One of Red's eyes rose from her antlers and shot into the forest at a speed none of them would ever be able to match. To Ben, though he wouldn't be so tactless as to say it, she looked really lopsided.
“Oh man, you look like you're about to just fall right over,” Short Bus said, having returned from his raging and blood baiting. He immediately went over to Red and prepared to catch her; she was absolutely steady on her feet. They were standing a bit of a ways from the Pocket of Sanctuary; that area had already been cleared out of monsters by Short Bus, who turned out to be both a highly enthusiastic actor and killer.
“This is so strange,” she said, clearly keeping track of two completely different mental pictures, “I haven't changed my form even once since coming here, and neither have any of you; is that normal?”
“Oh, don't worry about that, people change forms all the time around here; I didn't even used to have arms and legs or be able to cross my eyes or anything,” Short Bus reassured her, “and Ben didn't use to have wings either; not much else has changed about him though.”
“You realize I'm like a hundred times smaller, right?” Ben said, trying to figure out a way to give Red a more accurate view of reality. Short Bus stared at him, really, really hard, then blinked several times.
“Oh yeah, obviously. I was just telling a joke,” he said, playing it cool, then re-examining the rest of the party, “But all of them have always been that small, right?”
“Yes,” Ben said.
“You used to be larger?” Ghost Ears asked, right around the time Vivi asked;
“How big were you?”
“Now's not the time,” Ben said, then looked at Ghost Ears, “You look bigger.”
“I was about to say the same thing,” Ghost Ears said, then his eyes widened, “you look like an Arch-Fairy!”
“I hit level 10 and my racial trait [Evolution] gave me the option to become an elemental fairy, or an Arch Fairy: Human, so I picked the one with human in the description. What about you?”
“I got the [Questor] class, and it gave me the [Evolution] ability as well. It didn't give me options, it just asked if I would like to evolve; I didn't know it would take ten levels. I'm only level six now, yet I don't feel much weaker.”
“Well I'm a level six [Hunter],” Short Bus shouted proudly, “and a level two [Actor], and I've already evolved once! I'm a- a,” he trailed off, his energy deflating and he seemed to sag over a little bit, “I'm not a [Megaladon],” he admitted, like someone coming out of the closet to their family, or admitting a terrible addiction, “I'm sorry guys.”
“I'm not sure what's going on,” Red said, sounding like she was focusing on something else, “but when I touched the floating rock,”
“The Dungeon Crystal,” Vivi corrected, his voice proper.
“The Dungeon Crystal,” Red continued, “it said I couldn't get levels or classes. It called me a Beyonder, and gave me two abilities?” She said the word 'abilities' like it was a question, hopeful for an explanation.
“It means The System gave you two powers you wouldn't otherwise have,” Vivi explained, always happy to play the teacher, “do you know which ones they are? Sometimes The System won't tell you.”
“[Eyes of the Warden of the Beyond],” she said, “and [System Looting].”
Vivi started coughing, his eyes bulging.
“We need to kill a monster, right now,” he declared, suddenly full of blood lust.
“Why?” nearly everybody asked that question at the same time.
“Because there's [System Looting], and then there's [System Looting],” he said unhelpfully, “and I need to know which one we're dealing with. If it's the former, that's fine; if it's the latter. . . we'll see.”
“Well, we are surrounded by strange creatures,” Red commented, her other eye rising from her antlers and growing in size to somewhere between a large watermelon and a small beach ball. Violet and fuchsia light illuminated the forest around them, and without much preamble Ben felt his own awareness of the area around them grow dramatically.
“Woah!” Short Bus said, doing a jump turn, flipping a one-eighty to face behind him, his long, strong tail dexterously missing the entire party, “It’s like I've got eyes in the back of my head!”
“The forces of chaos feared my eyes,” Red said, her confusion giving way to a hard edge of anger, and a soldier's discipline, “because they allowed others to see them as well. Nothing is hidden from me,” she said, and alarmingly, Ben saw the canopy above them flinch; his [Mimic Sense] began to flash a warning, and the rest of the party seemed to be sharing in that as well.
