welcome to the jungle | Glowfic Constellation

full-of-woe

April moved to scenic Selvadorada because exploring ancient ruins sounds interesting, and temptingly devoid of living human beings to interact with.

But, due to who she is as a person, the first thing she does after moving in is sit down at her computer and start playing video games.

It's... weirdly... less, somehow? Blicblock feels too easy, or something. Turning up the difficulty doesn't help. After a few minutes she gives up and tries learning a new programming language, which instead of feeling much easier and less satisfying than she instinctively expected, feels harder and more effortful.

It takes her a few more minutes after that to notice that... 'learning a new programming language' isn't quite the right way to think about it. She feels like programming is the sort of thing she does, she feels like it's fun and easy, but in the entire process of slogging through this tutorial she has never once consciously compared a thing she is learning to a thing she already knew. The concepts are familiar, but the details aren't. And if the concepts are familiar where did she learn them? She doesn't know. She can't remember.

What's the last thing she remembers before she moved here?

She lived in, uh, a town? And had, uh, probably family members of some sort? And moved to Selvadorada to investigate the possibly-magical ancient ruins, but, like, there wasn't a moment when she decided to do that, she just... arrived here... with that knowledge already in her head.

She wishes she had a whiteboard. Wait, has she ever even used a whiteboard? She can't remember. The concrete part of this problem, at least, is solvable: she gets online and orders a whiteboard, wincing slightly at the prospect of parting with money when she has yet to establish an income. She doesn't want to say 'whatever, I'll write a couple of mobile apps', which was her first instinct, because her instincts were wrong about how hard programming is and they might also be wrong about the difficulty of writing mobile apps.

In the whiteboardless meantime, she paces her living room and recounts to herself everything that's happened that she has a specific concrete memory of. No matter how she tries to turn her brain sideways and shake it to get the knowledge out, it remains the case that all of those memories took place in this house.

The world outside this house... exists, right?

She peeks nervously out the window, then moves even more nervously to the door.

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full-of-woe

Oh good! She relaxes a little when it's clear she's not going to be called upon to exchange human sentences.

No human sentences if she doesn't start a conversation!

full-of-woe

That is just how she likes it.

The trip to the relevant edge of the woods is short, and soon they're both off the car and he starts leading the way.

Her luck does not last that long.

"So, you're Simerican, huh?"

full-of-woe

"...yes." Oh no. She's trapped.

"I'm Simerican, too. Where are you from?"

full-of-woe

She doesn't remember and isn't sure there are... any... locations. What's a location that she remembers reading about in her futile quest for global economic knowledge that she's pretty sure was actually part of Simerica. "Newcrest."

"I'm from San Myshuno."

full-of-woe

"Oh." Think of a remark. "It's really... big, right?" Think of a slightly less inane remark next time.

"Yep! It has lots of people."

full-of-woe

At least he's being equally inane, so she's in good company. "What's that like?"

"I don't like it very much. I prefer being alone."

full-of-woe

Oh, hey, a kindred spirit. She smiles tentatively. "Yeah, me too."

He smiles at her, too, and continues to lead the way silently for a bit.

Until they reach the start of the jungle proper and he starts leading her nonobvious places. "Watch where you step."

full-of-woe

Oh boy. She watches her step very carefully, paying close attention to both what he does and what he seems to be indicating she should do. Her caution is probably excessive but, in her defense, her top hypothesis right now for how she came into existence is that magic ruins created her as a tasty snack. Caution seems prudent.

He seems to not be paying a whole lot of attention. On the other hand, he also seems to be moving in pretty practised and precise ways, seemingly knowing exactly how to avoid tripping and bumping into stuff without having to look at it to see.

full-of-woe

Yes, see, that, that's the skill she wants and doesn't have. She tries to get a sense of how he's doing it. Probably it'll make more sense with practice.

There are some constants. Protruding roots: bad. Branches that are sticking out: bad. Bits of the ground that look like they have less grass on them: good. Bits of the ground that are stone, especially mossy stone: bad.

But overall it seems to just be, you know, see whether there are any places your limbs are going that are otherwise occupied and, if so, find different places for your limbs to go instead. Even if your limbs are better at occupying a space than a sticking-out tree branch, the branch will not give up without a fight and most people would probably rather there be not-a-fight.

full-of-woe

This is a principle she can get behind. She is going to get SO good at not fighting trees.

After a short bit of this, though, she must have zoned out or... something... because she finds herself standing before a small circular plaza, or rather the ruins thereof. She's feeling winded and sore enough that she probably did walk all the way there, and her phone says a reasonable amount of time has passed.

full-of-woe

Uh???? What???? The tour guide is still there, right???????

Yep! And does not seem at all confused by this. He starts explaining the purpose of the "plaza", which was apparently a sacrificial altar to appease The Watchers, although who The Watchers may have been and why they needed appeasing by sacrifices is not altogether clear. So says Unther.

full-of-woe

Okay cool great. She does her best to act totally normal and not like she just walked through some kind of memory hole. (It's the ruins' fault, it's got to be.) (It MIGHT not be the ruins' fault, but if not the ruins then fucking who???)

Onwards! Another bit of walking—

—another memory hole—

—and now they've walked far and long enough to both be fairly winded and sweaty, but thankfully this memory hole has spat them out at the promised waterfall! It is reasonably short, only about twice as tall as Unther himself, and feeds into the natural pool there that is perfect for swimming. Aside from the surroundings of the waterfall itself, the pool is mostly calm and still, and one could very easily just lie in it and relax.

"We can stay here for a while, rest a bit. I brought food." And after Unther says that, he spins in the air and is now wearing swimming trunks. Into the water!

full-of-woe