Episode 3 – Cane Crazy
AU INTRO
Anne, Sasha and Marcy were at the playground at night, Jacob and Amelia behind them, while James curiously peeked from the bushes. Anne slowly opened the Calamity box that she was holding, and the girls and boys were engulfed in a powerful flash of light;
Sasha, Anne and Marcy regain consciousness … and they see that they are in Amphibia now, with Jacob and Amelia leaning from a tree, James lying on some giant Mushrooms. As soon as the girls get themselves on feet, a storm of giant dragonflies fly above them, making them follow them with the eyes;
The scene cuts as the girls looks around with astonished look, enlarging to show the whole giant island that is the whole continent of Amphibia;
The scene now moves to Wartwood, showing various toad and frog citizens busy with their everyday activities, while getting nearer of the Plantar's farm. Anne, Sasha and Marcy exit from the farm's door; Anne takes a deep breath; Marcy is taking new notes on her book, while Sasha simply looks aside. A couple of giant dragonflies fly above them, and Anne and Marcy cover, while Sasha tries to swat them off;
Sprig leans over from a window with a telescope, but falls (we see Sprig fall from the inside, as Hop Pop is busy reading some unrecognized book) and lands on Polly's bucket, prompting her to punch him away. Meanwhile, Jacob and James are seen on the background, helping with some vegetables, while Amelia is mimicking some martial art (knocking herself out in the process);
Sprig lands on Anne's head as she laughs, quite imitated by Sasha and Marcy;
Anne and Sprig runs together, jumping on giant Mushrooms and evading large monstrous critters;
Marcy is in the forest alongside Maddie, the two working on magic potions together; Marcy trips on a small rocks, and falls on Maddie, making her drop all the potions, that explode in a pink, small mushroom cloud. When the cloud disappear, the two have been pink-ed by it (Maddie has pink skin, while Marcy has now pink hairs): the two girls look at each other for a few seconds before laughing;
Sasha is alone among the woods, brandishing a wooden sword, looking around as she is expecting to be attacked. A few seconds later, Izzy jumps out of the woods, herself carrying a wood weapon. The two smirks at each other, and start practice sword fighting, when suddenly Amelia appears and put her wood katana between their respective weapons, joining the fight;
Toadstool is strolling around Wartwood, bashing on his citizen's respect, before he notices them laughing at him. He turns around to see somehow draw a mocking painting of him on one of the building, while Jacob is hiding around the corner, trying not to be heard as he laughs;
James is lying on the farm's roof, looking at the night sky filled with stars. Suddenly, he saw the starts forming doodle images of him and his friends, high-fiving each other. He smirks at it;
The Plantars, Anne, Marcy and James are fishing when they are attacked by a large fish-like monster; Sasha, Jacob and Amelia rush to fight it;
Amelia is again making mock martial arts on her own: to her own surprise, she sees Maddie's sisters Rosemary, Lavender, and Ginger Flour copy her moves exactly as she did;
Marcy is running from a large beetle, until the beetle comes face-to-face at Jacob, who glares at him. The beetle run away and Jacob smirks, before noticing the even larger heron behind him, making him run away in terror;
Sasha is holding the photo of herself, Anne and Marcy with the word "BFFS!" as she looks at Anne and Sprig, looking remorseful. Meanwhile, Marcy is laughing with Maddie, but she notices Sasha's grim, and her eyes look at the Calamity Box;
Anne is now wearing a golden-like armor, her tennis racket on the side, as she looks forward toward the sunset. She is shortly joined by her allies and friends: Marcy is in a ranger-like armor with a long cape and a crossbow to her right arm, Sasha is in a red knight armor with a cape too, a metal tiara around her head and a long, metal sword on her side, Jacob is in a large light-blue barbarian-like armor and he has a long war hammer on his back, Amelia is now wearing a proper samurai attire (with a scary ogre-mask on the side) and she's now welding a REAL, metal katana, and Jacob is now clothed like an explorer/adventurer with magical fire burning from his hands. While looking at the horizon, they are joined by their friends (the Plantars for Anne, Maddie for Marcy, Izzy and Felicia for Sasha, Maddie's triplet sisters for Amelia, Leopold and Mrs. Sadie Croaker for Jacob and "One-Eyed" Wally for James") plus Bessie, Toadstool and the other citizens, prompting them to smile and look happy. However, the camera zooms out revealing to be images on a Magic Ball, and a cloaked and dark-hidden (but clearly human) figure looking at them from the shadows…
As the sun was rising up from the sky and all Wartwood was busy starting their morning activities, the girls were in the basement hanging out with Sprig, while the boys were just outside doing some small favor for Hop Pop.
Through some hard work and forced redecoration, the basement had taken now an appearance of a makeshift room adapt to the human's tastes and needs: Sasha, on behalf of herself and her two friends, had took over half of the room, but while both her and Anne's sleep areas were quite messy and chaotic, Marcy's own area was quite tidy and carefully organized. Of the remaining space, the biggest area included the beds of Jacob and James, who had impromptu organized a "boys area" with shared interests and common needs, and while it was neatly organized as Marcy's own space was, thanks to James' influence and experience the two boys had managed to keep it somehow clean and not too much chaotic. Finally, the last and smaller area was Amelia's, and she organized it like a samurai quarter, taking advantage of a small offset in the wall to store her own wooden katana, and using her wooden hat as a basin to wash her face every day. The space was small, considering that six different humans beings were sharing it, and quarrels were common (especially if they involved Sasha), but so far, the six stranded teens had managed to survive trough it with no major incidents.
The main reason for that was, of course, that since they needed this space only to sleep, they had no reason to stay too close together all the time.
Right now, while the boys were outside, Sasha was lying on her sleeping spot, trying to read something to distract herself from the reality around herself; Amelia was "meditating" (or so she claimed, both Jacob, Anne and everyone else assumed she was just pretending to be, as her meditations never lasted more than 5 minutes and she quickly grew bored of doing it for too long); while Anne and Marcy were busy showing some items from their own world to an enthusiastic-looking Sprig.
