They settled on heading south down the coast, with their reasoning being that if the landmass had grown enough, going north might lead them towards colder regions.

Robin thought this was a little far-fetched, but he figured that it was possible, so he agreed readily enough.

The cliff continued along the sealine for dozens of kilometers, often stretching out over the water, the beach below hardening to water-pounded rocks.

I cannot believe I have been jogging this entire way, carrying Opal, and I am barely out of breath, Robin thought, pleased with the performance of his Peak Human body. May was still outpacing him, often getting ahead and waiting for him to catch up, but he did not mind the relative solitude; it gave him time to focus on familiarizing himself with the new aspects of his armor.

I wonder if my Bond Insect skill will work on the Blue Pets created by the Eternal Static Will of the Blue Entomage. I ran out of MANA for it hours ago, so this is as good a time to test it as any. I wonder if I can order them mentally, or if I need to speak out loud…

Robin willed one of the larger bugs in the dim blue swirling menagerie around him to stay in front of him.

A creature that looked like a cross between a wasp and a mosquito buzzed in front of him. It was the size of two grapes stacked end-on-end, with a long, violent-looking stinger poking out of one end. The stinger looked almost prehensile, curling and uncurling as the creature flew. The “mouth” of the mosquito-wasp was another stinger, though this one was translucent, showing the hollow interior, and it stayed curled up. The legs of the tiny, yet altogether too-large creature dangled below it, seven or eight centimeters long, drifting and clutching phantoms in the wind. The wings were blurry, but looked like enlarged wasp wings to Robin.

Wow, he thought, inspecting it as he marched along. I did not expect you to look like ...that. I had not thought that I might need to catalogue the bugs I have, but it might be a good idea, after all. What to call you…

The creature buzzed along in front of Robin, uncconcerned with his intense stare.

Masp. Mosp. Waspuito. Waspito? It is not the greatest, but it will work.

Robin trained his eyes on his Waspito, and focused on activating Bond Insect.

He felt a connection snap into place at once, the indifference of the Waspito to Robin’s presence in its mind not phasing it in the least. It felt familiar to Robin, and it took him a moment to place why.

It feels like the Clockwork Horror. Are these things just shells?

Robin focused on the presence of the Waspito in his mind, and focused his concentration on seeing through its eyes.

His perception snapped into the perspective of the Waspito, and he saw himself, standing, paused mid-step.

Turn around.

The perspective swung wildly, dipping and heaving, and Robin expected a wave of nausea to overcome him. It never came, however, and Robin was treated to the sight of May sprinting back to him, a look of concern in her eyes.

Robin focused on switching his perspective back to himself. He felt the sudden shift of light and color, and his vision swam for a split second, clearing to show May standing in front of him.

“You okay, kid? You just stopped there. Thought you might have found a land mine or something…” She grinned at him, expectantly.

“Sorry, I was trying a skill for the first time. I did not realize that I would stop moving while I used it, but I suppose that makes sense. It lets me see through the eyes of an insect, moreso through the eyes of one that I have already “tamed”, like these guys, such as they are.” Robin waved vaguely at the blue bugs flying around him.

May nodded, though the annoyance was still clear on her face. “Cool, cool. Just next time tell me when you’re trying something new, and… Maybe trying something new while mid-hike isn’t the best idea?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Robin nodded, ducking his head slightly. “Sorry. That is a fair point.”

“Cool power though. It’ll be useful for scouting ahead and avoiding ambushes.”

She turned around and kept walking, and Robin followed her.

As the kilometers stretched behind them, the fulgurites on the beach thinned out, and eventually disappeared altogether.

Robin pointed this out to May. “Do you want to go down to the beach?”

She shook her head, laughing slightly. “Not really, Kid Robin. I would be willing to bet that there are monsters just as bad in the water or under the sand. Up here, we can jump down to get away, but down there, we don’t really have a quick exit from something that comes at us, besides going up the cliff.”

“Good points. I just figured that it would be worth asking.”

May nodded, gesturing at the slightly uphill slope ahead of them. “See that ridge up there?”

Robin nodded silently.

“I think that might be where the forest ends.”

They neared the top of the hill, both looking down at the field of stone columns below them. They almost looked like someone had turned a christmas tree into stone, like cones stacked up on one another.

May giggled slightly.

Robin glanced at her when she did not explain, and she shook her head, interrupting her own small sigh with more giggles.

