It isn't easy being in the Green.

Lost isn't really a thing.  Well, not a thing to me.  See, to be lost is both to not know where one is and to care that that's the case.  There's a Jungle above me, and that's cool.  I couldn't point you to any civilized habitation of man, but I wouldn't be heading there if I could anyway.

I'm out here in the tropical heat and the humidity, wrapped in one leopard's hide and tracking his brother's.  I know that he's heading down towards the water at mid day, tracking his own prey so that he lives another day in this snake eat frog world.  Maybe he'll go past the plane wreck the way he's going even.  Haven't really been there in a while, not since last spring at least.  Not because of bad memories or anything, just because the rest of this place is so much more interesting than a bit of man-made trash.

The graves are there too.  Looks like he's sitting on top of the cockpit looking down at them even.  They're overgrown now, just sticks planted firmly in the ground with grass sticking up.  I didn't know them, didn't really see the point of graves myself, but it's probably something that they would have wanted, maybe.  Not like anyone really talked on the flight, not that I remember anyway.

That branch up there will do fine for the drop, leopard'll never know what hit him.  circle around, climb this tree, angle over there.  Back at the beginning I never would have been able to do this climbing, had to survive on the floor of the jungle in caves.  Odds were I wouldn't have survived long, didn't know that then though.  Got lucky with the animals, I was never in their path.  Plants too, found the good ones and stuck with them, watching the apes here to get clued in when I could.

Yup, silent as a hawk I can dive right down on him.  knife in one hand, bracer 'round the other.  Found the knife in the baggage.  I think it was the old man's.  He was in front of me on the flight, snored too.  Big fucker this knife is though, and sharp.  The bracer is just bark affixed with vines.  A few months back I tried something like this and nearly got my arm shredded if I hadn't moved it fast enough, so a little protection from the claws and teeth will go a long way.

And the drop.

Grab.

Yell.

Stab and slash.

He's struggling.

Hard to get a good angle in.

One more.

Got him.

Blood dripping down through the dust on the cracked glass.  Soaking the fur and my knees.  Good kill.  He didn't manage to jump off down to the ground.  If he had I mighta lost my grip, but he just circled.  Now I need to smoke the kill and wash the blood off.

Lotsa thing come when they smell blood around here.  A few might even come to the sounds of the fight, so speed is important.  Listen and skin, then cut the choice bits off and stick them in the sack to eat, along with the pelt.  I can leave some of it behind and then I'll have a few more predators off my back for a day.

Up to the canopy for traveling.  Slower, sure, but much less chance of getting ambushed like that leopard.  Bugs chittering and a monkey howl a ways away.  even some birds are back already.  And something else.  Humming.  Not natural.  A small black dot of humanity against a patch of blue on green.

I run.

So maybe messing with the natural order is a bad idea?

Okay, so what the hell am I doing again?  There was that girl at that party who looked really hot, and then I started thinking of toying around with my grandpa's mad-science lab since I got ahold of one of her hairs.  Yeah, creepy in hindsight, this is why I don't drink, at least not usually. And I may or may not have created a clone of her, right?  Then the clone is still this little girl, only a little bit of sped up aging(which is a bit strange, maybe the yellow flashing light meant it was low on fuel or something?) until she woke up.  But then the lab went haywire, and her eyes were glowing, and some of the security locks that I never managed to get past(and by managed I mean they were locked hard and had lots of dangerous warning signs on them so I didn't touch them) releasing dangerous. . .stuff.  Yeah, I'm not sure what they are exactly.

So there's this little girl, and I think she has some sort of accelerated learning or something going on, and I'm trying to keep her and me alive in this dump.  Great.  So to list off my assets, I have one little girl who may or may not be magic, a few questionable surgical tools and engineering tools, my watch, a granola bar, and the remote for the lab systems.  The problems facing me are the spilled chemicals in the storage room, slowly seeping out into the rest of the lab, the cyborgy things that I have no idea why gramps kept them locked away instead of just dismantling them, emergency locking mechanisms to keep said dangerous things from escaping to society, and no batteries for the remote.  Oh, and the kid is sleeping.  Yeah, this isn't going so well.

