“Roots,” I said, holding up Soul Eater for Devi’lynn to see. I had split the dagger’s blade into smaller and smaller branches while shaping the weapon’s hilt to resemble a flower.

“Roots?” Devi’lynn asked, furrowing her brow. “This weapon?”

I could see that she didn’t understand it, which was a shame. My roots were really good-looking roots; they even had little gnarls and twists at certain sections to look more authentic. I had to admit though that the petals of the flower looked a bit misshapen, because I couldn’t extend the material at Soul Eater’s pommel any better. Was that the reason she didn’t recognize my ingenious illustration? Perhaps, or perhaps plants like this didn’t even exist on Ylvasil. Ever since she had confessed that they had no words for vine, I had been wondering what their planet looked like.

I stopped walking for a moment, looking at the vegetation around us; there had to be something here that I could uproot. The trees of this forest didn’t grew too close to each other, leaving plenty of space for a thriving undergrowth. Thankfully, it wasn’t quite a jungle, but it came close with the warm, humid weather and those big leafy plants that grew everywhere. I tugged at the thick stalk of some weed by the water, hoping it would come out of the wet earth with its root intact. But just as I managed to pull the weed out, someone yelled on the other side of the small river.

“Guys, we found something!” Pell said, pointing at something on the ground.

“What the—is that a footstep?” Imaya exclaimed as she hurried up to him. Devi’lynn waded across the water to take a look too, with an ever watchful Teva’ryn at her heels. I walked after them slowly, thinking about what this discovery meant. Finding footsteps was good news; it implied that we weren’t alone. Depending on who those footsteps belonged to, much of our problems would be solved. Unless—

I stopped short when I saw the footprint in the mud. Whoever had walked through here, they had done so bare-footed. Quite understandable, since the local stores probably did not sell any shoes of this size; the footprint was about the size of a car.

“That’s a footstep alright,” I mumbled.

“Foot…?” Devi’lynn asked on my right.

“Foot,” I said, pointing at my feet. I then stomped once, adding, “step.”

“Randel, would you stop doing that?” Tamara spoke. “You’ve been doing this all day, and it’s grating on our nerves. It’s not like teaching her a few random words will matter anyway.”

“She’s learning extremely fast, though,” I said. “She remembers more than twice as many words as I do.

“Some kind of racial ability or something?” Imaya chimed in. “Language-learning? Super-intelligence?”

“Dunno,” I said with a shrug. By this point, I’d learned not to question Imaya’s odd remarks. “Teva’ryn doesn’t seem to catch on this fast, though he hasn’t been all that interested in learning our language so far.”

“Let’s just focus at the issue at hand, okay?” Simon said with an edge in his voice. “There’s a giant nearby, and you keep talking about languages.”

“There isn’t much we can do about the giant,” Tamara said. “The plan is the same as always. Stay close to the river where it’s easier to walk, run if something tries to eat us. A giant can be easily spotted from afar.”

“Nicely put,” Simon said. “We should also keep an eye out for broken branches and trampled plants. Stay close to each other, and—”

“Not going to work,” Tamara interrupted him. “I fail to see how grouping up would help us spot the giant. Not only that, but we haven’t eaten all day—we’ll starve if we don’t find something soon. I suggest we split up, so that we have better chances at finding something edible.”

“That’s a recipe for disaster,” Pell said. “I don’t want us to split up.”

“We don’t have to split up completely,” Simon said. “We could go in pairs.”

“Ooh!” Imaya raised her hand. “Since we’re an odd number, can I go with the Sylven? I want to teach them some words too!”

“Sure,” Simon said. “Tamara’s Gravity Orb goes well with my fire, so the two of us will take the river’s right side. Pell and Randel can take the left. Imaya, watch out for more footprints along the river. We’ll regroup with you before nightfall.”

“Got it!” Imaya enthused.

“Sounds like a plan,” Tamara agreed, though the sour expression on her face contrasted her words.

After explaining our revolutionary plan to Devi’lynn, I followed Pell deeper into the woods. To be honest, I had no idea how the two of us were expected find anything to eat. Pell was carrying a wooden shield and a short sword, hardly the best equipment for chasing down animals. I had Soul Eater, which I could perhaps throw to catch a bird unawares—ah, but who was I kidding? I would cut myself sooner than my prey if I tried flinging Soul Eater around.

The forest seemed to be tame enough as of yet, and I really hoped it would stay that way. The giant footprint was a bad sign of course, but I was glad we didn’t have to fight our way though man-eating plants and packs of wolves. I also appreciated the rather diminished presence of bugs and insects, which made our journey – and our nights on the ground – much more tolerable. Ecology didn’t belong to my areas of expertise sadly, so I was left wondering whether our surroundings could be considered normal—or fabricated.

