The journey north was blissfully quiet. Marius remained on high alert for the first ten minutes as he could detect the strobing sensor probes of multiple supersonic jets combing the area behind him, trying to reacquire the elusive target that had evaded them. But as the signals faded behind him, he slowly relaxed, concentrating on keeping the tilt-wing low and as obscured as possible – there was no way he wanted a random sighting from some corporate facility they accidently overflew to give their pursuers a solid vector to resume their hunt down.
In the rear compartment, they made Shimazu comfortable – or as comfortable as they could. Tads had clearly indicated that she'd feel much more certain about her chances of fully healing him if they could be on the ground rather than still in flight, and given the relatively short flight they had planned, even Shimazu had indicated to her that he was willing to wait. Aswon meanwhile had carefully removed the hand-carved masks from storage and made sure they were all intact, and ready to be handed out when they landed – he had a feeling they were going to be required, one way or another.
Closing in on the game reserve and the tribal lands, the sky to the east started to lighten, changing from astronomical twilight, to naval, to civilian twilight, with the first rays of the sun threatening to broach the highlands to the east just as they were coming in to land.
"Once I have put us down, it is my intention to sleep. I do not know what you all want to do, but I have been working hard these last few hours, and I need to rest." Nobody was surprised with Marius' statement, or was going to argue with him.
"I don't know what will happen when we get to the village. Probably speak with the chief and the shaman. Hopefully they just want to know what we've done and we can be on our way out of here. They may want to do some kind of meal or ceremony before we go – if so, I'll try to get them to keep it brief."
"Don't worry, Aswon. I think we all want to get back to the ranch, but a thirty-minute dinner or a four-hour banquet or something – I don't think that's going to stress anyone out too much. Well, maybe Marius a bit, but if he's got something to eat, I'm sure he'll not mind too much."
"I can hear you, Kai. You know that, right?"
"It's weird, it's like I keep hearing a faint echo over the comms sometime…." Kai grinned, widely enough that they could even hear the change of expression over the earpieces. Marius declined to engage further, concentrating on the landing instead. Moments later they were down smoothly, the tilt-wing settling on the hard-baked earth and the engines powering down, dropping in pitch and volume until all that could be heard was the plinking of cooling metal and the odd fan noise circulating the air inside the cabin.
Aswon handed out the masks, then grabbed his gear and headed towards the mid-section of the tilt-wing, sliding open the side door on the side and jumping down to the ground. He looked out across the rolling plains, and something tugged at his brain, making him feel a little wary and paranoid. Hefting his spear, he strode out from the tilt-wing, tuning out the noises behind him as the rest of the team started to get ready to depart the vehicle.
Tads sank to the ground, blessing the fortuitous timing and began her rites, just as the first rays of the morning sun struck her. She called out to the spirits of the land, reaffirming her vows and beliefs, renewing her link to the land and the powers it contained, replacing the spirits that had guarded them through the night with fresh ones, bargaining and treating with them for protection and service. Hunter and Kai helped ease Shimazu down onto the ground, being careful not to disturb the wound dressing or stitches, and making sure he wasn't too wobbly, while Marius started to rig up a hammock, fully intending to make good his announcement of sleep.
Thirty metres away now, Aswon stopped and turned, his feet slowly shuffling as he did a full spin around, examining the rolling savannah. The hard-packed earth was a light brown, rocky in places, but dry and firm, undulating to the horizon. It wasn't barren by any means, and there was copious greenery, low lying vegetation, scrubby brushes and the occasional tree that had managed to find purchase enough in the earth and strength enough for its roots to reach the water trapped underground. It looked inhospitable to many – and to a certain extent it was, being very unforgiving to the careless wanderer – but to Aswon it was home. And the nagging feeling grew and grew.
Behind him, as Tads finished her morning prayers, she turned her attention to Shimazu. Sitting on the edge of the tilt-wing's open door, she placed a hand on either side of his head as he sat on the ground beneath her. Summoning mana smoothly, she focussed it onto his aura, the golden tendrils of power leeching from her fingers, wrapping themselves gently around his skull, intertwining like writhing snakes as they quested to find the damage in his soul and work to repair it, speeding along his natural processes ten-thousand fold. For a moment when her power peaked, the golden energy flared bright enough to create a second sunrise, causing considerable confusion to a few beetles and insects nearby that became geographically flummoxed, before the light faded away.
Kai grabbed the bandages, yanking them off without much of a care, hearing the few tiny metal staples that had been pushed out of the now-healed flesh plinking off the rocks below. As expected, the flesh underneath was pristine and whole, and the noticeable deformity in the skull was gone. Instead of one blood-shot eye, both were now white again, focussing and tracking clearly, and even his hair looked pristine and clean.
"Well, that's goo…" Kai started to say when he was interrupted by a call from Aswon.
"I think we may have a problem." They saw him striding towards them, arms pumping and spear striking the ground hard enough to raise little plumes of dirt with every step. "Gear up. There should be people out and about, herders watching goats or people heading to the watering hole. But there aren't – the whole place is deserted."
The team scrambled into action, grabbing weapons and armour and hurriedly getting ready. Tads was done first by virtue of not having appreciable arms or armour, and hopped onto the optics, scanning towards the village.
"I can see no signs of attack, no destruction. No fires burning in particular. Checking the chimneys." She squinted, trying to adjust the image a little. "I can see heat haze around several chimneys, but not much smoke. No real signs of cooking or anything."
"There should be people starting to bake breakfast and getting ready for the day, boiling water, that kind of thing. Something is definitely wrong here." Aswon grabbed the sniper rifle, checking the magazine was seated correctly and then jumped out of the aircraft again, holding the rifle nestled into his arms and gazing towards the nearby village. He heard the far side door of the tilt-wing slide open as Hunter bailed out that side, assault rifle nestled into his own massive arms.
"Two groups, tactical approach, pincer?" Hunter called over to Aswon.
"Affirm. Shimazu, with Hunter. Tads, Marius, with me." He started to walk towards the village, rifle half-raised, his eyes scanning back and forth, looking for any signs of movement.
"I'll stay in the aircraft I think…" Kai called out, making it sound like it was his idea. Aswon sent a single click in response, but his attention was focussed elsewhere. In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of Hunter moving around his side of the tilt-wing, stalking forwards with his own weapon ready to fire, with Shimazu backing him up, walking serenely with a hand on the hilt of his sword as if going for a Sunday stroll. His own finely-tuned hearing could barely make out the sound of Tads moving along behind him, though Marius was slightly easier to pick up, as the pilot muttered to himself, still fastening the armour vest back up and checking the heavy pistol holstered on his right side. A quick glance into astral showed nothing alarming – but he felt the protection shields of Tads wrapping around all of them, protecting them from offensive magic. "Moving in…"
Hunter and Shimazu headed to the west slightly, while Aswon, Tads and Marius swept in from the south, heading for the main road into the village. As Aswon moved around a large spiny bush, he saw a waiting figure standing just in front of one of the buildings. He vaguely recognised the warrior, one of the older men from the village, and he eased his stance a little, popping out from behind the bush. The warrior remained where he was though, spear planted on the floor in front of him, unmoving. Aswon watched him for a moment, not understanding what he was doing, then took a cautious step forward, moving further around the bush and bringing more of the street into view. He could see a second person standing a few metres along the street now, also standing upright and with a spear planted in the ground next to him.
Aswon lowered his rifle, taking a few more steps diagonally forward, until he could see more clearly – and spotted that there was not only more people waiting, forming a line towards the centre of the village, but also a second line facing them, equally spaced, on the opposite side. He moved the rifle into his left hand, and unslung his spear with his right, quickly flipping it over so he could hold it upright and then struck the ground with the haft twice.
Tonk, tonk.
The sound carried clearly with the absence of noise in the village. The first warrior he had seen raised his own spear into the air and struck the ground in response.
Tonk, tonk.
"Stand down, stand down. Hunter, RV on me. Village is secure. I'm not sure what the deal is, but I think it's a ceremonial honour guard."
