Apexus woke up to the soft sounds of water dripping back into a container. Opening his eyes, he turned his head and beheld the naked metal fairy. She had her back turned to the bed, showing only the elegant form of her snow white back. A rag, as clean as they had available, was rubbed over her shoulders. She cleaned the remains of travel and of sleeping in the hay off herself. What little had persisted after the last two cleanings.

The thunderstorm had remained for two consecutive days, ebbing into regular rain and then surging back up to blackened skies and loud booms repeatedly over that duration. If today had marked the third day, their diminishing resources would have forced them to set out no matter the weather.

“Good morning, darling,” Aclysia whispered, realizing his lingering gaze. A smile played over her lips while, as quiet as possible, she cleaned out the rag she used to clean herself.

‘She deserves more,’ Apexus thought. He knew how much happier she was with their permanent home. Settling down was her goal. This was a suitable compromise between that and travel. Their own movable retreat.

Seeing her sit on the blank tiles, with nothing but a shared rag to clean herself, was unworthy regardless. The angel of his life deserved better than to rub her skin with cold water and dry herself by a basic fireplace. In a cramped room. With nothing to do except sort pans for the thirteenth time, while they all slept. To eventually put on clothes that were dirty from being worn every day during travel.

To expand this place as his Levels increased was just another reason he needed to grow stronger.

Aclysia continued to clean herself, while her beloved failed to answer. It was cute when there was contemplation racing behind those eyes. She had watched this deliberate side of him form from his humble beginnings as a patient predator. With fluid motions, her darling chimera moved out of the bed and over to her.

They said nothing. Not as Apexus took the rag from her and not as Aclysia leaned against him. Eyes closed, she let the rag travel over her skin. Every centimetre of her, he cleaned and then he held her in his arms, as the fire dried her. That was the best he could do for her, in their current situation. For Aclysia, this was enough. For all else that she wanted, this was what she needed. Affectionately, she rested against him.

Apexus held the world between his arms. To fully hold her like that was only one advantage of being so large. He gazed into the fire, calming his mind by attempting to find a pattern to the flickers. His ears remained ever attentive to the breathing of the two girls still in bed.

Time elapsed and a second glow entered the chimera’s periphery. Behind the curtain, closed to shield them from the light of the thunder, the soft golden glow of the sun shone through. “The storm has passed,” Apexus said.

_______________________________________________________________________

The door disappeared first, then the frame began to dissolve into nothing. It started at the right side, went up and down in equal measure, and arrived next to the lock at the same time. The golden keyhole was the last to linger. It too faded, before three seconds had passed. Apexus put the key back into its storage space within him, then led the way.

The ruins were covered in puddles. Long forsaken sewage systems became the gathering spots for deep pools and barely moving rivers. What little segments had not been blocked by the passage of time only slowly let the water escape. The rock was sturdier. For hundreds of metres around, much of the surface was sealed or at least covered to such a degree that the water could not seep in fast enough between the chunks of cobblestone.

Apexus knelt down next to a patch of grass that had managed to stick out between two such stones. Equally hungry and curious, he chose to satisfy both by grabbing the plant and ripping it out. It took more force than he had initially considered. The grass stretched, mud squelched, but Apexus succeeded. In his hands he held a bushel of grass with thick roots three times as long. It looked like the plants existed on self-grown stilts.

The humanoid chimera presented it to his companions. Reysha just giggled at the scene, while Korith tried to understand and failed. Aclysia inspected it from multiple angles. “Worrisome,” she said. Apexus nodded in agreement, then unhinged his jaw and swallowed the plant whole. His throat bulged for a moment.

“What is?” Korith asked, when she failed to find the answer on her own.

“The plant is adapted to stay anchored deep in the ground.” Apexus rose to his feet and looked around at other plant life. He was not hungry enough to sample all of them. The very fact that they all were still rooted as well was proof enough. “A precaution against regular heavy rains moving the topsoil.”

“So, such thunderstorms are regular here?” Reysha asked. “Because fuck this place if so.”

“Regular enough to be created with precautionary measures,” Aclysia stated and looked around. “Do we wish to retreat with just this?”

