FMH ~ 20!

Luke broke into a downhill sprint, moving as fast as he could while holding his massive bone and being covered in several inches of leather. The water on him was vaporizing, turning to gas as he charged along. Some goats got in his way, but he simply plowed over them, breaking bones as his huge weight crushed them into the ground.

He was starting to have a following, a few hundred of the bleating beasts were charging along behind him. “Short… legs… suck, don't they! Ha!”

“I can keep this pace up for days!” Luke called back about five minutes of running later, when his following had turned into a few thousand. The galloping beasts behind him bleated in reply, and Luke decided that it was time to put his plan into action. Two minutes passed, and he took a sharp right. He cut in front of the leading edge of the herd, and they followed him, deep into the heart of ‘right herd’ territory.

Once he was pretty deep into the right side of the downhill path, he turned so that he was running directly down again. A long few minutes passed where he was uncertain if his plan was going to work… then he heard the herd. A deep, bellowing, “Baaa!”

The right herd hadn't really acknowledged his presence, but it was hard to miss the thousands of rivals in their territory. A full-on territory war began, and the left herd was blindsided by the attack. Their focus was solely on him, so the right-siders were picking them off with impunity. Luke had killed one and a half hundred thousand of them over the last few years, and the population decrease was met with a subsequent boom for the left-siders.

This meant that Luke could run with less conflict on this side, but if he had started on this side… he would still have been overrun. A veritable wall of goats was coming uphill toward him to meet the invading goats, and Luke could have sworn he saw surprise on their faces when they saw him. “Get ‘em, Cookie! Paste those stupid goatees!”

He half-turned to fully swing Cookie, and any goat hit was either sent flying or was turned to bloody paste. To be fair, the creatures only came up to his knees, and were about as light as a Noble’s prize-winning poodle. Luke ran faster, holding Cookie to his side and leaning to the right to compensate for the weight. He attacked again and again, killing indiscriminately as the goats came after him. “There’s something different! Get out of the way! I see shrubberies!”

On the horizon, small green plants dotted the ever-downward slope. The thick knee-high blue grass was replaced by ankle high grass, and there were other types of plants! He would have cried for joy if he weren’t running for his life. Seven minutes later, he leaped into the new area and spun around, swinging his weapon as hard as he could to catch the goats that were hot on his heels. 

His strike met only empty air even as a weak chime came from his forehead. Luke looked into the grass, and saw that the goats had stopped and were watching him. Ever so slowly, they melted back into the sea of grass. Luke glanced around him and found… nothing. There were no visible monsters here. The reaction of the goats though… that was concerning.

First order of business: the shrubberies! Luke raced over, excited beyond belief about this simple change. A new plant for the first time in over three years! He got closer, closer… then jumped in the air and swung Cookie down in a devastating overhead blow. The plant, berries and all, was pulverized and rendered into splinters and splattered juices. Luke walked around the newly-made crater and looked to see if it had been hiding a creature, or if it by itself was deadly. As far as he could tell… there was nothing. 

Luke started walking, hoping to find a safe haven or place he could use as a base while he figured out why this area was dangerous. It had to be dangerous, right? “Hmm… the width of this area is larger. I’d say… three-quarters of a mile instead of half of one? If there aren't any monsters here, I’d best move on and get through before this place changes its mind.”

His run across the lush grasslands had only taken about thirty minutes, so Luke had the entire day to work. He scoffed as he thought of how long he had been trapped with the goats, only to escape by running without stopping for a mere ten miles. Then his mind stuttered, and Luke realized that he had just run ten miles in thirty minutes while fighting. “What… I’m not even winded…? How did that happen?”

“How fast are goats? How fast was I moving? That’s not possible. What… what am I?” Luke then did something that he hadn't done in almost two years.

He started removing the entirety of his armor. 

Layer after layer landed on the ground, and the extra-beefy form slimmed down further and further, until he was looking at pale skin that reflected the ambient light in the area. Though it still grew, he had no hair on his body, the water taking it off him every time it started to evaporate. Luke inspected his arm, finding that it would look more at home on the arm of the old blacksmith in his hometown. Still, his skin was unblemished and smooth.

His hands, which had held weapons, tools, and beat down goats for years without pause… had no calluses. They were as smooth as a scholar’s, but the skin was as tough as hardened leather. “Well, can’t say that this place has been bad for my health.”

There was no excess fat on him, and with his armor off… Luke started to move, swinging Cookie around and moving through the primal martial art he had created. It was focused on direct, brutal attacks. There was no subterfuge; every motion held the intent to kill if it landed. Beyond being a veiny chonk of hairless muscle, Luke found that he was fast without his armor on. He started sprinting and used his momentum to start tumbling. Cookie stayed nearly stationary in the air as Luke used it as a counterbalance. 

