Chapter Six: The Putrid Coast
Written by Ethan
Ja and Kaia walked cautiously along the rough stones that lined the bottom of the ravine, hearts racing as they entered into another strange world. The night sky above was filled with yellow-tinged clouds that rumbled as if a storm was brewing, though the air was oddly still. It was arid but not overly hot, like breath against skin; the temperature would have been pleasant compared to the brutal heat of their jungle or the bleak chill of Torv’s world, if not for the scent of rot that smothered their senses.
“We need to find Torv,” Ja said as they walked.
Kaia nodded, though she wasn’t entirely sure she agreed. They’d only known the man for less than a day and in that time he’d been unpredictable and violent. Despite seemingly having a change of heart after killing the gray-haired man, someone like him was just as much of a liability as an asset. His strength could help keep them safe, but there was no way of knowing how he’d react in a bizarre new environment. She and Ja had made it work so far as a duo, though it was unclear if any of their success was due to their individual strengths or simply from luck. Regardless, each new world they stumbled into brought new challenges, and having Torv on their side seemed worth the risk, assuming they could avoid setting off his volatile temper.
Due to the nature of the ravine, there was only one direction a person could go. The hardened, naturally-formed clay walls on either side stretched up steeply with no handholds to aid in climbing. Lining the tops of the ravine walls were immense shrubs - almost the height of full trees - that were covered in dagger-sized thorns, stretching on densely with no end in sight. Ja and Kaia continued forward, seeing clearly from far below that even if Torv had managed to scramble up the side of the ravine, his flesh likely would have been pulled from his bones if he had attempted to muscle his way through the foliage.
As they continued moving ahead, Kaia was suddenly aware that the ravine gave her a feeling similar to the Orn prison. Though she had only been inside for a few weeks, the experience had left her deeply uncomfortable with the feeling of being restricted, even if in hindsight that “restriction” was relatively safe compared to the seemingly endless dangers that awaited in the jungle beyond the compound. Kaia knew that things could always be worse outside of the walls that confined her, but somehow the feeling of being closed in was now even more frightening.
“We need to get out of this ravine so we can see better,” Kaia declared confidently, masking her uneasiness. “Find a hill or something high to get a look around. I saw Torv go down the path through the doorway. He couldn’t have gotten that far ahead of us.”
In the distance, a loud roar ripped through the silent evening, stopping the two in their tracks. They huddled against the side of the ravine, hoping that whatever had made the horrendous sound was above them somewhere in the thicket and not further down the path. Soon, the ground above them began to shake as something immense made its way in their direction. Moments later, the roar repeated, followed by the sound of branches being snapped away as the entity careened towards the edge of the ravine.
Ja and Kaia flattened themselves further against the dry clay walls, doing their best to hide their bodies beneath a slight outcropping where a thick root had managed to grow through the side of the hill. Clumps of dirt began to shower down as the mysterious creature pushed closer to the edge, the sounds of inquisitive sniffs and snorts making it evident that they were close to being detected.
Ja grimaced as a gigantic, rat-like nose covered in patches of bristled fur broke through the thorn bushes above them and grunted in anticipation of what lay at the bottom of the ravine. A long, viscous strand of mucus and saliva leaked down from the beast's mouth and landed on his shoulder, forcing a slight yelp from the frightened young man. Kaia grabbed him and pulled him in closer, firmly signaling without words that any further noise might be the last he ever made.
Suddenly, a roar echoed again, though it clearly didn’t come from the creature lurking above. The snout abruptly withdrew from the edge of the cliff and was followed by a piercing screech that forced Ja and Kaia to squint and cover their ears. Then they could hear a struggle ensue as the creature fought for its life against something even larger and more frightening than itself.
Dirt and rock began to stream down the wall. Continuing down the ravine now seemed a much safer option than being crushed by an avalanche from the battle above, so Ja and Kaia crawled away from their hiding place and moved swiftly down the path. Whatever was attacking the disgusting rat beast was clearly winning, as the screeches turned to moans punctuated by the wet gurgling of blood escaping from a torn throat.
