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lb_leeWe Are the Clan of Bones
Series: Infinity Smashed
Summary: Armor Alone works as a salvager, gathering dimensional junk all over Silver Fern, and it finds some very, very unusual (and hopefully valuable!) salvage.
Word Count: 3500
Notes: This story won the Patreon poll and was sponsored by the Patreon crew! It takes place early in Book One, when M.D., Raige, and Bobcat find themselves in Treehouse for the first time.
For whatever reason, Silver Fern seemed a dumping ground for other faraway worlds. This included not just living beings, but inanimate objects as well, few of which were completely useless. At worst, most could be stripped to base materials and repurposed, while others were useful or beautiful just as they were. A precious few gave people access to a whole new technology.
But Armor Alone didn’t care so much about the grand ideals. It was neither technician nor naturalist, certainly no philosopher. It was a scavenger, and (if you asked its opinion) the best in Silver Fern. Its job was to find, gather, carry, and sell.
This was no minor proposition. Rare was the otherworldly object so considerate as to fall through a world-hole right at Armor Alone’s feet, hitting nobody or nothing along the way. Most items fell from all sorts of heights, hitting all sorts of obstacles until they finally crashed into the ground, usually at a speed detrimental to their structural integrity. And as with altitude, so with location; the detritus fell randomly into the swamps, forests, and mountains (and presumably the waters, but Armor Alone couldn’t be induced to go there). Those were the wild places, the dangerous places. People in the wilds followed their own rules, submitting to nothing but their own urges. Many were predators, hunters, and hungry.
That was fine. So was Armor Alone.
Armor Alone had been lucky; it’d fallen through a world-hole very young, scarcely after its first molting—and in the company of its mother.
Oh, what a marvel Crusher of Malefactors had been! Such strength, such power, such dignity! A lesser being would’ve retreated into madness or panic, trapped in an alien land with a young child. They would’ve promptly devoured their offspring to spare it a worse fate. But Crusher had stayed steadfast, survived and thrived, and taught Armor Alone that even in the most alien of circumstances, some things always held true.
And when Crusher had been finally felled, not by hunter or disaster but to pneumonia, Armor Alone had followed the old ways and eaten as much of its parent as it safely could. In this way, Crusher would live on in her child, and Armor Alone would inherit her greatest traits.
There would be no one to eat Armor Alone when it fell. But it tried not to think about that.
Now Armor Alone was full-grown, at its physical peak, and it traveled the wilds alone, carrying the greatest of its parent and clan within it. What its thick, armor-plated skin could not repel, the bony shell could, and Armor Alone always felt safe within the impenetrable embrace of its own body. Its stumpy tail had a bony club with spikes at the end, not as impressive as the living mace that had won Crusher her name, but certainly formidable enough. Many a quick hunter had thought it could outwit or outmaneuver Armor Alone, only to end up in its belly. And thus it had devoured the skills and strengths of all who had attempted to best it and failed.
Armor Alone had associates and caches seeded all over the land, but for short-term needs, it carried a caravan on its back, held with trick straps so it could drop it in a fight. Wares, mostly, some medical provisions, a little food and water, but no maps. It’d walked every step of the land worth covering, many times, and knew the place like a second homeland. And as it journeyed, it sang, as Crusher always had—
“We are strong and fearsome! We are the Clan of Bones! Make way!”
Nobody in Silver Fern knew the language, of course—and even Armor Alone had lost most of it. The old songs were all it remembered now, with Crusher dead so long, and so it couldn’t bear to give them up. And it didn’t really matter what language it sang in, as long as it made a lot of ruckus and informed the feral hunters that it was not to be trifled with.
It doubted it would have much trouble. Its continual, crisscross migrations were regular, had been for years, and its voice was well-known. So it traveled, sang, and grazed, taking advantage of the bounties of autumn, the nuts, ferns, and the last of the fruit. Armor Alone had long since incorporated such things into its route, and it made good time.
It checked in with the Chewcarver family, who maintained a large underground nest and periodically found salvage in their tunneling. Alas, they had found nothing; such was life, at times. But they did have more mail for delivery, so at least there was that.
After bidding the family farewell, Armor Alone passed on into the timberlands, where it paused to drop its caravan and look it over. Salvage had been scant recently, but it had picked up a good bounty from Freeport, and its mail pouch was stuffed to capacity. Hmm, go straight to Treehouse for delivery, or visit the mines first in hopes of getting more…?
Help! Help!
The distress call was a piercing mental shout, transcending all language, stopping Armor Alone short with a shooting pain in its head.
An All-Speaker? Way out here?
