Attie flapped her little blue jay wings as fast as she could as she inspected the outer areas of the Copts Marsh. The village had already been warned and probably already experienced the Eldritch threat. However, there were still some houses and small farms on the outer sides of the marsh that needed to be warned. She soared through the sky and trees as she searched for any signs of travelers or private homes. She had already warned people in the Bohar Plains and had used a portal to get to Onnen. In addition to warning individual people, she had been telling everybody she had come across about what was going on in this war for their lives. All while travelling in her Blue Jay bird form. She had chosen that since it allowed her to stay safer in the skies and it would let her move faster than if she was on the ground. 

The void was a lost cause to warn about as it had been filled with monsters before the Eldritch came. Hardly anybody lived there so she was focusing her efforts on places with higher population. The war was just beginning and there were still people out there who didn't know. Suddenly, she spotted a small cabin and landed next to the cabin. Attie made her way to the door and banged on it as loudly as she could. 

"Hello? Anybody home?!" She shouted, "Open up! I have some important news! There is a threat and you really should know about it!"

There wasn't a single sound coming from the home. Perhaps the person who owned the home had already left? Still, Attie knew that she couldn't assume. If there was somebody there, she needed to get them out as fast as possible. Just as she was about to break down the door, it opened. Inside was a woman with a wide smile. The woman was dressed in simple clothes and she appeared to have been out of breath. 

"Hello dear." The woman said, "What's the matter deary?"

"I need to tell you about the Eldritch threat!" Attie explained, "You should evacuate as soon as possible!"

"Oh thank you dear for the warning." The woman said, "Would you like to come inside? Have some tea?"

"…No. I have to warn others about the threat." Attie said, "And you should probably be more worried about the Eldritch than having tea parties." 

Suddenly, the woman frowned and looked extremely pissed. Her form melted away to reveal a vaguely humanoid beast with a split torso. It was a Chomper. The monster leaped at Attie, trying to comp her in two with its jaws. Attie barely managed to dodge the attack and accidentally ran into a tree head first. Turning around, she held up her hands and flames began erupting from her fingertips. She had heard that Chompers didn't like fire, now would be the time to see if that was true. 

"Strelitzia, I'm going to have to leave you here. The ground is too flooded further in and there won't be any safe places to land. I'll be careful, don't worry! If you see trouble, don't be afraid to fly–I'd rather you be safe than sorry." She hated to leave the kalangitan alone, but the marsh wasn't easy terrain. Strelitzia was too big for the mangrove trees and Chrys was worried she might drown if the river surged up again. Maybe she should have asked her brother to lend Pasque so she could scout from the air. Using seeds, she was able to create plant platforms that allowed her to reduce her time navigating. There were rumors of a fishing village here, and if the divination was right a void tear opening up here would leave the people trapped. Unpredictable waterways and a marshy bog wouldn't slow eldritch horrors down.

As the stilt-houses were in sight, she heard sounds of a struggle along with ones that definitely weren't human. Had the invasion started? Taking in a quick short breath she steeled her nerves as she notched an arrow to her bow while breaking into a sprint. There was no time to lose. If there were survivors, then she'd better hurry. Her sharp eyes spotted a girl with something like a fleshy alligator mouth on legs coming close, clearly in danger. Without thinking Chrys raised her bow and fired–sending a flaming bolt hurtling into the Void beast's backside. She had been briefed by her mother on the strengths and weaknesses of the monsters, and luckily for her she had plenty of arrows at her disposal. A sickening squeal told her she had hit her mark, but now it was her turn to run. As their name implied, Chompers weren't too keen on getting picked at from a distance and their primary way of dealing with pests was bringing down their teeth on it with a vengeance.

"Get yourself to higher ground!" She shouted to the girl, hoping she too wasn't another void monster. "I'll distract it as long as I can!" Chrys' legs were burning as she had her eyes locked on the nearest mangrove tree, hoping she could reach it before her adrenaline rush gave out. As long as she was close enough she could get to safety, and maybe trap the beast for a while. Whipping around she cast an earth spell causing a stone wall to burst out of the water, forming a crude obstacle to buy herself more time. It didn't do much against the ravenous creature, as it easily went around still in hot pursuit. But a few seconds were more than enough to give her a slight lead as she pushed herself to her limit.

Just as the beast was about to attack her once more, a flaming arrow hit the back of the monster. Quickly Attie bolted from the tight space and ran to find some sort of higher ground. The beast was too distracted by Chrys and the arrow in its back to take notice of her escape. The Chomper leaped after the new girl with chomping jaws and a fury as massive as the sun. Attie had made it to higher ground but now the other girl with the bow was being chased by the monster. Flames swirled around Attie as she ran to catch up with the both of them. The girl had saved her from a teeth chomping. Attie would not abandon her! 

