by GR Griffin
Reluctantly, Safnari took the slip and feared the worst. Right off the bat, the paper was slightly damp. She had given away many betting slips to those stupid enough to take the challenge, accepting money in the hundreds and thousands, but this was the first time she was getting one back. All she could think about was how much she owed this kid; how many zeroes their winnings would contain; how much of a dent this would put in the economy. She squinted before reading the bet, only to reflex and do a double take at how anticlimactic it was.
"Five cloud coins? Are you serious? Did you literally bet your pocket money?" she said, blinking from the slip to the child who replied with a tense shrug. Safnari sighed. Her etiquette was rusty. "Still, I suppose I should be congratulating you. You're technically the first person to win, and since I've never had to dish out someone's winnings before, you've given me a nice number to start with."
Flipping the betting slip over to its blank side and taking hold of her pencil, she prepared to use it on numbers that didn't exist within a nine-by-nine square grid. Time to put all those hours spent in maths class to practical use. She remembered it quite well for it was not easy to forget: times fifty the bet with extra multipliers for each piece of equipment brought back and in usable condition.
Five multiplied by fifty was two hundred and fifty; already, this kid was off to a good start. That number would serve as their minimum winnings if the rest wasn't in order, which, from the looks of it, did not look very likely. The clothes came next, five pieces in total. A little dirty, a little worn, a little damaged, but they had made it. That was an extra five multipliers, making it fifty five. Now the bag. Right off the bat, both ice axes were missing, costing two multipliers, but the sleeping bag and folded tent cancelled those losses out. Fifty seven. Inside, the portable radiator was missing, another point off; same with the flask and a couple packs of rations – one of which Fleck munched on during the short walk to the Forest. Everything else, though, was there and hardly touched.
She summed it up as fast as she could as if there was a line of customers to handle. "If this is correct," Safnari the collector stated, calculating it up, "that means you've won… three hundred and twenty five cloud coins. Let me just gather your winnings…"
Fleck wondered how much this amount would weigh as the border officer stepped up to the cashier at the other side of the kiosk. The pouch of several dozen clouds coins from Sam an' Rita weren't too much of a hassle to carry, but over three hundred of them may be a different story. It was funny how they were concerned over the logistics of currency when back in the Underground they carried large quantities of gold in the hundreds and even thousands, and that stuff is dense. Safnari reached under the counter, slipped something out, clicked a few buttons on the machine, and then swiped her hand across the interface. She returned to her previous spot and Fleck was a little surprised when she presented them a white card with a black strip on the back as opposed to a fat bag of money.
"Here is your cloud coin credit card," Safnari detailed, almost slipping on her tongue, "with three hundred and twenty five coins balance. Most establishments accept these – simply present this when you make your purchase and they will scan the amount off."
The child hesitantly took the card, feeling like they were being conned. They blankly looked at the credit card, turning it on both sides, then back to Safnari as if to say this was not what they expected.
Safnari's radiant face grew a mocking quality to it. "Welcome to the twenty-first century," she said. "Oh, and welcome to the Forest. Follow the path for ten minutes and you'll reach town. There's plenty of candy stores where I'm sure you'll be eager to spend your winnings."
Fleck slipped the card into the same pocket that housed the betting slip and went to leave. Five steps later, they turned around and took five steps back to the kiosk.
They inquired at the border hut if she knew where Professor Haze was.
"Professor Haze?" she repeated. "That guy from the civil war? Not a clue. Sorry."
With that, Fleck let out a tired yawn and made their way into the Forest. Safnari watched from her kiosk until she could see them no more, knowing that odd creature could be the last customer she would get for a long time.
Just when she thought the silence had returned and settled in for the long run, another rising sound caught her ears. "…ooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOP!"
The Sergeant ascended upwards and landed on the very spot from which he fell. He bounded to a stop, stumbling forward a few steps on unsteady feet. He was fully intact, still holding his weapon and all his armour adorning his chiselled frame.
