39 replies to this topic

[Horn]

HELLO and welcome to my therapeutic project!
 
I've made myself a little challenge, simply as an attempt to see if I can keep a schedule since that's something I've been rather poor at doing and need to polish a little. So, I decided to start writing a story. The idea is that I'll churn out a chapter a week, for as long as it might take until I feel that it's concluded.
 
If you hadn't already guessed from the title (which I'd planned to be even longer, but apparently there's a character limit on those things), this story is going to be largely nonsensical. I'm simply just going to "write myself out" and it's going to be one hell of a ride. As such, the possibility of plot holes and the like are rather high, and they're... well, not intentional, but I'm unlikely to do anything about them unless I'm feeling extra motivated for some reason. As I said, this is pretty much a project for my own sake. However, if you care to join me on the trip, hop right in! The first chapter's rough to start off with, but I'm gonna set a word count or something so I've got a unit of measure for writing for each session. It'll likely update Wednesdays.
 
#1
- "'Doctors hate her! Try this one weird trick to find out how this housewife learned to shoot laser beams out of her amputated elbow sockets!' Hot damn, this is eligible for a closer read..."

The hour was late. Or early, if that's how you prefer to count it. I was frozen at the edge of my computer chair, like so many other evenings, letting my fingers dance across the keyboard and staring at the dim blue screen similarly to how a dead rodent stares at that stale piece of cheese in the mousetrap that it just got ensnared in. My thirst for useless knowledge was insatiable as I kept scrolling through the dietist tips and Buzzfeed articles to keep myself up to date with the world. After all, it was my only escape. My escape from this world, this worthless world, this utterly worthless world, this utterly despicably worthless world, this utterly despicably horrendously worthless world. I was an emotional outcast, a distressed teenager, and nobody understood me and nobody ever would.

In short, a fairly regular lad at sixteen years old. You catch my drift.

My name is Feidlimid Clifford, though the few people that know me call me Fid. The name came from a randomizer on the internet, which you should already be well aware of if you know the author of this retarded tripe you're reading. I'm sixteen, I'm a failure at life, I'm a shut-in and I'm single. (Duh?) The rest of the details will likely follow as you continue to read. This is one story, I tell you. One story not soon forgotten. Anyway, let's move on and see if something interesting happens.

In between my YouTube sessions of React videos and jacksepticeye playing Happy Wheels for the umpteenth time, I threw hasty glances towards the jet black clock on the wall above me, dimly illuminated by the computer screen. Holy shit, it was practically morning already. Did I have something important to do this following day? Did I have any plans? Did I have an appointment for somewhere? Did anyone care?

I already knew the answer. I scratched my greasy black hair, relieving an itch, and returned to the computer screen. My mother should be coming with breakfast any time now. God knows why she still gave a crap. I didn't care for her. I didn't care for school. I didn't care for anything except my precious tower of machinery, connected to my glowing blue window to the outside world. My situation used to be different, before the accident. The horrible, tragic accident that changed my life and everything as I knew it. The accident that plays the biggest part in this story, but which I won't tell you anything about until later (and maybe not even then). Yes, that accident.

I threw another glance at the clock. I was sleepy, but the Internet refused to release me from its clutches, shaped from cat pictures and hilarious videos of people falling over. My mother was late, I thought. She's usually timely with the breakfast. Shit can happen, of course, I concluded, returning my focus to the computer screen to dull the roaring pain within me. She'll come around.

The hours passed.

I struggled to stay awake, massaging my thin arms and rubbing my eyes to stay focused on the on-screen tips on how to extend my girth with three inches. Where was my food? I wanted to eat and then go to sleep and lie unconscious like the worthless slob I was until seven in the evening when I wake up, eat the dinner that mom's left inside the door and resume my worthless life in front of my shining blue god. Oh yes, my god, teach me more about those gluten-free recipes.

But she never came.

Edited by Horn, 13 September 2016 - 06:55 PM.

[Murdath]

Psst: You're not 16 anymore, age increases every year and your hair color wasn't always black.

Edited by Murdath, 18 March 2016 - 05:37 PM.

[Horn]

#2

 

- "Mom!"

 

Clicking the door open by the handle, I peeked outside my room, having finally given up at roughly noon and decided to take a few matters into my own hands. The light from outside my room stung my eyes, as my own room was illuminated by scarcely more than the computer screen I was always staring at.

 

- "Mom, are you there!?"

 

No answer. I pushed the door open slightly further. Had something actually happened? Or had she gone out somewhere? But she wouldn't leave without telling me first ... would she? I called out a third time, waiting for some sort of signal. Nothing. The house felt vacant and deafeningly silent, like a movie theater after closing time. Opening the door fully, squinting in the light from the lamp out in the corridor outside my room, I slowly tiptoed outside, dressed in merely my warm light-blue pajamas and a thick pair of socks. There was a sinking feeling of dread, and I wasn't sure why. She could just be outside on the back, getting the mail maybe. But why was there no response when I called for her? Why was everything so eerily quiet?

 

No. No, it wasn't quiet. There was something. Something, coming from somewhere.

 

My chest tightened as I kept walking. How long could it have been since I left my room of my own accord like this last time? Everything I shut out, everything I tried to forget, having to face it all once again for my own survival. And possibly my mom's, I thought, if worse came to worst.

 

There it was again. That ... "something". It was troublesome to locate, somehow. It sounded wet, it sounded floppy. I wouldn't normally pay attention to such an insignificant kind of noise, but right now it was the only sound I could hear in the entire house. The rest was as if someone had hit a mute button. I could barely even hear my own footsteps as I snuck through the house. The lights were still on, too; I'm certain she wouldn't go anywhere leaving the house like this, unless she counted on me to take care of it. Fat chance, I thought to myself, almost scoffing at the thought.

 

It came from her room.

 

I froze in place. Her door was ever so slightly ajar, with the dull, sloshing sound emerging from inside it. The light inside her room was off. Of course it had to be the only light in the house that was off, to add to the tension. Brace for ghosts, killer clowns and aggressive door-to-door salesmen any time now, I thought silently, throwing wary glances around me as I edged closer and closer to the door. I reached a thin arm inside, searching the other side of the wall before I found the light switch, and flicked it on.

 

The thought that I was overreacting dawned heavily on me, in the same instant that I saw the light flick on inside her room. I have no clue what the hell I'd been thinking. She could very well just be sleeping. She could've taken a nap in the morning, after doing some chores perhaps, and forgotten about the time. And now I probably woke her up by turning her lights on, even though I didn't hear her making any further noises. Jeesh, had I turned completely paranoid from isolating myself for so long? Had I finally managed to go off the deep end somehow? My rationalization of the scenario managed to calm me down, if ever so slightly.

 

As I took a step further towards the room, I felt my sock turning damp from stepping in something. Instinctively I took a step back, my heart skipping a beat, as I looked sharply downwards and crouched down on my knees. Water. It was just water. I gritted my teeth at my wild imagination, having painted up vivid scenarios of blood and what not. It was just water. Compose yourself, damn it.She'd probably taken a shower, seeing as the trail led inside her room. That could also explain the weird wet noises ... somehow. Right?

 

I braced myself, and went into her room. No. No, she wasn't there. But there was something on the bed, following the trail of water on the floor.

 

It was disgusting. It was slimy, it was deformed, and it was absolutely horrific to look at, with a bulging, inhuman, almost clownish face, lying on my mother's bed and staring up at me lifelessly.

 

- "Get the hell out of here!" I hissed at it, pointing at the door. "I've told you time and time again, you're not allowed in our house! Go steal jewelry from somewhere else!"

 

The malformed little creature hopped down from the bed, baring its crooked teeth and shooting me an angry glare as it crawled away on its arms and legs much like a primate, muttering something that sounded like "my precioussssss" as it disappeared out from the room. I grumbled angrily at it, returning my gaze to my mother's bed to see the creature lying upon it that had caught my attention.

 

It was disgusting. It was slimy, it was deformed, and it was absolutely horrific to look at, with a bulging, inhuman, almost clownish face, lying on my mother's bed and staring up at me lifelessly. And I knew precisely what it was. My acquired knowledge from the internet never failed me. I'd seen it in pictures, time and again, with captions ridiculing its pouting sad face and huge nose. It flopped over on the bed, causing the sloshing wet sound I'd heard previously.

 

It was a blobfish.

[Horn]

Already skipped a week for no reason. Good going, me. This schedule thing you planned is going stellar. Anyway, there's a possibility I'll make up for it by posting two parts this week.

#3

I cried. The sorrow somehow seemed endless. I cried for nine days and eleven nights in a row. This just couldn't be happening.

My mom had turned into a blobfish.

That was the only explanation I could piece together from the situation at hand. It was the obvious event that had taken place. No way would anyone just have waltzed in at random and slapped a blobfish right across my mother's bed, while she herself had been taken hostage for some reason, or at best was just outside on some errand and were soon to return. That would be one retarded plot twist if anything. Plus, the note that had been lying right next to it reading "This blobfish is Fid's mom, no seriously" provided rock solid evidence. I mean, who would write something so stupid without having a reason for it.

But I would undo it. Oh, yes, I would. I swore on my ancestors, I swore on my own principles, I swore on my deadbeat dad and I swore on my set of collected action figures. I will find whoever is responsible for this, I'll make them undo it, and I'll make them pay for it, I promised myself. And I'll see if I can't extort some money out of them for it while I was at it. Yeah, that'd be cool. I swore that I wouldn't rest, I wouldn't pause, I would hardly even sit down for a minute before my mother was back in her correct form again. My determination sizzled like lightning in the air as I clenched my fist, my teeth grit together and my eyes still wet from tears. Onward, for justice!

Then I went into the kitchen to get a snack. Can't fight evil on an empty stomach.

Opening the pantry, I picked a loaf of sliced bread out on the kitchen table, and a packet of butter from the fridge. Then, skilfully wielding the butter knife, I poked holes through two slices of bread, threading them over the sink tap, and then buttered the knife and proceeded to carefully cover the door to one of the kitchen cupboards with butter.

It took a good half minute before I paused my progress to study it and conclude that something about it wasn't quite right.

- "Okay, let's try that one more time..."

I took two more slices of bread, and buttered the knife again. Sweat started to bead on my forehead. No, no, it was cool. I got this. I GOT this. I spread the butter carefully across one of the walls, stuck a slice of bread against it, carefully tore the other slice of bread in two halves and dropped one in the sink, and the other one down in my pants.

