Map
The map reappeared. I mentally made a mark outside of the Cliffs.
Guide me
The line reappeared and I found myself again walking up to blank walls, willing them open, and continuing down random hallways and through rooms of people. No one paid any attention to me, a glance at most.
I kept my eyes trained forward on the line. Hopefully I can just deliver this box and never have to encounter the Raven Court again. That felt unlikely, but I had managed to avoid them for the entirety of my life up to this point, so I was hopeful that luck would continue.
Finally, I found myself back in the reception room with the woman behind the desk. I was on the other side of the room from where I had originally entered, though.
The woman was unfazed by my appearance. “Enjoy your meeting?” she chatted.
“Yes,” I lied. “I’m supposed to make a deliv–”
She held her hand up, “you’ll be contacted shortly to explain the rest of the details.” Her hospitality smile never wavered.
“Right, thanks,” I said simply. I stepped outside and my illusiacom almost immediately chimed inside my mind. I placed the only included receiver crystal into the slot on the front.
“Salway,” the now familiar voice growled. “The box you were given is meant for a special client. You’re delivering it to a contact in Hex 11. He’s a mannaro, thinks himself a snake or a dragon or something. He’s slithering around their rainforest; hand it over to him and return here.”
The receiver crystal faded from green to clear. He had disconnected before I could even respond. I decided to leave the crystal in its place and placed the illusiacom into my pocket. It bumped against something.
Right, the random enchant I took from the Purple Ravens. I pulled it out and examined it as I made my way toward Hex 11. It was a small metal coin, with a slight bulge on one side and a flat surface on the other.
I looked at it closely, flipping it over repeatedly and examining it from multiple angles. It didn't look particularly special from what I could see, but enchants rarely did. The only option was to test it, but after encountering the Purple Ravens, I was worried what their crazed minds might place into something so simple.
I channeled a small amount of energy into the bulged side and it popped out into a loop. Now the coin was more of a ring. I slipped it onto my middle finger and it fit well over my glove, but I didn’t feel any different.
I channeled more energy into it and now the flat portion glowed with a runic shape in the middle. It looks like a brand. I folded my hand together and reopened it. The runic symbol was now stamped into my glove. I grabbed my short sword and pressed the enchant against it, channeling energy to mark its hilt with the same symbol.
I dropped my sword to the ground and kept walking away from it. I looked at the symbol in my hand and focused on the sword in my mind. I channeled magic into the brand on my glove and my sword reappeared in my hand, the two brands aligned with each other, but fading from the use.
Summoning magic requires a connection with whatever you are summoning to you, but brands add a shortcut. Two identical brands will connect the objects to each other. Usually, you need to draw the brands onto the object and a parchment. The brand will often fade off the parchment after you summon it. Some people will have their weapons engraved with their personal brand and then have the same brand carved into a gauntlet or glove to form a more permanent bond.
This enchant will let me mark anything and then summon it to me. Well, anything that I have a connection to. Only expert summonors can summon items that they have no history with or intimate knowledge of.
I practiced branding and summoning each of my weapons as I approached Hex 11. I found that the dagger, bow, and sword were marked easily, but arrows were too thin for the bulky ring to get the full brand on.
Finally, I arrived at Hex 11. The hexes weren’t numbered based on their location. I think they may have just numbered them as they were built. There was nonsense like Hex 2 being connected to 5 and 7, and Hex 11 only being accessible through Hex 6. Without the map, I would never be able to find anything in this city.
The courtyard of Hex 11 was very different from the previous ones I had entered. It was a wide open expanse with no buildings or benches or fountains. It was just a plain paved floor. The only entrance tunnel was the one I had just walked through.
The other two hexes that 11 was attached to were the hex where they grow food (Hex 3) and the hex where they keep the last living animals on Loke (Hex 9); both of those didn’t appear to be accessible for normal people.
Other than the one entrance tunnel, the walls brimmed with risers to various floors of the hex. Instead of the usual disks, the risers here were wide platforms, probably to accommodate the extreme size of some of the mannaro. You didn’t want an elephant-man to get stuck in the riser tubes. Traffic would be backed up for hours. And the mannaro might be hurt as well.
That also points to the most stark difference: there were hardly any people walking around here. All of the other hexes had throngs of people weaving through each other. In this one, there was almost no one. Just a small number of mannaro leaving and arriving. You almost never see the mannaro outside of their hex, but they’re all very noticeable. A wolfman or deerwoman aren’t exactly inconspicuous, even in a crowd of thousands.
Each section of risers had a label above it: “Polar”, “Rainforest”, “Desert”. A dozen different options for where the mannaro may want to live. I stepped onto the nearest platform for the rainforest and was whisked upward.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
The riser tube offered no view into each level as I rose upward. I could feel the climate changing with each second that passed. The air became warm and heavy with moisture. I arrived on my floor and the label didn’t disappoint, this was certainly a rainforest.
The riser platform landed in the only open patch of ground, and all I saw before me was a thick brush of crowded trees, enormous leaves, and plants whose names I didn't know. Everything was dripping with water and I could feel myself contracting exotic diseases just from the sounds of the insects around me.
Map, show me the rainforest
The map rose into view and centered on one of the top floors of the mannaro hex. Looking at the map, you would think this floor is a normal town with a slightly tangled set of roads. But, looking around, I couldn’t make out a single one of the displayed trails.
I marked what appeared to be the town square and started the guide-line. It ran along the floor straight into an enormous leaf growing out of the ground. I pushed into it and found what might generously be called a footpath. The vague lack of vegetation was all I could visually cling to as I went along it.
