[SOLO] The Forest Challenge (Jon and Addie) [FIN]

[Geyser Eelborn]

He found that, after maybe a quarter of an hour, his annoyance at the strange voice coming from everywhere and nowhere at once faded, to be replaced by his habitual good cheer.

"I guess I never expected this kind of thing to be directed at me, that's all," he chuckled.

His companion stopped sniffing the tree and raced back to him, climbing onto his back and leaping back off again. "Good to get out of our comfort zone, I guess?" Her actions belied her words, though, and Jon couldn't help but notice that.

"I'm just saying, usually it's us tricking people in the forest, not the other way around," he said with a shrug.

"Oh, I know," Addie said. "Ironic and all that. But still kind of a sucky situation. I mean, who's doing this? And why, that's what I wanna know."

"Well, if they're anything like us, dear Addie," Jon said, "they're probably doing this because they're bored. Or maybe they think I'm handsome and want to stay awhile." He winked at her.

The ferret rolled her eyes, but she smiled, too. "Don't get yer hopes up, heartbreaker, maybe they want brains over brawn."

"Ah, well. Hope springs eternal, and all that. Guess it's you they're after, then," he said.

Addie laughed. "Let's get outta these woods before we start makin' any longterm plans, yeah? Escape, and get our girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever later." With that, she raced off into the woods ahead of them. "C'mon, we've only got, like, an hour and a half 'r so, yeah?"

"Yeah," Jon said. "Let's hop to it."  

[Geyser Eelborn]

The woods were dark and twisting, which shouldn't have been difficult for Jon and Addie. After all, it wasn't so different from their own home, which was a similar dark and foreboding forest where the two found entertainment in messing with travelers. A lot, indeed, like the Voice seemed to do. Jon had to keep reminding himself of that as they traveled deeper and deeper into the woods. He and Addie may have been pains and terrors to the people who happened to wander through their territory, but they weren't malicious. That is, they never hurt anybody who didn't deserve it. They didn't kill anyone, or try to injure them. Scare them, maybe even rob them? Sure, of course! But never going so far as to kill or hurt or maim. It wasn't their style. It didn't fit their relaxed and playful disposition, so they'd decided against it a long time ago. The Voice, though? Well, they were a different matter entirely. They didn't know who the Voice was, or why they were here, or what the Voice wanted to do with them. He was assuming that the Voice wasn't going to hurt them, but they could be wrong. They needed to not let their guards down. They couldn't be lulled into a false sense of security.

On the other hand, Jon hated anxiety, despised the black grip of fear that could so easily settle over a person if they let it. He didn't want to fear the Voice or their intentions. So he chose not to. He chose not to be afraid of them. He chose to be cautious, sure, but never ascribing motives to the Voice, never assuming that they were trying to get him and Addie hurt.

So when he heard an ominous cracking sound coming from above them, snatched Addie with his teeth and galloped forward just in front of the broken tree, he remained calm. "Oh come on," he said. "No one can just make a tree fall over."

"Sure they can," Addie said, standing on top of the fallen tree that blocked the path back. "Beavers can. So can wood 'Sutis."

"Can they?" Jon said. He went over to the broken end of the tree and nudged it with his hooves. "Seems like the tree was dead and rotten already. And it's been a windy day." He looked up at the tree tops far above them that swayed and danced in the wind. They made a soft rustling sound, not the sound of a small animal in the grass, but rather the kind of attenuated noise that indicated that while it may have been quiet from here, up there it was deafening. Kind of like the sound the tree had made when it slammed into the ground, making the ground shake and grumble. "Tree's tall enough that it probably fell over because of the wind." He looked over at Addie. "Neither of us have met wood Sutis."

"Well, no," she admitted. "But they've got tree powers, yeah? They could do something big like this, a powerful enough one. Purebred, that is."

Jon sniffed the broken edge of the tree and shook his head. "Termites more like. Tree's dead. Long before it fell over, from the smell of it."

Addie made a sound of disbelief, a "tch" of disapproval. "I could be right, y'know."

"Yeah, yeah, no, I know, I get it," he said. "But I don't think you're right in this case is all."

The ferret shook her head. "I'm gonna be right one of these days, y'know," she said.

