The Coast's Well

       Sylvarien knocked the hatchlings out of the way in one kick and grabbed Corbin, jumping up into a tree’s branches quickly. She helped Valerith up and they looked down at the hatchlings who looked around after losing their prey.

       Eventually, one looked up and alerted the other.

       The tree began to sink as it was consumed by the hatchlings, trying to get their prey down to their level.

       Without thinking, they jumped to the next tree closest to them. The hatchlings moved over there and did the same thing to that tree.

       “What do we do?!” Corbin asked urgently. “At this rate, it seems like they’ll corner us.”

       “We must head for the coast,” Valerith announced. “It’s our only way of escaping!”

       More Sivkeths kept following their trail as they got the alert from the hivemind of where new food was.

       “How do you plan on getting out from there?!” Sylvarien asked him. “We do not have any Talvastones!”

       Valerith looked down mid jump to throw some rocks he created at the ever-growing sea of Sivkeths below them. The ground was entirely almost made up of shadowy bodies. Only occasionally could they see the dirt on the ground below.

       “I’m not one hundred percent sure how!” he shouted back, clearly stressed over their situation. “But at least we’ll be safe!”

       “What are you talking about?” Corbin asked. “What is a Talvastone?”

       “You will see when we arrive,” Sylvarien said.

       As Sylvarien jumped onto the next branch, it snapped under her. She thought fast and moved Corbin to her shoulder, holding him in place with one hand while using her nails to dig into the tree’s wood and stop them both from getting consumed by the Sivketh. 

       Valerith noticed and used his wind to lift them up to the next tree.

       “Thank you so much!” Corbin screamed with relief.

       “Thank me later,” he responded. “We’re not out of the clear quite yet.”

       “Can you guys lose them somehow?” Corbin asked.

       “What does it look like we are trying to do?” Sylvarien asked rhetorically. “Obviously we are trying to get away from them, but if even one sees where we go, they all do.”

       “Oh damn, right. The hivemind.” Corbin looked down at the river of Sivketh following them.

       His stomach let out a small growl.

       Sylvarien laughed a little despite their situation.

       “Hungry?”

       “Yes, actually,” Corbin said with seriousness. “Do you have any food?”

       “Valerith!” she shouted ahead. “Make some meat, maybe it will do better than all the rocks and wood. But do not throw it yet!”

       He made a big chunk of cooked meat on a bone.

       “Why do you want me to hold onto it?” he asked.

       “Throw it back here, it is for Corbin!”

       Valerith threw the chunk of meat back at them. It seemed like he didn’t throw it back far enough, but Corbin reached out his hand to try and extend his reach. The meat fell slightly short and just grazed his fingers.

       Sylvarien saw the meat go back up into Corbin’s hand after it had fell past.

       “It looked like it was about to fall though,” she thought.

       Sylvarien put the thought to the side and continued to jump across the trees while Corbin happily ate the meat he was given.

        “Do you know if we are almost to the coast yet?” she asked Valerith.

       “We’ve got a few more trees left to cross then we will be there.”

       She tightened her grip on Corbin as they prepared to land on the ground.

       “Get ready to brace for impact,” she warned him.

       “Wait Wha—”

       His stomach dropped as Sylvarien jumped from the tree onto the ground. The drop down was further than the last time they jumped out of a tree.

       Sylvarien landed on the sand. The impact made Corbin drop his meat on the bone into the sand.

       “Aw man.” He got out of Sylvarien’s grasp and went to go wipe all the sand off of it.

       Corbin reached the meat but when he looked up, he noticed they were surrounded by hundreds of Sivketh who were watching them from the forest.

       “Why aren’t they attacking us?” He jumped back behind Valerith, just incase.

       “Don’t worry, they won’t come onto the sand,” he said. “If they slither their way onto it, they just sink immediately.”

       After hearing the good news, Corbin went back to chowing down on the meat he was given.

       “Now that we are out of immediate danger,” Sylvarien said to Valerith. “How do you expect to get out of this situation?”

       “I’m not completely sure,” he said. “This just seemed like the best course of action at the moment. It’s not like there was anywhere else to go.”

       “Well great job with that.” She pointed to the trees that were disappearing. “Now they are blocking out only path of escape.”

       “The trees weren’t our only escape plan. There is still another way.”

       Sylvarien laughed.

       “The wells? We do not have any Talvastones. How are we supposed to use the wells?” She started freaking out. “Do you want us to mine for the no longer existent stones so that we can just go from one continent to another?”

       “Calm down. We’ll find a way eventually. We always find a way no matter how long it takes us.”

