The bloody coin rests in my hand like a baby bird in a visceral nest. I carefully reach down to pull it away, and with a sharp jolt of pain, it comes away effortlessly. My skin underneath is mangled and twisted in a perfect circle, but it doesn’t look like a deep wound. It still makes Clutter retch and look away, but I know my body will heal it soon enough. And hey, if not, that’s what potions are for.
I wipe the coin on my forearm, then hold it to the light. There’s no seam. It’s perfectly stitched together at the middle point, to the level that I would’ve thought it was made this way if I didn’t see what it looked like before. How the hell did it do that? And why’s my hand hurt in a circle if only one half did the break-and-reattach?
“Damn, should’ve been watching this a little closer.” I sigh as I pocket the coin. There’s no flipping it anymore, so it’s just a research piece now. “Alright–I’m going to assume that means option three and four have perfectly equal chances to bring us closer to the quest. Do you think that means they’re both a waste of time, or that they’re both good options?”
I turn to look at Clutter. He stares back at me with a strange expression; best I can describe it is the look you’d get watching a gross, yet oddly satisfying video.
“Clutter? You still with me?”
He starts, as if just now registering that I was talking to him, and nods vigorously. “Yes! Yes, I’m still here mentally and physically. And I’m not going to ask what you did to that coin, because I don’t want to know the answer. Where are we checking out first? Or… we didn’t already decide that, did we?”
I shake my head. He silently sighs with relief. “Nope; we’re doing that right now. Farm, jewelry store, and graveyard are all worth checking out. Before you ask how I know, it’s because of the thing you don’t want to know the answer to.”
“Okay. Let’s check out the graveyard first, since it’s the furthest away.” He grabs my hand, and his magic starts to flow into my once more. “Oh, right, before we go–did you get enough of the plastic? I took a whole bunch, just in case the quest only lets us use the stuff we bring in. So you should to.”
He lets go of my hand, but the magic doesn’t fade–it just stagnates. “How much plastic can you put in one inventory slot?”
“Fifty six and three sixteenths pounds.” Clutter answers immediately. “It doesn’t matter what colour you take, either–it’s all the same.”
Fifty pounds, huh? That seems like a lot compared to how much everything else can stack. But hey, if I’m using an inventory slot on it anyway, might as well go all-out. With Clutter’s magic tingling up my arm, I reach into the boulder once more and grab a massive handful of the stuff.
And bite back a yelp of pain as I’m swiftly reminded which hand I just used. Muttered curses accompany the next dozen seconds of scraping and sending plastic to my inventory, and when the first blob appears in another slot, I pull it out and toss it back into the rock. Leaving me with exactly fifty six and three sixteenths pounds.
“What a weird number.” I mutter to myself as I close my fingers around my wounded hand. “You think the system would’ve rounded it down to fifty.”
Clutter shrugs. “There’s a lot of really weird stack numbers. Some pebbles you can have hundreds of, but there’s a specific kind of pebble from a specific forest that you can only ever have eighteen and a half of. If you try to put any less or more into your inventory, it just doesn’t work.”
I raise an eyebrow and offer Clutter my hand. “How’d someone figure that out?”
“Oh, I randomly took eighteen and a half of them with me the first time I tried.” Clutter grabs my wrist, avoiding the blood, and turns the magic back on. “Then when I went back, I couldn’t put any more in. So I tried the same number as before, and would you know it–it worked! Such a weird number, but it didn’t open up a quest or anything. It’s just the system being strange.”
The urge to tell Clutter he might’ve missed something huge almost brings the words to the tip of my tongue. But a warning glance from Pearl and a shake of her head stops me just on time. Clutter’s already not the most confident person, and we need him on target for at least the next few days. The last thing I need is for him to run back to wherever that forest was and change his priorities completely.
Magic surges, and the starway–or whatever Clutter calls it–appears around us. He lets go of my hand, holds a finger to his mouth reminding me to be quiet, and freezes as he realizes how impolite the gesture looks. I don’t give a shit, though, so I let him stew in his own mind as we start walking to wherever this graveyard is. It buys me all of five minutes of silence before Clutter starts rambling on about things that have nothing to do with our current situation.
But hey, at least I know what his favorite fruit is. And three-dozen justifications, explanations, and bring-downs of other fruits to make me understand why his favorite fruit is the best.
It’s watermelon. A slightly different version of watermelon, sure, but his words paint a perfect picture of a watermelon. Not a bad choice, but definitely not worth ten minutes of rambling. Even Pearl sighs with boredom.
“Apricots are way better.” She mumbles.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Okay, maybe not boredom. At least one of us is invested in this rambling conversation.
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“No shit, I didn’t know you could use a splattermelon like that.” I drop out of the starway and watch as Clutter does the same. “Who found out you can do that?”
He laughs and shrugs, content obviously written over his face. “Someone who was really desperate for an I.V. drip, I guess. They’ve been planting them in soils with different compositions ever since, and they’re used instead of water in a lot of different potions for the same reason.”
I nod ever so slightly and hum in thought. “You make a damn good case for splattermelons, Clutter, I’ll give you that.”
