We swung from branch to branch under a green overhang of leaves. The drop beneath us was about 40 feet into thorns that reflected the light as if they somehow had grown steel down into their cellular structure. So we swung, arm over arm, Wilmette taking the lead, the whole of the 30 or so yards to the next resting spot.

The smell of fresh death was everywhere. Not only that, there was newfound evidence that Wilmette had recently been through this area. I could see arrows were in the bodies of the Gobble Gobbles that lay below us.

There weren’t many Gobble Gobbles. Their numbers were dwarfed by the number of Goblins and Hobgoblins that whose mangled corpses lay strewn near and far. But the battle must have raged hard and recent.

At around two-thirds of the distance my arms began to burn, and the further I got the felt like they were going to tear themselves off. But I kept pushing. I kept keeping up with Wilmette.

Until I was at the other side, and I could no longer push myself anymore and I just dropped onto the platform and lay there panting. I must have pulled every muscle in my body.

Wilmette looked at me “Stupid. Why you not heal?”

I was about to yell at him, but then I stopped. Why hadn’t I just finished for a second and healed my muscles, before continuing to swing on? I concentrated quickly finding the runes for arms and muscles and then filling myself with soothing energy.

“I'm Stupid.” I agreed, getting up.

I could hear the grunting and chittering of goblins coming from further on. The smell of death was incredibly fresh here, and I pulled out my short sword.

Wilmette looked at me and seemed to think for a moment. A long moment.

“What” I said.

“What you know about gnacks.” He said finally.

“Snacks?” I said. “Snacks yummy.”

He raised his fist as if he was going to strike me, then lowered his hand and visibly calmed down.

 “Gnacks. Magical Gnacks. They are rare but you Witch. Being Witch is greater gnack.” He said.

“This is first I know that I witch. You tell it to me,” I said.

“Gnacks, is from here,” he tapped his heart, “no here,” he tapped his head. “When really young gnacks are made out of desire, out of Fear, out of need, out of wanting out of sex, out of hunger. All therse make gnacks. Thinking does not. Gnacks are powerful, primal, animal. Hidden. They come from soul.”

“I know runes.” I said.

“Gnacks not runes. Runes come after gnacks. Gnacks first magic. Powerful, primal, animal. I first learn about them from my mother.”

“Ok,” I said, not seeing how this was relevant to the dungeon but interested nonetheless.

“Two ways to learn to use gnack. Stress. Anger. Fear. Sometimes Gnack will lash out. Part of training until now has been to try to release Gnack.  Second way is easier but harder. You need to first overfill yourself with Mana. Hard too. Fill yourself with much mana, and BOOM!” He mimed an explosion. “Too little mana and it is useless can do nothing. But it is also addictive. Want to keep filling too much. Nobody knows limit til use too much. At least not until Status discover. If you discover gnack, status sometime tells limit. It is useful.”

I looked at him. “I don't have Status."

“You have witch Gnack. You can pull mana out and you can push mana in.  You can steal mana from others, store it, and give it away. At distances.  Some witches range further some witches steal faster. Depends on power”

He paused for a very long time as if considering something. I waited patiently until he continued.

“Some Gnacks can link to other Gnacks.” Wilmette pointed to himself. “I have Necromancer gnack. Pull Mana from pain, death, decay. Can also stop dungun from respawn only leaving death. I also have small life gnack in heal and in body and a small nature gnack.”

“The difference between small gnack and big gnack is a small gnack cannot pull mana from it's affinity a big gnack pull mana without thinking.”

“A mage with a big pyro gnack pulls from fire. A mage with a big aqua gnack gets mana from water. More fire, more water, more death, more life, results in more power.   All depends on type of Gnack. Witch steal from life. You have big witch Gnack.”

“Need find if u heal and body gnack. Very possible. Heal most common Life gnack. Body most useful fighting. U useless in fight against body gnack without body gnack.”

What he was saying was that even with all this training, if I didn’t have this body gnack thing it wouldn’t matter how skilled I was, I would be useless in a fight.

“How we find if got small gnacks?” I said.

“Need to overfill mana, then test. We see gobbles, u hide, I fight. Use witch skills to suck mana into you. Start small. Too much mana and you go BOOM! And Elm's guts all over my pants and on grass and trees.”

“Remember also a Witch gnack is like a Necromancer gnack always keep a secret. Common people superstitious and scared. When I was young they drive Wilmette out. Was sad. Not see family since. They will drive Elm out people find out. Not even powerful daddy help if common people discover. Someone gets is Witch fault. Someone die. Witch fucker fault. Sheep or Crops die. Find then burn the Witch. Be careful stay secret.”

“I will stay secret. I will only let Wilmette know.” I said. “And I will keep Wilmette secret too.”

