[Decay Timer: 47 Hours, 49 Minutes, 3 Seconds]

Stupid ass inch worm. Stupid waste of time lunch.

We had lost over an hour to Fogwarth’s impromptu picnic lunch. I should also add that it was a one man picnic. Literally. Fogwarth was the only one who had eaten anything or was even capable of it, and he didn’t seem to mind in the slightest bit. He ate happily, taking in fistfuls of fruit, grilled vegetables that were still warm for some reason I didn’t want to ask about, a hero sandwich the size of a toddler, and a slice of fluffy cake that had a suspicious blue tint to it that caused me to glare at him all over again.

To be fair I didn’t expect him to stop eating blueberries on my account. It was his favorite food apparently, and one of the main sources of his people's diet. Sure, it would have been nice if he at least tried for my sake, but it’s fine. Hopefully soon I’d be something else entirely or at least well on my way to being more than just an average blueberry.

The Lok rocks sat on the picnic blanket crossed-legged and seemed to meditate for nearly a half hour straight. As they did so the gems glowed faintly and pulsed with a subdued light. Apparently they had the same debuffs as the rest of us, although theirs could be satiated similar to my own. My [Hungry] debuff had stayed away since we had been in and out of the sun, and the [Thirsty] one had gone away when Fogwarth finally shared some water during the picnic, but the Golems could satisfy both as long as they sucked in whatever “ambient Mana” was.

Fogwarth also spent a good deal of time talking with his mouth full about his strange bag. He kept calling it a [Pouch Of Storage], which had to have a better name somewhere else. In theory it was one of the coolest things I had seen so far, and I idly wondered how much shit I could actually fit in one if I got the chance. Unfortunately it didn’t sound like I’d be at the top of a list to get one since they were apparently insanely difficult to make and often reserved for noble families.

Even in my fantasy dream world the rich and powerful only looked out for the rich and powerful.

When we finally hit the road I was in a sour mood for a little while. To make it worse, as we made our way closer to the wall the fog grew dense and humid, moistening the air and making it heavy with each breath. It did make me wonder if I needed to actually breathe or if it was just a habit, me being a blueberry and all, but I wasn’t about to test it out right now. Letting that errant thought fly away, I refocused on the fog and tried to follow the road with my eyes.

Everything was gray and white, as if there were a filter over it muting all swatches of the farmlands colors. The vibrant golden yellow of crops now faded to a mild beige and as it rose over our heads even the sky was blotted out.

A moment later the light drizzle of rain met us, clinking off of our metal armor in rhythmic patterns and dampening our path.

“See?” Fogwarth said as we stared into the blank white pallet of the fog. “I had made the claim that the sky looked as if it would rain, sir berry. As some would say, Fogwarth, The Meteorologist strikes again!”

“I swear to God I am going to find who comes up with the titles and strangle them when I have arms,” I answered.

“Ah, and what a showdown it would be, my friend.” Fogwarth paused his walk, looking around and kicking stones that littered the ground around his feet. “Strange…”

The Golems walked up to either side of him, also examining the stones that seemed to spread out over the path ahead.

“Strange?” I said, trying to get a good look from my spot but too blinded by the fog to see clearly. “The rocks?”

“Churned stone.”

“Crafted blocks.”

“The Loks are correct,” Fogwarth said, bending down to pick one up and holding it up to me.

It was a dark stone, oddly flat and smooth on one side then shattered and jagged on the other. I could see the pockets of air and the mixture of smaller stones within it. I suddenly knew why Fogwarth had been eager to examine what I thought were just normal rocks.

“This… this is a piece of the wall isn’t it? Are they all pieces of the wall?” I asked as he dropped the stone back to the ground.

“Indeed…” he answered, kicking a few more of the larger stones before continuing his march forward. “This sign is not a pleasant one, sir berry. I fear this may be the cause of the rise of the [Brush Tiger] population that we have found. We are close now, be on your guard.”

