A(n Un)Familiar Problem

Rise Quest, rise from your Grave! you're not dead yet for a start.

So... more than a month's delay? gotta admit, that's a longer than usual one. Still, not quite dead yet, just plauged with a bit of writers block.

---

You spend a few more moments staring at the bridge from the alley, assessing how the creatures move and what areas they can see, the light from their eyes doing a pretty good job of indicating where their gazes lay. It didn't take long to figure out that climbing over them wouldn't be the easiest thing to do: they might not look up much, in fact you'd almost wager that they can't look up, but there was no way to get above them without getting nigh-instantly spotted.

Your camo might be good but given how recently it was defeated by the simple flaw of you still casting a shadow and how these creatures seemed to light up whatever they looked at, you didn't fancy your odds of walking directly past them unnoticed. And given that they were both more numerous and larger than you…

Nope. Not trying it.

That left wading through a river of unknown depth or climbing across the underside of the bridge. Thinking about it, that's actually a pretty easy one: you're obviously not going to just jump into a river just to see if you can swim, that's something you can test later. Preferably in a shallow pool of clear water you can see the bottom of. Still, getting under that bridge won't be as simple as dashing straight across the street, assuming you care about not being noticed of course, but a slightly more circuitous route might do the trick.

Unlike Drills, these things probably aren't actively searching for you so if you keep your distance they probably won't be able to pick you out from all the other shadows around here. Or that's what you reckon as you begin to carefully creep along, creeping carefully through the edges of the streets furthest from the… rumbly-things, Rumblers? Yeah, that's a good enough name for them.

Getting past the Rumblers is probably going to be a touch tricky: they're pretty much coming from every direction with a street, though the street heading right-most seems to be the busiest at a glance. The leftmost on the other hand was far less busy. They were still coming down it, in fact they seemed to be exclusively coming down that road, but only in ones and twos rather than a constant stream like the others. Hence, why you'd made that street your destination.

It's a bit of a gamble, but you're pretty sure that if you pick the right moment dashing across shouldn't be too hard. The Rumblers are fast, probably faster than you, but you're not trying to outrun them so that doesn't really matter here. You don't need to be faster than them, just fast enough to dart across the street in the gap between them rumbling past. That shouldn't be too hard, right?

A few minutes later, you can't help but curse yourself for jinxing it.

One or two Rumblers at a time? Easy. On any of the streets you'd been down thus far you'd have had no problems crossing before they could get close enough to possibly notice you. Except, the street you'd chosen to cross seemed to have connecting streets the things were coming from every, what, Ten meters?

Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. For one thing you weren't actually sure what a meter was save that it somehow defined distance, but the point remained: there were a lot of places the Rumblers were getting onto the street from and most perturbingly the one-or-two at a time kept coming from the closest ones in such a way that the black strips were basically never not lit up by their gazes.

Yeah, you really jinxed this one.

You couldn't even just move a bit further down the street and try to cross where it was less busy. Whenever you tried one of the side-streets would invariably disgorge another Rumbler. Almost as if to prove your point, you shifted towards the side street again, and instantly one of the smaller ones emerged.

This one was bright, eye-searing pink, and an incredibly tacky shade at that. Zero out of ten: would not turn that colour if Drills was standing right behind you and it was the only way to not die. Again.

Still, you probably shouldn't judge them too harshly for the colour of their carapace, it's not like they chose it. Or so you hope anyways, else you'd end up stuck in a new campaign of 'naturally selecting' far too many of these things.

Hopefully the next Rumbler would at least be more tastefully hued. You're generally fond of blue, what with it being a predominant colour back home, but something about the blues here rub you the wrong way. The purples don't seem all that much better: too amethyst and cold-looking for your tastes, which was a bit annoying given that you happened to be a touch fond of purple. And the few yellows you'd seen had most assuredly not been something you could tolerate. Maybe a nice red, or green perhaps? You'd settle for a white or maybe a grey one. Perhaps an amber-orange. Is citrine a colour? It sounds like it should be and would be interesting to see at some point.

Well, you don't really have any say on the matter anyways. All you can do is wait and see what colour comes up next. Any second now.

Any second.

…

Any second?



…



…



Uh… hello? any sec- Wait! No rumblers!

You don't waste even a second on chastising yourself for forgetting what you were doing here: you dash straight across the street as fast as your six legs could carry you, ready to desperately launch yourself into the shadows on the other side the instant you could, and the moment you judged the distance right, you sprung! Covering the remaining distance in scarcely an instant (*Thunk* Ow! Your face! Who put that wall so close?) to avoid the inevitable Rumbler that was almost assured appear right about now.

Which of course, failed to materialise. Leaving you with a new headache for no gain, save for having left a decisive 'I was 'ere' in the way that only the imprint of someone's face in a hard surface can, and feeling more than a little silly.

To top it all off, not a single Rumbler came down the street behind you as you carefully skittered towards the bridge. What, did they run out? Or was life trying to screw with you again?

The former actually looked a bit more likely this time: the tide of Rumblers from the busy street also seemed to have thinned out somewhat. How long had you gotten lost in thought back there? Too long clearly.

Nonetheless, you were at the bridge now. Climbing up the side of the ramp? Trivial. Transitioning to the underside? Less trivial, it took a fair bit of twisting and bending to get a good purchase, but still easy. You'd have preferred a solid underside to walk on, but the collection of criss-crossing bars was good enough. Though the local population of flying-things didn't seem too fond of your passage, not that their puny pecking mattered much, and a swatting a few of them seemed to convince the others that leaving you alone was the smart choice.

The constant rumbling from above was rather annoying though, as was the clanging from each step you took on the metal beams. But you'd just have to grin and bear it, you were only halfway across- And then you felt it:

loss. "Tread lightly child, you are alone now. Do not lapse into the folly that has damned those before you."

You knew you couldn't go home anymore: Mother had fallen, home was gone. How you knew this, you couldn't say.

But now you felt so much less. Exhausted, depleted, tired. Enough so that you almost lost your footing, only just managing not to tumble down into the murky waters of undefined depth below, and even then, only because a few of your limbs had gotten caught in the lattices of metal.

You were alone now, facing whatever unknowable horrors this world could throw at you, and if you wanted to survive, you were going to have to become smarter than you'd ever needed to be, or failing that, more cunning.

But you were tired now, a feeling you had to admit you had never properly felt, not like this. Was it still wise to push on? There were a few platforms down here you could probably rest on, at least for a time.

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[] Press on, find somewhere to rest in the bright-place.

[] Have a quick lie-down on one of the platforms. Drills hopefully won't be able to find you down here.

[] Something else. (Write in?)