FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chris walked next to Grev on the paved road, barely able to see a few feet ahead of him. The road had slanted sharply downward hours ago and the mist had become a thick wet clinging nuisance as they travelled deeper into it.

Though the fog ahead was thick and swirled heavily around him and Grev, it seemed to lesson behind him and around the party. Most likely Skye or Gren had something to do with it he silently thought to himself. Chris noted that Grev was tense and kept his own senses sharp. Straining to hear or see anything out in the infernal white blankness.

They had already been travelling for a long time, but with no sun it was impossible to judge exactly how long. The mist itself seemed to have an inner light, a soft shifting glow as if twilight was eternally trapped within, a light forever just at the edge of being put out.

A clatter of rock made him jump, but it was behind him a horse having kicked a loose stone. Grev suddenly placed an arm on his shoulder and halted the party with a command.

"We should be coming upon the fallen city of Krundas. We must stay upon the road, no matter what you see or hear do not leave its safety. Master Gren?" Grev looked up at the silver cloaked mage.

Chris saw the man nod and raise a hand upward closing his eyes. He sat like that for a while atop his horse like a statue, thin trailers of mist wafting around his horses' legs. Suddenly the old man's eyes opened and with a sigh he said "It is done."

Chris and Grev once again led the party onward.

"What is so dangerous about this fallen city?" Chris inquired at last looking at Grev, the mist seemed to absorb his soft spoken words.

"No one is entirely sure. It fell decades ago when the war was still spread across the world. The city and its people where destroyed by the mages and from then the mist appeared." Grev spoke quietly as well, glancing quickly at Chris before again staring out into the whiteness. "Since the mist set in anyone who came through here disappeared, even mages who came to find out what may be trapped within the city never made it out again. There is any number of folk tales about it, ghosts, demons, a thing conjured by the enemy, but with no one having ever seen what it is and surviving to tell the tale no one is sure. The only thing that is known is that the mist in the city itself is enchanted in some way. That it lures people deeper into it with visions. Gren is providing us protection from its enchantment, but we'd best stay sharp in case we encounter anything else."

Chris nodded in understanding and tried again futilely to pierce the white gloom, ears and nose focused on finding anything that may be out of place.

It seemed an age of walking, but then suddenly out of the whiteness on each side structures loomed.

The mists clung around them and drifted out of open windows, like milky white tears.

The buildings were tall and slick with wetness. Chris almost felt like they resented the disturbance of the party as they moved through it. It seemed like the thicker trailers of mist was almost poised to strike. In horrid fascination he noted how some of the buildings seemed to be half melted, even parts of the road itself looked like it had been liquid that had hardened into rock. His imagination painted howling faces in their facade and he thought he could almost hear their moaning cries. Through one open window he thought he'd caught a glimpse of a skeletal form sitting at a table and though it was only a quickly seen image he felt a cold shudder rock through his spine. The hair on his arms and back of his neck stood taught and upright, like great juddering trees.

Deep into the decaying city the road opened up into a square and as they passed through it a great round basin appeared through the mist. As they came closer Chris realised it had once been a fountain, but what must have once been a beautiful display was now no more than a grotesque monstrosity. The centre piece had been melted and fused so that a beautiful face jutted from the mess of stone above the flank of what he assumed was once a horse. Other strange parts of things were also entombed within like a great bird's wing and the tail end of some large fish.

Chris shuddered again and looked away from the mangled and destroyed work of an artist that was now long dead and wondered at what the people who had once lived here must have endured when they were set upon by such destruction.

Grev led them continuously onward, never stopping, glancing from side to side. Chris could almost see the scarred Wolven's alertness and dragged his own mind away from its morbid fascinated wonderings.

Sounds pierced the silent gloom at times, shifting stone, creaks and groans. Chris could even swear that he heard footsteps, but Grev had not heard it when he asked nervously.

No one spoke and the only sound was that of the horses' hooves clipping on the stone.

It was then that he saw something ahead as if a figure had dashed across the road. He hissed at Grev and made a quick sign to indicate he'd seen something. He was about to step ahead when Grev stopped him whispering into his ear "Don't, if you leave the party and the road we'll never find you again" Chris could hear the fear in his mentors voice and it shook him to his core. He glanced back and saw the anxiety and fear from everyone. Snow had his great hammer in his hand. The twins and Aaron were glancing everywhere, their eyes never resting on one spot for longer than a moment.

Skye seemed even paler than usual clutching at the pommel of his horses' saddle. Even the metallic giant Uthran controlled had its sword and shield at the ready.

A crunch under his paw made him look down quickly. The sight almost had him leaping from his skin. He'd stepped on a bone, its middle now powdered dust where his touch had disturbed its fragility.

The fear became almost palpable, a living thing that seemed to breathe down his neck. More and more he thought he saw figures deep in the fog. The shifting inner twilight of the thick drifting and moving fog seemed to hide menace and teeth in its confines. Chris would be almost convinced of something staring out a window only to find when they got close that it was nothing but a tattered and rotting curtain or a fallen beam. Every moment became an agonizing game with his own imagination set as his opponent. He dared not even glance behind for fear of missing something ahead. It was disquieting to see his mentor, usually a bastion of calm and quiet confidence stepping lightly at his side, two short swords gripped tightly in his dark furred paws.

More and more the fear seemed to build and a deadly anticipation with it, the tortured buildings and their yawning maws just on the point of coming to life with half imagined horrors, others offering comfort and safety from those same horrors.