FMH: Everything ~ Thirty-One

- Andre -

“I’m gonna kill him for leaving us like that,” the Druid whispered harshly as he watched the petals close over the charred flesh that Taylor’s face had become.

“Just… don’t.” Zed’s words were unexpectedly harsh, so much so that it broke Andre’s spiraling anger and gave him a new target to focus on. “This is what all of you did to me when you came back from your first training period. You expected everything to have changed, and you treated me as though I had been able to get the same kind of experience you did. Think about it, Andre! What has motivated Luke the entire time you've known him as an Ascender? What has changed for him? Nothing? Correct. Lastly…”

Andre was already slightly shaken, but the Bard's next words landed like a sledgehammer.

“…Why would you expect him to stick around and care about what is going to happen to you, when you just let him rot in a Descender portal between massive swaths of combat? Do you even understand that, for Luke, it has only been about two and a half years—objective time—from when we defeated the Corrupted Nature Dragon? What has it been for you… ten years?”

“What are you trying to get at, Zed?” Now Andre was on the defensive, though, for some reason, he couldn't force himself to meet the Bard's eyes. Instead, he used scanning the horizon for threats as an excuse to look away. “Are you trying to say that, just because he has had less time compared to me, I should accept that he would leave us to die on a world we don't understand?”

“No.” Zed let his anger seep out of him with a long exhalation. “You just need to understand that the only time he has not been in combat—for nearly a half century of his time—was when he was on our base world, traveling with us to the next battles. He is motivated by bloodshed and becoming stronger. At this point, I think he lives for it. For decades, he has never had to deal with having anyone else here. Abyss, I think that when he sees us in this environment, he might think that it’s just his mind playing tricks on him!”

The Druid finally turned back to the Bard, who was looking at him with a burning stare. Andre felt his eyes starting to betray him, so he reached up and angrily dashed away the tears that were forming. “It's Taylor, Zed. I… I just can’t…”

“When she is healed up,” Zed clapped his hands on the Druid's shoulders, “You had better do something to change your relationship status. Otherwise, I'm going to lure you to the side of the world, you can see it from here, and have Luke chuck you over.”

That earned a watery chuckle from the gangly redhead, but he sobered up in the next breath. His eyes had landed on the lotus, and they were rapidly hardening. “I can do more than keep her in stasis. With the sheer amount of power available to me here, I'm certain I can figure out a solution to the terrible damage she accidentally inflicted upon herself.”

“That would be good, since the only way we get a professional Healer Ascender is by stepping out of this world and surrendering immediately.” Zed started to smirk, but Andre appreciated that he was working hard to keep it off his face. “I hope you figure something out quick, because otherwise, the three of us are going to get all sorts of juicy Potentia, and she's just gonna get delivered to someone else on a platter when we leave. Celestials, she’d be so mad, and there’d be no one for her to blame except herself.”

Once again, Andre was impressed by the sheer amount of insight this Bard possessed. “I have spent my entire adult life working with plants, animals, and soil. Perhaps… perhaps I should spend some time following you around and learning. I just don't have the same kind of understanding of people that you do. If my life goes the way I want it to go…”

His eyes flipped over to the lotus that Taylor was wrapped in, then back to Zed, who was already wearing a smarmy grin. “...then I need to understand how to deal with people. How to treat them correctly and understand their needs. I believe I can fix an entire planet, yet I can't figure out how to live my own life.”

Zed shrugged at that. “First lesson is free! Listen well, my student. You can make all the analogies you want about people and love, like comparing everything to plants that need special attention, lots of watering, additional fertilizer, and such… but the fact of the matter is, people are just different. You cannot fix other people so that they do what you want them to do. Relationships are not a problem to be solved; they are a tension to be managed.”

“Huh.” Before Andre could say much more about that, they seemed to have passed an invisible barrier, and the density of mana in the air around them increased by a small but noticeable amount. “What was that? Are we under attack?”

As far as he could tell, there was nothing around them. Well, that wasn't strictly true. There were haunting forms that he could see in the distance, thanks to his high vantage point. Small flowers started blossoming all over his body before seeming to age and wilt in the next moment. Seeds poured across his clothes and collected in his hands, which he squeezed hard enough to draw a few drops of blood to fertilize the tiny dots of potential life.

“Oh, that? All we did was cross into Zone nineteen. Have we been running for eight hours already? I guess escaping that wildfire took longer than I thought it had. Anyhoo, every time we get into a new Zone, the mana density is slightly higher.” Once more, Andre was amazed by how casually his companion could explain what had happened.

