ตอน 33: 33 STRANDED

He drifted. Hard pellets of hail snuck through the cracks of his wooden tendril tent and hit him like incessant fingers trying to wake him all through the night.

Fingers of water nymphs and nature spirits, smelling like midnight winds and churning skies crafted by the gods that resided there.

Wake up.

He refused. He was so tired. He kept his eyelids closed, laying sleeplessly for what felt like hours.

"Do you sleep before every king like some brat-lord or am I just that lucky? I hate luck. I'm not lucky— if I was I wouldn't have this fEEEAAACE!"

"AH!" Claude jumped out of his forced shut-eye, finding himself already seated upright and crawling backward in a frantic half attempt at an escape.

His palms scrapped on dry stone grounds.

Ahead of him lied a sandstone castle built into the face of a forested mountain. Beautiful metal regalia accented the buildings. Moonstone pearls dotted every home. It was amazing.

He was not.

He was deformed. Changing. Becoming a monster before Claude's very eyes. His toga ruffled and tore as he clawed at his bubbling neck. Black veins squirmed. Muscles expanded like lungs filling with air. His face elongated into a poor imitation of a wolfs snout. It was almost comedically slim and long, full of curled slobbery teeth.

His transformation was incomplete but he stood as if he was saying, "Look at me in all my glory!"

With only his head, arms and legs up to the first joints achieving a beastly nature, he looked like a nightmarish circus act.

"Where the hell am I?" Claude tried to back up more as the naked wolf-man-thing took a step forward.

His hand met air. He didn't know he was at the edge of a drop off until he was dropping off—

"Woah!"

His world flipped upside down. His stomach climbed towards his brain. His leg caught and the descent stopped.

It was weird feeling a human palm that had the same texture as a wolves paw.

The creature lifted him, causally turning him around so they could face eachother.

For all his goofy appearance and abysmal charade, he was strong. Everyone seemed strong when it was time to handle Claude.

"I thought I heard a question…." He sniffed with his unnaturally long snout. Lightning strikes danced behind his eyes, giving them a chaotic flashing effect.

"….. what?"

"ASK THE ZEUS-DAMNED QUESTION AGAIN!!"

Lightning flashed from clear skies.

The wolf-man screamed, dropping Claude before taking off for the bushes with his hairless tail between his legs. Considering he was naked, the sight would've been horrifying. Luckily, Claude was dropped on his head.

He got up in a partial daze, holding the place where his skull should've split open. But it wasn't.

"Obviously, I'm in the Astral Realm. But who's the... I don't even know what to call it." Claude stood up.

"Why are you scared of the lightning?" Claude called out to the bushes surrounding the olive tree.

"It's not the lightning…." The reply came with a snarl, "It's the whole sky— it's what resides there. They're demons in gilded robes, boy. They're degenerates and braggarts with micro genitals and macro appetites for suffering!….. OH SHIT THEYRE WATCHING US!" The creatures half transformed arm exploded from the bushes and pointed to the sky.

Claude spun around with his fists raised.

He felt like an idiot immediately.

The clouds rolled like tumbleweeds made of cotton, giving way to Mount Olympus. It sat in the sky, at the apex of an impossibly tall mountain. Waterfalls adorned its edges, giving blessed rain to cities below all over. Boars ran like the winds, jumping from cloud to cloud like frogs on lily pads. Sky-Nymphs, glowing souls of the chosen in training and armored beings on chariots occupied its berth. A godly world rested right on top of their own.

Another set of clouds came and it was gone.

The creature hopped out of the bushes again, tripping once on unnatural legs before gaining a semblance of composure.

They stared at eachother awkwardly in the silence.

"So….. erhm. Your question."

"I literally don't know what you're talking about—"

"Just ask me where the hell you are again!" The whine was both mannish and wolfish somehow.

"…..Where the hell am I?"

"My kingdom, Arcadia! Feast your eyes— but not your mouth, you'll be punished for that haha…"

"I'm sorry, I'm not good with historical geography—"

"And I am, Cannibal Beast-King Lycaon. Idiotic, cowardly, disappointing first ever werewolf." Lycaon struck a pose.

Claude blinked in the silence that followed.

"You need to be amazed now. Are you not?….. rrrhahaha! Do you see yourself better than this? Tell me your desire then!" Lycaon's eyes went red for a blink. He grew, even. Then he grabbed his snout and shook himself.

"Are you…. Ok?" Claude asked.

"RRrrrR….Yessss. I'm good. And you are well rested." Lycaon pointed at him with a black clawed finger.

Claude looked down at himself. He was semi-transparent.

