Chapter 29: Bridge Towards Reality

Varhi growled. For what felt like dozens upon other dozens of times, he felt one of his steel boots slipping under the dirt and rock underneath him. Steel greaves were definitely not good climbing material for getting up or down a blasted mountain range.

One would think the extra weight from armor would give you more grip into the dirt and rock. Nope. Instead, it just made you slide even faster. Go figure...

It had been three days since he and his associate-of-a-merchant, Belgarion he hired had parted ways at the crossroads between Karvadean and City Cylvolta. He had made a pit stop into Osha on the way here—it had been nearly night and there was no reason to camp out in the open by himself in the middle of the plains when Osha, a small village which primarily consisted of hunters was so nearby the base of this mountain. He bought the amount of food he thought he'd need for a return trip to and from Karvadean, opted to sleep early, leave before sunrise hit and by the time morning sun had come, he had been able to reach the mountain to begin his climb with brand new daylight.

It would take a lot of luck, but if he was lucky and if his plan worked out, he would be able to get in, find out what exactly was going on with the village, get out and be back in Osha again by the evening just in time for dinner to celebrate himself on a job well done and that he would be getting his five-thousand seru payment in the near future. If not, he could scout around, set up camp, then be out probably by the next day.

Osha itself had been valuable for gathering info—in which, the people had no idea what he was talking about. Yes, they have absolutely heard nothing, nor could they tell him anything about any recent events with Karvadean. Nobody here had any business there despite geographically being nearby. Osha was full of hunters, Karvadean was full of miners. They had no real business with each other.

Wonderful.

Ironically, that lack of information in itself was useful to him though, it told him a lot. Either whatever was happening in Karvadean had been a one-off incident and those men were just unlucky to encounter something in vicinity of the mining town, or perhaps it was bigger and the King was just keeping things tidily under wraps.

...Or, whatever had happened just wasn't wide spread yet, he supposed.

Well, he would find out today which of those were true.

Finally making his way up the top of the incline he had been climbing for possibly the few hours, Varhi took a moment to catch his breath with his hands on his knees. He felt sweat accumulating in his eyebrows. He grabbed the end of his cape to wipe his face as he looked down.

Below he could see a forest and… more mountains.

More... mountains.

Great. Fantastic. Super.

The entire mountain range, according to his very undescriptive map, was like a ring. In this ‘ring’, was nothing but forest and a few more smaller mountains. Karvadean was somewhere in there. He currently had a wonderful view, able to see most of the forest and a large section of this ‘ring’ but couldn’t see the village anywhere.

"Huh...?"

As he continued to look, he saw what looked like... a cloud around the forest near the middle of it. A... green cloud. Or would 'fog' be more appropriate?

Hmm. That was weird...

Thankfully someone had put a path out. It was just a damn shame the path was this hard to tread on.

It… also led to where he was now, which he looked down and it was just practically a straight drop.

“...What.” Varhi let out, unamused at his circumstance as he looked down from the cliff he was on top of. Who the ever living crap would make such a useless path?

His eyes soon spotted the problem. There was a ladder. A rope ladder it seemed.

It was laying uselessly on the ground. Say… about fourty feet or so below him.

“Dammit. I must be cursed.” He sighed. Why did these things always happen to him on his jobs? Nothing was ever simple.

"Remember your lesson, Varhi... if something can go wrong in a job; it will..." He muttered to himself.

Time to solve things his own way. Again.

He dug into his satchel and began pulling out some rope and measured it. He had around twenty-five feet left of it. Subtracting the amount he’d need to use to secure it so he could actually use it, it would be enough to get down relatively safely without killing himself, but there was no way there was enough to get back up once he had dropped down.

Damn.

He’d just have to find another way back up. It sucked to have to lose the rope though. He’d have to buy some more—which should be easy with five-thousand seru as a reward, he supposed.

Though the forest was below him, there were still a few trees dotted around up where he was, too. He moved to wrap and tie his rope securely around the nearest trunk. He tested its strength and was satisfied that it would hold him and his armor’s weight. Grown adult men probably still weighed more than he did, even with his armor on. He was sure the rope would hold him just fine.

