Instead of waking up from Poniard shaking me like the day before, today I awoke from the distant sounds of heavy machinery and crashing in the forest.
Once again only the light of the sun was in the sky and not the sun itself because of how early it was but around a thousand yards away from our camp there were bright lights showing through the rustling trees and the beeping sounds of heavy machinery backing up or otherwise notifying surroundings. As I got out of my tent and climbed up the sentry tower to look out into the forestry, several trees just suddenly toppled over into their neighbors.
"Good morning," Ms. Gwyn says from the nest of the small tower that only came with two chairs but currently contained four people. In either hand was a cup of coffee steaming in the early morning air and beside her perched on the edge of the next wall was Si-Pon. Si-Pon did not even glance at me as I climbed up to the top of the ladder and accepted the cup of coffee, the bird simply stared out at the emptying patch of forestry in the distance.
As I watched, the only trees that still stood in the immediate area of the portal were were trees like the giant 'grandfather' oak Eliza and I climbed to find this hill. The rest were cut and trimmed and bulldozed to the side. Now that the area was expanding more than a hundred feet or so, though, hooked chains were being fed through the portal to drag through the trimmed tree trunks as well as bulk limbs and brush.
Simply deciding to live my life under the assumption that this bird can already understand me, I reach out slowly but calmly to trail my fingertips down the soft feathers of its shoulders and back while saying, "You've probably seen this before, but differently. This is what we call logging and how we do it, farming trees. We come from an entirely different world that should have no connection to this one but suddenly does. Now, we have portals or gateways like that light wall down there which connect us and all kinds of crazy shit comes out to kill our people.
"So, when we come here, we make it worth our time to help ensure future safety," I continue to explain after a brief sip of coffee. "In our world, there was never anything like magic or creatures like you and all of these things are extremely valuable there. This helps us protect ourselves and advance our understanding of this world. A fair trade, since we come here and clean your revenant fields or cull monsters without any prior choice."
After these words, the bird finally looks away from the logging and seemed to size me up and down with a single eye before blinking and turning back to the events taking place at the portal.
By the time I emptied my cup of coffee, the ground and trees had been bulldozed to stumps level with the ground and just naked ground for more than a hundred yards in every direction from the portal with a steady stream of trees and brush flowing in through either side of the portal. It was quick, merciless, and efficient. There was even a special side crew of a dozen men who collected animals who could not escape the carnage.
"I've never seen this before in my life and now I wish I never have to again," I say tiredly after throwing my cup in the nest's trash can before replacing the bag and taking it down the tower with me. From there, I just started taking down everything that was not currently necessary while the rest of the camp slowly woke up.
Despite the last thing the told me, I did not find the director anywhere around the camp which made me think he was probably directly overseeing the logging. Or, as an incredibly busy person who once front lined territories, he was probably out hunting and enjoying the atmosphere a thousand yards in the opposite direction from the portal. After waking and tending Poniard, though, I simply gathered my personal belongings and put them together in a cart fashioned by Karen.
Several other carts were waiting nearby and on the opposite side of the gate facing the portal but only a few were in use yet and those that were had been loaded by me. Wearing all of my equipment and drawing a wooden cart loaded with my personal things, I set out from camp down the hillside. Lo and behold, I thought I would get to leave without the bird but it instead flew over and landed on my head when it saw that I was leaving the camp.
Giving Poniard one ivory short sword while I used the other, we worked together to clear a broad card trail through and around trees toward the portal once we get safely down the hill with the heavy cart. The going was slow and we had to stop and take a break after half an hour of winding through trees, but once we got two thirds of the way there we reached the wide open and growing clearing where the logging was expanding.
Si-Pon briefly chortled in surprise, sitting up quickly so that it unsettled the balance of my head as it took in the bare surroundings. Then it quickly settled back down. It was probably caught off guard by how quick the work really was.
Not long after walking along through the leveled stumps and open ground I spotted a familiar giant figure surrounded by a small group of smaller persons organizing crews with radios. It was the kind of position I imagined I would find him in. More like my other suspicion, though, Director Carlyle was dressed in a suit of dark gray leather armor layered in small rectangular scales of matte steel plates.
Resting upside down on the ground in front of him was a large battleaxe with two dramatic crescent faces with long reaching bottoms and tops. His arms were currently resting on the shaft of the weapon while confirming and relaying information. Then, when I was only a hundred yards away, he held a radio to his head and looked over in my direction.
Leaving the group behind with only two other people in similar combat-appropriate outfits, Director Carlyle raises a hand to greet me while walking forward and I respectfully pick up my pace. The bird clucked and whistled a few times to which Poniard clicked his teeth and grunted a few sounds. I could not imagine that Pon-pon had a good impression of the man who was slapped around by Lucinda and then carried her by her face.
