《Green Tea Sea - A Grand Eye Tale》


 CHAPTER ONE - SUNLIGHT

    The Green Tea Sea glittered in cold sunlight, with neither a ripple nor a wave to break its glassy surface. Mountainous, gnarled roots and monolithic leaves broke the otherwise spotless horizon. They were messengers from the Depths, heralds of the unseen majesty that lay beneath. No raft dared touch them, lest it contract the Infestation. The sun stared at the Bamboo Princess from its place in the cloudy, pale sky. She let her grassy skin absorb its morning energy with pleasure. Soon it would allow her no more until the next day. So there she lay, upon her rotting temple as the Sages dabbled below. They needed no sunlight, for they were of soil. Only the royalty of the Sea were afforded the luxury of a grass shell. The Bamboo Princess heard one of the Sages climb onto the damp wooden roof beside her. She turned to him in mild surprise. The Sage respectfully informed the Bamboo Princess that she was to come inside, even though she wasn''t done absorbing sunlight. She would have to retire much earlier that night if she were to abandon her sunbathing now. The Sage insisted. With reluctance, the Bamboo Princess agreed to come inside. An icy gust of wind blew from the Sea, as if in protest to the Bamboo Princess'' compliance. She ignored it, allowing the Sage to assist her off the roof and onto the rickety balcony below.


    The Infestation had already begun to spread through her temple. Insects crawled in orderly lines along the rafters, and lumpy nests had been formed in dark and dripping corners. The Sages, nine in total, prayed to weathered carvings and faded parchments, hopelessly preserving a religion that had long since lost its name. Upon sight of the Princess, the eldest stood and gingerly shuffled over to her. His soil was grey and teeming with the Infestation. A worm writhed in his cheek. Cobwebs filled his crumbling mouth. He bowed his respect to the Bamboo Princess and told her he had received a prophecy from the Lost God. The Princess was unnerved. She looked to the Sage who had retrieved her. His soil was a healthy brown, and the Infestation was yet to claim him. He nodded in reassurance. Wishing she could return to the sunlight, the Bamboo Princess turned back to the eldest Sage. He began to relay the prophecy, a grand ballad of rhymes and metaphors. It sounded more like the script of a play than the word of a God (not that the Princess had ever seen a play). After the Sage had finished, the Bamboo Princess requested an explanation. She had understood very little of the prophecy. It used obtuse phrases, and words that had not appeared in any of her collected scrolls. The Sage explained it simply. The Bamboo Princess had been chosen by the Lost God to quell the Infestation and return the Green Tea Sea to glory. To do this she would have to leave the temple for the first time and travel by raft to the centre of the Sea. There, she would learn the world''s secrets and ascend to the rank of Bamboo Empress. This was her fate, as determined by the Lost God. The Bamboo Princess felt empty. Her life of dutiful study and introspection had been ordered to an end, but she could not disobey the Sages, nor the Lost God (if such a being existed, that is). The Princess shivered as a chilling breeze blew through the Infestation-eaten holes in the temple walls. She looked down. Small black beetles crawled across her paper slippers. She gently kicked them off. The eldest Sage urged her to make her response. The Bamboo Princess pondered for a moment as the wind desperately battered against her skin, then made her decision quickly.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    From the small, half-sunken dock of the floating temple, the Bamboo Princess was to take the last raft for herself, and only herself. No Sages were permitted to journey with her. It would be a solitary trip; one supposedly destined to change the world. The Infestation had taken too much already. The Bamboo Princess was going stop it, regardless of if she wanted to or not. It was a fact, decreed by the Sages. She was going to save the world. She was the chosen one, the hero. The Bamboo Princess accepted all this hesitantly, and she dared not consider the prospect of failure. She would do what she needed to. Fate would be fate. The Bamboo Princess pushed off of the dock with the raft¡¯s single oar. She gently floated away, the murky expanse of the Green Tea Sea beneath her. The Sages watched solemnly from the docks. They did not wave goodbye.