As we approached I could make out things shifting and moving amongst the dense mists. Shapes, agile and dark, seemed to stalk us as they darted around the endless white and gray. They were barely even a blur as they slid through the void. I could hear them from whatever counted as my berry ears, the muffled thuds of their steps and the rustling of the crop fields surrounding us on all sides. Unlike the tigers, whatever these threats were did not growl or warn of their tension with us. There weren’t the glows of their eyes, no huffs of air from their flaring nostrils. There was simply nothing but their shadows and the sounds of their steps.

A chill ran through my peel as I felt them watching us.

Two bowstrings snapped in unison and the signature tails of flame and frost roared into the fog. The force of both great arrows ripped holes into the mist, temporarily dissipating it and allowing for a brief glimpse of clear vision ahead as they struck a target with two wet smacking sounds. It was far too fast to get a glimpse of whatever it had hit, but there was no howl of pain or any falter to its steps.

And there was no notification. Shit.

Footsteps smashed the ground beside us. There was nothing but white mist, then as if summoned and materialized before us a set of rending canine fangs broke free from the cover. Jaws spread, blood-tinged saliva dribbling from its teeth, the creature clasped onto Fogwarth’s armored shoulder. The fangs nearly penetrated the thick metal, bending and warping it with its teeth as it shook it violently from side to side.

Fogwarth jumped aside with the thing still attached, bringing me around to knock it off.

The wolf-like thing was massive, long enough to grip Fogwarth’s shoulder while its hind legs were still planted on the stone littered ground below. Gray fur, matted and clumped with dried blood and dirt, stretched from its snout to its tail and the creature appeared to be missing an ear.

And eyes.

Some kind of mushroom, deep red and pitted, grew from its eye sockets and the opening where its left ear should have been. All over its body additional ones had also sprouted from what seemed like old wounds. As I approached, ready to push the thing away, it released from Fogwarth and jumped back, dissolving away into the mist with only its silhouette visible.

“What the fuck was that?” I screamed as I met open air from our missed hit.

“I…I do not know,” Fogwarth answered. The rattle in his voice tugged at the thread of confidence that I still carried form the last battle. “It appeared to be a [Dire Wolf], yet it was consumed by those scarlet fungi. I have never seen, nor have I even heard, of such an occurrence.”

He moved around cautiously, his head whipping from side to side as he tracked the movements of the wolf in the mist.

Something beside me hissed, and I instinctively tried to tug away as the sounds of bone scraping against my steel carapace buzzed in my ears. Whatever it was had been right outside of my vision, and I felt Fogwarth’s delay to pull me back. He must not have noticed the attack coming, and now my berry heart pumped juice faster and faster as the fear of teeth breaking through my protection suddenly weighed on me.

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I shouted out, trying to draw attention as I heard the metal scraping away under the dragging teeth. What answered my screams were two snapping sounds followed by two wet thuds.

[Your party has slain a Dweller Viper - Alpha; Flesh Cursed - Level 12. You are awarded 144 experience points]

Fogwarth spun me around, knocking a diving wolf from the air. As I swung I got a look at what attacked me, and felt my non-existent hairs stand on edge when I saw the thing, despite only seeing it for an instant.

Black, oily scales that were torn to expose bone and more of the red mushrooms. As long as a garden hose and as thick around as a telephone pole. The red caps bloomed from its eyes and ear holes just as it had for the wolf. The way the skin slouched off of it, as if it were a winter coat that desperately needed to retire, was what caught me. If I didn’t know any better I’d say this was a fucking zombie snake.

The wolf skidded over the wall’s rubble, leaving behind bits of its semi-decayed flesh and hair behind. I watched it stand back to its feet as if nothing had happened, noticing its skin drooping just as the snakes had. Fogwarth didn’t waste another moment analyzing the thing like I had, instead activating his stop ground spike move which pierced it without a struggle. The thing didn’t even bother dodging, taking the hit and then preparing the lunge again despite the visible, ragged hole that was now in its gut.

