Outside Influences

They decided to rest for a while in the relative safety of a massive tree, which gave them the opportunity to observe life on the fourth layer. It was practically overflowing with life – and death.

Creatures as oversized as the trees that towered overhead roamed around the forest floor. After an hour of observation the two of them had seen many times more creatures than they had seen in all of the previous layers. There were insects that ranged in size from those that could perch on a fingertip to beetles that may as well have been walking boulders. Flying things skimmed through the gaps in the greenery only to be caught in spiderwebs as tough as wrought iron. Animals walked, crept, crawled, and bounded their way through the space, scavenging, hunting, and fleeing for their lives. The forest was loud; Bel hadn’t realized it when she’d rushed to Orseis’ aid, but there was an unceasing background of noise. It was nothing like the forests in Satrap.

She and Orseis watched in silence as hard-hoofed alligator stomped through the underbrush. The moment it was out of hearing range, Orseis swatted another finger-length biting fly. Her tentacles cracked like whips as she unleashed her pent up fury at the small swarm of biting insects.

“This place sucks,” she moaned. “I’d rather be dehydrating in the third layer again.”

Bel resisted the urge to scratch at the welts forming on her skin and instead inspected her injured leg. She tensed her muscles for a moment to assess its state, flinching at the pain.

She leaned back against the tree with a sigh. “Sorry, I’m not going anywhere fast like this. I don’t even have a clue where to go, anyway.” Bel gestured upwards. “Maybe if we can climb high enough we can see if we’re below the Barrier yet. I still think we should stay still until we figure out all the dangers here. What that bird guy said still worries me.”

Orseis looked around and frowned. “Maybe we should worry about food first. Hunger is like a slow, creeping death you know. Way worse than something you can hit.”

Bel groaned at the thought of moving. “Can’t you just eat whatever crawls past us?”

Orseis donned a hurt expression. “Do you think I don’t have any standards?”

“I know you don’t. I’ve seen you try to eat just about anything. I bet you’d eat rocks if your jaw was stronger.”

The young girl help up her tentacles in denial. “Whoah, I wouldn’t eat rocks. They’re probably too dry. Speaking of dry, we do need to find some water–you’ve lost too much blood.”

Bel couldn’t deny that she was feeling light headed. “Sure. I guess we could focus on that first.”

She rubbed her head, trying to fend off an increasingly powerful headache. “I hope my mom doesn’t get angry that I’m moving slowly again. I don’t even want to think about what help she would find for me down here.”

Orseis shivered. “If it’s a swarm of bugs, then I quit. How about this? I’ll go explore quickly, and come right back once I find some water.”

Bel frowned. “I don’t like the idea of us splitting up.”

Orseis looked at her injured leg. “And I don’t like the idea of that opening up and us leaving a trail of blood for something to follow.”

She stood up and walk towards the end of the branch. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right back.”

“But James always told me to never split the party,” Bel protested weakly.

Orseis turned around and grinned mischievously. “You worry to much! Anyway, I got a new ability on the last layer that I’ve been dying to try out.”

With a mysterious wave of her tentacles, Orseis’ skin quickly shifted in color and texture until she blended in nearly perfectly with the tree limb.

“Trees don’t wear pants,” Bel pointed out.

“Oh, hush. I’ll just roll up the legs. You just relax, and I’ll be back in a minute.”

In spite of all the years Bel had spent locked in Technis’ jail, she wasn’t very good at sitting still.

Actually, maybe I’m bad at sitting still because of all the time I was stuck somewhere. I’ll bet this is one of those psychology things that James liked to talk about.

Bel’s musings were interrupted when she saw a gigantic snake lowering itself from a higher limb. It flicked its tongue, clearly tasting the air – clearly smelling her blood.

Her own snakes lifted up and hissed at the intruder, but it ignored them. It wound its way around the limb, slithering closer with every heartbeat.

“If you try to eat me, you’ll regret it,” Bel warned.

In answer, the snake opened its mouth, revealing a gaping maw easily larger enough to swallow her whole.

Bel held out her hand and waited until the snake was only a fang’s length away. Then she used shockwave.

The air screeched violently and blew a large hole in through its palette and out through the top of its skull. The body twitches and then went limp, still wrapped around the large limb. Bel poked it with her foot, but it remained inert. Then she sucked out the essence from its core and went up two thresholds at once.

She smiled at the sudden growth. “Shockwave is great! Good choice, me,” she praised herself.

“Now, as long as Orseis gets back to protect me until I can use it again things will be great.”

She thought it a bit ironic that the time to recharge shockwave meant that she would now prefer to fight a single powerful foe instead of a few weak ones, but she knew that a great ability was worth planning around. Beth had advised against it, but she wasn’t the one with a crazy goddess mother who wanted her to go kill a demigod as quickly as possible.