***

Trouble was, this place was too dang familiar. Which was a problem, not because they kept thinking they recognized a place only to realize they didn't--the trees here were different from the ones back home, and the terrain was all different, too, so there was no mistaking this place for home--but because it all felt so familiar when it wasn't. Addie wasn't really the kind of ferret who got spooked, no sir or ma'am. Level-headed in an emergency kind of gal, that Long Black Addie. But it was kinda disconcerting, y'know, to feel like you should know how to get out've a place when you really don't know. She'd been letting Jon take the lead on that one, though. He was taller, so he could see further along the trail, a real asset. And he had the lantern, too, the little fungal light he carried with him everywhere he went. It meant he could see a little better in the gloom than she could. Frankly, she was okay with that--she didn't mind him picking a path. He always picked the path at home--meant that he was less likely to be led down a path that got his antlers tangled on stuff, which was inevitable when a big lug like a Soquili tried to follow a ferret around.

It wasn't long after the incident with the tree that they came to a river. On a better day, with normal weather, they would've been able to hear it before they saw it--water rushing past and over rocks and fallen trees, churning into foam and spray, full-on rapids below a bank that had been carved out by a flood, a couple of ferret-lengths below where the trail ended abruptly. But the windstorm in the branches above had masked the sound of the river, leaving them surprised when they turned around the bend to see the latest obstacle between them and freedom. On the other side of the river stood another, identical-looking bank and more trees beyond.

Addie shook her head before Jon could say anything. "No way is this the edge of the forest," she said. She gestured with her nose above them, where branches from the trees on either side of the river nearly touched, though the wind was continuing to batter them and break the smaller branches. "Not enough of a brak in the trees to be the edge of the forest."

"I agree," Jon said. "We still need to keep going." He looked up and down the bank and sighed. "I can't see a trail anywhere. Seems I picked the wrong trail to begin with. Sorry about that."

"Nah. Don't worry about it. Not your fault." Addie bit her lip. "We can jump across, can't we? I mean, you're a big lad. You can jump pretty far. And it's kinda narrow, I mean, if the branches of the trees can touch..."

But Jon was shaking his head. "Nope. Still too far. And the bank on the other side is too tall. We're gonna need some other way to cross."

Addie looked up and down the river, looking for some way to cross. But no matter where she looked, she could see no way across. The boulders were all either too submerged in the river to step across, or were too far apart, or were too small to support one of Jon's hoofs. And crossing the river by swimming was absolutely not gonna happen. Even Jon would be hurt by the rushing of the water. A little ferret like here? She'd be lucky to be dashed across the rocks. At least that'd be a quick way to die. So no, no swimming, no stepping stones. And no submerged logs, either--there were bits of wood and branches in the river that could maybe be used as a bridge, but none of them were long enough to take them across the river all the way, even if you could use rocks the rest of the way. And there was still the fact that the bank on the other side was taller than this one. Climbing or jumping up there wasn't gonna happen.

Inspiration struck. "Jon, d'you think you could drag that big tree back there over here so we could use it as a bridge?"

Jon turned around to the trail behind them, where he could just barely see the broken end of the tree trunk. "Maybe," he said. "But it'd cost us precious time. I don't think we're gonna make our rendezvous."

"Well, would it take more or less time to drag a tree over here than it would take to retrace our steps and pick a different path?" Addie asked.

"...Good point." Jon trotted back to the tree. "Gimme a sec, this is gonna take a while."

***

It felt like it took him a while of grunting and pushing, but it was hard to gauge time in this place, and the tree turned out to be lighter weight than he'd expected. Only the edge of the branches was touching the other bank, but it was close enough that he could leap the rest of the gap, with Addie clinging desperately to his antlers. Safely on the other side, they turned and watched as the rotten tree's branches broke and it collapsed into the river. "That was close," Jon said.

"Yeah," Addie said. "Now let's go. We've got places t'be."

Jon nodded. "Right you are. Hold on, little lady, we're gonna have to pick up the pace a little." With that, he cantered off along the trail, ready for their next obstacle.  

[Geyser Eelborn]

Once again, Jon and Addie didn't have to wait long. "Why does the trail go into a cave?" Addie grumbled.

"More important question, why does a ferret fear to go underground?" Jon replied.

He had a point, and Addie knew it. She grumbled from atop his antlers, but didn't say anything else, at least not anything worth replying to. The trail did, in fact, end at a big, boulder-covered hill that rose above the tree tops. The wind had finally blown down, thank darkness, so at least they didn't have to worry about a rock fall. But the trail didn't actually end here, because there was a gap in the rocks big enough for a Soquili to squeeze through. He'd have to duck his head to get in the entrance, but the trail turned into a tunnel into the hill that seemed to twist and turn in the dark. Well, there still wasn't any way to go forward other than through here. The undergrowth was too thick, and the hill was too steep. So they'd have to walk into this cave and hope they could back out if it turned out to be a dead end, or too narrow to go through. "You ready for an adventure, Long Black Addie?" he asked his companion.

