“Sanon, I get that the river leads straight to Elion,” I said, looking at my map. “But are you sure it’s safe to travel on water?”
Following trends on Earth, if the land-dwelling wildlife on Helsa were as big as I’d seen so far, then the things in the water were bound to be positively terrifying, not to mention dangerous. And as much as I hate to admit it, I did have a sense of self-preservation, albeit only when it didn’t involve learning magic to some capacity.
Sanon sighed for the thirtieth time. “Max, we’ll be fine. What’s got you so scared?”
Thalassophobia is a hell of a drug. The marsh was one thing, but this river does not look very human-friendly.
Crossing my arms, I took a hesitant gander at the ‘boat’ that Sanon had been constructing for the last few hours. “I just have some concerns about what might be in the water…”
“Max, the only thing to be afraid of in the water is yourself. The fish won’t bother you if you don’t bother them.” said Sanon, looking up from carving into the log that would become a boat with a now tired expression gracing her normally youthful features.
Yeah. Myself… hah.
She had used some of my runes to create a magic sander out of a short stick. The ground around her was covered in green sawdust as she worked away at the log, its shape slowly turning into something that I recognized.
“Are you sure that’ll float?”
“Yes, it’ll float.” Sanon rapped her fist on the wood, eliciting a dull knocking sound that would have been inaudible had the log still been in an unworked state. It had only taken her about two hours to get it into this shape, and considering the size of the soon-to-be vessel, that meant that she possessed quite a degree of skill.
I took my attention away from the carpenting dwarf, making my way toward another tree of the same species. We had both slept in one previously, their branches arranged in such a way that left them reasonably comfortable once we cleaned the water out of the ‘bowl’ the branches formed. There had been colonies of bioluminescent moss growing along the branches and trunk of the tree, each colony extending tendrils into the tree’s bowl. They glowed a gentle cyan.
I had imagined that the tree gathered rainwater, but a closer look at the bowl revealed a number of small pores within the wood. A thought occurred, prompting me to retrieve Stabby from Sanon. I wedged the spear into the wood of the trunk before letting loose a low-yield penetration spell. A soft crack! sounded from the wound as water murky as the wetland around it gushed from it.
Does it filter water?
Moments later I noticed something else about the tree — it had no leaves! I probably should have noticed that earlier, but eh. Even stranger, the ‘branches’ I had mentioned were softer than you would expect. They had a dull green hue as the aforementioned moss stretched up their length.
Symbiosis?
“Are the branches like big leaves? Some kind of relationship with the moss maybe?” I said to myself. Indeed, every tree in sight had this moss covering their surfaces to some extent.
I suppose the boat’ll be watertight at least. Sanon did say that her family did a lot with boats and whatnot, so I guess it makes sense she’d know her stuff. Weirdly convenient though.
Sanon’s voice tore me from my thoughts. “Hey- hey! Max, get over here! I need your spear again!”
I sighed and walked back over to Sanon’s makeshift workstation to return Stabby to her. She gingerly took the spear from me before starting to carve away the bark of the trunk. As she skillfully peeled away the bark, a green hue similar to the branches was revealed, this one was much brighter though.
Sanon peeled off a chunk of the tree flesh and handed it to me. “Here, take a bite.”
I’m confident that any readers from Earth will understand why I was hesitant here. I’m not one to turn my nose up at new foods, but a tree? I mean- it looked edible… in the same way an unripe fruit does. It was still the flesh of a tree though, and Sanon had definitely noticed that I was eyeing it with suspicion.
Sanon smiled. “Go on and try it, they’re perfectly safe. They’re called chalice trees; my parents used to give me a slice whenever they had one imported for a project. I heard that some places like to fry them!”
I took the offering and sniffed it. It smelled like freshly cut grass, so I assumed the flavor would be bitter or maybe even savory. It made my eyes water though, so my confidence was quickly cowed.
