Several hours after finding Chyrie, the sun began to set. The road ahead showed no promise of being any shorter, as the Yang's Oak in the distance had barely moved from the view of the group. The road behind, while currently looking normal, held a impending doom as the inevitable pretrifaction creeped behind them.

"Kreme." Mac said, suddenly breaking the silence. Kreme awoke from his trance from walking for so long without any sort of interaction.

"What?"

"Its looking like we might need to set up camp."

"I hear ya. Either that tree is moving away from us--" Kreme paused for a moment to think of a joke. "--or it's bigger than your mom."

"Got 'em." Cole chuckled. Kreme smacked Cole's back and laughed out loud with him. Mac, having ignored Kreme's wise-crack, looked for a place nearby to set up camp. All around the road were trees, but to the east of the road the trees grew dense. Mac explored into a clearing just off the path, and kicked aside some fallen leaves and dirt. Kreme, Cole, and Chyrie, followed.

"I'd say here is as good as any." Mac said, offloading the harvester's bag onto the ground and stretching. "We should sleep in cycles. One of us should stay up and keep watch."

"Why? I haven't seen any kind of possible enemy this whole way, not including the guy we started with who strangely died from the worlds worst fall damage." Kreme replied.

"If the petrifaction is eating everything up, there's a good chance everything has left. We just need to stay ahead of it."

"What's petrifaction?" Chyrie asked.

"Its the grey stuff that killed-- I mean --that ate your house." Mac caught himself, trying not to remind Chyrie of her parents death. Kreme gave Mac a blank look and clapped silently to him.

"Well, we can't have a camp without a fire." Mac remarked, picking up several dry leaves from the ground and putting them into a pile. He then grabbed two sticks and started to furiously rub them together.

"While he works on that--" Kreme started, looking at Cole and Chyrie. "--Lets have some of--" Kreme rummaged around the harvester bag and pulled out a large jar with several pieces of what looked like meat trimmings in a dark green liquid. "--Whatever this is." He said, opening the jar with a loud pop!

Kreme took a piece of the meat out and wiggled it in the air, dribbling brine on the ground.

"Any takers?" He said, alluding that he didn't want to try it first. Kreme pointed the meat strip at Chyrie, noticing that she was blankly staring at Mac trying to start a fire. Without a word, Chyrie walked over the Mac and stopped him. Mac gave her a confused expression as he watched her pile more leaves onto the ground, and then laid the sticks on top of them. Then, with a smooth motion and a balled up fist, appeared to punch towards the pile. Suddenly, from her hand, a weak jet of fire shot from her knuckles and quickly ignited the pile of dried foliage.

The trio stared at Chyrie with mouths' agape.

"You're a fire bender!?" Kreme exclaimed.

"I don't think they're called fire benders in this universe." Mac remarked, to which Kreme shrugged.

"Chyrie do you know any other magic?" Mac asked, adding more leaves to the campfire Chyrie had started. Chyrie nodded, then sat down in the dirt near the fire with her arms wrapped around herself. Mac, seeing that Chyrie was still understandably depressed, walked around the fire and sat next to her but still left a little space between them.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked, alluding to her sunken expression from her parents dying so recently. Chyrie briefly looked at Mac, and then at the fire. "I may not be going through what you're going through, but I have gone through something similar." Mac eyed Kreme, who was inching his mouth timidly towards the pickled meat while Cole daringly watched. Chyrie looked at Mac briefly, and sniffed as she started to softly cry again. Mac wrapped his arms around Chyrie in an attempt to comfort her, but were both startled by Kreme suddenly exclaiming,

"EUGH, IT TASTES LIKE FOOT FUNGUS!" Kreme spat the meat out and tried to not dry-heave.

"How would you know what foot fungus tastes like?" Cole asked bluntly.

"Cole, buddy, hun, the special light of my world who gives me a sunburn. I will tell you when you're older." Kreme laughed, searching the harvester bag for something more edible. "I really hope all these jars aren't rotten." he said as he pulled out another jar, this one full of vegetables and yellow liquid, and handed it to Cole.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Your turn."

Cole's face twisted with disgust.

Mac leaned forward to look at Chyrie's face, who was slightly looking at Kreme and Cole. She had stopped crying, but her face was still damp with tears.

"You guys are really weird slaves."

Mac rolled his eyes.

"Again with calling us slaves." He said jokingly. "Well, mistress Chyrie, if you must know; we are premium slaves." Mac said with an English accent. "At your service, m'lady."

Chyrie chuckled.

"There we go." Mac said, patting her head. "Don't worry, everything's going to be just--" Mac was cut off my Kreme exclaiming as Cole proceeded to eat what appeared to be a small pickled onion.

"And he's eating it! Is it bad? Does it taste like my foot fungus!?" Kreme badgered, not giving him any time to say anything in response. He turned to Mac and pointed at him. "Does it taste like his foot fungus!?"

