"I…" Tuot could hardly speak. "I... I'm not a lizard. You... you're confusing me with someone else. I haven't seen you before, and I don't even know you."
"You just forgot. If you've changed so much, then your memories have changed too."
"Uh... What? I don't know you! You are a screen that talks?"
"No."
"Then why are you talking to me in text?"
"Because I don't have the vocal cords that other creatures can use to speak."
Tuot felt a vibration with the tip of his tail and turned around. Above him, a doll with pink hair, wearing a solid white mask, surrounded by a purple aura, was "hanging."
"Uh…" Tuot made only one sound, after which, out of fear, he found himself behind the screen in one jump, on a narrow "bridge" between the mountainside and the cliff.
"I am Toloruchan, the healing doll," a new screen appeared in front of Tuot, with a different inscription. "I am different from my sis. I am smart. Nyonyokyo can talk, but other than that, she has nothing to be proud of. Of course, she has strength, but it is the same for us, because we are twins."
"It was like I was reading a line of dialogue from a game," Tuot thought.
"It looks like you really are a lizard. If that's true, then you know where the hidden server is," the screen updated again.
"Am I sure I'm not in a game?" Tuot looked left and then right.
On both sides, tree fern tops were visible, which, combined with the almost vertical slopes, proved to the dinosaur that he was still in reality.
"I can't fight her," Tuot thought and looked at his opponent and noticed only her legs, which for a moment seemed edible. "She has two arms with eyes, with which she can move two objects at the same time."
Tuot continued to examine the doll and noticed that one of its arms was missing. At first, this gave hope to the naive dinosaur, but then he remembered the arm with the eye sticking out of the sand, and instantly lost the will to resist.
"That's why I ended up here," Tuot thought. "I saw the arm, got scared, and then the passive skill was activated, that is, the purple aura."
The dinosaur looked at the enemy again. Toloruchan ignored the missing hand as if it was a trifle. Her head was turned towards the screen, where part of the previous inscription remained:
"You know where the hidden server is."
"She didn't come for my lizards," Tuot calmed down a little, but then looked back at the screen.
"What hidden server?" the dinosaur asked.
"The "Mausoleum of Nature" server," the message on the screen updated. "My stupid sis and I have been looking for these servers for a long time, so we can stop being dolls. We found out where many of them are located, but one server is hidden somewhere. We can't get there because we don't have access. But you can know where it is, because you are a lizard."
"I didn't even know the "Mausoleum of Nature" had any servers," Tuot thought. "If that doll met Itinit, she might learn something important. I can't tell her anything anyway."
"Sorry," the dinosaur looked at the tops of the tree ferns under the "bridge." "I don't know what you're talking about. Can you show me a picture of what this server looks like?"
The symbols on the screen were replaced by a hill in the middle of a mixed forest, above which hung the skull of a three-horned dinosaur with a beak, filled with blue energy.
"This is the thing the mushroom spirit showed me," Tuot's fear suddenly gave way to curiosity. "So that's what it's called. It's a server. Now the main thing is not to forget it. Of course, I'll forget, but maybe I'll remember it someday."
The image changed to another one. Now the same skull was hanging over a clearing on the top of a mountain in the middle of a forest of tree ferns.
"That thing on the Southern Continent," Tuot thought. "That's probably what Etinnei saw."
The picture changed to a white background, on which black symbols appeared:
"I need a server like these. They are in very far away places, but I know how to get there. But that server, the hidden one, is in some closed and secret place. Me and my stupid sister don't know how to get there. And no one knows how to get there. Maybe you know? You're a lizard."
"I already told you that I am not a lizard," Tuot answered. "I don't even understand what you're talking about."
"I need to stall for time so that the energy can at least recover a little," the dinosaur thought. "Then I can cut off her head and run away."
Toloruchan dropped to the ground and deactivated her aura. Her breast shook from the shaking and almost fell out of the nut shells. But the doll didn't pay attention to it. Her head was still turned to the screen, as if there was another eye under the mask that could see through objects.
"Maybe you know where your creator is?" new symbols appeared on the screen.
"She thought I was a character from the "Mausoleum of Nature," Tuot read the message. "Maybe if I answer, she'll go away."
"My creator went into the ruins," Tuot lied.
"What ruins? There are many here. Tell me their name or location."
"The ruins that…" Tuot turned to the mountain. "He went over there. He didn't say where he went. He just went."
"Good. You admit you're a lizard."
"What?"
"Why do I need your creator if a lizard can answer my question? Let my stupid little sister deal with your creator. I'll do it the smart way."
