Jonah
North of Feathered Lands Tribe, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
Three days of walking in a generally northern direction, maybe tending eastward a little, had been exhausting. Despite the burn in his legs, the soreness of his back, and the general feeling of exhaustion, Jonah was thrilled. When he’d realized he had essentially signed up for literally thousands of years of a desk job it had seemed as if the “real” world had played a cruel trick. In the “tutorial”, his previous life, he hadn’t been able to do anything extremely physical.
Though, now that he was thinking about it from a more objective standpoint he realized that maybe he’d only been unable because he didn’t let himself believe he was. He thought back to his prior life as he watched Willow going through a set of blindingly fast stretches in her patch of grey colorless forest.
He hadn’t been able to move his legs, or even feel them, since birth. To make matters worse his eyes were atrociously near-sighted. Even with glasses he had only been able to make things out within a few meters at most. Lastly, he had an acute weakness in the left side of his body which on bad “flare” days made him unable to do so much as lift the limb. He’d thought he had been making the best of it. He had found hobbies he could enjoy with audio books, video games, even a little bit of voice acting and singing.
Looking back through the illuminating lens of hindsight he realized some of his limitation had been entirely self imposed. Yes, some days his left arm could hardly be moved, but most days it was just a little weaker. He could have gotten into a sport if he really wanted to. At the very least, he could have gone out of the house more and met more people, done more things. It was just way easier not to. Did he regret his previous life? Not exactly. He enjoyed most of what he had done and it had been comfortable. There was nothing wrong with any of that, really. He just had to admit to himself that he’d made excuses for why he didn’t do more socializing or more physically. He’d always thought he’d love to be more physically active. If he had really thought that though, why had he let anything stop him?
“You know, you should stretch too. You’re going to get really stiff again if you just sit there after walking for so long.” Naomi threw at him from where she was going through the stretching routine that Willow had shown them. It wasn’t the same one she was going through right now though. He looked toward the colorful girl that almost seemed to be performing an alien dance in her own grey-scale world. She was contorting, twisting, leaping, flipping, and otherwise casually performing what Jonah would have said were entirely impossible movements.
She’d practiced relentlessly since the end of their first day of walking. The area around them would go grey in bursts throughout the day as Willow practiced with her focus. Sometimes she’d seem to teleport in front or beside him, though she assured him she wasn’t teleportation at all. She was just stopping time. That was all, just a simple little time stop. She had just giggled at his attempt at a flat stare at that particular statement. She also literally ran laps around Naomi and himself as they walked. She said she’d enjoyed the “break” of their first few days on this planet, but that she was ready to “get back to work.” He wasn’t entirely sure what she meant, but he’d let it drop. By that time he was having a bit of trouble catching his breath from walking for hours and was feeling a bit embarrassed how effortlessly Willow was going probably ten times the distance he was in the same amount of time.
Realizing he should be taking the near super-human girl’s advice if he wanted to have any hope of closing the gap, he groaned as he stood. He began to go through his own stretches and smiled slightly at the burn as he felt the gentle pull and burn of his muscles. He should have believed himself that he would have enjoyed being more physically active. He would have been right. It was somehow satisfying to really feel his body in a way that he hadn’t before.
As he bent to do his best to touch his toes, he froze, then quickly stood back up. “Hey, girls?” He saw Naomi look at him from her position holding a stretch on the ground.
Willow answered almost immediately, “What’s up? Also, isn’t ‘Hey, girls’ weird? Everyone just says ‘guys’, right?”
Ignoring Willow’s side-tracking for the moment, he pointed to what he’d spotted on the ground, “Is it just me or does that look like a jimble-grimb’s weird track?”
He hadn’t even fully finished before Willow was next to him, squatting down to get a look. She grinned up at him with a fierce kind of excitement, “It definitely looks like one. Finally!”
As she exclaimed, she hopped up and started carefully scouring the area around them for more tracks. Jonah quickly followed suit, stretches forgotten. Naomi grumbled something but then stood and joined them. The search came up with promising results. Naomi found a patch of tracks a little ways to the east of where they had decided to make camp. After a brief discussion, they agreed to stick with the plan of staying put for the night. They’d follow the tracks tomorrow.
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Willow
North of Feathered Lands Tribe, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
They’d found a clue! Or rather they’d found a clue which led them to a trail, which lead them to a camp. Willow peaked around the cluster of feather-tree trunks she was doing her best to hide behind. Naomi and Kent had both gone around to the left side of the campsite with the intention of catching the pop-hoppers in a pincer attack. Willow wasn’t entirely sold on the idea as neither of her friends were very good with their handmade staves. Unfortunately if they wanted to complete their grand quest of, “figure out where the Jimble-Grimbs all ran off to” given to them by the kobolds, they didn’t have several months for Willow to whip them into fighting shape.