Halfway there, I heard cracking of branches in the bushes around me. I branded my sword with my new ring and sheathed it, the motion becoming habitual. If something attacked, I would be ready to have my sword in hand, but they wouldn’t see it coming.
Above me, I heard rustling and saw a large shadowed figure in the canopy above.
“What is a soft-skin doing in our hex?” a voice from behind me growled. I spun to meet the owner of the voice: a six and a half foot tall green scaled mannaro. His bumpy surface, long face, and ridged tail had me guessing he's a crocodile or similar.
“I'm passing through to meet a friend,” I replied.
The figure from above rumbled down a tree and landed with a thud that lightly shook the ground. This one looked like a normal gorilla with a more human-shaped head. “You have no friends here,” he grunted. “Leave. Now.” His teeth were bared at me the entire time he spoke.
They had me flanked. I couldn't keep them both in sight. The croc looked armed with some kind of spear or halberd on his back. The gorilla didn't have anything visually on him. His strength was probably enough for most fights. I had to act fast.
These two may have been ready to kill me, but the Raven Court would hunt me to my last breath if I abandoned their task.
“I don't want to fight,” I lied. “I'm just here to give something to someone and then I'll leave.” I slowly backed away from the gorilla, getting closer to the croc. I kept my hands raised high away from my weapons.
“We aren't asking again,” the croc said, the smell of rotting fish emanating from above me. He grabbed my shoulder roughly.
I smiled. Perfect. With him so close, my raised hands were just below his long snout. I turned my hand sideways so the brand on my glove was lined up and summoned my sword to me.
It appeared in my hand and pierced through the croc's jaw and into the roof of his mouth.
I jerked the sword out, spinning quickly to get sight of the hand that had just been grabbing me and swung my blade cleanly through his wrist. The croc fell to the side and lay still. Before his hand had fallen an inch, I branded my sword and threw it directly at the gorilla.
The suddenness of my attack clearly threw both of them off, but the gorilla was still easily able to catch my thrown sword.
He roared at me and threw my sword back. I had hoped for this. I angled my hand and resummoned the sword to me. This time, I didn't try to catch it. I let the sword keep its momentum, just in the opposite direction.
His own strength proved too great for him; the sword passed between his hands and stabbed deeply into his leg. Truthfully, I was trying to aim it at his chest, but I was still getting the hang of using summoning.
He pulled the sword out and tossed it to the side. The wound looked severe, but he just looked angry.
I drew my bow and nocked an arrow. I couldn't summon the sword back to me since I didn't rebrand it after the last summon.
He charged me and I shot an arrow without hesitation. I tried to aim for his head, but he kept one arm up at the level of his eyes. I was beginning to strongly regret not being better with a sword.
I got two arrows into his arm in the short distance, but he reached me and immediately pulled me off my feet. The motion was instantaneous: he was towering over me, his hand grasping my armor, and then I was 20 feet away smashing into a tree.
I lost track of where I was during that moment, but the mud under my hands and knees pointed to me probably being on the ground. The red bar in the corner of my vision was flashing urgently.
I pressed off of the mud in time to dodge a wild swing from the gorilla. Mud splattered into my face and my back pressed against the tree.
The gorilla raised his hands high and roared as he swung down toward me. Just then, a chain wrapped around both of his wrists and stopped him. The rage in his eyes turned to surprise and then recognition.
He was yanked backward by the chain and landed squarely on his back. The chain loosened and slithered into a coil in the hands of a giant snake man.
“Sir Penten,” the gorilla said flatly through tightly clenched teeth. “Good to see you.”
The snake looked between me, the gorilla, and the croc. “I sssee you and Lidae are acting like beasstss again.” He kicked the croc who snapped at him. “And for onccce, someone other than me taught you a lessssson.” Every s out of his mouth stretched for an uncomfortable amount of time. He’s either really playing up looking like a snake or he became a snake to hide a severe lisp.
The gorilla rolled to his feet and huffed. He picked up the croc and threw him over his shoulder with a grunt. His eyes stayed toward the ground until he disappeared into the leaves.
The giant snake slithered up to me. His upper body was like a scaled man, but from the waist down was just a snake tail, stretching far behind him. He was a pale green that stood out against the dark green of his surroundings. Even so, he looked right at home here.
“I am the great Penten, protector of the foresst and controller of thiss floor. I enforcce peaccce between all the mannaro living here,” he said proudly, posing himself to look larger.
“Thanks for the help, Mr. Penten,” I said after a too-long silence.
“I’m a knight,” he corrected, proudly stretching himself even higher.
“Yes, ‘sir’.” I rolled my eyes. I never cared for knights before the Catastrophe, and now they seemed more irrelevant than ever. I produced the small package from my bag. “Here’s your delivery.”
“Excccellent,” he hissed, grabbing the box quickly out of my hands. “Thiss will be put to good ussse.”
He smiled, showing a mouth full of fangs as he pulled a golden sling with black engravings out of the box. “Truthfully, I was shocked that the Raven Court iss willing to give up ssomething ssso precioussss.” He aimed the sling directly at me. “And it will be a grave mistake that they will not sssoon forget.”
The sling’s handle glowed blue as his energy flowed into it. Even with the heavy foliage around us, I wouldn’t be able to hide behind cover in time. The top of the sling glowed as the enchant activated. I tensed to brace for the inevitable impact.
With a loud scream, Penten flew backward away from the sling, bolts of lightning coming out of it and striking him directly.