After an additional pause of pondering, my mood sank considerably as the truth dawned on me heavily, despite my attempts to deny it. I couldn't do this. My mind was completely blank. I had relied on my mother to provide my nourishment for me for so very long that whatever compartment in my brain that was responsible for the "making food" bit of my life had completely shriveled up and died, if not been overwritten with internet memes and strategy guides. I didn't know how to make something to eat. Not whatsoever. I stared at the knife in my hand, still somewhat greasy from the butter. I could just as well have been holding a forceps or something, attempting to perform neurosurgery at an operating table. My head ached merely thinking about trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with it.

Well then, it would appear that my mission to cure my mother had just reached a new level of urgency.

Pacing back into her room, I scratched my head pondering on my next course of action. The bed was empty; I'd moved my mother over to the bathtub so she wouldn't dry out and die, but who knew how long she'd survive anyway. I had no clue what those kinds of fish eat, and I remember them living at a pretty long depth, so maybe the water pressure wasn't quite enough. I suppose crying for longer than a week had been slightly wasteful of me, considering time and all. I had to act quick. I had to make a decision. I probably even had to ... eugh ... leave the house.

I did know one thing, however. One thing that could surely aid me in this pressing matter. The one memory I still had of my father, stashed securely under my bed for emergencies, much like this one right now. The time has come, I thought, striding determinedly towards my room. I will not let you down, father.

[PItiful Boar]

whoa this is like franz kafka's metamorphosis with some oedipal impulses

[Horn]

#4

Reaching far in underneath my bed, to places I hadn't examined for at least a decade, searching past balls of dust, long lost LEGO bricks, archaeological mummy excavations and newly developed species of protozoa which would never be discovered by science due to my negligence of cleaning up every now in a while, my hand finally nudged against a familiar box. There it was. The piece of the puzzle that would make this adventure so much easier, I was quite sure of it. Getting an awkward finger grip atop the long wooden box, I slid it out across the floor from underneath the bed, pulling it towards me. I'd practically forgotten that I had it. My father had told me that the time would come when I'd understand to use it, and asked me to keep it safe until then. Well, what other time could that possibly be, than right now?

I blew the dust off the cover, and spent the next few minutes sneezing, hacking and coughing my lungs dry from the thick whirlwind of dead skin cells that I'd blown up around the room. I then studied the inscription on the box. I couldn't read it, but it looked like Chinese characters. Or possibly Arabic. Burmese, maybe. My grasp on foreign alphabets was rather rusty. Well, anyway, it looked hella cool, and that's what mattered. Something with an inscription in a foreign language couldn't be anything but awesome. As I lifted the lid off the box, the contents shone up with a magical, enchanted light, illuminating my dark room in a pale blue light. Hell yes, the coolness factors just kept increasing. I bet it'd make one of those awesome "kshing" sounds for no reason as I lifted it up from the box, too, while reflecting light into my eyes from its sheer sharpness.

Yes, it was a sword. A katana, to be precise. Katanas are simply the best swords. It was beautifully crafted, smooth to the sight without a single blemish visible to the naked eye. It weighed light as a feather in my hand, but practically radiated power as I grasped the handle firmer to get a feel for it. The same inscription from the box lid was engraved near the hilt of the sword, in those Greek letters or whatever it was. Father had told me the name of the sword once, but as I had been very young and my ears had been full of melted mozzarella cheese at the time (please don't ask; you had to have been there to understand the context), I simply didn't remember. It was probably something awesome, though. Something awesome and super difficult to pronounce. Something that struck as much fear into its enemies as the sword itself did. Something, something, something...

- "I'm gonna call you Fred," I told the sword. Yes, there we go. That was probably it.

Very well then, I was prepared! Holding Fred in front of me, diagonally in my field of vision and hoping that I was striking a cool enough pose, I felt more confident than ever. This adventure would be a piece of cake, and Fred would cut it into equal pieces and distribute it fairly. With my determination complete, nobody would be able to--

- "Ah-CHOO!!"

I swung Fred forwards as the remaining dust still wafting around in the air gave my nose one last surprise slap, relieving me of control of my body. The sword struck its flat side against my computer desk, shattering almost instantaneously in a plethora of colorful little shards; one of them ricocheted back into my forehead and cut up a small gash, letting a small trail of blood down across my face. Sniffling a bit from the sneeze, I wiped my nose on my sleeve and attempted to regain my composure, staring sheepishly at the sword in my hand, now reduced to little more than a few pieces of scrap metal still attached to the hilt. My brain took a few seconds for me to register what had just happened.

- "Well, shit," I muttered, at a complete loss for anything else to say.

Oh well, I thought after a short moment of pondering. It was just an ancient powerful relic left to me by my disappeared father. I'll get over it. In the meantime, I needed to find a new weapon. You can't have an adventure without a weapon. All the fanfics I'd read online taught me as much. At least, the ones featuring weapons, but those were the ones I liked the best. Combing through the house, through the knife drawers in the kitchen, the gun cabinet in the hallway, as well as my father's abandoned room of old and ancient adventure weapons, I finally found what I needed. I held it up in front of me, feeling its power course through me. Fine, it might not be as cool as the katana had been, but it'd get the job done. I was certain of it. It just needed a cool name. I pondered a few seconds on it, but the answer was obvious from the start. A fear-striking name was simply not easy to come by, and as the sword had served its purpose ...

- "I'm gonna call you Fred," I told the toilet brush. Then, grasping it harder and feeling its confident weight in my hand, I looked back towards the front door, more determined than ever.

- "All right. Let's go on an adventure."

[Horn]

#5

Pushing the front door open, I sneaked outside the house for the first time in what felt like forever, holding the toilet brush in a ready-to-swing position above my head. I don't know what I might've been expecting, but I wasn't about to take any chances right off the bat. I was still dressed in my pajamas; I had, however, at least had the presence of mind to put on a pair of shoes and a jacket, conserving my body heat even though it made my appearance more than just a little conspicuous. No time to worry about that, though. I felt completely ready. I knew which way to go, and nothing could stand in my way.

I then took a couple strides on the road outside my house leading towards the west when I bumped into a burly guy who was standing in my way.

- "You can't pass here," he simply stated as I stumbled a few steps backwards from the impact. I stared sheepishly up at him as he glared at me with his arms folded in front of him. No way would I be able to get past this guy with my feeble strength, not to mention my crippling social phobia. A ball of anxiety squeezed my chest tightly as the different options sped past in my mind. Was my adventure already over? Was this really as far as I was able to get?

No. No, damn it. Confront him. Confront him and make him eat his words.

- "Oh? And you're here to stop me, huh?" I said, my voice trembling slightly more than I intended, as I tried buffing myself up and pointing the toilet brush at him. He wrinkled his nose at the improvised weapon I was waving in his face.

- "No, I didn't mean it like that," he continued. "You literally can't pass here. Your level is too low."

- "My what now?"

I looked past him. I saw the road continue a fair bit, and then phase out suddenly, as if it had hit the end of a vortex of some kind. The road did continue, but my mind simply couldn't seem to grasp the concept of it doing so.

- "Do you even have any badges, kid?" the burly character asked me.

- "'Kid'? I'll have you know that ..."

I counted my age quickly on my fingers.

- "... I am indeed a kid, yeah, sorry," I mumbled. "Badges? Level? I don't get a word of what you're saying." That wasn't entirely true, though. I hadn't spent my entire life on the internet for nothing. But was he talking about what I thought he was talking about? Out here, in the real world? It's not like this was some leaky hodgepodge of a story written by a moronic amateur to pass the time, in which every possible outcome was decided by a whim, and where he'd suddenly decided to implement video game aspects which most likely wouldn't have any lasting effect on the story whatsoever, right?

- "You're pretty much right," the burly man responded, almost as if he'd been able to read the text above. "You're going to need at least two badges to be able to pass here. There's a gym in this town in fact; right over that way," he said, waving his hand in a diffuse direction. "As long as you don't have them, I can't let you pass, for your own safety. Remember to use S to check your current level and status, I to check your inventory, and press Enter to be able to interact with people and objects you meet on the way."

I shook my head in disbelief, but I didn't feel like there was any reason to mistrust him. All right then, if this was the direction my adventure was heading in, then I suppose I had no choice. I really hope the author knows what he's doing, though. Seriously.

- "I suppose I'm headed for the gym, then," I sighed. The burly guy nodded.

- "Take care on the way there! Don't run into any troub-"

His sentence was cut short as I spun around on the spot, slugged him in the face with the toilet brush, and made a desperate run for it. He let out a yelp in surprise and disgust as he started spitting and clawing at the side of his face where I'd hit him, and then turned around to try and locate where I was headed for, although I'd already gotten a head start. I don't have time for this crap, I thought to myself as I ran as fast as my legs could carry me towards the vortex where the road ended. Levels? Badges? Not a chance. I'm gonna have to play this by instinct or my mom's not gonna survive until I return to her.

- "You're making a big mistake, kid!" the burly guy shouted at me; he'd attempted to catch up with me, but saw that I was already too close to the vortex and had stopped in his tracks. "You don't know what's waiting for you on the other side!"

I made the mistake as soon as I stepped out from my own room, I thought to myself, covering the last few meters towards the vortex wall, wobbling and contorting across my path like a body of water lying sideways. I was already past the point of no return. I'd solve this puzzle or I'd have to die trying. I heard some last unintelligible words from the man behind me as my stretched out hand touched the border of the vortex wall.

*FWOOP*

[Horn]

#6

- "Hello?"

The world spun around me. Or, not quite; it was more of a pulsating, oscillating kind of feeling. The colors were meshing into a strange gray-scale tone, sounds and lights distorted in my ears and eyes causing a light feeling of vertigo, my whole body felt like it floated through some dream space in slow-motion, and blurry figures disappeared and re-emerged as I tried to reach my hands out and around, attempting to get a grip on reality, however unreal it felt at the moment. Had there been nothing on the other side of that wall, after all? Had I jumped into an endless void, doomed to forever float around cursing my foolish decisions? Damn it, I thought in a mixture of anger and panic, had those badges seriously been that important? How would I even have gotten them? I didn't even have any --

- "In a bit of a hurry, are we?"

The sudden voice was faint, and somewhat garbled, but it was enough to catch my full attention as I had pretty much nothing else to focus on. I flailed my arms around in the thick nothingness to position myself facing towards where the voice had come from.

- "Hey!" I shouted into the void. "Who are you? Where are you? Can you help me out!?"

My words floated out into the porridge that made up the thick space around me. No response. The panic started setting in again. I knew I'd heard something. No way am I letting this string of hope fly out of my reach.

- "HEY!!" I shouted, louder. "You gotta help! PLEASE!!"

I listened intently for a response. Something, anything. But the only response was a deafening silence. I grit my teeth together. Don't let it end here, I thought. Please, don't let it end here. I have to get home, I have to save my mom ... I have to ...

