Novels2Search
Ethereal Space
13. Planetary exploration

13. Planetary exploration

Sophie sat in the space cruiser, wondering how she was going to survive any kind of turbulence or non-straight flight. The brother and sister pair were seated in front of her in comfortable looking chairs and safety belts strapped around their space suits. The glare of the pair through the still active Comm was causing an awkward silence, and Maya was smiling apologetically back while Sophie grumbled "At least you could have said that there were only two seats before calling shotgun", shifting her weight on the ground a little. As they had gotten closer to the space cruiser Maya had called out shotgun. She had thought nothing of it as it was technically hitching a ride with them at this point in their relationship. That was of course until she saw there were only two seats and Bee would be piloting his own ship. Not complaining too much, keeping the atmosphere a cheery one, but when they had lifted off the moon, the G-forces had thrown her against the wall, almost losing consciousness. After that Bee apologized profusely and Maya tried to hold in her snickering. Sophie had accepted Bee's apology but kept glaring holes into the back of Maya's helmet. Currently off the moon and into the real vacuum of outer space and it was beautiful. She stopped glaring for a moment and looked out of the side window, into the everlasting darkness that was filled with miniscule flickering lights. Everything was silent for a while, enjoying the great view. On the Moon, it had been the same but the circumstances on the Moon had not really facilitated any real enjoyment of the scenery. They stared out of the window, mesmerized by the reality of the game, and then the planet came into view.

Sophie had already seen it when she had finally arrived at the station but they were a lot closer now and her visor was not distorting any colors this time. The planet seemed to be alive, to sparkle with different shades of green, with slight patches of brown, great spots of blue that seemed to shimmer in the light that came from behind us. Unintentionally we had taken off as the moon was in between the planet and the sun but now we could almost see the sun reflecting of the planet's surface. The green and brown went into long strips of grey topped off by white. It was an oily painting that was finished by small patches of dark grey rain clouds that seemed to drift in random flocks around the planet. And somewhere in the middle of it all, was something that looked like a city. The green colors ceased and about came patches of black and steel like structures that were very difficult to distinguish by their parts, it was like looking at a patch of mold on a beautiful painting. It didn't really belong, but it was very visible never the less.

Bee was the first to wake up from his admiration as spoke into the Comm group, clearing his throat before noting "So I want to fly around the planet and train my piloting Genesis, but I think that could be extremely boring and at some point, I will need to come down and exchange some credits for more power cells. Do you guys have something else in mind?" he looked a little uncertain in that last bit, but it only contrasted with his first bout of confidence when he made it clear what he wanted to do. Sophie was a little surprised, she had thought he would just do whatever Maya was up to. She had been wrong, which was a nice surprise, people needed to do what they wanted to do themselves, not sheep around others. Maya on the other hand didn't seem surprised at all and stated "Sure, If you can drop me off in the city then that would be great, I need to get a hang of the trading systems. What about you Sophie, got any plans?" she thought for a minute, she really didn't but she supposed she had to find more scientist... But to go straight to that mold stain was such a waste, wasn't it? An idea struck her and she hesitatingly spoke into the Comm "Say would you guys be interested in sharing a quest? I need to search for certain people, could you guys help? The rewards are pretty decent." They both looked at her different, Bee looked quite serious and was thinking, probably. Maya on the other hand smirked and snorted "I knew something was off! Alright, I will accept, so what do I need to do?" While Maya spoke, Bee just nodded, as if his sister had said it all. Sophie sighed and explained "I can't give you too much details, as the more details I give you the less you will get in return as a reward, so I will only tell you this, keep an eye out for scientists. If you come into a range of five hundred meters of a target, you will be notified and rewarded."