"Why... this doll is too smart," Tuot's eyes twitched. "I don't even know if I can cut off her head. I don't think so."
"Tell me where the hidden server is. If you don't tell me, my flower will extract your memories."
Toloruchan squatted down and touched the ground with her remaining hand, after which several cracks appeared in that place.
"Does she have ability like that penguin that walks through walls?" Tuot's eyes tried to escape, but fortunately, the skull held them well. "Maybe I should tell her something? I'll just name an island that's very far from here. She definitely won't fly there just like that..."
While the dinosaur was recalling the names of the islands, something green appeared from the ground in front of the doll. The cracks were widening...
"I don't know any islands..." Tuot suddenly realized.
The dinosaur looked at the enemy and saw a green stem as thick as a medium tree trunk with a pointed bud on top coming out of a hole in the ground.
"Before this flower blooms, you still have time to tell where the hidden server is," the inscription on the screen changed once again.
The fear inside Tuot reached almost its maximum value for a moment. At first, the dinosaur wanted to run away, but realized that he did not have enough energy, so he decided to return to the old plan.
Meanwhile, Toloruchan stood up and for some reason turned towards the sea. Tuot decided to take advantage of this, activated the green aura and released an energy harpoon from its tail.
This time, the harpoon did not directly attack the doll, but "hid" behind the "bridge" between the cliff and the mountainside. Toloruchan still stood with her back to the enemy, as if she did not feel the threat...
"I see everything..." Tuot noticed large red symbols on the screen, which were surrounded by a blue flickering frame.
The end of the harpoon flew out from behind the edge of the cliff and headed straight for Toloruchan's head…
… Tuot stood on the mountainside, at the edge of the forest, and watched as the enemy was surrounded by huge blue translucent petals that emerged from the rock and closed. The tip of the harpoon hit one of them and was thrown back a step.
The screen refreshed again. Now, several black characters were printed on a white background, not red, but Tuot found them somewhat creepy.
"The flower will open in 100 moments."
Tuot realized that he had to run as far as he could. The dinosaur no longer worried about running out of energy or being overtaken by the enemy. Tuot was simply afraid of being left without a body, in the form of data.
"I won't be able to look at the animal girls," was the devoted dinosaur's first thought.
The energy harpoon rose above the barrier flower to strike again, but at the crucial moment, it disappeared. The green aura around Tuot turned into a purple one, which lifted him above the trees and carried him upwards, towards the top of the mountain.
"The flower will open in 90 moments"...
Tuot had almost reached the top of the mountain, and suddenly felt that he had almost no energy left.
"If I had activated the lizard that restores energy, I would have lasted longer," the dinosaur thought regretfully. "But the conditions there are too impossible to fulfill. Although... What conditions are there?"
Tuot summoned the interface with a wave of his hand and soon found the very cell with the stone coffin among the numerous objects...
... Another window appeared over the interface window, with text.
"I..." Tuot opened his mouth and did not notice how he lost his aura and was now descending between the branches-leaves of tree ferns...
… The dinosaur fell onto a thick vine, which protected it from contact with the hard ground.
"…Have I already fulfilled these requirements?"
Tuot scrolled to the end of the text and saw a button in a blue-green oval frame at the end of the page:
"Sign the contract."
The dinosaur put his finger to the button, but did not have time to press it. The liana could not bear the weight of such a large creature...
Tuot fell onto something solid, but the passively activated green aura brought him back to his feet before disappearing.
"I ran away," the dinosaur sat down on a patch of ground free of vegetation. "Now…"
Tuot's thoughts were interrupted by a 'talking' screen that suddenly appeared right in front of his face.
"The flower will open in 14 moments"...
Tuot jumped back in fear, but then saw something even more frightening in front of him. The hand with an eye in the palm, which was sticking out from under the ground...
"The flower will open in ten moments"...
Tuot touched the shield with his claw. The symbol on it activated with a green glow.
"I made it," the dinosaur saw the white glowing silhouette of the summoned lizard ahead.
But there was nothing else Tuot could do. Some force had paralyzed him so much that he couldn't even remove his claw from the shield.
"The flower will open in 6 moments," the symbols on the screen said.
The silhouette turned into a bipedal lizard with yellow scales. Almost immediately after appearing, it activated a yellow aura and emitted a wave of cleansing energy.
Tuot gained the ability to move, and was even able to remove his hand from the shield, but then the gaze of the enemy's eye stopped him.
"This lizard works," the dinosaur's fear level dropped sharply. "Now all that's left is to summon a new lizard."
Tuot waited for the next wave of yellow energy, and reached for the symbol on the shield, which was now black.
