The Heir Of Originality

A few hours before, As Mercer closes the stone door to the room Isaac was in, A young man walks up to him and speaks "Mercer, i will take first guard, you go and man the gate we cant be to safe with that Puppet Master near by." the man who spoke looked to be in his early 20s, He wore a pair of grey overalls with a slightly lighter shirt and a farmer's hat on, This was swarm, he could let animals create colonies in his body and place his mind into the animal and control them, he was even able to turn his whole body into ant's which he could control even without a body.

Mercer spoke, "Just be careful, kid, I got a strange feeling about this guy, and he was checking out Cherry earlier." Mercer walks off as swarm silently turns red with anger at the comment.

He walks out of the cell corridor and walks into the storage room and over to the two girls who stood next to the bows. Mercer approached with a wave and spoke, "How bad is the damage on the bows? The kids can't seem to take a break from learning how to use them."

Macy speaks up, not looking at her brother, "It should only take half an hour at most, they are not badly damaged, and plus I am getting better at this, we might even be able to expand the village soon."

Mercer nods, thoughtfully, and Cherry looks at him and asks, "Who was the kid who was just here a minute earlier? It looked like he was inspecting the housing down on the 2nd floor," she asked this with a tone of not caring but after years of knowing her Mercer could tell she was intrigued by Isaac.

Mercer spoke, "He is a kid that the Puppet Master that took Soffle brought here, who knows why, but maybe he wanted to eat him in front of us, or maybe use him as a spy. That's why we have him locked up for now, but that kid sure knows how to talk nonsense. He claimed that he could give us more core powers." Mercer lets out a slight sigh.

Macy looked at Mercer and spoke, "Maybe we shouldn't talk badly about him behind his back. A lot of people are like that when they are brought here, and some of them could do great things, just like mom."

Mercer looks away and mutters, "She's gone now, so let's let her rest." Mercer looks back and says, "I'd better get back to the wall since we are still on high alert." He waves and walks out of the storage out onto the rough sand, a breeze of iron plunges into his nostrils, and the sound of swords and axes bashing together reverberates as Mercer walks towards the wall.

He climbs on the walkway of the wall, he carries a torch, and stands atop the wall gazing down. He stands there for a few hours before he notices a few faint outlines in the distance at the edge of the light. It looked like two Hermit crabs, its shell was made of a massive seashell at least 2 meters in diameter, it was onyx in tint, and it looked almost reflective of the light.

Mercer drew his bow and whispered to his comrades on the wall to do the same. Only a few times a month would something or someone show up at Light Shroud, so, for at least 4 things to show up back to back, it was a bad omen for sure, that's why they drew their bows.

They held this position for 10 minutes before the crabs scurried over. They were at least 20 meters away, Mercer waves signalling to the villagers that something was approaching. Mercer and two other men jumped down from the wall and through the gate to hold off until others could join.

Mercer bow fired and scuffed the right eye of one of the crabs and spoke "Its 2 stone dwellers both defence type, focus on the gap in between its carapace and its shells, magic wont work on it, it will try to hit you with its shell and-" before Mercer could finish giving his insight to his team mates, the stone dwellers were already upon them.

The stone dwellers spin, hitting one of Mercer's teammates into the ground, and a gut curdling scream echoes into the darkness. Mercer throws his bow and takes out a metal battle axe from his back and swings at the stone dwellers, causing both of them to sluggishly scurry to different sides. Mercer signals to his teammate still standing to attack one while he attacks the other, and a clashing of metal and stone soon proceeds.

Mercer hears a congress of voices in his mind, "Do you wish to use our strength?" and Mercer screams, "YES!!!" his muscles grow, making his battle axe look like a toy. He slashes down that the legs of the stone dweller and before it could respond, its legs were chopped of and landed in sand, Mercer, uses his axe as leverage to throw sand into the stone dweller eyes, blinding it for a few moments giving him enough time, to lift his axe above his head and slam it down into the head of the crab causing its body its body to split halfway through before stopping at its core.

He turns around and runs toward his teammate, fighting the other stone dweller, jumping over his teammate writhing in agony, giving him a faint look of compassion. Mercer shouts "MOVE NOW!" his team mate rolls away almost getting caught in the stone dweller legs, Mercer uses all his strength to throw his axe at stone dweller but it turns around and its shell catches the axe making it get stuck, Mercer runs and rises both of his hands into the air and smashing into the shell causing it to rupture, he rips his axe out of the crack and bring it down again, and again, again until the shell is only a pile of shards and the stone dweller is dead with all of its bones turned into mush.

The other villages bring the corpses of the stone dwellers inside in order to break them down and use them for materials and food. They also bring in the injured man into a small hut near the centre of the town. Mercer's muscles shrink as the congress of voices shame him for his pitiful performance.

Swarm runs over to Mercer and whispers "the kid from before is bleeding a lot, to much, he is going to die." before giving him a response Mercer runs back to the room that Isaac was put in, Mercer opens the door as a tide of blood rushes out and the smell of rot and decay purges the near by area, blood encases the whole room, Isaac is face down in a pool of blood, mucus and drool holding a small purple orb.