They both looked at me with curious eyes, but the fact that it was a tradeoff between information and reward was enough of a deterrent to keep any questions at bay, for now. She needed others to participate in her quest, as searching every corner of the universe was going to be very difficult, if not impossible then at least impractical. They both said yes and with that she got the message that Maya and Bee were added into the lowest levels of need to know. Then Bee spoke up "So where can I drop you off? In the city?" that got her out of her musings on how many levels of need to know there could be, and in which one she was currently presiding. "God no!" she grumbled, immediately turning red a little she shook her head and continued "Sorry but I don't really enjoy cities all that much, so if I don't have to, I like to avoid them. Could you land in one of those light green patches?". Maya had that smirk on her face again and even Bee smiled before saying "Sure thing, I will add you to my friend list so I can pick you up when we are leaving, or when you need a change in scenery" Maya's smirk became larger and she snickered "Bee the pickup artist..." Dodging a flat hand to the back of her head before continuing "I will send you a request too, if you got any wishes for your credits let me know, I will bargain those aliens into oblivion." She smiled and Sophie got two friend requests which she accepted. They talked a bit more about how this game was really something else before Sophie decided to log off for some lunch as they still had about fifty minutes to go before arriving at the planet. Before logging off though, she thought of something and asked Maya "Hey Maya, what is your channel?" hearing the question Maya almost radiated with excitement before saying "It is called the B-Stream Team, and I host it on my own website, bstream.net, please leave a comment, recommendation or a review. I used to do it through the regular channels, like Twitch but they wanted a percentage of my income, and as I didn't even have enough income to live off, that quickly became detrimental to the cause. So, I decided to stream it on my own site. Viewer rates are down a bit but I'm sure it will pick up again." Maya smiled and Sophie nodded, promising to check it out she logged off for some lunch.

Getting out of the POD and standing naked in the entertainment room she grabbed the bath robe that was draped over a chair next to the POD and put it on. She looked around and saw that a sandwich and some orange juice were already standing on the table. Instead of walking towards the table she walked towards Franks "lab" and knocked on the door. Seconds later Frank opened up the door and said "You know you don't have to wait outside of the door Miss, if you need me you can just walk in." he said in his calm voice, she nodded and answered "I know... On another matter, could you keep an eye on the traffic and chats on the site bstream.net, I would like to know if anything pops up that might lead to me being uncomfortable, or in possible danger in the game." He looked a little surprised at first but then just nodded and said it would be done, she thanked him and walked back to the table where her sandwich and juice were waiting.

Finishing the last crumbs of the delicious smoked salmon sandwich and drinking the last bit of orange juice she got up and walked back and logged back in. She would do all her studying in the evening, first she wanted to do some exploration!

As she came back into the game Bee was already there and he said hello, while he explained that Maya had to check the statistics of the site real fast, apparently, it had gained some viewers in the last few hours and she was very excited to see where they had come from and how they had found her site. She noted that Bee didn't seem that interested and asked "You don't seem a big fan of the whole streaming scene?". Bee thought for a while and then grumbled "Yeah well I don't care that much and my sister only tries to earn money, but I just wish she hadn't convinced me to keep the ears like they are in the real world. At least here I could have been a little normal, instead of Dumbo the flying elephant. But I guess it gives the viewers' something to laugh and wonder at. And being the best in piloting is just adding fuel to the fire. But I love my sister and it's her wish to earn a lot of money by being a famous streamer so I just went with it. But those assholes online think they can say anything because they are anonymous, I learned a long time ago to stay away from the site." He seemed a little angry still, and Sophie couldn't blame him, if she would be mocked constantly she would change that part of herself to in the game. It took some serious courage to keep the thing you hate most about yourself just because someone you love could profit from it. as she said so, Bee just shrugged and said "Yeah well, maybe if this thing lifts off I can stop flipping burgers, so a little suffering I can handle." they were quiet for a while before Bee asked "Where are you from?" he had turned around in his seat so his visor was looking in her direction even though he couldn't see her face. She thought for a moment, giving her location was not one of the things she did often but knowing that the stream wasn't on at the moment and having a good feeling about the brother sister pair she answered with a short "The UK, you?" which technically was true. He nodded and then said "US, we life in the reconstructed parts of the Bronx, it is much better now that the whole racial conflicts have died down and violence has gone down. Still no paradise and it's just a 3-room apartment, but it is good enough, for now." he gave her a half smile and turned back around.