“No,” Apexus gave his opinion. It was misunderstood by the other three as a hard decision. Misunderstood and accepted. When the leader gave an opinion and none questioned it, it may as well have been an order.

Back on his feet, feeling the mossy cobblestone under his naked soles, Apexus led the way. That was, until they came across a patch of dirt. What once had been the garden of an estate whose fence had long since dissolved into rust, now housed a muddy mix of wild plants. In the middle of it was a cut of bare soil that even the heavy rain hadn’t managed to fully decompress. Fresh footprints went along its length.

Apexus pointed at a nearby house entrance, then caught Reysha’s eyes and gave her a signal with his head. He, Aclysia and Korith moved into the building. Simultaneously, the tiger girl crouched down. Her presence minimized. Carefully, to have less to suppress, she followed the footsteps. Her party stayed quiet and behind, scanning the withered towers and toppled walls for any hiding places hostile scouts could use.

Whatever or whoever inhabited the ruins was typically not the civilized sorts. They hoped that the rainfall had masked their arrival on the Leaf or that they were wrong in their assumption. Reysha returned to them after just a little while. Weaving a Directed Whisper, she contacted them without risk of anyone overhearing. “Nothing yet, but I found a good spot up ahead.”

Apexus nodded and they quickly followed her. Korith was the biggest concern for volume. In her full armour, she rattled occasionally and had to avoid the mud. One sticky patch of wet soil would be the ruin of their sneaking approach. They managed, however, and Reysha proceeded to scout further ahead from there. Each time, she returned swiftly. She avoided pulling too far ahead. The quickest way for a Rogue to die was to find themselves isolated in an enemy encampment.

Her cat ears picked up a high-pitched, raspy voice that barked in an annoyed tone. “Where?!”

“They were down this way! On the road, I swear!” The response elicited some kind of physical punishment, as the pained response that followed made clear.

Reysha turned another corner and caught two small, green and barely clothed humanoids stalking up the road. They had large ears and large noses. Their lips were pulled back, revealing sharp teeth in their ugly faces. ‘Feral goblins, ew,’ Reysha thought.

In the Omniverse, goblins had a bad reputation, for some good and some not so good reasons. Goblins were generally lower in inhibitions than most other races. Simultaneously, their smaller and weaker stature was compensated by higher wits. This made them adventurous crafters and traders. All of that was only true in a civilized setting, however.

When malnourished during upbringing, the first thing goblin biology sacrificed was brain development. Their intellect and general empathy diminished, leaving aggressive, small humanoids. Malnourishment did not lend itself to attractiveness either, so they were typically ugly to boot. A drawback when it came to developing a reputation. People were always quicker to judge that which they did not like to look at.

Their aggressiveness combined with low inhibitions led to a predictable but terrible outcome on impoverished Leaves or areas thereon. Malnourished goblins typically turned to cannibalism. First of each other, then of whatever people they managed to get their claws on. Simultaneously, goblins were among the most widespread species in the Omniverse, being more adaptable than dwarves or other shortfolk when it came to the environment, and always eager to exploit another Leaf for trade opportunities.

Goblins were among the most maligned humanoids out there. There were good reasons to avoid the feral tribes, none of which reflected on those that had been brought up with enough food and culture to be as civilized as every other humanoid out there. It was an unintended, cruel twist of their attributes that created one and maligned the other.

All that Reysha knew about goblins was that they were aggressive, hungry, and many. Their physical weakness was more than made up for by numbers. She sneaked back to where her party was hiding. “Feral goblins,” she explained to her party members. “I only saw two so far. There’s bound to be more. They’re heading for where we found their tracks and it sounded like they had seen and lost us.”

“Do you think they’d be open for dialogue?” Apexus asked quietly.

“Unlikely, they’re probably looking for dinner,” Reysha responded. Both her and Apexus’ ears kept turning, taking in every slight sound. It informed them of more than their eyes could, tucked away as they were in what had once been a hallway.

“We’re avoiding them,” Apexus finally decided. He did not want his first interaction on this Leaf to be a hostile one. Their chances of victory, even against a larger group of goblins, he deemed as high. There was no need to risk it though. At best, the goblin had intel about the area. “Reysha, keep scouting a path. If they spot us, we run.”

