Two days on the back of a snake traveling through a jungle, with a bunch of stiff warriors, a vigilant Hiyark, a peaceful priestess, and a horny sociopathic bard, was surprisingly… boring.

Absolutely dreadfully boring. The only source of entertainment was Happy. He kept making passes that ranged from ludicrously bad to uncomfortably good. He literally once raised his band and by some stupid magic, pulled back a bouquet of flowers for me. His damn hornyness seemed to abate half way through the journey, after we rested for the first night, but he seemed to keep up the playful attempts.

The fact that it was continually chipping away at me was… distracting. At this point I knew actually killing Happy would be hard. He was starting to feel like that old friend with odd hobbies… despite that said hobbies ended in the death of innocents and the potential destruction of the world. His god damn humor and playfulness did not help anything, making him seem totally harmless. More than a half dozen times I’d had the passing thought ‘perhaps I can just convince him to change his ways? I can fix him.’ and then nearly smacked myself. Considering it was only two days, that said quite a bit.

Konohora was a welcome breath of fresh air though. Any time Happy got too close, she was more than prepared to punch him. I really didn’t need the added pressure from him actually getting that close to me, he was already doing too much.

Thankfully, like a break in the storm, we finally arrived at the temple. And what a temple it was. I understood it would be big but… only compared to us mere mortals. I had figured it would be, well, small compared to one of these super red wood trees.

It was not.

The whole temple… was like a palace constructed by giants. The full breadth of it… was unbelievable.

I want you to imagine shrinking to the size of ant in the biggest building in the world and you might have a fraction of how I felt. Looking up at the wall… it rose so much taller than the trees and it was a clearing all by itself. Despite that, I couldn’t see the sky. Not unless I looked directly up and even then. I had never, in either world, had even heard of something this massive. In both width and height, I was fairly sure this was the biggest building in the world.

And yet, despite the absolute shocked awe I felt, it was only heightened to another degree as I realized something unbelievable. The building was made of wood, suffused with green energies… and practically glowing. I felt as if I was looking up at a magical planet.

I couldn’t even properly make it out, it simply dominated all my vision.

“H…how…” I’m not sure who said it, it might have been me. Even the snake seemed in awe at the pure mass in front of us. At this temple for the gods.

“It… wasn’t like this before.” Hiyark said numbly.

When before? How long has it been since you’ve been to this temple only a two day snake ride away from your main city? A year, ten, a thousand? Despite all of us being stunned, eventually, Hiyark slowly got the snake moving again, approaching such a massive temple.

The second we reached the floor, Konohora jumped down onto it. I nearly manically chuckled. She was like the smallest ant in the entrance way of a palace. She reached down, touching the wooden floor. Her mouth hung open, as she stared at the ground.

She looked back up at us and her next words made me understand just what she had felt.

“This place… is alive.”

Alive? This whole place… the thought struck me dumb. This place had been smaller… because it had grown to be this big.

What utter insanity.

“Fascinating.” Happy said, in an awed whisper, eyes wide and sparkling like a child’s.

I had to agree. Who wouldn’t? We were in a living building the size of a large town at least and as tall as two skyscrapers stacked on top of one another. One that had grown to that size. That was alive. That was probably still growing. I had seen the lifeless but soulless existences that were the Lost but… I hadn’t figured that applied to buildings too. Life without a soul… is truly unfathomable at times.

Konohora got back onto the snake and Hiyark continued to travel through the temple’s halls but… I was starting to have my doubts.

“So… where is the gem going to be?”

Hiyark frowned.

“It crash landed in our main temple… the illustrations in our history always had it being at the top but… the temple isn’t the same as it once was anymore.”

“Forward.” Konohora said.

I glanced back at her… and my eyes widened. Her face was a rictus grimace of pain.

“Konohora?!”

“The Lifeforce… it’s getting stronger forward… like a river. I can… feel it.”

My blood suddenly ran cold, and Hiyark and the rest of the warriors eyes seemed to widen as well.

“We must move fast.” Hiyark said, then squeezed her legs as the snake practically sprinted despite it’s lack of legs.

My entire focus was on Konohora.

“Konohora… what’s going on?”

“The… heat inside. It’s growing so fast.”

My own had died as it tried and failed to move to my genitals, again. Something was up with that but now wasn’t the time.

“Get rid of it. Expel it. Use it up. Do something.”

“Derek.” She cast a glare at me. “I am trying to do all of that and more. Have been trying, for days. It is not… succeeding.”

The Gem was trying to turn Konohora into a Lost. Except she wasn’t having it happen slowly and gradually over time, but in an explosion from being so close. The Life already inside her from the Giantesses, the Gaieldr, was going into overdrive. I thought rapidly, trying to figure out a solution.

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I hit one. A nasty one.

“Konohora.” I said raising a clawed hand. “I have a…. terrible idea.”

She saw my claws and grimaced, but nodded.

“Aim for my stomach.”

I took a second to steel myself and then put my claws on her mid section, under her clothes. I took a breath and it took every part of my willpower to pull down. To claw.

I immediately felt, even as I was making the injury, that it was healing.

“More.” Konohora said. “Deeper.”

I pushed in, scraping her, and feeling like I was going to vomit. Blood dripped down but the wound vanished so fast that you’d think it was an illusion. I felt like my mind was cracking. I- I- I couldn’t do this. This was wrong, this felt wrong, I was hurting Konohora, tearing her apart, I can’t, I can’t-

“Move out of the way a voice came from behind.” I turned and in the moment I did, I saw a spear flash forward bury itself into Konohora’s gut… and out the side. Konohora let out a sharp grunt.