He tossed the rope down and positioned himself. Then carefully, he started lowering himself down. Climbing down with his armor on was much easier than climbing up—he had learned that from experience. This wasn’t too tough.

When he reached the end, he looked down. Other than a single fallen log below him, the path continued onward into the forest and was relatively clear of rock or other debris. He lowered himself down more and turned himself to face northward where the path continued. He kept going until he was dangling off the rope with only his hands. He kicked behind himself against the cliff as he began to swing. He wasn’t satisfied with the distance though, so he let himself come back towards the cliff and using the momentum for more strength and leverage, he kicked himself off again on the rebound, then he released his grip on the rope near the apex of his swing so he could sail over the log.

“PAAARRRKOOOUUURRRR–!!” He shouted out loud to no one in particular as he sailed through the air and landed on the dirt in a safety roll. He grunted upon the impact, but unlike his spill from the Cravenbat a few days ago, there was no pain in this landing. The momentum helped him distribute the weight just as he planned.

He looked back up to see his rope just dangling there now. Yeah. Definitely no way he would be able to reach back for that. Not even if he climbed any of the nearby trees and made a jump for it. Too dangerous, too. If he’d miss, he’d just splat on his face against a messy pile of jagged rocks and logs. Definitely no turning back now. Climbing up the path had been difficult enough. No way was he scaling up a fourty-foot wall of crumbling rock.

Oh well.

Varhi turned back around and followed the winding path forwards, looking this way and that as he scanned his surroundings that he passed through. While he walked, the wind blew, rustling the trees and their leaves. Whenever he heard that sound, he always equated it to 'a sea of trees'. Sometimes, if the forest and season was just right, the wind blowing on leaves could sound like the waves from a shore.

"...Man, I really spent way too much time on Jimmy's boat." Varhi muttered to himself.

As he listened and continued to walk along, he couldn’t help but feel that something felt... off, the more he listened. He couldn’t quite put his finger as to what, though. Something felt like it was... missing.

He walked for thirty minutes and as he walked on the faded path, he glanced back for a moment and spotted a clearing. He stopped and looked at it in thought for a moment.

His gut was telling him something; and his gut had saved him many, many times before. His gut was telling him that he needed to be cautious. So, when he felt that he needed to be cautious even when he was currently in no immediate danger, he would take that time to access the situation he was currently in and formulate a plan...

His situation was as followed:

He was as of right now, alone, in a forest, with currently no way to escape said forest but forwards.
This forest that had, allegedly, killed five men of the Masirean guard—six if you count the poor guy who died in the city.
There was a mysterious green fog ahead of him. That wasn't normal and probably wasn't good news.
For all intents and purposes, he considered himself stranded. There was no way out and nobody would be coming to get him if he did not come back after a period of time.
He only had a general idea of the location he was in. He didn't know any of the surrounding terrain. There could be even more obstacles that could hinder him ahead like that cliff he just scaled down.

The reality of what he had just put himself into was only now really starting to sink in.

He wasn’t scared. Being in such situations such as this was part of his line of work as a mercenary after all and he full-heartedly accepted that as just part of the profession. In fact, he revelled in the challenge of it. It excited him. He was very young, sure, but he wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t smart, that much he knew for sure, but again, he wasn’t stupid.

So, because he was not stupid, he knew enough to listen to his gut and to follow his instincts; the very ones humans had to survive potentially dangerous situations when alone and in the wild. So, when it told him he should be cautious and he had just put himself into serious danger right now, and that precautions and preparations for the worst case scenario should be made, just in case, he was going to do just that.

Varhi stepped off the path, wandering his way towards the clearing. It was somewhat hidden off the path by the trees and was far enough away from that green fog. He could easily find his way back here if he needed to by just finding the path and leaving a landmark here and there identifiable to him. The clearing was small, almost oval in shape and it was fairly close to the river he believed. It would be a bit of bush whacking but nothing his sword couldn’t handle if he literally needed to cut a pathway through to get to some water.

