You angle yourself under the sphere, taking a knee, and thrust the spear up in one motion. The spear cuts through the fabric easily, and continues up. When the fabric tears, it makes a popping sound and you feel an increase of the vibrations in the space your hands are holding the spear, and a rush of air.

The vibrations continue to do work on your hands, which you feel start to go numb, but not before you feel the spear hit some moving parts inside. The sphere makes clicking mechanical noises, and starts falling down towards you.

Once the spear is lodged into the mechanical parts and the sphere begins falling towards me, I'm going to let go of the spear and roll out of the way to one side.

After it crashes, do the vibrations stop? If so I'll carefully get closer again (in case it's still active just the engines are down, and rip back the fabric. What's it look like inside?

You release the spear and try to roll out of the way, but the sphere falls too fast and lands on your side. Hard. You don't hear a crack, but you're sore in your right forearm and side.

Once things calm down, and you see you aren't being pursued, you start investigating the sphere, pulling the fabric back. Your arm and side start throbbing worse from pain, but you peek inside and see that the fabric seems like some loose, thin metal that moves like cloth, with tiny links keeping it all together. Inside, there is a complicated collection of tubes, levers, and gears. In the middle, where you find the broken end of your spear, is a small sphere only a little larger than your hand. It is transparent, and you see some mist with electricity arcing inside, but blinking out until you finally see it go dead.

Alpha's Son struggles, and you turn back to see him sitting against a tree and breathing heavily.

How heavy is the sphere? Carryable by one person, two, or not at all?

First things first though, I'm going to go check up on Alphas Son. I'm being careful of there areas I hurt as well when going over to him. Don't want to make anything worse than it already is. But from the sounds of it there aren't any breaks.

To Alphas Son  once I'm at his side, "Where did you get hit and where does it hurt?"

I'm trying to judge a few things, first whether he needs immediate treatment or if he's just in pain. Also based on where he was hit, making sure he wasn't partially paralyzed.

If capable I'm going to get him back on his feat (if I believe it won't make his injury worse) and walking back to camp with me. I'll be carrying or dragging the sphere, explaining to alphas son that we need to study our enemy and it cost him and I both enough to take down this one, I don't want to have to fight another without knowing what I'm up against.

You think it might take two or possibly three people to carry it. The sphere is very heavy, and your body is feeling the impact worse and worse as the adrenaline tapers off. It's your forearm and it feels like your ribs that hurt. It hurts to breathe a little bit, but you don't have any trouble moving over to Alpha's Son.

He grimaces, and says, "Back, low." He moves his hand with his face contorted in pain to a spot on his back that he shows you, which has a small, but severe burn mark that actually goes an inch deeper into his muscle. He winces and jerks his hand back forward, trying to lessen his movements. Luckily, it doesn't seem to be bleeding.

But you do see that he moves his feet and legs still. When you try to help him to his feet, he slumps back down and screams in pain. "It hurts." He breathes the words out, but tries again to rise to no avail.

When the pain starts getting worse I'm going to focus my mind on how dire the situation is and try and trick my body into releasing more andrenaline. I'm going to need all the strength I can muster to get alphas son and I back to safety.

After alphas son fails to stand, I'll tell him I'm going to try and carry him. I apologize that it's probably going to hurt but I have to get us both to the other side of the river. Hopefully the other two are back by now and letting your father and Big Link know what happened.

And I'm going to try and carry him back to the other side.

You aren't sure if you trick your body into releasing more adrenaline or not, but you manage to ignore the pain with only the occasional grimace.

Alpha's Son nods at you, and slowly talks back, "I can help. Some."

Between the efforts of you, Alpha's Son, and the tree he leans against, you manage to get him up onto his feet, and he's able to walk with a lot of support on your part. Luckily, this also takes some of the pressure off of your injured arm and side.

You walk a few yards before you hear noises coming from the direction of the link community. Then, you see them. Ten men, with Alpha Link in the lead, running into the woods and towards you and Alpha's Son. All of them are carrying the spears that you've made.