Distress! Distress! Beaconbeaconbeacon—
Armor Alone sloughed the caravan and accelerated to a lumbering scuttle. An All-Speaker foolish enough to be in trouble and send a thought-beacon in the middle of the wilds could only be fresh from a world-hole, which meant (hopefully) salvage!
Or at least a meal.
After some running, Armor Alone burst through the trees into a clearing and found the beacon—and a fight in process.
The mental panic cry was radiating from within a carnivore tree. Ah, bad luck there; uprooting it would take more energy than the meat would give back. Any salvage in there would just have to wait.
But the All-Speaker was not alone. There were three more animals around the trees. Two were spindly, gangling bipeds, one small and brown, the other tall and spotted. They were playing a panicked, fleeing game of Ring Around the Carnivore Tree with a sleek black quadruped with a mouthful of fangs and growing annoyance. A couple bags (salvage!) lay forgotten by the tree.
The bipeds were unfamiliar to Armor Alone. The quadruped, however, was not.
“Now, now, Slayer,” Armor Alone said in Pidgin Sign. “That meat is surely too lean for you.”
Slayer bared its teeth and hissed. “Back off, freeloader! Find your own—”
Taking advantage of the distraction, the tiny brown biped threw itself at Slayer, tackling it around the middle and taking a good raking in the process. It started… stinging? and chattering furiously all the while.
“Ouch! Ouch!” Slayer signed. “What are you doing? Stop that!”
All the while, the distress beacon wailed like a never-ending siren in Armor Alone’s (and presumably everyone else’s) minds. It had been a long time since it’d last conversed with a new All-Speaker, but it did its best to configure its thoughts to universality before its skull burst.
“Foolish All-Speaker, hush your caterwauling! Go silent and still and the tree will let you go!” It tried not to sound hungry, and it must have worked; the wailing mercifully stopped.
Meanwhile, Slayer was still locked in combat with the little brown thing, and not looking to be enjoying it one bit.
“Don’t just stand there, you wretch! Get it off me! Ouch!”
“What is it doing?” Little flashes were coming from its forelimbs, but nothing recognizable.
“I don’t know, but it hurts! My jaws are numb! Help me slay them and you can have the salvage!”
“Hmm. Perhaps.” Armor Alone turned to the abandoned bags. “Or, I could watch this play out, eat the loser, and take the salvage.”
“Wretched miser!”
“Good fortune, Slayer! I have faith in you!” And it darted forward and snatched up the bags in its mouth.
The little brown creature’s chattering grew even louder, and it glared at Armor Alone with yellow eyes, but it was too busy with Slayer to be able to do anything but shout. However, the spotty creature, who’d kept the tree between itself and the fight, gave chase.
Armor Alone’s people had many grand qualities: strength, ferocity, dignity beyond measure. Speed, however, was not among them. The spotty biped was on it in a flash.
This one, though, apparently lacked both stingers and blood-thirst. It just grabbed the bags and tried to pull them free. Armor Alone massively outweighed it, so merely squared its stance and pulled back, only to feel the fabric bags start to give way. For a horrified moment, it imagined all the tiny little things the bags could contain—delicate, wispy objects for a delicate wispy people, hard to see and harder to gather and make presentable. But if it let go, surely the spotty one would just run away, never to be caught…
Slayer bounded off, apparently having freed itself from the fight. “Good fortune, miser!” it sneered. “I hope your meals rot in your mouth.”
It vanished into the trees, and Armor Alone felt a slight weight pounce on its back.
Zap! Zap! The little thing didn’t sting; it shocked! Thick bony armor could do nothing about that; Armor Alone’s strong muscles spasmed painfully.
“Ouch!” Armor Alone tried to buck it off, but flexibility was not among its virtues either. It flailed its tail, but the angle was all wrong and it missed. The little brown shocker ranted at it in gibberish, and Armor Alone got down to attempt a roll.
All of you, STOP.
The mental voice was of a volume not to be deferred. Armor Alone hastily spat the bags out and sat down heavily. The little shocker stopped zapping it. The spotty one took the bags, backed up a few steps, and went still.
The All-Speaker was out of the carnivorous tree. It turned out to be a furry little four-legs, barely a mouthful. Its focus razored in on Armor Alone.
Armor Alone knew very little about All-Speakers, but it’d heard stories—ghastly bloody deaths in convulsions and madness, inability to recognize friend from foe, a destruction of all the victim valued and loved. And while it was physically very robust, it felt completely unprepared for a fight in its own mind. Before the All-Speaker could cut into Armor Alone’s soul, it hastily configured its mind—a non-verbal (hopefully recognizable) mental act of diplomacy and peace offering. It was a difficult task with foreigners who shared no common language, but at least this being clearly had eyes; non-linguistic telepathic communication with the blind was the absolute worst, in Armor Alone’s books. After a tense moment, it felt the All-Speaker’s mind configuring back, gauging Armor Alone’s intentions, senses, and modes of communication in common.
