Leaning into the portal I heard the sounds of a verdant jungle, ominous noises and rumbling filled the darkened floor, held in a tentative twilight by the thick canopy.
the beauty of the scene before me was haunting, it took my soul and sight that I didn't hear space slam shut behind me.
Then the stampede found me.
truth be told I don't know how I survived the initial stampede but when I woke I found myself nestled within a hollow of an ancient far spanning tree. Both legs were dislocated at the knee joint and so I went around to setting them.
Chlock, a pained grunt, POP and another restrained moan of pain.
Deciding that walking was Not in my favour for now, I looked around the area I found myself in after my... glorious entry into this world.
What I saw was both incredible and shocking.
There was a path torn through the forest.
Cloven trees dotted a not insignificant portion of the visible forest, but there were no logs, whether they were behind the tree I was in or not was beyond my current information.
Gathering my lingering sense of adventure to move, I gritted through the pain of walking on my freshly relocated legs after considering that should another stampede go through there is no guarantee of my continued survival.
All and all my current circumstance isn't the worst it could be.
It isn't perfect as I suddenly realise my lack of book.
Fuck, should have brought a staff or something instead.
Scratch that clothes, as a breeze decides to grace my nude form with the biting cold from a sodding mountain range which seems to be undergoing a rapid drop in snow as it rolls down the mountain.
An Avalanche? not important.
basics of survival - food, water and shelter.
given this world fighting fuckoff huge monsters may be included if a sudden end to my life is a valid game plan.
I decided that some clothes wouldn't go amiss but I needed a base, a place to put all of my non-existent but soon to exist belongings.
So I began to travel through the carved pathways through the jungle, which were rapidly receiving more plant-life, I pinch several rapidly growing mushrooms, and I end up waiting for a sapling to grow enough to turn into a walking stick. After whacking the hell out of the tree and my hand I have a vaguely walking type staff.
It is a little big, though the tree rapidly closing the marks I made during the process of cutting it down wasn't helpful.
I rub the mushrooms I picked against my skin in increments as I follow the regrowing pathway.
My skin doesn't react at all, so I end up rubbing it against my tongue.
Nothing happens immediately so I chalk it up that these are not poisonous.
Eventually the sounds of a river fill my ears as I find a large split in the forest floor.
The sides of the river are tall, getting down to the water will be difficult, but it should make water openly available given the size of the river
The sides of the river are roughly 10m tall and are all sedimentary, the large rock plates showing prominently, the river itself seems to be around 100m~.
A waterfall over a cliff down stream.
This should be a good place but some tools are necessary.
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Elsewhere, in the estate of the minor noble house of Wellspring.
Adrian Wellspring awoke, his sleeping disturbed by the burning in his guts.
He sighed before getting up, his bloated body rippling with the movement.
the youngest son of the noble house was usually seen as a glutton, after all how could his body get so fat if not for his sins?
No Adrian was bloated because he was the host to the Wellspring of their family's namesake.
A pool of diluted pure magic.
Every heir was to ingest some portion of this wellspring for power, unfortunately for Adrian he was very compatible with the wellspring.
He heaved his titanic frame from his bed as the chambermaid prepared to dress him.
On her she possessed something curious, a single copper ring with intricate engravings on it, lightly glowing in the haze of twilight that coated the room.
His eyes passed over the comparatively diminutive maid, his perpetual scowl causing her to freeze up for a moment before he moved his gaze.
she was assigned to him from his birth, and she also happened to be the tallest maid in the manor.
She was of northern decent, and she was sitting at 190cm tall.
Adrian on the other hand was around 300cm tall.
In the northerner's opinion he was tall enough, now just needed to be older.
eventually his clothes found their way into his sturdy and toned limbs before suffering the woes of a expansive chest. the flesh refusing to stay still for more than a few moments.
His breathing laboured, and dignity in spades he exited his personal bedchambers with maid in tow towards the main room of the manor.
He opened the doors which were large enough for him to pass through easily, he met with three of his siblings.
Audry Wellspring, the religious fanatic of the family
Charles Wellspring, the warrior of the family
Eugene Wellspring, the mage of the family
And of course Adrian Wellspring, the craftsman of the family
"Little brother, you awake at an auspicious time." Eugene said aware of his little brother's temper when circumstances were poor.
"the wellspring awoke me, was there a breach?" he answered quickly, the faces of his family lightening as he made no attempt to berate them.
"Not a breach yet, but soon, and many, I have already rallied the house's troops but this is going to be... difficult." Charles answered, his voice the deepest in the room.
Audry for the most part was focused and muttering something under her breath.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"Do we know what we are fighting this time?" Adrian asked no one in particular.
