Nerd In the North 6-13A (Patreon)

The grey sky hung above the same as it had for a long while now, an oppressive slab of concrete right over Greg’s head. It pressed down right atop the canopy, no change since the last few days of walking since the last village. Well over a week now, almost a full two, of dragging both princesses, a giant with a surfboard sword, and a handful of Stark men-at-arms through the winding muddy guts of the Crownlands.

At the very least, there had been a road before.

That was the silver lining.

And now, that silver lining — just like the frickin’ road — was gone, the only way forward completely flooded with muddy water.

Motherfucker! Greg stopped, silver sabatons sinking an inch into thick black muck. A single blue eye twitched at the mess in front of him, the path layered deep with mud that looked like it had been chewed up and spat back out. He could tell the ground had sunk down at some point too, if it was ever there at all.

If all that wasn’t bad enough — Jesus! — a cough spilled out of his mouth, his sensitive nose taking a hit to the face like a punch from Guts. Like a dumpster in the Docks on a bad day, motherf-

Greg tossed his head back with a grunt, teeth gritted as he tried to figure out what to do now.

“My lord…” Blue eyes turned to meet blue as Sansa took a half-step back, silk skirts rustling as she lifted the mud-caked hem. "Lord Veder…” Her knuckles were white, steady where her voice wasn’t, as she gripped the fabric."Can we not, perhaps... find a path around? The water looks terribly foul."

"Somethin's already 'ere."

Guts stared straight ahead, teeth gritted and jaw barely moving as the ends of the syllables died in the damp air.Greg blinked over at him. “What are y-”

The sound of screaming took the words out of his mouth; ragged, lung-tearing shrieks that bounced off the grey trees, loud and wet.

Sidequests. Greg’s jaw snapped shut, almost locking tight. God, I hate sidequests. 

"Stay behind Guts.” The order went out to everyone who wasn’t Guts, but two people in particular. Not checking to see if the girls listened, Greg pushed forward and into the mess, boots sucking loudly in the muck.

In no time at all, they cleared the bend, men and horses following behind as the flooded section opened up into a wider marsh.

Greg stopped dead, and so did everyone else, the sight of a merchant's cart half-submerged in the middle of the brown water staring back at them. The wooden axles of the cart were snapped apart to timber and all around it were bodies floating in the thick mess, some of them completely torn apart and floating in the water. 

More than that…

What… His breath hitched in his chest. What the fuck?

They were humanoid, if you really stretched the definition of human. Skin so pale it was almost see-through stretched tight over wiry muscle and pulsing veins under it all that looked more like fat blue worms than anything else. Six of them hunched over the corpses, webbed fingers ending in thick claws digging into ribcages as they shoved meat into wide needle-teeth lined mouths.

One of them ripped a chunk of flesh free, its head snapping up to show a pair of bulging fishy eyes taking up half its skull. Brackish water and dark blood dripped from its chin as a rattling hiss left the monster’s throat."What..." The whisper was near-silent from Sansa as she sat atop the horse that Guts held the reins of. "What... are those?"

"Deep Ones.” Because what else could you even call the literal Lovecraftian nightmares fifty feet away? He glanced over his other shoulder, Myrcella staring back at him as she sat on the back of his own horse. "Fish-men. Guys from Innsmouth. No great options here.."

One of the squishers clicked its jaws with a hissing noise, five more heads snapping up from the floating corpses. Twelve unblinking fish-eyes turned their way, all of them suddenly no longer hungry.

At least, not for pre-dead meat.

"Guts." Greg didn't raise his voice.

"Aye." Neither did Guts.

The Innsmouthbreathers charged.

A half dozen monsters through the flooded path like torpedoes, water spraying in high arcs before they launched themselves up onto the muddy bank, claws out and ready.

“Ngh!” Guts stepped into the swing, massive shoulders rolling as the Dragonslayer blurred to meet the first fish-man mid-leap.

The surfboard of a sword took the squisher at the shoulder and sheared straight down to the opposite hip, two halves hitting the muck in both directions as blood the color and thickness of oil sprayed out in a fan. The smell of dead fish and rancid oil spiked hard but Greg didn’t even have the time to gag as two more swung around Guts and lunged right at him.Lobb screamed.Sansa screamed.Greg shouted.

"Ventrum!"

The word tore out of him, the magic spinning the galaxy inside him. A compressed slug of raw air exploded from his palm, a sledgehammer of wind punching the lead fishman square in the chest. 

That same chest sunk in immediately, ribs snapping like dry twigs as the thing was launched backward. A shriek left its mouth for all of a second before it bounced across the surface of the flooded road like a skipped stone.Another shriek came loud, the second one was already inside his guard with webbed claws scrabbling at his breastplate. Needle-teeth snapped at his face, the stench of a rotting pier stronger than ever as it came close enough to kiss him.

His right hand snapped up as blue-white light erupted into solid steel, the pale blade appearing out of nowhere and already in motion. That shriek died out almost immediately as the squisher was lifted up, white steel punching clean past flesh and bone.Right through its jaw and straight out the top of its see-through skull, black blood poured free down his sword and his gauntlet as the monster gurgled, struggled and finally went limp. …gross. Greg clicked his tongue at the dead weight dragging his arm down. A single foot kicked the body off his sword, blue eyes blinking as the thing fell into the bubbling muck to join its brothers Guts had butchered. Wait…

Greg blinked again. Bubbling?

The water in the marsh bubbled and boiled and suddenly surged as more of the monsters made themselves known. 

Not three. 

Not six. 

And not even just twelve.

Dozens.