My thoughts were brutally interrupted by a strong grasp around my right wrist. I felt a large hand pull me forwards by the arm, as the vague shapes I could see around me blurred together in long streaks of light, as if I was being sucked through a wormhole of kinds. And very suddenly, the blurs solidified. The sounds and feelings around me cleared up; I could both hear, feel and see clearly again, as if someone had pulled me up from a body of water. As the grip around my wrist loosened, I fell to my hands and knees, taking a few seconds to realize my surroundings, as well as preparing myself physically if I were to throw up. But it was fine. The pulsing had stopped, the world was stable once again. I heaved a few deep breaths, and checked myself with my hands almost as if I expected to be thoroughly drenched; I was as dry as a crispbread, perhaps save for the sweaty spots of anxiety underneath my arms.

It took an additional few seconds before I regained consciousness of what had just happened, and looked up in front of me, at whoever had just pulled me out of whatever it was that I had just been stuck in. He looked down at me, his face showing an odd mixture of amusement and worry. His build was tall, but strangely scrawny, what with the strength he'd utilized to pull me to safety. He was clad in a tight, bright yellow suit, donning a pair of practically opaque green glasses and a gleaming white row of smiling teeth. The most eye catching feature, though, was the purple afro, residing on top of his head like a chicken incubating a huge egg. If I'd ever seen a rainbow personified, this'd be it, I thought to myself very silently.

- "Why didn't you go get your badges, kid?" the fluorescent character asked me. "You were damn lucky I happened to be here. Like I said, are you in a hurry somewhere?"

- "I, uh..."

I got to my feet, brushing off some imaginary dust from my pants.

- "... Where's Fred?" I asked, confusedly. The colorful man shrugged dramatically.

- "I don't know no Fred," he said. "Maybe he disappeared in the void. I didn't hear no other voices but you."

- "No, he's not a person, he's ..."

He was probably right, though, I thought to myself. I'd likely let him go in the void. Fred, my only trusted friend ...

- "So what's this all about? Care to tell me anything or do you just wanna skip to the 'thanks for saving my life' part and then we'll split?"

The gaudy peacock man looked questioningly at me; I could feel his inspecting glance even from behind those thick glasses, and my eyes wandered elsewhere, as I was still somewhat embarrassed over the whole ordeal.

- "I'm trying to save my mom," I mumbled at last. "She's been cursed and I need to undo it before it's too late."

- "Oh, interesting!" he blurted out, seemingly very genuinely. "A boy with a goal! And I was just looking for one! A meaningless existence like mine gets pretty boring after a while, y'know?"

- "What are you --"

- "It's almost as if I've been waiting right here for you to show up and give my life purpose! Like some really stupid plot point! Wouldn't that just be so totally crazy?"

Yeah, crazy was indeed the word surfacing right now, I thought. "Look, I'm sorry, but I wasn't planning on inviting any others on --"

SPAZZY SHONG-DONGLADONG HAS JOINED YOUR PARTY!!

I stared wildly at the message box that had just appeared above my head, and then towards the lanky hippie type, who I assumed to be Spazzy.

- "What the f --"

- "It's settled, then!" he shouted happily. "No getting rid of me now, I'm afraid! And you know perfectly well you could use some company," he added with a smirk. "The world as it continues from here onward isn't the world you were once used to. So, what name would you like me to call you by?"

I tried to formulate several counter arguments, but my shoulders sagged as I realized the futility of it. He was right, I thought. I needed a guide, and here he was. And he HAD saved my life. It was extremely reluctant, but I decided to let him tag along, perhaps just for now. Provided his extrovert nature didn't make me kill myself before I managed to save my mother.

- "I'm Fid," I responded. "Thanks for saving my life."

[Horn]

Last week's part. New part coming on Wednesday.

#7

- "So how'd you do that, anyway?"

Fid and Spazzy had ventured for a little bit before Fid had gathered enough courage to break through his silent barrier and adress the colorful character. Spazzy shifted his glasses down the ridge of his nose and peered at Fid from above the lenses.

- "Do what? The void thing?"

- "Yeah, I ... I didn't even see it after you'd pulled me out. How'd you hear me, and reach me? And where are we even going now?"

- "A'ight, one question at a time, hey," Spazzy said in response. "It wasn't all that difficult really. The occasional character fall into that stuff, and I tend to walk past there every so often. Hearing you is easy, and then I just sorta will myself into reaching you. It's difficult to explain, off the bat. In any case, you're not the first person I've rescued from blending into nature's fabric."

- "Though I'm the first one you randomly decided to make company with, I guess?"

- "Well, yeah, you're the first main character of a story I met! Honestly, you should feel more excited about this!"

- "I'm really only feeling like this makes less and less sense," Fid sighed, rubbing his forehead lightly. "So are you some game partner that I level up, or are you going to randomly pop in and out of my quest, or what?"

- "I don't know!" Spazzy beamed widely with his sparkling pearly whites, seeming more than excited to express his complete ignorance of his own situation. "I guess we'll find out as the story progresses, don't you think?"

They took a left around a corner, Spazzy striding self-confidently along some sort of path he had laid out in his mind, and Fid trudging along and trying to keep an even pace, like a highly reluctant cat getting dragged along by a leash by its owner. The area around them seemed somewhat suburban, with uneven, winding cobblestone roads and houses made of marble. Every so often they passed carts with people peddling their wares, be it fruit, bread or cheap jewelry; Fid scratched his stomach as he was once again reminded of how long ago it was since he got something to eat. The sun was high and the streets felt like they should be bustling with activity, but it seemed rather scarce on people; perhaps it was still work hours or something of the sort.

- "So anyway, we're at Plaza Piazza del Casa Gaza Kasbah," Spazzy continued, the tongue-twister rolling off his lips like a well-oiled opossum carcass. "The heart of Floridayorkville. And the road I'm carrying you along right now is the road to our better known spirit guide, Bob."

- "Uh ..."

- "Yeah, the names are a hassle, right? If you don't care to learn the pronunciation, you can just copy-paste what I said."

- "No, no, that's not what I was thinking of," Fid mumbled. "Spirit guide? What's this about? Is he able to help my mom?"

- "Probably not. But maybe he'll know someone who knows someone who knows someone else who knows what way we're supposed to take to find the evil overlord sorcerer and utilize his magic to find the relic which can turn your mom back to normal." Spazzy gave Fid another wide smile. "Y'know how these stories tend to play out."

- "Oh, gosh ..."

- "Don't worry!" Spazzy said, flexing his arm confidently in Fid's face. "Old Spazzy here will tag along on your adventure and help you across any obstacle I possibly can!"

- "Spazzy ..." Fid mulled over his thoughts for a little while. "What kind of name is that, anyway?"

Spazzy lowered his glasses again, giving Fid the same curious look as before. "Are you REALLY in a position to ask me that question, 'Feidlimid'?"

- "I guess not." Fid's gaze returned down towards his shoes. "Sorry."

- "Hey, don't worry!" Spazzy chuckled. "I guess my name's as colorful as the rest of me. But, maybe it was what started it all. I can only blame my parents."

- "I blame the writer," Fid muttered. "Hey, speaking of which, there's one more thing."

- "Yeah, what's that?"

- "Did the format of the story just change? I mean, every post so far has been written from my first-person perspective. Now it's changed to third-person. I'm seeing my own name a lot more often than I wish to. Any idea why the author decided to do that?"

Spazzy rolled his eyes curiously. "I'm not really sure," he said, making an exaggerated shrugging gesture. "Maybe he decided out of the blue that he didn't care to identify with a gloomy little emo punk anymore. Or maybe he wanted to play a part in the story as his own character. Ya know, like the lemony narrator who speaks to the characters, breaks the fourth wall, stuff like that. This seems to be that kind of a story, anyway."

- "Oh, no," Fid said, feeling more and more energy sapping out of him as the facts were piling up against him and punching into him what he was getting himself into. "So I'm really just a cosmic plaything, is that it?"

- "Like I said, I dunno," Spazzy said in a meek attempt to cheer Fid up. "It might be, it might not be. Now hey, keep your pace up! We're almost at Bob's, so you don't need to worry just yet that we're not making any progress with the --"

- "Spaz!!"

The thundering voice spiked like a gunshot from behind them, through the alleyways they were walking through, and Spazzy froze dead in his tracks, as if someone had set a time stopper spell on him. He turned around ever so slowly to face whatever had caused that commotion, sweat beading on his forehead, as Fid backed into a niche in the alleyway, having read the situation and decided to try to stay out of this as much as possible. A tall, buirdly character, with a few mooks in tow, blocked out the sun as he covered half the alleyway with a physique that was only justifiably describable through an uncommon Scottish loanword to make it sound extra intimidating.

- "How EVER so pleasant to run into you here," the character continued with a grating voice that sounded like a broken harvesting machine. "We haven't seen each other in forever, you and I."

- "W-why, of course --"

- "And I do believe," the character said, cutting Spazzy's stuttering off as if he hadn't heard him at all, "that you have a few favors you owe me that I figured I'd cash in on, now that I have the chance. If you don't mind terribly, of course?"

[nevernown]

R.I.P. Spazzy's kidney

 

How do you pronounce Bob?

[Horn]

How do you pronounce Bob?

Just like it's spelled. W, Ⰿ, 豁. Easy.


#8
 
- "So where's ya been, Spaz?" the figure bleated with his churning voice as he pinned Spazzy towards one of the alley's walls with his presence, laying one hand against the wall and peering down at the afro-haired hippie.
 
Spazzy was tall, but by damn, this guy was at least two heads taller, Fid thought, feeling a tight grip of fear around his chest. The guy was weirdly bulky; his arms and legs were thick and bulging, as Fid imagined that the enormous sausage-fingered hand that he held against the wall would put cracks into it any second if he leaned towards it any harder. Yet he didn't seem muscly - his face, only an inch away from Spazzy's, was adorned with fat folds and several chins, with oddly small facial features such as the beady glaring eyes and the yellow-toothed smirk that seemed to have been slapped randomly into place. It was unlikely that this guy had been training and was just seemingly some sort of freak of nature. His clothes were dirty and tattered; the red checkered shirt and sun-paled jeans gave a very lumberjacky impression.

- "Oh, ya know, a little here, a little there ..." Spazzy was pushing his back against the wall so hard, it seemed like he attempted to melt into it. "Regular, uh, stuff. I guess?"

- "So ya says," the character hissed. "Been around these parts? Cuz I hasn't seen ya. Or has ya been hiding? Don't tell me ya's been avoiding me, Spaz. We's friends don't hide from each other, does we?"