"Before you go, I have only one question." He sounded nothing like he did before.

"Yea?"

"How do you feel about being king? How many heads would you crush to catch the crown that falls?"

***

Wednesday Morning July 21st, 2240 ATE. Glorian Islands/Arctic Archipelago.

The sun had only just begun to rise. Claude could see the streaks of orange through the weathered holes in his tendril tent.

It was so beaten and waterlogged, he could tear through it with ease.

He sat up and took in the morning air, stretching with a loud yawn— that quickly turned into a pained groan born from his sore muscles and bones. He slept on the ground in the fetal position for hours.

To others it wouldn't have seemed ideal, but he was always weird.

His session of yoga began in earnest. Not only to stretch out the kinks but to clear his mind.

It felt like he hadn't actually slept in days. Everything was happening and changing and being left to question and turning into a test and —

He exhaled loudly from the bladed-body stance. Palms together and arms reaching for the sky.

"Like you're trying to pierce the clouds.." Claude said Martha's words, trying to bring familiarity to his morning.

Then he brought his hands down to his chest and opened his eyes.

Barren island land stretched for miles. Vantage-Island was no longer two islands away. He could see no trees adorning its peaks.

"Again, where the hell am I?"

He stood over the hole he once came out of covered in soot and scratches.

It was now filled with water. After the fires, the burnt portion of tunnel collapsed. Fishes swam in the bubbling tunnel.

Claude sighed and held his hand out.

A wooden spike rose out of the earth. Vaguely in the shape of a spear. He broke it off and took aim.

Breakfast was served half an hour later. It wasn't as good as Finn's food. Trauma inducing events aside.

"I miss Frosty…. And Ray…. And Rocko …. And Marvin…. And Brutus …. And Stub. I miss my books." Claude said as he chewed his poorly cooked cuts of island-fish. "I'll get back to it once I complete this. I could buy them all the treats and training gear they want if I complete this."

That was his motivation for the morning. He swept his ashes into the natural well along with the fish bones and got ready to check his map.

"You can't be serious."

His sleeve was ripped down the middle. Magic rays and plumes of sparkling smoke sizzled between the torn threads.

The only thing holding his sleeves and blouse from completely falling off in places was his grass armor.

Captured by goblins, dreaming of gods, stranded. Day three was a mess and the sun only just rose.

Up ahead, endless glacial ocean swayed with the winds. Behind him, he could see the smallest black tick in the distance. The University. Center-Island. There was no use going there since the supply drop already came and went, but it was a good reference point. He could retrace his steps from there and get to lands less likely claimed by monsters.

But Samuel and Burp….

He just needed to keep his head down. And find warmth.

He followed the goblins footprints in the island mud. Luckily, they were also headed towards Center-Island. Not that they could've seen it last night.

The miles all blended after four came and went with unchanging sceneries. He knew he was close when he found a convocation of frost-eagles circling overhead in the distance.

Not long after and he was standing over five corpses, sliding into a dire-rat pelt cloak. It smelled awful. But it was warm. Blindingly white frost-eagle feathers fell like snow around him as they circled and dove, eager to eat their breakfast as he once was.

"Wait— man, hold on!" Claude swatted at the fiends as he looked closer at the goblins.

Now naked, he noticed an inconsistency.

He squatted low, looking over the closest goblin. Pushing its head to the side so its neck was more visible.

"Bruising….. not hands. There's no finger markings. If he it hands…" Claude grabbed the goblins hands, looking for the remains of skin or cloth in its nails as it tried to fight off some imagined attacker strangling it.

"Nothing…." But its neck was broken. All of their necks were broken. Not like they were snapped in some awful angle either. In their cloaks and gear, it wouldve been hard to see. But upon becoming naked, he would've immediately noticed some wicked bend. There was none. They were snapped from an insanely powerful squeezing pressure from all angles. His suspicions were confirmed from the hideous bulge of their eyes.

His uncomfortable island autopsy was cut short when the splashing of ocean water became too aggressive for his liking.

No more than three islands behind him, a school of fish-men hopped onto land. At least eight. They saw him. He ran.

***

Oddly enough, running gave him comfort. It reminded him of home the same way yoga had previously. Only this was infinitely better.

Too much better.

He traveled the islands in a wild sprint. He ran with the frost-eagles and glacial-gulls. Splashes from his booted feet warmed the shoreline waters and brought glimmering eels slithering, failing to catch the fleeing fur and grass wearer just as the fish-men had before.

