The ratongi tribe was clearly a little short of sapience, and as a result, they reminded Zeke of when he’d first met the kobolds. Certainly, they were intelligent enough. They used tools, they created sustainable shelter, and they had a clear social structure to the tribe. However, they lacked a certain self-awareness that would have vaulted them into the realm of sapience.

It was a small difference, but the gap between the mere sentience and sapience seemed incredibly wide and nearly uncrossable. Even the kobolds, after everything they’d been through, and with the support of a peak being like Mykaena and as much help as Zeke could offer, hadn’t completely bridged that gap. Most had come down on the other side, but there were still plenty that hadn’t quite made the leap.

The ratongi had yet to even attempt it.

In any case, Zeke had a soft spot for them that Talia and Eveline clearly didn’t feel.

“They’re basically monkeys with tools,” Eveline said.

“They can communicate, too.”

“From your memories, I understand that many primates had that ability. Your scientists taught them sign language. Many species of birds could speak as well,” Eveline countered. “The ability to speak does not make them special. Minor imps can communicate passably well, and they’re nothing but cunning pests.”

Zeke ignored that. Instead, he looked around the village’s main structure, which was the lone standing remnant of whatever the ruins had once been. It was remarkably well maintained, but the ratongi nature was on clear display within the interior. Large piles of useless but shiny bits of metal, gems, and quartz decorated each corner, and a large bonfire, upon which was a huge carcass, stood in the center. Hundreds of ratongi circled the blaze.

Finally, Zeke and Talia were led to a connected room, which seemed far more ceremonial in nature. That perception was largely due to the presence of what could only be called a stone altar, it surface bearing ancient bloodstains.

The ratongi witchdoctor stood to one side, while the chief stood to the other. The witchdoctor, in her glittering robes, said, “You are hero. We pray for you to come, and the great bird-goddess has sent you to fight the blight and defeat the tortoise.”

“Please explain,” Talia said before Zeke could think up a response.

“The tortoise consumes everything. It does not respect territory. Its children are a menace. Ancient enemy. The bird-goddess children are worse. They come from the mountain and snatch ratongi,” explained the witchdoctor.

Then, the chief cut in, “Not always so. The blight takes them. Corrupts. Once, there was peace. No longer.”

After that, the pair of ratongi continued to explain the situation. It seemed that the jungle was the site of a war of three sides. The ratongi were the weakest participant, and they only survived due to their semi-nomadic nature. The second participant were the tortoise’s children, who made a home upon the enormous monster’s back. They consumed everything in their path, including resources the ratongi deemed vital to their continued existence. Left unchecked, the tortoise’s people would destroy everything, leaving nothing for anyone else.

And finally, there were the bird-goddess’s people, who were clearly avian in nature as well. They had once been peaceful, but something had recently changed, corrupting them and sending them on the warpath. Due to their superior mobility, they were the deadliest participant in the war – at least from the ratongi perspective – and Zeke suspected that he and Talia would be forced to destroy them and their goddess before they could complete the dungeon.

“What would you have us do?” Talia asked.

“Kill the bird people,” the witchdoctor answered. “Reach the mountain summit. Kill the goddess.”

“That sounds pretty straightforward,” remarked Eveline.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Zeke said inwardly. “It seems like there should be more to it, though.”

“Fighting through that jungle should have taught you that nothing in this dungeon will be easy,” she said. “And I’d wager everything I have that we won’t escape the tortoise unnoticed. We will inevitably draw its attention. Then, we will –”

“You don’t have anything.”

“What?”

“To wager. You’re an incorporeal mind spirit. You have literally no possessions,” Zeke pointed out.

“I bet you make fun of disabled people, too.”

“What? I didn’t mean it like that. I was just –”

“I’m messing with you. Learn to recognize a joke,” she said with a dramatic and entirely mental roll of her eyes. “My point is that there’s almost no way we’re making it through this dungeon without significant hardship. Since the first moment we arrived, we’ve barely taken more than a few steps without a fight. I expect that will continue.”

Zeke agreed with that assessment. From everything he’d experienced, dungeons scaled – at least to some degree – with the challengers. There were other factors that determined the difficulty involved, but he had no way of determining what they were or how much weight they were given. Either way, Zeke felt confident that they should expect a difficult time.