"Wow, Anne, Marcy look at all your cool stuff!" Sprig said, looking around like a human kid would do on Christmas day "What's this? Ah, I get it. Torture device."
"Nope, that's a toenail clipper" Anne responded, "We humans use it to clip our own toes if they grow too long and uncomfortable."
"And these ones?"
"Those are headphones" Marcy replied, "We use it to listen to music, whenever we feel like it."
"And this one?"
"That is a rubber: this is something we usually need at school."
"Really? I have never seen one…"
"Just to ask, you and Polly do not go to school? It's been a while I wanted to ask" Marcy asked "but so far neither your or Polly looks like you have school…"
"Well, truth to be told, neither me nor Polly have the chance to go…"
"You don't have school here?" Marcy looked puzzled.
"We had one" he said "Unfortunately, the herons attacked it and destroyed it: ate all the teachers and students alike. There aren't many more, and many of them are for toads, or very rich frogs: Wartwood citizens are used to grow up and learn from their parents."
"Wow, that's quite sad."
"Meh, I do not know. Never been in a school before, too young to remember the old one…"
"Want to…see something else?" Anne intervened, hoping to move from the unhappy argument.
"Yeah! How about this? What does this do?" he grabbed a bike pump and started to pump air on his own mouth, making his cheeks bloat and Anne laugh.
"It is painful…" he murmured, before deflating like a balloon.
"That is a pump: we humans use it if something deflated and we need to fill it again."
"And this one?" he grabbed a pencil "Oh, I love this. This is amazing!"
"You know what? You can keep it, if you like it so much" Anne smiled. It was not a big loss: she had several more still.
Someone who was NOT HAPPY about it was Sasha, as she tried to ignore the sound Sprig was making: first, she tried to pay no attention to it, hoping that he would soon stop, as anyone with half a brain would do in her world. However, as the sound continued relentlessly, she could feel her own eyes twitching, her breath geeting heavier and more difficult, and her hands starting to shake, as rage completely took over her brain function.
"Sprig" she said, at first in gentle tone "Would you please SHUT IT?" she yelled. Hearing her angry voice, both Anne and Marcy turned to her with a shocked look, while Sprig dropped the pen, looking hurt.
"I was just having fun…" Sprig said.
"But you were also bothering me. A LOT!"
"Sorry Sash!" Marcy intervened "We did not mean to bother you…"
Sash went on to reply, before her glaze focused on Amelia "And what about you? Don't tell me that noise was not bothering you too!"
"The true warrior never let emotions run through his blood like the water of a river" she quietly replied, internally happy to be able to use some of her wise-samurai attune right then "Let anger run for what matter most, not for the smallest rocks…"
"A-MELIA!" Sasha replied "That was a quote from that movie, The Night Ronin's Revenge!"
"As you're with yourself, and you're content on your within, nothing can move your peace of mind…"
"Kids!" Hop Pop's voice came from above "Chow time!"
"…except breakfast! Incoming!" Amelia yelled, losing all her wise-Japan façade and running upside with a glee.
Sasha looked at Sprig "Nevermind. Let's just go" she said, but by her tone of voice, she still looked a little bit annoyed.
"Oh, I guess Sasha does not like being my friend…"
"It's not that" Marcy moved to help him "She's just feeling a little uneasy: she is having the harder time among us to get accustomed to this world…"
"Yeah. We know her: she will mellow down and become friendlier after some time" Anne added "Well, quite some time…"
"Time to eat! Time to eat!" the Plantar's kids, plus Anne and Marcy, chanted, while banging on the tables. Amelia, who sit the closer to Hop Pop, simply tried to look past him and into the cauldron, while Sasha simply pouted afar.
"Hold on, kids" Hop Pop replied "We still need to wait…"
Suddenly, almost as reply to his own words, the farm's door opened, and a couple of male humans, sweaty, with their own clothes dirty and stained, entered. James even had sunburns all over his own skin.
"Oh, there you are you two!" Hop Pop looked at them "Did you finished the work I asked you to do?"
"The two fields were raked and the abandoned dry wood collected in a single pile," Jacob said, trying to regain breath and passing his own hand on his forefront, to wipe out the sweat "And, we watered them too!"
"Watered? But I didn't ask you to water them."
"Well, we did while we were raking them" James replied, sitting down with a tired look "With our own sweat."
"Grandfather was right," Jacob panted, "Farmer's work is hard and tiring as he told me…"
"Well, since you guys did already some work, you deserve a prize" Hop Pop said "First servings to you."
The enthusiasm of the humans present, however, quickly waned as soon as they saw the contents of their bowls: a strange and unappetizing green liquid in which floated floppy caterpillars, cricket legs, and dead or still-living insects.
Sasha stuttered, and so did Anne. Jacob poked his own bowl, and saw some of the bugs were still alive. Amelia opened and closed her eyes more and more times, in a futile attempt for it to disappear. James covered his mouth.
"Ugh! Uh, you know what?" Anne moved the bowl away from her "I think I'm gonna pass."
"Yeah, me too!" Sasha added, "I believe I just lost my appetite, whenever it went."
"Why?" Hop Pop turned on them "Is my food not good enough for the little princesses?" he gave them a stinky eye, but Sasha replied at it in turn.
"Well, if we are princesses" Sasha retorted, feeling her interior snark return to surface "then you're absolutely the king, of bad cooking."
Sprig and Polly looked at Sasha, amazed, before yelling in jubilation: apparently, the fact that Hop Pop's cuisine was not good was not a human-exclusive opinion.
"What?"
"Yes Mr. Plantar" Amelia joined them "With no offence mean, I do not think my stomach can endure something like …this."
"This must be the worst food ever made!" James intervened "And I came from the supposed homeland of bad food!"
"If someone dared to bring such a thing in our world" Jacob poked his own bowl a little more, prompting some spiders and caterpillars to run from it "he would be immediately arrested for attempted poisoning."