"Nice. Time for us to get some love."
"I've not seen a ceremony like this. Not in my lifetime. Only heard about it, in stories. And I'm not sure we deserve it… If it is for us. Might be a coincidence."
"Only one way to find out." Aswon heard a strange duality in the voice at the end of Hunter's statement, as the big orc closed, his voice being heard not only over the comlink, but also via normal speech and hearing, with a tiny delay.
"Ok, safeties on, please, people. There's kids in the parade, and I don't know how long they've been waiting." Aswon gestured down the line of people waiting on the street, and the rest of the team took in the view – seeing the men, woman and children lined up along the rough trail in pairs, spread out so each was about a spear's length apart, all the way into the main square of the village – where more people waited. It looked like any child capable of standing up and holding a stick was doing so – the younger ones carrying staves or staffs more than spears, but the adolescents holding hunting spears – albeit lightweight versions – that matched the warriors.
The others deferred to Aswon, who took a subtle breath and then set out down the main road. Hunter and Tads gave him a step first, then followed along, and Shimazu and Marius followed suit, forming a V as they strode into the village. The moment Aswon passed between the pair of warriors furthest out, they raised their spears, then bought them down firmly onto the ground, sending out a single sound to echo off the walls. The spears were raised, then fell again, setting up a rhythm that seemed to match Aswon's walking pace. The unexpected movement had made Hunter twitch, but he controlled the natural instinct to raise his weapon, and followed along behind Aswon.
Passing the second pair, Aswon wasn't surprised as they, too, joined in the ritual, their spear shafts striking the ground in harmony with the first. The rest of the team followed along, passing pair after pair of the honour guard, hearing the sound of their striking intensify as they closed upon the square. Some of the younger members of the honour guard had trouble keeping to the cadence set, making up for accuracy with enthusiasm, but it seemed they understood the seriousness of what they were involved with, as their small faces were contorted with fierce concentration.
Entering the village square, Aswon could see the chief and his deputy, along with the tribal shaman and his apprentices waiting for them in their chairs, lined up by seniority. The rest of the village that had not been needed to line the approach street were gathered here, picking up the beat as the team entered the square. As the team approached the headsman of the village, they saw the smiles on their faces – and Aswon felt a trickle of relief. He'd been unsure up to now still if this really was a good thing, but seeing the expressions on their faces reassured him.
"Hope you're recording this, Hunter…" Aswon subvocalized.
The shaman stood, and the spear-stamping of the crowd around them stopped, the sound fading away, the silence rippling outwards from the square all the way to the edge of the village as each took their cue from their neighbour. Aswon waited for quiet to descend fully, then rapped the base of his spear again twice in greeting. The crowd returned the noise, rapping spears or stamping feet in a thunderous response. The shaman waited for the noise to die down, then raised his hands towards Aswon, opening them wider to encompass the whole team.
"You have returned, as the spirits foretold you would." His powerful voice carried easily through the still dawn air, carrying his words to the entire village. The chieftain sat in his chair still, watching proceedings without commenting, apparently happy to let the shaman handle this one.
"We've done our best, but it's time for us to go. But, Novatech will find it hard to control the mountain now, and we believe that the plan to build the spaceport is, if not cancelled, very seriously delayed and disrupted." Aswon did his best to project his own voice, trying to make it carry without shouting.
"We have been told as such already, and of your return. We greet you."
"I am Aswon." He closed his mouth and switched back to sub-vocal. "Kai, they've heard news about the mountain and appear happy. So far."
"What have they heard? Do you know?"
"Nope – just that the shaman seems somewhat informed."
"Now, though," the shaman cut through Aswon's silent conversation. "Now it is time for you to carry news of your victory to the spirits, and to receive their blessings for answering our call!" Smiles broke out around the square and there was a thundering round of bangs as feet and spears were slammed into the ground. Aswon quickly sent the message through to Kai, and then looked over his shoulder to see that the honour guard pairs had all joined them in the square now, joining in with the congratulations.
"That sounds a little bit dangerous, though." Kai responded. "I mean… doesn't that mean summoning more spirits? Isn't that Tad's job?" Aswon sighed, then transmitted back, while speaking loudly as well.
"Thank you. But how would such a thing be done? Where, and when?"
"The spirits have sent a way! Bring it forth!"
Aswon and the rest of the team watched as the shaman swept a hand dramatically to his right, gesturing down towards one of his apprentices – the youngest apprentice, if they weren't mistaken. He very nervously reached down behind the seat of the person on his left and picked up a wooden box. The box was carved out of the local timber, darkened with age and probably as hard as mild steel by now, but whenever it had been carved or constructed, someone had inlaid a geometric pattern with care into the top of the base and the bottom of the lid, each part meeting up exactly to create a mirror image of black and white diamonds.
The apprentice handled the box like it was a bomb, holding it at arm's length in a way that looked vaguely comical – except that nobody around the square was in any way amused, and those nearest the young man had actually backed off a little. Aswon quickly flicked into astral and was surprised at the waves of terror radiating off the man, as well as the sharp spikes of fear from those nearby. With stiff movements he approached the shaman and gave a small head bow, then turned to raise the box above his head, being rewarded with another loud stamping and banging from the crowd. Aswon shifted his astral vision to the box and realised that something was inside that, and whatever it was, it was bloody furious…
He gestured to the team and took a couple of steps back, just in case – not knowing if it was a snake, or arachnid or even a spirit trapped in a warded box. That proved fortuitous as a number of people entered from the side of the square carrying rectangular mats hand-woven from local plants, laying them down, one in front of each team member – with one conspicuously laid out in addition. The shaman looked over then at Aswon.
"Are we one missing? The spirits did not warn us of this. Has one of your team fallen?"
"No – please give us a moment. He was attending to a matter on the aircraft." He turned to face the street, and gestured for them to make a space, subvocalizing a message to Kai as he did.
"Kai, we need you at the village, main square. ASAP. They're all expecting you and waiting for you." He turned back to the shaman again, but spoke loudly for the crowds benefit. "Kai, our leader will come soon. He was waiting in the aircraft to try and keep us and you all safe. The enemy managed to locate his spirit, to get a taste of his soul, and had sent their own shamans to try and track him down. We defeated the first scout sent to locate him, but we suspect they will try again."
"Hah! Let them try. The land will protect you! Bring forth the beast!" The shaman seemed confident, waving forth the eldest of his apprentices now, and the team watched as the man wiped his hands on his clothing nervously, approaching the box with a look of trepidation. There was some level of unspoken communication between the box holder and the apprentice, and then the younger man flipped open the lid, revealing a scorpion about the size of a grown man's hand. Rather than being a particular colour it seemed to have an iridescent shell, rippling with colours as the morning sunlight struck it. The stinger was already up in the air, the tail waving back and forth as it looked for something to attack, and the claws snapped at the air before it. The older apprentice made a grab for it, coming from behind and securing fingers around the tail and then a hand over the body, holding the claws out ahead of it while his fingers tried to grab the shell and hold it in place.
"Wow! I never thought I'd see one of those!" Aswon blurted out. Tads looked at it, transfixed by the beautiful colours – she'd never heard of a creature like this, in all her wanderings, and she had no idea what it was, but clearly Aswon had some experience with it, and she waited for him to explain what it was. "It's a Rainbow Scorpion – I'm sure you can see why. They're ferocious hunters, and will attack just about anything they can see, regardless of size. They're also one of the most toxic creatures to walk the earth – the venom is incredibly strong and kills in seconds."
"I do not like where this is going." Marius said quietly.
"Fortunately, they're also incredibly rare, and very solitary creatures, and sightings are very rare indeed. I can't remember anyone in the village ever spotting one before – but they are creatures of myth and legend, and we know that if you see one you walk away, fast, and leave it the hell alone."
