Horny Secrets

Mark watched as the last of the Megasquitos shattered into a million shards. Imara had used her staff like a baseball bat and broken its everything in a homerun swing. Idly, he wiped the knife on his pants, thinking to clean it. He felt silly when he looked down and saw the knife was free of any fouling. "Right, bodies shatter... Blood probably goes with them."

The knife slid back into the sheathe in his off-hand. He didn't have a belt to put it on, so this would have to do for now. After a breath, he looked around them at the verdant jungle. It was fairly quiet. That felt wrong somehow.

"Wow, look at the progress. I make one joke about you looking at my butt and suddenly you're watching out for danger. The headway we could make..." She giggled a little after she trailed off and Mark was left blushing. In spite of that, his rational mind brought something to the forefront.

"I have a question. You seem like you're used to getting into fights but you left your back completely exposed the other time, with only me to watch it. Feels like you're putting a lot of faith in me honestly."

"Actually, that's kinda on me. Didn't think to be on guard for more of those things, don't have a lot of real combat experience." She scratched at the back of her head. She looked upset for the space of a heartbeat, seemingly at herself, but it was gone not long after. "So thanks for the save."

Mark just nodded at that. With the bonus objective done, the only thing left was to find the boss and take a crack at it. "What do you think the boss will be? Giant spider is my bet."

"Ten bucks says big cat. I heard forests and jungles get quiet when a predator is nearby. Pretty sure I heard a mouse fart a few minutes ago. Any idea how to find this thing?"

"Game logic would say look for a clearing and I'm apparently The Gamer. What's the over-under on my bullshit working like video games?" Mark was looking past the trees as he spoke, looking for some kind of sign.

"Point taken. Guess we're nomads, then." She said something else after that, under her breath, but all Mark could make out was "wrong element" before she started to wander off in a seemingly arbitrary direction. Mark decided to follow, not having a better idea or direction to go.

The pair walked in silence for a minute or two when Mark spoke up. "So, how did you learn to fight? You seem really good."

"Well, that depends on how you mean. Regular fist fighting and my staff, I got that from watching professional martial arts matches and demonstrations. It took a while of trying things but I've been at this for a while. My magic, though, that's a little embarrassing. I modeled it after someone I look up to growing up. She was tough, spoke her mind. Didn't take people's shit."

"She sounds pretty cool. Who was she? Why is it embarrassing?"

"It's embarrassing because she's not real. I learned how to fight by watching Toph Beifong from Avatar. I'm the closest thing to a real life earth bender there is. Still no badger moles or seismic sense but I've got some fun tricks, like the staff and the dummy. Might even be able to mimic Aang's air scooter if I practiced it but it's not really my style."

"Oh my god, you're a huge nerd too." He spoke quickly and the end of his sentence was clipped off from the sheer disbelief.

"Eh, moderate nerd. I didn't play a ton of games growing up, just watched a lot of TV." She gave a shrug. "What kinda stuff you into? You're not greasy enough to be a WoW player."

He chuckled at the jab. "Depends on the day. A lot of strategy games, some shooters, tabletop games. Some Final Fantasy too, but if I start talking about that, you might try to stab me with my own knife."

"Eh, I'm in a good mood tonight. Probably only cut you up a little, as a treat."

Mark was drawn away from the conversation when he noticed something that he felt was off. One of the trees looked different somehow. After getting Imara's attention so he didn't just wander off and assume she'd follow, he took a few steps towards it. The tree itself was large, bigger than those around it on average but not by an unreasonable amount. As he touched it, it didn't seem different from how a tree should feel, in a tactile sense. The rough bark that gripped his fingers seemed plenty sturdy. "Does this tree feel off to you," he asked without looking away from the tree.

"Looks like a big tree to me. I guess it looks a little different."

He looked up as he slowly stepped back, a grin creeping into his face as he found his answer in the leaves. "It's a redwood. These don't grow in rain forest jungles, they're from the northwest! The leaves are closer to the trunk and it's taller than the nearby trees, not to mention wider. The tree has to be special *somehow,* right?"

She followed his gaze upwards and squinted, saying in an unconvinced tone, "I mean, I guess it looks different? How'd you know can you tell it's taller? I can't tell from this close."

"Jungle canopies tend to be around a hundred feet or so, redwoods average double that at maturity." Mark looked over to her and could see the question brewing, heading it off with, "you'd be surprised the amount of random knowledge you accumulate with a good memory and a habit of listening to video essays and edutainment videos. My general understanding of things is the definition of "wide but shallow." I know a little about a lot."

"Gonna need nerdier nicknames for you, honestly. Maybe up your Charisma some and I can start calling you Mega Mind. Nowhere near enough presentation to be a super villain yet."

"Maybe I should start calling you Minion. You're already a Fish." He glanced over to her with a smile before returning his attention to the tree, giving the trunk a bang with his fist. The sound seemed like a hollow thunk. "I was right about this tree, it's hollow. There's gotta be a way to get inside. I refuse to believe it's here for no reason."