- "Of course not!" Spazzy yelped loudly, almost by surprise. "Ubba, I'm ... I'm terribly sorry if I gave you that impression! I just ... I just haven't had the time; in fact, even right now, my schedule is a teensy bit cramped, so if I could --"

- "Oh, dears," the character named Ubba responded, seemingly none too pleased. "Really now?" A few of the mooks behind him chuckled at the sarcastic tone of the giant. "Ya really couldn't makes some time in that tight schedule, not even for little me? We's got SO much to catch up on, don't ya thinks?"

- "Of course! Of course!" Spazzy almost screamed, sounding like a broken record. "Now's just not --"

- "By the way," Ubba interrupted, turning towards the quivering Fid. "Ya hasn't introduced me to ya's little friend, here. Why's ya hiding in the corner, there? Why doesn't ya come out and give me a little greeting, as should be customaries, yeah? I doesn't bite, I promises ya."

He waved his hand, motioning Fid to come closer. Fid, stuck in between his fear of the giant and the fear of any consequences directly related to not doing what he's told by the giant, crept out from the niche he was trying to disappear into.

- "Uh huh, yes, that's better," Ubba nodded. "So what's ya's name happens to be? I'm Ubba. Ya prolly figureds, eh. Ya can call me thus if ya wants, too." Ubba reached his free hand out towards Fid, offering him a handshake. "Ma full name, it's apparently too complicateds fer people to remembers. Though I s'pose ma parents could'sa named me somethin better than Ultra Basher Danger Crusher."

Holy shit, Fid thought, staring up at the giant's face while maintaining avoidance of eye contact. HOLY shit.

- "I'm Feidlimid," he stammered. Jesus, please let me live, please let me live, he thought; his sight was blurring and his muscles were starting to give up from pure fear. "People ... People call me Fid."

- "Fid!" Ubba exclaimed. "So now we's both on friendly nickname terms, eh! Hey, Spaz," he grunted, turning his attention to Spazzy again, who went completely rigid once again after having been using his time out of the spotlight to try to calm down. "Why duncha invites your friend, here, for a few favors? I'm sure he'd appreciates the company, much like I does, yeah?"

----------------------------------------

- "This is ... tea."

Fid poked the small, delicate porcelain cup in front of him, feeling more confused than ever. They'd been led by Ubba to what seemed to be his own quarters, seated in a somewhat small, yet still gaudy room, around a large table along with Ubba himself and a few of his closest mooks. Each participant around the table had been accomodated with tea in a small china cup, and cookies of various sorts had been served on a few small silver platter in the middle of the table. Ubba took a few sips from his small teacup, and then clasped his hands and laid them on the table, grinning at his visitors. Spazzy was sitting next to Fid, still sweating buckets; Fid hadn't completely shaken the feeling of fear yet, but decided to voice his concerns to him.

- "He, uh." Fid paused for a few seconds, trying to formulate his thoughts in a way that wouldn't sound offensive to Spazzy's obvious terror. "He ... seems like a nice guy."

- "Oh, you poor fool," Spazzy whined through his teeth clenched shut. "You have NO idea."

- "It's that bad, huh?" Fid mumbled, feeling his last ounces of hope leave him. Perhaps this was the last supper, so to speak. Ubba would lull them into a sense of security before tearing their kidneys out through their anuses.

- "He's one of the nicest guys in all of Floridayorkville," Spazzy wheezed.

Fid stared blankly at him for a solid minute. Only the sipping of tea could be heard in the background. Ubba appeared to be too courteous to interrupt their speaking to each other.

- "Are you FOR REAL!?" Fid hissed angrily after a while.

- "Hey, he's one of my best friends," Spazzy responded. "He said so himself, didn't he?"

- "I THOUGHT WE WERE GOING TO DIE!!" Fid could barely control his letters anymore, using more capitals than necessary, yet still hissing. "Is he NOT a crazy organ harvester!? Did I almost literally shit myself for absolutely no reason!? And you're still practically paralyzed! If he's such a cool guy, why the hell are you still acting like he'll brain you with an axe any second!? What the hell is going on!?"

- "I'm sorry," Spazzy whined. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

- "Well, what is it?"

- "His ..."

- "Yes? Spit it out, damn it! What the hell are you going on about!?"

- "His tea," Spazzy finally sighed despondently. "It's the most awful tea I've tasted in my entire life. I'd give anything to not have to relive this again."

Fid could practically hear his own jaw hit the floor.

- "Oh. My. GOD," he responded.

- "So!"

Both of them turned towards Ubba with a snap, as he'd called for their attention.

- "Now that we're safely instated in my humble abode," Ubba continued with a voice completely unlike the one he'd used up until just now, "I have a confession to make. It has come to my attention that a new adventurer has been instated in Floridayorkville." His gaze turned towards Fid. "An adventurer who seeks to undo a disastrous curse placed upon his mother on hence unexplained grounds. And, I'm generally not one for accusations, but I'm very sorry to say that this instating has been carried out without adequate permission."

Fid wrinkled his brows as Ubba leaned closer towards him, looking him straight into the eyes.

- "Simply put, the rules say that you're not allowed to be here," he said. "I'm very sorry to be the one to point fingers, Feidlimid, but this is an issue that needs to be dealt with posthaste. Floridayorkville does not take kindly to illegal adventurers. I've told Spazzy time and again that this kind of behavior is inadmissible, but he insists on breaking the established regulations."

- "Uh ..."

- "However!" Ubba interrupted again, his face shining up with a sunny smile. "I may possibly be able to make an exception, if you would be alacritous to collaborate with me on a particular assignment. In layman's terms," he said, leaning closer towards Fid again, "all I ask is, would you wish to help me out with a little something?"

[Horn]

#9

- "Well then, are you folks enjoying your break time?" Ubba asked, a sense of urging in his voice, though still exaggeratedly polite. "Do have another cookie; they're scrumptious! I acquired them through a special market sale only a few days ago. Now, I hate to sound overly desirous; however, have you had time enough to ponder over my eventual assignment for you?"

- "This tea is ABSOLUTELY AWFUL," Fid whispered to Spazzy as silently as he could in between the bites of almond cookie that he ate, more out of politeness than anything else. "It's as if someone spilled a gallon of bleach in it and attempted to dilute the taste with toothpaste!"

- "I know, my boy, I know," Spazzy responded, equally silently, staring at his half-full cup of tea as sweat continuously beaded on his forehead. "You'd want to drink it up, though. Ubba gets rather upset if his guests won't finish his tea. And you really, really don't want to see Ubba upset."

- "I believe you," Fid whined, throwing an anxious glance at Ubba's not so particularly pearly white smile. "Jeebus Cripes, I believe you ..."

- "I'm sorry," Ubba interrupted, "is everything okay?"

- "Yes!" Fid responded almost immediately, half choking on a small piece of almond cookie. "I, uh, yes, we're good! Yes, I've been thinking, and ..."

He leaned back into the wooden chair. Cards on the table, he thought, resignedly. There seemed to be no other way out of this.

- "I'll help you," he continued. "I'm guessing I have no choice. I need to help my mom, and this ... rule or whatever, is in the way. So, you'll allow me to continue my own mission if I help you with yours. Did I get that correctly?"

- "Exaaactly!" Ubba said, his yellow rows of teeth broadening into a terrifying smile as his fat ugly face shone up like a sun once again. His vocabulary seemed to have abruptly become more familiar. "I've got connections, you see. I'll sort it out, and you'll get your permit. Of course, I could simply just do it right away, but seeing as I'm kind of a pickle for the time being, I figured I could use all the help I could get for what I need doing. You catch my drift, right? You'd do the same thing in my shoes, right?"

Probably not, Fid thought to himself, fairly annoyed. I never asked anyone to tag along on MY adventure, much less a delusional lanky peacock who seemed like he'd get lost inside his own ego if someone ever let him travel those parts. Whatever, though. He had too little time to care about this.

- "Sure, okay. So what's the mission about?"

- "I'm so glad you asked!" Ubba said, overjoyed as if he'd actually expected Fid to go along with no questions whatsoever. "It's very simple. I need some toothpaste."

- "Tooth ... I'm sorry, what?" Fid wrinkled his nose without thinking. "Is that what I need to get for you?"

- "It's a special kind of toothpaste!" Ubba quickly explained, in an excusing tone. "I'm running out of my stash! And it's not just ANY toothpaste, of course! It's a hand-made brand made by blind monks in a temple far east from here." He leaned down towards Fid, seemingly attempting to whisper a secret into his ear, though his whispers were practically as loud as his regular volume of speaking. "Imagine tea without toothpaste! What would I dilute the bleach with? I could as well stoop down to peasant level and go buy the tatty bag-tea from the store, yes?"

- "Oh. My. GOD," Fid said flatly for the second time the same evening.

- "It's a terror, I know," Ubba said, straightening up in his seat again. "So, do we understand each other so far?"

Fid threw a glance towards Spazzy, who was still fixated by his tea cup. He felt a heavy, despondent weight sink over his shoulders, attempting to piece together the puzzle pieces so far and failing miserably at it. Well, he thought, not even caring if he jinxed it anymore, it could hardly get much worse from here.

- "So where do I go?" he sighed.

- "East!" Ubba proclaimed happily. "A journey to the East! You'll have to cross a bridge, and I'm unfortunately a bit too, uh, EMBONPOINT for it to hold my weight."

- "But aren't your mooks --"

- "And after you've crossed the bridge," Ubba continued, ignoring Fid's attempt of communication, "there's just a short journey left, and you'll be there! Yes, you'll have arrived at the wonderful, colorful town of EQUESTR --"

- "ALL RIGHT," Fid screamed, not at Ubba, just at seemingly no one in particular. "You listen up, and you listen up good. I've been fine with the story so far. I'm okay with the moronic name you gave me, I'm okay with the ridiculous premises and mission, with the retards I've met along the way, with the stupid pop culture references and the story subplots that seem to lead absolutely nowhere. However, I SWEAR TO GOD, if you put a SINGLE pastel-colored horse in this worthless baloney that you claim to be a story, I will reach right through the screen you're looking at and choke every last single little puff of life out of you, and for the rest of history, people will refer to your case of death and go 'wow, holy crap, I wonder how that guy managed to get strangled by one of his own fictional characters, like damn, I didn't even know that was possible, he must've been one huge jerk to the characters he was writing about'. Am I making myself EXCEPTIONALLY clear!?"

Silence layered across the room; Ubba seemed at a complete loss for words after the interruption. Fid looked wildly around before turning towards Ubba again.

- "I'm sorry," he said. "What were you saying?"

- "I, uh. Ah." Ubba took a few seconds to gather his thoughts again. "You'll arrive at the wonderful, colorful town of Equestramahood! Of course. Were you worried about something?"

- "No, not really. Not anymore."