    The raft had once been a beautiful, carved work of art. Back when there had been more than one temple, it had been one of dozens of rafts intended to ferry Sages between the floating structures. Over time, the carvings had worn out and the wood that held them had rotted. It was disturbingly soft under the Princess¡¯ feet. The oar too, had become little more than a splintered piece of driftwood. These two items combined were what the Bamboo Princess would have to rely on to succeed. She found this fact unsettling. The Princess smoothed out her paper robes and sat. Behind her, the temple was beginning to fade into mist. What would become of it without her? The Bamboo Princess let such thoughts pass through her mind as quickly as they had come. Feeling at peace, she leaned back and allowed the sun, ever patient and watchful, to grant her the last of today¡¯s energy. She would have to stay awake for as long as possible to mitigate the risk of disaster whilst she slept. The Bamboo Princess stared at the sun, letting its distant brightness burn into her eyes. Under layers of cold, she could almost feel some warmth. The Princess felt something else in that moment. It crawled across her leg. She looked down, alarmed. A single black beetle. The Princess rose to her feet quickly. Alarms rung in her head. The Infestation never allowed itself to spread to an isolated object without establishing a nest. The Princess began to search around the small square platform, peeling her eyes for even the slightest hint of a nest¡¯s beginnings. Slowly she moved her search to the edges, then the sides of the raft. She froze. Tucked into a rotted-out alcove in the side of the raft was a small bulbous sphere, festering with black insects. A fully constructed nest.

 CHAPTER TWO - INFESTATION

    The Bamboo Princess stood precariously on the edge of the raft and poked at the nest with her oar. A swarm of winged insects burst out in response and dispersed into the sky. She ducked in in terror, dropping the oar and shielding her face with her forearms. That¡¯s how they got you. The face. The Bamboo Princess stayed like that for a few minutes; huddled in fear. Eventually she moved her arms just enough to see through the gap between them. Insects swarmed half the raft in a horrific frenzy. They were like a pool of darkness, constantly shifting and buckling in a freak storm. The Bamboo Princess stumbled backwards, desperately crying out in the flickering hope that some vagabond¡¯s raft was near. No one came to save her. She shuffled as far away from the Infestation as possible. On the small raft, that constituted a few feet at best. The Bamboo Princess was strongly considering jumping into the Sea at this point. Being unable to swim, she would sink like a rock person immediately, but it would be better than being claimed by the Infestation, wouldn¡¯t it? No, the Princess couldn¡¯t give up her quest quite yet. She grabbed her oar and stood up. The Infestation instantly took notice of her now that she had lowered her arms. The Bamboo Princess had no plan to speak of, but that wouldn¡¯t stop her. It couldn¡¯t stop her. The Infestation trickled towards her in streams, jet black insects climbing over each other for the chance to take a grass person for themselves. The Princess swatted at them with mad desperation. To her credit, she actually managed to knock a few into the tea, but it wasn¡¯t more than few seconds until they were scuttling up her legs and torso in inky waves. The Bamboo Princess screamed. The reached her neck and climbed it, tiny legs prickling her fragile skin. With a final cry of fear, the Princess sprinted forward and leaped into the Green Tea Sea.