Bel was keeping a vigilant watch, but she was still startled when Orseis abruptly appeared in front of her.

“What the hell did you get up to when I left? I’ve only been gone for a few minutes, right?”

Bel shrugged. “Did you find some water?”

Orseis eyed the dead snake suspiciously as she skirted around it. “No water,” she replied cheerily, “but I did find these interesting fruits!”

She held up a round… rock.

“That’s a rock?” Her eyes widened. “You’ve actually started to eat rocks? Before you left you said–”

Orseis trilled her lips loudly, interrupted Bel. She shook the rock; Bel could hear a wet sloshing sound from inside.

“It’s sweet,” Orseis declared forcefully, “you’ll love it.”

“How do I open it though?”

Orseis slammed it against the side of the tree. “With violence,” she answered.

The snake’s corpse was bound to attract scavengers, so once Bel drank the liquid and gnawed on the insides of the rocky fruit they decided to leave. Orseis helped Bel lower herself to the ground and they slunk off, moving quickly from tree to tree so they would always have a place to retreat. Bel kept scanning the trees above them, looking out for more surprises from above. That was how she saw a small object that seemed to glow in Kjar’s sight.

She tapped Orseis on the shoulder and whispered, “wait a second, I see something strange.” They both examined the object: something round and thin, like a disc, that was sticking out of the side of the tree at an angle.

Orseis looked around warily as Bel reached up to grab at the mysterious object. She squeezed her fingers around it, careful to avoid the potentially sharp edges and pulled and wiggled until she eventually managed to prise it free with a grunt of satisfaction.

She and Orseis leaned over to examine it.

“Well?” Orseis asked. “What is it?”

Bel turned it over a few times, tilting her head from side to side with confusion.

Orseis poked it tentatively with one of her tentacles and immediately recoiled. “Oh, gross,” she squirmed.

“Why? What is it?”

Orseis’ lips pulled back in disgust. “It’s a giant fingernail or something.”

“Huh.”

A giant fingernail…where have I seen something like that?

A shadow fell from the sky and landed on the ground nearby with a heavy thump. Bel yelped in surprise and the mysterious fingernail flew from her hands. She reached for her sword–

Ah, dammit, when am I going to remember that I still don’t have a weapon?

She felt at her core, but she hadn’t recovered enough for shockwave either.

Having gone through all of her options and coming up empty, she finally examined the source of her sudden fright: it was the bird man.

“Still alive,” he sniffed.

Bel kept her mouth shut, unwilling to cede control of her words to either Kjar or Lempo’s voice.

There isn’t anything I want to say to this guy anyway.

“Oh? You don’t feel like talking?”

He bent down and picked up the large fingernail. “I smelled the two of you together, so I’d thought that she’d taken care of your already.”

He glanced at Bel’s injured leg. “Soon though, I think. And then I’ll add a second god-blessed item to my collection.”

He hefted his spear, drawing Bel’s gaze. She hadn’t really looked at it the last time they’d met – falling from the sky had been a little distracting – but now she examined his weapon more carefully.

The haft was made of a dark wood that sported nearly black stripes across its lustrous surface. The blade seemed to grow directly from the wood, a thin needle that narrowed to a whisper thin point.

“I would love to test it against your armor,” he menaced, “but the gods are petty when it comes to things like that.” He tilted his head and clacked his beak in frustration, clearly annoyed that she wasn’t responding.

Is he trying to goad me into starting the fight? Does he think I’m stupid?

A flick of the bird man’s hand sent the nail spinning past Bel’s ear. He chose her blind side, where she struggled to judge its trajectory, forcing her to lean away in fear. Her snakes hissed with outrage as he squawked with avian mirth.

“Well, it won’t be long now. I’ll just have to be patient.”

His crest – a swatch of bright red feathers that topped his head – popped up as he gazed at Bel and Orseis with a look of smug superiority. Then he bent his legs and leaped into the air. A few powerful flaps of his wings lifted him up, and soon he was rising in to the sky.

Orseis clicked her tongue with irritation. “What in the abyss did he want?”

“I think he was picking a fight,” Bel responded. “He still wants my armor. Also, he’s probably just an ass. Probably doesn’t have any friends so he has nothing better to do.”

Orseis laughed. “Yeah, did you see his head feathers? I may be bald, but I should be thankful that I don’t have a head like that.”

Bel reached up and nudged her still-agitated snakes. “Yeah, I’ll stick with my snakes.”

Orseis skeptically eyed the mess of serpents. “Uh, you do you, Bel.”

“Hey, my snakes are awesome.”

“We should get going, right?” Orseis said, tugging on Bel’s arm.

“Wait, do you have something against my snakes? Hey!” She quickly bent down to snatch up the mysterious nail, hoping that more inspection would reveal something about it, before continuing her limping travel through the dense forest.