— CHAPTER TWENTY —

In the Depths of the Sky, Part 2

  -Fritz-

 The thing gurgled, seeping dark ichor that dribbled into the rocks. Its eyes drifted lazily in our direction, unable to focus on us. As disgusting as it was, it almost looked... sick. Like it was barely clinging to life. Must've been stranded outside it's normal habitat.

 Percy drew his sword. "What we need to do is excise it."

 He stepped forward, but Brynn darted in front of him, hands outstretched.

 "Wait!" She looked back at the monstrosity. "We need to study it first! If we can figure out what it's doing and how, maybe we can reverse the process? Or protect the land from further harm?"

 Percy hesitated, then lowered his sword with a sigh. "Alright. But we can't leave it here. Learn what you can right now, then we destroy it."

 Brynn nodded and approached the mass cautiously, wisps of mana trailing from her fingertips.

 Lowe made to follow her. "Careful!" he called. "Who knows what that thing can-"

 His words cut off as his foot slipped on the slick stone. Arms pinwheeling, he started to fall. I lunged and caught him, hauling him upright.

 "Easy there." I said, steadying him. "Let's maybe watch - ... what is-?" Movement near our feet caught my eye. Under the boulder Lowe had stumbled on, a glob of shadow was oozing up from the ground. It burbled and writhed, pustules forming and popping on its surface as it clawed and scrabbled toward the surface. It globed together into a heap, like it was alive.

 That's as far as it got before Percy walked over and stamped on it. The goo squelched under his boot as he ground it into the rock. Once. Twice. Until it stopped moving.

 Meanwhile, Brynn stood before the main body, hands outstretched. Glowing strands of mana curled out of the mist and gathered around her hands as she probed at it. After a long moment, she said, "It's a parasite. Feeding off the ambient mana of the forest. Maybe it... sensed the overdensity and was washed ashore by a storm when it came into the shallows."

 Percy said. "That's another reason to never go in the ocean."

 "It appears that it... 'spits out' this substance to capture mana, then swallows it back in to absorb what’s been gathered."

 I looked at the dead blob seeping back into the cracks between the rocks. "So all of this... gunk is its saliva?"

 "No, I don't think so." Brynn shook her head. "It... feels like it's alive. Like a... colonial organism sending out 'workers' to harvest its food."

 Another plume of goo bubbled out of the ground near us. Percy immediately crushed it under his heel. Checking his shoes, he said, "It's eating through my soles."

 "Guess it has a taste for fashion." I said.

 He ignored me, going into his inventory and changing out to another set of boots.

 The audience didn't seem to like that joke, so I brushed past it. "So what do we do?" I asked. "Cut off the head and let the rest die off?"

 "Who knows?" Brynn shrugged. "Maybe that will work, or maybe the remainder can make a new nerve center."

 She crossed her arms and studied the mass, watching as Percy picked up a rock and chased after a little blob that scooted across the beach away from him. "Percival, could you hold off for a second?" She called out. "Let's... let's see what it does."

 We all gathered around, watching the little glob hide in a corner and root itself into the ground. It jiggled and pulsed, glowing slightly as it pulled more of the substance up from the ground. Slowly, it grew, eventually sprouting out a pair of tentacles large enough to pull it along the ground. As soon as it tried to move, Percy's rock came down. Goo splattered across stone.

 Brynn crouched, poking at the remains with a skinny stone. "The remnants don't seem to be... active. Or alive."

 "So it is possible to 'kill'." Percy tossed the rock aside, dusting off his hands.

 "I hope so." Her brow furrowed. "Actually... that gives me an idea! It appears these little organisms are capable of harvesting the substance - probably to bring it back to the 'hive'. So if we could... trick one, it could be used to suck the corruption out!"

 "Like a cancer cell." Percy said. "Break it to force unsustainable, rapid 'eating' of the mana-absorbing material. Choke out and kill the 'healthy' ones."

 "Is that something we can do?" Lowe asked.

 Brynn said, "I don't know - we would need some way of making it want to eat."

