by Ryan Attard
I chose the guys with the black stripe.
Somehow I managed to make my way down to the beach without any complications. That is, nothing weird tried to eat me. The black-striped Sahuagin were too busy shoveling their dead into a hole to notice me. Still, I stuck to the edges and decided to really think it through before I went out in the open across their land. Besides I needed something to cross the water on. Swimming in an ocean with no visible end, in an unfamiliar plane where monsters are known to dwell and not a single human has shown up yet, unless you count yours truly, is probably one of the worst ideas you can have. No one is that dumb, and if they are, then they deserve to be eaten by whatever dwells in the abyss.
The large tree, standing just a few inches by its lonesome away from its brethren caught my eye. I could ride on a log cut out from the trunk. Wood was still buoyant in water, even on this weird land. At least the physics here hadn't changed from home. I made my way towards the tree, stealthy as a Wurm if you'll excuse the pun, and positioned myself so that I could see the Sahuagin but the trunk obstructed their view of me. I unsheathed Djinn and took a step backwards. Two bursts of azure energy shattered the eerie peace on the beach. The first strike sliced into the tree, severing it from its roots and two feet of trunk. The second shot was more of a push, to send the remainder of the twenty foot tree crashing into the Sahuagin site.
Chaos instantly erupted. The tree crushed two wooded structures which I assumed were houses of some sort. A dozen fish men were caught under the falling tree, most of them dead on impact. The rest dispersed, quickly retreating, and some picked up their weapons. Three of them were really close, hefting spears. A third blast from Djinn made quick work of them. I felt movement on my side and spun, gun in hand. A small blast of magic tore through a pair of Sahuagin and crippled a third. They were amassing now, having realized this wasn't an attack but just some idiot with an ambush tactic. I kept firing my gun until the bullets ran out and sheathed it. I flicked my sword towards the sand and channeled magic. A burst of air sent a cloud of sand erupting upwards. The Sahuagin slowed down their charge and began playing Bumping Cars with each other. Not a particularly safe game when carrying sharp weapons.
I knelt and held Djinn with both hands in front of me, tip pointing squarely at an individual Sahuagin silhouette. With a small burst of magic the short sword's blade glowed a faint blue and elongated. Like an impossibly long spear it impaled the Sahuagin and I willed it back. The spell took less than a second. Immediately I found my next target. Djinn's blade glowed and shot forwards again, like a viper striking at its prey, expanding and contracting faster than the opponent's reaction. I struck the Sahuagin down one by one, and lost track of the number after reaching twenty. Some I had to stab twice. It seemed a little cold-hearted, just stabbing them like that, but I soon pushed those feelings away. This was survival and only mine mattered.
Besides, if I got sentimental over every monster I killed in my career, I would have closed shop years ago.
Once the fighting was over, I hacked the tree once more, and rolled a two-meter trunk onto the water. It floated lazily and I straddled it and bent over, my chest flat against the bark, and used my arms and legs as paddles. The tide was against me but that only made me paddle harder.
I was close to going back home.
After a twenty minute workout I finally made it to the spot where I had popped out of yesterday. I didn't have to be exact, contrary to popular belief. Wormholes work via an energy source and tears in the fabric of the universe. A couple of feet aren't that big a deal when the space-time continuum was literally being torn apart.
So I stopped pedaling and sat upright. This was the spot. All I had to do now was churn that energy and hey presto, we got a portal. This was it: no more sleeping in caves, no more monsters at every corner, no more strange lands. I will go back to the land of incessant ambient noise pollution, annoying evil telemarketers and somewhat decent television—that little place I like to call home.
Easy, Erik. Don't celebrate just yet. Get that portal open first.
I closed my eyes, letting every feeling and concern simply wash away. The lull of the waves was hypnotizing and for the first time during my stay on the island, I felt peaceful. Slowly I reached inside, towards that dark area which I always shy away from. There was a terrible power there, and despite feeling really awesome and powerful when I accessed it, I knew it came with strings. The greater the power, the greater the price you pay for it, and I had no desire to find out what price tag mine came with.