Before they had even moved beyond the sounds of the dying creature, Kaia noticed an opening in the ravine wall just large enough for the two of them to squeeze inside. As much as she wanted to distance herself from the horrifying activity above, she feared this new beast would give chase if it noticed them escaping. She remembered the hunters of Orn talking about their experiences with predators and how a satiated animal was far easier to escape than one caught up in the excitement of a hunt. Sometimes, that meant hiding in a cave for up a tree for hours at a time. The fact that the hunters lived to tell these tales was proof enough that the strategy was viable.
Kaia grabbed Ja and pushed him into the crevasse, glancing behind one last time for good measure. The struggle between the two enormous animals had uprooted a large chunk of the thorn-covered bushes from the top of the ravine, causing a landslide that would have buried them both had they not moved. With the steep hillside broken away, there was now a much more manageable path for climbing up and escaping the ravine once they had waited out whatever lurked above.
Kaia slid in behind Ja and was immediately up to her wrists in a swampy puddle of wet clay. The cavity was damper than the earth outside and as they crawled in further, they soon found themselves covered in an odorless, brownish-red sludge. Slowly, they trudged and squirmed their way to the end of a minuscule cavern, where a smattering of roots poked down from above. There was just enough room for each of them to sit crouched against the wall with their knees touching slightly. In the corner above Kaia, a trickle of water flowed from a natural spout, indicating a spring or small creek was running above them.
“What was that you said about opening a doorway to a world full of monsters?” Ja whispered, his voice quivering too much to sound judgmental.
“I’m beginning to think all of these worlds are filled with monsters,” Kaia sighed. “But I’ll take my chances with the monsters that don’t sacrifice their own kind.”
“I would like to avoid monsters completely, if possible.”
Kaia looked over to him, noticing how thick the clay was caked around his face.
“You trying to become a buru?” she asked with a giggle.
“No, I fell in face first,” Ja responded sharply before also letting a small laugh escape. “I didn’t expect it to be wet.”
Kaia reached up into the trickling water and let it wash and then gather in her hands, then smelled it. She looked at Ja and nodded, bringing her cupped hands to her mouth, and Ja followed suit. Once they had their fill, Ja reached up again and began to wash the mud from his face, but Kaia stopped him.
“It may be a good thing we stumbled in here,” she said. “The clay might help cover our smell and make it harder for whatever is outside to find us.”
As the two sat against the damp walls of the tiny cave and caught their breath, the adventures of the last few days began to involuntarily replay in their minds. It felt unreal, like a lucid dream that wouldn’t end; a nightmare that just kept getting worse. But despite the dangers they’d faced, the two of them were still alive, and for the first time in as long as either could remember, they began to feel like they weren’t as useless as the people from their world had always made them feel.
“So, what now?” asked Ja.
“Same plan as before: we need to find higher ground. Whatever was fighting back there caused a landslide, so we’ll be able to climb up easier now. I don’t know how long the ravine is, but it looks far and I don’t like not knowing what's around me.”
“But…what about the monsters?” Ja asked skeptically. “Why would we want to go up to where they are?”
“Well, one of them is dead, which means the other isn’t hungry anymore. Hopefully, that combined with the clay will allow us to sneak past.”
Even in the back of the small crevasse, Ja and Kaia could still hear the faint sounds of the victorious creature feasting: the ripping of flesh and cracking of bones. Once the muffled sounds of the gargantuan beast above had ceased, they began to slowly ease their way down the tunnel and back into the ravine. They hugged the wall as they made their way towards the newly formed ramp, listening for any sounds that might alert them to danger.
