The next day Jamey awoke to Shigeo intensely shaking him awake.
“Hey, hey! Come on, wake up! We gotta go meet that dog chick,” Shigeo said in a loud whisper.
“What time even is it?” Jamey groaned as he rubbed his eyes.
“I dunno, it’s daylight though.”
“You can go on ahead, let me wake up then I’ll come after you.”
“What if you get lost in here? There are a lot of walls.”
“Are you saying that to yourself or me?”
“Just come on already!” Shigeo hoisted Jamey into a sitting position, “come on!”
Jamey, after a few seconds slumped back onto his mat, “wait until the cave’s more lively sounding at least.”
“It will be if you got up and went to the mouth of the cave with me.”
“We should wait until Athol wakes up, she is the one who basically owns the cave.”
“What if she’s already awake?” Shigeo grumbled, hoisting Jamey up again, this time all the way to his feet, “come on.”
“Geez, maybe if I send a komir onto you you’ll stop and let me sleep.” Jamey thought aloud as his eyes adjusted to the room.
“I would rather you didn’t, I think the mouth is over this way,” Shigeo muttered the final part to himself as he dragged Jamey by the wrist. The light glared at Jamey intensely as they walked through the parted wooden wall as he took in the scene.
Guess I overslept. Jamey thought to himself as the scene unfolded in his head. Athol, standing in her previous night’s spot, was talking with Gale who had a quiver tied to her back and a bow along with. Jamey blinked, a bow and arrow? Wouldn’t they use guns or something more… modern? His thoughts started to swirl, Shigeo pulled him toward the conversing women, making him regain his senses.
“We are here and ready for duty!” Shigeo finally released Jamey’s wrist to salute. Jamey noticed Gale cover her mouth slightly as if to hide a smile.
“Sorry if we’re early,” Jamey massaged his wrist, “Shigeo was a little eager to start the day.” He gave Shigeo a swift glare.
“Oh, no it’s fine really.” Gale responded animatedly.
“Yeah, I’m glad. I don’t have to deal with as many people. Trust me, unconscious people are much easier to tend to than awake people,” Athol joined in,“so when are they going?”
“Oh, whenever’s fine. Brutus will be meeting us at the foot of the hill.”
“Alright, I gotta take care of these people, if you see the komir tell them we need some more assistance. And don’t try to say it in Infernal, I don’t want history to repeat itself.”
“Mhm,” Gale answered, “ I guess we should get going now,” she turned her eyes to the two cadets.
“Yes ma’am, leader ma’am!” Shigeo stood straight, the corners of his mouth slightly raised.
“Just call me Gale please,” She replied, her ears turned back.
“Excuse him, he’s just joking around,” Jamey said, noticing Gale’s discomfort.
“O-oh okay, uhm follow me please,” she responded. As they walked Shigeo kept trying to interact with Gale while Jamey tried to prevent Shigeo from embarrassing himself in front of his new fantasy world crush. They soon reached a small clearing-like area where Gale stopped and drew her bow. The motion made Jamey freeze like a deer in headlights. Shigeo stepped back self-consciously as she grabbed an arrow that Jamey thought to be duller than expected.
Ploing. Gale released the bow’s string and sent the arrow flying. The cadets watched in silence until the arrow seemed to hit something behind the bushes nearby. Thup. Shigeo blinked and began to open his mouth to speak but what came out was a yelp as a tall, burly looking man rose from what seemed to be nowhere holding the arrow in his hand.
“That’s a way to wake someone up, ey Gale?” The man’s voice was deep but kind, and strewn with a strange accent, almost like your stereotypical gentle giant.
“Lucky shot I guess.” Gale shrugged as the man walked toward the small group.
“Are these the people helping with gathering?” He asked, the two cadets nodded, Shigeo more frantically.
“Ah, good, we need more hands anyway. I’m Brutus, and who might you two be?”
“I’m Shigeo, the scared guy behind me is Jamey.”
“Says the one who’s trembling,” Jamey shot at Shigeo. The two stared at each other in silence as Brutus burst into laughter, a deep bellowing type. Out of the corner of his eye, Jamey noticed a smile upon Gale’s face that Shigeo would most likely describe as ‘pure as a melody’.
“We might as well start climbing, who knows how long we might take hiking let alone foraging,” Gale said in a calm, ‘this is normal for me’ manner. Brutus agreed and they set off almost immediately. Brutus calmly explained how to identify good and bad herbs, fish, and other things of nature. Shigeo, radiating with an ever faint aura of wanting to impress Gale, searched for things rather than listen to Brutus’s lecture.
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“Oh right,” Brutus hit his fist into his open palm as if he remembered something, “here, I brought some bags for ya’ to carry what you find,here,'' He held out two drawstring bags to the cadets, a gentle air coming from the gesture, ‘hope they fit on yer’ backs.``
“Thank you,” Jamey replied, Shigeo echoing.
“Ah, don’t ‘mention it,” Brutus said, inspecting a group of bushes nearby for edible plants.
“Shush-,” Gale suddenly barked out in a loud whisper. Jamey looked to her, she had her bow drawn, an arrow ready to fire. This time a sharp one.
Ploing. She fired into some nearby bushes. Thilk, Thilk, Thilk, Thunk.
“Triple kill,” Brutus joked as he walked over to where the arrow was sent. “In the eyes too? You’re quite the sharpshooter,” he said holding up three dead… are those Jackalope?- what is that? Jamey blinked
“What are those?” Shigeo said, no filter from his brain to his words, pointing at the three rabbit-like animals adorning a forest green pelt and… wings?
“They’re Gaiendas, how do you not know of them? Aren’t they normal?” Gale tilted her head as she slung her bow over her back.
