“Our purpose to leave oooooooor?” Cinera let the word trail on as she looked at the floating horror.
“State your purpose to pass the impassable mountain tops. No one passes the impassable mountain tops, not even those who are good at crossing normally passable mountains. So, state your purpose for passing.” The authoritative voice rattled off.
Egosum looked over the edge and then back to the being before them.
‘Do I say fuck it and jump?’
“Do not do that. I will evaporate you.” It turned to address him alone.
“You can read my thoughts?!” He balked at the absurdity.
“If it is about passing the impassable mountain, then I know everything.” Its imperious tone left almost no room for arguing.
“Except for why we want to cross.” Almost no room.
“State your reason!” It shouted at them once more.
“Sheesh. Well, you see, we want to cross the mountain to get to the other side and the way I see it, we have already passed it. Now we are descending.” Egosum egged it on as far as he thought possible.
“I was preoccupied, but I caught you in time. Now answer! Why cross the mountain?!” It was getting incredibly flustered by the tone that laced its voice but it still demanded an answer.
“We want to proceed down the mountain to enter the swamp. We are amphibians, so it only makes sense that we go back to a swamp, ya know?” Cinera played the innocent role she had taken to adopting in tense situations.
The mountaintop was silent as it processed the information. The quiet crept on longer than they were comfortable with as the cross floated before them.
“Are we good to go?” Egosum broke the awkward moment in hopes of moving on.
It whipped in his direction after he spoke.
“The salamander can go, but you need a different answer!” It was still upset at his earlier tone and it made no attempts at hiding its displeasure.
“That’s not fair!” He attempted to rebuttal the strange entity.
“Shut up! Life’s not fair!” Egosum found the cross growing increasingly irrational. He glanced over to his companion who merely shrugged in uncertainty.
“To….get down. I am scared of heights.”
“Liar! Two more attempts and you will be evaporated!” It began to shake slightly, seething in anger.
“You need to relax.” He tried to calm it only for it to immediately scream back.
“You need to answer damn it!”
He flinched away before thinking about his next answer.
He actively avoided the main reason he had for coming in the first place. The strange wall they found themselves on appeared purposefully made to block the swamp off from everything around it.
If the flying cross was left here to guard against anything wanting to expand the swamp, he would be in big danger.
His mind worked fast as he thought up possibilities when a genius idea occurred to him.
“I want to rescue my friend. He fell off when the wind picked up and the swamp is the only place he could be.”
The cross didn’t immediately answer, taking time to digest his response in the same way he did to Cinera.
A few tense moments passed when it came back to life.
“That answer is… suitable. It almost makes me not hate you. You may unfortunately pass the impassable mountaintop. I hope you die.” It zipped off, down the way it came.
The wind immediately picked up again, like it hadn’t just been calm for minutes while the strange entity loitered around them.
“That thing was an asshole.” He vented his annoyance.
“Yeah, it was. No reason to dwell on it. We have more important things to think about. Let’s go find Coyotl.” She turned to look over the edge, staring down far below at the shaded swamp.
Egosum turned his Qi towards the rock wall and began shaping it once more.
The descent was a grueling slog, accompanied by thrashing winds and deafening blasts.
He would need to do something about making a pass-through or finding where the wall ends but that would have to wait.
Egoum watched the swamp grow closer and closer with each passing moment of strain on his Qi.
With one final push, the rock keeping them safe from the wind fell away. The moist soil was only a step away. He took the leap of fate and felt the mud spread between his toes.
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Cinera followed closely after him, uninterrupted by any form of distraction.
“Hate this feeling.” She lifted her feet up as she opened and closed them, loosening the thick mud around them.
With a flick of his power, it fell from her and his senses spread into the world around him.
He took in the smells all around him. The scent of herbs and decomposition was readily apparent, blowing past them in the wind.
The sound of frog calls in the far distance brought back his earliest memories of home while the faint bubbling of gas escaping the ground reminded him of the connection between the layers o the swamp.
The humidity was so thick in the air that he could almost taste the life held tightly within it.
His eyes fluttered open.
The dense mana of the wetlands that enveloped him flooded every pore of his being.
The normal power he held within him was abruptly encompassed with the natural energy of the closely aligned swamp.
His body loosened as the tension he had unknowingly been holding in his body for months fell from him all at once.
Each breath he took reminded him of home. Each glance was familiar. Each moment he paused gave him a comforting moment of peace he hadn’t known he was missing from his life.
“This feels right. Like I found something that has been missing. It doesn't even compare to the feeling I get when I make my own little swamps.”
