Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Lornaine Forest

Sari's eyes glazed over as she thought about the word home. It continued to bother her, but she couldn't figure out why.

"Would you like to go inside, Polyglot?" She asked, as the boy tried hauling himself up onto the ramp. "Is this city Lutetia?"

Sari helped Polyglot to haul himself up onto the ramp. Then, gripping the bar with her right hand, Sari hauled herself up onto the ramp as well. Walking past Polyglot, she opened the sliding door, a dark gloom ahead of them.
 
Cameron poked his head out from the ramp of the ship. He had been asleep while Sari was flying, trying to get some rest now that his skin wasn't every waking moment. At least, he was, right up to the point where a hard landing rolled him out of the narrow bed and onto the hard metal floor. He threw on some of the more normal-looking clothes he had found in Tiranoth, his knife at his hip under his white shirt.

He stepped out of the room, walking to the hall and towards the ramp just as the door opened.
 
Polyglot stamped on the metal ramp, laughing to himself at the reverberation. "You are in Lutetia! But not Lutetia City. Lutetia is the name of a place and the city within the place." He nodded sagely. "Humans are very confusing with their names." When offered to enter the ship, the sprite hesitated. "It is dark in there..."

As Cameron poked his head out of the ramp, Polyglot offered the newcomer a waive. "Hello. Are you also lost, like Sari?"
 
Sari blinked as she heard what Polyglot said. Dark? It was dark in the ship? "You cannot see within the ship?" This fact truly confused Sari, she could see just fine.

Turning her head at the boy's greetings, Sari saw Cameron. "Cameron. Is the ship dark?" She asked, a sort of icy curiosity in her face.
 
Cameron gave a look over the boy. He was more human looking than the abomination he had been around, but no less strange to a dead man.

"I think the power's out. You know more about spaceships than I do." He said groggily. Not being pent up on adrenaline at all times really put a drain on him.

"Who's your friend?"
 
"In there," Polyglot pointed, "no sunlight, no moonlight, no soil or earth. It is dark." The sprite shivered, not advancing any further. "But it is alright - dark places are for humans and people who build machines like this. They can have them. I just want the forest."

The sprite glanced at Cameron. "Hello, I am Polyglot. You are in Lornaine forest." He pointed to the ship. "And if you want more fuel, you will have to go to Lutetia City."

He jumped down, plopping into the soil. "I can lead you there, if you promise not to hurt anymore trees."
 
Sari blinked as she heard the creature's words, then, turning towards Cameron, the android spoke, "Cameron, stay here, watch over the ship, see if you can't fix it."

Jumping down from the ramp, Sari followed the boy, "I am curious about this city, Polyglot. Would you lead me to the outskirts?"
 
"I'm not staying here while you go gallivanting around. I'm going to the city, I only joined your crew for transit to somewhere less... dead."
 
"Follow me," Polyglot responded, "but don't venture too far. The forest is very dangerous for your kind."

The sprite ran off into the trees at a rather brisk pace. Cameron and Sari would have to hurry to catch up.
 
Sari followed the boy easily, her inhuman legs carrying her forward. Her coat flipping in the wind, her hair tied back in a ponytail.
 
Polyglot led them through the gloomy oaks of Lornaine, darting through mists and and shadows like the apparitions which surely haunted those woods. Sari and Cameron might get the feeling that they were being watched - eyes peering out of the darkness, unseen beasts lurking just beyond their peripheral. Though there was a beauty to Lornaine, it was not a fairy-tale forest. Monsters lived here. They did not take kindly to visitors.

But with Polyglot as their guide, the trio gradually made their way to a cliff. Pushing through the treeline, Sari and Cameron would suddenly be hit with the full Lutetian cityscape spread out before them - an unbroken landscape of concrete, stone, glass, steel and light. Buildings knit closely together, winding deep and intricate mazes through rain-soaked cobblestone streets glutted with pedestrian traffic. Smog lifted from factories, pollution from the congested freeways. A massive superstructure dominated the distant horizon, towering above the other buildings with a beauty at once immense and terrifying. The Issune overcast brooded over all, the silver clouds like a blanket of grey and gloom over the metropolis.

