chapter+4

CHAPTER 4 While James and everyone was sleeping, one of the clones, Victor, was up thinking about his brother. Oh how much he missed him. He was just thinking about all the great times the three stooges had together. Causing ruckus in the town, lighting fireworks in people’s houses, throwing stink bombs in stores. But now it was different. Without Vincent, the clones are not completed. Finally, after a couple hours, Victor finally goes to sleep. When they all woke up in the morning, they headed off to the town of Jarzad. None of them were looking forward to it, because as you know, they had to go back into the forest Abutor again. They, again left the beautiful, enchanted town of centaurs, and went on into the forest. There they saw many changes. It was all still frosty, but it was a different frost. It wasn’t just a glistening, white, sparkly frost; it was a moldy, greenish brownish, frost. They all ignored the differences and headed on. It was still a miserable 100 miles until they got to Jarzad. They walked through the rugged terrain of Abutor, with frustration. James was starting to notice that every time he stepped, it seemed like it was getting softer and softer. Then suddenly they heard a crash, and there was Joseph, half way into the ground screaming bloody murder. “quiet down, the Orks can hear a lot more than we think, be calm about it, if I understand, this is just like quicksand, the more you squirm, the faster you get to your casket. So CALMLY, grab the tree branch to your left and slowly pull yourself up.” Joseph looked to his left and as James had said, there was a huge tree and there were branches shooting off of it left and right and one branch just so happened to be right at Joseph’s reach. He slowly reached his hand up to the green, moldy tree and grabbed it, but there was a major problem. The tree was so slippery that Joseph could not get a grip on it. Then he began to panic. Slowly he sunk down in the ground and was now at shoulder length into it. Now everyone was starting to panic. Everybody scattered to look for something Joseph could get a grip on, but everything was the same green, moldy, slippery stuff. Then, finally, Vaughn found something under a dead log that looks as if it had been struck by lightning. Under it was a long piece of bark that was clean of the bacteria. Vaughn rushed over to Joseph, who was now down to his neck in the ground, and handed him one end of the dry bark. He then pulled him up and slowly but surely, Joseph was pulled out of the pit. “Pheaw, that was an experience eh!” Joseph said with sarcasm. Everyone else gave a chuckle, checked him for any bumps or bruises, and then went on. As they all walked they were going at a pretty steady pace, then out of the blue, Spencer proceeded in asking Joseph a question, “So Joseph, do you have any siblings, or who is your dad, is he a carpenter like my uncle or what?” Joseph hesitated, “well, I have no siblings!” “What about your parents, what do they do?” questioned Spencer Now you could tell Joseph was getting uncomfortable, “well, my father died 5 years ago; he also traveled to Yumazandra to get a cyclopse eye, and succeeded. But on his way back word got out that he killed a cyclopse, and the Ork king came after him. Only 50 miles from home, and the Ork got to him. Travelers found him about 3 days after his death, or part of him at least, half of his body was missing. It was most likely eaten by the cyclopse. And my mother has just recently died by getting stabbed to death by dwarfs that invaded our house.” An awkward silence, “WOW, I’m sorry about your losses so you are all alone?” “Yes, it has been hard keeping myself alive these past months, I have hardly any money, and when I do have money I have to use it for food only.” Spencer just kept going with his questions, “why did you go on this journey with us then, if your father had already been perished doing the exact same thing?” Joseph quickly defended himself, “Because my father did that for his sick father, and died trying, many new him as a hero. I wanted to follow his path, become someone, and mostly, do it for my father. Also I want to demolish the Ork king, for he killed my father!” Another awkward silence. Then it was broke with a loud roar. All the men quickly pulled out their firearms and circled the perimeter. Nothing was seen. Then out of nowhere appeared a large gargoyle, and it started attacking. Everyone started firing their weapons at it but it seemed to not even penetrate the animal. All the men took cover behind a large tree that had fallen over. Each one of them checked for wounds, and thank god, none of them had any. They then proceeded to charge at the gargoyle and shoot it to death. There