I mean, compared to the other not so wells that I've managed to get into down here, it just doesn't compare.  Minor acid burns, accidentally embedding an electromagnet in my arm(which was a pain to get removed, dad was so mad when I wiped his computer hard drive that time), releasing the flying frogs that are somewhere out in the marsh and I'm pretty sure doing terrible things to the ecosystem(I've been working on fixing that actually) should all have warned me off playing down here. On the other hand, how do you turn down a cloning vat and a supercomputer that's set up with awesome power for maybe cloning myself a girlfriend?  Not every kid is able to have a famous supervillain as a grandfather, so making the most out of it is pretty much mandatory.  Heck, most of the kids who do have such a lineage had the labs removed when superheroes caught their respective grandfathers.  I'm lucky mine managed to keep his secret identity until he died of old age, really.

Anyway, I'm a mile underground, the mole digger is in disrepair, the elevator back up to the house got locked off, same with the mag-lev tunnel.  The air ducts of surprising capacity only lead in circles for hero-fooling, even if they've never been used, and the lockdown will only end if I take out the big guys with metal arms.  The weapons lockers are a possibility, but they need a code to access and I couldn't sneak over there without getting spotted, not to mention the fact that I can't leave the girl alone on her birthday.  If the things are at all smart, and I think they must be, they'll be going to the main control bridge to try to end the containment.  One of them is here, sweeping the lab, probably in search of grandpa(I head them calling his villain name), the other went off towards the exits, presumably to check and see if they were really blocked.  And I am here in the coat closet hiding with a little girl and some funny smelling lab coats and a red button on the ceiling that I've never seen before and I really wonder why it's there.

Lets see, small black letters, p a n i. . .panic?  He had a red panic button installed in the closet?  Well, considering that he made me remember where all the elaborate traps for heroes were so that I didn't fall into them, I think this might be legit?  Might as well press it, right? What's the worst that couaaaauuuuaaauuuuughhhhhhhhh!  Ooof, ungggh, ah, owwwww.  Okay, yeah, secret panic button that takes you to secret panic room through pressurized tube system that the padding was only half installed in, then having a child dumped on top of you who is ~still~ sleeping.  Oh yeah, and it pricked my finger for a blood sample, so I guess he's still as paranoid as ever. Well, I guess it was new?

Some whiteboards with the latest evil plots, one of them dealing with the clone army plan(yep, circled in red is the lack of plutonium for growth increasing) and a suitably large computer with monitors of all the rooms from secret cameras that I had no idea he installed.  I think this view is from the mop handle?  Anyway, the two cyborgs are lumbering around the lab, not managing to unlock anything.  I think I can shut them off from here, yeah, the containment switch.  And out go the bigger cyborgs and back into the shut off areas of the lab they go.  Also, that place looks like it's filled with worse than that, good thing it was only a little scrambled.  Which was strange, usually the lab stops itself from screwing up that much.  Maybe it had something to do with the little girl behind me?  Who is floating with glowy eyes and now that I think about it that looks a whole lot like what Plasma girl does and ooooooooooooh.  Well, that explains that, though I didn't think I went to school with her. . .oh right, the floaty clone kid is still floaty and glowy, right.

"Papa?"