After that Sophie just watched the beautiful planet for the rest of the ride, it kept creeping closer and closer and she started to see some details that were less obvious when they were far away from orbit. Like that the brown patches were mostly still covered in green and blue, a little like you would expect from a marsh? And there was a massive plane of only grass that stretched out for miles. No deserts though. Which probably meant that the temperatures on the planet where moderate. She kept looking to the great plain and said "Bee, could you drop me of on that grassy plain over there." She had stood up and walked towards his seat, pointing through his windscreen towards the place she wanted to go. He looked at it and said "Sure" as he slightly corrected his course. She looked at his dashboard and he had already replaced many of the old pieces of tape with writing on it, with pieces of tape that read in English. She looked at them and then at Bee asking "How did you remember this many and still crash with the escape pod?" his eyes narrowed a little and he grumbled with some agitation in his voice "Yeah well I didn't wake up in time to get to the seat…" she made a little ah sound as she understood it was a sore point before returning to her place on the ground motioning towards the dashboard with her arm "still quite impressive, I'm glad you know how to pilot, If it was up to me we would probably crash back into the moon." He snickered "Yeah well, I have played some flight simulations before so it is not completely a fair comparison but thanks for the compliment." and then the quiet returned.

Ten minutes later we were about to enter the atmosphere when Maya logged back in and started talking about a Japanese site that had put a link to her stream on their website. She was very excited, not even leaving out that the site had stated that her two bigger than average assets where one of the greatest pro's for following her stream, even if they were currently hidden behind a space suit. Bee and Sophie just shook their heads. Of which Maya took offense and asked them what was wrong with any of this news. Sophie decided to take it upon herself to explain "You do understand that right at this moment, a group of weird Japanese are watching us hoping for a scene they can jerk of to? And you find this not weird or creepy?" Maya looked at her with a confused expression and then said "I don't give a shit even if they want to buy pillows with my body and face on it to cuddle themselves to sleep at night. As long as they give me hard cash I will even sent my dirty undies to them. I don't care. As long as they don't expect me to marry them, or get any weird ideas, I'm perfectly fine with some diehard fans." she said without blinking, and while Sophie and Bee shook their head in unison again, Sophie had to admit that she admired Maya's resolve to earn money whatever way possible. She just had a hard time imagining going so far as she had never really had to worry about money. She now knew for certain never to tell them that she didn't have any money this month because she bought a twenty-five-thousand Euro's costing VRPOD. Better to just say nothing. As we kept quiet Maya smirked and laughed "Hell, if they asked to send some of Bees dirty undies I would not even think twice." This made Sophie laugh out loud and Bee glare at the both of them.

As Sophie and Maya were discussing how they could start a mail order services for the dirty underwear of Bee, they entered the atmosphere and Sophie got tossed to the ceiling shouting "Mother… Next fucking time I enter this space ship there better be an extra chair." She landed back on her butt, but during her little outburst she bit her tongue, continuing to growl but not wanting to risk opening her mouth again she kept quiet. After a couple of seconds of a bumpy ride the ship calmed down again, and she watched out of the side window to see a lush forest underneath them, It looked like they were mostly pine trees and it stretched as far as the eye could see. Now that they weren't far out in the orbit of the planet they could finally see some of the details that previously where only vague colors. The forest consisted of pine trees that were densely packed and prevented them a look of the ground beneath. As they flew further a small clearing appeared, but there was nothing else then a creak and some rocks. As they flew ever closer to the planet's surface they got a message.