"Poisoning? This is the Plantar's traditional growing food for young ones!" Hop Pop said, proudly, pointing to a portrait of the same food with the words "OUR TRADITION" engraved on it "We use it to give our children all the all the nutrients and vitamins a frog needs to grow big and strong!"
"That's the point: frogs!" Anne continued "Humans have a different metabolism: what is edible for you can be inedible, or even poisonous for us! What do you say Marcy... Marcy?"
The faces of those present turned toward the one voice missing from the roll call: Marcy was actually tasting the bowl's content, while adding even more notes in her book and drawing a quite realistic sketch of the whole thing.
"Huh, Mar-Mar…what are you doing?"
"Just adding a section on the local food and dishes." she replied "By the way, Mister Plantar, I guess some ingredients of this dish are green mushrooms, green root and raw crickets?"
"Huh, yes?"
"That's Marcy for you." Jacob sighed "She is the only one that could like this…garbage!"
"Garbage?!" Hop Pop repeated, now angry again.
"Yes: garbage!" Jacob faced him "This is not food: this is raw gross things put together with very sloppy work and called it a day!"
"Oh, yeah? Well, you... I..."
"What's the matter, Hop Pop?" Anne pressed him "Frog in your throat?"
"You…well…"
"Face it HP: your cuisine stinks! In every way!" Sasha added firepower.
"Burn!" Jacob laughed.
"Sassy teenager social-queen burn!" James highfived him.
"Oh, she got you again!" Sprig said, as him and Polly laughed as Hop Pop was clearly the loser of the argument-battleground.
"Oh, dang it!" Hop Pop finally said, fuming "You know what? I am going to take a nap. I cannot believe this: I feed you, I house you, and this is how you six repay me? Let me tell you something: if you do not shape up soon, I am throwing' you out! All of you!"
He went out, slamming the door, and leaving the kids and the humans alone.
"Yeesh. What's his problem?" Anne asked.
"I guess old boomers are the same everywhere, no matter what world you end up into." Sasha snickered.
"I know, right?" Anne replied "I'm Hop Pop. I cook bad and have a temper problem!" she started an imitation of him.
"That's so Hop Pop!" Sprig and Polly laughed, as the other humans joined them.
Anne grabbed a cane and pushed on the imitation.
"Eat your aphids, don't play with them. Elbows off the table!"
"Anne, your imitations always make me crack up!" Marcy laughed, amused.
"I know: it's epic!" Jacob laughed too.
"I sooo wish I could post this on my socials!" Sasha tears of joy coming out of her eyes.
"Sometimes I wonder why I even bother putting up with you at all!" she pressed on, hitting the table with the cane. However, the cane was less resistant than she thought, or maybe she hit the table stronger than she wanted, and thus the cane broke, snapping in two pieces.
"OHH!" Sprig and Polly gasped and froze in pure terror, all funniness gone from their faces. Seeing this, the other humans gradually stopped laughing.
"Oopsies. Guess I don't know my own strength, right, guys?" she tried to laugh it off, but she then saw Polly and Sprig's face "You guys okay? What's the big deal? It's just one cane."
"That wasn't just any cane!" Sprig yelled, pointing to a series of portait "It was Hop Pop's special cane, passed down from his father, Hop Poppity Pop, all the way from his father, Hop-and-Lock-Drop Soppity Pop…"
"What?" Anne said, feeling her own blood freeze.
"Oh no!" Amelia cried.
"That cane was an heirloom passed down by generation in generation?" Marcy replied, the enthusiasm in her voice replaced by dread
"And we just…broke it?!" James was now pale in face.
"Perfect! Way to go, Boonchuy!" Sasha yelled, turning to Anne "And old, priceless, irreplaceable family heirloom, and you just had to broke it! Now we're going to get thrown out of here!"
"I didn't do it on purpose" Anne desperately tried to defend herself "it was an accident!"
"When he was saying to kick us out before, he wasn't really saying that, was he?" Jacob intervened, his voice full of fear too now "He was joking, wasn't he?"
"I do not know: he looked quite serious to me…" Amelia began to hyperventilate.
"Oh! We need to find a solution!" Anne panicked "He's is going to kick us out of here the second he finds out about this. We can't go back to live in that cave!"
A horrible, scary flashback played out in the minds of the humans as they remembered their previous accommodation: a dark, dirty, damp, cold cave, populated by giant, monstrous insects. Anne still remembered the chills of the freezing water falling on her, Sasha the filth and giant spiders, Jacob the having to sleep with one eye for fear of being attacked in his sleep, Marcy the bitter cold that seemed to cut you like knives, James the treacherous darkness full of danger, Amelia the sleeping on a hard, dirty, wet floor.
A terrible experience that had marked them deeply. And that none of them, wanted to repeat...
Sasha, Marcy and Anne cringed. Amelia hugged her cousin. James and Jacob shared a thousand-yard stare.
"Uhhh! The nights were the hardest."
"Especially when it rained. Outside and inside!"
"Don't worry, Anne." Sprig came to reassure her "We'll do whatever it takes, to help you. All of you" he looked at Sasha, with a genuine smile, making the blonde girl feel puzzled.
"Eh, count me out."
"Polly?!" Sprig, Anne and Jacob glared at her.
"What? I hardly know you."
"How about we make a trade?" Sasha came forward "You assist us so we do not get kicked out of here… and you get this" she showed a candy bar.
"Candy?" She asked "Candy from another world? Lady, you've got yourself a deal!"
"Happy to make business deal with you" Sasha smirked. It was quite good to know that her bartering abilities from school were still useful…even in another dimension "Now let's get to work before Hop Pop finds out!"
"Ok, so…someone has an idea how we can hide this?" Jacob asked.
"This stuff is sticky and solidify quite fast" Marcy suggested, showing them their still uneaten bowls of green sludge "We can try and use it as a glue: if it sticks and the damage is no more visible, we're safe and sound!"