“It’s nothing. It’s just…. Those things? Those pillars? They’re called ‘hoodoos’.”

Robin stared at her, narrowing his eyes. “...They are not.”

She shook her head emphatically. “No, no, they totally are!”

Robin rolled his eyes and looked back down at the hoodoos, if that is what they were actually called. They went farther than the rolling landscape allowed him to see, and from what he could see, they extended into the water, their stony tips gradually poking less and less far out of the water.

“No real choice but to cross through them, or to head back inland, though we don’t know how far they go that way, either”, May observed. “So… How do you want to get down?”

Robin nodded idly, considering the sheer cliff in front of him.

He glanced over at May. “Web Skate for you, zipline on your web for me?”

May shook her head. “Aw, I’m jealous. That actually sounds like fun. Fine though. Can you make me some web? I’m going to have to jump out and up, and it’ll be easier if I already have this one attached.

Robin spun her out forty or fifty meters of web from the Clockwork Horror, passing it to May with only a little hesitation. She grinned at him as she took it, crooking it in an elbow as she fixed her hair into a low ponytail. When she had her hair tied up tighter and closer to her head, she attached the end of the web to a large tree, wrapping it around a branch thicker than her torso after a quick appraisatory look at Robin.

“Don’t worry, Kid Robin. It’ll be just fine! It might even be fun!”

May shot a web straight up on the edge of the cliff, using Reshape Web to straighten it out. The unattached end began to teeter, slowly falling off the cliff. May waited, crouched and poised to move.

When the web had reached a seventy degree angle, May shot upwards on the webline like a bullet, her limbs and muscles unmoving despite her velocity, an action figure on the top of a model train. The angle of the web had fallen to sixty five degrees by the time she reached the top (although Robin was certain she was still using Reshape Web to dictate how it fell), and she shot off the end of the web, hurtling out over the field of odd stone pillars.

Robin felt his heart skip a beat. Logically, he knew she would be alright, but there was something about watching a person launch themselves over the edge of a cliff towards a field of stone that left his instincts no choice but to make themselves manifest, screaming at him to stop her, save her, do something!

The webline was trailing behind her. As it neared the full length, the last loops of the coil flapping wildly into the wind behind her, she pointed her arm, straightening her form to line up with a web she snapped out. The web followed her finger, connecting to the tip of a stone pillar several dozen meters beyond the edge of the stone field.

As the web connected, her already-straightened form seemed to connect to the webline, and she shot down it, her arms in front of her, fists balled.

Robin realized he was cheering and yelling, and was unsure when he had started. “That was amazing! Super May! Woooooo!”

Robin abruptly stopped yelling and looked around himself at the woods, feeling foolish for his outburst. He stepped up to the web, considering. His face brightened momentarily as he had an idea, reaching into the Aliquam Pack, ordering the Clockwork Horror to produce webs. When he had gathered a sufficient amount, he wrapped it around the line using his Reshape Web ability.

Satisfied with his work, he used Reshape Web one last time to make himself a pair of handgrips and a small harness.

Taking a deep breath, Robin stepped off the edge of the cliff, feeling hsi speed rapidly increasing.

Crapcrapcrap I knew this thing was too steep!

Robin was crashing down the line like a boulder down a shaking mountain, and he could see the pillar rapidly increasing in size.

I am going to smash into it.

I am going to smash into it!

Robin forced himself to wait until the last second, relying on every point of his parahuman WILL. When the moment came, just a few seconds before he would be smashed into the weirdly-named hoodoo and obliterated like a rotten fruit thrown at a brick wall, Robin used Reshape Web to trigger the webs he had wrapped around the webs to expand and uncurl, a tiny whole left in the middle of the structure that formed.

The parachute flapped open behind him, and Robin felt his body snap forward as it yanked on him. His speed dropped substantially, and he was able to cut the lines and drop to the ground, landing with a heavy roll beside the pillar.

He stood up slowly, shaking the dirt from his hair and face. He glared at May as soon as he was able, which only made her clap harder.

“That was a solid B- landing, Robin. The parachute was pretty cool, but that would have broken your neck like a twig if you hadn’t already gotten the Peak Human titles.” She came over and dusted off his shoulders.

“Good news is that dirt doesn’t stick to this armor of your super easily. So that’s nice.”

Robin glared at her again while she continued dusting his armor, a completely innocent expression on her face.