Dale and I discussed lighter topics on the way home from Esko’s. He told me what it was like when he went into Major Pods and won the AT-2000. I told him how I’d gotten {The Glass Cannon}. He seemed particularly interested in that.

“Tren, you said his name was?”

“Yessir. I think the shopkeeper’s name is Paul, but Tren was my guy. Mi amigo.”

“Your accomplice, it sounds like. Twenty thousand krad is absurd.”

I held back on discussing the new quest that Claire and I had picked up. Until the money was in my pocket, I didn’t want the pressure. If we failed, it could be Claire’s and my failure. No one would have to know.

When we got back, Mom interrogated us about the cookies. We must’ve answered correctly, because we were allowed to sit down at the table and be served dinner.

“And you two are in some serious dinner debt, you know? I’ve been cooking nonstop recently.”

“Yesss Em,” Dale replied. “That’s on me. I’d really like to get the barbeque going, but I keep forgetting to clean it. I’ll get Ollie onto it this weekend.”

Mom threatened him with a wooden spoon. “You’ll do it, thank you. If you’re gonna create the mess, it’s on you.”

Dale scrunched up his face and gave me a look that suggested a back-alley deal. I made a big deal of pretending not to notice.

After a quick dinner, and recapping Esko’s training for Mom’s enjoyment, I rushed off to the Pod. I was free for tonight, then all of the next three days.

We were going to topple this kingdom no matter what.

--Immersing, please don’t disconnect--

“You’re seven minutes late,” a voice called.

I was still busy gathering my senses and letting the world come into focus.

“Bullcrap,” I finally got out.

Claire stood by the side of the road, sawing through the vines with her dagger. It was late enough that there were no travellers around to see us.

“You said six hours, and it has been six hours and seven minutes since we disconnected last. I expect to be paid overtime.”

She turned around and flicked thorns at me. They peppered my new shirt and stuck in the thin material. It felt weird with the dulled-down pain senses, like a dozen tiny itches that I barely noticed.

“Hmm. I shall evaluate your performance and get back to you. For now, I’m going to have to burst your bubble and let you know that we still have to cover some ground before dipping back into the forest.”

“I don’t think we do. The whole thing is a pine forest — let’s just enter here and see if Marla can hear us. I hope your vocal cords are well greased, we don’t have a potion for that anymore.”

“Ah. Okay. Keep sawing then, boss.”

A few minutes later, we were back in the forest.

Out on the fringes, the tree density wasn’t so severe. The pine needles weren’t nearly as thick either. It felt like the Hollow Forest, but on easy mode.

“You think Marla can hear us already?” Claire asked.

“I hope she tells us when she can, cos otherwise I’ll have to sing a marching song and wait till she notices.”

“You sing?”

“Oh, err, no. I mean I can, but can’t everybody?”

Claire seemed satisfied with my answer.

We trekked north, padding along until the needles were so thick that I could no longer feel solid ground beneath my feet. It was like a trampoline with no bounce. I kept checking our surroundings.

The gnomes would be out there somewhere.

I brought up my map and made sure it was still blacked out. We’d lost communications a while ago, which by our understanding was a good indication that we had entered Marla’s domain. Now we just had to wait for the jump-scares and pray that Marla heard our screams before the piles of creepy gnomes drowned them out.

“Who’s that?” Claire whispered. A silhouette stood in the needles ahead of us, but I wasn’t sure it was human. Whatever it was, it slightly levitated off the ground, suspended in the air by six lengths of a black substance that stuck to nearby trees and latched onto the figure. They looked sticky.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

We walked slower, but we didn’t stop. I wasn’t sure if we were looking at a torture victim, or some primordial being trapped in the forest. Or both.

When we got closer, I noticed we were approaching it from behind. Part of the silhouette was actually just a jet-black mass of hair that fell to the person’s knees. It was definitely human. Part human, at least.

I wasn’t ready for the head that swivelled around to great us. It spun one eighty degrees with a wet squelch that had to be bones breaking and flesh tearing. The thing didn’t seem to care.

“I know you!” it screeched.

Her voice hit against my very soul, and I took multiple steps back. Something in my brain told me to run, run until your legs break, but it went away after a few seconds and I was able to stabilize myself.

“Oops! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to use that on you. I’m Marla. We met yesterday, remember?”

Marla had six eyes, three per side. Her skin was a faded purple, and dark scars covered each cheek as well as her neck. She wore a bedraggled red cloak, so torn and moth-eaten that it dangled off her body, exposing emaciated ribs.

This is not a human that should be alive.

“Hello, Marla. We’re sorry if we startled you,” I said.

“You didn’t!” she exclaimed. “I was connected to the trees. I’ve been watching you for a while. I only took one break to eat a young couple going on a picnic.”

I tried to push that picture from my mind. They’re NPCs. They’re NPCs. They’re NPCs.

“Well thank you for not sending any monsters after us. We just wanted to talk to you, after all.”