But this was survival. In other words: fuck it.
I felt the darkness whip around me, slowly at first, as if testing the waters. Dark Erik was nowhere to be seen within my subconscious, until I finally realized that I had never really sought out my power. Maybe that's why I wasn't on Ashura or whatever. Maybe Dark Erik was just my imagination. Or perhaps he was simply the collective representation of my ability, an entity which my powers gave birth to in order to communicate with me. Whatever it was, it wasn't here now and I could feel the familiar shadows seep from my skin. I willed them inside the water, diving deep in search of a trace of magic. Once my powers reacted with the portal's magical residue they would reactivate the spell and I could say sayonara to this shithole.
I put in another burst of effort and expanded my search. I felt each individual tendril as part of my being, existing somewhere in between the physical reality and the ethereal nature of magic.
Finally there it was. That spark, that tiny magical footprint. All I had to do was focus all of my energy into it and-
Another tendril found another clump of energy, identical to the first. As did another, and another, and another.
Soon the entire area I was canvassing with a mass of living shadows was alive with magic. I soon realized this wasn't the magical footprint of a spell.
This was the Core of this plane of existence, the nucleus that held this particular dimension together.
Curious and fearful, I explored this energy by interweaving my shadows with the vibrant pulse of this plane, trying to understand it better. Perhaps if I could access even a portion of the plane's magic I could ward off the monsters, or maybe even recreate a portal on Earth, taking advantage of the fact these two planes were literally crashing into each other.
I was too optimistic.
The plane's magic responded with two simple facts. One, that it was a closed system. This was a self-contained pocket universe and no one got in or out if it; not unless they had an Etherium Key anyway. There was absolutely no trace of Earth's energy on it, as if the whole issue with mashing onto the latter plane had never existed.
As far as this pocket universe was concerned it was business as usual.
Fact number two, and this one terrified the living crap out of me: I always knew that every plan of existence, every universe or dimension, whatever you want to call it, had a Core. Not like a planet's core but a magical Core. We all have this as humans, and the universe has one too, only far bigger. But that Core is never alive: it's just a source of energy.
But this plane's Core was very much alive, and a little on the rowdy side. Without warning I felt it push against me, and believe me, no one can fight back an entire universe. Not even one as small as this.
The mass of energy pushed back against my shadows and eradicated them.
Suddenly I was back on the log, lulling on the waves in the middle of the ocean, staring into the watery dark blue pit.
"No, no, no!” I tried accessing my powers again but they had retreated into a dark corner of my mind and refused to come out. I could feel the power, but I couldn't reach it.
"Come on," I yelled. "I was this close. This close!"
I tried harder and harder, using my rage as fuel to try and coerce my ability out again. I had to go home, I had to. I couldn't survive here, not like this. I was tired, and weak, and I had my family waiting for me on the other side. I couldn't stay here.
Immediately my mind pulled up a sl
ideshow of all my friends and family, and I felt the dark cloud of despair loom over me. What if I never see them again? What if I had to live here forever, completely forgotten from the world I once called home? Panic seeped in, dulling my reason and I began shaking.
"Come on, work. Just work, dammit!"
Nothing.
"I said, work!”
My throat felt like I had swallowed a few shards of glass. And still, there was nothing. The final note of my scream rang heavy through the vastness of the ocean and, for a second, I heard and saw nothing but the waves crashing against the log.
Then, in the distance, I heard the familiar shriek of one of those weird eel-like monsters that had come through the portal. My mind immediately conjured up images of that battle, and all the unwanted guests it had brought, the worst of all being the Abyss Wurms. No doubt there were more of them lurking beneath me as I raged at the ocean.
