As soon as they reached an agreent, Duwa started moving.
It didn’t take Percy long to understand how the child had ended up brushing with death. The environnt on Gallimus was quite harsh. The scorching heat and the crushing gravity were already difficult to endure, but that was rely the beginning.
Each individual bush didn’t offer much resistance, but trudging through hundreds of them slowly chipped away at his host’s stamina. Whenever the loose ground under their feet gave way, sending them tumbling down the hills, the brittle plants failed to cushion their fall in the slightest. The awkward landings didn’t hurt too badly, but each blunder set them back by several minutes, often forcing them to climb a hill twice or thrice.
As a native – and a Green – Duwa was probably better equipped to handle the arduous journey than most, but every little thing still sapped away so of his strength, building up his frustration and his fatigue.
‘It’s reckless to ask so much of a child…’ Percy thought, but kept that to himself.
He understood why they did it, of course. While he didn’t doubt that many of their Green-borns died during the harsh training, the few that made it to the higher grades were probably much more likely to attain godhood. Percy wouldn’t be surprised if they made for stronger – and nobler – deities too.
But he did struggle to understand how their parents were okay with this. Duwa wasn’t an orphan – he had a father waiting for him at ho – yet the man had clearly sent the child to his doom, and with no supervision to boot. ??????s ?????????????? ??s ???????????? ???? ??ovelfire
In any case, Percy remained mostly silent during the first day, not wanting to bother the already-tired boy too much. It wasn’t until Duwa took the initiative to speak that Percy realized his host could probably use the distraction, to pry his mind off the hardships he had to endure. During their second day together, they talked about a wide variety of topics, giving Percy the opportunity to learn a lot more about Gallimus and its people.
Days were longer than nights here, largely thanks to the presence of multiple suns. This wasn’t his first visit on a planet like this, but the two stars were spaced farther apart than the ones on Felmara, stretching the days and eating into the nights so more. That said, the day-night cycle as a whole wasn’t any longer than the one on Remior, which made it easier for Percy to compare the two worlds. At least, that was the case for now – a strange distinction to make, but an important one, considering everything else the boy had shared.
Gallimus always required the sa amount of ti to orbit the twin stars, but everything else was fluid – from the number of days in a year, to their durations, and even the way they were grouped together. The Gallimians didn’t use weeks or months, opting to bundle their days directly into seasons. They did have warr and colder seasons like Remior, but it was a lot more complicated than that.
Apparently, their solar system contained dozens of planets, many of the larger ones orbiting near Gallimus. So close were they, in fact, that so of them were visible at night. Whenever Gallimus passed by them, their gravity tugged at the planet’s surface, inflicting all manners of strangeness on Duwa’s world.
Gallimus’s rotation was often affected, stretching or shrinking days and nights in various ways. This also gave rise to devastating waves, mountain-splitting earthquakes, and calamitous hurricanes, that often resulted in countless casualties and massive changes to the very geography of the planet. Even the gravity wasn’t spared, fluctuating during the course of each day, increasing or decreasing depending on whether the heavenly body in question was above or below the Gallimians’ heads.
According to Duwa, the current year was divided into seventeen seasons, further split into a total of six hundred and eighty-three days. Ten of these seasons had elapsed since the Green-born set out on his quest. He had been travelling for over four hundred days, though he had only delayed his advancent by about three hundred – close to a year on Remior. It was ultimately just a drop in the bucket given his grade, but still a long ti for the equivalent of an eleven-year old boy, bracing the wilderness by himself.
Percy also confird that this place was indeed a lesser – not a greater – spring. They had elixirs about as effective as the ones on Remior, having relatively developed branches of alchemy and runecrafting. Sadly, Duwa wasn’t well-versed in either field, so Percy didn’t know if they had discovered any alchemic principles he could master.
He sighed.
‘It might be nice to visit this place again in the future, but the priority is getting the Decree.’
At the end of the day, alchemic principles were easier to learn – or even invent – while Decrees were both rarer and infinitely more valuable.
Obatala wasn’t Gallimus’s only titan, nor even their first one. He was, however, the only one whose Decree affected the general population in such a direct manner, which was why Duwa’s people regarded him so highly.
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Gallimus wasn’t isolated from the rest of the cosmos like Anthes, but they didn’t have particularly strong ties to any other world like Atlantis or Felmara either. Based on what Percy had been able to gather, Duwa’s people were strong enough to defend themselves should any other lesser spring invade, but didn’t possess anything valuable enough to entice any of their stronger rivals to take their chances.
This ant that Gallimus was relatively peaceful – which was great news, because they already had their hands full with internal matters. Dealing with the catastrophic whims of their planet’s orbit was a challenge in and of itself. In fact, Percy was convinced that this was the main reason Duwa’s people seed so united and kind toward one another.
