Mirai charged as the Faun came around the fire, catching the scary creature in the back with her skill-enhanced strike. The tell-tale glow of [Moonlit Strike] shown from the mark on its upper back left by the sword. She tried to follow with a quick thrust, but the Faun was too fast.

Edgar lept to his feet and flexed his claws and teeth, absolutely one-hundred percent ready to fight back. He ran at the Faun, poised to strike.

“Uk-uk-uk!”

The Faun’s hands began to glow with magic and vines ripped from the rock floor, lashing out at Edgar and Mirai, forcing them to dodge and roll. On reflex, Edgar reached for [Acrobatics], but of course his stamina was still empty. The vine nicked his foot, taking a few points of health.

Mirai fared better, knocking aside the vine with a defensive skill, and closed in on the Faun. Her sword was a blur as she stabbed and slashed, pressuring the Faun backwards.

Edgar rolled nimbly to his feet and jumped back into position, circling around the Faun’s back. The Faun summoned another set of vines, these burst up from underneath Mirai’s feet, leaving her with no time to dodge. The vines lifted her into the air and wrapped around her hands and feet. Edgar could hear her gasp and go slightly pale as the vines drained her stamina and mana.

She strained and took another swipe at the Faun, but he easily dodged, hopping backwards—-right into Edgar’s reach.

He had recovered a single point of stamina, so it was time to lean on [Scratch]. He activated it, aimed for the dot of glowing skin on the Faun’s back, and connected.

He could feel the effectiveness of the blow and the Faun staggered forwards.

His awareness skill screamed at him and he dodged awkwardly backward, bending at the hip as one of the Faun’s hooves kicked backwards. It wasn’t a skill enhanced blow, but Edgar could tell if that had connected with his jaw, he’d be out cold.

Edgar rolled to the side, coming closer to where Mirai hung in the air, as the vines continued draining her stamina and mana. Edgar swiped at the Faun again, but it rolled away. Edgar could see blood running down its back and turning the fur at its hip red. It snarled at him, striding over to the cart of farming implements.

Edgar took the chance to hack the vines around Mirai to pieces.

“You ok?”

“I’m fine. You’re so lucky you didn’t take that hoof to the face.”

“Tell me about it. Check your mana and stamina.”

“Ugh…”

The Faun turned back to them, wielding a violent looking tiller. It looked an awful lot more like an instrument of war than one of farming.

Edgar gulped, glancing at Mirai. Her eyes reflected the same fear he felt staring at the perverse weapon.

“Uk-uk-uk… into dirt, the body goes! Death before and mushrooms grow!”

It lunged. Edgar had only a single point of stamina, but his mana was past half! He activated [Overdrive].

The tiller came down and Edgar ran one way while Mirai ran the other. He glanced up in time to see the Faun’s hands glowing with magic again. Instinctively, he dodged instead of attacking and a vine scored the ground just ahead of him.

With the last embers of the skill warming his core, Edgar pushed on, swiping at the Faun, but it easily dodged his attacks. Then, it caught him in the chest with the butt of the tiller, knocking him back.

Mirai stepped in, pressuring the creature with a flurry of strikes. She tried to attack it with a blast of water, but the Faun cut right through it with the tiller. She moved aggressively, accelerating her strikes and managed to land two shallow cuts before the Faun caught her in the shoulder with one of its hooves. Edgar flinched at the sound of the blow and she rolled past him, finding her knees as she skidded to a halt.

“Go! Keep going!” She huffed, her breath heavy with exertion.

Edgar dove forward, shouting. His mana was empty and his stamina wasn’t far from empty. The Faun was starting to show signs of slowing. He could sense victory sliding into their grasp and bared his teeth.

The Faun hacked downward as Edgar charged. He dodged smoothly and closed the distance, tackling the Faun. Its wiry body was stronger than he expected, and refused to go down. Instead, he chomped into the Faun’s shoulder and began stabbing and raking the Faun’s chest with his claws. Blood sprayed outward as the creature shrieked and dropped it’s weapon, staggering back. It grabbed him with both hands and then kicked him in the chest, hard.