Without a watch, his sense of time was more nebulous than usual. But when he finally came to a stop on a hollow island, it had to be no later than mid-day. The sun was beaming. The last vestiges of midnight cold were fading— or the run was warming him more than usual. A small pond twisted like a hurricane at the open core of the island. Jagged moss and frost covered stones cut up the currents and made the natural cauldron frothy.

Claude sat above it, where the island landscape spread in a grassy ring. Almost like his forest circle back home in a weird way. Not that he noticed, he was too busy stuffing his face with bush-berries. Running on pure protein was a nightmare. It felt like he hadn't eaten in days. It didn't help that his wounds were bleeding through his uniform and grass bindings.

"I wonder if those supply drops have medical equipment. Probably not. They'd want us to be dependent on the healers." Claude surmised as his stomach rumbled, fiendishly digesting the berries. Must've been an island variant. They had an odd aftertaste, leaving his tongue sour and hot—

It came from the bubbling cyclone at the core of the island. A black blur of fangs and scales.

Claude didn't have enough time to react. One second he was flinching, the next he was being tackled. They rolled down the hallowed island. Both punching and kicking at eachother before splashing into the icy waters.

The shock forced Claude to inhale.

Stupid.

Water invaded his lungs, traveling much like the flames in the goblin tunnel. Quickly. Violently.

He rolled in the blue, swatting, searching, drowning.

A tail smashed into his stomach, the water flew out of his mouth as he was sent into deeper darkness and harsher cold.

His mind worked like he understood he was on a short timer.

"Pelt. Clothes weighing down. Making me colder." He twisted, unable to surmise what was up or down as he tore off his clothing.

Mistake. His blood leaked from the open wounds as the grass armor remains fell like leaves in the water.

Things circled.

The fish-men from before.

He defiled their god. Of course they'd want revenge— he was practically their personal demon-lord.

A demon-lord dying by drowning. It had practically been foreshadowed for weeks.

A fish-man charged him head-on. From the front-view it looked like a two tone serpent of ungodly size. Back fins tipped by crystalline spikes. Massive muscled tail casting bubbles and riptides in its wake. Its spear was aimed straight for him.

Claude activated his aura and grabbed the spear. It didn't stop the hit from knocking more wind out of him. It didn't stop the fish-man from head butting him.

His skull screamed for air. His vision blurred. He didn't even remember the fish-man pushing him off and spin-kicking him even deeper.

One moment he was just sinking. Six deep sea warriors hovered over him with translucent midsections. The water pressure was crushing him.

[45….42…. 38% HP Remaining]

His eyes came to a close. His stomach rumbled. That sour aftertaste from the berries somehow still memorable even as he faded. His heart slowed— stopped, from the outside looking in.

Webbed fingers as strong as two men conjoined wrapped around his arm and lifted him. The six shark-god avengers lifted him in quiet study before screaming beneath the waves and dropping him.

No dreams. No gods asking him what he'd do with their power, did he want to be king… or guardian?

Just…..

[10….9….8% HP Remaining]

[You are experiencing severe Frost Bite effects. You will begin losing function in your limbs in the next—]

Needles sank into his arm. Bottom feeders didn't give a damn about system notifications and neither did Claude when the electrical pulse warmed his soul and jumpstarted his heart in the worst way.

[4% HP Remaining—]

Instincts saved his life.

No, that was wrong. Not instincts. A Hail Mary. A calculated one to a degree.

It wasn't completely mindless to use (Beast Trait) in your final moments.

He should've done it earlier.

Still getting used to it.

Still transforming as he raged for the surface. Fins pushed out from the backsides of his forearms, allowing him to cut through the waters easier. A black oily sheen covered his skin, blocking the penetrating cold. Bio-electrical power surged in his jaws and at the tips of his fingers, sending steaming waves spinning around him.

He sucked in water as gills ripped open along his neck and struggled to adjust when his head breached the surface.

The race against time never ended. It only paused momentarily as an ungodly tiredness gripped him.

He paddled like hell, reaching the island with an inhuman level of lethargy. By the time he made it, he was crawling. Human form returning, eyes low but wild all the same. Thankfully it was a small island. A blip of earth that he could cross in a minute. He didn't need to cross. He just needed to reach the bush.

He hunched over it, gagging. Trying to make himself throw up. No use. All that came up was water.

His fingers sifted through the bushes. He nodded off once. Maybe twice. He didnt remember laying down.

With one final ounce of energy available, he reached for the base and pulled it out of the ground.

Black gnarled roots with greenish purple fluid sweating off the surface looked back at him.

Poison.

His eyes shut with him vaguely remembering Finn and Juli talking about some of the coconuts they found being bad. Smelling wrong. Black on the inside.

Just like the roots.