Once she had caught up with them, she sent a blast of flames at the beast. The flames were enough to confuse the beast, as it had forgotten about her and was trying to catch Chrys instead. Attie snatched her whip from her backpack and targeted the Chomper. The whip tail wrapped around the Eldritch abomination and Attie pulled as hard as she could to trap the beast. Her eyes looked to Chrys as she kept pulling. The Chomper was caught in the leather whip side but was fighting furiously to get free. It took all of Attie's strength to keep the whip around the creature. 

"Kill it while you have the chance!" Attie shouted to Chrys," I can't keep this thing trapped up forever!"

She struggled to keep this monster from breaking free. There wasn't much time left before it would escape. 

When she felt she was almost unable to breathe, the other girl took her chance to draw away the Chomper's attention. Her voice rang in her ears, and Chrys threw a look backward to see it was entangled in a whip. Grateful for the short reprieve, the blonde girl wasted no time in finishing the monster off. Taking another flaming arrow, she attached a strange flower with a wrapped up root ball onto the arrow head and let it fly. It was a direct hit, but not enough to put it down. At least the arrow wasn't, but the little flower on the other hand… Immediately the flower spat seeds into the Chomper, and within seconds new blooms began to emerge from it. It took less than a minute for the invasive plants to rapidly leech the creature dry of every last drop of life energy it had. With a large patch of greenish tulip-shaped flowers growing from what was left of the Chomper's corpse, Chrysanthe slumped against a tree and took in deep breaths. "Thank Reverie I had that on me…" She said between gasps for air. Who knew being able to talk to plants would be so useful? 

In the few seconds she had, the pathfinder communicated with the Lunaris Drainer that she would be sending it towards an enemy. 'You can burrow as many seeds into it as you like.' She had said, and it was more than happy to enter its cycle of reproduction. When she had caught her breath, she shouted to the dark-haired girl who had helped. "Thanks! You can let go of it now, and don't get too close to the flowers! I need to tell it not to attack you, and then I can take them back!" So far she was down to only twenty-three arrows from her elemental quiver, not too bad for a single target. Next time she'd have to use her other quiver first, as that one would refill once it ran out. Walking over, she whispered to the flowers a thank you and dug them out of the monster's corpse. It wasn't the prettiest sight to see, but she still needed them. Also it would be safer if she had the Lunaris blooms instead of leaving them out in the open where they might hurt other people. When the flowers were packed up, she looked up with a smile. "I'm Chrys, nice work back there!" She held out her hand towards Attie.

Relief flooded through Attie's mind as Chrys sent the arrow plant thing into the Chomper. The flower spat seeds into the Chomber and suddenly blooms began to emerge from the monster. Attie, realizing she didn't want to be near the plant while it was attacking, freed the Chomper from her whip and took a few steps back until she was safe from the flower. Attie watched with fascination as Chrys began to dug flowers out of the Eldritch abomination corpse. She remembered that she had read about this flower in one of the books in Adeluna library. Her eyes glittered with fascination and curiosity as she walked over to Chrys. 

"Thanks! I'm Attie. You did great too!" Attie said shaking Chrys' hand, "Thanks for helping me out. I would be chomp food if it wasn't for you!"

She glanced to the flower with a curious look. 

"So where did you get the plant? It's a Lunaris Drainer, right?" Attie asked, "I remember reading about the plant in a book. Is it true that you can communicate with it? How difficult is it to take care of? When did you meet the plant? Does it have a name? Does it need a name?"

The endless questions poured out of her mouth as she pulled out her journal from her bag to record down any answers that Chrys gave. Attie knew the basics of this plant like the name Lunaris Drainer but otherwise the plant was still mysterious. 

"That's right! And I can talk to plants, it's sort of a thing I got from my mom. Plants are pretty chatty once you get to know them. They can help in a pinch too, like just now." The sudden burst of questions were a lot to take in, but Chrys didn't mind. It was nice to have somebody to chat with out in the wilds every now and then. "I can probably answer most of your questions, so let's start from the beginning. I got this plant from my mom, she studies rare and exotic ones like these since she can talk to plants too. The Lunaris Drainer is parasitic, but specifically targets other creatures only when it wants to reproduce. So in comparison to mistletoe, it's much more opportunistic. It's most active at nighttime, hiding itself during the day from natural predators who have thick skin or scales. I'm not really sure where it grows naturally, I'll have to ask mom. But it's pretty easy to take care of; it's like any normal plant after it takes root in an animal's corpse. A little water and moonlight is all it needs."

For the other questions Chrysanthe didn't really have a good answer. "Well…I don't think plants normally have names unless somebody gives them one. They probably don't need them since they're not like people who have to have names to tell them apart. In general they separate themselves by lineage, so they could tell which ones were their parents and seedlings that they produced. They also can tell you what other plants are nearby them, and that's about it. Every type of plant has its own 'personality' based on their life cycles and habits." Shifting her backpack she looked around at the houses. "It's so quiet now the Chomper's dead. Do you think anybody's still here? I have a kalangitan who's waiting for me a little ways over there. If no one turns up, want to come along?" The blonde girl motioned in the general direction of where Strelitzia was resting. The great flier had plenty of space to carry a small group of people when needed, and she knew of a safe place where refugees were taking shelter.  