When Alpha Link sees you and Alpha's Son, the group change direction and head toward you two.

When I see them coming over I'll direct two links to support Alpha's Son on either side and carry him back to the other side of the river. He'll be fine but getting him somewhere to lay down safely is a high priority.

Then to Alpha and Big Link, I'll thank them for coming for us, and ask their indulgences to help retrieve what hurt Alpha's Son and I. It's one of the sources of the buzzing, and I took one out defending Alpha's Son, but it's too heavy for me to carry. It'll take a number of us to do it, and I can't lift all that much right now.

So I'm hoping to split the party, sending half back with Alpha's Son, and half to come back the small distance I'd traveled and carry the sphere back to the other side of the river. Once there I'm going to make sure to remove some of the interior parts of the sphere, whether it's gears or tubes or something. Preferably something I could put back in, but also that looks crucial to operation. Then once I've done that (I believe it to be crucial to the tribe safety) I'll go see how Alpha's Son is doing.

As Alpha Link runs up to you and his son, you see real concern on his face. He gives you his spear and immediately helps to hold his son from falling, while another joins in to help as well.

Big Link is not present; he must have stayed behind with the family and the rest of the links.

The links go about the business of collecting the big, white machine, but one more link comes up to you with a worried expression too. He puts your good arm over his shoulder, and helps you walk back too.

You're starting to feel light-headed, but you're able to keep your feet on your own.

I'll thank the link that helps support me while walking back.

Once I'm back to camp I'm going to try to keep myself going and both remove a piece of the spheres internal workings as a safeguard to make sure it stays off, and check on Alphas Son. I'll also want to rinse both his and my wounds with water. I doubt there is much danger of infection or anything like that since the laser would carry so much heat by its nature, but the soothing effect as well as just to be safe is worth it.

After that's taken care of I'm going to want to get some sleep, if no one objects.

You get back to camp and immediately keep working at it. It takes a feat of willpower to keep going instead of resting, but you manage.

You pull a the central piece you saw earlier out of the sphere. It's a smaller ball, transparent, with what looks like dull, blue wires inside a dark gray mist. But it looks important, so you remove it, having to tug it away from another wire that eventually gives and releases it. You notice it was damaged when you thrust your spear inside, and is cracked.

Walking hurts your side still, and while you have a bunch of cuts from your trip through the foliage, your right arm is also big, pulsing, and black. The bruise extends down the front of your chest partially to a big, purple section taking up most of where your ribs are. The bruises end at an inch above your right hip.

Alpha's Son opted for them to put him down on the edge of the water. While he still wears a brave face, you can see that he's in a lot of pain. He lays down flat on his front, and doesn't turn his head toward you when you approach.

He smirks at you when you come into view, though it fades quickly and he says, "Father says you look worse than me."

I'll laugh a bit at his comment, and then wince at the pain I'm sure laughing causes. "I've looked better, I'll admit. We both made it though" and I'll lower myself down to sitting using my good arm. Then jokingly "we might both need to sit out of spear practice for a while though"

Then more seriously, "we should take the time that we're recovering to study that sphere. I've never seen anything quite like that, and we may be able to salvage some of it to improve our situation here or learn how to take them down without as much danger."

And then lay back and try and get a little rest, positioning myself so my weight goes through my left side and not the bruised area.

He nods faintly, "We lived; we get stronger."

Then, when you talk about investigating those spheres more, "I have thought. They are dangerous. Looking at it could help. But maybe...deeper into jungle. We find more water, more food. Keep away from them. What do you think?"

"Both are probably a good idea. There are sure to be other dangers deeper in the jungle, much akin to the sabers however. For now the spheres aren't close enough that we have to jump to a decision. Lets take the time to do a few exploration trips once we're better, looking for good areas that have water and food and aren't too dangerous, and also studying our new enemy, these spheres, to see if there is a way we can fight them off. It's going to be a bit before either of us should be going on any exploration trips into unknown areas though. I plan to spend the days I take recovering studying this sphere, and seeing if I can adapt any weapons from it."