       “No matter how long it takes us?! We have to get Corbin to the throne!” She pointed and looked over at Corbin, except he wasn’t there anymore.

       “Corbin?” Valerith tried to speak in his head but he couldn’t sense his presence. “He’s not here.”

                                                                           …

       “How do you expect to get out of this situation?” Corbin heard Sylvarien say.

       He walked backed away from the two of them fighting, not wanting to get in the middle of it.

       Corbin took in the surrounding area, trying to find any way they could escape the Sivketh who were all still waiting patiently for them at the end of the forest.

       He finished his meat all the way down to the bone. Looking for somewhere to dispose of it, he settled on throwing it into the ocean since he figured giving it to the Sivketh would not be a smart idea.

       As he chucked the bone into the ocean as far as he could, something caught his eye. Corbin went up to the rocky protrusion right of the edge of the water and sand to examine it.

       Inside of the rocks, a swirling vortex consisting of a red water-like substance danced around.

       “Is it smart to touch this?” he thought to himself. “No, probably not. But it looks interesting.”

       “Hey guys?” Corbin looked up and tried to get their attention but they were too busy arguing with each other to notice.

       “Well, I guess here goes nothing.” Corbin touched the water and he was instantly in a different place than before.

       The sand looked the same, but the environment beyond that was different. Beyond the considerably smaller trees, there seemed to be actual buildings with architecture resembling his world’s.

       “This could be any of the six other races, I have to be careful,” he thought. “I could go back, but as long as I’m sneaky, whoever is over there won’t see me. Maybe.”

       Corbin snuck up to the tree line, carefully stepping through the sand, trying not to make much noise. As he approached the trees, he avoided sticks that could snap if he stepped on them.

       He found a nice patch of brush to hide in and gaze at what was in the town.

       Upon looking in, Corbin saw humans. He remembered what they had told him, that humans in this world were the embodiment of pride.

       “Mother, it hurts. I can feel it pulling on my heart. It just got a lot worse.” Corbin saw a little boy walking with his mother.

       “Pulling on his heart? Like the Sivketh’s ability but kind of different?”

       He looked at the other humans and noticed that they held their heads high and looked like they each thought they were above everyone else. Though, he picked up on the fact that they all looked slightly pained. Every step that they took made them wince slightly.

       Cobrin watched as the mother slapped the little boy across the face and bent down to his level.

       “You shut up about any problems you have,” she hissed at him. “Deal with it and don’t let anyone else see them. If you complain you’ll lower my status as a person and I’ll throw you in the alleyways.”

       Corbin gasped and covered his mouth.

       Behind the mother, he noticed a group of guards armed with swords walking in his direction, wincing in pain as they walked but covering it up like everyone else. 

       “This is bad! They’re not stopping!” Corbin stood up slightly from his position and crouched away, still under the cover of the bushes.

       “I feel it receding,” one guard said. “The source is moving away from us.”

       “I noticed it first, I just didn’t say anything,” another guard said.

       They argued with each other about who would get credit for noticing first as they quickened their pace, going in Corbin’s direction.

       He was looking back to make sure he was still when a stick crunched beneath his foot.

       Without waiting to see what would happen, he just stood up and bolted back to the beach. The guards noticed the noise and saw Corbin stand up, fully in view. They all drew their swords and ran after him.

       They slowly gained ground on Corbin from years from their years of training compared to Corbin’s very few years of physical education.

       “Who are you?!” one of them called out to him.

       “Will you stop chasing me if I tell you?!” Corbin asked without looking back.

       The lack of answer didn’t do anything to convince Corbin that he should stop running. He finally made it to the beach and stepped onto the sand. The guards were close on his heels, but their armor weighed them down a little in the sand, giving Corbin the advantage.

       He reached out his hand and tripped, touching the water in the portal again.

       He saw an image of an Aurevireth’s core in his mind for a split-second mid-teleport before it disappeared from his mind and he fell face first onto the sand on the coast with Sylvarien and Valerith.

       The two of them looked up from their search and spotted Corbin face down on the ground.

       They rushed over and helped him up onto his feet again.

       “What happened? Where were you? How did you use the well?” Sylvarien bombarded him with questions. 

       “The well?” Corbin thought about what the two of them were talking about on the way to the coast. “The thing you need the stones or whatever to use?”

       “Yes, the thing you just used is a well,” Valerith said. “Where did you get a Talvastone from?”

       Corbin looked confused.

       “I… don’t have any sort of stone,” he confirmed. “Just the Sivketh fang.”

       He pulled it out of his pocket to show them.

       “Then that would mean…” Valerith started.

       “That he possesses the power to use the wells without a Talvastone,” Sylvarien finished the sentence.