A huge chunk of what appeared to be branches and leaves dropped to the ground, landing a distance away from the party. It unfolded and revealed itself to be an enormous gorilla, a cyclops with one large eye and a strong looking wooden body. The leaves seemed to melt into its body, like they were retractable.
It huffed at them and began to charge.
“Yes!” Short Bus yelled, “Another one!” and immediately squared off in front of it, the purity of predatory aggression shining in his eyes. Once Ben had talked with a professional dog trainer and gotten some advice about dogs and animals in general. The advice was this: The louder and more snarly the animal was being, the more it was trying to scare you off, get you to go away. Worry, but don't panic.
The animal that looked happy as it charged you was the dangerous one; it was in a state of predatory aggression, and did not view you as a threat. It was not scared. It was looking forward to the confrontation, because it was sure of its victory.
Short Bus looked very, very happy indeed.
“That's a Cyclops Canopy Gorilla Mimic,” Vivi said, somewhat helpfully, “more commonly known as a Canopy Gorilla-”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“Not the time Viv,” Ben said, aiming a utility pocket directly at the eye and then launching a sharpened branch from it. The distance and the force took a small chunk of mana, but the results were gruesome and spoke for themselves.
The blinded Canopy Gorilla screamed, which was all the invitation Short Bus needed.
“Up-see-daisy!” He yelled, tackling the monster and lifting it over his shoulder, a demonstration of pure strength, and then running back to the Pocket of Sanctuary, ignoring the bites and scratches, “in you go!”
He threw the massive monster, grunting with effort as he did so, and the creature's screams were cut short when it passed through the archway.
“That's so fun,” Short Bus said, laughing, “how many points did we get for that one?”
“I'll check!” Vivi yelled, sounding happy, and like he wanted to call dibs before anyone else could. The Aeon Slug was absurdly excited about operating the Dungeon Crystal, like a little kid with a new toy.
Ben had a thought.
“Hey, Ghost Ears,” He said, once Vivi was out of earshot, “You know much about Aeon Slugs?”
“As much as anyone else your majesty,” he said, politely.
“How, uh, close to maturity is Vivi? Like, is he a full grown adult?” When Ben asked the question, Ghost Ears did something new; he snorted in laughter.
“Ah, no.” Ghost Ears said flatly, “Aeon Slugs never stop growing. The largest one is larger than a mountain range, and they are true immortals. How old is Vivi, do you know?”
“He said he was about sixty,” Ben said.
“Very young. He's very close to experiencing a growth spurt, a rather explosive one. It all depends on how much magic he is able to synthesize inside of his body, that's the primary means by which Aeon Slugs grow; the more magic, the bigger they get.”
Ben blinked several times.
“You mean he's a teenager,” Ben said.
“I'm not familiar with the term, but it sounds right.”
“He's a teenager,” Ben repeated, “you mean I've been bullying a teenager with job interviews and stuff.”
“That. . . I'm not sure I understand?”
“I'm such an asshole,” Ben muttered to himself, “stupid fucking [Prince] class, I used to be nice.”
Vivi returned, bright eyed.
“That canopy gorilla was worth two hundred and fifty points! Oh, Short Bus, next time leave the body, I wanted Red to try out her new ability!”
“Yeah,” Ben said, clearly over-compensating, “leave the body next time. Good job buddy, great work!” Ben gave Vivi a big smile and a thumbs up.
Vivi looked at him like he'd lost his fucking mind, then shook himself out of it and resumed his position in their hunter formation. Short Bus looked at Vivi, then at Ben, then at Vivi again. He mouthed an 'Oooohh', and nodded his head a few times, then winked at Ben, then mimed locking his mouth shut and throwing away the key, then pointing at Vivi and shaking his head from side to side.
“What's going on?” Vivi asked.
“Nothing,” Ben and Short Bus said at the same time, “you're doing great,” Ben said, while Short Bus said, “it's all going to be ok little guy.”
