Nothing much of note happened the following two days, aside from a lone, unlucky deer crossing their path that in turn supplemented their rations. A totally normal, not-creepy deer, Mila observed, a bit glad for it. And it was on the nature of animals and monsters that Mila whiled away many of her bored hours trudging, apart from sorely missing the smartphone that she now knew existed… somewhere. The loss of easily accessed music stung sharply to the very unmusical Mila.
Scienceland was chock-full of animals, each in little categories that nested in each other and next to one another in a great big taxonomical tree that described all the things. And Mila knew it was not actually all that clear-cut, given discussions of how fish were not actually fish and how schrodinger’s brontosaurus seemed to be a thing, but there was still a method to how they were all looked at. And within Scienceland, when imagining magical realms of apparently-not-so-nonexistent realms, it always seemed that monsters were their own category of thing.
In Fantasyland, not so much. While Mila could not haul off and sling a spell, for the betterment of anybody that had ever argued with her in the past, magic suffused the world and all its inhabitants, adding another factor to all its elements. Monsters were not some separate category of thing that involved too much magic or something - instead, the term had a much more practical meaning, in that a monster was any animal that was not so sure that people were at the top of the food chain. The yotels were monsters, more than willing to feast on a foolish person or two if given the opportunity. The fist-sized red thing that looked like it was half bird, half shark, and half buzz saw was just a regular critter, even if nobody in the group could put a name to the weird flying thing, other than ‘noisy pest’.
People was, naturally, just as nebulous yet practically inclined in its meaning. People could communicate with other people, was about the start and end of it. Most tried to get along well enough with each other, but a few were right assholes to everyone, and pretty much all people had friction with someone else. The loose feel for what constituted people was important though, since it covered so many folks - she knew that Scienceland was a world had been human-exclusive as far as people went, but even starting with humans as a baseline (an obnoxiously present assumption that humans so often seemed to purposefully ignore), the current Mila was very nearby in terms of what Fantasyland people looked like, short a few feet of height and extra the tail and the scales. Hell, with the right kind of arcane spell, Mila knew that damn near anything could become people, even really weird shit like inanimate objects or substances. Compared to that, the stories she heard of ancient, deep sea life becoming people after a long time? Did not sound so weird.
A part of her was glad, though, that more than a few things Scienceland considered to be fictional monsters existed in Fantasyland, but as rarely seen entities. Griffins and krakens and the like were around, but unlikely to ever be something of concern for her, which was nice to know. For all that magic diversified all the animals and animal-like things in this world, it also diversified the environment, giving so so many of them healthy niches to stay in that were far away from her. And that kind of distance felt pretty good to her. A nice relaxing tidbit that the Fantasyland Mila had never weighed too much in her favor, perhaps rightfully more concerned with the things in the niches that she did have to deal with.
On that third day, though, it was blessedly a critter instead of a monster that crossed their path, as alien as the thing was. Mila had no way to guess with any accuracy how much it weighed, but the thing was massive, some twenty feet long and half a dozen across, and particularly flat. It was a heavy blanket of wet, dark green that awkwardly undulated across the forest floor, segments bunching up and stretching out in something that had once been in the same room as a rhythm. Aluca had to flip through a book before getting a name for it, and groaned as he revealed it to be the aptly-named carpet moss, the group standing to the side as it hauled its way past them, shying away a bit when it seemed to sense their presence.
Mila was halfway to crouching down, wondering whether it was moving like a large slug or what, but the imagined mental image of untold little legs underneath was more than enough to dissuade her from that curiosity, hopping back up to her feet. “Kinda seems like it’s trying to get out of dodge,” she noted, watching the wiggling mass marching onward slowly. It did not seem injured across its body, but she did not know what an injury would look like, for a big thing of fungus. Mosses were fungi, she was pretty sure, and lichen was a symbiotic of fungus and algae. She probably did not have those backwards.
Her observation got a few grunts in affirmation and more dirty looks. Tempting fate was a thing in all worlds and the presence of a (rather creepy) God of Fate in Fantasyland only made such superstitions all the more real-feeling. Mila blasphemed freely, but even that statement felt a little too inviting, so she bit back any defense she might offer up. She could swallow her lumps.
They started moving down the road, vaguely where the critter had come from before it was out of sight under its own power, its moist sounds bouncing around the trees to be kind of relaxing, if you did not know its gross source. It did not help that everything was marginally wetter than usual, another brief rain storm sweeping through during the night.
The foreboding that Mila had brought down on everyone was a funk that did not linger too long, at least, as a swollen creek had ruptured its banks, spilling over the road and sweeping the ground away enough to make them all filthy if they waded through, assuming the current did not knock Mila and Rora over outright. The golden kobold had the solution to their own problem, though, and the others stepped aside to watch her work, enjoying a bit of the added sparkly showmanship that came with it.
“Ladies, gents, others, please. Allow me.” Rora shook her hands out with a dramatic flourish as she lumbered forward with a smile, stopping at the edge of the slick slope down to the new waterway. Her arms went on high, nearly reaching the up to the level of most of the group’s armpits, and she held the pose, straining as she started to grab hold of power, affixing her grip to it. With a great strain, helped by forces alien to anybody else, Rora began to lower her burden down, silvery liquid pooling up in her hands and and running down her outstretched arms, collecting against her chest in a shimmery ball of power. Once it was full enough, Rora stepped forward into the void and heaved the power down, spiking it and exploding the ball against nothing in particular.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
The fluid moonlight exploded out just as her foot would have passed by it, coursing across a thin plane of air in moments and congealing as the boot, sturdier and stiffer than Mila’s own, struck down on it. The one footstep echoed across the growing surface, from where silver met grass by her other foot to out where it stretched across the gap, sounding like a gentle wind chime made for the most tremendous of giants.