The Sarge faced the lady at the kiosk. "What'd I miss?"
* * *
The Forest: a true habitant for giants. A maze of walkways constructed with the intricacies of spider webs, all around the thickets that made up the treetops. The paths curved and circled around trunks, around branches, and through some trunks themselves, with thick and sturdy supports built into the bark to keep the platforms secure. Such a feat would have taken decades, centuries to complete, which the monsters of this land had plenty of. The branches themselves were as thick as redwoods.
Up above, the canopy was the largest and thickest Fleck had ever seen with layers upon layers of leaves acting as the ceiling, all glowing in a beautiful spectrum of greens from lime to seaweed, emerald to juniper. Rays of sunlight pierced through in certain spots, turning leaves gold. No chirping birds yet the wind whistled past at a steady tempo, rustling the leaves with the same frequency as white waves against golden sands. Sounded similar too.
Fleck stopped a moment and peeked over the nearest railing to the chasm below. The forest floor was too far down and too shrouded in blackness to be seen by the naked eye, like looking up through the trees and seeing the sky only this was the opposite. If someone fell, one would have an hour to make peace in their life before they hit the ground. The damp air smelled strongly of wood, leaves, and bark… with a hint of some unidentifiable chemical.
Over from their platform, across a wide gap, stood a crowd of monsters all with sombre looks on their faces. Upon noticing the single, charcoal grey urn which they surrounded, Fleck realised what the occasion was. A young, white-haired yeti in a black suit slowly picked up the urn and removed the lid.
"And so," one of the monsters spoke aloud, enough for the human child to overhear, "we lay Gallic to rest in the forest depths. May his memory live on in our souls and in our thoughts and prayers, and may he rest in peace."
The yeti tipped the container over the railing and out seeped the remains of the one named Gallic. His ashes dispersed as they fell, starting as a stream and ending as a cloud as the abyss gobbled them up.
Fleck, without muttering a word, moved on, leaving the crowd of mourners to their thoughts and prayers.
Apparently, according to the mummy couple, this place was where Fleck needed to be. This was where their journey was to come to a close, and quite frankly, it could not end fast enough. The feeling was akin to watching the final five minutes of school tick down on a Friday afternoon; the day was already over, not much more could be done or learned, but until the bell rang, maths with Mister Miller was still in session.
They should have known that it wouldn't be that easy, not like the journey here was easy in the first place: the fight with Emperor Zeus; their near-drowning experience; getting chased through Parfocorse; being hunted by Barb the Bounty Hunter while holding on for dear life in the Shattered Zone; almost getting pulled into Vail's fantasy land. All these events had done their part to beat down this human who had already survived deadly events of a different yet similar nature under Mount Ebott. The backpack no longer weighed them down, the bulk of the winter gear no longer there, but their body was heavy from their own fatigue.
Just like Safnari said, ten minutes later they were within a town, if it could be called a town. Thanks to their surroundings, the town was built upwards on multiple levels, with structures of varying architecture on each one. It was expansive in
both size and scope. Fleck counted five floors in total, anything above that was shrouded within the canopy. There could be a hundred platforms within those leaves, a thought that Fleck dreaded. All floors buzzed with life: walking, talking, shaking hands, walking with hands, talking with hands, and some of the monsters were hands.
Barely thinking straight, their mind was a haze with a single, solitary word repeating itself like binary code:
Haze. Haze. Haze. Haze. Haze. Haze. Haze. Haze. Haze. Haze. Haze. Haze. Haze.
Fleck was moving, breathing, alive but exhausted, practically dead on their feet, occasionally lacking the energy to lift them off the ground. They had reached the finish line, but the race was still going. Fleck just wanted to find Haze so he could send them home and they could crawl up into bed and sleep for a week. Maybe two.
