The human woman sat on a large outcropping of rock as the group in front of her argued amongst themselves. Salma had never been particularly good at dealing with this kind of thing, so simply kept herself to the side while the irwinian Yvereian, and the gorun Simberoell came so close to trading blows. She sighed as almost half of the group split away to trickle into the woods after the irwinian. “He was a little up himself wasn’t he?” She sighed, hopping down off the rock to help the gorun back to sitting against a tree, getting his weight off his feet. The group that remained counted seven, including herself;
The somewhat reserved human man ‘Alderwood’ was kneeling by the rock she had been sitting on, pushing leaflitter away to draw in the dirt. The only surviving human sailor, ‘John’ rolled his eyes. “let them go. Less people we need to worry about finding shelter, food, or water for. Right?”
“It’s easier to hunt with more people, you should know from the spearfishing.” the remaining irwinian spoke up. He was on his knees, checking the ground around the roots of a tree. “On your own is easier to think about, but you only have one set of eyes.”
“I get that. But he did have a point, nothing attacked him when he wandered away from us. Animals are probably the least of our worries.” John continued, offering the irwinian his hand as the taller fellow slowly tried to stand up, apparently disappointed at not finding what he was looking for.
“I don’t think that’s right.” One of the group’s two ceratogi’s finally interjected. She had been helping the gorun reposition the wrappings on his feet after checking the condition of his wounds. “He seemed really on edge when he came back. He was kind of off when he left, but he came back almost crazy.” Her eyes passed over the human drawing in the dirt before returning to the conversation. “I agree nothing physically hurt him. But what about his mind? He could still have been attacked right?”
Salma took a step back, silently exiting the conversation. She was trained for physical problems, not talk of the mind. Her attention slowly passed to the one person who also didn’t seem interested in the conversation. Alderwood was kneeling beside a bunch of large rings and a dozen sigils scrawled in the dirt. Kneeling down next to him, the doctor looked at the man who seemed absorbed in his own little world.
Alderwood held his flat hand above one of the small circles. As he closed his fist, the dirt in the middle middle of the largest circle shifted and warped. She watched it crawl around as if each grain was sliding down a slope, even if they moved up or around the edge of the circle. Slowly the dirt mounded into something she could guess was the shape of an island. But some points hurt to look at. There were places in this dirt diagram that were… missing was the only word her brain could manage to associate with the problem. They weren’t flat and undetailed. The dirt didn’t fall away to some hole. It was as if those spots simply did not exist in the world. No black or white disk, it was nothing. An indefinable, truly indescribable nothing. But the moment Alderwood’s fist moved away from the circle he held it above, the patches of nothing were instead filled with dirt, as it they had always been that way and the dirt was simply sitting flat because it didn’t know how else to go.
“Alderwood” The gorun spoke up, sitting up as best he could and looking over at the two of them. “What’s that?” He didn’t sound rude or accusatory. Almost like a curious parent.
Salma looked from the gorun to the dirt sculpture as Alderwood moved aside. “It’s a map” the man said, looking down at the ground. He wasn’t looking at the sculpture, was he looking at the circles around it? “We’re here” He picked up a small leaf, tearing the everything away from the main stem and sticking the stem into the ground at a point on the map. “The flat areas are-” he simply stopped talking, looking away somewhere into the forest.
“Dangerous?” The gorun asked, everyone had now stopped to look at the arcanist. The human simply pulled his lips taut. “If you don’t know, lets call them dangerous, just to be safe right?” Alderwood nodded slightly at the concept. She could tell something was off about him, but didn’t want to make assumptions.
Salma’s attention was suddenly grabbed as the gorun pulled himself to standing using the tree beside him. “We have to find the others” The argument was about to begin anew, People were going to talk themselves circles all over again. “We have two groups on an island that has several magical unknowns. We don’t know what they could be so we need to act as if they are dangerous. Right?” There was a small murmur of discussion before other people started standing up.
“Maybe we should find shelter ourselves first. That way some people can work on food, fire, resting, whatever while others look for the others.” The irwinian stood up, glancing around the group. “What?” Almost without realising she was doing it, Salma’s eyes swept from the irwinian to the gorun, awaiting his opinion on the idea.
