[rework] Minglings - chapter 15: Out for a swim

Jake groaned. A loud screech faded away in the distance, and he clasped his hands over his ears. The sound had caused his headache to thud in sync with his heart, and he felt like he had just run a marathon.

What...? he thought in confusion. The sensation of his bare back had him worried. And why was he hungry after eating the immense snake?

Another high-pitched screech distracted him from his increasing worries, and like water from a broken barrel, the vague memories of being a dragon leaked away. In their place, everything that had happened the last few days came rushing back.

What happened, Jake thought panicky as his eyes snapped open.

Mason and Emma stared down at him, faces wrung with worry. Behind them, he saw clear blue skies with white cotton clouds high up. That couldn't be right, could it? They had been in the jungle! Scrunching his scaly eyebrows, he raised his head to look around. His body barely complied, feeling like it was weighed down by heavy chains.

"Jake, stay down. You have been unconscious for two days!"

Jake stopped struggling and let his head back down. He looked at Mason, who knelt down. Emma thudded on her knees, wiping away tears running down her eyes.

"What happened?" Jake tried speaking, but all that came out was a hoarse whisper.

"Do you remember when you were in the ball of water?"

Jake noticed that his hearing was improving, and he heard the distant crashing of waves. For a moment, an image of an emerald island flashed through his mind before it disappeared again. Distracted, it took a moment for Mason's question to register. Seeing his friend's worried look, he nodded.

Mason examined him, then sighed in relief. "Good. After you stopped that, you fell unconscious and wouldn't wake up. Tergin said that you spent too much energy. He said that if we went to a large body of water, that would wake you up..." Mason's voice trailed off at the end, looking away awkwardly.

Jake frowned as he digested the information. He was starting to feel a little better than before, more energetic. After a moment, he managed to croak another question, his voice much more audible.

"Who is Tergin?"

Emma, having regained herself, answered him.

"He is one of those archers. He only has one ear and is blue and yellow. He says his grandfather was like you! Well, not like you exactly. But he could do water magic too!"

"Emma, I have told you before, it is not magic!" Mason broke through her rapid-fire story before continuing half-heartedly. "Well, it isn't exactly magic. Magic would be having something appear out of nothing. "

Jake raised an eyebrow. He knew Mason had a hard time believing in non-scientific things, but they had seen a floating sphere of water. That did seem like magic to him.

Mason sniffed. "Apparently, in this world, there are invisible energy sources all around us. According to Bolyr and Tergin, most of them belong to primal forces, but they don't know much more about it either. Anyway, you should be able to use one to do-"

"Magic!" Emma shouted, raising her hands as if she found it the greatest thing in the world.

She shook her hand and wagged her finger when Mason snorted and seemed ready to admonish her. "You don't know what it is either, and Magic sounds better than primal elemental energy."

As the two argued, Jake's thoughts wandered. They seemed comfortable with each other again, the thing with David seemingly forgotten or buried. Remembering the horrid Fiend, Jake wondered what had happened to him. Could he have rushed into the jungle? Had any of the others?

His mind drifted off even further, and at some point, he turned his head towards the sound of the waves. A beautiful turquoise sea covered the entire horizon. Further away from the island, dark blue waves blended with the lighter, foam-crested ones, causing chaotic patterns. As soon as his gaze hit the sea, he couldn't rip it from the sparkling water. The dark blue wavy patterns filled him with the desire to run towards it and emerge inside, never to come back out. Energy seemed to bubble up from inside him, and his hearing and eye-sight sharpened with a sudden snap. His arms and legs filled with energy, and with a smooth motion, he rolled to the side, away from his bickering friends.

A surprised shout came from behind him as he stood up.

"Jake? How, what? Where are you going?"

Ignoring the voices, he walked through the white sand. Only a tiny part of him noticed the hot sand scaling against the hard scales on the soles of his feet. As he got closer to the sea, the surging tide drowned out the voices behind him, like the most beautiful concert he had heard. Entranced, he stared at the water flowing up the sand towards him. A remnant of his human self managed to struggle up and barely resisted running in without heed.

