Ignem Tristitia (An Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Prequel) [ON HOLD]

Chapter Nineteen - Belfarta

Our group whipped around to see what Belfarta was doing, and we saw him standing in the middle of where the road forked.

He started cackling maniacally as he slowly began to grow taller; spinning around and around as his spine encircled his organs like a second ribcage. His hair dissipated and his tunic had transformed into a scaly hide, the symbols from his tunic scattered evenly across his back. I recognized the symbol I had seen everywhere. I had wanted to know before, but this changed everything.

Belfarta hunched over ten feet from the sky. He looked like a deformed snakelike tree of flesh, green fluids poured from his now sharply-fanged mouth. He made a hissing shriek, and our group didn't know whether to fight it or run.

I was tired of running. I wanted to fight.

I pulled out my bow, placing an arrow in the drawstring and pulling it as tightly as possible. I aimed for Belfarta's deep black eye sockets, and released.

The arrow plunged into the socket, making a disgustingly satisfying squirt as the arrowhead pierced the flesh. A thick dark green fluid burst from the cut skin around the arrow, parading across the air and drenching the nearby flora. Belfarta roared with a wet rattle, and started to run toward us.

If you'd call it running. More like grotesquely awkward maneuvering through the bushes. It looked like a mutated wounded animal trying to fly through a bunch of trees. It was the most horrifying thing I had ever seen.

I quickly readied another arrow, sending it plunking into another eye socket. There were plenty left.

The arrow had the same effect, the creature flailed forward some more. The group ran away from it, hiding in cover along the trail. We couldn't use close range combat. Who knows what that thing would do? We had my arrows and Star's magic. Maybe someone else had arrows or magic.

"We need a little help, here!" Star yelled, hurling a fireball at one of the legs of the creature.

"I know some magic," Duvrus said, pulling his hand up,

An icy blue chunk of light formed in Duvrus' hand. He pulled it up and flung it toward Belfarta. In midair, the little ball of ice transformed into a deadly sharp ice spike, sailing through the air and encasing anything close inside a thin layer of frost. It jaggedly stabbed Belfarta in the chest, making him squeal like a demonic pig.

Belfarta blindly flailed around, trying to hit someone, blowing fire from thick protruding openings of flesh. He hit no one but the trees.

Veezare stood from the bushes and hurled a pair of daggers at Belfarta's belly, slicing it open and spilling the contents of his stomach. The disgusting organ remains, fluids, and half-eaten foods dripping onto the jungle floor.

Belfarta was almost dead in no time.

Kharjo stood. "My turn!" he yelled proudly.

He ran up to Belfarta, swinging around behind it. Belfarta blew another round of fire from itself. Kharjo pulled himself up, climbing atop its hunched back. He pulled out his sword and readied to give it one good jab, when I said something.

"Wait!" I yelled.

I pulled three arrows from my quiver, put them in my bow, and readied to fire. I aimed at its remaining three eyes.

"Now!" I shouted.

As I released the three arrows, Kharjo pulled his sword further into the air. The arrows penetrated all three of the remaining eye sockets, as Kharjo's sword roughly stabbed deep into where its brain might be. Green blood-like fluid started to slowly drip from each puncture wound we had inflicted over the battle, then began to pour. Soon, the blood was literally flowing from Belfarta, even in places we hadn't stabbed it.