The Secrets Of Krilux

Chapter 14

After walking for what felt like forever, Lake Destiny was finally becoming visible in the distance. Evelyn looked beside her to notify Edward, but he wasn't there.

"Edward?" She called out, "Edward where are you? This isn't funny!"

"Guys! Check out what I just found!" Edward yelled from the distance.

Evelyn sighed as the group changed its course to find Edward. Why did he have to wander away from the group like this?

"Hurry up! This is so cool!"

Evelyn followed the sound of Edward's voice and eventually found him. 

He was kneeling in front of a skeleton. The skeleton was slumped over in front of a tree wearing some incredibly torn moth-eaten clothes. In its hand was an empty glass bottle with a small amount of residue at the bottom, most likely some sort of poison that was used to end their life.

"Check it out, Evelyn, I found a dead guy!" Edward said, waving the skeleton's arm around to make it wave.

"Don't touch that, it could be diseased or something!"

"Nahhh, it'll probably be fine. This one looks like it was poisoned." He stated, continuing to play with the skeleton.

"Still though, you should leave it alone. You're literally playing with a corpse."

"C'mon sis, lighten up."

Edward tried to make the skeleton look as though it was doing jazz hands but one of its arms broke off. He pointed it towards Evelyn and smirked.

"Need a hand?"

"Are you seriously making jokes right now?"

Evelyn did not look impressed.

"Where'd your sense of humour go? You used to find this kinda stuff funny." Edward complained.

"Yeah, used to. I don't anymore."

Edward sighed and put the arm down.

"Fascinating..."

Edward turned around upon hearing Albas's voice, looking over to him in an attempt to see what he was talking about. Albas was crouched in front of a large spider's nest that was teaming with giant spiders, each spider ranging from fifteen to thirty inches long. The spiders were jet black with 8 large red eyes, and from their mouths hung large hooked fangs that were long enough to pierce all the way through the leg of a small child.

"Oh fuck no!" Edward yelled, "I don't fuck with normal sized spiders, and now there's massive ones? What the fuck!"

"I've never seen spiders like this before, they look dangerous so avoiding them would probably be the best course of action." Dredge suggested.

"Agreed." Evelyn said.

"Actually these spiders will not harm you unless you purposely harm them first, they are quite docile and they are incredibly intelligent. The reason that you have not seen them before is because they are only native to Darkheart and choose to build their nests near Darkheartian pine trees. This particular species is the Brosipius Sanoline, otherwise known as the Giant Oshepirean Spider. The name 'Oshepirean' is present in the names of many creatures found in these woods as they were discovered during the reign of King Oshepire Calvaire in what was known in Darkheart as the Oshepirean era." Albas explained.

"If these things don't attack people, then why are their fangs so big?" Edward enquired, keeping his distance from the spiders.

"That is because they feast on Shadowclaws. They leap into the air and impale them with their fangs, then they proceed to eat them alive." Albas replied.

"What's a Shadowclaw?" Dredge asked.

Edward pointed towards a large crow-like bird. It has roughly the same shape and colouration as a crow, but it had piercing blood red eyes and was roughly the size of a golden eagle.

"That's a Shadowclaw, you'll find them all over the forests of Darkheart picking up rats and feasting on corpses. Depending on what's available, those things will either act like birds of prey or like scavengers. I'm surprised you haven't at least heard of them before, they're the most common bird of prey in the kingdom."

"Yes, they have also been around since the Zegrathian era so they have been established for an incredibly long time."