Chapter 243: Giant Space Anthropologists

William Oh brushed his teeth on the 11^th floor, accidentally creating a race of space giants from his frothy spit. Many Coils later, he returned and saved them from an apocalypse by hiding them inside a snake of mythical proportions that he had raised from an egg.

Jason Salazar

“Martha, am I seeing things, or is there a flying little man approaching us?”

“You’re seeing things, sweetie.” Martha replied.

“You didn’t even look.”

“~”

“I think it said something.”

“Pfft.”

“Greetings!” A tiny little voice said, barely audible and pitched ridiculously high.

Martha leaned up on her elbow and blinked her bleary eyes, her gaze landing on the floating hallucination.

“By the gods Harold, there is a tiny little man.”

“I’m not tiny, you’re huge!” The miniscule figure squeaked.

“Rude.” Martha said, frowning.

“What circumstances bring your tiny self to join us at the end of days, oh incredibly small one?” The entire world dying and then randomly burning for days at a time was certainly a strong candidate for the title.

“Ya’ll. Are. In. A. Snake!” the tiny figure shouted, it’s voice still barely audible.

“Steve the world-snake, duh, everyone’s in a snake. That’s the way the world is.” Martha said.

“What’s going on, Mom, Dad?” their son asked, approaching, nearly running into the tiny person, who flitted out of the way of his approach.

“Oh, Jace, there was a tiny little man floating there, suspended on a string or something, you might’ve gotten him in your hair.” Martha said.

Jace frowned.

“Are you okay?” He asked, putting his hand on their foreheads. “You two have a fever. Try not to move around too much. We can’t have you lose any more water than you already have, because we don’t have much to spare.”

“I’m real!” a tiny voice squeaked.

“Gah, what the out-hole is that!? Jace demanded, levering Grandpa’s totem towards the sound and unleashing a blast of fire.

“I told you!” a tiny voice squeaked from the distance.

“You said crushing, and it was fire, so it doesn’t count!” Another voice squeaked.

“Are we…haunted?” Jace asked growing pale.

From Will’s perspective the whole thing was amusing and a little frustrating.

“No, we’re just really small! Change your focus a bit!” Will took some extra sheets out of his bag and waved it around to give the giant something to focus on. It was like asking someone to see an ant hanging in midair. If one wasn’t directly looking at it, it vanished.

“Egads!” Jace started as he saw Will hanging in the air thirty feet or so away, just outside his arm’s length. “It’s a tiny person!”

“Indeed!” Will said, tucking the sheet away.

“I’m afraid I already know what’s going on here, but would you mind filling me in?”

“…What?” the healthy, younger giant with the bone staff asked.

“’Fill me in’ means…something different here.” The bandaged male giant on the ground said.

“Right. Umm…tell me what happened that caused you to be stuck here?” Will asked.

“Cuz the whole worlds on fire? Seems pretty obvious.” Jace said. “It’s the end of days. Duh.”

“Maybe they have less brains because they’re smaller.” Martha said.

“That does make sense.” Harold chimed in.

“This new glowing island is the only place where the flame doesn’t reach. Some of the towers and the home island might be safe from the flames, but we were out exploring all these new islands when everything started burning and trapped us here. We don’t know if it’s safe back home.” Martha said.

“How about you, little one, what circumstances led you here?” Harold asked.

“There’s a necromancer outside who turned Steve into a zombie, he’s got someone dilating it’s time, and it burns whenever it’s in combat. When it is eventually destroyed, Steve is going to explode and wipe everything on this Floor off the map!”

“There’s nothing outside Steve.” The younger giant said with a scoff.

“Then were did all the new islands come from?” Will asked.

“They’re gallstones formed by the great world-snake, Steve.” Jace said.

Patently false. Will thought.

“You know, Jace, now that I look at him, I think he might be one of the little people. You know, the ones whose bones and gear we discovered on some of the older islands.” Harold said, adjusting his giant glasses and squinting to get a better look at Will.

“I thought little people were extinct. That was your whole thesis. You’re just gonna accept something that refutes it?”

“That’s how science works, son.” Harold said. “You said you came from outside the world?”

“Yeah.” Will replied.

“Are there…more of you in the nullspace beyond Steve?”

“Only about three hundred or so on this Floor, but if you include all the Floors and outside The Tower, a few million.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“A few…million, you say?” Harold asked.

“Mmmyes?” Will said.

“Oh dear, I think we might be the ones that are endangered.” Harold said.

“That’s what I’m saying, there’s a ton of evidence of you guys living on the islands outside Steve, but no actual living examples. An island of you must’ve gotten swallowed by Steve a long time ago, and got saved from…whatever killed the ones outside. Everybody thought you were extinct.” Will said.

“Huh. Go figure.” Jace said, leaning on his bone staff.

“Anyway, sometime in the next few weeks to the next few years, Steve is going to explode. Is there anything we can do to get you guys somewhere safe?” Will asked.

Martha, Harold and Jace all glanced at each other, their expressions haggard and hopeless.

“…I don’t think so.” Harold said. “This glowing pillar eats up the flames before they reach us, but an explosion…I just don’t know how we could survive the entire world exploding.”

“You believe him?” Jace asked.

“A mythical race of little people show up out of nowhere and have an explanation for what is happening to us. Why not believe him?” Harold replied.

“We’re not the same species.” Loth said.

“What? But you’re the same size. Hold on, Jace can you get me my loupe?”

Jace groaned and opened up a hut-sized backpack and retrieved a man-sized lens, handing it to his father.

Will and Loth humored the giant and flew close enough for him to peer at them, his enormous eye rendered even larger by the lens.

“My word, you’re completely different!” Harold said.