He should set up a camp here, just in case things didn’t go as planned. Worst case scenario, he spent an hour setting up a site that he wouldn’t use and the supplies and effort setting it up went to waste because he probably wouldn't spend the time walking back to recover them. Best case scenario—if it could even be called that, he could retreat and hide here to lick his wounds assuming he didn’t die from whatever could have possibly wounded him.

Wow. What a wonderful lose-lose situation this was.

Regardless, that’s what he began to do. He spent the rest of the morning up until early noon just gathering rocks and sticks to get a fire ready to be lit and setting up a collapsible tent—fancy things invented by Kior that cost him a pretty hefty amount of seru. Not only would it lighten his load more going in, but if he needed to retreat here for any reason, he wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of nowhere with no back up plan.

While he was working, he came to the realization with what had been bothering him for so long now. He only heard the wind and the leaves on the trees. He was hearing no animals whatsoever. Not once during the entire time he was making his camp… Not even a single bird tweeting.

Ominous and strange indeed…

Animals usually fled tail and ran when danger was abound that threatened them. Humans were not as sensitive as animals, though they had been once upon a time. They had for the most part, grown lazy and had lost the ability to tap into that instinct of survival. However, living on the move and putting himself in situations constantly, Varhi had found that his “danger senses” had become quite accurate most of the time.
...And they were definitely telling him something was wrong. It was that oh-so-wonderful sense of "you should totally not be here right now."

When he was done setting up his campsite, he made sure to once again memorize the area into his head and set off down the path again, leaving a couple of marks in the trees with his letter opener now and then as he walked to guide him back to his camp so he knew which direction of the path to go if he got turned around. The now noon day caused the heat to have risen considerably and it felt like the shade from the trees was doing nothing to help him at all against it.

Another hour he walked, following the path. He passed by a large tree along the way to the path. Gigantic and another fantastic landmark for him to note on his way to and from his camp should he need to remember; not that following the path back was hard, but one never knew. If he had to return back in the dark, it would be excellent to help him know and was certainly more visible in the dark then a few markings within the bark of trees.

The path had been primarily heading just west, but it had abruptly turned north just a couple of minutes after the large tree, which was the direction Varhi wanted to go. It lead towards the stream, which surely would be another landmark he could keep wary of. About another twenty minutes later going north, he frowned as he looked ahead and saw a mushroom… on a tree.

He approached it and looked at it carefully. He was no survival expert with the wilderness. He had some knowledge on the subject though and he was sure that mushrooms growing on trees was a bad sign for the tree that something was taking place within the roots of the tree to cause the mushroom to grow in the first place.
He also had never seen this type of mushroom before, either through both experience or from any material of which he studied, though, he equated that to still just his lack of knowledge on the subject. The mushroom had an orange cap on it, speckled with white dots, though it looked like there was what appeared to be like a veiny structure on the ashen stem of the mushroom itself as he examined it from underneath. They looked a sort of reddish pink.

Well, he didn't know what type of mushroom it was but even a moron would probably think that thing was poisonous. No way he was foraging that. Time to move on.

He stood back up and continued to walk where he saw more of those same type of mushrooms… and not just on trees, but on the ground, too. Even having to side step a couple of them on the path he was on.

Okay, this was getting a bit… weird.

The number of mushrooms was only increasing, and the trees he was seeing were beginning to turn yellow, and then gradually the deeper he walked, became orange and then even red in their leaves as if instead of it being summer, the season was becoming autumn right in front of his eyes the further he ventured in. However that red in the leaves continued to darken and become crimson until they were almost blood red in color, and the bark on the trees themselves as he continued on became ashen like the stems of the mushroom; as if the very color of the bark had been drained from them. Varhi could smell something pungent in the air, a sort of sour and bitter smell. Somewhat like vinegar mixed with urine.

Quite unpleasant...

