X1.4 - The Gifts

  Master Vesper

  "Who the hell are you?" asked an old man's voice in the darkness.

  A blinding light forced the two terrified travelers to recoil in fear, shielding their faces. As their eyes adjusted, the Shadow they had expected was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a short man wearing a conical, straw hat, a long, bushy white beard, and a pipe in his mouth, stood there with an angry look on his face.

  "Who the hell are we? You scared the living hell out of us while we were trying to sleep. We thought you were a Shadow!" said the boy.

  "Free Folk?" mumbled the man after a pause, tilting his head to the side.

  Roa gazed at the stranger, scanning him from head to toe. The more he looked at his silly composure, the less threatened he felt; the appearance of a retiree on his beach vacation did not scream danger, after all. The guy wore an open shirt filled with colorful flower patterns, while his shorts, much too tiny for his size, forced his big, hairy stomach to roll out on top of them. He wore no shoes of any kind, and his feet were black from the gunk that covered the forest floor. The man laughed as they stared.

  "Shadows have no footsteps. The faceless ones float," he pulled up one of his feet and said: "they think the ground is too dirty for them."

  When asked what he was doing there, he explained that he was looking for magic mushrooms, his eye twitching profusely as he went on about the wonders of the fungi he was after.

  "If you two didn't camp right where the best ones grow, I might have found some by now. So, speak up—who the hell are you, and why are you after my stuff?"

  "We are not after your mushrooms, you lunatic. We're climbing the Palace, following the trail of muck, looking for a guy named Vesper to train us," blurted out Rosso, still shaking.

  The light floating above the stranger's raised index finger grew brighter, illuminating much of the surrounding forest, causing branches and roots to look like arms and legs swaying in the dark. He leaned into Rosso's face, his big eyes wide open, and said with a deep, raspy voice: "Aye—that's me."

  After several questions—they were convinced. This was the man Madame Waters had recommended. Battling their lingering doubts, they asked to be trained, and Master Vesper agreed to take them on as his pupils—on one condition: that they help him find the mushrooms he was after. And so, the travelers spent the night bent over, searching in the dark between curled roots until morning came.

  "At last, my dearest little treasures, here you are—at last!" screamed the old man, raising something in his hand. "The elusive Minimissima Mirabilia Purpurea, also known as Minishing Mushrooms. Wait a month for them to dry. Do not forget or you will die. When they're ready, swallow them whole—and you will shrink to the size of a tiny, little mole," he sang. He split the prize and gave two strange, pointy, purple mushrooms to them as a reward.

  They followed the teacher for several days through immense halls where lush, green places must have once been. Only bleak settings greeted them as the trail of oil grew thicker, and giant, gray pipelines snaked in the distance. A dead forest gave way to desolate hills, which led to barren fields. The expansive rooms eventually narrowed into a standard-sized hallway lined with doors painted with every color imaginable. It looked like they were inside the flooded floor of a hotel, or a shabby apartment building. The old man stopped to inspect each door, knocking on some and scrutinizing others, his feet sloshing through ankle-deep water. He glanced at his watch with a frown and shook his head.

  "The way home has changed. The Palace has shifted. Help me figure this out," he said, inspecting the hall. "Let's see—not the teal one, no—was it the aqua marine one?" he mumbled.

  "What are we trying to figure out exactly?" asked Rosso, as he stared at the two rows of doors.

  "The correct one," he answered.

  Rosso opened a random, light-blue door, and they peeked inside. The sound of buzzing grew louder as they stuck their heads through the threshold. They noticed bright lights, a sterile environment and medical tools.

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  "Excuse me—we are in the middle of a teeth cleaning," said a woman, shooing them away.

  "A dentist office?" said Roa with a confused look on his face as he closed it shut.

  "What's a dentist?" asked Rosso.

  "Someone who fixes teeth. Although, in my world, they don’t usually work with their feet in water."

  "Wait—I need that, my—" stuttered the man from the desert, pointing to his missing incisor; the others, however, had already moved on ahead. "Never mind," he complained, rolling his eyes as he caught up.

  They opened another random one—a gray one this time. They stumbled backward onto the floor with a scream, water splashing around them as the collapsed. Two massive jaws lunged out; they were as large as the opening, snapping at them with a deafening clack.

  "Help—a giant dog!" yelled Rosso, dragging himself away, his eyes fixed with horror at the growling beast, fortunately too big to squeeze through.