[Horn]

#10

- "We're out on our first official adventure!" Spazzy exclaimed, a little bit too cheerfully for Fid's liking. "Aren't you just so excited? It's the first step towards fighting the villain and saving the world!"

The tea party at Ubba's home had wrapped up, with minimal food-poisoning casualties, and the adventurous couple had been supplied with some provisions and been set out eastwards, towards the alleged temple of toothpaste-making monks. Fid tried to push it out of his mind, as he instinctively rolled his eyes whenever he thought about the ridiculousness of it all, and the eye-rolling was starting to give him a case of lesser vertigo. They were making their way through some grassy plains, towards a mountain ridge further eastwards, and Spazzy was trying all kinds of methods to strike up conversation with his strongly reluctant companion. The ridge had come into view, and they were only some distance away from the pathway leading into the mountains.

- "I'm not out to save the world," Fid said grumpily. "I'm out to save my mom, I've only gotten ten short chapters into the story, and it already feels like I've been catapulted way off course. A permit for adventuring? Toothpaste for tea? Are you even hearing how this sounds? What kind of world are we saving by helping a human abomination buy toothpaste to add to his tea? I'm starting to wish I'd never gotten the stupid idea of walking outside my house to begin with."

- "Hmh." Spazzy shrugged, content with at least having gotten Fid to say something. "Maybe it's MAGIC? Maybe it's one of those minty brands that just explodes all the little bacteria out of your mouth."

- "I guess it's gotta be special if it allows people to drink bleach and still live," Fid mumbled, and then he sighed. "Let's stop talking about the toothpaste. Please."

- "As you wish." Spazzy shrugged again. "Hey, think we'll be meeting any enemies? There's gotta be enemies on these kinds of journeys. How else are we going to level up and take down the big bad boss of the monk temple in Equestramahood?"

- "I completely gave up on trying to understand what you're saying hours ago," Fid muttered. "Do you think we can just get this over with and --"

His sentence faded out as it was deafened by a shrill, hissing sound, like something whistling through the air at a high speed, and he yelped loudly and stumbled backwards as a thick arrow suddenly bore itself into the mountain wall right in front of him with a loud crack, spraying rock splinters around from the violent impact. Spazzy's jaw dropped and the green glasses slid down to the tip of his nose as he witnessed the scene in front of him, which took no longer than an instant. He then turned upwards, facing the direction the arrow came from.

- "Oh, god. Did I jinx it again?"

- "What the hell was --"

- "RUN!!" Spazzy screamed, grabbing the still bewildered Fid by the wrist and dragged him up along the mountain path. "And try to keep out of sight! It's not unlikely that the first one was a warning ..."

- "Spazzy, I swear," Fid huffed as he was dragged along through the now uneven terrain, climbing through rocks and dry foliage as Spazzy kept throwing worried glances upwards, "if this is another 'they seem bad but they're actually kinda nice' farce ..."

- "No, no, no, no," Spazzy huffed. "No, you don't want to toy with the fishmen. They're a breed of creatures that basically exist only to kill. They neither hear nor see very well, though, in particular not when it's light out, so if you keep to the sunnier areas you should be able to avoid them with less risk ..."

- "Fishmen?" Fid said, despite knowing full well that questioning whatever happened in this crazy world he'd ended up in would lead him absolutely nowhere. "Up in the mountains?"

- "Well, yeah. What do you mean, is something strange?"

- "Yeah, never mind."

Another arrow shot down from above, boring its way into the rock a few meters above Fid and Spazzy. Gravel rained over them as they continued navigating their way through the narrow pathways and crevices, trying to stay in the light from the sun.

- "You don't want to get hit by one of those arrows," Spazzy huffed, out of breath from the complicated pathway. "They don't stick; they'll pass right through you and take a few organs with them while they're at it."

- "I can imagine," Fid mumbled.

A shadow passed across them, blocking out the sun for a moment as something lept from one rock to another above them, and Fid looked up to try and catch a glimpse of whatever was following them. It looked pretty much humanoid, at least from a blurry distance. Spazzy looked around to try and analyze the situation, as well.

- "It seems like there's only one of them, thank God," he confirmed. "We gotta find a cave or something where we can hide and pray that it loses track of us."

- "What do we do if it doesn't?" Fid whined; his senses were catching up with him and he was starting to realize the actual danger of the situation. "They live in the mountains, right? What if it knows this place like the back of its hand? Or uh, whatever those things have ..."

- "They don't live this close to the ridge. This guy must be out scavenging for food. If we only find a shelter somewhere, we should be fine," Spazzy said. "And if it turns out that we're too valuable morsels of meat for him to let us slip away, and he finds us anyway, then ... I don't know. We'll figure out what to do by then."

Edited by Horn, 15 June 2016 - 07:01 PM.

[Horn]

#11

- "There's nothing," Fid wheezed, as the couple continued to scour all over the rocky landscape, with no shelter in sight. "I can't find any cover." The fishman was hot on their tails; it seemed like it would be way faster than they were, but somehow it didn't manage to catch up. Perhaps it was even worse at locating targets, especially in movement, than Spazzy had claimed. Or, it was being intentionally delayed by the author, an action shoehorned into the plot so that the main characters wouldn't have to die so early into the story, Fid thought bitterly to himself. It wouldn't surprise him a single bit.

- "Maybe we'll have to think of something else," Spazzy said. "We can't keep running forever ... I'm already running out of stamina, so I can only imagine what a recluse like you is going through right now."

Fid attempted to think of a scathing response, but had to accept Spazzy's comment as truth as he could almost literally feel his heart starting to tear its way out through his ribcage.

- "All right, so ... do you ... have any plans?" he wheezed almost incomprehensibly.

- "Nothing that'll work for certain," Spazzy said, "but we're running out of options. The only thing I can think of right now is that we'll find a spot of sunlight, and stop dead in our tracks. Maybe it'll confuse him for long enough so that we can try sneaking away. Do you have anything you can throw, something that'll make some noise so that the fishman will think we've continued in another direction? A coin, a paperclip, anything."

Fid rummaged through the pockets of the jacket he'd thrown on, finding nothing. Spazzy did the same, with the same results. He shrugged.

- "Doesn't seem to be any gravel or anything on the ground, either ... All right, I've got one last idea. Stop in your tracks on three, all right? One, two ... three!!"

Spazzy dug his heels down into the rocks, almost losing his balance as he slid a few inches further, but regained his balance swiftly and pushed himself flat against a rock wall, the sun shining brightly directly at them. Fid braked in, as well, as Spazzy tugged on his arm to drag him in towards the same wall. Then, in a very swift movement, Spazzy grabbed the edge of his round sunglasses, and flung them as far as he could in the same direction they were running in. They both stood pressed against the sunny wall, trying to breathe as quietly as they could despite the overwhelming oxygen strain from their recent run, as they heard the glasses clatter against the rock walls until they came to rest somewhere further down the way. The next instant, the same shadow that'd been chasing them leapt vigorously above them and past them, following the clattering sound. There was some more rustling and thumping, and then it stopped. Some lighter rustling could be heard as Fid and Spazzy stood dead silent, pressed against the wall so hard that Fid thought they'd merge with it any second.

- "Is it over?" he finally whispered. Spazzy shook his head.

- "I think it realized pretty fast that it lost track of us; it's probably sniffing through the surroundings right now. We should try to sneak away from here while we still have time." He clicked his tongue, noticeably annoyed, squinting through the bright light. "Those glasses were the perfect shade of yellow," he muttered. "It took ages to find the right store."

- "Yellow?" Fid said, puzzled. "They looked to me like they were --"

A wet, muted THUD right next to them got both of them to jump a few feet into the air. Crouching down next to them was the fishman, tall and spindly and reeking of algae and salt water, with a huge bow and a quiver of arrows hanging over its shoulders. Leaving no room for further reactions, it grabbed Spazzy by the shoulders with its large wet hands; loud cracks echoed through the mountainous area as the hands tightened its grip around his shoulders, likely breaking a few bones, and Spazzy screamed as his face contorted in pain. He was then lifted up, face to face with the creature, as Fid once again could do nothing but stand and stare helplessly at the scene playing out before him. He had no weapons, he had no skills, he had nothing. What did he ever think that he could do, for his mother, for Spazzy, for anyone? What had he ever thought that getting out on an adventure was supposed to accomplish?

- "I'm sorry," Spazzy whimpered, struggling uselessly in the face of the muscly beast in front of him. Fid looked up at him, tears burning behind his eyes. Why the hell is HE apologizing? He took Fid all this way, he took the lead and laid out the plans, he's the one about to get eaten - and now he's apologizing to the guy who's had his thumb stuck up his arse for this entire journey?

Spazzy then opened his eyes.

The creature's eyes widened, too. It let go of Spazzy, almost with a yelp of surprise, and took a few steps backwards as Spazzy dropped down to the ground, collapsing in a sitting pile. They locked eyes again, and the creature took another step backwards. It didn't seem like it was out of fear, though. It was ... reverence? Was that it?

The fishman then glanced down at the ground, unable to face Spazzy's eyes directly anymore. A second later, it turned tail, and started sprinting away, leaping across the mountain terrain. Spazzy remained on the ground, massaging his left shoulder while he grit his teeth in pain; apparently something had broken, after all. Fid ran up to him, kneeling down next to him to check on him.

- "What the hell was that!?" he gasped. How did you --"

Spazzy looked up at Fid, and Fid felt his throat stock up as a wave of sanctity came over him. Spazzy's eyes were blue. But not just any shade of blue. Fid had never seen such a deep shade of blue before. It was beautiful; practically hypnotizing. It was tranquil, yet powerful; humble, yet authoritative. A striking kind of color that was only reserved for royalty - no, for angels.

It lasted for a short moment. Spazzy then turned his head away.

- "I'm sorry," he said again. "I'm sorry that you had to see that."

- "So manly," Fid said, clasping his hands to his cheeks, his eyes sparkling by admiration. Spazzy snorted.

- "C'mon, let's go find my glasses," he said.

[Horn]

#12

- "So, what's up with that?" Fid asked after some time, as the pair had regained their bearings and continued on their journey; Spazzy's glasses had indeed been yellow, he noted as they'd found them again, but turned back into the thick green color once he put them on again, likely due to the strong blend of colors. "You got some sort of royal bloodline? Infused with some weird power when you were little? Or is it totally natural?"

- "You sure got pretty damn talkative all of a sudden," Spazzy grunted, refusing to look in Fid's direction. "Just some hours ago you barely acknowledged my existence, hey?"

- "And you turned into a friggin' mute!" Fid snapped back. "What's with all these weirdo powers you keep pulling out of your ass? It's starting to feel more and more like YOU'RE the main character of this story and I just happen to be some colorless NPC who trudges along in the back. Don't you think you could at least have the courtesy to respond to my curiosity?"

