We left the scene of destruction behind and began to shuffle slowly across the dam.
“Yes, I know you’ve been eyeing my arm Jennyfer, I am not willing to give it up, but I need to have it looked at. My bone is definitely badly broken.”
“Fine, fine. You big baby, I’ll see what I can do about setting the bone and you will help me Magellan.”
“What do I have to do?”
“You’ll have to hold the arm still and align it after I make sure the bone is set right and there are no leftover splinters. On that note, stay away from the arm will you Sara? And Kine could you stop looking over us? I need the light to see properly.”
Her face visor began to glow green and lit up the wounded section of the arm. I could see all the muscles, the sinew and even the broken bone through the skin. It was very unpleasant to look at, but I could not take my eyes off the impromptu operation. Her clinical efficiency was a sight to behold and once I took our location into consideration, I was even more impressed than before, however the smell of antiseptic was most unpleasant. Combine that with blood and viscera and that sickly iron smell and I am clearly not cut out to be a surgeon. Our surroundings were nearly at the end of the dam, it was relatively clean and devoid of people. Everyone had left, which was a bit curious. I would expect a noisy crowd of concerned citizens. The enforcer was busy having beautiful crimson flowers sprout from the corpses littering the surface. As the flowers grew the dead bodies turned to dust, which he sucked up with a handheld vacuum cleaner.
“I know you’ve got a fantastic sense of situational awareness. However could you please keep an eye out for more McDojo goons?” Hissed Niall through his teeth, reacting to Kine setting his bone.
“It is a shame that I can’t make a cast out of ice, but the cold would freeze the top tissue and everything liquid under the skin. Oh well, time to do it the traditional way.” Replied the fairy nonchalantly. She proceeded to pull out bandages and instructed Kine in the art of wrapping the arm, while applying a tourniquet. “Now that you have patched him up and all of that jazz, should we be about our way?”
“Yes, we should, I’ll just have to tidy up the operation theater.” Which was a fairly simple process, which put a lot of credence to her claims about being crime scene clean up specialist. Neither blood, or hair was left, the only trace was the smell of bleach dispersing.
“Should we head down the hill then? We ought to stumble across something of interest eventually.” I suggested while we walked down a beautifully decorated road. Each fancy lamp post had hanging plant pots adorning them. This combined with the blue tiled road filled me with tranquility, or it could be the very sweet scent upon the air.
“Why is there a huge field of flowers along the road?” Wondered Niall snapping a picture of the glade.
“Those are flowers?” I bewilderingly replied scratching my chin.
“Apparently, which is odd, since I’ve yet to see any insects.”
“What does bugs have to do with flowers?”
“What are they teaching kids at school these days?”
“Flowers are a symbol of beauty and power!”
Jennyfer was suddenly up in my face giving me a mean look. “Grasshopper, your lack of knowledge is disturbing. Let me enlighten you. Flowers bloom, insects lands on the flower and gorge themselves on nectar, then pollen get stuck. The insect then moves on to another flower and said flower is pollinated.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“The flower can then produce seeds which grow into new flowers!”
“Enlightening stuff indeed.”
“My long winded point is this you ignorant cur. These flowers can’t be natural, because there is nothing around here to attract.”
“When you state it like that, it is hard to disagree, but what could be causing them to grow then?”
“Magic?”
“Stick a sock in it.”
Despite our verbal spat, she had a fair point. Quite infuriating really.
Niall took some more pictures before continuing the conversation.
“The colours are very unnerving to say the least, it’s somewhat relatable to what I’m familiar with. I’m fairly certain that shade is out of this world.”
“We better be about our way then, it’s probably another wight.”
“I wonder if this one is a pleasant dream, or a nightmare?”
“Probably the later one.” Once I took the flower field in as a whole, it certainly looked inviting. A very nice place to just lay down. I suddenly felt very drowsy.
“Snap out of it maggot.” Shouted Jennyfer in before she zapped my shapely rear with lightning.
“Hey, that hurts you know?”
“You’ll live, if nothing else.”
Just as I was about to reply, Niall was struggling against his body.
“Sara, could you snap out of it? I really want my body back and these flowers are not good for us.”
“For crying out loud, not you as well Kine.” Lamented Jennyfer squirting water into the face of the fox. She was instantly snapped out of her trance, slapping her face.
“Beautiful flowers, or not.” Shouted Niall. “I suggest we torch it.”
“I think we should just leave it to the government. There are probably a lot of people in there somewhere.” I Suggested whole beginning to briskly walk away.
“The heroic thing would be to solve this predicament, however I’m rather incapacitated at the moment, and I’m trying to prevent Sara from steering me into the field.”
Why are the blasted flowers so enthralling?
“Is the yellow sun looking ones watching us?”
“I think so, let’s get as far away as possible and fling a fireball at them. I’m hoofing it out of here.”
Niall started to run with, Kine following right behind. I stopped long enough to put my focus towards a shaping ball of burning energy in my palm, which I threw at the plants. The molten mass detonated loudly as the field caught fire. Petals, ash and dust fell down like snow around us. An unnatural guttural growl ordered the smoke filled air. In the rapidly spreading fire I could see the silhouette of a humongous fleshy mound.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” Heaved Niall looking quite green around the gills. “I think that thing is composed of corpses.”
