Kinky Temptation

The day wore on, the sun climbing high and baking the jungle floor. Insects buzzed incessantly, the air thick and humid enough to be chewed. Progress was slow but steady, the party moving with stealth.

Nekari scouted ahead, silent as smoke. Rolfe crashed through undergrowth like a living siege engine, but somehow managed to move quietly when he wanted to. Emerick prowled from shadow to shadow. Hanry and Miriel stayed close together, the young squire vigilant, his hand never straying far from his sword hilt.

Rounding a bend where the jungle thinned into a narrow clearing choked with tall, reedy grasses, they froze. A large creature crashed through the brush ahead of them – a Brambletusk, one of the aggressive, territorial boars native to the Withering Jungle.

Its tusks were huge, wrapped in thick vines, and its hide was studded with sharp thorns. But what immediately drew their attention was that half of its flank, from shoulder down to its haunch, was coated in a thick, glistening yellow liquid dripping in sticky rivulets on the forest floor. It had the unmistakable viscosity and gloss of… honey.

Emerick, poised with an arrow nocked, hissed in surprise. But the Brambletusk paid him no heed. Its small, red eyes were wide with a kind of panicked frenzy. It let out a low, rumbling grunt, then burst into a gallop directly towards… and then past them. It tore through the tall grasses, snapping saplings as it fled, disappearing into the dense jungle beyond without so much as a backwards glance at the startled party.

Silence fell for a long moment, broken only by the dripping honey and the rustle of settling grass.

Emerick lowered his bow slowly. ”Did… did that oversized bacon strip just snub us? I feel personally offended.”

Nekari materialized silently beside Rolfe, her whiskers twitching as she sniffed the air. Her nose wrinkled. ”Honey? Why in the world is it covered in honey? And why did it run away?”

Hanry cautiously approached the patch of forest floor where the Brambletusk had paused. The fluid was thick, pungent, and oddly smoky-smelling, clinging to leaves and ferns. He carefully dipped a fingertip and brought the liquid to his nose.

”It is indeed honey,” he confirmed, brow furrowed. ”But… it smells burnt? And something else… something sour?”

”Smoke? Fire?” Rolfe rumbled, sniffing the air himself, his nostrils flaring. ”Bad smells. Something… not natural.”

Miriel knelt beside Hanry, avoiding the sticky patch. She closed her eyes, placing her hand lightly on the forest floor before reaching out with her senses.

She could feel the normal hum of the jungle, the insects, birds, small creatures and beneath it, a faint, chaotic vibration, like something had been agitated or violently disturbed nearby. It matched the direction where the Brambletusk had fled. She opened her eyes, the crosses in her irises seeming to pulse faintly.

”Whatever that was...” she murmured, ”...it wasn’t the work of the Brambletusk. Something frightened it badly. The honey scent was strange. Perhaps the boar was trapped or coated deliberately?”

Emerick kicked at a honey-sticky clump of moss with the toe of his boot. ”A purposeful honey coating? Who does that to a giant thorny swine? Some bizarre forest fashion designer? Or a bandit with a very odd sense of humor?”

”Wherever it was, happened northeast,” Nekari said, gesturing in that direction. ”Towards the bandit camp, probably. Maybe our outlaw friends there have developed a new hobby? Bovine glazing?”

”Unlikely,” Rolfe grunted. ”Bandits want profit, not to play with pigs. But something disturbed that beast. Badly. We move on. Stay alert.”

The party pressed onward, the strange encounter with the honey-coated Brambletusk leaving them vigilant. They followed the clearer trail left by the boar’s passage through the dense undergrowth – the snapped branches, flattened ferns, and occasional smears of thick, yellow liquid.

After about an hour, the trail split and became chaotic. Multiple sets of boar tracks veered off in different directions, some circling back on themselves. Puddles of honey lay haphazardly on rocks or leaves, some with hooves prints stamped into the sticky mess. The sheer volume suggested the source couldn’t be far.

