You look around and lose yourself in the clear waters of the river gushing ahead. At least you think they're clear? You've never seen a river before, but you know they can have quite a lot of colors. A red river would be nothing that odd, all things considered. You can see fishes swimming happily inside, and barely constrain yourself from jumping in.

Just barely.

Then, something in your mind... itches. Your senses are telling you something you can't grasp with your eyes or ears. They tell you something's been moving around to your left, and there is a convenient way to go along the bank. One of the two little ways that run by the water.

So, you once more start to move, up until your little tunnel gives way to the two paths' crossing. Immediately, you turn to the left and start to let go of the wall. You can run!

You have to slow down to avoid falling off. The stones that make up the floor here are less uniform, more jutting out, and so you're basically hopping from one little spike to the next. It is quite fun.

Soon, your ears start to pick up something other than the waters' gurgling. There are two voices, and the sound of things hitting other things. You hear the dry chock of wood, along with a monstrous grunt, and a little scream of pain, shortly followed by metal screeching on stone, and more moaning.

It is not a nice sound, and it makes your ears ring.

You quicken your pace, as much as you can. You're rather curious about what's going on. Finally, you walk past a particularly sharp turn and find yourself pretty close to an opening. There, you see a green creature standing, panting heavily, while a little shiny thing stoops a little way away. The green one has their back to you, and blood profusely juts out of their body.

They barely hold on to a rather large stick. It looks mean, and has iron spikes on one side. You're not familiar with anything going on here, but you can reasonably deduce these two were probably fighting.

You're also fairly sure the tiny, shiny thing is a golem of some kind. For some reason, this marks them as your ally, just as you know what a river is. Slowly, the green one begins to amble on, toward the shiny one, as it lays on the floor. You can't quite make out the details of either from this distance.

You feel like you should do something about this. Your eyes are naturally attracted to the sparkly one, your mind recognizing the shinies it hoards as the things you could sense before.

Votes

Sneak on the green one, hit it on the head from behind

5/7

+look around for some weapon

4/5

Ok, so there's a green thing with a weapon, and from the noises you heard, and the state it's in, it was fighting with the shiny thing. The shiny thing you, for some reason, kind of like.

…

Your feet almost move on their own, as you start to crouch while walking, trying to make as little noise as possible. You quickly glance around, and manage to spot a rather large axe stuck into the wall. Right by your side.

…

Righty-oh! You try to pull it off. You briefly put down your green shiny, and both your hands clutch onto the thing's pommel. You can't help but notice it has many gems in the head, some even on the two edges that…

Those are a lot bigger than you. Huh.

You try to pry the thing off the wall, but the wooden handle refuses to budge. You pull on it twice, before your grip slackens, and you fall backwards. Hitting the ground. Making a lot of noise.

You turn around in horror, quickly searching for the green thing, but it seems to not have noticed you. It just ambles forward, its back slowly rising and falling in rhythm with his ragged panting. It's slowly stomping off towards the gray golem. Well. That's nice!

You stand up, almost trip over your green gem, before remembering to collect it, and begin to sedatedly catch up with the thing. You walk, and walk, and walk... and then you get bored, so you start to run towards it, and run, and run…

You start to skip and begin to grow more and more worried as its figure keeps growing. Finally, you're left standing behind it, only a few meters back. It dwarves you. It rises so high up you can't see past its slouched shoulders.

Hitting this thing's head will need you to get creative, you reckon. Then, it hits you. Well, it almost does, as you barely manage to dodge away from the backswing of its huge spiked club, as it rears its back while walking. You're left on all fours on the ground, looking up at the huge stick as it hovers for a few instant over you.

…

Is this thing implying you're small?! You get up, huffing and puffing, and swear this thing will know your wrath before you once more duck out of the way of its huge stick.

You have a gem. You have two strong, big arms. The two things combine behind your eyes. Immediately, you fling the stone, and it soars through the air. You hear a heavy thunk, and the thing before you comes to a halt. The gem lands back by the side with a clear clutter, but your attention is taken up by the living mountain slumping over, both its knees hitting the ground and its body going ramrod straight.

It's still bleeding. Some of it splattered over your feet, and it kind of hurts for some reason. All over its body are large gushes, and to your disbelief you can see them closing up with your naked eye Oh, this is not good news. Swiftly you jump over its body, climbing up its back and making sure to stomp angrily over its head as you get down. You're fairly sure it didn't even feel it, but it's a stupid big thing anyway.

You rush onwards, and quickly grab the gem from where it fell. Nearby, you can see better the golem- hang on, that's another living thing. It has a long set of flaming red twintails, elegantly braided and falling off from under a steel helmet, and it seems to be wearing a lot of armor. The metal is decorated with many shinies.

You want those shinies. A lot. Like, a lot a lot. You get closer with glee, and if it wasn't for that ugly thing upsetting your stomach, you'd be salivating over the prospect of so many new gems. As you get closer, you notice they're left in a crater into the wall. One of their hands is grasping a huge green bottle, and you can just barely make out their cheast heaving.

