What a great way to ruin a Thursday.

I was fine with fighting. I was fine with scary bosses and slimy underlings. What I couldn’t handle was not knowing when either of those things was going to happen.

And now we couldn’t go back. Once we stepped far enough in, the shimmering fog appeared behind us. Only this time, stepping into it didn’t take us anywhere. Trust me, we tried.

We were in a full-immersion horror game. I got stressed out playing Pac-man sometimes, and this was like that, but the ghosts were invisible and I didn’t know how many there were or how fast they moved.

“You have any additional lore that you’d like to tell the class?” I asked.

Claire shivered next to me. She had an arrow strung, and my spear and shield were back out, pushing back the encroaching branches.

“I do, but you wouldn’t want to know it. It’s just all their myth stuff about this place.”

“Lovely. I bet that’s all sunshine and dewdrops?”

“Not exactly.”

With the fog at our backs, we gave in to the tree’s path. It pushed us where it wanted us to go, and we couldn’t do much to fight it. I was hesitant to hack down any branches or bore a hole in the trees just in case doing so spawned some kind of ancient demonic tree monster.

Ents are a thing. But here?

I checked my communication options. All blacked out. I couldn’t contact Annette or Duri and get them to search around for info. Asking them to do that felt a bit overboard anyway.

We’ve just taken out an indomitable water monster without too much trouble — surely a few angry pieces of wood isn’t too much of a stretch.

The very worst thing about our predicament was the amount of time it would take from our day. I’d had plans to at least sit down for lunch, but they were almost surely out the window. It would be another episode of sprinting to the fridge, cramming down whatever caught my eye, then bouncing back up the stairs and into the Pod.

Claire pulled back a branch and accidentally let it fling back right into my face. My shocked yelp scared her almost as much as the branch scared me.

“Sorry!” she loud-whispered. “I thought it snapped and I was really worried.”

“The branch or my nose? Jeez.”

“The branch.”

We continued in silence. The trees watched us. Every knot in the wood was a face, every scar a smile.

When the first monsters came, they crept.

I’d been losing ground on Claire as she pushed through like an American football player battering down a defence. Her technique for getting through this place was just to go, and go, and keep going. I wasn’t sure of the efficacy of that, but I wasn’t about to argue something different. What I was going to do was check where I was about to put each foot in case I accidently stepped on some sleeping giant’s eye. There could’ve been anything under the pine needles.

Claire’s disappointment with my slow pace turned out to be my saviour. She turned around to chastise my scrupulous treading, unknowingly spotting our first assailants.

“Holy shit, GOGOGO!”

I threw caution to the wind, clearing a fallen log and throwing a glance over my shoulder. A horde of wooden gremlin creatures stormed where I’d just been, tearing at one another to be the first in the pack. Their faces were contorted into grotesque expressions, mostly some kind of pained shock or red-hot anger. Claws longer than their forearms snatched at the ground.

[Spear Charge] [Warrior’s Wrath] [Tsunami Strike]

Without hesitation, I activated my most powerful combination of skills. [Spear Charge] doubled my next attack’s damage, ensuring {The Glass Cannon} could either work to its full capacity or bump up the damage of a poorly aimed strike. [Warrior’s Wrath] would boost my Agility for each kill made with [Tsunami Strike]. Together, they were a match made in heaven that would turn one simple hit into a devastating AoE attack and a serious buff to my speed.

As long as I hit their weak spot.

The only noticeable thing about the gremlins was a faceted purple gem replacing one of their eyes. It rolled around when they ran, as though it was on a swivel.

I struck.

{You have defeated a Level 52 Hollow Gnome.}{+150 EXP}

{You have defeated a Level 53 Hollow Gnome.}{+155 EXP}

{You have defeated a Level 49 Hollow Gnome.}{+135 EXP, +1 Hollow Essence}

The combo did its job. There were enough exploding splinters to make several whole new trees, but the threat was dealt with.

Until I turned around.

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It turned out that our little purple-eyed friends were swarming from all directions. I’d given us an out, but it would only let us go back the way we came. [Tsunami Strike] had a 25-minute cooldown, and the other two would still take a while to come back.

At least I’m speedy. Hope Claire can keep up.

I darted past the horde. Claire hadn’t stopped running since she’d seen them, and she was almost out of sight. Splitting up was bound to be deadly, so I kicked my Agility into sixth gear and powered towards her. The {Hollow Gnomes} seemed to appear from everywhere, pouring from the branches and sitting up from the pine needles like resurrected corpses. I prayed for a bushfire.

“Claire! Got time for a fire arrow? I think this place needs an uncontrolled burn-off!”

She fumbled around in her quiver while she readied her bow. A monster swung down from a branch and snatched the weapon from her grip, almost pulling her off balance.

