[right][img]https://i.imgur.com/8ZVoSBE.png[/img][/right]
Izzy disappeared over the rise of piled rocks, her bare back turned on the rest.

Temp stood her ground despite her fears, determined to defend Golde until the weakened girl could stand on her own.

Thomas interrupted the monster's attack with a shriek and a wild swing of his sword. The monster, too, screeched and abandoned its attack on Ifor, skidding to face this new threat; black blood leaked from the horror's side, where Thomas' expensive sword had cut a long and deep, dead-looking gash. Ifor was forgotten in that moment; haunting bright eyes flickered, enraged, to Thomas and his dangerous blade.

It was pause enough for Ifor.

A fist connected with the monster's distracted face -- and immediately Ifor was upon it in a fury of merciless attacks.

Ifor was strong, but the monster was fast. Sand kicked up, Ifor's fists flew, claws and teeth flashed, leaving long bloody gashes on Ifor's arms and hands, bludgeoned dents and burst veins on the horror's face and chest. With a lucky grab and a powerful thrust, the monster was thrown to the sand where it caught itself with a crouch and a skid. Inky, gelatinous blood oozed from the beast's wild eye and its grinning mouth and the gash in its side, and the monster poised there in the sand on all fours, hackles raised.

[color=slategray]...[i]don't leave[/i]...[i]pocket, pocket, get up, stand[/i]...[/color]

The low, crackling, hissing voices of those gathered arose out of the monster's throat, even while Varric chucked stones and insults from the dunes. The monster wasted no time, but echoed Varric's words even as he still uttered them -- only in a far more sinister tone.

[color=slategray]...[i]cretin[/i]...[i]war the trees[/i]...[i]bastion[/i]...[i]merciful death[/i]...[/color]

The monster's shining eyes -- one shattered and full of dark blood -- finally broke from Ifor and focused sharply on Varric instead. Its fangy grin dripped black ropes of blood.

[color=slategray][i]go home.[/i][/color]

Like a cobra, it was on him. With sudden speed the monster sprang out of the sand and was instantly upon Varric, who would find himself pinned back against the dune with the strangely light weight of the monster on his chest -- it smelled of moss and tree sap and rot -- looming over him, claws pressed into his arm and his scalp, teeth sunk deep into the fleshy part of the old man's shoulder.

Varric would hear a small, quiet hissing -- but not the beast's voice. It was a chemical, acidic sound.

Just as suddenly the monster leaped off of him, scrambling away in a panic, shrieking in shock, scratching away the dribbles of Varric's sizzling and bubbling red blood from its chin; it scooped up handfuls of sand and shoved them in its mouth in a pained frenzy to rid itself of the last traces of an intended meal. The monster skittered and leaped to avoid the inevitable attacks by Ifor and/or Thomas, flung past them all and bolted across the sand -- back to the rocks, where it disappeared into a well-hidden crevice.

The ocean water breathed and fanned, frothing, at their feet.
[h3][i]Meanwhile...[/i][/h3]
As Izzy rounded the crest of the rocks -- behind her the shouts and scuffles of battle -- she would be greeted by a wide, rocky field that expanded for miles. There was nothing here but a flat landscape, like a sea of little rocks and thick moss and clusters of generous mushrooms that glinted in the low moonlight. Should she look carefully she would see where the mushrooms had been picked or bitten by hungry goats. In the distance, to her left, there were a few scattered trees and a forest beyond them -- and a single huge mountain that loomed dark and foreboding over the island.

To her right, the goats' bells rang.

A small herd of goats galloped away from her, over the moss and mushrooms, accompanied by the boy who ran with an awkward creaky limp.

They rushed toward a sprawling town just ahead.

Little shacks made of lopsided wood and stones dotted the perimeter, many with smoky campfires burning and dogs tethered outside. Each of the shacks featured an impossibly tall tower of stacked rocks and bricks and refuse balanced atop its chimney, as if the residents had an ongoing contest for the highest stack --

-- but these were no match for the spires of the town proper. Beyond the shacks, the architecture became more permanent and sprawling, painted clean bright colors, pink and orange and yellow -- and throughout the town's rooftops rose thin towers or antennae reaching up toward the clouds and beyond them, like a forest of spires to the sky. Many of the towers were decorated by pinwheels and whirligigs and bells and spinning bits of bright paper that swirled on the quick winds, and curious mechanical things that gleamed and turned and changed shape with the breeze.

Turning windmills dotted the landscape closest to the town, all of it illuminated by torches and hanging lamps -- but brightest of all by far was the lantern. It was an unassuming thing, boxy and crude, but it had been set up high upon an ornate mosaic column in the middle of a stone-fenced wheat field -- the only farm to be seen. The lantern's light was powerful and clean as pure sunlight, hard to look at directly. The wheat grew tall and healthy under the light of the lantern ... and nothing grew anywhere else.

The town and the shacks and the windmills and the farm were all bustling with activity; people were hard at work or gathered round fires, preparing food or tinctures from mushrooms and moss and fish, hauling grain to the windmills, telling stories and laughing. Many sat on the roofs, admiring the spires or working them higher.

The boy and his goats rushed into the sprawl of poor shacks, just outside the bright light of the lantern ... which would shine slightly brighter as Izzy drew closer.