Joe tried to gauge if the log was gaining on them. In the swirling chaos of the river, he couldn’t be completely certain. His gut was telling him the answer was ‘Yes, yes it was’. His ability to steer, especially without Kaid pushing, was incredibly limited. Every now and then some underwater branch on the tree would catch on a rock on the bottom of the river before snapping off. This caused the tree to roll and jerk to one side or the other. Even if Joe could angle them far enough to one side, he did not even know which direction to try to angle for. The deadly trunk jumped to the left and then a moment later skipped back over to the right. The only idea he could think of was to make a jump of his own.
His new talisman couldn’t teleport him anywhere close to the far shore, let alone both of them. He could only get about a quarter of the way with them both. On the other hand, that was more than enough to get out of the way of this monster of a tree. Joe reached back and grabbed a good hold of Kaid’s arm and then concentrated on a spot towards the middle of the river. When he used the medallion the night before, it was almost like his senses zoomed in on the spot he wanted to go and the rest of him followed. This time he could not get that sensation to work. No matter how many times he willed himself and Kaid to move, nothing happened. Finally, it occurred to him what was going on. He could not jump to a spot because that spot kept changing. It was not like he was targeting a piece of ground or even a tub of water. He was trying to target a spot that was moving and simultaneously being torn apart and replaced by other water. No wonder he could not connect to anything. He needed a more static target to jump to.
The healer looked downstream and saw a boulder that would probably be in range shortly. As Joe thought about it, he wondered what would happen to his momentum when they jumped. He and Kaid had been walking when they used the talisman last night and it felt like that movement naturally flowed through the teleport. This time he would be surfing past a large wet river rock. His gut told him they would just shoot right off of the top of the stone and back into the river. Still, it might save them from the oncoming impalement if they could control the wet rocky dismount.
He turned and looked back at the tree and another idea occurred to him, Probably a terrible idea but one he felt slightly better about than the boulder-slide. The tree was moving at roughly the same pace they were. If he aimed at the trunk and jumped backward, past the deadly corona of broken branches, he might be able to get Kaid up out of the water and find a perch where he could treat the failing gnome. It could work, but he really did not know for sure. He had not had any time to practice with the medallion yet.
Joe quickly scanned the tree as well as he could from his position in the water. If this didn’t work, he’d try for the rapidly approaching stone. He looked for an intersection of two large limbs further down the trunk beyond the top branches. Between bobbing around in the river, holding Kaid, and the tree’s own movement, this took much longer than he wanted. He noted they had already passed the boulder and were almost out of his jump range to it. Just as he was about to give up and try to catch the boulder, he finally saw through all the interference to a workable spot he could lock onto.
He and the gnome had teleported through a window out of the Dellham’s house and not hit the glass. Still, Joe could not help panicking a little at the thought of shooting through all those skewering broken branches.
“Ok, little man. Here goes nothing,” Joe prayed to dumb luck.
Holding tight, he focused, and his eyes locked to the space beyond the jagged spears. With a glub of dislocated water, instantly they were there. They bumped gently into the thick limb as the difference in speed was negligible. Joe easily found a good spot to hook his arm onto. They should be able to ride the massive bole downstream for a few minutes while he worked on getting Kaid’s temperature up.
Then it occurred to Joe what would happen when the next deep branch snagged on something. They could easily be knocked off or dragged under. He needed to get them up into the tree limbs quickly.
He hit the rogue with [Efferous Endurance] first. That should get the blood flowing again. He then picked a spot on the main trunk and dropped a [Heart Fire]. The second spell made no logical sense. Waves washed over the flames time and again, but the magic didn’t care about the impossibility of a campfire on a soaking log splashing down the middle of a river. His [Heart Fire] burned merrily on the water-soaked trunk. Joe immediately felt warmth spread through his body, easing muscles and loosening cramps. His sprains and bruises from his run and this ridiculous river endeavor dissipated as well. The benefits of being a healer were really starting to grow on him.
“Well this is different,” croaked a weary voice.
“Glad you like it. The good news is we have put some serious distance between us and the dogs. The bad news is we are not safe. I need you to get up into the branches. Quick, quick, quick.”
“When did you get so bossy?” the sodden gnome groaned.
“Move Kaid!”
Watching the normally nimble rogue laboriously haul himself out of the water was like watching a car wreck occurring in front of him. Joe knew he needed to get himself up to safety, but he could not look away from the sluggish thief’s climb. As soon as Kaid had a solid spot where Joe’s movement shouldn’t dislodge him, he too started pulling himself out of the river.
