22. Choose Your Own Adventure

Running away felt good. Partly because the distance between me and the monster was getting bigger, and partly because it always feels good running downhill.

You might think it was a missed opportunity. The ogre had no idea we were there, the ideal chance for a sneak attack. What a prize we might have claimed! Yeah, well, death ain’t much of a prize. The problem is, you can’t understand what it’s like to see an actual monster.

Imagine if you walked into your living room and a gorilla was sitting in your favourite chair. You’d shit yourself, right? Now imagine the gorilla ten times bigger, with the face of the uncle who molested you when you were a kid, and you’re in the ballpark. Oh, you didn’t have an uncle like that? Sure, and you think I’m the one in denial.

I didn’t stop till I was back in town. I zoomed around the wheatfield and didn’t slow down as I approached the buildings. Not once did I look back to see if the others were following. If they couldn’t understand basic instructions, what hope was there for them?

Gasping for breath, I finally came to a stop outside the shed, where one of the soldiers stood by the door doing nothing in particular. He watched me come racing up with a quizzical look on his face. I didn’t know his name and had never spoken to him, but I felt the urge to explain myself for some reason.

“Training session,” I said, panting for air. “Keeping fit.”

He nodded, turned and went inside. I don’t know why I even bother.

Claire and Maurice came jogging round the corner next, followed by Flossie and Dudley. We’d decided to take turns carrying the sacks, and the girls had them on when we reached the meadow. The boys had them on now. They must have stopped to switch. Perfect gentlemanly behaviour, the kind that could get you killed. Well, at least they made it back.

“Good,” I said. “You all remembered the plan.”

Red-faced and out of breath, Claire put her hands on her hips. “He didn’t see us. We didn’t have to run all the way.”

“Yes we did,” I said. “When we make a plan, we need to stick to it. Today turned out okay, but next time might not go so smoothly. That’s why always doing exactly what we decide is vital.”

Was this true? No. Changing plans on the fly as circumstances dictate is the wise move. If you have the sense to adapt appropriately, that is. If you don’t have the sense, or any sense, then under no circumstances should you think for yourself. You will get yourself killed, or worse, you will get me killed.

“What now?” asked Maurice, doubled over and breathing hard.

Our plan to farm the shit out of the rabbit population had gone up in smoke. No way could we risk going back to the meadow, and even if we did, there probably wouldn’t be any rabbits left. Other options included hunting pigs or dogs, but we didn’t even know where to start looking for them, never mind coming up with a strategy how to hunt them.

“Ah, you’re back,” said Grayson as he emerged from the shed. “One of my men mentioned you were out here.”

The guy I spoke to obviously thought I’d run back to ask Grayson important things about how to be a first class adventurer. Awkward.

“Ah, yes,” I said, trying to stall. “We were wondering about... magic. Are there any spells you can teach us?”

Grayson shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“Do you have books that we can learn skills from?” More head shaking. “What about weapons? Are there some secrets to fighting you can share? Is there some place we should visit? Someone we need to talk to?”

Every question got the same response. I looked to the others to help me out.

“Er...” began Maurice. “Has anyone invented the bicycle yet?”

“I... don’t... think so.” Grayson clearly had no idea what Maurice was talking about.

“If there’s something we need to know, can’t you just tell us?” I was quite exasperated by this point and ready to admit defeat.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. If I help you now, you’ll just fall at the next hurdle. It does you no good in the long run.”

“Fine,” I snapped at him. “Can you at least tell us where to find pigs?”

He seemed a bit surprised at my sudden change of tone, but I’d had enough of his well-meaning but useless bullshit. If we were going to be forced to do everything for ourselves, there was no point in being nice to him.

“You can find wild boar in the forest, back where we found you. Be careful though, they’re unfriendly bastards.”

“Isn’t everyone?” I didn’t wait for a reply and walked away.

The others followed. I didn’t bother discussing where we were going. If they didn’t agree, they could stop following me. It took them until we were approaching the trees before someone spoke. That’s a full hour of walking, around the wheatfield in the other direction and over a small stream I had no recollection of crossing when we first travelled to town, although we must have.

“Are we going to hunt pigs in there?” asked Maurice. “Because I’m not sure the best way to do that. Will our slings even work?”

“We aren’t going to hunt pigs,” I said. “I want to go back to the clearing where we first arrived. I want to see if there’s anything we missed. Be silly if we spent all this time struggling to get from one day to the next, and the whole time there’s a way home just through here.” I pointed into the dark, foreboding interior of the forest. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

They started discussing what to do. I left them to it and walked into the woods not giving a damn. Yes, danger lurked in every shadow, but so what? Danger lurked in every sunlit meadow, too.

Five steps in, and my attitude started to change.

