IDWTBTHQ Prologue Rewrite

Sarah ran for her life, her copper brown hair trailing in the wind while some monstrous figures chased after her.

Contrary to what could be expected from a maiden running away from horrible monsters she was not panicking, because an Aura Master never panics. Granted, she technically wasn't an Aura Master yet but that was only because she had postponed her trial in order to take part in this godsdamned expedition, and she was more than skilled enough to hold the Crimson Sheath by now. Still, Aura Master or not, she was confident that she was in control of her emotions, so the weird sensation in her chest was surely her armor being a tad too tight and definitely not abject terror gripping her heart. Similarly, the fact that she was fervently swearing under her breath didn't mean that she was scared, no sir! That was only because she was angry for getting herself involved in this whole fiasco.

Right now, most of her curses were aimed at Karl, the old adventurer who had convinced her to join this accursed expedition to the Dark Heart, the mysterious region at the center of the Caligare Forest. If it wasn't for him, she would have never let herself get involved in such a foolish journey, but the old man had been weirdly convincing. His feverish optimism and enthusiasm somehow infected all those who listened to him, to the point that Klara would have suspected the involvement of some mind-magic trickery if she hadn't been so confident in her mental defenses.

Nevertheless, whatever the reason that had led her here was, the end result was that Sarah was currently the only survivor of the expedition and she would soon share the fate of her companions if she couldn't lose her pursuers. Which meant that she should focus on escaping before trying to pin the blame for this situation.

Concentrating on her legs, the girl used the Flash Step aura technique to increase her speed, quickly accelerating to the pace of a galloping horse. Potentially she could have gone even faster than that, but the terrain was far too treacherous for that, since it was almost entirely covered by a weird mold similar to gray wax on which she could easily slip and fall. Besides, that speed still allowed her to gradually distance her pursuer, albeit not as quickly as she would have wished.

The chase continued for a while in an eerie silence that was broken only by Sarah's footsteps and her enemies' chittering. There were no bird singing, nor the sound of rustling leaves, not even insects crawling on the ground. The whole place was dead, covered in a shroud of that waxy mold which seemed to suffocate any other form of life.

Sarah had known that something was deadly wrong the very moment they stepped out of the jungle into that huge, mold-covered clearing, and her suspicions had only grown when her aura senses had failed to pick any signs of life coming from it. Worse still, once she had stepped on it, her own aura senses seemed to have been dulled.

And yet she had let Karl convince her to march on. At worst, he had said with seemingly absolute confidence, the dead zone would have marked the presence of a colony of undead. And their group had several veteran clerics to deal with such an infestation.

He had ignored the stuff covering the ground, dismissing it as simply an harmless variety of mold from the Dark Heart after testing it and making sure that it wasn't poisonous nor would it animate and try to swallow them. And the others had followed him over that dead zone, all blinded by Karl's talk of the golden temple ahead, and all of the treasures it would contain.

Now, to be fair, the old explorer had been partially right. After half a day of marching through that horrible clearing with their aura sense completely blinded for some reason, they had reached the temple, and it was almost exactly how Karl had described it. Forty meters tall, and seemingly made out entirely of gold, crystallium and other precious materials.

Sadly, that's where the old adventurer's information started going wrong. First off, the walls of the temple were almost entirely covered by the same mold-wax that encrusted everything else. And second, it wasn't infested by undead, but rather by something much, much worse.

The moment the group tried to approach the temple, everything went to hell. Chitin covered horrors had emerged from the inside of the temple and also erupted from the very ground around them. Thousands upon thousands of them had been hiding, waiting for the humans and preparing an ambush, and not even the Aura Scan spell had managed to find them out. It was as if they were soulless.

But should or not, they were still extremely intelligent. As if guided by a common, malevolent intent, they had struck with surgical precision and coordination, taking advantage of the element of surprise to attack and kill the expedition's casters first. Only a couple of them had survived that initial onslaught, and they weren't enough to really make a difference.

After that, the battle had been a slow but methodical massacre.

The group of adventurers had been an elite one, and posed a strenuous resistance. Karl had convinced the king of Medelan himself to finance the expedition and expecting to meet dangerous creatures in the Caligare Forest the old explorer had spared no expense in hiring expert warriors to provide protection. At the time of their departure from the city of Brettholz, the group was 200 people strong. It had over 30 casters, half of which were Legion-grade Battlecasters while the other half were skilled clerics , about 20 Aura Users, of which 4 (5 if you included Sarah) were Aura Masters, and the rest were all veteran hunters, scouts, soldiers and explorers. It was an incredibly elite group, which despite its relatively small size would have been able to take on and defeat most of the creatures that infested the forest.