Instead, he shivered as he knelt in the sand and placed a finger inside the water flowing toward him. As soon as he touched the water, it felt like lighting ran through him, and an immense surge of energy wiped away the remaining fatigue he hadn't even noticed. As if beckoned, the water surged forward, engulfing him, wrapping around him like a snug blanket, both warm and cool at the same time. Then it began tugging at him.

Remembering what had happened the first time he used his power, he wondered if he should be scared. Perhaps he should be, but he wasn't. Not even a little. Getting to his feet, he allowed the water to pull him forward, and moments later, he stepped waist-deep into the sea. An energetic and happy feeling and a promise of infinite possibilities and growth made him smile, and without a second thought, he jumped forward, headfirst into the sea.

--

"Will he be okay? He has been swimming around like some dolphin on drugs for hours now..." Mason asked.

He was sitting at the water's edge, his head swiveling from left to right as he followed Jake's blurry shape, piercing the water. It shot forward like a blurry shadow before shooting out of the surf in a graceful leap, flipping over, and diving back in.

"Stop asking me the same questions over and over, or I will teach you how we teach our children to be quiet," Tergin, a blue kobold with yellow patterns on his scales, bit back.

They were the only two still on the beach. Emma was swimming close to the shore, seeming perfectly happy in the water. She jumped in shortly after Jake and only came back once to explain excitedly that she could breathe underwater before promptly diving back in and staying underwater for extended periods chasing after fish and sometimes playing with Jake.

Lucky bastard, Mason thought, as he happily stared at Jake doing another somersault. He could barely believe how worried he'd been only hours before, only to see the fool play around like a kid. He glanced over his shoulder and grimaced.

Underneath the tree line, two figures stood, waving their arms and shouting: Bolyr trying to talk with Sandra. Hilarious at first, now it was just annoying as it mainly consisted of gesturing at things and yelling at each other. The final of the three native Kobolds was teaching the soldiers how to use a bow. They seemed to be getting along fine. Their mutual interest in anything war-related seemed to help cross the language gap.

Next to him, Tergin laid down on his back, staring at the sky.

"I remember that my grandfather once told stories about the olden days, long before we had to hide out in this hellish place at the edge of the world. There used to be dozens of awoken amongst our ancestral tribe, and things like this were commonplace."

Mason didn't reply. He had long since figured out that the grumpy Kobold enjoyed talking about what had been but didn't take kindly to comments or questions. He was the only one who could speak English, and he and Emma had been the ones translating everything for the last few days.

At first, everyone had been sitting on the beach, but as it became obvious Jake wasn't coming out soon, they had all drifted off, bored with the history lesson. Sandra and her soldiers had drifted off, ignoring the Kobold, while Bolyr had followed after Sandra, still showing an evident interest in her. He had ordered the other archer to entertain the soldiers, much to Mason's amusement and the archer's annoyance.

Mason hadn't left, though. He figured anything he could glean from the talkative native might be helpful, no matter how obscure, so he had shown some interest, and that was all Tergin had needed to keep talking.

"Can you explain to me again how tribes work? We got interrupted because Jake woke up before," Mason asked, trying to steer the history lesson into something useful again.

"I can if you tell me about governments again. I find it hilarious and intriguing at the same time."

"Okay, I will explain later," Mason said, repressing a shudder and wondering what his mother would say if she heard he was tutoring an alien on his least-liked subject.

Tergin seemed fine with the delay and began rattling out a long list of names that meant nothing to Mason, but he kept silent, knowing any interruption would only lead to a long sermon on patience. During a long story about some tribe called the Goresh, who were apparently horrible monsters that stole Tergin's tribe's rightful place as the ruling tribe, Tergin said something that got Mason's ears to perk up.

"Wait. What?" he said, unable to keep the confused surprise from his face. "So if you belong to a tribe, you can sense if another Kobold belongs to another tribe?"

Tergin looked at the native Kobold as if he was joking.

"Yes… Did you get hit in the head at a young age? Either you belong to the same tribe or not. If you don't, you fight! The reason we did not attack you is that you are tribeless! It doesn't often happen in our world, but it isn't unheard of. During the last war, the Goresh tried to destroy all of our elders. Had they succeeded, we would have been like you. Then we would have been forced to join their wretched tribe..." Tergin glared at the water, his jaw tight.