Utterly defeated I turned back and pedaled towards the island. I had suffered loss before, but somehow I could always make peace with it. There's a finality to death that allows you to move on and grieve. You know it's over and that is something your mind can rationalize.
But this was different. This felt like theft. I had ones whom I loved and who loved me back, and they had no idea whether I was alive or dead. It was the unknown that terrified me, the idea that I would be stuck here for who knows how many days, weeks or even months. I already missed them and honestly, at that moment, I would have done anything to go back home.
Five minutes into my pedaling, I was already crying my eyes out. There was nothing to be ashamed of. Missing family and being sad is not a sign of weakness, and don't ever let anyone tell you any different. I truly loved my friends and family, blood relation or not, and I had no doubt they loved me back. We had a bond, and so long as I believed in that bond, then nothing could sever it.
So I allowed myself to weep and wail in sadness. I allowed myself to puke all those emotions out of me because they would do nothing but hurt me. I had to survive on this island so that I could return home. Every problem has a solution, and the despair I was letting out now would do nothing to help me find it. I had to be completely rational if I was to ever make it back home to my family.
And so, I allowed myself to cry.
Chapter 20
Two weeks.
That's how long it took me to find my bearings in that godforsaken maze of a forest. Everywhere I looked there was green, then more green, followed by more green. The stuff of nightmares. There was vegetation everywhere in sight, except for one place.
At the far horizon, somewhere at the centre of the mass of trees, stood an obelisk of pure light. It was like a white beacon, tall and erect, in stark contrast against the blue-and-green background. I felt power coming from it as if beckoning me to get close to it.
Usually I tend to avoid giant beacons of light. I mean, whichever way you cut it, there was no way that wasn't a trap of some kind. But my options here were limited: stay here and get eaten by a giant Wurm, ripped apart by Sahuagin, or try to get out of this forest, and maybe even out of this universe, that I was trapped in.
One step at a time, Erik. I spent a day or so walking towards the giant monument. Knowing very well that I might just be going around in circles, I did the smart thing and marked the trees I passed. Ten hours later and, what'd you know, I’m right back where I started. Usually I would curse, maybe kick something, then dust myself off and try again, possibly with more violence. But I had no more anger left and my brain couldn't even register the concept of despair anymore. Which was probably a good thing.
There had to be a way to reach that obelisk. When I melded with the plane's essence I had felt more than just one life form around me. This was a thriving piece of land that had its own closed ecosystem. Which meant that someone—something—had to have built that giant thing and put it there.
I spent the night atop a tree, again not daring to fall asleep. By the time the sun came up again I was in full survival mode. It had been a while since I had done the whole 'live in a forest' thing but it's really just like riding a bike. A dirty, leafy bike with things constantly trying to eat you.
Home base was easy to establish. I found this patch of clearing right at the edge of the forest near the rocky area I hid in on my first night here. It was firm, solid and somewhat sheltered. I built a fence from felled trees and the skeletal remains of a dead Wurm I found. Don't ask me how it died. Let's just say cannibalism isn't that foreign a concept once you run out of fish men to eat. The rocky undergrowth made sure that no Wurms would sneak under me, meaning that for once, I could watch them instead of the other way around.
The most annoying things were the Critters. Or at least that's what I called the scorpion-like creatures the size of my forearm, with pincers, a barbed tail, and a pair of jaws with inward pointing fangs made to rip out flesh. Their exoskeletons were bleached white, with the occasional dark or red stripe, most likely for terrain camouflage. I found a nest of five near the tent I had built, and was stung and bit about a million times before I caught all of them. I spent the rest of the day throwing up a mixture of very little food and a lot of stomach acid, followed by a bout of diarrhea that, in my honest opinion, served as much-needed fertilizer for some of the plants. I passed out a few hours later and woke up to find the same bunch of Critters still where I had left them.
