Brian Pratt - Warrior priest of Dmon-Li

At the sight of what happened to that one, the creature behind them roars and doubles its speed toward them.

James doesn’t have time before it’s upon them to do anything. They jump to the side but the creature grabs his leg with his mouth, teeth sinking into his calf as it lifts him off the ground.

Crying out in pain, James reflexively lets loose a blast of magic that burns into the creature’s side. Roaring in pain, it lets go of his leg.

As he falls back to the ground, he rolls away from the creature, blood welling quickly from the wounds the creature’s teeth had inflicted. He comes to a stop then begins scooting backward along the ground away from the creature, his leg unable to support him enough to get to his feet.

Miko throws sticks and rocks at it to try to divert its attention from James to no avail. It looks around and sees him there on the ground. With another roar, it charges forward, slowed only slightly by the wound in its side.

James takes out another slug and throws it at the charging creature. In panic, he calls forth a tremendous surge of magic which leaves him gasping and dazed. The slug strikes the creature where its neck leaves the main body, and the incredible force of the impact almost completely severs its head from the rest of its body. Attached only by a thin layer of skin and muscle, its head lolls to the side as it falls to the ground, blood spraying forth upon the sand.

Miko rushes around the dead creature to where James is lying with blood pouring out of his leg. “James!” he cries as he comes and kneels down next to him.

“Miko,” he gasps through the pain throbbing in his leg, “give me your shirt.”

Taking off his shirt, he hands it to him. Wrapping the shirt around his wounded leg, he ties it as tightly as he can to stop as much of the blood from escaping as possible.

“We can’t stay here,” he tells him. Gesturing over to the trees, he says, “See if you can find me a walking stick, large enough to help support me. We’ve got to get out of here before the smell of blood draws others.”

Nodding, Miko runs over and returns shortly with a six foot long stick.

Taking the stick, James says, “Help me up.”

Miko takes his arm and helps him to his feet. Once he’s up and stable, Miko let’s go as he leans heavily upon the stick. “You gonna make it?” he asks.

“I sure plan to,” he replies.

He takes some wobbly steps but finds that with the aid of the stick, he’s able to move down the beach as they resume following the seeker bubble. Making their way around the dead ‘rhino-lizard’ as James calls it, they quickly move away from the dead animals.

Leaning heavily upon the stick, he and Miko work their way down the beach. Suddenly from behind them, a cry can be heard as another of the rhino-lizards comes out of the vegetation and commences to tear into the closest dead one.

Miko glances back toward the feasting creature and shudders. “What are we going to do now?” he asks.

“First of all, we need to find Jiron and make sure he’s okay,” James tells him.

“But you’re barely able to walk,” he replies.

James pauses as he glances to Miko. “Be that as it may, I can’t let this stop me from helping a friend. I may not be able to walk well, but I am still a force to be reckoned with.” Turning away, he continues down the beach.

After walking beside him in silence for several minutes, Miko says, “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know, we just need to find him,” James reassures him.

They continue down the beach for another half an hour when they come across two sticks stuck in the stand with shells and a skull hanging from a rope tied between them.

“What is that?” Miko asks.

Coming closer, James can tell it was put here by someone. The primitiveness of it makes him think of a ‘totem’. “It was probably placed here by locals to warn trespassers to keep out,” he tells him.

“Maybe we should too,” he says.

“I would if Jiron wasn’t up there, somewhere,” he says, pointing further up the beach.

“He might be okay now,” Miko says hopefully. “He is a good fighter.”

Nodding, James replies, “You may be right. Let’s find a pool and I’ll try to locate him again.”

They move a little inland, away from the pounding surf but not within the vegetation which may hide a rhino-lizard. Looking around they locate a pool that’s shielded from the wind whipping in off the water, so remains fairly flat.

James settles down around it as Miko joins him. Concentrating on Jiron, he watches as the image begins to shift and then suddenly they see Jiron, strapped to a pole as it’s being carried by two of the natives. He widens the image and they see six others carrying spears, traveling with the ones carrying Jiron.

Letting the image go, he turns to Miko and says, “I don’t think he’s okay.”

“No, it didn’t look like it,” he replies. “How are we to get him free?”

“Won’t know that until we get there,” he tells him. Leaning upon his walking stick, he gets back to his feet and then returns to the beach. Continuing down their original course, they don’t travel very much further before they come across a well trodden path extending into the swamp area. James pauses before it as he contemplates what to do. He glances to Miko and shrugs, before turning to follow the path.

After moving several hundred feet deeper into the swamp, the air begins to smell foul. The stench of decay and gaseous fumes permeates the air. “What is that foul odor?” Miko says, holding his nose.

“Some areas, like swamps, give off odors due to stagnant water and other rotting decay,” replies James. “Though I’m no expert on these sorts of things, just something I’d read once.”

The further they go into the swamp, the thicker the swarms of mosquitoes become. Miko is becoming quite slap happy as he continuously kills bugs that land on him. For every one he kills, it seems another dozen or more take its place. The fact that he’s bare from the waist up makes it even worse. “This is unbearable,” he says after killing his hundredth mosquito. His back has dozens of raised bumps from where they’ve gotten to him.

“I know,” agrees James as he kills another one. “Let’s stop for a second.”

He tries to remember the shows he’d seen on the Discovery Channel about bugs and attempts to come up with a spell to help keep them at bay. He formulates his thoughts before releasing the magic and then suddenly, a cool mist settles about their exposed skin. It takes only a second before the smell hits, the most god-awful smell James has ever come across.

Miko begins gagging and tries to move his head to get away from the smell, but it’s all over them. “What did you do?” he gasps, trying to breathe without smelling which is nigh on impossible.

“Tried to keep the bugs off us,” replies James, eyes beginning to water from the stench.

Miko quickly realizes that whatever the foul smelling mist may be doing to his senses, it is in fact keeping the bugs away.. No more of those pesky mosquitoes are landing on him, or even coming close for that matter.

“It worked,” James exclaims in satisfaction. “I’d rather have stink than bites, wouldn’t you?” he asks.

“If it just wasn’t so bad,” Miko begins, but then nods his head in agreement. “Next time, try to put some perfume in it, okay?” The rain had by this time all but slacked off and doesn’t seem to be washing the pungent stuff off of them.

“Okay,” agrees James as they once again start following the trail deeper into the swamp. Further along, they come across the skeletal remains of one of the rhino-lizards they’d run into earlier. It’s half sunk in the water, lying next to the trail. The top half of the animal, the part not in the water still has rotting, decaying flesh attached to the bones. The section within the water looks to have been picked clean.