"-run-"


"-but.."


"You."


"-only-"


"Good-"

And-


—--

You greet consciousness with interest, taking in the slowly growing awareness of your body. The darkness of sleep fades away and you take in each sense one at a time. The rough stone beneath you is…probably uncomfortable, if you had to make a judgment. Your clothes pad it a little, but ultimately it is bare stone, so there's not much to be done there. At least the temperature isn't…too bad this far back. You take a deep breath, letting the unfamiliar scent of stone drift into your nose. Or was this the most familiar thing for you?

You ignore the other scent. It's not like there's any place for you to clean up properly.

The noise of your breath pokes into your ears, breaking the near-silence with something artificial. Noise is good, after all. Life makes noise. Finally, you open your eyes to behold…a bare stone ceiling. It's a cave, there's not much to see. If there was, you'd be somewhere more interesting.

Maybe people aren't supposed to pay this much attention to waking up. It's not like you'd know. It's only the second time you've been conscious, after all.

—--

What you do after waking up isn't anywhere near as dramatic, for better or for worse. Stretching to get your stiff muscles moving, eating a few of the berries from the sealed container that's in your coat…it's not like there's much to do.

A few minutes of navigating the rough stone cave leads to you looking out of it, into the wide world beyond.

[ ] You're already sick of the rain and how it turns the forest damp and sticky. An impressive achievement, given how little you've experienced it.
[ ] You're happy that your clothing is at least warm, as the blizzard outside doesn't seem to want to leave any heat behind.
[ ] Bright, hot, glaring. You'd think the desert is angry, but it's not like you have much of a frame of reference.

You stand there for a long few minutes, contemplating the view. If you had to wake up somewhere with no idea of who you are or where you were, you'd think that being somewhere with people would have been the best choice. As it stands, you're going to have to pick a direction and hope for the best. There's certainly no reason for you to stay around here, after all.

A noise from behind you makes you turn around. You suppose a strange noise coming from a cave should be worrying, especially with how little you know, but this is a noise you can recognize. They've been with you from the start, after all.

[ ] A floating collection of hard-lined pink and blue shapes makes high pitched noises at you, patterns like eyes shifting slightly.
[ ] A multicolored pile of goo slides across the ground towards you, hardened objects mixed in giving it a toothy grin.
[ ] The orb bobs through the air in front of you, lightning fizzling across its strange form.

The two of you will probably be fine, right?

You give your companion a gentle poke between its eyes, pushing it backwards slightly. There's a moment of twitchy uncertainty before it zooms forward and bumps the tip of its 'face' into yours. It's a little strong, but the way it floats back, shifting between using each eye to watch your reaction makes it clear what the intent was.

Heh. It's playful.

You both turn back to look out at the small slice of the world beyond. It's a forest, you know that much, but none of the trees look familiar to you. Or maybe it's just that the trees are generic enough that they wouldn't jog your memory at all. Large leaves, tall, and bark that's….bark colored probably covers a lot of trees.

…you wish it would stop raining. Wherever answers for yourself are, this cave isn't where they are.

—--

It takes maybe another hour or two before the rain lightens up, leaving behind slowly dripping trees, a faint mist, and an omnipresent scent of leaves. Your companion seemed less bored by the wait than you, occasionally dipping out for a brief moment into the rain before jerking back the moment it touched water. Interesting enough the first time, but a little odd the third. You just sat on the ground and let your mind drift.

Wasn't there a thing about wanting to have an empty mind? If so, maybe people should lose their memories more often. There's certainly very little in yours to clutter it up.

Your clothes dried out a little over the course of your stint here in the cave. They're not dry, not by a long shot, but at least they're down to damp. Your socks are where this is most annoying, but it's not like you have anything else to wear. Hopefully you can find a drier place - or at least have the rain stay away for a few days.

You check yourself over, making sure you've got everything. Clothes, check. Belt and all the odd bits and balls attached to it, check. Companion, check. Necklace, check.

