A Verdant Mask

Ossis Securis (Flying Axefish): The Flying Axefish is a particularly violent species of freshwater fish. Identifiable by its prominent bone protrusion in the shape of an axe, and leathery wings, the Flying Axefish is a common danger to fishermen and woodsmen alike. Developed cilia all over its body detect and absorb ambient mana, allowing it to locate prey without eyes. It's use of thunder, water, and air magic allow it to exhibit rapid bursts of speed, although exclusively in straightline charges.

Warning: Move unpredictably, allow it to ram itself into obstacles or weapons.

Recommendation: Very susceptible to mana draining

-Guide to Vendalian Biology

Nick woke up to the tree he was in violently shaking. He aching body nearly bounced out of the tree before he caught himself. Snorts, chuffs, and a satisfied growl called up to him from the trunk below, but he wasn't about to risk falling. Just as he built up the courage to peek over the branch, a familiar voice spoke up.

Just stay-

"GAH! Oh my god, don't do that!" Nick jolted upright, nearly tilting over the side. He scrabbled at the cracked bark, barely holding himself up, but managing to catch a glimpse of the thing shaking his tree.

Using the base of the tree as a scratching post was a creature unlike any Nick had ever seen. It had dense fur, the color imperceptible behind the thick coating of what looked like purple moss all over its body. Its snout was stretched out, like a wolf, but its body shape was certainly that of a bear. Certain spots of the moss glimmered in the diffuse light, almost looking like chitin or armor. At his yell, it looked straight up, demonstrating a disturbing flexibility that Nick was pretty sure regular bears were not capable of. An angry glimmer appeared in the creature's eyes, and it wound back onto its hind legs before slamming into the tree with a massive crack. The tree was too large to cleanly break, but it certainly shook enough to knock Nick fully over.

Nick's eyes widened as he fell, catching a glimpse of the bear's slavering jaws as they opened wide to bite him clean in half. As he approached, he realized that he had completely misjudged the creature's size, it being nearly twice the size of a regular brown bear. It was pure luck that had his wooden hands swing into the bear's jaw, knocking it shut. Instead of dying instantly, he landed with a grunt on a plush carpet of purple moss. The beast let out a confused growl before immediately bucking like a rodeo bull. As he began bouncing around the bear's expansive back, desperately wishing his hands could at least try to hold on, he heard the voice let out a grunt of surprise. His fingers twitched, massive as they were, and then grabbed onto the edge of one of the hardened patches of moss before becoming inert once more. Had they remained working, Nick might have let go out of shock.

The sudden intervention quickly proved less than helpful when the bear began charging in a random direction, smashing through trees and jumping over holes as it went. Towering monoliths of wood were smashed out of the way, roots flying from their home in the ground with a confetti of dirt and grass. Stray twigs battered Nick, even as his shoulders nearly dislocated from being flung around so violently. As the bear jumped over a river, his sudden switch to prayers of being able to let go were answered as well, dropping him directly into the center of it with a splash.

His eyes shot open, giving him a crystal clear view of the strangest fish he had ever seen as it swam by. It had a blunt head, no teeth, and seemed to have a hole directly through the center, with a bone corkscrew hung in the middle, spinning from the current. A strange glow emanated from the fixture, allowing Nick to track it as it swam upstream, and keep an eye even as it swam it's way up a waterfall, which fed into the river Nick was now being dragged down. He shook his head, ridding himself of the unnecessary thoughts, and began frantically swimming against the current. Stray sticks battered him, jabbing and poking at his already thoroughly bruised skin. Thankfully, one of those branches was stuck securely enough to keep him form getting dragged any further, instead becoming a stationary target for the debris that seemed to be magnetized to him.

He dragged himself out of the water, nearly snapping the precariously balanced branch as he did. As soon as he was out of immediate danger, he fell flat on his back, limbs splayed, as his chest heaved. He was drenched, both in water and dried blood, he couldn't look at any part of his body without seeing an open wound or bruise, and he couldn't see his hands at all. The massive blocks of would should have chafed at his arms, should have rubbed the skin raw, but there was no pain there, perhaps the only place on his body entirely absent of it. Sitting up, he stared at the wood.

This shouldn't be possible, he thought. None of it, the zombies, the trees, his hands, even the fish! Not only were they things he had never seen before, they were entirely impossible by every metric Nick was familiar with. And that wasn't to mention the voice that had appeared in his head, rifling through his memories like checking the mail, and refusing to even apologize for it! A familiar anger boiled in Nick's gut, but even he couldn't really justify feeding it. It had been the most personally invasive thing that had ever happened to him, but all it took was a thought towards the voice for unfamiliar images to fill Nick's own mind.

