Chapter 2- An Untimely Arrival

Corruption Outskirts

Prospective: The Kid

"I don't see anything, nor can I feel anything moving under us. Are you certain that you know what you're talking about?" I asked looking back at Faye, who had her hand over her forehead as if concentrating deeply.

"Shush!" she exclaimed. "I'm trying to listen…"

"There's nothing coming, I'm telling you. I would have seen it if it were coming across the plains, or felt the vibrations had it been a worm," I said lowering my sword in mild disappointment.

"Stop… speaking!" Faye said walking slowly towards the edge of the overlook. "The noise… it stopped."

Suddenly the ground under her feet gave way and the entire upper portion of the ledge she was standing on lurched downwards. She slipped and fell to her knees as the chunk of earth broke away from the side of the canyon, stopping abruptly at an obtuse angle, tethered to the cliff only by a few strong roots.

"Faye!" I shouted holstering my sword and rushing over to the broken ledge, reaching my arm out to secure her.

She was just out of my arm's reach and was unable to let go of the ledge, else she would plummet downwards. From this height the fall would certainly kill her.

"Give me your arm!" I shouted reaching out over the ledge as far as I could without falling myself.

"I can't! If I let go I'll fall!"

The ledge lurched again and slid further downwards. Faye was now hanging vertically from the ledge, holding tightly to only a few roots embedded in the soil, dangling over a five hundred foot drop into the corruption.

"Hang on!" I said, rapping a length of rope around a strong bolder near the ledge's edge and then tying the other end around my own waist.

"Slipping!" she called out.

Use the vines to pull yourself up to me," I said hoisting myself further over the broken ledge.

"I can't control them, they're dead! I can only move living organic matter!"

"Then just don't let go, I'm nearly to you!" I said sliding down the side of the ledge and grabbing onto her wrist. "You're going to have to let go and give me your other wrist! I can't pull you up like this without you letting go!"

"You'll drop me!" she shouted.

"I won't drop you, I swear! Trust me Faye!"

She looked up at me, with a frightful, yet curious stare and let go of the roots, throwing her arm up towards me as far as she could manage to reach.

I reached out and gripped her arm tightly, pulling her up onto the side of the ledge. "You're going to have to climb up me."

"Ok," she said pushing her foot into my leg.

"Ah! Carefully!"

I felt a tug at the end of the rope tethered around my waist, then a sudden snapping sound rang out through the air.

The rope broke. Both Faye and I, unable to secure anything, fell from the side of the dangling ledge, downwards towards the corruption bellow.

"Grab onto me!" I shouted, tumbling through the air and reaching for Faye.

She was screaming and highly inattentive to what I was saying. Fortunately she was close enough that I was able to grab onto her and pull her into my chest. Just before we hit the ground I could see water below us. It was so tainted that from above it had looked like solid ground. Even so, falling from this height into water would still kill us from the downward momentum alone.

"Sweet Jesus, I hope this works…" I thought to myself rapping my fist around the small golden horseshoe that hung from a chain bound to my armor. The horseshoe glowed golden just as we smacked into the water.

Faye was ripped from my arms on impact. I found myself lost in the darkness. My entire body ached from the impact. Thanks to the magic of the horseshoe, the fall was greatly slowed before the initial impact. The armor helped as well, at least to absorb the punishment of hitting the water first. I had made certain it was me who broke the surface tension when we hit.

Under the water it was dark, so dark that midnight would have looked bright compared to under this muck. I couldn't even tell which direction was up. The feeling of gravity was also of no help, since the muck was so thick that it nearly completely overcame the forces of gravity, leaving me without a sense of which way was up, down, or sideways.

I reached into a slit in my armor that served as storage for many of the items I often carried along with me and pulled out a glow stick. I cracked it and threw it in front of me. The glow stick fell past me, slowly heading downwards past my face, which meant I was upside down and that the surface was directly above me.

With armor swimming in water would be impossible but this muck was so dense that it was less like water and more like goo filled sand, making it surprisingly easy to push upwards through. Unlike quicksand, which has the effect of hindering movement, this goo seemed to be aiding my effort to escape.

My head ripped through the thick plasma like film of muck covering the lake's surface. I gasp, taking in air as quickly as I could and pulling myself up onto the surface of the goo. It was so dense that I was able to physically lie on top of it without sinking. Not but a moment later I looked around and realized that Faye was not here with me.

I began to panic, thinking that I would never be capable of finding her in this muck before she drown! I started splashing around in the surface muck looking to see if she was anywhere near me, this lake was not that deep however it was quite wide.

