~Wh-What? A week? What the hell is going on? I don't feel much different,~ thought Lucius as he opened up his player stats to confirm.
"Did anything happen while I was gone?" he asked, looking over his body once more to make certain that there were no changes.
"I-I don't know, I don't think so. I've been in charge of the leaflings looking over you, I-I didn't have time to ask Alpha about the perimeter," replied Ghost, her leaf still buried in Lucius's arms.
"Take me to Alpha."
It was noon, and the sun was directly overhead making it very hot even though they had a curtain of trees blocking most of the sunlight. Though oddly enough the wind was cool, perhaps another benefit of being so close to the river.
~Maybe I should stop blindly following what the voices in my head say. A week? And nothing to show for it? What if something had happened to leaflings? I mean sure, Alpha can handle things, but what if there was some sort of threat he wasn't equipped to handle,~ thought Lucius as Ghost led him up the mound towards the main camp.
When Lucius got up the mound he found that most of the leaflings who had been sitting at the center when they first arrived had healed from their injuries. Alpha was currently giving orders to five leaflings, it seemed that his little following had grown since Lucius was out.
"The Lighted One," whispered a few of the leaflings as they noticed Lucius. Soon a small crowd circled around him, unasked questions filling their faces.
"Captain, you woke up," said Alpha, squeezing past the crowd to get to the front.
"I didn't mean to take so long, it seems there are still some things I don't understand about this... system," Lucius replied.
"But enough of that, I'm back now. Give me a rundown of everything that happened at the outer perimeter of our camp-" after Lucius said this he took a moment to think. "Actually, I never specified the perimeter, so take me to the border while you're at it," he finished.
"Yes, Captain," Alpha replied, before leading Lucius towards the northern perimeter. A few leaflings tried following, but Alpha gave the order for them to remain behind. Though they were reluctant to listen to him at first, they still complied in the end. It seemed that Alpha had gained a little more respect. Maybe Lucius being unconscious for a week had a few benefits if nothing.
"It seems there's something serious you want to tell me," Lucius said after they had gotten a bit far from the main camp.
"You could tell?" Alpha asked, his voice a bit tense.
"You're too quiet. And there was no reason to chase away the other leaflings. But before you tell me, I just want to know. Does Ghost know?" It was important to keep leading actors in the loop, even if it was very dangerous information. Keeping secrets among the top brass of a group would only prove to destroy the trust they had in each other, and in turn any fruitful teamwork they could otherwise accomplish.
"No. I'm the only one who knows. I wanted to tell her, but she seemed too engrossed in you waking up so... I thought it would be a bad idea to add this to her worries as well," he said, sighing before he stopped to look up at Lucius.
"There's another group close by, just beyond the northern border. I've never seen beings quite like them before, but from what I can tell, they are at least a tier higher than we are," he said finally.
"Another group close by huh?" Lucius whispered to himself in thought.
"Does the fact that they haven't attacked us mean that they don't see us as food?" he asked right after.
"That could be a possibility, but I don't think it's the case. They've been sending scouts into our camp, a few leaflings have reported that they've seen weird creatures lurking just outside the perimeter, but I've told them to keep quiet about it," said Alpha, before beginning to move forward.
~You want to avoid panic, well-done Alpha,~ thought Lucius. Though keeping secrets was poisonous for a new group, it was better than allowing panic to spread amongst the leaflings. Especially with Lucius having been out of commission, the leaflings might have tried running away and in the process get themselves injured.
"So they're intelligent enough to use scouts. But that doesn't explain why you think they are a tier higher than us-"
"Not you, just us," interrupted Alpha.
"Captain, right now you're probably at the same tier as them. If they attacked, perhaps with your unfathomable knowledge you might be able to save a few of us, but there is a chance you yourself might fall," said Alpha in a somber tone.
"That bad huh? So they're as big as me then?" Lucius inferred, following close behind Alpha as he got closer to the northern border.
"Not just that. If it was a matter of size, I wouldn't place them at the same level as you, Captain," Alpha replied, checking his surroundings carefully before moving past a curtain of shrubs.
"So then?" It was obvious Alpha was stalling, though the reason as to why wasn't very clear.
"Do they have sharp teeth? Claws? Are they fast?"
"Captain. The other group, they have. They have access to minor magic."
Lucius froze up, he couldn't believe what he had just heard, in fact, no, Alpha must've been playing a joke on him. Magic? That was make-believe, a fairy tale. Though after a few moments of careful consideration, Lucius realized that the prospect wasn't so unbelievable, in fact, it would explain a lot of oddities in this world. Like the metal armored beetle, or the fact that leaflings existed and could even talk. And most of all, his system.
"Magic... so it's possible to use magic in this world, huh?" he whispered to himself.
"To be specific, they use poison magic," Alpha continued, pointing to what he brought Lucius all the way out here to see.
"That's the border, a border I chose not for strategic reasons, but because it seems to serve as a warning to us." The shrubs Alpha was pointing at were completely ruined, as if in the latter stages of decomposition, however, the odd thing was that they didn't seem to be dead. A pungent smell emanated from its gooey leaves, and its branches curved in an unnatural way, as if a stronger gravity were acting on them. But the fact that it was still in tact, with all its leaves attached meant that it wasn't dead yet, or at least it seemed that way.
~What have I led us into?~
