The Sketch Survivors: The Enemy Among Us

Rules Don't Apply

"If the people here use boats to cross land, then I can only surmise that they live on the open seas," Soal suggested to the rest of Safer's Legion in the midst a forest of upside-down trees. Two flower petals on each side of a dandelion's stem fluttering was a common sound of Yassón, the forest cluttered with the creatures. Bee stingers still surrounded the group, and the orange and green storm still loomed on the horizon. Bridget and Heather still were obedient, unsure of what they had pulled themselves into. "No... maybe they're fish-men."

"I bet there are also two kinds of Insanity Sketches," Emma assumed. "Predictable, boring ones likeYassón, and spontaneous ones that I'm certain we'll stumble upon someday."

"Yassón is not boring. It at the least treats us with fairness, while another Sketch may throw all of its power at us," the unusually quiet Thronost added to the conversation. A campfire cracked between all of them. For a night, it was eerily light; as though it were mid-summer. The two active suns in the sky probably contributed to this, one of them permanently set at the horizon.

Yassón was a curious place, and Yuirus was intrigued. All you could hear, aside from the flight of the dandelions, was the scribbling of Yuirus's strung-together notebook provided by the High Committee. He, in fact, did not own it. It was used by some of the Revolutes' greatest explorers, charting maps of unfamiliar Sketches and analyzing the land so that future camps could exist there.

Gorshaw was especially anticipating their arrival in a civilized region, as the interpreter, and would act as an ambassador for Safer's Legion. These proposed "fish-men" intrigued him; he had never identified anything quite like that in his adventures through Ruce Range and various Revoute Sketches.

The Legion was overall in high spirits, just as they had been on their passage to Death's Door. Yet they dozed off quickly when they felt dusk approach. Not only that, but they awakened when they felt dawn approached.

Soal could sense the coast, and quite unlike his arrival at the sea in Ruce Range, the Legion could foresee its presence. "There must be something here, if that song I know is correct," he reached to wave his hand in the sky-blue water, and affirm its physicality. It was a liquid, no different from any other water- exactly what Soal suspected. "Looks like we're going to have to use a..." he groaned, "...no, this boat to take a detour through the... ocean city."

There was a dock on the irritating white sand (not beyond it) that heralded a wooden, oared canoe, not unlike the one Soal used to cross the Sea of Mystic in his original Sketch.

With Emma's great strength, the canoe was easily heaved into the ocean, staying in its new position following a playful splash. Off in the distance, a village became visible, containing many huts, a few heavy brick buildings, and an overt church prominently placed in the center. Also just as Soal had hypothesized, this village was positioned on the surface of the sea.

"Boats on land, churches on sea," Soal grumbled under his breath.

"What?" Irene, perpetually nosy, could not resist asking.

"Oh, bother," Soal told everyone as everyone entered the perfectly-sized boat, one by one. "To us Un-Characters, everything behaves ordinarily, but to the native Characters, rules don't apply."

"My, do they not," Thronost commented. No one had begun to row yet, but the intriguing figures of sea villagers, milling about the water, or riding around in blurry, distant carriages, dominated everyone's minds. To these villagers, the ocean's tides were dead and stagnant, but the Un-Characters experienced everything through a different lens.

"The banter of your mouths knows no bounds. We desire more than ten lectures' worth of background, as your unidentifiable terminology and curious actions are driving us up the heights of an utmost lack of responsibility." Bridget did all of the talking for herself and her younger sister, Heather. This was their first time speaking aloud since their entry to this inconceivable universe. They hadn't even been in a Sketch proceeding this stressful time in their lives.

Before any more remarks could be made, George temporarily replaced Gorshaw as the Legion's interpreter by translating Bridget's flowery words. "She wants to know what's going on."

"Well," Thronost added. "So do we all."

Thus, a sea voyage across the water began, without any answers for the Lint Corp sisters. No answers came, either, about the site of the key's truthfulness. Soal in particular had seen such acts of treachery. He was not currently in the state of mind to face more of those acts.