Outside Influences

“It’s not the dumbest idea,” James insisted.

Bel scoffed. “Birds don’t fly with poles, James.”

James rolled his eyes. “We also talked about putting a harness on a couple of people with wings, but Daran says that none of them can actually fly.”

Daran nodded eagerly. “It’s true, their bodies are too large for their wings.”

The ant-girl tilted her head in bewilderment. “Why do you not like James’ ideas, Bel? I think his ideas are very amazing.”

Bel grimaced at how easily Daran was impressed with her brother’s wacky ideas. “Ugh, he’ll be back to whining about the lack of internet in another week. Let’s see if you still think the stuff coming out of his face sounds good. He’ll probably spend an entire day talking about cat videos and pizza and all the stuff that’ll never exist here.”

“Not true,” James objected, “we’ve already managed to duplicate the cell phone with some magic rocks. I’m going to start up a schooling program to increase literacy and teach the scientific method. I’m sure we’ll be racing towards modern technology in a year or two – including pizza.”

He scratched at the thin beard forming on his chin. “Well, maybe with some cheese substitute. And some tech is pretty far off.”

He waved his hand through the air. “Rockets aren’t happening, I think. We can do assembly lines and math and stuff though.”

Bel cringed at the thought of more math.

“Dreams are great, kids, but do you plan to stand around out here all night? You’re supposed to be in this meeting.”

Bel grinned at her older sister, spreading her arms for a hug. Beth stepped back, but Bel pouted at her until the older woman finally relented.

Bel inspected her sister for any signs of injuries as she squeezed her. “I feel like I’ve barely seen you this last month. Have you been exploring the Labyrinthos?”

Beth nodded as she extricated herself from Bel’s enthusiastic hug. “Yeah. Well, a bit. Everyone here’s too scared to actually go far enough to find anything interesting.”

The overeager assassin glanced at Daran. “No offense.”

Daran’s antenna twitched with amusement. “I take none. All the sudden changes around here – the death of the Dark Ravager, news of people behind the Blue Wall, the sudden return of the spirits – is too much for a great many of us.”

“I still don’t think that war is necessary,” James grumbled. “With the spirits back and the Dark Ravager gone it seems like things out here are fine.”

Beth scowled. “Out here, sure, but back in Satrap things can only be getting worse.”

James shrugged. “Oh no, the people who would have burned us at the stake are having a bad time, oh no.”

Bel elbowed him in the gut. “Hey. Some people were good.”

James swatted her elbow away. “I’m not saying that there aren’t good people, but more war means more death. War is indiscriminate, Bel,” he sighed.

Beth clicked her tongue. “Stop it with your big-word arguments. Technis is bad and Bel is going back into Satrap anyway. If the gods want him gone, then isn’t it the right thing to do?”

Bel’s instincts were to take her brother’s side, but she couldn’t argue about the gods. When Kjar descended to the mortal plane and killed the Dark Ravager, she had also made it very clear to Bel that killing Technis should be her goal. It was the reason why the goddess Lempo had created her, at least as far as she’d been told.

Bel waved her hands between her siblings to get their attention. “Look, ignoring whatever is happening in Satrap isn’t a good idea. We don’t know what Technis is capable of – maybe he’ll even invade the Golden Plains now that the Dark Ravager is gone. I’m not saying that war is good, James, but I do think that the people here should be prepared.”

Bel rolled up her right sleeve, revealing a colorful new tattoo of a lion’s head breathing fire. She patted the image of her aunt for good luck. “Kjar also gave me a mission, so I have to go.”

“You love showing that thing off,” James laughed.

Bel’s brow’s knit together with annoyance. “Of course. Kjar is awesome, and so is this tattoo.”

Beth rubbed her forehead. “Sure, we get that Bel, but why did you have to get one of that crazy spirit on your other arm too?”

“Dutcha?” Bel asked. “Well, I was afraid that she would be jealous. Look, don’t laugh, she’s really powerful and scary too.”

“And couldn’t be bothered to explain how to use that spirit binding ability?” James asked.

