The Jungleclad Gorilla roared at them.
Riley ► Monkey-bot A, B, C, D, E, F and G go invisible, and move to flank. Slowly. Try not to rustle the vines.
Monkey-bot A ► Ook.
Monkey-bot B ► Ook.
Monkey-bot C ► Ook.
Monkey-bot D ► Ook.
Monkey-bot E ► Ook.
Monkey-bot F ► Ook.
Monkey-bot G ► Ook.
The Jungleclad Gorillas were obviously tool-users. Pinky had just said they worked as mercenaries, so that meant they were sapient. Unfortunately, they seemed hostile.
Six Brutes in close proximity with one non-combatant to protect. Dev would hopefully retreat to Krabby. Pinky could take care of herself.
Probably.
That left her with ten Monkey-bots and Badgy. The Monkey-bots could make for timely distractions, but they only had a small amount of venom each. Probably not enough to take down such large opponents. Badgy could win, but maybe not against six foes that were half his size.
Especially, thinking foes. Badgy was still a blunt instrument.
Riley had several non-lethal options, but dosage would be a problem. Even a tranquilizer would kill if you gave your target too much. She knew how to subdue humans, but Gorillas? Not to mention that magic and levels threw everything out the window anyways. She didn't know how to predict what powers a sapient in this world might have...
Ugh. Slowly poisoning them just enough to make them fall asleep would be a pain. Then again, she could just use a lot of neurotoxin, and revive them without too much effort. Their brains could probably be okay without oxygen for a while.
The gorillas lowered their bodies while raising their weapons.
She readied her finger needles for a quick dose, while the bladders in her lungs began to release a mild sedative...
The yellow lump on the leader's back came into view.
Riley blinked. She recognized that shape.
The yellow helmet with a green cross rose up and revealed two eyes and two yellow feet against a black void.
"One of my Mets!" Riley smiled as her assistant leapt from the gorilla's back and into her arms! She spun it around while she giggled. It crawled up to her shoulder and settled down. This changed everything!
The front Jungleclad Gorilla lowered its arms and tilted its head. It then grunted.
Riley's Met beeped in response.
The leader looked at the other apes and shrugged. They all lowered their weapons while straightening up slightly. The leader put his axes in his belt and then moved closer with both his arms and legs. He pointed at Riley, and then at the Met before clasping his hands together.
"Do you not speak English?" Riley asked.
"Nope." Pinky said from the side. "Jungleclads are intelligent, but they don't speak Gnomish like nearly everyone else in the world. I bet it's because they don't level."
Riley turned to look at her friend. "They don't level? Then how are they living in this jungle?"
"I dunno." Pinky shrugged. "I think the better question would be WHY they're living here. I mean, what sort of idiot would WANT to enter the Red Lands."
"..." Dev glared at Pinky.
Okay. So... sign language? The gorilla was asking if Riley and the Met were friends? Or was it stating that? Riley petted her Met, picked it up off of her shoulder, and held it in her arms as she cradled it.
'This is my child.' - Or at least, that was what she hoped was conveyed. She didn't think she'd be able to sign: this is my assistant that replaced my old spider-boxes, but my big brother didn't like those, so he gave me a machine that could summon robots I call Mets.
Not that they were technically robots, but the term was close enough.
The gorilla stroked his chin, and then his eyes got wide. He reached down and unbuckled the leather armor on his shin. Underneath it there was a long scar in his green fur. He pointed at it, then at the Met, then at Riley. He then raised his arms to the side and shrugged.
Riley walked forward. She wasn't worried about them attacking any more - both because they seemed less hostile, and because she had one of her Mets back. She knelt down and ran her fingers over the gorilla's leg. He flinched back slightly, but mostly stood still.
The wound was only a few days old, and had been sutured together.
Riley ► Met A, did you perform surgery on the gorilla?
Met A ► Affirmative.
It used 'Affirmative', which meant it was recently summoned from her Met Factory. That made... sense. She still had the factory in her backpack, but it had seemingly broken and hadn't created any more Mets when she'd tried to activate it. Could it have made them, just... somewhere else?
The gorillas must've discovered them and... the Met had, what? Performed surgery on its own? That was possible, she supposed. The Mets used Kevin's old Summoning Perk and possessed intelligence. They could adapt to situations and make decisions on their own.
Riley ► Good job, Met A.
Met A ► Gratitude.
Now then... She shrugged off her backpack and rummaged around before pulling out a small jar. The gorillas looked at her warily, but she smiled and nodded. "This won't hurt at all." She took some of the gell on her fingers and ran them down the scar.
The gorilla growled slightly, but didn't attack. It reached down to the scar, but Riley swatted his hand away. "It needs a minute. Just be patient."
She got a growl in return, but the gorilla stayed still. Did he understand her? She repacked her medical scar dissolving & bonding paste, and brought out a rag. She counted to three, and then wiped the substance and the expelled sutures off of the gorilla's leg - and revealing healthy, green skin.
"Your fur will grow back on its own." She told him as she straightened up. "I could make something to accelerate the process, but I'd need some samples first."
The Jungleclad leader poked his leg, looked at her, and then ran his hand over where the scar had been. He then turned to the rest of his group and hooted. They responded in kind.
After they'd calmed down, and the leader had reattached his armor, they walked to the water's edge and filled up some jars they had on their backs. They then turned around and walked back up the path, only to pause and motion for Riley and her friends to follow.
Riley glanced back at Mr. Krabby. He'd probably be okay on his own. She hadn't improved his lungs yet, so he still needed water to help him breathe.
...
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Riley asked Dev.
"I don't know." Dev occasionally glanced away from the green gorillas to the red jungle that was on either side of the path they walked through. "It's exciting though! I never thought that I'd be able to seek out new life and new civilizations, but... yeah." He frowned slightly. "Though, they aren't really 'new' are they? I mean, if a titan works with them, but I don't think anyone else lives in this jungle, so that's a new civilization, right?"
"Not 'a titan', the Titan." Pinky commented from Riley's shoulder.
"They are interesting, aren't they? I wonder if they're photosynthetic? Or the coloring might be for camouflage - at least in a normal jungle." Riley nodded appreciatively at Dev's sentiment. This was pretty neat!
Before long, they came to several tree stumps, and then a clearing. It was a strangely open space inside of the jungle. A wall of thick, red wood encircled what she could only assume was the Jungleclad's village. It was decently big, and had a good hundred feet of clearance between it and the jungle. There were stumps along the jungle border, but the stumps seemed to stop in a perfect circle.
One of the odd things was that the wall and ground that surrounded it were a darker shade of red than the jungle or the path they had just walked on. More brown than red, really. The path didn't end at the clearing, but its color shifted as well.
The other odd thing was the tower that was visible over the village's walls. It had to be at least a hundred feet in the air. Possibly two hundred. It wobbled in the wind and stood in stark contrast to the blue sky behind it.
"Wow."
"Wow."
"That's impressive." Riley stared at the tower as the group approached the village's gate. "There's a part that's green there in the middle." She pointed at it. "How did we not see this before?"
"There's no place TO see it from." Dev commented. "Anywhere close has the jungle blocking the view, unless you climbed to the top of a tree. The river can view the sky, but not enough of it to see that. If it was taller, you might be able to notice it from the lake."
"Look!" Pinky pointed. "There are gorillas on it!"
Sure enough, there were several green shapes that were scaling the tower. They somehow blended in with the dark brown structure and weren't as noticeable as the green section in the middle that almost glowed. And, 'tower' might not be the best word. It was closer to a very thick pole. The gorillas were carrying long, red logs up its side and were... hammering them into place?
"I guess it's not finished?" Riley contemplated as the gates slowly swung open for them. "It must have something to do with the clearing."
As the inside of the village was revealed to them, more Jungleclad gorillas came into view. They weren't armored like the group they'd encountered, but they did wear loincloths and a few shirts. Everyone paused as Riley's group stepped through the gate, before excitedly hooting.
The leader of the... water gatherers hooted back. Some gorillas beat their chests with the palms of their hands, and he mimicked them. They seemed to be... arguing?
A roar silenced them as a larger ape came forward. If the 'regular' Jungleclad gorillas were six feet tall - while crouched forward on their arms, this one was at least eight. His fur was still green along his arms, legs, and chest, but his back and legs were a lighter shade - almost like a silverback.
Riley assumed he was the alpha, or perhaps the chief.
The chief hrned as he looked down at them, and then grunted at the group. The Jungleclad that had been carrying Riley's Met hooted and then took off his leg armor. He balanced on his hands as he lifted his leg up for the others to see.
The chief grunted and then pointed at Riley and made a beckoning motion. She followed him as he walked away on his hands and feet.
The village's walls were tall, and the village itself rose vertically as well. Huts were stacked on top of each other, with a long pole supporting the upper ones. The pillars were all solid wood, and must've been trees in the past.
"That's interesting." Dev mumbled as he walked beside her. "Do you think they lived in trees, and then made houses in the treetops, and then use the same 'designs' for this?"
"I don't know, but that makes sense to me." Riley replied.
"Hey, do you two notice something strange?" Pinky whispered. "Where are the children?"
Riley blinked. Pinky was right. All the Jungleclad Gorillas seemed to be adults. "Higher up? Inside the upper levels, where it's safer?"
Their conversation ended as they came to a ground level hut. Inside, there was an older-looking gorilla that was using two metal sticks to pull long quills from the back of a gorilla that was lying on a bed. There were six other Jungleclads who were also injured and either recovering, or awaiting medical attention.
A second Met was standing on a stool, and helping the old gorilla work.
"Oh, that's right." Riley said to herself. "I tried summoning two of them when I got here, didn't I?" She then pointed at the injured gorilla and raised the volume of her voice. "Do you want me to help?" The chief just looked at her. She began to mime extracting the quills. "Do. You. Want. Me. To. Help?"
He hrned again and nodded while watching her intently.
Riley ► Okay Mets, let's show them what we can do!
Met A ► Affirmative.
Met B ► Affirmative.
Dev couldn't help but stare. Sure, he'd seen Bit fiddle with the Milk Box, or command Beary, Kraby, and the Monkeys, but he'd never seen her... operate before.
Super-surgeon was an odd superpower (or [Class]?), but it was impressive to see at work.
The yellow, blocky robots - Bit had called them 'Mets', right? - extended a dozen small arms. They did really look like they'd just come out of a video game. Was that proof for, or against, her being a superhero? The trio then started removing the quills the Jungleclad must've picked up from one of the great cats. He'd watched the doctor gorilla pull one out, and they were clearly barbed. A small pile lay on the floor, each with a small chunk of green flesh and dripping green blood.
Were these guys from a different section of the Dyed Lands?
Dev would think about that later. For now, the pile of quills was getting new additions. New, completely clean additions. A scalpel had appeared in Bit's hand, or had it come OUT of her hand? In any case, the Mets were grasping quills, while Bit made tiny, nearly imperceptible cuts. The completely clean quill would then be pulled out and placed to the side. Bit would move on to the next one with a speed that boggled the mind - considering the precise cuts she must be making.
The two Mets, for their part, would then use their arms to pinch the flesh. After two dozen quills, the Mets were out of arms, and Bit stopped to rummage around in her backpack. She pulled out a tiny needle and thread, and then moved her hands across the wounded gorilla in a smooth motion. The Mets withdrew in perfect synchronization, and somehow, there was only smooth, green skin left in her wake.
That was impossible, as there should've been visible stitches at least, but Dev couldn't deny what he was seeing with his own eyes.
Then the process repeated itself for the next two dozen quills.
"Shoot." Dev swore to himself as he pulled out his sketch pad. "I need to draw this!" It was a great example of first contact - in a certain sense.
Harahon watched as the human worked. Noken had been right - she was a healer. An impressive one at that. It would take Mojo a hundred times as long to do a job that was only a quarter as good.
Levelers were unfair like that.
'See? I told you she was good.' Noken hooted from behind him.
Harahon grumbled. 'It's true, but you've still put us in a dangerous position. The ones she heals cannot rejoin the great building. This is a setback.'
'No.' Noken grunted. 'It is not. Buggy and the rest were too injured for Mojo. They would have to be sent back to the main tribe to recover. Now they do not. They can hunt, cook, or gather supplies.'
'Fool.' Harahon beat his chest. 'Do you forget the words? None of levels may give thee aid in the smallest part of this building. We cannot allow any leveler to interact in any way! For good or for ill!'
'You worry too much.' Noken barred his teeth. 'You also read into what isn't there! Aid in building. That is what is written. Not aid in healing. Not aid in getting food or doing chores. Only building! Only aid! It will not hurt us to have them see the tower! It would not hurt us to have them climb or break part of the tower! Only helping is impermissible!'
'Bah.' Harahon was tempted to strike his eldest son. 'The scroll says in the smallest part! If one of levels helps a worker, who then helps with the building, is that not a small part?'
'And what of other levelers?' Noken shook his head. 'The axes we use were made by levelers. The armor we wear! Even our huts come from what we've seen them build! By your logic, our task is already doomed because one of levels made the axe that we stole, that we used to chop down a tree, that we used to build the tower! The task is impossible enough without your paranoia.'
'We have worked too hard to lose it now!' Harahon swatted his son. 'Do you forget why we came to his desolate place? We came for the isolation! That is the requirement that we lack on the outside!'
Noken scampered away before hooting back at him with derision.
Harahon felt at the axe at his waist. As much as it galled him, his eldest had a point. The task could not be accomplished without some amount of involvement of levelers. There were just too many of them. Even if the Jungleclads learned the secrets of fire and metal, even if they could craft their own tools, it would not be enough. They would have gotten the IDEA from a leveler - if nothing else.
No. The only possible way to pass the trial would be with tangential help. There were too many levelers to avoid their influence completely.
Buggy and the others would still have to be sent away - at least for a while. They could be part of the supply caravan until they would've healed naturally.
Harahon grunted to himself and turned away. They'd need to cease building while the strangers were here. They'd also need to have someone guard the tower. In the meantime, they'd focus more on gathering supplies, and trying to overcome the wind.
The tower was higher than it had ever been, but that was putting more and more stress on it. He feared another collapse would happen if they didn't reinforce it somehow.
Dev had found a place where he could sit down, and lean against a wall. He was now relaxing while he wrote in his journal.
The pages contained his sketches with notes and thoughts added in between. That was also part of being a good Scout. It wasn't enough to see things for yourself, you had to document them for others. This was especially true when you were exploring the unknown.
Technically, a camera would be better, but he didn't have his. Even if he did, he would have a lot less film than sketch paper. He hadn't had his phone with him when he vanished, and it had been an old model without a camera anyways.
Besides, he liked drawing.
It was relaxing, and a good way to pick up on details. There were a lot of things that his eyes would normally skip over. Things that were in the background and weren't moving. Things that the part of his brain that categorized things into 'important' and 'non-important' tended to ignore.
When he sketched something, he had to pay attention to ALL the details as he drew them.
For example, the Gorilla's tower.
Dev didn't know much about buildings. In fact, all he knew was that four walls and a roof was a good start for a house. If he was to build a tower, he'd probably stick a pole in the ground and stack another on top of it. He'd have to nail in a board to connect them, and he'd need something to keep it straight.
Ropes tied to the tower and anchored to spots circling it would work the best. He'd seen small trees that had stuff like that on them to prevent them from falling over in high winds.
The Jungleclad Gorillas obviously knew more than he did. They had a lot of logs, but no boards. The base of the tower wasn't a log planted vertically. They'd stacked them in an alternating, horizontal pile so that each layer was rotated ninety degrees from the last.
There were some large, metal spikes that were driven in to connect the layers and hold them in place on the edges. Aside from that, large, red vines were wrapped around to provide stability.
It only went up for eleven layers like that, but considering that each log was more than three feet thick, it was a pretty impressive solid mass.
Scary too.
If it fell over, the massive amount of weight would crush everything in its path.
