Forests are more fun when they breathe, Geb thought to himself. It wasn’t that they breathed for real; he understood that. Rather, certain conditions made the forest look like the ground was breathing. It occurred when tree roots remained trapped in loosened soil. Then—when the fluctuating wind caught the same trees—it lifted them in gusts. With each gust, the earth rose and lowered, making it look like the forest was breathing.
In the forest where Geb walked, there was no wind. Also, the trees looked thick. It indicated the soil was strong…healthy…and muddy. During his walk, Geb had experienced long moments in that rain. Where the canopy caught much of it, heavy droplets formed on the overhead leaves and branches. From those, the drops fell, pitter-pattering atop Geb’s head.
Though, the water didn’t bother him. Nor did the water bother his goose. They enjoyed the unpredictability of the weather. It kept their lives interesting; it made their long walks more enjoyable.
He did other things to keep his walks enjoyable. For example, Geb preferred to make his own rather than take a well-trodden path. In a forest, this meant pushing through the branches of trees and the foliage of bushes. It even meant finding his way over and around fallen trees.
Not to mention, whenever he strayed from trodden paths, he was more likely to come across a hungry predator: bears, tigers, and dragons. In the kingdom of Lake, the bears were small. They preferred eating berries to meat. And there were no tigers. Where he might have trouble was with dragons. The black-spotted forest hoppers frequented the area.
They—like their name indicated—boasted bright yellow scales with patches of dark black scales. Those scales created spots resembling those of a jaguar. Where all dragons were giant, the hopper-type dragons were on the smaller end of the dragon spectrum. In the case of the black spotted forest hoppers, they were quadrupeds. An average one stood five feet tall and nine feet long. Aside from their powerful hind legs, their bodies were narrow. What they lacked in mass, they made up for in nimbleness. They could hop from tree to tree in a flash with unmatched agility and precision.
Their faces were long and narrow, with recessed eyes. The bone above those eyes rose into short spikes. While jumping, a clear scale slides over the eye like a protective eyelid. It prevented the dragons from damaging their eyes on branches as they hopped. When threatened, they produced bursts of electrical energy. Due to this, some people referred to the black spotted forest hoppers as lesser storm dragons.
For his part, Geb had never seen one of these dragons. Of course, he hadn’t. He’d never been to the Continental Bridge Forest. He had been in the area before. But the last time he’d visited was long ago. The forest didn’t exist then. Much of the wildlife didn’t exist either. In part, that’s why he’d chosen to stray from the walking path. He wanted to experience new things: discover new fruit on the trees, see leaves with different shapes, and hunt unique wildlife. He hoped some of that wildlife would be dragons.
“Do you smell that, Cackler?” Geb asked his goose.
Cackler, the goose, honked in the affirmative before making a subsequent sequence of whistles.
“No, I don’t think it’s a dragon.”
Cackler chirped a few more sounds.
“Yes, that’s what I thought.” Geb sighed. “Humans trying to hide.”
Cackler murmured.
“They’d do that for two reasons,” Geb answered. “First, they are afraid and want to hide from us. Second, they think we are defenseless, lost travelers, and they want to ambush us.”
Cackler offered a few more murmurs.
“Yes, that’s my opinion too. If it is the case, it should make for a fun encounter. See if you can get a view of them from the sky. Count how many there are and gauge how likely they are to attack.”
Cackler honked once and then took off, ascending until he reached the canopy. From there, he weaved between branches until he disappeared behind them.
Geb continued through the forest, listening to every shifting sound. He used those sounds to determine the positions of the people around him. At first, the people moved away from him. Also, they had a stealthy quality to their movements. Whoever they were, they were good at hiding. It made it difficult for Geb to predict how many there were. He guessed between three and seven.
Once the people had met up, he heard their muffled voices. Though he couldn’t make out what they said. They are talking about what to do. He knew. They are deciding if they should attack me. If they choose to attack, they’ll plan how to attack me. He focused his hearing on the voices and picked out two words. “Easy target.”