So they're still alive, uh? For some reason you feel better, knowing this. Still, you get closer, and can kind of feel the creature behind ytou moving around. You turn to look, and see its eyes are still thightly closed, and it wears a grimace on its face that renders them even uglier than it was before. You know you'll have nightmeres just remembering this ugly green thing. It is a disrespect to all things green, for it to be so ugly. You feel personally offended by their lack of grace.

Help the gray thing drink the green bottle

6/8 2

You look over at the gray thing, your mind trying to make something of this confusing sight. Nothing about it is making any sense. Your eyes move on from the beautiful metal, even if it is what your mind can sense best. They land on the green bottle in their hands, and for some reason, you know bottles are made to drink what is inside.

Your left hand lets go of your shiny, and you wonder what the thing inside tastes like. Maybe if you help the gray thing, it'll give you some of its shinies?

You are green. You are good. The liquid inside the bottle is green. Therefore, it has to be good as well. Your flawless logic drives your hands to grasp the thing and try to pry it off the gray thing's hands. They feel much softer than anything you've felt before, and they leave red lines where your own body touches them.

Now you're a little green and a little red. Some parts of their body seem to face inwards, and it's all very asymmetric. It pains your mind and somehow unsettles your heart. Already looking at the green thing made you quite nervous, but now your sight is starting to swim around a little too much. You pause for a second, before once more getting onto the task.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Right. Helping the gray thing with nice red hair drinking this. You stop for a moment, and both your hands reach your knees as you almost fall over. Your heart is suddenly heavier, for some reason, you can't find. Your neck feels hotter, your mind can't think clearly, and every dark shade in the cavern seems to grow larger and scarier.

You stay in that awkward position, dry heaving, for some time. Then, all of a sudden, it stops. Everything's back to normal again. You grab your face with your hands, trying to cool it off, and it is at this moment you can't help but notice the horrible, terrible smell that fills your nose.

Ugh!

You almost retch, but forge on. You manage to lift the thing's hand, and the bottle with it, until they're kind of staying above its head. You're on your tippy toes, doing your utmost to get it as far up as you can, before letting go with one hand and starting to get the cap off.

It takes a while, and you may have tripped and fallen once or twice, but eventually, you realize you could take it off before lifting the bottle. That makes it much easier.

Except, you don't manage to make the thing drink the green liquid, not exactly. Instead, the moment the bottle tips over a certain point, the gray thing's hand lets go, and the green rushes out, kind of showering everything under it.

The bottle falls to the ground, as you're unable to hold it up alone for more than a few seconds, and it breaks off with a rather nasty noise. It hurts your ears! You fall to the ground, as your now wet feet can't keep their footing, and end up looking up at the thing's feet from under where they're staying in the wall. they have nice boots, you idly think as you look up at them, hanging from the stone.

The thing gets green liquid in part in its mouth, but mostly on its frontal side, while you're fully covered in it now. Ugh! This sucks. You are all sticky, and it smells, and it feels weird and itchy-

Ooh, you're shiny now. Very shiny.

You're distracted from your gazing by the gray and red thing seemingly coming to with a gasp, coughing desperately and hitting their chest with their now free hand.

You manage to rise up, despite getting distracted by your shiny green hands, and come face to face with a very surprised gray thing. It's looking at you with its tiny red eyes, open as far as they can in shock, and you can't help but note the color reminds you of a ruby.

Umm, this is awkward.

Votes

+lick some of the green liquid

4/5

Help it off the wall?

3/4

You pop out your tongue, and lick your hand, still covered in sticky green liquid. Your eyes never leave the red thing's, as they somehow manage to grow even larger, its somewhat large form wriggling from side to side and trying to get off the wall.

Then it hits you, just how bad this green thing tastes. Ugh! You blink in surprise and grimace at the horrid taste, your tongue coming out instinctually. The red thing seems to find this hilarious, for some reason, and its lips are now blooming into a grin.

You think its grin is too large. It's laughing at you! You raise your arm and strike the thing, your wrath making your cheeks heat up! It gets bonked, still laughing, as it grows more and more hearty. Oh, bother! You puff and turn around, but find one of its hands grabbing your shoulder.

Oh, wow. They have a very tight grip, you think, as they push themselves off the wall, and soar through the air for a few moments, before pulling onto you. You try to resist, you really do, but all you accomplish is slòipping yet again, and falling onto the red thing. It seems surprised, as if it expected you to stand in place, and also begins to fall, its feet not quite managing to land straight.

You land on top of it, hitting it on the back and pushing its head into the ground. Oh, this is even more embarrassing. You quickly get up off the thing, and begin to walk back to your shiny. It makes strange noises at you, but you simply ignore the embarrassing thing before it manages to fluster you more.

You hear them running, their boots making a very different sound on the stone compared to your own feet, and by the time you turn around, they're past the big green thing still rolling around on the ground, and almost at the axe you tried to grab before.

