There they are. The thing that’s been consuming my thoughts for the past four hours. Wild animals that are - judging from Itor and Magna’s looks of extreme caution - incredibly dangerous. A group of five of them stand mulling about in the middle of the path. They don’t seem to notice us yet.

Their actual bodies are honestly pretty small. They have four long, spindly legs reaching upward before they bed at the knee and go down to touch the ground. The animals stand about two feet off the ground, and are twice that in length.

Not counting the legs, though, the main body itself is only eight or so inches thick at its widest, while it reaches in length the full four feet that the animal is. They look sort of like if you took a spider, ripped off half its legs, and then made it way bigger than it had any right to be.

Instead of feet, the animals have round green orbs attached to the ends of their legs that are about four or five inches in diameter. They seem to be slightly stretchy, since they distort as they are pressed up against the ground, becoming slightly semicircle-like.

Their bodies are thin and long, but what seems to be their faces are rounded, with two beady yellow eyes planted on the front of it. On their backside is a long, thin needle, like the stinger of a wasp.

One thing I know immediately about these animals is that they’re predators. If modern evolutionary biology still applies, predators have eyes on the fronts of their faces while prey have eyes on the sides.

Magna has already dismounted the cart, slowly making motions to get in front of it. Itor is about to follow suit, but looks back at me, obviously worried. He motions for me to cover myself up with something, most likely because the animals might see me and attack me if I’m not covered.

I take a nearby canvas tarp and - as silently as I can - use it to cover my body. I keep my eyes uncovered; it’s risky, but this may be the only moment I have to observe them fighting something, and that’s an absolute necessity.

My shifting around with the tarp seems to have gotten the monsters’ attention. Magna and Itor don’t seem too upset; I guess conflict was only inevitable. I hear a distinctive *clink* as Itor and Magna unclasp their robes. Yeah, it makes sense that it’d get in the way of fighting, and the thin material doesn’t seem like it’d do much in the way of protection.

Under their cloaks are short sleeved shirts made from the same green cloth that most cheaper-made clothing seems to be made of here. These also have blue collars, however. Perhaps a signifier of rank?

Also, their now-bare forearms reveal something about them. Covering their arms are bandages and scars. The bandages are - again - made of green cloth, and I can even see some of them with a small amount of blood soaked through.

The scars are strange though. One would assume they’d be in the form of lines; in this place, where blades and spears are so common, you’d think most scarring would come from slices. These scars, however, are perfect squares and rectangles.

I remember seeing lots of bandaged people in the room when I came here, but I never actually saw any of the wounds. These are probably results of those types of cultish behavior in the past, and obviously many times.

I wonder if they remove the skin themselves? Or maybe someone else does it to them. There were even people back in the room who were missing limbs. If I looked at their legs, back, or any other place on their body, would I see similar scars? Or are they just on the arms?

My conjecture is interrupted by a chittering sound. Oh, shit. I need to try not to get lost in thought. The animals seem to be communicating with each other. My captors and the animals seem to be in a sort of standoff. They’re each standing opposite each other, with about sixty feet between them.

The animals are clearly not making these noises pointlessly. None of them talks over the other, I recognize one or two that seem to be leading the conversation while the others are giving off one-”word” responses; this is clearly intelligent discussion. The fact that these things are capable of something like that alone fully warrants the level of caution that Itor and Magna are treating these things with.

Honestly, these things could have the relative danger level of a frog and I’d still treat them with the utmost discretion. In my experience, intelligence and planning are the quintessential elements of a combat encounter; everything else is secondary.

Anyway, it looks like the spider-wasp-monster-things are beginning to move. One of them begins sidestepping - keeping its eyes on its enemies - to the forest line. Once it gets near the edge, it jumps up at a nearby tree. Its green orb-feet stick to the tree, holding the monster fully horizontally against it. It begins creeping up the tree as the others continue to strategize.

What are Itor and Magna doing? For a bit, they were talking to each other, but right now they’re just standing there in silence. Like I said before, preparation and strategy are the penultimate aspects of combat. Currently, it seems as though the monsters have not yet finished strategizing, whereas Itor and Magna have. If that’s the case, the humans here have the clear advantage.

If I were in their situation, I would absolutely have launched an attack by now. Sure, generally speaking, in a distanced melee standoff like this, the attackers are put at a slight disadvantage, but that disadvantage is heavily outweighed by the advantage gained by having a fully formed strategy.

In this situation where they’re just standing by waiting for the monsters to attack, the problem is the monsters are regaining that advantage by the second. I can already see that they’re positioning themselves according to their strategy - they’re preparing for an attack of their own - while Itor and Magna are simply waiting.

In my eyes, they’re just throwing away their chances. Of course, I obviously have no idea what the capabilities of these monsters are, and generally just don’t have much information, so I could be totally wrong. But if I don’t witness anything to change my mind, I need to re-evaluate how proficient in combat Itor and Magna may be.

They are waiting in a stance that gives off the impression that they’re ready for a fight, but still don’t have any sort of weapons in their hands. And now that they’ve shed their cloaks and I can see what’s in their sleeves - nothing - I’m getting skeptical that they have any sort of hidden weapon at all.

Actually, that might suggest that they literally don’t have any sort of strategy and are simply banking on the chance that the monsters might just end up not being aggressive and wander off. The chances of that seem slim, in my opinion.

Speaking of a lack of weapons, I’m not sure how exactly these spider things plan on attacking, either. Their sticky orbs and impressive jump height definitely point toward them being incredibly agile, but a stinger on their backside doesn’t do much good. The only reason that works as an attack measure for wasps is because they’re so small and they can fly.

For a bigger, less maneuverable creature, a stinger just doesn’t seem like it would work efficiently as a primary weapon. I don’t see any fangs sprouting from their mouths, and - at least from this distance - I can’t see any sort of outer anatomy that suggests the inner mechanics of them being able to unhinge their jaws to be able to bite large targets, like snakes can.

So in that case, maybe the humans and monsters are closer than I thought in terms of combat potential; both sides lack weaponry and, while the monsters have the advantage in numbers, the monsters have much less weight and muscle mass on their side.

Another monster springs into one of the trees on the left; now one’s on the left side of the path, while another’s on the right. The dark brown body and limbs with the lighter green orb-feet make them difficult to keep track of in the similarly colored foliage, but I can just barely spot them creeping forward.

The other three monsters have stopped talking. They seem to have formed their plan and are just waiting for the other two to get in position. Itor and Magna are still standing there, guarding the cart.

Oh, shit. It’s me. I’m the reason they haven’t gone on the offensive. They’re afraid that if they charge forward, one of the monsters could slip behind them and attack me. That’s absolutely the incorrect decision here, of course - the monsters don’t know about me, and the idea of them sending off one of their only combatants to search a seemingly empty cart is absurd - but at least I understand now.

A combination of their duty to protect an important piece of cargo combined with a natural sense of empathy seems to be impairing their combat abilities. I’ll have to see how they plan on regaining the upper hand.

Suddenly, the remaining three monsters on the ground dash forward in a flash of motion. It seems the fighting is about to begin.