Bel’s face twisted. “I think she assumes it’s just natural. Spirits and people are pretty different. Orseis says that my body gets weirdly fuzzy whenever I try to use it, so I think my, uh, shape becomes momentarily flexible.”

Bel made a smooshing motion with her hands. “I just need to find a way to convince a spirit to just kind of jump on board.”

Beth shook her head. “Sounds silly to me.”

Orseis leaned her head out of the save doorway where Beth had emerged. “Hey, I thought you were fetching them? Why are you all just standing around out here? They’re almost done telling their family histories, and the introductions are next.”

The tentacled woman narrowed her w-slit eyes as she looked them over. “You aren’t planning on skipping the introductions, are you? The council wouldn’t like that.”

Beth nodded. “Of course not.”

She turned back to her siblings and smacked her hand onto her hip, the closest she could do to a one-handed clap. “Right. Attendance is mandatory, but you don’t need to pay attention.” She turned at glared at Bel. “Just don’t fall asleep.”

Bel’s eyes widened with innocence. “Me? Fall asleep? Why would I do that? I’m sure sitting through a bunch of people arguing about nonsense will be fascinating.”

Beth jabbed her finger in James’ direction. “You never shoulda taught her sarcasm.”

“Whoah,” James protested, “I think that comes from you.”

Beth snorted as she followed Orseis back through the dark entryway. Daran scuttled in after them, and James squinted at Bel until she reluctantly entered the planning room.

She blinked in the dim interior and almost immediately found herself lost in the crowd. The room was just a large in Outpost 3’s wall, but there was space for fifty people around the massive stone table that dominated the center of the space. Light came in from a series of shafts that lead to the surface so she could see, theoretically. The tallest of the semi-humans were like roving clouds, blotting out the sun and blocking her view as they passed. Even with Kjar’s sight, Bel was struggling to find her travel companions.

She finally caught sight of a fluffy tail that she recognized. Bel rushed over to the familiar flame-tossing fox.

“Morning young’un,” Flann called out. He was hanging out by the wall of the room, leaning on his cane with one hand and waving with the other.

“Hey Flann, how’ve you been? How’s Jan?”

His whiskers twitched as the old man chuckled. “He started a huge argument with his family. Couldn’t let it go after he found out that Rikja had run away to join the Dark Ravager. He went back and had it out with his grandchildren, demandin’ that they let the young ‘uns take a turn out o’ the old warren ta get some different perspectives.”

The fox swished his puffy tail through the air. “I’d say that he’s got most of the younger generations on his side, but the entire meerkat clan has sealed themselves in their warren until they reach a full consensus. I fear he may never escape,” Flann finished with a sad droop of his ears.

He immediately perked up again. “Oh, but he sends his best wishes. This also means that I’ve got some free time, so I’ll be comin’ with you folks for the first couple of drops.”

Bel clapped with excitement. “That’s excellent!”

Flann chuckled and he hit the ground with the cane a few times to accentuate his mirth.

Thank Kjar for people I can trust. Although I do feel guilty that Jan is trapped in what sounds like the worst meeting ever.

“I’m sorry that Jan is stuck,” Bel apologized. “I hope they sort things out before we get back.”

Flann slapped his thigh as he chuckled. “Pretty confident, aren’t ya? The Labyrinthos is a dangerous place, you know.”

“She’s nothing if not confident,” Orseis’ precise voice answered.

Bel pouted unconsciously; she was getting fed up with the tentacled girl’s teasing. “James says that I should have some swagger. You know, since I’m the child of some goddesses and such.”

Orseis’ beak clacked as she chuckled. “Of course you should,” she encouraged. “We will all need some swagger to make it through the underworld.”

“We are not expecting to make it all the way on our first attempt, are we?”

The deep, rumbling voice shook Bel’s bones. She turned to see the speaker, who towered nearly a stride over her, more monument than man. He had thick, dark skin that could have been carved granite and an enormous mouth with tusks jutting out from his lower jaw.

Bel didn’t gawk – she’d been carried around by a spirit made of burning stone and had been violently bathed by a goddess – but she did stare.

