:) Dryad is my self insert.

Armour: Victide Armour (Ranger-unequipped)

Weapon: Tendon Bow (Jester Arrows); Arkhalis

Acc(11/11): Band of Regeneration, Amidas Spark, Sailfish Boots, Luxor's Gift, Ocean Crest, Counter Scarf, Crown Jewel, Tsunami in a Bottle, Frog Leg, Aero Stone, Shield of the Ocean

Health: (400/400)

The Compound had rumbled last night.

The earth groaned and travailed under the weight of decay. The trees altogether creaked and shuddered and mourned. Leaves curled in on themselves. Flowers lost their blooms. A low keening carried over the breeze, not the keening of a man or an animal - but the death rattle of nature itself.

And as the pale, cold morning chanced its rays upon the compound, that deceptively lovely place which had become the burial grounds of so many, The Slayer raised his head to herald the coming of the day. The Night had been so long... but the day was finally here. What did that mean? The Terrarian didn't know. He was loath to attach any significance to the cycles of day and night. There was no 'newness' in life when the sun rose once more. The light made things worse... because those horrible nighttime activities were now laid bare under the unrelenting scrutiny of the day.

...

He sighed and opened his eyes, putting away his dark thoughts to enjoy the coolness of the morning dew on his face. He watched the pinks and blues of the morning slowly creep across the sky as ashen dirt scraped rough against his bare back. When he tilted his neck, he could see the bright sun, bright and yellow, straining through the gaps of the misty forest. Those golden beams lit up the cold coals. The glowing embers had since died and reduced everything they touched to a black, indiscriminate dust. Nobody would be able to discern what the ash once was... what strange beauty and odd kindness had been butchered and burnt to nothing just the night before.

(cheep... cheep)

Birds twittered above his head. Red ones. The ones that he had duplicated and released when re-populating the local wildlife. Was it his imagination, or did they too look down at him with disgust? Perhaps. It shouldn't matter to him... He was 'The Slayer'. Killing things was just what he was supposed to do. He had never felt any real emotion after killing anything - besides for triumph and open bloodlust, of course. But this? What was this? The state he now found himself languishing in was entirely foreign. He felt dirty. He felt wrong. He felt disgusted... but was apathetic through it all, just didn't want to think on it. He didn't know exactly why, but immediately after... doing what he did, he couldn't stay one more moment in his beloved armour. He had destroyed his bow, his arrows and his blade. He stripped off his meticulously maintained plate armour, shoved it into the furnace and watched it melt to slough in the fiery flames.

(shuffle...)

And now that he'd lain four hours in the place The Dryad's castle once stood, motionless as the cold morning dew formed on his naked body, the slow feeling of unease was still lodged in his gut. As the sun's beams cut in slits through the thick forest and the sky above grew brighter and brighter, The Terrarian's throat seized in momentary terror. He had demolished The Castle last night. He had removed from existence every trace of The Dryad. Of how he rent her asunder, cut her wings from her body, her branches from her boughs, her blooms from their stems. Her ghastly wail of death rang faintly in the back of his mind all night long. Her pleadings and soft reasonings. Her attempts to bring him to reason as he enacted violence against her. He remembered the feeling of the arrow's fletchings in his fingertips, poised to launch innumerable frostfire-tipped arrows at The Dryad's entrapped form. She could do little to fight him where she was, encased on all sides by the castle's cold stone. She was not prepared to defend herself in any manner. She had not expected to fight, indeed, she had never expected to die...

But she had.

And her flesh smelled like incense as it burnt, an intense perfume of flowers - so thick it was saccharine. He could still smell it now, brilliant jungle blooms springing forth from the black ash of death. They came up all around him, gently glowing petals that bowed their heads as if in mourning. He had destroyed them several times already, but they kept growing no matter what he did.

(shuffle... crunch, crunch, crunch...)

The sound of familiar footsteps making their way across The Compound's lawn. The Terrarian didn't need to turn his head to identify who was approaching him. After all, there were only two people remaining in his home. The Guide and The Party Girl. He had initially found it quite annoying when all sorts of people came to live in his compound, but now that they were gone - he felt the place was cold and deserted. Well... At least I'm not alone.

(crunch, crunch... tmp)

"Slayer... what are you doing?"

He opened his eyes and glanced upwards. The Guide was peering down at him with a strange, almost amused look in his eye. His pallor was good, having improved drastically from when The Dryad raised him from the dead several days ago, and although the fingers on his left hand were still gnarled - he appeared to be in good humor. He was all dressed for travel, sporting leather boots, a pack, and a great sheaf of papers which poked out from the bag like a battle standard.

