The fall took a while--a few minutes, in fact, which was long enough for it to become surprisingly boring. Dunstan had never been skydiving before, but it didn’t strike him as particularly thrilling. Without being able to alter his trajectory very much at all, he was stuck watching as the vast forest slowly crept closer.
Reza’s excitement level seemed to have dropped significantly as well. ‘Hey, do you think you’ll survive this? A hundred wingwangs says you don’t.’
‘I don’t know what a wingwang is.’
‘It’s any unit of money. I’d pick a specific one, but we’re in Korgum now, and I don’t really keep up with that shit anyway. You know how many different currencies have come and gone during my lifetime?’
‘Three?’
‘A little more than that, smart guy.’
‘So four, then?’
Reza snickered. ‘Y’know, I kinda like it when you play dumb. It makes you seem more innocent and charming. In fact, from now on, just do that forever.’
Dunstan finally reached the forest and crashed through the canopy at terminal velocity. The net of leaves and branches tried to break his fall and only narrowly succeeded. Wood exploded into splinters and fell with him, and his right leg snapped and then tore clean off. The final impact into the underbrush still shattered almost every bone that he could feel, and as he regained his senses, he was fairly certain that at least a few of his organs had been liquefied, though he was mainly just surprised that his brain had not been one of them.
The regeneration was already in effect as he struggled to leverage himself onto one arm. The blood that came shooting out of his mouth, nose, and eyes informed him that it would be a little while longer before he would be able to stand again.
‘Hey, uh, Dunstan,’ said Reza, more nervously again, ‘I know you’re still having a rough time right now, but we’re not alone down here.’
He couldn’t quite formulate a response yet.
‘There are a bunch of servants around us,’ she said, ‘and most of them have fucked up souls. And I don’t wanna worry you, but I think they’re gonna be tryin’ to eat our faces here in a little bit.’
He rolled over and found the brunt of a thick tree for support. ‘Hide underground for now,’ Dunstan told her.
‘Yeah, about that, uh, I’m sensing some weird shit underground, too, so...’
‘Weird, how?’
‘I’m not really sure. But if you could stand up right now, that’d be awesome.’
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
Sorry for the delay on this page, folks. I don't really have a good excuse. IT JUST DIDN'T WANT TO BE WRITTEN, I TELL YOU. THIS PAGE FOUGHT ME LIKE A KRAKEN TRYING TO DEVOUR MY SWEET SPANISH GALLEON.
ReplyDeleteNo problem. Just wanna say i am a big fan since yesterday (read everything in one go^^) and i guess i will buy the second and third ebook. Great work, keep going (y)
ReplyDeleteNot Panicking Mode engaged: 42% successful.
ReplyDeleteSome pages are like that. *nods sagely* Worry when one goes Lovecraft on you, that's what I always say. ;)
ReplyDeleteThe final impact into the underbrush still shattered almost every bone that he could feel, and as [he] regained his senses, he was fairly certain that at least a few of his organs had been liquefied, though he was mainly just surprised that his brain had not been one of them.
ReplyDeleteIt was worth the wait just for the Kraken analogy :)
ReplyDeleteGot it, thank you.
ReplyDeletethx bruh
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I already used the ship as tinder in order to cook the squid.
ReplyDeleteLovely to have you. :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, wow. That's some fast reading right there.
Am I the only one here who would sell my soul in order to have a poster drawn or painted of all the main and interesting (Still living) characters standing together? Like Hector and garovel in the middle, with Roman, the queen and king, Hector's mom, Gema (or whatever Roman's assistant's name is) then like slowly spreading out in a huge picture of tons of people who have had desriptions so far? Of course Frost would need to tell the person doing it details, like hair color of people who never had their specified, and eye color and biz, but still.
ReplyDeleteIt'd be so nice to have a reference picture for all of them, but not a photo, because those are no fun, I mean a drawing.
what was it like?
ReplyDeleteYou know, for a piece with "Zombie" in the title, we don't see enough evil mindless undead zombies.
ReplyDeleteThey've got superpowers when they come, though, so it's all good.
Tradewinds 4 captain's log:
ReplyDeleteFought kraken. Looking for good calamari recipe.
struggled to [lever] himself
ReplyDeleteI'd prefer separate pictures of every servant with their reapers in the way they see them.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Roman's assistant is Gina. Gema is the oldest Elroy child and hasn't appeared in person yet.
GINA. That's it, thanks. Also, just saying, wouldn't everyone together in one picture make an awesome screensaver? (just got a new computer and can't fricken decide on a screensaver)
ReplyDeleteThat sounds more like wallpaper material. If that's what you want, I can make a few suggestions. Mine is currently a forest of rainbow eucalyptus trees.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds so weird o.0
ReplyDeleteNo problem. I would like to read more though, so get kraken.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I didn't resist.
Only one, in fact, unless you count Geoffry's puppets, but those did have a mind, just not theirs.
ReplyDeleteThree minutes of nothing to do can get old suprisingly quickly. The excitement of skydiving is largely about how it seems scary, even if you intellectually know that its fairly safe if you know what you're doing. Servants more than a few months old learn not to fear anything but enemy servants, so for him its just three minutes of total boredom.
ReplyDeleteStill though, he must be pretty jaded not to at least appreciate the view.
I have a friend who is very good at drawing, and I know a few good places to resell your soul. The tough part is getting a contract signed in blood when I only talk to you through the internet.
ReplyDeleteI wonder whether she meant screwed up souls in the sense of zombies whose reapers died in the blast, or something even more sinister, like the way that aberrations have wonky soul-signatures.
ReplyDeleteOr if just being a screwed-up person has a detectable effect on your soul. Or if she meant they were crazy strong.
ReplyDeleteNah, she described them as having "fucked up souls". I think even as much as Reza likes profanity, she would have said something a bit more specific, like "very strong souls". Also, really powerful people, even crazy hostile ones, don't tend to want to eat your face.
ReplyDeleteHuh. I just realized Dunstan's ability is krypton transfiguration. Why is the guy falling in the first place? It's damn obvious that this is a trap and nothing good waits on the ground. Just transfigure your whole body and let Reza take care of rebuilding somewhere safe. Would be pretty easy for transfiguration users to disintegrate themselves, but I guess the plot demands a limit on their abilities. Can't disintegrate the brain because you need the brain to make the thought to transfigure stuff. Maybe.
ReplyDeleteWay off topic here, hope you don't mind. As for the original topic, three minutes freefalling without the chance of getting killed sound awesome to me, but I'm a coward anyway.
Personally, I think Reza was scared about the chance of getting hunted down in the air by the ambushers. For all we know, they might have reaper-seeking missiles with soul-empowerment, and they would more than likely have fast flying servants with light powers or similar. At least on the ground she'll have a servant to protect her. What I wonder is why he didn't use krypton-jets to slow his fall so he wouldn't end up flattened like he did.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea about abilities anymore. It's kind of hard to benchmark servants anyway, but I'd say a four your old transfiguration servant might not be able to do jets that can actually break his fall yet.
ReplyDeleteGood point about the air ambush. Going down where you can hide makes more sense than staying out in the open.
Another kraken block?
ReplyDelete