Smaulhjon; Smilodon regnatalis The largest of the lhjon species. Its name translates into ljhon of the smiling maul in the beastkin dialect. It is an apex predator of the Wilding Plains, and the Whispering Grasslands, vast open swathes that lie between the Wild Beyond and the Prime Divide. Its prominent features are its fearsome upper canines the size of a short sabre, as a result, its visage is as though it is ever smiling, sneering or grinning contemptuously. From its paws, the male can grow as tall as a thunder bison and as long as one from snout to haunch. Impenetrable hide the color of ripe wheat is its camouflage, alongside a mane on its neck, whose shade may denote its seniority in its pride. While females are social animals, males prefer to be solitary. Juvenile males are classified as a peak gold rank threat. from Philiarz Warnerskemander’s Bestiary for Adventurers: ‘Exotic Beasties and Where To Find Them.’

After the encounter, they made double time wanting to put as much distance between themselves and the forest. And for that, they were thankful that the land along the river was sparser with vegetation with the occasional boulder and eroded gullies. Only hardy shrubs and clumps of grass stuck to the scarp wall perhaps because the river they transverse along was prone to flooding time and again.

The five person party kept their eyes open for any other signs that might alert them to more of those spiders. Samantha did not want any more surprises especially since the initial shock of the encounter was still at the forefront of their minds. None of them gave voice to what they'd thought of the thing; it was implicit that they were in hostile territory and therefore needed all their attention aimed at their surroundings.

Two hours passed. Samantha thought their necks would cramp from all the swivels and whirling at every small rustle of vegetation or inhuman sound. It was then that they realized the hum of a tranquil forest had reverted. They were safe― for now.

It was a small relief to finally relax their shoulders. Also, Irwin had reclaimed the use of his paralysed hand, and kept palming the camping hatchet they'd pilfered from Samantha's pack. Samantha was noticeably grateful that her pack was also lighter for it.

‘How did I miss those?

Had she known of the inner compartments secured a pair of climbing picks and camping hatchet, perhaps things would have been easier. With more space, her own backpack had been folded and shoved at the bottom—she didn't feel like discarding it in case it came in handy.

“I feel bad about leaving the group behind…” George muttered. “Surely we could’ve left some sort of warning?”

“We don’t owe them shit…” Samantha hissed, draining the last of the water from her travel flask. “ The sooner we find a place to hole before the sun goes down, the better.” she said, peering at the sun as she shaded the worst of it with her palm.

Well on its way towards the western horizon, a lot of time had passed and the sky had mellowed out. Nonetheless, she could spy dark clouds towards the eastern horizon.

“I imagine they’ll also start demanding supplies or fight us for them. Such people are entitled like that; trust me, I’d know.” Samantha added. Between the time they'd waited for Irwin to shake some of the paralysis and rescuing the almost mute Benny, they'd also checked what else they'd had in case they needed food and other essentials.

“The ground’s getting rockier...it’ll be harder to keep following the river,” George pointed out.

“Good, then that means we’re going the right way.” Samantha said, securing the water flask to her backpack’s side pocket. The middle of her tank top clung to her chest, sticky from sweat patches she’d accumulated throughout the day. Her armpits were itchy too and kind of raw from the sweat getting into the razor bumps. At least she'd changed out of her tattered shirt as it was ripped during the altercation with their octopedal adversary.

Samantha was going to need a bath and some aloe for the bumps soon. Besides that her feet felt sore from all the walking and her jeans chafed between her thighs. She cursed not having taken the chance to into a pair of khakis.

She was fortunate to have had a comfortable pair of boots , otherwise she’d have had blisters on top of the myriad inconveniences sapping at her patience. Loath to grumble when everyone else was still soldiering on, she kept walking, enduring and hoping that the next turn would have a place for respite. Looking at their least fit member however, she realized that she had it better. Benny looked like he’d been dunked in his own sweat as his tee soaked through.

“You weren’t one for the outdoors were you?” Irwin asked him

“Eh…I was the indoorsy type. This vacation was supposed to be me getting out of my shell,” Benny replied, scratching an itch at the back of his neck.

