—Orion—

  "Orion j-hust do your job and kill it!" Sally shouted at me, the dragonling snarling as he demanded that I execute the creature lying beneath me. I glanced down at the visage of a monster, at the inhuman skull that might still hide a person deep beneath its bony surface.

  I… I do not know if I would fall for wendigo fever as badly as Chester had. If I had a magical sickness pushing me, compounding the pain of starvation, would I make the same mistakes that this child had?

  I looked back at Sally, his bared teeth and the desperation I could feel over the bond reminding me of the [Mountain Dungeon]. If there had been wendigo fever present in that cave, if he had been infected, would Sally have had the ability to resist it? Would he have eaten me while I slept?

  But… even if it wasn't fair that Chester had become infected with a disease beyond his control, would it be kinder if I ended him and stopped him from hurting anyone else? I would far prefer to imprison and treat him, like I had heard would happen to people with mental illnesses that pushed them to hurt others and themselves. But is that even applicable or possible in a—for lack of a better word—primitive world? A place where people could become literal monsters?

  Was Sally right to demand his death? Did he have the right to demand such things? Would he ask me to kill again? I glanced at Icaro, and he gave me a small nod, his agreement enough to quell some of the rising nausea in my chest.

  I looked down at the wendigo, and leant more of my weight onto its neck so I could stop its weak wriggling. As I pulled back my bowstring, as I inched closer to the act of killing the monster, the strain of keeping myself from feeling sympathetic lightened. As much sympathy as I might feel for someone trapped behind a mask, his situation was very different from mine. Realistically, Chester was probably doomed to become inhuman from the moment he tasted human flesh. Even if it wasn't his fault.

  "I brought mom to come help!" I heard Aylin shout.

  I turned to look at the source of the noise, and saw Aylin dragging along a stranger far too tall to be the mother that’d shouted at me yesterday. The woman Aylin claimed was Yusota was wearing a cloak that reminded me far too much of Chester’s discarded disguise.

  But Aylin’s excitement faltered when the person gripped her shoulder with an inhuman hand. The fingers clamped onto her flesh were tipped with the unkempt claws that I’d seen on every other victim of wendigo fever.

  “Orion, wait!” Icaro shouted at me, and I reactively eased the taut bowstring held back by my fingers. The Medicine-Man stared at me for a few seconds, and I automatically eased the bowstring in response to his command. Once Icaro seemed certain I wasn’t going to kill the wolf-faced wendigo, he turned and projected his voice in Aylin and her mother’s direction.

  “… Yusota? What have you become?” The words weren’t shouted at the woman, but they were loud enough for his voice to boom across the snowy town.

  “You don’t get it… You never understood.” Yusota hissed back, her voice tainted with an inhuman and guttural tenor.

  “I was cursed. With you, by your son, and the… obligation he… forced onto me. This burden… the way it’s twisted my flesh… I hate it less than you.” She continued to growl, jabbing a claw in Icaro’s direction as the back of her cloak lifted up. From where I was standing, it looked as if there was a tail underneath her cloak.

  “I… Don’t bring Aylin into our issues.” Icaro eventually responded. Curiously he did not refute her accusations. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened between him, his son, and Yusota.

  “I… No… She was already…” Yusota mumbled to herself as she leaned forwards,the hood of her cloak flowed aroundand behind Aylin’s head. The cowl partially covered the young girl’s face like a veil, and Aylin’s watery eyes slowly drifted upwards to see her mother’s face looming above her. The girl whimpered in terror and shrunk inwards, her eyes clamped shut tight enough to squeeze more tears out of their glands.

  She tried to pull away from her mother’s clawed grip, but was yanked back into her grasp. A snout-like mouth poked out the bottom of the hood as Yusota leaned down further, and only stopped when the grey teeth-filled protrusion stopped right in front of Aylin’s face.

  “Kill the wendigo already!” Sally interjected, his demand loud enough for Icaro and Yusota to hear his words clearly. Both reacted badly to Sally’s call for execution, Icaro began spluttering and shouting while Yusota let out a gravelly growl.

  “DON’T… we wouldn’t want anything rash to happen.” Icaro pleaded, and I felt frozen, caught between the two people demanding my attention. It felt impossible to choose given the amount of pressure suddenly put on me.

  I wanted to follow the simple instruction Sally had given me, to stop thinking, to just listen and follow the person I wanted to like me. But, Icaro’s words made sense as well, and the underlying logic in his words had left my brain caught between what it wanted and what it should do. I was trapped by indecision, confused and unable to make the decision whether I should release my arrow into the wendigo’s eye at full-draw.