- "I don't walk to talk about the eyes!" Spazzy whined. "Is it MY fault that I look the way I look?"

- "But there's gotta be a reason!" Fid said. "That stuff just isn't normal! And if it had been, you wouldn't have refused telling me about it!"

- "If you're so curious, ask the writer, not me!"

- "He's not gonna tell me!"

- "Well then you might as well shut up about it, because I won't, either!"

Fid sighed, giving the conversation up and returning to his own little bubble, tracking after Spazzy in his footsteps, eyes turned downwards to the ground. Sure, he was curious, but that wasn't the entire reason he was asking about it. Apparently, Spazzy REALLY didn't want people to see those eyes, and as the secret had now been revealed, he had quietened down considerably from before. He seemed practically embarrassed about it. And even though he didn't like to admit it, Fid had found a certain comfort in Spazzy's endless banter; it meant that he didn't have to add to the conversation, himself. Dammit, you're the one who decided to tag along, he thought to himself sourly. If you're sick of my company, you can just leave already.

- "Here's the bridge," Spazzy said, suddenly; Fid looked up and almost walked into Spazzy who'd stopped in his tracks.

They'd come a deep crevice of the mountain regions, and as Fid looked out over it, he gasped. The gap was practically a mile wide, and it was connected from one side to another with a very classical type of rope bridge. Except that it looked less like a "bridge" and more like a badly worn tightrope littered with thin, splintery scraps of something vaguely resembling wooden planks. The long, rickety contraption stretched loosely across the valley, swaying dangerously in the gentle wind. A mere look at it practically had Fid swallowing some stomach acid that had forced its way up through his throat to try and greet him.

- "Well, nowhere to go but forwards," Spazzy said.

- "Dude." Fid pressed himself backwards, up against the rock wall, trying not to throw any glances down the gap. "We step foot on that thing, we die."

- "It's not that bad," Spazzy said, ever so not particularly reassuring. "Should I hold your hand?"

- "You can't be friggin' serious! Are we seriously tightroping across a bottomless valley!?" Fid wheezed, feeling his vision go dim.

- "Oh, it's not bottomless," Spazzy said, cool as ice. "Though the bottom IS riddled with spikes, alligators, dragons, flesh-melting slime monsters and door-to-door salesmen. Look, I'm telling you, we'll be fine."

- "Oh yeah?" Fid whined. "What, you got any other superpowers you want to show off now? Lemme guess - you can fly? Or teleport us across the valley? Or can you punch the valley in the face so hard that it starts to cry and carries us over to the other side on its own?" Or --"

- "LOOK."

Spazzy had turned against Fid, now staring him straight into the eyes. Fid's eyes shot down towards the ground on instinct, but forced himself to look up against the opaque glasses. Spazzy seemed to show no exaggerated emotions; Fid expected him to look angry, or somewhat peeved at the very least, but it was only a very straight, concentrated face.

- "We are going to be fine," he said solidly. "This is the only way to get your mother back to normal. You want to get your mother back to normal, don't you?"

Fid swallowed, and looked down at the ground again. The journey had barely started, and he'd hesitated so many times already. He wondered how he was ever going to see this journey to the end if he was going to keep acting like this. He nodded, gritting his teeth together.

Spazzy stood up straight again, gave a slight nod back, and pushed a button on the mountain wall that seemed to blend into the gray color almost perfectly. There was some rumbling, some clicking and hissing as machinery came into movement, and then a compartment in the mountainside directly below them opened, right where the rope extended from. A rickety wagon rode out from it, shaking a little by the uneven rope, and the mountainside closed with a boom. Fid stared at it in equal amounts of surprise and disbelief.

- "What, did you think we were going to balance across by ourselves?" Spazzy said, and his face broke out in a broad grin, knowing perfectly well that that's what Fid had thought.

Fid stared at him, attempting to frown angrily for tricking him, but it wasn't possible. He couldn't manage himself to feel angry about it. He only felt relief. Relief over the cable car, but also ...

- "Thank god you're back to normal," Fid sighed, sinking together in a heap on the ground as the panic and fear subsided, leaving him somewhat exhausted.

- "Damn, I thought you knew me well enough by now," Spazzy said, still grinning. "Now hop on. The temple's on the other side."

[Horn]

#13

- "So, this toothpaste that they're making," Fid mumbled to Spazzy, trying to start a conversation to keep his mind off the squeaking and shaking from the rickety cage they were riding in. "It's some super awesome stuff, right? Does it bleach your teeth back into shining diamonds after you use it?"

- "Nah," Spazzy said, shrugging slightly. "It gives you this really nice minty breath, though, from what I've heard."

- "All toothpastes do that," Fid said.

- "They do?" Spazzy said, scratching the back of his neck. "I guess I wouldn't know. My teeth are a natural, everlasting, sparkling white, so I've never had to brush them."

- "Of course. What the hell was I thinking."

The cable car started squeaking and rumbling a bit louder; Fid almost choked on his own heart before realizing that it was slowing down. They had reached the other side of the valley, and quite timely, too. The two of them climbed out from the wagon, with certain struggles due to the even more uneven terrain on this side of the mountain than it had been on the other, and the wagon then folded neatly into a crow made out of wood and rubble and flew away into a convenient sunset, shrieking loudly as it did so. Fid was so relieved to be on the other side that he didn't care to question it. As it disappeared, so did the sunset, and the scorching daylight sun returned and glared its unwavering rays down at them.

- "Okay then, it should be just ahead from here," Spazzy said. "Along this path, right past that hill."

- "Well thank goodness," Fid sighed. "It feels like we might finally be getting somewhere. Even though this has nothing to do with my original adventure."

- "We'll get there soon!" Spazzy cackled. "And it'll be a real adventure! This adventure was pretty lacking in, er ... 'adventureness', but then again, this would probably be classed more as a sidequest, don't you think?"

- "I don't think, no, cuz I don't care," Fid said. "Can we just get this over with?"

- "Fine, fine," Spazzy said. "Okay, right past this tree, here."

They went past the tree.

- "And then past this patch of tall rocks."

They went past the patch of tall rocks.

- "And, past this fat guy with a top hat who's begging for money."

They went past the fat guy, Fid narrowly eluding him and his incessant pleading by sticking closer to Spazzy.

- "And, here we are!" Spazzy said with a broad smile, reaching his hand out in a showcasing gesture in the direction of the monks' temple.

And then they both stared.

- "... What the hell," Fid said after almost half a minute.

Spazzy shook his head, his mouth wide agape. The temple was in ruins. The outside garden, the stone walls, the towers, the magnificent portal leading inside - everything had been thoroughly thrashed. Every window was shattered, most of the walls were torn down, the garden and all the decorations looked like someone had run a huge plough straight through them, digging up lawns and tearing down trees in thorough and pointless destruction. And the wooden portal had been brutally smashed inwards, off the hinges, lying a good distance inside the courtyard smashed to splinters. Whatever had done this was brutally strong, and liked to show it off.

- "What DID this!?" Fid said, feeling a sense of dread grip hold of him again. Spazzy shook his head once again.

- "The fishmen ... did the fishmen come here? No, no ... They're strong, but they're not NEARLY this strong. Look, there's something looking like huge claw marks across the stone walls ..."

- "Oh my god." Fid took a step backwards. "Oh my god, it might still be around here. Dude, we gotta leave. We gotta leave now."

- "We can't," Spazzy said. "The wagonbird won't return until a few hours from now. Plus, Ubba's gonna be pissed off."

- "What if I told you that he's the least of my worries right now," Fid said squeakily, once again finding it difficult to breathe as fear set into him. "I'll even climb back across that rope with my bare hands, I swear it. Spaz, PLEASE, can we leave?"

- "I just gotta check," Spazzy said, starting to sneak towards the courtyard. "It can't be around here right now, or we would've heard it for sure. Whatever did this is huge. I gotta check if there are any survivors."

- "Oh, wow; he actually chooses to ignore what I say for a change," Fid hissed to himself angrily. "What a freakin' surprise, huh?"

- "There are none," a voice said from behind them; Fid jumped several feet up in the air by surprise and spun around towards where the voice came from, unintentionally performing a rather impressive acrobatic stunt. Spazzy turned around to look, as well. The fat guy in the top hat stood a few steps away from them, hands clasped behind his back, looking at them somberly.

- "Oh ..." Spazzy sighed, disappointed. "Right, you were here, too. You already checked, I take it?"

- "Checked?" The fat man looked genuinely surprised, adjusting his pompous hat that had started to tip over a bit. "Dearest, what an accusation."

- "Acc --...?" Spazzy took a few seconds to regain his composure. "No, no, I'm not accusing you of anything, I just asked if ..."

- "Think I'm a looter, is that it? A scavenger, digging among corpses to find something of value?" The fat man huffed, clearly offended, his face turning a lighter shade of pink.

- "Okay, so you didn't check, fine, I'm sorry," Spazzy sighed. "I was just wondering how you knew that nobody survived."

- "Oh! Oh, I see," the fat man said, seemingly almost embarrassed as he gave a little chuckle. "Oh, that's very easy. See, I know ... because I made sure."

Both Spazzy and Fid stared at him in disbelief; the fat man now held a pistol, having pulled it out from seemingly nowhere, and aimed it towards Fid. Fid felt cold sweat bead on his forehead; what the hell was going on? Who was this? What was he doing? Why --

BANG

[Horn]

#14

- "Where am I?"

You were shot. You are dead.

He tried to reach out around him; he recognized the feeling. It was very similar to the void. The pulsating feeling of nothingness, the buzzing yet unintelligible noises. Well, crud, he thought. He had at least figured that death would be a smidge quieter. Nothing to do about that, supposedly. At least nothing seemed to be hurting.

- "So that's it? My story ends here?"

You were shot. You are dead.

He grit his teeth together. That line of dialog was likely the only thing he was ever going to get from that voice. Maybe there's a reset button around here? So many other aspects of this adventure had been game-like so far; maybe it wasn't impossible?

However, he didn't get time to start looking before the grayish void around him took on a darker tone, and the buzzing started to quiet down. Oh, here we go, he thought. Seems like death is setting in for real, this time. The adventure had been too dangerous, after all. It's actually too bad, though, that it had to happen right now ... I've never had friends before, and I finally made one ...

----------------------------------------

- "SPAZ!!"

Fid continued screaming his name as Spazzy's limp body hung in his arms. Spazzy had swiftly bounced in front of Fid, and the fired bullet had hit him practically square in the temple. Blood was still gushing out from the wound, and his nose and mouth, and Fid clutched him tightly and panicking, tears flowing from his eyes; he didn't even seem to realize that he was screaming.

