Hollow Henry

Popping into existence in a dimly lit tree cave with a half sleeping city guard is a combative experience. Lee nearly cut him at the sudden surprise. He'd been gone for hours apparently, and she'd just assumed he was dead. The night's antics had come to an end when he took the monster away.

It didn't take long for her to settle back to sleep. He agreed to take watch for the rest of the night. The regret for his generosity came around 8 hours in. He had run out of things to do quietly in the dark. He thought about waking her up so he could get some sleep, but the level up had erased all traces of fatigue. He was wide awake and bored as hell.

He did have enough time to play around with his new skill, even if it was in a limited fashion. When he used it, he couldn't keep up with his own movements. It was disorienting. When he used it in conjunction with hyper focus however, he felt like he finally had the combat advantage he was looking for. His body moved as fast as his mind did when he used them together. He felt like time had slowed down, and he had free reign to run a muck. He watched his DiHexan tick down to keep an eye on how much he was spending. With hyper focus active, his DiH went down by 2 points every 5 or so seconds. It was a good dilation of his perception of time, it was reliving to know he wasn't spending as much as he thought he was. The combo was still pretty expensive though, so he'd have to use the trick sparingly.

After what felt like an eternity, he saw the light of the early morning sun breaking through the canopy. It was a gentle blue lit morning. The smell of dew was heavy in the air, and the fauna slowly came to life around them.

When he thought there was enough light, which really wasn't much, he started saying Lee's name until she woke up.

“You watched me sleep, didn’t you,” she declared through a yawn.

“If I say no, will you be upset?” He asked, already prepared for her bullshit.

“What time is it?” She asked, ignoring his question.

“How the hell would I know,” he laughed. “I don’t even know how long a day is.”

She blinked at him. “You really don’t know?”

“I only just got here,” he defended. “I’m used to a day being 24 hours, but that was a damn long night.”

“Double that, and you’re on the right track,” she said, standing to stretch.

A 48 hour day made sense for what he’d experienced. It was going to take some getting used to. It also explained why she’d slept for so long. He thought she must have just been incredibly tired from the walk, but maybe the people here just slept longer to get through the night. He hoped he would sleep properly again at some point. Being constantly full of energy was great, but he would really miss sleep if it was gone forever. It was one of his favourite things to do. He watched her jealously as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes while he thought about it.

It did give them a good amount of daylight to walk with though, so there was a very thin silver lining. That was if he still had the strength to stand. He might have been wide awake, but his hunger had him feeling weak. He rubbed at his belly, and looked down to the forest below.

“I think our first stop is breakfast. Do you know any good places around here?”

She stretched and yawned again.

“Yeah. I know a place where some Demai guy that stole our monster meat will chase down a rabbit for you,” she said, looking him right in the eyes.

“That's fair,” he sighed.

Shortly after their short conversation, he found himself crawling through the bushes at the base of a neighbouring tree.

He had to use hyper focus to find anything, but the forest was alive enough for it to be a short search. Something was snuffling around close by, and he was on the hunt. When he was close enough to see the hefty looking chicken, he activated both of his skills at once and pounced. It made for easy prey with his incredible speed. The bird was crushed under his weight in the tackle, so he didn't even have to kill it on purpose.

COMBAT:

You have slain *1 T1 ‘Chunky Chicken’. You have gained *50[E].

It looked like it had a name, even though it didn't look like a normal chicken. It had a parrot's beak and a scaled neck. He figured some other player had discovered the creature before him, and named it ‘Chunky Chicken’ for the system to use. He liked seeing that feature in action. Laughing at the thought of someone finding a ‘Drop Bear’, he made his way back up the tree to make breakfast.

It was heaven to finally feast.

Lee didn't eat too much of the thing, since it was about the size of an ostrich, only with shorter legs and a shorter neck. Henry couldn't stop eating the thing. It was gone within the hour, and he was picking his teeth with the bones in satisfaction. Lee kept glancing at him the whole time, surely amazed at the speed that he was inhaling the poultry. He'd never eaten so much in his life. His new body was going to require a lot of calories to keep moving apparently.

Once the fire was snuffed, and the bones were collected into his Temple, they started yet another long walk.

Lee fashioned together a sandal out of the discarded pieces of her former boot and a piece of cloth that she got from her shirt. He offered up his crusty bandage for her to use as well, but she refused it for some reason.

The further they walked, the higher up the mountain they climbed. After another few silent hours of mindless trudging, the warmth of the sun was finally kissing their skin through brief cracks of canopy cover. Lee knew of a place that had what she called ‘emergency ascent vehicles’. Apparently their best bet to get back into the city was to just get high enough above the trees to be seen. The guards on watch would spot them, and someone would send a boat to pick them up.

He was eagerly anticipating the prospect of a proper bed by the time they reached the outpost they were searching for.