One thing that Percy hadn’t asked about just yet, were the details of his host’s training. Curious as he was, he had tiptoed around the topic, not wanting to remind the poor kid of his rumbling stomach or his dwindling stamina. He wasn’t in a rush anyway. After all, he’d only been here for a couple of days, while Duwa had been working on this for over a year. He didn’t think they would be eting the requirents anyti soon, so he’d tried to figure them out by himself.
It wasn’t until their third day together that he finally decided to be direct and ask his host about their purpose. The boy had been travelling in seemingly random directions and hadn’t made any attempts to procure more food before they starved to death. They hadn’t covered that much ground, as the constant climbing and rolling down the hills had slowed them down massively. Their surroundings hadn’t changed all that much either – they’d been traversing the sa bumpy sheet of dried bushes throughout.
Just when Percy was contemplating the best way to breach the topic, Duwa paused, picking sothing from the ground. It was a tiny bug, crawling on a broken branch by the boy’s feet. Pinched between the child’s fingers, the centipede-like creature squird, trying to break free. Percy barely got a chance to examine it – it was no longer than his host’s thumb, encased in a glossy, black carapace – when the kid tossed the unfortunate insect into his mouth, chewing through the hard chitin loudly.
Percy was just as creeped out by the act itself, as he was taken aback by its suddenness. Still, he didn’t complain, feeling about as famished as his host by now. Sadly for them both, there was barely any at on the small animal, scarce, salty morsels of flesh lost under the tasteless gravel of the fragnted exoskeleton.
‘There should be more of them nearby,’ the boy said, consoling himself more than his guest.
Not wasting ti, Duwa had already leaned forward, searching through the bushes for another snack.
‘Or, you know… we could just eat so of the food from my spatial seal…’ Percy suggested – and not for the first ti.
He didn’t have that much on him, since most of his space was taken by the green mushrooms, but he’d definitely brought enough to last them a few weeks if they used it sparingly. If only his stubborn host hadn’t refused his offer whenever he’d brought it up…
The boy insisted that accepting external help would go against the spirit of the trial. Percy had been tempted to point out that, technically, Duwa had already died – and would have stayed dead – if not for his “external help”. In the end, he chose to keep his mouth shut, however, realizing the kid was crazy enough to potentially kill himself out of sha if he said anything.
To Duwa’s great joy – and Percy’s mild contentnt – they found a second centipede a few minutes later, and a third one not long after. Stuffing his face full of the modest snacks, the boy seed to enjoy his first al in days a lot more than Percy did. Only when he had his fill did he take off again, heading straight toward what Percy assud was the source of the creatures.
‘Duwa, mind telling
what we’re trying to accomplish here? You’ve been travelling at random, without much of a plan. I doubt you’re going anywhere specific, so am I right to assu this is so kind of hunting trip? Are we looking for a particular beast to kill?’
‘Not exactly. Though fighting against beasts is one of the best ways to make progress. That’s why I’m currently looking for the stronger centipedes,’ Duwa said. ‘Look, I’ll explain everything later. It’ll make more sense after you watch
fight.’
Percy nodded, guessing that the beasts were just a ans to an end – they probably amounted to little more than practice dummies to help his host perfect so kind of obscure spell or technique. Though, that didn’t really explain why the kid had to spend a year roaming in the wild. Couldn’t his people just bring him so opponents to fight?
By the ti the first of the two suns set, Duwa located so higher-graded centipedes. The Red ones were as thin and flat as his palm, though only half as wide. They were long enough to reach from the tips of his fingers all the way to his elbow.
anwhile, the Orange ones had a similar shape, but they were longer than Duwa was tall. Their smooth shells looked very different from those of the mundane variants they had eaten earlier, however. Shimring in a pale light, they appeared to be made of diamonds more than chitin, making Percy shudder at the re thought of munching on them. At the sa ti, they possessed even more limbs than their weaker kin, their countless needle-like legs rhythmically stabbing through dirt and rock as the bugs sped toward the Green-born.
Duwa evaded the charging creatures with ease, pinning them and crushing them under the balls of his feet with so well-executed stomps, whittling their numbers down rapidly. Thankfully, he didn’t try to eat any of them this ti, probably realizing he’d only be cracking his teeth on their shells.
Percy and his host advanced even more slowly than before, the centipedes growing stronger and more nurous with every hill they traversed. It wasn’t until both crimson suns erged from the horizon once again that they finally stumbled upon what Percy assud were their targets.
They had to be, given the boy’s elation at the sight.
Duwa took on a fighting stance, as he glared at the three Yellow centipedes, as wide as the boy himself, but over twice as long as the child was tall. The creatures noticed them too.
They surrounded the kid, cautiously closing in as their crooked mandibles clicked and clacked repeatedly, their sharp tips dripping with venom.
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