- "SPAZ!! DAMN IT, SPAZ!! DAMN IT!! WAKE UP!!"

- "Shit," muttered the fat man with the gun, clicking his tongue in dissatisfaction. "Always have to play the hero, huh. So, was it worth sacrificing your own glory to save the useless little kid?"

- "What the hell is wrong with you!?" Fid screamed at the man; his heart felt like it was on fire, with both fear and anger. "Where did you come from? Who the hell are you?"

- "Don't bother yourself with that," the man sighed, taking aim at Fid again. "Dead men don't remember tales, after all."

Fid looked down the barrel of the gun once again, paralyzed by fear, as the fat man swiftly pulled the trigger. The gun clicked, empty of ammunition. The fat man let out a disappointed grunt, showing a hint of worry that his only weapon had let him down.

- "Well, that's it for today. I'm sure we'll see each other again, though, so toodles!" he sang in an annoyingly chirpy tone before he turned tail and took off, bouncing like a ball through the mountainous area. Fid glared towards him, still raging inside; he wanted nothing more than to set after the man and tear his head off, but he couldn't leave Spazzy alone. Not like this.

- "What the hell is happening!?" he cried, hugging Spazzy's body tightly again; it was already beginning to grow cold. "Wasn't this supposed to be some nonsensical random-ass story leading nowhere? Why does stuff like this happen, all of a sudden? Will you stop sitting there on your smug arse and tell me already!!" He screamed the last sentence from the top of his lungs, seemingly hoping to reach some divine entity who would listen to him. "No, I'm not trying to contact any divine beings, I'm talking to YOU!!" he shouted, full of delusion. "I'm not friggin delusional!"

Sighing deeply, he continued crying silently, for sixty days, nine nights, and twenty-one pilots. Only a short time ago, he wanted to get rid of Spazzy so badly he'd do anything to achieve it. And now, when he was finally rid of him ...

- "Why ...?"

He brushed his palm across Spazzy's face, brushing off the dust that had gathered during the days he had been crying, and stood up, still sniffling. He didn't know what to do next. Spazzy had turned from an annoyance to his only solid foundation in this weird world, and now his only pillar of trust was gone. He had no idea where he was supposed to go from here. Should he still take care of the toothpaste problem? Did he still have time to save his mom? Did he even care anymore?

His quieting thoughts were interrupted by a rumbling, crashing sound; he snapped back to reality, perking his ears to try and hear what was going on, realizing that he'd been hearing it for some time now without paying attention to it. It was a rhythmical, thumping kind of sound, increasing in strength ...

Footsteps. Huge, thunderous footsteps, coming closer. Fid turned around towards the demolished temple again, feeling the ever so familiar dread sink over him as a shadow emerged over the horizon. Oh, no. Oh, god, no. It was here. It was back.

A dragon-like creature towered above him, at at least twice the height of the remains of the smashed temple, practically thoroughly clad in scales and horns. It walked on four legs, brandishing four large arms with sharp claws, and a strong tail swatting to and fro across the landscape, sweeping the occasional tree along with it. Its breathing was heavy and growling, and its yellow snake-slit eyes were fixated on Fid, as it had stopped in front of him. Fid was frozen in fear before the mighty beast as it slowly crouched down towards him, until its eyes were level with his; it snorted in his face, a warm stench of death coming from its nostrils as it examined him. Yeah, Fid thought, this is it. I should've never come here. I should've never left home. In fact, I wish I'd never been born. What have I even accomplished, ever?

The dragon snorted again.

- "ARE YOU LOST, LITTLE BOY?"

Fid fainted.

[Horn]

#15

- "LOOKS LIKE I GAVE YOU QUITE THE SCARE! I CERTAINLY DIDN'T MEAN TO; I THOUGHT EVERYONE ON THIS CONTINENT KNEW OF ME ALREADY, BUT NEW FACES EVERY NOW AND THEN ARE INEVITABLE, I SUPPOSE. BUT I'M GLAD; YOU SEEM TO BE FINE."

Fid blinked a few times, clearing his eyes from the groggy film of sleep, slowly recovering his consciousness as the harsh, grating voice greeted him awake. He half-sat up, rubbing his palm across his face a few times, trying to orient himself.

Then, the memories came crashing back.

He felt the panic squeeze his heart tight again, as he sat straight up, staring directly at the gigantic, scaly serpent that he'd seen only moments before his vision had gone black. It was looking down at him with an almost curious kind of look, however possible it was with that kind of grotesque face.

- "STILL SCARED, HUH," the grating voice said again, and it took Fid several moments to realize that it was coming from the dragon itself. "I SUPPOSE I CAN'T BLAME YOU. UM ... I'M NOT GOING TO EAT YOU. IF THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE THINKING. OR HURT YOU IN ANY OTHER FASHION, FOR THAT MATTER. OKAY? I DON'T KNOW IF YOU BELIEVE ME, BUT UM. I PROMISE. ALL RIGHT?"

Fid grasped his shirt tightly, trying to breathe deeply, trying to calm himself down. Logic told him that the dragon would've already eaten him if it wanted to, but his brain refused to listen. Solely focused on it and any movements it made, he calculated the possibility of getting out of here alive. Gauging the huge beast, noting its array of arms, its spikes and claws, its thick, barbed tail, its ...

... Was it wearing an apron?

The one bizarre detail caught Fid completely off guard. And now, he started to feel his senses return to him. He felt around on the surface he was sitting on - it was soft, and warm. Like a bed. Now able to tear his eyes off the dragon, he threw a few glances around. He was indoors. It looked like a cottage; it gave off the "cozy little house out on the countryside" vibe, save for the "little" part seeing as it was scaled according to the dragon's dimensions. There was furniture, there were curtained windows, there was a stove and even a fireplace, all gigantic. And he confirmed - he was in fact lying on a bed. A human-sized bed, he noted. And, what was that smell? Was it ... food? Was the dragon actually cooking?

- "Where ..." Fid noticed his voice was a little rough, as well as still a little shaky from fear. He cleared his throat. "Where am I?"

- "YOU'RE IN MY HOUSE," the dragon responded. "AND I'M HELENE. SO, PEOPLE SIMPLY CALL IT HELENE'S HOUSE. CREATIVE, DON'T YOU THINK?"

- "Helene ...? Oh ... You're a girl?" Fid asked meekly.

- "OF COURSE I'M A GIRL," the dragon responded, sounding almost insulted. "CAN'T YOU TELL? MY SHOULDER SPIKES ARE CROOKED, NOT STRAIGHT, AREN'T THEY?"

- "Oh. I ... I didn't know, I'm sorry." Fid crawled together on the bed, wondering if he should leave the dragon to whatever it was doing. And then, as he'd managed to calm down a little bit, the one memory he didn't want to acknowledge struck him from nowhere. "Spaz ...!" he gasped involuntarily. "Where is he?"

- "OH, YOU MEAN THE FELLOW YOU WERE CRADLING?" Helene's tone became softer, more excusing. "I BROUGHT HIM ALONG. I'VE LAID HIM DOWN IN THE GUEST ROOM." She sighed. "HIS LIFE HAS ALREADY LEFT HIS BODY, THOUGH. BUT I'M SURE YOU WERE AWARE."

- "Yeah." Fid felt his mood sink drastically, and he could feel the tears start to burn behind his eyes once again, but grit his teeth together to fight them back. "Thank you for bringing him along, anyway."

- "IT'S FINE," she said, as comfortingly as she could. "HE SEEMED LIKE SOMEONE IMPORTANT TO YOU. WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED BACK THERE?"

- "Oh, right ...! The temple ... Someone ..."

Fid looked up at Helene, almost biting his tongue. However friendly she seemed to be, it didn't feel like the best of ideas to throw accusations at something with more teeth than he had bones in his body. Helene seemed to pick up on what he had on his mind, though.

- "AH, THE TEMPLE; NO, THAT WASN'T ME," she said. "I SUPPOSE IT COULD POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN MY BROTHER, BUT HE SAID HE SWORE OFF THE ALCOHOL YEARS AGO, SO I HIGHLY DOUBT IT ... SO, I'M AFRAID I CAN'T HELP YOU THERE."

- "Okay," Fid said. "Well, there was that, and then there was this odd, fat guy who ... He took out a gun, and he ... he ..."

- "A FAT GUY?" Helene interrupted. "WAS HE WEARING A TOP HAT?"

- "... Yeah, how did you --"

- "OH, DEAR." Helene stopped stirring in the huge pot she had standing on the stove, and sat down on one of her wooden chairs; her doing so was a sight to behold in itself, considering how her anatomy didn't seem optimal for it. "IT WOULD LOOK LIKE YOU'VE GOTTEN YOURSELF IN A SPOT OF TROUBLE."

- "B-but why?" Fid stuttered. "I don't understand! He said he 'made sure' there were no survivors at the temple, and then he shot ... he shot ..." He couldn't bear to hear himself say it. "What did we do? Is he after me? Why?"

- "I CAN'T ANSWER THAT, EITHER," Helene said. "NO ONE IS QUITE SURE WHY HE DOES WHAT HE DOES. HE'S AN ENIGMA, THAT MAN. IT'S POSSIBLE THAT HE HAS SOME GOAL ... AND, IT'S EQUALLY POSSIBLE THAT HE'S JUST DOING THIS TO PASS THE TIME."

- "But he killed ... He killed my friend ...!" Fid said, feeling the anger start to smolder inside him. "To pass the time? Is that why he did that?"

- "LIKE I SAID, I DON'T KNOW." Helene turned towards the pot again, scooping around the innards in it with a gigantic ladle. "THE SOUP SEEMS TO BE ABOUT DONE. HOW ABOUT WE GET SOME FOOD IN YOU; YOU SEEM ABSOLUTELY STARVING. I'LL TRY TO TELL YOU WHAT I KNOW ABOUT THE FAT MAN. HOWEVER, REST ASSURED, IF YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS OF REVENGE, YOU SHOULD FORGET THEM; FOCUS ON REMAINING IN HIDING FOR A WHILE, INSTEAD. HE IS IN NO WAY AN EASY FOE. I DISBELIEVE I COULD HOLD MY GROUND AGAINST HIM, MYSELF. THEN AGAIN, I'M NOT A FAN OF FIGHTING."

- "Wow. So, he's some kind of end boss? Are we at that stage already? Who is that guy, even?"

- "AH, YES," Helene said, while taste-testing the soup and attempting to pour it up in a bowl seemingly way too tiny for her claws to handle, appropriate for Fid. "HE'S RATHER FAMOUS, IN FACT - HE'S A SPIRIT GUIDE. HIS NAME IS BOB."