No more walking stick.

She gave up the attempt, unable to equip a new bow from her inventory without falling over the tangles of the forest. She’d also be risking having that one stolen, too. The jury was still out on whether stolen weapons could be recovered.

On and on we ran. Time seemed to slow. Whether it was an hour or two I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that the forest was never-ending, and the trees we ran past now looked exactly like those from just a few minutes before.

We were undoubtedly in some kind of sub-space. If travelling one mile in here equated to one mile in Asteroth, we would’ve crossed the King’s Road miles ago. In fact, we would’ve crossed it multiple times.

Someone, or something, was keeping us here.

“We’re running in circles!” I yelled.

“Tell me about it!” she replied.

So she knows it too.

Understanding our issue didn’t make facing it any easier. We kept running like hamsters on a wheel, travelling exceedingly fast but covering no ground.

At last, the monsters seemed to fade. The tension in their faces released into something like mild agony, and they slinked back to their places in the hollow trunks or their pine needle burrows. We slowed our pace, but didn’t stop. No way.

<>

We glanced at each other, startled. The childish voice emanated from everywhere, like each leaf or pine needle had rustled at a coordinated frequency.

<>

Whatever this was, it was toying with us. And it was powerful enough to do so without concern.

Or maybe it isn’t. I thought that Piliton’s sons looked tough until I actually faced them.

This was quite a different situation, though. Harbouring and controlling vast numbers of monsters was something new. And they were real monsters — I’d gotten EXP from all of them, and loot from some.

“Who are you?” I shouted.

<>

“WHO ARE YOU?” I tried again.

<>

The high voice grated against my ears and rang like a church bell in my head. We stopped, and I pulled out the green voice-amplification potion.

“Block your ears once I drink this,” I told Claire.

She jammed a finger in each ear, and I drank the mixture. It tasted like a big mouthful of parsley.

“WHO. ARE. YOU?” I boomed. Even though I knew what the potion would do, the volume made me jump.

<>

“I’m sorry,” I tried to mutter, unsuccessfully. “I’d just like to know who you are.”

<>

“I asked you first,” I tried. “But I agree.”

Claire shot daggers at me. She didn’t like my agreement, but I figured we had bigger things to worry about. We weren’t negotiating from a position of strength here.

<>

I tried to process what I could. ‘Mom’ must’ve been another Stake, though a more powerful one. And Marla wasn’t scared of the Asterian King.

Piliton’s sons mentioned something about Lord Piliton becoming King. ‘Righting the scales’ or something.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Marla.”

Claire nodded furiously at my introduction.

“I’m Oliver Matanor, and I’m just here in Asteroth to pick flowers.”

<>

“That’s lovely. And no, she’s my friend.” Claire gave me a look that said she might disagree, but I brushed it off. “She’s helping me find the right flowers.”

<>

It took me a moment to realise that Barbara was Bikini-Lady. A normal, human name for a monstrosity like that.

“I’m sorry, I just thought it was such a pretty flower. I didn’t want to hurt Barbara. She seemed nice.”

<>

“You would? I’d have to see the flower you mentioned and decide if it looks good in my bouquet, I’m afraid. Is it pretty?”

The voice went silent. Marla was either deciding our fate, or pulling up a picture of the Perrywort. I looked to the sky, checking if it was projected up there.

<>

Marla is definitely just a little kid with insane power. Better not take away her toys.

“I’ll do that, Marla. Say, would you mind letting us out of here? There are no flowers in here, so I can’t add to my bouquet. Also I think the gnomes are coming back. Please hurry.”

<>

Claire chimed in, shouting at the top of her lungs. “I like you too, Marla!”

<>

The real world appeared around us like an unfolding square box. Hills fell back into their places, trees dug themselves into the earth, and we stood on hard, packed earth. No more pine needles.

Never again.

“I think we just survived The Hollow Forest, right?” I spoke quietly, just in case Marla was hanging around.

“It seems like it. That is definitely the King’s Road over there, look at the traffic!”

Unless this was a devious second layer to Marla’s tricks, we were safe. My first encounter with one of the Seven Stakes had gone quite differently to how I’d expected it to go. Marla seemed both terrifying and unstable, which probably made sense for an ultra-powerful being with the mental state of a child. No one but the infamous ‘Mom’ could control her.

And she knows about the Perrywort. It’s definitely at the Royal Botanist’s.

As long as she didn’t tip off the Royal Botanist or any of the guards, we were in the clear. She undoubtedly had some kind of obligation to the nation, at least when it came to matters of high importance, but her moral scales had to be fairly unbalanced — she had freely admitted to killing and eating Asterians.

For that reason, I felt confident that she wouldn’t betray us.

Kids like secrets, and we’d given her a big one to keep all to herself.