Hoplash's Announcement Temp

A tall skinny man stands from his throne-like seat. He is wearing a lab coat and glasses, his hair unkempt. He walks up to the railing in front of him, looking down to see..

A horde of angry tadpole frogs. He smirks.

“Release the ‘wasps’.”

Thousand of rotting insects fly through the air, zipping around, and razing the land. Hundreds of tadpole frogs charge with their spiers (a special type of spear with a blade made of their dried, venomous saliva).

One young tadpole frog in particular stands amongst the crowd. He looks on in horror. He runs the opposite direction as the others. His family. His best friend. Left behind.

Hoplash, Coaliz, and Tortoiseed go on their daily shenanigans and adventures. Hoplash kills about 30 snakes in his first waking hour, and about 45 more in his next. Coaliz sells a couple of them in exchange for marshmallows, to Hoplash’s dismay. And Tortoiseed? Uh, she hugs a tree. Yeah.

Anyways, it’s around 20:000 (the timekeeping system is a little different, with different amounts of hours and minutes in each day than we have), so they all sit down for an early dinner.

Like every other day, it’s salty fried snake, using Coaliz as a stove, and Hoplash’s oily sweat as cooking oil. Oh, and some peppers Tortoiseed grew.

Outside, under a nearby tree, two shady hooded figures sit down, with their backs facing each other.

One of the figures, with a protruding green snout a sharp little tooth poking out, starts the conversation.

“Status report? We’re quite curious about your findings.”

The other person, with a warbled voice and slight glint coming out of their hood, replies: “HE has rooted out about half our spies. The rest are nervous and afraid. It’s pathetic, honestly. You sure YOU trained them?”

The first figure speaks in a mock offended voice, “Are you suggesting it’s my fault they’re all soft, or are you calling me a liar?!”

“No, I am simply saying we should be focusing on quality, not quantity. Toss the spoiled food, only allowing the fresh apples pass.”

“Your analogies make no sense.”

The snouted figure stands.

“I think I’ll take your place here. Keep an eye on this little village. If you can even call it one.”

“Fine. It was difficult dealing with all those pests anyway.”

THE NEXT MORNING

Hoplash wakes up so early that it’s pitch black out. Perfect. He runs outside making enough noise to bother everyone in their small, friendly town. Lost Forest. The small grove where refugees of various disasters reside. As well as some others.

Hoplash is basically the alarm clock for the entire town, cause once he’s up, there will never be peaceful sleep until the moment he goes back to sleep.

Coaliz joins Hoplash in his daily hunting session, though it’s mostly so he can snag another snake to restock his supply of marshmallows. Unfortunately for him, Hoplash is fed up with this. Every time he grabs a snake, he gets a blast of water to the face.
It’s when he’s just about given up when somthing interesting happens.

A green lizard with a leaf growing out of his head and strange markings around his eyes holds out his hand.

“Hiya, I’m Sapliz. Nice ta meetcha!” (Imagine his voice in like a southern accent or smth)

Coaliz has an annoyed look. “Great, another tree hugger like Tortoiseed..”

Sapliz, taken aback, responds, “Can’t say I HAV ackshully hugged a tree, but.. I do sorta draw mah power from em, I guess..” (I’m trying my best to make a believable accent.)

Coaliz’s gaze softens. “Oh, well then. Sorry.” He stands and makes his way past Sapliz. However, something appears in the sky. It swoops down and sweeps all three of them off the ground, effectively capturing them. It then flies off into the distance.

Meanwhile, Tortoiseed was makinga tomato plant dance. Yeah. Important plot points.