Outside Influences

Bel woke up disoriented and confused. The The bug-based light source meant that nothing had changed since she’d gone to sleep except for the crustiness around her eyes.

Flann had already gotten up, but Orseis was still fast asleep. Bel watched the cuttlefish girl for a moment; her tentacle arms twitched slightly as she snored. She was also slowly shifting colors, going from a pale yellow to a slight purple tint.

She’s eight? And she wants to find a way into Satrap to find a human mate before she dies of old age?

Bel rubbed her head with frustration.

This is weird, right? I feel like this is weird. I mean, I guess I’m not one to judge, but still…

Bel pushed herself to her feet, doing her best to be quiet to avoid waking Orseis.

Bel crept out onto the wide limb of the tree and looked around. She spotted Flann perched farther out on the limb than she would dare to go, the old man’s small size for once proving to be an advantage as he stretched and twisted. His joints popped audibly as he moved and Bel felt a wave of guilt for dragging the old fox into the underworld with her.

“See anything?” she asked.

Flann yelped with surprise and Bel’s heart surged up her throat when she thought she was going to startle him to his death. She sighed with relief when he kept his balance. He bent down to retrieve his staff and slowly moved up the limb of the tree to rejoin her, waving his tail around for balance.

“Trees are really somethin’,” he proclaimed brightly. “I wonder if my ancestors lived in ’em?”

Bel shoved a sleepy snake out of her face. “Which ones? Your human ancestors, or the foxy ones?”

“Huh.” He scratched at his ear as he pondered it. “Not the human ones, right? Don’t you need claws for climbin’?”

Bel shrugged. “How old are you, Flann?” she asked abruptly.

She gestured back towards the sleeping Orseis. “I mean, she’s eight. Are you only 20 or something crazy?”

He snickered. “Nah, I’m well over a hundred. I wasn’t kiddin’ about those life extending abilities.”

“I should have picked them up then,” Bel lamented.

“Oh, you’ll have your chance when we make it out of here. They don’t actually do much while you’re young anyway, so you may as well save the space in your core.”

He flicked his gaze towards their sleeping hollow. “You wouldn’t want to be like Orseis and overfill your core so that any random gorgon could paralyze you stiff.”

“Hey,” an annoyed voice complained. “It’s bad enough you’re being so loud, don’t talk about me behind my back.”

Orseis crawled out of the hollow and stared at them blearily. Bel wasn’t convinced that the girl was actually awake.

“So, have you seen anything dangerous?” Bel asked Flann.

“Well,” he started, “there’s a bushel and a half of stuff out here, but I haven’t seen any creatures movin’ about. I can smell ’em though.”

He scratched his head. “They’re prolly sensitive to strangers and ran off when we showed up. The crab was either stupid or thought it had an advantage on its home turf.”

Bel hummed. “So we won’t have any trouble exploring?”

Flann made a so-so gesture, wiggling his paw around. “Sure, until something more powerful shows up. And if everything here is so sensitive, I’m guessin’ that the powerful hunters are all real stealthy.”

“Oh.” That thought put a wet towel on her good mood. She went to inspect their belonging that they had hung out the night before to dry.

“Hey, do you have any idea what time it is? Is there any day and night cycle here?”

Flann flicked an ear. “No idea. I haven’t seen anything changin’, but I’ve only been up for a bit.”

“Well, I guess we should wake Orseis and start looking around.”

“I’m up,” responded a groggy voice. She limply waved a few tentacles through the air. “What’s for breakfast?”

Flann’s tail swished. “Just like a follower of Gigampas, huge brawn, huge appetite.”

Bel’s snakes flicked out curious tongues. “Gigampas?”

“He’s my patron.” Orseis flexed a tentacle. “God of might and hunting and stuff.”

“More like god of always being hungry,” Flann accused. “Maybe you should go easy on his abilities, let your core get some breathing room.”

“Ugh, spoken like one of Hermeis’ nags.”

Flann opened his mouth, but Orseis held up her tentacles in defeat. “No, please, I give up. Hermeis is great. That’s settled now, so let’s eat.”

Flann laughed, slapping his knee with delight. “We got nothin’ but some hardtack, not unless you want to go back to the pond.”

