The cackling resounded all around us. In the firelight the jagged branches and their shadows danced. And among the foliage eyes opened, watching.

Jade and I unsheathed our bows in unison, and Patrick ripped his companion’s handax from its sheathe. “What is that?” Her voice trembled.

“I don’t know but if one of those fucks starts smiling at me like the Cheshire Cat I’m putting an arrow through it,” I said. It didn’t take long. A wry, crescent grin opened beneath a pair of eyes, and I loosed a shot in its direction. The eyes vanished, and my arrow whizzed through nothing.

My eyes blurred quickly back to their regular human visual quality. I was sad to see it go.

Constitution Too Low

- Constitution 0% -

Great fucking timing.

Jade fired an arrow next, her arrow cutting through leaves and not much else. “They keep moving,” she warned.

Patrick rifled through his pouch and produced a handful of fungi. “Here, take this,” he shouted, and tossed over to me a mushroom called Life’s Essence. “It’ll do for now just to know where they are.”

I chewed and swallowed quickly while Jade tried and failed to pierce anything with her arrows. The laughing continued, and in the nearest trees I heard creatures skittering in the branches.

Ability Discovered

- Sense Life -

- Tier 0 -

- Fort 1 -

Duration 2hr

20%/use

You can detect signs of life from people or monsters within your general vicinity. Like Tinder, but with a smaller radius.

A white pulse erupted from my eyes, expanding like a dome and leaving thin tendrils of fog around anything with a heartbeat. They swirled around Jade and Patrick, and clung loosely to some birds overhead. But nothing in the trees.

“It doesn’t tell me anything, “ I said.

“That means that whatever they are,” Patrick assumed a defensive stance with the handax and shifted closer to the torch, “they’re not alive.”

A clatter from the cart swung my attention around. The wood creaked amidst playful chuckles before the creature came into view. Standing three feet tall, it leapt onto the back seat. Its neck snapped and the head swivelled to face me. One eye was bulging out of its skull, the other covered by an undulating red bulb. Tiny mushrooms sprouted from a gash in the creature’s neck, and green mould ran down one of its stubby legs, covering the foot entirely. Vines slithered out like tentacles from the stump where its hand used to be, snatched hold of the wagon and dragged itself towards me. A devilish grin spread from pointed ear to pointed ear, and as it neared, its laughter was maniacal.

“Oh, it’s so much worse than I thought!” I dropped the bow and tore my ax free with one hand and pulled out my dagger with the other. There was no way in hell I wasn’t going to dual wield against that thing.

Creature Discovered

- Undead Spore Gnome -

Challenge: 1

You didn’t think this island could get any weirder? I’ve got one word for you: fungus zombies.

Real gnomes, of the lawn variety. I’d never gotten on board with the trend of sticking small bearded men in your garden, and I was even less enthused about sticking a garden on your gnome.

The mimic bounced giddily on the ground beside me. “My flesh needs and vegetable content wrapped in one fortuitous package! Let me consume it!”

The creature leapt quicker than I would have thought, launching itself with its vine arm and slamming into my face. It clawed at me with its free hand before I could twist away. Both of us fell to the ground. I shouldered the lichen zombie off me and swung my knife down, piercing its belly. It screeched, and a puff of green gas burped out of the wound as I wrenched my weapon free. The blade was coated in slime and creepy crawly things I wanted to pretend didn’t exist.

I rolled onto my feet and, as the gnome launched at me for a second go, swept my ax through the air. The arm severed from its body mid flight, and the creature crashed harmlessly into my shoulder before landing on the ground and quickly righting itself again.

Still going, you little fucker? It snarled and turned for the tree. I ran after it, bringing my ax down in a wide arc, barely missing as the one-armed creature scampered up. An arrow sunk into its back, but even that didn’t stop its climb.

“My snack is getting away!” Gnome cried.

I spun around to see Jade and Patrick back to back above the flickering blue flames. Jade nocking and releasing, firing off every which way, until the spore gnomes began leaping out of the trees. She switched to her dagger and cut into the approaching swam. Patrick swung his arms towards a projectile launched from the trees, causing it to explode against a shimmering silver barrier a few feet from Jade’s head. He swerved in time to catch another projectile from the opposite direction, summoning the barrier moments before impact.

“I can’t see! My constitution’s shot!” He yelled.

The body of Kieth twitched. Its head jerked, its shoulders popped. Its mouth opened wide for the vines that snaked out of it. Slowly the body rose to its feet.

“No, no, no, no!” I shouted, and ran towards my allies. “We’re having none of this shit!”

Undead Keith’s upper half turned to face me in time for the ax to make contact with its skull. The head tore at the neck and looked ready to roll off before slimy vines sprouted from the wound and pulled the head back in place.