One thing, Armor Alone could tell immediately: this All-Speaker might’ve been too ignorant to know to avoid the trees, but in a mental battle, he clearly had a sizable advantage. He probably learned much more about Armor Alone than the reverse; all it got was the sense of a high intelligence, mostly hidden behind mental walls. But even so, no matter how bold a face he put forward, Armor Alone was positive that he was disoriented, upset, and unprepared for the world he found himself in.
After some back-and-forth, they reached agreement: visual imagination, emotions, and limited sound.
My name is <careful sounding out: Bobcat>. I can hurt you.
“I am Armor Alone of the Clan of Bones. I want no fight.”
Bobcat relaxed. No fight. Leave the bags.
The shocker slid off Armor Alone’s back to take one of the bags back, still fluffed up and huffy under the blood and dirt. Armor Alone felt the lurch and lag of Bobcat attempting to translate for it—for her.
“You steal my stuff, you… you big-sized <gibberish>!”
Armor Alone chose to believe that whatever she was calling it was something dignified and gracious, and tried to embody just that. “Salvage. I was salvaging your bag. Surely you’d prefer your things find new uses after you yourself are dead and digested?”
“I’m not dead!”
“An error in judgment, I’m sure.”
Bobcat cut in. I feel gratitude for your information about the… tree? It is a tree?
“Yes. They’re all over these parts.” Armor Alone had only told him in hopes of perhaps making him a more accessible meal, but nevertheless. “Once you grow to recognize their scent and avoid them, they aren’t much to worry about.”
I ask your help. There are… habitations/towns/groups here?
“Oh yes, there are.”
Is there<gibberish>?
“Come again?”
It felt Bobcat’s mind laboring, trying to find a way to explain, then showed a mental image of what seemed a flashy, shining three-dimensional card.
“That is very pretty, but I have no idea what that is.”
The image disappeared. Armor Alone got a sense that Bobcat was perplexed, or perhaps disappointed, but there was no way to know for sure. After a moment of thought, Bobcat said, I ask more your help. Nearest town. Take us there?
Armor Alone paused. It had hoped for some extra protein, but it was now doubtful enough to not want to risk a fight, and given the choice, it’d take the salvage. “Hmm, I might at that… if you pay me for my altruism. Perhaps one of those bags?”
The little shocker clutched her bag, bristling.
Alas, not mine. I can not give them. Mine is open to you. He turned, displaying a tiny bag strapped to its tiny back.
Armor Alone eagerly nosed forward. Small could be valuable.
The shocking girl seemed in bad condition, and also angry at Armor Alone for wanting her things, so the spotty one ended up having to be the one to help Bobcat get his pack off and open it. Armor Alone watched and tried not to let its bemusement show. Were the bipeds Bobcat’s symbiotes? Puppet extensions of himself, the way it’d heard some All-Speakers did? Mere helpers? What were these three doing together?
A long story, very complicated. Happy to share, on the way. The bag was open and emptied, and Bobcat nudged a silver ball away from the rest. This, I can not give.
“Why?”
It is… how I speak to my people. Even without Bobcat’s dubious tone, it was clear that the concept was not translating well. It is useless to you.
Ah, a religious object then. That was fine; most of those were useless to outsiders anyway. Armor Alone started snuffling through the rest of the bag. Most of the contents were uninteresting, but then it saw an intricate array of metal arms.
“Tell me about these.”
They are my arms. <Gibberish> metal, moved/controlled by my mind, fueled by my body. They are broken.
Ah! So that explained why Bobcat seemed to be from a tool-making society, but needed the bipeds’ help! His arms weren’t working. One minor mystery solved.
“Even broken, they are fine.” Worked metal was always valuable, and prosthetic limbs had promise. No buyers in Treehouse likely, but that tinker technician in Freeport would be giddy with glee. “I’ll take them, in exchange for your rescue and safe passage to Treehouse.”
It wasn’t a fair asking price, but the All-Speaker apparently didn’t come from a haggling society. Done! How far?
“Not far. We’ll make it tonight, if we hurry and you don’t get swallowed by any more trees.”
Armor Alone backtracked to its caravan, tied the new salvage down, and crouched down to wriggle underneath and do up the straps. When it hefted up its burden, only a little adjusting was needed. Bobcat’s helpers watched with interest, chattering to each other, but Armor Alone received no translation.
“What are they saying?” it asked.