Orseis pondered for a moment. “Back to the pond,” she declared.

They repacked their things, donned their protective gear – or just pants in Flann’s case – and headed back to the pond. Bel watched in wonder as the cuttle-girl packed away a pair of head-sized crabs that she swam down for breakfast.

“This place is actually kind of amazing,” she sighed contentedly. “Maybe we could all just move down here?”

Bel looked around. “Well, Flann was thinking that there are probably predators. Stealthy ones that snap your neck when you’re trying to use the bathroom, probably.”

Orseis peered around. “Huh. That sounds less amazing. I’d better be careful.”

Bel nodded, but she was actually enjoying the more relaxed version of Orseis that had shown up before they’d gone to sleep.

We’re not here for fun, she scolded herself. There’ll be more time for chit-chat later.

“Let’s see if we can climb up a tall tree and see what’s around,” she suggested.

It was easy to find tall trees, but unfortunately, every tall tree was surrounded by other tall trees. They tried sending Flann to climb to the top of one anyway, but once he got high enough to rustle the branches all of the glowing insects flew away. The sudden darkness made it impossible for him to see what he was doing and he was forced to climb down.

They stood around in a circle afterwards, wondering what to do next.

“Well, we know which direction to go to get to the blue wall,” Orseis observed. “Let’s find a river that’s going in that direction and follow it. The trees are smaller near the water, so at least we’ll be able to see anything trying to sneak up on us.”

Flann grumbled a little, but none of them had a better idea. Keeping their orientation was actually more difficult than Bel thought it would, surrounded as they were by dense, overhanging vegetation. As they wandered around, becoming increasingly disoriented, Flann suddenly called them to a halt with a quickly raised hand.

“Stop,” he hissed.

Bel gripped the hilt of her weapon and peered into the forest. She hadn’t seen anything strange, but she trusted Flann’s instincts and superior sense of smell. The small foxy man knelt to the ground and reached into a clump of ferns. His hand came back with something shiny.

“Is that a knife?” Bel asked.

Flann turned it over in his hands. “A piece of one, it looks like.”

Bel examined the forest floor more closely, and a strange lump drew her attention. She stepped forward to prod it with her foot. “What’s this?” she wondered.

The mound crumbled as she poked it, releasing a thick, decomposing smell and revealing several bones beneath the dessicated skin.

“What did you find?” Orseis asked tensely. Her tentacles were up and at the ready, and her pupils had gone wide.

“It’s a dead…something.” Bel leaned closer, her nose wrinkling at the pungent scent. “Something with big fangs.”

Flann nodded. “Prolly one of those predators that I was guessin’ should be around.”

“But what killed it?” Orseis wondered.

“The Dark Ravager’s people,” Bel answered. “We know that they were getting spirits for their demigod. They may have done a number on the local wildlife as well. This could be why we’re not seeing much.”

Flann raised his eyebrows. “This place is huge though. There’s no way they wiped out everything.”

Bel’s snakes wriggled in disagreement. “James told me that hunting will absolutely wipe out a species, even over a large area. Even if they aren’t all gone, they’ve probably learned to be wary of people.”

“Ah, I suppose that could be it,” Flann agreed.

“If they had a path, we should follow it,” Bel suggested. “We know they found a way under the Barrier, so if we retrace their steps then we’ll find it too.”

“Oh, good idea,” Orseis cheered. “We’ll be in Satrap in no time!”

Five days passed – at least as far as they could tell without any change in lighting – and they hadn’t found the pillar or the Barrier. The waterways grew thicker and deeper, rapids turned to cascades of water that fell hundreds of strides, and the mist grew so thick that they could barely see themselves. The heat had also increased as they moved gradually downhill, and it combined with the moisture in the air to form a special kind of hell – at least for Bel and Flann.

Orseis hummed a happy tune as she shoved through another dense stand of ferns that partially obscured the trail they’d been following. “I suppose I was being too optimistic before,” she tossed over her shoulder, “but at least we’ve been eating well!” She grinned and rubbed her full belly.

As the waterways had grown in size, they had treated Bel’s group to an ever expanding variety of crustaceans and fish.