The structure was 2 storeys tall, stood on stilts to keep it from the forest floor. A balcony ran around its perimeter, presumably for whoever was occupying it to keep watch. He was sure that nobody was home though. The place had what had to have been decades of vegetation covering it. The glass windows would have been impossible to see through with the thick layers of vine that covered every inch. There was a rope ladder hanging from the centre of it, leading to a trap door. He wondered how the structure hadn't rotted yet. It was obvious that nobody had been by to maintain the place in a really long time. Whatever they'd used to build it was sturdy stuff. Even the rope felt like it was new, once he'd brushed off the layers of dirt and dust anyway.

The inside was entirely different. The floor of the main room was tiled with a smooth stone, and the walled off bunk rooms had actual carpet. There was a sign written in 2 different languages placed next to the doorway requesting people to remove their armour before entering the sleeping area. Outside the doorway sat 3 large open chests for storage. There was a small hearth still burning at the corner of the tiled area, complete with a long table and several chairs right next to it. There was even a separate room for the bathroom and toilet area. It was easy for him to see the plumbing too, since they hadn't bothered to hide it. Most of the wall space was taken up by cabinets and shelving, along with a tasteful amount of decoration. It was clearly a structure belonging to Therveinia, based off of the banners. Lastly were the paintings of beautiful landscapes. The horizon in each was curving in the opposite direction, and one of them showed a second landscape upside-down above the first. Whatever they were portraying was within a theme apparently. The place was significantly more modern than he was expecting, especially after seeing it from the outside.

He peppered Lee with questions about it all, and she answered each of them with as much patience as she could manage.

The plumbing wasn't connected to anything outside of the building, aside from a hole for the toilet. The waste from the toilet and sink would drain through the hole into a larger tank underneath the ground. The waste was apparently eaten by some of the local critters shortly after it appeared in the tank, which was convenient. The water itself came from something she called a ‘queer crystal’. The particular queer crystal built into the plumbing was in tune with the aspect of water. Through some other magical engineering, the water was extracted and fed to the pipes. The hearth burned with its own crafty magic, but that was done through ink and fuel. It would stay warm enough to keep alive, but if they wanted it to get hot enough to cook anything, they would have to give it something for fuel.

He was almost disappointed they'd be leaving the place behind.

They rested for some time, throwing stored coles they found in a cabinet onto the hearth. The fresh water from the taps, and the stale biscuits in the cabinet were a very welcome treat. It was almost as if the moment he'd thought about food the day before had kick-started his hunger. He was constantly aware of his stomach. It was the only sensation of pain that didn't disappear after he levelled up. He was going to fill his Temple with as much food as he could as soon as possible.

Eventually, Lee started preparing their escape from the woods.

On the balcony at the backside of the building were 4 more cabinets. 3 of them had been emptied of their contents, complete with the door torn away and missing. The fourth cabinet was still whole however, earning a sigh of relief from Lee.

“Thank the fortune,” she said as she started to run her fingers along the seam in the door. “I was worried they'd all be gone. Nobody has used this outpost in years.”

“I could tell,” he added. “I can't believe the place is still standing.”

“Why wouldn't it be?” She asked, paying more attention to the door she was now pulling off the cabinet.

It fell forward, revealing a thick canvas like material bunched up on the inside.

“I would have thought it'd all rot away without any care.”

He was only half paying attention to himself now. Whatever she was doing had caught his interest.

“Do you think we build things out of compost or something?”

She pulled some ropes from the canvas and fixed them to each corner of the door. It had eyelets to be tied onto to make it all easier.

Dropping any commitment to his last train of thought, he watched along while she finished setting up what was apparently a crude hot air balloon.

She unravelled the canvas to reveal the full size of the thing. The balloon itself felt almost synthetic. What he thought was woven canvas felt closer to a nylon or silk material. He inspected it with his HUD to see that it was classified as ‘Darakat Wool’, whatever that was. It slumped over the balcony railing and met the forest floor. At the mouth of the balloon there was a small metal device that acted as a burner. There was no obvious place to feed the thing fuel, but Lee showed him how it would be powered. Inside the burner there was a rune painted. The lines were connected to a sliver of glowing green crystal. They also traced along the inside of the box to meet with a knob and a lever. He was looking at a circuit. The lever was an obvious switch, and he would bet money on the knob being a potentiometer. High school electronics class was finally coming in handy. He wondered what purpose the letters played exactly, since they were mixed in amongst the components. They obviously had something to do with the device being magical, but it all seemed a lot more systematic than he assumed.

She ran the burner for about half an hour until the balloon was inflated. He suddenly felt a lot less confident when he realised that their balloon basket would just be a door with 4 ropes tied to it. They stood on their sketchy platform and waited while the balloon finished inflating. Eventually, he felt the platform start to skip and slide along the wooden deck. Soon enough, the platform lifted them above the railing ant they were drifting free from the structure. The trees around them made for an awkward escape. More than once Lee had to shake them free of branches by collapsing parts of the balloon with the aid of more ropes that were stitched to the inside of it. He had to hold on tightly whenever she did, since the craft would lurch and lose a little altitude each time. Soon enough, they were free of the understorey of the forest, and gently climbing.