Bobcat seemed to struggle to find a way to translate it. They say, you look like a <gibberish>.
“A what?”
A <careful sounding out: motor home>.
“Is it fearsome and strong?”
A fleeting image of an enormous metallic beast, smashing all in its path. …Yes.
“Ah, good. I like this ‘motor home.’ I accept this terminology. Let us go!”
Thankfully, the new arrivals were quick; even with the brown one’s injuries, it was they who had to slow their pace for Armor Alone, rather than the other way around. Armor Alone couldn’t help but notice she was limping, her forelimbs covered in dirty bandages. Her posture was slumped, as though very tired.
“Rough journey through the world-hole?” it asked her.
She bared her teeth at it. “I’m not edible.”
“I don’t eat customers. Bad for business.”
“What kind of business?” the spotty one asked.
Armor Alone struck a noble salesmanship pose. “I, Armor Alone of the Clan of Bones, am the primary top-of-the-field scavenger of otherworldly wares from parts unknown. Nobody in Silver Fern—that is, the land in which you find yourself—can compare.”
Then many things and people come here from elsewhere? Bobcat asked.
“Indeed, very much so.”
Tell me about this place, Silver Fern.
Armor Alone said what it knew—that Silver Fern was a large island, mostly covered in forest, swamp, and mountains, with a cool wet climate. There was an even larger island to the south, and other lands, about which it knew nothing. Bobcat seemed immensely interested in the world-holes, but Armor Alone had to confess that it only knew that they existed, not how or why.
You are well-traveled, then? You have seen many people?
“I would say so.”
Have you seen any like us?
Armor Alone gave it some thought. “No, I don’t think—wait, yes! Yes, I have! Only one, and I couldn’t say for sure—it’s been some time. From what I recall, though, it is a wispy biped, like your helpers. I couldn’t make promises, but it could be. And you’re in luck; the one time I saw it, it was in Treehouse, where we’re going. Perhaps it’s still there.”
I want very much to meet them. What do you know?
But there, Armor Alone was no help. It had never sold or interacted with the biped, only seen it once, fleetingly. For all it knew, the being had since died, or migrated. But Bobcat and his helpers seemed reassured anyway. They peppered Armor Alone with questions and conversations, and it did its best to answer.
Their travels reached the mountain slopes and slowed as Armor Alone had to lug its caravan up without becoming so unbalanced as to fall over. The spotty one did his best to help, pushing and holding up the back. The little shocker seemed to need some rest, and Bobcat stayed with her, presumably talking in a way Armor Alone couldn’t hear. The spotty one wasn’t particularly strong, but his dexterity proved useful, and it made the strenuous journey easier.
Eventually, they reached the tree line wall of Treehouse—a dense line of carnivorous plants and trees, thinning at the gate, where the sentries lounged. Armor Alone made for the safe path of the gate, raised its voice, and sang, “it is I, Armor Alone of—”
“Yes, yes, the Clan of Bones, we know who you are,” signed the jellylike zeppelin at the gate. “Welcome back to town, Armor Alone! And look at who’s with you! Have you gone xenosocial, come to join a township at last?”
“Never,” Armor Alone signed back. “They, like the rest of my burdens, are salvage from the world-holes. They’re looking to meet… what’s its name? The wispy biped, like them over here? Is it still here?”
“Handsome Boy? Yes, he’s still here—Aqua, go fetch Handsome Boy! See if he’s interested in vetting them.”
The other guard, a mobile blue flier, waved hello and zipped off to find him. As for Jelly Legs, they drifted down to look the newcomers over—metaphorically speaking, since they were blind.
“Please, take them off my hands,” Armor Alone pleaded. “I haven’t had so much social contact in ages. I am exhausted, answering their questions.”
Jelly Legs jiggled cheerfully. “Too exhausted to sell?”
“Mock me not. The four-legs is an All-Speaker; it shouldn’t be hard to judge their merit. Now, let me in, so I might go and sell.”
Jelly Legs waved it on, and Armor Alone marched past the carnivore trees unmolested; they smelled enchanting and delicious, but it knew better than to try and feast upon them. Past the trees, there was a wavy, wiggly stone wall, carefully locked together through the stones’ very shapes. Past that, and Armor Alone found itself in town.
Treehouse was built on a main spiral thoroughfare, with spoke side-streets radiating outward. Armor Alone followed one to town center, where the day market was in final bloom. It dropped its caravan, adjusted things to look nice and inviting, and in the old language it sang, “for sale, for sale! Goods for the market, shining and good! Buy from the Clan of Bones!”
Though the language was alien, Armor Alone’s voice was not. The crowds came to embrace it, and it got to work. There was still time before the market closed, and it had mail to deliver.
