Sea Star - Orm Marius

The Jungle of Devil's Deep - 2022

They'd reached a dead end.

Claudia jumped off of Arthur's back and scurried away from the cliff's edge. That was one hell of a drop.

"We can jump, we'll survive the fall," Orm decided.

"Are you nuts?!"

"Are you kidding?" Arthur agreed.  "That'll hurt!"

"So what are we going to do? Stay here and fight the hopping demons?"

Arthur growled. "What is that? What does it say?" He gestured to the base of the giant statue towering over them. 

"The writing is Ancient Atlantean: 'a true king builds bridges'," Orm translated.

"Cool," said Claudia. "Good thing we brought him."

"What are you doing?" Orm demanded. 

In answer, Arthur charged forward with an "AH!" and launched himself at the statue. Then he bounced harmlessly off the stone structure and collapsed to the ground, groaning.  

Orm  stared down at him unimpressed. "Got any more krill-brained ideas?" Claudia  howled with laughter.

But it wasn't as much of a futile attempt as the blond brother originally thought. Slowly but surely, there was a faint cracking. The stone broke, the giant statue tipping over and landing perfectly across the gaping hole like a - wait for it - bridge. 

Arthur staggered to his feet, the biggest grin on his face.  "See: a true king builds bridges."

He charged ahead, Claudia right on his heels, wanting to put as much distance between themselves and the appropriately named 'hopping demons' as possible.

Orm reluctantly gave in. "It's a metaphor!"

"Hey! I forgot to tell you: mom says she loves you and thinks about you all the time!"

"Aw!" Claudia. 

"Why the hell are you telling me this now?" Orm. 

"I don't know! I'm just tired of waiting for the right moment." Arthur. 

Finally they made it to the other side of their 'bridge'. 

"Push!" Arthur ordered.

Claudia didn't know if she helped at all, but she joined them in pushing with all her might to tip the statue down so the bugs couldn't reach them. 

It worked. They watched as the statue and the grasshoppers plunged down into the pit below.

One grasshopper, the one that had been in the lead, tried its luck however, and hopped off the statue just before it could fall. Arthur responded by slamming it with his fist.

"We would not have survived that fall," Claudia said as the distant - make that very distant - crash echoed from far, far below. 

Arthur smiled smugly at his brother. "You see, I'm pretty sure my metaphor just saved your ass."

"Dude, that was awesome!" She and Arthur high-fived. She turned to Orm for another high-five but he just ignored it - or had no idea what she meant. "And so it continues..." 

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There was no way they were making it all the way to the volcano that day. Night fell and the events of the past several hours caught up with them. They were pooped, to put it lightly.

Of course, a jungle mutated by orichalcum sounded like just the place to spend the night - not. Orm took first watch - well, was told to take it. Soon Arthur was snoring away.