How does a person react to being called a savior? How is it healthy to have such unnatural attention, such devotion only reserved for deities? Eric was in a daze as the village elders spoke, Josiah translating for the party. Sophia was intently looking at the small map drawn in the dirt by one of the warriors who guarded the elders. Clanker was staring off into the distance, Bearick had his hand to his chin in thought, but the rest of those in the elder’s long house bawked at Eric. 

I don’t want to be a savior, Eric said. I want to be good, for Rose, to help people and maybe leave this world a better place when I return home. But…

A young girl, maybe ten, slowly walked up to Eric and handed him a steaming cup. It was a small stone cup, carved to hold liquid, unornamented, and rough around the edges. 

Eric looked down at the cup, smelling sweet honey with some kind of cinnamon and an herbal smell he couldn’t place. 

Rose loved drinking tea.

Looking into the dark tea’s depths, Eric saw his home, the people he loved, the work he toiled on, and the places he lived. Outside those, he saw a world veiled in chaos, pain everywhere, nations fighting across the world. 

Maybe things can be better here, Eric thought. If they see more in me, then I will try and be more.

Eric took a sip of the tea, smiling as the sweet herbal drink ran down into him to warm his belly. Those around him smiled with Eric, uplifted by his reaction.

What’s wrong with me? Eric thought. Why can’t I just be consistent and find excitement while being here? I feel…off.

Clanker suddenly turned to Eric, breaking his trance. 

The quick movement of Clanker startled Eric, the two locking eyes. 

“Clanker?” Eric asked. “What’s up?” 

The skeleton cocked his head, staring intently at Eric. 

“You are splintered, after all.”

“What do you mean by that?” Eric asked. Clanker just continued to stare at Eric.

“Are you listening?” Sophia said. Eric turned to her, embarrassed, seeing her eyes boring into him.

“Ah…” Eric stammered. “I…sorry, no I wasn’t.”

She reached over and lightly punched him on the shoulder, earning some faint growls from a few of the warriors in the long house. 

“The cave is farther up the mountain,” she said. “Infested with crag hounds, and potentially other creatures, but only the crag hounds make it down into the village due to their numbers. The village has lost a lot of warriors, nearly all of them. We arrived at a good time, I think.”

“They have no more information of the cave itself,” Bearrick said. “Even before the crag hounds, that cave has been haunted, according to them, and none of their village has gone up to explore it, except perhaps young teenagers.”

“That’s not terribly helpful,” Eric said. “There’s a lot we don’t know.”

He looked around the longhouse, seeing all eyes on him. He smiled, then put out his hand, palm up as if to offer something. In his palm, Eric commanded light to coalesce there, forming a softly glowing ball. The light from it cast shadows all across the long house, sending twinkling light into the eyes of all that were present. 

“Then I guess we’ll just have to go and take a look.” 

***

The mouth of the cave gaped open, a beast’s maw ready for another feast. 

And bodies lined its teeth. 

They were strewn everywhere, just outside the cave, nearly filling the entrance, and they seemed to enter the cave a good distance as well. It was as if the cave was in the process of vomiting the corpses from its maw. Blood and viscera stank the air, making Eric dry-heave a few times, and he had to plug his nose. 

“These are just from the last few weeks?” Eric asked. 

“The decay is older,” Sophia said. “Some are fresher, but there is a great deal of rot on many of these corpses. There seems to be other people here, too.” 

Eric noticed different colored clothing among some of the dead. Most were from the village, but it was clear that this infestation had been here a while, just having recently moved on to terrorize Josiah’s people. 

“Then it’s high time we make this stop,” Eric said. “Who knows how long this has been happening?”

“Forward, then?” Bearick asked, pulling his shield out, armor glowing slightly.

“I suppose so,” Eric said, beginning to walk into the maw at the party’s head, gingerly stepping between strewn bodies. 

Bearick lit a torch he had taken from Clanker’s infinite inventory, prompting Eric to hold up his own ball of light. It got dark very quickly as they entered the cave, and the light did not seem to penetrate very far into the darkness. 

A howl sounded from within the cave, still distant, but seemed to grow in strength as others added their cry to the first, a cacophony of unnerving yelps and howls passing over them in a wave. Eric’s spine itched as the chills ran down his back, hair standing on end.

“Get ready!” Eric yelled.

A moment later over a dozen crag hounds, hairless and angry, burst around the bend of the cave, spittle flying as they bounded full speed at the party.

