Master's Journey: Tales to Astound! #2
Added 2019-01-08 03:42:40 +0000 UTCAuthor's Note: Back to this! With the character chosen (2-b) we can start exploring the world and getting to some decisions.
[story]
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Reflected in the water, staring back at you with rich, dark eyes as deep and shiny as scarabs, is a woman of Kaltish descent. It takes a few moments of studying your deep olive skin and coils of fine, ink-black hair, now matted from the salt sea, to remember Kalta. Though memories of your life there remain unclear, you can recall vast white beaches, tall, shady trees, lush vines and bushes, flowers. For an instant, you can almost taste the fresh olives of your homeland, or the vibrant summer tomatoes.
Without realizing you had let them drift closed, you open your eyes again, looking back into the woman in the water. At yourself. The dusky evenness of your skin tone helps balance the sharpness of your jaw and cheeks, and the long nose you sport is likewise common among your people. It is your body, however, that is of more concern to you -- glancing down along your neck, shoulders, barely-covered breasts, and stomach, you find yourself in entirely passable shape, though it’s difficult to tell whether you were a warrior, or... simply lived actively.
Then again, it didn’t matter anymore, did it? Who you were is gone, and you decide to accept this seeming loss of your memory for what it is: a mercy. Without the memory of it, you won’t be able to miss whatever it is you’ve lost. Better that way.
Exhaling through your nostrils, you stand back up, reaching for the sash of one of the fallen sailors and withdrawing the man’s sword, a wide, single-edged chopping blade made of sharpened bronze. Not as durable as the newer iron blades being made, but plenty sharp, and better than nothing. Wiping it clean of stale blood and some black, brackish liquid, you slide the thing into your makeshift loincloth and climb nimbly down from the side of the ship, back to the beach.
Since you’ve begun to move and think, having risen up from the brink of what could have only been death, you find your body beginning to betray you with its list of demands -- food, water, proper rest. All things that will have to wait until you’ve gotten your bearings, but the gnawing in your stomach and choking dryness in your throat are as insistent as the prodding fingers of the gods themselves.
And so, you find yourself back where you’d started: on the beach, the crashed ship behind you, coarse black sand extending in either direction as far as your dark eyes will gaze, and jungle before you. Only one glimmer of hope, one true option, presents itself at the edge of those lofty palm trees -- a path, barely able to called a road, leading into the jungle. Your hand shifts back to the cutlass at your hip, fingers squeezing down around its hide-wrapped handle. You have a better chance of finding food and water in the jungle, even though the idea of traversing it alone leaves a quiver of unease at the bottom of your gut.
Nonetheless, hungry and exhausted, you make your way across the scorching sand and to the path, the crunch of fallen tree fronds already cooling to your bare, blistered feet. The sound of animals starts to grow more clear, some you recognize and some you do not -- the chitters of small rodents are familiar enough, perhaps a squirrel or other tree-dweller, but the lilting, high-pitched shrieks that occasionally chime through the jungle you can only assume belong to some form of strange bird. As you walk, you occasionally get a glimpse of massive wings of blue and red, but for the most part the wildlife seems to be staying clear of you.
You walk along that pathway for what feels like hours, your withering hunger growing more intense with each passing instant. Twice you spot a cluster of berries dangling from a flowery, overgrown bush, and both times they are unfamiliar to you -- the former dark, small and shiny, the latter bright yellow bulbs of pulp. The chance that either could be poisonous, though, forces you to pass them by, desperately seeking either an animal or some fruit you recognize. You didn’t crawl from that wreckage just to die in the jungle a few hours later, after all.
Suddenly you go still as a new sound kisses your ears, a familiar sound, not that of an animal -- but of running water. Not close, but neither far. Your throat suddenly feels more dry than ever, and a rush of energy fills your barely-clad body. You start to make your way towards the water, ignoring the path entirely and moving straight for the sound. Your mind blank, senses dulled, your body pushes itself of its own accord, closer and closer to the water. Where there’s water, there’s game. Just have to follow the sound... follow the sound....
Drawing your blade, you hack past a tangle of vines and fronds blocking you from that burble of water, and after a few more frenzied chops you finally see it before you -- a modest stream, lined on either side with ferns, bushes, and flowers, a veritible wellspring of life in the middle of jungle. You’ve already started moving toward it before you pause, noticing those that have arrived there before you. Not an animal, as you might have expected or even hoped. No, perched at the other end of the stream are three other humans, two women and a man, all fair-skinned with hair (or beard, in the case of the man) ranging from bright, fiery blonde to the deep scarlet of blood. Their garb marks them as travelers or hunters, but you can see their weapons stashed away at the tent not far away.
Their attention turns from their own conversation up to your sudden intrusion, but none of them have yet to call out to you.
1) Threaten -- Brandish your weapon, attempting to bully the travelers into backing away, and fighting if need be.
2) Flee -- Dart back into the jungle, and move down the river to an unoccupied section of it.
3) Introduce -- Try to play it cool. Maybe they have food, or will be otherwise friendly.
4) Other -- (comment)