If they wanted to find this guy, then their hope was to find someone who could point them in the right direction. The floor they started on looked crowded with houses, homes, and wooden shacks cobbled around the area, seriously lacking imagination and paint. Windows lacking glass glowed yellow and warm.
As Fleck wandered through streets and alleys, it occurred to them that there was not a single sign of a wanted poster with their face on it in sight. Either word had not reached this place yet or it was not believed that the human infant would make it this far on their own. Regardless, they finally had some room to breathe and did not need to look over their shoulder constantly.
Fleck stopped a passing lady – a brown and green cat – and asked where they could find Professor Haze.
"Professor who?" was all Fleck needed to hear from this individual to know where pursuing the topic would lead.
Fleck found a ramp that led them down to the level below. This floor looked worst that the one above, with very seedy and very sleazy stalls, bars and dilapidated structures all constructed within five minutes. Some structures looked so fragile that a wayward sneeze would topple them. This place looked awfully like a slum, both in sight and smell. Just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time was a sure way to get mugged. Fleck wanted to ask one of these fine, grizzled, battle-scarred gentlemen whether they knew a certain professor from the civil war, but could not bring themself to ask. Again, their thoughts returned to the Underground where all the inhabitants had one interesting line to say when spoken to, which they all shared so freely to some random stranger that approached them.
The level beneath that one yielded the reason for the odour. The entire bottom floor consisted of a garbage disposal unit, amply named Forest Dump. Anything and everything garbage from above: packages; leftover food; broken utilities; hole-riddled socks; all of it winded up here. Unless Professor Haze was garbage, there was nothing to find or see here.
After retracing their steps back to the third floor, they searched the vicinity until they located the ramp to the fourth floor, which consisted of more houses and stores built around and in the trees. These walls and doors appeared better than those below, and the windows actually had glass in them this time, and ornaments and drapes adorning them.
Fleck asked the large, one-eyed foot who ran the general store if he knew where they could find Professor Haze, and he answered, "Buy something or get lost, kid."
The unicorn owner in the next shop over fared no better: "The only thing you need to find is a hot shower."
Upon hearing that, Fleck brought their nose to their sleeve and recoiled quickly at the smell, realising that it was no exaggeration that they stank, badly. The Forest Dump smelled better than they did. Their sour scent would make them the perfect target for flies if any existed in the Outerworld.
It was on the fifth floor where Fleck noticed a trend: as they rose through the levels, the quality of the structures got better, the light grew brighter, the air tasted sweeter, the people got snootier, but the professor's location would not come any closer. They were upon the canopy now; the greeneries trimmed around the ceiling and walls like hanging gardens.
Fleck approached a pair of sisters, both sitting behind a raised bed of flowers, and asked the question fresh on the tip of their tongue.
"I dunno, ask her," a little hairy fish girl said, nodding to her big sister.
"I dunno, ask her," a big hairy fish girl said, nodding to her little sister.
A few seconds later, their mother announced from afar that lunch was ready. As the two stood and wandered off, Fleck realised that the sisters shared the same body.
Monsters everywhere: a lady of blue flames; a small, white frog; a scaly lizard covered in furry polka dots; yet not a single one seemed to be the professor. What did he even look like? Was Fleck expecting to be approached by a man in a lab coat and nerdy glasses and a sticker on their chest that said 'Hello, my name is Professor Haze'?
They found a healthy snack store named Treat Tops, and while they didn't find who they were looking for, Fleck did find a couple little pick-me-ups in the form of an oat bar branded Frappejack: have your morning coffee and eat it; and an energy drink labelled Can o' peas: each can instilled with the energy of a thousand… peas. That's still a lot of peas! Fleck felt the can, with a product name like that, did not warrant a glossy black backdrop with yellow thunder steaks and the name in a blocky, bold red font outlined in silver. When the payment part of the transaction arrived, Fleck presented the cloud coin credit card. Thankfully, the lady at the sentry post did not lie. The bald, four armed cashier took the card, swiped it on a reader, and handed it back, thanking the customer for their patronage.
