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Description
Chapter 5: Danger from the Skies

"So that's the story, huh?" Neshae sighed as I finished telling him of my conversation with Helios.  "Hate to hear the gods think I'm an idiot.  But then again, I am one."  The limbless vampire sat on my back, leaning against my dorsal fin.  Normally I'd be pretty picky about who was riding me, but Neshae was so light that I didn't really mind.  I, being the non-lazy one of the two of us, was calmly-yet-quickly walking through the dense forest.  It had a sinister feel to it, the forest.  I hardly saw any animals.  The ones that I did see were small and insect-like.  I had heard a few roars every now and then, but saw no large animal.

This all changed about four hours into our walk (I wasn't about to fall asleep when some insane sun had warned me about birds).  I was walking along, listening to Neshae's gibberish that never made any sense (he had fallen into just muttering things to himself in Raymanian), when I heard a rustle in the trees.  I stopped dead in my tracks and gulped.  Was it a bird?

Long, spindly legs poked out from the dense leaves of a large, thick tree.  Four of them, in fact.  They were all connected to a strange black disc.  It stopped at about eye level and just sat there for a moment, standing sideways on the tree trunk.  "What is it?" Neshae whispered in English.  "Can I poke it?"

"Certainly not!" a low voice echoed.  My jaw dropped when two glowing, ghost-white eyes dropped from the tree branches and floated in midair in front of the disc.  They were followed by a glowing, floating mouth that similarly floated in midair.  "So, what are you supposed to be?" I asked.

"I am a Discranid.  What are you supposed to be?" it coldly asked.

"I am a dragon, thank you very much.  And this is a Raymanian," I answered.  I have patience, but I don't like it when its tested.

"Nice, nice.  Are you new items on the menu?  I just love Saturday Morning Specials!  Kinda early, though aren't you?  I mean, it's 3:00 in the morning!"  My eyes darted to Neshae for a moment.  Was this creature suggesting that we were...  "Oh well.  I guess the early bird gets the worm.  You just stay there, you juicy little morsels!  I just have to get a taste of you!"

"Dreyfus, I don't like the sound of this..." Neshae mumbled.  "Let's get outta here, Deer Boy..."  He didn't have to tell me that.  For a second the face just floated there, but then the eyes and the mouth suddenly parted and a large, gnashing head erupted from the disc.  It had no face--just a big mouth full of sharp teeth and saliva.  I yelped and broke into a dash, Neshae hanging on to the tip of my fin.  "Come back here, you!" the Discranid called after us in its whiny voice.  "I haven't even paid the bill yet!  Oh, service here sucks.  You'll regret it, you juicy morsels!  The BIRDS will get you!  I'll make sure of it!"  I couldn't catch any more words as I dashed away.

-

As the sun began to rise amid the trees, the forest turned orange with the glow of the sun.  As Neshae groaned I happily stared up at the sun--though I gasped as soon as I did.  It wasn't a sun--a giant lightbulb shone where the sun should have been.  "This is truly a strange place," I remarked.  Neshae didn't answer and yawned.

The forest didn't look so bad in the morning light.  The trees were much bigger than I thought they were; I swore they were all Red Woods from California or something.  The leaves rustled with the wind, but I was uncomfortably warm.  We must have been along the equator or something, because this temperate forest's temperature felt far more like a tropical rainforest's.  I sweated a little bit.  I tightened my calito, an organ unique to fire- and ice-associated dracotherianthropes that allowed us to adjust our internal temperatures.  Cooling myself down, I snorted some cold air toward Neshae just to be nice.  He may be an idiot, but Neshae was my idiot and therefore worth some kindness now and then.

The calming glow of the forest had me in a hypnotic trance for a few more hours.  Neshae had dozed off on my back but I decided not to wake him.  He was, after all, nocturnal.  The lightbulb glowed a brilliant glow, and by midday I was in good spirits.  I saw some more animals, but they were so bizarre I still can't describe them to this day.  A few were so nonsensical that they reminded me of something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon.

