Willow
Following a Crude Map Toward a Presumed Sunsquat Tree, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
While the downtime had been nice, and certainly necessary for Naomi, Willow had been more than a little excited to get moving. Which is why she’d woken Naomi and Kent just as the sun rose with a small bunch of tubers roasted with the final chunk of cooking fat, which were the last of their “fresh” rations from the Kobolds. Everything remaining were rough and tumble foods that would certainly save for years if necessary. They had a stock of bars made from dried meat, cheeses, nuts, and berries. They tasted… Well they were food. Putting the thought of breakfast aside, Willow focused on keeping an eye on her surroundings as she walked.
Naomi and Jonah had argued that they should go check out the sunsquat tree, or at least what they suspected was a sunsquat tree, marked on the map. Their argument was that the fact each of the Xs were near the central landmark was suspicious and they wanted to know why. Willow was fairly sure they just didn’t want to fight today. Which was a shame, considering she really wanted another fight. Not only did she crave the excitement of the battle and the rush of xp, she wanted to try some of the techniques she’d come up with during her training in live combat.
The walk to the sunsquat was actually fairly short and uneventful. Naomi seemed to have a knack for figuring out how to maintain their heading despite the sameness of the forest. Maybe she just stared at her UICI map, or maybe she had a directional sixth-sense. It was an impossible mystery. Before they saw the huge tree, they had already been listening to absolute racket for a good five minutes as they approached. Given they were pre-warned, they moved more cautiously the nearer the noise grew. Along with the noise, a rancid scent had also begun to make itself known.
The massive tree came into view as they came upon the end of the forest and beginning of a clearing. The trees had been chopped down in a rough fifty meters circle with the sunsquat as its center point. Said center point was the epicenter of an incredible mass of pop-hoppers. The things were quite literally swarming over the tree. At least hundreds, if not thousands, of the creepy little buggers were running around and climbing the limbs. More surprisingly, they were actually building things on and around the tree.
The structures were extremely slip-shod, rough, and mostly appeared to be without any actual purpose. They seemed to be trying to build a kind of village but without any concept as to what the point of a village actually was. As they stood there, staring with expressions approaching dumbfounded, Willow did her best to work out what in the world they were doing.
There were no buildings that could be called complete, but there were dozens of “started” buildings. Each structure was essentially a pile of sticks roughly bound together with an odd pinkish-grey substance. That “binding” substance also seemed to be the source of the unnatural stench in the air, as she caught a stronger than normal whiff of the gag-inducing smell when one of the pop-hoppers with a handful of the stuff passed where they were crouched down in the trees observing. She’d nearly lost her breakfast.
Kent, who was on Naomi’s right who in turn was on Willow’s right, leaned toward them and whispered, “That stuff smells the same as the crap in that horrible pot. Just much weaker.”
Well, that’s not ideal. The kobolds had mentioned they couldn’t even knock the pot over due to the smell, were they trying to make an entire base which smelled as bad? That would be… Disgusting. After observing for a while longer, trying to get any sense of their purpose, the party retreated. They walked back in the direction they’d come a few minutes prior and stopped to discuss.
“Did you see what they were doing?” Kent asked with a deep frown.
Shrugging, “Yeah. They were playing at building stuff but had no idea what they were doing.” Willow answered the too-obvious question.
“I think Jonah was talking about the stuff they were taking from the sunsquat tree.”, Noami mentioned.
“Huh? I was kind of distracted by the smell and horrible construction.” Way to fail the perception roll, Willow.
Kent nodded toward Naomi and started pacing, “They were taking those little ‘sun-child’ stones out to one of those ‘buildings’. I couldn’t quite see past all of the jimble-grimbs to see what they were doing with them.”
“I thought we were sticking with pop-hopper?” Both of her friends turned to give Willow a flat stare. She held up her hands in defense, “It’s just a better name! Easier to remember, clearly describes them, it’s masterful!”
“Let’s not get off topic…” Naomi answered with the slightest hint of a smile, “It seems like too much of a coincidence. What are the chances that those little monsters and the factions which contested the kobold’s claim on the planet were interested in the same stones? The kobolds also said they’d never seen jimble-grimbs until then.”
“Right! So they gave them a bad name which has just as much legitimacy as our much better name.” Willow nodded, vindicated that Naomi would staunchly defend her with such seamless logic.
