We followed the ranger to a camp—a friendly place, or so it seemed. Too friendly. Too colorful. The people there reeked of drink and revelry, their clothes brighter than any sane person should wear in a fog-choked forest. They wanted stories. Why? No clue. Drunks don’t usually care about stories unless they’re the ones telling them. They talked about their dark liege, someone they serve in exchange for free passage through this land. That got my attention. We couldn't leave the forest without their guidance, so we agreed to follow them.
The ranger led the way, moving too easily through the mist. No hesitation, no second-guessing. That kind of competence is suspicious. No one’s that good without a reason. Either he’s been here before, or he’s got an angle I haven’t figured out yet.
Some of us indulged them. Stories, silly rhymes, things to make fools laugh. I stayed quiet. No interest in amusing them. The so-called leader of these drunks started his own tale, and between the comfort of the fog and the drone of his voice, my eyes got heavy. My mind drifted. I fell asleep.
A dream found me—no, a nightmare, though I barely care for the distinction. The lizardfolk woman’s voice slithered through my ears, soft as breath. "I’m not dead," she whispered. Again and again. I turned, but she was always behind me. "I’m not dead."
She was right, in a way. She had been murdered, left to rot in the swamp, and I—through a series of miscalculations—had raised her. Not intact. Not properly. Not as she was. Her bones were clean, waiting, but so was the gelatinous cube that had been lurking nearby. One mistake. One slip. Now she was something else—something between the two, neither fully dead nor fully alive. And I had done that. Not on purpose. But still.
Sometimes, I wonder if there’s anything left of her in there—if the lizardfolk woman has even the slightest bit of control inside the new form. Not out of sentiment. Just curiosity. Is she aware? Does she try to move, or does the ooze make those choices now? If I could separate them, would she be able to act on her own? No real way to test it without taking her apart. And I don’t have the time for that. Yet.
I woke up. The fog was still there. I wasn’t sure if I’d left the nightmare or if it had followed me into waking.
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We walked. The fog thickened, pressing in close. At some point, we passed through a set of enormous gates. They loomed in the mist, half-real, their iron bars rusted but still strong. Beyond them, the land changed—colder, older, watching us. The village appeared through the haze, barely clinging to existence.
We found a house. A nice one. Too nice for a place like this. Outside, two human children—bratty, whimpering things. They claimed a baby was trapped inside, in danger. Suspicious. I don’t trust children. They’re small, fragile, easily broken, but that just makes them better at pretending. Liars start young.
They also said there was a monster in the basement. But we never found a basement. Never found a way down. Maybe that was a lie, too. Or maybe the house has its own ideas about what doors should exist and when.
The cleric, ever the righteous fool, took their bait without hesitation. One of the others, Nav, hesitated but went in first. The rest followed. No one asked the right questions. Why were the children outside if the monster was inside? Why hadn’t they run further? The house let us in too easily.
My creation and I searched the kitchen and pantry thoroughly. Found nothing of real use. No good loot, no interesting remains. A waste. I went back to check on the children, in case they’d vanished like they were never there. I peeked through the door, slow and deliberate, watching. The younger one took one look at me and started wailing again. I must have been making a face.
The older girl was useless. Annoying. More dead weight.
Inside, the rest of the group had gotten into a fight without me. While my creation and I were checking the kitchen, one of them—Zara, I think—ran straight up to the third floor and got knocked out by a suit of armor. I missed the whole thing. She got back up, but not before throwing pieces of the armor down the stairs, shouting for the rest of us to join her. Just an empty thing, moving on its own. Shame I missed it—could’ve been a good specimen. I might’ve learned something, stripped it down to see what made it tick. But it was already dead. Again.
Not long after, the hunter got attacked by a sentient broom. While they struggled, Zara charged into another room and got downed again—this time by a ghost. I saved her. No one thanked me. Predictable.
Then we found a secret door behind a mirror. Sereux, of all people, found it—right after spending too much time admiring her own reflection. They say it leads to the attic. The others think we need to go up there. I am more than willing to follow behind them at a safe distance. But I know I’m saving myself first if things get bad.
And like I said before—there’s no baby. There’s no reason to stay here. We should just burn this place down and be done with it. I'll suggest it again.
Should we burn the house down?