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Now it was Edgar’s turn to roll backwards, stars flashing in his eyes.

The Faun stumbled to its knees, coughing blood. Mirai approached slowly, circling behind it.

“Uk-uk-uk. Into dirt, the body goes……”

She struck with a blow to the moon mark and the creature folded, collapsing onto the ground.

Edgar flopped onto his back, half sighing half shouting his relief. “Ahhhhhhhhh… That thing was so creepy!”

With a strong slash, Mirai beheaded its corpse, and Edgar couldn’t deny he felt better as its head rolled away from its neck. Satisfied, she flourished her sword, which painted the wall with a spray of blood. Edgar felt warmth flood his core. The most he had gotten at once since fighting the Prince of Imps. He pulled up his character sheet and watched his total essence rise from sixty four percent to seventy nine. Fifteen percent in one shot.

Mirai’s breathing was heavy. She didn’t speak for a long moment.

“You saved my life… again…”

Surprised, Edgar tried to parse emotion from her face, but couldn’t quite parse what he found.

“Who’s counting? You saved me too.”

“Me, I’m counting.” She sheathed her sword in a huff. “How am I ever supposed to even the score like this?”

Edgar laughed hard, a single barking laugh. “We’re a team, it’s fine! You can buy me dinner or something.”

She huffed. “I am not buying you dinner. You should be buying me dinner! That was supposed to be my moment.”

Edgar laughed again, discretely walking over to the mushroom pit one last time, but saw he had already collected all the mushrooms within. “You didn’t even give me a chance to be grateful. Here, I have something for you that’s even better than dinner.”

Edgar flicked through his inventory until there was a tiny pile of orange-red mushrooms in the palm of his hand.

Edgar smiled. “Thanks for saving me.”

“You found them?!” Mirai gasped and then coughed to regain her cool composure. “Y-yes! Of course. A bonehead like you could never survive on his own.”

Edgar barked another laugh. “Harsh!… But probably true…”

She eagerly grabbed the mushrooms and they disappeared into her inventory.

“Thanks for saving me… again, I guess.”

“I’ve got some more good news too…”

Edgar walked over to the Faun’s corpse and rolled it over with his foot. Its chest was a bloody mess from his attacks, so Edgar used his claws to scrape away the blood and fur until he found the fawns necklace, and then cut off the key attached to it. He held it up to the light so Mirai could see.

”Wow, we got pretty lucky with this whole thing. Clearly the rift was designed for us to fight the Faun…”

A lightning bolt flashed in Edgar’s mind. He remembered the smell of fresh death, the fork in the road, and most of all, his choice to avoid the smell rather than pursue it…

oops…

“Y-yeah… If only there had been some way we could have smelled—I mean seen—this coming!”

Mirai gave him a withering look, arching an eyebrow. “You are the worst kind of open book. What? Out with it.”

“Nothing…” Edgar twiddled his fingers.

Mirai’s eyes widened. “Holy Pharaoh! When you said that there was at least one monster lurking around you were talking about the Faun?”

“I didn’t know it was the Faun! It just smelled bad!… Turns out, my nose was right…”

Mirai cuffed him on the ear. “I think the lesson here is to share your information. All of it! You have a useful ability. Trust it. And then tell me what it’s telling you!”

Edgar frowned and followed along as she shook her head and began the march out of the Faun’s cave and back into the neon mushroom forest. It was a quick walk back to the river and the magic door. Edgar inserted the key and turned. Magic flared and the door opened, revealing the flickering of hearth light at the end of a long corridor.

“I mean, would you really have chosen to walk towards the scent of fresh death, given the option to walk another way?”

Mirai tossed her hair.

“Don’t underestimate my ability to make the right choice.”

“Psshhh… know-it-all…”

She waved at him, excitement in her eyes as she twirled and skipped down the tunnel, her serious facade slipping away. Edgar couldn’t help but smile.

“What are you grinning about?”

“The Bonesmith! Come on, it's time to see the Bonesmith!”

~~~~~~~~~~

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