As they arrived at the scene of the attack, Kaia cautiously inched up the pile of rocks, branches, and clay, avoiding the sharp thorns that now jutted up through the rubble. The only sign of the predator was a stretching path of battered thorn bushes that led away from the ravine and the mangled corpse of a massive rat. Kaia stood in shock and stared at the vile thing in front of her. It was double the size of the water buffalo that wandered the river valleys near Orn, with features recognizable yet absurdly proportioned. While its head and face remained intact, its lower half was missing, leaving a mess of entrails and gore spread over the ground all around it. Peering closer, Kaia realized that the contents of its stomach had been expelled as well, an explosion of unrecognizable ooze and a great number of bones that looked very human. Strangely, she found herself longing for the much smaller, half-digested rats in her own world.
Despite being freshly killed, the rat had an odd appearance of rot to it, with festering skin tearing at different spots across its body. One of its ears was completely missing and its right eye socket had melted away to the bone. Clearly, this thing was diseased and it was best for them to keep as far away from it as possible.
“What is that?” Kaia heard Ja say as he approached behind her, followed by a groan and then the sound of him throwing up.
As she backed away from the corpse, a loud whirring noise and then a flash of light caused her to wheel around to see a new portal open up in the ravine down below. A sound like distant screams resonated from the entranceway, growing louder as the two watched in stunned silence. A moment later, a group of ten people came stumbling out of the portal in a panic, desperate to escape whatever was behind them.
The group was completely nude save for rough, metallic collars around each of their necks. Their skin was chalky white and completely hairless like newborn babies. The sound of loud, angry barking soon followed and out of the portal came a pack of thickly-furred dogs with oversized jaws filled with jagged teeth. While not nearly as big as the rat, they were still much larger than any dog Ja or Kaia had ever seen.
The two instinctively crouched down, clay-covered flesh effectively camouflaging them on the edge of the ravine. They watched as the group scattered with panicked screams, running at full pace down the ravine path. The dogs eagerly gave chase until a whistle from within the portal grabbed their attention and stopped them mid-step. Obediently, they turned around and made their way back, prancing through the glimmering gateway one by one.
On the other side of the doorway stood four men, muscularly built but not as large as the Ulvson, covered from head to toe in brightly-dyed animal skins, watching as the panicked group disappeared from sight. One of them glanced in Ja and Kaia’s direction, lifting a finger to point out their presence to his companions. Before the others could react, the portal closed, leaving Ja and Kaia quivering and staring at the empty ravine floor.
Once it was clear the doorway was gone and not returning, Ja peered down the path looking for the people who had run away.
“Should we follow after them?” he asked. Kaia shook her head.
“They are too loud. Too panicked. They’ll just draw unwanted attention.” Even she was shocked at the coldness of her statement.
“Well, then maybe we should wait for another doorway to open? Maybe another person who knows about them, like the one Torv killed, will come through.”
Kaia silently considered the idea. Perhaps they’d get lucky and someone helpful would appear and explain things to them, but based on their experiences so far that seemed unlikely. Before she could respond to his question, a chorus of screams rang out from further down the ravine, followed by a different but just-as-terrifying trio of roars that made it obvious the newest arrivals in this world had not made it very far.
“I don’t think waiting around is the right thing to do,” Kaia said. She pointed towards the trampled thorn bushes left in the wake of the unknown giant. “We’ll take our chances through there. Just keep your head down and stay quiet.”
Though the thorn bushes covered most of the area above the ravine, they became less dense the further Ja and Kaia walked, and eventually they were able to step off the wide-open path and conceal their movements more effectively. The ground here was rough on their feet, with cracked and stony soil poking uncomfortably on their calloused soles. The sheer brutality of the land became more apparent with every step; it was a wonder anything could exist out here at all. Kaia couldn’t help but wonder why the gray-haired man had attempted to escape to this place, especially after Torv had injured him so severely. Even if the Ulvson hadn’t finished him off, the man would have quickly met his fate to any of the horrors that awaited on this side of the portal.