“I've found them,” Red's voice was husky, deep, and full of anger, “there are. . . hundreds of these little furry, red eyed monsters. Some of them are fighting with other monsters, but there's a group of them holding staffs made of bone, with paint over their fur.”
“Elder Gremlins,” Ghost Ears said, distaste bordering on hatred in his voice, “they're the dangerous ones. They're cowards, I don't expect all of them to be so obvious; they like to hide in plain sight, letting their stupid, ignorant offspring look like obvious targets.”
“They can't hide from me,” Red said, her voice deepening even further, becoming almost raw with unshed tears of rage as she started to walk forward.
“I don't care if Vivi is a child,” she continued, “I don't care about classes and levels and abilities,” a bolt of energy shot from the overwatch eye above them, igniting a tree briefly, “because I can see them. They have something, and they're very excited about it; a captured soul, inside of a gem, a soul so bright it's difficult to look at. When I was summoned, after I killed the ones responsible, I found similar things in their village; they didn't have any light at all compared to this.”
Ben felt something crawling down his spine, an omen, a memory.
“Vivi,” Ben asked, “remember when you met me, and I told you about how the grays of Grayport 3 had captured me and tried to turn me into a soul gem?”
“Grays,” Ghost Ears said, his face scrunching in dislike, “the worst,” he said, and spat.
“I remember,” Vivi said, “but they failed, right?”
“Right, but I wasn't the first human they caught. The other human was a Quasar class as well, and they succeeded in turning them into a soul gem.”
“Slime,” Vivi swore, “you're serious?”
“Yeah,” Ben said, “but when I asked them if they still had it, they didn't give me a straight answer. After that there was the attack by the Violet Dungeon Core, a huge tsunami-”
“There's a Purple Core lurking around here!” Vivi practically shrieked, “Ben, you need to talk about things like that!”
“It's gone, it was in the ocean,” Ben reassured him, “but it wiped out Grayport 3 with a tidal wave and washed everything into the forest. Vivi, do you think those Gremlins found the soul gem?”
Vivi froze, literally, froze on the spot, not moving at all. It was like someone had pressed pause on a YouTube video, leaving someone with a dumb expression on their face.
“I hope not,” Vivi finally said, shaking himself out of it, “I really hope not. Red,” Vivi said, his voice sweet, “what color is the soul gem?”
“White,” she said, “pure, bright, blinding white.”
“Well, fuck,” Vivi said, sagging, “we're slimed.”
“I'm getting worried, Lord Vivi,” Ghost Ears said, “why, why are we slimed?”
“Because they're about to open The Beyond with a Quasar class soul gem, Ghost Ears. I attempted it with a mere Bright soul gem, many, many orders of magnitude weaker than a Quasar, and I was banished for putting all of reality at risk. I can assure you, should they succeed in their ritual, what they bring through has the potential to be, ah, substantial. If we're lucky, it'll be an Inevitable like 'Magnetism', or 'Time'; if we're unlucky, it'll be something like 'Death' or 'Entropy'. Or, in a worst case scenario, an Impossible will come through and void out a large chunk of reality before it retreats. Or they’ll get the interdimensional equivalent of a squirrel,” Vivi muttered.
“How large a chunk?” Ben asked, his mouth suddenly dry, “also, that's some really heavy shit there Vivi.”
“The Beyond is not a joke. As for how much? Off the top of my head, the worst case scenario would be about sixty percent of the universe.”
“If we all died,” Vivi continued, breaking the silence that had settled over them, “but managed to stop them, it would be more than worth it. I for one, don't want to die. But sometimes, we don't get what we want. It was nice knowing you all, but I have a job to do,” Vivi said, and began his slow death march towards the Gremlins.
Red started to walk with him. Ghost Ears followed without a word.
“Well?” Ben asked Short Bus.
In response, the shark started to walk forward, and Ben joined with them.
Vivi sagged with relief.
“Oh good, I was terrified I'd have to do this alone.”