Chapter Text
A blond-haired, steel-clad knight laid atop a field of grass, his senses confused and dazed.
He could barely remember what had happened before he woke up like this. He remembered entering the Dungeon with his party in order to find and save his sister, and then a strange golden mist appeared before them, and then...a voice.
‘Seek the Elden Ring’.
Laios slowly stood up and looked around. He was underneath a small tree with gold-yellow leaves, and above them a golden sky, with an even grander, majestic tree in the distance.
He wasn’t in the dungeon anymore, that was for certain, but this didn’t look anything like the island either. He looked around for his companions, and immediately found one: Marcille, the pointy-eared mage of the party, she seemed to be talking to some men clad in chain armor and wearing an orange-and-green tabard.
«Oh! Marcille, I am so glad that you’re okay! Have you seen Senshi and Chilichu-» Before Laios could even finish speaking, she saw that Marcille’s expression was filled with fear as the soldiers took out their swords.
«I-I swear, I wasn’t trying to intrude on your territory, this is just a big misunderstanding!» she stepped back slowly and left her hands raised up as if in surrender.
The soldiers grunted and moved forward. She turned around and saw Laios...and shouted: «BOOK IT!» as she began to run towards his direction as fast as she could. Confused, Laios started running as well!
Marcille screamed in terror as she felt a bolt whiz past her ears and strike the trunk of a tree. «What the hell is wrong with these people?!» she shouted.
«D-Did you say something to offend them?!» Shouted Laios.
«Of course not! Who do you take me fo-AH!»
Then, they both tripped over something large and heavy laying horizontally on the ground, and they all tumbled down towards a cliff.
«OUCH! OW! DAMN! OWIE!»
And they face-planted the dirt.
With a grunt, they slowly stood up and looked at each other. Marcille had a few bruises on her face and her hair was a mess, while Laios’ plate armor took most of the impact of the fall. Senshi looked at them both confused.
Wait, Senshi?
«Senshi, you’re okay!» They shouted in unison.
«Of course I’m okay. What’s gotten into you two?»
«We just got attacked by humans! In armor!»
«Oh, were they adventurers trying to rob you?»
Visibly anger started to form on Marcille’s normally delicate face. «Does this look like the Dungeon to you?!»
The dwarven man looked around, scratching his beard. He looked at the grass covering the field in front of them, of the trees and the falling golden leaves. He grabbed one and smelled it. It had a strong, fresh scent. There didn’t seem to be any civilization, except for a castle up upon a tall hill that looked degraded and ruined. «I guess not. Marcille, you’re the expert in that fancy magical stuff, what do you think happened?»
«Some sort of transportation spell? But I have no idea who could have cast it. Maybe it was some sort of trap. Still, this place is nothing I’ve ever seen before – the amount of mana flowing through the land is possibly even greater than the mana of the dungeon.»
Laios looked down at himself. He saw his trusty living sword Kensuke and drew a sigh of relief – until he realized that their shared food storage was gone, and he let out a shout. «Our food! Gone!»
«What?!» Marcille and Senshi shouted. And just as they did, and their bodies were reminded of food..Their stomachs grumbled.
«Well, trying to find a way out of this strange place on an empty stomach is only going to tire us out. Let’s find something to eat – shouldn’t be so hard in a place so vibrant with greenery!»
They nodded, and went to work as they usually did in the dungeon when foraging for food. «I wonder if we’re going to find some interesting monsters in this place.» Wondered Laios out loud, a big smile on his face.
Soon after, he would find a bush full of small, red-and-yellow fruit similar to berries. As he reached down to grab a handful of the new fruit, his eyes locked with a man. He was emaciated, wearing a dirty yellow robe and a hollow look in his eyes, holding a fistful of fruits.
«Ah, hello there! I was just taking some of this – do you know where we are? Oh, and do you know if there’s any town nearby, and perhaps a way out of here? Oh! And maybe you could give us some information on the monsters that live here-»
«A-Aah! AAAAAH!» The mad-eyed man dropped the berries on the ground and shambled away, letting out a shout of pure fear.
«Uh. Okay, bye?» Laios wondered for a moment if he said anything truly THAT weird. He shrugged, and kept picking berries. For such a nice looking place, the inhabitants sure act weird.
Meanwhile, Marcille and Senshi headed north, and found themselves in a thicket of greenery. Their attention was grabbed by a particular glowing herb with long and thick leaves. «Bioluminescent herbs? On the surface? That’s rather unusual.»
Marcille crouched and grazed her fingers across the leaves. «It looks pretty, but are we sure it’s edible?»
Senshi grabbed grabbed a leaf and brought up to his lips – which were completely hidden by his monstrously long beard – and rubbed it a few times. «No itching or burning sensation, that’s a good start. Now for the taste-test.»