Up ahead, Kaia noticed a small hill popping above the canopy of the thorn bushes, tall enough to give them a good view of the surrounding area but not an insurmountable climb. At the top of the hill, she thought she could see a structure composed of lazily-stacked rocks and tree branches, but it was difficult to make out clearly in the dim light.
“There,” she said, pointing. “Let's get up there and then we can decide what to do. Maybe we’ll see some sign of Torv.”
The two quickened their pace, cognizant of the fact that while their journey through the thorns had been relatively uneventful so far, their introduction to this world had been anything but. Currently, the law of averages was not on their side.
Kaia scampered up the hill with Ja close behind, the potential for shelter driving their quick ascent. At the top, Kaia was pleased to find her observation had been correct: There was indeed a small shelter, but Ja tugging at her arm pulled her attention away.
“Kaia…look,” he said, pointing out to the horizon.
The hill sat atop a great sand dune overlooking a putrid yellow ocean. Gargantuan beasts patrolled the waters, sending plumes of liquid shooting along their backs as they dove and surfaced, hunting for food. Structures similar to the shelter on the hill also dotted the beach below, positioned far enough from the shore to avoid the tides. The sun was beginning to rise over the horizon, painting the sky with a sickly yellow hue that matched the fetid sea.
As they took in the scene, the sound of heavy stomping and trees being smashed apart once again caught their attention. The mystery of what had killed the rat finally revealed itself as a colossal creature broke through the dagger thorn forest, so tall that its head loomed above the hill where they currently stood.
Kaia could see that the beast was canine: It resembled the wolves that Orn warriors domesticated to aid in their hunting, though on an impossibly massive scale. Its body was completely hairless, skin rippled in folds like the neck of a vulture. Its eyes were filled with clouds like those of the recently deceased, with two large, flesh-ridged holes on either side of the head the only semblance of ears. Signs of decay similar to those on the corpse of the rat were rampant across its body, the flesh stretching and tearing as its rigidity gave way to the bone and muscle below.
Ja and Kaia ducked behind a mound of rocks as the foul canine lumbered down the dunes towards the water, seemingly oblivious to their presence. At the edge of the sea, it bent its head down and lapped up the yellow water in disgusting mouthfuls.
Out in the deep, a dark shape began to rise to the surface, waves building as it swiftly approached the drinking canine. Fixated on hydration, the great wolf finally tilted its head up to see a tidal wave coming in its direction. It began to retreat but barely had a moment to scamper backward before the wave crashed and consumed it completely.
Before the waters could recede, a whale exploded from beneath the tide and caught the wolf around its neck, severing its head with a quick snap. It dwarfed the enormous dog, as whales tend to do, but Ja and Kaia had no reference for that. To them, the beast was a god, the size of an entire village. The decapitated wolf body crashed down into the water, blood mixing with the yellow foam to create splashes of orange like flames raging across the beach.
As the wave pulled back completely, Ja and Kaia could see the whale greedily drag the wolf’s body into the deep, its severed head laid out on the shore with mouth agape.
“I think I want to leave now,” Ja squeaked as he slinked back towards the shelter. He began to dig through his satchel. “I’m getting the jawbones and we’re going somewhere else.”
The sound of coughing from within the shelter caught both of their attention. They turned and found a cloaked man standing in the doorway.
Unsurprisingly, he looked just as horrible as every other creature they’d encountered in this world thus far. His flesh was shrink-wrapped directly to his skeleton, with folds of skin like those on the wolf covering every bit of visible body. He surely would have been a shocking sight a few days prior, but his calm demeanor was almost comforting to them at that moment; a sign that thinking beings like themselves could actually survive in this terrible place. Unlike the animals here, his eyes still had life. The man smiled, revealing rows of rotten teeth, and began to speak.
“Hello Warp Walkers, I am Luto. It's been a long time since we’ve had guests…most make a habit of simply discarding their unwanted odds and ends here, so it's nice to see new faces.” He reached out and offered up his hand before realizing that his appearance may be a bit much for the whole-fleshed visitors and pulled it back to his side.