Planet Septer 2

A planet with lush nature some interesting species and a good atmosphere for humans, good starting planet as the native species are not very strong. - review by C01UMBU5

Resources - 2/5

Natives - 2/5

Beauty - 4/5

Breathability - 5/5

Location - 2/5

Danger - 2/5

We all stared at the summary for a while before Maya laughed and exclaimed "Perfect planet to start, I do wonder were the high risk is in this seemingly idyllic place." Sophie kept looking at the weird summary and wondered who had made all those reviews and if they were really from the public or that some generic AI was popping them out, then she perked up at what Maya was saying and shuddered "Please refrain from marking us for those who enjoy to see us suffer, I would like a place that didn't tried to kill me everywhere I go." It was probably to late already anyway but Bee chimed in as Maya was about to retort "Your requested location is coming up Sophie, you still want to go off in the middle of nowhere?" Sophie looked out of the window and she saw a grass plain that was swirling in all directions like a sea of green florescent grass. The green had a beautiful contrast to the blue of the sky as little tufts of white clouds passed by on the horizon. Her eyes sparkled with excitement as she got up and walked up to the two seats in front and looked out of the bigger windscreen and was silent for a bit. Before she heard Bee "Sophie? Are you still there? Hello?" he waved his hand in front of her visor and she turned her head towards him and grinned "Yes Bee, please put me down here." He nodded and started the landing procedure while Sophie kept standing and staring out of the windscreen. It was such a beautiful scene to her, the wind that played the grass like an instrument, constantly changing the shape of the plain. The light that made the shadow of the grass have its own life furthering the image of the plain being one entity that was rolling around, not minding anyone. Mesmerizing.

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As Bee landed the ship Sophie didn't even feel the slight bumps, and she didn't fall down. As they hit the ground she hugged Bee, then Maya and said "Thanks guys, let me know how you are doing ok? I'm really enjoying spending time with you guys! See yah!" she got out of the ship before Maya or Bee could hug her back and they were a little startled by her sudden enthusiasm. Then they smiled and Maya said "You too Sophie, have fun in there, and let us know if you want to join up again. You are good for viewership! Bye!" she disappeared from the chat and Bee nodded his head and said "See you later Sophie, don't mind Maya." And with that he waved goodbye and the space cruiser took to the air, swirling the air around Sophie with so much ferocity that she fell on her butt between the half a meter-high grass. As she watched them fly away, she felt a sort of peace return to her, a feeling of privacy she had missed when she had been recorded by Maya all the time. She really did enjoy the time she spent with the two of them, but she really didn't like being recorded. Silence surrounded her, her visor had snapped open as she exited the spaceship and she was now breathing in the cool air, feeling it gently stroke her face as the winds passed her and the grass by, stirring both her and the grass in different ways. She sat there for another five minutes, feeling calm and at peace. Then she stood up and looked around. In the distance behind her she could see the pine forest looming and in the distance to her left she could see the white tops a of a mountain chain. But to her left and straight ahead there was nothing else then grass as far as the eye could see. No trees were ever she looked. At some point sprinkled around the plain lay massive rocks that seemed to have fallen out if the sky, some stuck out of the ground a couple of meters and their grey surface had been smoothed by the wind and rains that had a free rein here on the flat plains. She took a step towards the closest rock, it was around half a kilometer away and she walked in a tranquil pace, her gloved hand feeling the grass passing through it.

