My arrow turned makeshift spear was covered in green sap like blood. The upside? I wasn’t in danger of losing it any time soon as the green fluid acted as an adhesive where I was grabbing the shaft. The downside? It was getting harder and harder to actually cut anything as the head of my almost spear was getting covered in the viscous liquid, turning it from a cutting edge implement to one more meant for clubbing. Clubbing meant I was much less effective than when the fight started, but it also meant I was at least effective.
I had almost forgotten that this was a dream, if not for the following statement from Suamalie. “I am so thankful that this is happening in here and not out there. I love this dream logic, because I keep reaching for my quiver,” followed by a THWANG as she released her pulled back bow and arrow. “And keep expecting to come up empty.” She began to reach for another as she swatted a Gobose that had lunged at her down with bow before stabbing it with the arrow she pulled out of the quiver. “I’ve fired at least twenty times since these things showed up, which is about fifteen arrows more than what I recalled being in this quiver to being with.”
THWANG. Chuckling to herself, she spoke once more. “Twenty-one. By Gaia, this is cathartic.”
Whatever the being, I was just glad to finally not being on the receiving end of those shots. And seeing the chunks of flesh torn from the Gobose they glanced let alone the holes put through the ones they made full contact with… the thought made me shiver as to what those things would do to a human. What they had done to me was not a thought that I wanted to stick around.
“Just do me a favor and keep it pointed that way, I’ve got this side if you have that side.”
The only answer I got in response was another THWANG followed by a fleshly splat noise as another of her arrows made full contact with one of the many targets around us. Good enough for a ‘Yes’ for me given our present circumstances.
Turning what little bit of attention I had turned to her back to focusing on my half of the circle, I prepared to receive another charge. A hairy figure jumped from a lower limb in one of the surrounding trees, and in response I thrust my weapon forward. The result was a the falling gobose impaling itself and dying almost instantly on my upturned stick. Another three rushed forward seeing that my weapon was currently occupied. Bringing my now club across my left shoulder that had extra weight on it, I grabbed it with my left hand and swung in a wide arc in front of me. Well, more flung than swung, but the result was exactly what I wanted. That result being to at least incapacitate my oncoming attackers.
The extra weight on my swing came in handy, as the first gobose head was flung clean off from the impact near the end of my weapon. The second gobose had a little more time to react and tried to duck my swing, but reacted just slightly to late and was met with the middle of my weapon across what I assumed to be its forehead. A harsh cracking sound told me that something important just broke. At this point the final gobose had closed the distance and was about to strike. Lucky for me, and unlucky for it, the whole ‘I felt more power performing arcing motions’ came into effect for the first time in practice.
Between the second and third gobose, a light blue aura began to emanate from my weapon. The first thing to make contact with the remaining gobose happened to be the gobose that had impaled itself earlier. The attacking gobose’ attack got pushed aside and its body rolled into my swing, and appeared to melt as it came into contact with the shaft. At this point in my swing, my stick was glowing a bright pale blue light. Reaching the end of my swing, all of the light rushed towards the end of my weapon, carrying with it the two bodies the clung to different portions, along with all of the gooey viscera that stubbornly clung to it as well. The ending result? A bright, all encompassing light that lit up everything like the full moon was down here with us, and the sounds of gobose body parts landing in the general area and a loud BANG noise.
While all of the bodies that laid around my feet and all of the impaled bodies in Suamalie’s area had done little to deter the gobose attempts to try and take our lives, the unexpectedly bright light and loud noise certainly did the trick. Almost in immediate response, all other noises that surrounded us began to fade as they rapidly got further and further away from us. Moving nothing but my eyes and twitching at every sound of rustling leaves and snapping twigs I heard, we waited for what felt like several minutes doing nothing more than holding tension, ready for the next wave of attacks to come our way.
