John looked around the camp that he and Nuru were and soon spotted a body sprawled in the ground.
"Who's that?" John pointed at the dead Floran hunter in the ground.
Nuru glanced at the dead Floran and then said, "The one who ssshot you down."
John was dumbfounded for a moment. [Wasn't that assassin in the Lunar Base 12 that-] He soon realized the problem in the whole situation and turned to ask to Nuru, "The poisonous fog in this landscape is....hallucinogenic...?"
"Yesss. It alssso can make you mentally, and emotionally unssstable." She answered and then turned around to look at John, "Why? Did you had an hallucination?"
"Yes...in it, I was shot down by someone else." John said with a uncertain tone. The hallucination felt like real life, it didn't looked like an image or something. So much so that even now that John wasn't under the effect of the poison and was able to think clearly he still felt like it was real.
"Really?" Nuru took the meat from the fire and bit it with her fangs, tearing a huge piece away, into her mouth. "Well...your body ssshould have gotten usssed to the fog by now. At leassst with the Floransss we are only affected once, after that, no more. There's an antidote for the poison, but now that have already been poisoned once, you are probably not going to need it." Then Nuru devided the meat in half and waved it in front of John. "Want sssome?"
"Thanks..." John grabbed the piece and took a bite.
As the meat touched his tongue, he instantly frowned. There was no salt and neither seasoning in the food. Even though he was able to eat it that way, if could chose, he rather ate his own prepared food in the PIPS than this spiceless meat. But he still ate the food that was offered to him since he doesn't want to be rude.
"Can you give my stuff back now?" John asked Nuru.
Nuru threw a glance at John. She pondered for a second before she decided to give it back.
John firstly placed his belt with the dagger and pistol first. Then he wore the PIPS back to his right wrist.
Now that everything was in place he took off his armor plate that was on the chest and back to take a look at his injury.
John let loose some low groans of pain as the armors scratched at the wounded part.
Once he finally took off the plate, he glanced at the injury in his abdomen.
It didn't look very grim, it was just like a bullet injury, but John was still able to feel that there was something inside his injury.
First John reached for an anesthetic medicine, painkiller, and applied it around the place of the injury.
The moment John felt that the painkiller and taken effect, he retrieved a pincer from his PIPS.
Nuru just stood by the side calmly watching as John inserted the pincer deep in the wound.
Blood slowly dripped from the injury as the pincer went further into the hole left behind by the projectile that had pierced John.
It was long process as John slowly took the whole projectile from inside him. Luckily there wasn't any fragments left behind, the bullet was completely intact.
After he was done, he took a clean bandage from his PIPS, applied some salve in it, and wrapped the bandage around his injury.
John sighed in relief and exhaustion after he completed everything.
He leaned by a rock and closed his eyes to rest.
Nuru glanced at John and warned, "If you want to sssleep you better do it on top of the treesss. We are very deep into the swamp. Around this time, the creaturesss in here get restlessss and agressssive."
"Alright..." John struggled a little to stand up and then he took his grappling hook.
He aimed at a high, thick branch of the closest tree from them and fired.
*Bang*
With a low noise the hook was sent flying in the air.
*Thud*
Once the hook was stuck on the branch, John started ascend.
Nuru curiously stared at the ascending John. She never saw such strange tool capable and lifting a people this high in the air.
As soon as John reached the branch, he made himself comfortable and leaned by the tree trunk.
John glanced at beneath him to see what Nuru was going to do.
One simple look and John couldn't help but stare.
Nuru was able to swiftly climb up the tree by piercing in the tree trunk with her sharp nails.
John's lips twitched. She was able to climb even faster than him using the grappling hook.
In no time, Nuru had already found herself a comfortable spot on a tree opposite from the tree that John was resting.
John lowered his guard and closed his eyes. He knew that Nuru wasn't dangerous for him at the moment.
Why would she kill him now, after she bothered to save him in the first place?
With those thoughts in his mind, John easily fell asleep.
...
Once John opened his eyes he realized he wasn't on the swamp but rather in a strange and grandiose palace.
The whole building was white and completely spotless.
[Another strange dream?] John thought to himself. [Why am I having so many strange dreams, one after the other recently?]
John tried to look at himself, but he soon found out that his body was completely translucent.
Without other choice, John decided to move forward in those long and huge hallways.
He soon spotted a door at the right side of the hallway, he was about to open it when heard footsteps coming from behind him.
He turned around and saw a tall, person with gray skin, red eyes, and pointy ears.
"Ancient..." John mumbled as he recognized the race the person belonged to.
The Ancient in special had a long, silky black hair. He doesn't looked old, but John was uncertain of how old he was since he didn't know to identify the age of Ancients.
He was wearing some kind of full metal armor that looked like a mixture of medieval and modern armory.
The person went through John like he didn't exist at all and opened the door.
John followed along the Ancient and entered in the room.
The room was empty. There was no one inside. It clearly was a bedroom of sorts.
"Fuck those bastards..." The Ancient was fuming with rage as he flipped out a table that was on the corner of the room. His face was contorted with anger. "How dare they say that I'm not as good as my brother!!!"