Its intestines spilled out, and it dragged them behind without concern as it charged.

Fogwarth met the creature with a horizontal swing. I took him to the head, spiked metal ball Barry meeting easily collapsible wolf mushroom head. It caved in on contact, bones splintering and shattering like old wood and red mushrooms splattering like mashed potatoes. The corpse slumped down to the ground, all fight finally leaving its headless body. With that fresh on my mind I turned to look at the snake, noting Ix-Lok pulling a great arrow from the thing’s head and reloading it on the bowstring with dead snake gunk still dripping from the arrowhead. Seemed like my zombie comparison was correct, although I wasn’t sure how mushrooms really made sense in the equation. I had watched a lot of Walking Dead, quitting like everyone else in America did just when it had become boring and lackluster, and I don’t remember a damn thing about mushrooms.

George A. Romero would be rolling in his grave if he knew about this.

[Your party has slain a Dire Wolf; Flesh Cursed - Level 10. You are awarded 113 experience points]

“The head!” I shouted out to my allies. “Looks like only head shots will stop these gross things!”

“Aiming for the head,” Ix-Lok answered, firing another arrow to the mist.

“Targeting the cranium,” Ak-Lok added with a tone that I thought was suspiciously sarcastic.

“It will be difficult to do so in all of this mist,” Fogwarth said, readying me in a defensive stance. “Our foes are adept at speed and stealth it seems, and partnered with our sightlessness they are even greater threats. I also fear, sir berry, that we do not know what this [Flesh Cursed] mutation seems to be, or what it would do should they be able to pass it on to one of our group!”

“Mutagen?” I asked, shifting my gaze to capture more of the shapes in the mist. “It isn’t just some kind of debuff?”

Fogwarth shook his head. “They are rare, but they exist. Unlike a debuff, they fundamentally alter your very existence and are utterly impossible to remove, save for some of the more powerful cleric abilities.” Fogwarth let out a rolling belly laugh. “Oh, I dare say there have been countless amounts of systematic culling and large scale genocide just to wipe out mutagens from a population! Can you imagine it? Hundreds, thousands, even hundreds of thousands, vanquished in the name of exterminating a mutagen! How terrible.”

“Why… why did you laugh at that?” I asked.

Fogwarth shrugged. “I laugh when I am uncomfortable, sir berry. Or nervous, or anxious, or excited. Why, I believe I seem to laugh at most things now that I ponder it. Hmm. Perhaps that is why I am Fogwarth, The Jovial Knob in some parts of the kingdom?”

“The Jovial Knob? What the f-” I said, but was interrupted by my body being flung in a downward diagonal strike.

I didn’t get to see the creature, but I felt the unsatisfying crunch of something reverberate through my carapace. There was a disgusting, disorienting slurping sound as Fogwarth pulled me back, and I could feel the resistance of something gooey tethering me to whatever we had hit. Before I could even ask, two un-imbued arrows struck the wet mass right below me and I was ripped downward for a final strike. The twitching of something in its death throes seemed to shake through my entire berry body.

[Your party has slain a Farmyard Roach - Alpha; Flesh Cursed - Level 10. You are awarded 126 experience points]

[You have gained a level. You are now Level 4. You are 931 experience points from Level 5]

[You have 1 unspent ability point. Please choose an ability from the Angiomancer skill tree. Ability points that are not applied within 24 hours are randomly assigned to an available choice]

“Roach?!” I screamed, feeling the oozing entrails of the bug sloughing off of my steel shell. “Ugh, gross. Gross!”

I shuttered, not even enjoying my notifications due to the yuck factor of gigantic roach guts covering my armor. I know this dream world seemed to have bug people and all of that, so yes it was dumb for me to still not like creepy crawly things, but roaches were nearly as high on my list as spiders when it came to things I really didn’t like. Some part of me knew at some point I’d meet a genuine spider person, not something like Foghurdt who just had arachnoid properties, but I had hoped it would help ease my fear a bit. Being attacked by bugs larger than I was? That was just some Starship Troopers garbage I did not want to deal with just yet.