“…Aaanyway,” Kent drawled while rolling his eyes. “Do you think the jim…” He sighed as he saw Willow’s glare from the corner of his eyes, “Do you think the pop-hoppers” were introduced to the planet by the people who took that first tree?”
While giving Kent a pleased smile and thumbs-up combo to reward his good behavior, she thought about the question. It could be that they left them here… By why would they? She continued her line of thought aloud, “I don’t think they would leave these little monsters here. If they went to the trouble of getting a bunch of people together to teleport the entire freaking tree, then why would they leave some monsters that might go harm another one?”
“What if they aren’t harming it? Or maybe they are harvesting the sun-child stones so those people can come back and pick them up next time?” Naomi seemed like she was throwing out theories more than anything. She didn’t seem particularly convinced the ideas had much merit.
“Taking the sun-child stones definitely harms the tree. Remember what Skeetha told us about them? The sun-child stones aren’t actually stones, they’re like root nodes.” As he answered in an almost distracted tone Kent was staring into the distance, flicking his fingers and thumb together, clearly lost in thought. “They provide energy to the tree in place of roots. Apparently, they gather ambient energy, potentia I’m pretty sure, and converts it internally. Now that I know a little more I think it’s probably converting the potentia to its own mana aspect.”
“Huh… Think that’s why those factions were interested in them, then? I wonder if it’s uncommon for trees to make mana?”
They continued discussing for a while but by the end of the conversation the answer was quite simply: they didn’t know. The task they’d been given by the kobolds had been to find out what happened to the pop-hoppers, which they had most definitely done. In record time, too! Skeetha said it should take a month or more and we’re only six days in. Of course, she probably didn’t expect us to stumble on a literal map which… “Hey guys… Isn’t it weird that we found a map at that first camp site?”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
They both looked at her, faces taking on somewhat confused expressions. “Now that you mention it…” Kent began. “Definitely.” Naomi finished.
A few more minutes of discussion, which lead nowhere productive, followed. They confirmed that none of them had seen any maps, or any sign of the paper-like material it was drawn on, at the second camp site they raided. So it was unlikely that each little campsite had a pop-hopper holding a map. Besides that, Kent had pointed out how odd it was that there were a bunch of small camps spread out several kilometers from the central camp build around the sunsquat.
While Willow was still trying to puzzle things out, Naomi spoke up, “So let me summarize the questions we have.” She was flicking her eyes in a slightly un-focused manner as she read off of the notes she’d been taking with her UICI. “First, what’s with the pot? Second, why would the jimble-grimbs try to build a village? They clearly don’t have any purpose in doing so. Third, why are they harvesting sun-child stones and what are they doing with them? Fourth, why are there little secondary camps of jimble-grimbs scattered around?”
“Pop-hoppers, but other than that, yeah.” Willow agreed.
“Also how and why did the pop-hoppers even appear?” Kent put in.
Naomi nodded, “Alright well, I have the questions written down. Maybe we can ask Skeetha if she had any ideas.”
“Sure, when we go back. But for now we’ve got more work to do!” Willow grinned eagerly and the other two groaned, they’d come to recognize that particular smile. She was about to try to talk them into something dangerous.
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Jonah
Observing the Final Mapped Jimble-Grimb Camp, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
Willow had talked them into something dangerous. Again. This plan was actually, in his opinion, significantly more dangerous than the last ones. Instead of splitting into two groups to strike the camp from multiple directions, they had all split up and were observing it from each side. The logic Willow had used to win them over had been pretty straight forward, they needed to learn more about the pop-hoppers. They knew where to find a smaller group of the creatures, which they could observe with less risk than staking out the main camp would pose.
This was how Jonah found himself laying on his belly, partially covered by shrubs, fallen feather-branch fronds, and whatever other forest-floor stuff he could find. The previous night they had retreated from the larger pop-hopper base and found themselves a little clearing to setup their own camp. They then proceeded to practice camouflaging themselves. Naomi had some tips, but didn’t have a much more of an idea than the others how it should be done. In the end they’d done their best to figure out the most effective methods through trial and error.