it lays a dead, purple, scaly, gargoyle. Then James got out one of his knifes and dug into the gargoyle. All the others looked with horror as he tore apart the gargoyle limb by limb and threw its intestines into a pile. “we are low on food and if we want to survive, we need protein and something to fill us up so this will have to do, here, each of you carry a part of this gargoyles body, we will find a place to set up for the night and make a fire to eat it.” Each of them grabbed a limb and was on their way. About 20 miles further and they found a spot that was, miraculously, green and had a river next to it. The only hard part about it was getting to it. There were thorn bushes in the way along with poison berries. James and Spencer carefully inched their way to the middle of the thorn bushes where lied the area that looked like paradise. Once they got to it they all found a place to lie and started to make a fire. Each of them put their body part from the gargoyle on the fire and waited. Once it was cooked they all hesitated to take a bite out of it except James. James knew that if he didn’t eat then that was putting him in danger so he devoured his piece and grabbed another to throw onto the flaming pit. When they woke up they found out that they had already walked 90 miles and only had 10 more to go. But now they difficult part was there were three paths, each leading a different way. They all stood there, thinking on what to do, where to go, which path would be the right one. James heard a rustle in the tree branches above him and quickly shot his eyes up to look at the tree. To his amazement, there was a little dwarf elf. About 3 ft tall looks meaner than an Ork but is harmless. The dwarf swooped his way down to flat ground and jumbled off, “hi, I’m Russell, he he what’s your names?” The dwarf was a little kid and should not be in this forest you could just tell by how it spoke, “Shouldn’t you be at your home, this place is dangerous are you trying to get yourself killed?” questioned Spencer. “I was just wandering off swinging In the trees when I saw you guys, and NO I can be out here I am now 3 years old and now I’m old enough so HA you can’t tell me what to do na nanana na.” The dwarf was now irritating Spencer, “Wait do you live in Jarzad?” “Well DUH, all dwarfs live in Jarzad, why do you think they call it Jarzad, the city of the short?” All of them chuckled and Spencer yet again responded, “Do you think you can lead me to the town, we don’t know which path to take and are lost, could you?” “Well, I guess so, only if you can catch up with me!” The dwarf started up the tree and swung from tree to tree like it was nothing. The group sprinted to keep up with the little thing and it was still going full speed after 8 miles. Then all of a sudden it stopped. “What is wrong little man?” all of the men snuck a quick grin to each other. “Do you think you could tell my mom that I helped you get back to the town, they all know about you and know you are coming?” James was wondering why all the towns already knew they were coming, “Ya I guess so only if you walk instead of run!” “Really really yay yay thanks but make it sound truthfully don’t just be like blah be like ya ya ya bla bla bla you know what I mean?’ They all looked at each other with a weird look, “Sure? Well which way is your village?” “This way, follow me.” They all proceeded towards the town. About 30 minutes later they got to Jarzad and out of that nasty forest. They looked at the town and were surprised, they assumed it as a little town with short people roaming all over but actually it was huge and had not only short people but there were about 5 people over 8 ft tall. They didn’t understand it at first until this woman walked up and tapped on James’ shoulder. James looked all around him and then looked down and there was, a woman about 30 years of age with a white shirt way too big for her on and some shorts. She looked almost identical to Russell. “You must be Russell’s mom!” “Sure am, and why was my boy out in the forest where he should never be without supervision?” she stared at her son the whole time. “Well, actually ma’am, your son here helped me and my companions to find this city, I was very proud of him for doing so, you have a great son ma’am!’ “Is that so, well son you better be home before dark, or you will be in trouble, I will let this one slide since you were helping these travelers to get here.’ “Good job dude, you did perfect, how did you learn to act so well?” Russell exclaimed. “Well, it was easy I just talked.” they all chuckled “I better get going, I still have to go play with my friend thanks though for all that.” “Your welcome kid.” They all then proceeded into the large town.