Going into the afternoon, I was taking a drink from a small river when I heard the strangest roar I had ever heard in my entire life.  It was full of life, that much was certain; but at the same time, the roar was very mechanical in its sound.  The words "Star Wars" were flashing in my mind, that's to be sure.  What could that have been? I wondered.  There was a second roar.  And then suddenly, three roars at once.

I gradually became aware that there were two groups making the roars:  three on my left, three on my right.  There was a rumbling sound, and the ground began to shake under the pads of my paws.  "Oooookey-dokey, time to hoof it out of here," I quickly stated.  I had just gotten away from the stream when two enormous monsters came crashing out of the brushes.  They were both identical; both were sauropod-like and covered in olive-green scales.  Their long necks were topped by not heads but cannons.  Each monster had three necks and three heads, almost like a hydra.

Though I backed up into a tree, the two monsters took no notice of me.  They took no notice of Neshae either, who as I was backing up slipped off my back and onto the ground.  He was sleeping so hard, though, that he didn't wake up.  The monsters made those bizarre roars at each other for a long while, but then one couldn't stand it any longer and one of its heads reared back and...BANG!  A cannonball fired out of its nozzle and hit the other creature square in one of its necks.  The creature responded by lashing its long tail out and whipping one of the heads of its adversary.

This battle seemed too dangerous for me to be around.  I grabbed Neshae in my mouth and galloped away to somewhere safer.  Neshae never believed my encounter when I later told him about it.

-

As nighttime approached, the lightbulb let off a sunset-ish glow.  The shadows of the trees began to ever-so-slowly bring the darkness back to the forest.  As I wearily slinked along in the shadow of the trees I came across a sign.  It was shaped like an arrow and was pointing in the direction I was going.  The letters on the sign were foreign to me.  "Neshae," I called while shaking the fellow off my back.  "Wake up."  The vampire groggily blinked his eyes and stood up.  "BACK TO ADVENTURE!" he announced.  I rolled my eyes and then asked him about the letters on the sign.  "Neshae," I tiredly inquired, "is that sign in Raymanian?"

"Nope," Neshae said in his dopey fashion.  I sighed and turned my long neck so that I could once more look at the sign.  Suddenly, something snapped.  I took a deep breath and sung.  Not the kind of singing that humans do so as to horribly annoy some people while brainwashing their sweethearts into mad love--no, that was the stuff for Pink Floyd.  I mean the kind of singing that whales do; I am, after all, part-orca (at least formwise), and though orcas themselves don't really sing all that much my mom taught me Whaleish.  I sung something in particular, though; I sung outloud what the letters looked like they would sound like.  And it was by doing so that I gradually began to understand the sign.  Neshae was looking at me like I was a weirdo; but personally I was feeling like an Einstein!

"Neshae!" I announced proudly.  "I have decided this sign is in whale language!"

"Is that what those weird sounds were?" Neshae asked, ruining the mood.

"Yes.  That's what they were," I said flatly.

"Then what does it say?" the vampire demanded.

"It says, 'Head West for Bubble Bay.  Or, if you are without one of Wendell's sexy compasses...go get one!  Just keep heading west by following this sign!  It's that easy!'"

Neshae and I couldn't help but laugh a bit.  "Interesting sign," Neshae mused.

"C'mon, let's keep going," I giggled.

-

We only continued on for thirty minutes before a sound stopped us dead in our tracks.  What we heard was the low sound of a glacier horn.  It was distant at first, but soon the sound became louder and louder.  I looked up and saw the bizarre figures of what were no doubt birds.  "Birds!" I exclaimed.  "Dive for cover!"  And of course, I did just that; I turned into a kitsune and buried myself in the shadows.

"Dreyfus, what cover?" Neshae asked, eyes darting around.  "Ah, what the heck," he said after apparently being unable to decide between a bush or a tree.  "I'll fight the dang things!"  No sooner had he said that than one dived from the sky and crashed onto the ground.

The bird was large--about half my size as a human.  It was white and swan-like in stature, but crowning its head was two spiraling horns like that of a bighorn sheep's and an immensely long beak that emitted that same glacier horn sound.  Neshae wasn't at all deterred by its hungry stare and whipped out his Fire Blade.  "Come and get me, you deep fried chicken!" he taunted.