He waited too long. The sound of a branch grinding and snapping, as well as the booming slap of the tree hitting the water, was deafening. The hammering splash broke Joe’s grip and the log’s wake sucked him under. Joe scrapped down the bark, heading for the tangle of roots when suddenly he stopped short. His backpack was yanking his shoulders painfully backward. The rope! Joe snapped his arms tightly across his chest and held onto the straps, praying they would not snap. He had no idea how he was going to grab the line. He was battered and ground against the coarse wood, but before his air ran out, Joe’s head broke the surface again.
His first sight was Kaid, tiny, ornery, exasperating Kaid. Wedged into the branches, the short little man was hauling hand over hand, pulling up Joe, who had to be at least four times his size, and being dragged at by the river.
“If you are going to just keep mooning at me, I’m letting go,” the guttersnipe groused.
“Sorry,” Joe spluttered, grabbing the closest branch. “Was not expecting Hero Kaid.”
“Yeah. I was not expecting a floating fire either. So we’re even.”
Joe climbed over to the [Heart Fire], practically sitting in it, letting its aura of warmth push away his shivers. “Unfortunately, we are still stuck in the river. I have no idea how we are going to reach the other shore. Oh, and please tell me there are no waterfalls ahead.”
“Uh no. I don’t think so. There are some upstream, but I don’t think there are any further down.”
“That is one blessing. How are you feeling? Your body temp was really low a minute ago.” Joe was rubbing his own fingers together by the spectral flames to loosen them back up.
“I’m tired, even with your spells. But the fire is nice and warm. That spell might be a problem, though. Anyone near either bank is going to be able to see it.”
“I’m not sure we can do without it. Maybe we can hide it.”
“Maybe during the day. Not at night.”
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“I really hope we are not still on the water when it gets dark.”
“Then we need a plan, cause mine was to ride this thing to Heron Reef.”
“And how long would that be?”
“Couple a days.”
“No way. The water is too fast and cold. We’d be just asking for something to go wrong.”
“Then, as I said. We need a plan.”
Joe looked down at the large log and began working through ideas. Trying to set up a rudder wouldn’t work. The front of their ‘boat’ was a massive fan of branches, not a pointed keel. They would need a huge plank to alter their direction. He thought about adding drag to one side up front, but he was not sure if they had anything strong enough. Maybe they could lash a blanket between a pair of branches. He moved a bit further out on the limb he was on, looking to see if he could spot a place in the branches that would work. The weight shift caused the tree to turn a little.
“Whoa! What are you doing?”
“Hold on. Let me see how much give we have here.” Joe moved a bit further and higher, and the tree spun a bit more. He climbed back, and the trunk rolled back to the position it was in before.
“Are you insane? You almost flipped us.” Kaid was balancing lightly between two of the tree’s limbs. He had clearly recovered much of his lost agility.
“I don’t think so. I think most of the branches below us are gone. That means we have the top stuff and two big wings of branches. We can use that. I think I know how to get us across. I’m going to tip us again, even more than before. I want you to go to where the branches come out of the water and hack off as much of the small stuff as you can, like anything less than an inch thick. We leave the west side alone. ”
“Why?”
“The side we leave alone will have way more drag than the stripped side. It will pull us in that direction.”
“What?” Kaid squawked, gesturing sharply with one hand. “You complain about me not explaining things, and you think that made any sense.”
“Ok. Picture a canoe, Kaid. On each side of the canoe, there are an equal number of paddles in the water.” Joe hooked an arm around a branch, then held out his hands with his fingers together, pointing downward. “If we lift the paddles on the right side,” he said, lifting one hand higher, “the canoe will turn left. That is what cutting away all the small branches will do. It’s like taking some of the paddles out of the water.”
“Alright, now I get it. How do we keep from flipping all the way over?”
“I don’t think we will. At the moment, we have kind of catamaran going here. To keep it balanced, once we clear the right side below the water, we could take a few branches above the water line off the left side to maintain the balance.”
Kaid looked dubious. “Do I need to know what a catamaran is?”
“Just trust me this time. OK?” Joe implored.
“Fine, but if this gets you killed, it’s not my fault.”
Joe worked his way back out away from the trunk, causing the limb he was on to drop lower into the water. Kaid, being much lighter and more agile, scampered to the dripping bough and began shearing off the small branches in a swing or two of some heavy kukri-shaped knife Joe had never seen before. He stopped any time it took an extra blow to shear off a branch and stropped his blade sharp again on a whetstone he had on a thong around his wrist.