Series: Infinity Smashed
Summary: Armor Alone works as a salvager, gathering dimensional junk all over Silver Fern, and it finds some very, very unusual (and hopefully valuable!) salvage.
Word Count: 3500
Notes: This story won the Patreon poll and was sponsored by the Patreon crew! It takes place early in Book One, when M.D., Raige, and Bobcat find themselves in Treehouse for the first time.
For whatever reason, Silver Fern seemed a dumping ground for other faraway worlds. This included not just living beings, but inanimate objects as well, few of which were completely useless. At worst, most could be stripped to base materials and repurposed, while others were useful or beautiful just as they were. A precious few gave people access to a whole new technology.
But Armor Alone didn’t care so much about the grand ideals. It was neither technician nor naturalist, certainly no philosopher. It was a scavenger, and (if you asked its opinion) the best in Silver Fern. Its job was to find, gather, carry, and sell.
This was no minor proposition. Rare was the otherworldly object so considerate as to fall through a world-hole right at Armor Alone’s feet, hitting nobody or nothing along the way. Most items fell from all sorts of heights, hitting all sorts of obstacles until they finally crashed into the ground, usually at a speed detrimental to their structural integrity. And as with altitude, so with location; the detritus fell randomly into the swamps, forests, and mountains (and presumably the waters, but Armor Alone couldn’t be induced to go there). Those were the wild places, the dangerous places. People in the wilds followed their own rules, submitting to nothing but their own urges. Many were predators, hunters, and hungry.
That was fine. So was Armor Alone.
Armor Alone had been lucky; it’d fallen through a world-hole very young, scarcely after its first molting—and in the company of its mother.
Oh, what a marvel Crusher of Malefactors had been! Such strength, such power, such dignity! A lesser being would’ve retreated into madness or panic, trapped in an alien land with a young child. They would’ve promptly devoured their offspring to spare it a worse fate. But Crusher had stayed steadfast, survived and thrived, and taught Armor Alone that even in the most alien of circumstances, some things always held true.
And when Crusher had been finally felled, not by hunter or disaster but to pneumonia, Armor Alone had followed the old ways and eaten as much of its parent as it safely could. In this way, Crusher would live on in her child, and Armor Alone would inherit her greatest traits.
There would be no one to eat Armor Alone when it fell. But it tried not to think about that.
Now Armor Alone was full-grown, at its physical peak, and it traveled the wilds alone, carrying the greatest of its parent and clan within it. What its thick, armor-plated skin could not repel, the bony shell could, and Armor Alone always felt safe within the impenetrable embrace of its own body. Its stumpy tail had a bony club with spikes at the end, not as impressive as the living mace that had won Crusher her name, but certainly formidable enough. Many a quick hunter had thought it could outwit or outmaneuver Armor Alone, only to end up in its belly. And thus it had devoured the skills and strengths of all who had attempted to best it and failed.
Armor Alone had associates and caches seeded all over the land, but for short-term needs, it carried a caravan on its back, held with trick straps so it could drop it in a fight. Wares, mostly, some medical provisions, a little food and water, but no maps. It’d walked every step of the land worth covering, many times, and knew the place like a second homeland. And as it journeyed, it sang, as Crusher always had—
“We are strong and fearsome! We are the Clan of Bones! Make way!”
Nobody in Silver Fern knew the language, of course—and even Armor Alone had lost most of it. The old songs were all it remembered now, with Crusher dead so long, and so it couldn’t bear to give them up. And it didn’t really matter what language it sang in, as long as it made a lot of ruckus and informed the feral hunters that it was not to be trifled with.
It doubted it would have much trouble. Its continual, crisscross migrations were regular, had been for years, and its voice was well-known. So it traveled, sang, and grazed, taking advantage of the bounties of autumn, the nuts, ferns, and the last of the fruit. Armor Alone had long since incorporated such things into its route, and it made good time.
It checked in with the Chewcarver family, who maintained a large underground nest and periodically found salvage in their tunneling. Alas, they had found nothing; such was life, at times. But they did have more mail for delivery, so at least there was that.
After bidding the family farewell, Armor Alone passed on into the timberlands, where it paused to drop its caravan and look it over. Salvage had been scant recently, but it had picked up a good bounty from Freeport, and its mail pouch was stuffed to capacity. Hmm, go straight to Treehouse for delivery, or visit the mines first in hopes of getting more…?
Help! Help!
The distress call was a piercing mental shout, transcending all language, stopping Armor Alone short with a shooting pain in its head.
An All-Speaker? Way out here?
