Mel got up slowly and walked around the edge of the fire. Heath looked at her worriedly and then went into a seizure. Mel eased him down and made sure he didn’t hurt himself or her.

By the time his moans of pain were replaced with snoring, Mel judged him safe enough to leave to his own devices. She sat by the fire and sipped from her flask of water left to cool on the ice nearby.

Disturbingly, Mel had noticed that despite the heat of the campfire, there was no water anywhere. The ice wasn’t melting.

A nimbus of Coppery light suffused Heath’s form, hiding it for a moment.

He took much less time to advance than her. Either that, or Mel had been out cold for longer because of hypothermia.

Heath came around slowly, clearly disoriented. “Mom?” Heath asked.

“Not on your life,” Mel shot back. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“Oh great, I’m still in the multiverse. I guess that’s better than the midwest.”

“You from Ohio?” Mel asked. “You got those Ohio eyes.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Heath asked, sitting up slowly, his brows drawn down angrily.

“Yeah, you’re from Ohio all right,” Mel confirmed. “Also, might want to watch where you put your hand.” She nodded toward the muck.

Heath yelped and scooted away from the pile. “Did I shit myself?!”

“Oh, honey,” Mel said, sympathetic as a southern grandma to her least favorite grandchild. “Much worse.”

“How is that stuff worse? What is that ?”

Mel leaned and looked at the pile of goo. To Mel’s horror, she found a small pile of colorful, waxy material near Heath. It was stuck to all the dark gunk.

“Is…it wax?” Heath asked, bewildered. “No way it is.”

Mel looked at it, then at him. “Looks like microplastics.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Not really,” Mel said calmly, leaning back. “You see, advancing to the next rank rids your body of its many toxins. You’re becoming a superior version of yourself. Already I can hardly tell you’re from Ohio. Each rank, you’ll get stronger and more like the optimal version of yourself.”

“And that includes no microplastics?” Heath asked, staring at the pile. “This is such a weird conversation.”

“You got it. No microplastics, no lead, asbestos, feirn, koshic, or any other toxins. You’ll purge a few more times, each time purging a higher order of toxin. For now, it’s just basic Mundane stuff. Things that linger in your blood, guts, and cells.”

“I get that I keep asking you questions, but…how do you know all this stuff already? You should be new to this. Just like me.” He stared at her. “Right?”

Mel yawned and stretched her arms toward the ceiling. “Do you think I’m just like you?”

He looked away. “...no.”

“Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?” Mel said with a forced smile.

“Fine. Ugh, it reeks.”

“Toxins,” Mel reminded him. “Everybody’s shit stinks.”

He scooted closer to her side of the fire with Mel watching him cautiously. She didn’t think he was much of a threat to her, but she wasn’t going to underestimate him. It would be easy to, and that alone made her more alert. He was a scrawny little dude without even a shadow of a beard.

She had seen some of his aspect powers, and suspected that Heath was the darkness wielder that took out those Defenders.

At the same time, she understood that they both would have a much easier time getting out together than alone. Besides, he could have let her die and robbed her corpse.

That had to count for something.

“It’ll go away on its own,” Mel said. “In the meantime, you should eat. And while you do, you can show me how you make a mana potion.”

Heath looked at the goo and the tiny pile of plastic bits. “I don’t know about that. If that’s really plastic, it’ll probably be here for a thousand years or something.” He cleared his throat. “But, yes, the potion recipe.”

It turned out to be fairly simple, just resource intensive. Multiple bunches of the same type of herba went into the campfire’s pot and steeped in the boiling water. Whole fistfuls of the stuff, which seemed like way more than necessary. It reminded Mel of when she added garlic or cheese when she was cooking. She just threw in a bunch because, hey, there isn’t a wrong amount of cheese or garlic.

Apparently, what the instant campfire came with was considered purified water, which was hard to come by according to Heath.

The more complicated part was the stirring. The direction, speed, mana injection, and duration all mattered. And it changed depending on the type of potion being made.

