I woke up to the sound of a fire, its warmth on one side of me while the cool of night dominated the other. Yawning, I looked around and saw Com standing guard around the camp we had set up earlier that day. It was the third day we’d been gone from Agetha’s hut and there was still no sign of this Artemis person or anyone he had been with.

I walked over to Com, after stretching, and kept myself from yawning again. “It’s my turn, go ahead and get some sleep.”

He turned to me and nodded before heading to bed himself. I watched him head back to our makeshift camp and put a few more pieces of wood in the furnace we’d brought with us. Knowing the fire was set for the rest of the night, he climbed into the bed and went to sleep.

The night shift had been a rather uneventful one, a few nightlings here and there. There were some strange cats, ocelots Com had called them, wandering the jungle, but they never got close to us. As such, I let myself wander into my thoughts again. Each encounter with the Players seemed like the last I’d ever have, but their leader, Kaile, would somehow mess up each time. That last time he even pulled out magic and still I stopped him, but how? How was I, no, how am I able to stop him when I can’t even use my own magic? I looked at my hooves and wondered if somehow I was channeling my magic in a different way, maybe in a way that this world acknowledged.

I heard a rustling from the bushes nearby and tensed up for a moment before realizing it was just a spider trying to climb a tree. I almost cracked a smile at that, but I noticed something beyond the next hill, something that wasn’t cubicle. Normally that wouldn’t mean much, but it wasn’t one of those cocoa beans that were often present on these enormous trees, it looked like...

I gasped, but only slightly. We were being watched. I wasn't sure by what, but I kept my eyes on it...and then it came out. It was a zombie; that had been its nose. I sighed and slapped my face gently a few times to try and wake up. “Come on, Craft, stop being paranoid.” We were days away from the hut and the Players didn’t know where she was or where we had gone to anyway. Right?

I shook my head vigorously and continued to keep watch, but the night was quiet. Unfortunately, quiet meant thinking time again and this time my mind wandered to my world. It wandered to my squad, Garnet Fury the most, but the others as well. Honestly we were a rag-tag group that knew our jobs but liked to have fun on the side, something Chrysalis wasn’t too fond of. Even so, thanks to my excellent skills, her own words, I was put in command of them. I never had a problem with them though; they welcomed me with open arms. It was kind of refreshing really. Before them I had been stuck with some of the most single minded soldiers ever to come out of boot camp. They were one mind, one body all the way. It was changelings like them that made the other races think we were a hive mind race. That made for effective military tactics and all but they weren’t much else off the field.

I mentally sighed as I watched the surrounding area. I thought I saw something flying around in the sky, almost looked like a bat, but I couldn’t make it out even with the luminous moonlight. I spent the rest of the night wishing they were with me.

In the morning we picked up the remnants of our firewood and put away the furnace and continued onward. We still hadn’t any clues as to what we were supposed to look for -even Com hadn’t been exactly sure how to locate the magician that could likely help us.

Around noon we took a break and set our stuff down to make a temporary camp. I watched our stuff while Com went for some water from a nearby stream. Since he’d be gone for a couple minutes I decided to climb one of the trees with a lot of vines on it. That was one of the convenient things about these jungle trees, they all had vines on them and most could be climbed to the top that way.

When I got to the top I noticed this jungle was rather massive. We’d been traveling for half a week and still there wasn’t an end in sight. I let out a whistle that conveyed how impressed I was.

“Hey, are you going to come down or what?” Com said from below, his voice slightly faded from the distance between us.

“Yeah I’ll be down in a sec.” I took the vines down and near the ground one of them snapped causing me to fall on my butt.

“You ok?” Com asked, handing me a bucket of water. How didn’t they have bottles here?

“I’m fine, though I’m sure my butt’ll be in pain for about an hour or so. I’ll get over it though,” I said, taking the bucket and sucking down the water until it was gone. This jungle was hot, hotter than the desert ever got somehow, probably the humidity.

“Hmm?” Com said, before leaning down right behind where I had landed. He turned to me, “Craft, I think you did some real damage. You broke the block of dirt.” Confused, I did a mental count and sure enough I had an extra block of dirt I hadn’t had before.

“Alright, but why was that something I had to come over here for?” I didn’t get what he was getting at.

“There’s cobblestone down underneath that spot.” It took a moment but I got that something was fishy about it and he must’ve read my face because he nodded and continued, “Cobblestone isn’t commonly a natural part of this world. It’s usually the result of someone mining stone and placing it back down.”

I looked at him and I could tell he was thinking about the same thing I was, “We’re not alone here, are we?”

“I’m afraid you’re not,” a new voice said, a deep voice. It likely belonged to a male, middle-age, and well versed in sneaking to have gotten the jump on us in the middle of the day. These observations were easy to make after being in infiltrator training as long as I had been.

“You’re lucky we’re not supposed to kill on sight; instead of that, we’ll just have to take you to our camp.” A Player walked out from behind the very tree I had climbed. I mentally berated myself. How had I not noticed him there?

This new Player took a look at me, almost like he was sizing me up, trying to figure me out. After a few moments he repeated this with Com.

“You’re with a monster. Why?” his tone was forceful, yet curious.

“What’s it to you?” I said in response. He merely spared me a glance before looking back at Com.

I could tell Com was hesitating on what to do. He seemed torn between running, talking, and fighting for his life. After a full minute he chose to talk.

“We’re looking for someone, his name is Artemis and we heard he made it to this world.” His voice quivered slightly.

The mysterious Player seemed to mull it over before talking again, “The one you seek, Artemis, isn’t here anymore. He’s been gone for years now. In his stead I am in charge. You can call me Apollo.”

I wasn’t done though. “What do you want with us?” Again he looked at me and ignored my question. That was starting to make me mad.

“What is he?” the Player, Apollo, asked Com.

“I’m a changeling! And I can talk for myself!” I frowned at him, anger still building in my chest.

“I’ve not seen his kind here before. He’s not from our home world either. What does he do? Where are his kind?” Apollo asked. His questions stung me a bit, reminding me that I was alone here. It made me yearn for Equestria and the hive.

He must’ve noticed as he turned toward me and muttered something under his breath before turning around. “I suggest you move quickly, lest I have my men give you reason.” I heard a shifting noise and realized he wasn’t alone.

I quietly swore to myself and turned to Com. He gave me a look and nodded as though saying that we might as well. I relaxed my stance and walked forward, ready to brandish my stolen blade if the need arose. Com settled on a trying to not look as nervous as he actually was.

I just hoped that his words didn’t mean we would die when we got to the camp.

Author's Note

Been gone, but with some legit reasons or another. Got a job and that led to money which led to games which meant distractions and well...you know. I'm gonna try to get back to some sort of normalcy for this though. Honestly I almost lost all my stuff after my computer decided my flash drive was unable to be read or something and i had to scour the net to find a program to unscramble the bits that I could recover. Good news is I saved this and a few actual things I'm trying to write for real. I will say that that day I reached a new level of anger, but all is well now.
Also I went over this and I didn't see anything out of place, though it's been nearly 11 months so hopefully I didn't screw anything up.