Worth noting when we get to it, when I get to study the sphere I want to try and identify the source of it's power. I'm assuming electric, but I want to see how familiar everything looks. I've repaired electronics such as computers and speakers before, as far as soldering bad connections, but not much past that. Point being I do have a bit of a base point to try and figure out what's going on.

Alpha's Son's face grows serious. "What if they keep coming?" He sighs. "What if they keep coming for us, and they never stop? They take our Big Water, they take our lives if we can't find another, and that is if they stop." Nervous, he looks you in the eyes, "I have never seen a bird like that before."

"That is why we'll be studying this one. I will find what it's weaknesses are and then we can fight back. We've already proven we can beat them. It's just a matter of being able to do it without getting hurt now. And these are tools of some one or some thing, not animals. Someone actually made these, and are having them harvest the jungle for some reason. Which means we may not need to defeat them, but just make the losses bad enough that the controller decides its easier to go somewhere else. I've not seen things exactly like these from where I came from, but the general type of device was used. Their weapons are the part I want to study most. As I have no knowledge of them, and if I c an retrofit some for us it'll be a significant advantage."

And then, reassuringly "We'll get through this. We just have to stick together and we'll come out of this stronger."

He seems lost when you talk about how someone made them, and just nods in response and turns his head to get some rest.

You take your time to recover, and other members of the Big Water Tribe pick up the slack when it comes to bringing you supplies to cook food. In the rest of your time, you spend it with the sphere that they drug back to camp.

It takes some time, but you're pretty sure it runs off of electricity from a battery, possibly chargeable. You took out the part that did both powered and controlled the robot. The cylinders on its exterior seem to be regularly connected to that energy source. You're fairly certain you could get one to fire, but not without another undamaged energy source that you could hook it up to. And you infer that it would take a lot of energy to fire it more than once.

I figured it wouldn't translate well to alphas son. But I wanted to try telling him everything I thought just in case.

With the sphere I want to experiment with how difficult it is to break the exterior. Try using a rock to smash it near its top. I don't want to damage the laser cylinders but I do want to disassemble the sphere and in the process learn how strong their armor is and then use the shards from their metal to make better knives and spears. I also want to get the sawblade it uses to cut the trees out and study that. Is it the same metal as the outside?

You get to work on the sphere, taking a large rock and repeatedly banging on the sphere's metal exterior trying to break it. Usually, the rock glances off of the surface with no effect. The most damage you are able to do is scuff it up, and put a tiny dent in it.

The metal is just too hard and thick for your stone tools and weapons; however, you see that the cylinders, while metal, are surrounded by some sort of synthetic, black rubber that you could probably pierce and cut through with your stone knife to get them free.

There are twenty-one total cylinders.

Also, you find no saw in this sphere, and recall that the spheres that had saws did not have the laser-shooting cylinders around them.

Once alphas son and I are able to get back to training I want to get back to spear training. Specifically I want to go over with the others that the spheres weakness is their underside, and show them how hard the rest of the sphere is but that the underside is able to be pierced. I want to cover the fact that there are two types, and show them the cylinders so the hey can identify this type. I'll explain the other type has a spinning blade that you have to stay away from and that the ones with the cylinders must either be avoided or taken down fast. Finally I'll mention that when you do land a solid blow from underneath that you have to get out of there quickly. They are heavy and you don't want one to fall on you.

I also want to start exploring upstream and seeing what's there. If we have to move away from big water I'd like it to be to a known location. I'd like to do this explorations with alphas son, and will spend a lot of the time talking about how moving hopefully won't have to happen and brainstorm on tactics to take down the spheres.

Periodically I'll suggest another venture to the other side if the river. I would rather fight them before they get to our side of the river and if nothing else a scouting mission to see if they're progressing towards or away from us is valuable. When that trip happens I'm looking to find a sphere off on its own and try and take it down, approaching from behind quickly and stabbing through the metal fabric.

Your whole side is bruised badly, but it doesn't seem like anything's broken; however, Alpha's Son's injury seems to be keeping him out of commission for the time being. His wound, while not infected, is serious. He spends most of his day lying down on his stomach, to avoid pain. You think it could take weeks for him to be back on his feet, and longer to be good for anything significant.

