Mythos Prelude

  Episode Jackie

  Chapter 3.1 — Check, Part 1

  by Caide Fullerton

  Check – noun, In chess and similar games, a condition that occurs when a player’s king is under threat of capture on the opponent’s next turn. While a player is in check, they must use their turn to make a move that takes them out of check.

  ? ? ?

  ???: “What’re the goats called again?”

  ???: “Jiyagi.”

  ???: “And why are we following the Ji-ya-gi?”

  Walking side-by-side along one of the many muddy roads that wound through the wasteland was an old man and a young, bright-eyed child. Alistair chuckled as his grandchild carefully enunciated the name of the monster, reaching down to pat them on the head; his other hand stroked the stubble on his chin, his graying hair blowing in the breeze as they walked.

  Alistair: “Jiyagi follow the paths of bigger monsters to scrounge for scraps. As long as we keep following ‘em, we know exactly where the most dangerous monster in the area is.”

  The child nodded astutely. Dressed in a hand-sewn tunic and a small cloth poncho, Jackie had bright red eyes and a reddish-purple tint to their dark hair, clearly taking after their mother. They were shockingly articulate for their age, but Alistair had quickly come to appreciate their enthusiastic curiosity—answering their endless stream of questions helped him to sort through his thoughts, and Jackie was quick to point out any contradictions in his answers. He’d already made more than a couple small improvements to their daily routine based on Jackie’s questioning.

  Jackie: “Isn’t going to the big monster a bad thing?”

  Alistair: “Knowing where it is is worth the risk. An’ besides, if it decides to turn our way, the Jiyagi will come running back first, so we’ll know we need to run or hide in advance.”

  Jackie: “Ohh…”

  A soft laugh came from behind the pair. Walking just a few paces back from them was a second pair of travelers, representatives of the generation between Alistair’s and Jackie’s; to put it another way, it was Jackie’s parents.

  The source of the laugh was their mother. Jacqueline was fit and muscular, but on the shorter side; dressed in ripped, flared trousers and a grey shirt with a lace-up neck, she bore the same distinctive eyes and hair as her child.

  Hearing her laugh, the man beside her gave her a sidelong glance and sighed, shaking his head with a dry smile. “How I wish I could get as excited about monsters as those two.”

  Loid was a tall and lanky man, his skin pale and his hair short and black. He was dressed simply—black trousers and a white shirt under a collared brown jacket. A pair of makeshift glasses rested crookedly on his nose, which he adjusted frequently.

  At Loid’s complaint, Jackie spun around, walking backwards with their hands on their hips. “Monster stuff is important!”

  Alistair: “Aye, ya gotta know how not to get eaten.”

  Jackie: “Yeah!”

  Jacqueline: “Yeah, Loid, it’s important.” She nudged his side with her elbow, snickering.

  Accepting his fate, Loid simply sighed again. “Yeah, yeah. I’m glad we have a little monster expert with us.”

  Rather than accept his praise, Jackie stopped and shook their head, raising a finger to wag at Loid. “I’m not an ex-pert yet. Al still needs to teach me.”

  Turning to look back at them, Alistair stopped a short ways ahead of Jackie. “I’ll teach ya plenty more stuff if ya call me ‘Grandpa’.”

  Ignoring him, Jackie turned their gaze to Jacqueline instead. “Mom, tell Al he has to teach me.”

  Jacqueline held a hand in front of her mouth to mask her rising laughter. “Well, you heard them, Al. Better get teaching.”

  Alistair sighed dramatically, shooting a defeated glance to Loid. “Guess neither of us can win with this kid, huh?”

  Jackie huffed triumphantly as they swung back around, continuing their march down the mud road. Alistair waited until they reached him to resume walking as well.

  The road wound through twisting valleys, flanked on either side by rolling hills, mounds of trash—ancient plastics and rusted metals—and the occasional ruin, some crumbled or blown into disparate bits, others standing ominously intact.

  Between the mountains of trash and stone structures was a thick sea of grasses and ferns, some patches a sickly grey color, others a horrid neon green, and further others a deep red. Poisonous, all of them—a barrier that kept most of the wasteland’s denizens confined to the roads and ruins, Humans included.

  The only other thing that rose from the sea of sickly grass were the bloodred willows. Their branches stretched out to the sky, long and jagged; their leaves hung limply from the ends of each branch, flowing in the wind. The bark of the trees was crimson red, and it even formed shapes resembling drops of coagulated blood, as if the trees themselves were melting and had been frozen in time.

  The wasteland was an inhospitable place for Human life—doubly so for a child.