He noticed as well that he was stepping into that fog he had spotted earlier. It was definitely starting to get harder to see in front of him and very air becoming more green all around him. That smell may have been a part of the fog, perhaps?

...What the heck was causing all of this? What sickness has infested itself here?

"...This bodes ill." He spoke to himself out loud with a mutter.

Varhi spotted a wooden bridge ahead of him and the bridge helped him cross that river of water he had noticed earlier. Before crossing it, he moved to kneel down in front of the water. Even the water looked… diseased. Curious, he dug for one of his pewter bowls he used for eating and he took some of the water from the stream to examine it more closely with it being still.

His brows creased. The water wasn’t clear at all. It was as if there was mud in the water; murky with a green hue just like the fog and the water had floating bits of… something white in it. He couldn’t tell if it was mold or what.

Well, he wasn’t eating out of this bowl any time soon. Or drinking any of the water anywhere near the fog. Curiously, he sniffed the water.

“*Cough… Hack...!* Uggh–! What the...?!”

His gag reflexes triggered to the point that he dropped the bowl and it shattered on the ground into three separate pieces. Okay, he wasn’t eating out of that bowl ever again.

The smell hadn’t been that bad... Okay, it was pretty bad. It thankfully had not lingered in his nose though. It was the potency of it though which had caught him off guard. It smelled like everything around him, just damn well more potent. He went for his canteen of water at his left belt side and took a swig of it, not because he was thirsty, but just to rinse his throat and his stomach of that stench out of his mind.

Putting the puzzle pieces of which he currently had together with what had happened here wasn’t becoming very difficult. However, he was still lacking a lot of pieces, even though the problem in this forest was pretty damn clear.

He needed to figure out why this has happened and how it happened.
More importantly, he needed to reach the village and check if everyone was okay, because this was seriously very much not okay from what he was currently seeing.

Varhi swallowed and steeled himself to cross the bridge. It was about thirty-five feet long, stretching from one side of the stream to the other. Despite the state of the forest, it looked pretty stable and sturdy and well kept. Obviously, this was only a more recent problem.

Up ahead through the fog was the first cluster of mountains he had spotted up back on the mountain pathway and the path was weaving him right to them. As he kept walking, he looked, spotting more mushrooms and…

“Geez, these are bloody huge!” He whispered to himself in astonishment.

Most of the mushrooms he spotted were only a few inches tall at best. Bright orange, with white spots freckled over them. These mushrooms were… gigantic. A little more than twice as tall as he was, with a far more thicker stump that was nearly as wide as his body. He walked up to one to take a closer examination of it.

It almost looked half between a tree and a mushroom, the cap was mostly flat and brown with no real spots from what he could see anyway. It even looked like it had branches… or roots, maybe vines sticking out for limbs. It looked more like the usual common mushroom found on trees, but shit, this was indeed gigantic.

How did they get so huge?!

Varhi left that one to examine another one. This one was actually totally different, looking more similar to the mushrooms he spotted earlier that were all over the place, though instead of orange with white spots, it was red with white spots. It looked much more mushroom shaped than ‘tree shaped’ like the previous breed, though still seemed to have bits of tree—maybe roots, dangling off of it here and there. It also smelled awful, just like the air around him or like that water, but worse. There were a couple of these gigantic types dotted here and there too, just like the brown ones… As he examined, they looked... uncannily like limbs, these roots. Like arms and legs...

Was this thing releasing spores into the air? Was that what this fog was? Spores in the air from these mushrooms?

Varhi remembered the rumors of that man back in Masirean City and shuddered. It was all starting to make sense now. If his worst fears were legitimate, then he definitely could not stay too long in this fog. He shouldn’t even be breathing this stuff into his lungs right now. The very thought of the potential consequences of breathing these spores in for too long was making him start to feel queasy.

Still, he had a job to do. He would see it through to the end. He wasn’t a quitter. Besides, there was no way for him to go back now anyways. Only forwards.
...Which, honestly was beginning to actually haunt him. He still wasn't scared; he never felt fear before. He met death in the face practically weekly on average. The thought of dying didn’t exactly make him scared, but this was damn disturbing and such a death was not one he would willingly look forward to or wish to have happen to him, for sure. Some ways to die were better than others.

