Devourer

Beatrice walked nervously towards the king’s conference room as she pushed her trolley filled with reports and specimens. The past two days were absolute chaos, according to protocol guards and iron to silver ranked adventurers were supposed to make quick forays into forest to gather information. Honestly, Beatrice had many misgivings with this part of the protocol. It was basically trading lives in the hopes of information. 

Sadly lives have already been traded, as of now all forays into the forest have been put on hold. So far five guard squads of 5 men each, two iron ranked adventurer teams, one bronze rank adventurer team and one silver rank adventurer team have vanished. That brings the death toll to 53 not counting the bandits and the attacked civilians. There were other concerning news as well… she would have to report all of this to the powerful men and women of Averlon. To say Beatrice was nervous would be grievous understatement.

When Beatrice arrived at the door of the conference room she took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. 

“You can do this…” Beatrice muttered to herself as her assistants all gave her a funny look.

“Ok…” Beatrice said to herself as she motioned for one of her assistants to open the door.

“Ah Madam Beatrice, I hope you have prepared something that will help us with this situation?” Lord Averlon said as he pinched the bridge of his nose. 

This city state is ruled by house Averlon, their family is known for their fair skin and flaming red hair. Their eyes were also special with their irises looking like pairs of rubies in their eye sockets. Beatrice could see the crown prince sitting to the king’s right, with his younger sister sitting to the king’s left. The king once had an eldest daughter but she died of a mysterious illness years ago. So now he was left with two children.

“I have some things to report… but… I am not sure if I have anything that will help find this new monster.” Beatrice replied shakily.

“Just report them then, Madam Beatrice. We will see what we can do with whatever information you have.” Lord Averlon said with a sigh.

“Yes… as all of you are aware we have lost some men in an attempt to find the new monsters. Not only that… thus far we have been unable to locate the bandit camp from which…” Beatrice said as she looked down at one of the reports.

“Mrs Lilian Gespot, she was lost for two days so she is of little help in locating the camp. Two teams of silver ranked adventurers sent out to locate the camp, thus far only one has returned. At first I thought I could use the directions of the disappeared teams to narrow down a search area for either the bandit camp or the location of the monster, but the disappearances appear to be happening in almost every general direction. As a result I have determined chances are the monsters are  either scattered in different locations or they are moving through the forest extremely rapidly. Both scenarios are concerning…” Beatrice finished with a mutter.

“Could it be that some of the teams were lost to the other monsters in the forest?” the prince asked.

“Unlikely my prince, my adventurer teams are not so easily wiped out. If this is the work of other monsters some wounded adventurer teams would have returned, especially the bronze rank and above teams.” a man with a scarred face said. This man is named Vilnol, the head of the Averlon adventurer guild. He was once a mithril ranked adventurer in this prime, now he administers to the adventurer guild branch in Averlon.

“Yes there should be no monsters in the forest that can wipe out silver ranked teams.” Beatrice added.

“Indeed, in addition my returning teams have some additional troubling news to augment your report Madam Beatrice.” Vilnol said with a grimace.

“And that is?” Lord Averlon asked.

“The forest is quiet, too quiet. Something in that forest has spooked many of the beasts that live in those great woods. The teams covered a total area 20 kilometers wide and across that entire area the forest was silent as the grave. No wolves, no horned bears, no Stalker Chameleons, nothing. Yes the forays did not venture too deeply into the forest entering less than a kilometer in, but still a silent forest for 20 kilometers is concerning.” Vilnol said with a scowl.

“In addition my spies have found something interesting.” a woman said as she calmly took a sip from a glass of wine. Beatrice didn’t recognise her… then again she didn’t mingle much with members of the court… for obvious reasons.

“I am Sarana, spy master for Lord Averlon. We have not met as of yet Madam Beatrice.” the woman said with a sly smile.

“What have you found out Sarana?” Lord Averlon asked impatiently.

“It actually pertains to the adventurer guild, my lord Vilnol are you aware a four man iron ranked adventurer team disappeared a day before that wagon was found?” Sarana said with a smile.

“Yes, I suspected they might have run into the new monsters but I could not find any additional information on it. They did not leave on any contracts, I have no records on where they might have gone.” Vilnol replied gruffly.

“Well you see my lord a little bird has sung me an interesting song… those adventurers were overheard bragging about having a treasure map in your adventurer guild hall. That treasure map apparently leads into the forest and the place they were seeking is apparently some ancient tomb.” Sarana said.

“Ancient tomb? Where did they get that map?” Lord Averlon asked.

“Apparently it was a family heirloom.” Sarana replied.

“I’ll have my men question them after this.” Lord Averlon said.

“I already did so my lord, the original owner died long ago. All the living members of her family know is that it’s an old heirloom passed down through generations and that it's a map. They also confirmed that the map leads into the forest.” Sarana said.

“An ancient tomb… could it have been released from that tomb?” Vilnol asked.

“It is possible, we do have records of ancient creatures sometimes residing in tombs.” Beatrice said.

“Ok, so we might have a place of origin…” Vilnol muttered as he cupped his chin.

“I’ll have my mithril ranked team search the forest for the tomb.” Vilnol said.