 I grimaced. Sacrifices must be made for the common good. "I know one way to give someone the munchies." I got the dreamleaf out of my inventory and offered the leaves to Brynn. "Can you do anything with these?"

 She took the leaves, considering. "Dreamleaf... maybe... Yes, I think this might work!"

 Brynn hurried over to a flat slab of rock, dropping to her knees and swinging her pack off her shoulders. She rummaged through it, pulling out glassware, a crystal-powered Bunsen burner, and the bundle of Peekin's cave lichen.

 "If this thing's biology works like any known organism's," she said, "the lichen's regenerative properties should kick growth into overdrive. And the dreamleaf will stimulate appetite. Together, with the being's amorphous structure, it should be able to 'regenerate' to whatever size the food it can reach will allow it."

 "Then we destroy it." Percy said.

 "Yes!" Brynn mixed the potion with a cold fury. She wanted this thing to die. Maybe even suffer.

 "Brynn, you're a genius!" Lowe exclaimed.

 "Don't say that until it actually works."

 Percy said, "I'll capture a... 'larva' to inject."

 While Brynn continued to mix the potion, Percy found another puddle trying to bubble out of the rocks, then pounced on it, bundling it into his robe. He came running over to Brynn as it burned and dripped through the thin fabric. "Bottle - bottle!"

 I picked up an empty beaker, and Percy held his robe over it as the thing fully ate through the cloth and fell into the glassware. It immediately started melting through the glass as well, so I grabbed a larger beaker and double-layered it.

 Percy used a fire spell to burn up the residue left around the hole in his robe. "I need a thicker coat."

 "This container isn't going to last long!" I warned, watching the blob slowly sink lower.

 Brynn stood up, the new potion in a large syringe in her hand. Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she said, "Let's get to one of the tree colonies!"

 Percy brought up his map and took off in a sprint. "This way!" The rest of us scrambled after him, up the rocky valley and into the rainforest.

 The thing in the beakers hissed and spat, straining against its glass prison. It disintegrated through the first beaker and started on the second.

 "It's really burning here!"

 Lowe shrugged off his jacket and bunched it up. "I'll take it!"

 I set the beakers on the bundle and kept running. It didn't take long to eat through the second layer of glass, and he winced as it got to his hands.

 "Here - pass it back!" I opened my inventory to look for something thicker than a Hawaiian shirt, but-

 "There!" Percy shouted, pointing.

 A grove of luminous plants clung to a gnarled tree, their veins pulsing with inky corruption. Brynn hurried forward, syringe at the ready.

 I pried the twitching blob free from Lowe's jacket. It latched onto my fingers with a wet squelch, burning the skin away. Brynn jabbed it with the needle, depressing the plunger.

 The thing shuddered, then boiled madly.

 "Quick, toss it!" Brynn urged.

 I lobbed it at the tree. It splatted against the bark, leaving a viscous smear that quickly began to drip down.

 For a moment, nothing happened. I thought maybe I'd thrown it too hard and killed it.

 Then it began to convulse.

 Tendrils whipped out in all directions, embedding themselves in anything they touched. The plants, the tree, the very air seemed to warp around it, the thick mana swirling closer. Filaments and constellations of faerie lights spun in a vortex, like a galaxy drawn around a black hole. The blob swelled, veins popping out in sickly shades of pinkish-purple. Slowly, it grew, and it grew. Easily the size of a person, then larger. The fluid goo solidified into the consistency of dough. Sickly yellow stars appeared on its surface, staring up at nothing. Ribbonlike appendages slithered from its body, fingers extending to drag blindly at the ground.

 But behind it, the black rot seemed to drain away, sucked out of the plants. Emerald leaves unfurled, glowing with renewed vibrancy.

 The blob itself only grew - an amorphous, pulsating tumor latched onto the tree's trunk like a bloated tick. So large that it couldn't support its own weight, and it drooped to lie on the ground.

 The issue now was - what did we do with it? It just kept growing, struggling to make a cohesive shape and instead forming an awkward, bloated, malformed mass that writhed on the ground. A mouth-shaped slit ripped open, lazily chomping in our direction. Its tentacles slapped at the ground in an attempt to drag itself towards us, but it was so engorged that it couldn't move.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

 Percy drew his sword. "Time to pop this zit."