Attie rapidly started writing down all the information that was pouring out of Chrys' mouth. Her quill moved rapidly to write down as much information as she could while it was still in her mind. Though, Attie had yet to forget anything that she had learned over her travels. Drawing a sketch of the plant was a bit difficult as plants in general had such intricate details that were essential when identifying them. The resulting sketch looked less like the plant and more like a plant monster. But there were enough details to connect it to the Lunaris Drainer. Attie also wrote down the information that plants didn’t need names like people do. Chrys began to ask questions about the Chomper and that situation.

“Well I’d join you but I want to investigate the house first.” Attie explained, “I’d like to figure out how the Chomper got into the house in the first place and to see if there are any survivors. Do you want to come with me? You might be able to help me out in case there are more monsters.” 

She was leaving the option of going together to the house up to Chrys.

It was a risk, but they should take it. "Sure, let's go. I'll be right behind you. If something moves, I'll shoot first and we can ask questions later. Not how I normally do things, but we can't be too careful if these things are that good with mimicry." She made sure to switch to her stunning arrows this time, to preserve the elemental ones for emergencies. Either way they would pick out the real people from the fakes, as Chompers couldn't keep up their disguise if they were sleeping. Chrys followed carefully after Attie's lead, arrow notched and ears alert for anything close by. They also had the flooding banks to worry about, as the height of the stilted houses were any indication. The girl noted the marks on the wooden supports where the water level had reached from previous seasons, double checking with the surrounding mangrove trees to confirm it. Getting caught in water with a Chomper was the last thing she wanted, as if four-legged 'chompers' weren't dangerous enough. There didn't seem to be any signs of tracks other than the ones the now-dead Chomper had made after charging out of the house, and she identified a few that belonged to Attie. She assumed the dark-haired girl had gotten here using other means which would explain there being less prints. Her heart was pounding. What if there were more Chompers hiding, lying in wait for them to poke their heads in? 

As they made their way back to the house, Attie was careful to watch her step and to keep an eye out for any other monsters. They didn't have much time as they also had to go help Chrys' friend. Attie didn't bother keeping the flames around her since it would take up too much mana to be worth it. Her magic would be quick enough to activate if any monsters showed their ugly heads. When they got to the house, Attie carefully made her way to the door. She looked to Chrys and gave her a nod to let her know that they were about to go in. Then she opened the door. The house was dark and there were soft crying noises. Attie, aware that this could have been another trick, carefully activated her firemagic and opened the door further with her feet. Using her fire as both a weapon and as a light source, she stepped into the cottage. Inside there was a small bed, a rug, and a little kitchen area. Near the bed, blood was smeared all over the walls, furniture, and floor.

The corpse of a young woman laid in the middle. The corpse held deep claw marks and some of her body parts were missing. Her legs, left arm, and half of her face had been eaten. Though, that wasn't where the crying was coming from. Attie headed towards the kitchen area and noticed that there was a baby tied up with cloth stuffed in its mouth. The baby was sobbing but the clothe was muffling its cries. It was clear that the Chomper had been saving the baby as a snack. Attie's fire magic stopped as she walked towards the baby. She untied the baby but left the clothe in its mouth, as she didn't want to draw any other monsters to the scene. Looking over to Chrys, she realized that they now had to deliver the baby to an orphanage or somewhere safe in addition to getting Crys' friend. 

The smell hit her nose before the sight came into view. Both of the girls were apprehensive and on edge after narrowly surviving a Chomper, and they weren't taking any chances. With Attie's fire, they saw something horrible. Whoever this cottage belonged to, they were dead now. Chrysanthe only knew that the corpse had been a female from what she learned of anatomy from her mother. The Chomper had gotten to her before Attie stumbled upon it. The soft sound of crying was hard to spot, but they found it. She let out a sigh of relief that it was a baby, not another creature pretending to lure them in. Carefully Attie took the orphaned child in her arms and looked back at her. Without saying anything, they knew they needed to bring it to a safe place. Chrys motioned for them to leave, still having her arrow ready to fire. As much as she wanted to check the other houses, things had changed now they found an infant. She hated the idea of leaving potential survivors behind, but it was just the two of them and Strelitzia. 

When they were out of the cottage she felt a bit less tense, as they were out in the open. Fighting in close quarters was one thing that put her at a severe disadvantage, especially in a dark house. "Attie, maybe we should go and bring the baby to the healers before checking the rest of the place. I hate the idea of potentially leaving people behind, but I'm worried. It's just the two of us out here, I don't have my family or Uncle Walter with me to keep watch. If we leave the baby with Stretlizia, she won't be able to protect herself or it if she's attacked." Chrys whispered, still not sure if they were totally safe. She wasn't sure if Attie would agree, but communication was crucial when it came to survival. There was no point in hiding anything when they needed to rely on each other. Again, there was that regret that she didn't have Lys' pak-pak. In the worst case scenario she could at least order Pasque to take the bundled infant and fly high out of the marshlands.