"Hey!" Maaya shouted to Gilliam who is walking far in front of her. But Gilliam didn't seem to notice that her companion is having a hard time keeping up with him. Their pace has been too fast for a human to walk over. They have been traveling out of direction for almost a week now, only stopping during breaks and sleep. They weren't eating that much. The only source of nutrients Gilliam has been eating are fruits which he was used to by now. But for Maaya, as long as there are trees and small foliage in the area, she is good. She is, after all, a guardian of the forest of Erud.
"I said Hey!" Maaya shouted and didn't seem to notice that she took out a vine to hold Gilliam in place which made him fall.
"Hey! What was that for!" Gilliam shouted while trying to stand up and removing the roots on his feet but it was too hard for him. "Remove this root you wood nymph!"
"That was Rude of you. For your information young man, I am the very essence of this forest!"
"Oh the essence of the forest, so are you keeping us locked in the maze you built in the forest?" Said Gilliam while still trying to remove the vines that kept his feet on the ground.
"What maze?" Asked Maaya which was stunned to know that they are locked in the forest. Gilliam just rolled his eyes while still trying to remove the vines while thinking that she might be acting stupid to form the stupid contract thing that he doesn't know about.
"Hey! What maze?" Irritated, Gilliam stood up with beads of sweat on his forehead.
"Look, I know that you made this cage of a forest. I have been living in this forest since I was a kid, and I know every nooks and end of this forest. In just a day, we should have been out in the dessert and passed on five towns already at our current pace. But we didn't, we have been walking on the edges of the forest for a week." Gilliam paused for a while and took the sword out of the sheath and used the blade to cut the vines. He walked towards Maaya who is dumbstruck looking at him.
"And if you are trying to lock us in, then you better lift the spell you made." Gilliam looked at Maaya with serious, dark face and that made Maaya release some cold sweat behind his neck.
"I don't know what you are talking about. I can't use my powers that much yet as to make a big spell like this unless I made a contract with a vessel." She said in a nervous tone. It was like, darkness literally came upon her in the face.
Gilliam sighed heavily. "Ok, so what is this contract thing?"
Gilliam walked away and took a sit on a stump nearby and sheathed his sword back. Maaya was able to breathe again. I think I shouldn't anger him that much for now." she thought and also took a seat using the vines she created.
Gilliam waited for Maaya to talk about the contract she was so persistent.
"For us spirits, making a contract with vessels, which are said to be a guardian of the essences, can free us from the shackles of the world and at the same time release our powers and be a good servant for the vessel."
"So you are saying I am a vessel? How is that?"
"Vessels are Vessels. Meaning, you are a container of which must be filled up with the things he should be filling up so that you can be the Origin depending on what kind of essence you take."
"Woah, slow down, what is this Origin? This Essence? and the Filling up you are talking about?"
"Origin is the very life of the world we are living in now. It has been like this since it was born and its denizens. It is like a guardian for something, and that something is, I don't know yet. In summary, you are scion or next to being a god but not a god."
"Essence is us, some of us are in a form of spirit, some takes the form of something lifeless and some are just everywhere. It is basically the source of magic, life and death here."
"And the term filling up, is that you, a vessel, should perform his task of going back to the heaven or hell or the observer's dimension so that you can perform your task well."
Maaya looked back to Gilliam on which he was already spacing out. "Gill? Maaya stood up towards Gilliam which was just staring blank with his mouth open. "Gill you still there?" Maaya waved his her hands a few inches away from Gilliam to see his reaction to which Gilliam reacted back.
"That was too much for me," Gilliam said in a shy matter.
"I guess. But do you, at least, understand some of it?" Asked Maaya who just smiled knowing that the flaw on Gilliam actually makes him cute for her.
"Yeah I guess so. But how come I became a vessel?" Gilliam asked again.
"Well, I don't really know about vessels since you are just the first one I saw so far and I just have the feeling that you are one."
"That was a pretty vague explanation about you knowing me as a vessel. But I could guarantee you that you are mistaken about me being a vessel." Gilliam said and stood up and started to walk in a different direction.
"Hey! wait!" Maaya said and ran towards Gilliam,
"You said that we are in a maze right?" Maaya looked at Gilliam who seems to look far in his front for something while still walking. "Hey! You could, at least, answer me!?"
"Sh!" Gilliam silenced Maaya who was suppose to open her mouth. Gilliam alerted himself and unsheathed his sword. That was the time Maaya felt something odd about the air and readied herself too.
They walked slowly and trying to make the least noise while walking. A few moments, they heard a branch snapped somewhere, they tried to find the source with their eyes. But never they knew that there seems to be a large or giant spider above them.
It was late before they knew that they are encased in the web and they both loose consciousness.
*
"Gilliam!" Gilliam heard a boy screaming out his name. "Gilliam, try to protect me, I'll just cast something big. And tell the other's that I need five minutes!" Gilliam didn't know who it was but it sounded real urgent. He tried to open his eyes but he can't.
After a while, he can't hear the boy now. It was silence.
He tried opening his eyes, but what he saw was a pitch black darkness. He tried looking at his hands but he can't even see it. He tried feeling it. It was a good thing that he can still feel his own body heat. He tried to walk around but he seemed to stumble onto something. Then a glow of fire from afar was seen.
Then the other torches lit up and what he saw terrified him. There are multiple bodies that he is either stepping on a standing with. There are different colors of hairs and eyes that seem to be looking at him.
He tried screaming but, there seems no voice to come out of his mouth. After that, he felt nauseating when he began smelling the decaying bodies. It was really putrid and his body can't seem to handle the rotting bodies of different people on the floor.