Distress! Distress! Beaconbeaconbeacon—
Armor Alone sloughed the caravan and accelerated to a lumbering scuttle. An All-Speaker foolish enough to be in trouble and send a thought-beacon in the middle of the wilds could only be fresh from a world-hole, which meant (hopefully) salvage!
Or at least a meal.
After some running, Armor Alone burst through the trees into a clearing and found the beacon—and a fight in process.
The mental panic cry was radiating from within a carnivore tree. Ah, bad luck there; uprooting it would take more energy than the meat would give back. Any salvage in there would just have to wait.
But the All-Speaker was not alone. There were three more animals around the trees. Two were spindly, gangling bipeds, one small and brown, the other tall and spotted. They were playing a panicked, fleeing game of Ring Around the Carnivore Tree with a sleek black quadruped with a mouthful of fangs and growing annoyance. A couple bags (salvage!) lay forgotten by the tree.
The bipeds were unfamiliar to Armor Alone. The quadruped, however, was not.
“Now, now, Slayer,” Armor Alone said in Pidgin Sign. “That meat is surely too lean for you.”
Slayer bared its teeth and hissed. “Back off, freeloader! Find your own—”
Taking advantage of the distraction, the tiny brown biped threw itself at Slayer, tackling it around the middle and taking a good raking in the process. It started… stinging? and chattering furiously all the while.
“Ouch! Ouch!” Slayer signed. “What are you doing? Stop that!”
All the while, the distress beacon wailed like a never-ending siren in Armor Alone’s (and presumably everyone else’s) minds. It had been a long time since it’d last conversed with a new All-Speaker, but it did its best to configure its thoughts to universality before its skull burst.
“Foolish All-Speaker, hush your caterwauling! Go silent and still and the tree will let you go!” It tried not to sound hungry, and it must have worked; the wailing mercifully stopped.
Meanwhile, Slayer was still locked in combat with the little brown thing, and not looking to be enjoying it one bit.
“Don’t just stand there, you wretch! Get it off me! Ouch!”
“What is it doing?” Little flashes were coming from its forelimbs, but nothing recognizable.
“I don’t know, but it hurts! My jaws are numb! Help me slay them and you can have the salvage!”
“Hmm. Perhaps.” Armor Alone turned to the abandoned bags. “Or, I could watch this play out, eat the loser, and take the salvage.”
“Wretched miser!”
“Good fortune, Slayer! I have faith in you!” And it darted forward and snatched up the bags in its mouth.
The little brown creature’s chattering grew even louder, and it glared at Armor Alone with yellow eyes, but it was too busy with Slayer to be able to do anything but shout. However, the spotty creature, who’d kept the tree between itself and the fight, gave chase.
Armor Alone’s people had many grand qualities: strength, ferocity, dignity beyond measure. Speed, however, was not among them. The spotty biped was on it in a flash.
This one, though, apparently lacked both stingers and blood-thirst. It just grabbed the bags and tried to pull them free. Armor Alone massively outweighed it, so merely squared its stance and pulled back, only to feel the fabric bags start to give way. For a horrified moment, it imagined all the tiny little things the bags could contain—delicate, wispy objects for a delicate wispy people, hard to see and harder to gather and make presentable. But if it let go, surely the spotty one would just run away, never to be caught…
Slayer bounded off, apparently having freed itself from the fight. “Good fortune, miser!” it sneered. “I hope your meals rot in your mouth.”
It vanished into the trees, and Armor Alone felt a slight weight pounce on its back.
Zap! Zap! The little thing didn’t sting; it shocked! Thick bony armor could do nothing about that; Armor Alone’s strong muscles spasmed painfully.
“Ouch!” Armor Alone tried to buck it off, but flexibility was not among its virtues either. It flailed its tail, but the angle was all wrong and it missed. The little brown shocker ranted at it in gibberish, and Armor Alone got down to attempt a roll.
All of you, STOP.
The mental voice was of a volume not to be deferred. Armor Alone hastily spat the bags out and sat down heavily. The little shocker stopped zapping it. The spotty one took the bags, backed up a few steps, and went still.
The All-Speaker was out of the carnivorous tree. It turned out to be a furry little four-legs, barely a mouthful. Its focus razored in on Armor Alone.
Armor Alone knew very little about All-Speakers, but it’d heard stories—ghastly bloody deaths in convulsions and madness, inability to recognize friend from foe, a destruction of all the victim valued and loved. And while it was physically very robust, it felt completely unprepared for a fight in its own mind. Before the All-Speaker could cut into Armor Alone’s soul, it hastily configured its mind—a non-verbal (hopefully recognizable) mental act of diplomacy and peace offering. It was a difficult task with foreigners who shared no common language, but at least this being clearly had eyes; non-linguistic telepathic communication with the blind was the absolute worst, in Armor Alone’s books. After a tense moment, it felt the All-Speaker’s mind configuring back, gauging Armor Alone’s intentions, senses, and modes of communication in common.