“Works for me,” Reysha responded, the other two just nodded.

Reysha spread her magic through her joints again and Stealthed out of the hiding spot. After moving away about fifty metres, she could hear the two goblins argue down the main road. The urge to mess with them was intense. What was someone a Rogue for, if not to make a fool of their enemies?

The combined slaps of Aclysia and Mai proverbially hit her on the back of the head. One chastised her for reasons of immorality, the other for inefficiency. Reysha may have tried to argue with the phantoms in her consciousness if it hadn’t been for Korith and Apexus staring her mental self-down. Sighing silently, she moved on.

‘Life is a lot less fun when you’re responsible.’ Reysha soon picked up the wretched scent of rotting meat and faecal matter. She followed the unappetizing mixture to confirm her hunch. In a circle of rearranged rubble was the camp of the goblins. About two dozen more were in there, attempting to create primitive weaponry or other tools. Two goblins were watching the fire, a few others were by a wooden fence that looked like it should have held cattle. Instead there were four children, fighting over scraps. The way degenerated goblins raised their young was the primary reason they struggled so much to claw their way back up to civilization, even if they stumbled their way into more resources.

Reysha backed away before a particularly astute member of the tribe could notice her. Now that she knew which direction to avoid, her job was a little easier.

Half an hour later, she had guided the party out of the city and into the surrounding woodlands. With every step they took, their confidence they hadn’t been spotted grew. The trees were dense enough to provide cover, although not so dense to make for a proper jungle or forest. The ground was generally even, with an occasional stretch of marsh being the only obstruction in movement.

They did remain on high alert despite that. When there was one goblin tribe, more were likely to surround it. A place to hide would have been appreciated, but they settled for a hill from which they could see potential assailants. “Aclysia, compass,” Apexus ordered and the metal fairy swiftly pulled out the instrument.

It was one of the graces of the gods that compasses worked on all but the most hostile Leaves. No matter if flat, round, or bowl shaped, there was a north. Whether that north was up, down, left or right relative to the Stem was always different. Important was only that there was a fixed point that could be used for orientation.

Aclysia aligned the needle to the north, then turned in the other direction to make out the east and west difference. “We came from the east,” she reported.

Apexus considered where to go, with that information. No intuition came to him, besides not east. He shook his head and fixed his gaze on a nearby tree branch. It was old and sturdy. A good launching point. “I’ll gather some more intel,” he announced, then jumped onto that branch.

It creaked under his weight for the moments he lingered there. With another jump, he gained several metres worth of elevation. The third jump delivered him to a young branch, too flimsy to hold more than a small bird’s worth of weight. Despite that, Apexus’ neither bent nor broke the branch. He was light as a feather for a step, and that was all he required to jump to the canopies. He landed on the very top of an old maple, spread his wings, and used another Feather Step to allow himself the launch.

Emerald wings beating, he transitioned quickly to flight. His muscles pulled tight, to prevent his humanoid limbs from hanging detrimentally in their draft. The smooth tail tilted left and right, to support his balance, until he had stabilized. He rose higher and higher, until he had a proper view of the environment.

East were the ruins. From this far up, Apexus realized it was the smallest city of all those located at a Stem he had ever seen. Even in its prime, it couldn’t have been home to more than a couple thousand wealthy individuals. The properties were enormous for a city, with many courtyards and plazas.

North was water. Only water. An endless expanse of ocean that stretched from horizon to horizon. South was mostly water. A pathway went on and on, mountains hiding just how far it went. West, too, was more land. Split apart by a vast river, a hundred metres across, the woodland and plains looked like the deformed head of a serpent, its mouth wide open. Apexus went a little higher, the impression only growing. The ruin of the city was where the eye would be. The origin of the river was found among the mountains to the south east.

Apexus did one more circle, then searched for a spot of white in the green beneath him. Hovering above the canopies, his beacon waited patiently. Aclysia smiled to herself when her darling returned to her. He slowed before they met in a hug in mid-air. Skillfully, he lifted her into a princess carry, just as he halted his descent by landing on a fragile branch.

Feather Step for Feather Step, he descended back underneath the patchy roof of wet leaves. They landed just a dozen metres removed from where he had started. “We go south,” he decided.