The Ogre's Trail

The sky is a roiling storm of blood and poison colors that shimmer like oil slick on water over the heads of the small mélange of would-be ogre hunters stumbling into the twisted landscape as one might stumble out of bed after waking up too soon from a fitful night’s sleep and finding the rest of the house gone completely. Thomas plants his feet firmly beneath him and grips his sword in one hand, his iron fire poker in the other. Behind him the lovely Reah stands, tense, like a pale panther poised on two shapely legs, ready to burst into action, leveling her nail gun in front of her; lovely, yet potentially deadly. The smoldering dark beauty with the pale skin and sharp teeth, Kyra stands alongside Reah, similarly armed and primed for action, while next to her the mysterious girl with all the strange tattoos, and the pink-streaked hair gazes around with wide, astonished eyes. Bringing up the rear is the slender, unassuming body of Ilario, his eyes set with Bleddyn’s hard, cold, determined gaze, and the tell, leggy, brunette witch, Annabelle glancing around cautiously.

As eyes begin to adjust to the dim, ephemeral forms of the Never-scape dark shapes around them begin to form into twisted rotting trees clawing their way out of noxious pools of black bile muck. The gnarled black tree trunks looming all around seem full of faces and drip with a tarlike substance. A slithering green mist snakes it’s toxic tendrils around the broken, blighted trees and over foreboding pools of sinking mud while sounds of giant bullfrogs and calls of crows echo through the empty woods.

A the sound of a faint, empty chuckle, everyone suddenly turns and they find a mangled old willow tree, its trunk twisted and covered in bulging knots, its thin strands of leaves withered and black. Leaning up against it is the dark, light figure Sebastian, his dreads caught up towards the back of his head and dark eyes gleaming mischievously.