Iorrjaer

Chapter 26

"What do you make of this?" Sorâth asked, as Häsmæl and he stepped carefully back through the hole the orc had made. They had returned that way because Hasmael wanted to show Sorâth what had happened when he poured the stew out and onto the ground. Now that they were reentering the house, their initial glances revealed crusty substances that had not been there before.

Häsmæl sniffed the air and caught a scent that reminded him of decaying human flesh, only fouler. The walls of the kitchen were stained with the substance and remnants of the magic poison. Häsmæl followed the scent and trails of the substance into the room just before the kitchen and found that the same crusty substance could be found along the walls and that the substance now seemed to be all over the walls, floors and ceilings.

"How did we not notice this before?" Kârael asked. He and the others were noticing and looking around.

"Because the stew was also casting some kind of veil." Malka said

Near the stairs and where Barsabel had been sitting, was the largest gathering of the substance and also, what looked to be, insect wings. Large, insect wings. Barsabel checked herself and Yophiel helped her check her back. She was trying to show that she was the real her.

Sorâth went to the stairs and called Hasmael close.

"Smell anything?"

Häsmæl.'s nostrils flared and he reeled back. "Much stronger."

Sorâth started to ascend the stairs and quickly realized that he was not going to fit. He returned to the base of the stairs, paused in thought for a moment and then turned to look at Bethar.

"Ah, hells. Shoulda known that you'd be asking me. Fine."

Bethar ascended and found himself amidst the remains of...bugs; giant beetle parts strewn about the room were long stringy antennas, almost the length of an adult human. Long lengths of leg parts, thin but encased in a strong looking shell with a single claw at the end. Strong curved jaw mandibles, huge and thick in the same brown shell-like casing. They were curved inward and narrowed slightly towards the front and had blunt points that jutted out from the inner curve towards the narrowing end that looked like they were for holding and crushing. Uncountable chunks of hard shell-like casings, some dry and crusty and some still moist with membrane residue. And blood; thick, goopy, yellowish-red blood. Pools of it.

"That accounts for the crusty substance."

He called down that he was sending something to them. He slid a big piece of the carapace down the stairs. Sorâth stopped it with his foot and grimaced. He did not like the looks of it nor its implications. He examined the floor and walls again, his pale eyes darting around taking in everything in the room. It was becoming clear that they were in a place that had been repurposed from a place that had been used to attempt to breed new types of monsters.

"Could it be Nellnis?" Sorâth heard Malka ask.

"No," Sorâth answered. "This is not her doing. This is something worse."

"Look at this." Malka called. Among the ruins of carapace, antennae, wings and legs, was a small, leech looking larva. Malka pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and picked it up to get a better and closer look. "Look like anything familiar?"

He tilted his head towards Yophiel.

"You think it is the same?"

"I do. From what I was able to see of it just through my initial scan of her... this has got to be it."

"The larva transforms people into beetles." Sorâth conjectured. "Terrible magic is at work."

Sorâth's eyes explored every inch of the room and the strange material that covered its walls. He stayed there for several minutes taking in the scene and feeling the air. His right hand was outstretched and twisted slightly as the fingers slowly twitched and flexed. He stared at the large chunks of shell, then to the long lengths of legs, to the horns, to the mandibles and antenna to the odd black orbs that sat in pools of black junk and bile.