Still, despite his eagerness to get started, he and Talia took a couple of hours to experience a feast put on by the ratongi. By that point, Zeke had made a habit of eating some truly unappetizing things, so he didn’t turn his nose up when he was offered a huge slab of barely-cooked meat.

To her credit, neither did Talia. But Zeke suspected, in the undead city of Darukar, what was considered acceptable food was likely very different from what he was accustomed to. Either way, it took a while before, at last, the ratongi sent them on their way.

Fortunately, the little rat-people had provided them with a crudely drawn map that they claimed would lead Zeke and Talia to the mountain. The journey would clearly be quite long, though; after all, it would have to be if they couldn’t even see the mountain from their current position. The ratongi had not been very helpful on that count, and they hadn’t offered much insight into the distance they would have to travel.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Instead, they only said that they’d once lived very near the mountain, but over the past years, they’d been forced to travel ever further by the bird-people. That suggested that Zeke and Talia would be forced to travel no small distance.

It was also in the direction of the tortoise, which only increased the chances they would encounter that faction as well. Zeke could only hope that they could either avoid the force – as well as the gargantuan reptile – or that they would prove as peaceful as the ratongi.

“I don’t think there’s much chance of that,” said Eveline.

“Yeah. Me neither,” Zeke said in his mind as he and Talia made their way free of the ratongi village. Soon enough, they had returned to the jungle, and it wasn’t long before they were fighting a familiar war against the environment. It felt as if they couldn’t take a single step without being attacked by some beast, and on those few occasions when they managed a little peace, they were forced to traverse the many obstacles the terrain put in their way.

Still, over time, they developed a rhythm. It was a marathon, not a sprint, and if there was one thing Zeke could do, it was endure. Slowly, he sank into the frame of mind he’d first developed in the troll caves, then sharpened in the mines beneath Min Ferilik. It had served him well in the much more dangerous environment of the demon realm, and so, it put him the right state to combat whatever the jungle could throw at him.

Like that, they traveled, and one day turned into two. Two, into three. Before Zeke knew it, they’d been traveling for a week. They rested periodically, sleeping in shifts as they recovered their strength. However, they rarely stopped for more than an hour or two. With their abilities and advantages, that was enough, though as before, the mental exhaustion of constant battle began to wear on them both.

Zeke’s mindset helped with that. He didn’t sink into reminiscence as he had before. Instead, he thought of the future. About his personal goals as well as his intentions with the kobolds and the rest of his people. Most of all, he continued to work on his level seventy skill, slowly focusing on his plans so that when the time came, he could construct the skill without hesitation or thought.

And so, a week turned into two, with no end in sight.

Until, just before the twentieth day away from the ratongi village, they found themselves facing off against a group of strange creatures. They were humanoid, just like the ratongi. However, where the ratongi clearly traced their ancestry back to rodents, these foes – and they were clearly enemies, based on their stances – were reptilian in nature. More, considering their large shells, Zeke felt confident that he and Talia had found the tortoise people.

“What is a ninja turtle?” asked Eveline.

“What?”

“You’re the one thinking it,” Eveline stated.

“You can see my memories.”

“Not all of them. Plus, I’ve told you before – finding specifics is time-consuming. It’s better if you just tell me.”

“It was a cartoon from my childhood. About humanoid turtles who fought evil,” Zeke said. “These things look a little like them.”

That was true, at least on the most basic level. However, there were some key differences. For one, instead of the cartoon characters’ fairly welcoming visages, the creatures arrayed before Zeke and Talia were, to put it mildly, horrifying. They looked like a combination of lizard, human, and turtle, and the result was incredibly off-putting. In addition, their shells were less bulbous than sleek, and instead of the hard, bone-like shells of terrestrial tortoises, they were more like the leathery shells of marine turtles.

And then there were the fangs.

Each creature’s mouth was festooned with row after row of sharp teeth, remining Zeke of a shark’s gaping maw. They also had curved claws that were similar to what Zeke had seen on badgers back on Earth. In short, they were horrific monsters that, judging by the fact that they’d attacked on sight, were clearly aggressive.

