Michael

The flight of the corsa is swift and over too quickly for my liking. And I say 'flight' only roughly as a metaphor as I remember again the swift journey from the Compound to the ocean.

It took us 8 days to cross something like 7000km. The corsa are able to dodge and swerve through the forest at speeds that rival my motorcycle at 110 miles an hour. Their tails thicker in the middle but still all bristly as they use them and their little forehoofs to turn and jump at angles.

When they reached the edge of the deep forest and flowed into the woods they may as well have been on flat open grasslands as they opened their strides and ate up the distance like sky divers at terminal velocity.

I realized quickly in that first hour in the woods that these creatures don't rely on sight as a primary sense like most creatures with eyes facing sideways. Instead they move either by some animal instinct form of feel or like sharks in water they feel the electrical impulses in air at phenonal speeds.

We only occasionally stop to rest and eat every 30 or so hours of straight running at speeds from these majestic creatures and not because they are tired. It's us the passengers that limit them with our constant need for food, sleep, or to shit that slows our time.

The corsas can use their 'arms' protruding from their chests to grab things like fruit from trees and eat them. Truly fascinating creatures and in 8 quick days we reach the coast of Hala reserve and soon the village of Frest.

From there it's onto a wooden ship with sails and a mast and everything. I honestly feel like I'm in some medieval story of swords, sorcery and pirates at this point and looking at the hard eyed bare footed sailers on the deck I may not be far off.

* *

From there the journey is a beautiful wonder of places, scents cuisines, fights, laughs, sensations, magic, fantasy and more. There is no end to the things to discover and be in awe of on Gaia, as Max likes to say, 'the very planet itself is alive'.

We had a large picnic under the leaves of the ewer trees, leaves that produce a radiant scent that lingers on everything you eat adding to its favour. Saya showed me that even kisses taste different under those amazing leaves that come in many different variations.

We ate the codrora fish from an elemental pond, a pond fed by a small stream that actually has a water elemental inside it or is a water element or however that works. The fish were amazing and gave us such a boost in vitality that it was two days before John had to eat again.

I nearly died from being bitten by questa branches from the red and gold vampire plants that can be found in the untamed Forest of Birds on the Tsetse isle. Max nearly died first from killer venomous bees that he wanted to pillage honey from, then again from a centipede bite that immediately caused Wes to cut his finger off without even a 'by you're leave'.

We swam in the black waters of the Mosomn'pmnia lakes that the local village of talking monkeys call Popi for short. And yes I call them talking monkeys because that's exactly what they look like and they live in tree-houses and have fur all over their bodies. I was sort of relieved to learn they aren't native to Gaia but to another world named Terra but were stranded on the continent of Terrw when some portal closed years back.

None of us ascends from earth even got surprised anymore about talk of portals, other worlds and talking monkeys that don't even wear clothes to pretend to be civilized. Fuck, John even started a fledging friendship with one of the monkey people of Qoboqobo. That continent is also where we started getting directly hunted by the wildlife as though it were a game.

First we were stalked by a pack of wolf like creatures that were very difficult to see at night with surprising agility and the ability to climb trees. Ambush hunters that use stealth and speed to rush at bigger prey and swip at it as they hem it into the heart of the pack. Carnivorous creatures that hunt in their dozens usually but apparently made a special case for us and came out of their holes in their hundreds.

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Every night for 3 days they came at us harassing us as we pushed south through what I later learnt is called The Gull of Terra. The days were hardly any better as insects and plants tried to take their share of the feast we apparently were suppose to provide that part of the forest. Not that we didn't do enough hunting and gathering of our own.

I became a bush man as I enjoyed the great outdoors at a visceral level so deep that I can almost say I was a Tarzan of the jungle and I wasn't the only one. People on Gaia have a childish glee in doing things that we on earth don't have past childhood. Seeing a 80 year old man being chased by bees as he ran around with a stickful of honey is not something you see on earth anymore outside a closenit group of friends.

Yet these people don't seem to have things that lock their spirits in or limit them in order to conform to any social standard, everyone here is free in a way I find refreshing as I look up into the beautiful light of the sun as it reflects on water. When I say the sunrise here is like nothing on earth I literally mean its like nothing on earth.

I caught Edward crying one time as he watched a brown bronze sunset accentuated by the appearance of two moons. I smiled at the sight because for the first time in my life I felt the aura coming from another being and his joy was infectious.

After the dark-hyenas we were stalked by a single puma like feline through the Shade Forest under the canopy of trees that blot out almost all of the sun creating a perpetual twilight whenever its light out. I expected a single 'cat' to be a piece of cake in comparison to over a hundred hyenas but the worry that was being radiated by everyone native to the place made me skeptical of my assessment.

I woke up being told Ellen had disappeared one night and I didn't ask any questions as we fled at a relatively fast clip thought the ominous darkness of the Shade. It was the very next day with the sun still up, though that doesnt make much of a difference here, that someone else disappeared with a single echoing scream.

A very stressful and difficult few days followed as we tried to stay a head of the creature with Wes and the other magicians delayed the thing on occasion so we earthlings would get a better chance to survive. I'm not used to being the one that runs away while others remain and fight, its a very uncomfortable and sobering experience, especially since Dickson didn't return from one such trip.

When I finally saw the thing that had been silently stalking us for 4 days I understood why it got everyone so worried and why no one even bothered to look for the people it took. The thing cornered us between a narrow pass and some rock outcrops and itself in all its dangerous furry.

How could a single wild animal trap so many powerful people, I hadn't seen a single dinosaur on this entire continent so it had to be a regular animal right? But I wasn't right.

The thing was very big at about the same size as a corsa, for any animal on earth that's about the size of a rhina, huge. But for Gaian animal sizes its fairly normal and considering we have magicians amongst us, living breathing WMD arsenals I thought it the height of stupidity for a feline, an ambush hunter, to corner us and show itself. Wrong again.

I realized that the thing wasn't ambushing us because it feared us or couldn't face us all head on, but the thing had been playing with us. Seeing if we could outrun it or be clever enough to fool it before we reached the edge of it's hunting grounds.

Saeid let lose a whirlwind that the thing somehow brushed aside like a blown leaf, Dale let lose with flying rocks the size of vans that he somehow stripped off the ground of the clearing and the thing swerved around them easily as it made short work of the kilometer distance between us. Dewan released electricity from his hands even as I felt the pressure of the air around us thicken like I'm in a closed submarine.

A single subsonic yawl from the giant cat shattered the building pressure effect and the electricitic bolts bounced off an invisible force field inches from its body. A few arrows where also dogded as the think came at us but luckily it came within Mirabilis' range and her illusions saved our lives.

Not sure what she made it see but it was enough to delay it long enough for all of us to pass into the narrow passage before she released it and followed. I later learnt that was an Awakened luna cat, some other form of feline I'm unfamiliar with yet.

*

‎ The continent of Terra is almost one perpetual rain forest with occasional clearings spanning dozens of miles and occasionally very steep climbs I'm tempted to call mountains except for the fact that they aren't rocky. Mountains made of grass and trees more than rocks because apparently, the lava they produce is a very good compost when cold, go figure.

The trip wasn't any easier from that point but everyone native to Gaia still found ways to enjoy moments every day and laugh with genuine laughs. I admire these people greatly and we all got to know each other much better.

We eventually reached a beautiful sprawling town in the middle of the forest in a place the others called Adventure Forest. The town consists of many big beautiful wooden buildings designed in a way that makes me think not a single tree from was cut down from the building sites.

This part of the forest seemed to have an aura of its own that promotes peace and harmony. There we received lodging and rest and delivered some dispatches. There I also lost my Gain virginity.