‘Good, at least he's not moping around,’ Samantha thought as she revised her appraisal of the man. If he could pull himself back from the brink of the day's traumatic events then he wasn't all useless at least.

A slight breeze blew around them and the party sighed as the cool air passed them.

“Was that a…” George started. “Yea, a katabatic wind…somewhere around here the ground picks up.”

“Well…let's get moving people. Higher ground is defensible ground.” Samantha declared, picking up her pace.

“Right,” Benny groaned wistfully. As he moved to start walking, he tripped, catching himself before he could skin his knees.

“You okay man?” Irwin said concerned. He thought exhaustion was getting to the Brit.

“Huh?...what did I trip on?” Benny exclaimed. His eyes went wide when he saw a flat gray stone jutting out from the flood plain they'd been traversing. Though it was covered in a shallow layer of silt just like any other rock around them, it was too regular in shape to be natural stone.

“Guys, I think we found something …,” George said as he crouched down and grabbed a stick to dig.

“What are you doing?” Samantha asked. Then she noticed, “ Good job blabbermouth…we just found signs of civilization―a freaking flagstone,” she smirked. And for once, there was no sarcastic bite to her statement.

When the rest of it was exposed, they found that the stone underneath, though degraded, its grooves were made so it could interlock with the gaps of another.

“ —or what remains of it…” George commented looking at the others. After that their attention to their surroundings did pay off. They now had a goal to strive for and that gave them a second wind as they looked for more of the flagstones. Where the river had run into a marsh the party scaled the banks of the enclosing gully walls.

The five wrestled with low hanging branches and vines snaking their way to the forest floor as they tried to keep the river in sight. One or twice they found a rut of trampled mud, the first animal trail they’d seen. There were hooves and droppings from some kind of deer or hog.

Mindful of the bugs and poisonous plants as they kept walking through the underbrush. Irwin was in the lead, using the camping hatchet to break down the greenery in his way, followed by his brother, then Samantha, Mako and Benny pulling up the rear. Occasionally, Irwin would veer off the path to make sure they hadn't lost sight of the river before resuming his fight with the verdant.

“Hold up!” Irwin called out as the column came to a stop.

“Problem?” Samantha enquired, pulling ahead. She came to a stop where the older twin had halted. There was a steep drop where a basin of earth had sunk . A piece of loose earth broke off and tumbled to the forest below. But past that they found it, a village—or what remained of it.

Sometime past, there had been a landslide. Or the river had flooded, breaching its banks and flowing into the village. Half of it lay in ruins with pieces of masonry jutting out from the bottomland, overtaken by a marsh and sand. Some of the wooden beams looked like they'd been rotting for ages as green moldy growth cannibalized and hollowed them out with rot.

They saw what path the flagstone had once been part of―the rest of it sheared by erosion. It could hardly be called a road as it looked like only four people could walk abreast. Perhaps it was just a route to whatever part of the village had lay near the river. The remains of a small pier revealed that the river must have been navigable in the past.

Sighing, Samantha would have given anything for there to be a boat or any means of faster travel but that must have been much to ask for. Skirting the edge of the basin they descended the new riverbed until they reached the road. It took some doing to jump over eroded mounds of chunky rocks, the remainder of the buildings and the pier. Weeds and clumps of grass were already growing between the paving stones, pushing them apart where the mortar once stuck together..

However, the rest of the village was still further away. Shrouded in silence, everyone walked along the old stone path fraught with expectation of what they would find. Every step was hurried but watchful for anything that might jump at them from the grove around them. They were passing through what was ostensibly, a farm that had not seen tilling for years as it choked with perennial growth and weeds.

Some of the trees had flowered while others had unripe fruits; again others were weighted heavily with some of the ripe stuff. Coming to a halt, Samantha decided that it was worth letting their plant expert examine the trees. There were no less than five types of strange fruit trees in the grove. While the shapes of some were familiar, even their resident plant biologist was stumped by most.