He moved again to one of the other brown mushrooms, examining it, he smelled this one and was a bit surprised that it didn’t smell of anything particularly rancid. It just smelled… of genuine mushroom, really. A still unpleasant smell, but preferable to everything else assaulting his nostrils right now. It didn’t seem these ones were doing much of anything particularly nefarious. The color and smell reminded him of agaricus, a common mushroom often found in pinewoods, and this forest did have some pinewood. Some... sick and dying pinewood apparently, but pinewood nonetheless.

So while the trees were dying or… something was being done to them, the edible mushrooms were growing huge here and flourishing. Interesting...

Regardless, he wasn't putting any mushroom in his mouth here. Whether it was usually deemed poisonous or not.

Varhi turned around and began to walk off, when suddenly his circulation of air was cut off and pressure was abruptly tightened around his throat. He coughed and gagged, reaching his hands up to try and fight off whatever was grabbing him—which lifted him straight up off the ground and up into the air by his throat, even despite the extra weight of his armor.

“Gghck…! Unnff–! W-What the—UAAHH!!”

His eyes had rolled down to try and look and he could only spot a piece of root or vine or something which had wrapped around his neck and his waist. He had twisted himself as he struggled and managed to turn himself around partway to see that the very mushroom which he had just thought could possibly be edible, was moving now and had wrapped its rooty, veiny tendrils around him to choke him out, which is what had caused him to yell out. In fact, it lumbered closer towards him, shuffling as he was rendered helpless. Something under the cap opened up, like a mouth, and a hissing sound releasing fourth from this apparently sentient mushroom. Said mushroom that was supposedly edible mayhaps thought Varhi himself was just as edible to it as well. 

Well, screw that noise.

Varhi reached for his letter opener and with one quick slice to the tendrils holding his throat, he freed himself, dropping onto the ground. It didn’t even seem to care, or show any sign of pain as he dropped onto his knees. He coughed a couple of times for air and massaged his throat with his left hand, pulling the vines off around his neck and waist with his right hand as he recovered for air. The hulking mass just kept lumbering towards him, slowly, but persistently. Varhi pushed himself upright to get to his feet. He put his letter opener back away into his belt and pulled out his trusty greatsword instead. Varhi slid himself smoothly into a battle stance with his sword in front of him as the thing continued to step towards him. It seriously looked like it did have limbs. Two arms and… well, six legs. It was using those roots and tendrils like limbs.

It surprised Varhi as it began a motion to swing. Varhi thought it was out of reach, but instinct taught him that if an enemy moved in such a way to attack, to get ready regardless of the range, so he prepared himself to block anyways. His instincts proved fortunate as the tendril extended midswing and he moved appropriately to block with his sword...
...only to be surprised at the immense absolute force of strength he had just received. He blocked the swing and was largely unharmed, but the sword was nearly ripped straight from his two-handed grip and he stumbled sideways a few steps off kilter.

“Umph...! What the fuck–?” He gasped.

How in the Flaming Lands did a damn mushroom have this much strength?! Sure the thing was slow and predictable, but flaming bells! This thing was like a hulking brute of a beast!

Varhi recovered his balance and glanced back to his fungal foe as it raised its left tendril this time to swing at him again. Since blocking was apparently out of the question lest he be helplessly bounced around with each blow, Varhi did the next best thing: dodging out of the way.
He ducked under the attack as he moved forward, using one hand to stop himself completely from falling onto the ground as he half scrambled forwards in attack. It didn’t look great on his part, but the thing was so slow it didn’t really matter. He pushed himself back up as he rushed forwards, gripping his sword with both hands again in a thrusting motion, stabbing his sword cleanly into its… ‘body’, he guessed.