“Ah, let me introduce myself,” the statue intoned. “I am Cleisthenes. My ancestor’s were mostly hippos.”

Bel examined his teeth as he spoke. She didn’t know much about hippos, but his tusks reminded her of a predator – or maybe they were just for intimidation? I don’t think that I want to check.

Bel hadn’t payed too much attention to the other people who had been practicing with the parachutes because the majority of them wouldn’t be in a her group anyway, but she was wishing that she’d at least looked at them. Instead, she had mostly stuck with Flann during her practice. Orseis had also been a constant, undesired companion.

“Hi Cleisthenes, I’m Bel.” She offered the massive man a handshake, a tradition that she and James had been popularizing among the handed semi-humans. “Do you mind if I just call you Chris? Or Cleis? Something that I could shout in a hurry, you know, in case there’s trouble while we’re delving.”

The large man chuckled as he gently pumped her hand up and down with his massive mitt. “Cleis will work for me. Let me introduce my fellow soldiers as well.”

Bel hadn’t even noticed the two smaller individuals hiding in the hippo’s bulky shadow.

Cleis gestured at a woman with scaled skin and bulging eyes who was half his height. That put the fish-person at about a hand shorter than Bel. “This is Pelagius.”

Pelagius gaped her mouth at Bel in response.

“She can’t speak – tapping is more common for the fish-folk,” Cleis explained. “She understands just fine though. Pelagius is one hell of a scout around any water.”

Pelagius hefted a small metal stick with in one of her fins fin and rapidly tapped on it with her teeth.

Bel waved awkwardly.

Cleis gestured to the last person, who only came to Bel’s waist. She recognized one of the snake people immediately from his scaled skin. Recalling her experiences with the first group of semi-humans she had met upon entering the Golden Plains Bel made a note to keep her own snakes away from him.

“This is Simon. He’s good at squeezing into small spaces. Our plan is to let him and Pelagius do most of our scouting, and I’ll take care of any fighting.” The big man thumped his chest while the small snake person carefully pulled his tail away from the hippo’s enormous feet. Simon pulled out his own metal stick and tapped out a pattern on the surface with his nimble fingers.

Bel noticed that everyone, including Flann and Orseis, nodded in understanding. Orseis even clacked out a response with her own beak.

“We got one more, right? Where’s Johan?”

Someone hooted at them and they looked up to see that a person was sitting in one of the light shafts. The feathered person dropped the rest of the way to the floor with a few wingbeats and hooted again in introduction.

Bel sighed. She didn’t think that she would ever fit in around the semi-humans of the Golden Plains. It didn’t help that she’d been too busy worrying about fixing her head to bother learning the stranger local languages.”

Flann waved. “’Bout time you got here!”

The fox gestured to the owl-like person. “Johan will be responsible for steering the balloons! He’s got a couple of abilities that will probably help out.”

He winked at Bel. “Better than poles, right?”

Bel’s snakes wound through the air in indecision. She’d been on the balloon a few times with Johan, but his ability to move it balloon hadn’t impressed her. James assured her that the large caverns in the underworld wouldn’t have as much wind as the surface, but Bel wasn’t going to believe it until she saw it.

A loud thonking sound quieted the background murmurs and called everyone to attention. Bel shuffled forward with her team to fill a row of seats near the head of the table. Cleis and Pelagius broke away from their group to jump into a small pool that was set into the floor, but Bel continued onwards to a proper seat.

Hanti, the four-armed ant warrior and the closest thing to a unified military commander in the Outpost, stood at the front of the table and slammed a large mallet into the wall until everyone took their places. She looked the crowd up and down until her eyes settled on James, who was still whispering something to Daran. She stared at him until Daran slapped a hand over his face, finally silencing the talkative otherworlder.

Hanti smiled, in a feral “let’s kill and eat something” kind of way – that was how Bel interpreted it at least – before finally dropping her mallet.

“Thank you for gathering here,” the warrior spoke. “Today we have representatives from all of the families of the alliance, as well as from those guilds who have been involved with this operation. We will be discussing a plan that will forever change the future of our peoples.”