    The warmth took the Bamboo Princess first. It rushed through her like wind, curling her skin in strips and sapping her mind of thoughts. Cloudy green tea surrounded her. There was no up or down, north or south. It was almost comforting. A murky, continental hand enveloped her slowly. The Bamboo Princess felt a sudden, intense sensation of peace, even when the Infestation began to worm its way into her eye sockets, nose and mouth. But the Infestation didn¡¯t matter anymore, nor did her short lived quest or the fate of the world itself. The Sea, calm and wise, told her that royalty and prophecy no longer mattered, that this was as much her fate as saving the world was. There was no Lost God. She wasn¡¯t a Bamboo Princess. She was just grass floating in an ocean of tea. The grass person slowly realized that she was drowning. That was fine. She closed her eyes and let the Sea smother her. The hand coiled into a fist around her and warmth faded away, as did sensation itself. The Green Tea Sea wanted the grass person to sleep. She let it happen.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    The Bamboo Princess awoke half-buried in sand. She was cold. Blisteringly so. She lay there for a while, shivering and watching the quiet, grey sky. She felt like she could relate to it in some strange way. It must have been lonely, being up there, so far away from everything. She couldn¡¯t see the sun from where she lay, but she could feel its breath on her skin. She thanked it under her breath. As cold as its light was, she appreciated the sensation. The Princess didn¡¯t know how long she spent lying there, soaking in the heavens and absorbing what energy she could, but eventually she staggered to her feet and looked about. She was on an island; something she had only read mention of in a half dozen of her many, many scrolls. The sand was stained green by the tide of tea and the jungle beyond it was vast and still. Enormous leaves to rival the Messengers from the Depths shaded ancient trees and thick forests of bamboo. The Princess had never seen inanimate bamboo before. It was equal parts surreal and unsettling seeing herself growing from dirt in vertical shoots. Once she was finished surveying the area, the Bamboo Princess¡¯ mind turned to more important things. The quest. She had no raft and no sense of direction. The Sages had launched her on a precisely calculated course aimed directly at the Sea¡¯s centre. In the end, all their maps and navigation skills had proven useless. The Princess froze. What exactly had happened? Why did she no longer have the raft? Why was she on this island? A sudden spike of pain in her arm reminded her. She looked down to see a black centipede snaking its way out of a crack in her skin. That¡¯s right. She was Infested. The Bamboo Princess¡¯ breath caught in her throat as she remembered the state of the eldest Sage. She didn¡¯t think about this long however, as a more pressing question concerning her mortality arose in her mind. She had jumped into the Sea. Why was she alive? Why had she not drowned, her body slowly sinking into the Depths? Not that it really mattered. She would probably be dead in a few months anyway. The Infestation would eat her from the inside out. By the time she had embarked from the temple, the eldest Sage was barely a hollow shell, and he was a soil person. Who knew how fast the Infestation would consume someone made from nutritious grass? The Bamboo Princess had two choices: walk into the Sea and take another shot at drowning to end it quickly, or walk into the jungle, figure out how to make a raft, and find the Sea¡¯s centre. The Princess felt ashamed that she briefly considered the first option. She wasn¡¯t giving up now. She would have to contend with an uncertain time limit and the challenge of navigating the Sea alone, but that wouldn¡¯t stop her. She was the hero who would save the world. Nothing would stop her.

 CHAPTER THREE - ISLAND

    Cutting down bamboo shoots hurt the Princess more than she was expecting. No matter what, she couldn¡¯t shake the feeling that she was killing her own kind. Maybe she was. No amount of research had ever been able to discover the exact physiological difference between people and the materials they were constructed of. Whether a boulder or tree or pile of dirt was animated and sentient seemed to be entirely arbitrary. There really wasn¡¯t any difference between the Princess and the silent shoots. That was the root of her distress, she figured. After several breaks to dry heave on the beach, the Princess managed to tear down enough bamboo to create a raft of similar size to her one from before. She had considered checking to see if there was an Infection nest hiding in any of the shoots, but she quickly remembered that that would be a pointless affair. The Infection remained dormant around those who had already been claimed. Claimed. The Bamboo Princess hated the expression. She might have had swarms of insects tunneling through her body, but they didn¡¯t own her. Not so long as her mind remained intact. At that moment, someone told her to search deeper in the jungle. The Princess jumped, alarmed by the sudden voice. It was so close! Was someone already living on the island? Wanderers? Pirate? There was nobody nearby. Nobody she could see. The voice urged her again. It was deep and raspy. Undoubtedly hostile. The Bamboo Princess called out, demanding the voice¡¯s owner reveal themselves. No one came. Was she going insane? Was this some side effect of the Infection she wasn¡¯t aware of? The voice assured her she wasn¡¯t insane. How did it know what she was thinking? If anything, this was just further confirmation that the Princess was certifiably crazy. Again, the voice told her she was wrong about the insanity. However, it continued, she was right about the voice being a side effect of the Infection. The Bamboo Princess was confused. This voice was created by the Infection? After some further back-and-forth between the Princess and the voice she had assumed was the creation of her delirious subconscious, she arrived at the conclusion that perhaps it was indeed connected to the Infection in some way. The Princess had no solid evidence of this. It just didn¡¯t sound like something that would come from her mind. It didn¡¯t say things she thought her subconscious would say. It babbled about cartographic features, ancient magic and demons from the Depths, always eventually looping back into a demand for the Bamboo Princess to venture into the jungle. It took a fair while, and she didn¡¯t know exactly what the voice said that convinced her, but eventually the Princess rose from the beach and plodded into the vine-ridden threshold.


