Tales of the Lands Beyond

Morton's POV:

Morton watched the water in the pot boil over the campfire. He took a quick look at his surroundings but saw nothing to worry about—the door to his and Sr.'s main mountain shack was to his left, the lake and farms to his right, boulders in front of him, a clearing behind him. He liked this place. It was probably his favorite spot of all of the ones he and Sr. traveled to.

Once the water was purified, Morton got some clay flasks and filled them with water, sealing them and storing them inside the shack. The shack was nothing much at all. The floor was dirt with scattered clumps of grass tufts and pebbles, a wooden cupboard that was falling apart to his right and a table and two chairs were positioned to his left. The cupboard had a lit lantern and some copper and silver coins on top. There were two back rooms, one being a storage full of shelves, barrels, and chests, which was where Morton stored the flasks, and the other room had two cloth sleeping bags.

All of their shacks were like this. It was simple. It was effective. It got the job done.

That was all that mattered.

Once Morton exited the storage room, he saw Sr. coming in through the door with his and Morton's backpack overflowing with millet. Sr. wordlessly brought them into the storage room, and Morton left the shack, bored. He took out a clay flask that he had not put away but instead kept in his shell and took a swig of it. Morton loved the taste of the water, and sloshed it around his mouth like mouthwash, his forked tongue swishing about like a fish inside. Water was the only liquid Morton had ever tasted besides his own blood, which he got a taste of a few times in his life after biting his tongue or hitting his jaw on a rock.

Morton climbed to the top of a rock and gazed at the sky. It was sun-high, three days after Morton and Sr. had arrived, and things were going well for them so far. They hadn't encountered any creatures besides a few ants, which they had fried and snacked on, and their farms of millet and cacti had grown on their own since the last time they were at the shack, a whole year ago.

Finally, Morton saw it. A cloud! A wonderful, marvelous, beautiful cloud! Not just any cloud, though—the cloud was dark and gray. It was just loafing about over the mountain that their shack was built into. Morton had only seen a cloud like that about five times: it was a RAINCLOUD!

"FATHER! FATHER!" Morton cried, closing his flask and putting it by the fire before running down to the shack. "THERE IS THE RAINCLOUD!"

"There is a raincloud?" said Sr., who was coming out the door.

Morton nodded like a bobblehead on steroids. "YES! A REAL RAINCLOUD COMING THIS WAY!"

Sr. and Morton ran to the top of the rock and looked at the cloud. After a bit, Sr. straightened his hat and gave Morton a disappointed look.

"That's no rain cloud, son," Sr. explained.

Morton cocked his head. "WHADDYA MEAN?"

Sr. sighed, and Morton followed him to the ground. Sr strode over to where the empty pot hung over a campfire. Sr. took the pot off the spit that held it, and smoke from the campfire was released into the sky. It was just like the "raincloud."

"SO…THE CLOUD IS A SMOKE CLOUD?"

Sr. nodded sadly. "The only thing is…where is the smoke coming from? I haven't seen it before, and I definitely didn't see it on our way oe'er here or these past few days."

"SHOULD WE INVESTIGATE?"

"I think we should…if it's a person, at least of some kind, preferably a Koopa, we should meet them."

"AND IF NOT?"

"Then…well…we may be in trouble, son."

The next day, Morton and Sr. each put a flask of water, some cooked cactus flesh, and a few silver coins (in case the smoke was a wandering trader's campfire) in their shells before heading up the mountain their shack was in and where the smoke was still coming from. The mountain wasn't very big, but still large enough for it to take two and a half hours to climb, at least. Morton carried his knife with him in his shirt pocket, but Sr. had his hammer in his hands, using it to break rocks that were in the way of their ascent. Another bonus for them was that the mountain wasn't very steep at all, so it was pretty much just a long, tough walk like the one the two had endured a few days ago.

It got a bit colder as they went higher, but they could take it—it wasn't as cold as the desert at night, after all. They took two breaks on their way up to snack and drink, but they maintained their energy and soon made it to the flat clearing on top, like a plateau. There, in front of them, was a large rift in the ground. The rift was shaped like an upside—down cone had been struck into it; it was circular and got smaller and steeper as it went down, like an antlion's pit. Most intriguing of all, the entire thing was bursting with lava, the molten rock spewing pitch black smoke into the air, almost reaching where the clouds would be, if they were there.

"WHAT THE HECK IS ALL OF THIS? IS IT GLOWING WATER? IT HOT," said Morton, getting close to the substance. Morton had obviously never seen lava before. Luckily, Sr. had.

"Morton, don't get near that!" screamed Sr., grabbing one of Morton's shell spikes and pulling him back so hard Morton fell onto the ground, rolling backwards. Sr. turned to watch as Morton rolled down the mountain, face twisted into fear.

