The whole thing was pretty frustrating. It was bad enough that Karyn couldn't figure out the spellcasting she'd tailored her character for, and that no matter how she tried, she couldn't get her sets of arms to move separately, but why did she have to be naked just because she hadn't had any points left for starting funds and equipment? Would a cheap, non-armor shirt have been too much to ask?
Of course, there was nobody around to stare at her, at the moment, but that hardly mattered since she'd have to find her way into town just to get started on finding Jon. And besides, it was cool and misty in this swamp, hardly good weather to be traipsing around au natural. She could feel a few goosebumps beginning to form on her human skin.
The whole thing was enough to make her want to scream. No supplies, no bearings, and no clue as to where Jon might have wound up...she threw up her arms in exasperation, buried her face in her hands, and rubbed her sides vigorously to try and regain some body heat.
All at the same time.
Karyn suddenly realized that she'd just managed to get all of her arms doing their own separate things. But how? By not trying? Was that it? Maybe it was; maybe her attempts to control them consciously had been getting in the way of whatever unconscious control she might otherwise have. Perhaps in this new body, her brain was already wired the way an adult naga's ought to be, and all she needed to do was let it take care of the details.
She didn't have time for detailed experiments, but she did find that by just trying to go in one direction, rather than trying to slither, her pace improved significantly. So maybe that was the answer! Well, she still needed to figure out spellcasting, not to mention finding clothes, but at least she was making some progress.
As to where to go? Well, the marshy ground she was...standing? in dropped down into standing water not too far ahead, and she could see it develop into a small river further on. About the one thing she remembered from her brief tenure in Girl Scouts was that you could pretty much always count on a river to lead you to civilization, and with civilization came a much better chance of finding Jon. Karyn wondered briefly if she could just drop into the river and swim downstream, but she figured that was probably best left until she was more used to this body.
As Karyn started to slither around the swamp towards the river bank, she wondered idly about her theory. If she were right in that her brain was wired for her naga body, what other behaviors might come along with that? She hoped it was nothing too drastic...
(As SpelledWithAY stated, we're trying to make this branch and the ANP branch two parts of the same story.)
They waited. And waited. And waited. Jon began to lose all track of time as the four of them held their positions, watching for any sign of danger. It felt like hours, but for all Jon knew it was only minutes. Still, nothing stirred, except a light breeze. Time dragged on even further.
The thing about guarding against something that you don't know for sure is there is that, the longer you wait, the tenser you feel. Whatever the actual case, your brain becomes certain that you're playing the odds and that any minute now, the attack will come. The longer the waiting dragged on, the more adrenaline pumped through Jon's veins. This should have made her more alert, but she was also sore from her impromptu stunt flight, exhausted from running, and shaken from the whole experience, and the adrenaline just added a profound jitteriness on top of that.
She was standing there, a mentally and physically drained bundle of nerves, when all of a sudden, a branch cracked and snapped not twenty feet away from her. Jon gave a brief, ear-piercing screech before blacking out entirely.
When she came to, she was lying on the ground. There was no sound save for her own breathing and forest ambience: wind in the treetops, the sound of the stream, a flock of geese far overhead. Groggily, she stood up and looked around. The others were gone, and she was alone. She looked around the rocks, but there didn't seem to be signs of a struggle, or at least none that a novice tracker like herself could discern; no blood spills or anything.
But where had they gone? Jon hadn't known them very long, but they didn't seem at all like the kind of people who'd just dump her, even if she was, by her own admission, probably dead weight. But if they'd been captured, why wouldn't their captors have taken her as well?
It didn't make any sense, but there was nothing she could do about it. Jon was on her own again, with no idea where her only companions had gotten to. She just hoped Jack was right and she might be able to handle herself in a fight, or she could wind up in even worse trouble than them.