His Qi core was full to the brim with power that felt just right in every way.
It sat comfortably in the very center like it was the most natural state he could be in. It encased him and his soul so perfectly that he felt like he could move mountains, kill demigods, and shape the world.
It was the power of the wetlands.
He went blank as he came to a realization.
His vision turned to the massive wall that looked to be holding the swamp in.
On the other side was the baking swamp that nearly killed him. On this side was a literal paradise for amphibians.
‘The dichotomy must mean something.’
‘What if it wasn’t meant to encase the swamp so nothing could get out but to keep the desert from encroaching deeper inside.’
‘That would mean someone would have to be powerful enough to create…”
He looked at the towering wall to his back and then side to side.
It carried on further than he could see as the low-hanging fog took hold of the air.
The awe-inspiring sight forced him to readjust his beliefs on the true limits of his power.
If he could creature bridges using his Qi at extreme cost, then would he be able to create walls like this one day?
There was one foolproof way of finding out the answer to that and that meant growing his power to new heights others could only struggle to imagine.
“I am glad you are having the time of your life but what is our first move? We can’t just stay in here doing nothing for a few hours.” Cinera grew tired of waiting for the toad that was basking in an afterglow of achievement.
“I think we should look around the place to try and make first contact with whoever is around. Maybe we make some friends and allies and then we can go look for Coyotl with their help. What do you think?” He turned to gauge her reaction.
“That is….acceptable. I want to add that we need to find a high and dry spot for me to stay at because I am not in the mood to be soaked all the time. I came all the way here with you, so I think you can make such a concession.”
He turned to look at the swamp within sight and then back to the salamander.
“We can definitely look for one but look at this place. If it isn’t mud, it’s water, and if it isn’t either of those, it's plants, so don’t get your hopes up. If we can’t easily find something naturally then I can just make a raised platform to let you do all the burning you could want.” Her lip flared up slightly in annoyance.
“Fine. Let’s get a move on.”
The duo turned from the wall and began the long trek into the swamp.
The widest assortment of insects either of them had seen filled the air right above the water, skating along the surface in complex dances. They sand to one another with raspy rubbing of their wings and vibration of the exoskeleton.
The pair gorged themselves on the abundance that flitted around them like fairies.
Regardless of the drain on his Qi from keeping Cinera clean from her surroundings, the wetlands around it gave back in equal and greater measures than he could imagine.
He caught the faintest feeling that the swamp wanted him to use more and more Qi. The intoxicating effect of its usage was nearly undeniable when surrounded with so much energy.
The paradisical lands they were now roaming were beyond anything Egosum could have hoped.
‘This is a truly wild swamp, devoid of the infrastructure and order that controlled the eternal vernal pools.’
He made small bridges across the many water bodies to keep his friends comfortable as they traveled.
Everywhere they looked, it was a struggle for life.
It was beyond comprehension in every way he could imagine.
‘Is this what a swamp is in its most natural form?’
His wonder led them deeper and deeper into the humid bog. They pushed the tall grass away as they came to their first roadblock.
A wide lake sat before them that ended in fog in every direction he looked.
They had finally left the outskirts of the biome and made it to its truest expression of energy. The expansive body of water was only interrupted by small islands and patches of floating grass.
Cinera dipped her toe in the water and shivered immediately.
“It isn’t that bad.” He rolled his eyes as she backed up from the edge.
“I boil my water before I drink it. Anything below that is pretty cold to me. I would be mana-less if I even got touched halfway up my legs.”
“That’s…news to me. I wish I understood the full breadth of your weakness before we dived headfirst into here.” He found it difficult to believe she was so negatively disposed to even the lightest of touches.
“Well, most water isn’t a huge problem, but this stuff just feels potent. It’s almost like it just is infused with something from sitting in these pools forever.”
He couldn’t argue with that. When he looked at the water, it was clear to even his most basal senses that it was saturated to the most extreme degree with energy only possible in an ancient swamp.
“We will need to work out some way for you to get independent as time goes by if you’ll stick with me for a little while longer.”
She took on a contemplative look before nodding imperiously.
“That is a must. I expect your full support in the endeavor.” He struggled to not roll his eyes at the tone.
His Qi infused the murky water, feeling for the bottom, and quickly tasted the fine mud.
“It is really shallow. I can just make a bridge for you while I take to the water. It’s been a long time since I felt water flowing around me. It’ll be some nice nostalgia.” He felt his hands sink into the mud as a platform rose beside him, lifting his friend above the swamp.
“I will be pissed if I fall. You better not drop me.”