Morton hit a stone and kind of rightened himself in a position that he was laying on his shell and his feet were downwards, panicking as he bonked his head against the sandy rock. He reached out for something to grab onto, but instead a nasty cut tore open his palm, and the wound stung, especially with all the sand getting rubbed into it. Dust flew up around him, and he screamed, his eyes being enlarged with terror, but he was also trying to close them so grit and dust wouldn't fly in. He was almost entirely coated in orangeness, and was trying to cough out the sand, which was easy as it kept getting bounced from his mouth and throat as he went along.

In a final attempt, he reached out, chipping his claws on the rock as they raked downwards. He felt a scrawny bush and gripped it, and it stopped him from falling, but pulled the bush halfway out of the rocks. Morton pressed himself against the rock, then came forwards and jerked himself back, with his head in his shell so it wouldn't hurt his neck. This motion struck his shell-spikes into the ground, and then he dug his feet into the ground. He popped his head back out, spat some sand to the side, and sat up, letting go of the bush, which came loose and blew away in the wind. Dazed and pain stinging everywhere, Morton righted himself and stood up on level ground.

"You okay?" called Sr. after the dust had cleared so he could see Morton had stopped.

"YES I AM." Morton responded; a shameless lie. Once again, he tasted blood in his mouth on his way back up to meet Sr., who carefully treaded downwards to help Morton.

"You real sure you're fine, son?" Sr. asked. He traced the strange star on Morton's face with his clawless finger, then hugged him. He had sucked his lips into his mouth, which was a nervous tic of his. It was sad that Morton had seen it hundreds of times.

"YES, FATHER," Morton replied. "WELL, UM, UH…WHAT DO WE DO WITH THIS?" he pointed to the bubbling lava.

"For now, we leave it alone," explained Sr., "it's called lava, and it's really hot and can burn you easily. I dunno much 'bout it, but if it stays here, we'll be fine, I fancy."

"AND IF IT DOESN'T?"

Sr. sighed. "Why do you always have to jump to the worst?" he asked himself under his breath, then he told Morton, "We'll have to move from this place to another one. But let's just hope that ain't happen, 'k?"

"O. K." Morton said, and they began the trip back down the mountain.

Once the Mortons got back to their shack, Sr. made sure Morton was fine. Besides bleeding a bit in his mouth, Morton only suffered a few bruises–nothing he hadn't gone through before. Even so, Sr. did all of the work for the rest of the day, just to make sure Morton didn't wear himself out too much after the little incident. Instead, Morton watched that smoke cloud for a bit, then for the rest of the day decided to survey the area around the shack, imagining things. What did Morton imagine? That he was a fierce, brave warrior, like the ones Sr. had told him tales about around the campfire at night.

Sr. had told Morton about mighty Koopas in shining armor, wielding weapons like maces, swords, crossbows, and more, protecting themselves with their spiked shells and emblazoned shields and riding into battle on creatures called Beefalos and Yoshis and horses and more. Sr. also told him about magikoopas, the term for certain Koopas who could wield magical powers, powers Morton had never heard of, for Morton had never heard of any powers or magic of any kind.

Morton knew Sr. must've known all of this (and in retrospect, Sr. must've heard about what "lava" was since Morton had never seen it in this land for his whole life) before he came to the mesa, but Sr. never had told Morton much about his past or why they lived out here in isolation—he did, however, drop hints that his strange colors and seemingly unnatural self had cost him acceptance by others, and he'd been shunned away from society. Morton, in his head, filled in the blanks that Sr. eventually settled here with Claudie, and finally Morton and Kevin were born, even though Kevin was already dead? It was unclear to Morton how that worked, but he hadn't pressed the matter with Sr. because he'd learned the hard way that Sr. was very sensitive about that subject.

Back to Sr.'s tales, though. Morton had always found them very interesting, and Sr. said that maybe, someday, he and Morton could leave this place and try again with society, for according to Sr. there were many towns hostile to him—and thus, his son—so it wouldn't be safe quite yet.

In the meantime, though, Morton tried to train himself against "monsters of the darkness" that Sr. had seldom talked about. How did Morton train himself? With parts of tumbleweeds, he would fasten together shrubbery to look like a sword, then swing it around at rocks and lizards that were scuttling around. Every now and then, he actually would hit and kill a lizard, and he and Sr. would always share it for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, snack, whatever time(s) they ate that day. The Mortons didn't really have a schedule—they would just play around a bit of the time, but mostly worked on surviving.

Surviving. Eating.

Surviving. Drinking.

Surviving. Gathering.

Because after all, survival is all that matters.

New references to games in this chapter:

11. The Koopa warriors that ride on Yoshis in Sr.'s tales are Koopatrols from Mario, and Yoshis are also from that game—same with Magikoopas; the Beefalos are from Don't Starve; the "monsters of the darkness" are Nightmare Creatures from Don't Starve, too; the "emblazoned shields" are Minecraft's Shields with Bowser's icon from Mario

12. The "clay flask" is the Clay Water Bottle from Stranded Deep