Chapter 5: Five
The clearing that Gemma chose for their first night had sigils of warding surrounding it, a clear sign that this was probably the best place to stop for some time to come.
Despite supposedly being well along on her pilgrimage, Taniel didn't seem to understand this and was very vocal about being unhappy about stopping so early in the afternoon.
Ezekiel looked up at the sky and noted that it was early, just a little past two by his count…unusually early for Gemma to break for camp, even knowing that something particularly nasty might be up ahead. Gemma liked to push hard and finish, even in the face of overwhelming numbers, a pretty common occurrence out in the woods where monsters seemed to breed exponentially.
"What's up ahead," he asked, deciding to just take the direct approach.
Gemma raised an eyebrow and said, "A siren. I'm hoping it'll go away…I don't think she can handle that right now."
Ezekiel subtly glanced at Taniel, who was kicking her tent post out of frustration, and said, "Want me to go ahead and deal with it?"
His friend shook her head and said, "Its a newform…not a nest. They'll be especially violent and dangerous, especially to us."
"If its a newform, they won't go away…they're like vengeful spirits…they'll haunt the place they changed until they grow accustomed to their new shape and wander off to nest…or go insane," Ezekiel whispered gently.
Taniel slipped inside her tent and Gemma asked, "Can you do it quietly? Before they begin the song?"
He nodded and she tapped his shoulder, pointing in the direction she could see them hiding in.
Focusing on the direction she pointed toward, he could see the wings flapping, blood and freshly torn flesh swinging loosely along the feathered arms.
Ezekiel wasn't generally moved to pity…but newforms always triggered something inside of him to make him get close.
Gemma began whispering an incantation, and the pulse of her magic coursed through him, like electricity racing through his veins, making the hairs on his arms raise and making his heart race.
The temptation was always there.
Power.
The ability to do whatever he wanted with just a few mumbled words in a language that died millenia ago, barely kept alive in scattered breaths by foolish men and women who passed it down like an heirloom.
He shook his head and let his growing frustration out with a few measured breaths.
Sometimes dead is better.
Gemma's magic began to take effect and the forest beyond the sigiled border grew fuzzy and its sound muffled. She knew he could do this quietly, but also knew that the unexpected could take even the most skilled person by surprise.
Taniel was already annoying without having to deal with a newform siren on top of it, and Gemma wasn't taking any chances of exasperating that.
Ezekiel checked again to make sure their songstress wasn't looking and slipped through the haze into the woods.
As he passed the border between safety and shaded wood, the world slipped into razor sharp visibility, the sounds of life noticeably absent.
The siren had started hunting already…how long had it been since it had formed, he wondered.
If it had already made this much of an impact on the environment, it must have been feeding for at least a few days, not a good sign.
Sirens generally preferred to feed on humans, using their unique vocal powers to lure the opposite sex to its lair and slowly feast on them, consuming their flesh and their latent magical energy.
Supposedly, the process was painless as their songs disconnected the pain center of the brain from the rest of the nervous system…but Ezekiel wasn't interested in testing that theory in person.
Crouching to reduce his visibility, he slipped through the trees without a sound and within an hour found the creature, hunched over something large and meaty.
Her skin appeared to be made of thin bark and leaves, her wings the only part of her that didn't seem to be made of some kind of environmental material.
The wings draped coyly down, barely covering the talons that seemed to be carved from glistening black stone, flecks of liquid crimson blood dripping languidly from the obsidian sharp tips.
Sirens were the closest in spirit to Mother Seris, or so the people of Ezekiel's homeland believed, their forms mutable and dangerous to behold, with the mere image of them driving lesser men to madness.
The area around her rippled, as though her mere presence was an affront to reality, struggling to maintain a stable form around her.
Ezekiel drew his blade, a simple thing, easily replaceable in any town with a decent blacksmith, and carefully stepped closer, making sure to avoid any loose rocks or branches that might alert the creature to his presence.
She shivered gently in the warmth, sunlight dappling her ligneous flesh and she leaned back slightly, her wings falling further and revealing her feminine curves to the sunlight.
Raising his blade and centering himself, Ezekiel inhaled and moved forward in a flash, fast enough that to the untrained eye he might not have even seemed to have moved.
In a heartbeat he moved from his position behind her to mere steps in front of her, flicking his blade and replacing it back in its sheath.
The siren's head slid from her neck, her expression unchanged, having died faster than she could even register that she'd been cut.
Exhaling as her body fell, he turned and saw that she'd found a Lionfolk to feed on, one of the few monster species that humanity had accepted into its culture…though that was tenuous at best.
There were always people who hated others for little to no reason at all.
Casting a glance over the corpse, he noted nothing of worth and began to make his way back to camp.
Behind him, the sounds of nature began to return as reality slowly recovered from the fracture created by the siren's presence.
He made a mental note to make sure that they avoided this spot as he tried to put the torn robes he'd seen under the Lionfolk's corpse out of his mind.
They were, after all, the same robes he'd seen on one of the members of the Choir from Covold.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone