The second they stepped out of the transport pod, Taubitha and Kahli stormed off in separate directions, determined to never see one another again after their pained squabble over hand standing in the pod while taking vodka shots out of a coconut.
The air outside the pod was cold, just like Taubitha's heart, Kahli figured. She remembered when Taubitha had begged Kahli to get that matching butterfly tattoo on her shoulder together. Kahli had never been more thankful for saying no than in this moment. To imagine, having a permanent memento of her ex-friend burned into her skin. Kahli's only hope would've been to either get a fire elemental to burn it off, or to pray to Theseosus that her shoulder would get covered in living wood. She looked down at her big left foot, and grimaced a little, slightly disfiguring the plaster on her face. She didn't need any more living wood on her body, she just needed it to shift to be a little more... proportionally distributed, Kahli figured.
Kahli walked through patches of thick snow, watching her left foot leave substantially larger footprints than her right foot. Another obnoxious reminder. She decided to stop looking at the ground and look around her, at least for a second, which caused her to slightly trip and lose balance for a moment before gathering her composure and then continuing down the path she walked.
Separating from Taubitha wasn't the worst thing that could've happened on this trip, even though she did also completely lose a friend. If Taubitha had ever been a friend. Kahli had really gone up to Old Snow Mountain to see their archives and their ongoing excavation sites. It fascinated her, and she loved the idea of seeing things that were centuries old, or maybe even older. Story was, that there was original clothing preserved in the ice worn by some of the very first sufferers of the Curr during the Currdling. Some even said that it was so well-preserved in the ice that there were still globs of pus caused by the dreaded illness visible in the ice. Taubitha, on the other hand, had gone up to Old Snow Mountain to go skiing, and because the guys up there were 'soooo cute,' something that Kahli didn't necessarily agree with.
So Kahli walked on that trail in a state of strange peace, as if it were somewhat sacred or something, and that's probably because it was. Snow had started falling, and it was an ancient snow. This was Old Snow Mountain, after all. And as she waded through the increasing density of white foam, everything was starting to feel a little fuzzy.
She was nearing the entrance to a deep cave. It was cold, and dark, and there were people absolutely everywhere.
Old Snow Mountain was teeming with everyone. It was the chilliest place in Nomachiato that was still cool and happening. There was a thriving, yet somewhat cutthroat, arts scene that was constantly shaping and reshaping itself like an Owl-o-borous. It was brimming with every kind of person everywhere. There was a ragtag group of crusaders that dashed around town hilariously stealing only freshly baked pies. They'd become a sort of folk hero. And they were the real real reason that Kahli was in Old Snow Mountain.
See, everybody knew about them. They were a bit of an... open secret. Or maybe better said that they were a closed non-secret. Or, well, maybe it was that the Trash E Scapaders were a serious threat to public safety while also being an enormous publicity stunt. A bizarre form of semi-theater where none could be truly certain whether or not what they were seeing was what it was. They were separate from the populace. They were a monolith. And they were a logistical nightmare.
And, for some reason she could never really be certain of, Kahli was so in for that shit. She wanted to know everything about it. She wanted to meet them. She wanted to know so bad what it was that those fuckers were up to. What were they doing? Who did they think they were, going around and pretending to be folk heroes? Were they folk heroes? Were they folk? Were they heroes?
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
"Hey, my summoning satchel!" cried a sad voice. "Who took my summon satchel?"
Salmon sandwich? Taken? Who would do such a terrible thing? Only someone out of hell itself... well, hell or heroes, right?
Yes, Kahli thought to herself in affirmation, as she often liked to do, Hell or heroes.
Kahli looked around, peering through the chunks of small plaster bits that tumbled off her eyelids. The plaster on her face, the not-so-living plaster, was getting dry again from the cold. Still, on she looked, and saw a figure in a black cloak dashing through a crowd with a large, purple sac slung around his arm.
She'd go after him. And with the power of her oversized foot, Kahli was able to skip-hop through the snow much faster than the figure could scramble, and soon she'd arrested his wrist.
"Hey, excuse me, you seem really nervous," said Kahli.
"Um," the man looked around, shaking his living-wooden hand away from her grasp. "No, not really."
"Oh, okay. I was just wondering, have you seen anyone with a salmon sandwich around here?"
The man did a double take. "A salmon SANDWICH?" He said it very loudly.
"Yes," said the other man. "A salmon SANDWICH INDEED."
"What's going on?" Kahli asked the fourth man.
"I don't know, ask him," said a fifth man, pointing to a sixth man with his rubbery, black glove.
"Oh my gods!" Kahli could barely believe hearing herself speak. "Um, are the six of you-"
"Pardon, seven!" responded another man that Kahli hadn't noticed before. He was tall as an emaciated string bean.
"What the hell are you all doing here?"
The men murmured amongst one another confusedly, not one of them making any coherent sense or noise so that they sounded as much like some sort of gaggling group of mufflins (furry, beaked creatures that swam in cold waters) spurting caws at one another in an endless barrage.
"Seriously, what is this? Who do you all think you are, surrounding me like this? Hell, I barely know any of your names and you're just standing around here in this crowd like we're all best buds or something. Seriously, what in the fuck are you doing? What are the optics, here? Do any of you consider things like that?? Consider this, you absolute squeezed oranges of tauman beings. I don't know what happened to make you think any of this was a good idea, I truly am floored. If I were to be but one sole thing, and that thing was a buffoon of the highest degree, a true lizard of the paradise, I'd probably act a lot like yourselves. Why, I ought to find your family tree and set it on fire. Feed your heads to Theseosus, why not?"
The men started shivering. The one she'd originally accosted, the one with the handbag, fell to one knee at her feet.
"Please, miss, accept our humble apology. We are but fools, foolish intrepid wanderers without a mind or a soul, truly, we are but vagabonds sailing on an unending sea into the dark, dark nighttime like a big blot of ink spillage." He stood back up and drew a rapier. "I am at your service!"
Kahli nodded her head. She was a little impressed. "What's your name?"
"I am... he whom they call by the name of, Cagio! Cagio Cagonious III, to be more precise, if you were wondering."
Kahli wasn't but she didn't say anything because that would've been mean.
"And I'm Rolfario," replied a tall man wearing a fake mustache with as much volume as his legs. "Pleased to acquiesce your acquaintance."
"That's more like it," said Kahli. "Now why are you all together? What exactly is going on here?"
Cagio explained delicately that they'd been stealing someone's sending satchel when she interrupted him. And that interruption was, naturally, causing a bit of an ill effect with their optimized stealing process, which was, in a lot of ways, super nice - save for, of course, happenings such as this.
"Well, what were you going to do with me?"
Cagio further explained that they weren't going to do anything with her, it was more what they were going to do to her. Which he them immediately apologized for, apologized so profusely that he began hitting his head against a wall for a few moments, causing a big, bloody gash that then healed up.
"Again, I apologize, and I further apologize for using my extended frustration as a mechanism with which to improve and level up my [skills] vis a vis bashing my cranium."
Kahli told him that was totally okay, no big deal at all, even though she was jealous of him not only being a hand-haver but indeed also having a [Regeneration] skill. Oh, how she wished she had a system!
"I wish I had a system, too," replied Rolfario.
"It's okay, Rolfario, you have a propulsion laser," replied Cagio with love in his inflection. "Now, I've got one question for you."
"What?" asked Kahli.
"How do we know you won't tell anyone about this?"
"What?"