What she saw through the treeline was pretty much the same as the last time she checked. The camp was populated by twelve pop-hoppers who were milling around doing various things. The strange thing was they were acting much more intelligent than the ones she’d ‘fought’ previously. They each had some form of weapon. While they were all rough, they were several steps above the ‘knives’ that the last group had been wielding. These ones had a mix of spears, throwing javelins, swords and even a few bows with quivers on their backs.
The weapons were all sized appropriately to the spindly meter tall creatures. That is to say, they weren’t in any way impressive. She wondered if these were the multiverse’s version of goblins? Goblins were always the first monster a level one party ran into. Small, stupid, weak, oblivious, the perfect first opponents.
Somehow, it seemed she had jinxed herself as one of the creatures suddenly screeched and pointed at her. A bit wary of the ranged weaponry, she didn’t charge in immediately. That wasn’t their plan anyway. The original plan had Kent and Naomi acting as bait, but Willow figured they could just swap roles a bit.
She waved and called out, “Hey there! If any of you are intelligent and don’t want your heads squished in, please speak now or forever hold your complaints.” She showed her teeth in a vicious grin. Hmm, is it bad I’m excited to kill these things? Yeah that’s probably not a good thing… Something to think about later.
One of them threw a javelin. It was thrown accurately, but with so little power that she just caught it. She looked at the stone-tipped stick a bit over a half meter, bemused. She looked back up just in time to see the arrow one of the two archers had fired. She entered her focus and stepped to the right, then wondered if she needed to bother as she watched the arrow hit the tree and fall.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Just as she was about to rush forward and start her counter attack, something unexpected happened. One of the pop-hoppers near the middle of the group started an extremely high-pitched shriek and the whole group froze. When the little monsters nearest to her turned and rushed toward the shrieking one she thought maybe they gained a brain between them and were going to flee. Then she noticed that all of them were rushing toward the spindly still-shrieking hopper. It was holding all three of its arms straight out from its body.
It took maybe three seconds. All twelve of the monsters piled onto their center shrieking friend and started hooking together. Their limbs wrapped together, fingers locked with neighboring fingers, toes snapped onto arms and heads were wrapped by legs in a display of true insanity. If she had to describe the weird super-pop-hopper that was formed by the bodies of a dozen of them, she’d probably say it looked kind of similar to a grotesque version of a bionicle.
Individually they were little freaks, all snapped together like this they were actually horrifying. Faces stared out from all angles, each side of the ‘body’ sprouted an arm in the middle and legs near the bottom. The arms had a two meter reach easily, while the legs were half a meter longer. The spindly thing rushed Willow.
She had expected it to be comically unwieldy. She was horribly wrong. She’d let go of her focus after dodging the arrow so she was able to fully experience the amalgam’s shocking speed. It covered the ten meters between them faster than the javelin had. It crouched down, leaned forward, and leapt directly at her.
Entering her focus, Willow just managed to slide around it. She considered using her moment, but wanted to learn more about what the monsters could do in this form. Previously, she’d seen them as dumb little annoyances. Level zero fodder. Now, she was reevaluating. When the super-hopper landed, it didn’t regain its feet, recover, and strike out. It didn’t need to. The part of the ‘body’ that landed became the feet as the pop-hoppers redistributed themselves seamlessly. Willow’s breath was forcefully expelled as one of the long arms slammed into her and sent her onto her back. Ignoring her burning lungs, she pushed herself into a backwards roll and regained her feet. She’d switched places with the pop-hoppers, with them in the trees and her nearer their camp.
Turning, Willow sprinted into the clearing their camp was in. The denser trees where she’d been previously had been an advantage before, now they would just get in her way. She would have thought they’d get in the way of the larger pop-hopper-boss …er, but after seeing how it handled landing she wasn’t sure they wouldn’t just ‘flow’ around the tree in a creepy display of supernatural agility.
Hearing a ‘thunk’ which Willow assumed meant the boss monster had just done another powerful leap. She activated her focus and threw herself to her right, rolling and recovering instantly. As she recovered she spun back toward her previous position. The hopper landed even as she turned. As she stared at it, clenching her fists, she realized she was still holding the ‘javelin’ she’d caught. Without hesitation, she reared back and threw it. And missed. Urgh, should have practiced throwing more.
Before the monsters could reorient and jump again she rushed in toward it. An arm swept toward her, she ducked under it and slammed a fist into it as it passed overhead. She winced as her first struck what felt like hardened wood. One of the legs lifted and swept toward her, trying to force her outside of its guard. She timed a small hop and stomped-kicked down with all of her weight and strength. She heard a satisfying snap and the limb was hastily yanked back. She staggered slightly as she landed on the ground, noting off-handed that she’d managed to kill one of the pop-hoppers which made up the amalgamation.
Stop being an idiot, Willow. She scolded herself, They still have the same weakness as before. Don’t get thrown off by weird body interlocking. She was close enough to the body now that the creature couldn’t effectively swing its long arms. More importantly, she could see two of the creatures heads exposed and staring at her. She kicked one and punched the other. Both squelched disgustingly. Willow almost gagged. She’d already forgotten how gross that was.