"Quick!" James ran to the table and grabbed his own bowl "Let's try this out!"
The humans put the sludge between the two pieces of the cane, pushed them together to make their points match, and then they used Polly's own bowl to tie them.
"Yeah!" they yelled…only for the upper piece to fall apart.
"It's no use!" Amelia said, "This thing is useless even as glue!"
"Probably it does not have enough sticky power" Marcy said, "I can try and redo it with different ingredients to make it more adapt for our own use…"
"There's no time, Mar-Mar!" Sasha brought her friend to the close, hard reality of facts "We do not know how long Hop Pop is going to sleep: we need a more expedient solution!"
"What if I insert a steel wire into the interior? This could stabilize the two pieces the time it takes for this slop to set." Jacob proposed.
"And how much time it will take for you to find a steel wire here. Not to mention insert it inside the cane could break it even more…"
"Ok, let's scrap it."
"Okay, maybe we can't fix it on our own" Anne admitted "but someone else can? I do not know, is there someone here at Wartwood who might have the skills we need? Someone good with... wood?"
"Anne, you're a genius!" Sprig jumped on her "We'll just take it to Leopold Loggle, the woodsmith. He loves wood. Almost a little too much…"
"It doesn't matter: if he's the local expert, then he is the one who has the best chance to help us!" Jacob said, "Let's bring this to him, and hope we can return before Hop Pop wakes up!"
"But I do wonder if he can. I mean" Marcy looked at the broken cane "What kind of wood is this?"
"I guess we're about to find out…"
Thankfully, Loggle's woodshop was not too much far from the Plantar's farm. Once they arrived, the humans noticed that the shop had a very, peculiar sign…
"Chairs, Tables, Limbs?" Jacob asked.
"I guess that, with no industrial means, the locals who needs prosthesis must make them out of wood" Marcy said "This is something absolutely amazing!"
"Marcy!" Sasha reprimanded her "Can you take notes and sketch after we solve our little problem?"
Once they entered, they instantly met Loggle, who was apparently an azure Axolotls with workshop googles. Anne, Sasha and Jacob showed him the damaged cane, while James and Amelia struck outside to keep watch (just in case Hop Pop woke up earlier) and Marcy took the advantage of the situation to add even more notes and sketches to her book: apparently, the locals were quite fond of wood works, and thus, wood workers were important on Amphibia's society like blacksmiths were once in Middle Age human culture.
"Uh-huh. Oh, oh, yes. Well, aren't you fascinating? Yes, you are…."
"Hu-huh" Sasha fake-coughed "Can you fix it?"
"As a matter of fact, I can... not."
"Ok. Can you make a new one?" Sprig asked.
"Absolutely... no way."
"Do you have one identical we could buy?" Anne intervened.
"Of course I do... n't. I don't."
"Are you deliberately mocking us?" Sasha grimaced.
"In truth I am.. not. I'm not mocking you."
"Then, please" Jacob said, his patience running low "Why every sentence you say sounds like you want to give us false hope, before shatter it into smithereens?"
"Old smithing accident. You don't want to know."
"Seriously? We have faced many strange things so far. We don't…"
"Tripped on an anvil. Landed neck-first on a metal pipe. Pierced my voice box clean through!" he showed the still-visible scar.
"Blech!" Sasha looked away.
"This is too much even for a splatter!" Jacob covered his own eyes.
"Yetch!" Anne looked grossed out, and so did Polly and Sprig.
"This give me an idea for a low-tech vocal modulator that…"
"Marcy, please. Not now!"
"This is the reason I left metal for wood. And anyway, there is a reason why I can't help you with this: This cane was made not with regular wood, but with a very incredible rare wood who can be obtained only from the incredibly rare, extremely dangerous Doom Tree!"
"Doom Tree?" Jacob asked, imagining some kind of giant, able-bodied oak tree that used its branches to beat up enemies.
"Few frogs have made it to the Doom Tree alive, even fewer yet returned. It holds many secrets that mortals dare not to seek, because they could be driven mad if-"
"So, let me get this straight" Sasha interrupted him "The reason why you can't make a new cane, is because you do not have the very rare wood it is made of."
"Actually…yes."
"But…you know where we can find one of these trees?" Anne looked thoughtful.
"Of course…I do. I would never go there on my own, but I know there is one nearby."
"So" Jacob lightened up "If we go to this tree, and we take some wood out of it…you could make a new cane similar to the old one?"
"As a matter of fact…yes" Leopold smiled "Bring me the wood, and I can make you a new cane so similar to the old ones no one would be able to see the difference!"
"Then is settled!" Jacob smiled "We go to the tree, we take the wood and bring it here, and you make a new cane!"
"Hop Pop will never find out even it was broke in the first place!"
"Guys, what are you talking about?" Marcy asked.
"Looks like we need to go to some Doom Tree to find the wood we need for a new cane."
"Oh my gosh: a quest! Our first one! Onward we go: adventure calls!" Marcy's eyes filled with enthusiasm and glittery.
"Here is the map got to the Doom Tree right here" Leopold opened another page of his book, showing alarge map "but it'll cost ya…"
"Click!" Anne said, snapping a photo of the map, and showing it.
"Or you could do that for free."
"Remember to share it with all of us" Jacob suggested, "One copy for each one is safer."
"Ah! Technology one, old map zero!" Sasha grinned.
"Come on, guys. We got to hurry! Hop Pop could wake up at any second!" Anne urged them.
"Right!" Jacob nodded "Let's inform Amelia and James as we go."
"Be careful, you kids." Leopold yelled behind them "It's cursed, I tell ya. Cursed!"
And so, the six humans, now playing adventurers, plus the two Plantar frog kids, embarked in a journey trough the Death Ridge, onward the Mushrooms Forest, onward the Swamp Lake, and onward, ever forward, to the mysterious cursed tree that contained within it, the wood they needed in order not to be chased out of the house by a grumpy old frog.