Eric held out his arm and a bright white shield of light burst in front of the party and solidified in time to catch the rampaging creatures. They slammed into the light shield and began to pile up as the rest of them caught up, teeth trying to scratch and bite the wall. 

After the hounds had slammed into the shield, cracks began to form in the light of the wall as the animals pushed harder and harder against the barrier. Then, the shield wall broke, shards of light dissipating into nothing, allowing the hounds to approach. 

A few of the hounds ran right at Eric, but the rest wove through the party, finding different targets to gnaw on. 

One jumped up and latched onto Eric’s forearm, the one that had been held out for the light shield. Eric yelled out in pain as the creature tightened its bite, not quite enough to penetrate into his skin, but had embedded into his armor. He grabbed the crag hound by the nape and yanked it off with effort. But by the time he had removed the one around his forearm, two more latched and wrenched their jaws on his calves. 

One had managed to tear away a piece of his armor on his right leg and bit deep into his shin and calf. With a scream, Eric summoned a long blade of light into his hand and hacked at the crag hound. For some reason, Eric was unable to make a sharp enough sword with the light, which refused to cut the crag hound’s skin. The point was sharp enough to stab, but the attempts to thrust into the animals were weak and didn’t do much more than poke it. 

Eric dismissed the blade and then coalesced the light into a large hammer. It suddenly grew heavy in his hand and he raised it high, bringing down the head of the hammer hard on the skull of the crag hound around his right leg. This time, the mut dropped, skull shattering with the impact. 

Still need to work on making weapons, Eric thought, mind numb from the shock of the encounter, but clear enough to move. 

He brought the hammer down on the other crag hound and it scampered away before falling still farther off in the cave. The one that had first latched onto Eric came back but couldn’t get at him in time before he swatted the animal away, sending it flying as it wheezed from a punctured lung. 

Eric turned to see how the party was fairing.

Each member had about three or four crag hounds come after them, Sophia and Bearick having dealt with theirs easily. Bearick had turned to help Clanker, who was missing a forearm that a crag hound had taken and was running in circles with. The two chasing the crag hound made Eric chuckle a bit, bringing his mind out of shock just a bit. 

Sophia had disappeared, but returned shortly and waved for Eric to follow. He jogged around the bend to where she stood around four dead crag hounds that had been ripped apart, limbs and bodies broken and strewn in a circle around Josiah and a few other corpses. 

He was hugging them as they lay cold on the stone. 

Eric saw tears in the boy’s eyes, his wolf eyes. Hair was slowly retracting into the boy, his body shrinking as well. His heart twisted at what he saw. He knew who these corpses were without Josiah having to say so.

Eric walked over to the weeping boy and knelt, laying a hand on Josiah’s shoulder. 

“I ran,” he said, voice weak and shaking.

“What do you mean?” Eric asked. 

“I…left them alone. They were older. I was born late in their lives, the only son left. I was a coward. Because I ran from danger, they were taken. That is why I went to the city, to make up for it, to stop other deaths.”

Josiah just lay on the corpses of his parents, his warm tears cooling over their cold faces. Clanker and Bearick walked up after a moment, having retrieved his forearm and dealt with the remaining crag hounds. Bearick understood immediately, making a hand gesture over his heart that Eric assumed was a sign of respect or religious prayer. Clanker just stared at the boy lying on his parents’ bodies. 

Eric opened his mount to speak, but as he did so, a huge quaking shook the cave, sending Eric to the ground, and making Bearick back away slowly, Sophia at his side and grappling onto him. 

Eric inched away from Josiah, trying to find sturdier footing to stand, but then noticed a falling bolder above him. It was so large, falling so fast, that Eric knew he would not be able to get away.

Before he could contemplate what the afterlife may look like, Clanker rushed forward and hauled Eric farther down the cave with surprising strength and speed. Bearick dabbed at his arm as well, looking at Clanker in frustration. Then, with a thud, the huge boulder fell, rocks coming down with it as well. The cave filled with rock and dirt, slowly filling in the space between Eric, Clanker, and the rest of the party. 

Josiah had managed to stand up and get away just as the rocks began to fall, burying his parents underneath the stone, a burial of sorts. 

Eric stood as the dust settled, unable to see past his hands. He lit a ball of light and held it up, slowly realizing what had just happened. 

He looked at the stone wall, then at Clanker. 

“Well, now what?” Eric asked. Clanker only shrugged. The two looked down the tunnel, staring at the dark abyss. 

Slowly, the two began to move down farther into the cave, resigned to go the only way they could.

Deeper into the darkness, hoping there was another way out.