Spirit Caravan, part 4. Meh meh. The boys aren't alone in the tower.

No editing because we just had an earthquake. Sure, I'll use that excuse.

All the good things belong to MonolithSoft.

H.B. fought the idea that they didn't know where there were. They'd climbed up stairs, slid down ramps, squeezed through half open doors and for a short period gone up a ladder that suddenly left them dangling when it shifted to 45 degrees backwards while they were in the very process of climbing it. Sometimes they followed the floor markings, sometimes not. It didn't matter.

The flashlight had gone dark eventually, but Frye had a pocket of things that were sort of unhinged glowsticks. They switched to those, tossing one into any completely dark room ahead of them, creating an instant personal disco. Those would run out eventually, but leave that problem for later. H.B. had mocked up a torch as a potential solution, using a bundle of creepers for the burnable material. The creepers had immediately shot down the handle of the torch, wrapping around his arm and squeezing hard enough to break bone. Mimeosomes were made of stronger stuff, but H.B.'s arm tingled from the effort to free himself.

Frye had insisted they stop for a break then. While Frye plastered H.B.'s arm neatly using the medi kit that Frye conjured from another pocket, H.B. tried to make his comm device work. "It's running," he insisted, "but slowly. Like something else is running on it."

Frye smoothed a medipatch gently, feathering the edges so it melted into H.B.'s original skin. "We're glorified comm devices too," Frye said quietly. "What if we're glitching too?"

H.B. looked over at his friend. The grin was gone and Frye looked like a stranger. "No," H.B. said after a moment. "We're individuals. If we were influenced, we'd show it differently. You don't move faster or slower than I do. We aren't seeing different things. We aren't what's being touched."

The grin flashed back on, hard enough to wrinkle Frye's forehead. "Nice to hear. Okay, break's over, but don't go swimming for 30 minutes."

Another floor, another passageway, then Frye stopped suddenly. H.B. snapped his mouth closed on a complaint. Ahead was a slight glow, a room with some kind of window (the windows never looked out, but they did bring in light somehow). This wasn't new. But the sound ahead was different.

"Meh. Meh."

Frye raised his weapon very slightly. He still entered rooms first, ahead of H.B. and ready to fire, but they'd met nothing dangerous (except for violent creepers) for so many floors that he wasn't as aggressive. They moved silently toward the door.

"Meh. Meh." The voice sounded old, shaky and dry, muttering the traditional complaint of all Noponfolk. "Meh. Meh."

H.B. looked ahead, past Frye, and spotted the speaker. He matched the voice perfectly. Graceful as a pear-shaped sack, with wingarms dragging behind him, he wobbled in time to his words. He had goggle glasses and the tiniest hat with a fluttering glowing tassel. "Meh. Meh."

Frye walked a little closer. "Hey."

The Nopon wobbled back in fear. The tassel shook and glittered in the dim light. It repeated, each word a wheeze, "Meh. Meh."

"Hey. It's cool. You lost too?" Frye leaned forward a little, trying to look less intimidating.

H.B. didn't have the weight to shove Frye aside, but his shield was kitted with pure gravity augments. When H.B. slammed it into the ground between Frye's feet and the Nopon, it pushed the broad Interceptor back, away from the dark amorphous shape rising from the floor.

"Meh. Meh." The Nopon dangled from a mass of living creepers, making the same automatic call. "Meh. Meh."

They escaped from the room in a mad dash, pelted by fragments of plant that were broken off by Frye's Gatling gun.

a/n: I wanted to do something gooey and squishy but I'm running out of time.

Next up: They give up. (No, silly, of course they do not.)