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    The Princess was running low on energy. There was no telling how long she had left on her feet. She tripped and stumbled through the thick underbrush, snagging her robes on some branch or root every few steps. The air was heavy and humid. Clouds of steam wafted about, likely expelled from some unseen vent. She had underestimated how oppression the climate of the jungle could be. The silence, too, became unbearable before long. The only sound was her rustling footsteps and the low droning of the voice. It gave her simple directions, left or right, but never anything more. She had companionship of a sort, but it didn¡¯t feel like it. The Bamboo Princess was isolated. As each step became a battle, and each monotone direction a needle in her ear, the Princess longed more and more for her room in the temple, filled with scrolls and lit by sunlight. There was very little light this far into the jungle. The canopy stole it from her. The Princess hated the jungle. Hated its arrogance and its greed. She hated the voice too, but it didn¡¯t seem to care. Eventually, the Princess found herself grasping onto any tree or vine she could find for support. The foliage was so thick she couldn¡¯t see more than a few feet ahead of her. It all blended into one big green blob. The Princess staggered into a bamboo forest and fell to her knees. If she was going to die, it would be with her family. The voice insisted she continue. The Princess almost laughed at this. The voice sounded more invested in its quest that she was in hers. She couldn¡¯t let that be. As the Princess fought back to her feet, she realized another noise emanated from further into the bamboo forest. Music. It was a melancholy tune, played on a stringed instrument. The Bamboo Princess didn¡¯t need the voice¡¯s encouragement to continue. She practically fell from shoot to shoot, gripping tightly onto each for support. Without them, she would be crawling. The music drew nearer and the Princess¡¯ determination increased. A pinch of sunlight shone through the patchy canopy of the bamboo forest. She wasn¡¯t able to absorb any more energy today even if she wanted to, but the Princess didn¡¯t care. She didn¡¯t need it. The music would be enough. She was almost there. It was so close. The Princess burst out of the forest into a circular clearing. In the center was a small stone shrine, its characters long since worn away with the edges. Near the shrine sat a dead body. It had been a soil person once. Now it was merely a dry lump of dirt, decades at least since it had been walking and talking. A decayed, Infestation-ridden lute lay beside it. There was no music anymore. The sunlight here was warm. The Bamboo Princess looked up to see a clear blue sky, ringed by pale green shoots. It was like she had stepped into a dream. The voice wanted her to touch the shrine. The Princess did as it said. She lay her palm on its smooth, grey surface. In her mind, an eye opened, and the world folded back on itself like paper.

 CHAPTER FOUR - ONWARD

    As the Bamboo Princess was forced out of the third dimension and into the second, she realized for a moment what being a paper person must feel like. With a pained groan, the forest around her flattened into a series of simple geometric shapes. Green triangles and rectangles, arranged in configurations vaguely representing bamboo and trees. Each shape shook slightly, as if chilled in a winter breeze. The Princess saw herself among them, a solitary figure in an abstract painting. She seemed so small. From this angle, the cracks in the world were visible. The Infestation affected everything. It was all coming apart at the seams. Total collapse. A complete cascade. How was the Bamboo Princess supposed to solve this? Before she could ponder the question, the island beneath her tore itself open and swallowed her whole. Under a rush of vertigo and violent nausea, the Princess¡¯ perception returned to three dimensions. Everything slowed, then stopped. The Green Tea Sea calmed and the sky stilled. The Princess floated to her knees, her breath choked and heavy. Around her was a murky green fog that obstructed her vision beyond a few feet. The ground was dark, fluffy dirt. Chunks of it wafted upwards with every sweeping, restricted movement the Princess made. She glanced at her arms and froze. They were covered in deep, dark holes. There was movement inside. Thousands of tiny black bodies, destroying her from the inside-out. It was happening so much faster in her than in the eldest Sage. The Princess tried to scream in horror, but tea filled her grass lungs. It allowed her to breathe, but talking was not permitted. She was under the tea¡¯s control. She was its hostage, its slave. She stood up, willed by the tea. She finally understood where she was. The Depths. The absolute territory of the Green Tea Sea. The voice in her head no longer spoke. Its silence spoke mountains. A piercing, mind-numbing pain spiked through the Princess¡¯ right hand. She looked down to see her grass skin morphing. New shoots rapidly grew from her arm, coiling themselves into tight spirals on her palm. Soon, a circle had woven itself onto her hand. A single twig lay in the center, suspended in the tea. Its sharpened tip pointed forward. The Princess knew what it was immediately. A compass, built into her skin. A compass pointed to the Sea¡¯s center. A new voice, smooth and comforting this time, assured the Princess everything would be alright. She almost believed it for a second. The world unfolded and the Bamboo Princess returned to the domain of the weak.