Flashes of a strange viewpoint, being aware of everything and yet seeing nothing. Surrounded by stimuli it couldn't process, taking damage it couldn't even see, let alone defend against. And most importantly, at no point did the perspectives think anything. Not a word of surprise, not a cry of joy, not a shout of anger. All he felt were vague emotions, notions of a given thing being negative or positive, without even an urge to do anything about it. Intellectually, he conceded that in that state of mind, the voice didn't really have a choice. It hadn't been developed enough to think about what it was doing, let alone how vile it would feel for him. Intellectually, he understood that. He even understood that since gaining agency, it had been nothing but helpful, being quite probably the single greatest reason he had survived the zombies earlier. But his emotions were not so easily swayed. Even the though of what had been done to him set his stomach churning. It was less then when it had happened, but he couldn't yet make himself get over the experience. He could not yet make himself forgive the voice, but he could, begrudgingly, allow himself to work alongside it. At least until he could find a way to get it out.

He had been lucky to have relatively shallow wounds, as evidenced by him not bleeding out and dying in his sleep, but he knew he'd have to find a way to clean and bandage them if he didn't want to become a zombie himself. He shuddered at the thought. He washed them out in the river, keeping a wary eye on the Screwfish, as he has taken to calling them. He was worried about getting some kind of horrific disease, but he figured that ship had already sailed after he had headbutted a zombie. He had yet to find any plants long enough to make bandages with, not that he knew how to properly bandage something, but he figured it couldn't be that hard. Almost all of the older wounds had stopped bleeding, and he was honestly feeling pretty good, until something touched any of his wounds.

He had been walking along the riverbank, hoping to find shelter that was less susceptible to sudden bear attacks, but he hadn't seen anything of note. Instead, he had just ended up walking towards the massive, thunderous waterfall towering high above him, flowing from a cliff that the canopy had managed to completely obscure from him. He watched the Screwfish swim directly up it, in defiance of anything even a salmon should be able to do, noting that they seemed to have little jets all over their bodies. That was the only explanation he could muster for the bursts of water that occasionally shot out of them, sending them in often completely different directions midair. They nearly floated up the waterfall, shooting up and over the cliff in no time at all. Nick had always been interested in biology, but he didn't have time to examine the absolutely fascinating things going on with that. He had to find shelter. The water seemed clean enough, and he would be trying to catch one of those fish even if he wasn't at risk of starving to death, but it was already noticeably colder than it had been yesterday. Whatever had happened to get him in this alien forest, it had picked a bad time to do it.

Lost in his musings, he didn't even notice the flash of orange until it slammed into his forehead, knocking him to the ground. He shook his head, disoriented, before his vision cleared, allowing him to see his assailant. It looked fish adjacent, if he squinted, but in fitting with the theme he was coming to detect, he had never seen anything like it. For one, it had no scales, instead being slick and smooth like a catfish. Not only that, but the distinctive catfish whiskers were not restricted to the mouth, instead being scattered all over the body. They waved in a wind that Nick didn't feel, almost looking like they were reaching for something. At the fish's head was what looked like bone, sprouting from the face in an axe blade. Wickedly sharp, Nick was incredibly grateful that the creature seemed to have attempted a body slam. Then again, it might not have been an intentional decision, as the fish didn't seem to have any eyes. Finally, and strangest of all, where there would usually be fins on a fish, were a set of leathery, batlike wings. They stretched out the entire creatures length on either side, the skin stretched across a frame of pointed bone similar to the fixture on its head. Its tail was unremarkable in comparison, only unusual in that it stuck up farther than he would expect.

The creature appeared to have gotten bored of lazily gliding around, and turned it's eyeless face towards him, tracking him with remarkable accuracy for a blind creature. Absently, he set his shoulders, the best he could manage at a fighting stance with his weighted hands. The fish didn't get into any sort of stance, on account of being a fish, but it did blast directly at him, preternaturally fast as it's bone ornaments cut through the air. Hurriedly, he dodged to the side, but not fast enough as it sliced through the meat of his side. You'd think that he would have gotten used to the feeling of a line of flame being drawn across his skin, of warm blood flooding over him, of the flinch that wrenches control of his muscles from him in order to get away. It never gets any easier, taking a hit. He didn't know that yet, but he would. For the present, he transformed the flinch into a counter, attempting to catch the fish as it sped past. He lashed out sluggishly, meeting no resistance as his adversary easily flowed around the blow. With a crack like thunder, the fish doubled its speed, flashing directly for his throat. Luckily, Nick still couldn't control the momentum of his fists, turning the blow from fatal to simply painful.