As she approached the rock and had not even taken two steps, she saw something move through the grass, she stopped the step she was about to make and was about to grab her plasma gun when she noticed that it looked like a little white cloud. Massive horns curling backwards and into a spiral, the horns were almost as large as the rest of the small cloud like body. It looked like a miniature sheep with the horns of a male mountain goat. It was as tall as half a meter-high grass and she couldn't see its face. Hesitating she made her way towards the creature that was now standing still as it had also seen/heard or smelled her. When the creature didn't move, she got suspicious, prey should not be standing still in the face of danger, and this prey did not seem like it did a good job at camouflage. She got her plasma gun out of her inventory and slowly made her way toward the creature. Close enough now, she tried to get a name or something from the system but the system didn't respond. She kept a distance of around three steps from the creature, waiting for it to make a move. Slowly making her way around it and going for its back, sadly the creature turned with her, showing her nothing but its brown horns. Curious she took a step in its direction and stretched out her hand to touch it, still aiming her plasma gun at its head. The moment the hand was about thirty centimeters away from its head the creature reacted and a maw of teeth and saliva entered Sophie's field of vision. Intuitively jerking back her hand she screamed "Holy…" before she pulled the trigger and blew a crater into the grass plain. Mud and flaming pieces of grass and wool were sprayed everywhere as the creature bit down with a slight smacking sound. She had missed it. She could now see its head and it looked exactly like a wolf, sharp canine teeth, a long snout with a black wet nose on top that was currently wiggling a little with the potent odor of burning grass and some of its own burning wool that was drifting in the air. Its eyes were pitch black, and it looked hungrily towards the hand that was only seconds ago in its grasp before a wary look entered its eyes. Sophie on the other hand, had picked herself up and was holding the plasma gun at the ready, aiming it at the wolfsheep or sheepwolf or whatever Sholf this creature was named. The gun needed another thirty seconds to load after its last discharge, but the Sholf did not need to know that. Her heart was beating in her throat and her eyes were focused on the strangely cute predator in front of her. She moved a little to the left, trying to circle around the Sholf, but just like earlier it crept along with her, sometimes even taking a step forward where she would react with a step backward. Five more seconds she thought, but the Sholf had other plans and it launched itself with surprising speed through the grass in Sophie's direction and then it jumped about a meter up into the air and tried to headbutt its horns into her face. She tried to turn away but was too late, the act had caught her by surprise and was going to devastate her face. The horns hit her helmet and its skull got stuck in between the space where her visor usually sat, centimeters from her nose the impact was stopped but the inertia threw her to the ground taking the stuck Sholf with her. She laid there in the grass, a little confused and dizzy losing some of her HP when the Sholf bruised her ribs by landing on top of her chest.

As Sophie tried to get a grip on her swirling vision, the Sholf tried to get his head out of her visor less helmet hole, it twisted and turned but was solidly lodged into it. It tried to drag Sophie with him but she punched it in the side of its ribs and it squealed. Sophie was awake now, and she twisted her legs around the trashing Sholf on top of her. Then she started to smash its ribs into pulp. The Sholf squealed and trashed but Sophie's grip was firm and his head was none returnable. As the Sholf stopped moving, she lost her grip on it and she starfished herself on the grass, breathing heavily. She slowly pressed a button on the side of her neck and the helmet came loose. Pulling it off with the Sholf still inside, she threw it to the side. Her long brown hair sprawled over the flattened grass underneath her, and then she just laid there, breathing heavy breaths and staring up into the sky.

After a while she hoisted herself up, and she felt the wind go through her hair, ruffling it and whipping the brown strands across her face. She got the hair out of her face with her blood stained gloved hand and stared at the dead creature that was lying beside her feet now, bloodied, its sides caved in by her relentless attacks, its wool red with its blood and its head still partially stuck into her helmet. She had been lucky she realized. If it had been a bit bigger or smaller, she would have had a lot more trouble dealing with it than the awkward struggle it had now become. Or if the Sholf had just gone for any other body part, she would have probably broken something. She sat on her haunches as she silently studied the creature. Calling it a Sholf in her head because, well, it was a wolf in sheep skin, kind of. She touched its wool and was surprised how soft it was, and how far she was able to press it in. Its real body was barely half of the size as the wool let it seem to be. Its slim body was carried by four sturdy legs that looked incredibly small due to the wool but where in fact quiet large proportion wise. But the strangest part of the creature was of course its head. The big brown horns curved in a spiral downwards but were very solid at the stem, the grooved horn began at ten centimeters in diameter and became smaller the further down the spiral it went. It reminded Sophie about the Mountain Goats she had ones seen in a forty-year-old documentary of the state provided streaming cloud. Of course, with the one difference that this mountain goat had a maw full of sharp teeth and snout. Its white fur in line with the white wool on its back.