Rora stepped all the way forward, the throwing motion forcing her out onto the spur of moonlight, but she made the not-stumble look elegant as she swept back upright, tail shifting to keep her balance. The light that came from beneath her did not illuminate the trees or anything quite that dramatic, but the dancing shine did cast a radiant underglow to the knightly woman herself. A glow that did not do nearly the same dramatic aesthetic for the others as they followed after Rora, applauding gently at the dramatic display. The moonlight bridge did not have significant width, nor did it arch across the gap in the road for structural purposes, but it easily supported them all without a groan of complaint.
At the other end, their golden bridge-builder took a step to the side, still staying on the surface, until everyone else had crossed. Only once she was sure that everyone was back in the mud, even if it was not so deep here, did Rora step off. The shimmering field immediately evaporated back to whichever of the hidden moons it had descended from. It was, after all, still early in the day.
“Gorgeous, as usual,” Mila admitted with a chuckle. Sure, she was certain that had it been necessary, she could have crossed the gap with a mighty running leap, but the others were hardly so acrobatic. Not everyone could put Scienceland track and field teams to shame, after all! Plus, this way kept her from getting quite as splattered with mud compared to what that jump’s landing would have resulted in.
Aluca let out a small whistle, still looking back at the channel, some four or five feet deep. “That’ll wreck any trade through to Kraddel, though, until it gets fixed. We’ll need to report it when we get back.” There was a few transportation options that would not totally be SOL due to the damage to the road, but anything with wheels would be mighty fucked, Mila reckoned. Thankfully, one of the others would be the one to report it. Better that way, probably.
“Wonder if they are gonna make a wooden bridge, or a culvert and fill it in,” Mila mused aloud, a thumb claw scratching at the underside of her chin. Hughestace was taking a long drink from his water skin, and while technically he could do it on the road, a small break was fine too, even if Rora did not seem tired from channeling and guiding her magic.
Mila had an, admittedly amateur and specific, interest in the engineering arts. Well, mechanical and civil engineering, she now clarified in her own mind. Even if all the other kinds did not exist as specific disciplines here, she knew they existed *somewhere* and even had a degree in the software variety, even if that actual piece of paper was long gone and none of the actual programming stuff was relevant in this entire world. Aluca had a similar interest in chemistry, but given how science was so often bundled up into one group at the book store, they had passable-ish workings of the other’s interest.
There was one advantage Aluca had on the question though - he was born into a wealthy family, so he knew how rich folk thought. And no matter what anyone said, rich folk were the ones making the decisions. “It’ll be a wooden bridge, but the enchanted engravings will never get put down on it to preserve the bridge. Couple years, it’ll fall apart at its bindings or fall to rot, and then all repeat.” It definitely *felt* like the correct answer, especially with the depressed venom he gave to the answer.
“But that could get people hurt! And how many bridges before it’s more expensive than if they had just done it right the first time?” Rora interjected, looking a little horrified at what had initially seemed like the kind of nerd talk she enjoyed the chatter of but could largely tune out. The mage and dervish both had a habit of wandering down long discussion spirals about things others did not much care about, as endearing as their excitement might be.
Mila gave a shrug, willing to let the tall human take the question, which he did after a quick bit of mental math. “The second replacement, so three bridges, is where it’ll cost more. Maybe four if they go cheap on materials or workers, but that’ll mean the bridges don’t last as long.
Rora looked like she had just bitten deep into a rind fruit you are supposed to peel, digesting that tidbit and putting it next to how this road was a moderately busy route when the sky was less busy dumping water down. It struck at a certain known truth within Mila though, who was more pessimistic than the other kobold. Honestly, were she honest with herself, Mila was more pessimistic than the rest of the group most of the time. She reckoned that whomever got the job to build the bridge would keep getting the jobs, so by making a faulty product, they were ensuring future business. “It’s cheaper in the short term, so it’s what fits the budget,” was what she offered up, as its own bleak consolation prize.
Naw-Naw nodded as if that explained everything, which in a way it did, and Hughestace was busy chugging enough water to drown an eel, which was what was healthy for him. Rora still looked a little disgusted though, gazing at where her magic had easily conjured up a bridge for them and then down at her clenched hands, claws scraping against the small, delicate scales of her palms. Her solidified moonbeams lasted only as long as she was in contact with them, unfortunately, so she could not just set one up and walk away, but she still felt frustrated that there was not something she could do. Mila knew the feeling, even without the ability to bend forces of the cosmos to her whim. That Rora had not yet been suffocated by it, over the years, was sweet and played a role in why they had become friends years ago.
Hughestace broke the momentary contemplation as he pulled away from his waterskin. “I wonder how the carpet moss crossed.” For Mila, that pulled up the mental image of the moss bunching up at one end and then shooting half of its body across, its millions of little legs stretching out to grab hold, a wooly, spring-loaded inchworm from hell. She was bright pink and scaled, so her going green from nausea was not visible like it had been for the elf the nights before, yet it was clear all the same as she spun about on one foot, shuddering at the horror.
“Thank you, Hughestace, for letting us know it is time to move on,” she firmly declared, rolling her eyes at the laugh her reaction caused the group. The others knew of her dislike of bugs - hell, all but the elf were there for half of its development, in a horrific misadventure involving a pool of carnivorous larva. But they never pushed the jokes past what she was fine with. Laughing at her imagining the fungus-thing as insectile was well within bounds.
That it served as a salve to the sting that Rora’s misplaced optimism had inflicted was all the more reason Mila was fine with it.