You set off into the woods, squishing your way through the damp earth and fallen leaves. You don't pick a direction consciously, just try to keep a straight line. Unfortunately, your companion seems to be trying to make this a little difficult, with how it's constantly floating around to poke and examine every new-looking thing that comes into its view. You don't begrudge it for doing so, at least. It's all new for you as well, you just seem to have a little better pattern recognition. Or less optimism.

There's a lot less wildlife than you think you'd run into, though. None at all, in fact. Even when some odd instinct makes you glance at something in the corner of your eye, it's always just some leaves or an odd shadow, never something alive and jumping out of your line of sight. It feels…off, in a fundamental way. Yes, obviously there's little animal life, but at the same time no, there should be more. Strange. Maybe if you find another person you could ask them.

You eventually find your path sloping upward, which...feels right? Up feels like a better choice than down. A better view, and more light to see by are good things.

—--

It's at the point where the gentle upward trend starts to turn into a steep slope that something changes. It's been a very silent trek, your footsteps and breathing paired with your companion's trills, but now there's new sounds. Faintly, off to one side, you hear a sound reminiscent of the rain the night before, but more constant - flowing water. A river, or stream of some description.

And then off in another direction, crashes. Something - or possibly multiple somethings - hitting trees and the ground with great force. A fight, beyond a doubt.

For once, you have a choice to make.

[ ] Stick with your gut and follow the hill upward. You're sure to find something up there, after all.
[ ] Find and follow the creek. People need water, and if you follow its course, you'll eventually find them.
[ ] Approach the fight - cautiously. It's the first sign of intelligent life that you've encountered and maybe it'll help explain why that is.

Dangerous? Almost certainly, though to an uncertain degree. The fastest way to get some results? It would be. You'll take that risk.

You head towards the noise, skirting around the edge of the hill itself as you do so. After a moment or two, it occurs to you that you should probably try to be quiet and not draw attention to yourself from those that are engaged in active violence and you start trying to make as little noise as you can. You're not really sure if you're succeeding, but you're making an effort at least?

Your companion seems to get the idea as well, and somewhat more successfully than you. Its ability to float through the air means that it stops making the beeping noises it had been and that's that. Of course, it's also a brightly colored group of shapes larger than your head, but it's not as though you're that much better camouflaged - most of your clothing is a dark blue, but the odd section is a white that stands out against the forest's colors.

Maybe you could smear dirt on them or something…but no, not unless you need to. This was your only set of clothes, and you didn't want to risk ruining them before you found a way to clean them. Or possibly a second set.

You encounter the first physical sign of the fight quickly enough - a tree, maybe a foot or two wide, that is half-broken partway up its trunk, the top resting against some other trees. Concerning, given how much force that would have taken.

The second is another tree a few paces past it. This one is smaller, maybe the width of your palm, but unlike the rough violence of the last one it's cut in two at leg height. Equally concerning, for an entirely different set of reasons.

…you're not turning back, though. It's still your best shot at finding out something.

Indeed, it's only another minute or two of careful steps before you spot the first glimpse of the combatants through the trees. Well, one of them at least - and they're big. A long body with reddit-purple skin, lots of legs, and wicked horns sticking out both ends. Because one set wasn't enough, apparently. It seems to be thrashing around, trying to strike at something you can't make out - the other combatant? Its horns glow purple and it swings them, spraying some sort of liquid from them in an arc.

Yeah you're not going to try and get any closer. You don't know what that liquid would do, but if it's using it in combat, you definitely don't want to find out what it does. A nearby tree, this one knocked over all the way, provides you with something approximating cover to hunch down behind, where you pray you won't get noticed.

It takes longer than you expected to spot the second combatant, but that's probably because of how small it is in comparison to the first. The large one is well taller than you, but the second, once you catch a glimpse of it, looks to be coming up to your chest at best. It's a green humanoid figure, with a spherical yellow head, appendages that look like leaves, and…clothing that looks the same? Clothing, natural camouflage, both?