The shining green rock was placed on top, and the tower that continued past it was much narrower. In fact, the vertical logs might be a 'core' that the horizontal logs surrounded.
Hmmm...
Dev finished writing down his thoughts, and flipped through the sketches he'd already made of the village.
The first one was of Bit performing surgery on the wounded gorillas. Then a picture of the chieftain and the gorilla who'd brought them to the village. They had been clearly arguing, with the smaller gorilla waving around a piece of paper.
Then he had a picture of their huts, and then a closer sketch of the bottom of the tower. That was the last drawing he'd made before trying to capture the tower's height with a picture from farther away.
Dev looked at the closer sketch. Yeah, there wasn't anything that he could see past the stacked logs, but they were only flush with each other at the ends. The middle logs had a gap between them. It wasn't much, and he could barely make it out from where he was, but it was there.
They must've wrapped the logs around the central beam.
That was interesting. Probably not important, but it wasn't the way he'd build a tower. Of course, he had no practical experience, and scaffolding would require cut boards and not whole logs. Also nails. Lots, and lots of nails.
It probably...
Huh.
That was odd.
He hadn't paid much attention to it at the time, but looking back at his second sketch...
[Recall Scene]
The two Jungleclad's were arguing, and the smaller one was pointing at the piece of paper. As if to draw attention to a word or a picture.
Except, the paper was blank.
Odd.
Odder still was that Dev had clearly noticed it at the time, given that he'd drawn it, but the detail hadn't seemed... important.
Huh.
Pinky was exploring.
She knew it was a [Foolish] thing to do, but you had to keep filling that cup... Or blowing that bubble... Or pushing that rock.
Besides, it felt like the 'good' kind of foolish, and not the 'Dead Gods, what is that?' sort.
Watching Bit work was interesting, but she'd seen it before. Also, the Jungleclads had green blood. Where was the fun in that?
So, the question was where to hide?
Higher up was usually the best bet. Most non-Fraerlings didn't bother to look above them, and when they did, it wasn't for very long or very hard. The green gorillas were clearly not like most other Tallfolk. They built upwards.
In many ways, it was similar to a Fraerling city. Her folk were quite good at building vertically. One had to be if one lived in a tree.
Huh.
She guessed that was ultimately the same reason the Jungleclads were vertical builders: trees. Although, central pillar aside, it looked like they climbed up, THEN built - instead of building upwards. The different houses were all constructed around a gigantic log. Pretty obvious that in other places, they'd be around a giant tree.
So, there were issues with hiding above. Of course, that wasn't anything new. Evil cats liked heights, and they would attack a Fraerling at the top of a tree. They'd also attack a Fraerling below a tree... so that might not be the best example.
Birds.
Birds were a good reason not to hide at the tippity top.
What about the inverse?
Pinky stomped on the ground. No. It felt solid. Compact. Whatever was keeping the red plants away was also driving out their roots. Probably for a long time, otherwise there'd be space from them withdrawing or dying.
Eh, hiding underground was overrated anyways.
The large beasts that lived their were either much better adapted to the dark, or would seize upon any light.
Besides...
Pinky looked up.
She wanted to get a closer look at that green light. Was it a gem?
It felt... pretty much exactly opposite of whatever she was looking for. The Red inside of her didn't respond at all. If anything, she felt... 'icky' in its light.
Still, it was something important. It might not be what she was looking for, but it might show her the way!
Riley wiped the sweat from her forehead.
The surgeries hadn't been particularly difficult or interesting, but there was a nice sense of satisfaction from putting someone back together. Like, completing a puzzle.
Helping, but not improving, was a suggestion from Dragon - the AI one, not the Shard overseer.
Riley had to admit, it did feel good. It also felt nice to have her Mets back.
"Awwww..." She patted them on their heads - which were basically their entire bodies. "Who's a good assistant? You are!"
The Mets wiggled under her hands. She often wondered how much of the previous Mets were in the new ones.
The older green gorilla hooted and waved his hands above his head. She guessed that he was happy with her help? Should she smile? Should she look them in their eyes? The people at the zoo Kevin had taken her to had said not to do that, but those gorillas weren't as smart.
