The explosion roared to life, banishing all darkness from the clearing. The heat and air expelled violently from the explosion hit Orion’s face and he squinted, attempting to get a glimpse of his familiar.

A connection was severed that he didn’t even know was there, leaving behind a sense of emptiness and loss as the Explosion consumed Gizmo.

Time seemed to freeze in place, the only movement in the clearing that of the flames.

A Gizmo-sized lump flew out of the explosion and at Orion. He darted his head behind the tree, and he felt the trunk shake violently as something metal collided with it at great speed, making a dull thump.

He peered around the tree, afraid of what he was going to see. There was a massive dent in the trunk where the robot had collided. He cast his eyes down and he saw Gizmo looking extremely pleased with himself, his eye-screens displaying content arches.

“Ohhhhh yeaaaaah. That was fantastic. Again, please. Agaaaain.” Gizmo’s humming voice was filled with ecstasy. “Blow me up, Arika, I beg you.”

Where the Explosion had gone off, the ground had been scoured of all life. Only dirt and rocks remained, still covered in ashy streaks of black. Smoke clung heavy in the air, making it hard to breathe. The birds were silent.

“What. The. Fuck?” Arika stomped over with a look of shock transitioning to disgust. “I thought I killed you, you perverted asshole. How dare you use me for your twisted gratification.”

“You did not kill me. I am alive. Can we do it again? AgaaAAAaain.” Gizmo’s voice broke, sounding like something was damaged.

“You have literally two health left, you little psychopath. You would die if you tripped over and grazed your leg right now.” Arika scowled down at Gizmo, disdain painted on her face. “What happened to advancing for the team? Pretty hard to advance if you’re fucking dead.”

“I will probably come back to life. Perhaps I will unlock a resurrection ability. we will not know unless we trrRYYY.” Gizmo’s voice bugged out again.

“That’s enough training for tonight.” Orion let his anger slip out into his voice. “Arika’s right, Gizmo. That was a shitty thing to do. I don’t care how much you enjoy being hurt, Arika would have to live with it if you died, not to mention how much you dying would hurt our party and our chances of advancing. What happened to wanting to help us? Wanting to protect us?”

Gizmo appeared to show… regret? at Orion’s words.

“Sorry, Daddy. It appears I got a little carried away. I have the desire to help and protect you, but that blast… I felt the power coming. I could not help but go to the epicenter. The exquisite pain, the feeling of my metal heating and my components beginning to fry… just thinking about it now causes my bolts to tighten.”

“For the love of god, no more.” Arika’s face scrunched up in disgust. “I get it. You like the Explosion. It is too powerful for you, though, especially after it just advanced to level seven.”

“It advanced?” Orion looked down at the deviant robot, possibilities whirling in his mind. “That’s fantastic! So we can train our abilities on Gizmo…”

“Not to worry, Arika.” Gizmo hummed. “I also advanced my damage reduction passive with that explosion. It advanced to level two with Shadow and Honeypot earlier, and level three after that very-hard-and-enjoyable Explosion. Now I can take even more punishment.”

“Wait, you leveled up?” Orion asked, confused.

It hadn’t listed levels earlier when he checked Gizmo’s abilities.

“No.” Gizmo hummed what could have interpreted as a tone of victory. “I was practicing deception in order to make Arika explode me once more. Please abuse—uh—hit me again.”

“You are sick.” Arika turned, not missing Gizmo’s slip of the non-existent tongue.

Honeypot roared with laughter, causing Arika to spin on him.

“You’re corrupting our tank! Stop!”

This only made Honeypot laugh harder.

“Wait, Gizmo…” Orion narrowed his eyes at his familiar. “You only mentioned your passive ability leveling. Does that mean you didn’t use the active damage reduction ability?”

“Correct, I did not use it. I thought it best to stick to one deception at a time.”

“Why?” Orion let his frustration out—Gizmo had almost died, and hadn’t even used one of his defensive abilities.

“Because my friend Honeypot said it would be best to stick to a single deception at a time while learning to decei—”

“Not that,” Orion interrupted. “Why didn’t you use your active damage mitigation?”

“Why would I do that?” Gizmo made a confused noise and his head rotated a little to the side. “It would make me experience less pain, which would be entirely counterproductive to my goals.”

“Your goals should be to advance with us, Gizmo—not to experience as much pain as possible.”

“Hmmmmm. Can we keep training then when I recover enough to stand?”

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“That’s enough for tonight. I think you really need to reassess your priorities if you want to continue adventuring with us, Gizmo.” Orion turned to Shadow. “Dinner should be ready, right?”

“Uh, yeah, it should be.” Shadow appeared perplexed at the sequence of events. He set off after Arika toward the camp, leaving Orion and Honeypot standing over the still prone Gizmo.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Honeypot said. “I think that Explosion and your subsequent flight were superb.”

“Did you see me hit that tree? I took damage from the impact. I’ve never done that before.” Gizmo still looked almost dead as he slumped against the tree. “I feel so alive.”

Orion shook his head and set off back to the camp and his cauldron, leaving the robot and the priest by themselves to compare anti-social behaviors. They eventually joined the party by the fire as Shadow was serving up food, Gizmo looking a little healthier but still quite damaged.

Shadow and Gizmo were both unsure if the little automaton could eat or not. Shadow dished up a plate anyway, and Gizmo took a bite of the delicious food—along with the end of the fork he’d been given. The human party members cringed at the sound of metal and fish stew being ground up in Gizmo’s mouth. After he swallowed, Gizmo looked healthier by the second.

