WOW! Thats the best damn reply ive ever gotten! thanks. well, here is the next chapter. I have a few things to say first: 1)None of the main characters are even featured in this chapter (wierd, huh?) and 2)dont confuse the multiple meanings of "mud". Now, with that over lets get to the chapter!
Oddworld: Sal's Oddysee
Chapter 11: The Scout of the Meedo
Curd walked over to the bay, a spear in his hand and sadness in his thoughts. The waves had come and destroyed all of the land dwellers. The “land dwellers” were a group of mudokons that were recently seen migrating alongside the sea that the natives knew as the Mighty Puddle. Curd’s tribe, the Meedo tribe, attempted to warn them but they were much to intent on staying on their course. The Meedo had been dealing with the floods from the North for as long as anyone could remember. They lived in towers high above the ground, made from the mightiest of wood, to ensure their safety against these annual floods.
Curd came upon a small lagoon, now pristine, but was recently the horrific grave to the mudokons who were traveling by. In the lagoon lay at least forty corpses. Each one had its mouth gaping open, a terrifying sight to most. Not to say that Curd was used to this kind of thing, but he was the casualty scout on two other occasions.
A stream flowed into the bay next to this lagoon. It was obviously over-flowed the night before, for ninety feet in either side of the stream lay mud and scrab corpses from the disaster. Curd looked at the horrifying scrabs up close. It was really something to see these beautiful monsters from this distance.
The mudokon continued to look for his hopeless cause: to find survivors. Not a single thing in this wasteland was alive. It was a shear piece of irony that in this beautiful bay, on a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, that all the land was death from the thing that brings all life. The waves MUST end.
Curd looked all across the horizon. He saw, smelt, thought, and felt only one thing: death. “Why wouldn’t they believe us?” he thought. He began to walk over to his elum. He made one glance back, sighed in despair, and mounted the beast.
The elum snorted. No, it wasn’t a snort of anger, or even the snort of mere discomfort. The elum smelt something. His eyes shot open.
“No, hold on!” screamed Curd as the elum shot off with glee. The ride wouldn’t have been so violent had they not been going at break-neck speed through the slush of the mud! Elum was going to try to jump the stream, but Curd new that he couldn’t make it because the elum couldn’t pick up the speed in this murky terrain. Nonetheless, the elum sustained its objective and shot out over the water. “Ahhhhhhh!!!” screamed Curd. If the water was shallow, he could wade, but other than that he would be doomed. For a mud, any water contact is a traumatic event, but after his years by the Mighty Puddle, he had to be able to at least wade through the shallows on the beaches. The elum landed with a huge splash… in the mud!
“Look what you’ve done now idiot!” The elum was clearly stuck in place. Still, it strained to get closer to a small hunk of wood. By this time, Curd could also smell the sweet smell of the honey that had attracted the elum this far. He walked over to the pile, which he seemed to have missed before, and lifted a torn plank of wood. Now it was Curd’s eyes that shot open. He had just seen something that he truly could not believe.
The sun had barely moved through the sky by the time Curd came up to the tower of Nod, the elder egg-master of the Meedo tribe. Nod sat down listening to Curd rant about the impossible.
“You have got to be lying!” said Nod with disbelief, “No one can do that! Maybe on the outside of the mud, but no one can survive with that kind of contact with the wave. We were barely touched by the waves and Spoocemaster, Abner told me that there were two reports of broken bones even at our distance from the stream!”
“Then let me show you.”
“I’m not going all the way out there to help you show me some dead guys. My muscles aren’t built for that kind of thing any more!”
“You don’t have to come to the stream with me, just look out your entrance.” And with that, Nod looked at Curd very curiously. After the short silence, the old mudokon grabbed his cane and made his way for the door. He looked down and saw a dead mud laying on an awaiting elum, of whom had hardened mud up to his waist. This mudokon was greener than the Meedo mudokons. They were a bit more grayish from their interaction with the waters. He must have been a Westerner. Nod found this quite odd, for the travelers were from the East. “He’s alive! You must see!” said Curd as he headed for the ladder.
“Fine, but your getting the ramp.” Nod didn’t usually need assistance from his tower, but he had the ramp untied so that it wouldn’t be broken in the flood. It was kind of like a bridge that could be tied to posts in the ground to make a fine ramp for the old mud. Curd climbed down the ladder and tied the ramp to the posts in the ground.
Then Nod followed, grouchy to be disturbed at this time in the morning. His toes touched the moist ground, freshly watered. He walked slowly to the mud and put his hand on the mudokon’s chest. After a short moment, Nod’s facial expression changed from “cranky-old-guy” to extreme shock.
“You say you got this one from right next to the stream!?” asked the surprised mudokon.
“Ugh, yeah! That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time!”
“Get the warriors,” said Nod, eyes as wide as could be.
“The warriors?” asked Curd in surprise.
“YES THE WARRIORS!” shouted Nod, “If there are any other mudokons that can survive DIRECT CONTACT with one of the strongest recorded waves, then we want to make sure they are on our side!”
thank you for reading and remember:Your replies fuel my creative...ummm...stuff
SO REPLY!!!!!!!! OH, FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THATS ODD, REPLY!!!!!!!!!!!
[ January 26, 2002: Message edited by: Sal the Mudokon ]