She sighed. "Yep, yep. Long Black Addie's always ready for an adventure, Long Jon Dark." She settled down, draped across the lower prongs of his antlers. "Try not to drop me, yeah?"

"Of course," he said. With that, he stepped into the tunnel.

At first, the tunnel was mostly dirt, speckled here and there with tree roots. But after a few twists and turns, the ceiling slowly rose until Jon could hold his head upright, and the dirt gave way to stone. He didn't need his lantern to see that--he could smell it, too. In fact, his lantern was mostly swallowed up by the darkness. The tunnel slowly widened until it felt more like they were traveling through a cave than through a tunnel, a feeling reinforced by the slow sound of water dripping in the distance in the soft sounds of air flow in the cave like a breeze underground. "Addie," Jon said quietly, his voice ringing out like bird song on a silent and spooky night, "we may have to accept that we're not gonna make our rendezvous with the Voice."

"Eh," the reply came back. "That's fine. They're probably not our type, anyway. Let's just concentrate on getting outta here."

Jon nodded. "Agreed."

"Stop bouncing me up and down."

"Sorry."

They stayed quiet for a little while after that, navigating by the feeling of air and by what little their lamp illuminated. But when they turned a certain sharp corner in the tunnel, they both yelped in shock as a huge, dark shape came towards them. Jon leapt back, feeling his rear end collide with the wall they'd just passed. The shape in front of them fell backwards as well, a tiny light bobbing in the middle of it.

It was the light that made them realize what they were seeing. That and the faint greenish hue around it. "False alarm. Nothing to be worried about," Jon chuckled.

"I don't know about that!" Addie replied, her weight shifting back and forth across Jon's antlers in a movement he recognized as amusement. "We did just run into a pair of bandits in a cramped cave!"

Their reflection, and that of Jon's lantern, in the sheet of crystal bobbed and swayed with their laughter.

***

If they'd had any hope whatsoever of escaping this forest within the two hour time limit they'd been given, that hope evaporated. Once they made it past the crystal, they ran into another one. And then another. Each one reached from the floor to the ceiling, and while some of them bent and twisted, most of them did not, showing nearly perfect reflections of them in the dark. Soon every wall was lined with them, turning a tunnel that had already bent and curved into a maze of reflections. They kept thinking they saw a way out between two crystals only to realize that there was a third one blocking their way. They'd see three or four or even five reflections standing around them, and they had to find the narrow gap between them to go forward.

It was Addie, once again, who figured out the solution. "Just rub up against each one," she said. "That way, we can feel the gaps instead of trying to see them."

Jon tried it, finding another gap between the crystals and moving past them to another cluster. "Good idea," he said, sounding satisfied with the result. "Now we just hope that we can figure out a way to not be going backwards."

"I came up with the last two solutions, it's your turn now," the ferret said. But he was right--the last thing they wanted was to get lost underground in a maze of reflections. "Maybe your sweat will smear on the crystals so we can see where we've been?"

"Or smell," Jon said. "Though I guess if we wanna be able to smell where we've been, we could just use you."

Addie frowned. "Why is my sense of smell s'pposed to be better than--ohhhhhh." She nipped his ear. "Jerk!"

"I'm just saying, ferrets smell more than Soquili! It's that whole musk thing you've got going on, and your musk's stronger today than usual."

"I can't help my musk! And I'm not scared, okay? I just feel kinda musky today."

Jon shrugged. "We can't help feeling musky sometimes," he said in a conciliatory tone of voice. "It just happens sometimes, I get it."

'Specially when some voice keeps taunting you from the woods, she thought. "Well, we could give it a try." She leaned out to the crystal he was sliding across at the moment, lifted her tail, and left her mark on its glassy surface.

***

In spite of Addie's protests, and the discomfort of being in the same small space as a ferret's spray, it did the trick. The smell, the visual marker of droplets across the surface, and being able to find gaps by touch instead of sight, found them the way out of the maze of reflections and back into the ordinary rock of the tunnel, which didn't last long in any case. Light grew until it was almost blinding, and it wasn't until Jon and Addie stepped into the brilliant light of day that he realized why there was so much of that light.

They were on a rocky stretch of ground, the sun shining through the grey clouds overhead. The only trees in sight were small and scrubbly. In front of them stretched a long, flat meadow. So long, in fact, that it would be more properly called a plain, wouldn't it? With only occasional patches of trees to break the grass. Jon grinned and galloped for freedom.

"Ha, found the edge of your woods!" Addie crowed from his antlers. "We beatcha, Voice!"

The voice laughed at them. Even without the trees around them, it was impossible to tell where the voice was coming from. "Well, actually..." it said. "About that..."

***