"The flower opens..."
Tuot almost pressed the symbol, but a sharp jolt from the ground prevented him from lowering his claw onto the button...
… Trees with roots and large chunks of earth between them flew past against the gray sky, as if the world had turned upside down.
"The trees decided to run away? It finally… happened."
Tuot was happy at first, but then he accidentally lowered his head and felt only fear. Under the dinosaur was a huge gray flower with open petals and a yellow ball inside.
"Could it be…?"
The tree ferns and chunks of earth hung in the air for a moment, then began to slowly descend. The ball inside the flower turned out to be a "tongue" that was moving straight towards Tuot...
The dinosaur in the green aura landed on the fallen trunk of a tree fern. The tip of the flower's "tongue" behind its back fell off, but that didn't stop the monster. It restored the damaged organ in a few moments and aimed it at the enemy.
Tuot managed to dodge, and the "tongue" sank into the ground. The dinosaur jumped back a few dozen steps and almost hit a falling tree trunk.
Tuot's hand reached for the shield to press the symbol, but at the crucial moment, the energy almost left him. The aura disappeared, and the yellow lizard that was summoned earlier returned "home" as a clot of cleansing energy.
The dinosaur fell to his knees and felt the ground beneath him shaking. At the last moment, he even saw cracks, but he did not notice the tongue that hung over him from behind...
... It began to rain. Toloruchan stood on a cliff and felt the water flowing down the vines to her lower abdomen, and then flowing down her thighs.
"It's not that lizard," a thought suddenly appeared in the doll's brain. "But it's definitely something interesting. Someone else besides us is looking for this server. I need to tell my sister. She's probably lying somewhere on the seashore, waiting for someone to assemble her."
The missing hand with an eye in its palm emerged from the rock. The hand attached to the doll's body immediately discovered its "other half" and waved to it.
"There you are," Toloruchan thought. "Don't be afraid, little one, your sis just hid. We'll bring her back now."
The hand attached to the body aimed at the hand sticking out of the sand. The gazes of the two "sisters" met, their pupils turned purple, and then their hands reached out to each other...
***
Noru crashed into the sand at great speed, but instead of getting stuck there as usual, she flew on her belly further and ended up in the sea. Soon her head emerged from the water.
"Where is Etinnei?" the dog girl immediately remembered her friend, whom she was flying to save.
The dog's ears quickly "caught" the crackling sound that filled the air. Noru looked at the sky and saw many lightning bolts that burst out of a huge electric clot.
"Wow, there are so many of them!" Noru looked at the storm with admiration and completely forgot about her friend. "Cool!"
The dog girl thought so until one of the lightning bolts struck her directly. Noru disappeared under the water, but a few moments later she was pushed out from there.
"Etinnei," Noru immediately remembered her friend.
There were no more than ten steps left to the shore. The dog girl tried to flare up to quickly fly to the land, but because of the lightning that was still "torturing" her, she almost went under water again.
"I missed a little," Noru looked at the sky again. "I don't know why, but I never get where I need to go, but my little sis does."
The white and purple lightning that was flying out of the strange egg-shaped object in the air attracted the dog girl again, and she didn't notice how she found herself near the shore.
"Don't look there. It can hit."
Noru heard a familiar voice, was distracted from watching the thunderstorm and turned around.
In front of the dog girl on the ice floe stood the arctic fox girl in winter form, surrounded by a white-blue icy aura from which fumes were emanating.
"It's you," Noru immediately recognized her friend. "What is that thing up there?"
Etinnei did not answer. The dog girl lowered her head and noticed that she was floating toward the shore on an ice floe supported by the elemental aura of the arctic fox spirit.
"It's the doll ability," Etinnei said as the waves washed the ice floe ashore. "It's electric. It doesn't matter to me, but it might shock you a little if it hits you. Birds used to fly out of it, but now it just explodes."
Etinnei came ashore. The aura around her disappeared, and the arctic fox girl took on her summer form. The ice floe began to melt, which is why it no longer held Noru. The dog girl crawled ashore with her tongue hanging out.
"We need to get out of here," Etinnei closed one eye and looked at the electric "egg" with the other. "It can explode for real. Can you fly now?"
There were no more lightning bolts on Noru's body, but the water still did not allow her to catch fire, and therefore fly.
"You could turn into a dog," Etinnei suggested. "It helped me. It's too hot here, so I couldn't cover myself with an icy aura. Then I turned into an arctic fox, and I could."
Noru looked at her friend with her tongue hanging out, and only after several dozen moments did she understand what she was talking about. A white glow appeared around the dog girl…