I could tell you that it was sweet and tasted like strawberries, and that you should all try it without hesitation. But that would be a heinous crime that even the likes of I would not commit. I shoved the chunk of tree into my mouth and chewed. My face scrunched up when the flavor hit me. It was sharply pungent, with a strong, flavorful aftertaste.
…
This would make a fantastic onion ring.
The taste was still hard to handle on its own though, so I opted to get it swallowed sooner rather than savor it. In those few moments though, Max Jr. had left the perch that was my head, and made a beeline for the tree that Sanon had been carving at. It took no time at all for the bug to be sent flying by an annoyed dwarf.
“Could you keep that pet of yours busy, please?” Sanon pleaded.
I squatted down next to Sanon and gestured to her. “He has a name, you know. Besides, I think he’s just hungry… why don’t you gimme another slice?”
“If I do that then this whole tree’ll be gone in minutes. Here — take your spear and get a piece from a different one so he doesn’t home in on this one. I’m just about done here anyway.” She sighed, handing over Stabby without another word.
I gingerly took the offered spear and made my way to where Max Jr. had landed. The small thing had remained on its back, clearly struggling.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Here, lemme help ya with that.” I said, using the almost oar-shaped non-business end of Stabby to flip him over like a pancake. Max Jr. made a chittering noise that I had assumed to be jovial in nature.
Max Jr. ambled himself right up onto my shoulder, his wings whirring as he did so to assist in his ambling. Once he settled in, I ambulated my way about ten or so meters from Sanon over to another tree near the river, intent on defiling it for the sake of my buggy friend. The feeling of Stabby’s penetrate spell busting through the tree will never get old. In hindsight, I probably didn’t need to do that to the poor tree, but the past is the past. It’s not water under the bridge though. This river doesn’t have a bridge.
I sliced a piece of the tree off and handed it over to Max Jr. Why he hadn’t already started eating a tree was beyond me. Or at least that’s what I would say, because he immediately spat it out.
So, Max Jr.’s species is actually an obligate carnivore, meaning that they don’t just prefer only meat, they must eat only meat. They normally hide in holes they bore into trees and use them to ambush prey, but they’re also aware that when people hunt, they leave behind scraps, so they tend to follow travelers around for a while before losing interest. Max Jr. had followed me for a much longer time than is typical.
All that said, I didn’t know any of that at the time, so my befuddlement at the small creature’s action was most intense. “So you don’t want to eat that?” I asked, not expecting an answer. Wasn’t really sure what to do at that point, so I leaned on the tree whose trunk I had partially obliterated. It looked sturdy enough, so I didn’t really think much of it.
It was not sturdy enough. I didn’t even hear it crack, though that was probably due to the softness of the tree’s ‘wood’. I nearly went into the water with the tree, but fortunately Max Jr. valiantly saved me!
[No he didn’t.]
Shut up Literature.
Alright, fine. So I went into the water with the tree. The water was really cold compared to the muggy swamp air, and I do believe my exact words as I plunged into the murky hell were “oh shit the tree broke shitshitshitshitSHIT”.
When I was 14 I had nearly drowned in a river. I was canoeing with some family when we hit some rapids. My canoe collided with a branch and capsized with me still in it. It took me a few panic-laced moments of desperation before I was able to remove myself from under the canoe. I was able to grab onto a branch before I was swept away, and after a bit of struggling I managed to pull myself to the river bank. Not a good day, that one.
----------------------------------------
So anyway, my torso had ended up half submerged with my top half draped over the fallen tree. If that hadn’t already caused enough panic, then feeling something fleshy hitting my legs repeatedly definitely lit a waterproof fire under my now submerged ass. The way I scrambled back onto the shore was nothing short of cartoonish, and the fact that Sanon didn’t see it happen was my only saving grace. After all, Max Jr. can’t talk.
[You know… I could tell Sanon.]
If you do that, I will make the Great Discharge look like a goddamn tea party, Literature. So help me gods I will make you regret it.
Anyway. Now that I’ve shut Literature up-
[No you haven’t.]