If not for the Hunter title, I might have lost my mind just then.

Keith lunged, raking me with its nails, swiping my face, swiping my arms as I raised them in defence. I kicked out, hitting Keith in the balls to no effect.

“You keep your hands off my master!” My trusty mimic declared, rocking slowly over to me. I shifted back, letting Keith follow until Gnome Chompsky was close enough to do what he did best. There was a crack as the magnificent chest locked his lid tight around Keith’s ankle. Whether in pain or not, the zombie turned to swipe out at its new assailant.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“That all you got? Harder! Harder!” Yelled Gnome, soaking blow after blow.

I slipped by, running for the one thing I thought might work. I punted a spore gnome into a tree and grabbed the burning torch before turning back to Keith. I levelled the stick like a spear, steadied my nerves, and charged. The force knocked the zombie onto its back, and the flames caught instantly, spreading over its body. The mimic let go quick enough to avoid the fire. Vines popped and crackled like popcorn as the zombie writhed in the blue glow.

I turned to Patrick and Jade. The blind Bear Grylls was hopelessly batting at nothing, and Jade was dashing around him, trying to save her friend from all angles at once.

“Jade! Fire!” I said.

She noticed the smouldering body, nodded, and swiped a finger down her face. Her body burst into flame from her toes to the ends of her hair. Singed, Patrick leapt back. The gnomes skittered away from the light, screeching and scowling.

Jade bounded for them, cutting left and right, the struck gnomes collapsing in burning heaps, sharp pops ejecting plumes of green cloud from their bodies. I herded the remaining gnomes away with the torch. They scattered to the trees with startling speed, laughing, chittering, fleeing the heat.

The gnome problem was traded for another when I heard the slurping from behind, and turned to see mould crusted vines slither out of the mouths of the remaining bodies. All six of them. They twitched, their limbs moving unnaturally as they struggled to stand.

Jade and I were on them instantly. She drove her knife up to the hilt into the chest of one, ramming it against a cart, fire licking its face, sizzling its bones. I cracked another on the side of the head before it could stand, and followed that with a whack to a third. It didn’t take long to deal with all of them, and I knew it was over when the prompt appeared.

Event Chain Updated

- The Smashed Cart -

Ambushed by undead gnomes at the site of the cart, you may have found a perpetrator. But… where did they come from? Where did they go? Where did they come from, fungal-eye gnome?

Reward

- Favour +2 (8) -

The laughing was gone. The flames wreathing Jade’s body vanished, leaving no trace she was ever burning. A soft breeze carried through the creaking pines.

And, without saying a word, Patrick collapsed.

----------------------------------------

“Careful, that hurts,” Patrick hissed as my knife tore away at his shirt. Blood dribbled out of a puncture wound the size of a golfball, fungus growing around the edges.

Jade and I sat to either side of him. Gnome was distracted, happily chomping away at the barbecued undead.

“How does it look?” Patrick asked.

I grimaced.

“That bad, huh?”

“It’s not the worst thing,” said Jade, a crack in her voice.

Patrick chuckled. “Jade, if I die, give the rest of my supply to Angie. She’ll make better use of it than Kiril.”

“No one is dying, so shut up,” she said and pulled something out of her pouch. “Look, I found what you asked for.” She held up a small green mushroom splattered with uneven white blotches.

“I can’t see anymore, Jade.”

“The Cleansing Cap.”

“Oh, so you did.” He sounded surprised. His face glistened with sweat. “It says my status is spored. I don’t know that it would work.”

Jade placed the mushroom in my hand. “We won’t know until we try,” she insisted.

I swallowed it without question, and waited for the effect to take hold. A warm fuzziness tickled my skin, and I became acutely aware of the doughiness of my face. “Whoa.” I had the urge to yawn but couldn’t force one.Before I could get a handle on what I was feeling, the effect vanished, like I had blinked through a weed come-up and skipped over the high entirely.

Ability Discovered

- Cleansing Hands -

Tier 0

Fort 1

20%/use

Did you know washing your hands didn’t become commonplace among doctors until the late 1800s? And it wasn’t officially incorporated into American health guidelines until the 1980s? I know. Disgusting. We don’t trust you, so we’re giving you magic. You can cure minor status ailments and purify food and water with a touch.

“Alright,” Patrick grunted. He rested his head on the ground. “Seems you owe me for the trolls.”

I nodded. “So tell me what to do. How does this work?”

Patrick touched the wound and, by the way his face twisted, instantly regretted it. “Flatten your palm here. Hold it there, even if I squirm, and focus. Don’t stop until I relax,” he said. His breathing was ragged. Slowly the fungus was spreading. “It’ll either work or it won’t. We’ll know if I come back from the dead. Simple, right?”

Jade and I exchanged a knowing look. “Yeah,” I muttered.