    The Sea had placed the Princess in the middle of nowhere, floating aboard an elaborately designed raft. Like the makeshift one she had been trying to build back on the island, this vessel was constructed from bamboo. However, unlike her pitiful attempt, this raft had also clearly been designed by a master. The way each delicately shaved strip coiled and wrapped, forming the complete, circular structure, was no less than beautiful. It was like something only nature could devise. It was something only nature could devise. Structures built by the Green Tea Sea itself were so rare as to exist only in myth, but the Bamboo Princess sat on one right now. It was an odd feeling. Her arms were still hollow wrecks, but the compass persisted. It was pointed to the northwest. The center. The Green Tea Sea had also outfitted the Princess in full ceramic armor, completed with a thin, curved sword. It was craftsmanship only achieved by the long extinct clay and metal peoples of the south, but the Princess knew better than to the question the tea.  Clearly it sponsored her quest. Why wouldn¡¯t it? She was the one chosen to heal it of the Infestation. The one chosen to restore it to the glory of centuries past. The Bamboo Princess would bring the Sea back from the brink of death. She would save it from decay. She continued to restate her goal over and over again in her head, hoping doing so would eventually muster up some motivation in her. She would do it. That much was certain. But the fact that she didn¡¯t want to didn¡¯t sit quite right with her. It felt wrong to save the world out of obligation. She tried calling to her head-voice; the one from the island. No response. She didn¡¯t expect it to offer much emotional reassurance, but the Princess still longed for some company. She had gotten too used to living with the Sages. Too used to the privilege of contact. Loneliness plagued every corner of the Green Tea Sea. It had just been luck that she hadn¡¯t been afflicted before now. The Bamboo Princess looked to the ornate oar beside her. Not yet. She would rest first and let the sun rejuvenate her. She didn¡¯t know how long the Green Tea Sea had held her at its heart, but at least sunlight agreed to energize her once more. The Princess let out a deep sigh. A small black insect flew out of her mouth as she did so. She ignored it, choosing instead to stare at the horizon. Every direction was the same thing: a motionless expanse of tea and a cloud grey sky, meeting on a perfect flat line. The sun reflected off the Sea, causing it to shine with dying light. The Princess stared at the light, unblinking, for what felt like years. Eventually she fell asleep and dreamed of being eaten alive.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    The Bamboo Princess awoke slowly. She was groggy and fatigued, despite her long rest. The sun hung above, watching her as always. She wished she had a roof to blot it out for just a few minutes. Its radiance seemed to mock her. With reluctance, the Princess took the oar and begun to paddle northwest. The work was tough. Her arms had lost even more strength overnight from the Infestation. She had to keep going regardless. Stopping was not an option. She wanted to. She desperately, desperately wanted to, but the Green Tea Sea would not allow it.

 CHAPTER FIVE - FLEET

    The Bamboo Princess rowed for days. Whenever she felt tired, she would let the raft¡¯s momentum take her onward whilst she rested. She always awoke feeling no better. The never ending icy glare of sun judged her. It judged her for falling into this pit of responsibility she wasn¡¯t strong enough to climb out of. How could she? Her arms were little more than strips of bamboo coiled loosely around each other. Her torso and legs looked barely better. She had refused to check at her face in the Sea¡¯s reflection. She didn¡¯t want to see what it had done to her. On the bright side, the Princess had managed to unearth some motivating element for her quest. If she were to rid the Sea of the Infestation, then that may rid her of it too. It wasn¡¯t a solid hope to ride on, but it was all she had. Spending days alone on a raft was beginning to transition from boring to maddening. She had nothing to do. Nothing to read, no one to speak to. How far away was the center? Some scrolls claimed the Green Tea Sea was the largest ocean in the world. Others claimed it was the world, and that nothing existed outside of it. The Bamboo Princess hoped that wasn¡¯t true. Nevertheless, all scrolls agreed that the Sea was exceptionally big, and that didn¡¯t bode well for the Princess¡¯ psych.