Anyway. I scrambled up onto the wet, muddy grass of the river bank hoping that whatever had been in the water hadn’t decided my legs were suitable food. Repressed memories of drowning had suddenly returned to me
I took a number of moments to regain my composure and get my thoughts in line again. After that, it took me no time at all to notice the occasional splashing coming from where the tree had fallen into the water. It had remained only partially submerged, with the splashing centered around one of the branches. Closer inspection of the splashing revealed a fish of some kind that had been impaled on the aforementioned branch.
Now, if this had been Earth, I would have kept my distance and let myself feel safe away from the river. But this was not Earth. This was a bonafide alien planet, and while my rational mind told me that that only made it more dangerous, my irrational curious mind thought “oOoo alien fish!”
You can probably guess what happened next.
“Hey Sanon I just caught us dinner!”
[Really?]
I was hungry! Sue me.
Sanon hurried over, her face a mix of confusion, excitement, and concern. All of these things were understandable considering my track record up to that point. She had a knife in her hands that she had presumably been using to finish up the boat, though she sheathed it when she reached the spot where the tree had fallen. “Where is this dinner, exactly?” she said, raising an eyebrow. She put a hand to her forehead when I pointed to the splashing in the water. “You did not catch a fish with a tree.”
“Then what’s that?” I retorted smugly, gesturing again to the splashing near the tree. Whatever I had caught was certainly tenacious, still not having died just yet.
Sanon ignored me and hopped onto the fallen tree. She squatted down to get a closer look at the fish only for her expression to shift to an excited one. “Spear,” she said, holding out her hand.
I passed Stabby over to her for the second time that day, and she immediately thrust it into the water. She cursed under her breath when Stabby bounced right off of whatever it was she hit. “A little to the right then…”
The desperate splashing of the fish only intensified when she hit the fish right on target, twisting Stabby further into the fish, dislodging it from the branch holding it captive. With the fish now firmly impaled on Stabby, Sanon, with her abnormally robust strength, lifted a monster of a fish right out of the water and over her head, slamming it onto the river bank with enough force to put a shallow fish-shaped crater in the bank.
The thing had to be at least a meter long, and boy was it girthy! Even after all of the damage the fish had sustained, it was still fighting! Sanon hopped off the tree just before it fell into the river the rest of the way. She briskly approached the fish before pulling Stabby out of the fish and began wedging it under the armor covering its head. Once Stabby was snugly embedded beneath the plating of the armored fish, Sanon performed a deft forward thrust, instantly killing the fish. She took a breath and handed Stabby back to me after removing it from our dinner. “Strange method… but this was a really good find, Max. Jawblade fish are really valuable as food, but they aren’t very common back home. We should probably get this thing cut up and cooked before nightfall. We can make camp out here and be on the river to Elion by sunrise.”
I nodded to Sanon, kneeling down next to the fish. The head of the fish was really distinct, with thick, bony armor plating stretching from the front of the head all the way back to just past the operculum. For those who don’t know, the operculum is the flap that covers the gills of fish. What had me interested though, is the mouth. This thing had a really sharp set of teeth, if you could even call them that. This thing pretty much had a guillotine for a mouth!
Stranger still, it seemed familiar to me. It was something about how the mouth and armor plating were constructed that gave me pause. The rest of the fish was relatively normal, it was a dark brownish green with black spots all over, fitting for a fish living in a river or swamp. But the head of this fish was really peculiar.
Just where the hell have I seen one of these before? I know that sturgeon have something similar to the armor, but those are just osteoderms, not full on plating… wait, hang on. Aren’t armored fish extinct on Earth? If memory serves, they were called placoderms. But those guys went extinct right at the end of the Devonian period… it would be ridiculous to think that some of them ended up here, right?
Yeah it was ridiculous, but true nonetheless. At time of writing, the specific circumstances behind why these fish are on Helsa are still mostly unknown, but even then I was able to tell what this thing was. The armored head and guillotine-like jaw made it clear as day.
“Holy SHIT a dunkle!”
“A what?”