Description
Chapter 5: Danger from the Skies

"So that's the story, huh?" Neshae sighed as I finished telling him of my conversation with Helios.  "Hate to hear the gods think I'm an idiot.  But then again, I am one."  The limbless vampire sat on my back, leaning against my dorsal fin.  Normally I'd be pretty picky about who was riding me, but Neshae was so light that I didn't really mind.  I, being the non-lazy one of the two of us, was calmly-yet-quickly walking through the dense forest.  It had a sinister feel to it, the forest.  I hardly saw any animals.  The ones that I did see were small and insect-like.  I had heard a few roars every now and then, but saw no large animal.

This all changed about four hours into our walk (I wasn't about to fall asleep when some insane sun had warned me about birds).  I was walking along, listening to Neshae's gibberish that never made any sense (he had fallen into just muttering things to himself in Raymanian), when I heard a rustle in the trees.  I stopped dead in my tracks and gulped.  Was it a bird?

Long, spindly legs poked out from the dense leaves of a large, thick tree.  Four of them, in fact.  They were all connected to a strange black disc.  It stopped at about eye level and just sat there for a moment, standing sideways on the tree trunk.  "What is it?" Neshae whispered in English.  "Can I poke it?"

"Certainly not!" a low voice echoed.  My jaw dropped when two glowing, ghost-white eyes dropped from the tree branches and floated in midair in front of the disc.  They were followed by a glowing, floating mouth that similarly floated in midair.  "So, what are you supposed to be?" I asked.

"I am a Discranid.  What are you supposed to be?" it coldly asked.

"I am a dragon, thank you very much.  And this is a Raymanian," I answered.  I have patience, but I don't like it when its tested.

"Nice, nice.  Are you new items on the menu?  I just love Saturday Morning Specials!  Kinda early, though aren't you?  I mean, it's 3:00 in the morning!"  My eyes darted to Neshae for a moment.  Was this creature suggesting that we were...  "Oh well.  I guess the early bird gets the worm.  You just stay there, you juicy little morsels!  I just have to get a taste of you!"

"Dreyfus, I don't like the sound of this..." Neshae mumbled.  "Let's get outta here, Deer Boy..."  He didn't have to tell me that.  For a second the face just floated there, but then the eyes and the mouth suddenly parted and a large, gnashing head erupted from the disc.  It had no face--just a big mouth full of sharp teeth and saliva.  I yelped and broke into a dash, Neshae hanging on to the tip of my fin.  "Come back here, you!" the Discranid called after us in its whiny voice.  "I haven't even paid the bill yet!  Oh, service here sucks.  You'll regret it, you juicy morsels!  The BIRDS will get you!  I'll make sure of it!"  I couldn't catch any more words as I dashed away.

-

As the sun began to rise amid the trees, the forest turned orange with the glow of the sun.  As Neshae groaned I happily stared up at the sun--though I gasped as soon as I did.  It wasn't a sun--a giant lightbulb shone where the sun should have been.  "This is truly a strange place," I remarked.  Neshae didn't answer and yawned.

The forest didn't look so bad in the morning light.  The trees were much bigger than I thought they were; I swore they were all Red Woods from California or something.  The leaves rustled with the wind, but I was uncomfortably warm.  We must have been along the equator or something, because this temperate forest's temperature felt far more like a tropical rainforest's.  I sweated a little bit.  I tightened my calito, an organ unique to fire- and ice-associated dracotherianthropes that allowed us to adjust our internal temperatures.  Cooling myself down, I snorted some cold air toward Neshae just to be nice.  He may be an idiot, but Neshae was my idiot and therefore worth some kindness now and then.

The calming glow of the forest had me in a hypnotic trance for a few more hours.  Neshae had dozed off on my back but I decided not to wake him.  He was, after all, nocturnal.  The lightbulb glowed a brilliant glow, and by midday I was in good spirits.  I saw some more animals, but they were so bizarre I still can't describe them to this day.  A few were so nonsensical that they reminded me of something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon.