Pell and I walked in silence for a while, threading over fallen leaves, broken branches, and patches of purple-blue mushrooms. When we reached the edge of a grass-covered clearing Pell stopped walking, shielding his eyes from the sun as he scanned the open space ahead of us.

“I still believe it was a bad decision to split up,” he said. “What happens if something attacks us out there?”

“I throw my dagger as far as I can, teleport myself to it, then run like hell,” I replied.

“Man, you’re not reassuring at all,” Pell said, though I could see that he was grinning. “But you do realize that I have the longer legs, right? Magic tricks or not, I’m sure I can outrun you.”

“Ouch, you’re right,” I said, stepping out from the cover of the trees. “Why didn’t I think of this earlier? If I happen to survive today, I’m pairing up with Imaya the next time.”

Pell followed me silently as I led the way. The waist-high grass concerned me a bit, because I couldn’t see where I was stepping. I supposed that if we were predestined to fight monsters, it would be in this clearing. It felt like an area of importance amidst the monotony of the forest.

“You know Randel, I think this carefree attitude of yours is just a mask,” Pell spoke when we were halfway through the clearing.

“Hmm?”

I glanced back over my shoulder, frowning. I had a suspicion what kind of conversation Pell was leading up to, and I didn’t like it one bit.

“Sorry to be blunt,” Pell added with an apologetic smile. He took a few quick steps, catching up to me so that we walked side by side. “This thought just struck me suddenly. After you went to sleep last night, the four of us bounced a few ideas off each other. Have you realized that we all have different looks, ethnicity, and personality?”

“Yeah. I guess the aliens wanted a varied pool of test subjects.”

“Right! See, I knew you had an observant side under that nonchalance,” Pell said, grinning at me. I was fairly sure he didn’t intend his comment to be as patronising as it actually sounded, so I let it slide.

“I’m trying,” I said, my eyes on the yellowish-green grass ahead of us. “So, is this about yesterday’s discovery?”

“I was just about to get to that,” Pell said. “Don’t worry Randel, I ain’t going to ask, but we’re quite sure that something’s up with your family too. We all seem to share similar family backgrounds—and the big mystery here is why.”

“I see. So what’s your theory?”

“They want us all to get along.”

“Really?” I asked, genuinely surprised. I had expected to hear this reasoning from Imaya, not him.

“Sounds kind of ridiculous, I know,” he said. “Personally, I think the Inspector wouldn’t mind much if we all went our separate ways. We’d have lower chance of survival in that case, but that’s just part of this … test. Oh man, that felt so weird to say. Anyway, I think they wanted to compensate for throwing together so many different people.”

“Interesting idea,” was all I said.

“What I’m trying to say is that if you got to know us a little better, I think you’d find many things we have in common,” Pell said. “It’s only the five of us, and we will have to rely on each other a lot. So, uh … I’m not asking you to open up all of a sudden, but I think you should consider being a bit less withdrawn, if you can.”

“Withdrawn?” I repeated. “I think I talk quite a lot.”

“Well, that’s another thing,” Pell said, rubbing his bald head. “You talk to the Sylven, but not to us. Not unless we ask something from you, or you feel like cracking a joke. It’s not a big deal, but … well, at first I had thought you were just shy, but you’re clearly not. It’s like you aren’t even interested in getting to know us.”

“Hey,” I said, raising a finger. “First off, it’s not that I’m completely uninterested. I may look standoffish at times, but that’s just because I have too many astute thoughts in my head. I’m so full of ingenious ideas that I barely have time for anything else!”

Pell lifted an eyebrow at that. “If you say so.”

“Secondly,” I moved on, “you have to admit that getting to know an alien species is more fascinating than stuff like, I don’t know, what you guys did for a living on Earth. In fact, it’s me who’s been wondering why you act so distant with the Sylven.”

“I found them intriguing too, at first,” Pell admitted. “It got old fast when it turned out that we can’t communicate with them properly. I think the others feel the same way.”

“But that’s exactly what I’m working on,” I said, throwing up my hands for emphasis. “Except somebody finds my work irritating.”

“Tamara is frustrated with our situation, not you,” Pell said. “She’s constantly thinking about how to survive the next day, while you’re only engaged with the Sylven. Just imagine how that looks for her.”

“Well…” I scrunched up my face, thinking. “Alright, you win. What did you do for a living on Earth?”

“Wow man, you change religions fast,” Pell said, grinning. “I’m a mechanical engineer. And if my guess is correct, you are some kind of—hey, you hear that?”

Both of us froze immediately, focusing on the noise coming from our right. We had arrived to the other side of the clearing, and the sounds were coming from deeper in the woods. Branches rustling, water splashing, and … a series of grunts and oinks. Getting increasingly sure that we weren’t about to stumble upon a giant, Pell and I edged silently closer to the origin of the noise.