Seasick and the Seagull

So.  You're a seagull, I'm trapped inside of a boat, and we are both bored enough to be "talking" to each other.  Yeah, I know, way too much for your pea-sized brain to handle. *sqwaaaack*  Of all the things you'd unerstand that. . .oh, wait, magical boat powers.  I'm prolly attuned to you varmints for their twisted pleasure.  Not that they let on that they know they trapped me in here.  They just keep calling the boat, me I guess, some weird name that they painted on my side.  I'm pretty sure it's a girls name.  To taunt me.  For getting caught.  Hey, stop pecking at me!  I wouldn't care, it's their boat and all, but I can actually feel that.  Only reason I haven't cracked the thing in two on a rock.  I said knock it off.  Anyway, You do as good a job at ignoring me as they do.  I've tried protesting, I really have.  They just ignore me or claim it was a nightmare.  I mean, eventually I think I could get through, or maybe just spook them enough to leave me alone, but then I'd really be just a hunk of wood floating around on the ocean.  I don't even like the ocean.  I came from a desert, y'know, the hot places?  Like a beach, but bigger?  Nothing like this blue, twice as blue as home.  Blue waves to go with the blue sky.  And then when they're not blue they're white, which means I get wet.  Wetter.  Laughing?  Can seagulls really laugh?  Maybe I am getting through. Okay, yes, I could see you nod.  Don't bother looking though, I'm the ship, not behind the mast.  I am the mast.  I'm the rigging and the deck and the sides and the oars, the whole lot of it.  All damp and yucky too.  Barnacles all over my, well, underside.  That's the worst part, the underside.  It's always cold and wet and just entirely grimey.  It's either some divine punishment, which I swear is not on the level of a few lies to Rhea about where I went that night, or somebody here is an asshole.  A smug asshole too, First thing I see is a guy with a broken bottle, all grinning, crowd cheering behind him.  Some sort of festival.  It took a while to figure out I was the boat.  Normally you don't think about how a boat would see.  Normally you wouldn't have to, right?  Oh, right, seagull, of course not.  But it's weird.  I'm not seeing through an eye or anything, more like just kind of an aura and stuff.  Same area I can kinda push the water around a bit in, or blow some wind around.  Nice for pulling pranks, nicer for fixing things for when they screw up and would get me hurt.  The pecks are annoying but scraping a rock or hitting a wave wrong?  That smarts.  I'd be mutual helpmanship, or something, if I didn't hate them that is.  I mean, who really goes and imprisons somebody in a ship?

Something of a Pastoral View into the Blue, Morning Sky.

Dawn broke upon the waves which broke upon the beaches.  Back a ways from the shore a man gazed upwards, up the cliff face towards well worn airship moorings.  He worked on them when they came in and liked to get a look at how they cut through the sky before he fixed them up.  Today, however, he was not looking up for his professional work, but rather to see his test-project in action.

A boat was anchored a few hundred yards out into the sea, and with the light wind that chilled the morning it seemed a safe enough time to do the first out of laboratory tests.  A few specks of gray waddled out onto the precipice checking the scenery, glancing at the windsock.  Parallel to the cliff, perfect.

The man on the shore, he was called Port (for numerous reasons), bit his lip.  He would have liked to have been up there on the edge, staring down with the cloth wrapped around him, or out on the boat making sure things didn't go wrong.  As much as his mind loved the sky and the drifting and turning sailing on one of the ships, air or sea, entitled, his body and especially his stomach had always put its foot down.  Hard.  It was one of the reasons that he actually had a house and a position on shore despite being one of the most prestigious engineers the Imperial Corps of Mechanics had ever had.

These days any techie worth a damn was stationed on some airship somewhere.  The war wasn't on anymore, but the darn things always broke down so fast, it would be suicide to go out in one without someone who at least knew how to patch one up the right way.  Patch one up wrong and it was as liable to explode on you as it was to carry you in to port.

Anyway, he watched them shoot up a flair, letting the boat and him know the first test was about to start.  One waddled out onto the pier, empty air on either side.  Port was holding his breath.  The speck jumped.  For a second nothing happened, and then the tiny gray dot erupted in color.  Reds and greens and blues, yellow streaks and lavender splotches, it looked like a paint splatter came into being out of nothingness.

Instead of just falling down, or even gliding a bit, the shimmering, rainbow form began to flap, or maybe gyrate, it was hard to tell at this distance.  Either way, it wasn't going down.  Port let out a sigh of relief.  Now that the thing was open, it only had to hold up in the breeze.  His butterfly suit was a success.  Looking out at it, he knew that was what it was called.  Port had been toying with rainbow suit for a while, what with the color, and near the beginning it was his single man flight suit, but as he watched it flutter in the wind, going up and around, darting this way and that just like a butterfly, he was convinced.  Then it landed back on the cliff top out of his view.  He himself might never go up in one, but they were a beautiful show.  Looking up at the sky was really all he wanted.  Well, most days anyway.

