[The Primeval Apocalypse] - Chapter Twenty-One (collaboration with u/hydrael)

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The Primeval Apocalypse by Robert Keene and Alex Raizman

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Whatever was coming had to be close. My options were limited, even though I was forewarned. If I could run faster than a Daeodon, I wouldn’t be afraid of running into one, so if I tried to flee ahead of whatever it was, I was definitely the slowest prey for it to chase. I could try to climb a tree to get out of reach, but without seeing it, there was no telling how successful that would be. What if the attacker was in the treetops? I would just be serving myself up to it. Not to mention that I didn’t know if Noaich would have an easy time climbing up with me.

There was only one option left.

“Quick!” I hissed at Noaich. “Hide!”

Activating Hide In Plain Sight, I darted towards the nearest tree trunk with Noaich close behind as the stealth ability passed to him as well. Pressing my back to it, I hoped that my Stealth skill would be enough to keep me safe from whatever it was.

It was nearly two full minutes before something appeared in my detection radius.

It felt like two hours, anxiously waiting to see if death appeared on top of me, its Stealth skill defeating my Detection skill, even though it had failed to ambush the Daeodon.

It wasn’t anything like what I expected.

My first thought was that it was a human. I immediately discarded the idea. Daeodons don’t run from people.

The longer it was in my radius, the more inhuman it became to my senses. It was bipedal, with two arms, one head, all of the usual anatomy for a human. But it was much larger than anyone I’d ever met, especially its bulbous head. It wasn’t bulky enough in the body to be a Mandrill, though. The proportion of the limbs and head was closer to human—but not quite right—even if the height was obviously not.

Even from this distance, my enhanced senses gave me a few extra details. I could hear the susurrus sound of cloth garments covering the figure from head to toe. There was a vaguely swampy smell emanating from it. An earthy smell with undertones of rot. It made me expect to sense horns on its head, or a spade-tipped tail.

But no such features presented themselves.

The shrouded swamp person wasn’t moving at a tremendous pace. It simply plodded through the forest with heavy footfalls, uncaring for what might have heard it coming. As it passed, I grew more and more afraid of it. With every second that passed, the mystery of the creature only deepened.

What was it?

Most of the creatures I had encountered since the system-generated apocalypse had been either a giant beast, a swarm of smaller beasts, or a Mandrill. This thing appeared to fit none of those familiar options. Were there other civilized primates that I simply hadn’t encountered? Or was this a swarm of smaller beasts that united into a vague impression of a humanoid? Some kind of ambulatory slime monster?

Or could it be an alien?

First contact informing us of the oncoming apocalypse had been a big deal, so I knew that there was supposed to be some kind of space law barring any invaders or visitors from coming down here. Without a global communication network, though, I couldn’t be sure if that had been upheld.

After tromping through my detection radius for a few moments, the strange creature stopped about where the Daeodon had sensed it. Kneeling down, it did something in the dirt there. I couldn’t tell what. My detection radius let me “see” the creature from this great distance, with all these trees and crap between us, but I wasn’t actually looking at it. Some details were beyond my capacity to gather.

It stood up, taking a long and plodding step towards the direction the Daeodon had gone, and then stopped.

And then its head turned towards me.

Even though I was so far away, I found myself holding my breath. Beside me, Noaich sensed my anxiety and tensed as well. Obviously, there was no way that it could tell I was here. It might have been looking for something else. Responding to a sound or other cue that I couldn’t hear from here. It was too far away. My detection radius was insanely large. There was no way its could be larger.

And yet it stared.

For a very long time.

I was afraid to move. I could hold my breath for a very long time, but even I had limits.

The creature was alone. It couldn’t be another Beastmaster.

But without a comprehensive guide to classes and subclasses, there was no way of knowing if any other class gave this kind of detection radius. Then again, without a comprehensive guide to the system, I didn’t know how detection radii worked for monsters, either.

The creature took another step.

It was still looking at me, but it continued its path toward the direction the Daeodon had fled. The way its head moved to track me as it passed made it very clear that it was indeed looking at me. But it either didn’t think I was worth the trouble of fighting, or that there was less meat on us than it would get from the pig monster instead.

It moved on and left us be.

But just before it left my detection radius—apparently I could still outrange it—it turned its head away from us. The margin was not very large.

I blew out a long and slow breath of relief before it left my range.

“Not sure what that was,” I muttered, “but I hope I always have such a clear hint at its approach before I see it again.”

What? Noaich asked.

I took a careful look around before dropping stealth. There were no other threats that I could sense, so I returned to the bank of the creek, dipping my hands in for another gulp of water..

“I don’t know,” I said at last. “But I want to be hydrated if I see it again, because I was about to piss myself.”

The reptile was amused by that, but concerned for what that might mean for him as he took another sip of water, too.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I promised I’d protect you, right? Sometimes protection involves avoiding threats instead of fighting them straight-up.” I straightened up and wiped my hands on my vest. “Take note of that. It’s an important thing to know. If you avoided a fight you didn’t want, you won it.”

Noaich seemed unconvinced, but didn’t protest further.

The smartest move was to keep traveling up the creek. Keeping close to fresh water would be very important in the days ahead, and if desperation won out over comfort, the shellfish in the creek bed might be useful to supplement our diets.

But there was one thing I wanted to investigate first.

In fact, I wanted it so badly that the system responded to my curiosity.

***Nature of the Beast (Challenge)***You have seen a mysterious biped haunting the region east of DawnSilence. Discover its identity and either slay, befriend, or escape it!

“Well that changes things,” I said, angling our path slightly north from the creek’s route, towards the place where the creature had touched the dirt. “Now it’s not a fight I didn’t want. Let’s go.”