“It appears as though my passive healing increases exponentially when I eat. That was delicious, Shadow. Thank you.”

“The healing’s probably from the metal… right?” Arika asked.

Orion nodded. “Gizmo… eat the rest of the fork.”

Gizmo happily complied, chewing the fork in a few bites. “I would have to agree that it was the fork, as I am almost back to full health. Can someone hit me now?”

“No!” Orion and Arika yelled in unison.

The next day of traveling was uneventful, which Orion found himself grateful for. He’d woken that morning with a sense of anxiety, which he supposed could have been the looming deadline of the timed quest, but he suspected was something deeper. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it almost felt as though it was something trying to bubble up from within—perhaps a remnant of his previous life? Thankfully, it dissipated as they continued toward their destination.

They spent that night crafting and training, with Shadow gaining a level in Vicious Blow, and Honeypot getting his Fishing to Apprentice ten by catching several regular fish and a gigantic Freshwater Perch. Orion wasn’t sure if the fisherman or the chef were more excited about the catch. Shadow stowed it in his inventory, suspecting it might be just the ingredient he needed to break through to the next tier of Cooking.

Early on the third morning of travel, they caught their first glimpse of the destination forest.

“Whoa,” Arika said with an air of awe.

They’d been seeing the tips of distant trees poking above the forest tree-line for a few hours. The deep green trees and twisting limbs were a stark contrast to the verdant green forest they traversed.

Arika’s exclamation had arrived as they emerged from the trees into a grassy plain that divided the two forests. The knee-high grass was dry and yellow, swaying with chaotic movements as the wind in the treeless plain swept large swaths in different directions. Over the grass, they witnessed the full breadth of the Eclipse Forest they were approaching.

The trees must have been hundreds-of-meters tall, their thick and twisting limbs intertwining to create a canopy that blocked out almost all sunlight. All the trees were behemoths, any smaller trees having been starved of the life-giving sun long ago.

“Oooooh, that’s super spooky.” Honeypot smiled broadly. “I can’t wait, let’s go.”

They traveled over the grassy plain at a brisk pace, yet they still took almost an hour to cross it. The Eclipse Forest was further away, and on an even bigger scale than they’d guessed. As they arrived before the trunks of the trees at the border of the giant forest, even Honeypot was lost for words.

Orion approached the closest trunk. The tree must have been ten times as wide as his shoulders. He laid his hands on it. The wood was cool and damp, causing a shiver to run down his spine. He glanced past the tree and deeper into the forest, just enough light peaking through the canopy above to allow him to see without his Dark Vision ability. The ground seemed absent of life, even grass unable to get enough light to survive beneath the suffocating canopy of the trees.

Orion checked the mark on his map now that they were in the forest. He suspected it would have a large footprint, but the size of it was staggering. If they could travel through it at the same speed they’d arrived here at—which he doubted—it would take another day and a half just to reach the mark. It was pinned in the dead-center of the forest, an equal distance from all sides.

“Alright, is everyone ready?” Orion asked. “Did we forget anything?”

“I find myself oddly cautious. I think I am feeling… fear?” Gizmo hummed in trepidation. “It appears I have been programmed to have a natural aversion to humidity and damp. It is quite moist in there.”

Honeypot knelt down, so he was eye level with the small robot. “There are things in there that will hit you, and if you’re lucky, might even kill you.”

“Moisture is nothing before the advancement of our party.” Gizmo marched between the trees and into the forest. “Let us go, team. Time is precious, and each wasted second threatens our chances of success.”

***

The Creator sat in his chair before the wall of screens, lost in meditation.

His assistant watched over him, her brow furrowed as she sensed the threads of control he was pouring out into the universe.

I sometimes forget just how much of a monster he is…

She felt threads of power snap together as whatever he’d been working on completed. He let out a weary sigh and slumped in his chair.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked, allowing her body to relax now that he was out of his trance.

“No, unless you have the ability to go back in time and slap me silly for not preparing more countermeasures.”

“There was no way for you to know.” She put a hand on his shoulder and poured some of her renewing energy into him. “Our preparations were already exhaustive—I’m sure you recall me calling you a block-headed fool on more than one occasion for going as far as you did.”

“I know.” He sighed as her power rippled through him. “It’s just… I should have foreseen this possibility.”

“There was no way to know they would exhibit such antisocial behavior.”

“It’s so… widespread. These earthlings are terrifying in their proclivities.”

“Was your task a success, then?” she asked, trying to curtail her master’s rumination.

“It was—at least to an extent. I had to divert a lot of power, however, and I worry about the effect it will have on them. Strands of their past lives are making their way through the filter.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. “H-how much made it through?”

“No particulars.” He waved her concern away. “Just fragments of emotion and feeling. At this rate, it’s only be a matter of time, however—there is only so long we can keep their pasts locked away before I need to revert the power away from that construct entirely.”

“That’s good, then.” She nodded. “The longer we can keep them at bay, the higher our chance of success.”

He sat up and looked at her, the lines on his face tight.

“I just can’t help but—”

“That’s enough, Master.” She poured more of her calming power into him, her head spinning mildly with the exertion. “We will handle it when, and if, it arises. For now, you need rest.”

He took a deep breath and lay back in the chair.

“You’re right, of course.” He put his hand on hers in thanks before dropping it to his side. “Thank you…”

He’s so exhausted he didn’t even correct my use of Master…

His breathing slowed as he slipped into sleep, and she looked out over the screens before her, her own sense of unease growing as she watched the adventurers lie, betray, and murder.

Monsters, she thought.