"Hey!" I heard her shout. "Hey! When you're finished playing around in the mud, I'm over here!"

I turned to the sound of her voice, to see that she was already standing on the bank of the lake.

"How did you get over there that quickly!?" I asked, relieved that I had not allowed her to drown. I stood up and clambered across the goo until I reached where she was standing on solid ground. "How did you get out that fast?" I asked nearly slipping as I leapt onto solid ground.

"I swam… moron. I was about ready to go back to save you," she said pushing goo off of her arms and stomach. "That was disgusting… First thing I'm going to do once we get a forward base established is take a nice warm shower…"

I panted, calming my nerves. "You seem rather calm about all this, having nearly just died and all."

"I figured you'd manage somehow, she said wiping her arm across my armor. "What happened back there?"

"What do you mean?"

"The rope, it broke."

"Yeah, I noticed. I don't know why. I was certain I had secured it properly. There's no reason that rope should have broken. It was made only a few weeks ago and was strength tested under the weight of, well, let's just say someone a bit heavier than either of us."

"The mechanic?"

"I'm telling her that you said that…" I frowned, flinging the sludge off my armor. "Good God, I have muck in every crevice of my armor, this is disgusting."

"I've been in worse…" Faye said, frowning, no doubt at the recollection of the battle she participated in against the Queen Bee.

"You found the honey worse than this purple muck?"

"Do you see how long my hair is? Have any idea how long it took to clean all that honey out? Not to mention the other places it got stuck…" she mumbled.

"What was that last part?..."

"Nothing… you know you really should have secured that rope better!"

"What… I already told you, I secured it perfectly. Something must have happened to cause it to break."

"So now do you believe me that we were being attacked by something?"

"I never saw anything and according to you, the noise stopped before anything happened."

"That ledge broke immediately after! You don't find that at all suspicious?"

I stopped speaking. I was suddenly compelled to focus on a figure moving behind Faye. A shadow, a mere whisper of the wind, that ever so delicately moved a branch of the tree it hid within.

"Are you listening to me!" she pouted, frowning at me. She soon noticed that I was staring past her and turned to see what I was looking at.

"Did you see that?" I asked.

"What… see what… wait that noise… the one from before. I can hear it again."

"Something is following us…" I said raising my sword.

There came a terrible high-pitched screech that echoed from behind the dead trees in front of us. There was still limited light, since the sun had not yet ascended high enough to erase the shadows from this valley, making it impossible to identify exactly what the noise was coming from.

A large shadowy figure moved slowly out from behind the trees. I could see its claws and the whites of its eyes, glowing dimly off the reflected light emanating from the lake's mucky surface.

"Does that look familiar to you?" I asked readying my sword.

"No…" Faye said raising hers. "On three, we strike. You take the left side and I'll take the right. If it's a spectral entity, aim for its core, if it's anything else, just stab it until it dies…"

"What if it's not hostile?"

"It just tried to drop us off a cliff, I think it's hostile…"

The creature screeched and lashed forward from the shadows towards us.

"Never mind, just kill it!" Faye shouted charging against the creature. She swung her sword at it as it came within range. She hit nothing but air. "What!?" she exclaimed.

"Where did it go!?" I asked looking around. The creature had vanished, not a single sign of it anywhere. "Could that have been a Wraith?"

"I don't know! Whatever it was, I can't sense it anymore… I think it's gone."

"What kind of creature can disappear and reappear that rapidly if not a Wraith?"

"There shouldn't be Wraiths in the Corruption though," Faye said lowering her sword.

"What does it mean?"

"I don't know… Clearly something else is at work here. We'll need to establish a forward base before proceeding any further anyway. Regardless of that creature's presence, we need to continue as planned."

"We're ahead of schedule though, the sun is still not…"

"I'm aware!" Faye shouted temperamentally. "Just do as I say and stay out of my way! I'm going to cleanse this area first," she said pulling the Clentaminator out from wherever she keeps these things, as well as the purification powder and began loading the device appropriately.

"What do you need me to do, since I can't be near that stuff?"

"Wait over there, and keep an eye out for that thing, or any other hostiles," she ordered.

"They'll soon be aware of us, once you start spraying."

"I'm aware," she said raising the gun like device. "Stay clear," she said as a beam of blue energy exploded from the tip of the device.

The energy passed through whatever it contacted, vaporizing the bacterial infection that caused the taint to spread the corruption. Almost instantly the ground and trees effected by the beam seemed to revert back to their pure forms.