  "Close that damn thing!" yelled the old man, kicking it shut. "You have to keep your eyes peeled—don't you see?" he pointed next to the handle to a tiny hand-drawn skull and a dog.

  "This is the way," said the guide, gesturing toward a green door after about a half hour had passed. It stood open, slamming repeatedly against the wall as the dark, polluted waves gently crashed against its frame. Above it, a strange, almost invisible symbol loomed—a white drawing of an eye within a triangle, marked with an 'X77.3.'

  "What's with all these writings?" asked the boy, inspecting it.

  "Breadcrumbs—Jumpers use cryptic graffiti to tell each other stuff. Sometimes, they warn you of danger—like the one with the dog. Other times they tell you where the nearest Exit is, like this one. Keep an eye out for these as you travel—just don't believe all of them. Some are traps," explained Vesper, as he scribbled out some symbols on the door to the right.

  "Where does that one lead?" asked Rosso.

  "Dunno—it says that there is a bathhouse through that door—but the only bathhouse around these parts is the one you just came from, in the opposite way. The Shadows like to mess with our directions—the faceless fiends," the elderly man explained, shaking his head. "I bet one of them is waiting ahead for some rookie Jumper to fall into their trap."

  One day, as the group trudged through another immense hall—this one shrouded in a murky swamp—they spotted a figure perched atop a tree stump. It was a winged man, his gaze fixed on the distant horizon. Recognizing him as the same one who had shared information at the bathhouse, they invited him to join their journey. Along the way, the master froze mid-step, halting abruptly his long-winded lecture on the virtues of fertilizer. An uneasy silence fell over the group as a single, tiny bubble rose to the swamp's surface, breaking with an almost imperceptible pop.

  Massive jaws shot out like a missile out of the water, grabbing the winged man by the leg, dragging him into the depths, as he shrieked for dear life. Without a moment’s hesitation, Vesper tossed his hat and shirt to the ground and dove in after him, vanishing beneath the murky surface. The water went eerily still; Roa and his friend exchanged wide-eyed glances, paralyzed. A few bubbles rose to the surface, then—an eruption. The swamp exploded in a giant splash, revealing a monstrous snapping turtle clad in samurai armor, a katana strapped to its waist. It let out a guttural roar, as the winged companion was hurled back onto the shore like a rag doll.

  On the creature’s back was Master Vesper, his small fists hammering relentlessly at its thick neck. The beast bellowed and charged toward the travelers. Frozen in shock, Rosso and Roa stumbled backwards, unable to react in time. The armored monster lunged, its colossal shell casting an ominous darkness over them. Just as it seemed the end was inevitable, something stopped the creature, who collapsed on top of them. Its head went limp—the old man must have dealt the final blow. However, beneath the massive, unconscious body, it was Roa’s arms—now glowing with the mysterious tattoos once again—that were holding the creature up, preventing it from crushing them. His muscles strained, veins pulsing, as the weight of the giant body pressed down. Rosso gawked in disbelief once he mustered the courage to open his eyes, realizing he was still alive. The frail-looking teacher leapt from the carapace with a backflip, and delivered a single, precise kick that sent the beast’s massive corpse rolling off them.

  "Damn snapping turtle. It must have smelled the mushrooms. They go crazy for them," said the elderly man as he placed his hat back on his head. The once-turbulent waters now lay undisturbed, the air thick with an unsettling silence, as though the land itself had forgotten the chaos that had just unfolded.

  They continued for a couple more days through several rooms of the Palace Basements, making their way through water, black oil and tar. As they neared the guide's home, their surroundings grew more polluted with each step. Vesper moved with practiced ease, hopping from one dry patch to another, as if he had memorized the path long ago. The young men instead struggled to keep up, each step more difficult than the last, as they supported the winged man by the shoulders to prevent his injured foot from touching the ground.

  "My home is over there," the old man pointed in the distance at a thick, green forest surrounded by a very high stone wall. A beautiful giant tree grew out from its center like a green oasis of life in the middle of the gray wasteland.

  A toxic, pungent smell filled the air, seeping into Roa's nostrils, as the room exuded a palpable sense of death. The winged man bid his farewells, thanking them for their assistance as he continued his own journey; his eyes lingered on their figures as they walked toward the distant green oasis.

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  Find out what happens in the next exciting chapter of The Greatest Fight!

  X1.4.2 - The Farming Begins?