Ori and the Stranger

Chapter 10

     Blitz grunted with effort as he hauled himself up over the dirt ledge. The sun shone high in the sky, though its light was blocked by the gloomy clouds overhead, the little light that did shine through being gray and somber. It was as if the sun itself was decaying.

     Ori helped Blitz up over the ledge and onto the path. Blitz got to his feet and looked up the trail, which snaked up the side of the plateau. Dead, rotting trunks lined both sides of the trail, looking like bony claws desperately reaching for the sky. It was unnerving, to say the least. Worse still, something seemed to be stalking them. It rustled through the rotten foliage, just barely out of sight. As long as it kept its distance, though, Blitz would have no problem with it.

     They walked up the path at a steady pace, quickly eating away at the distance from the top of the plateau. Within twenty or so minutes, they had reached the caprock. Ahead of them sat the Ginso Tree; a tree that was about as tall as the Spirit Tree, though was far more slender, and the trunk was entirely straight, lacking the elegant curves of the Spirit Tree. At the base of the north side of its trunk was a large semicircle gateway etched into the wood, with spirals etched into it, and a spherical cavity about the size of Ori's head in the center. In front of the closed gateway was a stone platform, and sitting in the middle was a spherical orb of milky-white water, tendrils of water snaking around the orb. It looked like it would fit perfectly into the cavity.

     "That is the water vein," Sein piped up, answering Blitz and Ori's unspoken questions. "It's what unlocks the gateway into the Ginso Tree. Without it, there's no way to get inside."

     "Well, lucky us," Blitz said. "It's sitting right there, waiting for us."

     But just as Blitz said that, a creature leapt from the branches of a nearby, rotten tree. It was covered in shadowy fur, and it had unnaturally long, gankly limbs that connected at the bottom of its spherical torso. It had no head to speak of, its face plastered on the front of its torso. Its eyes were a warm amber, and its teeth were jagged and dirty. It cradled the water vein in its arms, rubbing the orb up and down with a look of bliss on its face.

     "A... Gumon?" Sein asked.

     "A Gumon? What's a Gumon?" Ori asked Sein, eyeing the strange creature with curious eyes.

     But the Gumon had heard Ori speak, as it turned its gaze to look at the young spirit. Its eyes suddenly widened, and it let out a guttural yelp of surprise. It leapt to its feet, still holding the water vein, and bolted off into the trees.

     "Hey! That's not yours!" Blitz shouted at the Gumon, before running after it. Ori followed closely behind, determined to get that water vein back.

     They chased the slender creature as it bolted through the trees, before suddenly dipping down into a tunnel. The pair followed close behind.

     "Be careful! The Gumon were cunning inventors," Sein warned, floating above Ori as they ran down the tunnel after the Gumon and the water vein. The tunnel opened up into a small cavern, with another hole at the bottom, which the Gumon quickly hopped down. Blitz and Ori were close behind, hopping down a few seconds later. The Gumon let out a deep laugh as it fled from the pair, causing Ori to feel annoyed, as well as Blitz.

     As they chased the Gumon, they eventually came upon another series of tunnels. The ground had a sudden drop a few feet, and an ominous stone carving sat at one end of the tunnel, right before a drop into the next tunnel. As the Gumon hopped down the hole, there was a sound of a lever being pulled, and the gaping hole in the stone carving started to glow with an ominous purple light. As Blitz hopped down the small drop, and found himself staring down the stone carving. It began to hum. An all too familiar hum to Blitz.