POW: The Longest Ripple

Croktor wasn’t even sure how many cycles had passed since he last heard a familiar sound.

His logs had become more like therapy than reports. He’d long given up counting puddles—each one shallower than the last, each with just enough Ripple energy to keep him moving but never enough to stay.

He’d seen things. Traversed mudslides that nearly buried him alive. Fought off beasts that moved like shadow and slime. Once he slipped into a trench so steep, the only way out was building a crude bridge from scrap and luck. But he kept going. Always.

There were POWs out there. He’d seen them. Pale & darting, never still enough to speak to.

Their dialects were different, older maybe… or newer. Unfamiliar, regardless. They never stuck around. None of them had what Croktor needed: a pond. A place to stop. A place to call home.

He started to believe there wasn't one.

Until…

“…if you’re out there… coordinates are as follows… I’ve found it… The pond lives...”

Tad’s voice.

Clear. Crisp. Glitchy, but real.

Croktor’s hands shook as he pulled the transmission on loop. He checked the coordinates three times. Then a fourth.

Then stared at the map.

It was leagues away. Farther than he had ever traveled in one continuous push.

He stared at the blinking dot for a long time. Then he breathed in. Felt the Ripple energy pulse inside his own chest. It wasn’t just a voice. It was a direction.

A purpose again.

“Tad… you old ripple-rider. You found it.”

He didn’t even bother to send a response—he knew the comms might be one-way.

He just moved.

Back through the swamps of Stagnan Hollow. Back through the narrow cliffs of the Croak Spine where he lost his rations. Nearly his left foot also.

He’d have to pass through the Slickroot Fields again, the ones that buzzed with strange lightning and fog.

But this time, something was different. He wasn’t running on survival instinct anymore. He had a reason again. A reunion to chase.

A brother to find.

And maybe… just maybe…

“If the Ripples brought Tad to the Pond, they can bring me too.”

Many moons would pass. The journey would be brutal. But Croktor was on his way.