FREE USE in Primitive World

Sol crouched on a thick petrified branch thirty feet directly above their heads, his body completely still. The silver “Free Use” essence was wrapped tight around his skin like a cold, invisible membrane, swallowing his scent and suppressing his core so completely that he didn’t even register as a breathing creature to the jungle.

Below him, the six lanky monsters were slouched around a stagnant, scum-covered pool of rot-water, their seven-foot, skeletal frames twitching with a disgusting, restless energy.

They were exactly what he had seen before on the battlefield… horrifying, seven-to-eight-foot-tall humanoid figures, unnaturally slender and skeletal.

Their skin was a sickly yellowish-green flesh with a damp, mossy texture that looked like it belonged on a corpse.

As they sat on logs, their long, multi-jointed arms… stretching well past their knees… twitching erratically.

Their faces featured elongated, horizontal eyes pulsing with a dull, predatory orange light, and their wide, slit-like mouths were filled with needle-sharp teeth designed specifically to grip and tear meat.

They were laughing… a sickening chorus of wet, clicking guttural noises that sounded like bones being crushed between mandibles.

“The Veynar guys are so pathetic,” one of the stalkers clicked, flexing its freakishly long, extra-jointed fingers. It dragged a blunt, hollow black nail across its palm, shedding a few clotted chunks of dark human blood onto the mud.

“Did you see that captain? He didn’t even get his sword out before my nails sank into his neck. Thorne was right… these guys are real weak. Just soft skin-bags waiting to be punctured.”

“Thorne is a spineless traitor,” another grumbled, its wide slit-mouth twisting into a grotesque smile, its horizontal orange eyes flashing with a cold, mocking malice.

“But a useful one. The old bastard actually thinks he’s buying a throne for his family line. He thinks we’re going to let him rule the mud. Useful idiot. Once we breach the Feline Spire, I want his entire bloodline, we’ll melt his son down for fun. Slowly. Layer by layer.”

Another Zerith let out a wet, bubbling hiss, its wide slit-mouth twisting open to reveal rows of yellow, needle-sharp teeth. It was gnawing on a detached piece of meat chunk stuck on leather armor, sucking the residual grease off the straps like a dog with an old bone.

“The frontline warriors are always a pain to chew, though,” the third stalker grumbled, spitting a piece of metal-hard thread into the dirt. “Too much tough, stringy muscle from swinging those heavy bone sticks all day. It gets stuck between the teeth. I like the ones hiding inside the walls more. The breeding stock.”

A stalker leaned in closer to the group, its slit-mouth quivering with excitement, eyes half-lidded like a lover recalling a favorite memory.

“Ahhh, but the real prize is the humans themselves,” it hissed with clear hunger. “So tender. So fragile. The way they scream is just so beautiful… especially the little ones. They are the best. Their bones don’t even require cracking… you can just bite straight through the joints and chew the marrow clean out.

And the way they scream… oh, it’s beautiful. So high and sweet when you start pulling them apart. Their meat is soft, juicy, melts on the tongue. I could eat them every day and never get tired.”

The others hummed in passionate agreement, clicking and hissing with near-sexual delight.

“Yeahhh,” another joined in, voice thick with excitement. “They’re really tender, especially after roasting them alive. Nothing compares to that sound… their little bodies twitching on the spit while they beg for their mothers.

The fat crackling, the skin blistering… mmm. And the smell? It drives me wild. I get hard just thinking about it.”

Another chimed in, its damp, yellowish-green flesh rippling as it shifted its weight on the log. “Yeah, far more tender than the ones offered by marauders or other races. You sink your teeth into a human child, and the fat just floods your throat.

Once the main force clears the gates, we shouldn’t kill them all at once. We need to build pens in the lower tiers of the spire. Keep a few hundred of the young ones pinned up in the dark, fat and screaming. A constant supply of soft meat for us.”

Another stalker, taller and more heavily armored, let out a wet chuckle that bordered on ecstasy. “And the women… oh, the women. They are really the best part.

When they realize their men are dead and their children are next, they drop to their knees so fast, tears streaming, offering their holes, their mouths, their dignity… promising to do anything if we spare them.

The way they cry and offer their bodies, their dignity, everything… it’s just so damn beautiful.”

“I love making them choose. ’Which child should we eat first?’ I ask them. Watching them break… it’s the most beautiful thing in this world.”

They all burst into another round of that horrible, clicking laughter, slapping their clawed hands against their knees and thighs.

“Especially the pretty ones from the inner villages,” the first one added. “We’ll keep a few as breeding stock for the war-hives. The rest… slow meals. Week-long feasts. We can stake the families together and make the parents watch while we eat the children piece by piece.”

The biggest one let out a wet, lovesick chuckle. “We should do that thing again… you know, the one from the last village. Stake the fathers upright and force them to watch while we breed their wives right in front of them.

Then, while the women are still crying and leaking, we start carving the children. Piece by piece. Fingers first. Then toes. Make the parents thank us for every bite.”

“Perfect,” another sighed happily, as if discussing a romantic evening. “And we keep the prettiest girls for the royal hives. Chain them in the breeding pits, pump them full of our eggs every season. Let them birth our young while their minds rot. The ones who go mad fastest are always the sweetest.”

One of them suddenly clapped its clawed hands together with childlike glee. “We can use the Shaman’s own magic against them! Force her to heal our toys so we can break them longer. Days… weeks… months of playtime.”