“Where are we?” asked Kaia, head still reeling.
“Your kind call it the Putrid Coast.”
“Our kind?” Kaia replied.
“Yes, Warp Walkers, those who come forth from the light discs. Those with new flesh.”
“Have there been others like us?” Ja asked.
“Of course! We’ve seen many of your kind, all different shapes and colors and all fresh, unlike the things you see around you.”
“Why is everything here so…sickly?” Kaia asked bluntly.
The man smiled again, not at all offended by her question.
“This place was stricken by a plague many lifetimes ago that killed much of the plants and animals that once existed here. A few of our ancestors survived and embraced the rot that rose from the billions of corpses that lay baking in the sun, and eventually, other lifeforms followed suit. The plague evolved and is now a part of every living being on this planet, which is why everything appears…sickly, as you put it.”
Despite his calming tone, Luto’s answer didn’t comfort them in the least. Were they going to get infected by this disease? It seemed a silly end considering all they’d been through so far. Luto could see the distress plainly on their faces.
“Do not worry. Many Warp Walkers have come here and none that I know of has been infected by the disease. Eons of adaptation have made it relatively weak outside of this place, though you’d do best to avoid the big body of water you see in the distance. The disease is rampant and constantly mutating there.”
Though he spoke the same language as Ja and Kaia, she could only understand about half the words Luto was saying. Ja knew that this was the first time he had ever heard the terms and concepts of eons and evolution and mutation, but somehow his brain was making sense of them. Lost, Kaia looked over to Ja and saw that his expression was focused and clear, not confused at all. She curiously eyed the petrified tongue that hung from his neck.
“How many have come before us?” Ja asked.
“Oh, many visitors have come and gone, starting long before my time. Some say they arrived just after the plague began to spread. In fact, many believe they were responsible for helping our ancestors survive and adapt. After that, they would only arrive every so often, helping us with their inventions. And in return, we allowed them to leave things here they couldn’t dispose of properly in their own worlds, such as the animals that never stop growing, or the sad people with the metal necklaces.
“This has been a very exciting day indeed,” Luto continued, clasping his hands. “As I said, very few stay to visit anymore. They usually just push things through the portals. But today, we’ve had three proper visitors: you two and the big man.”
“Big man?” asked Kaia, happy to understand the conversation again. “That’s Torv. Is he still here?”
“Oh, no, not anymore. He seemed in a hurry. He was quite focused on finding a wizard or something, which we don’t really have here. He was very bloody. He had pushed his way through the thorns, though it didn't look like it hurt him too much.” Luto paused. “Very frightening man.”
“That sounds like Torv,” said Kaia.
“Wait, you spoke to him?” asked Ja. “How did you understand what he was saying?”
“We don’t all need trinkets to get along,” said the man, eyeing Ja’s necklace. “He was bleeding everywhere. I just soaked some of it up and then I understood him.” Luto gave the young man a chilling glare. “Now I understand everything about him.”
Before Ja could ask how the man was speaking to him and Kaia without soaking up their blood, she cut off the conversation completely.
“Where did he go?” Kaia blurted, unimpressed that everyone else could communicate better than her.
“When he found out there weren’t any ‘wizards’ here, he wanted to know where another portal was,” said the withered man. “There are many places they appear, all with different uses. Some open and close randomly, others require Warp Walkers like you. The visitors that help us use the portals near the canyon, a day's walk along the dunes, though that’s right near the portal where the biggest animals feed. He took off in that direction before I had a chance to tell him about the others. There’s a portal much closer, beneath this very hill.”
“And who comes out of that one?” asked Ja.
“No one has for a long time, but it's where the first visitors arrived. The original helpers. It's not like the others: it doesn't appear out of the air, but from a big black stone.”