Cole chewed and shook his head. His disgusted expression disappeared from his face.

"This is something my mom would make." Cole remarked. Kreme calmed down to Cole's response. Thinking that it would be okay, he plucked a pickled onion from the jar and popped it in his mouth. His face twisted with betrayal.

"I guess its not as bad as that." He said, swallowing and shivering briefly. "Cole why do you always eat weird stuff?"

"Guys." Mac suddenly exclaimed, standing up from his spot. "Something's wrong with Chyrie." He said in alarm, waving his hand in front of her face, but she remained motionless. Chyrie hadn't moved from her spot, in fact she wasn't moving at all. Her body and clothes had lost all their color. Kreme turned to Mac, but then noticed that the entire world, except for them, had become black and white.

"Wait, when did the petrifaction creep up on us!?" Kreme exclaimed as he tried to keep both his feet off the ground.

"Ah, don't mind me." The Reaper suddenly said as he appeared sitting at the fire. In his hand was a long stick with a few marshmallows on it that he held over the, now frozen in time, fire.

The trio stared at the Reaper, who met their stares with a happy wave.

"Don't worry, the petrifaction isn't here. I just paused the game. How did you like the tutorial?" The Reaper asked, taking a marshmallow from his stick, not cooked at all, and eating it nonchalantly. Kreme calmed down and stepped closer to the fire next to Mac, with Cole timidly following behind him.

"Can I have one?" Kreme asked, eyeing the marshmallows.

"I just wanted to check up on you guys, and see if any of you decided to die." The Reaper replied, tossing another marshmallow into his mouth, doing so while looking at Kreme mockingly. "Now that you're out of the tutorial, I felt I should explain one thing to you."

The Reaper grabbed another marshmallow off the stick and held it between his fingers. He then cleared his throat loudly.

"While I was able to write in all the mechanics of this world into the story, there was one thing I had a bit of difficulty with. So I'm just going to break character and tell you what it is."

Mac scoffed.

"Wow. A writer who, instead of writing into the story, just out and tells the reader what it is. That's really immersive."

The Reaper gave Mac a deathly glare, made all the more unsettling with his uncanny grin, and hit him with the stick he was holding. Mac yelped.

"Anyways. I wanted to inform you guys on how dying works in this universe. You may have noticed that each of you have a health bar and two other bars underneath it. Like all video games you have played: if your HP reaches zero, you are out of commission. However, in the essence of being a bit fair, and because I'm such a nice guy, I've made it so that if you would take lethal damage, your HP will go to 1 instead and you will be unable to do anything until someone else revives you. If all of you are unable to do anything, well, you know what happens next." The Reaper slid a finger across his neck.

"This sounds a lot like Pub Grounds in the real world." Kreme remarked. The Reaper pointed at Kreme happily, then flicked his last marshmallow at him, which Kreme caught and scarfed down.

"I actually got the idea from that game. If one of you decides to get your HP vibe checked by something, except the petrifaction, you will be able to revive one another by just clapping your hands and praying for several seconds." The Reaper tossed his stick into the campfire and stood up.

"And with that, I should be going. Got a couple of parents I need to reap. I'll be checking up on you guys every now and then. Have fun~!"

Suddenly all color returned to the world and the Reaper vanished. An eerie silence fell over the camp as the campfire crackled.

"So, who's hungry?" Mac asked awkwardly as he picked up the jar of vegetables and popped a pickled onion into his mouth. His eyes watered slightly.

"Now what?" Kreme asked with a serious tone. Mac swallowed and cleared his throat.

"You guys get some sleep. I'll stay up a few more hours to make sure nothing happens. We'll take turns keeping watch. After that, we'll continue heading to the Yang's Tree, and hope we find something."

"I kind of wish we had something other than this." Kreme muttered, plucking several cabbage leaves from the jar and eating them, then starting passing the jar around for everyone to eat.

Mac pulled up a short log and then stretched.

"Good night guys." Mac said as he sat on the stump and kept watch. Kreme set the jar off to the side, now empty except for the brine, and made himself comfortable in the cold dirt.

"Cole, this is going to sound super weird--"

"I know." Cole replied, lying down right next to Kreme, who wrapped his arms around Cole's waist.

"Its just so cold and--"

"Shut up before you make this weird."

"I wish I had a camera." Mac sneered, but changed his expression when he noticed Chyrie standing near him, apparently not wanting to sleep. She gave him an uncomfortable expression. Mac paused for a moment,

"You want to stay up with me?" Mac asked. Chyrie nodded. Mac pulled up another nearby log and patted it. Chyrie sat down and leaned forward with her head resting in her hands. Mac readjusted himself on his log, then looked at Chyrie.

"Since we're going to be up for a while, can you teach me some of your fire magic?" He asked. Chyrie leaned back to look at him, her arms properly sitting in her lap.

"I'm not good at it."

"That's okay. I won't be good at it either."