The raft caravan arrived at the precipice of what better weather would have revealed to be an enormous crater close to a thousand feet deep and several miles across. Today though, the only evidence that they were at their destination was the dim, ethereal blue luminescence emanating from the fuzzy surface of the algae-covered swamp water.
“Here we are,” Jenjo unceremoniously declared. “The old growth.”
Midday reached down and scooped up a handful of the vibrant blue Valley Algae and stared at it the substance, which began to glow a little brighter in response to his touch, for a moment before letting it fall back into the water. It was likely that this was the only thing he would be eating throughout the coming month and, since taste no longer applied to him, his only thought was about how well it would synergize with Devil Peppercorn.
“So where the hell is this Solomon guy?” Honey scoffed, unimpressed at the otherworldly blue algae that smothered the water like grass over dirt. “We’ve got to be getting close by now, right?”
“He lives on the back of one of the elephants that live here,” answered Jenjo. “That’s all she told me.”
“Hmm… In any case, I trust we should have our guns ready now that we’ve arrived?” Bell, the heavyset old hunchback, had long since readied his pistol. The question was just a roundabout way of reminding everyone to be on guard for the dangers they would soon face.
Midday took the hint and readied his weapon—though he knew such a puny device would be no match for the residents of the old growth. This was a place where creatures stronger than the moose he had killed less than ten minutes ago were at the bottom of the food chain.
A story Romulo had told him a month ago came to mind. It was his account of an encounter with the most lethal species in the old growth. The Swampopotamus. With an average height in excess of ten feet at the shoulder and a typical weight of fifty-thousand pounds, they were all but indestructible beasts that ruled over the algae supply with iron hooves. The only species larger than them were the Old Growth Elephants—peaceful behemoths that made the Swampopotamuses look minuscule by comparison.
“Having your guns out would be wise,” agreed Jenjo.
The rafts continued into the crater known as the old growth. Its edges were gently sloped at first, and Midday initially found the sensation of entering the area akin to being carried along a slow river, but the rafts kept picking up speed as the ground beneath them steepened until it almost felt as though they were barreling down a waterfall.
Midday gripped the edges of his boat as best he could, holding on for dear life as rain and wind alike pelted his face until the water finally leveled out at the bottom of the crater with a suddenness that knocked the wind out of him.
When he managed to pull his head up from the raft, he was greeted by the sight of a herd of zebras. They looked exactly like their conventional counterparts besides the fact that their color scheme was black and red as opposed to the usual black and white.
The creatures stood atop the surface of the water as though it were solid ground and were grazing the algae that grew on its surface as if it were grass. There were about a dozen in total that could be seen, but Midday imagined that there were many more hidden behind the fog. They stepped aside whenever rafts came near, but the zebras made no attempt to run.
“Red Stripe Zebras,” he said, informing his companions as to what they were seeing. Romulo had told him about these creatures in the past. “They’re born with the ability to walk on water.”
“We see that.” The carpentry sister who did all the talking, whom Midday had yet to learn the name of, stared at the creatures with a bored gaze. “The real question here is why they aren’t trying to get away from us. That’s unusual, isn’t it?”
“Probably because they would just be running from one problem to another,” answered Midday. “Swampopotamuses and other creatures like that are far more of a threat to them than we are. I imagine they prefer taking their chances with us weak humans to facing all but certain death by trespassing into hippo territory.”
“I see.” All three carpentry sisters nodded in unison.
“Do you think we could ride them? Like horses?” Ablute looked up at the creatures with glee.
“Not without a creature taming Ability.” Jenjo frowned. “These are wild animals. We should ignore them for now. We can come back to kill them for XP later, but now isn’t the time for that. Just keep paddling. We need to find a tree before we run into those hippos the kid mentioned.”
Midday and the others eyed the zebras as their boats floated past. The zebras did the same to them.
One of the most immediate differences between the old growth and the forest that surrounded it was the density of the trees. The Freshwater Oaky Mangroves that dominated the old growth were all interconnected by their mangled network of interlocking branches, such that almost no rainfall could penetrate their layers after layers of leaves, but there was an enormous gap between the trunk of each individual tree. So wide, in fact, that fog was all Midday could see upon trying to study the surroundings. That was no surprise, of course, but he nonetheless found the feeling of being trapped in a featureless abyss a tad unnerving. He hoped that the fog would clear soon.
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For the time being though, it was there to stay—an inescapable visual reminder of just how pointless his struggle really was. If Weathermaker or Siempre Elvanera or Mulberry or anyone else like that truly wanted him dead, he would die. Simple as that. He took the fact that he was still breathing as a sign that his existence had been overlooked and that he would therefore be spared for at least a little while longer, but he knew that everything could end at a moment’s notice.
He had gained a level, sure, and that was a step in the right direction, but he was still just as powerless in the grand scheme of things as before. The Elvanerean Ring was undeniably an extraordinarily powerful item when used to its full potential, and that made it sting all that much more that he still had yet to make the most of it. Midday wondered if he would live long enough to get the chance.