All of the pop-hopper shrieked this time. Willow staggered, the sound causing a jolt of pain that felt like she had an ice-pick driven into her brain. She claimed her moment. She just let herself recover as she remained still in her moment. The world around her was frozen, she had time. Counting to ten, her head cleared. She mentally took stock of her mana levels. Her unnamed mana had about four minutes, or six actions depending on how she chose to use it. Why does this mana take so much longer to generate? Urhg… Not the time, Willow.
She braced herself, released her moment and leapt forward. She did her best to ignore the renewed assault on her head. Having time to brace and expect the pain let her push through it. Before she could continue her assault on squishy pop-hopper heads, its legs bent and it leaped.
Confused, Willow spun and watched it land at the edge of the campsite clearing. It bent and leapt back toward her again. Gritting her teeth, Willow repositioned herself so that it would land close to her, but not on top like it clearly wanted. As it landed she kicked out, popping one of the squishy heads.
More shrieking and it leapt away. Interestingly, other than the pop-hopper Willow had literally broken in half with her stomp, all of the hoppers she had killed had remained part of the ultra-hopper. Nah, this is probably not their final form. Better stick to smaller terms.
When it didn’t immediately jump back at her, Willow gave chase. What followed was a frustrating game of cat and mouse. Willow even deactivated her focus to avoid wasting the mana. The hoppers clearly weren’t smart enough to try and take advantage to her slower reflexes without it. She’d tried feeding her emotions and thoughts to her focus to keep it topped off, but for some reason it didn’t recharge while she was moving. She had to be standing still for the extra mana generation to work. I need to figure out how to fix that…
The next minute was incredibly stupid, in Willow’s opinion. Finally, a new element was added to the cat and mouse chase. Kent and Naomi suddenly stepped out from the treeline after one of the hoppers jumps, both of them swung hard with their staves. From the sudden shriek, Willow thought it was reasonable to assume they’d managed to kill at least one.
Now that they’d entered the fight, there were three of them to coral the creatures-turned-creature. If it had gone on the offence against Naomi or Kent there was a good chance it could do some real damage to them. Fortunately, it seemed to think they would have the same capabilities as Willow and simply tried to stay away from them. She wasn’t really sure what the point of running from them while staying within the campsite was. It should have just broken apart so all the smaller pop-hoppers could scatter in different directions.
Over the course of a good half hour they wore the boss-hopper down. Kent finally got the final strike on a head that was hidden in the middle of the ‘body’, making a lucky stab through the twisted joined limbs. As soon as he did, the entire thing fell apart. It literally popped. Pop-hopper bodies flew out in every direction.
Stalking over to one of them, Willow glared down at the now pitiful little thing. She entered her focus for a few moments, feeding her frustrated fury into it and letting it refill her mana a bit. Once she had drained the emotion, she deactivated her focus and looked up at Naomi and Kent.
She gave them a tired smile, “Thanks for the assist! Not to be ungrateful but… What took so long? I know I’m quick, but you guys were DEFINITELY in position long before you joined. Right?”
Naomi shot Kent a look and he looked a bit embarrassed as he answered, “Ah well… I thought you’d probably get annoyed if we made the fight too fast… You’ve been really bored and all so… Well anyway once I realized it was just going to run away I finally agreed with Naomi that we should help.”
Mixed and conflicting feelings flit across Willows face. Finally, she settled on a weak smile, “Thanks for thinking about what I would want! In the future I’ll just call out if you’re nearby and I want some help… It’s on me for not communicating clearly.”
“That’s nonsense.” Naomi joined in with uncharacteristic passion, “We had a plan. We were supposed to help you! I… I should have gone in alone when Jonah said he wanted to let you ‘have your fun’… I knew I should have! But…” She looked down at the ground, “I was scared.” She muttered.
Willow put a hand on Naomi’s shoulder, waiting for her to look up. When she did, she was met with a small smile on Willow’s face, “It’s totally understandable to be scared. This was your first real fight. You did great.” She looked over to Kent and let her smile widen, “You both did!”
She dropped her hand from Naomi’s shoulder as she fidgeted a bit, “We all made some mistakes we can work on later… Now that we know what we need to work on. For now though…” she rubbed her hands together eagerly, “We get to see what kind of loot they were guarding that made them decide to stay here instead of running!”
They spent the next hour or two looking through the absolutely destroyed campsite. The pop-hoppers didn’t have much. The only thing of real interest to the group was a small gem that pulsed with an inner light and a crude map.
When Naomi brought the map, which was marked with a scattering of Xs Willow threw her head back and cackled in glee before her face went suddenly and worryingly blank.
She looked Naomi directly in the eyes and said, “Arrr, our bootie be marrrked by therr ex arrrr.,”