Outside Influences

The forest was thick with snaring vines and tangling roots, forcing Bel to move carefully as she rushed towards the sounds of Orseis’ increasingly frustrated shouts. She’d barely made any progress at all when a shout was cut off by a sudden yelp of pain. Fear crawled down Bel’s spine and she put on a burst of speed, which almost resulted in her biting off her tongue when her trailing foot caught in a root.

She grunted with pain when she hit the forest floor, but she immediately hauled herself up and pressed forward with reckless speed. The bird man’s ominous warning about a hunting shadow loomed heavily in her mind, a growing cloud of worry that threatened to blot out her rational mind. When she finally burst into a small clearing and could see Orseis–very much alive and kicking–her panic thinned and her senses came back.

Orseis was okay, but her parachute had been caught in the limbs of the massive trees. She was dangling in midair, swaying to and fro and she angrily cursed a crowd of furry, sharp-toothed critters. The arboreal animals were only knee high if you discounted their large, bushy tails, but their teeth were disproportionately large: each was the length of a proper stabbing stiletto.

Bel’s hand twitched for her long-lost sword, but she stooped to pick up a solid-looking stick.

The giant tree rats–Bel decided that was the best way to think of them–were focused on Orseis and hadn’t noticed her yet. Five of them were running along the tree limbs surrounding her tentacled friend, searching for a safe way to get close. Orseis snapped a tentacle at them when they neared, but Bel could see that one of them would eventually risk a leap at the trapped girl. Even if she tore that one apart, the others could take that opportunity to swarm her; once that happened, it would be too late for Bel to intervene.

Bel immediately used her first and best ability, whistling loudly to draw the tree rats’ attention and glaring at one in mid-jump. The suddenly froze animal missed its landing, bouncing stiffly off of a branch before plummeting to the forest floor below. Bel didn’t hesitate to leap to it and slam her club into its head, guaranteeing a kill.

The remaining four creatures hissed with outrage, and Bel quickly turned her attention away from the one she’d already defeated. She scarcely had time to look up before one of the enraged quadrupeds thumped into the ground a few steps away. Bel raised her club threateningly as the creature dug its claws into the loamy soil, searching for a good grip before it pounced.

The its form blurred, and suddenly there were two of them.

Bel didn’t hesitate–Beth hadn’t drilled her very often with her shadow clone abilities, but she had drilled her enough. Bel ignored the identical creatures coming her way and instead turned her senses to the ground, searching for signs of the creature’s true location.

A rush of air stirred a leaf. Bel swung. Her club connected awkwardly, striking the jaw of her opponent before she’d fully extended. The weight of her foe wrenched her weapon from her grasp but her attack was enough to snap the creature’s jaws closed, although the force was insufficient to knock it away. Its body struck her and its saber-like teeth scraped against her divine armor.

Bel tilted her head back, fearful of another sudden blinding. It snapped and lunged at her, but its smaller size meant that it had to leap into the air to do so. Bel yelled in anger as its jaws snapped at the air right in front of her face, and a burst of adrenaline powered her arms as she grasped the thrashing tree-dweller and slammed it into the ground, stunning it.

She quickly shaped the nails of her right hand into sharp points and jammed them through the little monster’s eye and into its brain.

A sharp cry from Orseis warned her that another attack was incoming, but Bel was in no position to defend herself. She reflexively curled into a ball to protect her face, but was knocked sprawling by the third tree rat. She screamed in pain as it bit into her right calf. She wanted to kick that one off of her, but she caught a blur of motion from her blinded side and brought up her arms to intercept the fourth one as it attempted to gore her throat.

She howled in rage as she forced liquify into its spine before snapping its neck with a quick jerk.

Then she lifted her left leg and kick the fourth one in the face until it let go her of bloody right leg.

It hissed at her, but she glared back, momentarily stunning it. She bent forward and did to it what she’d done to the last, practically twisting its head off in desperation.

She fell to her back and leaned up, her eye darting around for the final creature, fearful that it was approaching from her blind spot. She pushed herself backward until her back came up against a thick tree, but she still couldn’t find the final one. Then she looked up.

The face of the fifth tree rat was only a stride above her, its mouth opening, its teeth glistening with malice.

Bel shrieked with surprise, pushing herself sideways to avoid the attack. Pain burned up her injured leg and she sprawled across the ground.

“It’s dead!” Orseis yelled. “Sorry, sorry, Bel,” her companion apologized, “just give me a minute and I’ll get down and help.”

Bel’s breathing was harsh and fast, her imminent death still flashing through her mind. It took her confused mind a few moments to sort out the scene in front of her: the final creature, impaled upon a broken limb, and Orseis, somehow even more tangled in vines and parachute cords than she’d been when Bel entered the clearing.

Orseis’s tentacles jerked and pulled as they travelled over her snare.

“Tentacles aren’t good for knots,” she explained remorsefully, “and I made things worse when I tried to swing my way out of things. I only got close enough to grab one of them. I’m so sorry.”

As her heart rate finally slowed, Bel was able to start thinking again.

I’ve got to stop this bleeding, she realized. She concentrated on her blood abilities as she forced her ruptured skin into roughly the correct location.

I should clean this out, but…

Bel’s lips skimmed back with pain as she prodded her injuries. We don’t have any medical supplies, not even any water after the fiery hell of the third layer.

With the snapping of branches and a shower of debris, Orseis finally worked her way free. She bounded quickly to Bel’s side, her skin taking on a pale, bumpy pattern as she fretted over Bel’s injured leg.

“How bad is it?”

Bel patted Orseis’ head, touched by her concern.

“It’s probably not as bad as it looks. It didn’t manage to gnaw its way through the bone at least, although I don’t think that I’ll be walking on it.”