His jaw slammed up, eliciting a crack from one of his molars. Ribbons of blood fell to the forest floor, cast pale in the green sunlight. Nick breathed deep, frantically trying to center himself before the fish could pull itself out of the momentum of its charge. His eyes flashed back and forth, his mind running inventory on anything even remotely useful, before he came to his last resort. His stomach threatened to rebel, echoes of memories hanging like ghosts behind his eyes, but he wrestled it down. There was no other choice. With a deep breath, he called out.

"Voice? Hi, are you there?" Somewhat awkwardly, he began. His assailant had managed to plant it's horns in a tree, and was struggling to free itself. Seeing his chance, he sprinted towards the waterfall.

Yes Nicholas, I am here.

Already panting, his feet aching, he managed, "Oh thank God! Listen, I'm sorry for yelling at you."

Nicholas, while I appreciate the apology, and would love to continue this conversation at a later date, we may have bigger problems at the moment. A mental tug pulled at his awareness, urging him to look back. Slowing down slightly, he got a clear view of the creature finally pulling itself from the wood with a jolt, only waiting a moment before it flashed towards him once more.

"Oh that's not good."

No, it is not. Quick, Nicholas, look to the water.

"I'M A LITTLE BUSY TO BE FISHWATCHING!" Nick screamed, narrowly dodging another pass by the fish. This one had been aimed for the back of his leg, a blow that most certainly would have left him dead by the next pass. Despite his complaints, he searched the water, missing what the voice seemed to be pointing him towards. The water, clear as glass, revealed several more of the Screwfish, flitting between waving coral, snapping at fallen leaves and smaller fish- wait coral? As far as Nick was aware, rivers did not have coral in them, much less tangled webs of it that reached out to clean gunk from the Screwfish's titular feature. Distracted, He nearly missed his opponent's next pass, only barely dodging, with a new laceration across the back of his shoulders for the trouble. Redoubling his sprint, he called out again.

"WHAT ABOUT THE WATER?!"

The coral, Nicholas. The grass whispers of its nature. It may prove helpful to be near it.

"OH THE GRASS TOLD YOU, DID IT?! I'D HAVE TO BE HALFWAY THROUGH THE RIVER TO REACH ONE, AND I CAN'T DODGE IN WATER THAT DEEP!"

A low whine built up from behind him, slowly rising in pitch.

Nature tells no lies, Nicholas. The coral provides salvation.

The still flowing blood on his face streaked horizontally, pulled towards a source calling from behind.

Trust me, Nicholas.

The whine built into a scream, dragging the air into itself. His hair pulled against his scalp.

Trust me.

Just as the whine reached a fever pitch, Nick turned with a savage grunt. He crouched down, his legs coiling like a spring as he launched himself into the river. The whine vanished with a massive, shattering BOOM, wind blasting as the predator shot towards him like a bullet. As he flew, hanging over the crystal waters, a streak of death blasting directly towards him, time seemed to slow down. A Screwfish sped across the river bed, brushing near the coral as it fished gunk from between the bevels of the screw. Just as his face neared the water's surface, the coral seemed to perk up, before launching itself straight towards him like a spear. A calm, sky blue, the tendril shot towards him, making him flinch. As his eyes closed, his last thought was,

"I'm gonna haunt the hell out of that fish."

Time snapped into place, hundreds of things happening it once. A bolt of fire blazed against the small of Nick's back. Disturbed water shot against his forehead, knocking him back. An eerie, ghostly screech echoed over the river. Nick's eyes flashed open, the shock of not being dead yet the foremost thing in his mind. It took a while for there to be room for anything else, but eventually he figured out what had happened. As he crawled out of the water, dripping wet, he reviewed what appeared to have happened.

The flying fish had shot towards him, but the sudden change in direction meant it had to compensate right towards the end, causing it to lose some power. As Nick dove, the coral had reached out, lancing past him. This had knocked him out of the way further, saving him just enough since the fish couldn't turn. And then, in midair, at the speed of sound, the coral caught the fish, dragging it into the river, and draining it of... something. Nick looked back towards the most terrifying plant imaginable, watching as the dried husk of the fish floated to the surface, where it was quickly torn apart by Screwfish. Nick didn't have an explanation for that. Any of it really! None of this was even remotely compatible with what he remembered of biology class. Fish can't fly, at most they can glide. They're too heavy to achieve actual flight, because they need the muscle to fight currents and function at speed underwater. River fish have eyes, because they are more efficient. Any fish that don't have eyes live in a habitat so devoid of light that eyes would be completely useless. And nothing in nature can possibly move that fast.

Nicholas, I believe you are in shock. Kindly remove your clothes, place your legs on that stump, and lay down.

"N-n-no. No, I'm keeping my clothes on. I- I could use a little lie down though." Nick admitted, following the rest of the voice's advice. Within seconds, he was asleep.