"That's a useful weapon…" I thought to myself, watching Faye spray the surrounding are a. "I wonder what effects it would have on a corrupted creature? If it would kill me and I consider myself a good guy, can't imagine what it would do to pure evil… You need my help for anything or are you good?" I called out to her after a moment of just standing there watching.

"Keep watch moron!" she shouted over the loud bursts of energy.

"Right… I'll wait here then."

As soon as I finished speaking I could feel something penetrate my back. I immediately swung around thrusting my sword through whatever had touched me.

The outline of a shadowy figure disintegrated away around my sword and disappeared into the air.

"Faye!" I shouted looking around for where the creature had gone. "That thing is back!"

I turned to see Faye struggling with the creature. It had knocked the Clentaminator away and forced her to summon her sword.

I prepared to aid her. Before I could even take another step forward a force hit me in the side and threw me to the ground.

Another one of the creatures manifested over top of me and thrust its arm towards my chest. I rolled out of the way and swung my sword past it. It dodged my attack and darted backwards, then faded away and instantly reappeared behind me.

I tried to swing again, but the creature knocked my sword away and threw me to the ground. It thrust itself over top of me and opened its jaws over my head, revealing thousands of razor sharp teeth.

I kicked the creature, trying to dismount it. My foot passed right through it's body. It thrust its jaws down over my head. I moved enough to one side that it missed and instead got a mouthful of dirt.

I heard a loud bang and then another immediately after the first. The creature on top of me looked to see what had occurred and then dissipated completely, shrieking as it faded into smoke.

"Looks like you needed some help little man!" I heard a familiar voice shouting.

A moment later Drey was over top of me, grasping my arm tightly and hoisting me to my feet.

"Good thing I arrived early eh? I nearly missed the party! Damn spectral monsters! Those things are hard as hell to kill ain't they kid!?"

"You know what those things are then?" I asked walking past him and picking my sword back up.

"Yeah, Wraiths. Not normal Wraiths. These things some kind of, weird mutated Wraiths. Seen em back home where I come from. Damn things are overrunning the entire sector!"

"Thank you, for the assistance warrior," Faye said joining us.

"Well it looked like you had that one under control sweet heart. Didn't want to take any chances is all," Drey chuckled rubbing the back of his head.

"What did you do to make them leave?" I asked. "As soon as those bangs went off they seemed to immediately flee."

"Oh hell yeah! Them Wraiths don't much like the sound of my grenades. Something to do with the temporal interface of their plasma cores that gets them all quantumasized when a loud bang rattles the air. Messes up their internal plasma patterns, er somethin. The things hate it. Only real way to kill em is to disrupt their inner patterns and then tear um to shreds! Least that's how we do it back home," Drey chuckled bouncing a grenade up and down in the palm of his hand.

"Well… thanks for the assistance old buddy."

"No problem kid! It looked like you needed the help. After I saw you two fall off that cliff and watched them Wraiths attack, I figured you could use the help sooner than later. I see you two have already gotten started with the cleansing process, clearing an entry way and such. Good good, we gonna get it done real nice and easy that way."

"The process will take a while, however I've already managed to clear a sizable area for us to begin base construction," said Faye.

"Are you're workers going to arrive any time soon?" I asked. "I assume the three of us are not expected to construct a forward base alone."

"They should arrive within the next hour or so. Do recall we were forced to begin ahead of schedule."

"And I take it your workers are on your schedule then?"

"Indeed. They will arrive soon. Until then, you two should keep watch. I'll continue the processes as planned."

"What if we encounter more Wraiths?"

"Blast em," said Drey. "My solution to all mythical and physiological problems. I've got a saying you know… it goes like this, without grenades… you're dead. Works real good."

"You should be a poet," Faye groaned. "Now, get back to work, and stay away from me while I'm cleansing!" she said strutting off, swinging her hips sensually.

"Does she do that to you on purpose man?" Drey asked watching her walk.

"Stop staring," I said punching him in the chest.

He chuckled. "Like you don't want a piece of that…"

"Thanks for the intervention," I said interrupting him.

"Huh, oh yeah. Sure thing holmes. Good thing I arrived a tad earlier than expected eh?"

"Yeah…"

"Hey what's wrong kid? You don't look so easy, somethin da matter?"

"I have this weird feeling all of a sudden," I said looking up into the sky. "That Wraith that attacked me, it stabbed me. Not deep enough to penetrate through my armor I don't think. I could feel it, like it moved through my entire body when it struck me. It left something in my mind, an idea, a feeling, a thought. I can't help but feel that there's something else watching us, something far stronger then what we've come here to face. I don't know how, but I can feel it…"