However, right now, taken by surprise and with most of their casters dead, they couldn't do much more than delay the inevitable, since the number of enemies that was coming out to attack them seemingly knew no end. For each creature they killed, three more took its place, while the number of humans was slowly being whittled down. If they had a sufficient number of casters they could have used their magic to clear out an escape route, but as things were it fell on the Aura Users to do that with their weapons... not a really efficient method, but they had no real alternatives. After about half an hour of desperate fighting Sarah and the other last surviving Aura Master had spearheaded one last desperate attack to breach the encirclement and escape, and against all odds it had worked, allowing them to escape the encirclement and try to run for the forest.

Sadly, that too had proven to be a rather illusory hope.

The survivors were exhausted and often wounded from the fight, and the creatures were incredibly fast, so they had quickly caught up with the fugitives, killing them one by one until only the girl had remained. However, by now she was approaching the end of the clearing, and if she managed to reach the trees then she'd have a real chance of getting away with her life. Sure, going back through the forest alone was going to be hard, even for an Aura User such as herself, but she was confident that she could make it.

Her hope took a nosedive when she saw a few figures emerging from the mold a few meters in front of her.

Once again, those creatures had shown a surprising amount of intelligence and forethought, leaving some of their kin hidden away at the edge of the clearing to intercept any eventual fugitive.

Sarah grit her teeth in rage, as her frustration surpassed her fear. She was damned if she let these oversized bug get the better of her.

Chitin covered bodies hurled themselves at her, raising scythe-like limbs to cut her down, but in response to this, the girl didn't even slow down.

"Flowing Flower Slash!" she cried —something which normally would have made her ashamed, as only rookie Aura Users shouted the name of their attacks, but right now she simply didn't care— and she flew past the monsters like a gust of wind.

The monsters' heads fell, leaving their serpentine bodies to squirm in the dirt.

Sarah had to stop herself from sneering. Apparently, the strength of these creatures resided in their numbers and ability to not be picked up by the Aura Scan, but in a fair fight they were nothing compared to an Aura Master.

She picked up her pace. She could make out the individual trees right now, and in less than a minute she would reach the relative safety of the forest, where she could easily lose the creatures. Just a little more, and she would survive!

Blinded by her own hope, she failed to notice the buzzing noise coming from over her head, and she saw a shadow clawing at her from the sky only at the very last moment. She instinctively dived to the left, just as a new horror similar to a gigantic wasp landed where she had been a moment before, piercing the ground with its oversized sting.

Sarah immediately picked herself up to continue running, but more of those flying monsters dropped from the sky, forcing her to stop and fight them. Meanwhile, more of the other creatures emerged from the ground.

She held her ground desperately, trying to open an escape route, but she was quickly surrounded. Even then, dozens of monsters were felled by her swings, but in the end she was literally drowned in a sea of chitin covered bodies, and everything went dark for her.

An undetermined amount of time later, Sarah regained her senses.

She felt terribly weak and confused, as if her thoughts and memories had been scrambled, and her body ached all other, with a particularly sharp pain concentrated in her head.

“Great.” She thought. “I must be hungover.”

She tried moving but found out she couldn't. And yet, it wasn't as if she was tied or something... it was more like her whole body was encased in rock or something. This struck her as odd, so she opened her eyes to assess the situation.

She was in a large chamber entirely covered by a weird, grey translucent stuff, which glowed dimly and was the only source of light. After inspecting her surroundings for a moment, she looked down at herself, and found out with horror that she was buried up to her neck in that substance.

She immediately tried to free herself, trying to call upon her aura powers to gain the necessary strength to break the substance that was keeping her trapped, but for some reason she couldn't. It was as if her thoughts couldn't connect properly with her body.

Useless. Useless.

A weird, emotionless voice echoed painfully in her mind, making her flinch, and a gargantuan shadow moved into her field of vision from behind her.

It was one of the chitin-covered monsters that had chased her, but this one was different.

For starters, it was much bigger than the others. Even crouching over her, it was at least 3 meters tall. Its lower body was similar to that of a bloated lizard, with a chitin armor covering its skin, but its torso was vaguely humanoid, like that of a praying mantis, an impression which was reinforced by its scythe-like arms and huge insectoid head with huge, bulking eyes which glowed purple. However, unlike a real insect, this one had an actual mouth, and one filled with countless needle-sharp teeth, like that of a fish out of the depth of the ocean.

But even more horrific than the creature's appearance was its aura. Even without using an Aura scan technique, Sarah could clearly feel it, permeating the whole room like a miasma. Even worse, she could feel it inside of her head, keeping her from using her powers and violating her mind in the worst way imaginable, filling it with its utterly alien presence. The girl tried to scream, but no sound escaped her mouth except for a weak wheeze.

The cold voice echoed again in Sarah's mind... only this time it carried the creature's intention. It was tinged with a famelic hunger, which left the Aura User no doubt about her fate.

Strong Strong. You make good nourishment for new queen. The Vex will grow big and strong with you.