"You should put something on... unless you intend to travel through The Crimson buck naked. Come on now, no use in laying here."

The Guide planted his hands on his hips and craned his neck down, offering the beginnings of a wry smile. Did The Guide know how terribly uncomfortable he was, having to kill The Dryad? Maybe... maybe not. Concerning any other topic, The Slayer would have gladly shared his heart. But not this time.

"..."

Because for the first time in a long while, The Slayer was loath to look into The Guide's face. That honest, open expression which hid a wickedly sharp wit, and a silvered tongue. This was the man who could twist him around his fingers. The strength of his body was meagre, but the force of his will was nigh unsurmountable. Did The Dryad truly try to kill The Guide? Maybe... but maybe The Guide just wanted her dead.

"Are you alright?"

That silver tongue flapped at him once more, glided in honey and concern. The Guide lowered himself to the ground to sit beside him, he looked down on him with his brow furrowed in empathy. It was a deceitful expression. The Terrarian shut his eyes so he wouldn't be taken in by it. Perhaps The Guide had never steered him wrong in the past, but this time, he certainly had. The Terrarian didn't know why The Guide was wrong, he had no arguments, he had nothing but a raw feeli-

"How will thinking about it help you now? You already killed her. You can't bring her back and think about it again. Will you languish and despair? Or will you move forward."

It was always shocking how The Guide simply read his mind, but it saved The Terrarian having to explain himself. He snapped his eyes open and turned to look at The Guide who stared bitterly at The Compound's far wall. He opened his mouth and spoke. The honey had fallen from his voice.

"I'm sorry I asked you to kill her. I wish there was another way... maybe you don't believe me when I said she tried to kill me - but I am not so ungrateful to destroy the one who saved my life. Do you at least believe that?"

"..."

The Terrarian gazed silently at The Guide. There was nothing he could say in response to him. There never was. He wasn't necessarily convinced, but neither did he want to think anymore. If he had made a mistake, he must live with it. He had to move on. Exploring The Crimson was better than laying here in the dirt amongst the grave-flowers of The Dryad. He would harvest them for potions when he returned.

Phew...

The Terrarian felt his joint creak as he sat up for the first time in hours. He briskly brushed the cold dew from his hair and generated a helmet in his hands. He equipped it, then his breastplate, then his grieves. Piece by piece, he dressed himself until he once more stood in his full savage glory. He summoned a blade, then arrows, then that horrid, dripping bow, and turned to his Guide. He heard his voice reverberate in his helmet as he spoke.

"Let's go... to The Crimson."

"Good. Lets."

The Lunatic Cultist was in no mood to entertain company.

Company meant he had to be civil and diplomatic - and at this moment, he wasn't feeling diplomatic in the least. He had lost his Hero, that chess piece he had created as leverage against The Resistance. With The Hero gone, (and The Resistance's high command unwilling to pour resources into creating a new one) The Cultist was stuck. If he wanted to stay in The Resistance's good graces, he was at The Hero's mercy. Indeed, he had risked everything for this! He had made The Tyrant Yharim his enemy in a risky bid to revive his monstrous god. If The Resistance abandoned him, his future - and the future of his Divine project was gone.

I will free my master from the chains of those vile Dryads... and when he rules the cosmos, I will rejoice in destruction. I will gaze upon his supremacy and in him, all my enemies will be crushed... especially this damn old geezer.

The Archmage had been his enemy from the beginning. In the past, when he was just a trainee who had dabbling too far into the forbidden arts of The R'lyehians, that crusty old man was the first to demand he be stripped of his magic. Even now, he remained a thorn of his side - blocking him in all of his ventures. What a pity he was so incredibly strong, for The Lunatic Cultist would have gladly smote him to nothing.

Shit, everything was perfect before The Archmage revived. Perhaps that old man is the manifestation of my misfortun-

*KNOCK KNOCK*

The Cultist jumped as a rude pounding nearly caved in his laboratory door. The surge of magic he was carefully guiding through his absurdly expensive scrying orb flared and cracked the flawless crystal, disrupting his umpteenth divination attempt. The mage stared at his shattered crystal ball, fighting to keep his rage from bubbling over. The moment his was confident he could address his unwelcome guests without pulverizing them with lighting. With his teeth clenched in barely veiled wrath, he forced a smile and ground out the words.