Sasha, Jacob and James were in the front row, had gotten themselves some large sticks and were using them both as machetes (to phrase their way through the more treacherous vegetation) and as a potential weapon, in case of unfriendly encounters. Amelia was right behind them, looking around circumspectly, alert for potential dangers; Marcy had her note book perpetually in hand, and was taking notes and making drawings of the plant and animal forms she observed; and last, Anne proceeded along with Polly and Sprig.
"I can't believe it!" Marcy said enthusiastically "It's our first quest! This soo amazing!"
"It would be more amazing if we did not have to force our way through trees, bushes and wilderness." commented Sasha with snark.
"Wow, I guess you are pretty excited about this?" Sprig commented.
"Sure I am: this is so like Thunder of Wars!"
"Thunder of Wars?"
"It's a tabletop RPG" Jacob commented "It's a game I used to play, when we were in our world…"
"No way!" Marcy gasped, "You are a Thunderian too?"
"Sure I am!" he grinned "First Class Orc Mercenary Warrior, Thung'né Dee Nay."
"First Class Elven Ranger Sentinel Dnizzi Du Donì!" Marcy saluted him in the Elvish salute in-game "Tai-zhen!"
"Wat-thkà!" Jacob replied in the Orcish one.
"Huh…what is a RPG?" Sprig asked again.
"It's a game where you pretend to live in another world" Anne explained "and be and adventurer having adventures called quests, who many times are retrieving magical artifacts, defeat bad guys and save civilians. Marcy was a veteran player in our world, but I would have never guessed Jacob would be one too."
"Believe me, he was a very avid fan" Amelia sighed, "Meanwhile, I found them quite plain…of course, I would have never expected to end up in a world like that myself too."
"True to say" Jacob commented "We do not know how much this world resembles a classi fantasy one. I mean, there are giant monsters, strange people and races, jury's still out on magic…"
"Oh, but we do have it."
Jacob stopped, and looked at him "You have…what?"
"Magic. We do-" but he was unable to talk further as Marcy quickly grabbed him and started to talk very, VERY fast.
"You have magic? How that works? What you can do with it? How much training you have to do in order to learn it? Does the concept of Mana exist in this world? You have schools where they teach magic? How are wizards and enchantresses ranked? Is magic outlawed, or just in some regions? How-"
"Marcy!" Anne come down to calm her "Try to slow down, ok? Sprig can't answer you if you keep shaking him.
"Ops, sorry Anne-Banana!"
"Uhhh…" Sprig said, trying to regain focus "About that…I do not know very much. What little I know about magic comes from Maddie: she's one of the closest acquaintance I have, her father is the local baker, and… she's got a strong interest in magic…"
"Can you please introduce me to her?" Marcy gleamed at him "Pretty pretty please?"
"Well, I do not know, but-"
"We're arrived!" announced James, pointing at something large in front of them. The group now saw the tree, identical to how it was drawn on the map, standing alone in a small opening, surrounded by taller trees and thorny bushes, with some glowing mushrooms that added on the creepy ambience.
"Wow, that is an ugly tree." Anne said.
"Ugly?" Sasha replied, "It doesn't even look like a real tree!"
"I know," added Marcy, quickly adding new notes and another sketch on her book, about the mysterious tree.
"Just one of Mother Nature's horrible mistakes." Sprig calmly said "I'm sure is harmless."
"Huh, guys?" Amelia pointed at something. Around the trees, barely hidden by the vegetation, there were meatless skulls and bones of amphibian nature.
"Frogs died here." Polly chuckled.
"Maybe this is because this place was once a perfect ambush spot…or some large creature used to live here" James talked "In any case, we better take the wood we need and get outta here."
"Huh-oh!" Jacob jerked up "Take the wood? To take it we could need tools such as saws, or axes for cutting wood, and we did not bring them."
"No need for that!" Annie pointed at a spot on the tree "Look: that branch is perfect."
"True: it DOES look like that broken cane." Jacob said.
"Ok then," Sasha took the leadership role again "Anne, Marcy, help me get up there and grab it. Jacob, you, James and Amelia keep the watch: I have seen enough horror movies to know that the victim always gets attacked from behind."
Anne and Marcy quickly moved to help Sasha leap on the tree, before moving behind her with Sprig.
"You people and your legs." Polly said with envy.
"Hey, Polly" Amelia looke4d at her "Wanna help us watch over for danger? From what we know, this area might still be habituated by some large monster…"
"Don't worry: no monster can come closer to the tree when I'm here!" she announced triumphantly.
Meanwhile, the girls (and Sprig) had managed to reach the branch, and they were now ready to rip it away.
"Careful. The tree is cursed. Pfft!" Anne laughed, as to mock the supposed "curse".
"Only a fool would believe such a thing" Sasha laughed too "Okay, seriously though, on three. One, two..."
Nevertheless, once the branch was ripped from the main body, a monstrous shriek resounded, making their blood freeze.
"What the-"
"The tree…"
"…just screamed?"
"WHOAA!" they yelled as the tree's body moved under them. Sprig splash-landed on Polly, Sasha felt James, Anne landed on Amelia and Marcy was caught by Jacob.
"Uh-Oh" Jacob said, as he saw the trees moves, and his lower branches were now…suspiciously similar to bugs limbs?
In a few seconds, the truth was laid bare in front of them: the Doom Tree, who was supposedly cursed, was in truth a large, tree-like bug with huge fangs and a terrible shriek, spewing off some strange red/orange liquid all over them.
"Oh, hey, it's maple."
"Identical to the one in my house..." Jacob barely said, her mind frozen in shock.
"RUN!" Sasha yelled, grabbing Marcy and beginning to run. Immediately, the other rushed behind her, with the large tree-bug following them at great speed.
"What the heck is that?" Sasha yelled
"That thing is not a tree." Anne replied "It's some kind of grody bug!"
"A sticky bug!" Amelia pushed her hat on her head to avoid lose it "I saw them when I went to the wildlife park, but not that big!"