[Horn]

#16

Evening was setting. The soft pitter patter of rain had started to sound against the windows of the cottage, and Helene had given Fid some soup from the pot she was cooking in; she'd poured it up in a small bowl perfectly suited for him, somehow without spilling a single drop of it. Fid paid extra attention to these small acts of careful dexterity she occasionally showed, being equally impressed by them every time. She had also offered him to stay the night, if it would relieve him of some fatigue. Fid had spent some time talking to her about himself, about Spaz, and about their mission, and about how they had planned to visit Bob from the very beginning before this had all happened, and she had listened attentively to him, nodding slowly in acceptance of the stories he told and responding to a few of his questions. For the most part of the latter of the day, however, they had both been sitting silent. Helene let Fid spend some time inside his own bubble, seeing if it could calm him down somewhat.

As the red sun started to cool down behind the clipart-like mountains by the horizon, Helene threw a glance at the clock on the wall, its ticking being the only thing apart from the rain to break the silence.

- "SO, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO NOW?" she inquired carefully. "WILL YOU STILL PURSUE HIM, OR WILL YOU FIND ANOTHER WAY TO HELP YOUR MOTHER?"

Fid shrugged. He honestly had no idea what to do.

- "I have to help my mother somehow, though," he said after a while. "Spaz became a victim. It's tearing at my chest. It's the most unpleasant feeling I've ever had. And I don't want something like this to ever happen again, if I have any choice in the matter. I think I would feel even worse if I let someone die knowing full well that I could've done something for them. But without anyone to guide me ..."

- "WELL, IT SEEMS THAT NOTHING STOPPED YOU FROM INITIATING THIS ADVENTURE, DESPITE NOT KNOWING WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO DO ONCE YOU WENT OUT THERE," Helene responded. "HAVE THE CONDITIONS REALLY CHANGED FROM THE BEGINNING OF YOUR JOURNEY?"

- "Well, yes," Fid grumbled. "What's changed is that I learned that I can't do anything on my own, and now that I lost the only one who was helping me, I'll be stumbling around in the dark."

- "DID YOU REALLY LEARN THAT? OR IS IT JUST SOMETHING YOU'RE CONVENIENTLY TELLING YOURSELF?" Helene gave Fid a curious look while saying this, and Fid could feel his cheeks start to burn.

- "What the hell are you implying?" he hissed angrily. "Are you saying that I'm a coward?"

- "MY CHILD," Helene said calmly. "I DON'T MEAN TO BE CONDESCENDING. BUT YOUR FRIEND HAS NOT LED YOU ON THIS ADVENTURE FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. THE STEP YOU TOOK INTO OUR WORLD WAS YOUR CHOICE ALONE, AND THE FIRST STEP IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST. DO YOU NOT THINK THAT YOU'RE SIMPLY FOOLING YOURSELF INTO THINKING THAT YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING?"

- "But I can't. I CAN'T." Fid sighed. "I can't punch cracks in walls, shoot arrows the size of lamp posts, fire guns, tear down buildings, or ... or ... or look at people with blindingly blue eyes and make them submit to me. I took that step here before I knew there were crazy friggin' super people here that could probably kill with a single touch. I can't do anything."

- "AGAIN." Helene bowed down towards Fid, looking him straight into the eyes. "DO YOU KNOW SO, OR DO YOU JUST THINK SO?"

Fid shrugged. He couldn't think of a single skillset of his, apart from quoting funny pictures from the internet.

- "I HAVE A PROPOSITION FOR YOU," Helene continued. "IT'S BEEN SOME TIME SINCE I HAD SOMEONE TO TEACH. I THINK IT WOULD DO MY OLD BONES SOME GOOD. DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED?"

- "Interested in what?" Fid said, a spark of curiosity lighting in his mind. "Do you mean ..."

- "OF COURSE YOU HAVE A SKILL," Helene confirmed. "YOU WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO ENTER THIS WORLD OTHERWISE. YOU SIMPLY DON'T KNOW ABOUT IT YET. AND I'M GOING TO HELP YOU FIND IT. BESIDES, YOU'RE THE FRIGGIN' MAIN CHARACTER; YOU'D BE PRETTY PATHETIC WITHOUT SOME KIND OF AWESOME SHABANG YOU COULD DO, DON'T YOU THINK?"

- "Don't even remind me," Fid sighed. "But are you serious? And you'll train me? Is this going to be some sort of sensei-student-thing?"

- "YOU CAN SEE IT THAT WAY IF YOU WANT TO. THE POINT IS, YOU WANT TO SAVE YOUR MOTHER. HAVE I AT LEAST UNDERSTOOD THAT CORRECTLY?"

- "Yeah." Fid shook his head, attempting to rid himself of his gnawing insecurities, as well as a few lice. "I mean, yes. Yes, I do."

- "WELL THEN. I WILL HELP YOU FIND AND DEVELOP WHAT IT IS THAT YOU'RE GOOD AT. IF YOU'RE LUCKY, MAYBE IT WILL ACTUALLY BE SOMETHING OF USE TO YOU."

Fid looked at her in astonishment, practically forgetting to look down into the ground. Despite the string of randomness that had followed him so far, this was a series of events that he had not been expecting, simply because it seemed too good to be true. His journey so far seemed to have been nothing but a hail of negativity.

- "And what, um ... What do you want in return?" he asked carefully.

- "NOTHING," she replied, almost abruptly. "I ONLY WANT YOU TO TRY YOUR BEST AT GETTING TO WHERE YOU WANT."

Fid nodded. "I should be able to do that."

[Horn]

#17

Back in the past, Fid had rarely regretted much. He figured that most things happened for a reason, that he did most things for a reason, and that even the negatives turned into experiences that he could learn from. Certainly, he considered himself a rotten worthless brat, but he admired himself, at least in that regard, for having that kind of composure. He knew what had gone right and what had gone wrong, and he had the chance to learn from it. Whether he did so or not was an entirely different case, though. But the point in question was, there were very few decisions he made that he regretted.

This one right now, at least for the time being, might've just belonged to those few decisions.

- "PUSH HARDER!!" Helene's voice bellowed through the training room. "ARCH YOUR BACK AND PUSH AGAINST THE MOMENTUM!"

- "I can't do it!" Fid screamed in exhaustion. "I'm gonna die!"

- "DAMN RIGHT YOU'RE GONNA DIE IF YOU DISAPPOINT ME LIKE THIS! NOW PUSH!!"

- "Yeah, okay, so I understand the physical training bit," Fid wheezed while heaving his entire body weight against a contraption of sorts, which was pushing him backwards with increasingly heavy force, "but why the spikes!? I'm not gonna get strong if you kill me!!"

He threw another glance behind him; a large wall decorated with razor sharp nails was situated behind him, inexorably nudging closer to him as the contraption kept pushing him towards it.

- "IT'S FOR MOTIVATION!" Helene snorted. "YOU WANTED TO GET STRONG, THEN THERE'S ONLY ONE OPTION: GET!! STRONG!! COME ON, ONE MORE MINUTE!"

Whining by both fear and lack of any remaining strength, Fid pushed his back against the machine in front of him, digging his heels down into the floor, sweat practically spraying from every pore of his body as his pathetic, wimpy little frame tried to exert power it could only dream of having due to its disgusting lack of muscles and dignity.

- "And what about the narrator?" he wheezed, coughing from the effort. "Did you tell him to badmouth me during the training, too? Is it part of this whole thing?"

- "OH, NAH. IT LOOKS LIKE HE JUST LIKES TO DO THAT ANYWAY."

Fid could almost feel his mind go blank and his sight go blurry as the remaining shreds of strength started to leave him. Just as he was about to pass out, succumbing to his fate, he felt the contraption come to a halt. A few seconds later, it started to recline gently, and Fid sank down to the floor, sitting in a puddle of his own sweat. The wall of nails was a mere few meters away from him.

- "VERY GOOD!" Helene chanted happily, clapping her four huge clawed hands. "TAKE A TEN MINUTE BREAK NOW, WILL YOU, AND THEN WE'LL DO THE RUNNING TRAINING. TOMORROW I'LL INCREASE THE PRESSURE ON THE NAILWALL PUSHER."

- "You've got to be ..." Fid could barely even finish the sentence. He kept wiping sweat off his forehead, his deep and heavy breathing stealing any chance of talking from him that he could muster. Helene brought him a bottle of water.

- "REMEMBER, THIS ISN'T JUST ABOUT STRENGTH," she said, "EVEN THOUGH I'M IMPRESSED WITH YOUR EFFORT, CONSIDERING YOUR FAIRLY SMALL FRAME. WHATEVER POWER YOU'RE HIDING IN THERE SOMEWHERE, WE'RE GONNA FIND IT AND WE'RE GONNA HAVE TO FORCE IT OUT. BY EFFORT, OR BY FEAR."

- "Yeah, I gotcha," Fid said, still huffing heavily, but regaining his ability to talk ever so slightly as he took big swigs from the bottle of water, breaking into a fit of coughing and gasping as some of it went down the wrong pipe. "It's just so ..."

- "EXCRUCIATING, YES."

Helene looked out over the training hall they were in; it was situated below the cottage she lived in, and took up a considerable amount of space, even though it seemed to be largely empty. Some equipment was scattered every here and there, but most of it looked more like an Olympic field of sorts, or an arena, rather than a training room. Fid could imagine battles taking place in here; great feats of strength between chosen warriors duking it out with each other. Maybe Helene was more influential than he even knew, he thought. She did say that most people on the continent knew of her, before.

- "HOWEVER, WE DON'T HAVE A LOT OF TIME," she continued. "I'M PUTTING YOU THROUGH THIS FOR YOUR SAKE. YOU HAVE SOMEONE YOU NEED TO RESCUE. YOU NEED TO GET GOING ON YOUR ADVENTURE, AND QUICKLY."

- "Yeah. Oh, man ... I wonder how mom's doing." Fid lost himself in thought for a few seconds. "Is she still alive? Am I even gonna be able to do anything for her? What if I'm doing all this for nothing?"

- "DON'T LOSE HOPE, NOW. LOOK FORWARD AND KEEP FAITH. AND, I'M ALMOST CERTAIN SHE'S ALIVE; IT'S WHAT'S KEEPING THIS STORY ALIVE, AT LEAST FOR NOW. THE WRITER WILL THINK OF SOME KIND OF PLOT POINT TO KEEP IT THAT WAY."

- "I don't know. He's been kind of a dick so far."

- "FAIR ENOUGH. WELL, RESTING TIME'S OVER," Helene said abruptly, pulling Fid out of his false sense of security. "TIME TO RUN UNTIL YOUR LEGS FALL OFF!"

- "Oh, God ..."