”Bah,” Rolfe growled, nudging a particularly sticky puddle with his boot. ”This makes no sense. Tracks everywhere. Confusion.”

Hanry squatted down, examining the ground. ”As if the boar went into a panic here. Circling, turning, crashing through the brush… and all while shedding honey? And look, see those partial hooves prints? They lead… everywhere, then nowhere.”

”Someone, or something, was here recently,” Miriel observed, her gaze sweeping the surrounding jungle. ”But it seems they took great care to obfuscate their path. This isn’t random chaos, it’s intended. The honey… the trampling, i think it’s a mask.”

Emerick sighed dramatically, leaning against a large tree. ”Mask, cloak, whatever you call it, it’s working and I’m damn lost. Any chance we just… follow the honey to the bees?”

”We waste time,” Nekari hissed, her ears flat. ”The trail is gone and buried. Bandit camp is that way,” she pointed through the tangled branches, ”We know that location. This honey... crumb is mystery. Bandits are known evil so I say we forget the sticky stuff and continue.”

After a moment of thoughtful silence, Miriel nodded. ”She is right. Our objective is the Red Death camp, and it lies not far from here. Whatever caused this strangeness, if it’s related to the bandits, we may find clues there. If not, then we can investigate the source later. We should go.”

With Nekari once again taking the lead, they pressed forward. The terrain grew rockier, the trees sparser, signaling the approach to the Withering Jungle’s edge. The air changed too, carrying the faint smell of woodsmoke and unwashed bodies even before they saw the camp.

Finally, cresting a low ridge overlooking a steep ravine, they saw it: a ramshackle encampment tucked into the bottom of the gorge. Crude log walls topped with spikes circled a collection of rough shacks, tents, and lean-tos made from scavenged materials. A few half-hearted watchtowers leaned drunkenly at the corners. It was exactly what one would expect from a bandit stronghold.

Except it was completely abandoned.

Not a single red bandana or boisterous shout disturbed the eerie silence. A firepit in the center of the camp smoldered faintly, the ashes still holding some heat. Tools lay scattered around half-finished tasks. The door to a shack swung idly in the slight breeze. There was a palpable feeling of haste, of sudden flight.

”This is not right…” Hanry breathed, crouching low instinctively. ”Where did they all go?”

They moved cautiously down the ravine’s slope, spreading out as they neared the silent camp. The smell of blood and death hung heavily in the stifling air.

Nekari darted ahead, nose wrinkled, whiskers twitching furiously as she scented the ground and structures. ”Ugh. I smell blood,” she declared, her voice flat. ”Everywhere. Stinks of it. They are not old either, maybe days at most.”

She pointed out dark stains on packed earth, smeared on logs, splattered on tent canvas.

”Look at the volume, the distribution,” she continued, crouching to examine a particularly large dark patch seeping into the dirt. ”A fight or a massacre. Maybe thirty, forty… perhaps more involved. And look at those wounds, they are consistent. Slashes and gouges.” Her clawed finger traced a ragged cut in a heavy tent flap.

”Slashes?” Rolfe grunted, peering over her shoulder. ”Like a blade? Or…?”

”Or claws,” Nekari confirmed. ”Big ones and powerful.” She straightened, her gaze sweeping the camp with unnerving intensity. ”But there’s more. See this?” She pointed to areas around the bloodstains. ”Disturbed dirt, drag marks. Not chaotic but thought-out, very intentional.”

She knelt again, sniffing deeply. ”The dead… they were gathered. Dragged and moved. To where? And by what?”

Her expression grew troubled. ”Something cleaned this place. Efficiently. The bodies… all gone. Not just predators scavenging. Too clean and too thorough. My coin on an intelligent mind did this.”

”Fuck me sideways,” Emerick exclaimed as he ducked out of a particularly large, sturdy-looking shack near the back of the camp. ”The treasury! Or what was supposed to be the treasury! Nothing! Bare bones. Not a single copper piece! Gone! Like the little fuckers packed their bags and their ill-gotten gains and just vanished into the jungle! Along with their… cleaners!”