"A sticky bug that wants to kill us!"
"Well, what tipped you off?"
"A monster tree! This is exactly like my favorite game!"
"Marcy, it want to kill us! In Real frikin' Life!"
"Just run!"
The giant stick bug tried to use its large pincers to swing at Sprig and Amelia, but they were agile enough to avoid them. Suddenly, James saw a large gloop on the ground, and quickly gathered it and launched it toward the big bug eyes, making him blind for a few seconds.
"In there!" Jacob yelled, pointing to a large fallen log, and the group quickly hide behind it, covering each other's mouth to not make a sound. When the bug was able to see again, his intended prey were out of sight, and he roared, trying to find them.
Amelia made a sign to the other, to stay silent: if the large bug could not find them, he would probably go away and leave them able to return to Wartwood.
Unfortunately, the log behind which the humans and their friends were hiding contained a large number of smaller bugs, who started to move toward Sasha and Anne's face, crawling all over them. Jacob noticed them, and silently signed to stay still and silent, but as he looked at them, he realized their silence would not stand for long. And if the stick big monster notice they were there…
It took an instant for Jacob's brain to come up with a desperate plan to save everyone, and another second for his heart to choose it. He would risk it all, and if he would be not as fast or agile as he hoped to be, he would be a goner, but he was used on bets with even lowest odds.
Suddenly, without warning, Jacob ran to the right, in plain sight of the large monster, and toward the opposite direction to Wartwood: he knew that, by doing so, the monster would focus on him, and give the others a chance to leave safety. And alone, he would be even more agile and easy to hide; he just needed to lose the bug, and they would be safe.
"Gaaah! Get them off! Get them off!" Sasha yelled a few seconds after the monster bug has left.
"What the heck is Jacob doing?" Amelia looked in the direction where he had run "Wartwood is there!"
"If I have to guess, I would say your cousin had just saved our lives…" James retorted "If that thing stood around there for a few more seconds, he would have found us…" he glared at Anne and Sasha.
"You try to stay silent with so much bugs all over your face!" Anne protested, as Sprig went in her support.
"Hum, not bad" he said, talking the bugs one by one and eating them.
"Guys, we can't leave Jacob alone with that thing!" Amelia panicked "We have to help him!"
"Amelia-" Sasha tried to reply, before the young samurai-wannabe jumped on running, following his cousin and the large tree-bug's footsteps. Immediately, James rushed behind her.
"Resist, Jacob! Reinforcements are incoming!" Marcy too started to run, tripped, get up again, and resumed her run.
Anne and Sasha were alone, and they looked at each other.
Sasha sighed, "Let's go save the idiot…"
And they rushed too.
Come on, come on! Jacob thought as he ran, without stopping, still hearing the monstrous bug roars and hearing his run behind him, I need a hiding place, even a small one. A hollow tree, an empty log, even a pit full of cockroaches, anything...
However, so far he had no luck, and thus he had no choice but keep running, and hoping for a hiding place, just a little further forward.
"Hey you, bugface!" a voice yelled.
Hearing it, the insect stopped and turned to face the new adversary.
"Amelia?!" Jacob yelled "Why are you here?!"
"I'm saving your butt like always, cousin-san!" she replied "Now, James!"
At her command, James hurled two large rocks toward the bugs's eyes, hitting one and making it roar once again, moving to attack them. Jacob, seeing this, quickly grabbed another stick and with hit, attacked the bug in the back.
"Leave my cousin alone, you fake tree!"
"Y-haa!" Marcy yelled, rushing forward with the intent of stabbing the bug in its flank with a sharpened stick, but she tripped (again) and she felt…just under the bug's claws.
"Here's a variable I hadn't calculated..." Marcy laughed nervously, while the bugs moved to attack her…
"LEAVE. HER. ALONE!" Sasha yelled, jumping to attack, as she tried to create distraction. The bug ignored Marcy (thus allowing her to retreat safely), but its fast movement pushed Sasha out of it, making her land on the hard ground.
"It's no good!" Anne said, as herself, Sprig and Polly watched the unfolding battel: the humans were fast, and by coordinating, were able to avoid being hit, but the bug's dimensions and its tick armor/bark made it almost impossible to defeat it.
"We need to hit it with something else. Something harder!"
"Harder than wood? There is only metal, but we have nothing of metal big enough to defeat it!"
"Wait: it does not need to be metal" Polly suggested, pointing to something large and close the battleground. A large, sharpened rock, emerging from the ground like a giant knife. As their eyes saw it, Anne, Sprig and Polly grinned.
"Agh!" Amelia shouted, as she landed wrong and had difficulties managing to get back on her feet and restore her balance. That was a bad moment, because Sasha and Marcy were busy helping at each other, Jacob was momentarily trapped under a tree's branch, and James had finished up all his "ammunitions" and was desperately trying to find out new ones. Assuming, of course that the bug would have given them the time.
"ROOOM!" The bus roared again. He was fighting non-stop since several minutes, and in some places, the humans were able to hurt him and/or damage is wood-like armor, but it was still far from being beaten. And judging by how the battles was going, the odds were in its favor.
"Hey, you fake-tree bug-face!" Anne insulted him, before he could attack once more, making it turn on her "Come and get me if you aren't a coward!"
"Anne!" Sasha yelled, as Marcy and herself were unable to come in help of their friends; Amelia, while a little slowed down, moved to help Jacob together with James, as the large bugs rushed toward Anne.
Just as she had hoped.
On a large, tall tree on the path, the bug was running to get to her, Polly and Sprig were already hidden, ready to strike; and just above the tree, next to the large knife rock, they and Anne had prepared a slippery point, where the bugs' limbs would find harder to stick.
As the bugs roared again, Sprig and Polly made their move: the latter, used Sprig's slingshot and hit the large Bug's again in its mouth, but the shot this time was some gum from Anne's, who ended up sticking on it and making it harder to chew, distracting it as Sprig jumped on its side and upsetting its balance. As Sprig hastily retreated, Anne grabbed the rope she had prepared and pulled it, entrapping the bug's legs and making thus impossible for it to stand; even better, pulling it toward the large rock, and impaling the bugs on that.