"This is Lutetia," Polyglot said, "the City of Light." He nodded. "You will surely find what you're looking for there - but you should be careful. This place is even more dangerous than my forest. A thousand times so."
 
Sari had payed attention as they travelled through the woods. Many things had hid within the shadows, just far enough from her eyes. "Polyglot, how is your forest dangerous, and how is the city worse?" she asked. Obviously, the android had no idea of where she was...
 
There was a low growl from behind the trio, somewhere among the brush and brambles behind them. A pair of glowing golden eyes peered from the dusky undergrowth, and as they moved forward, the creature's full shape became more resolved. As Aengus stepped forward, he growled more deeply, ensuring the beings heard him without fail.

From nose to ass he was almost ten feet in length, and standing nearly four feet at the shoulder. His coat was a deep brown, bordering on black, with thin lines of russet forming odd-looking whorls and spirals in various locations. As he stepped forward, his paw sank almost an inch into the loamy soil, the black claws upon it leaving furrows as he shifted his weight.
 
Cameron panted as he approached the edge. He was by no means out of shape (despite having lost both his legs to a bomb at one point) and warmed up by the run, not exhausted. It felt good to have his energy come from something natural for once.

He froze as he heard a growl behind him. Not canid, but the growl of a massive creature. He spun around, coming face to face with a towering dark furred bear with gold eyes. He stumbled back, hand reaching for a handgun he no longer had on him. It was on the ship, why did he leave it on the ship?!
 
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But before anyone could act, Polyglot stepped between them - bouncing on his heels, smiling like a child. He didn't seem to think anything was wrong.

<Hello, friend,> he spoke directly to the creature's mind, <we mean no harm to you. I'm escorting these two through the forest, to the city.> He gestured to Cameron and Sari. <You must excuse them - they are very loud and stupid, like most things with two legs.>
 
Cocking her head, Sari caught a glimpse of a big bear walking up behind her. She wasn't sure if it was friend or foe, but when Polyglot walked in between them, it seemed as though the bear might become a friend. Turning back around, fully, Sari's blue eyes met with the gold of the bears. Their eyes held, locked on to each other for a moment. Her face, like a sculpture of ice.
 
Aengus swung his massive head, a full twenty inches across at the widest point, to look at the little creature that had spoken to him. He snorted and snapped his jaws, unsure of how to communicate. He wouldn't dare to speak the language of his faith around strangers, but this thing could speak to him without ever saying a word, so perhaps it could understand thoughts instead of requiring speech.

<If you think to claim yer friends there as innocent o' the crimes they've committed here on my lands, then you'll have to find someone else to trick. Ah'm a druid, and Ah've known most of the trees they killed today since they were wee saplings. They're murderers, those two. You give me a better reason not to rip their hides from their bones and string them up in the wind fer the crows to feast on. Go ahead and tell them. Ah'll wait, at least a little while longer.> He looked back at the woman, baring his teeth once more.

She had no scent that he could discern aside from the general scent of industry, not even the stench of death. It unnerved him greatly, and it only further made him feel justified in his initial aggression. He took another step forward, his massive body shifting easily, despite the bulk of muscle and fur. As if from nowhere, a light breeze sprang up around Aengus, rushing towards the two still by the cliff edge. While the druid wished he could throw the force of a hurricane as he'd done in his youth, the gentle breeze was the best he could manage while trapped in the skin he wore.
 
Without his gun, Cameron was left with only his knife to defend himself. Far from useful against a bear that had twenty some knives built in on it's paws. He pulled it, keeping it's blade tip pointed to the animal. "What are you doing?!"
 
<I've repaired the trees,> Polyglot replied, <you can inspect them yourself. Even so, is that really the worst humans have done in our forest? Do these two truly deserve death for singing some of our brothers? They are strangers in this land - ignorant. A koi fish leaps from freshwater to saltwater and is blameless if he drowns.>

He looked over his shoulder. "It would help if you two apologized for burning the trees."
 
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