That World Called Zerigoph: The War's End

Chapter 7

James awoke with his back to a tree, staring into a blue tinted world of perpetual night. He looked around slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the glowing blue spots everywhere before carefully standing and brushing himself off. His sword was still in place, he was still dressed, the silver stitch still marked his chest. His eyes rose to trace the low hanging canopy, noting the distant neon oncaps dripping like jelly without ever falling. The tree was thick with a wider base - it wasn't as big as a Great Oak - it looked like it was trying and failing to mimic an earthen tree. Branches wove and split like copper wires, the leaves tinted deep blue - everything around here was, actually. He saw a non-blue glow in the distance and followed it over soft dirt coated in dead leaves resembling fat pine needles. Everything here held a stable humidity, a stable warmth. It wasn't quite marshy, but it was definitely a heavier forest. The colors shifted as he grew closer to the yellow.

He wasn't released into the plains as he'd expected. He still couldn't see the sky, but now, rather than being covered in a thick canopy and abandoned to bioluminescent plants, this chunk of the forest was taller and more open. The sky was still mostly hidden except for slivers of that familiar faded teal. Trees battled for the sky against tall, thin stalks shooting dramatically from the ground and ending in large, flat caps. They turned the light golden as it filtered through jelly heads James wanted to touch. It looked slimy and sticky; it looked like it would taste good.

Hocaps, James thought, the giant mushrooms of the Old World. He heard clicking and instinctively grabbed the hilt of his sword, turning to the noise. A creature appeared from around a hocap stalk, with a squishy, animal body and mechanical spider's legs. Each leg ended in a disturbing human hand, also slightly wrong. It didn't seem to have eyes, but it had a mouth with buck teeth like a hamster. James made a sound of disgust while grimacing at it. He hoped they weren't hostile for the sake of avoiding looking at them. It clicked again, its mouth mechanical like a nutcracker. It let out a horrific screech that caused James to bend over, cupping his ears.

More screeches and clicks echoed all around him, growing louder with each passing second as James ran through the forest. Golden light wasn't worth it if those things could hunt. Glancing over his shoulder, James saw dozens of those spider mammals swinging from branches and leaping off of hocaps in hot pursuit. He dove into the nook of a tree, baring his sword against the opening and hoping they weren't too hungry. The screeching turned back to clicking as the closest few tilted their heads, confused by his movements.

Well if they're blind, they can hear like the devil, James thought, catching his breath. He crept slowly from the tree and kept walking. He had no objective or destination; he knew Max should exist around here somewhere, but that wasn't much to go off of. He didn't even know if Zagranakan had broken from the continent yet.

Just as the golden light sector was tinted by mushrooms, the next sector was tinted green by glass leaves. Every tree in this sector was thin and tall with soft bark that warped underhand. The hocaps here were thin and tall, with small heads barely stretching beyond their stalks. They weren't rigid like the other hocaps, but twisted and warped like normal trees to slide into the tightest open spaces in the canopy. Unlike the glass leaves, they were a muted blue. There was a faint buzzing of insects, but James couldn't find a single bug. He never waved his hand in front of his face to shoo them away, never kicked them off his leg. Beyond the buzzing, he heard hissing slithers that made his spine shiver, but could still see nothing. It sounded as if the trees were breathing. There were no snakes around, the only Kazikian snake James knew of being a god that wouldn't be corporeal here.

He landed hard on his chest, proud that he hadn't dropped his sword. He turned onto his back and propped himself up on his arms, looking for what tripped him. All he saw was a small vine he'd somehow twisted around his ankle.