“Not poisonous…see?” George indicated some of the overly ripe fruits which had been picked at by birds. Some fruit gnats were buzzing over the sickly sweet smell of fallen fruit which was reminiscent of capsicums. It resembled a cashew fruit more than the vegetable; just without the nut. There were also some tubers poking out from raised columns mounds of dirt. With the climbing picks, Mako extracted some to have George look at them later.

“We’ll carry as much of the fruit as we can and what we can work with in the village…though whatever farm implements were there must have rusted to nothing.” George said.

“Agreed, we must secure a place for camp. A roof over our heads perhaps…” Irwin added as the wind blew. He’d caught onto more scent of rain in the air. “I think we should expect some downpour tonight,” the older twin said.

Gathering what they could carry, they resumed their walk, nearing the village with growing expectation. Nearer they approached as the village came into sight in its entirety for the first time. It was rather small and surrounded by a low stone wall.

The colony of creepers that clung atop brickwork looked ready to give way under its own weight. Rotten posts hang precariously where a wooden gate once stood, covered by fungi and other saprophytes like bracket ferns. Clumps of rust and wood showed where the hinges had been eaten away into a brown powder.

As they passed the threshold, a sense of eerie disquiet fell over the party as their gazes darted to and from the remnants of the main edifice. Stumps of rotting wood on clay brick and mortar foundations delineated where walls had been

A handful of buildings were made wholly of the fired bricks but their grass thatches and cross beams seemed to have acquiesced to the tide of time long past. Trees were growing from between the closest permanent buildings, the inside exposed to the elements. If the height of the trees were any indication, tens of seasons had passed since the houses were last inhabited. Most of the growth was on the taller side.

Vines and grass overtook some of the windows— rot stains a remainder of where they used to be. Of the durable materials Samantha expected to survive time’s touch of decay…there were none. The gaps in the windows were the clincher that the village had been primitive in terms of building materials.

Samantha's hopes fell—this was not how she pictured her reunion with civilization to go. No peep of glass panes to be seen anywhere; not even the plastic she’d been used to.

“That…looks like it hasn’t been inhabited for years.” Samantha said, as she ran her tongue over her teeth and clicked in frustration. “I thought we’d found a quiet little place cut off from the world…” she leaned to the side, hands on her hips as she surveyed the nearby forest.

“At least we found our village…” George muttered as he wiped detritus from his glasses while peering from above the shoulders of the two standing at the front.

Samantha looked back at the trees growing in the middle of abandoned houses. “ Let's stick together for now, scope out the place and see what we can find,” she suggested.

‘This is just a very out of the way place…we’ll find something for sure.’ She thought to herself as she swallowed. Her throat felt dry. ‘Can’t give up now can we?’ She mulled as she regarded the expression of her counterparts―They too had defeated expressions.

The five youth passed the first house, noting that thick liana’s had dug their roots into the sturdy earth, snaking all around their girth and then bursting across where the cross beams of the roof.

Their traipse amongst the village ruins continued; knots of tension worming into their bellies with every abandoned house they left behind. It was at the end of a former street that they found a larger compound with a collection of buildings that immediately stood out.

Not only did they look more intact from their building material but they screamed a quaint English country house with detached servant quarters and a garage extension. They tugged at the threads of familiarity for some and moreso, they seemed to have weathered the seasons better than their counterparts.

“Split up, find a well, a cistern or whatever…and an intact room or something.” Samantha prompted. “ I doubt anything has survived this long but we’ll take anything we can get to tell us where we are, “ she added, moistening her lips.

“Benny, and Mako you’re with me we search inside…then Irwin and George you two are go around back. Let’s get moving and meet back here if we find something.” Everyone nodded and broke into the two groups as they started combing the compound.

The house had two storeys. The ground floor had a simple layout with a living room, a kitchen and rotten stairs going up what was presumably the bedrooms. Where the stairs had been was just a wall that was a shade darker with mold. And towards the cracked floor, the plaster flaked where lichen had erupted from beneath giving the illusion of an old man’s hair.

However dilapidated the shingle roof looked, the place would have sufficed for the party of five to hole up for the night. So long as they had four walls around them, they would take it even if they had to sleep on the floor.