She put her feet on the Sholf's neck and pulled the creature out of her helmet, three minutes later she finally succeeded as the Sholf had made extra effort to stay in. Ones she pulled the Sholf out, she opened up her inventory and stuffed her helmet in it, taking up four spaces. Could be worse, she thought, then went back to pick up her plasma gun before she forgot it. Shuffling back to the grass and towards the dead body she tried again to inspect it. This time being rewarded with a message.

Congratulations you are the first to kill this creature, we here by reward you with 200 credits and the possibility to name it. If you decline the possibility to name it, the system will pick a name at random.

She stared at the message for a moment before cheering a little "Nice! That's quite the amount of credits! And naming this sucker is also a no brainer." she accepted the naming and stated "Sholf" before she smiled and the system notified her that from now on the Sholf was an official part of the Universe Lore. As she named it, the ball of wool that had been a living and breathing Sholf disappeared and left two items. One was a credit card, with 30 credits on it. Frowning at the other item, a ball of wool, she looked at the ball and then another message popped up.

Sholf's Wool

Uncommon Quality

Want to be the first to review this product? Say Yes please.

Reading the description, she sighed, another mystery solved. But she wasn't in the mood to leave a review or to be known for she who first reviewed Sholf Wool. She opened her inventory again and stored the wool into one of the remaining slots. She could only hope it would stack a little, because if every ball of wool was going to take up one slot, then it was going to be a very expensive job to farm materials.

She looked around, the wind still played with her hair, throwing it every which way it wanted, but she didn't care. It was nice to breathe without fogging her visor, to look around without her peripheral view being blocked by the helmet and not feel the weight of it on her head all the time, closing in all the bad odors that where coming from underneath her suit. If she could pull of the suit right now and store it in her inventory, she would. Sadly, the suit was too big so she could only leave it somewhere, and without knowing exactly how much a new suit was worth or how many upgrades there were, she wasn't taking the chance that it was a once only deal. It hindered every movement but on the other hand it also protected her against claws, maws and headbutts. Well next time she would need to deal with headbutts aimed at her head, but the feeling of the wind caressing her hair and feeling the slight cold on her cheeks was well worth the extra wariness for head injuries.

She couldn't see any other white clouds floating through the green grass and thus decided it must have been alone, which was strange as both wolf and sheep were pack animals. Not wanting to spend too much time on it anymore, she decided to continue her way towards the rock. She took a step, and the grass parted for her heavy boot, leaving a brown print behind as she had slightly sunk into the ground. The grass reached a bit over her knee and it was strangely resistant to bending. Not that it didn't bend, just that the grass on earth, in real life, was very easy to bend, in comparison these were extremely hard. When she had been fully focused on the Sholf she didn't noticed it. So now that she did, she noted that a consequence of this was that it felt a little like walking through a swamp. Her feet were heavy enough by themselves but the grass didn't give enough way on its own to make it possible to walk through without exerting some more power than usual. Nearing the stone, she thanked the heavens for her decision to leave the helmet off, the flood of sweat in the space station could have been beat otherwise. This game was giving her a really hard time, nothing was really easy, not even this short walk through a plain of grass. Was it because everybody began at the same level? Was her progress as a frequent exerciser not counting towards her condition in the game? Whatever it was, it was annoying. Of course, she had counted on some tough opponents when choosing Hard mode but this was getting ridiculous. Crossing the five-hundred meters that seemed like five kilometers, she finally reached the rock. Looking it over, the rock was smooth like jade and had a dark grey color, it didn't reflect any sunlight as it seemed to have no impurities in its build, and towered five meters into the air. its base being three meters wide, slightly curving, thinning and in the end rounding off the higher it went. It was beautiful in its simplicity and Sophie caught herself staring with her mouth open. She slowly extended her hand towards its surface and touched it. It felt warm through the fabric of her glove. She frowned, this was really weird, with the cold wind and the sun timidly shining upon the plain it should have been slightly cool to the touch, not the luke warmness that it was. Removing her hand from its surface she took a small step back and looked from her hand up again towards the top.