  But before I could decide whether to intervene and help Aylin or kill the wendigo underneath me, another unexpected guest arrived.

  The shattering of wood heralded the entrance of the wendigo I’d once called the Old Chief. The rabid visage of its snarling face and newly grown tusks came bursting through the wall of the nearest building and charged right at me. I wasn’t able to react in time to dodge as the cannibalistic ogre ploughed through where I was standing, knocking me off of the Wolf wendigo and sending me flying across the street.

  I landed on the mist-laden cobblestones, and rolled to a controlled stop as I struggled to regain my bearings. All around me the situation was devolving rapidly, every single entity moving independently and exacerbating the chaos.

  Icaro was charging towards Aylin and Yusota, his trapped weapon abandoned as he raised his fists. Yusota—or at least whatever parts of her that had survived the fever—was just as surprised by the Medicine-Man’s sudden approach. She faltered as Icaro punched her in the solar plexus, causing the sickly figure to hunch and wheeze wet breaths. By the time Aylin’s mother had recovered, Icaro had already grabbed the girl’s hand and was dragging her down the street away from us.

  “She’s mine… Only mine…” The cloaked [Gestating Wendigo] grunted as it ran after him, whatever hesitation it had held towards eating Aylin abandoned.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  The last I saw of Icaro was when he slipped into a side street, a glance thrown our way before he disappeared around the corner with Aylin in tow.

  Sally was frozen in place, staring at the evolved monster with wide eyes. He was mostly hidden by the rolling tides of mist that still emanated from the forgotten censer, but the wendigo borne from the Old Chief had spotted his gold-tinged scales all the same.

  I could barely recognise the Old Chief’s features on the wendigo’s body, the degradation of its body must’ve accelerated rapidly since I’d last seen it in the town square.

  The wolf-like wendigo had adopted the slick, lithe form of a powerful predator—even as emaciated and thin as it was, it was still easy to observe the capabilities of his body. However, the Old Chief’s body was not one made for hunting in a forest, or any type of stalking for that matter.

  It had squat legs and a bloated belly—the gas-filled sack a sign of the last stages of starvation—and a back that left its hips parallel to the ground. The spine curved until it almost formed a ‘U’ shape, with the knobbly arms and knuckles at their ends being used to support its weight, its spindly legs unable to hold its heft alone. The monster’s head was disfigured and asymmetrical, the skull the only thing with enough firmness to have a defined shape. The loose skin was draped over the pitted and bulb spotted bone like a sheet tossed over a piece of furniture. Its lower jaw jutted out past its toothless upper one, the remaining teeth jutting upwards with wildly varying degrees of growth. Some of the ivory tusks were only sharp nubs, while the largest three stretched past its nose. Compared to the complete form of the wendigo walker, it was a disfigured newborn too inbred to ever have the ability to pass on its own genes.

  [Using [Appraisal] – Lvl 1] on: [Wendigo]]

  [[Where's Wolfie?] upgrades the level of [Appraisal – Lvl 1] when facing an aberration!]

  [Using [Appraisal – Lvl 2] on: [Wendigo]]

  [Wendigo – Level 15]

  [The cannibal of wintery nights, too weak-willed to become more.]

  [The monster that gave in to its desperation, and uncaring of the harm it’d sow.

  The weak-willed survivor, willing to drown another to use their corpse as a life-raft.

  It did not resist when the wendigo fever whispered cravings in its ears.

  Unwilling to resist the wendigo fever, it let itself be consumed.

  All that it was, burnt away.

  Until only the animalistic sickness was left.]

  [Conditions: [Starvation (Stage 3)], [Nature’s Purification (55%)]]

  But as the troll-like wendigo stepped towards Sally—growling the way an utterly unintelligent animal would—the wolf wendigo’s hand grabbed its leg.

  “I’m hungry grandfather.” Chester pleaded, the black tears still running down its face.

  “Please… I need food.” He continued to plead, the childlike intonation of his voice completely subsumed by the gravelly wet coughs of his wendigo body.

  “Che-agh, shuuh?” What remained of its grandfather grunted, the regular wendigo unable to form an intelligent reply as the chained body of the Wolf wendigo pulled it closer.

  [Using [Appraisal – Lvl 2] on: [Wendigo Walker – Level 39]]

  [Health: 86/120]

  [Mana: 42/60]

  [Conditions: [Starvation (Stage 2)], [Nature's Purification (54%)]]

  The wolf wendigo’s skin was now covered in larger patches of blackened rotting flesh, whatever power that was keeping him alive fading from the contact with Icaro’s mist. But even with the decaying state of Chester’s body, it still had enough strength to pull itself up using the other wendigo’s leg.