After a while, he heard crackling sound. Slowly, it seems to creep out on the corridor-like-place. Then he saw glints on the far end a chill crept into the room. He doesn't know what they cracking sound is. But for the looks of it, it doesn't good. Then he heard a series of fast cracks of what seems to be is ice. Ice is creeping and encasing the bodies on the floor. He began to run for safety but, it seems like, the ice creeping was too fast and sooner, it encased him in ice. And his hands cracked, slowly his body as well.
"Gilliam! Are you alright!?" He woke up from the dream when he heard Maaya's voice. "Gilliam!"
"Yeah, I am, I just had a bad dream." He tried moving but it was too tight for him to move that is just when he realized is that they are covered in a cocoon-like threads. "Where are we."
"Well, we are captive of some guy over there." Gilliam looked at the direction where Maaya's eyes are fixed. He saw a young man, probably a little older than him that was looking at the sword of Gilliam on which he thinks he is trying to open the sheath but it seems that it makes to no avail.
The young man had a shaggy brown hair and it seems that he is kind of a giant because of his height. He wears a green tee shirt as well as a brown vest that matches the bark of a tree. His pants are rather dark and black from what it seems like mud colored cotton, but he was not sure if it was cotton or something like that. He also wears a brown knee leather pads as well as a belt of brown. Basically, he looks like a tree trunk with all the brown and green clothing.
"Hey boy! How do you remove the sheath from this sword?" shouted by a young man while still struggling to remove the sheath from the sword.
Gilliam is rather confused. "Just remove it the normal way dumb ass." He saw that the young man was still trying to remove the sheath but he finds it really hard.
"Is there a lock or something? I really can't remove the sheath!" He stopped trying and approached Gilliam and Maaya that was blinded on the spider silk on the wall. The closer the man gets, he noticed that his eyes were covered with his hair.
"is this magically locked? From the looks of it, your lady friend here knows magic." He said and he taps the shaft of the sword into Maaya's head. it didn't hurt but Maaya reacted like it was foul.
"Hey! I feel no ill will on that but it is rude to tap something hard on the head of a lady you know?" She said while struggling to remove the hard silk that was on their body.
"No use over that Missy, ma spider's web is so strong it almost feels like metal. Good thing she used a softer thread if not, you might already be dead on blood loss." Maaya kept quiet about it and stopped struggling already.
Then while the young man is struggling, a quick tremor occurred and then a minute passed, almost all the spiders in the room or house has been restless, some are running into somewhere while the others are springing webs all around.
"Hey! What is happening?" Gilliam shouted while trying to cover his eyes from the flying webs. Maaya used her magic to protect the both of them by using roots to cover their faces and well, trying to free them using the roots she had been using for a while now to cut the webs.
"I don't know! You guys emanate some weird aura and magic, that must be the cause of the tremor." He said panicking while swinging the sword around to get out of the webs from flying around. "Hey! Stop it!" He shouted and all the spider stopped spinning webs around. "Wait, guys, are you running from something?" The shaggy man said.
"No we are not, we are trying to find a way out in this frigging forest to hunt down the Humans!" the shaggy man was rather surprised. But what made them surprised from the rest is when a lady like a laugh emanate inside the room.
"You? An Empty vessel of the gods, would like to hunt all the humans?"
Then a fire spread out of thin air in the middle of the room. There appeared a lady that was barely dressed and her skin was fiery brown. must be because of her element of fire and she seems to be like from the daemon-folk because of her horns as well as the black slender feather and intricate tattoos on her body. She was looking directly at Gilliam who was in a state of shock.
The Demon-folk lady had a tail that was spiky that she used to touch Gilliam's chin and made him look at her. "Hello, vessel, my name is Thonatel. And I am sent here by the lords of Hell to kill you." She looked at the right side of Gilliam. "Oh hello, Maaya, it has been almost two hundred years since we last met. You still have that old robes of yours? Well, why not be like me?" She showed her slender and sexy body to Maaya, as well as hugged her chest to emphasize that she had a larger bust than Maaya as well as her clothing of two pieces. Her bra was too small for her size and her bottom clothes are just a thin white draping with black linings on it.
"You really are a demon are you not Thonatel," Maaya said with bitterness.
"Of course, I am. I am from a succubus race after all." Thonatel said with her seductive giggle. "Now back at this," She kissed Gilliam's cheeks which made hi shiver and produce a cold sweat in the back of his ears. "Handsome young fella who was raised by a halfling."
"Get away from him Thonatel!" Maaya finally shouted and branches of different sized razed Thonatel but was burnt away the moment it touched her body. But Thonatel hissed a little signifying that she was hurt. She floated towards Maaya who was controlling her anger.
And Thonatel Bitch slapped Maaya, but it didn't seem to hurt her. "You Bitch!" Thonatel was about to slap Maaya again but was interrupted when a silver colored spider jumped towards Thonatel and she was distracted.
"Hey!" The shaggy man greeted Gilliam with a forced smile and seems to be afraid of the demon, but this is the chance he made for him to help the two. "I'm freeing you for now, but if you could give me protection from that literally hot woman for what I did, I'll be following you whenever you are." Gilliam nodded and with just a wave of the shaggy man's arm on the web, it melted like it was wax and Gilliam was free. He handed the sword and Gilliam easily removed the sheath and the sword shined silently. "That was unfair, I wanted to try that." The shaggy man said.
"You'll get your chance, Let Maaya go!" The young man nodded but as soon as he nodded, they heard a screech coming from the silver spider that was burning now.
Gilliam tried hitting Thonatel but she was just evading every attack.
"Hey, could you help your friend over there?" The shaggy man said to Maaya and she just nodded. He let go of Maaya's binding and as soon as Maaya's feet were on the ground She shouted,
"Gilliam! Let's Make a Contract!"