The Serpents Three had not been liked. Gerald was told as much while the server passed him a complimentary meal of thinly spiced bread and milk. I suppose they’re The Serpents Two, if they decide to continue their banditry.
The suspicious gazes had filtered out from their boarded-up houses and now the town, suddenly, was alive with people. Hardy, gaunt men chatted as they split towards the deeper Gnarl. Women with machetes whacked at tufts of red grass that sprouted from the pavement, tossed the stems into baskets. Children drew lines in the dirt road and ran about them in games as arcane as they were universal.
“Tag, you’re the Hopper!”
Gerald blinked. He was occupying the pub’s front table all on his own, and the civilians gave him a respectful berth. All except for the child beside him, who had fearlessly slapped his side.
“My legs don’t work well enough for that, I fear.”
“Oh. I’ll get someone else!” The boy gave him a smile and ran off in small frog-hops, giggling.
I was ambushed earlier. Aura of Thorns cut that thief before I even knew he was an enemy. This child slaps me without fear, but receives no damage... it must discern targets based on malicious intent, then.
(Passive) Aura of Thorns L.1 ⊙︎
Enemies that make contact with your body take 3 piercing damage.
Enemies indeed! But could some madman harm me without realizing, and face no consequences?
Gerald shook his head. The Goddess has provided me quite the esoteric Blessing, as punishment for leaving my family in the Peeking Woods... it’s just...
“This place thrives,” he whispered. My old village might have, too. Was I truly such a coward? Even beside this Gnarl of Blood, children can play.
Gerald wiped his face. Salty tears dripped down his fingers and into the bread as he ate. He tightened his mouth into a thin line.
What a mess I am. I can’t forget what I’m here to do.
So it was that Gerald marched up to one of the men heading into the woods and bowed deeply.
“Please allow me to shadow you through the Gnarl. I will not disturb you. I simply wish to watch how you navigate.”
The hunter frowned. “Even if you can keep up, I don’t want your blood on my hands.”
He turned and stalked away. Gerald watched helplessly.
How to convince-
“That’s not the problem.”
A small, elderly person had approached him from the side. Their face was too shriveled to discern if it belonged to a male or female.
You scrutinize Witch Olson.
Ah, a witch. She must be a woman.
“What?” Gerald asked.
“It’s not that the hunter’s afraid of you interfering with him, boy. It’s actually the opposite. The Gnarl has its rules. The damn thing punishes those who travel too far without fighting the wildlife. It’s why there are so many outposts like our Feverton; the place forgives and forgets passive people once they sleep in town.”
There’s a lot to unpack in that statement, and offered generously, too. However...
“I’m thirty-four, ma’am. Not a boy at all.”
“Well, I’m not a ma’am, but we can’t always get what we want the first time. Call me Olson or I’ll steal your cane.”
Gerald blinked. There was something of the Father’s command there.
“Yes sir,” he said unconsciously.
Olson’s entire face melted into a scowl.
“Not that, either! So hung up on formality before your betters you end up impolite. Bah.”
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Olson spat to the side and began to trundle off. Their footsteps still weren’t audible.
Only when Olson had disappeared behind houses did Gerald relax. I really thought that old hag would steal my cane! Even as a Blessed, witches still give me chills.
Gerald slapped his own cheek.
“Enough thought! If the Gnarl respects only active and decisive prey, I’d better show those characteristics.”
Without further hesitation, he strode past crimson foliage and into the Gnarl proper. The sounds of Feverton—laughter, play, work—were swallowed up behind him. Here there was only silence and crunching grass underfoot. It smelled, oddly, of wax.
Gerald’s eyes wandered as he walked. The florae here were truly alien. Meaty bulbs hanging from the canopy twitched when he passed them.
One vibrated angrily and exploded into chunks. A swarm of stinging insects flooded out and broke themselves apart on his Aura.
Aura of Thorns dealt 3 piercing damage to Swarming Figwasp.
Aura of Thorns dealt 3 piercing damage to Swarming Figwasp.
Aura of Thorns dealt [...]
Forty-six notifications flashed through his Blessing.
Gerald gulped. For some reason, he found himself thinking aloud into the quiet woods.
“Not twenty steps into the Gnarl proper and it’s already sent a small horde of pestilence after me. If I wasn’t a [Penitent], I’d have been shredded. How vicious! It must disdain me for relaxing in a caravan. I hope it’ll allow me to prove myself.”
Was it his imagination, or did the waxy smell thicken?
Gerald continued deeper into the raw mouth of the woods. He had the sense that a crack was opening underneath his feet; that he was only barely too stable to fall in. That if he had a deeper understanding of non-equivalence, he would sink into an equally deep spiritual quagmire. As it was, Gerald still felt a strange weight playing at the edges of his consciousness.
Noise cut through the stale air behind him; not just a howl. It was gurgling, too. Already alert, Gerald dove forward. Something passed over his head and sliced the hood of his robes free. Farther away still, claw-marks shaved at the bark of the Figwasp Tree.
Gerald landed in a prone heap. His unseen attacker was snarling behind him. It’s going to jump on me! He desperately rolled to the side; a rush of air buffeted him. The creature had stamped deeply into Gerald’s leg. Foliage flattened itself in the wind.
Attack dealt 6 crushing damage to you, R1 [Penitent].
Your Major Injury has worsened!
Your Max HP reduced by 3.
HP: 8/11
The creature was two-hundred pounds of emaciated wolf carcass and red worms. Its mouth dripped with froth; its jaws were locked open.
He had but an instant before it savaged him. Time seemed to slow.
Two images merged in Gerald’s mind.
The sickly crunch of his fist hitting a thug’s nose. Punctures traveling deeper still.
Claw marks planting themselves into tree bark from a swipe several meters distant.
I’m going to die just like him.
Gerald knew he required skin contact for Aura of Thorns to function. He had no hope of delivering a solid punch to the beast while pinned.
All innovations in violence are born of such wild odds. His body acted on his epiphany before it had even crystallized as a thought.
Gerald swung from the ground. It was a wide hook, easily avoided by any man who’d seen a fight before. But he was facing a beast. His sweeping palm was open and his fingers splayed.
Anna explained to me that any strike is enough for a Blessed to maim. I hadn’t understood until Brenda slapped Knur half to death. Maybe I still didn’t understand back then.
The middle finger struck first; incidental, for it was the longest of the five. The other four fingers trailed shortly behind it. Then his palm slapped deep into the beast’s worm-infested fur.
Six impacts. All negligible, all combined and treated as one dense attack.
Attack dealt 1 crushing damage to Ingestion Hound.
And yet.
Aura of Thorns dealt 3 piercing damage to Ingestion Hound.
Aura of Thorns dealt 3 piercing damage to Ingestion Hound.
Two puncture wounds had burrowed into the hound. The first radiated from Gerald’s middle finger through its cheek and throat. The second passed from its lower jaw to its brain. His palm was cupped around the bottom right of the wolf’s snout.
The hound’s joints locked up; it collapsed onto its flank and moved no further. The worms continued to writhe gleefully in the corpse.
Gerald gasped out his agony. How did I just do that?
Then he screamed.
“I’ll burn you down if you try that shit again! Understand?!”
The smell of wax vanished. He stood shakily on his cane and fled only one step before he again found himself in Feverton.