“Konohora!” I turned, murder in my eyes, at Hiyark. She had stabbed right through, opening a massive gash on her side. “You-”

“Look.” she said. I turned back around quickly, only to see the wound, the grievous almost mortal wound under normal circumstances, disappear and heal in the blink of an eye. I knew that Konohora could heal like that… but it wasn’t Konohora doing it.

“Are you better?” Hiyark said. It took a moment for Konohora to reply, the ghost of pain flashing over her.

“More…” She said shakily. “It.. slowed it down but… it’s rising too fast.”

“I…” To my horror, Konohora’s eyes seem to briefly lose their spark. “I’m… drowning in it.”

“Derek. Look away.”

I….

“Derek.”

“You need to direct us.”

“We’re still heading straight. Look. Away.”

I felt like a coward, but I did so. But I could still hear, still knew what was happening right behind me, as Konohora was maimed and blood splattered. In front of me… was Happy. Looking directly at the brutal scene behind me, at the… I couldn’t even think the words.

He had the same smile and look on his face as he always had.

“Fascinating.” He said, still with the same child like awe he had earlier.

I was sharply reminded of why I knew he had to die.

*****

Minutes passed but they felt like years. I stared ahead, forcing myself not to acknowledge what was happening behind me.

Finally, a hoarse voice called out, as there was a fork in the hallway we were in.

“Right…”

I turned around-

My eyes shook. My breathing ratcheted. My blood ran cold and my emotions threatened to break out and break me.

So much blood. So much blood. So much…

Konohora seemed in perfect health, only the… god… insane amounts of blood said otherwise. The back of the snake was coated with it, Konohora, Hiyark, and the warriors even behind her were coated in it. It looked like a lake had opened up and coated everyone. Her clothes were torn to shreds, her body somehow soaked with the grisly red. It wasn’t hard to see why though. Hiyark hadn’t just targeted her stomach repeatedly… she’d stabbed and torn her to pieces… everywhere.

Konohora barely look like she was hanging onto consciousness.

This was only further proven true… when she passed out, nearly slipping off the snake before Hiyark caught her.

“The healing has slowed.” Hiyark said. “Time has been bought with near death. We must hurry.”

I felt my heart slamming into my chest as fear and horror crawled over me, I felt like I was going to vomit and my body and hands were shaking. They hurt her. They tortured her. They tore her apart. They- They- I-

“Derek. Derek! Focus.”

I heard the words and felt myself being turned away, eyes falling back into focus on where we were headed. My emotions and self were a mess and- I felt- I don’t know, I couldn’t, this wasn’t-

“You’re crying.” A familiar, happy voice said.

I raised my hand and- Blood. My hand was coated in her blood. I had put my hand down earlier on the snake’s back I-

I-

I-

I-

My mind felt numb, everyone’s voice felt distant, the weight behind me seemed to press on my mind even while I was physically forced from turning around. My breathing and my mind and my stomach and heart all felt… I was gonna…

I felt like I was going to faint. The world seemed to be slipping away…

My head turned, something had struck me. I didn’t feel it.

“Derek! This isn’t the time! Your companion is going to become Lost unless you focus.”

I blinked back a little. Right, right, Konohora isn’t safe. I need to, I need to save her. To help her. The Gem. We got to… get the gem.

My thoughts seemed to crystallize reality as the snake suddenly entered a grand new cavernous room. It was just as big as the cavern the city of the Restante was in, despite it being a room. And in that room, that grand cavernous area, there was a building. A much smaller building but only by comparison. It was a temple, a temple like the one Hiyark sat at the top of. And even from here, I could feel and see the Gem. A green glow emanating out, into the entire area.

But there was a problem. At the base of the Temple… something rose.

Something huge.

A black panther. It opened its massive eyes, looking down at us… and there was nothing in there. It was Lost. Soulless. To make matters worse, it wasn’t alone. I could feel a mass of things beginning to stir.

The air began to turn and twist, a lake’s worth of water rose up, the ground beneath us trembled, and beyond just that, an army of monsters and forest animals stood before us.

It had never occurred to me… that the gem would have defenses.

Silently, they charged at us.

I felt my soul practically feel like it was leaving my body, as the panther moved like lightning towards us. I barely had time to react, before its paw was falling down on top of us. My life flashed before my eyes, my whole body trying to dodge out the way, the snake doing the same.

Too slow.

The paw fell.

Crack!

…and met a spear.

I looked up in awe, where a panther the size of a small town hung above me and a spear head the size of a small building stopped it. I turned my head around, following the spear… only to shake at the sight in front of me.

It was the giantesses, the Gaieldr. Half a dozen stood behind me, two of them I recognized. Saisaie and the one that had stopped the panther… the silver haired leader.

No one was more shocked than the Restante and especially Hiyark who stared at them.

“They…” Her voice was practically choked with emotion.

“Awecalan Lailla Bsailrasr... Sessan.”

A fuzzy memory tickled at me. Only because I’d heard all those words before. ‘Enemy’ ‘Small people’ but the last word… why did I remember it?

“Buln Medar... esa Sessan.”

“Sessan.”

As the silver haired woman knocked the panther flying back and took two steps in front of us, I had a moment of keen awareness. That word… I knew what it meant. I could feel it, feel it as Saisaie looked down at us with an awed smile, as the rest of the women gained a determined look in their eye, as the leader prepared to fight with us.

Hiyark knew the language. Choked up with emotion, she translated.

“Awakened life bringers… sacred.”

The Elementals, The monsters, and the Panther charged. The Gaieldr, the race the Restante had accidentally created, rushed in.

Hiyark let out an emotional battle cry and we charged forth on the back of the snake.