[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Benedict Carrey]
[Level: 2]
The raven in front of her continued its flight, even as Ben struggled to keep up.
“Could you slow down a little?” She called out. No response came back. Figures. Because not only did she have to be stuck in this endless expanse of islands with a talking raven as her only ally, it had to be an inconsiderate raven, too.
After nearly an hour of walking, she was starting to think that there was no end to the islets. It just kept going on and on, a completely flat skyline. Not a single structure that seemed tall enough to be a human settlement on an island so small. Of course, all humans are dead, so there wasn’t any chance of one being there.
Eventually, though, they came to an islet that wasn’t an exact carbon copy of all the others. See, this one had a cave. And inside the cave was…
Ben broke into a run, desperation grabbing her. Verity was tearing out from the mouth of the cave, kicking up sand as she ran full pelt towards Ben, only stopping a foot away from her, eyes unnaturally shiny for Verity’s regular stoicism.
“Hey, you okay?” She asked, making an aborted movement to wrap the girl into a hug, before thinking it over. No, Vera wouldn’t like a hug in this situation. But the girl rushed forward anyway, a quick hug that nearly broke her ribs.
“Thought you died.” She mumbled, once they had separated.
Ben’s heart twinged in pity, “Sorry, kid.” She whispered, ruffling her hair, “I had… something to deal with. Before I left ZombieWorld. Hope I didn’t keep you guys waiting for too long.”
Verity glared, “You could’ve just told us! We would’ve waited for you. Helped you, even. What if the Harbingers struck again and there was no one to keep an eye on you? You know we have your back, no matter what.”
“Yeah, I know.” Ben agreed, “But it was personal. Not your business.”
“There isn’t anything like your business anymore!” Verity snapped, fear and worry transforming into rage at the blink of an eye, “We don’t have that liberty anymore. Every action you make becomes the entire party’s problem.”
“Well, I’m sorry that I can’t spend every living second focusing on saving the goddamn multiverse.” Ben replied, patience catching fire and going up in flames, “Everyone has demons, Vera, and you have to let us deal with them before they get worse. Don’t you understand?”
Verity stared at her stubbornly, before something flickered in her eye and Verity’s gaze skittered away.
“Whatever.” She mumbled, crossing her arms and stalking back into the cave, leaving Ben to the mercy of Tench and the others.
Her best friend for years spared no time in pulling her into a hug.
“I thought you’d been picked off at the end there.” He murmured, “Would’ve been just our luck to lose you then.”
“You really thought that I was that weak?” She snorted, “No Harbingers getting the best of me, man!”
“I dunno…” Michael smirked from behind Tench, “You don’t have a good track record against them, do you?”
“Square up against one of those beasts and you won’t be so smug.” Ben jabbed him in the shoulder teasingly, “…Or maybe don’t, Mr. Tech Wizard.”
Michael’s eyes lit up excitedly, “Tech Wizard! Oh, that’s cool. You mind if I borrow that? I’d set that as my Class if I could. But…” A panel appeared in front of him, a bright red error sign that made him droop, “Yeah, can’t do that. Sad.”
“I’ll call you a tech wizard if that makes you feel better.” Jared offered.
“No, I’m not that sad yet. I think.”
“Everyone else seems to be doing well, I see.” Ben nodded, “Thought you’d all fall apart without me there to keep you in line, even for a few hours.”
“It’s been a day, actually.” Terry added, lingering at the back of the group, “And we all did kind of split up for a little bit. It was the crows and the ravens who brought us back together.”
Huh. Ben turned an appraising gaze over to the flock of inky birds, all huddled up and conversing in their own tongue of caws and chirps, throwing their heads back and flapping their wings aggressively. So engrossed were they in their discussion that they seemed to have forgotten about the people they had so generously offered guidance and protection to.
“Why isn’t the translator kicking in?” Jared asked, looking up at the argumentative flock.
Michael frowned, the familiar light of Computer Affinity kicking in as he considered this, before saying, “This isn’t registering as a proper language to the Console. Smart as they are, they’re just birds.”
“You’ve been leveling up the Nature Affinity, though, right?” Asadullah asked Terry, and- that was strange. Ben didn’t remember him being there before. He looked a little odd, too, with a stricken expression on his face and a too-wide smile.
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Terry didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t call Asadullah out on it. He simply nodded and put his hand out, more of a theatric flair than anything, but the white light that flickered through the area for a few brief seconds was anything but.
[Terry Glasgow Has Applied Nature Affinity!]
[Preparing Translations for Animal Tongue: Corvid…]
«-impermissible under the Featherington Act of 4381!» Was the first of the translation subtitles to pop up. These differed from the ones used for regular language in that instead of the green text on black panels they had all gotten accustomed to, these were glowing white, with no background, and the text itself looked like a handwritten scrawl of a font.
The excited congratulations and backslapping that ensued was so rowdy that it finally snapped the crows and ravens back into their surroundings. The raven that had guided her to the cave twisted its head around, fixing them under its beady eye, «They seem quite proud of themselves. What have they discovered now?» It clicked its tongue and ruffling its feathers.