Are you planning on doing these things starting the next day? How far upstream and with whom? You have thirty some odd warriors who know which end of the spear is sharp, Big Link, and Alpha Link all ready to work, as well as many women and children in the camp, who are mothers, daughters, sisters, and brothers to the warriors.

I'm fine with doing the exploring with either Big Link since I trust him the most, or with Alpha Link, as an effort to build trust and a better relationship. I do want to keep the trips short, maybe an hour or two upstream, and stay away from any dangers. I'll also rotate through some of the 30, it's good training for them as well. Maybe group of 3, myself, Alpha or Big Link (alternating preferably) and one of the 30, rotating through them as well.

I'll spend a fair amount of time sitting down near Alpha's Son and talking with him, seeing how he's doing.

Otherwise my daily routine is in a bit of a holding pattern waiting for events to change or Alpha's Son to get better.

Alpha Link stays behind to practice with the other warriors who seem to be more and more accepting to his leadership in their training exercises while you're still recovering.

You don't hear the hum of the saws across the dwindling river again that day, and you and Big Link with a few other random warriors take your spears and explore a couple hours upstream.

Along the walk, you don't see much. The river, while stronger, isn't what it used to be. You can tell from the banks that the river used to be much larger, and it runs slowly where it does. One of the links that comes with you informs you that if you want to go all the way to the water's source, it's a mountain in the distance, which would be quicker to reach through the forest. It's a week's travel time around following the river while only two days through the woods. But none of them volunteer readily for either journey.

You talk to Alpha's Son later that night, and he seems depressed from his injury. He looks longingly sometimes at the men training, and winces whenever he moves. Friendly Link spends much time with him, helping him get around now, but seems less impressed with him than she used to before your trip into the woods.

Just to clarify, the mountain he seems to be talking about sounds like it's the mountain I saw the glint from earlier? If so I have a working theory, but I'm afraid it may be a dam set up on the mountainside, or something similar.

I'll do my best to be encouraging towards Alpha's Son, assuring him the wound will get better, and once he gets back to his feat we can start looking for options of what to do. I'll ask him if he would be ok if we spent some time each day talking tactics. Methods of coordinating our spear fighters to take down spheres without drawing attention or getting injured. Ideas such as having a distraction draw a sphere towards it, and ambushing it as it passes. I think it's valuable to have a number of strategies and he has one of the best tactical minds around.

I'll also talk to him about how I think the spheres are coming from the mountain in the distance, and that the lowering water may be related to them. I will slowly broach the topic that we may wish to move as a tribe, continuously upstream, until we're close enough to the mountain that we can make smaller excursions without being days across dangerous jungle or weeks away through a less dangerous route. Effectively moving the entire group into a better tactical position.

Finally, when away from Alpha's Son, but talking to Friendly Link I'll talk to her about how Alpha's Son saved me, and had he not risked the injury, I would most assuredly be dead. I'll also emphasize that he is dealing with his injury far better than most would be expected. This is all over the course of multiple conversations, but trying to get her to realize the hardship and bravery that he has.

Is Alpha's Son walking at all by the way, or entirely laying down? If he's spending the vast majority of time on his side, I'll encourage him to gradually start walking more with me. Nothing strenuous, just walks to help the muscles.

You believe it may be the same mountain, or perhaps another that was obscured by the trees.

And so you spend a lot of time talking to Alpha's Son, when you aren't working with the rest. He replies to your queries about a new method to distract them, and says, "But if distraction costs this," he gestures to his injury, which still hasn't healed almost any, "it isn't worth fighting. No food from it, only...pain."

He seems in favor of a tactical move upstream with everyone, "That way maybe more water, too. And more water, more life."

You speak with Friendly Link on the subject of Alpha's Son, and she concedes to your points. Usually, she or other links are helping him when he needs to move, but he stays on his stomach or side the majority of the day, only moving when necessary. It could take a while before he's in fighting condition.