Originally published at Planescape: Metamorphosis. You can comment here or there. The following is a short story by NeoTiamat about one of Qul’s many adventures on Ssilir, his homeworld. In this story, Qul and his friend, Vri, encounter a deadly predator and find their refuge is not what they’d hoped!
* * * * *
“Do you ever get the feeling, Qul, that someone up there does not like us?” Vri said in exasperation, picking a fat piercer-bug off his scales. The inch-long tick, with its jaws turned into a long spike for piercing scales, whirled its legs in protest as Vri tossed it away into the jungle.
“Like whom?” Qul asked, picking his way through the vines and ignoring the endless rain. After three years, you learned to ignore it. He also ignored Vri, mostly. The other Ssilirian scout was a friend of Qul’s, a good man in a fight, and a really good man if you were trying to find some attractive young women, but he could complain about almost anything. And did. Frequently. At great length.
“Let me make you a list. To begin with, there is the rain gods, who have decided to flood us out. Secondly, there are the elders, who have dispatched us off to find whatever made those merchants disappear. Thirdly, there are these gods-accursed piercer-bugs, who I swear are the only things in creation which like the rain.” Vri said, grumbling under his breath. Qul had told him not to lean against that tree, but he hadn’t listened. Therefore, piercer-bugs.
listen to me
“Cheer up, it’s an important job. It’s an honor to be chosen.” Qul said brightly, shaking his head to dislodge the errant thought. He wasn’t quite as thrilled about this business as he made out, but a bit of perverseness made him disagree with Vri. Besides, it gave them something to talk about.
“It would’ve been a greater honor to have stayed home.” Vri grumbled some more. “Look, we’ve been wandering around this place for hours]. So the merchants went ‘poof’ somewhere around here, so what? Whatever ate them probably moved on.”
“We don’t know if it moved on. Or they, if it was raiders. In any case, there should be some kind of signs of a struggle, and that will tell us what happened.” Qul said, undercutting this fine rationale by adding. “I hope.”
“Ooooor… we can wander around in the rain some more and maybe get lost for our troubles.” Vri said sourly. Then he stopped dead still, and in a much more serious tone said. “Stop. Do you hear something?”
Qul stopped dead still, and listened. It was a very faint splashing, but coming from very close by. Whatever caused the splashing was moving carefully through the damp rainforest, and so Qul hadn’t heard it earlier.
listen to me listen to me listen
“It’s coming from over there.” Vri said, tossing his head as though something was buzzing into his ear, a recurrent note in the back of his mind. “Did something move over there?”
Qul tried to gaze through the thick jungle, trying to make out something between the trees. They weren’t spaced very thickly here, but with the vines and shrubbery, it was bad enough. Still, he could almost make something out. Something big.
“Oh. Dear. Gods.” Vri breathed, making the identification a moment before Qul. “It’s a drasc.”
Qul saw as much. A drasc. A giant, flightless bird, standing easily twice Qul’s height. They had stout, compact bodies with a long-necked head ending in a ripping, tearing beak. Those beaks were cruel and sinister-looking weapons, and some called drasci ‘knife-beaks’ for it. But they almost never used those beaks when hunting. No, it was the long, slender, and exquisitely muscled legs that brought the drasc above the swamp-water that were its weapons. Covered in harsh scales enough to turn aside any knife or sword that Qul or Vri had, corded with thick muscle, a drasc could kick through a tree. As if that wasn’t enough, they also had claws on their feet about the size of Qul’s head, and could run faster than anything else on the ground. Which, combined with their red-brown plummage, led to the drasci’s other popular nickname. ‘Blood Lightnings.’
“We are so royally doomed.” Vri said bleakly.
listen to me listen to me listen to my song
“Come on, move]. We need to find shelter.” Qul hissed, shaking his head from the insistent whine in his mind. “This way.”
“What? The thickest trees are that way, maybe we can hide away from it.” Vri protested.
“I… this is the right way. Trust me.” Qul couldn’t have said why going in this direction was right, but as he pushed through the trees, he just felt it to be so. Vri hesitated, but with a few muttered oaths, followed after his friend.
They hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards when they heard the shrill, piercing shriek of a drasc on the hunt. The two scouts exchanged one look. “Run!” They said in unison.
listen to me listen to my song come to me come towards me
The drasc had abandoned stealth, dipping the long, muscular legs into the knee-deep water and padding towards the two running scouts. The Drasc ate up the ground with its strides, and if it weren’t for the trees that kept it from picking up speed, Qul and Vri would’ve been dead in moments. As it was, they kept ahead of it, Qul running towards the source of his strange thoughts, Vri just trying to keep Qul in sight and the drasc behind them.
“I hope… you know… what you’re doing…” Vri ground out between breaths. Qul didn’t waste time answering him, rounding another grove of mangroves, only to be confronted with another, odd-looking tree.
come closer come closer come closer COME CLOSER
It was tall, at least twenty or thirty feet in height, and fish-belly pale. A profusion of vines hung from a circle of branches arrayed around the top of the tree, hanging down limply. The trunk was fairly narrow and covered with a hard, solid bark, unusual only for its pallor. The tree seemed to tense as Qul approached, his thoughts flying even from the thought of the carnivorous, brutal Drasc behind him.
CLOSER COME CLOSER COME CLOSER COME CLOSER
“Qul, why are you stopped…?” Vri pulled up by his companion, but before he could succumb to the great tree’s spell, he heard the cracking of wood behind him. Vri turned, swore, and lunged at Qul, knocking him into the water.
An instant later, a set of claws the size of daggers whistled through the air, the drasc pistoning forward its foot faster than the eye could track. The off-yellow blur missed ripping Qul’s spine out of his back, and instead rammed into a nearby tree. A shower of splinters flew as the tree trunk cracked in half, the drasc screaming in frustration.
“Snap out of it, Qul! It’s a siren tree!” Vri said, rolling aside through the water even as the drasc stamped down where he had been a moment ago. Water and mud flew up in a shower as the drasc tried to get one of these twitching pieces of meat to stand still long enough to be eviscerated. drascs could move obscenely fast, but their aim needed work.
“Siren tree…” Dim thoughts penetrated through Qul’s psychic haze. He had heard about these once. Heard… something. But then an idea formed. And as Qul processed this thought, it burned through the mental fog of the siren tree.
COME CLOSER COME CLOSER COME CLOSER COME CLOSER
The drasc stamped at Qul again, finding Vri too lively for it. The giant bird missed Qul’s torso, but a bit of it’s foot, not even the claws, slid down the scout’s side. In doing so, it ripped a good half a foot of skin right off, burning like lightning. But Qul didn’t notice. He had an Idea.
The scout surged forward, towards the siren tree, heedless of the pain. The drasc shrieked once more and kicked out at him once more, but Qul was out of range. The Ssilirian rushed through the low-hanging vines, sliding low into the water as the vines came to life. Pale white tentacle-vines lashed out at Qul, seeking to capture him up, but the scout was already through the water and out the other side.
The drasc which followed him was not so lucky. Expecting the vegetation to remain quiescent, it was surprised when the tentacle-vines began to whip about it, wrapping themselves around the giant bird’s body. It screeched, now in terror instead of bloodlust, and kicked forward at the tree. Chunks of the pseudo-bark flew, revealing the fleshy organs beneath. Another kick caused one of the unnamed organs to explode into off-white pulp.
PAIN DIE KILL PAIN KILL BURN DIE HURT KILL
The psychic screech was mind-numbing, but mostly directed at the thrashing Drasc. It went limp, it’s avian brain overloaded by the psionic attack. The wounded siren tree now wrapped its prey in vines, lifting it up towards the ravenous maw at the top of tree.
Qul moved around the tree, finding where Vri was staying well out of reach of the waving vines. Qul’s side, now that the shock had worn off, felt even worse. Vri helped him up wordlessly, then pointed to a scattering of trade goods and clothing at the base of the siren tree.
“We found the merchants.” Qul said tonelessly. He glanced up at the stunned Drasc and the battered siren tree. It was still a very open question who would emerge victorious, if the Drasc broke out of its confusion in time. Either way, Qul had absolutely zero desire to be around when this battle finished. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Smartest thing you’ve said all day.” Vri muttered, though he gave Qul’s shoulder a friendly squeeze. “Let’s go.”
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koganeiさんの日記を閲覧中です
This character belongs to NeoTiamat
amused
determined
embarrassed
And yes, the first one was literally “Beachtime fun” 9_9 Crazy people.