One thing, Armor Alone could tell immediately: this All-Speaker might’ve been too ignorant to know to avoid the trees, but in a mental battle, he clearly had a sizable advantage. He probably learned much more about Armor Alone than the reverse; all it got was the sense of a high intelligence, mostly hidden behind mental walls. But even so, no matter how bold a face he put forward, Armor Alone was positive that he was disoriented, upset, and unprepared for the world he found himself in.
After some back-and-forth, they reached agreement: visual imagination, emotions, and limited sound.
My name is <careful sounding out: Bobcat>
“I am Armor Alone of the Clan of Bones. I want no fight.”
Bobcat relaxed. No fight. Leave the bags.
The shocker slid off Armor Alone’s back to take one of the bags back, still fluffed up and huffy under the blood and dirt. Armor Alone felt the lurch and lag of Bobcat attempting to translate for it—for her.
“You
Armor Alone chose to believe that whatever she was calling it was something dignified and gracious, and tried to embody just that. “Salvage. I was salvaging your bag. Surely you’d prefer your things find new uses after you yourself are dead and digested?”
“I’m not dead!”
“An error in judgment, I’m sure.”
Bobcat cut in. I feel gratitude for your information about the… tree? It is a tree?
“Yes. They’re all over these parts.” Armor Alone had only told him in hopes of perhaps making him a more accessible meal, but nevertheless. “Once you grow to recognize their scent and avoid them, they aren’t much to worry about.”
I ask your help. There are… habitations/towns/groups here?
“Oh yes, there are.”
Is there
“Come again?”
It felt Bobcat’s mind laboring, trying to find a way to explain, then showed a mental image of what seemed a flashy, shining three-dimensional card.
“That is very pretty, but I have no idea what that is.”
The image disappeared. Armor Alone got a sense that Bobcat was perplexed, or perhaps disappointed, but there was no way to know for sure. After a moment of thought, Bobcat said, I ask more your help. Nearest town. Take us there?
Armor Alone paused. It had hoped for some extra protein, but it was now doubtful enough to not want to risk a fight, and given the choice, it’d take the salvage. “Hmm, I might at that… if you pay me for my altruism. Perhaps one of those bags?”
The little shocker clutched her bag, bristling.
Alas, not mine. I can not give them. Mine is open to you. He turned, displaying a tiny bag strapped to its tiny back.
Armor Alone eagerly nosed forward. Small could be valuable.
The shocking girl seemed in bad condition, and also angry at Armor Alone for wanting her things, so the spotty one ended up having to be the one to help Bobcat get his pack off and open it. Armor Alone watched and tried not to let its bemusement show. Were the bipeds Bobcat’s symbiotes? Puppet extensions of himself, the way it’d heard some All-Speakers did? Mere helpers? What were these three doing together?
A long story, very complicated. Happy to share, on the way. The bag was open and emptied, and Bobcat nudged a silver ball away from the rest. This, I can not give.
“Why?”
It is… how I speak to my people. Even without Bobcat’s dubious tone, it was clear that the concept was not translating well. It is useless to you.
Ah, a religious object then. That was fine; most of those were useless to outsiders anyway. Armor Alone started snuffling through the rest of the bag. Most of the contents were uninteresting, but then it saw an intricate array of metal arms.
“Tell me about these.”
They are my arms. <Gibberish>
Ah! So that explained why Bobcat seemed to be from a tool-making society, but needed the bipeds’ help! His arms weren’t working. One minor mystery solved.
“Even broken, they are fine.” Worked metal was always valuable, and prosthetic limbs had promise. No buyers in Treehouse likely, but that tinker technician in Freeport would be giddy with glee. “I’ll take them, in exchange for your rescue and safe passage to Treehouse.”
It wasn’t a fair asking price, but the All-Speaker apparently didn’t come from a haggling society. Done! How far?
“Not far. We’ll make it tonight, if we hurry and you don’t get swallowed by any more trees.”
Armor Alone backtracked to its caravan, tied the new salvage down, and crouched down to wriggle underneath and do up the straps. When it hefted up its burden, only a little adjusting was needed. Bobcat’s helpers watched with interest, chattering to each other, but Armor Alone received no translation.
“What are they saying?” it asked.
Bobcat seemed to struggle to find a way to translate it. They say, you look like a <gibberish>
“A what?”