By the time Fleck reached the sixth floor, they were about ready to collapse. The sixth floor was beautiful, white houses with white picket fences and flowers in all corners like they had reached nirvana, but Fleck was too tired and bothered to admire its splendour and lovely aroma. Roughly half an hour had passed since their arrival and they were nowhere closer to finding their guy than when they started. The bones in their feet were ready to crumble. The skin, so hot and painful, burned within their footwear. Fleck bit into the flapjack before chugging a mouthful of energy drink, ingesting a double shot of caffeine. The energy rush hit them hard, filling them with the determination to search until they either found Haze or their legs fell off. The instant crash hit them harder, making the next ramp feel like scaling a mountain.
Through bleary eyes, Fleck asked another monster – at least they thought it was a monster, it might have been an inanimate trashcan – the same question they have asked a hundred times today.
"The professor?" a woman said, purring the end of professor. "Trust me, darling, if I knew where he was, my next trip would be to the castle dungeon so they could squeeze it out of me." Fleck rubbed their eyes into focus and found a glamorously dressed lady with peppered purple eyes and equally purple skin. "Haze hasn't exactly been flavour of the century since he bailed on the Empire years ago, or so I've heard. They say the Emperor's soldiers have searched every walkway at least a thousand times looking for him and found nothing."
This response got a coarse groan out of the youngster. Fleck muttered that they desperately needed to find him, as if she had his whereabouts up her puffy sleeve.
The fabulous woman placed a hand on their shoulder. "If you need to talk to Haze, you won't need to find him, he'll find you." At that proximity, she winced at the child's sweaty odour and distanced herself twice as fast. "By the way, you look like you're ready to pass out. Might I suggest doing so in a place where you won't become a doormat?" As she made her way onwards with her day, she said one last statement, pointing upwards. "There's a hotel on the top floor, Sky Heights it's called. A couple floors up – you can't miss it."
A chain reaction of images materialised. Hotel meant rooms. Rooms meant beds. Beds meant sleep. Fleck's body was saying yes and their mind was… also saying yes. They needed to rest, more than anything. They found the ramps leading to the eighth and top floor. Upon reaching the foot of the last one – practically crawling on their hands and knees – light poured through the opening above.
&nbs
p; The top floor wasn't a figure of speech. They had emerged above the canopy now, with the pink sun at its largest and striking on their shoulders. The vast green tops waved like the seas and the oceans themselves, lapping against the guardrails in splashes of leaves. The walkway was similar to a harbour with benches spaced facing outwards and even a few telescopes; one cloud coin for two minutes. Two benches were currently occupied. If Fleck could walk on air, then Castle Highkeep could be reached in a twenty minute stroll.
The lady was right that they could not miss the hotel because it was the largest tree by a few kilometres. The tallest tree in the Forest was like a homing beacon for the entire island, and the monsters had decided what better place than to make an extravagant five star hotel. There was no other buildings in sight except for this one. The pattern of windows cut into the bark suggested that the rooms had been dug into the meat of the trunk. The thick, outspread branches each had a separate room constructed on them, held up with sturdy supports. Not a single square inch of the tree top had been spared.
Above the entrance, Sky Heights stood underlined with five evenly spaced gold stars.
Fleck finished their food and drink and found a bin to dispose of them before they pushed their way into the foyer of the hotel. Just getting through the door was a struggle… and that was with the doorstopper doorman courteously opening the way for them. Fleck imagined the place to be one big home for squirrels with everything carved from wood until they saw it with their own two eyes. A crystal chandelier hung from the absurdly high ceiling. Metal elevators stood on the left and right tiled walls. Tall windows with red drapes and brass carriers holding overflowing cases. Straight ahead, past the elaborate lobby of padded chairs, raised gravel beds and shiny marble flooring, stood the reception desk, under fifteen rows of railings. The tree grew taller from the inside.