Joe kept climbing up out of the water and then pulling his side back down. Each time he exposed more for Kaid, he would sit in the cold water and watch the thief work. Thankfully, the [Heart Fire] did not slide off the trunk or vanish even if it was fully submersed by the river.
Kaid moved with such sure, fluid motions he could have been a monkey moving through the forest. When he had cleared three big limbs down to just the main branches, Joe had them returned to the center to make sure they were balanced. They were a little left heavy now.
Joe took out his hand axe and started cutting off a thick branch that hung high above the water. Just before he finished, he had another idea. Taking some of their rope, he asked Kaid to climb out and tie one end to something strong just above the water line. The middle of the rope they knotted onto the bottom of the branch they were cutting. They tied the remaining end to the trunk. When Joe finished chopping off the big limb, they let it fall into the water. All the small branches attached to the bough added even more drag to the west side.
It quickly became apparent their plan was working. It wasn’t long before they were closer to the middle of the river than they were just a few minutes ago. They made a few more adjustments and then let the current do the rest of the work for them. Moving to a higher and dryer spot had the added benefit of more leaf cover just in case someone was on the shore. The two spent some time hanging a blanket in the best circle they could manage, and Joe recast his [Heart Fire] inside the makeshift screen.
A few hours later and much closer to the west bank, they began to hear the sounds of twigs scraping and snapping on the bottom of the river. The first jump of the log occurred a few minutes later as a larger branch caught and snapped.
“I think it is getting to be time we abandon ship,” Joe declared. “We should let the extra limb go and get our rope back. And the blanket too. Then we should try and make it the rest of the way to shore. We should be close to teleporting the remaining distance. Worst case, we swim the rest of the way.”
“Says you. You ain’t the one the water almost froze to death.”
“Oh, suck it up. You didn’t die,” Joe said, parroting one of Kaid’s snide comments back at him.
After they recovered their gear, they climbed their way as far toward the shore as they could among the branches. As they got to the end of where they could balance, Joe hung one last [Heart Fire] on a nearby limb. They would not need it long, but the time needed to find a target to jump to could be done in relative comfort.
Joe tried but could not lock onto the far bank. The furthest target his eyes could catch on was a rock roughly seventy-five feet from the shore. The problem was, it was just the tip of a rock that was at the very edge of Joe’s medium range. It would be very hard to locate, lock, and jump before he lost the connection. Looking beyond where the stone was, Joe saw many more rocks peeking out from the river, most of them around fifty feet from the river’s edge. If the two banks were at all alike, that area should be wadeable. Joe just needed the tree to get closer or to make his medium range a little longer. Since the tree was already trying to throw them into the river, Joe tossed his remaining two points into Vigor.
Item [Talisman of the Medic] (Rare - Soulbound) {Distance Pool: 600 ft / 600 ft. - Max: 320ft.}
Joe could now feel his eyes catch on plenty of the stones relatively close to shore. He would get to test his momentum theory after all. Joe figured out how close to shore he could lock onto and then gazed ahead for the next good target. An optimal boulder was just about to come into range. Grabbing Kaid’s arm he fixed his eyes on the rock. As soon as he saw the tug on his sight, he focused and jumped all in one smooth thought.
Sure enough, the teleporting pair appeared and skidded right off the top of the large flat rock, flopping into the water. As they were ready for it, Joe started swimming as hard as he could for the shore. The current turned his line into an angle but soon Joe could tell the ground was just under his kicks. He turned and jammed his feet down. Rocks cracked into his toes and the mud made it hard to catch his footing. After several minutes of fighting, Joe finally gained control.
Looking down he saw the rope floating slackly downstream. He spun around and saw Kaid jumping from one stone to the next heading for the bank. Joe turned and started trudging in the same direction. Twice he turned his ankle painfully on the rocks. He was also pretty sure he had broken a toe or two along the way, not stopping; Joe embraced his one superpower and kept healing and marching. He reached dry ground roughly the same time as Kaid, who had to take a longer path, did.
The pair dumped their packs and flopped down on their backs in the weedy grass. Joe’s only additional effort was a new [Heart Fire] and then a great deal of panting.
“If they are on this bank, they can have me,” Joe moaned.
“Yeah. No argument here.”
“Really? You’d give up?” Joe exclaimed surprised that Kaid would go quietly.
“Nah. They could have you. I’d still get away.”