  It had only been a few seconds since the initial crash of the wendigo’s body into mine, but so much had happened in those short moments. And in that little slice of time, the Wolf wendigo had managed to wrap one arm around the deformed wendigo’s neck.

  “Feed me!” The wolf wendigo demanded, the smoking censer still dangling from his neck as he drew his outstretched thumb across his grandfather’s neck. Black, thick tears still dripped from his its face as the long claw on its thumb cut a bloody smile into the other wendigo’s throat.

  “I just need… a little taste…” The wolf wendigo continued to plead as what remained of its grandfather bled heavily onto its body. The black-blood pumping out of its neck in undulating waves, the liquid coagulated and partially curdled. It seeped out of the neck as a thick goop, like sap from a tree.

  And that poison dripped down from the sagging body of the dying wendigo, dousing the wolf wendigo’s head in black-blood all the way down to its chest. I jerked back into action when I heard the sizzle of the burning incense in the censer sputter when the black goo dripped onto the silver shell.

  I grabbed the two remaining arrows in my quiver, and shot them into the feasting wendigo as fast as I could.

  [Strike dealt to [Wendigo Walker]!]

  [Damage: 5]

  [Strike dealt to [Wendigo Walker]!]

  [Damage: 8]

  [[Wendigo Walker] [HP: 92/120-> 79/120]]

  The first hit the wendigo in the side and the second struck the inside of its mouth, the wooden shaft snapping as the arrowhead was deflected off one of the monster’s teeth. It barely gave its new injury any attention as it greedily drank from the perished wendigo’s neck—suckling on it like a newborn on a mother’s teat.

  I looked at the ground around me for the arrow that’d been knocked out of my hand when I was thrown off the Wolf wendigo. As I searched for it, Sally ran up to me with his emotions muddied and motives unclear—obscured both visually and through [Animal Companionship].

  “Shoot when I give the signal. I have a plan.” He told me as he flew onto my head, his wings flapping twice before he painfully collided with my scalp. His claws dug into me as I found my lost piece of ammunition and knocked it into my bow.

  “I’m still so hungry” The Wolf wendigo pleaded, its voice now gleeful instead of the desperate tone it had begged with before. Its happiness didn’t dim even as itleaned forwards and bit off the other wendigo’s head. The dead wendigo’s brittle neck resisted the Wolf wendigo for only a moment before it snapped, the head subsumed as the living monster pulled the rotting scalp into its maw. The corpse was decapitated and thenrendered into two pieces with a yank from the Wolf wendigo’s claws, the two pieces tightly grasped in its fists.

  It stood on its own two feet, strength reinvigorated and restored from its meal, and now it was also freed from Icaro’s incense. With the black-blood drenched orb on its front sputtering out under the downpour of tar, it had stopped producing its mist. Its silver surface was completely covered by the wendigo blood, and the last bubbles of smoke left it with a sad gurgle before being extinguished.

  It looked at me, its one eye still leaking thick tears that were indistinguishable from the slaughtered wendigo’s blood—its skull shaped in the illusion of a grin—and laughed. Thick gurgling giggles, only interrupted by the unhinging of its jaw so that it could eat the twitching upper body of its grandfather.

  [Using [Appraisal – Lvl 2] on: [Wendigo Walker – Level 41]]

  [Health: 109/132]

  [Mana: 41/60]

  [Conditions: [Starvation (Stage 1)], [Nature's Purification (43%)]]

  I watched with dread as the antlers on its head budded once more, five centimetres of growth happening in mere moments as the watch on my wrist picked up in pace once again. I glanced at it, and saw that the positions of its hands had changed from the static place that had been the first time I’d seen them. They had been set to six o’clock exactly, but with the increased ticking, they had slowly crept an hour into the night. They had pushed ahead to roughly seven-thirty, constantly ticking forwards before sliding back, kept in stalemate by whatever mechanisms made it move.

  “Are you ready?” I quietly whispered to Sally, hoping that whatever plan he had come up with was enough to finish off the monster in front of me.

  “Give me a minute.” He replied, and I looked up at the wendigo that’d started slowly stalking towards us. A slimy black tongue licked its lips clean of its last meal as it turned its attention to us.

  I wondered if I had the ability to keep us both alive for at least another fifty-eight seconds.

  But I could do nothing but hope as I turned to flee, the wendigo right on my heels as I ran towards the centre of town.