Chapter 10: The Foragers
I awoke a few hours later on the very edge of a lake, I was a bit dazed, my head was pounding and I had no clue where I came out or where I was. I looked up to the skies for the first time in so long, it was a purplish blue as the sun showed its last bit of light before setting. I smiled as the rays hit my face, then I looked around I could see the clouds darkening above my head. I would have to find a place to shelter myself from the oncoming storm that the clouds told me was heading my way.
After leaving the city through a cave filled with crushing water, I was done with being soaked in water for a while. I quickly found a little high ground, wasn’t very high just about 20 feet above where I was at the lake, but it was high enough for me to spot a cloud of smoke in the distance. I figured it had to be a village, or at least somewhere I could find shelter for the night.
The cloud of smoke looked as if it was coming from about two miles downwind. Which I estimated should only take a couple of minutes to do at my newfound speed. I took a deep breath and look straight forward, then I was gone, I moved out of the Valley where the lake was in an instant. Then I moved into a forest, jumping from branch to branch moving like the wind across the branches not even leaving an after image of myself. After a few minutes I stopped to take a break, I must’ve gone more than ten miles by now. There is no way it could be much further, I should at least be seeing the building by now, if not be able to smell the smoke I thought to myself. I looked up and appeared on the top of one of the taller trees around me, I need to see how much further I had to go.
There must be something strange going on here seeing that the smoke looked just as far away as when I first saw it. I turned around and looked around trying to spot the lake that I came out in. Which took me a little while, but I did find it and just as I thought, the lake was a lot further back than two miles I could hardly see it. I figured the fire was simply just a lot larger than I’d thought it was originally, so it must be further than I had assumed. I put it out of my mind and took a little break to relax for a little while before I would get back to moving towards the smoke. I estimated I had a half an hour before the sun would set fully leaving me in the darkness, and maybe ten minutes away from the smoke according to my new estimates. I set out again moving a little bit faster than I had before, and actually maintained it for longer periods of time.
This time when I stopped the smoke looked much closer, but still it was very strange I must’ve gone seven or eight miles and should have arrived before now. Then I took another look at the cloud of smoke, realizing that the cloud didn’t get slightly bigger it got huge. It was so big at this point that I was standing in its shadow and I had been for quite some time. I was still a ways off, but I knew at this point I wasn’t very far off because I could start to see where the smoke was coming from. I took my final deep breath of my break and headed off right for the smoke.
About a minute later and almost two miles later, I was there, I stopped and looked around at everything around me and was completely shocked. There in front of me was a gigantic machine hovering just above the treetops. I had never seen anything like this in my entire life, not even in my father’s lab. I looked around it and inspected it to see if I could find anything coming from it down to the forest floor, but as far as I could see there was nothing. I’ve quickly ran up one of the trees, then jumped off the tree as high as I could to get a better look from above, and figure out just how big it was. I flew high into the sky and then looked down onto this huge platform. A part of me couldn’t believe just how gigantic it was, it must have been over ten miles long in every direction, it seemed to just keep going and going. As I fell back towards the forest, I realized that it wasn’t just a platform, but it was an entire city.
I ran up the tree once again and this time I headed for the city, I was going to find out what kind of people lived on it. I pull myself up onto the edge of the city, which was completely surrounded by walls. I looked around looking for a way in , and soon found it in the form of the small house. As I walked up to it, out came a strangely dressed man, he was about 7 feet tall and he looked as if he was wearing a fully armored suit. I could see that the suit was different from anything I had ever seen, it looks like one solid piece of metal bent around his entire body to fit him like a glove. However, he was walking and moving with such ease that it just didn’t seem possible, I couldn’t believe that it was metal it had to be something else, but I would soon find out.
He approached me and began to speak with a deep boom of a voice. “Hello visitor, my name is Adam I am the gatekeeper to forge city, where we make any weapon any shield and anything else you can think of for the right price of course.” He said with a smile, and then bowed to greet me. He then turned and gestured for me to follow him back to the small building that he came out of. He walked into the small building and opened the window in front of me, then pulled out a writing pad and some paper and started writing something on it. I was about to ask what he was writing down, but he looked up at me with a smile and began to speak. “I’m going to need your name, and what you would like us to build for you. Then I’m going to need what you have to trade with us, we accept almost whatever you’re willing to trade for our services.” He smiled and looked at me waiting for an answer ready to write everything I said down. “Well to be perfectly honest with you, I’m not here to have anything built. I was actually just looking for a place to spend the night, out of the oncoming storm. Is there any way that would be possible?” I responded to him with a hopeful smile.
He looked at me completely confuse but still smiling. “Well yes, that is possible though it would be the first time anyone has asked to stay here, well since I’ve been working here anyway. Let me see what you have to trade, and also any skills that you may have that are unique to you or you may think is useful in the village are also acceptable seeing that you will be staying here instead of getting anything built in return.” He said, writing something down on the pad, then looking up at me waiting for me to do something.
I didn’t have much of anything with me except for a few things that I brought with me from the underground city, I had planned on working and earning some money to buy supplies. But looking at the city I didn’t think there was anything I could do to earn money here. Nevertheless, I would try, maybe my newfound skills could be of use here. I looked over at him as he waited eagerly for me to show him what I could do. “I’m not exactly sure if this skill would be useful here, but I will show it to you anyway. Now keep your eyes on me and don’t blink.” I pulled one of the orange fruits I had picked in the city out of my pocket, then took a deep breath as he stared at the fruit. I exhaled, and as I did I vanished, leaving the fruit floated in the air.
Continues in Chapter 11 or go to previous Chapter 9
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