The blood was warm as I followed Patrick’s direction. His heart thumped heavily near the wound, despite it being above the hip. I focused, trying to channel a well of power I knew must be inside me somewhere. Patrick did squirm, and tried more than once to push my hand off the wound, but Jade carefully held him down, a look of urging written on her face. He bit his lip to stifle the pain.

A sharp flood of cool energy filled the space behind my eyes, and a cold rush speared down my arm. My fingertips flickered a dull yellow. Soon the light spread around my fingers, like when I would trace the outline of my hand with yellow marker as a kid. There was a sound that came with it—the coil inside a bulb sparking to life.

I held my hand in place for almost a minute. His heartbeat gradually returned to its normal rhythm. Patrick sighed, his breathing steadied.

When I took my hand away, the fungus was gone. “It worked,” I breathed, surprised.

Patrick gave a weak thumbs up. “No more spores. And you’ve got something to brag to Kiril about.” He cupped a bloodied hand around my cheek. “You might’ve just saved my life.”

“I definitely just saved your life.” I wiped at the sweat that had beaded on my brow and turned to Jade. “You need some, too?”

She shook her head. “Some sleep would be nice.”

The two of us hauled Patrick up underneath each arm, and walked him back to camp. Gnome, who head devoured an entire body, was more cheery than usual.

“I didn’t think I’d enjoy roasted flesh and vegetables in one sitting, but here I am, right as pain! Very nutritious, with a slightly bitter necrotic aftertaste to cleanse the palate,” said the mimic, shifting after us.

Jade and I patched up Patrick as best we could and set him down near the fire. He dozed off instantly. She showed me a bed making technique using leaves comfortable enough to end the exhaustion status, afterwards the two of us laid down in our separate weaved cots. Gnome, being a box, required no sleep and opted to stand guard.

I was drifting off to sleep when Jade startled me awake.

“Hey,” she whispered.

“Hey.”

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

She kissed her teeth. “For saving Patrick, ya goof.”

“Of course. He saved me, it was only fair.”

“That’s such a dude way to put it.”

I snorted. “You’re welcome,” I said.

The branches swayed overhead, and the crackling fire dragged me slowly into unconsciousness.

“Hey.”

I jolted awake. I sighed. “Hey...”

She paused. “Don’t tell Kiril about Gnome.”

I turned my head over to her. She was on her side, facing away. Firelight glittered off her skin. My eyes briefly fell to the curve of her hips, but I blinked the feeling away. “What?” I asked.

She turned to me. “Don’t tell him. Kiril’s just like that.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Like what?”

“He’ll want Gnome for himself.”

“Okay?”

She shifted closer, her voice lowering to barely above a whisper. She smelled of sweat and dirt, but so did I. “He’ll think Gnome belongs to him, as the party leader. He gets kind of jealous like that.”

I stifled a laugh. “Can I ask you something?”

She nodded.

“Why is he your leader?”

Her eyes dipped low in thought before they met mine again. “He knows something. I think.”

“Knows something… about?”

“The game.”

I don’t know why that statement hit as heavily as it did, but I felt an anchor settle in my stomach.

“Did Patrick tell you he didn’t open that first chest? Okay, well, he also has two titles. And none of us know what the second title is,” she went on. “And you know how Patrick’s glasses shattered? Well, Kiril’s still got his.”

I had many questions, and plenty more to say, but I didn’t want to spill too much before I was able to lay eyes on the guy. “You don’t like him very much,” I observed.

She shook her head. “I don’t trust him. But don’t tell Patrick, okay?”

I lifted my head to the sprawled botanist on the other side of the fire. His chest rose and fell in the manner indicative of deep sleep. “I won’t,” I said, laying back down.

She smiled shyly. “Thanks.” Jade rested a hand on my chest, and that’s all it took for me to begin stirring down south. It had been a long time, and I was ready to spring at the lightest of touches. She noticed too, or felt something similar, by the way her lips parted slightly.

Player Bonding

- Jade Tran -

- Bond I -

Your close bond to another player allows you access to certain information unavailable to other players. You are notified when they are suffering from status effects within your proximity. Is that an eggplant in your pocket, or are you just… who am I kidding? We both know what it is.

Jade pulled her hand away, startled. “Did you just get a prompt?” She asked.

I gulped. “Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

“What did yours say?”

The corners of her lips hinted at a smile. “What did yours say?”

“That we’re good friends now,” I lied—sort of.

“Yeah, mine too.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Jade rolled onto her other side, and after a minute so did I. Our backs were touching, and she nudged a hair's width closer.

“Goodnight Ben,” she said after a yawn.

“Goodnight Jade.”

I blinked once, twice, and then my eyelids stayed shut. She didn’t wake me a third time.