Mason felt a shiver run down his spine. "How do you force someone to join your tribe?"

Tergin looked at him with a stern look on his face.

"I'm glad you don't have this in your world, and I hope it will one day disappear here as well. It is a cruel practice that involves a lot of hardship, as joining has to be... voluntary." Tergin shivered, and his gaze drifted off. "But you can be coerced," he added dully.

It took a few moments before he seemed to get a grip on himself. "The Goresh, they take your family and start torturing and killing them. They will only stop if you join their tribe. If you fail to do so before all of your family is dead, they kill you."

A heavy silence hung over them, and Mason watched as Tergin's hand reached up to where his missing ear was, only to drop before reaching it. Tergin didn't continue his stories, and Mason wasn't interested in asking anymore as he wondered if Tergin had been the one being coerced or the one tortured.

An hour later, a loud whooping noise came from the sea. Mason looked up to see Jake chasing Emma through the water. Both were jumping out of the water, splashing back down, and yelling in delight as they headed back towards the beach.

When they were about to exit the water, they stopped, lying in the water and reluctantly looking around. After a moment, Jake said something that Mason couldn't hear, and Emma's face saddened, but she followed him as he rose and began walking out of the sea, heading to where Mason was silently waiting for them.

Jake kicked away some of the white sand, a big grin plastered on his face as he sauntered over to his friend. The sun was still high in the sky, burning down on everything below, and the water droplets on his blue scales were visibly evaporating under the heat. He was bare-chested now, as only his jeans had survived, although he could hardly call them jeans anymore. They were so ripped and torn they were practically just shorts covering his private parts.

Seeing him walk over, Mason was stunned. Jake had never been a very muscular guy, more wiry and thin, but now muscles rippled across his chest and abdomen. He looked more like a gymnast than a nerd. Curious, Mason examined his own arms. They were bigger than he remembered, but he wasn't sure he had changed as much as Jake had. Had Jake's awakening boosted something?

--

Jake felt strong and energetic as he slowly walked across the beautiful beach toward where Mason was waiting. He couldn't believe he wasn't dead tired after all his swimming, but he felt like he had just woken up from a great sleep. Even away from the water, a fresh and powerful sensation flowed from a place deep inside his being. He had no idea what it was, but it had grown rapidly from the moment he had entered the sea, turning from a drop ember into a deep pool.

Ahead of him, Mason inspected him, then raised his arm with a frown.

Jake felt a grin creep up on his face.

"What? Did you only just realize you smell like an old pair of socks? Why didn't you jump in with us? The water is amazing! Especially compared to this insane heat," he joked happily.

"It's not that hot, and someone had to keep an eye out! So I presume you are feeling fine again?" Mason said as he rose, wiping the sand off his scaly legs.

Jake felt a pang of guilt that he had been swimming and playing around all the time while he hadn't even thought of talking with Mason. He could see the lingering worry in his friend's eyes.

"Don't worry. I have never felt this good in my entire life!" Jake said as he stretched.

"That's good because we need to figure out what to do. And some optimism would be nice about now," Mason said as he nonverbally communicated to Jake that there was trouble at hand.

Jake felt the smile on his face melt away, and he clenched his jaw. "So, what did I miss?"

"Well, while you were having your bloody beauty nap, we dragged your sorry ass across the jungle. It took almost two days to get here," Mason looked at the jungle behind them, his eyes gleaming.

"I was asleep for two days?" Jake muttered in disbelief. He couldn't remember any of it, just some vague dreams about being a dragon.

"Yes, and then you wake up within moments of us putting you next to the sea," Mason answered, shaking his head in mock amusement.

"Okay, tell me everything that happened," Jake said as the last of his joy faded. The roaring of the sea still beckoned him, but it was easier to resist.

"Yeah, I was getting to that. During the trip, we got more information from Bolyr and Tergil; that's the guy lying down over here," Mason said as he pointed at the Kobold lying on the sand and staring into the distance.