Finding nothing else of note in the house, Samantha, Mako and Benny decided to join to explore the backdoor. There, they found something worth their time. At the back of the house, on a small yard a construction of seamless stone stood incongruous to the rest of the buildings. Though the rock had seen scouring, it was undoubtedly the most stable structure they’d seen so far. And there was a bore hole to the side, which had mildew carpeting the well head. Samantha felt some of her worries dissipate with the discovery; water and shelter all in one place.

Benny just collapsed there and then sighing in relief as he muttered food, water and shelter over and over . Mako walked to the well and peered into its shaft, plopping a small pebble to see how deep the water was; it wasn’t that deep.

As Samantha was going to peek into the stone structure in the yard, the twin’s hurried footsteps were heard thudding through the house. When the twins emerged into the yard with no signs of being alarmed, the tension drained from her shoulders . But she wasn’t prepared for what came with Irwin.

‘Seriously, does he just collect everything lying around? What are we supposed to do with that? Reenact a scene from Hamlet, Knights Templar?’ Samantha shook her head.

Irwin was toting a massive shield strapped over his pack like a terrapin’s shell. In the crook of his arm was a visored barbute helmet and a massive sword in the other.

“By Jove—where did you get that stuff?” Benny exclaimed from where he’d sat. He scrambled to get a look at Irwin’s haul. Mako’s attention was also piqued as she came closer to see what her boyfriend had been upto. What had grabbed their attention most, was the dusty book with a worn leather cover. It had stitches around the edges and was embossed with an unknown iconography.

“We found this in the garage or stables; whichever. Thought it couldn’t wait…” George said, looking from his brother to the rest. “ Erm, we found it on a skeleton.”

“Wha—” Benny sputtered, face paling.

“Relax, the owner was long dead.” Irwin reassured. “Turned to dust as soon as we pried the book from his bony fingers.”

“Wait,” Benny interrupted, hands to either side of his head, eyes closed and breath coming in gasps. “Are you sure it wasn’t prop? some polymers have been known to turn to dust...”

“No,” Irwin shook his head in refute. “My brother and I have been to archeological excavations; I can tell you for a fact that the bones were as real as they got…”

“Plant biologists also study the history of plants,” George added.

“Erm, maybe they used real bones to make a skelly; with glue?” Benny mumbled, biting a chipped fingernail. He looked at the two brothers for signs that he was right but there was no indication of such.

The twins had seen their fair share of real skeletons and were well experienced to discern false from true. They were well-traveled researchers after all—George the plant biologist and Irwin the marine biologist.

“Let's figure this out. One step at a time okay?” Samantha said, meeting everyone’s eyes. Benny, who seemed ready to curl under a rock, brightened up a little. “Lemmi see the book..”

The younger twin handed the book over. Immediately, Samantha felt a feeling akin to static electricity on the cover. She recalled where she’d last felt that sensation…at the tower. Her one arched eye-brow elicited a knowing reaction from George. She turned it this way and that, tracing the embossed symbols on the leather which felt smooth to the touch.

They looked like they had been crafted by an embossing machine but when she turned the pages, she did not recognize the language. Of course she didn’t, even with her meager knowledge of four languages that she picked up courtesy of her uncle and the old aunt Bo who’d trained her Wing Chun. They were definitely not asian characters.

“Can you make sense of these things? Surely you must have deciphered a couple old languages in your profession―right? This book looks ancient even though it's so well preserved.”

“Mmh, I'm afraid not...” George adjusted his glasses. “The language does not conform to anything I’ve come across.”

“And how did a book survive out here like that?... doesn't seem to have any moisture damage too. And the ink should have bled into the pa—” Benny asked, peering at the yellowed pages.

“No... not paper, vellum...I recognize the material. George, remember that marine site we went to?” Mako chipped in.

“Yeah, you're right...but that still doesn't explain why it didn't take any damage. Perhaps it's a prop? And this tingly feeling under my fingers, like static that won't go away...” he hummed.

“So you felt that too? I thought I was the only one.”

“Me too”

“Me as well”

An unspoken message passed between the two brothers.