He had long since gotten used to this sort of motion, and it was second-nature to him now. Still, when he sat and thought through what he was doing… he had no explanation for the rapid improvements. Three years shouldn't have been nearly enough time to transform him like this. Not with his poor diet and lack of a proper training plan. Luke wanted a mirror, or a reflecting pool.

Finally done admiring himself, he turned back to the task at hand. “Need to get as far as I can today… but imma crush every bush I come to just to be on the safe side.”

He started putting his armor back on, and soon was back in full gear. Luke started jogging, and true to his word demolished every single bush he came close to in passing. He found that this downhill had a slight leftward curve, which would make sense in this odd world. Since the whole thing appeared to be a flat spring shape, the only way it would have a right curve would be if he were going uphill! Who would want to go uphill? 

Chuckling at the inane thought, he gauged the distance he had traveled. It was almost halfway through the light cycle of the planet, and he was pretty sure that he was going to be nearing the next area soon. “Looks like this zone was… fifteen miles? Does every zone increase by half? Half again as wide, half again as long? This place was specifically created, then? It’s artificial?”

Luke looked back, and saw nothing beyond grass, shrubberies, and pulped shrubberies. “What a strange area… onto the next!”

As he got to the clearly-defined edge of the next territory, he slowed. Luke could see a creature, and it appeared to be waiting for him. It didn't step onto the grass, but it’s eyes followed him exactly, and it moved to intercept if he veered off toward another direction. The grass faded into rocky earth, and the creature waited for him at that border.

It appeared to be a gorilla, but it's front limbs ended in an oversized metallic plate that could separate into three distinct bladed claws. The creature, like everything else here, was blue. In fact, because of this, Luke almost didn't notice that it had no fur. Instead, it appeared to be coated in a fine gravel grit. “Great. A stone monkey with metal claws. Oh, and it’s waiting for me. Perfect.”

“Are you my trainer, finally here to teach me the way?” He didn’t hesitate, charging forward with a scream of glee and swinging Cookie with all his might. “I bet you have a pearl, too! Time to go into the Cookie jar, ape!”

The bone hit, and a cloud of dust exploded from the beast as it tumbled away. “Yea-”

Luke went flying, and Cookie twirled in the air beside him. He landed with a sick feeling, and found that gasping in air was difficult. He sat up, coughing blood and phlegm to the side. “What…”

The ape was back at the edge of the territory, staring at him impassively. There was no indication that it had been hit, and nothing that made him think that it was angry… but he had the feeling that if he had landed on it's side of the zone, he wouldn’t be getting up right now. 

He felt at his armor, and found a row of three gashes that went through two full inches of his goathide armor. “Is this some kind of… *wheeze*… sick joke? I fought murder goats for three years, and the next trial is an abyssal metal-and-stone murder ape?”

*Chime*.

As per usual, there was no reply to his shouting into the air. He sat down and opened his pack. Repairing his armor and healing were both going to take time. Luke took a long drink of water, then pouring the remainder over himself; wincing as it burned in his body. It always seemed to hurt a lot more when he was injured. 

Over the next week, he tried everything he could think of to get around the ape. It was always waiting for him, however, and eventually Luke started to run out of food. He made the trip back to the goats and tried to enter, but it seemed a full-scale war was raging. They were also on the lookout for him, and whenever he got close, a ‘bahhh’ would ring out and a wall of flesh would prepare to attack him if he entered the grassland.

He also found out why they didn't cross the edge of their designated area. Luke decided to force them to come to him, and pulled out the tier-four pearl. The draw had been too much for the goats that were right at the edge, and they swarmed toward him. As soon as they crossed into bushland, their bodies exploded, starting with their heads.

Luke was shocked, but honestly didn’t mind all that much. The only real downside was that only an inedible paste remained of the goats. To counteract his ability to draw them in, the goats moved back further into their own territory. It was a game that he didn't have the time to play; Luke was hungry. He managed to pull a few goats over after crushing their heads, but it took at least a dozen a day to keep him from being hungry, and he just wasn’t getting that.

Finally breaking down, Luke went to a shrubbery and ate one of the berries. Honestly… it felt like eating a steak! Cow meat! He waited a few minutes, and found that his body wasn’t having a bad reaction to it. Luke ate a few more and moved on, collecting and eating as many as he could find.

It was only later that he found the issue with the berries. 

He lay on the ground, staring up with overly-large pupils. “Why do the pink fluffy unicorns dance on the rainbows? They could be doing anything… they can fly! Instead they dance there for hours!”

The sigil on his forehead was sparking madly, and with a ripping *chime*, it popped and went fully dark. Luke nodded as the singing unicorns suddenly got louder and more numerous. “It makes so much sense! Do what makes you happy, fluffy critters! Except you. I don't care what you are trying to do, I know you’re a goat!”

The fluffy unicorns in the sky swarmed the imposter, goring it until it fell to the earth far in the distance. Luke nodded as his eyes started to flutter shut. “Good call, ‘Corns. Goats are pure evil… and they got weird little square eyes. Taste good, though.”