Eventually, each of them had been able to consistently hide themselves convincingly enough that it took a concerted effort to find them. He’d been proud to learn he was actually the best at hiding himself, followed by Naomi, with Willow coming dead last. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was because Willow was subconsciously just way too showy to ever seriously hide herself, or if she just had a hard time figuring out which pieces of forestry would be more or less suspicious together. Generally when they found Willow it wasn’t because she moved, which was how both himself and Naomi usually got caught by the others. No, they found Willow because they saw a patch of forest that just looked weird. Too many fallen fronds together, not enough foliage, disturbed dirt, those kinds of things. Once she’d just completely forgotten to cover her hair at all and it had stood out against the moss she was laying next to. Despite Willow’s less than optimal start, she’d ended up just as hard - or harder - to find as himself and Naomi due to her ability to lay unnaturally still for long periods.
Jonah sighed softly as he very slowly adjusted his position to remove a stick from the awkward position it had managed to find itself in, between the earth and his leg. Watching the camp had been both weird and boring. Weird, because the pop-hoppers seemed to just mill about aimlessly. They would do their little shuffling walk around, pick up a branch or something, fiddle with it for a bit, drop it, and start the entire process over again. Boring for exactly the same reason. It was eerily like watching idle animations for mobs in a game. However, he knew they weren’t mobs. Or if they were mobs they were real mobs which posed an actual threat to himself. At least if Willow isn’t nearby to curb-stomp them. He pursed his lips at the thought. He didn’t mind others helping him, but he was getting tired of needing to be saved. I need to figure out my insight.
Deciding working on his insight would likely be more valuable than keeping an eye on a bunch of monstrous little idiots, he let his mind wonder a bit. This was a new approach he’d come up with. He still wasn’t ready to ask Willow for help meditating, as he just didn’t believe that was the only way to gain an insight. If it was, how would anyone ever figure anything out without someone to guide them? Okay, someone probably had to invent meditation in the first place… So I suppose it could be through that same process. Even so, his new strategy was to let his mind wonder slightly. He would do his best to keep himself loosely on the topic of his insight, but was doing his best not to force any particular direction.
Strangely, the current atmosphere seemed almost helpful. While he wasn’t really comfortable, he thought the environment was somewhat inspiring. He could almost see himself from above, as if he was playing a classic MMO, or RTS, with their top-down cameras. If he was in an MMO, he’d probably be able to pan over the field a little bit and watch the pop-hoppers milling about from above. A slight smile crossed his lips as he imagined seeing the creatures from above, each of their misshapen heads were weirdly unique. Their movements, animations, weren’t though. They each moved in a nearly identical way. How immersion breaking, Jonah thought with an internal snicker.
He’d always loved top-down games. He panned his view around more, looking for Willow or Noami. He didn’t spot either of them, unsurprisingly. He was too far away. Hmm… Shouldn’t there be a fog of war or something at this distance? Yeah… Like that. The edges of the pop-hopper camp were suddenly obscured. He imagined clicking one of the pop-hoppers and felt a strange jolt run through him as he saw a tag appear above its head. [LVL 2|Jimble-Grimb(Pop-Hopper)|Fodderling].
Yeah, that seems about right… He began clicking around on each of them, finding the same for all of them. The only difference was whether they were level one or level two. Jonah felt something strange. A feeling like standing on the edge of something, that feeling he’d get when something was at the very tip of his tongue. He ignored it for now, strangely entranced by his daydream. He watched a pop-hopper appear from the edge of the fog of war furthest from himself. Checking it’s tag he felt his eyebrows raise, though his conscious was too far away to fully note his own body’s reaction. [LVL 4|Evolved Jimble-Grimb(Pop-Hopper)|Message Runner]
Well, that’s interesting. If this was a game I’d probably get a…
QUEST: WHAT’S THE MESSAGE, DOC?
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Discover the contents of the message that the [Message Runner] is bearing
Reward: 2xp
Hah! I knew it. Even in the real world I guess you could break down everything into numbers. This is just the logical next step. The UICI should have been a hint, honestly.
His mind fell across that edge and he firmly bit into that something at the end of his tongue.
The world is just a game.
FIRST INSIGHT CONFIRMED!
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CONGRATULATIONS!
You have developed your first insight!
. . . .
Insight gained: GameLIT
Description: The GameLIT insight emphases the truth that, whether games are based on reality, or reality is based on a game - Reality itself is a game and you are a player.