During the time, she had spent touching it, a small line had appeared on the perfect smooth surface, a little under half a meter from the top. The line, barely ten centimeters long, seemed to be cut into the rock and she couldn't be a hundred percent sure it had not been there before. Warily and warned after the situation she had been in not ten minutes ago she took another slow step back, and as she placed her foot on the soft ground below, the line seemed to snap open and reveal a white sphere with a yellow oval, followed by a single black dot. It looked exactly like an eye, the line had snapped open into two slight parabolas that encased the yellow pupil. It made some quick saccades scanning its surroundings before landing its eye upon Sophie who was currently standing perfectly still.

As Sophie stood glued to the ground, the rock seemed to tower further into the air. It grew, it was actually growing even bigger? "The hell is this place... " She mumbled, coming out of her stupor and pointing the plasma gun at the creature in front of her. Where it grew in height, its bulk actually started to slim down centimeter by centimeter. When it reached half a meter of extra height two pairs of legs came into view in the tall grass. Before this point in time the legs had been hidden in the bulk of its mass, but now that it was growing, its bulk went up with its growth, slimming down, revealing its southern borders where two very bulky legs stuck into the ground. The bulk laid over it like a fat belly but then from all sides, mushrooming the two legs, and the longer the creature got the more the mushroom belly slunk. The legs, as far as they were not obscured by the grass, were at least half a meter in diameter. Smooth as the rest of the body they didn't seem to have a joint, like a knee for example. As its growing process slowed down Sophie took another step back, not sure what she should do. Her guts told her that the creature was not a predator, but its size alone could crush her into her first re-spawn. She kept her plasma gun on the creature, her finger on the trigger, taking another step back through the uncooperating grass. Now standing almost seven meters into the sky the creature looked like a giraffe with two elephant legs, its grey skin still the same and its bulk had dwindled down to around two meters in diameter, still mushrooming over the now a meter-high legs. Its single eye, or at least, the only one Sophie could observe was still resting on her, keeping its attention on her and her every move. The complete process had taken no longer than thirty seconds, but due to the amazement she felt it could have been hours for all she knew. As she kept taking steps in its opposite direction, she finally reached the twenty-meter mark and decided this was a safe distance to observe what would happen next.

The eye blinked the moment she stopped, then it moved its gigantic leg in the opposite direction and took a step. The plain shook as the creatures’ step landed on the ground below, then it took another. Sophie sighed, it seemed to be just as scared of her as she was of it, what was by now not that much but enough to relocate. The creature which, if she was ever going to name it was definitely going to be called a Kevoulder, walked like it was walking on two enormous stilts, something that was definitely more than likely and not at all surprising at this point. The Kevoulder swayed from left to right in dangerous angles as it made its way towards its new home, and after fifty to sixty meters it stopped. Planting both legs next to each other, it shrank back into its original size at a surprising pace, its bulk curling around its legs, growing larger in width but smaller in height. Until nothing but the eye was left. The eye blinked two times and closed off too, leaving no clue behind as to its status as a living organism and going back to the rock she had taken it for in the beginning.

The Kevoulder now being a safe distance away she walked towards the patch of grass it had left and looked down. What was left disturbed her more than she would have thought possible at this point in time. The grass had been eaten, the green of the grass only sticking out a little above the ground. "Do I even want to know where its mouth was supposed to be?" she mumbled and stared toward the now distant rock. At least her intuition had been right, it was some kind of herbivore, extremely disturbing to watch for the first time but not wanting to eat you. "This place is really something else huh?" she grumbled under her breath as she started walking again, taking a route with a little more space between her and the living rocks of the plain.