A Header

"Perhaps we were" the Imperial Chancellor paused for effect "too hasty with our judgement."  The gallery was filled, faces peering over the balcony at the strangely clad man sitting on his trophy.  For as impressive a dragon head was, it was such bad manners bringing it into the audience hall, the maids would take hours scrubbing the stench and gore off of the tiled floor after this.  Still, it was impressive, and that is the predicament that the Imperial Chancellor found himself in.

"We did, in fact, promise to have the head of the notorious outlaw Kaphile mounted on a pike outside the city walls, and yet here you are."

He found himself pacing before the empty throne, all too aware that the king should be making this speech were he not away at war.

"The fact that you also came in with the head of the dragon, whom we also promised to mount on a pike outside the city walls is good fortune."

The crowd of courtiers left behind, mostly women and young children muttered from the balcony.

"The fact that the princesses hand in marriage was also promised for any who would bring in the drake's head complicates things a bit."

The Imperial Chancellor stopped his pacing to observe the man.  He had crossed his arms, leaning back against the horns that curled around the base of the neck.  Instead of actually looking at the Imperial Chancellor, he was scanning the balconies, looking for who knows what.

Hearing the pause, he turned his head back, brown eyes, brown hair, brown beard.  All of him matched in that same woodland brown that let him fade back into the trees when the guards searched the area.

"Aye, we do have a 'complication' as ye calls it.  Y'see the way I see it, the sun be settin' and here we are talking about things we both know are for the show of all these" he waved a hand at the courtiers "instead of eating supper like normal folk should."

"You would put off the decision of what we would do for your. . . accomplishments?" The Imperial Chancellor's face eased a bit, brow raising.

"Well, normal folk would talk it out without an audience, but normal folk don't have princesses to bargain over.  Might as well draw out some excitement for the crowd and give you a chance to write a letter or two." Kaphile grinned and let out a chuckle at the end, but of course that was drowned out in the chattering the balconies erupted in.

"So kind of you, I'm sure.  I'll have the palace chefs prepare a meal, a prize bull in celebration I should think."

"Now don't go wastin' a bull t'night, yeh don't think I only brought the head, do ye?"

Witch Post is this Even?

Stray blood was usually a sign that something was coming, out there in the sands.  Either a wild animal looking for food who smelled it on the wind or a pack, human or otherwise sweeping the area for wounded prey.  In that cave deep in the wastes, it was something a little different.  The blood, hastily drawn out in patterns that could only be described as occult blurred in the dust.  A short, brown haired girl in a dirty shift double checked the pattern against the piece of paper, a page torn out of a book, smudging the edges with the bloody fingers she used to draw.  The goat she "borrowed" the blood from lay over to the side, dead and starting the fast process of putrefying in the desert climate.

"Oh d-dark ones, l-lingerers in the shadows, grant me audience this m-moonless night!"

A glow, blood turning from a muddy-red to a shimmering blue, sparking a little at the imperfections but otherwise shining to life in the cave.  A wind, blowing out the torch, the blue light all that remained to cast light shadows.  From the entrance a teal glow flowed into the room, knee deep, and coalesced in the center of the diagram.  A sharp intake of breath as the light grew more solid, piling up into a pillar of ethereal flesh, a column with faces plastered around the whole surface.  Shivers, only a little from the chill of the light-water now only around her ankles.

"Mmmm. . .Who Calls. . .the Ancient Ones.  You, little girl?"  The eyes of each face focusing on the shivering, bedraggled form facing them, voices speaking almost in unison as if each face a part of a monotone choir.

"Y-yes!"

"For what. . .Purpose. . .would you Call Us?"

"Revenge!  Those b-bastards who k-killed my mum and d-dad!"

"So you. . .Seek. . .the Power to. . .kill them?"  She nods, warmed by the fires in her eyes.  "You know the. . .Price. . ." their eyes shift towards the goat "that you Must. . .Pay. . .for our Help?  Or are you. . .Just. . .Another. . .Dabbler. . .like most Witches. . .of Late?"

