Fog Demon
Posted by Meg
Here is the very last entry to the Coreling Contest! Amazing how many entries we have had and how this simple little idea for a contest grew into a huge fan art and fan fiction contest! Peat and I are so pleased with the hard work and creativity everyone has shown! Winners will be announced this Thursday June 7th right here on Peat’s blog.
Note: Since this entry was submitted late, it will not be eligible for a prize, but is awesome nonetheless.
This entry is from James.
Hey,
I realise that the contest is over, but I had fun writing this and figured I may as well put it out there regardless of entering the competition or not. It’s one of my first pieces of writing, I hope it doesn’t read too horribly.
Fog Demon:
There are many demons that are thought not to even really exist anymore, demons that strike fear above and beyond other demons by their very mystery. One such demon is the fog demon, residing within the thickest fog. Reported sightings seem like fairytales, though the corpses they leave in their wake might just hint at their existence.
The most coherent of the sightings is that of an unknown messenger caught in darkness even during the light of day. As the sun started to fall from its noon peak, fog began to rise from the ground, fog that seemed to get thicker and thicker with every passing moment until even the sun was lost to his sight. An experienced messenger, he wasn’t stupid enough to try and continue his journey so he immediately set up his portable warding circle, knowing that it need not be night for demons to rise from the core.
Confident in the strength of his warding, he settled in for the long haul, knowing he would be there until morning, sitting in the middle of the well worn path between villages. As darkness began to settle, the first signs of something amiss began to register on his consciousness, the sounds of scurrying all around him. Shapes seemed to form and then disappear around him like smoke, each closer than the last, almost at the edge of his circle. No tell tale light from approaching corelings trying to break through the circle were there to relieve him of his fears of these unknown beings. Or were they just his imagination playing tricks on him?
As the small fire he had been tending for his evening meal began to fade, the shapes seem to almost be appearing within the circle and real fear started to creep into his conscious. Throwing some more kindling and wood from his small supply onto the fire, it flared up to reveal small outlines, similar to that of a child’s, and maybe a dozen of them, all only a few metres away. Barely visible, as if their outline had been drawn on the fog, before even a second had passed, a low panicked keening rose from them, and their outlines quickly disappeared from sight as if they’d never been there.
Sure that they had stepped within his warding circle, panic consumed him and he almost ran from his circle to escape from these ghosts. Rigorous training kicked his thinking back into gear, and he knew he would stand no chance of survival outside his circle, these ghosts were one thing, but corelings were a certainty. Clinging to the hope that the fire had scared them off, he sat there in the complete darkness of the foggy night, his small fire the only thing keeping him alive.
He jerked awake suddenly, almost complete darkness all that greeted him, just a few glowing embers remained after his accidental slumber. Panicked, he jumped up to tend to the fire, trying to blow life into the few pieces of wood he had left. Just as it was flickering to life he heard a gentle footfall just behind him. It was then as he spun round that he got his only good view of the fog demon. Humanoid in shape, with almost translucent skin hanging loosely from its frame, its fingers tipped with razor sharp claws that gouged a chunk out of his raised arm before the newly lit fire drove it away.
Then almost as if this confrontation signalled some kind of end to his attack, the fog began to lift and the faint outlines within it faded to nothing. Now tending to his bleeding arm, he was thankful that he now only needed to spend the night with ordinary demons, not ghosts for which his wards had no effect.
It seems no common wards, like those used against tree, fire, rock, and wind demons have any effect on the fog demon, and any that claim they have a ward for them is extremely shy of proving its potency. It seems that living in the fog, they are even weaker to light than other corelings, and even light from a fire is enough to harm them, or at least fend them off. Fire and wards or not, it is probably best to avoid the fog.
Hope you enjoy,
James
Thanks to James for sending in his story. I love the description of the shadow demons’ outlines in the fog. Beautiful!
That is the end of the coreling contest entries! Don’t forget to check back on Thursday to view the winners!