All of this wasn’t too complex for Mel, whereas Heath seemed pretty proud of his discovery.

No reason to burst his bubble.

There was a crucial element missing. The herba wasn’t refined in any way before going into the pot. Usually, that was what a knife or a mortar and pestle would be for. Simple stuff like that.

“I’m guessing if the herba was processed before going in, we’d end up with a higher rarity potion,” Mel pointed out. “Or just more potions.”

Heath stared at her, and then the pot. “Well, shit. I really should have thought of that. I thought adding my mana to the stirring was genius, but I forgot something so basic!”

“Don’t beat yourself up. Not like I’ve tried this yet,” she admitted, then peered closer at the pot. “You gotta be kidding me…”

[Mana Potion Pot]

(Copper Rank, Item)

(Common)

An iron pot filled with four servings of azure-blue liquid suffused with mana.

Imprint: Drink to recover a small amount of mana over time.

Uses: (4/4)

Mel couldn’t help but chuckle. It even had multiple uses.

“You just went around making big ass pots full of potion juice?” Mel asked, struggling not to burst out laughing.

“Maybe,” Heath said defensively. “It’s still better than nothing!”

“Indeed it is,” Mel said, taking out a [Managlass Bottle] and downing the dregs of fresh water still left. She dunked the now-emptied bottle into the pot. The water was hot enough that it would have scalded an ordinary person’s hand, but Mel was Copper now and it merely tingled.

She popped the cork on and studied the contents.

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[Small Mana Potion]

(Copper Rank, Item)

(Common)

A stoppered bottle filled with an azure-blue liquid suffused with mana.

Imprint: Drink to recover a small amount of mana over time.

After she was satisfied that it seemed no different than a normal potion, Mel stowed the [Small Mana Potion] in her inventory. “Useful, thanks.”

Heath was staring at her hand. “There’s not a mark on it.”

“Yeah? Oh. Right. You’re basically superhuman now. Not quite Superman level, more like Krillin. Things that would’ve hurt before should hardly scratch you now. Take up rose gardening. Pull hot pans out of the oven without a mitt! The sky is the limit.”

Heath looked at his hand as if it were alien. “It looks the same.”

“For better or worse,” Mel agreed.

“Do you mind if I have the rest? I would like to get out of here sooner rather than later. A lot of my powers work best at night.”

“Go for it.”

Heath used the wooden spoon to scoop the contents out one spoonful at a time. He looked like he was tasting a very odd soup instead of drinking a magical brew.

In the end, it made no difference. He stood up, flexing his arms with renewed strength. “Much better.” He looked at the campfire. “Do we need to–”

“It’s magical,” Mel said. “Or else we’d have probably died of smoke inhalation or something. Leave it. The magic will wear itself out before long. If it doesn’t, then some other poor sap that gets teleported here might be able to survive. I’m fine with that.”

Heath hitched his cloak over his shoulders. He gave her a dark look. “If you’ve met some of the people I have, you wouldn’t.”

Mel simply shrugged. She knew better than he could imagine.

“The way out is over here,” Heath told her. “It’s the only way I haven’t gone yet.”

Mel jerked her chin toward the other two tunnels. “And those?”

Heath shivered. “A maze filled with frost scorpions that just ends up right back here. Damn thing is a loop.”

“Shame,” Mel said. Only a few feet from the fire, she was already feeling the effects of the cold. With Heath here, she didn’t dare summon her [Sanguine Coat]. The cost was too great and would leave her weakened if she had to use her own blood. Even if he wouldn’t take advantage of that, she would be a poor partner to do that to him.

I should be more resilient to the cold now, Mel rationalized. I can wait.

Her [Sanguine Coat] wouldn’t add a great deal of warmth, but it would be better than nothing. Her [Heathen Cuirass] was built for battle, not surviving in the cold tundra.

She did use her [Gaze of the Serpent], however. It was the only thing that let her see in the darkness. Mel noticed immediately that Heath must be using a vision skill of his own.