Her form slumps a bit, biting her lip as she thinks.  "I, uh, I knew th-that there would be a c-c-catch to it.  I have to do sssomething, right?  Sacrifice more g-goats?"

The column pauses, looking her over for a minute, watching her eyes dart from face to face, not quite sure of where to look.  "Perhaps. . .Though. . .it Depends on. . .Who. . .Exactly. . .you wish to. . .Punish. . .and Why. . .you turn. . .to Us."

"W-what?"

"Which. . .heh. . .of Our. . .Number. . .will Help you. . .will determine. . .the cost.  Only Those who. . .Want. . .to Help. . .will set Themselves as. . .a Burden. . .on Your. . .Shoulders and. . .Lend you. . .their. . .Aid."

"B-but you will help, r-right!?"  The flame in her eyes flickering, less intense, pleading.

"There Will. . .be Some.  Each. . .Cause. . .will find. . .Sympathy. . .Or. . .Greed. . .in Some of. . .Us.  Tell us. . .More. . .to determine. . .Who Answers. . .Your. . .Call."

"It w-was the Horsemen!" A snarl of rage.  "Th-they rode into our c-camp.  S-s-slaughtering e-everyone." She looks down, sadness and a bit of terror creeping into her voice.  "I w-was g-getting water at th-th-the oasis and h-hid."

"The. . .Sons and. . .Daughters. . .of the Wastes. . . Who are. . .raised to. . .Pillage and. . .Destroy."  The column shifts, some faces coming to the forefront and other drifting out back down the stream out of the cave.  Eventually a small pillar of faces stands in the center of the room, diminished to the same height as the small girl.  "We. .know of. .the. .barbaric ways. .they follow. .and will. .answer. .your call.  Reach out. .your. .hand."

She does, the pillar moving forward and engulfs her arm, flowing up her arm, shoulders, neck, and seeping into her brown hair, now more of a teal than a brown.  The flow of light recedes from the cave, the blood once again a muddy brown and the only light radiating from her hair and a pale teal goat-figure standing over its body, bleating at it.

"You have. .formed. .a. .contract.  We are. .one. .now."  The voice muffled from the hair it comes from.  "Take. .responsibility for. .your actions. .and bring him. ."a teal hair raises up and points at the goat "with you. .so that he. .may see. .the results. .of his own. .sacrifice."

"Y-yes. But, um, that was a she- goat."

". . . .well. .we were. .not herders. .in our. .lives. .that much. .should be. .clear."  The hair chuckles to itself.

An Introduction to Characters of Minor Significance

Sitting on a rock outside the city, the wagon-master of the caravan waited in the pre-dawn light.  He had thrice made the fifteen year circuit from the east kingdom of Kath, out into the hot sands and oases of the Degeleen Empire, and back down through the peaceful, alluvial Commonwealth of Centhoundria before traveling by boat back up the coast to start again.  This specific journey was his first leading the merchant caravan of Livilee, the guild he grew up in.  This was also one of the times that the caravan was kept waiting on order from some noble, though the first time by a king.  Footsteps behind him turned his gaze from the city gates to his wife's smiling face.

"You think they'll be interesting sorts, Garth?"

"How should I know, all I got was a scroll with a few words on it telling us to wait.  Now I'm stuck here waiting for them like they think we're some sort of escort service, hah."

"Why not show a bit of hospitality for once, it is a whole week we'll be traveling with them."

"A whole week of going through that forest, all up on our toes for bandits and wolves or some strange wild thing out from the dark places in there and me not knowing what sort they'll be?  If the kings graces here weren't such a big deal, I'd leave them and be through with it."

"But a few extra eyes will be useful, 'specially in these times.  Word is something happened at that old castle near the border."

"You mean that old fort against the Empire?"

"No, the castle, owned by some wizard of some sort."

"That thing?  I'm not surprised, I was always a bit uneasy about it, remember the fuss there was about how the old codger in there hadn't got a magic licence from the king?"