 I reached for my spear, but paused. "Wait, one thing!" Holding up a hand, I reached into my belt.

 The bottle of syrup of ipecac was still about half full. I held up the little amber bottle, the faerie lights glinting off the glass. "Dessert's on the house."

 I lobbed it, the glass shining as it sailed right into the gaping maw.

 For a moment, nothing happened. Then a violent shudder rippled through its entire form.

 It made a sound like a belch mixed with a scream, and a stream of chunky black tar sprayed from its mouth. It was like watching a geyser going off - or me in the hotel bathroom after I got food poisoning in Tijuana - or me last night after I tried the syrup. Every time it started to slow down, a new haze of foamy, rotting gunk spewed out.

 The four of us scrambled out of the line of fire. Covering his face with his sleeve, Percy drew his wand and started to channel his flamethrower spell, burning away some of the black river and keeping it away from us.

 The fumes coming off the stuff made me gag. Trying to waft them away, I said, "Jesus, that stuff is definitely not smokable."

 It took maybe a quarter of an hour, but slowly, gradually, the flow petered out. What looked like every ounce of corruption in the surrounding area had been eaten and expelled. It didn't clear the whole marsh, but this one island of life in the rainforest was perfectly healthy.

 The deflated husk of the mutated blob monster began to glow blue as it starved to death. With one final shudder, it disintegrated into blue motes like any other mob and wafted away on the breeze.

 "Well that was disgusting." I said, then turned to the small lake of ooze we had lying around.

 Lowe prodded at the edge of the inky black lake with his boot. "What do we do with... this?"

 "I'll get it." Percy started up his flamethrower and started chipping at the pool.

 As I watched him work, I asked, "You think this stuff'll mess up the atmosphere?"

 Percy said, "Don't give the game ideas, Fritz! We know it's listening!"

 It took him the better part of an hour after that to finish purging the place with fire. While he worked, I thought about how we were going to cleanse the rest of the marsh. It was far too much for us to handle alone - we'd need the Protectorate's help. Then we'd need to look into recording the long-term environmental impact. If this stuff could spread, it was gonna be a bad time. For now, at least, Percy was finishing the last of the ooze, and Brynn knelt at the base of the tree, looking through the clean plants.

 She held a large leaf of comet's tooth in her hand, studying the stardust trail pattern on it. "They're weak, undernourished, but... they're clean - completely disease-free. We did it..."

 We all fell silent for a moment. At least we completed one of our objectives. Lowe rested a comforting hand on Brynn's shoulder. She leaned into his touch, just for a moment, before straightening with a sigh.

 Checking the time, I said, "It's getting late, and I don't want to sleep anywhere near what we've seen crawling around down here. Let's get back to camp."

 Brynn harvested a few leaves of comet's tooth, and we made our way back to the cliff. The rope was still there where we left it, and we climbed back up to the tents.

 I hauled myself over the ledge, taking a deep breath of the clean, low-salt air. The others clambered up behind me, Lowe giving Brynn a hand up the last few feet. The sun had already disappeared behind the trees behind us, leaving the Star Marsh below in darkness. The shadow of the cliffs crept outward over the ocean, only the far distance still shimmering in the golden light.

 Brynn sat at the edge of the cliff, watching the night consume it all. "That's the last day." she said quietly. "We're out of time; there's no way we can make it back."

 "Don't be so sure!" I said. "Humans are resilient! If we leave first thing in the morning, we should be able to get back tomorrow!"

 "But there's still so much to do here... We've barely scratched the contamination."

 "... The timer's not done yet." Percy, who had been lighting a fire, stood up and joined us. "By my count, we've still got an entire night before our three days are up. We know the problem and the solution, so we don't need you here anymore, Brynn."

 "Yeah, but there's a zone and a half of forest between us and Hope." I said. "And the forest's near pitch black at night."

 "I can see well enough." he said. "There's room for two people on a horse, and if we don't have any baggage and don't stop, we should be able to make it by morning."