His eyes were so hot they were nearly white. I wonder how much mana that eats up, she thought to herself.

While they walked up the gently sloping tunnel of ice, Mel kept up a relatively inane string of comments to keep Heath guessing. It wasn’t just that she liked messing with him. Though it was fun, she had to admit.

Her main reason was how much easier people accepted you if you let your freak flag fly a little. Too much and you scared people off. Too little and they knew you were hiding something. Do just enough to stop them from asking probing questions, and they’ll think you’re an open book.

It’s a lot easier to trust somebody who is a weirdo than a mysterious stranger who stays cool and stoic. The weirdo probably has some very intense opinions on serif versus sans serif fonts, but it’s not like they’re secretly a serial killer looking to skin you and wear your face like a mask.

In turn, Heath opened up about himself. He was from Ohio. He had been traveling across the country on his way to California for his freshman year of college when the apocalypse happened.

“It was just me and the people on the plane,” Heath said. “The flight attendants and cockpit crew immediately ditched us. First Class tried to control the people in coach as if they were literal nobles…and then the monsters started showing up.”

“Lots of death and running for your lives?” Mel guessed.

“Yeah, you too?”

“No, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard this story. Anyway, sorry for interrupting. You were saying?”

They passed a split in the tunnel. Mel was about to investigate one side when he put out a hand and shook his head. “That scratching noise is what the scorpions sounded like.”

“Which means we’re going to have to go down there,” Mel reasoned. “But sure, let’s check up ahead first.”

“I was running with a nice lady who sat next to me,” Heath continued. “She was coming out to see her kids. They hadn’t spoken in years and she wanted to make amends.”

“She told you all that?”

“Ohioans are very friendly!”

“Sure, sure.”

“Anyway,” Heath said. “We stumbled across a chest in a cave we were sheltering in. I managed to pry open the lock with my knife and inside was an aspect gem. I made the mistake of putting down my knife to pick it up, and she stabbed me .”

Mel laughed.

“Why are you laughing?!”

“It sounds like she didn’t really change much,” Mel said. “I’m guessing she wanted the gem you had?”

“Yes! She stole it right from my hands, after she stabbed me .”

“You’re really hung up on the whole stabbing thing, aren’t you?”

“Yes!”

Mel pursed her lips. “But did you die?”

“...obviously not.”

“Then what happened?”

Heath shrugged. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

“She left with the gem and everything I had on me except my clothes. It was friggin’ Mercy aspect too, which is stupidly ironic. I was bleeding out when a small walking shrub came up to me. He healed me, dropped a handful of berries for me to eat, then disappeared into the woods.”

“Okay, I’ll admit, that sounds a little like you hallucinated it. Did he speak to you at all?”

Heath looked away.

“Did he?” Mel pressed.

“Yes.”

“What’d he say?”

“A lot of things. He said something like ‘By leaf and branch, mister, are you all right?’ and then I must’ve passed out. When I asked who he was, he said…”

“Nobody likes these pregnant pauses, Heath,” Mel said.

“He said his name was Shrubley.”

“Shrubley,” Mel said dryly.

“Yes! I know how it sounds, alright? A talking shrub named Shrubley, but I’m not making this up.”

“Might want to keep that story to yourself,” Mel said, agreeing with the implausibility of it. More than likely, he hallucinated the whole thing and somehow managed to survive a stab wound.

Heath stopped walking and turned to her. “You don’t believe me.”

Mel thought about it. “I believe that you believe it happened.”

“That’s somehow worse!”

Mel brushed past him, pointing. “Look, a convenient segue out of this conversation!” She turned and presented the dead end in all its glory. It looked like a toothy maw of stalactites and stalagmites so tightly packed that she couldn’t even slide a dollar bill between them.

“You can’t just say segue and make it an actual segue, Mel!” His gaze slid to the dead end. “...Great.”

“Oh look, I just did.”

Heath hung his head.