"Unless of course the spirits command you to catch one, Aswon." The shaman smiled at him. "It was a mighty hunt, and earned someone their name. But there is another use for this foe. You spoke correctly of the poison, it is most strong. But we have tales of this creature going back to when the world was young and the gods walked and flew the earth in their physical forms…" Another apprentice had bought forth another ancient looking piece of bone, stained a faded red and with subtle carvings etched into the surface along the top side. "The venom has mystical powers, and when blessed and diluted, it can allow a warrior to enter the dreamworld, to speak with his ancestor or to call upon the land and prove themselves worthy, or to commune with the gods themselves!"
The newcomer carefully moved in front of the eldest apprentice, who gingerly placed the scorpion's stinger onto a narrow channel, releasing a single large drop of venom onto the bone. The oily looking substance rolled down the channel slightly, splitting into two when it reached the first carving. The man holding the bone moved away from the creature as quickly as he was able, removing his hands from the deadly stinger's range.
As quickly as they could, they flicked the scorpion back into the box and slammed the lid shut before it could lunge at anyone, and there was a noticeable sigh of relief from everyone inside the square as the danger level dropped significantly. The box-holder carefully headed back towards the shaman's hut, one hand holding the bottom of the box while the other was laid over the top, keeping it firmly sealed.
The team's eyes were drawn back to the man before them though, who was carefully holding the piece of petrified bone level, letting the venom run down the almost imperceptible channels carved into it. The liquid had taken on an orange hue, and slowly flowed down the piece, gradually splitting and becoming smaller, until it finally came to rest in tiny dimples, a single small drop located in each depression. He presented the bone to the shaman who examined the drops carefully, then nodded, and the bone was bought before the team once more. A number of women approached then, each holding a small sliver of wood, akin to a cocktail stick. They carefully poked the ends of their sticks into the dimples, absorbing part of the drop onto the end of the sliver, then turned and moved to stand in front of each member of the team.
"We are not doing this, are we?" Marius asked subvocally. "This is poison. We are not going to willingly eat poison? Hello?" His attention remained fixed on the person before him, carefully watching the sliver of wood and the deadly payload.
"Marius – I don't think this is without risk, but this isn't designed to kill us. Have a little faith."
The shaman raised his hands to the sky and started to call out a chant, and the people around the square started to provide the beat, stamping feet and spears as he called upon the spirit of the land to meet with their visitors. The team were motioned to sit down on the mats, and then the women crouched before them, moving the slivers to just before their faces, miming for the team to stick out their tongues. Aswon did without hesitation, closely followed by Tads and Shimazu. Surprisingly, Hunter beat out Kai, and when Marius saw the rest of the team getting ready, he let out a single curse under his breath, then stuck out his tongue, hardly believing what he was doing.
A momentary sharp scratch on the tongue, then the sensation was gone.
Each of the sticks were taken away, dropped into a small fire set up in a clay pot. The team watched as the flames quickly turned an odd shade of green, sputtering and spitting as the last of the poison was consumed.
Hands gently touched them on the shoulders, the back, encouraging them to relax and lay back, gently guided onto the mat. Tads reached out and grabbed the hands of the person to each side of her, grabbing them firmly and squeezing.
"Grab hold!" She managed to say, through lips that felt like rubber. On either side of her, Kai and Hunter grabbed hold of the person next to them, until the team lay on their backs, lined up neatly in a row, each in physical contact with another.
The sky above was a clear blue, without a cloud, a field of azure that filled their vision.
Their limbs began to feel leaden, heavy beyond their ability to lift them.
The ground seemed to melt beneath them, making them feel as though they were slowly being absorbed into it.
Heat filled their chest, and their breathing became laboured, breaths becoming shorter and shorter, harder and harder.
Ahead, the azure faded to black, and their perception of the world faded away.
Falling.
Falling.
They stopped, without feeling that they had stopped. Without any sensation at all. They hung in the blackness, no feelings at all, no sense of up or down, right or wrong. Just… being.
A monstrosity entered their vision, strutting in from one side of their perception. At first glance it appeared to be an abomination – a mash of creatures only a deranged creator could envision. Hunter tried to go for his gun, only to discover that not only did he not have a gun, but also that he didn't have any arms…
Aswon was less surprised by the creature, spotting a number of features that he recognised at once. One of the heads was a specific type of night-hunting cat local to the area near the village. Another head was that of a snake. A leg belonged to a small tree-living monkey. The creature was comprised of the parts of the local critters, assembled in a non-standard way for sure, but it didn't seem corrupted or twisted. A horrible sinking feeling came over him, as he suddenly had an idea of where they were, and what might be to come…
Tads was the least uncomfortable of them all, and had recognised at least some of the sensations that had washed over their bodies – and had a good idea of where they were. She glanced around and wasn't at all surprised to see that the team were all there, but they had morphed into the creatures their masks depicted. She could spot the characteristics of each of them in their animals – she was pretty sure that there hadn't ever been a lion that tall before, but that was clearly Aswon, and the same carried through to the rest – Hunter the very broad Hyena with mismatched features, Shimazu the dog, Marius the buffalo, Kai as a chameleon and herself as a barbary stag – she guessed Africa's closest equivalent to an Elk…
"Ahh! You're here. My my, what a rag, tag, disreputable bunch…" The voice spoke English – or at least what they heard was English, seeming to appear inside their heads without any of the multiple heads of the compound creature speaking it. "Still. We shall see if there's anything that can be done…"
Tads waited patiently. She was pretty sure they were on an astral quest, which made this creature the 'Dweller', a mystical force that sat on the threshold between the physical world and the meta-existential 'planes' that lay beyond what normal folk knew of. Nobody knew what the Dweller was, or why it was here. But it was an accepted truth that the Dweller was ALWAYS encountered whenever any mage or shaman projected to the astral realm in search of knowledge. They ALWAYS met the travellers, and they ALWAYS seemed to know a great deal about them, and to revel in gossip. Tads had always travelled to the planes solo before, and she suddenly had her own sinking feeling about what might be coming.
"I am Aswon. Are you the spirits of the land?"
"Of course you're Aswon. But I have a question for you! What did US President Zachary Taylor die of in 1850?" Various heads craned forwards and the creature lurched closer to Aswon, making him take a step backwards. "No, not got it?" A head thrust out of the torso, forming into some kind of large waterfowl, a long neck elongating and letting it rise up level with Aswon's face. "HONK! Guess you're the trog! Aswon's the trog, the stupid, stupid trog..." The creature pranced around him, pointing and gesturing, the voice dripping with derision and contempt. Suddenly the capering stopped, and the voice turned cold, lacking any emotions at all, dropping to almost a whisper. "How does that make you feel?"
"It doesn't make me feel very good. But there's no need to be rude." Aswon looked down at the ground for a moment, then cast a glance at Hunter. Hunter however had barely noticed, and was busy checking out his new body – and had discovered that in common with most dogs, hyenas had the ability to contort themselves and lick their own groins…
The creature turned, moving in towards Kai, focussing its attention upon him.
"Just imagine Kai, there you are, last man standing. The enemy troops have stabbed Tads, and when her shields fell, their stunballs dropped everyone else, leaving them sprawling in the back of the truck. Only you were out of sight, squeezing one out in the toilet... what are you going to do? Jump in the driver's seat? Which lever does what? Where's the manifold compressor. What setting should the turbo encabulator be on? Is the reciprocating crankshaft fully engaged with the myo-mastic converter?" The voice had slowly raised in pitch during its question, and Kai felt his heart rate race as the vision it was describing played through his mind. "Is it? Come on, no time for panic! You've got to drive these people out of here!" The voice dropped again, cold and emotionless. "But you can't, can you? You can't drive them out of here."
Shimazu had moved over towards Kai, his natural instincts kicking in as the creature invaded Kai's personal space. But now the creature turned its attention upon him.
"Shimazu, hey Shimazu. Move to the left. Cover the left side. No, silly, MY left." A paintball round slammed into Kai, splattering on his chest directly above his heart, winding and stunning him. "Oh look - now he's dead. Again. What a silly mistake..." The creature stared at him for a moment, and the rest of the team saw Shimazu's gaze slowly fall until he was staring at his feet, ears drooping while the wagging tail had ceased and curled up underneath him, looking very much like a 'bad dog'.