“There’s one more thing…” Irwin said. He retrieved a pair of badges from his pocket with a leather cord looped around a notch. They looked like dog tags…only bigger.

“Be warned…whatever is about to happen can be unnerving.” Irwin cautioned as he opened his palm to drop the tags into Samantha’s hands.

[ Rainier Griffin—]

“Fuck!” She jerked back her hand. Mako caught the tags before they fell before her eyes went wide as well.

“You too huh? George said with scrunched eyebrows. “So it’s consistent. We are all being affected by the same phenomenon.”

“What do you mean you too...what in the freaking hell was that?” Samantha blanched.

“I don't know,” George shrugged dejectedly. “Collective audiovisual and sensory hallucinations perhaps? I wouldn’t know…there can be a myriad of explanations. Perhaps we encountered a bug, some spores or something else in the air.” He folded his arms, a faraway look passing over his expression.

“Let me see,” Benny said…with jittery hands.

Mako tossed it to him

[Rainier Griffinworth | Knight of the Eventide]

“Bloody fracking hells,” he said through clenched teeth, looking at the rest of the quartet “...this is like the System.”

“What are you getting on about?” Samantha asked.

“It makes so much sense when you think about it. A protagonist suddenly awakens somewhere strange with no idea how they got there... Floating words in boxes...or brackets,” he paused looking at the tags in his hands. “I mean the plants and the critters are all real,” he gasped as his eyes darted around their surroundings.

The sword Irwin carried clanged into the floor with a tooth jarring sound, jolting Benny out of his funk.

“Oops sorry...” Irwin apologized as he picked up the broad sword.

“What's he bubbling on about?” Samantha pressed.

Mako curtly answered, “..Isekai.”

“Huh, you mean that stuff that has been the rage lately…with harems and overpowered protagonists and stuff?” Irwin exclaimed as he eyed his haul.

“ That’s it―we just need to level up…” Benny stood up abruptly with fervor in his eyes as if he’b been tossed a lifeline out of their mire..

“ Stat Screen…” he looked to the air as if expecting something to materialize. There was nothing. “ Status…” again, nothing revealed itself.

“ What’s he doing?” Samantha whispered to Mako. “Has he lost it?”

The ever cold Asian woman shrugged. Meanwhile the twins watched to see what would become of it, Irwin in particular was tactless and he looked like he was wheezing from holding back laughter.

“Menu,” again, the silence was eerily loud. No phantasmagorical walls of text manifested at his behest. “Uh… Rinkusutāto” he finally said with a trembling finger. That’s when Mako moved and smacked him upside the head.

“For Pete’s sake woman!,” Benny whined, cradling the back of his head with a hurt expression. He looked like he wanted to cry but the thick lenses of his large glasses diminished what would have devolved into full blown embarrassment. He picked up his pack and walked off.

“I knew he was a weeb.” Mako stated as if it was a matter of fact. Samantha tilted her head with incomprehension.

“Eh…Irwin. Can you go talk to him for me please? I’m not good with people things…” Samantha winced, feeling sorry for the Englishman. Irwin nodded, shouldering his sword as he jogged after the other man.

Samantha exhaled, the day's exhaustion making its presence felt on her shoulders. She slumped down the worn porch stairs, unslung the large bag and placed it on her lap in the same motion. Then she dug around for one of the lunch bars she'd scavenged from someone's unclaimed luggage .

Forgetting she hadn’t drank water, the lunch bar stuck to her roof palate as she chewed sluggishly. Despite that, it did not stop her from enjoying the feeling of crunching nuts—it was the only normal thing she'd done in that long day. She knew that somehow, her mind was on the verge of fraying, she wanted to freak out and scream but Aunt Bo’s words stayed with her—centering her. Her brother was somewhere out there; uncle? The drunk could fend for herself—he wasn't worried about him in the least. Arthur came first.

To her right, Mako watched her boyfriend while humming some oriental song. ‘What were those strange guitars that they used, biwas?’ Samantha mused. It relaxed her further, draining the tension from her shoulders. To her left, George bit into one of the fruits they’d gathered.

“ Want somh?” he swallowed before offering another of the fruits.