“Now, go kill gobble fuckers. Stay in shadows. Steal life. Only ONE GOBBLE. Fill Mana. If no go BOOM, when done. Es-spear-a-mint. See what pussy Elm cun do.”

We climbed down the tree branches, and onto the ground. This part of the dungeon was underneath the layer of thorns that we had been traveling on top of all day. A wide processional path opened before us like one a bride would walk down at a wedding or an honoree would traverse to receive a reward. Up above the thorns, bushes were festooned with flowers, red, white, pink. There was a scent of leather, honeysuckle, and oudh.

I stepped into the shadows, not using the new stealth abilities I had worked out. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be anything with mage sight, though I had my suspicions that the hobble gobbles, I mean hobgoblins, might be able to see me.

We walked past the bloody history of more battles, corpses getting fresher and fresher until the ground lay littered with yesterday’s dead. We stopped just before a bend in the field of trees and thorns. I could not see what was around the corner.

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Wilmette turned to where I was hiding and said, “Body Gnack,” suddenly his body seemed to ripple. His muscles seemed to swell, his and he burst forward into a kind of speed that I had never seen before.

I moved quickly after him, staying in the shadows as much as possible stepped around the bend. There I saw Wilmette fighting three gobble gobbles. He had his sword in one hand facing off against the gobble gobbles.

Wilmette’s other hand seemed to be directing the very essence of nature around him. Every hobgoblin I saw was rooted in place, and even the gobble gobbles kept getting anchored, they just kept ripping the vines and grasses that attached to their legs off, with every step.

Shit, I needed to focus, I turned and looked up above. Goblins were hanging from tree branches and vines that ran through the thorn ceiling. They pelted Wilmette with their shit, which he ignored.

I chose a goblin closest to me. Like with the chipmunks and the goblin that I had fought months earlier, I extended a thin link between myself and the feces throwing demi-human. When I felt a connection, instead of sending mana to it, I began sucking it towards me. It was like I was sucking on a straw, raw power started coursing into me.

The goblin started to scream, and I started to pull mana from it harder. It started to panic and swinging too and fro on its vine. I opened my link up like a hose and sucked all of its life into me. Then it fell to the ground dead.

I knew that Wilmette had warned me about trying too much, but I felt alive like I never had before. I extended my hose size link to another goblin and sucked. This time the goblins fell dead much quicker. So much life coursing through me. It was glorious. I grabbed a third. Then a fourth. Then a fifth. Then a Sixth. There was no way that I could get myself full. I was at an all you can eat goblin buffet, and I’d brought my appetite.

Then I felt a fist smash into me.

Wilmette was standing over me holding a struggling hobgoblin by the neck. I lost my stealth spell and the goblins up above screened and screeched and started to pelt me with their shit.

“ONE GOBBLE FUCKR. NO GO BOOM!“ Wilmette yelled as he grabbed the hobgoblin’s head with his other hand and ripped the head from the hobgoblin’s body before lobbing the decapitated head like a missile at one of the goblin raining down shit from above.

“GO. WHEN I FINISH. I GET.”

Wilmette to three hobgoblins that were still fighting to get out of the grass. I looked around and saw that all the gobble gobbles had been eviscerated and were lying dead near where he was battling.

I sunk back into the shadows but stayed to watch. Wilmette nocked three of the hobgoblins over, and weeds, grasses, and vines pushed up through the dead leaves and stick to wrap themselves around the hobgoblins encasing them like a spider would a fly.

Wilmette had already turned towards the remain goblins up above. He pulled out his bow and began sniping them from the foliage above. Every arrow brought down a goblin. And when he was done, the glade where we had been fighting was silent.

Then Wilmette pulled out his knife and walked over to the struggling hobgoblins he’d left encased in the plant life on the forest floor. I knew what came next, so I quietly turned my back and left.

Around the corner, I started a small fire and boiled some water for some dried plants and meat and made a meal for both of us.

Wilmette eventually showed up about a half an hour later. His musculature had gone back to normal, and he was moving in slow motion as any other normal human being would. He sat down by my fire and quickly gobble gobbled the food I’d made.

When he was done, he let out an enormous belch and then stood.

“Test Heal,” Wilmette said. And without preamble, he whipped his sword out and stabbed me in the gut. Again.

I looked at him with shock. My hands went to my stomach.

“Heal.” He said.

Inside I had never stopped being aware of all the energy I’d taken from the goblins coursing through my body. I felt it pushing at me, and I directed it at the gaping hole in my figure.

Instead of closing the wound my body started sprouted hair all over. Within seconds I was as hirsute as an Armenian mobster. Which sucked not only because I was still bleeding out all over the place, but also sucked because I still hadn’t technically gone through puberty yet.

“Useless,” said Wilmette.