"This is kind of normal, folks, sorry. You just have to put up with it for a minute…"
"Ahh, and here we have the shaman. The protector. The guardian. Knocked over any pots recently. Had a huge sneeze, eh? Oh dear oh dear... look at that. Something vital appears to have gone missing! Best watch out for this one, I warn you..." Tads shrugged at him, but didn't step backwards, letting two of the creatures heads move in to almost touch her, staring at it with calmness and composure. It snorted at her, and they saw the fur on her nose ripple with the hot breath, but then it turned away towards Marius.
"And here he is, Mr. Straight Man... so tell me. Was thirty pieces of silver worth it? Did you learn from this experience? I hope so... I hope you learnt more than the rest of your last team. They won't do any learning after all…" The creature stared at him, and Marius felt an urge to lash out at whatever this thing was – but Tads had indicated that this was in some way normal for whatever the hell this place was, and he restrained himself, though he wondered what the rest of the team would make of that information.
The creature turned towards Hunter who looked up from licking himself, without any shame or sign that he had been doing anything wrong.
"Wot?" A lifetime of abuse about his looks and charms had apparently insulated Hunter against an awful lot, and whatever kind of abuse this creature was going to give out barely registered on his sense of ego. He stood up, but then did cock his head to one side as a rhythmic beat appeared out of nowhere… 'Da da dum tish tish, da da dum tish tish.'
"Come on there, Jason, you know the moves, show us your footwork." The creature encouraged him, somehow wielding a short cane with a silver ball on top, which it pointed at him. "Do you need your suit? Would that make you feel better?" Hunter was suddenly clad in a bright purple suit with silver detail, sparkling in the reflected light from an overhead source. There wasn't anything up there that anyone else could see, but it somehow managed to cast a light on him, making the silver piping and detail on the suit glimmer. And to the surprise of the rest of the team, the hyena-shaped Hunter started to dance, tip-tapping back and forth in time with the music, pulling off some sharp spins and turns and looking pretty fluid.
"My, my, what a sorry bunch you are. Still, I suppose you're here for a reason… what might that be."
Tads was about to answer, feeling that she probably had the best grip on what was going on, when she heard a rustling sound behind her.
Scwoosh, Scwoosh. Step step. Scwoosh, Scwoosh. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw a zoo-keeper pushing a firm-bristled broom before him, rolling along a massive pile of dung. Two quick sweeps, then he stepped forward, closing the distance again, pushing the manure through the middle of the team. As he looked up, she recognised the 'old man' from the mountain… or from the steel mill. What he was doing here, though, was a mystery to her.
"Mind you don't step in the dung." The old man said, giving them a smile. He turned towards the Dweller, and touched his hand to his head in a quasi-salute. "Don't mind me, just cleaning up."
"Oh, it's you." There was a deep sigh, causing a trilling, warbling, lip-huffing cacophony from the multiple heads. "Well, you'd best get on with it, then." An arm with the form of a monkey thrust out of the body and clicked its fingers, and the team started to fall again, but as they did, the zoo keeper seemed to look at them directly for a moment and speak…
They landed, an instant later, finding themselves on the arid scrubland near Aswon's village. The vast plains stretched off in every direction, clear of man-made features all the way to the horizon.
"What the hell was that supposed to mean?" Hunter asked suddenly. "Why would he say that to us?"
"I never thought about the elephant and the mouse like that before."
"What?"
"What…"
"That's not what he said to me…"
"Shut up for a moment, all of you, please?" Tads pushed her way over to Hunter and stared into his eyes, then took a breath. "Hunter, I want you to say what you heard, as closely as you can. I mean, try to say it in exactly the same way it was said to you. I'll explain in a moment, but it's important to be as precise as you can be. Marius – listen carefully, this could be really important, and there's nobody's memory I trust more than yours on this…" She gestured for Hunter to speak.
"Not every fight is one that can be won, and sometimes the approach of death is inevitable. But, when fate has conspired against you, then how you choose to die can be as important as how you chose to live."
"Alright, thanks, Hunter. Based on that, and what Kai said – we each got something potentially different. Aswon, what did you hear?"
"We were being compared to the Viet Cong. I think. Give me a moment, it was quite a lot of information." He cleared his throat, giving an impressive roar. "Back before the awakening, and the collapse of the USA, this most powerful of nations was handed a crushing and unexpected defeat at the hands of Vietnam, where despite their technology, training and massive logistical advantages, they fell to guerrilla attacks, traps and tricks, finding their foe impossible to pin down in open warfare."
"What about you, Shimazu?" Tads prompted.
"Never ascribe to malice what can be attributed to incompetence. Though sometimes violence is done for evil reasons, often it is the product of limited thinking and short sighted goals."
"Kai?"
"The parable of the elephant and the mouse has been corrupted over thousands of years. It is not how a tiny creature can help one much larger, but more that even the mightiest foe can fall to a death of a thousand cuts."
"And Marius?"
"People often concentrate on just one aspect of history and don't see the bigger picture. Roman forces, for example, were often misunderstood. It was as much about defence as attack – though people concentrate on their superb skills with gladius and pilum. But it was as much about their skills in defence, letting their enemies break themselves on formations like the Testudo that led to their success."
"Thanks, Marius. Ok, this is what I heard…" She took a moment, then spoke again. "Willingness to sacrifice your dreams and aspirations for another is the sign of a creature evolved enough to work for the advancement of the species."
"Right, back to my original question – what the frak?"
"Short version then, Hunter – we're in a magical realm, on a quest. I think we're here to find the spirits of the land. Normally when I go on a quest, I'm on my own – so when I meet the Dweller, and he airs some juicy tidbit of information, there's nobody to hear it. I've never, EVER, had anyone like the old man turn up while I'm dealing with the Dweller before, so bear that in mind. But I think he's given us some kind of clue, or hint about what's to come. Some vision of the future that will guide us in our quest. I can't see any other reason for it. But it's going to be cryptic and we may need to really think about this, carefully."
"Myffic. Oh great."
"Otherwise, no two quests have ever been the same for me. Um… Ok, I think I can describe it so you get it. You were telling us about that decking run you did a while back, right, where the system was set up like a medieval castle, and the attack programs were like armoured knights and things?"
"Yeah, system sculpting, it's called. You can put a skin over your basic architecture to make it look and act like something and all the components will shift to match the setting."
"Well, a quest is going to be like that. Think of us being in one of your virtual reality game worlds. And like in the game, we'll wander through a number of places or encounters, that will test us. Some of the tests might be a straight up fight. Some of them will be us bargaining with an enemy or someone neutral. Some might be a puzzle. But if we get through all the tests, we find the final location and the special loot. Normally for me that's something like the formula of a spell. For this, I think it might be a spirit, some essence of the land."
"And what happens if we fail a test?"
"We get hurt, and have to carry on, but now it's harder as we're carrying injuries and are less able."
"And if we get hurt really badly?"
"Then yes, it's possible to die here. And if your soul dies here, your body dies out there. So don't die."
"Did you know this was going to happen?" Marius suddenly demanded, his patience with all this magical nonsense having expired.
"No, I didn't know it was going to happen." Tads replied honestly. Marius snorted, then turned away – though he quickly span back.
"Did you SUSPECT that something like this MIGHT happen?"