To this Audry snapped her eyes open.
"DEMONS, DEVILS, HELLSPAWN, ALL FOUL BEASTS OF THE INFERNAL CIRCLES WE ARE BOUND!!!" She practically screamed as her eyes flew open.
Everyone winced.
"What? I was telling you all about the foes we are to meet." She said primly no sign of the rampant religious fervour in her voice.
"Right, so have you been able to convince your god of my plan then?" Adrian queried.
"She says that it is acceptable on two conditions, she gains ownership of the finished items after the battle and takes them, plus you will make a weapon commemorating the event to be given to her church."
"Simple tasks and requests, I agree." Adrian said to the shock of his siblings.
"Adrian the miser actually giving into a request so blatant? truly we live in dark times." Charles quipped.
"If you have enough time to philosophise on my nature you have time to get ready for combat now go!" Adrian spluttered to which charles left in a hurry.
"Audry, Eugene, I will need your assistance with my side of the plan."
"but of course brother, if we are to succeed we must have only the finest masterpieces." Eugene replied.
the three siblings wouldn't sleep for several days as the forging, carving and enchanting processes took too much time to waste sleeping.
Adrian was hit the worse but also the best, his mind kept fresh by the wellspring but causing constant suffering.
His limbs moved the sacred metal into stylised sword, mace, staff and hammer.
Then the chisels carved depictions of the fair lady of earth, and metaphorical prose littered the blade's and faces of these weapons, the whole time Audry was on her knees praying to the metal for its consent to change its divine form into that which will drive back the darkness.
At the end of the three days the weapons had bonded to each member of the family, they seemed more works of art than actual weapons, their colour and shape greatly resembling glowing glass, as layers upon layers of enchantments were set upon the welded layers of metal from divine origin.
Each layer quenched into the wellspring of the family to trap enough energy into the weapon's divine metal that the enchantment's would last the duration of the fight.
Not that Adrian couldn't requench them just that the process would likely kill him.
Each layer built upon the last to deliver a 3-dimensional depiction of the faith of the fair lady.
Adrian's inhuman frame made the Unearthly metal tame and pliable for working, Audry's increasingly frantic praise and prayer kept the metal docile and Eugene's skill with magic bound the most powerful effects unto the divine metal with stoic abandon.
Surely my fair lady will be pleased with these engravings. Audry thought
Surely my brothers and sister can beat back the hordes with these. Adrian thought
Surely this will be enough, I hope I don't need to enter the field, Eugene thought
So on the third day the last quenching was done and the quartet of siblings marched to war in their own land.
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Tools are difficult to make - Roland thought as several mishappen stones sat around him, incomplete and faulty.
"at least I won't need to worry about wedges to force the stone." he mused.
a few hours of trying to make functioning tools was a pain enough attempting to scribe the archaic rune for durability into them and seal it with the lifesap of his staff.... the less said the better.
He had eventually managed to make a single axe head from a particularly dense and heavy rock he found a way into the forest ground down with the bigger one it was broken from.
The grinding of rock against rock took hours, Roland however possessed quite the meat on his bones, so he was merely weary from the long grinding.
He would eventually need food, and he was planning to carve into the small cliffs around the river considering that the river probably dissuaded any of the bigger nasties from attempting to run this way.
But before that I need to get a temporary base up before trying anything more permanent.
Cutting down several saplings in similar states of growth as my walking stick/staff I began to cut notches into a big tree and jam wooden pegs into the slits to give myself some footholds.
Given 4-8 pegs per sapling, around 10 saplings, I had plenty of time to watch the sun set and all noise to recede from the forest, I had the premonition that I was too late in fully climbing the tree.
Regardless I couldn't stop now, so on into nightfall the rhythmic sound of tock tock tock as I climbed my pegs, cut into the tree, jammed the peg in and hammered it home, climbed back down cause I ran out of pegs 10 holes ago, and repeat the process +1.
Eventually I made it up to the lowest branches of this stupidly large tree.
The gods really must of liked their trees in this place.
Before I got too comfortable I heard the rustling of leaves.
no other option I pulled out the emergency light source.
Part way through carving down, or grinding down the rock, I realised why it was so heavy and tough.
It was a native pocket of metal, and just so happily, it could make sparks.
Striking a rock against the cutting edge a spray of illuminate particles sprouted and shot into the sap coated end of a stick.
took a few strikes to light up and see the rustling.
Take an owl times by bear, add in some woodpecker, Proceed to shit thyself.
How the fuck did it get up here without me noticing?
Would love to know cause that is a fucking hell of a party trick.