 Brynn struggled to look up at him, not wanting to give herself the hope. "Are you sure?"

 "Reasonably."

 I slapped him on the back. "Aw, he's just being modest. If the trip is possible, the kid's the one that'll be able to make it!"

 "Ok..." she nodded slowly, wiping a tear from her eye. "Ok! I'm not giving up on her!"

 "That's right, Brynn! You're gonna save your mom!" Lowe cheered.

 "Munch, to me!" Percy called out. The horse materialized from the shadows of the trees, cantering to us and stopping beside him. He hopped on, and Lowe helped Brynn up behind him.

 "Godspeed!" I saluted.

 Munch reared back. "Hi ho Munch, away!" With a powerful kick, they galloped off into the thicket, the sound of hooves thundering against the earth and resonating through the air.

 "You rat bastard!" I yelled after them. "Don't steal my 80-year-old reference!"

 I stood there for a moment, staring into the distance where they had vanished. The world felt quieter now, as if holding its breath. In silence, Lowe tried to pull a dinner together at the fire, and I went to check on the dreamleaf node. It had respawned, but I completely failed to harvest it. At least we knew where we could reliably get the stuff.

 I noted to train my herbologist and alchemist levels, then ate some watery stew while Lowe stared at his dinner.

 "It's out of our hands." I told him. I don't think he got any sleep, though.

---

 When morning finally came, we were both already awake. We packed up the camp quietly and rushed back to the wagon, still parked where we'd left it at the side of the road. No stops, burning through Caesar's Palace's endurance on cooldown, we rode up the Celestial Forest and on through the Deep King's Woods.

 Late afternoon sunlight was turning the sky amber and rose when we finally rolled into Hope. Lowe jumped out as soon as the trees parted and sprinted across town for the apothecary's hut. I locked up the wagon and followed.

 We burst through the door into the shop, where Brynn was sitting at the counter in the workshop. Her head was down in her arms on the cutting board.

 "Brynn!" Lowe shouted. "Are you ok?!"

 Her bleary eyes flicked up, struggling to focus. "How did you...?" she murmured, blinking slowly, confusion knitting her brow. "What time is it?"

 "About six o'clock." I replied. "PM, that is."

 "Oh dear," she croaked exhaustedly, "I need to make dinner." She stumbled to her feet, legs wobbling, and limped toward the kitchen. Lowe stopped her.

 "I'll buy something from the tavern - they have a good steak and potatoes. What about your mother? Is she..."

 "She was coughing up blood when we got here. She hasn't woken up, but the disease is gone, and she's alive." Brynn's voice was a whisper. "She needs a liquid diet; I have to make it."

 "I will mash the steak into a liquid myself - you need to rest." He guided her back to a stool, and she collapsed against the counter. Making sure she was steady, he dashed out.

 "Where's Percy?" I asked, glancing around the place.

 "Sleeping in the bedroom." she replied, not bothering to look up. "He fell asleep as soon as we got here." Her hands trembled slightly as she pressed them against the counter, grounding herself. This wasn't just an NPC; this was a person on the edge trying to hold together.

 Moments later, Lowe burst back through the door carrying an armful of tinfoil packages. "I'm back! They made it special - on the house!"

 At the smell, Percy came walking down the stairs, completely calm and unruffled. "Hey. Did I miss breakfast?"

 "Just in time." I told him.

 We ate right there in the workshop, shoveling down loaded potatoes, grabbing some herbs off the rack to sprinkle on the steak. Afterward, Brynn was looking much more awake and went to feed her mother.

 When she returned, she wiped her hands clean. "Alright," she sighed, "time to unpack these reagents you helped me gather." She got her backpack from where it was lying on the floor next to the door and rummaged through it for the packages of rare plants. She then set about mixing them into potions.

 Finally, she packed them into three little boxes and handed them to Percy, Lowe, and me. "Here you go!" she announced with pride.

 'Quest Complete: A Daughter's Hope.'