I kept trying, but I kept getting weaker and weaker. The hair turned a glittering gold color, then my skin turned bright green, then I managed to turn my skin back to the right color, and I rid of all the hair. Finally, not willing to try anymore, on the verge of passing out despite the constant barrage of awareness spells, I cast my standard heal spell on my gut.

“Useless,” repeated Wilmette. “No heal.”

“Turn skin green.” I said, “Make hairy.”

“Make gobble pretty to bugger gobble better.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Heal gnack make no-kill possible. Hurt go bye-bye when happen.”

What Wilmette seemed to be saying was that the Healing gnack — which I didn’t seem to have — was personal regeneration.

“Test body gnack,” he said. “Think strong. Think fast. Think hard.” And he began to beat the shit out of me.

Punch after punch landed. I tried to dodge, but Wilmette seemed to be able to see where I was going to be when I avoided and his fist would be there. This was different than the variety of beating that my father would give me. Wilmette was far more controlled and far less passionate about the whole thing.

The more I tried to dodge, the more he hit me, and the life that was pulsing inside of me seemed to glow and pulse and want to be reached until something clicked. And for a second, I was moving faster than him, I was stronger than him, and couldn’t feel his punches. Then the feeling of life was unreachable, but I was out of his grasp, so I moved in to punch him myself.

He rotated and started to wind up to hit me again, and this time his punch looked stronger. My strike landed, and it looked like he barely felt it, but his attack knocked me backward, and he moved on me fist upraised, and I dodged out of the way, and then I could feel the life again, and I grabbed it and I was stronger, faster, and tougher all over again, and this time I hit him full of life. And my blow knocked him back, and then the feeling was gone, and I was plain old me again.

He came at me again, and the best I could do was dodge and try to avoid his blows, which came one after the other. Until a short time passed and then I had access to that feeling again, and the life coursed through me and I wound up and Wilmette took the blow, and I quickly hit him again, before that incredible feeling left again. Which it did.

Wilmette held up his hand and shook his head. “Useless,”

“What,” I said. “Got body. Strong. Quick. Hard.”

“Only short. What. 1 Second. Then wait. Wait is forever in fight.” He thought about it for a second. Then his body seemed to glow, and muscles burst out all over. It was like I’d seen him before in battle, the invulnerable tower of power.

“Try thing.” He said. “Try only strong. Try use all mana left. Use up in punch to Wilmette. Punch Wilmette. Only used strong. Use all Mana in gnack.”

I could feel the life energy waiting for me to use, so I did exactly what he asked. I drunk deeply, taking all everything I had left and put it all into my muscles. I felt the power like I was an omnipotent titan, and I lashed out at Wilmette meaning to strike him down for all of the pain he had caused me over the past year of his training.

But in the fraction of a second that my fist traveled through the air, Wilmette, somehow sped back and forth away, once, twice, three times, out of reach of my fist, before finally sitting down in front of it, letting the impact take him in the shoulder. It wasn’t just that Wilmette was fast, it was that my blow was slow. Regular human speed.

But the blow struck just before the feeling of life and power ran out of my body, and I was left with a sense of emptiness that I had always known but never been able to remark upon because it had always been with me before today.

Two things happened.

Despite hitting Wilmette only in the shoulder, his entire body when flying backward about 20 feet and would have gone back further still if he hadn’t gotten lodged in the thorns and branches that bordered the walls of the dungeon.

The second thing was that every bone in my fist shattered. When I say shattered I mean, dust and debris. The skin on my hand was pulped. My Radius and Ulna bones were fractured who knows how many times and my Humerus bone had pierced the skin out of the back of my shoulder and was hanging out behind me.

I screamed in pain and almost blacked out. I screamed in pain again, and would have blacked out except I somehow managed to cast the awareness spell, which kept me awake but experiencing more profound hurt than I had ever felt in my life.

Slowly I built up the runes to heal my fix the bones in my hand. By then Wilmette was out of the wall of thorns and was watching me. Slowly I built up the runes to push my Humerus back into place. Gradually the skin reformed. I was almost out of mana, but slowly I managed to get my Radius and Ulna roughly patched up.

It wasn’t perfect. It still hurt. Any sudden movement and everything would break again. But I was out of mana, and it was the best I could do for now.

Wilmette nodded.

“Not useless. Not good. Wilmette body gnack always same. Move fast. Be Strong. Be Hard. Not too hard. Not too soft. Not too Strong, Not too Weak. Not too Fast. Not too Slow. Elm body gnack choice. Fast as want to be. Strong as want to be. Hard as want to be. Only limit Mana and Time. 1 second only. Then wait. Then 1 second. Not useless. Not good. Not bad. Good for surprise. Good for bait.”

Then he thought about it. And repeated the world “Bait.”