“We’ve never seen them before if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve seen rabbits, not Gaiendas,” Shigeo took a small step toward the dead corpses Brutus held curiously.
“Rabbits?” Gale tilted her head further, “like Gaiendas without wings?”
“And normal colored fur,” he added, pointing toward one of them.
“Normal? But they are normally colored, what other color would they have, headache-inducing pink? How would they camouflage?”
“He means browns, blacks, and grays,” Jamey commented.
“I guess that makes sense, I mean isn’t that what Jilven Gaienda look like?” Gale muttered the last bit to herself.
“Jilven?” The two cadets asked simultaneously.
“Jilven are known as from Jilvorg, which is also known as Satan Touched, there are two areas known as Jilvorg, both on the Varen and Doren domes, each being named accordingly,” Gale started to explain then realized Shigeo’s eyes turning distant. “How about we sit down? It's going to take a minute to explain since you apparently don’t know too much about Larkana,” she gestured to the two cadets. “Larkana is what this world is called by the way, so back to Jilvorg. Ahem, Jilvorg’s terrain is like someone coated that section of the world with a thin layer of lava, everything looks charred, yet creatures and plants still manage to flourish like normal. The only difference is they all are or look dangerous, Jilven creatures, such as Jilven Gaienda, either have a coloring of dried leaves or coal black, some even have what seems to be bright red cracks along certain areas of them.”
“Are the komir from Jilvorg?” Shigeo asked, the way he did so, reminding Jamey of a little boy.
“They are, Athol also has ties to Jilvorg, being a Tiefling and all.”
“Tiefling?”
“Yeah, that’s her race,Tiefling.”
“Like in those RPG games?”
“RPG?”
“It stands for role play game.”
“Wha- okay… anyway I think that’s enough lecturing for now. We still have to reach the hill top and come back,” Gale finally said, getting up from off the ground.
“Yes ma’am,” Shigeo stood up, Jamey following suit. Brutus, noticing them finishing the school of Gale’s lecturing, walked over carrying many fruits and fish that seemed to appear out of thin air.
“Mind if one of y’all lent me some of y’er bag space? I got a lil’ carried away while y’all were talkin’,” he said, the sack he carried practically about to implode with the amount inside it.
“‘A lil’ carried away’? I wonder what really carried away looks like,” Gale teased and they both started laughing. Jamey looked at Shigeo who was more focused on Gale’s laugh than anything else, his look saying a million words, (mainly ‘cute’ and ‘she’s adorable’ on repeat) as Jamey analyzed his fellow cadet. At least try not to be so easy to read.
The rest of their walk to the top was pretty uneventful compared to most of their time at the cave, as they reached the top Jamey looked over the hill where he could see a good stretch of forest lead up to a small town, a small, medieval looking town.
Gale walked up to him as he stared out at the landscape, “The village over there is called Losdon city, it means goblinless city I think. I’m not the best with Dwarvish, but I think they founded it sometime after a pretty nasty dispute with the goblins.”
“Are you a historian or something? You seem to know a lot about the history here,” Jamey asked, turning to the dogwoman.
“Me? Oh no, I’m just a Hinu archer who knows a thing or two,” Gale’s ears animated her answer.
“Hinu? Is that like Athol being a Tiefling?” Jamey blurted before coming to the realization of what he said, “sorry, I didn’t mean to say that…”
“Oh no it’s fine, I don’t mind, just don’t do the same to Athol, she’ll send one of her enchanted weapons after you for a couple days,” Gale responded, a kind smile claiming her face. Jamey couldn’t tell if it was fake or not. “And the answer to your question is yes, Hinu is my race.”
“I wish I could see a world map sometime, just to wrap my head around things,” Jamey thought aloud in a mutter as Gale called for Shigeo and Brutus to gather.
“We should take a break, maybe we can put off holding too much stuff if we ate some,” Gale suggested as she swung her quiver and bow off her back and onto some nearby grass as Shigeo and Brutus appeared from behind a nearby section of foliage.
“I don’t mind if that’s fine with everyone,” Brutus plopped down on the grass near Gale.
“Whatever’s fine with me,” Shigeo shrugged with a satisfied smile adorning his face.
“‘Ight, lemme’ just pour some out of my pouch,” Brutus did as he said, pouring out approximately 20 or so fruits, each and every type semi-reminiscent to what the cadets saw at their home planet. Shigeo hesitated before picking up a fruit that seemed to resemble an apple but was a more royal blue and had an orange gradient on the top half. Jamey hesitantly picked up a pear that had a light amethyst color. The outside texture seemed just like its Earth counterpart, that knowledge comforting him to some extent, Jamey slowly bit into the fruit. Tasted like your normal pear as its juice flowed onto his tongue. Guess the coloring threw me off, it's just a normal pear. He thought before an intense kick of tartness made him scrunch his nose.
“Seems like the pears weren’t as ripe as I thought they’d be,” Brutus chuckled, observing Jamey’s expression.
“So they’re actually called pears here?” Shigeo asked, eating his fruit with ease.
“Yeah, what else are they gonna’ be called? Johnny Boys?” Brutus smiled at his own joke. Shigeo gave a closed-lipped smile in reply. They monotonously ate the fruits until there was none of them left.
Gale’s ears perked up as she sniffed the air like she smelled something peculiar. “Smoke?” She muttered as she got up vigilantly, her dog-like nose twitching as she sniffed the air. Jamey, noticing her wary look, got up as well and tailed Gale after a few seconds. He gazed upon the scene before him, his eyes widening with worry as his brain cruised through what the reasons behind it may be.