"It was a possibility…"
"So, what do we need to do?" Aswon interrupted, trying to distract Marius as he stepped forward. "I trust that you will guide us here? I have some theoretical knowledge of the planes, but being an adept, this is not somewhere I ever expected to see. I still am not sure quite how we got here…"
"I know some spirits can create an astral gateway, to allow travellers through – or to push them through if they are that way inclined. I've never heard of a poison that can do it… though I'd never heard of Singing Soulweed either, until we went to harvest some. So I guess the magical venom weakened the barrier between the physical world and the astral and allowed us to cross. I'm not trying to scare you here… but try not to get separated from me. From my experience and everything I've ever heard about, people without the ability to get TO the metaplanes, are unable to get BACK unless they have a guide who can travel freely. And in this case that means me… It may be that the rules here will be different, I don't know. But we should stick together…"
"Rules? There are no rules here! This is a place of madness and chaos." Marius clearly had no truck with a place that could cancel gravity or move people around, create worlds at a whim and turn him into creatures, and was rather fed up with the whole thing. This entire series of events triggered him in the worst kind of way – he knew he was intelligent. Very intelligent. The world generally made sense to him, his intelligence allowed him to understand the processes and rules that governed it. But this – this whole experience operated by a set of rules that made no sense to him, and that made him feel hopelessly out of his depth and at a loss, and that was a feeling he definitely didn't like.
"Well, we need to decide what to do now. As far as I can determine, we're at the stage of actually starting our quest… we just need to choose which path to follow." Tads gestured at the three paths there were now visible before them, spread out at sixty degree angles, and heading off towards the horizon. Directly ahead of them she could make out a chameleon sitting on one path, right at the point where it disappeared over the horizon, on the path to the left there was a stag, similarly just before the path dipped out of view, and to the right there was a buffalo."
"Just wait a moment, I want to see if our comms work…" Kai wandered ahead down the path, then tried whispering to the team – quickly discovering that he could neither hear nor speak to them. Turning to address them, he pointed over his shoulder with a thumb "how about this way?" He saw most of the team heading his way, but then spotted Shimazu heading off the other way, nearly in the opposite direction. He hustled back, pointing towards Shimazu as he did so, and the others turned, spotting the three other paths that fanned out from their arrival point, with a dog, hyena and lion sitting at the end of them. Shimazu was halfway down the path now towards the dog, and the team hustled after him.
They had almost caught up with him as he reached the dog avatar, and as the group closed in the final metres towards it, it seemed to disintegrate before their eyes, turning to fine dust and blowing away on the wind, as did the world around them, throwing them into a different environment altogether. Each of them found themselves in their own particular world, and though they could feel the presence of their team-mates nearby and hear each other, they felt somewhat distant and unconnected.
Marius looked around at the comfy room, smiling at the stockings hung over the mantelpiece, atop a roaring fire. The smell of roasting meat tinged the air, and the fire warmed the room nicely, bathing it in a warm orange glow. A few small reading lights cast subtle illumination around the place, and he spotted Nadia and Marius Junior curled up on the comfy leather settee under a knitted blanket.
"Daddy!" Marius wormed out from under the blanket and ran across the floor to him, leaping up for a giant hug – which Marius was only too happy to supply to him.
"Welcome home. Good day at work?" Nadia stretched out for a moment, arcing her back and revealing the large belly holding their second child, due another month from now. She glanced out of the window at the gently falling snow that was building up on the windowsills already.
"It was fine, the weather held no problem. Everything running smoothly." Marius gave a sigh of relief, thinking back over the last few years. Since he'd abandoned those idiots and left them to go chasing around the world, he'd settled down in Switzerland with Nadia and his son, going 'straight' and becoming a regular driver, building their own home and concentrating on raising their son. They'd settled in great with the local community and led a quiet life, safe from all the dangers out in the boonies, and life had been good. Now it was their second Christmas in the new place, and he was looking at a promotion at work, a rise in pay and some more opportunities – which would be nice as with the second kid on the way, it would be good for Nadia not to have to work at all.
"I got the tree up, just like you wanted. Well, all apart from the top decorations. I didn't think you'd want me balancing on a ladder with the bump!" She smiled at him, and he turned to spot the lush green tree in the corner, brightly decorated and glimmering in the firelight. He could spot the bits that Marius Junior had decorated – he might not have an artistic touch, but clearly favoured science, as each branch was securely roped and supported by the others with taut lines of tinsel forming a complex web. He smiled and looked around the cozy room… yes, life was good…
Tads looked down and took stock of the situation, and felt a similar surge of contentment. Her tribe was camped on the same site it had occupied for generations – but it looked very different now than it had when she'd left it several years before. Powerful wards covered the whole area, a massive dome of astral energy fit to keep out a dragon. Huge spirits patrolled the perimeter, each twice the size of Pebble, summoned and bound to keep her tribe and the area safe. Around her, children laughed and played, safe in the knowledge that no external threats would come crashing down upon them. Her people hunted and gathered, keeping to the old ways, preserving their life under the watchful gaze of their most powerful shaman. She sighed again, looking around. It was perfect.
A nagging thought tugged at the corner of her mind. Some phrase that reminded her of something. She couldn't work out what it was though. Looking around the landscape, she tried to work out what it was, but saw instead only smiling people, laughing couples, some of the old folk crouched down with the children, teaching them skills. It was all fine.
Some tiny part of her subconscious railed against the walls that imprisoned it, and screamed, trying to be free.
She saw a flash overhead as some malevolent spirit tried to fly through the ward and was instead turned into ash as her powerful shields obliterated it, keeping the tribe safe within. She looked over and saw the world outside, unprotected and exposed.
A key turned in a lock, opening the door into the tiny cell in the corner of her mind. And the phrase locked inside broke free.
"Willingness to sacrifice your dreams and aspirations for another is the sign of a creature evolved enough to work for the advancement of the species."
She puzzled for a moment, and then dread washed over her. This wasn't perfect. This wasn't even real. Sure, she COULD have put up shields like this, maybe, with months or even years of work. Summoned spirits that big. Saved her tribe… but at what cost. Elk was a protector, but not just of her tribe, but of all. She couldn't turn her back on the wider world and focus inwards. This was not perfect.
This was a nightmare.
The world around her shattered as she rejected it, splintering into a trillion diamonds that blew away from her, letting her spot her team-mates. Each stood with a mesmerised look on their faces, enamoured with their own vision, their own personal paradise.
"It's not real. Resist! ITS NOT REAL!" She strode over to them in turn, shoving them and butting them, poking them with her nose and shouting at them. "MARIUS! HUNTER! ASWON! KAI! SHIMAZU! You have to resist, it's trying to draw you in! Be strong! Remember what the old man told me? Willingness to sacrifice your dreams and aspirations for another is the sign of a creature evolved enough to work for the advancement of the species. You have to be prepared to give up your own vision of happiness for the good of others!"
"I can't stay here forever?" Kai murmured.
"You can, but you'll be lost here forever, and your body will wither away and die, and then the dream will end. Fight it, Kai."
The dreamy look popped off Aswon's face first, then the others, one by one. As each realised what it was, they called on the rest, working through the team until they were all free of the illusion. When the last of them were free, the world suddenly lurched, and they found themselves once more back at the central area – but now the path towards the dog was gone, faded and consumed by the undergrowth.
"Ugh. It was a nice vision to start with. Right up until I found out I was nothing more than a glorified taxi driver." He shuddered. "I would like to get out of this place. Which way do we go?"
"Let's go towards the stag – my place. I don't know what it will be or mean, but I might have the best chance of making sense of it and being able to explain it to you…" Nobody argued so she headed that way, the rest falling in behind her for the walk towards the horizon. It felt like forever to cover the distance, the landscape unchanging, with nothing but the gentle sighing of the winds and their quiet footsteps to disturb the environment. As they reached the stag, it too seemed to disintegrate, spreading away on the wind, before the world twisted and dropped them into a new place. Tads quickly looked around and confirmed something that had been nagging at her – the rest of the team were also now stags, matching her own physical form, though they varied wildly in physique, with Kai having the cutest colourings, and both Shimazu and Hunter being absolute units with muscles that rippled under their coats. She was pretty sure that meant her suspicions about them all having been dogs in the previous encounter was true, and made more sense about why she'd booped them with her nose…
Her thoughts were cut short though as she heard the growls and looked out – in the harsh landscape that lay before them. Snowy and cold, it was mountainous and rough, definitely not her own homelands or anything like it, that was for sure. It was also, it seemed, inhabited by dire-wolves. Lots and lots of dire-wolves. An entire pack of them, slowly advancing towards them, lips pulled back and fangs bared, murderous red eyes fixed upon the team.