“Yay,” Bel deadpanned. “Giant water bugs.”

Flann drooped miserably. He’d already complained about everything there was to complain about, and now he was a quiet, tired, and soggy fox.

“Oh, c’mon,” Orseis chided, “I’ve gone up a threshold and you’ve gone up two! Things aren’t that bad.”

Bel saw a spark ignite in Flann’s dead eyes. “Says that girl who doesn’t have any fur to dry off,” he objected.

“Well, at least we aren’t stuck here with Cleisthenes, right?” The cuttlefish-girl beamed, revealing her manicured beak.

Bel sighed. I suppose I should be thankful for that, she thought.

“Ah! That’s a big fish!”

Bel barely glanced at Orseis. “At least she’s always excited about the food down here,” she remarked to Flann.

He nodded with a quiet grunt.

Orseis jumped straight into the water, tentacles reaching forward towards her prey. Just like she always did.

Then she came flying out of the water. Bel saw a surprised look on her face as the girl was sent careening towards them.

“Orseis!” Bel reached out as the girl came flying past, but she zipped by the gorgon and slammed into a tree before Bel could do anything to help her.

Bel’s eyes widened in alarm and she spun to face their attacker.

It was a fish.

And it was flying.

The fish levitated through the air, surrounded by a large sphere of water. The creature itself was…long. Perhaps seven strides long, Bel guessed, with a sail-like fin running along its back and a large, red spine on its head, like a long-handled mace with an angry expression and teeth.

It locked eyes with her and Bel pulled her short sword free of its scabbard. She prepared to glare.

Then a stream of water scythed towards her with enough force to cut straight through several of the Bel-sized trees in the way.

Bel ducked down, but the watery attack dipped to follow. Flann waved his arms and released a torrent of fire that disrupted the water attack, filling the air with hissing mist as the two elements met. The water lost its cohesion and struck Bel with the force of a hard kick to the shoulder, but she was otherwise fine.

As the glow bugs fled the area and plunged it into darkness, the fox grimaced. “It’s a bad matchup fer me,” he warned. “I’m not gonna be much help!”

Bel glanced back at Orseis, but the girl was still laid out, tentacles splayed in every direction. Instead, Bel locked eyes with the giant serpent and blasted glare, overloaded the ability with triple its usual mana requirement.

The serpent shrugged off her attack with nothing more than an annoyed flick of its tail. In response, it sent a volley of water blobs at her with the weight and speed of rocks from a sling. Bel ducked and rolled, while Flann sent out a wave of fire in an attempt to disrupt the attack.

Bel wanted to run, but another quick glance at Orseis told her that the girl wasn’t moving.

Running could be futile anyway, seeing as this thing is floating.

Bel ran in a semi-circle as she dodged another barrage of water bullets. When she had a moment to breath, she slid to a halt and once again locked eyes with the creature. Her snakes rose up in a threat display as she all of her free mana through glare.

This attempt went better – the giant fish wobbled for a moment, and it dropped a large portion of its water. It still had enough to keep itself in the air, and more than enough to fend off any attack from Flann, but Bel was pleased to have had some effect. If it was just as effective with each attempt, Bel thought that two more full power glares would suffice.

She just had to survive long enough to refill her core. No problem.

The hovering serpent regarded them for a long moment. Bel was worried that it was preparing for some stronger attack, but the fish had apparently decided that they weren’t worth the trouble. It smoothly turned and swam back through the air and into the deep river where Orseis had disturbed it.

Bel stared at the spot where its red crest had dipped below the water’s surface, worried that it would come back out with a fresh supply of water. After a minute of waiting, she finally relaxed and sheathed her sword.

“That was scary,” Bel quavered.

Flann nodded. “Yeah, that’s a big’un. This is why I’m not a fan of water, you can never tell when something gigantic is gonna show up.” He tilted his heard towards their downed companion. C’mon, we’d best check on Orseis.”

They hurried to their companion’s side.

Orseis was bruised, and the blow had knocked her out, but she was breathing steadily. Bel and Flann hovered protectively over her, and she soon stirred.

She peered up at them with bleery eyes before looking at the river.

“I guess this means no more easy meals for me,” she moaned.