However, Si-Pon merely clicked his beak before settling back down. When we finally got to the director, he took the initiative to speak first and said in an oddly cheerful and position manner, "Good to see you, Malcolm. These are the colleagues I told you about. Both have experience in dealing with elementals."
"Is this the new nightingale?" One of the men asks, wearing a naked leather suit made of the same material as the director's and wearing a simplistic sword at his waist while wearing a shield on his arm. "She's an absolute beauty. Has it made any attempts at communication?"
"Yeah, we found a name for it and it even bought some of my pizza last night," I state bluntly in the kind of way that would make them simply not believe me. "Gave me some metal crickets and magic pebbled for the ultimate of deep dish pizzas and then became my brother-in-arms. He came up with his name using Poniard's name and the name Poniard uses with me."
At this point, the bird decided to step in by tapping my helmet with one foot and saying, "Si-fu-u." Then. Pointing down toward Poniard the bird says, "Pon-pon." Finally, it slaps itself in the chest with its wing and says, "Si-Pon!"
"A pleasure to meet you, Si-Pon, truly," the man says, bowing his head to the bird with an excited expression on his pale and glasses wearing face. "Hold on, let me try one of the languages the others used." Then, the man started speaking in a new language I had never heard before but came with a deep and throaty accent like some Slavic languages.
Cooing loudly and quickly in a charmingly high pitched tone, Si-Pon seems to be excited by what it hears and begins producing the same sounds as the language. "Yes, my accent is horrible, but it's the easiest language for me to remember," the man seems to apologize in English. The he spoke in yet another language.
This one sounds easier to speak but the man would stutter now and then or have to repeat certain words differently. However, Si-Pon actually seemed to be patient with the man and continued to speak the same language normally to him. Soon, Si-Pon was perched on the man's arm while he and his fellow in chainmail armor were walking away.
"Did I just get freed?" I ask only after watching the trio walk away for a full minute toward the edge of the logging operation.
"No, they're just discussing terms and living situations," he replies. "If it really intends to pursue you to the other side of the portal even after these negotiations, you and Ms. Lucinda may need to be relocated. How are things for your team?"
"Not bad, loot so good we're not even mad about taxes," I reply unrealistically. "I'm terrified of stepping out of the portal today and listening to my phone literally explode with the messages that finally get received from her. But, there's a slight chance I can get out of it."
Giving me an appraising look, the director asks, "Care the share that secret sauce?"
"She suspected this portal was an undead one and still let me go, so anything that happens she has already taken responsibility for my experiencing as my guardian," I reply even more unrealistically than before. "She'll still poison my dinner and ask me how it tastes right before I die, though," I say in honest realism.
This actually made the director suddenly bark out a few hoarse laughs before regaining his composure. Clearing his throat awkward and looking around at the work taking place, he says, "On the bright side, not even that grizzled demon can argue with your bird friend. On top of that, you'll be granted special accesses and permissions in exchange for your work with the bird. You may need to be relocated to higher grade dungeons. What grade are you at, now?"
"I'm almost certain I've entered D, but that just means it'll take longer for my body to settle," I answer somewhat unhappily. "After I found a way to exposure treat myself I thought everything would be smooth but organic sailing. Now… im almost perpetually adapt-evolving to catch up to my MP increases."
"You said last night you guys got good loot from the revenant field," Director Carlyle seems to muse. "It'll take a while to process and sell stuff like that. Maybe I can decommission your team for a couple of weeks while you catch up with yourself. During that time, you can also work on the bird's relations with Earth. What does it like?"
"Food and pecking, so far," I reply with a shrug. "I don't even know why it likes me, yet. But, we bonded over food and it definitely does not like to idea of being treated as a belonging. See the visor? Si-Pon. I also likes collecting things, shiny colorful rocks that kinda glow and metallic-looking insects. It and Poniard found a bunch of those things yesterday and put them on their pizza. The bird even paid for pizza with some of them. Paid ME," I clarify quickly when the director's face suddenly darkens with fury.
He quickly calmed down after those last two words and says, "The fact that it understands bartering as well as knows multiple languages means its probably old and knows the gist of how societies function over time. They dont leave their spawning grounds for at least ten years and then its a hundred years before they make it out of their country or whatever of origin. It might be a bird, but its slow and lazy when it's not motivated like most elementals seem to be."
"What do I use to keep it approval ratings up?" I ask quickly when I see Si-Pon looking over at us. His face was still as unreadable as that of any bird to me and it scared me more than expressions would. "I have money and can learn meals quickly, what else."
"He's a songbird and we have an entire world rich in a couple thousand years of cultural cuisines and music and other forms of entertainment," he replies in an almost bored fashion. "He'll probably stick with those two for the next few days until it becomes fluent in our language. While you have time, put together some samplers of your personals and then let it branch out on its own."
"Okay, my top hits from the fifties forwards and all my favorite food in an endless first-week cycle?" I ask of nobody at all while still under Si-Pon's hawk-like gaze.
*