I thought back to the amorphous shape that I had witnessed when I had to separate from Rilah. It was so large that I didn't so much hear it, as feel it descend.
The massive weight rippling through the earth was not unlike a strike against the skin of a tightly stretched drum.
It felt foreboding, like the forest itself were too small to contain its nacing presence. The malice that bled off its silhouette like waves was so heavy in my mind, that I had to physically wrench my head away from the imaginary visual; in order to regain even a slightest semblance of control from the illusory invader.
I blinked wildly, as if his presence had blinded in the real world, and placed a palm to my head to soothe the subtle pang of a headache that was inflicted.
Witnessing my apparent distress, Fimbs and Janny looked with concern. Before they could ask, I volunteered, "I ...h-heard sothing, before we were separated. Or, felt it, really.
"It matched the detail of what you had described. It was big, and it was silent, and— There was this big feather on the ground, before..."
I shook my head, as my voice trailed off, palpating with a discernible level of fear. I had only caught its shape in the miasma of my general awareness, but it seed unnatural for a creature that large to move without disturbing the surrounding environnt to an equally massive consequence.
"I'm not sure what the relationship between the feather and the creature is," I continued, "but Vassur said sothing about a Gigasven when I brought it to him. Do you guys think we really have what it takes to handle sothing like that?"
Janius had a face that could turn a sliper into stone, while Fimbs simply looked confused. "What is a Gigasven?" she asked.
"A na of unknown origin," Janny supplied, fully digesting the gravity of that claim. Every creature in The Stalks is specifically described with its ho domain for the utility of knowing the dangers present in every zone, but our knowledge only goes up to a point.
Creatures from the Nightwhere and beyond have only a handful of stories to their na, in general; and their recollection can range from anywhere between the third and fourth domains with very little to differentiate the boundary.
Even worse, it could've migrated from the fifth; where stories don't ever return from, at all—The dreaded Hadal Forest Domain.
There was no way that I could take on such a creature on my own, but with my two friends, here, there just may have been a sliver of a chance.
Fimbs didn't seem so convinced. "How is that possible? Doesn't every creature have a ho to return to?"
Janny sighed, "It's not that it doesn't have a ho; it's just that no one has ever lived to see it." Possibly a moot distinction, but it seed to calm her down, so.
"And now whatever horrible amalgam that crawled out of the deepest darkest corners of the stalks is hanging sowhere over our heads." I said, feeling ashad for the tremor of dread that thought dug into the pit of my stomach.
"And they've got Rilah, too." Janius reminded.
The tactic worked famously, as the thought of my friend alone in the canopy fending for herself against the wiles of a mindless unfathomable monstrosity was enough to set my entire spinal column afla with anger.
"To the fifth with fear," I spat; unquenchable fury dripping from every syllable. "To the fifth with waiting. To the fifth with safety, and patience. To the fifth, wherever that creature may have co."
Janny nodded excitedly, as ecstatic as ever to see renewed with zeal and vigor at the circumstance I had found myself within.
"Yes, Zoel! Remind the stalks who is in control!" he practically scread at , much to Fimbs' chagrin.
"I couldn't care less about controlling the forest. But we are going to find a way up into that canopy if I am climbing with my depth diving teeth!" I huffed, suddenly out of breath. "Fimbs!"
She ca to attention with a start, like she had been conscripted into so sort of army. "Y-yes, Zoel?!"
"I need you to tell anything that you might know about climbing trees without relying on feet. Janny and I are both down a leg and two soles, respectively."
"You an, we're going straight up?!" She looked like I was breaking a cardinal rule of her trade.
I didn't care any more. I just needed to do sothing. Anything!
So I snapped back, "It's the only way we can gain any insight whatsoever on what's actually going on with Rilah, right now. Do you have any ideas, or do I have to free-hand this?"
Janius stepped in, with a polite laugh. "I'm sure you have your concerns about the logistics of how to do this safely, and all, but... I think he's trying to say that we're a little short on ti, and seeing as this is your expertise—Well, we'd all love to know what exactly our options are. If you would, please?"
She gave him a look that a cat might wear after you dumped a bowl of cool river water onto its body, and sighed. "It's a little short-notice, but I suppose I could teach you both about wedging."