He then bit onto it, chewing it slowly and carefully. «Tough and fibrous, but has a surprisingly sweet taste! Could be a great addition for a salad – that’s it, we’re doing a nice, simple salad for our first meal in this place!»
Marcille sighed with relief, «Geez, finally we’re eating something normal.»
Senshi, however, looked a bit saddened. «No matter how tasty it is, herbs are still just herbs – we need something more substantial, like meat. Ah, I wonder what kind of beasts roam this land!»
And right on cue, a small hare-like animal with a long, flat tail hopped out from the shrubs, looked at them, and then hopped away.
Marcille cupped her cheek with both hands. «Aww, it’s so cute!»
Senshi slowly took out his large axe. Marcille couldn’t see it, but he had a massive grin underneath his beard. «Meat, meat, meat, meat, meat…» He muttered ominously, before rushing towards the springhare, but just before his axe could strike it...something grabbed the small creature within clawed hands.
A bat bigger than a tallman grabbed the springhare like a bird of prey and let out a deafening screech towards Senshi, the sonic wave knocking him backwards.
«Senshi-! Gah!» Marcille had raised her staff, ready to cast a spell, but the giant bat’s screech deafened her and made her wince, making it near impossible to concentrate.
The bat flapped its heavy wings and took off, flying away towards the large cliff where the large castle stood. Marcille rushed over to the dwarf and helped him get up. «Are you okay?!»
«Yes, yes, I’m fine, just...A bit dazed. For being outside, it sure still feels like we’re inside the dungeon, doesn’t it? This place still has its own ecology and food chain, one that I don’t yet know. Still, I’ve decided, I’m not going back till I get some meat!»
«Oh, great.» A realization dawned the half-elven woman: despite the change of scenery, nothing had particularly changed. She simply hoped that Laios wouldn’t get too interested in whatever monsters this place had to offer.
MEANWHILE
«That is so cool!» Laios shouted as he hid behind a rock and stared at the beach. A massive, ball-shaped monster was currently feeding on a corpse of a soldier wearing the armor of those that attacked them. Its entire body was completely covered in tentacles, with two long ‘arm’ tentacles ripping apart the corpse and feeding the various body parts to a huge beak poking through the mass of tentacles – curiously, before eating the limb, it would raise it up and drink the blood from the wound.
Laios had taken out his notebook and began sketching the beast. «How very interesting! It has octopus-like traits, and yet it seems perfectly adapted to living on land! I will give it the temporary name of ‘Land Octopus’! It seems that it has adapted the tentacles it would usually use for swimming to become a solid covering, wrapping upon themselves multiple time, to the point it’s impossible to tell how big the actual body is! The beak, too, seems to have become much more enlarged than its marine counterparts, possibly as an adaptation to its tentacle-shell! Oh! There’s smaller ones!» Laios had hyperfocused so much on the big Land Octopus, he had failed to notice the half a dozen or so much smaller Land Octopus surrounding the big one, who were roughly around the size of small dogs.
«Oh, I see! Those must be its offspring! A family unit where all the offspring gather around only one parent. Perhaps it’s a hermaphrodite? Or perhaps the mother eats the father after fertilization to sustain the children! Ah, if only I could get a closer look!»
Lost in his own little world, Laios had failed to notice that the Land Octopus had finished feeding...and was now turning towards his direction. Faster than it looked, the beast leaped towards him and swung one of its tentacles at Laios’ head!
«Gah!» Laios was smacked backwards, blood flowing down from the wound on his head.
Now he really messed up, he didn’t mean to get into combat without his party – but how could he resist looking at such a unique beast? Laios focused and unsheathed his winged sword, licking his lips. He couldn’t help but imagine how all those tentacles would taste once cooked.
The Land Octopus let out a bird-like screech as its swung its tentacles towards him like it was throwing a tantrum. Laios stepped back and dodged sideways, even cutting one of the tentacles in half before they could reach him. But before Laios could take advantage of the situation, a tentacle unfurled from the giant ball of appendages and replaced it!
The tallman began to sweat, he knew that if he just kept dodging and cutting tentacles he would have been overwhelmed. He needed to get closer. As the Land Octopus once again attempted to swipe at him, Laios slid underneath the slimy grasp of the beast – and found himself face to face with a beak so big that if it had snapped shut, it would have taken his head clean off.
At that point, Kensuke guided his next attack, the sword almost literally moving on its own as it guided his hand – and struck the beast right inside the maw. A colorless blood flowed out of the wound and the Land Octopus cried out in pain – before becoming still.
Laios huffed...And then, he broke into a laugh. «Yes! Now I can inspect its insides – I can see how it can give birth!»
He had his priorities in order.