Pearl crosses her arms and pouts. “Apricots are still tastier. He just says splattermelons are better because apricots are Earth food, and he hasn’t tried one yet.”
I ignore Pearl’s denial and scan the graveyard. Honestly, I was expecting something out of a horror movie–dim light, marshy ground, and a bunch of lanterns casting ghostly shadows that flicker at the edge of your vision, scaring the shit out of you and making you paranoid. Instead, it’s a beautifully manicured field with thousands of differently coloured and shaped wildflowers and hovering wreaths of various makes shimmering with magic. And since it’s just around noon, the sun’s high in the sky and shadows are nowhere to be found.
“Somebody has to champion their greatness.” He smiles and looks around, his expression dropping by the second. “Oh. I almost forgot where we were going. So, um, we’re here. Can we make this quick?”
“Why?” I ask as I start walking into the field. “This place is beautiful. Are the wreaths grave markers?”
He whimpers, then scurries to stand hunched down directly at my side. “Yes, they are. Families make one for the deceased, out of flowers or candy or stone or anything else, and the gravekeeper’s land magic makes them hover as the… as the…”
I raise an eyebrow as Clutter trails off, terror in his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“The land eats them.” He whispers, his voice shaking with terror. “All the flowers here grew from dead bodies. And if we’re mean to them… the flowers will come after us. Thank goodness there aren’t any trees, or–eep!”
A massive tree with translucent, ghostly bark and hanging red leaves appears out of nowhere, as if summoned by Clutter’s words. He stutters in fear and jumps behind me, barely peeking out from behind my shoulder, and even then he only shoots glances at the gigantic thing. It must be thirty feet wide and at least two hundred feet tall, and through the bark, lines of magic and water climb up the thing to feed its leaves.
I whistle as I crane my neck back to try and see the top of the jumpscare tree. “That’s one huge fu–”
Wooden creaks and groans cut me off. I knit my brows and glance back at Clutter, but he’s no help.
“The hell–”
Once more, the tree creaks and groans, but louder this time. I can’t help but laugh–is this thing telling me not to swear? A gigantic, magical ghost tree doesn’t like foul language. Sure, why the hell not?
“Sorry, won’t be saying stuff like that while I’m here.” I assure the thing and reach out to pat its bark. It’s warm and comforting, but also cold–like cozying up around the fireplace in the dead of winter. “Da…ng, you feel nice. So are you here to mess with us, mister tree, or did we just not see you until now? Because I can see flowers inside of your body that definitely wouldn’t survive normally.”
The tree creaks, and the soft rustling of a breeze through leaves gently prods against my mind. I have absolutely no idea what it means, but it doesn’t feel hostile. Just… ancient and a little worried. Maybe Pearl can understand it?
I reach up and tap her shell to get her attention. She tilts her head to the side and looks down at me. “You didn’t understand him?”
I shake my head.
“Oh. I thought you did.” She pauses as the tree makes tree noises, then nods. “He says you’re welcome here as long as you don’t disturb anything. And he’s asking if you’d be willing to help with a colourful little infestation that’s spreading from one of the graves.”
“Colourful infestation?” I lean around the tree, even though there’s no reason to, but I can’t see anything weird. “Do you mean the plastic stuff?”
The tree’s leaves all shake at once in a cacophonous rustle. I don’t need Pearl to tell me that’s a yes. Then it keeps shaking and creaking, which I definitely do need her help to translate.
She raises a finger to her lips and nods along to the noises. “He’s bad-mouthing the plastics, which is more than fair. Um… okay… he’s giving us directions, but I don’t think we need them because Clutter already knows where they are. Oh! He just recognized Clutter from a little while ago. He wants us to tell him he says ‘hello, and welcome back’.”
I look over my shoulder at the still-cowering Clutter. “The tree says hello and welcome back.”
Clutter just whimpers and completely hides his face.
“He’s just shy–don’t worry about him.”
A long creak and rustle, almost like a throaty laugh, flows out of the tree. Leaves slowly tumble through the air, gently landing on my shoulders like snowflakes, and crumble to crimson dust before I can reach up to feel them. My awareness focuses on them like tiny bombs, so chock full of magic and volatile that they could be unbelievably dangerous, but they don’t do anything. Pearl shivers at the sensation, though her face says it isn’t out of disgust or fear. Just… a natural reaction.
The tree disappears. No fanfare, no goodbye creaks, no nothing. I roll my shoulder as the last remnants of the magic crumble away and fall to the ground, then turn to Clutter and tap him on the shoulder to stop him from cowering. He slowly peeks through his fingers, and when he sees the tree isn’t here any more, he comes out from hiding while looking around like a nervous toddler.
“Is it gone? Really gone?” He quietly asks.
I nod. “He’s gone. What’s got you so scared of him, anyway?”
Clutter shudders and gestures into the distance. “It’s a… Paindne thing. You can ask Dizzy or Nib about it the next time you see them, but I don’t want to talk about it. Can we just… hurry up so we can get out of here as soon as possible?”
I step to the side and sweep out an arm. “Lead the way.”