Location: Gastromycen Homeworld
Aliens: Gastromycen
“You’re gonna get us killed,” Tommen said. It had been at least three days since they set out from the temple, and Mara had wanted to strangle him for almost all of them. Why the Mothers decided to send him along was beyond her. Was it a punishment for her, him, or both? The near constant rain didn’t help matters much. Tommen wasn’t the sunniest of people on a good day. Even Rum, his symbiote, seemed to bristle anytime she got near him.
“You can turn back anytime now,” Mara said calmly. They had been granted the privilege of journeying without their veils. Mara would have removed hers anyway, but she found it amazing how heightened her sense had already grown through Gail. She could taste the rain and the feel shifts in the air. Tommen wasn’t going to ruin that.
“You’ve mentioned several times,” he said. They had left any semblance of a path at least a day prior. They were traveling by Mara’s guidance alone. “If I wouldn’t be chastised by the Mothers for the rest of my life, I would have abandoned you immediately.”
“Why do you stick around, anyway?” Mara asked. It likely wasn’t smart to goad him when they were cold, wet, and hungry, but she had never had a level head. “From the very first day, you’ve been sullen and rude. It’s clear you don’t believe in the teachings.”
“Just because I’m not a drooling sycophant like you and the others doesn’t mean I don’t believe,” he said. She was startled by this response.
“So you truly believe Squamus and Jorn spoke to me. That we’re going to find the First Temple and them within it?” she asked. If it had been a single dream, she would have chalked it up to a deprived mind in need of a flight of fancy. But each night was the same. A slug roughly as tall as her appeared at her side. It tugged at her gently and when it touched her she felt overwhelming joy. It led her out of her room in the temple and down into the forest. The sun was bright and a man stood in an open field, smiling broadly. Every morning, Mara woke up with a similar smile.
“Now that I don’t believe whatsoever,” Tommen said flatly. “Squamus and Jorn weren’t real. Or maybe they were real, but the signs and wonders credited to them were just legends, myths built up over the years.”
“I think,” Mara said, stopping in the path. “You’re angry that they chose me to speak to. Me, who always messes up the hymns and never shows up on time. You think you deserve to be their conduit more than me.”
“You may be the dumbest person I’ve ever met,” he said, but his stride had faltered. Gail let her sense the heat that was rising off of him. She smiled smugly, satisfied with striking a nerve. Gail perked up defensively as Tommen reached down and grabbed a rock from the forest floor. “If you are their chosen pupil,” he said, wheeling around on her. “They'll keep this rock from crushing your skull.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said and Gail looked at her in what she assumed was disbelief. He smiled and tossed the rock up into the air, catching it as it fell back down.
“No, you lunatic,” he said. “But you believed me.” It was his turn to smirk. Mara snatched the rock from his hand.
“You’re so funny,” she said. She was about to throw the rock off into the trees when Tommen’s hand grabbed her arm. Mara instinctively yanked it away from him.
“Look,” he said. His face was pale, and for the first time since they left the temple, Rum had perked up inquisitively. Mara looked at the rock and her breath hitched. There on the rock was part of a relief sculpture. It was hard to tell what it was meant to be, as it had fractured from a much larger piece. Maybe an arm? The curve of a slug’s body? Tommen fell to his knees and scattered rotting leaves away from the ground. Mara followed suit. This wasn’t the open field she had seen, but these trees had had centuries to grow. She felt silly for not realizing it earlier.
After a little while of digging, they found a few more pieces of the relief. There were divots Mara assumed were once words etched into the stone. They laid out the pieces they had found. The full image was still a mystery, but they found at least some of the text. “I can’t make sense of it,” Mara said, breathless.
“It’s a gravemarker,” Tommen said. “I’ve seen enough to know,” he said cryptically.
“Damn,” Mara said, flopping onto her back. She exclaimed as her head struck a rock barely sticking out of the ground. “Damn!” she shouted, plunging her hand into the muck and yanking the stone free. The rain washed away the dirt to reveal, clearly, the name “Jorn”.
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