“I agree” Salma finally answered. “We need some kind of big community shelter. And I don’t want to resort to going back into that other area. Less animals but who knows what else is there.” From the corner of her eye, the physician caught the movement of Alderwood’s hand as if he was going to raise it before realising it would make no sense to do that in this situation.
“What about looking at the dangerous areas from afar?” One of the ceratogis spoke up, looking around the group as they creeped over to the map. “The reason we think they’re dangerous is just because we don’t know what they are. What if a few people went to have a look? Just from a distance. Maybe in the treetops? That way we can actually decide if we think it is dangerous or not.”
The ceratogi stopped near the map, keeping a decent distance between herself and both it and Alderwood. “There’s one not far from here, that way. Everett and I can go.” The irwinian’s eyebrows rose at this notion.
“Hey I want to find shelter, not split the group even more.”
“It could be shelter. Or we could find shelter on the way.” A couple people nodded their agreement.
To everyone’s surprise however, Salma spoke up again. “I’ll come with.” Alderwood looked at the three volunteers. “If there is anything of medical use on the way I want to know. And I can’t list a description of everything that would work.”
“I’ll come with” John stepped forward.
“No” To everyone’s surprise, it was Alderwood who finally spoke up. “No, three is good. Safe to move as three, a fourth person will make things...” he paused, searching for a word but not making eye contact with anyone as he did. “Risky.”
There was strangely little discussion after that point. Salma, The ceratogi ‘Preh’, and the irwinian ‘Everrett’ gathered around Alderwood’s map. Deciding on a large flat area not far away, they said some quick goodbyes before setting off. The plan was to return here once they’d scouted the area. The trio disappeared into the forest, heads down to avoid striking branches as they went.
Preh scurried ahead of the others, more naturally capable of moving on all fours and so not slowed by the branches. “We should climb the trees” She whispered after a while. Salma guessed they were halfway to the unknown area. She opened her mouth to answer but it was Everrett that responded a second before her.
“The trees are too dense but also too separated here. We climb and it’s going to be nearly impossible to move to the next tree, and just as hard to see anything. You can climb if you want though. I’ll wait under you to catch if you fall.” His face showed little emotion, a strange habit of the elves, but both women could tell he wasn’t intending any cruelty in his dismissal.
Slowly, Preh’s face softened and she looked back in the direction they were heading. “We should keep going.” Everrett nodded, ducking his head under a branch as he lifted it out of the way with his forearm, continuing on their path to the unknown.
The sound of gently running water eventually reached their ears. The ground under their feet slowly growing more and more thick with water until eventually they reached the edge of a strange marsh. The water flowed in strange spirals around the area, a set of stones large enough to support even the gorun if they came this way, wound their way through the water. “We should be getting close” Everrett murmured, stepping down toward the water only to almost lose his balance as Salma grabbed his arm.
“This is it.” The three paused, looking out at the mass of slowly ebbing water amidst the trees as far as the forest permitted them to see. “Something could live in the water.”
Preh moved to a tree, arms wrapping around the trunk as best she could as the rodent woman scurried up several branches high, looking out into the area. “It’s huge. And there’s some kind of structure over there-” The two on the ground watched as she pointed toward the centre of the ‘flat area’. “It’s stone, and big.”
Stepping back away from the water, Everrett invited Salma to step back as well before heading for a different tree himself. His long arms reached up and the trained but elegant fingers wrapped around a branch. The irwinian pulled himself up the tree faster than the ceratogi, stopping at a similar height that she was. “You’re right. Looks like it breaks the canopy too. Head down, I’ll go higher and see if I can see anything from near the top.”
Preh scrambled down her tree, watching as the irwinian continued his leisurely climb of the increasingly narrowing tree. The two women watched as the trunk seemed to bend as his weight ascended, eventually seeing only the movement of the tree once he disappeared through the leaves of other trees. “Yeah it breaks the canopy” They heard his voice call down. “Looks like a city of some kind. Old but probably still shelter enough.” The tree bent dangerously to one side before snapping back to its normal posture.
“You okay?” Salma called up, watching as the irwinian slowly came into view climbing down a different tree nearby.
When he was only half his own height off the ground, Everrett dropped, landing quite elegantly as he looked at the two women. “Yeah” He dusted his hands while closing the gap to them. “It was just a bit too unsteady to try and climb down from that point.”
“We should check it out further.” Salma turned back to the water, looking for the nearest stepping stone to their ‘shore’.