The bugged moved again, shrieked, and roared, but after a few minutes, it stopped, dead.
"We did it!" Anne jumped
"It is down! It is down!" Sprig announced.
"Polly the bug-terminator wins again!"
"Anne!" a voice said, and the remaining humans rushed: Sasha was helping Marcy stand, while trying to suppress her own pain; Amelia and James were supporting Jacob, who even though he survived basically unscathed the large branch, had received a powerful hit.
"It…it is?" Marcy asked, looking at it with wonder.
"It is defeated!" Anne announced.
"Anne Boonchuy!" Sasha roared, "I did tell you to not try these stunts ever again! You could have got yourself killed!"
"No, we had it planned" Sprig intervened "Anne shouted to attract the bug away from you, and close to the large rock; Polly used my slingshot to hit it and distract him from where it was walking; I jumped on it and Anne tricked its legs so it fell…"
"Sash" Marcy intervened "Anne-Banana has just saved our lives."
"While there was not need for it!" Jacob protested, "I had everything under control!"
"Everything under control?" Amelia shouted at him "You ran away, and that huge bug followed you!"
"Exactly what I wanted!" he replied, "When we were hiding behind that log, and Anne and Sasha had those bugs crawling all over their faces, I realized it would be questions of seconds before one of you tow would reveal our hiding; thus, I ran so the bug would follow me, and give you the opportunity to get as far from it as possible."
"And what about you?!" Amelia screamed again, "You wanted to play live bait with that thing?"
"Nope, I just wanted it to follow me until I was safe you were safe; after that, I would have hidden in a smaller hiding spot, and waited for it to go away, and then I would have rejoined you!"
"That was a plan reckless and totally suicidal!" James intervened "If you had found no hiding place or you would have not been able to lose that monster, you would be a goner!"
"Well, I didn't see you take charge!"
"Are you suggesting it is my fault…"
"Let's analyze the situation…"
The conflicting humans started to quarrel, until Anne's whistle brought them all to silence, Sprig and Polly silently looking at them.
"Guys, guys!" Anne said "There is no need to quarrel: sure, we all may have done mistakes today, or done actions the others might think were done badly, but in the end, this don't matter anymore: we did it! We have a replacement for Hop Pop cane, remember?"
"Yes, I have it!" Sasha nodded, patting it under her clothes.
"Then, let's get outta here and return home before…"
"Wait, Anne" Sasha intervened, looking at the large sticky bug body "Now that we're here, why just be safe with the replacement we already have?"
"Sash" Amelia asked, "What are you…?"
Without replying, Sasha tried to move the bug's body. Sure, it was heavy, for her alone, but not too much: thus, if the other humans joined her…
"What are you thinking?" Jacob questioned her.
"That wood worker told us that the only reason why he could not do the work we asked was because he had not the wood he needed, and he told it was a very rare wood. While not wood, this guy's armor is still rare and rare might mean precious…"
"Are you suggesting…"
"No, Jacob, I am not suggesting nothing: I am telling you that, if we take this bug body and we bring it to that Loggle guy, he might buy it for a good price; and even in the worst case, we could ask him for some more replacement for that old cane."
The humans looked at each other.
"There is logic on it."
"Some more spare might be useful."
"We do not know how long the replacement will survive…"
"Plus, if it is rare as he said…"
"Helping Hop Pop with some money for the farm might actually be a good idea…"
The humans grinned, "Let's bring our booty and get the reward!" Marcy announced.
"Sasha, next time you propose that we pull some giant bug body to the workshop of some guy very far, and I agree with you," Jacob said, looking at her, "remember to knock me on the head. Hard!"
"But what did I know, that bringing this bug up to here would be so hard and tiring?" she lamented, sweat running on her forehead "When I tried to lift it, it didn't feel to much heavy."
"Sure, at first was not heavy at all!" Amelia lamented "But after pulling it through a difficult landscape…"
"Guys, we have arrived!" Polly and Sprig said, from above the sticky bugs' body, as they noticed Loggle's workshop coming in sight. The humans rejoiced…before they saw the door locked, and the shop closed.
"What? It is closed?" Sasha lamented.
"I guess that by pushing it to here, we lost more time than we thought" Anne murmured, "Loggle's gone home, and the shop is close for today!"
"What?!" Jacob protested "You mean we pulled this stupid bug until here…for nothing?!"
"Well, is not for nothing" Marcy intervened, in her usual enthusiast and positive personality "We have brought it to here, and while the shop is closed for now, I am sure he will find it tomorrow morning. Besides, we don't have to worry for the cane, since Sasha's got the replacement with her. Right Sash?"
"True: here is it?"
Nevertheless, as soon as the branch came in sight, the humans despaired.
"SASH!"
"THE BRANCH!"
"IS CRUSHED AND RUINED!"
Sasha looked it and, with horror, realized they was right: the wood-armor branch was now ruined too, with no chance for it to pass for the broken cane.
"HOW…HOW THIS…"
"It must have happened when we fought the bug!" James realized "When you felt on the ground, you probably landed with it under yourself!"
"Oh no, this is a disaster!" Anne yelled, realizing their dire situation has not resolved at all "The replacement cane we tried to gather is unusable now, and since the shop is closed, we can't prepare a new one!"
The humans grimaced as their realized all hope was lost; and considering the time, Hop Pop was probably awake and found out what happened by now.
"Sorry, guys." Sprig tried to cheer them up "After all we worked for too."
"We were so close, but we failed in the end!"
"You know, I was really thinking we had fixed my mistake. This is all my fault: if I hadn't goofed around and broke that cane…!"
"No Anne!" Jacob turned to her "This is my fault: I did not told or even hinted you my plan before running, and it was my action that lead us to ruin the branch. I am guilty as you are!"