The sappy black connections dissipated, and Marla’s body dropped to the ground in a heap. After a few seconds, the mass formed new legs and righted itself, flicking off some of the dark juices onto the ground. The pine needles fizzed where it landed.

“That’s interesting. People don’t usually come back here on purpose. Though they don’t usually escape, aHAhaAhah!”

Her laughed sounded like a squealing boar in a washing machine. I saw Claire wince from the corner of my eye.

“Yes, well, we’re wondering if you would be interested in gaining a certain degree of…freedom from the current king.”

Marla’s deathly laugh faded at the word ‘freedom’, and her face grew serious. Apparently that was of great interest to her.

“Explain,” she demanded. “Explain, or you will be staying here for a very long time.”

Her top left eye flashed green and a feeling of dread washed over me. I felt like curling into the fetal position and vomiting until my throat went raw. Claire stumbled and placed a hand on the ground to support her shaking knees.

“Marla,” I gasped. “Please, stop. You’re killing the messenger. Lord Piliton…”

I sat down cross-legged and leaned over my knees, stuffing my head into my hands. Whatever this was, the system wasn’t protecting me from it. It wasn’t physical, but it so, so was.

“Keep going,” demanded the Sixth Stake.

“Lord Piliton wants to be king. We thought you might be interested in working together. You could have a more lenient relationship with him.”

I had no idea if I was striking the right chords, but it was my only option. It took everything in me not to disconnect and come back in a few days when she’d hopefully have gotten tired of torturing us. All I knew is that she thought little of the king.

Her green eye reverted to its original form — a grey pit with an enlarged pupil — and I could finally breathe again. Claire took deep breaths before staggering to her feet. I hadn’t even noticed her fall.

“Go on,” Marla demanded. She’d changed drastically from yesterday.

“You’re stuck here!” Claire interjected. “Your physical body can morph anywhere in the forest, but you can’t leave. Only your consciousness can — it’s how you checked if the Perrywort was at the Royal Botanist’s.”

How the hell does she know that?

Marla frowned. “That’s right. And you two lied to me. You said you were making a bouquet. I don’t like liars.”

I winced, adding another reason to my mental list of Why-We-Shouldn’t-Have-Come-Here.

“But you’re right. I like the king even less. Mom made an agreement with him to keep me here in exchange for something else. I can’t really eat him, you know. Not unless he comes for a visit.”

“I see. Are you able to help us in some other way, since you can’t leave? I think Lord Piliton would be willing to free you if you helped him attain the throne.”

Asteroth was going to be in big trouble if Marla was ever allowed out, I knew that. She’d turned this patch of forest into a horror story, and I had no doubt she would do the same to the rest of the world if she had the chance. But that could be dealt with later. We were bound to chip a few plates on the way to demolishing the house, and new ones could be purchased later.

“You could talk to Mom. If I give you some of the thing, she won’t immediately consume you. You’d have to talk fast, though.”

This sounded treacherous. “What would we talk about? Do you have any idea what deal she made? The more information we have, the better the chance we can get you out of here.”

Speaking of getting out of here…

“I don’t know. She spends most of her time at the Lake of Balurk. She wears pink. She’ll be the only person there wearing pink, because no one wants to get on her bad side.”

“Okay. And the thing that will stop her from consuming us immediately?”

“Garlic. And no, she’s not a vampire. It just gives her indigestion and bad breath. She’ll know if you’re holding some, and she might not eat you if you are.”

Might. I felt queasy at the prospect.

Claire finally spoke up. I’d been hoping she would help out a bit more, considering Marla had ‘liked her hair’ yesterday. She also said she liked us in general, but she had a funny way of showing it this time around. Maybe she was on edge because it was dark. If the sole proprietor of the spookiest place in Asteroth was afraid of the dark, then that was just cruel.

“Marla, is there something we can give to you? Are you hungry?”

Woah. Not the path I was expecting.

Marla paused. She sounded as though she was a child yesterday, but she could’ve only been a few years younger than us. It was quite hard to tell because of her derelict body that seemed to morph into whatever it wanted, but her face had smooth skin in the places that it wasn’t scarred.

She looked at Claire with longing.

“I…I have had tastier meals than humans, I suppose.”

“Do they nourish you?” Claire asked.

“They nourish the Forest.”

I watched Claire as she poked around in her inventory. She seemed to scroll for a while, which left me awkwardly keeping an eye on Marla while she probably debated about gruesomely devouring us.

“Take this. I want you to have it.”

Claire held out a blueberry muffin. I’d seen a plate of them in the sitting room at Lord Piliton’s, but I’d assumed they were for someone more important than me.

Marla leaned towards her. A pale arm extruded from her side, reaching across slowly, as though she wasn’t sure if the muffin was real.

She curled her claw-like fingers around and brought it back. She took a bite and her eyes flickered in different colours like a pinball machine. I prepared for a wave of whatever damage that would cause.

“This is good. I hope Mom doesn’t kill you.”