"If it's hollow, why don't I just try and smash it? Kinda the whole point of my staff." Imara's grip on her staff shifted as she spoke, taking it in two hands. When Mark had no better ideas from inspecting the tree, he moved back to give her a clear line for the swing. He watched her closely as she wound up her entire body for a short yet powerful movement. Legs, thighs, and back all engaged along with the arms. It was a proper swing with pivoting hips to reinforce the proper chain of the body. The strike caused a muted reverberation inside the trunk that quickly died. The wood didn't do that well with resonance. In the moment after the strike, just when it seemed like nothing had happened, a portion of the trunk hinged open to reveal a cavity inside with a staircase spiraling downwards inside. Imara looked at the open door, poking it further open with her staff. "I mean... It worked but that was kinda anti-climactic." With a smirk, she turned towards Mark and said, "your powers need a better sense of flair. Guess not all of it is broken as hell."

"Are you ever gonna let that go," Mark asked as he stepped past Imara and made his way into the tree and down the stairs. She made a sound in the negative as they went down a full turn and a half of the spiral stairs, light showing at the bottom just as it was getting dark.

At the bottom of the stairs, the somewhat cramped spiral gave way to a small room, the floor, ceiling, and walls all covered in the polished grain of the redwood. It was rather spartan, tall enough to stand in with a little headroom and roughly twice as long as it was wide. Towards the back of the small room lay a hip height pedestal displaying yet another incongruous object: a length of horn.

Secret discovered!

Mark threw an Observe at the horn, felt the mana cost being paid, and was met with a mental buzzing and a simple window.

Observe unavailable.

"That's... Never happened before. I can't use Observe on it." Mark looked equally confused and concerned, brow furrowed in thought.

"No idea about specifics but I wouldn't be surprised if there were enchantments to protect against that. Some people don't like snooping. What kind of animal you think it's from? I'd guess cow but I don't know a whole lot about horns."

Mark picked up the horn, inspecting it normally. It was just the keratin layer, not the bone it grows around. It was a lighter than expected, only around a pound or so. In spite of it's lack of mass, Mark noted something about it rested heavy in his senses. It wasn't touch or sight or any of the other basic senses, it was somehow external. "Why does it feel like the weight equivalent of feeling like you're being followed? I don't even know of that makes sense."

"Still can't help you there. Way above my pay grade. Need to get you a book or something."

"Guess it's going in the inventory for now. Maybe then I'll have a clue what it is," he said, willing the horn to disappear from his hand. That caused Imara to go through several emotions all at once.

"Every time I learn something about your powers, I wanna throttle you. You're breaking my brain here. You've got scrycraft, air bending, a pocket space, and you can make all of THIS," she exclaimed as she gestured to everything around them. "I don't know what to call this besides pure and simple bullshit."

"Luck, maybe," he asked, which only seemed to set her off more for some reason.

"Power like that isn't just given, Mark. If you want power, there's always some price to pay. That's how that kind of thing works, always. If you're going to make it in the Ocean, you have to be thinking about these kinds of things. The ones that don't end up dead or worse." The remaining fire seemed to pour out of her in a long breath, her shoulders sagging.

Mark was in retreat at the sudden lecture, the intensity of it driving him back a little, but he felt she made good points so he set his feet and nodded. "You're right, I haven't thought about a lot of that stuff. Feels weird to thank someone for going off on me but... Thanks. After we deal with the boss, is that offer for dinner still on the table? Least I can do for all the help you've been throwing at me."⁠⁠

A bit of her earlier mirth seemed to return and she gave a wry smile. "Isn't there an anime about not trying to pick up chicks in a dungeon?"

Mark's face went red again, looking away and stammering out a response. "I wasn't trying to ask you out on a date, I just wanted to say thank you. You're nice and the worst you've done is threaten to kill me." There was a beat of silence where what he said seemed to process.

"If that's the bar I've gotta beat, you've gotta work on your standards." Her smile was back in full **** now, her earlier distress and anger seeming to have dissipated. "Let's go kill this boss, then we can go get something to eat. Couple more things I should show you anyways."

"Better get out of here and get looking then, I don't think this boss will be that easy to find. This jungle feels huge." As he spoke, Mark opened up his inventory to check on the horn, curious if he could at least get a name for the thing.

'I wonder what the H stands for,' he wondered as he made his way back up the staircase.

Coming out into the forest again, something about the scene felt off. Mark focused on that feeling of subtle wrongness and followed his instinct, going against type and looking up. Around twenty feet above his head, latched onto the tree, was an insect reminiscent of a dragonfly but roughly the size of a moving truck. After a few quickening heartbeats, he remembered to throw an Observe at the thing. The window had barely opened before the thing screamed.

**Griffinfly
The older, meaner brother of the mundane dragonfly
Level 10
HP: Unknown
MP: Unknown

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