  As the sun peaked high in the midday sky above them, the quartet came to a peculiar structure. A great marble pillar had fallen across the road, split in half at the center such that it left a thin crevice where someone could squeeze through. Just beside the path, a stone foundation stretched out, lined with the bases of several more pillars, the length of each either having fallen another direction or simply being missing entirely. The foundation seemed to extend forward from a larger building which had long-since completely collapsed, leaving only its front porch accessible.

  It was here that the group stopped to take a rest. After a careful inspection to ensure nothing else had taken up residence before them, a small fire was lit just before the collapsed building, and food was prepared.

  As the other three stood around the fire, Alistair stood a ways away from them, keeping watch over the road as he scarfed down his share of their rations.

  Jackie: “Mom, can we practice fighting some more?”

  After tearing a bite out of their share of beetle meat, Jackie turned to Jacqueline with shining, earnest eyes. In response, she tilted her head, tapping her chin with a finger.

  Jacqueline: “Hmm… well, maybe for a little bit, but... We can’t have you getting tired. We still have a long walk ahead of us.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Jackie: “How long are we gonna keep walking?” They pouted.

  Loid: “Well, we don’t want to fall too far behind the herd.” Loid interjected, raising a finger as he spoke.

  Jackie: “Oh, right… the Ji… Ji-ya-gi.”

  Loid: “Good work.” He patted them on the head. “Plus, we need to find better shelter before nightfall. We don’t know how far we’ll have to walk before we find a good ruin.”

  Disappointed, Jackie lowered their gaze. “At this rate, I’ll never be as strong as Mom or Al…”

  Jacqueline chuckled and placed a hand on their shoulder. “Aw, cheer up, Jackie. Tell you what, if we find a good spot before its too dark, we can practice as much as you want.”

  Loid: “You’re a bit young to be worrying about that, anyways…”

  Loid joked with a dry tone, but Jackie turned to him earnestly, gripping their food in both hands.

  Jackie: “Nuh-uh! I need to get strong so I can help you guys fight!”

  Loid: “Oh, really? Think you can take on a monster on your own?”

  Jackie paused, looking down for a moment as they seriously considered the question. “Um… Probably not.”

  Loid chuckled. “You have to wait until you’re taller to help us out. Then, you can fight all you want.”

  Jackie nodded intently. “How tall do I need to be?”

  Loid: “Hmm… at least as tall as me.”

  Jackie: “But Mom is shorter than you! Why can she fight?”

  Jacqueline: “You either need to be as tall as Loid or as old as me.”

  Jackie huffed in frustration. “Well, how old are you?”

  Jacqueline: “You shouldn’t ask ladies about that.~”

  Listening in on their banter from afar, Alistair couldn’t help but chuckle.

  It was then that, just for the briefest moment, his senses caught something strange.

  Immediately, he froze time around him on reflex. This was the secret power that only Alistair possessed, and the secret to his long life and combat prowess. He called it Recess—his little break from the world and from the passage of time.

  When he entered Recess, not only did the world around him freeze, but his body did, as well. The only thing that remained active was his mind, though he’d discovered that, in this state, his mind could wander beyond the confines of his physical body, and it was able to borrow his body’s senses.

  Of course, if he wandered beyond where his body’s senses could reach, all he would find was a white void. What he was focused on now, however, was not his vision, nor his hearing or his sense of touch—it was his sense of smell.

  Death.

  After a few moments, he realized that was the whiff he’d caught. It was the scent of death—no, to be precise, it was the scent of something that had died, of a corpse.

  Where had it come from? It couldn’t be in the ruin or their immediate vicinity; they’d checked the area well, and they’d’ve smelled it already if that were the case. No, the smell was coming from upwind. As he retained the ability feel while in Recess, he could tell that a light breeze was coming from beyond the ruin, on the other side of the great fallen pillar.

  The source must be further down the road.

  Time resumed, and Alistair quickly tore through the rest of his rations, stepping back over to the others. Jacqueline looked up as he approached, and, seeing his grim expression, narrowed her eyes sharply.

  Jacqueline: “What is it?”

  Alistair: “Caught the scent of something dead. Could be nothin’… watch Jackie. Be ready to move.”

  Jacqueline and Loid both nodded seriously, while Jackie simply cocked their head at Alistair with a blank, curious gaze.

  Jackie: “Is it a monster..?”

  Alistair: “I’m gonna find out. Wait here, alright, kid?”

  Raising their hands to clench their fists in front of their chest, the child nodded resolutely. Alistair forced a smile, ruffling their hair before turning to leave.

  He made his way out onto the mud road and to the cracked pillar, carefully sidling through the gap and crouching down at the other end. He entered Recess again, this time “stepping” away from his body. His mind slowly made its way further down the mud road.