Ja looked down at his bandaged hand and then glanced over to Kaia. She nodded, understanding the connection he was making. He walked over to her and turned his back, touching her arm and guiding her away from Luto, keeping his voice low so that the man couldn’t hear him.
“If the stone here is like the one back home, maybe I can use the reflection on my hand to open it.”
“But I don’t want to go home,” said Kaia.
“Neither do I. But the first people who came here should have answers, and maybe that stone leads to them. They might not be the ones who are currently helping in this place, but they did at one point. Either way, I’d rather have to only go down the hill again than past all the monsters on the sand dunes.”
“Then we’ll have to leave Torv,” Kaia responded matter-of-factly.
“Yes,” Ja nodded. “How do you feel about that?”
Kaia thought back to a few hours prior when they were wandering the ravine alone, moving forward blindly. Finding Torv seemed so important back then, but having this solution at their fingertips made that pursuit feel futile. To find Torv now, they’d have to put themselves in incredible danger just to find someone who may or may not protect them from more danger in the future. Torv was more trouble than he was worth.
Ja was still holding the jawbone mirror, ready since Luto’s appearance to try and make an escape portal if things turned sour. Kaia looked at it in his hand.
“Will you need that to get us there?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Ja. “We didn’t need it to get to Torv’s world.”
They turned and walked back to the withered man.
“Can you take us to the stone, Luto?” asked Kaia.
“Yes, but what about the big man? Is he not your friend?” A look of genuine confusion spread across his tight-skinned face.
“Not really,” Kaia responded curtly.
Luto nodded and motioned for the two to follow him into the small shelter. Inside, a hole in the floor led to a long set of roughly-hewn spiral stairs. The three walked down carefully, the entrance to the stone chamber seemingly ancient and unused, each step crumbling under their weight.
At the bottom, they found themselves in a spacious room with several holes in the ceiling that led to the surface. They illuminated the space just enough for Ja and Kaia to recognize a setup quite similar to what they had discovered in the vine city in their own world, and the bottom of the caves in Torv’s. There was a stone table in this room as well, but it was not covered in mirrors or mirror shards. At the far end of the room was a dark black stone sitting upon a clay pedestal, luminescent spots like stars shining inside, giving the stone a soft glow.
“Thank you Luto,” Ja said appreciatively, “but you may want to leave. We aren’t exactly sure what’s going to happen next.”
“No. I’m sure you don’t.”
Before the two could react to the bitterness of his tone, Luto rushed forward and kicked over a loose stack of branches across from the star stone, revealing a mirror framed in glimmering red gemstone. Ja and Kaia looked at the man in confusion, unsure of what was happening. Luto stood and watched stoically as the mirror began to vibrate and then flash. The room darkened and Ja and Kaia became disoriented, stumbling to the ground.
When they regained their composure, Ja and Kaia looked up in horror to see a recognizable hooded figure standing before them, a long fang saber held tightly in his hand. They were in the chamber of the Blood Summoner.
FATE INDEX:
1. Nothing happens when something is supposed to happen
2. Character loses one of their senses
3. Protagonist finds a source of healing/resurrection
4. Acquiring a new object has catastrophic consequences
5. People begin to question their belief system
6. Charismatic megafauna
7. Traditional gender roles are switched
8. Social faux pas has serious consequences
9. The inevitable end is actually a rebirth
10. A member of the community who was heavily relied upon disappears
11. Discovery of higher technology
12. Monotony is broken
13. Character has portentous visions of a world they don’t recognize
14. Body swap
15. Too many cooks in the kitchen
16. Bodily functions begin to cause eerie physical changes
17. Something a character thought was important turns out to be totally unnecessary
18. Life is too good
19. A dam breaks creating massive flooding
20. Cat eat food
Outcomes Used:
6. Charismatic megafauna
17. Something a character thought was important turns out to be totally unnecessary
Added outcomes:
An obscure side character suddenly gets a crucial role in the story
(thanks to Benji)
The call is coming from inside the house
(thanks to Melissa)