The surface of the flooded road broke apart as a horde of blue-veined monsters tore free from the makeshift swamp. This time, they didn’t blind-charge though. No, they spread out, moving to flank the edges of the mudbank, those big unblinking eyes watching Guts and Greg both.

They’re learning. Greg bit back a grunt. Awesome. Smart monsters. Ten outta ten. Unlucky for them, though, Greg had a smart monster of his own.

"Ash!" A hand went up in a raised fist.

The sky tore open.

A shadow the size of a pony plummeted through the branches, wings snapping open at the last second for a landing as silent as the drop. Even with the cushion of air, Ash hit the mud with a heavy thud, but no roar — orders to keep silent were given and as willful as the big guy was, he could at least listen when it counted. 

Speaking of big… The dragon was getting bigger, already nearly horse-sized when he’d been barely the size of a pony just a few weeks ago. On top of that, the black horns curving back from his skull were about a good inch longer than last week, thick, jagged nubs of spikes on his spine were already starting to push their way out from his cover of black fur.“Ash, food!”

The dracoursa lunged forward, jaws snapping shut over the torso of a flanking squisher, teeth going right through the translucent skin.

A geyser of black blood burst into Ash’s mouth and the dragon froze, glowing red eyes suddenly going wide. Greg looked over at the dragon. “Ash?”Ash’s jaw hung loose, the mangled and half-dead fish-man dropping to the mud, as the dragon shook his head back and forth with a pathetic whine leaving his throat.

"Oh, come on!" Greg twisted and spun, sending two squishers flying back in pieces and cutting a third clean in half at the waist with a soaring crescent of white energy. "You've never had fish before?!"

Ash shook his head violently, and immediately launched himself backward to land directly next to Gut’s unbothered horse where Myrcella sat. The princess reached out, already petting the dragon's scaled snout while he whined.

"Oh, you big baby," Greg clicked his tongue as his eyes flicked over to the panicked Stark guards already swinging their swords and trying not to shit themselves. Fine. Guess we’re doing this the hard way.

He took a breath, letting the white sword dim slightly as he reached past the wind, past the water, past the light and , feeling around into his own reserves. "Come on..." The shadows cast by the trees, by the cart, by the squishers themselves suddenly detached from the ground, thickening as they rose up like fog.

"Kage-doro: Shizume.”

Squishers thrashed, hissing and biting, as they suddenly looked like they were trying to run through wet cement, shadows dragging them to a crawl.

“Huh.” Guts lowered his sword slightly. "...always somethin’ with you."

“I try.”

With the fish-men bogged down in Greg’s shadow-snare, Guts just walked down the line, Dragonslayer rising and falling with the heavy sound of four hundred pounds of iron splitting flesh over and over again. 

When the last squisher fell, cleaved neatly in twain, Greg let go and the shadows snapped back to the ground. He sent his white blade away with them, light vanishing as he looked up.

Guts stood in the middle of a literal hill of bisected fish-men, wiping the black slime from the flat of his sword with an already filthy rag.

Behind them, the Stark men-at-arms were a mess after their short fight, two of them still with their swords drawn even as the metal rattled in their shaking hands. Lobb was leaning against a tree trunk, halfway to throwing up his breakfast into the muck, even as his own small pile of squishers was stacked high around him and his two friends.

He wiped his mouth with the back of a trembling hand, looking up at Greg with eyes that were entirely too wide. "M'lord... what... what w-were those things?"

Greg blinked down at his hand, the answer he had for Lobb falling away to nothing as he stared at the ring that had just appeared out of nowhere. Even Ash seemed to pick his head up, distracted from Myrcella’s petting by what seemed to be a blue dragonscale sitting on Greg’s middle finger. "...Bad news.” He didn’t have much else to say or any other explanations to give as he turned his back on the pile of bodies. "Everyone mount up. We're moving. Now."

Nobody argued.

Soon enough, they left the muck behind, finding a new path. 

Greg kept his pace steady, but the knot in his stomach wasn't unwinding. They were getting closer to the North but the monsters weren't stopping. If anything, they were getting weirder. 

Smarter, too.If they were this bad down here, then…

Something fucked is going on up there.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

10k Words (100 GP) 

He Named His Cat WHAT? (100 GP) - Kill a creature out of LovecraftROLL: Dragonscale Ring (200 CP) [Dark Souls 3] {Benevolence}: "Ring of Oceiros, former king of Lothric. In his later years, Oceiros became fascinated with dragons. After going mad, he was more commonly known as the Consumed King. Many assassins were dispatched to his domain, but none returned. The Consumed King ascribed his resilience to the divine protection of the dragon scales. An intricately designed stone ring, set with a pale blue dragon scale rather than a gem, the protection granted by the ring reduces the effectiveness of sneak attacks, protecting the wearer’s back from those who lurk in the shadows. Makes such cowardly tactics nearly half as effective as they would normally be, making it an invaluable asset for those that fear an assassin’s blade."

ROLL: Faithful and Favoured (200 CP) [DC Comics] {Control}: "It seems your religion has survived better into the modern age than that of many deities—or if you’re mortal, then you’ve somehow built a successful cult from the nearest group of mortals to your starting location. Fervent and zealous in a way mostly lost to the modern world, your followers also happen to be quite good at either blending into mundane society or putting up a front for your religion as a relatively respectable faith. Make no mistake though, every man, woman, and child would fall on their sword for you—and in future worlds a similar faith will arise, though you may choose those you find righteous in your eyes from this one to accompany your exodus. For 200 CP, you have enough followers to make up a sizeable proportion of a village who may either be spread thinly and worshipping you in secret, or cooperating in relatively close proximity."

Grimoire Points: 350 GP