Body language was intrinsic to animal communication and given that they didn’t have any way to pick up on that, Terry’s translations gave way to a series of brackets, each pointing out base notes they should know, such as the (Irritated) hovering over its neck, the (Suspicious) balancing over its wings, and the (Danger!) flashing across its scarlet eyes. It muted the whole effect of the gaping beak and the ruffled feathers, even if it was literally surrounded by warning signs.
Behind her, Verity whispered to Jared, “Is that a raven? Goddamn its huge.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jared whispered back, “Told you you’d know it when you see it.”
Tench cleared his throat, taking a step forward as he seemed to realize that their default negotiator was too busy gloating, and the second-best negotiator had to go to bat. His only qualifications were being the resident healer and by extent the least aggressive person there.
“Nothing groundbreaking.” He replied, “Just figured out-” He was interrupted by a series of senseless, screeching caws that seemed to be the corvid equivalent of a gasp. All around them, more silvery brackets and words began flashing everywhere.
«It understood us?»
(SHOCKED)
«How?»
(Worried)
«They are smarter than we gave them credit for.»
«Everyone remain calm!»
“You know we can still understand you, right?” Tench asked, raising an eyebrow.
«How did they learn our language in such a small period of time?» One of the crows wailed.
“We didn’t.” Asadullah added, gesturing towards his own subtitles, “Remember the translation magic?”
“But we would appreciate it if you still kept speaking in English.” Terry added, squinting against the subtitles, and weaving a little on his feet as he continued, “Because I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep this up. And the flashing subtitles? Awful.”
The entire party rushed to agree with him, but this was only good news to the crows, who quickly became covered with (Relaxed) signs. The crow that seemed to be in charge of the new flock that the others were surrounded with sighed, and spoke in croaky, bird English, “So, you will stop being able to understand us soon?” It asked hopefully. Terry nodded, but he didn’t look happy about it.
“Great, you’ve shown them our weakness.” Jared groaned, “That’s just typical, isn’t it?”
“What’s that meant to mean?” Asadullah asked, snapping out of his daze for long enough to pin Jared with a harrowing glare, “Not like you did anything to help.”
Jared raised his hands defensively, “I didn’t mean that precious Terry was at fault.” He said, as insincerely as possible, “Just that this sort of thing was bound to happen with the type of situations we get into. Don’t give the crows any extra leverage from now on, okay?” He looked around as if he was addressing the group, but it was embarrassingly obvious who had forced him to give this directive.
“I don’t need you guys fighting over little things like this.” Terry shook his head, “It’ll just impact the team’s cooperation long-term.”
«No hierarchy in this flock.» One of the crows tittered.
Ben shot them a warning look, “We can still hear and understand you, you know?” That shut them right up, dousing all the (Smug) notices, too. Strangely, Ben was getting the striking feeling that these birds didn’t have their best interests in mind. Still, they couldn’t be worse than the squids who could kill them at the drop of a hat. At least with the birds, they would have some semblance of a chance.
“So, you said that there was a main nest or something you were taking us to?” Verity asked, her voice razor sharp and deadly, even to the most unsuspecting ear. She wasn’t the person they wanted to speak for them when trying to stay on good terms with a place, but when the aim was to intimidate, she more than delivered.
Sure enough, the crows and ravens shifted around uneasily, more than having gotten the hint. Most of them fell into rank behind the raven Ben had found, but the crow that was previously in charge stood firm, wing to wing with the raven. A brief look was exchanged, interspersed with so many layered brackets dissecting the emotions buried in a few moments of avian eye contact that halfway through the subtitles crumpled up and burnt themselves out. Terry made a weak grunt, and Jared begrudgingly moved to support him, being the closest to the boy in terms of distance.
“Right.” The crow announced, after that odd interaction was over with, “Here’s where it gets awkward.”
“What…?” Tench was asking, but Ben’s stomach was already sinking in anticipation of what was to come. Were they even surprised that the birds had decided to turn on them? Not her. And definitely not Verity either. They were both reaching for their weapons before the birds could descend. Not that Ben knew what good a bat would do against a flock this big.
Except the birds didn’t come nearer. They backed away, hovering back in a way that almost seemed… nervous, even though they had no translation to confirm that theory.
“It’s the ground!” Asadullah cried, his feet already expanding into giant animal paws, “Everyone, get clear of the ground-”
He didn’t get to finish that sentence, as the sand covered ground gave way under their feet, sending them hurtling into the abyss. It was dry, and filled with grit floating midair, and so wide that even when Ben tried desperately to reach out to catch the edge, she felt nothing.
The fall itself was disorienting, the wind buffeting her this way and that. Which way was up? Which was down? She had no way of knowing.
Except… there was a spot of light, far down. And she knew it was down because she was falling towards it. And it was getting closer and closer, all milky yellow light and hazy clouds and…
Was that the sky?
[Player Log End!]