The wind shrieked against the branches of the trees, blowing sand and dust between Boggy and the basilisk. The boglet, still kneeling on the wreckage of the carriage, attempted to get up, but his body resisted him once more. Now that he was facing what might very well be his death, all of his muscles clenched.

The basilisk’s green eyes glinted in the dusk light. It was only dozens of meters away, and it slithered the distance away with malicious delight. It slowed down a little bit, though whether that was due to wariness or curiousity Boggy did not know.

He strained his body to its utmost, giving everything that he had to move it, but to no avail. His legs were like rocks, unmoving and stuck to the ground, and a wave of desperation flowed through him.

Then he felt a pressure at his back. It wasn’t strong by any means, but it was a push forward. More importantly, it was a push by Darkness. As if a curse had been lifted, Boggy’s stiff body loosened, and he was able to push himself to his feet.

The basilisk bared its teeth. “I really don’t like eating weaklings. They tasssste so much worse.” It inched towards Boggy, and with every movement Boggy could feel the venom stronger in the air. He kept a steady expression, as the basilisk would attack if he made any sudden movements, and moved backwards slowly, keeping his eyes forwards at all times. He picked Karla up from the ground and hugged her close to his chest, as if she was a charm of protection.

Tension hung thick in the air as Boggy continued to back his way off the carriage, ensuring he didn’t make a misstep. A small thought tingled at the back of his head, a murmur of confusion, but he was too busy to worry about it at the moment. He kept his breathing steady, and with a bit of relief found the end of the wooden floor with his feet. His heart fluttered for a moment as his foot fell just a little bit farther than he expected, but soon he was standing on hard, packed dirt.

The wood of the carriage remains continued to creak as the basilisk glided onto it, looming over Boggy. And then the reason for his confusion hit him. Why hadn’t the beast attacked him already?

Apparently Edie had similar thoughts, as she whispered to Boggy, in a barely audible voice, “Maybe it’s... scared of you?”

The thought was foreign and strange to Boggy. He had spent most of his life as an inanimate object, in the periphery of the scene. Now that he thought about it rationally, however, it made some sense. He was a being that the basilisk didn’t know about, a monster from the grove, and it’d clearly been alarmed about witches. Maybe it was scared of a spell that the witches could cast?

The wheels in Boggy’s head turned as he continued his slow retreat, away from the remains of the carriage. He knew that the forest wasn’t too far behind him now. If he made a run for it, maybe he could escape, or maybe he could call for the witches, or--

His thoughts were interrupted as a large part of the broken carriage was launched into the air. He watched as the wood sailed in front of him, and it took him a second to realize that it was about to land right where he was standing. A small part of him urged to take action, but his instincts told him to stay still, to stay unnoticed. Not for the first time this trip, Boggy realized that his instincts were absolutely awful.

But there was nothing that he could do about it. He closed his eyes and braced for the impact. One second passed, and then he felt it. To his surprise, it wasn’t the very painful crash that he was expecting, but a light nudge, as though most of the impact was taken by somebody else. He opened his eyes.

Darkness was in front of him, his very essence flickering as it came into contact with the burning red of the sunset. That hadn’t stopped him from shifting the course of the carriage before it had hit them. His ‘body’ extended in front of Boggy, a long pole of pure black that quickly receded back into Boggy’s cloak.

“Darkness!” Boggy cried, his fear for his own life forgotten. “Darkness, are you okay?”

“Yes, I think so.” came the soft reply. “I’m sorry, I think that’s… all I can do for now.” The voice faded away to nothing, but Boggy was sure that his friend was fine. He looked back at the basilisk, now feeling something that he hadn’t felt before. A small spark of hatred lit from deep inside him. It only lasted a second, flooded and overwhelmed by fear, but Boggy had felt it.

“Oh my. It looks like there’s more to you than meetsssss the eye, isn’t there?” The basilisk tried to sound inquisitive, but Boggy could feel the prudence in the basilisk’s tone. He took another step back, racking his brain for anything that he could do. More important than protecting his own life, he needed to save Darkness and Edie’s, too.

He cleared his throat, and in the bravest voice that he could summon, said, “There’s far more to us than you know. I would advise you to leave us alone before you’re forced to find out what we truly are.”

The basilisk creeped a little bit closer. “And why, exactly, should I do that?”

Boggy had an idea. With more confidence than he had before, he said, “Because before we left, the witches put a spell on us, and if you hurt us, you will be cursed.” He put on his most threatening face. Unfortunately, he had no idea how faces on humans worked, so to a casual onlooker he just looked incredibly constipated.

The basilisk bobbed its head from left to right, as though contemplating Boggy’s statement. The boglet held his breath, waiting for the monster’s deliberation. He could feel Edie’s scaly body stay completely still, and the air on the road was stiff with anticipation.

Not a minute later, the basilisk came to a halt, and fixed its eyes onto Boggy with a terrifying attentiveness. “Then why did you try to run away?”

Boggy hesitated, and the snake’s eyes narrowed.

With no further hesitation, Boggy turned around and started running. The trees were only a couple of meters away. If he managed to get there, then he could--

He hit the ground with a hard thud. Dazed, Boggy looked around. Did he just trip on flat ground? He looked behind him, and saw the tip of the basilisk’s tail flicking mockingly.

Thankfully, he had still managed to keep hold of Karla in his arms as he fell, and he made sure that she didn’t get lost. He flipped himself around, and prepared to get back up to his feet, but the basilisk slapped him back with a flick of its tail, knocking him against the trunk of a tree.

“Now, now, I was angry enough at losing you once, but losing you twice?” The basilisk let out a raspy, hissing laugh. “That would make me positively livid.”