Going into the afternoon, I was taking a drink from a small river when I heard the strangest roar I had ever heard in my entire life.  It was full of life, that much was certain; but at the same time, the roar was very mechanical in its sound.  The words "Star Wars" were flashing in my mind, that's to be sure.  What could that have been? I wondered.  There was a second roar.  And then suddenly, three roars at once.

I gradually became aware that there were two groups making the roars:  three on my left, three on my right.  There was a rumbling sound, and the ground began to shake under the pads of my paws.  "Oooookey-dokey, time to hoof it out of here," I quickly stated.  I had just gotten away from the stream when two enormous monsters came crashing out of the brushes.  They were both identical; both were sauropod-like and covered in olive-green scales.  Their long necks were topped by not heads but cannons.  Each monster had three necks and three heads, almost like a hydra.

Though I backed up into a tree, the two monsters took no notice of me.  They took no notice of Neshae either, who as I was backing up slipped off my back and onto the ground.  He was sleeping so hard, though, that he didn't wake up.  The monsters made those bizarre roars at each other for a long while, but then one couldn't stand it any longer and one of its heads reared back and...BANG!  A cannonball fired out of its nozzle and hit the other creature square in one of its necks.  The creature responded by lashing its long tail out and whipping one of the heads of its adversary.

This battle seemed too dangerous for me to be around.  I grabbed Neshae in my mouth and galloped away to somewhere safer.  Neshae never believed my encounter when I later told him about it.

-

As nighttime approached, the lightbulb let off a sunset-ish glow.  The shadows of the trees began to ever-so-slowly bring the darkness back to the forest.  As I wearily slinked along in the shadow of the trees I came across a sign.  It was shaped like an arrow and was pointing in the direction I was going.  The letters on the sign were foreign to me.  "Neshae," I called while shaking the fellow off my back.  "Wake up."  The vampire groggily blinked his eyes and stood up.  "BACK TO ADVENTURE!" he announced.  I rolled my eyes and then asked him about the letters on the sign.  "Neshae," I tiredly inquired, "is that sign in Raymanian?"

"Nope," Neshae said in his dopey fashion.  I sighed and turned my long neck so that I could once more look at the sign.  Suddenly, something snapped.  I took a deep breath and sung.  Not the kind of singing that humans do so as to horribly annoy some people while brainwashing their sweethearts into mad love--no, that was the stuff for Pink Floyd.  I mean the kind of singing that whales do; I am, after all, part-orca (at least formwise), and though orcas themselves don't really sing all that much my mom taught me Whaleish.  I sung something in particular, though; I sung outloud what the letters looked like they would sound like.  And it was by doing so that I gradually began to understand the sign.  Neshae was looking at me like I was a weirdo; but personally I was feeling like an Einstein!

"Neshae!" I announced proudly.  "I have decided this sign is in whale language!"

"Is that what those weird sounds were?" Neshae asked, ruining the mood.

"Yes.  That's what they were," I said flatly.

"Then what does it say?" the vampire demanded.

"It says, 'Head West for Bubble Bay.  Or, if you are without one of Wendell's sexy compasses...go get one!  Just keep heading west by following this sign!  It's that easy!'"

Neshae and I couldn't help but laugh a bit.  "Interesting sign," Neshae mused.

"C'mon, let's keep going," I giggled.

-

We only continued on for thirty minutes before a sound stopped us dead in our tracks.  What we heard was the low sound of a glacier horn.  It was distant at first, but soon the sound became louder and louder.  I looked up and saw the bizarre figures of what were no doubt birds.  "Birds!" I exclaimed.  "Dive for cover!"  And of course, I did just that; I turned into a kitsune and buried myself in the shadows.

"Dreyfus, what cover?" Neshae asked, eyes darting around.  "Ah, what the heck," he said after apparently being unable to decide between a bush or a tree.  "I'll fight the dang things!"  No sooner had he said that than one dived from the sky and crashed onto the ground.

The bird was large--about half my size as a human.  It was white and swan-like in stature, but crowning its head was two spiraling horns like that of a bighorn sheep's and an immensely long beak that emitted that same glacier horn sound.  Neshae wasn't at all deterred by its hungry stare and whipped out his Fire Blade.  "Come and get me, you deep fried chicken!" he taunted.