    Two weeks later, the Princess saw another raft. Both excited and terrified at the prospect of contact, she had strapped her armor back on and drew her sword in preparation. Standing was difficult enough without the ceramic plates weighing her down. With the armor on, the Princess had to assume a kind of half-kneeling position in order to remain upright. She stared at the raft as it crossed the horizon, willing herself to see the people aboard it. As soon as she managed to spot a silhouette against the grey sky, she also spotted something else. Another raft. And another. Soon enough, there were dozens of rafts on the horizon, and they were drawing closer. Each one had two or more people on it, some of the larger ones close to five. At the center of the fleet was a giant, multi-leveled raft that looked like a small temple. The Bamboo Princess had wanted company, but not like this. She was being attacked by rock pirates.


    In twenty minutes, they had her surrounded. One of the rafts floated right up next to hers. It was over thrice the size, but not nearly as well made. Two rock people rode on it. They were tall and burly, with armor made of wooden slats. A strange choice, considering their skin was likely tougher. One of the pirates, the shorter of the two, leaped over to the Princess¡¯ raft in a single bound, almost capsizing it as he landed. He stood over her, imposing and terrifying without even trying. In a deep, rolling voice, he told her she would be coming with them. The Bamboo Princess was in no place to argue. He went to grab her, then noticed her ruined arms. The rock pirate flinched, calling to his partner that their new prisoner was Infested. His partner called back, commanding him to take her anyway. He just needed to avoid touching her. The pirate aboard the Princess¡¯ raft nodded and drew his rusty sword. He grabbed her by the straps of her armor and held his sword to her throat. If she lashed out and touched him with her bare skin, she would die. The Princess understood the instruction perfectly. In all honesty, she was just glad there would be someone to talk to.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    After carefully checking to see if it was Infested too, the rock pirates tied the Princess¡¯ raft to one of their own and took her to the central house-raft. Inside were an assortment of disheveled cartographers, navigators and various other rock people whose jobs the Princess wasn¡¯t certain of. A band played in one corner, hopelessly repeating the same five second stretch of notes over and over again, likely because they didn¡¯t know anything else. The whole place felt like a group of depressed bottom-feeders desperately trying to appear like a competent pirate crew. The Princess found it more sad than scary. In the loudest voice her ravaged vocal cords could muster, she asked what they wanted with her. A tall and thin rock person in faded paper robes responded. He introduced himself as the captain of the fleet and spelled out what he expected of her in simple terms. He wanted her armor, her sword, and her story. The grass people were apparently legendary for their rarity and status in pre-Infestation society. He wanted to know what one was doing by herself in the middle of the Sea with clay and metal forged gear. His explanation of intent soon devolved into a series of mad ramblings. He seemed to think her sword was clearly the work of some kind of metal sky people, and he repeatedly asked her if she had seen an eye in her dreams. The Bamboo Princess couldn¡¯t answer him, though she was thankful there was an explanation for why the pirate crew was so poorly assembled. Their leader was plainly insane. Regardless, the rock pirates had more swords than she did, so she would do what they asked. She unbuckled each separate section of her armor and let it fall to the deck. Underneath she wore a simple paper tunic with a floral pattern that the Green Tea Sea had provided for her. Finally, she threw down her sword. Several rock people scurried over, inspecting her impossibly flawless gear with awe. The captain commended her for submitting so willingly. A raspy voice in her head told her to run. The Princess froze. With a single gesture, the captain commanded in his pirates to kill her. She was an Infested liability; she had to be disposed of. The Bamboo Princess began to sprint, or at least something that felt like sprinting. To the others, it was nothing more than frantic hobbling on hollow legs. She burst out of the rotting curtains that shielded the interior of the house-raft and hopped onto a neighboring raft. The rock pirates on it drew their weapons in surprise. The Princess ran head-first into one of them, knocking him off balance and into the Sea. He sunk as fast as you would expect a rock person to. The other pirate slashed at her with his chipped dagger. The Princess blocked with her right arm in desperation. The dagger shore clean through her Infested forearm, causing it to fall to the raft¡¯s deck, compass in tow. From her torn arm stump, thousands of black insects suddenly burst out. The rock pirate stumbled back in terror as the Infestation swarmed him. He batted at the air wildly, let out a blood-curdling scream, then fell backwards into the Sea. The dozens of other pirates on nearby rafts stared in horror as a torrential waves of insects continued to pour from the Princess¡¯ arm and cover the raft she stood on. She was more insect than grass. More Infestation than bamboo. The rock pirates dropped their weapons and began to paddle away in fear, just as the Princess lost consciousness.