"And how nobody was man enough to go knock on his door and tell him he needed one?"

"Well, it was a big castle."

"Yes, they say it appeared overnight almost, though nobody was really there to see it."

"Not like anybody besides us and the garrison over there actually take this road.  Thankfully we don't pass more than a crow's flight of the place."

"So it'll be great to have more travelers to keep a lookout for strange things in the woods, especially with talk about that castle being mighty haunted."

"I s'pose so, but whats this about haunted?"

"Seems some big blast of somethin' or other came down there, no word out of the place since."

"When was this again?"

"Well, remember when we had just crossed into the Empire last trip and saw that comet in the east?"

"Bad signs, comets, makes sense that bad times would fall when they do."

"Exactly, Folks took it as an omen, but nothing ever came of it besides that castle growing real quiet, so the story is that the wizard was smote from above for delving into secrets above his right."

"And now his ghost walks the halls, seeking revenge or something?"

"Pretty much."

"Well, it's not the tallest tale we've heard.  How long are these king's men going to keep us waiting?"

"Now dear, not everyone is used to such an active lifestyle, waking up this early on city-folk might be a bit hard."

"I'd agree with you, but two of them are from down south, came up through the pass before we set out by ship.  Didn't say why they came up, or who they were, or why they're going to the border, just that they were coming with us.  The other is Some sorcerer of the king's, didn't say which one he was neither."

"Well, that might be them there, just coming out."

"But there's only two of them."

"Well, some of them then."

"One looks like a kid, seems short enough."

"No, I don't think so, look at how he's walking.  Wasn't there something about a goblin conjurer in the city?"

"Maker's light I hope that's not them."

"Oh!  That might even be a fairy on the other one's shoulder!  And you know it is dear, they're even coming this way."

"I don't like them already.  At least it's just a week."

Be wery wery quiet.

So what manner of beastie is it this time Leeland? perhaps a goblin infestation?

Well, it's a bit more, err, more than that.

*groan* it's not another Minotaur again is it?  I hate those things, always living in mazes.  most of the trouble is getting in and out of the place.

So you want a head on challenge then, Gerald?

I always want a head on challenge, hitting things with my hammer is what I ~do~ you know.

Remember how you were admiring that one paladin's armor two towns back when we were clearing out the dark cultists from the abandoned church?

Okay, yeah, but what does this have to do with. . .wait, is it a giant fish?  You know I hate water. . .

No, the fish scale armor was some other time with a druid.  The paladin had thicker scales than that.

. . .it's a drake?

err, not quite.

You can't be serious.

Well, they said it was only as big as a wagon, that's practically a baby!

Baby or not, a dragon is way above what they're paying me.  What are we getting paid for this one?

Ummm, they said we could take the hoard if we could find it.

So nothing then?  No dragon in this squalid part of the world is going to have anything of value.  At least not a young one.

Well you never know, it could be inherited. . .

No it couldn't and you know it, it would have what it scavenged and stole from the countryside.  The last dragon to die and leave a hoard behind was hundreds of years ago, and it still wasn't until the past century that anything could even get past the magical traps that were set up around it.

Well, what about the scales?

What about them?

Well, if you kept them and sold them or. . .

But there's no market, and there is certainly no one around that I'd trust to actually work with them themself.  The last blacksmith I saw in these parts was using a wooden hammer of all things.

So we finish this one fast and go on to the next one?

No, we either drop it alltogether or we do this carefully.

But we can't back out, I already told the elders that we would take care of it for them!  If you hadn't been drunk in the tavern then. . .

Great, so now my honor is on the line and we can't back out.  where is this thing supposed to be again?

Somewhere up on the high reaches, these hills we're walking around in.

. . .

What?

. . .

No really, what?

And you were going to tell me we were within the dragon's territory when exactly?

It's daytime, wouldn't it be sleeping?

Yes, but it can hear and smell well enough, and if it's been active enough to be a problem that needs hunting odds are it already knows we're here.

Well I haven't seen anyth-DUCK!