Zed pointed at the monsters. “Now, I wasn't exactly informed on what those creatures are, but even Luke stayed away from them unless they got in his way directly. I'm fairly certain that they inflict some kind of Sanity damage, because the last time I was here, I forgot to eat or drink for several days. Probably would have died if I hadn't found myself so fascinated by what Luke was doing to the creatures at the edge of Zone twenty. Also, don’t look them in the eyes.”

“These are the things that gave you nightmares? Did Luke’s advice help?” The Druid wondered aloud, only to see his friend shudder and hunch in on himself.

“I owe Luke a lot. Even more than the two of you.” The plain-seeming man stared at the creatures in the distance, his voice coming out hushed. “For many reasons, but most recently… I'm pretty sure his slaughtering hundreds of creatures at a time literally pulled me out of the starvation death spiral those beings inflicted on me, just due to how absolutely interesting he was. The Murderhobo was able to ignore their attacks because his only goals are killing monsters and collecting gear. There’s no gear to collect here, so that leaves him only one option.”

Andre was silent for a long moment, thinking through what his friend had just revealed to him. Now, it was Zed's turn to avoid his eyes, as Andre searched them for answers. Finding none, he turned back to the strange, corkscrew-shaped world they were wandering along. Then, doing what men do best, he ignored the situation and tried to hurry them past it. “How's the weather here? Does it change very much? Is there a rise in beast attacks during certain phases of the moon?”

“No moon here!” Zed seemed just as relieved as he was to be past the awkwardness of the last few minutes. “As far as I can tell, there's no weather to watch out for. Probably for the best for us, because if it rained, that would mean liquid mana was pouring out of the sky and… well, we would die, right?”

“Totally, totally…” They lapsed into silence, which stretched out so long that Andre felt being the one to break it would make the situation even more awkward than the silence was. Soon, he had no choice. Questions were demanding to be released, and his mouth was a poor gatekeeper. “You seemed confident that we would be able to find him at the edge of this Zone, just before he could get into the next one. Why is that?”

Zed was, of course, happy to tell the tale of the last time he had been trapped in this world. Soon, Andre was just as excited to see the unending horde of manufactured monsters that awaited them at the edge of this Zone. He had heard of different Ascenders going to worlds where everything was made of gears and metal and were able to bring back creatures, spell-like abilities, and impressive manufacturing capabilities.

He wasn't certain if these monsters would play a role like those other worlds would, but it would be interesting to bring back some samples to compare with others… Andre paused, realizing that there was no point in weighing himself or his team down. There was no escape from this world without going straight into full-on war, and they were not ready for that. Collecting samples at this point would be nearly as pointless as planning to leave in just a few days.

“We're really going to be trapped here for… a long time, aren't we?” the Druid soberly inquired of the Bard sitting next to him, who had pulled out a lute and was strumming it softly in time with the ‘rootfalls’ of his mobile flora. “It isn't going to be days or even weeks. It's years, right?”

“Only if we want to stay alive when we finally leave.” Zed didn't look up from his instrument, as serious about this situation as Andre was. “We’re going to need to be able to defeat those high-level Royal guards and whatever forces they bring to bear. The longer that we stay here, the more defensible of a location they will be able to erect. But, if we don't stay here long enough, we’ll be easily captured either way. Let's hope that we just get insane influxes of Potentia and can boost our levels and competency to an extremely high degree. Also, please don't die. You're our only source of food and water, or juice I suppose, so if we lose you… everyone except Luke needs to leave immediately.”

“I'm glad you see me as your mobile larder.”

“No, larder and cistern,” Zed corrected him instantly. “Don’t sell yourself short. It's a small yet important distinction.”

“One of these days, I’m going to make you walk.” Andre took a moment to point out all of the monsters that were sprinting toward them, unable to catch up thanks to the extremely long-legged, plant-based travel device he was piloting. “It's not just here, Zed. I can think of half a dozen times when you're just too slow to catch up, so you jump onto my back or Luke's. I've heard of riding someone's coattails to success, but you do it just to keep up.”

Zed waved his hand while wiggling his fingers, “We all have our strengths and weaknesses. The two of you just happened to be very fast and able to carry a heavy load. Onward, my noble steed!”

Andre let the Bard fall off his mobile plains-walker, allowing a satisfied smile to grace his lips as he heard Zed scream. “Stop whining! I tied you on; you can just hang out down there, closer to the monsters for a while.”

“What if I-” Zed’s words were lost as he swung in an arc underneath the plains-walker. He tried again as he swung back. “What if I said I was really sorry?”