The water of the small pond faintly rippled, recovering from Zalto's blunderful fall into it and his frantic scurry to crawl out of it. Dragging his feet against the ground with heavy stomps, Zalto flopped onto a nearby rock, his darkened clothing making wet slaps as they stuck his back.

"What a miscalculation," Zalto grumbled disheartedly as he felt his clothes tightly cling to his body. He raised a hand in front of his face, watching the liquid coating it dangle from it but never dripping off, and tightly clasped his hand as he swayed his head.

"I suppose I'll be tripping for a while... until I get my footing," Zalto uttered before he slapped his forehead for daring to make a pun. Gruelling and dreading how long it would take, Zalto mulled over how he'd dry his clothes and clambered to a sitting position on the rock. With a momentary pause, Zalto noticed something peculiar and pulled on his tunic before letting go of it as he felt how dry it was.

"How odd-eah!". Zalto froze in a shiver as he felt a freezing gel crawl up his back, giving no care for Zalto's discomfort. The small bulge in his tunic squished and bounced as it slivered around before a noodle-shaped slime poked out from the back of its collar. The slime fully slivered out, coiling around Zalto as it scaled down him and slipped back into the pond.

Zalto watched the slime slowly dissolve into the pond, its core sinking deeper. He cupped his chin, humming mildly, as he pondered something. He moved slightly towards the pond, staying two arms' length away, and focused his gaze on the pond. With a mild struggle, Zalto managed to locate the hundreds of slime cores at the bottom of the lake which served as the source for the pond's glistening appearance.

"Seems this world has similar monsters, although with some differences," Zalto mentioned as he carefully rose to his feet. He closed his eyes, musing over his next plan of action before his train of thought was cut short by a white dot flashing inside his mind. The abrupt flash startled him, making him snap his eyes open. He staggered backwards from the energy before tripping over the rock, crashing head-first into the ground.

"Urrg...," Zalto groaned from a mix of pain and embarrassment as he stared at the leafy forest roof. His vision slowly meandered from the roof as he spotted the ten pure-white golf ball-sized energy spheres fluttering above him. Slightly captivated by the radiance of the energy, Zalto reached out to touch the energy spheres, intending to catch one, but they waved around his attempt to touch them before all of them flew into his palm, phasing into it. He repeatedly opened and closed his hand, even waving it around attempting to get the energy spheres out, and sighed as the spheres didn't return.

"Hope that wasn't some sort of parasite monster," Zalto muttered as he closed his eyes again, amusedly huffing as he saw the ten energy spheres slowly drifting across the dark backdrop of his blacked view.

"So that's where you are.". As he made his remark, the energy spheres gathered around the the right side of his vision and formed into an arrow pointing in the same direction, "Right huh?". Zalto reopened his eyes glancing to his right while pondering what the spheres were getting at.

However, it wasn't long before a blood-curdling scream answered Zalto's prior question. He lethargically rolled onto his front and pushed himself to his feet as the screaming ceased. Gazing in the direction the screaming emanated from, Zalto silently marched off, figuring the cause of the screaming would have left by the time he got there.

After a short walk, Zaltoh arrived at a small clearing in the forest and rested a hand on a tree. Scanning the clearing before him with eyes like a hawk, Zalto spotted a slumped-over individual, battered and bloodied as she sat defeated by a tree on the other side of the clearing. He took a glance before trotting over to her, momentarily tripping over his own feet but caught himself mid-fall. The orange short-haired woman, dressed in blood-soaked adventurer equipment, held her head low and stared at her ravaged arm through her blurred vision.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Why... I have to... sign up for this quest... with such cowards?" the wounded adventurer mumbled, her voice hoarse and ragged. A twig snapped nearby, making the adventure flinch in fear but the fear subsided as Zalto's blurry feet entered her view. The woman mustered the little strength she had left to raise her head to meet Zalto's eyes, and she sighed in relief that it was a person, even if she couldn't see him properly.

"Do you need help?" Zalto asked. The adventurer's heart sunk, believing Zalto to be an actual child, but her critical condition and circumstances forced her to ask Zalto for help nonetheless.

"My... pendent got knocked... somewhere in the grass. Hey where... are you going?" the adventurer asked as Zalto strolled back to where he had priorly stumbled and rustled a hand through the dark green grass. After a short wait for the woman, Zalto returned carrying a snapped green necklace connected to an opaque green crystalline square locket with a triangle etched into it.

"Do you mean this green one?" Zalto asked while holding out the necklace to the adventure. As she tried to reach out for the pendant but could barely lift her arm off the ground, Zalro crouched down and placed the pendant in her hand before gently folding her fingers around the pendant.

"Than-ks," the adventurer. She flexed her hand, clenching the pendant with the last of her strength as three energy spheres, matching the ones Zalto had seen before, flew out from the pendant. The spheres spun through the air, moving in perfect sync like performative dancers, and Zalto watched as the spheres stretched out. As they connected, the spheres locked together and morphed into a perfect equilateral triangle, shortly followed by a thinner energy circle forming around it.

Focusing solely on it, Zalto silently observed the energy construct as its ring turned lime green and sprinkled particles, matching its colouration, upon the adventurer. She writhed slightly under the influence of the particles as they seeped into her skin, closing all the gashes covering her body and restoring her pulverised ribs. Her ribs squirmed under her flesh moving back into place and buffing out her chest from its concave state, like a crushed bottle being filled to the brim with air.

The adventurer pressed a hand against her chest and winced from the mild piercing sensation which shot through her as she spat up some blood. Slumping back against the tree behind her, the woman exhaled in pure relief, giving her thanks to everything she could name especially Zalto, and rested her vision on Zalto.

"Thank you so much..., kid," the adventurer said with glee, bowing her head to Zalto while a pang of mild guilt clawed at her conscience for asking a kid for help in such a dangerous situation. However, as her vision returned, the adventurer hitched on her words, utter bewilderment lasing her face, and had to do a double take on Zalto's appearance.

"Something the matter?" Zalto asked coldly, although with no malice in his voice. Still a little star-struck, the adventurer shook her head as she rested her arms against the tree and pushed against it to raise herself off the ground.

"No-no, just surprised to see a kid in Harmony Grove is all," the adventurer remarked, causing Zalto to tilt his head.

"Is that so?" Zalto asked. The adventurer stared at Zalto like a deer in headlights before deflatedly sighing and hanging her head low.

"Well, yeah; given this is one of the eleven Starfall Sites," the adventurer explained, noticing Zalto's unfazed stare and making her sigh. She rubbed her face before patting her face as she steeled her focus.

"Zalto," Zalto said. Zalto's out-of-the-blue introduction caught the adventurer off guard, throwing the small amount of focus she had left through a loop and sturred it into defeated resignation.

"I'm Topaz," Topaz uttered as she rustled her scruffed-up hair in frustration.

(Topaz is an almost twenty-year-old, slightly below average-height human female: she has curly orange hair, extremely faded yellow eyes, and tanned skin)

"That aside, we should really get out of here before the Ravenger ap-". A deafening bang ravaged through the forest, cutting off Topaz; the colour drained from her face as her blood ran cold. Zalto turned in the direction of the noise but was swiftly snatched off the ground by Topaz as she booked it in the opposite direction.

"Nope-nope-nope, not risking another run-in," Topaz blurted out in a whisper as she ran with Zalto under her arm like a pillow. The sounds of trees snapping and being crushed bellowed through the forest, filling Topaz with terror while Zalto stared at his out reached hand before bringing it to his face after nothing appeared to happen.