was upon him.
Chapter 3.5 — An Empty Heart
Why oh why oh why had Tsuki left her all alone?
He just had to go and defend the palace again, didn’t he?
He just had to go and protect the princess and her snot balls!
And he just had to go and get tangled up by the Black Rot.
In her mind, Kyrie was trapped in a single moment — the day the Black Rot had come for the Fae was the same day that Asheron had begun his betrayal. And Kyrie? She was the first of his awful experiments with Void magics. He’d left her Void-touched, looping through the same thoughts over and over again.
Her body moved on its own now, a part of her mind calling the shots, while poor little Kyrie cried to herself in a dark corner — flitting between anger and remorse. In one moment, she cried because she knew Asheron had been up to something and kept it to herself. In another, she screamed because her big brother was the reason for all her suffering…
“Squish! Squish! SQUISH YOU!”
Kyrie screeched at the top of her lungs, as Kiyoshi, perched atop Nagibanu, darted and dashed around the tar-filled arena. She hovered in the air, wielding an oversized black blade, courtesy of the raggedly contorted mass of Black Rot she commanded with her Void magics.
“You made Tsuki LEAVE!” Tar surged into the air, as a line of biting, bone-covered Rotlets arced toward Kiyoshi. Every sword swing from Kyrie sent Rotlets careening toward them, like spikey projectiles.
They narrowly dodged Kyrie’s next blow, so she did the only thing she ever thought to do when she was angry: She wheeled back and launched her black blade at the Gooey.
She watched as pearly Gooey smirked and ducked. Within the same motion, he launched into the air, his Rotlet steed sending him sailing. However, just before he lifted off the creature, it twirled around him, encasing him in a boney, black covering — like a sweater.
“You look like you… NEED A HUG!”
Kyioshi’s arms barely reached around her body, but Nagibanu’s bony teeth stuck into Kyrie. Stunned, she stopped fluttering her wings and they all dropped into the tar below.
Why didn’t you SQUISH THEM?
Kyrie felt that familiar, screeching voice crying out — berating her — but she didn’t care. Kyrie looked up from the sad, dilapidated corner of her mind and remembered something about that horrific day…
Tsuki had flown her as far from the palace as he could before he crash landed somewhere in the Burning Skies. And before the Void magic had fully taken her mind she… Fell into Tar Pits.
Maybe Tsuki hadn’t left her alone after all.
In her mind, she stood and dried her tears. Kyrie wasn’t some weak little girl. She couldn’t be. And she certainly couldn’t let the pain of that day keep her down — she had work to do! Blowing on her fist until it glowed with aura, she wheeled back and slammed her fist into an invisible wall.
It pulsed a blackened purple, and shattered spectacularly.
She awoke surrounded by Gooeys and a very satisfied looking Rotlet.
“What happened…?” Kyrie muttered a few curses as she took in the coloration that had returned to her skin — no longer gray and covered in black veins!
“Oil-snake Nagibanu here sucked the Void out of you. But you had continued to scream stuff about a weirdo named Tsuki, squishing, and boogers. All very bizarre, you should probably seek help — ” Bentbranch nearly continued, but Kiyoshi swatted at him.
Casper stepped forward and reached out his hand to Kyrie.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Miss Kyrie. My name is Casper, and I believe your brother Tsuki is the reason I’m still alive.”
The rest of the Questing Crew gawked at Casper.
“WHAT!” Sage grabbed at Casper.
“Good. ‘Cuz we need to save him next!” Kyrie jumped up and dusted herself off as best as she could, considering she was drenched in tar.
“I don’t think so, Kyrie. First, we need the whole story from Casper and then you need to have a chat with the Princess,” Sage, the pink, bossy Gooey, scolded Kyrie — which she did not appreciate.
“Hmph!” Kyrie crossed her arms, and gazed toward the now overgrown hole in the ceiling. “I think we can get out, up there… But I’m not going to be able to carry all of you.”
“If I, uh, may. I believe, eck, that you are, hm, contracted, with the, eh… Black Rot. It is… what saved us after, er, all.”
After a few minutes of girlish shrieking at the thought of touching anything so gross, Kyrie was able to command the Black Rot (made somewhat whole again), to raise them to the ceiling.
Kyrie knew she would need to find a way to keep the beast satiated, but for now, she really wanted a warm meal and a change of clothes.
Bentbranch squeezed his way between dead trees, tripping over hollow stumps, and fending off assaults from sharpened bone plastered everywhere. Curled Twig had to have landed over here!
Originally, Bentbranch had assumed one of the oil snakes had held his dearest Curled Twig hostage, but when he finally broke from the dead trees, he stumbled across a small alcove — where his buddy had been snagged in the shockingly lush greenery of a bush.
Its fruit was strange… Orange, with horns and an impish smile.
“Hey Bentbranch! Where did you go?” Sage shouted from somewhere.
Now that they had rescued that screeching child, tamed Kiyoshi’s scary pet, and survived the Black Rot, Bentbranch felt like they had forgotten something…
Bentbranch stared at the Devil’s Pomegranate bush, then looked at Curled Twig. Bentbranch shrugged to himself, ripped his tiny friend from the clingy branches and ran back to meet with his friends.
Later, as the Questing Crew, the three-headed monstrosity, and the obnoxious flying annoyance journeyed to Stickweave Forest, Casper stopped in his tracks.
“No, no, no!” He collapsed on the ground, banging his fits in the dirt.
“Does he always do this on trips?” Kyrie quipped at Kiyoshi.
“Eh, no.”
“We… forgot… the Pomegranate…” Casper’s body threatened to shrivel and die at the realization. Bentbranch looked at Curled Twig, and frowned. It was probably best not to mention where he found his friend.
The party continued on with a defeated Casper dangling and dazed, as Kyrie flew him along.