“ Nah, survive one hour and I’ll take you up on your offer. I’m not eating alien fruits.” She waved him away. Mako likewise rescinded his offer and instead took a flask of tea from her pack. It must have been chilled before but the grimace on her face as she sipped it indicated it had become lukewarm.

Samantha stewed on the events that had occurred throughout the day. She gave herself a pat on the back for not stalling when the people had appeared in the tower.

Somewhat sure they were not in immediate danger, she went back on her mental notes touching on what had been bugging her during the spider incident. One thing that unnerved her was that she had no recollection of what happened between then and the day before. It was like a chunk of memory was just missing from her mind. Surely if she'd been moved she would have felt it?

She could remember boarding the plane. She worried her lip, tasting the lingering taste of the lunch bar—peanuts and honey. Tempted to eat her stress away, she zipped up the bag. There was maybe a couple of dry snacks in her bag from her looting that would pad for a while. At least until the plant biologist maybe keeled over and started frothing at the mouth.

No matter which way she cut it, she couldn't for the life of her get the gist of their situation. Perhaps it was some collective hallucination from mushroom spores in the air—or Benny had a point about their being spirited away. Still at a loss, she let her thoughts unravel into mental noise to clear them up.

Thus far the hallucination would pass, neither had a camera crew emerged from the bushes and shouted ,pointing at a hidden camera. That would have been too cruel. Also―that spider was no prop or remotely controlled construct; the fight was too real and too raw. Decided she'd stalled enough, she picked herself up and dusted her jeans. “Lets go get some firewood,”

Mako nodded and levered herself upright.

“What about me?” George asked, wiping the fruit juice that clung to his prickly stubble with a serviette.

“Find a way to make sure we have safe water for drinking…” she sniffed at her armpits and scrunched her nose in disgust. She wasn’t about to sleep like that and most of all not in ripening clothing.

The two men sat away from the rest. The older marine biologist and the shorter Englishman were having a heart to heart albeit an awkward one. Two men from different sides of the pond. Nonetheless, Irwin managed to strike up a conversation that got them talking.

They talked about their hobbies; that guilty pleasure of imagining themselves in some other world of fantasy. Irwin was notably new to the genre but Benny had done extensive reading . Marine biology was his brain and butter and he rarely got some time between airport transfers or conferences to sit down and catch up. His career was stuck to him like a barnacle on a ship’s hull.

“I’ll miss my collections for sure though…” Benny lamented. He thought of his mother; his mother who’d gotten him to visit their relatives across the pond and then a fully paid holiday after the fact just so he could go outside and see some sun. It was just his mother’s way of telling him to get a life outside of his games and other internet hobbies

“ I can’t believe I actually have to talk to real women now. Assuming that we’ve been spirited away to Jove knows what kind of magical medieval fantasy world. I hope they have plumbing at least.”

“ Mmh? Same same…”Irwin hummed in acknowledgement.

“I hope we sure grabbed some tissue though—?” Benny chuckled mirthlessly. “Can I see your shield?”

“ Ah, by all means,” Iriwin said, hefting the kite shield. “Careful…it's kind of dirty .” He unslung the big heater shield. It was big and surprisingly light.

A charcoal gray color, it had lost its luster but the glyphs and sigils that seemed to swim in their vision were the main attraction. Some of them had been clumped on by oxidation and mud but were otherwise still in good shape once he chipped it away with a stick.

His cleaning revealed a smoky amethyst crystal. Suddenly, the Englishman felt a buzz on the finger in proximity to the gem. Entranced he touched it—

“Yowch,” Benny yowled as a purple spark arced from the gem to his finger. He jumped up, flicking his finger up and down while doing an awkward jig with a hurt expression. He put his finger in his mouth to assuage what felt like a cold tingly burn.

“Did you see that?!” he yelled at his companion, eyes wide.

“Do you think that was static?” Irwin said.

“Purple static?” Benny deadpanned. .

“Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

“Stupid and utterly impossible?” Benny asked.

“Tell that to the giant spider,”

”Then what?” Benny said. “ Wait…surely you don't mean—”

““Magic!”” both exhaled at the same time.