The ability point was what really had tugged me back to reality; or at least whatever reality this dreamscape was. Yes. Finally, another damn ability point! Having a second ability would help fulfill my requirements for my number one pick, the [Berry Rootling] path. For once I was grateful for the large experience gap necessary to hit level 5, since it meant we might be able to get to the orchard and the [Life Stem] thing to gain that path. I was tempted to bring up my options right then and there, but with things still moving in the shadows and with me even testing the other ability I had it seemed like I would make the wrong call.

Alright. That’s the play then. I’ll use my [Entangling Rose-Hip] before I even look at the options, this way I can better see how all of this works first.

Dual arrows fired out, this time with their fire and ice powers attached, and they slapped into something just as it pushed through the fog. It was another of the [Dire Wolf] things, mushrooms growing out of every visible orifice, and it lunged at Ak-Lok, taking the fire Golem down as it fought back the creature’s jaws with its great bow. Teeth clamped on the lower limb of the massive bow and the wolf tried to rip it from the Golem.

At the same moment, Ix-Lok went to fire another at the attacking wolf only to find itself with a dashing, slobbering wolf of its own that was circling it at a near blinding pace. This time my heart almost skipped a beat, seeing that it was only a cub this time. The poor small creature had also been overtaken by the mushrooms and had the same decaying look to its flesh. I had no doubt that the little creature would be easier to take down, yet it had a blinding speed that made it nearly impossible to strike with a projectile weapon.

“Foggy! Ak-Lok is down!” I called out. “The other Golem is busy with its own problems. We have to get over there!”

“As are we, sir berry,” he answered, sweeping me around like a windmill and bringing me up under the jaw of yet another large wolf.

“Shit…” I said, looking around and trying to piece together a plan. Ak-Lok seemed to be holding the giant wolf off for the moment, but I could see the beast was beginning to do serious damage to the structure of the bow itself. Ix-Lok had fired an arrow and missed, then sprayed a cone of frost from its palm that was easily dodge as the cub sprinted between its legs and nipped at the golem’s back. Fogwarth swept me around for another hit but only managed to smack into the beast's shoulder, doing some damage but not the skull fracturing hit we needed for a full death blow. “Fuck… okay. Okay, Barry. Okay! It’s time to be fucking useful.”

I focused on the cub, blueberry heart pounding in my chest, and I thought of the ability I wanted to use. It took a second as my concentration floundered each time Fogwarth brought me around for another hit, but eventually the ability procked in my vision and a small blue glowing circle appeared on the ground, moving as my vision did. I watched for another few seconds, careful not to lose my focus as Fogwarth struck out at the wolf in front of him, and after seeing the cub’s pattern I settled on a place to cast the skill.

The cub came around, paws only moments from hitting the patch I had chosen. As if anticipating the thing’s movements, interlacing weaves of thorny stems sprouted from the ground, wrapping the beast’s legs and growing around its torso. Vibrant green leafs sprouted, red rose-hip fruits blooming to life and flowering with pink-hued petals that were so bright they nearly cut through the chaos of the fog. They continued to grow as the beast struggled until it was fully filling the casting circle, growing to be taller than the wolf itself was. I could still see the small cub inside, writhing and fighting to break free of the thorns that dug into its skin. As I stared I noticed that I could see little ghostly numbers floating out of the creature each second, showing little -2s and -1s as they dissipated into nothing again a moment later.

Before I could stare too long, an arrow larger than the cub itself flew forth and pierced the creature's skull, pinning it to the ground. The flowering thorn bush began to dissolve before I even got the notification.

[Your party has slain a Dire Wolf - Cub; Flesh Cursed - Level 4. You are awarded 36 experience points]