The people began to move away from each other. No longer grouped together, Geb began to count them. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven… There were seven.
Cackler honked as he made his way back down through the canopy, weaving in and out of branches at a wicked pace. As he drew nearer to Geb, he slowed before landing with a soft plop atop Geb’s head. Cackler whistled a few things.
“There is an eighth further away?” Geb asked. “Interesting, I’d only counted six. They are clever. Where do you think they will ambush us?”
Cackler offered a sequence of whistles and murmurs.
“A meadow?” Geb smiled. “How do they plan to get me into the meadow?”
Cackler murmured once.
“So if I act scared of the sounds they make and move away from those sounds, in time, they’ll attack?”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Cackler honked in the affirmative.
“Okay,” sounds like a plan.
Geb and Cackler continued walking their path. A few seconds later, a haunting bellow came from their right. “OOOooooOOOOooooeww…”
“Oh, no! A ghost.” Geb pretended to be afraid. Were he in an acting audition, he’d have never earned the part.
Though, his pretentions seemed enough to convince his soon-to-be attackers as the bellowing only increased in intensity. And it came from two bushes instead of one. “OOOoooOOOOoooeww…”
A guttural growl came from a third bush.
“Aaagghh!” Geb faked as he began to run away from the sounds. As Cackler had predicted, the path away from the sounds brought Geb to a meadow.
In the meadow stood four men.
The man in the center wore green brigandine. His left hand held a bow. He had a dagger in his belt, a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. He used the fingers of his right hand to stroke his red goatee. Sinister green eyes stared out from the shadow created by his chapeau.
To his left, a man stood with folded arms. He’d covered himself head to toe in dark ninja gear. The garb was baggy at the legs and arms. At the wrists and ankles, tight wraps held the attire over black leather gloves and boots. The boots had a fine polish with a split between the middle and ring toe. Geb had seen the design used before. It allowed people to use attachments on the boot. Most boot attachments were for climbing purposes. Though, he’d seen push dagger attachments to increase the damage of kicks. The man had a black leather vest over his body. He’d filled his toolbelt with shuriken, kunai, black eggs, and smoke bombs. A grappling hook hung over his left hip. Double ninjatos rested in scabbards angled across his back.
On the right, the man wore scale mail made from the scales of forest hopping dragons. He held a steel short sword in his right hand and a kite shield in his left. A shiny, silver pot helmet protected his head and face.
If the man wore the scales of lesser dragons, it told Geb that the men were strong enough to defeat lesser dragons in combat. Such a feat was beyond the capabilities of most humans. On Round, Geb doubted one out of every million people could accomplish it.
“Chances are we will kill you, anyway.” The man in the brigandine spoke with a smooth charisma. “But if you want to get out of this unscathed, give us your valuables. Also, we want the goose. It will make a nice dinner for us.”
Geb didn’t offer a response. Instead, he stood still, evaluating the levels and classes of the men before him. In green, the man was a level sixty-two ranger. The one in ninja gear was a level sixty ninja. The armored one was a level sixty castle guard.
Cackler whistled four times. The sounds indicated the levels and jobs of the four men who attacked from behind. There was a level fifty-six Viking, a level forty-seven pirate, a level fifty-seven samurai, and a level sixty highwayman.
All Geb could do was hang his head in disgust. The men were not muggers, bandits, thieves, assassins, thugs. As such, they shouldn’t be attacking travelers. To make things worse, one had the job of a highwayman. That meant it was his job to protect travelers. He was doing the opposite of his job.
There was also the question of where the men obtained the scale armor. If they killed a dragon, they’d need to have the job of poacher, hunter, or something like that. It was possible that the eighth attacker had such a job.
But since they were not nearby, neither Geb nor Cackler could see their job or level. In the end, it didn’t matter. The other seven deserved punishment for doing things that weren’t in their job descriptions. At a minimum, the eighth was guilty by proxy.