…appendages that are very, very sharp, a branch that sizeable shouldn't be that easy to cut. Yeah, you want no part of this.

Surprisingly, despite the obvious difference in size and power, you think the larger of the two is losing. The smaller one has enough speed to dodge around the attacks of the larger one, and while it's clear that it's not doing that much damage per hit, it's still hitting quite a bit. The large one is taking it well, but now that you're paying attention you can start to see nicks and marks scattered across its entire body.

..it occurs to you, as you watch this battle, that you really don't need to stick around any more. You've found out...well, nothing, but unless your companion has a lot more combat ability than you think, neither of these two are something you can take. And yet, you can't help but watch. Something about this enthralls you, your eyes starting to pick out more details as you focus on the fight. The big one is clearly using its bulk to its advantage, with wide sweeping blows and sprays that deny swaths of area for the smaller one as it tries to narrow down where it can be. Its opponent, meanwhile, is using the size against it, often dodging underneath or on top of the former where it can't easily reach.

…yeah, the larger one is going to lose sooner or later. If you can tell that it's starting to flag, something even more familiar with it would-

"What are you even doing here!?"

You only barely manage to not scream in alarm at the sudden whisper behind you, nearly giving yourself whiplash as you turn to look behind you. Your companion reacts as well, sliding into place between you and….the person crouched behind you.

And it is an actual person. Human, with skin that strikes you as slightly odd, blue eyes and dark hair. Their clothes are fairly simple, a fitted shirt and short skirt over more skin-tight clothing, in browns and reds.

"Why are you even sticking around? Let's go!"

She makes an effort to grab your arm, only to pull back as your companion shifts to block that approach. Her gaze turns a little more wary, lingering for a moment on the little thing before turning back to look at you.

"W-who..who are you?" Your voice sounds strange, to your ears. Is there something wrong with it? The space of a thought later the answer occurs to you. You can't remember using it before. This is the first time you've heard yourself talk.

"Is this really the ti-" She's cut off by the sound of a massive thump, and you turn back around to find that the fight has decisively ended. The larger of the two is laying still and unmoving on the ground with the smaller of the two standing on its body, victorious.

Victorious, but not unmoving. Its body is starting to glow slightly, and you have a sudden bad feeling that's instantly proven right when it looks directly at where the two-no, three of you now are.

"Run, run!" The other person doesn't try to hide her voice this time and you absolutely agree with her. You start to stand up, getting ready to run, but…something catches your eye.

Your gaze is turned back to the creature, its leaves now glowing bright enough that it's almost painful to look at. You stare, and can do nothing else. People are touching your body, a hand grabbing your shoulder and something impacting against your chest, but your gaze is fixed on the creature and it's glow. There, in the middle….is it..?

Someone curses behind you. The glow peaks, and a wave of red energy slams through the woods towards you. There's another flash behind you, briefly bright. Something jumps between you two, firing dark energy back in response. The red barely slows, and you're knocked off your feet and into something hard.

You fall into darkness.

—--

You speed through the process of regaining consciousness this time, the violence of your last memories motivating you to wake up.

…you're in another cave. A small one, barely big enough for you and the woman hunched across from you. Your companion is floating back from the entrance, which seems to be covered by a bush of some kind.

"Finally awake, are you? Or are you planning on trying to die again?"

It occurs to you that you're more intact than you'd expect from what little you can remember. And her clothing looks more damaged than you think it was before. The second day you can remember, and you've had to have someone put themselves in danger to save you. It's not a great feeling.

"...thank you." You say. It feels a bit inadequate. "...for saving me. I would have died."

"I'd say. Why the hell would you stay and watch those two fight it out? You're a traveler, clearly, but even then you should know to stay out of a Ruler's way."

[ ] "...what's a Ruler?"
[ ] "...where are we?"
[ ] "...who are you?"