 A notification popped up in front of me listing a whole slew of rewards. Oh, and enough experience to level - nice! Percy and I both went into our inventories to read the descriptions of the potions. We each got one regeneration potion from the leftover lichen, then five of the other varieties. There was one that fully restored all types of mana at a negligible health cost, one that sped up metabolization of both buffs and debuffs, one that gave resistance to elemental damage and healing, and one that... cured any poison at the cost of making you vomit. An emetic.

 "Hey, Lowe." Percy turned to him. "Since you're staying in town so much, I'll buy your potions for 5 marks."

 "Deal." He handed over his box of potions for a couple of coins.

 "Hey, Fritz." Percy turned to me. "I'll trade you my regen potions for your mana potions."

 "Yeah, sure." We traded his 2 regen pots for my 5 mana.

 Everyone was tired, and there was no longer any reason for us to stay, so, with that, we said our goodbyes and left.

 Walking back down the path to the wagon, I stretched my arms above my head and felt the familiar ache of fatigue creeping in. "You want to stay here tonight?"

 "I'm wide awake. You want me to drive back to Townsville while you sleep?"

 "Sounds good to me."

 "Munch, to me!" Percy got his horse set up and climbed up in the driver's seat while I settled in the back with some extra blankets. I guess we didn't even need a bed back there.

 As we started to trundle down the road, I stared up at the twilight sky, the stars starting to appear in the deep purple.

 "Good job getting Brynn back here so fast." I said, breaking the comfortable silence.

 "After everything we did, there was no way I was going to fail that quest."

 "Of course that's why you did it." I laughed. "So what kind of notes do we have to give to Eagle?"

 "First of all, that was definitely not the quest we came here to find."

 "Dammit - you're right! The notes would have at least mentioned going to a separate zone! We should've investigated those missing mailboxes!"

 "The rewards are still good. Instant, complete mana restoration with no cooldown? That would be massive for Citadel healing."

 I sighed. "But if we leak that to the Protectorate, there's going to be a train of Shake Spear farmers getting these one-time rare potions to fuel the Vanguard's healers. They're going to be constantly dragging Brynn back and forth through the forest. Let them live in peace."

 "She's not a person; there is no 'peace'." he said. "Progress will reset, and her mom is going to get sick again."

 "You don't know that! Titus is preventing that one part of that quest from resetting! If Lowe never takes his eyes off Brynn's mother, the game will never have an opportunity to reset the quest!"

 "That's a reality propped up on belief."

 "Is there something wrong with that?" I asked.

 "It's unstable, disingenuous, and ultimately pointless."

 "Come on, the man's in love; let him have it."

 "The NPCs in this game are not intelligent - they're objects - not real. The guy is coping on an emulation."

 "Well... what is it that we fall in love with, anyway? Is it really another 'person', or is it some constructed perception? Is the 'person' part really that important?" I leaned back, staring up at the sky. It was definitely possible to fall in love with someone you haven't met yet, I knew that. "... He's not hurting anyone."

 "Except the mob, and anyone missing these rewards."

 "Ok, sure, but since when do we like Eagle?"

 "You go ahead and tell them whatever you want." he replied. "I'm going to make sure the Protectorate looks at the Star Marsh."

 "Deal."

 With that, I let the conversation drift away. The cool night air wrapped around me, pushing me deeper into the blanket's warmth.

 As I surrendered to sleep, the last thought crossing my mind was the vastness of those stars - all those pinpricks of light staring down at us - the depths of that sky.

 Just what are we up against here?

---

Next Time:

 There once was a bird who lived in a cage, kept high out of reach of the world. By day, she would dance to the tune of her father's song, and by night, she would watch the world outside, see the people laughing and playing. But no matter how much she asked, he would never let her out of her cage. 'You have more important things to do.' 'Games last a day - skills are for a lifetime.' 'When you own this company, they'll be down in the offices working for you.'

 And so she could but dream of flying free.

 One day, due to an unforeseeable accident, the bird found the door to her cage wide open. She stumbled out and took a deep breath of the fresh air, saw the expanse of the horizon in all directions. She spread her wings, and for the first time, felt the unbound air around her. Given this new freedom, what did she do? The only thing she knew how - work.

Episode 6 - A Girl Who Dreams Of Open Skies