Bel looked up, scanning the trees around them, searching for more threats. “We probably shouldn’t hang around her for long. Who knows what kind of scavengers are in this place.”

Orseis looked at the nearest corpse. “Do you think these are what the bird guy thought would kill us?”

Bel shook her head. “Nah. It sounded much more ominous–a prowling shadow or something like that. Can you help me up?”

Bel reached out to Orseis and winced as she flexed her arm. I’d almost forgotten how I hurt my shoulder when that tree caught me.

She gave Orseis a pitiful look and held out her good arm. “Help. We’ll drain their cores and then we should leave.”

Orseis had insisted that Bel take all of the cores, but Bel had convinced her companion to at least drain the one she’d killed herself. Bel had been hoping to gain a threshold per core – the damned tree rats had some good abilities! – but she’d only cleared two thresholds from the ordeal.

That would have to be enough. It was obvious that she needed more abilities if she wanted to survive on her increasingly dangerous journey. She was currently wedged into the nook of a tree limb and a massive trunk thirty strides from the ground below. This was as safe a place as she would get to contemplate her choices.

“I still think you should have tried to copy that body clone abilities they used,” Orseis mumbled.

“It didn’t really match my paths,” she huffed. “Maybe if I was copying Beth, but it didn’t seem like something a gorgon would do, and Dutcha would literally split in half before she made an illusion.”

“Well, do you paths have anything worthwhile then? How many strokes do you have?”

Bel cast her mind inward to the chaotic symphony that her pair of cores had become. “25 free strokes on my unbound path and 17 on Dutcha’s.”

“That would be enough for me to get an ability to eat rocks,” Orseis declared proudly.

“You’re joking, right?”

Bel looked at the tentacled menace, but the girl only rolled her eyes in response.

Right, I guess I could get some strange abilities too.

She whistled as she examined her options. “I could get an ability that would pull essence into my core faster. I think by ripping things around me apart.”

“Is that safe?” Orseis asked.

Bel shrugged. “It’s from the divine spirit of chaos, so probably not safe. Still tempting.”

“It doesn’t help anything out immediately though.”

Bel shook her head, dislodging a few of her sleeping snakes. “I’m sure James would go crazy about it. He used to talk for hours about optimizing character abilities in the games he would play in the Old World.”

Orseis snorted. “Well, that sounds like a waste of time.”

Bel pursed her lips. “He was pretty frightened when he first showed up. I think he just needed to talk about something.”

“I meant playing games about having abilities sounds like a waste. Just go out and get them, right?”

Orseis quirked her tentacles. “Maybe it’s different when you know you’ll live super long.”

Bel pinched one of her errant tentacles. “Stop acting like you’ll die before you’re ten. I still think you look like a little girl – Flann said that most human hybrids have pretty good lifespans if they aren’t inbred.”

Orseis snatched her limb back and turned an angry shade of red, but Bel ignored her antics. Instead, she focused back on her core.

“Oh, hey, here’s a useful ability. It would almost completely fill Dutcha’s core though.”

“What’s it do?” Orseis asked eagerly, her earlier pouting forgotten.

“It makes the air run away from my hand. Like a shockwave.”

“Is that strong? I don’t know if air sounds strong.”

Bel traced the pattern of the ability with her mind. “I feel like it works underwater too, somehow.”

“But is it strong?”

“Yes,” Bel huffed, “it takes up so much space, so it has to be strong, right?”

Orseis shook her head. “Haven’t you ever heard the story of the greedy scorpion?”

Bel rolled her eyes as Orseis started reciting some children’s story from the Golden Plains. Whatever, I’m just going to take it.

She closed her eyes and inscribed the ability onto her core, leaving only a tiny part unfilled. She nodded with satisfaction when she finished.

“…and that’s why you shouldn’t – wait, did you just ignore everything I said and take it anyway?” Orseis’ glared at Bel, her w-shaped pupils narrowing to slits.

“Yup! Wanna see if it’s powerful?”

Orseis held on for a long three seconds before she gave in. “Yeah. See how much of a dent you can make in that branch.”

Bel looked at her target – a branch as thick around as her leg that jutted out from their current perch several strides away.

“Can you hold onto me so I don’t fall off? I want to get closer so I don’t miss. Now that my core’s full I’ll have to wait an hour to try again.”

Orseis hopped to her feet and wrapped a tentacle around Bel’s wrist while anchoring her other tentacles to the trunk. “Go for it.”

Bel limped her way across the tree limb, which wasn’t as dangerous as it could have been: the limb was as wide across as Bel was tall and Bel’s feet found plenty of purchase on the wrinkled bark. She got to within a stride of the smaller branch and pointed her hand at it.

“Shockwave,” she announced.

As if their air itself had been mortally insulted, it retreated from her outstretched hand with an ear-piercing shriek. Bel felt no recoil from the ability itself, but when the air collided with the branch it sent a spray of debris into the air which was immediately pulled back towards the vacuum left by her ability. Orseis pulled her backwards as she desperately held her arm in front of her face to ward off any large or sharp bits of wood. Even with her eye closed, she could tell that she had completely obliterated her target by the repeated crashes of the limb as it fell through the lower branches.

“Shit,” Orseis breathed, “I guess Dutcha doesn’t mess around with her abilities.”

Bel wiped a fine layer of sawdust from her face and cautiously opened her good eye. Only a small amount of the original branch remained, just a handspan of shredded stub sticking out from the main limb. She felt a little guilty over the random act of destruction, but also pleased at her new power. “Yeah. I think the only thing she takes seriously is messing stuff up.”

She turned to Orseis, her chin lifted into the air. “Pretty cool ability though, right?”