Boggy looked at the basilisk, and for the first time in his life actually felt like he was going to die. A visceral feeling came over him, the very need for survival, and he grasped at all the straws that he had while the basilisk continued to monologue.

“I never expected such a rare, delectable prey to be wandering around, unprotected like thissss. In fact, I was a little bit disappointed that you didn’t put up a better fight.” He poked Boggy in the chest with his tail. “Darknessssss, was it? The strange power that you brought out? Now that wasssss what I expected out of the grove. If only you could use it now.” It let out a mocking sigh, sending shivers down Boggy’s spine.

“I wonder how it’ll taste. Maybe it’ll be slimy and sweet? I’ve always had something of a sweet tooth, myssssself.” A nasty glimmer came out of the basilisk’s eye, and for the second time in his life, Boggy felt a disgusting hatred in his heart. This time, it won over fear. His mind cleared, a sole purpose driving him. To hurt the oversized reptile.

Boggy took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He dearly hoped that this was going to work. With a shout, he yelled, “Karla, I need you to wake up now!”

He threw her at the basilisk’s face.

Boggy had spent much of his time in the Grove observing. Observing the relations between different beasts, how they interacted, what they hated. He hadn’t paid close attention to any of it, but the information had been filed into the back of his mind, for whenever it could become useful.

One observation that had always held true for as long as he’d lived was that snakes never got along well with birds. He’d seen hundreds of fights break out over territory disputes, some even escalating to the point that witches had to get involved. And now he was banking his entire life on this single piece of trivia. He hoped that Karla would wake up and start attacking the basilisk, driving it off, or at least buying them a little bit of time to escape.

The basilisk wasn’t entirely surprised by this. Prey that was cornered often tried last-ditch attempts at escaping; it was all the more fun to watch the dismay on their face as it failed. What it hadn’t expected was the rock to be hurtling at it with that much speed. Boggy was stronger than the average human. The basilisk shifted its body to the right, sure that it would just narrowly miss getting hit with the projectile.

Its calculations would have been absolutely correct if the projectile hadn’t moved in midair.

Boggy’s shout had roused Karla from her deep sleep, and just before impact she managed to poke her head out. This movement changed the trajectory of her body ever so slightly, directing her into the basilisk's face.

The basilisk’s eyes widened as it realized what was going to happen, but there wasn’t enough time to dodge or weave. With a sharp smack, Karla’s body landed right onto the basilisk’s eye.

A scream like none Boggy heard before echoed throughout the forest, and rivulets of blood started to flow down the basilisk’s face. “You! How could you!” The screams grew louder, and the snake began to thrash, throwing its tail against everything in the general area.

Boggy saw the tail coming straight for him, and braced himself for another blow, but the tail landed right above him, slapping into the tree. This only caused the basilisk to scream harder, and thrash into the carriage. Or rather, the scattered mess that remained of the carriage.

Dozens of wooden planks embedded themselves into the basilisk’s skin, and the basilisk let out cries of pain that even Boggy sympathised with a little. But only a little. The basilisk spasmed it’s way into the trees, leaving a crimson trail of blood in its path. Boggy let out a small sigh of relief as the beast’s cries steadily grew further and further away.

He got to his feet and started looking for Karla, and found her in a pool of blood on the ground where she’d stabbed into the basilisk originally. She was definitely awake.

“What happened? Why am I covered in blood? Did you throw me at that thing? Get me some water!” The annoying screeching had already started, and Boggy regretted waking her up.

He took a deep breath, and said, “There’s no time to explain. Can you fly?”

The bird held her beak up high, a position that was awe-inducing with her grey feathers matted with blood. “What sort of question is that? Of course I can fly! After all, you’re looking at the best--”

“Alright, good to hear. We're leaving.” Boggy walked past her, ignoring the screechs of protest that came from behind him. He walked towards the merchant, who was lying on the ground, mouth open at the scene that had unfolded. He awkwardly kneeled down next to him; he hadn’t quite figured out how to bend his legs perfectly yet.

Edie caught on, and with a quick translation to Boggy, asked, “Are you harmed?”

The merchant’s face was pale as a ghast, which alarmed Boggy. The ectoplasmic beings were a hundred times harder to deal with than one that was alive. They forgot all their worldly desires except for revenge, but had no real power. In short, they were incredibly annoying, and gave Boggy a very good reason to keep the human alive.

Boggy searched the man’s body for any wounds, and was relieved when he found that none of his blood had been spilled. Besides a nasty bruise on his leg, he seemed to be perfectly healthy.

But the boglet couldn’t help but feel like the man had suffered brain damage of some sort. The merchant had his neck craned towards Boggy’s face, and kept saying something over and over again. Boggy looked down into his breastplate with confusion. “What’s he saying?”

“I think that he’s trying to say, ‘hero’.”

Boggy looked back at the man, even more confused, and tried to decipher the expression on his face. There were small pockets of water forming under his eyes, and quite suddenly Gerald clasped Boggy’s hand and launched into an incomprehensible tirade.

It was, more than anything, a bother. They needed to leave before some other monster found them, and they needed to do so quickly. Boggy took another look at the weeping human, and decided that he wasn’t going to stop any time soon. With a brief exhale, he picked the merchant up and started walking down the road.

He didn’t move quickly, or with much energy in his step, but each slow trudge down the road got him and his companions a little closer to the human city. The human seemed to calm down after Edie said a few words to him, and drifted off to sleep.

With that, Boggy left the site of his first battle, striking the image of a hero carrying an almost naked civilian to safety, a large, rocky eagle flying above him, a talking fish in his breastplate, and a mystery under his cloak, and they made their way down the path to Intigo, the city of magic.