"Come in."

The heavy door creaked open and what seemed like half of The Goblin Army filed into the room, muddying his carpets, knocking over his beakers and scattering his notes all over the floor. The group were primarily scruffy, vile smelling and clothed in crude iron armour, however amongst them was one of their Goblin Sorcerers. The Sorcerers, at least, were dressed in something passable and had some minimal knowledge of the arcane... and it was he that raised his voice to address The Cultist.

"Greetings Cultist."

"Sorcerer. Tell me, what compelled you to bring your infantry into my laboratory?!"

"..."

The troupe's four collective brain cells sparked enough electricity between each other to realize The Cultist was unhappy with their presence. Thankfully, instead of bumbling about with apologies, they got straight to the point. The sound of scrabbling, sobbing and the clanking of a chain emitted from amongst the main group of Goblin Warriors. The burliest one took told of the rope swung it like a shotput, hurling to the forefront the unfortunate tied to it's end. It was a scrawny goblin with a pair of cracked spectacles balanced on his nose.

What nonsense...

The Lunatic Cultist seethed.

"What is this? A circus?! I already have one disaster on my hands! I don't have time to tend to another!"

The Goblin Sorcerer, the spokesperson of the group, cleared its throat with a gravelly grunt. He began speaking in something barely passable as commontongue.

"This goblin is a traitor. It was brought back for trial. We searched for Sea King. We did not find him. We report to you."

The Cultist twisted his lips in disgust with The Sorcerer's uncouth language, but thankfully - his expression was hidden by his ever present mask. The Goblin Sorcerer - for one - appeared quite pleased with his butchering of the language, and his entourage hooted and barked in affirmation.

(Traitor, yes. Goblin! Report! Report! *gargling*)

How vile. The Cultist stood up so rapidly, his chair tipped over and fell with a clatter behind him. With a snarl in his voice, he jabbed a gloved hand at The Goblins and crowed at them.

"If this is all you have to tell me, leave! I don't have time for this!"

"No. We report from the raid. We lost."

"Then double the troops next time, and leave me alone!"

The Goblins were obstinate. They glanced nervously at each other, then to him, then to the bespectacled traitor. Eventually, The Sorcerer kicked the small bound figure and gargled something in a foreign language. Evidently, they were demanding he testify. The Cultist, who had found himself the unwilling judge presiding over some nonsense trial, was loath to admit how surprised he was with the 'traitor's' vocabulary.

"Sir Cultist, I implore that you plead my case. I am not a traitor, indeed, I am the sole survivor of our 100-man troup."

"Ah, you... yes. And?"

To imagine he was speaking with the only Goblin who knew more than 50 words of the human language. The Cultist blinked and indicated he continue.

"We were not eradicated by an opposing army, but rather a single person. I bore witness to it. A warrior clothed in ornate armour. He slew us effortlessly with a blade and shrugged off any damage we dealt him."

Silence. Did he hear that right? A single person took down an entire army on his own? Such things weren't impossible. The Tyrant could easily accomplish feats of this calibre, as could The Witch of Massacre and even Statis and Braelor! But individuals of such power were typically so well known, their names (all would have given names) were on the tips of every schoolboy's tongue. Just who was this mysterious, armoured individual? Could it be?

"The person... you did not recognize him?"

"No sir."

"..."

Could it be The Hero? But surely The Archmage would never let The Hero wander around on his own. That old man was as wily as he was infuriating, and would most certainly keep him hidden for political purposes. Still... this mysterious person sounded like The Hero. Was it possible he had escaped The Archmage's grasp and was now running amok in the wild? One could only hope, for in that case, he would be easy to collect.

"Goblin. What do they call you."

The Cultist indicated toward the well-spoken creature.

"The Tinkerer, sir. I implore that you convince these brutes to spare me."

"Where was The Warrior's last sighting?"

"Alongside The Crimson Border to the south, sir."

The Cultist turned to address The Goblin Sorcerer.

"Keep him here and keep him alive until I return. Tinkerer, you will live if I can verify your claims. Now, all of you, Begone."

Dryad: w-why did you kill me

Slayer: idk

D: ... figures.

Rip self insert. I only lived through her to give my babies headpats - but now ded so rip.

Also lmao, its a good thing Slayer and Guide are off to play hopscotch in The Crimson while LC flies around and looks for them... :) thanks for suggestions btw. I love them all. Love and review. ty.