They had a similar issue of getting tangled in the canopy layer. He made sure not to look down then. If he slipped, it'd be easily over 100 metres worth of fall. Finally, they broke free of their tree ceiling. The view was breathtaking. He noticed the inverted horizon first thing. On his way into the forest, he'd been paying all of his attention to the city and the mountain. It was surreal to see the land in the distance climbing into the sky. The rocky land looked to end at tall and jagged mountains far in the distance. After that, it looked like endless sand as far as he could see. Holding on tight, he let his eyes follow the horizon upwards. It was interrupted by the haze of a blue sky gradually, so he couldn't follow it all the way. He looked upwards, having to steady his shaky balance in the process. There was no view of the land above them, only blue sky and faint stars. The world had to have been a bowl.

Lee caught him staring out in wonder and joined him in appreciating the view.

“It's really something, isn't it?” She asked calmly.

“I've never seen anything like it,” he admitted. “How far up does the land go?”

She gave him a curious look.

“What?” She said bluntly.

“Where I come from, the land curves downwards on the horizon, kind of like a ball” he offered, trying to show the curve of a sphere with a hand gesture. “It's different here. The land curves upwards. Is there an edge of the world?”

“Imagine somebody thinking you don't know what a planet is,” she scoffed, giving him a sarcastic look. “It doesn't end. We call the world ‘The Hollows’, not ‘the banana that you can fall off’.”

He rolled his eyes.

“How am I supposed to know what you do or don't know, I'm doing my best here,” he defended. “So the world is an inverted sphere?” He asked, trying his best not to sound dumb.

“Good job, he's catching up,” she said, clapping. “There is still an edge, but you don't want to go there. They don't call it the arse of the world for no reason.”

He shook his head.

“I don't even know why I'm trying with you.”

He looked back out to the horizon to take it all in. He had more questions, like why were there stars, and why did the sun still move across the sky. There were a few moons he could faintly see as well. The world was impossible, and it fascinated him. Still, he kept his questions to himself for the time. Not only for the joy of discovery, but also to avoid being insulted again. The woman swore like a sailor and slung insults like a lawyer, he was a little intimidated.

The mountain still loomed above them on one side. For the last few minutes, their ascent had started to slow, and they were drifting more to the wind's whim than they were going up. Lee had also noticed, and she was busy fiddling with the knob that controlled the heat. It was cranked all the way up, but they weren't gaining any more altitude. The wind was starting to pull them away from the mountain, so they were once again on borrowed time.

“We need to get lighter,” she said with a hint of worry in her voice. “These things are only designed for one person, it's too heavy with both of us.”

“Well I'm not ready to get off just yet,” he said, stepping more towards the centre of their platform. “You’re the one with the heavy armour.”

“Again with the armour,” she said, rolling her eyes back at him. “I'm not going to strip for you, so you can give up on it you creepy pervert.”

“I'm not a pervert,” he defended a little too eagerly. “You’re wearing clothes under there, just drop the armour.”

“Not happening,” she said, folding her arms.

He groaned, and looked over the edge. The tree tops were zipping by far below them. They were drifting away from the city fast. He knew if he jumped off the balloon would start to rise again, he just didn't want to. He felt guilty thinking about it. He really didn't want to die again, but out of the 2 of them, he was the only one that would come back. He almost wanted to stomp his feet at the injustice. The world was forcing his hand. If he stayed on board she would die, and he would be a monster for being so selfish. He might not have been missing his father, but the old man's life lessons still apparently stuck deep in his mind. “If you know you can help someone and you don't, you're just as bad as the thing that hurt them.”

He sighed, and placed his armour into his Temple to avoid losing it on death.

“What the fuck are you doing?” She asked with a thick helping of confusion in her tone.

“I'm saving you,” he said, stepping towards the edge again. “you can thank me later.”

“No thank you,” she said, tugging him back towards the centre. “I don't want you to try and save me.”

“It's the only way you'll survive,” he declared, shrugging her off. He was feeling a little dramatic, but it felt like the right time for it.

“Don't be such an idiot,” she demanded.

“It's okay,” he said, cutting her off. “I told you I come back to life.”

“That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,” she said with a squint.

“Tell me that the next time I'm looking at you.”

He stepped back, and felt his weight fall free below him.

“Wait,” she shouted, lunging out to try and catch him. She held onto a rope with one hand so she wouldn't fall, but she was still too slow.

As he watched his feet obstruct his view of the sky, and the balloon drifting quickly away, a single thought crossed his mind.

This is gunna suck so bad…