"What? What's wrong?" Tessie panicked as TJ's voice dropped. "Is there a monster? A—"
"Calm down, Tessie." TJ cut her off. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said what I said. It's not enough to worry so much about. Ask the System what's going on." He'd already done as much and waited for the four teens to do the same.
You are suffering from a Minor Disorientation (Copper (I)) affliction. Recalling the direction from which you came, maintaining a straight path while travelling, and discerning landmarks with which to orientate yourself will be made 50% more difficult.
What exactly those things being made "50% more difficult" meant exactly was unclear, but TJ figured he could get the gist of it. It would be harder to find his way, and that was far from ideal, but not fun or ideal was far from impossible. They'd made their way deeper into the marshes, where the trees grew thicker and taller, Seemingly almost to where they scraped the "ceiling" above them? Hopefully not. Maybe he could see the clearing in the marshes that bordered Tempe Town Lake if he climbed up a tree and stretched out? The winds weren't giving him any information that was particularly useful, so that wasn't much of a good option. Even so, he wasn't going to throw himself at the problem immediately.
"So, we might be a little disoriented," TJ said with a shrug, "but Sarah, Rebekkah, Farid, and I got out of a way worse situation than this without any deaths in our Tutorial."
"Though you had Jeff trying to kill you because of it." Molly snarked.
"When I was a kid, I walked uphill in the snow both ways to school." Sam added, though his and Mimi's faces looked quite curious about this whole "Jeff" thing. TJ couldn't help but remember Jeff's face where his body'd laid, where he'd died protecting Laura.
"Barefoot too." TJ joked back, pushing back the darkness. "And no, all I'm saying is that it's gonna suck, but I overreacted. Unless there's some other monsters right nearby that're able to kill us all outright, we'll get out of here just fine. If something strong enough to do that is here, I'm pretty sure there's nothing we could have done about it anyways. I was pissed because I just don't want to have to deal with figuring out how to get out of here. We'll be fine, though."
TJ saw that he'd lost the joviality in the room when he'd mentioned a monster capable of tearing their group apart. He regretted it, but there was nothing he could do about that now. Instead, he looked at the teenagers who let the bunyip bodies fall to the ground, forgotten. Sam was trying to stay positive as he squared his shoulders and forced a smile, but TJ could read in his body language the discomfort there. He cursed to himself and said "I'm gonna get up high, see what I can see. If any of you have any Skills that will let us make sure we know exactly where we're going, let me know."
The only person that he'd had any expectations on that for was Tessie, and when she shook her head no, he grunted and said, "OK. I'll be back in just a minute."
Without saying anything more, he transformed back into a coatl and, with a grace that surprised even him, slithered up through the branches of the nearest tall tree. In just a few short moments, he was near the top, where he could reach out his head and nearly scrape the ceiling overhead. The trees were, in fact, tall enough that there wasn't any room to see over them. As he cursed to himself, realizing what that meant, he looked back and forth and could see nothing more than 30 feet in any direction before another tree interrupted his view. Continuing to grumble to himself, he slithered back down the tree until he was back before the teenagers. There, he transformed back into a human and shrugged helplessly.
"Trees are too tall for me to be able to see where to go. I'm fairly certain I know the direction we should follow, but I can also be wrong, so let me know which direction you think we should go, and then I'll keep in mind what I was thinking already. When I tell you to, come up and tell me which direction you think we should go. Sam, you first."
The young Zealot strode forward, leaned up next to TJ's ear, and whispered, "Basically straight behind how you're standing right now."
That was different from what TJ was thinking, but he didn't say anything, only nodding and deliberately marking with his footstep the direction that Sam had mentioned. After that, Mimi, Tessie, and Molly all gave their own opinions, each one varying quite a bit. Tessie and Molly had the two closest guesses to TJ's, his own right between theirs, and he dutifully marked each one. After doing so, TJ gathered them all together and, after showing each person's thought, explained as he pointed, "We're gonna go in this direction."
Sam shrugged, saying, "That's pretty different from what I thought, but honestly, I have no idea. I'll do whatever you say, TJ."
General sounds of agreement filled the air as the other teenagers showed some confidence in what TJ said, and before they left, TJ continued, "I'm going to transform back, and I want you to keep a hand on me at all times. If you need to, grab a feather, or whatever else, do it, but I want you to be with me the entire time. If we get separated, there's plenty of things around here that'll want to confuse or trap you. The will-o'the-wisps most of all will be tricky. Got it? If you see a flame, don't follow it, or a movement."
"What's a will-o'the-wisp?" Molly asked.
"The thing I killed to get this." TJ pulled his tail forward, the iron lantern hanging from the end. "It was a weird fire thing, not sure what exactly it is. Not easy to kill, and without someone more focused on more spiritual attacks like Lailani, I'd prefer that we steer clear of them. If we had a couple bunyips attacking at the same time that a couple will-o'the-wisps were, then it'd get pretty dicey."