  Along the straight path, his eyes could see far, allowing him to contain a long stretch of the area ahead within Recess. As long as it was within the field of his body’s vision, his mind could wander over and take a closer look, allowing him to examine distant objects.

  Glancing to either side, he saw that the backsides of mounds, trees, and debris became blurry, their colors melting away into empty white voids that stretched beyond them. These voids blanketed everything that stood outside of his body’s vision, and as he “walked” down the road, the increasing number of obstructions made what remained of each subsequent object thinner and thinner, until eventually only the road itself remained, flanked entirely by void on either side.

  He continued to “walk”. If there was a corpse, it would most likely be on the road. In no time at all, this deduction proved true.

  A quadrepedal skeleton rested on its side in the mud, its bones caked in red, the same color staining the ground around it. It wasn’t the only one, either—a second lay just a few meters further down the road, and he could see half of a third on the edge of the road, the rest of its form lost to the void.

  He “knelt” down to examine the skeleton, but the act was futile. At this distance from his body, the world had started to go blurry, and the skeleton itself cast “shadows” of white void over itself, further obscuring it from examination. He would have to approach in resumed time to investigate it properly.

  At the very least, he’d confirmed the exact location of his target, and there was no sign of the perpetrator on the road. As he resolved to reenter the flow of time, his vision began to zip backwards until it returned to his eye-sockets. With a deep breath, the world resumed, and Alistair stepped forward.

  He made his way to the corpses carefully, taking a few additional breaks in Recess to check for monsters off the road. Once he was satisfied that he truly was alone, he finally arrived at the trio of skeletons, entering Recess a final time so he could take his sweet time with the investigation.

  All three skeletons belonged to creatures of the same kind. They were quadrupeds, with a goat’s head and wings extending from their backs—Jiyagi. What was more striking, however, was that the skeletons were just that—nothing but bones. All three of the corpses had been stripped down to the bone, not a speck of flesh left behind—no, on further examination, there were some scraps left lying around in the skeletons’ vicinity, but the fact remained that the bodies themselves were bare.

  Despite having been stripped of their flesh, the skeletons were oddly intact. You’d expect whatever killed them to have broken a few bones, but their limbs were in pristine condition. The only parts to have sustained any damage were their skulls, all three of which had been snapped in two, and their ribs, which had been forcefully pried open. From the look of it, these breaks were likely inflicted after the beasts were already dead.

  What could have done this? Did the Jiyagi alert the monster they were following?

  Doubtful. For one, the rest of the herd would have turned around if that were the case; there were no splits in the path nearby, so the stampede would’ve had to pass by Alistair and co. again. Furthermore, if whatever they were following did detect them and managed to get close enough to kill three of them, he doubted it would have only managed to kill three. A powerful monster also would have almost certainly broken some bones with its attacks.

  Finally, there were no signs of a large monster having traveled this road recently. It was hard to say for sure, what with the Jiyagi’s hoofprints blanketing the road, but the monsters they preferred to follow were generally too large for their tracks to be covered by the goats’.

  For that matter, he couldn’t find any non-Jiyagi prints at all. Whatever had done this was intelligent enough to cover its own tracks—or small enough not to leave any. As he double-checked the surroundings, he came upon conclusive proof of the former: scraps of cloth, likely torn off in the struggle.

  Knowing the danger was intelligent narrowed the possibilities by quite a lot, but that still left him with several options. Could it have been another band of Humans, following the Jiyagi just as they were? Unlikely; Humans would have no reason to butcher the Jiyagi so thoroughly. If anything, they’d harvest the bones themselves before even considering taking some of the less nutritional organs. Judging by the blood and the stray scraps, it seems whatever ate the Jiyagi did it on the spot, besides.

  A band of Kritta, then? Also unlikely. While more animalistic than Humans, they were still smart enough to harvest the horns and bones and to take their food with them.

  That left him with a single option, one that checked off every box on the list. They were small. They were intelligent. Despite their intelligence, they had rabid dispositions and insatiable appetites. They would gather in large enough numbers that they’d need to eat their prey down to the bone. They had no need for weapons or armor, so they wouldn’t bother to harvest bones.

  Krimling.

  Of all the monsters that inhabited the wasteland, they were the smallest and weakest, at least individually. What made this species dangerous, however, was their incredible rate of reproduction and growth.

  Just two Krimling could produce a litter of offspring in a matter of minutes. A few minutes later, those offspring would reach maturity and could reproduce, as well. Over the course of an hour, two Krimling could rise to an army of thousands, enough to overwhelm all but the absolute worst that the wasteland had to offer.

  This was, perhaps, the worst possible conclusion Alistair could have reached.