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Nothing, nothing and more nothing. And then I fell down and landed on my butt, throwing my arms behind me to prevent me from falling backwards entirely. All the tension that I had been holding on to had quickly and suddenly left me, and my strength went with it. Panting hard, I tilted my head backwards to get a look at Suamalie, who didn’t appear to be in much better shape than I was.
She was struggling to stay on her feet, knees slightly bent inwards, and using her massive bow as a makeshift cane. Obviously shaking from having pulled her bow back as far as it would go every time she fired, I assumed she was simply standing up through sheer willpower. Yet another reminder to never get on her bad side, something about continuing forward even if her body fails her or something like that.
“Ok… ok… I… I have to… apologize…” Suamalie said slowly through labored breaths. “ The… Gobose… on me… sorry…”
“Oh good, I was worried that those were on me somehow,” I responded in kind. “That makes me feel a bit better at least.”
With my world view still being inverted, I saw as Suamalie slowly turned to look at me. When she finally got to an angle she was comfortable with, she tried her best to give me a look of disbelief. Before she could muster the strength to say anything, I spoke. “Hey, weirder stuff has happened to me in the past several weeks of my life, what’s to say that I dream up a monster I haven’t seen before?”
Hearing my statement, she looked up for a moment before shrugging in acceptance and turning back around. I shifted my bent over head back to looking at what was in front of me versus what was behind me, and began to lazily scan my surroundings. This continued for a bit before Suamalie broke the silence. “Lean forward will you?” Her breath, while still a bit ragged, was no longer as labored as it had been a few minutes earlier. “My legs feel like they are about to give way and you look comfy enough for me to lean against currently. And no, this doesn’t mean that I like you more, I just… hate you less currently.”
Hearing a soft thud behind me and feeling a body hit my back, I just kind of did nothing, I knew doing anything other than looking in front of me would get me at least punched, and at worst an early awakening. So, we just sat there for bit, not really doing anything. Finally I spoke up, asking a question that had been on my mind since those things called gobose first attacked us.
“What exactly are gobose?”
A few moments of silence followed by a sigh were my immediate responses. “They are…” she started before the wind suddenly picked up around us. Now, I might not be the best Saint, but I’ve experienced enough signs of divinity to begin to guess when divinity was present is relatively large quantities. That, and the fact that my forehead was glowing a pale blue light was a pretty good determinant as well.
When the wind died down, Saumalie looked around and started to ask me a question but then immediately shut up when she saw the bright light coming from my forehead. Gawking a for a moment, I turned to look at her as I heard her basically make squeaking sounds whenever she opened her mouth. Covering her eyes in response, I quickly reached into my empty pocket and produced the head band that Luna had given me to place around my head. Gatta love dream logic.
Quickly sealing the light, Suamalie finally found her voice. “You weren’t lying about that… I see that now.”
“Yeah, I just love making up stories to foreign leaders about why they are talking to me, favorite past time yet.” Rolling my eyes as I finished talking, but stopping half way through the motion as my eyes fell upon the area above us, causing me to freeze.
“Ok, geez, no need to be snarky about it. I just didn’t think you were telling us the whole truth is all. I mean, why would…” she trailed off as she saw that I was basically unresponsive. “Really, you’re just going to ignore me like that?”
Slowly, I raised my hand and pointed up. “Hey… Suamalie… I think this one is my fault.”
Turning in response to both my gesture and statement, she looked up. “What’s your fault? All I see is…” she paused for a moment, “leaves, tree tops, wood, and vines.” Stopping when she got to vines, I could hear her finally seeing what I saw. “And a face… made up of everything I just mentioned.”
Doing our best not to freak out to much, the face began talking using the vines where it’s lips were supposed to be. “I think that you’ll no better being for telling you what those were than the one above you.”
Before either of us could respond, a loud crashing noise interrupted whatever thoughts we were having as the moon fell from the sky and crashed through the trees before landing next to us. Not actually appearing in humanoid form, I heard Luna speaking through the crescent shape sky stone. “Gaia, you know that it’s bad manners to all but kidnap another’s Saint, don’t you?”