“Suddenly the smell of burnt pork makes a lot of sense.” I retorted, behind us I could hear the telltale sound of magical girls warping in.
“This is getting absurd I tell you, absurd. Is someone deliberately out to depopulate the world?”
“I have no bloody idea, but it would not surprise me, magical girls needs an adversary after all.”
“They do?”
“All the stories I have read tell the tale about how the queen prevailed against evil.” A flying smoldering corpse fell from the sky and splatter loudly against the ground next to the spot I previously occupied. “I suppose it is time to pick up the pace.” More bodies were flung after us, the makeshift projectiles impacted the ground with a loud wet splat. From the charred corpse various weird creatures spawned.
“Brown bananas! The dead dudes are spawning more Wights and I do not intend to become their nurse maid in their rebirth.” Hisses Niall through his clenched teeth.
“I am kind of responsible for their new predicament.”
“They were most likely dead and consumed before we lit the funeral pyre. Hopefully it was not the spectators at the installation we trashed.”
“These dead people look too old and decomposed for that.”
“In other words, we had crummy timing.” Another mangled bag of bones impacted the ground ahead of us, only for Kine to blow out a cold stream of ice at the vessel. Apparently she found yet another way to make me feel rubbish at magic. Though I suppose fire breath is not out of the question.
“Good going girl, hopefully that one will not spawn another Wight, keep running though.”
Eventually we managed to outrun the grotesque splatter storm, the mound was probably busy fighting off magical girls. We stopped far enough away to see a magnificent light show out of a fireworks display gone off sideways.
“Sara thinks that we’re being used as live bait.” Said Niall and then it just clicked.
“Is that why they can’t just get us a transport?” I was flabbergasted by this very stupid and obvious conclusion.
“Yes, we’re pretty sure they could have gotten us flown over to the centre of the disc.”
“If that is what they want, who am I to question their infallible logic.”
“You’re being sarcastic, right Magellan?”
“I will leave that for you to find out.” I replied smugly.
“Now then, maggots and morons, gather around please. We have come to another crossroad.” Stated the fairy with her usual snide attitude.
“Left, left I say!” Replied Niall. Kine pointed in the same direction as well.
“Right, whatever you say, left it is. So then Jennyfer, how much would you bet that Niall will get another being using him as a host?”
“Nothing, that is a fools gamble.”
“In that case, I am expecting tentacles next time, he already has wings.”
“I most certainly does not!” He angrily replied.
“Sure you do, you also have a fairly nice track.”
“That is not me.”
“Then who is it?”
“Honestly, I’ve forgotten.”
“How can you forget such a thing?”
“Errr, I have no idea.”
Totally normal, not creepy at all. How can anyone live like that? Hopefully we are safe for now. Because the road took us downstream towards more lush and carefully sculpted scenery. Compared to the academy, this place clearly has an active gardening team, or a sensible garden architect.
“Magellan, what do you think, is this a nifty place or what?”
“Yes it is, but I do think they went a bit overboard with the tree sculptures.”
“Come to think of it, there are an awful lot of them.” Niall took some pictures as usual, when Jennyfer joined the conversation.
“I think we should abstain from lighting anything on fire this time around. The burnt smell is so hard to remove from clothes when out camping.”
“Oh my aching heart!” My sarcasm was ineffective this time around to my great disappointment. Kine was clearly stuck in her own internal world of eternal curiosity and playfulness.
“What on earth are you doing Kine?” Asked Niall, clearly befuddled, I was in the same boat, when I actually paid attention to what she was up to.
“I think she is imitating the poses of the people shaped sculptures.” I concluded, wincing at the display.
“Oh my, I did not know a body could contort like that.”
“My spine hurts from looking at her.”
Further down the road we came across even more figurines made of various materials, all unknown to me. Decorations also began getting a lot more frisky and risque.
“Uncanny how well sculpted the lot or them are.”
“I certainly hope we’re not looking at transformed human meat bags.” Jennyer proceeded to poke one that looked like it was made of brass in the eye.
“I do not know Jennyfer, they might just be man made after all, or a Wight.”
“You have a point, Kine keeps making ice figures for some reason.”
“Speaking of the fox, where did they go?”
“Have you seen some of these sculptures?”
I looked around and a lot of the figures was caught in a moment of carnal pleasure, like a scene frozen in time. “If she is busy being a copycat, we might as well set up a camp and take a break.”
“Sure, why not. Wouldn’t want the frail human to collapse on me.”
“Well. Excuse me princess!”
After our little discussion we simply followed the sound and found her riding on top of Niall behind a stone statue.
“Is she some sort of sex fiend or what?” I asked the fairy who was pulling out camping gear that was bigger than her. Those canisters are truly a miracle of engineering.
“You do have a fair point, I’m actually curious myself if there is any lore behind fox girls.”
“You are suggesting that she could have been made in the image of a fairytale creature?”
“Mythology actually, I suppose it is a fancy title for a made up religious story. I haven’t been bothered to actually look up the dictionary explanation after all.
“Fair enough I suppose.” I proceeded to ignite the neatly stacked pile of wood she had dropped in front of me. After that I sat down on an inflated pillow and began enjoying my music, blocking out the huffing and puffing.
Njål Signing Out
Shard World 