"They're looking pretty gaunt and thin," Aswon commented, hoofing at the ground nervously. "And pretty hungry. Probably pretty desperate for food, given the weather." He looked around quickly, spotting nothing else alive in the area. "And we're probably looking pretty tasty…"
"Can we fight them?" Hunter asked.
"We can, but we're outnumbered about ten to one. I don't rate our chances…"
"The clue… I think this is Marius'. We shouldn't attack, much as I favour it." Shimazu's hooves glowed, wrapped in magical energies, the manifestation of his weapon foci in this particular form. Unlike physical weapons, magically-bonded weapons went with the souls they were linked to, travelling across the meta-planes quite happily. "We should pull back a little, into that dead end valley, between those cliffs, and do the formation thing. At least I think that's the most appropriate thing."
"Whatever we're going to do, we need to do it quickly!"
"I am inclined to agree with Shimazu. I have just gone through the things said by the old-man, and this seems the most appropriate. And we do all seem to have antlers." Marius noted.
"Alright, let's do it. To the valley!" Kai led the way, the team scrambling to get into position while the dire-wolves let out a massive howl and gave chase. They made it into the narrow opening and turned, jostling each other to get into position and having to struggle to get themselves lined up and ready without their antlers getting hopelessly caught on each other. But as the wolves attacked, the team lowered their heads slightly, bringing a dense thicket of sharpened antlers to bear towards them, an impenetrable mass of spears that broke the charge with howls of pain and anger. Several of the dire-wolves gored themselves deeply upon the antler tips, shrieking in agony as they were driven onto the weapons by the crushing weight of the pack behind them. When the charge retreated, the wounded worked their way free, staggering off with jets of blood spurting from their wounds, melting the snow and leaving a trail of crimson behind them. The smell drove the remaining creatures wild, and they charged again, throwing themselves once more upon the defences.
The team held. The wolves retreated, leaving more wounded behind them, the ground now covered with tiny pockmarks where hot drops of blood had carved tunnels of death down through the snow. They charged once more. They retreated. More blood. Over and over they threw themselves at the team, more and more desperate to get through the defences to the vulnerable food that lay just beyond, driven further and further into a frenzy as the blood soaked the ground ahead of them. But every time they charged, every time they fell back, more and more of their number were wounded, limping off to collapse in the snow on the plains, dying from their wounds and slowly disappearing under the falling snow as their corpses cooled until they vanished, leaving only an ever-growing pile of snowy graves to mark their loss.
It felt like days had passed, as attack after relentless attack had battered them, threatening to overwhelm them at times – but they had held firm, and finally the last survivor, a particularly grim and savage one-eyed wolf found himself gored and impaled upon their antlers, slowly bleeding out. When the last spark of life faded from his one good eye, so did the world around them, and they found themselves back at the meeting of the pathways once more – but now there were only four.
"Good job, Shimazu" Tads gave him a smile. "I think that was the right call. And I'm pretty certain my clue or puzzle was right for the dog encounter we had. So that means we have four places left and four clues – so it's a matter of working out what goes with what."
"What if we get it wrong?"
"It's probably not the end of the world, Kai, but it'll be a lot harder to overcome whatever challenge we face, I think. Or it might steer us down the wrong line of thinking. Much better, though, to get it right, of course. But with two down, that should make it easier from here… So which path?"
"I am not sure it really matters – with no information on what kind of challenge lies ahead of us at each encounter, it makes no odds. So let's just work around them… the lion next." He looked around and saw no dissenting opinion, then led the way towards the horizon. The journey seemed much faster this time, taking no more than a perceived few minutes until they reached the avatar, which as expected now dissolved into the wind and disappeared, before they felt once more a brief dislocation and then a thump as they 'landed' somewhere new. As Tads expected, each of them now took the form of a lion – varying in height, width and appearance somewhat to match the team member.
Looking around, they could see they were near the edge of a massive cliff, running from way behind them to the horizon ahead of them, apart from a single narrow spit of rock that jutted out from the escarpment. It was a probably tiny on a geological scale, but the rocky outcropping was a hundred metres across and several hundred long, jutting out over the dizzying drop down to the plains below. Assuming that gravity and the other rules of physics worked here as they should, certainly anyone who fell off the edge was in for quite a long fall and then a very short and sudden death as they impacted at terminal velocity.
"Are those your tribal people, Aswon?" Tads asked, pointing with an outstretched paw. The team focussed their attention and saw that there were a couple of hundred people on the spit of land, clutching bags and supplies to them, milling around in confusion. Some nearest the pointed edge were looking over, seeing if there was a way down, but not finding anything even remotely traversable.
"They look like them – the dress is right, but I don't spot anyone in particular I know."
"I'd be surprised if you did. Ok – from my experience, this is more that it's representative of your tribe. You should imagine it is – whatever the test is we're about to face, it's to do with saving or helping your tribe, I think. Any idea what would force them out to somewhere like this?"
Her musings were cut short as a number of vehicles appeared to their right, driving out of the woods that ran parallel to the escarpment a hundred metres back. Pickup trucks and four wheels drives roared out of the forested area, loaded down with men who pulled up just short of the escarpment edge, disgorging troops. From their random dress and patchwork kit it was far more likely to be bandits or the vicious thugs of a local warlord rather than a regular army, but they certainly seemed intent on getting ready to launch an assault on the frightened villagers.
"If those are my people, I cannot stand by and let them fall like this."
"I guess that's the right clue then. The one about dying, but doing it well. 'Cause they've got machine guns mounted on the back of them trucks, and we're not gonna survive many hits from them!" Hunter noted.
"Not every fight is one that can be won, and sometimes the approach of death is inevitable. But, when fate has conspired against you, then how you choose to die can be as important as how you chose to live." Marius added, reciting what he'd heard perfectly, the words burned into his perfect memory. "Did you not say that if we die here, we die in the real world though Tads?"
"Yeeeessss…. But sometimes it's metaphysical. There's a chance we will. I really can't say. But I also can't see much we can do to stop them otherwise."
"I am Aswon. This is my tribe."
"Ok, let's do this, then. Charge of the Light Brigade." Hunter moved in towards Aswon, forming up on his flank as Aswon started to pick up speed. The others formed up as well, forming a line that streamed out to the side, accelerating ponderously until they were at a sprint, their massive paws hammering across the lush grass, claws leaving massive divots in the earth behind them.
One of the guerrillas saw them, alerting his neighbours with a shout and turned his rifle their way, letting off a burst of fire. Most of it went wide, with a single round punching into Shimazu's shoulder. The small calibre round stung, but wasn't that damaging, and the charge continued.
"Kai. Roar at them. Your voice is your weapon. Use it!" Shimazu called out.
The roar that emerged from Kai's throat was epic, rolling down the escarpment with a volume that staggered the attackers closest to them. The nearest man turned, dropping his weapon and running in fear, the primal roar having broken his will utterly.
More and more of the attackers noticed them, turning to respond to the noise of firing on their flank, bringing their rifles to face them and starting to add their fire as well. Rounds whizzed by overhead, getting closer as the poorly-trained troops managed to zero in their weapons and account for the speed of the approaching lions, though doing little to account for the recoil they faced from their wild and uncontrolled bursts.
It was only a matter of time, though, before one of those random burst hit the team, and soon enough one did, a full burst ripping into Tads, sending pain coursing through her body. The impact slowed her, but she powered on, roaring defiantly.
The gunners in the vehicles had overcome their surprise now, and had swung their light machineguns around, fitting belts of ammunition and started to add their own weight of fire. They were late, though, having thought they faced unarmed villages scared and desperate, and their delay meant that the pack of lions that were the team were upon the convoy before they got much chance to fire.