"So, here's the short of it. We are on a big island in the middle of nowhere, far from what they call the civilized world. There are a few other islands around, and Bolyr and his tribe live on a smaller one. They are scouting locations for their tribe to expand too, and that's how they found us. I get the feeling there is a reason they are here, but he didn't bother to tell me. According to him, there aren't any other intelligent beings here, only those Hydraci we fought, and their intelligence appears debatable."

Hiding out here, maybe? Jake thought as he glanced at where Bolyr was talking with Sandra.

"Yeah... something like that," Mason said next to him. Jake nodded. He had long since stopped being impressed with Mason's uncanny ability to guess what he was thinking.

"So we are now two days further from where we were... that is going to make it way more difficult to get back if-" Jake fell quiet as he saw the pained look on Mason's face. Now what?

Mason sighed and glanced at Emma, who had wandered a bit closer to the water. She was staring at the sea, longing to swim, written all over her face. Mason inched closer to Jake and lowered his voice to barely a whisper.

"Before we reached the beach, Ensir, that's the blue one with the soldiers, backtracked along our trail. They wanted to see if more Kobolds were coming through from Earth. I warned him there might be other things coming through, but he didn't seem surprised about that. When he returned, he told us about a shimmering barrier running through the jungle, hovering above an enormous fissure rapidly filling with water. It's moving away from us, destroying the jungle everywhere it passes."

Jake listened to Mason's rambled story, which told him almost as much about how his friend was doing as the fear in his eyes. Mason never rattled like this unless he was close to panic. He didn't blame him.

"He said he saw fire clouds and ashes on the other side, and when he threw stones at the barrier, they turned to dust when they hit."

The guys looked at each other, seeing the same worry they felt on the other's faces.

Jake was about to speak when Mason interrupted him.

"It gets worse. The other archer, Tergin, followed the trail Sandra and the others made, but he couldn't even get close to where that barrier might be. A horde of Goblins is setting up shop there. It is near another stretch of the beach, along that river we found. He spied on them for a few hours and counted hundreds of Goblins. Jake... they seem to have embraced their new identity because he said they acted just like any Goblins he'd ever heard about."

Jake licked his lips, about to say something, when he saw Emma had stopped zoning out and was looking at them with big scared eyes.

"Hey Kiddo, how about you go find your Fiend friend, alright? She seems to have gone off on her own again," Mason said.

Emma nodded, then ran to Jake, giving him a quick hug before rushing off towards the jungle.

"Will she be alright?" Jake asked worriedly.

"Don't worry, she won't go far, and Bolyr is more concerned about her than even we are. But you need to hear this."

Mason spat on the ground, something Jake didn't think he had ever seen his friend do before, and it unnerved him as much as what he had heard so far.

"According to Ensir, most of the female Goblins are pregnant, and he says this is going to be a big problem. Goblins breed much faster than almost any other species. But the worst thing is, one of them isn't a Goblin. That big guy Sandra told us about? He is as tall as I am, and Ensir said he was a bloody-"

"Orc…" Jake finished his sentence. Gritting his teeth. He had anticipated the goblins could evolve, but he had hoped he was wrong.

"Yeah."

Mason sighed, shaking his head in dismay before continuing.

"Bolyr told us a bit about goblinoids. They are usually born as Goblins, some of which grow into Orcs and later Ogres or Hell-Orcs. But sometimes, one is born an Orc, and this always means terrible things for the surrounding species. His offspring will have a high chance of being Orcs right off the bat. They kept asking Sandra if she was sure he didn't evolve, but she insisted he was born as an Orc," Mason said.

Born? Jake blinked, then slowly nodded. It was probably better not to tell Bolyr and the others that none of them had been born like this, including the goblins. Who knew how they would react?

Feeling his worry grow, he instinctively turned back to the ocean, almost as if searching for solace. His mind conjured up images of a burning Earth, screaming people, and a rapidly growing goblinoid menace. After a few seconds, he managed to push the growing worry down. Mason was silently observing him, but he knew he had thought of the same things.

"So we can't go back through the portal, and even if we could, there might be nothing remaining there... Man, how are we going to find anyone? Who knows where they ended up? My parents, your mom?" Jake let his head hang hopelessly, any lingering joy from his swimming adventure long gone.