Maru and Cord stepped onto the wide expanse of greenery and danger outside the gate of the city of New Darkovia, the skies were deep blue here unlike the mix of blue and purple in the dome of New Darkovia, blue early in the morning and purple at any other time until the night.
Maru stuck to the shadows observing signs of danger and taking out the obstacles in the way in one fell swoop while Cord "carved his own path", from weakling to abomination, anything that dared to bar his way was immediately destroyed.
Maru began having second guesses concerning how someone like Cord ever became his friend, with the noise Cord was making, the only reason why Maru bothered to hide in the shadow became meaningless.
Maru felt like stepping out of the shadows and brawling with any stray monster baring his path just like Cord but his survival instincts won't let him.
Consider a scenario, whereby a large monster suddenly appeared to attack Cord and Maru, Maru would be pushed aside by the sheer force of the shockwaves the monster would generate while attacking and if he had the misfortune of being the first to attack the monster, he wouldn't leave the battle unscathed.
Meanwhile, Cord was built for such battles, while his sheer body size betrayed him when he tried to conceal himself, his thick bones and huge body structure became boons when fighting against monsters both big and small.
While Maru would leave the battle with some fractures, tattered clothes and pieces of his skin and bones missing, Cord would thrive in such a battle and with a great combat sense and highly mastered skill he could even leave the battle unscathed.
So Maru stuck to hiding in the shadows while Cord carved his own path. They faced so many dangerous adversaries until they got to a riverbed, they looked far into the horizon of the sea, seeing large boulders of stones placed to make a path into a distant island lying in the middle of the body of water.
Maru offered to set an example by jumping to the top of each boulders with a mixture of short leaps and using the distant wind to carry his body to the next boulder, because, despite the fact that the boulders were gathered to make a path to the island, not just anyone could get there.
There were large gaps separating the boulders to the point that even transcendent beings like Maru and Cord could not rely safely on just jumping the great distances unto the next boulder instead they had to use their energy, unlocking their attributes and letting their attributes help them where they would fail.
Maru relied on the power of the air to carry him to the next boulder while Cord had to reduce the gravitational pull on his body making his body light when it needed to be light and heavy when it needed to be heavy.
If any other soul being, ranging from ordinary to transcendent were to navigate the path Maru and Cord were following they would have long been exhausted, losing all energy needed when depending on their attributes to navigate the path before them.
That just meant that Maru, Cord, and the rest of the elders' familiars were a group of strange characters even among other soul beings. It was only the time Maru and Cord stepped on the dry land of the island that they finally showed signs of exhaustion and proceeded to rest for a while to restore their depleted energy.
When they had finished recovering their lost energy, they began to explore the strange island in search of their friend, Floki, Maru felt weirded out because he and Cord had been searching all around the island for a long time but they had not seen proof of life or in their case proof of their being a soul being around.
Their was neither structure nor technology in the strange island only plants and small animals, Maru had an epiphany that either Floki had killed all the animals that lived on the island and was living like a hermit or that something more horrible had killed all the animals in the island and destroyed his friend.
Maru had a grim expression when he discovered, that all the signs he was seeing in the island was pointing to his latter thought. He looked around in despair, using short bursts of speed, he began to scour the entire island to no avail.
Cord's thought about what had happened was akin to that of Maru but he was still keeping his emotions in check and was not feeling bouts of despair, partially because he was not the leader of the cohort Maru was putting together or also because he didn't really like Floki.
Unable to take it anymore, Maru stopped at the middle of the island with his hands trembling and a face that was akin to a sour grapefruit. He shouted at the top of his voice:
[FLOKI !!!]
[Floki where are you!]
Maru waited for a while hoping to hear Floki answering but there was no answer so he became overwhelmed with fear as he said:
[No... no. no. not you too...]
[Not Floki...]
[Please...]
Cord looked at Maru with a strange intensity in his eyes before he walked over to Maru hoping to calm him down before he became truly crazy.
But before he could move over to Maru a skeleton came from within a Boxwood bush, he walked over to Maru while clacking softly, it was until he laid his bony fingers on Maru that he was noticed by him.
Maru face brightened a little followed by a deep scowl as he asked:
[This is the last time I will get fooled by your games.]
Floki smiled warmly as he said:
[Good to see you too, Maru.]
Cord approached them while preparing to punch Floki's bony back at the same time, but before the punch could land on Floki, he moved to another side, easily evading the punch as if he had eyes at the back of his head.
Cord grinned widely as he said:
[I just wanted to know if you still got it, old goat.]
[Still, you almost got me fooled with your stupid prank.]
Floki shot an arrogant gaze to Cord as he said:
[It was just a prank; no need to use me as a punching bag, Bigfoot.]
Annoyed for being called Bigfoot by Floki, Cord was about to start a temper tantrum followed by a venomous spit of abuses, but before he could do that Maru quietly cautioned them before he began explaining why he had enlisted their help.
They all agreed the situation they were going to be facing a few days from now was truly dire and that they should get started on mission the elder gave them.
Only Floki had an objection or better yet another issue which he voiced out openly, saying:
[I'm afraid we can't leave these island]
Maru and Cord looked at each other before directing their gaze to Floki at the same time, saying:
[What!?!?!]