The lions slammed into the troops, massive paws slicing through armour and webbing as if it wasn't there, ruining bodies and destroying lives with equal ease. Huge bites left decapitated troops falling like wheat, but the cost was high – too high. Every time they slowed to fight or attack, someone managed to get a bead on them, pouring in fire to their flanks. Much of it was inaccurate, rounds flying overhead as the barrels climbed from the recoil, but the cumulative damage racked up, slowing them all one by one. Still they powered on, ploughing into the hordes of attackers, ripping and rending as they went, taking more and more fire as the gunners in the trucks got their weapons online.
One by one they fell, bodies riddled with red blotches, as scores of puncture wounds managing to overcome their fearsome size and power. Soon only Aswon was left, grievously wounded, battling on as the handful of remaining attackers poured fire at him, desperately trying to bring him down. He felt the white hot agony of every bullet that penetrated his thick hide, the lance of pain as one punctured an eye, blinding him on the right side, the laboured breathing as round crushed his ribcage. Eventually the damage was too much, and he slowed, then stopped, collapsing to the ground, his head lolling to the side. As his vision started to tunnel in, he wondered what they were supposed to have done here. Had he failed his people? Had he actually doomed his tribe and his team by his actions?
A cry penetrated his thoughts. The angry cry of a mob, hundreds of voices raised in unity. As the last of his vision faded away, he saw the lopsided view of the villagers charging the battered remains of the bandits, inspired by their charge and sacrifice. Many of them were wounded and fell as rounds hit them, but there were hundreds of them, and with so little firepower now remaining, the bandits were overwhelmed, the villagers falling upon them with no remorse or quarter.
He managed a smile, as the last of his life-blood oozed out into the grass around him, and the world faded away. It was, at least, a good and noble death, it seemed.
With a start he landed back at the junction, but this time he winced in surprise. Looking around, he could see several of the others also nursing some kind of injury, and he looked at Tads in surprise.
"Kinda hard to explain… um. Every place you have a challenge, depending on how you do, you can come away with an injury. I'm glad we're not actually dead – it looked like death in that place was very symbolic and not literal, for which we should all be glad. But our auras have picked up some damage – perhaps we should have charged faster. Or gone in formation. I don't know – I thought we did as well as we could. Maybe the test was just very hard. It happens sometimes. But we need to be careful now, as it's going to make the next one even trickier…"
"One to the left again, then?" Aswon suggested, working his hand across his ribs to try and soothe the pain. The others nodded and he headed that way, towards the impassive lizard that watched them approach, unblinking and unmoving.
The avatar dissolved and they lurched, finding themselves on a wide and grassy plain this time, very little cover to be seen for kilometres in any direction – and ahead of them was a large nest of tiny lizards, most having just been hatched, it seemed. Myopic and helpless, their little chirpings called out for sustenance and warmth, as they blindly struggled to locate either, crawling over their neighbours and the shattered fragments of their eggs.
"That looks suboptimal." Marius pointed out a dust cloud ahead of them, focussing his eyes forward. It seemed his vision enhancements from his cyber-eyes worked here, and he zoomed in, spotting a large pack of bears thundering towards them. Right towards them. "We have a large pack of bears approaching. Maybe thirty or forty, no particular formation. Coming right this way. We should move."
"What about the nest? They'll crush them all, kill all the babies!" Tads looked down at the fragile bodies, scales not even fully hardened yet by the air. "I mean, I don't want to get crushed either – but we were put here for a reason. I think we have to save them from the bears attacking."
"I think this is my puzzle thing. The one about malice." Shimazu said quietly, looking up at the approaching herd, then down at the nest.
"Never ascribe to malice what can be attributed to incompetence. Though sometimes violence is done for evil reasons, often it is the product of limited thinking and short sighted goals," Marius reminded them.
"Yeah. Bears don't know they're here. Gonna kill them anyway – but not by design. Just by accident. I agree, we have to get them out of the way. But how – there's so many of them?"
"Can we throw them out of the way fast enough? Aswon – how far can you throw one of these without killing it?"
"No idea, Marius, but we can try, crazy idea though it is. I can't see a way to distract or re-route the bears, can you?"
"Nein."
They gathered up the lizards, working as quickly as they could. Hunter and Shimazu stacked as many of the babies as the could on their own bodies, covering themselves in bodies until they could barely waddle, while Kai and Marius worked to pick up individual lizards and pass them to Aswon, who turned into a whirling dervish, taking the next victim and spinning to gather momentum before yeeting the baby across the plain as far as he could, sending the body tumbling into the long grass, before continuing his frantic turn and accepting the next piece of 'ammunition'.
Frantically they worked, hearing the thundering roar of the approaching herd, the ground trembling as tens of thousands of kilos pounded up and down on the prairie, until they had all the babies moved and could scramble to cover themselves, slipping to the side of the pack as they thundered past, not even seeing them.
"Well, that seemed to go…"
THUMP, they landed back at the pathway once more.
"…not too badly!" Kai finished, looking around at everyone and checking them over. Nobody seemed to be injured any worse, and they looked at the last two paths that remained to them. Hyena and buffalo.
They stuck with their previous plan, working one round to the left of the previous path and heading towards the hyena, reaching it and watching it dissolve, then landing with a thump on another large prairie. This looked identical to the last place, and they quickly checked for lizards underfoot – just in case – but there were none to be found. The prairie stretched to the horizon in all directions, without interruption, so they picked a direction at random and started to wander, trotting along through the thick grass, looking for whatever it was they were supposed to do.
It became obvious a few moments later when the ground started to tremble and a massive juggernaut burst up through the ground, shaking off the moist sods and clumps of grass violently and then stopping to sniff the air. The team knew exactly how tough this was, of course, having defeated one near the spaceport – but that was when they had weapons with explosive and armour piercing ammunition available, not just primitive bites.
"What puzzles are left, Marius?" Kai asked.
"The one about Vietnam, and the one about the Elephant and the Mouse"
"Could be either one, I guess…"
Hunter and Aswon looked at each other simultaneously, and nodded, before saying in unison "Elephant!"
"Are you sure?"
"Certain? No. But 80% I'd say. This is going to be death of a thousand cuts. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to ambush from – doesn't feel like Vietnam. We're going to need to work out some tactics though, or this isn't going to work."
"We need to encircle it, and work in pairs, distract and fade, lunge and withdraw," Hunter called out.
The team quickly spread out, Aswon and Hunter shouting instructions to the rest of the team, splitting them up at roughly sixty degree arcs, mirroring the layout of the paths when they'd first arrived. Even constrained by their forms, their tactical training still proved worth its weight in gold, and soon the team had encircled the juggernaut and started to lunge in and draw its attention, letting their partner on the far side sneak in for a quick bite at the back of a leg or under the tail before hastily withdrawing as the massive beast lumbered around to attack them, swapping the focus to someone else. They co-ordinated carefully, every diving in to keep the beast moving – though none of them did as much damage as Shimazu with his magical weapon foci providing a vicious bite to his avatar. Aswon, Tads and Kai had their own weapon foci that at least allowed them to add a little damage, and Hunter had pure muscle to try and power through with. Marius was the least capable – but of course the juggernaut didn't know that and as he kept fading in and out of range, the beast still turned to try and intercept him, allowing the others to strike.
It took an age – the creature was huge, but once they had damaged it a little, it started to slow, the wounds mounting up and blood pouring down its back and tail from a thousand small bites and claws. They kept the pressure up, striking and retreating, working together to overcome a foe that could have crushed them all individually, and a while later they watched as the massive beast collapsed, crumpling to the ground as life slowly faded from it.
None of them were surprised when a moment later they found themselves back at the junction point, facing the last remaining path to the buffalo.
"Time to finish this madness!" Marius said as he started to head down the path.
"Wait, please! Marius, what's the last clue? This is the only place where we've been sure of the clue before we enter – it might be worth thinking about?"
"Vietnam. I am unsure how much this helps us though – that covers a very wide variety of possible topics."