"Not really." Molly disagreed. "You'd be able to take care of them, especially with us!"
"I'd rather not have to." TJ laughed, though, despite himself, he felt a certain flush of pride at the thought. He was depended on, trusted by his followers. "It'd get ugly, and, worse, any fights will probably end up disorienting us. More than dealing with fights—"
"We don't want to be stuck down here for weeks." Molly agreed. "Yeah, I get it."
The rest of the group agreed and TJ led the way out (hopefully) from the swamp. While he slithered, the kids continued talking behind him, and though each one kept a hand on him at all times, each also dragged a bunyip corpse behind them. That each teenager, regularly sized and without massive muscles or anything, managed to drag a corpse of a monster that weighed over 1,000 pounds each was amazing to TJ. Sure, he knew that with the way Attributes continued growing each of these kids were tens of times stronger than an adult man before the Integration. After all, his own Strength was pretty unremarkable for his level and was at 300, not counting equipment and other bonuses. Molly's was probably higher than his, given her own focus on fighting up close and personal, while Tessie's was probably a little lower. Sam was a Zealot, so his Strength was definitely higher than TJ's, even with his percentage bonuses. He couldn't say what Mimi's Attributes were like, given that she'd previously had a Class and Occupation that gave comparable Attribute bonuses to Neophyte and Savage. Her Amazon "Occupation" probably gave more Strength than Shaman did, as well as her Class, so, even though he had a good among more levels in his Copper Class—
He stopped thinking about it. It didn't matter the specifics, and he was letting his mind wander when he needed to be sure that he was leading his little group forward as best as he could manage. When Tessie's breath hitched and started to panic, TJ turned his attention towards her, but he saw nothing that could be causing her so much distress. Before he could react or ask what was happening, though, Molly, still keeping her hand on his back, stepped closer until she could place a hand on Tessie's shoulder. The other teenager continued shuddering while Molly whispered in Tessie's ear that, "It's ok. Nobody's going to hurt you right now. You don't need to be afraid. You're ok. You're safe."
For the first time, TJ felt he understood a portion of the distress that'd settled deep into the teenager. Most people who'd survived the Tutorial had, seemingly against their own will, become more callous and tough. They didn't break to things that would have had the most hardened people before the Integration locked up in some kinda ward to help them recover. TJ"d seen the results of men who'd survived the trench warfare of World War 1, and he imagined that most people would have been much the same after being surrounded by so much death. Maybe he was cheapening their suffering over 100 years before, but being taken from daily life and made to fight to the death while watching children and the elderly die was enough to traumatize most people. That just about every person that TJ had met since the Tutorial ended was mostly doing OK was a surprise. Now, for the first time, TJ was seeing the trauma that most people should have been suffering from. Strangely, it was almost comforting to hear Tessie's shuddering breaths. Not because it didn't break TJ inside to hear the panic attack that held her in its grasp, but because he saw that maybe she wasn't feeling that same twisted enjoyment that he did when he killed a new monster, reached another level, or gained another follower.
"Do we need to stop?" TJ asked. "It's up to you, Tessie."
Despite continuing to shiver from the panic attack, she shook her head. Even though she remained unable to muster even a single word, she continued walking resolutely while the other three teenagers carried the bunyip corpses in quiet solidarity. Not knowing what else to do, TJ continued going, though he did slow down to ensure that he wasn't pushing Tessie. Several minutes later, TJ felt the confusing, disorienting fog fall from his mind and he could better remember exactly how to escape the swamps. Understanding that he'd left the area of effect for the disorienting affliction, he continued forward. Even so, it seemed like the four teenagers hadn't overcome that fog yet and Tessie was only barely getting her breathing under control, given that every so often they would start to wander off to the side or let go of where they'd grasped his feathers. Each time, he'd turn and call their attention back, just long enough to make sure that they could continue moving. Another minute after his mind cleared, they one by one shook off the affliction, and from there, they made their way pretty easily out of the area of effect. Out in the light of the setting sun, TJ took a deep breath and nodded before looking at Tessie specifically.
"Are you doing any better?" he asked softly. "If you'd like, we can stay here for a little bit, give you a little bit more time to settle yourself."
"I just want to see my mom and dad." She whispered back, and TJ nodded as he began explaining how to get up onto the road overhead. After a few minutes of figuring things out and finagling, they were also able to get the bunyip carcasses up onto the ground above them as well. As TJ pulled each of the wayward explorers onto the grass, he sighed contentedly while he deactivated Divine Transformation. Looking up, he watched to see the thunderbirds, but saw nothing and smiled at the four teenagers with him.
"Are you ready to go see what we can find with this new town your families were supposedly building for us?"