Turns out these things were blind, communicating solely through echolocation and pheromones. Their sting and poison contained said pheromones and that now marked me as friendly. It would only be a matter of time before my healing factor purged out all of the foreign chemicals in my system, but for now I was enjoying the wonderful crittery company of five such creatures. Every day, they would disappear through the rock, digging a network of underground tunnels, and pop up randomly just to gnaw on some Wurm bones. That's when I got the idea to use them as scouts. I would grab the biggest ones by the tail and fling them around the forest. If they made it back safely by the end of the day, that meant no Wurms were in that area.
But I never lost sight of the big picture. Living in the wildlife is exactly like living in a foreign city. You can't read the signs or speak the language. You are utterly lost, in the purest sense of the word. When looking for water in a forest, you don't follow the muddy paw prints of some animal; you follow the animal itself. Let the deer guide you to the water. The deer is smart, smarter than you in this regard, and knows exactly where the water is and where the predators are. If you follow the deer, not only will you get water but you might also get a meal at the end of the day with a well-placed shot.
I quickly realized that in this magical forest, there were no deer around.
I did, however, follow the unicorns.
Hunting in that place required some major adjustments. For one thing, all the creatures around me were predators, no matter how cute and cuddly they looked. Everything was dinner. We humans are so used to being at the top of the food chain that such a concept has been lost to us. We still have the instincts but we don't know what to do with them. But on this plane, the only human around was so low on the food chain that if this were a restaurant I would be considered either an appetizer or just a condiment.
The second thing was that all my toys were nearly useless. My gun was practically a paperweight. Yeah, it could fire bullets but half the creatures I met were so tough they could just shrug them off. Pumping magic through the gun would have been useless too. A bullet is still a bullet and no magic can change that. You can increase speed, power, rotation, whatever, but if something is immune to bullets, a gun is about as useful as a fortune teller helping you out with your career choices.
Djinn was useful but the thing about carrying a glowing sword in the middle of the forest is that every insect that ever existed will come buzzing towards you. And unless you know exactly what your prey is, it's never a good idea to announce your presence. Most of what I could categorize as 'food' was either faster than I was or had some trick up i
ts sleeve.
And the unicorns had both.
They lived in packs of a dozen or so: ten black unicorns to one pretty white one. The black ones were slightly smaller, with lean muscle and a perfect equine shape. Their fur was sleek and black like ink, with tufts of red hair at each of their hoofs and a shaggy mane. Most had some sort of red marking on their heads, usually the forehead or around the eyes. Their horn was at least two feet long, black as night, with the tip burning a bright crimson.
I learnt early on to stay away from that thing.
When we think unicorns we get these images from a Disney movie or some My Little Pony cartoon.
But these very real unicorns quickly shattered that image. Aggressive and territorial, they attacked prey like lionesses attacked gazelles. They would get in close to stab whatever poor thing they wanted to eat, skewer it a few times and wait. Wait for the poison to take effect.
That horn was highly venomous, injecting a toxin that rendered even tree-sized Wurms helpless. From simple observation I guessed it first paralyzed the victim and then worked its way into the central nervous system. More poison would cause internal bleeding and the horn wound would develop severe necrosis around it.
In short, stay away from the unicorns.
Anything that carries around that much poison cannot—should not—be edible. Then again I've seen crazy idiots eat Blowfish and walk away with a droopy smile on their face, but I didn't want to test out my luck. My magic was still on the fritz, and even now that it had somewhat stabilized, I still didn't want to try eating a poison unicorn.
Not when there was a tasty Bicorn sitting just a few feet away.
Bicorns were pure white with a slender physique and slanted backs, looking kind of like a reindeer or a mountain goat. They were bigger than the unicorns and almost as tall as I was at my full height. They had a pair of horns instead of just one—hence the clever name I had given them—and they both rose from their foreheads like the antlers of a gazelle or an antelope. Those horns were white as snow and kept on growing. Younger Bicorns had just two straight horns, while on elder Bicorns they branched out like reindeer antlers.