Geb shifted his gaze up. “You have broken the laws of the moderators.”
“Yeah?” the man in green spoke as the other four men emerged from the bushes, surrounding Geb on all sides. “You hear that, boys? We broke the laws of the moderators. We’re in trouble now.”
All seven men began to laugh.
Through their laughter, Geb continued. “I’ll grant you a punishment worthy of the crime. Of course, your lack of remorse requires further castigation.”
The men laughed for a few more seconds, and then the man in green spoke, removing an arrow from his quiver and knocking it. “Forget what I said before…that you might survive this. You won’t.”
“You talk too much,” Geb replied. “And I can predict what you’ll say. It’s boring.”
“Oh,” the man lifted his bow and took aim. “What am I about to say?”
Geb sighed. “You’re about to say, ‘what’d you do? What are you?’ Then you’ll figure out what I am.”
The man smirked as he released the arrow, and it flew in Geb’s direction.
Cackler reacted in a flash, leaping from Geb’s head, falling into a barrel roll, and catching the arrow. Then he opened his wings and took flight, climbing upward at a steep angle. As his wings flapped, he flung the arrow back at the man with the bow. The projectile flew with such speed that the man could not react. The arrow’s tip cut his bowstring before embedding itself into the wet, grassy earth.
As Cackler zipped upward, the man with the bow growled and pulled out his dagger. In unison, the other men armed themselves with their respective weapons. These included swords, daggers, and spears. With angry disdain, they began in Geb’s direction.
Geb looked at the samurai and said, “ha.” He looked at the Viking and said, “ha.” And he looked at the highwayman and then the pirate, “ha, ha.” He said each word with a practiced emotionless tone. And each time he spoke the word, the ground shook and opened, pulling the men down to their necks into the mud. It was too fast for them to react.
The three remaining men charged Geb.
As they did, he removed his crown, and his head began to change form. His long blue hair became the scaly hood of a cobra; his face and mouth became that of an angry serpent.
Upon seeing the transformation, the three men slowed. Geb bared his fangs and spat venom into their eyes. One, two, three, they fell. Each screamed in pain, holding their hands over their faces.
“Cackler,” Geb looked up. In his snake form, his voice came as a hiss. “Heal their woundssss, remove their experienssssss.”
Cackler cackled a cackle that would put any witch to shame, and blue dew began to form in the air. As the blue drops fell on the men, a sparkling aura surrounded them. It removed the venom from the eyes of the screaming men, and their pain subsided. Though, as it removed their ailments, it also took away their experience points. Their levels dropped to the thirties…the twenties…the tens…and stopped at level one. With the loss of levels, they lost their attribute bonuses, skill points, and abilities from allocating those skill points.
“Enough,” Geb said as he saw their levels reach one. His head returned to its human form and returned his crown to his head.
Cackler stopped cackling, and the dew dissipated. Then he began to descend toward Geb.
As Cackler landed in Geb’s crown, Geb looked at the men. “I will leave you now. Your loss of levels is sufficient punishment for your transgressions. Have a nice day.”
The man in green pushed himself up to a kneeling position and looked up at Geb. “What’d you do? Who are you?” Understanding flashed in the man’s eyes. “A moderator. You’re a moderator.”
“I told you that you’d say that.” Geb yawned. “Dig up your friends before any predators find you. Your eighth friend, the one deeper in the forest. I only lowered his level to twenty. So long as you avoid dragons, he can protect you as you make your way to town. In the future, remember to stay within the bounds of your job. Don’t think about stepping outside your responsibilities. Be good. Do as you’re told. If you do, your faithfulness will be its own reward.” With those words, Geb continued his journey through the forest.
At some point, it began to rain again. He enjoyed the coolness of the water as droplets pitter-pattered against his skin. It reminded him of fountains, waterfalls, and dolphins. He wasn’t sure why it reminded him of dolphins, but it did.