“Is that wise? Averlon has been here for hundreds of years, if no one has found it so far and seeing as we have no clues whatsoever on where it is. It is unlikely we would be able to find it.” Sarana replied.

“I will have to agree with Sarana on this, we should not risk this city's only mithril ranked adventurer team on a wild goose chase. We will need them to fight the beasts when we find them.” Lord Averlon said with a sigh.

“Very well.” Vilnol replied.

“Now then Madam Beatrice my forge master has said you ran some tests on the properties of those spines you found.” Lord Averlon said.

“Yes, we ran tests, thus far we have not been able to ascertain from what species of monster it came from. The spines match nothing on record.” Beatrice said.

“Maybe it’s a Primordial Devourer.” Sarana suggested with a light laugh.

“This is not the time for jokes, Sarana.” Vilnol replied with a scowl.

“Yes, categorising the beast as a Primordial Devourer would be like stating the monster is a monster. According to the legends the Devourers steal abilities from all the creatures it consumes, it has no consistent form or abilities. We have no records on where the Devourers have received what abilities so we do not know what abilities are innate or acquired. Their forms also vary greatly, with some developing wings, some becoming aquatic, others becoming insectoid in appearance. Nothing is consistent with them, no amount of information will allow us to narrow it down to such a conclusion.” Beatrice replied seriously.

“It's a joke, Madam Beatrice.” Sarana said with a wry smile.

“Oh…” Beatrice replied, blushing a scarlet.

“Enough, what else have you found Madam Beatrice.” Lord Averlon said, interrupting impatiently.

“The spines are unlike anything we have a record of. We estimate they are as strong as dragon bones at the very least. In addition we ran some strength testing on the spines. It has cut through every known piece of leather, fabric and hide we could get our hands on. We then tested it on metals and we found it could be resisted to an acceptable degree by mithril although it is still able to damage a mithril ingot which implies it is harder than mithril.

Lastly we tested it’s resilience to environmental factors, all available acids and venoms proved ineffective. Freezing did nothing and neither did heating…” Beatrice said as she picked up a  wooden box and opened it.

The box contained the three spines they found, they were held in place by metal clamps with no contact with edges since these spines proved to be able to cut even mithril.

“The one on the left is the one we tested with the metals and leathers, the one in the middle is the one we tested with environmental effects like temperature and acid. The one on the right is the control where we conducted no testing. 

After the tests we examined the spines again and our observations revealed no damage to any of the spines. The tested spines were identical to the control spine.” Beatrice said as she looked down at the three identical looking spines.

“This is the ingot we tested the spines against.” Beatrice said as she reached down and pulled out with some difficulty a mithril ingot about as long as a hand.

“Someone give the poor girl a hand.” Lord Averlon said with a sigh at the sight of Beatrice struggling with the ingot.

One of the nearby guards took the ingot from Beatrice and held the striked surface for the room to see. The ingot has been gouged by the spine but it has been stopped by it, not penetrating through. The concern here was that the spine went two centimeters into the ingot, most armor is at most one centimeter thick.

“This is troubling, whatever this creature is, it’s powerful and very dangerous.” Vilnol said with a grimace.

“Indeed and if I recall that Lilian girl said she found spines as long as her arm. If one of those spines hits any human it can be safe to assume that the wound may be potentially fatal.” Sarana said calmly.

“Yes, we suspected the same, in addition there were poison holes in the spine, however we found no trace of poison within the spine. It is unclear whether the poison is a rapidly decaying variant or if there is in fact no poison.” Beatrice said.

“Is that all?” Lord Averlon asked with another sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yes, my lord.” Beatrice said with a bow.

“Very well… is there anything else from anyone else?” Lord Averlon asked and when he received no reply he nodded to himself in resignation.

“You are all dismissed, Sarana, Vilnol and Georgia. I need a moment of your time.” Lord Averlon said. 

Lord Averlon watched as the room cleared out leaving the three individuals he requested. These three were the only people in this kingdom outside of his family that knew of the Cradle and the prophecy…

“Has the taskforce been sent to the Cradle?” Lord Averlon asked.

“They left this morning my lord, they should arrive by dawn tomorrow.” Sarana replied.

“Georgia, do you think that the monster could potentially destroy the sealing crystals?” Lord Averlon asked as he turned to his Head Mage, Georgia Merci. She looked down for a moment as if contemplating.

“With what we know so far, or more accurately with so little information it is difficult to say. The spines are the most concerning part of the report. If such powerful bones can be used as disposable projectiles I cannot imagine the strength of the creature’s body. 

Although most monsters either prefer flesh, vegetation or ether. Since the monster is suspected to be carnivorous it should have little interest in the ether within the sealing crystals.” Georgia replied.

“My operative will speak with the Princess when he arrives. I know you wished to be there, since tomorrow is the day she comes of age. Supposedly that is when the prophecy begins, if I recall the lines were…

When the child comes of age

She will venture forth to remind the world of the truth it has tried so hard to forget

That the Heavens Order has no place in Terra

The age of Heaven will end

And so will rise the age of mortals

Many will call her existence a nightmare

But she is no dream, she is waking…