Oh, you so want to look at this thing make a fool of itself trying and failing to get it off the wall. It is so deeply cast into it that even you, with your mighty prowess, didn't have a way to get it free.

There's no way it will manage-

Oh, they grabbed it, pulled back, and got it free. Now, they've turned around, and are running just as quickly back towards you. Before you can process what is happening, they slam the edge into the green creature's neck, lopping off its green head.

Oh.

You turn around and throw up.

After that, you kind of... flow in and out of consciousness for a while, not quite able to sense what is going on around you, but also aware that you're still gripping onto your green shiny.

----------------------------------------

Eventually, you come to. Light fills your eyes once more, and thoughts clutter your mind again. You're staring at a wooden ceiling, and are resting in a comfortable bed. Your body is encased into something very, very soft and warm. You... kind of want to stay here, but curiosity has you getting out of your comfy prison.

Well, you try to at least. You rise to a sitting position, before losing your equilibrium and falling off to the side. Your head meets the wooden floor once more, this time falling from the height of what you think is a bed.

It hurts, and it also makes a pretty loud thunk. You have to stop falling so often.

Afterward, you wriggle around some more and manage to free your hands and upper body. Unfortunately, it would seem you have managed to string it up into a net, or it was made that way, and it refuses to get off your legs.

Uh. This is the first time you're seeing more of yourself than your green hands. It looks... normal. You're not sure how you know that, or what normal is, but it looks normal to you. It's very green, so that's nice.

You wriggle onwards, using your free hand to move and pivot around and take a look at the room you're in. In front of you, at the bedside, there is a little end table, and upon it, there's a little lamp. It is made up of a candle coming out of a rock. On the wall behind where you were resting, there are many colors, arranged in a way that makes you remember the green thing.

Oh, these are also dying.

You don't want to look at it, so you turn around. For some reason it makes you feel very, very, very bad. As your stomach begins to upset again, you try to not think about it too much, and instead focus on your surroundings. In front of the bed, there is a door. It is made of stone.

By the door, there's a closet. It is not that big, but it's there. And on its side, a window. A huge window. You want to look outside. You start to wriggle towards it, and if it just so happens to bring you further from the colored wall, then all the better, no?

After a while, you reach your objective. You're at the window's foot. Now, you let go of your shiny and grab onto its sides. You prop yourself up and somehow manage to force yourself upright, despite your makeshift chains.

The first things you notice, are the many lanterns hanging from up above. they come down from somewhere in the heavens and wash everything else with light. Then, you notice your mind is filled with nothing but insistent pings of things moving around, and other things being used, of things chipping at stone, of things hitting wood…

It almost hurts, but not quite. It's very disorienting. Everything around you is moving, and you can sense it. Then, your eyes call your attention to the streets below. Apparently, you're in a house at street level. There are a few things, similar to the one you met before, that have stopped in their tracks and are now looking at you.

They are many and very different from one another. One has a long, gray beard, and wears a lot of metal. It has a large axe on its back, and a spiky helmet on its head. It looks at you, its face as stone, its scrutinizing gaze unwilling to let you know what it's thinking. If it even is thinking something.

Besides it, a smaller one has come to a stop, literally staying on one leg in a failed jump forward. It has long brown twin tails, kind of like the one you helped with before. It's looking at you, its mouth hanging open, and her tongue inside of it raised.

Uh. You're close enough to see her tongue. There's also a small cart by the side, some goats pulling it onwards, and the thing on top of it holding their reins. It's also looking at you.

You want to look at more of them, but they're all suddenly moving, some almost all towards you, coming closer. You try to move backward but fall on your ass again, as your leg can't move properly. They crowd the window, and you stay there, as they begin to talk more and more loudly among them. You hear some of them sneeze, others are pulling their beard, and yet more are simply talking over one another, and your mind is filled with a lot of things moving, some in your direction.

It's too much. You turn around and begin to sniffle a little. There's too much noise, and you're now looking at green things dying, as they're on the walls, and everything sucks.

You should've just stayed in the darkness. Everything feels bad, and your head is kind of spinning in circles, and you can't get back up. Then, something new comes to you. You recognize them, actually. They're the same thing that you helped. They rush to the door, and your ears also pick up the faint sound of their leathered footsteps.

You also sense a few of the ones outside slinking off, seemingly having noticed the newcomer already. You have no idea how.

Then, the door slams open, almost flying off its hinges, as the thing with red hair rushes into the room, and its mere presence is enough to quiet some of the others. Not all, though. Some are still making bad noises, and you even feel one gripping on a hidden axe of their own.

You finally turn, and see that a small crowd has now gathered outside of the window. The one in the room marches up to them, stopping at your side to gently pat your head, but you move away from their touch. You still remember those hands gripping an axe, cutting off-

You don't want to think about it.

It keeps moving onwards, and after a few brief seconds, the window snaps shut. She turns to you, gently picks you up, and puts you back in bed. Then, she takes a small book out. There are pictures on it, and she starts to make noises at you.

+try to remember the noises she makes

8/11

Be cooperative

7/10