It was probably fine. Other gorillas had smiled at them. Smiled, not bared their teeth. It was an easy distinction to make, in her opinion.
So, what now?
Riley looked around. Pinky had vanished. Dev was sitting down next to the outer wall. A lot of gorillas were looking at her with varying degrees of interest. She decided to check in with the traveling companion she could see. Yeah. That's what a responsible girl would do.
She started to skip over before stopping herself. This wasn't the time for skipping, and besides, she was getting too old for things like that! Instead, she calmly and elegantly walked over to where Dev was.
"Good after-no..." She glanced at the sky. It was getting dark already! She'd spent more time in surgery than she'd intended, and the days were getting shorter. "Evening, Dev. How are you?"
He glanced up at her. "I'm okay." He paused, as if trying to think of what to say. "How are you? Did you help all the gorillas?"
"Yep!" She smiled at him. "They're all back in tip-top shape! It was super easy with my Mets!"
"Right." Dev glanced at her helpers. "I wanted to ask about them."
"Hm?"
He looked to the side and frowned. "What... what are they?"
"Mets!" Riley held one up. "They're my assistants! My big brother made them for me! They're based on one of his favorite video games, or something."
"They certainly are... unique looking."
Riley shrugged. "Everything he makes looks like that. His superhero name is 'Pixel', so it's kinda his style."
"Right." Dev nodded. "You mentioned that before. It's just..."
"Odd to see it in real life?" He nodded again in response. "Yeah, lots of people say that. They're like an art piece. One of those ones that looks strange from certain angles."
Dev blinked. "Yeah." He smiled. "They are. That's a good way of describing them." He looked around the village. "So, what do you think of this place?"
Riley shrugged. "It's interesting. The gorillas seem nice enough. Even that big one that was watching me doesn't really seem angry or aggressive - just watchful."
"He's the chief, and the father to the one that led the group we encountered."
Riley raised an eyebrow. "How do you know?"
"I overheard them talking."
"Oh? So they have some translators that speak English?"
"Gnomish." A faint voice said from somewhere.
"No." Dev shook his head. "I got a skill from my explorer class." He shrugged. "English is a second language to me."
"Gnomish." The voice said again.
Dev continued. "Minor translation doesn't do it all, but it really helps." He nodded at the gorillas. "The Jungleclad's language is mostly body movement. Their gestures and facial expression contain a lot of nuance. Their vocalizations seem to be the... crux of what they're saying, but all the context comes from their movement." He shook his head and smiled. "I was decent at languages on Earth, I knew, well, let's just say that India has several of them."
"Wow." Riley stared at him. "I didn't know you were so talented!"
"Ah, well." Dev looked away while he bowed his head. "It's nothing special. I didn't mean to brag. I just wanted to explain why, uhm... yeah."
"No, that's super helpful!" She probably shouldn't bring up how Kevin could speak every language. Then again, her brother cheated, so he didn't count.
"Yeah, uh, I guess." Dev was still looking away. "We wouldn't want to offend them, or anything. And I really want to document things. We're probably the first outsiders to ever visit this village!" He nodded at some of the gorillas. "My skill isn't perfect, and there have been times when it just... stopped, but I'm pretty sure they have contact with Jungleclads outside the Dyed Lands."
"Uh huh." Riley nodded. "Their axes."
"Exactly. This place is more like an outpost than a village. They must have a good reason to stay here. I wonder what it is?"
Bios:
Harahon - OC. Leader of the Jungleclad gorillas inside of the Dyed Lands. In charge of a secret project that, for some reason, can't involve 'Levelers'. Not thrilled to have some of them in his camp.
Noken 'Chewbacca' - OC. Eldest son of Harahon. In charge of some things like collecting water. Understands English - even if he can't speak it. The nickname will come later.
Mets - Made from the Met Factory that Kevin made for Riley. They are modeled after the reoccurring enemy of the same name from the Megaman series. Small, but strong and tough enough to qualify as Brutes in their own right. The Mets are technically Summoned - similar to Sibby, and so possess a rudimentary intelligence