Again, there was no reaction to pain, even when shoving his blade multiple feet inside of it almost to the hilt. Instead, Varhi was greeted with a hefty slap to his left side, causing him to grunt in pain as he went flying hard into the ground about a dozen feet away, his sword going with him as he landed on his side and skidded along the ground to a halt. The chainmail had absorbed most of the impact from the attack, but it still hurt and would bruise badly later. Varhi growled as he pushed himself up, clutching his injured side with one hand.

How was he going to handle this? Even mindless creatures, no, even mindless monsters of magic reacted to pain. This utter abomination wasn’t even reacting at all! He was clearly doing damage, his sword sliced into it practically like it was made of nothing but sponge, but it was like it was just driven on by nothing more than carnal instinct to just slap him around like he was a mere fly.

“Oh, piss off…!” Varhi growled as it raised yet another tendril for yet another slap. Rather than block or dodge this time, Varhi was ticked off to the point where he moved his sword and just sliced at the incoming tendril, slicing it clean off as it tried to take a swing at him. He slowly took steps back as the towering mushroom lumbered toward him ever persistently, keeping pace, but only because Varhi wasn’t going as fast as he could, but just enough to keep his distance, at least he did until he had bumped into something behind him.

Red flags rose up inside his mind, especially at the sudden hissing sound he heard behind him. He rolled his head to glance straight upwards to see that not only was this mushroom ahead of him was moving, but so was this red spotted one he had just rudely bumped into. His violet eyes widened in acute alarm, when under the cap of the mushroom, a harsh spray of spores released out right over top of him all over him and his face and most of his upper body.

"Ummngph...!" Varhi gagged as he quickly covered his mouth holding his breath and closed his eyes and lips tightly shut instinctively, but his body suddenly felt weak and he gagged a cough once into his hand at the stench, quickly darting out of the way blindly just as another tendril smacked into the ground behind him where he had just stood. He shook his head rapidly as he ran with his eyes closed and left hand clutching his mouth as he struggled not to gag, but he still felt the stuff all over him and he dared not breathe any of that into his lungs or get any of it into his eyes. He felt sick, and like he was about to vomit...

Wouldn't last... He had to... Something... Wash it off...

Quickly thinking and out of desperation, he grabbed for his canteen with his left hand as he ran, the canteen was hooked with a ring of chain on his left belt. He pried the top open with his teeth as he was still dragging his sword behind him with his right hand along the ground as he ran. He spat the cap out of his mouth when he pried it from the canteen, then he doused the water over top of his head and face first, and continued to dump it over the rest of his body as he ran.
He gasped, taking a much needed lung full of air and opened his eyes, blinking several times. He immediately was starting to feel better with whatever was sprayed onto him being washed off, the need to vomit beginning to dissipate. He tossed the canteen away, not having time to put it back on his belt. The canteen sailed through the air, hitting yet another large brown mushroom, which soon began to stir to life as well in reaction to being disturbed.

Oh.

Oops.

He’d have to come back for the canteen later. Thankfully it wasn’t his only one. He had more pressing issues at the moment, like retreating his ass out of here for now. He’d seen a little bit more than he had bargained himself for already.

Unfortunately, the bridge back was behind him, and there were now currently multiple mushroom-tree-people things chasing after him—and he passed however many more before and was currently past even more, all of which now seemed to be beginning to animate in order to hunt him down specifically.

The bridge may not have been a grand idea anyway. If he escaped back through the bridge they would… just follow him over the bridge.
He hated the idea, but he’d have to escape through the stream itself. So that’s what he did.

Circling himself back around towards the direction of the stream, he kept his sword out, dragging it behind him in one hand just in case. He passed more mushrooms along the way and each one he passed was coming to life.

Just how many of these things were there? Was every single one of them coming to life? This was just one of the many bridges he needed to pass to get into Karvadean—he wasn’t even close to the blasted town yet. That was still possibly hours of walking away!

