America Stranded in a Fantasy World

Chapter 24 "No Longer Top Dog"

CHAPTER 24

"No Longer Top Dog"

August 12th, 2040: Somewhere in The Elven Forest, The Opiekun Księstwo

Running, jumping, climbing, Faylen never felt more free than when navigating the forest. The massive trees as old as time itself made navigating on the ground completely obsolete. With four squirrels tied to her waist, swinging from a branch and stepping onto another, there was enough food to feed herself and Liv. Just before she was about to jump from a large branch and onto another, her senses picked up a noxious but all too familiar smell. A smell that had plagued the forest for months. Following the pungent smell and slowly working her way to the ground. Faylen was greeted with a scene she had seen many a times over the past few months, though this one was quite different.

In front of her, was a steel carriage that had been driven straight into a massive tree, hard. With the entire front being crushed inwards, she readied her bow and tentatively walked around to the opposite side, only to reel back in shock as to what was causing some of the noxious smell. Sitting on the ground and slumped against the side of the steel carriage in a pool of red blood, was a human corpse. Dressed in dirty green and brown spotted clothing, soaked in red blood. Faylen then noticed the long metal pipe weapon in the human's lap having a few small splatters of a dark purple liquid. Inching closer to the corpse and with her nose protesting every step closer, she slowly tipped the human's head up and let out a shriek. Not from the three distinctive slash marks across the man's face, but from the multiple spots of the dark purple liquid.

"Lesser Demons? This far south?" Faylen stepped back from the corpse then re-evaluated the scene, with it now making much more sense, an ambush. Looking more carefully at the ground, Faylen tried--then stopped trying to count all the small brass cylinders after the hundredth one. With both red and dark purple blood being in patches around the steel carriage, it didn't take long for Faylen to find two other human corpses, one with their back cut open most likely from running, and another who didn't have any apparent cuts but being found next to a tree with a sizable dent, she concluded it to be blunt force that killed the human.

Finding a small red blood trail that didn't seem to have an end, Faylen continued to follow it through the underbrush. Along the way, Faylen noticed that whoever or whatever was bleeding, was moving as fast as they most likely could with an injured leg from spots of ground being dug up from scraping, in a mostly straight line with the trail going through bushes and other foliage. Still, with no corpse found, Faylen's mind began to wonder again as to why the Lesser Demon hadn't pursued this wounded creature. It was only when her sharp hearing picked up the sound of running water did she quicken her pace. If it was a human, and they were smart enough, they would walk in the water to break the trail--making this a massive waste of time. Breaking through a large bush, Faylen finally reached the source of running water, a river. Although at a glance, the movement of the water seemed far too fast to simply forge through anywhere, and the blood trail had made a sharp right turn and followed the shallow, rocky, river bank. However, with spots of mud, she saw that whatever was bleeding was indeed a part of the common races, as distinctive boot prints were pressed into the mud.

"Just how far did you run?"

Having only to follow the river for a short while, Faylen's ears once again picked up another noise, this time the crackle of a low burning fire. Continuing to follow the river around a right banking angle, she saw across the river, a small clearing next to the river bank. A low fire crackled; and next to it, in the river, were multiple stones sticking out of the water, making it the perfect place to forge across. With great care as to not fall into the fast-flowing river, Faylen crossed, and with her bow readied, she examined the fire. With multiple half-burnt branches, whoever made it wasn't too far off... maybe too close.