Sneak Peek: Scars, Chapter 11 (Patreon)

Working on this month's 3rd update now and I figured you guys might like a little glimpse of what's to come. This will conclude the second arc of Scars, and in this chapter, the adventurers come face to face with the remaining members of Paitr Osel's 'family' and the source of the corruption that's spread across Allona's farmlands.

Below is a snippet of what we can expect. Hope you enjoy!

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Humans said elves could see in the dark. That wasn’t quite true. They needed some light. The absolute darkness of the cavern would be almost as impenetrable to her as her companions. She could see the heat of bodies and lingering warmth in the environment, but that wasn’t nearly as effective. It supplemented elven eyesight, not supplanted it. Here, the weak glow of Letha’s spell-light gave Khy-kala more than enough light to see. In places, the ceiling was low enough that she had to duck in places.

The stench was growing stronger, as was the sound of breathing, worse than the rasp of a monstrously obese human. Letha coughed, pulling a kerchief from her pocket and covering her mouth and nose. It was like the stench from the Eltwin barn, but even worse. Kevac cursed under his breath. Khy-kala, on the edge of visibility and half-seen like a wraith, led the group down into the cavern. This wasn’t the first time they’d gone into places like this. Never for a reason like this, though. In northern Talloic, a band of highwaymen had sheltered in a cave. The mercenaries had ambushed them just after sunrise while the bandits were still drunk and asleep. In the western province of Hasherra, Khy-kala had led them through a long-forgotten tomb to surprise a party of grave robbers who’d been looting the crypts for purposes unknown. Each time, their foes had been human.

In fact, after the Scarring, Letha hadn’t ever faced an enemy that wasn’t human. Until Allona and the Ripper. Until whatever Paitr Osel had discovered, driving him to madness and murder and his surviving victims to become the awful, twisted beasts of the ‘Family’. She’d seen horrors during the war. She’d dreamt of things so obscene that if she’d ever fully remembered what they were, she would have clawed her own eyes out. All that, and her heart was still pounding in her chest with every step she took deeper into the cavern.

Khy-kala paused at a bend in the tunnel, signalling with one hand. Letha dimmed her spell-light until it was all but extinguished. They were almost there. Clicks, growls and inhuman chattering echoed through the stone passage, the laboured, shuddering breaths of something large wheezing almost drowning everything else out. The she-elf’s ears were perked up and twitching. “There’s a lot,” she whispered. “About a dozen. I can’t be more specific.”

Justir nodded. He looked over at the witch. “Flash of light,” he told her, keeping his own voice low. “Blind them and then just make sure the rest of us can see to fight. Kevac-”

“I’ll watch witchey’s back,” the dwarf said, reaching up and swatting Letha’s backside. “And other parts, too.”

The red-haired man looked over at the she-elf. In the darkness, her eyes looked like empty pits. “Ready?”

She grinned, showed her teeth. Her voice was low, nearly a purr. It made something in him twist in an unpleasant manner. It always did.“Always.”

Justir moved next to the she-elf, his shield raised and mace at the ready. Behind him, Letha and Kevac prepared. He lifted one finger from the mace’s grip. Then a second.

On the third, Letha ran her left hand over the head of her staff, drawing more power through the wooden. It swelled from the glow of a fading candle to a sun-bright flare. It would have briefly blinded anyone to look directly at it. In the dark confines of the cave, even looking towards it would be overwhelming. As the light burst forth from her staff, Letha swung around the corner with her fellow mercenaries. As the reeking cavern came into stark relief, her mouth dropped open and only the nightmares that Letha had seen before in her life kept her from screaming.