Unlike the last time I was here, this time I was much more aware of the surroundings. Without the disorienting confusion of finding myself in a strange world and the shock of seeing a real live ogre, I was able to appreciate the full dank grandeur of the forest. The scuffling going on behind shrubs, the scuttling around my feet, the dark shapes disappearing up tree trunks — it was all creepy as fuck.

“Hey, wait up!” called Maurice from behind me.

I turned and realised it would be easy to get lost in this place. If Maurice hadn’t been heading towards me, I wouldn’t have known which direction I had come from. I took out my spike and gouged a mark in the nearest tree trunk. We would have to leave some kind of trail to follow back.

The others congregated around my location and watched me carve an arrow into bark.

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to be in here?” asked Maurice, clearly implying it wasn’t.

“Probably not,” I answered. “What other option do we have? If we carry on as we are, we’re going to end up stuck in Probet forever. We need to take a chance and hope we get lucky. Or at least that’s what I intend to do.”

“Okay,” said Claire, “but can we not go all the way back to town if we have to run?”

“Sure. If someone says ‘Run’, then we go to the little stream we passed on the way up. If they yell, ‘Ruuuuuuuuuun’, that means big trouble, we go all the way back.”

They nodded their agreement.

“Okay, now the next thing, does anyone remember which way the clearing is?”

Nobody had a clue, so I turned to face the dark interior of the forest and set off. One direction seemed as good as any other.

We all chipped off bits of bark as we walked. Not that I thought it would make much difference if we got attacked. Once we were deep inside Mirkwood, any monster we encountered pretty much had dinner sorted. No matter how many marks we left, finding them as we ran in panic would be near impossible. It would only make it more likely for us to lose our footing or plough head first into a tree.

The sounds around us seemed to get louder, although I was probably just becoming more aware of them. Chittering from the branches above. Hissing from the undergrowth. The occasional hoot or caw. A struggle somewhere to the left, a branch breaking somewhere to the right.

I had my club and spike ready. Dudley and Maurice carried the sacks. They had taken permanent ownership of rather than have the girls carry them, which was fine by me. Maurice had his metal rod which he used to beat the bark off trees. Dudley had Flossie’s knife. I don’t know when that arrangement was made, but it was a damn sight easier to carve arrows on tree trunks with that than his assigned weapon, the bola.

Flossie carried her sling, but I doubted she’d be able to swing it without hitting a tree or branch. Claire had her stick. If we did run into a monster, our main form of attack would be to hope it felt pity for us and committed honourable seppuku.

The dim light made it hard to see very far through the trees. Nothing looked familiar or like it had been disturbed recently. You’d think twenty-plus people traipsing through the woods might leave signs of their passing, but apparently we had been born into this world as ninja. Either that or I was taking us in completely the wrong direction.

I don’t know how much time had passed — hard to tell with the canopy hiding the sun — but I was just about ready to give up when I stumbled through some low branches into a wide open space.

The sun blinded me for a moment, but once I adjusted to the brightness, I recognised the tall grass and wildflowers as the glade we had started in.

The others stopped beside me, taking in the idyllic scene. Perfect place for a picnic if it wasn’t for the smell. The unmistakable odour of shit.

When the ogre had been killed, it emptied its bowels in violent fashion. You don’t forget a smell like that, and the air was still heavy with it. The ogre’s body had gone. Perhaps it had been eaten by scavengers, or maybe it had risen from the dead and we now faced the possibility of attack from a zombie ogre. A zogre?

We moved around, trying to spot anything unusual, but nothing stood out. Where had we come from? Had we fallen out of the sky? I’m not sure what I hoped to find. A magic wardrobe that led back home would have been nice. Not that I had much to go home to. No loved ones distressed by my sudden disappearance, no luxurious lifestyle to reclaim.

To be honest, the idea of travelling to a strange fantasy world to fight monsters and find treasure would be the kind of thing I would love to do, but not like this. If I had landed with special skills and an OP weapon, cheat mode on, fair enough, I’m down to play. But trying to navigate this place as the lowliest scrub with a stick in one hand and a metal spike in the other was way too hardcore.

“Shit!” cried out Maurice.

“What is it?” I looked around for signs of trouble.

“No, it’s shit. Lots of it.”

I walked over to him and saw the shit he was talking about. A large area was covered with a light brown crust. It had been a lot darker when it shot out of the ogre’s rear end, but being baked by the sun had turned it to the colour of fresh bread. It had also expanded so it was high as my knee. A giant turd muffin.

“Ah,” said Flossie, “is it supposed to move like that?” She pointed at the area nearest her, which was trembling. A bubble began to form.

“It’s probably the sun warming up the gas inside. We should probably get back,” I said. I don’t consider myself an expert in these matters, but it seemed a plausible explanation.

We all stepped back as the bubble grew bigger and bigger. It reached beachball proportions and then it popped, and a rabbit jumped out.

It looked like the rabbits we hunted, except for one thing: the long horn growing out of the centre of its head.

“Fooking hell,” said Flossie. “It’s a bunny unicorn!”