"Amazing!" Janny exclaid, so glad to hear that there was a way forward, that he had to go back and clarify that he didn't exactly know the first thing that she was talking about. "And, what exactly is wedging used for?"
She smiled, slightly chard by his mistake. "It's a thod for securing yourself to a tree without using a rope or anchors. We're only supposed to use it for small trees because the bark gets more rubbery as you get higher in the trunks, but... this is an ergency, after all."
We were walked through the basics, and given just enough history to understand the thodology. It was learned from observing so primate's thod of traversal.
I mused silently, 'I won't forgive that monster!' from several yards up the tree.
My fingers were fastened securely into the slender gaps in the bark that was so old and overgrown through the ages that the slender fissures that were so characteristic of normal trees had developed into vast canyons of sharp, biting rhytido.
The challenge was finding the patterns of convergence that matched the shape of the downward turned palm. Then, it was as easy as slipping into a glove.
Incensed by the fury Janny gave, I climbed for satisfaction. I climbed for retribution. I climbed to cause upheaval. I climbed because none minded. I climbed to reclaim standing. I climbed to rescue Rilah. I climbed for all humankind.
If every other person in the glade appreciated the peace and solitude of their daily lives, then I would shatter that peace, and bring the rage of the forest down upon our heads; alone.
Any peace so fragile did not deserve to persist, regardless. I would forge a new peace by the force of my own hands, or perish in pursuit of the dream.
My eyes scanned the bark for the next clear handhold. In any significant expanse of a strong bluestriker, there would always be between two, or ten different hand shaped divots, and it was the wedger's task to chart a course across the surface of the tree that chained a regular path that was no more than an arm's length apart.
The signs were clear, upon study, but in a rush it would be easy to confuse a suitable hold for one that simply matched a majority of the requirents. Several tis, I forced my fingers into a gap, only to find that the pads of my fingertips were scraped raw by the triangular crack that was much tighter than it had initially appeared.
My hands were scuffed by many such mistakes, but eventually I settled into a rhythm that made sense, and I was flying up the side of the tree like I had been doing it for weeks; not hours.
Just as my arms were growing sore, we passed through a particularly ornery patch of thick leaves that were more densely packed than the others, and the brilliant wash of afternoon daylight rained down, upon us.
We had broken through, to the canopy.
The layer of compact, overcrowded leaves appeared like a new earth, several hundred feet above the other one. The fluctuating surface rippled and ebbed in the wind—as if the leaves, themselves, were simply a layer of green moss on the surface of so kind of incomprehensibly vast, continent-spanning body of water—and it stretched out for miles in every direction, with the slender treetops poking through like the only true foliage on this seamless, unbroken plain of verdant erald.
Several small creatures milled about on this elevated surface, and it suddenly clicked in my brain how Vassur had explained that many species never return back to the surface at all; for fear of the shadowy undergrowth, and the demons that lurk in the darkness spake an ill peril to a ek little lemur who could much more easily thrive off the berries and bugs that luxuriate freely in the sunlight above.
Food, water, shelter—they were all here. Who would ever find a use for inedible dirt? Why would anyone think to yearn for mother earth, when the sky held such lots of generous, fructuous plenty?
The fowl and foal didn't react much to our arrival—having grown accustod, long ago, to the serene benignity of this layer. Birds hopped haplessly between the leaves, with full trust in the limbs unseen underneath to hold their weight.
I scanned the horizon, and then, I saw it: big, boisterous, and black as twilight—its many feathers seemingly carved from the midnight sky. The Gigasven was a horrid creature, with four sets of wings flapping madly as its talons dug onto the purchase of one of the taller trees, and its bright crimson eyes burned like a cot through that inky void.
Judging by its stance, it seed to be focused on a small bundle in the middle flats, splayed out prone, like they didn't care to hide from this apex predator. The gigasven croaked, and rattled, at such a deep register, that I felt it vibrating my bones...
and it might have just been my mind playing trick upon , but it almost sounded like—Words. English words. The animal was talking to its prey, in a human tongue, and... it seed to be using reason on them.
The devil's origin was now without a doubt—It ca from Hadal Forest.
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