The side of what Midday assumed was a tree came into view. It was hard to say for sure because the thing had such a broad trunk that appeared as a flat wall to him, but its soot-black bark was proof enough of what it was. Thick vines that glowed in the same ethereal blue as the algae wrapped around the entire trunk with huge tendrils of such thickness that it looked possible to climb them in much the same way that one might scale a ladder.
Thanks to his time spent with Romulo, he managed to identify the plant as Glowing Spidervine: a mildly poisonous vine that could do everything a rope could do and then some. It was supposedly possible to make an edible dish out of it by boiling the vines, but Midday wasn’t especially keen on giving anyone ideas. The Valley Algae was a better food source anyways as, according to Romulo, it was ‘impossibly nutritious’ to the point of containing more than a dozen times as much ‘energy by volume' as one would get from eating pure refined sugar. With Devil Peppercorn thrown into the mix, it seemed very likely that his emaciation would soon be a thing of the past, and the thought of it put a weak smile on his face.
“And now we climb,” said Jenjo as he tossed a makeshift anchor comprised of several prison shackles tied together down into the murky waters below. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’ll be much safer up there than down here.”
“Definitely,” said Midday. “It’ll still be dangerous up there but, more than anything else, we can’t afford an encounter with a Swampopotamus herd. On an individual basis, they’re classified as Severity 2 creatures, but any given herd of them will have about a hundred members—so dealing with them directly is pretty much impossible.
“That many?” Jenjo frowned. “If that’s true, I miscalculated. My plan had been to hunt them for XP and, while I still intend to, it sounds as though some preparations will be necessary before we can get started with that. But before thinking about anything along those lines, we need to find Solomon.”
“And do we have ideas as to where that fellow might be?” asked Bell.
“All we know is that he’s on the back of one of the giant elephants that live here. Your guess is as good as mine regarding which specific one, but I expect that it’ll take a day or two for us to track him down. In the meantime, we’ll traverse this place from the relative safety of the treetops.” Jenjo grabbed the Spidervine and started climbing, not paying any mind to the surely immense weight of his enormous duffel bag as he went. “Now get to it.”
Bell was the first to follow suit. Based on level, he was the second strongest member of the group behind only Jenjo and, sure enough, he made the climbing look effortless, catching up to Jenjo in a matter of seconds.
Next came the carpentry trio and Ablute, all of which were above average in both level and physique. They scaled the vines without much difficulty, perhaps finding a little trouble when the vines—the organic things they were—moved in unexpected ways, but the struggle was very minor.
Midday looked up at the tree. It was essentially a vertical wall above him and, because of the fog, there was no way of knowing exactly how much of it he would have to climb before making it to the treetops. To make matters worse, his knowledge of the fish that lived in the swamp made the prospect of falling all that much worse.
During their time in Slave Quarter #344, Romulo had occasionally brought back fish he had gotten from the old growth to have Glauster cook them, and it was through these experiences that Midday had learned about the existence of some creature native to the old growth. Among other things, there were Reverse Lampreys—which injected fluid into their victims that could, as Romulo had put it, ‘infect the target creature with a desire to protect their aggressor at any cost’—and Godmouth Bass—a small fish with the ability to increase the size of their mouths to such an extent that they could ‘swallow a horse in one gulp’. It was strange stuff, and the alien nature of it all made Midday uneasy.
More daunting than any of that though was the thought of being left behind. Hoping to avoid that worst-case scenario, he forced himself to begin his ascent, wincing as the time-weathered bark, rendered rough and gnarled through centuries of wear, rubbed against his hands. To make matters worse, the rain made the vines slippery to the touch. This was mitigated somewhat by the hydrophobic properties granted to him by the Raincoat Ring but, even still, the experience of his fingers sliding around against his will did little to inspire confidence.
Worse still was the fact that the bugs who lived in the vines—small termites of some sort—had taken it upon themselves to attack what they perceived to be an invader to their territory. The bites didn’t do any real damage, but they were undeniably painful and, if not for Mister Potatoes scurrying around and eating them by the dozen, Midday reckoned that the pain would have been a lot worse.
Despite all of that, he slowly made his way up the tree, finally arriving at the enormous branch everyone else ahead of him had been waiting atop for quite a while by then. The only person who hadn’t made it to the top yet was Braulia, the hooded pyromancer. She had used her Ability a while back to kill the termites attacking her, but the unfortunate consequence of this was that the vines she had been holding onto became too damaged to support her weight. She'd dropped like a rock.
Braulia had gotten herself out of the water pretty quickly after that, and nothing had come of the incident besides giving Midday the honor of not being the last to arrive but, even still, seeing someone fall like that put everyone on edge.
“Try to be mindful of your footsteps,” said Jenjo. “The branches sway a little with every motion, so staying balanced is important. It’s a long fall to the bottom.”
“Yeah.” Midday nodded and, with some help from Ablute, he rose to his feet and looked around.
They were standing on a branch so wide that it almost resembled a bridge and so long that Midday was left with the impression that it might as well be infinite. Looking up, he saw that there were countless branches just like this one higher up on the tree, and many of them interlocked with each other to create complex networks that, according to Romulo, made it possible to traverse the entire area without ever venturing near the dangerous waterline below.
A few minutes later, after Braulia had made it to the top, Jenjo motioned for the group to start their journey along the branch and, with that, the search for giant elephants had begun.