“No” Preh piped up, “We should go back and tell the others what we found. We should come here all together” She looked from the human to the irwinian and back.
“I’m sorry but I agree with her.” The irwinian responded, approaching the shore as well. “What if it isn’t a good idea to try and use it as shelter? It could be unstable, or there could be animals in there.”
“But-” But the two had stepped out onto stones among the water, beginning to wind their way deeper.
Salma’s head tilted when she stepped on the ninth stone. There was a path ahead, but she was sure she heard something. It almost sounded like shouting. But as she looked around, most of the forest was calm. The only movement was Everrett passing her onto the path, offering his hand to help her onto the raised dry section of land, and Preh scurrying through branches above them to keep up but be far from the water.
The path wound through the water a little longer, eventually approaching a ruined stone wall. It was matted with roots and vines, slick with water trickling down from atop it. The wall continued to the right, the constant trickling of water the only sound in the apparently empty dark forest. A break in the wall ahead allowed light to filter down onto the dirt and almost muddy path.
Salma was the first to reach the break in the wall, ascending a set of ancient stone stairs into a brightly lit area. Sunlight flooded in through a half open canopy, the almost crystal clear water in front of them glistening in the light as it swirled around crumbling ancient pillars and rolled off more ledges in small waterfalls all around them. Domed roofs could be seen in the distance through a maze of stone arches, many held up by vines wrapped around them descending from nearby trees. At no point could she see stone bricks, it was as if everything was carved out of a single eternal expanse of stone. As if the world they had stumbled onto was worn into existance through eons of erosion. But at the same time, stairs were visible. Areas were the water did not flow, or no longer flowed, creating smooth walkable paths. Most roofs were still on tact, though some had become smashed by the collapse of nearby trees. It was only upon seeing the smashed roofs that the woman became aware of the existance of glass filled windows and ornate glass domed ceilings around her. Much of it overgrown to obscurity.
She could have stood there admiring it for hours. In fact, when she shook her head to concentrate on their purpose here, she felt like perhaps she had. The shadows of the trees across the water had moved considerably. Everrett and Preh were standing on either side of her, mouths agape as they stared in wonder at the place they had wandered into. “It looks sturdy enough” She remarked, though neither responded. Tapping the irwinian on the shoulder he looked at her as if nothing had happened. “It looks sturdy enough.”
Everrett’s eyes seemed to come back into focus as he looked at her, shaking his head only slightly once before responding. “Yeah. We should head back. They’re waiting for us.” His long arm reached out, lightly tapping the ceratogi’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s head back”. She too gave him the slightly blank stare before nodding, turning to head back down the stairs into the marshy area. The irwinian was second to disappear down into the darkness. Taking one final moment, Salma glanced back at the ancient city before following the other two back toward the meeting spot.
It was easier to navigate the path and stepping stones on their way out than it had been to come in. The trees of the forest beyond seeming to move out of their way as they headed back to where they were to meet the others. As they marched, Salma glanced at the other two. None of them seemed to have any concerns about the path they were taking, as if the path were easy and clear. No branches threatened to strike their faces and no bushes cut at their heels.
They could hear arguing ahead, long before they reached the small clearing. When they did finally arrive, the three discovered a puzzling situation; Yverian’s group had returned. Two of the humans were digging a large hole and the third irwinian lay peacefully beside the hole. Yverian was in the gorun’s face, shouting at him that clearly he didn’t know what he was doing. Simberoell was shouting back that it was no-one’s fault. “And if we’d stayed split, this could be two people right now. At least we know.”
Upon properly taking in the scene, Salma jogged forward to drop to her knees beside the body of Kelebris. There were marks around his lips and veinlike discolouration along his cheeks and down his neck. His pupils were dilated and fingers locked in a splayed-back manner. Given everyone’s reaction, he couldn’t have been dead more than a few minutes, maybe an hour, but the joints were stiff and if bent, returned to their previous position. “What happened?” She whispered to one of the humans.
Miles’ head popped back up. “There was an agreement, no leader, they work together. So the group joined back up. A bunch of us headed out to gather food and during the meal. Well-” he nodded to the body before returning to digging. The other man in the hole was the sailor John.
Looking back at the others; the argument continued, and Preh had moved to comfort the other ceratogi; Selle. If anything was strange, Everrett was knealing beside Alderwood and whispering to him gently.