A <careful sounding out: motor home>
“Is it fearsome and strong?”
A fleeting image of an enormous metallic beast, smashing all in its path. …Yes.
“Ah, good. I like this ‘motor home.’ I accept this terminology. Let us go!”
Thankfully, the new arrivals were quick; even with the brown one’s injuries, it was they who had to slow their pace for Armor Alone, rather than the other way around. Armor Alone couldn’t help but notice she was limping, her forelimbs covered in dirty bandages. Her posture was slumped, as though very tired.
“Rough journey through the world-hole?” it asked her.
She bared her teeth at it. “I’m not edible.”
“I don’t eat customers. Bad for business.”
“What kind of business?” the spotty one asked.
Armor Alone struck a noble salesmanship pose. “I, Armor Alone of the Clan of Bones, am the primary top-of-the-field scavenger of otherworldly wares from parts unknown. Nobody in Silver Fern—that is, the land in which you find yourself—can compare.”
Then many things and people come here from elsewhere? Bobcat asked.
“Indeed, very much so.”
Tell me about this place, Silver Fern.
Armor Alone said what it knew—that Silver Fern was a large island, mostly covered in forest, swamp, and mountains, with a cool wet climate. There was an even larger island to the south, and other lands, about which it knew nothing. Bobcat seemed immensely interested in the world-holes, but Armor Alone had to confess that it only knew that they existed, not how or why.
You are well-traveled, then? You have seen many people?
“I would say so.”
Have you seen any like us?
Armor Alone gave it some thought. “No, I don’t think—wait, yes! Yes, I have! Only one, and I couldn’t say for sure—it’s been some time. From what I recall, though, it is a wispy biped, like your helpers. I couldn’t make promises, but it could be. And you’re in luck; the one time I saw it, it was in Treehouse, where we’re going. Perhaps it’s still there.”
I want very much to meet them. What do you know?
But there, Armor Alone was no help. It had never sold or interacted with the biped, only seen it once, fleetingly. For all it knew, the being had since died, or migrated. But Bobcat and his helpers seemed reassured anyway. They peppered Armor Alone with questions and conversations, and it did its best to answer.
Their travels reached the mountain slopes and slowed as Armor Alone had to lug its caravan up without becoming so unbalanced as to fall over. The spotty one did his best to help, pushing and holding up the back. The little shocker seemed to need some rest, and Bobcat stayed with her, presumably talking in a way Armor Alone couldn’t hear. The spotty one wasn’t particularly strong, but his dexterity proved useful, and it made the strenuous journey easier.
Eventually, they reached the tree line wall of Treehouse—a dense line of carnivorous plants and trees, thinning at the gate, where the sentries lounged. Armor Alone made for the safe path of the gate, raised its voice, and sang, “it is I, Armor Alone of—”
“Yes, yes, the Clan of Bones, we know who you are,” signed the jellylike zeppelin at the gate. “Welcome back to town, Armor Alone! And look at who’s with you! Have you gone xenosocial, come to join a township at last?”
“Never,” Armor Alone signed back. “They, like the rest of my burdens, are salvage from the world-holes. They’re looking to meet… what’s its name? The wispy biped, like them over here? Is it still here?”
“Handsome Boy? Yes, he’s still here—Aqua, go fetch Handsome Boy! See if he’s interested in vetting them.”
The other guard, a mobile blue flier, waved hello and zipped off to find him. As for Jelly Legs, they drifted down to look the newcomers over—metaphorically speaking, since they were blind.
“Please, take them off my hands,” Armor Alone pleaded. “I haven’t had so much social contact in ages. I am exhausted, answering their questions.”
Jelly Legs jiggled cheerfully. “Too exhausted to sell?”
“Mock me not. The four-legs is an All-Speaker; it shouldn’t be hard to judge their merit. Now, let me in, so I might go and sell.”
Jelly Legs waved it on, and Armor Alone marched past the carnivore trees unmolested; they smelled enchanting and delicious, but it knew better than to try and feast upon them. Past the trees, there was a wavy, wiggly stone wall, carefully locked together through the stones’ very shapes. Past that, and Armor Alone found itself in town.
Treehouse was built on a main spiral thoroughfare, with spoke side-streets radiating outward. Armor Alone followed one to town center, where the day market was in final bloom. It dropped its caravan, adjusted things to look nice and inviting, and in the old language it sang, “for sale, for sale! Goods for the market, shining and good! Buy from the Clan of Bones!”
Though the language was alien, Armor Alone’s voice was not. The crowds came to embrace it, and it got to work. There was still time before the market closed, and it had mail to deliver.
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Date: 2019-10-20 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-21 01:00 am (UTC)