Once that had been established, Zeke and Talia were more than willing to meet them in battle. The first fight went similarly to the ones against the various tree-men who’d attacked them, but it quickly became apparent that it wouldn’t end with a single battle. Instead, over the next week, they fought almost constantly. Some of the turtle-men, who were called Tortoloids – were strong enough to force Zeke to use his skills, too. So, even if they were never in any real danger, the attrition from so much fighting began to take its toll.

That was why, eventually, Zeke sent Talia out to search for somewhere to rest. Even as he held his own against yet another tortoloid attack, she raced across the terrain, far too fast for most creatures to even see her, and almost two hours later, she returned to tell him that she’d found something.

With that, Zeke followed her, bowling through anything in his way. He didn’t bother fighting. Instead, he just shouldered any challengers aside, often sending them smashing through the jungle for hundreds of feet. Soon enough, they outpaced the tortoloids, and after about an hour, they found themselves inside a deep cave.

That wasn’t enough, though.

So, Zeke aimed his hammer at the ceiling, collapsing the entrance. Only when the dust had settled did he let himself relax.

“This is exhausting,” he muttered.

“Yes,” Talia said. “I went through something similar a little more than a year ago. The Cradle of Life came alive with new threats. Abominations surged forth, and they would have overrun the city if it wasn’t for the Deathguard. We fought them to a standstill, but the effort did not come without a cost. We lost many.”

“I’m sorry,” Zeke said. He was well acquainted with loss, so he knew how Talia must have felt.

“I saved hundreds,” she said, her gaze far away. “I kept going back into the Cradle of Life. I was one of the few who could do so without help. And I saved as many of the fallen as I could. There were many more I could not save.”

“I’ve lost a lot of people, too,” Zeke admitted. “I don’t think it gets easier. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here. For whatever that’s worth.”

She sighed. “I wish Pudge were here.”

“I’m sure he wishes the same thing,” Zeke said.

“He’s changed a lot,” Talia said. “I didn’t even recognize him. I know it’s silly, but back in the Mortal Realm, I used to think we were a lot alike. People saw a monster when they looked at him, just like with me. But we’ve both come a long way. I was accepted in Darukar, and it seems he’s been on a similar journey. Still, there’s a kinship there. I used to think of our relationship as if we were siblings in suffering. The first part still applies, I think. We’re family.”

“I agree. He reminds me of my little brother sometimes,” Zeke said. He ran his hand through his hair, adding, “So do you, honestly.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know,” Zeke said, letting his colossal form fall away. It felt like weeks since he’d returned to his normal form, and though it didn’t require more than a trickle of mana to maintain the colossal form, adopting those shapes still left him feeling more than a little stiff. He sat, leaning against the wall. “I guess it’s more about me than it is you two. I want to protect you, just like I did him. I know it’s not necessary. But you and Pudge were in similar situations. You were both incredibly vulnerable when I found you. It’s in my nature to try to protect my friends, I suppose.”

That was certainly true. He’d once let it affect his skill choices as well as his path. That had been a mistake. However, letting that desire affect his actions was normal, as far as he was concerned. He might not think much of slaughtering whole populations, but when it came to his friends, he would do whatever it took to shield them from danger.

“That is nice of you to say,” Talia stated. “I will sleep now. Will you stand guard?”

Zeke nodded, saying that he would. The cave only had one entrance, so if anything wanted to get to them, it would have to do so through a few tons of rock. And while that wouldn’t stop a determined assailant, it would at least give Zeke plenty of warning. So, as Talia went to sleep, Zeke kept one eye on the pile of rock and another on his progress concerning his skill.

“It’s coming along nicely,” Eveline said encouragingly.

“You only think that because I do.”

“Just so,” she admitted. “But it’s almost finished, isn’t it? Once that happens, you’re going to need to take a few days to finalize everything.”

“I’m aware. I may have to wait until after the dungeon, though. We’ll play it by ear.”

“Ah, something new and different.”

“Are you saying I don’t plan?”

“I’m saying that you rarely adhere to your plans. But that’s part of your charm,” she added before he could retort. Then, she disappeared from his conscious awareness as she sank deeper into his mind. He could find her if he really wanted, but she deserved privacy as much as the next person. Besides, he didn’t need the distraction she represented.

So, as Talia rested, Zeke turned his attention to his skill’s construction.