A final small shriek of fear escapes the small bird-like monster as Nina sends its last attack she had caught back at it, turning the creature to dust on contact. She'd not meant to get into a fight, but the little monster had definitely seen her, and no way was she going to let it get away and tell some bigger monster where she was hiding. She didn't feel like getting killed just yet, thanks.
She was slightly glad she'd fought this monster now though, as she sifted through the small pile of dust to find a brown paper bag with a sandwich and a small fruit she didn't recognize inside. She was extremely hungry, not knowing how many days it had been since she and her team arrived here, and thus the last time she had eaten a real meal. She bit into the sandwich and kept sifting through the dust for another moment as she reminded herself not to eat too quickly, finding a couple small silver coins as she took another bite, the sandwich already half gone.
She has killed every monster to see her so far, thanking whatever higher power there was that none of the larger or smarter monsters had really discovered her yet. She knew that the monsters were aware of at least one human around, she was certain that there were other members of her team still alive somewhere because of that. The only reason she was still alive was because she didn't let any monster that saw her get away. She quickly learned how to FIGHT on her own, and has scavenged whatever items she could to keep herself from collapsing.
She still had her wetsuit, and the simple navy blue one-piece swimsuit that she had worn underneath during the dive, although she had ripped the sleeves off of the wetsuit to use as make-shift bandages, and other tears in the suit from monster's attacks made the top part not really worth wearing so she just wore it like a pair of pants now, tying what was left of the top in a knot at her hips to keep them from slipping down. Her hair was a mess, not having really been brushed in days, it took three of the hairbands she kept around her wrist to keep it all out of her face.
She had taken a grey jacket from a monster she had fought within the first day or so of her being separated from her team, and it was probably the only reason she didn't have hypothermia right now. Sure, it wasn't totally freezing in the caves, but... She never really takes the jacket off. Sometimes if she put up the hood, monsters would just walk past her. There was a logo on the back, reminding Nina of some kind of political ad, a picture of an almost-skeletal rabbit giving the camera a thumbs up. She couldn't read the words on it, but she trusted her gut about the political feeling.
Finishing the sandwich, she put up her hood and scattered the dust around as much as possible, trying to make it not totally obvious that a monster died here. Once she was satisfied with her work, she walked down the path to where a small branch-off led to where she'd been doing most of her hiding and sleeping. It was and area maybe a meter high and wide, with about a 5 foot depth and a 2 foot by 2 foot opening to the path she was on now, almost totally hidden in the jagged wall of the cave. She brought the strange little fruit with her, not sure if she should try eating it.
As she crawled into her little alcove, she tried to remember how to tell if a fruit could be poison or not. She was drawing a blank, and after a minute or so of arguing with her stomach, she took a small bite. It was sweet, a taste kind of like an apple mixed with a fig, and the flesh had a texture like a pear. Deciding that something so good couldn't be poisonous, she ate as much as she could, a core like an apple's all that was left behind when she was done. Putting the core in the corner of the alcove, she scooted as far away from the entrance as she could and curled up on her side to sleep for a little bit, her head resting on her arm and facing the entranceway as she closed her eyes and fell asleep almost immediately.
Her eyes darted from side to side, searching for the source of the next attack. Isa was training with her father in Mirth Lake, away from the lights of the city. He always pushed her to be able to predict the enemy's next move, and so he was being unpredictable, hiding in the shadowy water around her and throwing magic spears her way, all made of orange magic of course, so as long as she was at least
trying to dodge she wouldn't be hurt.
She noticed a ripple of movement to her left and dodged backwards just in time to avoid her father's next flurry of spears. She quickly formed a knife out of blue magic and threw it at her father, watching as it passed right through his chest. He clapped a little, his expression slightly less indifferent than normal. That was a lot for him.
"Alright, that's enough for today, I think." He started, swimming over to her side and putting an arm on her shoulder. "I have my duties in the city for the next shift, and you should probably go patrol the lake perimeter now. Don't forget to patrol
above the water, too." With that he swam off towards the city, leaving her to swim up to the water's surface alone.
"Sure, dad. 'Cause I always slack off on that part." She said out loud as her head broke the water, her tail splitting apart into her legs and the outer scales condensing into an armored-skirt type thing. She was wearing a plain black tank top that sort-of flared out at the bottom, making it almost a dress, although the skirt barely reached past her fingertips if she let her arms hang at her sides. She didn't really need to cover the lower half of her body in the water, or out of it for that matter. Her scales still covered up everything that needed covering, though she'd been told many times that other monsters thought it weird when she didn't wear something to cover herself. As far as she knew, her dad got the same reaction, along with every other monster of her kind.
"Well, I think it's weird that you guys can't swim." She said with a laugh to herself as she started walking around the perimeter of the lake, noticing the few monsters walking up ahead. As they passed her they said hellos to each other and kept going their respective ways, her reminding herself not to think out loud when having imaginary conversations in her head.
The patrol was uneventful, until she was almost 3/4 the way around the perimeter of the lake. She sneezed. But, where did any dust come from in this wet cavern? Looking carefully at the ground around her she noticed a faint layer of dust, scuffed in places as if someone was trying to spread it all out. Forming a normal magic knife in her hand, she started looking for anything that might show where the killer had gone. After looking around a bit and not being able to find anything, she growled in frustration and threw her knife at the wall, it digging in a few inches and sticking there until she let it fade out of existence.
"Another one, and again no trace left of the killer." Isa wanted to yell, scream at the top of her lungs. This made 11. 11 monsters that she
knew had been killed in the area of Mirth lake and the monster's Mirth forest. She looked down at the lake, and then down the path that led to the forest and eventually to Stalac Heights. Where to go and tell people first? The city in the lake was safe from any human, being completely underwater and all, so Stalac Heights and the forest is the more logical choice, right?
Isa made a knife out of blue magic so it glowed in contrast with the stone around her, lighting up the area as she walked, looking carefully for any sign of movement or attack from the shadows created by the uneven wall of the cavern. She got all the way to Stalac Heights before she dared let the weapon disappear, not seeing anything else suspicious along the way. She went to the city's library. What better place to start spreading information around than a library? Also, there were likely to be less people around to panic in the library than in the middle of a busy street.
"I found the dust of another monster just now, out on the perimeter of the lake." She said, probably louder than she should have, as she walked towards the first familiar face she saw in the place, Dorkle Stein.
"I don't know who it was, but there wasn't much dust there. I almost didn't spot it. It was probably a helpless little guy, like a Whimsum or something, and that just makes it that much more infuriating to me. There's a human, somewhere between here and the lake, picking off those that they think they can! That's eleven now! 11 monsters that we know are dead, and how many more that've been missing?" Isa took a breath to calm her voice a little, this is a library after all.
"We need to start searching for this human constantly, no one should ever be out alone, ever. This is getting too..." She trailed off, not really being able to think of the right word to finish that sentence.
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