"No, it is MY fault!" Amelia intervened "If I hadn't stupidly ran behind you when you tried to bring this bug away from us…"
"Anyway, I guess this is it: we'll need to find ourselves a new home."
"No, wait: it's really my fault for breaking Hop Pop's cane. You shouldn't pay for my mistake."
"Anne, I am at fault like you are!" Jacob quickly shut her up "If you're kicked out, then I'm leaving too!"
"And I'm coming with you, guys!" Amelia nodded "I have the duty to keep watch over my cousin."
"You guys will need more hands and eyes than you have" James hugged them "I'm coming too."
"Sasha" Marcy turned to her other friend "We cannot leave Anne go if we stay! We have to stay together"
"Do you really want to go back to that creepy, cold cave, Mar-Mar?" Sasha asked her "We'll have to take turn keeping watch all night; we'll be cold; we'll have water splash from the ceiling; we'll have large bugs and monstrous spiders as roommates..."
"But we will be together, Sash" Marcy replied "And we do not leave anyone behind!"
Marcy, then, turned to Anne "I'm sorry for everything that happened today, Anne-Banana, but I do not think I can stay quiet and calm knowing you are outside in that…cave." she grimaced at her own memories of it "Still, let me go with you: friends together."
Anne smiled in turn "Friends together"
Sasha tried to spoke, but she saw Anne and Marcy hug, and something in her own heart…moved "I guess we should all stick together, huh?"
"Sasha! You…you come too?"
"Well, while I surely would appreciate a large living space, I do not think I can live without you two. And besides, you will need my muscles in case something big comes to hunt you…"
"Oh, that's so amazing and kind that you said this!" Marcy cried, hugging both Anne and Sasha.
"Probably a bad time to bring this up" Polly raised her hand "but I still get the candy, right?"
Sasha silently glared at her, giving a non-vocal reply.
"Dammit".
"Whoa, boy" Hop Pop yawned, "I needed that. Hope nothing happened while I was asleep to make me mad again…"
he stopped, as he saw the six humans, plus Sprig and Polly: all of them looked dirty and tired, and a couple of them had some scars, like they had fought something large and dangerous.
"Oh, no. What did you do?"
"What's up with canes?" Sprig started "Who even needs them these days, am I right? Besides…"
"Sprig, there is no need to sweeten the deal" Anne sadly said, "I'm really sorry, Hop Pop. I was goofing around, and I broke your favorite cane."
"You what?!" he gasped, seeing the damage with his own eyes.
"And then we tried to repair it, but we were unable to do it alone" Marcy sighed too.
"You tried that?!"
"So we went to Leopold Loggle," James continued "and he told us it was made of a very rare wood, so we went and tried to find some to make you a new cane. But the tree…was not a tree."
"It wasn't?!"
"It was a large bug, disguised as a tree, and he attacked us." Jacob replied "We were able to defeat it, but even the branch that we planned to use to replace your cane…was ruined"
"It what?!"
"We didn't realize at first, so we tried to bring the bug's body to Loggle, but when we arrived … his workshop was close already." Sasha spoke for last, sighing too.
"You…you…!"
"We know, we know." Anne said, her eyes closed in shame "We'll show ourselves out immediately."
"We'll come visit you, whenever we can!" Sprig hugged Anne "We promise!"
"And just when I was starting to like you!" Polly cried too.
"Please, don't make this harder than it is."
"Uh…what the- What's going on?" Hop Pop asked, puzzled and concerned.
"You're throwing ourselves out." Sasha sighed, "You know, like you said you would, this morning…"
"Mmm" Hop Pop smiled kindly "Anne, Sasha, Marcy, you all guys, truth be told, I was never gonna throw you out. I was just talking tough so that you would show me a little bit more respect. Thought, in retrospect, I might have used the wrong approach…"
"That's kinda messed up, man." Sasha replied, puzzled too.
"Heh heh heh, yeah. I probably was a little bit too harsh with my words. However, I only did it because you girls remind me of myself when I was your age. Rough around the edges, and I didn't accept any authority" he replied kindly "Now, all you six, put those bag down and wipe out the tears from your faces: No one of you is going anywhere!"
"Wait, we're staying?" Amelia jerked up.
"We're not evicted out?" Marcy gleamed
"We're not going to have to go back in that cave?!" Sasha smiled of genuine joy.
"Whoo! Yeah! I like that." Sprig cheered.
"Yeah! I wasn't worried." Polly added.
"Thanks, Hop Pop, this means a lot, for all of us" Anne smiled "So you're not mad about the cane?"
"Oh no, I'm not mad: I'm furious about the cane!" he said, "You're on dish duty for a month!"
"Ugh. Yes, sir!" Anne saluted.
"Come on, Boonchuy" Sasha teased her "You have experience with these things already: your parents have a restaurant, you don't remember?"
"I was talking about all you three," Hop Pop specified, looking at Sasha and Marcy "You ALL are in dish duty for the aforementioned month."
"Naaah!" Sasha groaned too.
"But I have no experience with dish-washing." Marcy replied.
"Don't worry, girls" Anne looked at them "I'll give you an accelerated course."
"And you" Hop Pop turned to Jacob, James and Amelia "You're doing double farm help for the next four weeks!"
"Augh!" James grimaced.
"Please, let me commit seppuku…." Amelia stared.
"I guess we deserved it" Jacob sighed, amused by their own misfortune.
"Now that that's settled," Hop Pop continued, taking out a long sheet of paper "I wrote a long list of comebacks to get you back for this morning." he cleared his throat "Hey, Anne, is that your hair, or is it a dandelion? Ha!"
He looked, only to realize they were all staring at him, and no one was laughing "Uh- Oh. Are those long, lanky limbs, Anne, or are those, uh, twigs? Ah! Eh..."
"What?"
"Is this an attempt to makes jokes?"
"The moment has passed, hasn't it?"
"Definitively" Jacob added "Plus, they're no funny."