"Ok. Well, from the layout here, this is the last place – if we are successful here, then we'll have progressed through the quest, and we should end up at the citadel. Um – it may not be a citadel, but it often is, or something like it, some kind of tower that protects the knowledge you seek or whatever goal you had. But it means we should be done, and we can get out of here. So it's time to pull out the stops and put everything into it, if we can. If we're ready for that, then lead on, Marius."
They took a deep breath, then headed down the path, ending at the buffalo and once more the world faded around them, this time depositing them on the edge of some plains, facing towards an oncoming assault force. Each of them took the form of a massive buffalo, heavily armoured and muscled, five hundred kilos each for the smaller members of the team, but closer to a thousand for Hunter and Shimazu.
But the hunters coming towards them were enough to strike fear in their hearts – they were armed in sleek black armour, carefully sculpted to give maximum flexibility and motion, with helmets tightly sealed against the environment and from the number of antenna mounted on the side, probably all kinds of vision augments and sensors.
In their arms, though, they carried guns. Massive rifles, nearly two metres long. Huge bulky affairs with a box magazine that was the size of a shoebox.
"Those don't look nice…"
"Anti-material rifles. Twenty, maybe thirty millimetre rounds – like my Panther cannon. And you can bet their going to be firing hot ammo. Those will punch through an APC – lengthways. That's what we would have wanted to drop that juggernaut – they'll make mincemeat of us!"
"This way!" Aswon called. He'd bounded off a little and discovered the prairie ended on a slope, leading down into a series of bluffs and coves, a dense warren of twisting paths and maze-like passages. "I think I get the clue now. We've got to split up a little and fight a hit-and-run war, but at knife-fighting range. Come on!"
They headed down into the Badlands, pursued by the hunters and split up, engaging in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the faceless predators. Working in pairs they tried to set up ambushes, luring a hunter one way at a junction with a little noise, while the other member of the pair came thundering down the passageway to strike them from behind. As good as the armour was, when a thousand kilos of Buffalo hit at forty-five kilometres per hour, it tended to turn whatever was inside into badly-mangled paste. Individual pieces like the chest plate sometimes survived – but the limbs were shattered and destroyed from the crushing impact or thrown into the walls and dashed to pieces as they failed to absorb the inertia.
Occasionally a shot rang out, raising the heart rate of the team, wondering if one of their fellows had fallen – but unable to communicate or check up on each other, they had to trust to their skills and teamwork to keep finding and destroying the hunters. As Shimazu smashed into an armoured form, sending it flying through the air to impact a cliff-face with brutal effectiveness, the world suddenly faded away, returning them to the central path once more.
The checked on each other, finding that they were mostly ok, though Aswon had picked up a deeper wound this time, and was starting to limp quite badly. Tads was fatigued, as was Shimazu – but their training let them gut it out with no apparent affects, while the rest of the team all seemed to be nursing minor injuries.
"So, what now?" Kai asked.
"Flap, I think?"
"Flap?"
"With the wings you have. Excuse me, the wings we all seem to have now. Wow, this is a new form…" Tads hopped away from the others a little and gave an experimental flap, spreading the broad and impressive wings she had now manifested. She took to the air, soaring upwards on a strong thermal, tucking one wing slightly and drifting upwards.
One by one the others lifted off, too, the flight of Martial Eagles soaring majestically upwards in formation, rising on a column of warm air higher and higher. Although Tads had said to flap, they found that all they needed to actually do was hold their wings out and open, and they rose with dramatic speed. Their formation was disrupted for a moment as Marius powered through it, actively enjoying the sensation of natural three-dimensional movement, the joy of flight temporarily overcoming his dour mood at being trapped in a magical realm of nonsense.
Their upwards motion stopped, and they realised they'd climbed to an incredible height – a completely unrealistic one, all things considered. Below them was laid the whole country of Nigeria, laid out like a glistening painting but with infinite intricate detail. Roads wound their way across deserts and plains, clung to the shoulders of mountains, cut through forests, linking distant cities to each other. Smaller roads branched off, connecting towns and villages, spreading out like tree roots and connecting the multitude of metahumanity spread across the country.
Then they saw movement, a silvery thread, almost infinitely fine from this far up, forming near a village. It linked every single person, tracing its way from the hundred or so villages to their shaman, feeding power and belief to them. Blooms of power sprung up all over the country, forming spiders webs of glowing energy as the land-worship was fed and channelled to their shaman, bright spots appearing all over the country, spreading like a rash until most of the non-urban environment had a tiny tick of power nearby.
Brighter, thicker silvery strands formed, spreading out from the ticks, reaching out to each other and forming stronger nodes, feeding into a larger and brighter spot, highlighting the older, wiser or just more powerful shamans and lodges, the flow of power blazing away beneath them.
The larger spots glowed, building up in intensity, collecting belief, hopes, dreams and aspirations, love and respect, and channelling it outwards once more, merging together again as each of those second tier spots reached out across the regions, merging together to form new third-tier nodes, growing larger and stronger, brighter again until they seemed to eclipse the power of the sun. The tens of thousands of tiny nodes had merged into hundreds, or maybe a thousand second tier networks of power, and they in turn had merged into tens of these super-powerful third tier connections. Now as they, too, reached peak brightness, they lanced out across the landscape, all heading for one location, burning their way across the landscape in razor straight lines.
They met in Aswon's village, and they saw the node there glowing brightly, drinking deeply as power was fed to it. But the power didn't seem to build up, growing stronger and stronger… instead it went. They weren't quite sure how they knew, or what that meant, but there was a strange sense of something harvesting the power up, and keeping it safely tucked away.
Saving it.
Storing it.
Keeping it… for later.
The country itself stared to glow now, growing brighter and brighter until it was painful to look at, burning so intensely they had to blink.
"THEY ARE AWAKE! CALL THE SHAMAN!"
The team blinked, realising that the image of the bright light that was painful to look at was the sun – and they were back in the square of the village.
"Is this still the magic quest?" croaked Hunter. "Is this real?"
"Do you need to pee real bad?" Tads asked with an evil grin. From the immediate moans from everyone else, it sounded like they'd suddenly discovered the very urgent messages they were getting from their body. "Yeah, that's what I thought. You're home. But you've also not moved for a while, so…" she listened to various cries of pain and alarm as the team tried to scramble to their feet around them to answer one very urgent call, and found that arms and legs that had laid dormant for multiple hours tended not to like that kind of behaviour – and that even super-fit cybernetically enhanced agents could still get cramp in the most awful of places – "you might want to just wiggle your arms and legs first, and get things moving again…" Well, now they knew first-hand how she often felt when returning from an astral quest. Maybe they'd be more accommodating next time!
Villagers were turning up by the handful now, alerted by the shout of the watching boy who had been keeping vigil on them, and many hands descended, helping them sit up and then climb unsteadily to their feet. The villagers, it seemed, understood what was important, and each was led off quickly to a house and shown a corner and a bucket, and given a moment of privacy to take care of things. Not only that, but when they'd finished, everyone found a jug, mug, bottle or other container of water ready for them to quench the parched lips and desert-dry throat they'd acquired over the duration.
"Dudes… we've been out for thirty-seven hours." Hunter announced over the team channel after checking his head-ware systems. "What the actual frak?"
"Thirty-seven? Wow… ok, big quest. We were very lucky then not to come back more badly injured." Tads informed them. She looked around and nodded in thanks to the villagers who were looking after her, then worked out the kinks in her body and headed back to the square. She might not be the fittest or strongest of the team, but she had way more experience than they did at dealing with this kind of situation, and had snapped back much faster.
Back in the square, she found the tribal chieftain and shaman waiting for her, and she gave a smile and brief bow of respect to them.
"The tribal elders are here waiting, folks. I think we need to tell them what we found."
One by one the team struggled back out, heading back to the square and joining the others, until they were all assembled.
"We are pleased to see you back, Aswon, and your friends too! It must have been a mighty dreamquest indeed."
"It was. Why don't we go and sit in the shade and we can tell you all about it…"
The team headed off to the chieftain's hut, looking forward to a seat of some kind and some more water, while Aswon started to go through events, wondering just how he was going to describe this to his tribe…