When Varhi began to approach the river, he sheathed his sword back and just kept sprinting. He sprinted for more speed as his silver greaves glow a glimmer of aquablue and with a harsh kick at the bank of the river, he jumped an impressive ten feet into the air, before he descended and splashed heavily in the middle of the bank of the water, making moderate distance to the other side. Holding his breath, he splashed and swam hard, kicking against the water current to move forwards. He wasn’t really reaching the surface and so was stuck underwater, his armor was just too heavy, but he was stopping himself from sinking completely and he could feel himself pushing forwards through the water still. Eventually before too long, and right when he was finding himself starting to struggle for more air, he swam to the incline on the other side of the river and climbed up it underneath the water.

If climbing in the air had been hard, climbing under the surface of what could have been poisonous water was much, much worse when the dirt and rocks underneath were all wet and muddy, but the adrenaline and the increasingly desperate requirement for air caused him to more or less scramble his way up the incline despite the disadvantages weighed against him.

He’d been under the water for about forty-five seconds or so, and normally he could hold his breath for far longer, but it was much harder to do that when you were in the midst of sprinting for your life and you had already exerted yourself. His lungs felt like they had been about to give up on him when he finally burst through the surface of the sickly water, gasping desperately for breath as he climbed himself out, dripping wet and his cape soaked, clinging to him from behind.

Damn, this was pathetic. He never felt this level of being useless and beyond his match before. He wasn’t so prideful to think retreating was never an option. Retreating was smart. It’s how you just don’t die sometimes. There was no honor in biting off more than you can chew and dying because you were too stubborn to just back down from a fight you could not conceivably win. He wasn’t about to throw his life away willingly just yet for something as minimal as his pride.

“Damn…!” He cursed again out loud to himself. He glanced back behind him and his eyes widened in genuine shock and fear as he saw an army of those lumbering mushrooms, both brown and spotted red, start walking into the stream in an attempt to go after him. There was what, a dozen of them? Maybe Fourteen? Fifteen?

That was Varhi’s cue to get moving back onto his feet again and start running back towards his camp.

He ran.

And ran.

And ran...

He did not stop until he returned back to his camp just as the early evening sun was preparing to set and when he stepped shakily into his clearing. He collapsed next to his unlit bonfire and tent onto his back, heaving for breath, and dripping immensely with sweat from the marathon he had just run for his life—in armor on a hot, humid summer day, no less, with an intense throbbing pain jabbing into his side...

When the adrenaline and the feeling of ‘about to pass out from exertion’ settled away, he clenched his teeth angrily, gripping a fistful of dirt as he pushed himself to sit upright, before pounding the ground hard with his fist.

“Dammit!”

His violet eyes glared and he scowled. That damn king…! That snake probably knew! Why else would he keep this under wraps so hard? Why else would he lie into a letter that he was made to deliver, requesting specifically for Ceareste so they would study this shit?

“No! That still doesn’t make sense…!” Varhi hissed to himself, fingers clawing at the dirt again. “It doesn’t add up, there’s something else I’m missing… something—”

What caused this situation to happen in the first place? Hiding this by itself didn’t make sense, so what would? Something that a deceiving bastard like him did not want people to find out…

“Karvadean…” Varhi growled to himself. “It must be something in Karvadean itself… Something secret must have been going on in the town and whatever it was may have somehow caused this. If people figured out the truth, then it would look extremely bad on him… And of course, little ‘ol me did too much snooping around, probably getting too close to the truth. He knew I liked working alone and such a ‘generous’ sum of money was just the topping to the cake…” 

DAMN he hated royalty…! Once Ceareste told their beloved 'ally' how to get rid and fix the problem, then he would, sure, but once that happened, whatever evidence of his ‘secret’ that was going on here would probably soon go with it during that whole ‘clean up’ process.

Ceareste had said two months, signed by the King himself in that letter and Varhi now realized that he had foolishly argued it down to just one month under Avotash's own behalf because he wanted to look into that letter, but not upset the man too much. A little give and take was par for the course…
Traveling from Ceareste back to Masirean had taken nearly two weeks in of itself and it had taken him alone just four days to get here on practically foot. Of course, he didn't have royal transportation like royalty had. If his time estimation was correct, So they would be arriving here in roughly two weeks. He hated to admit it, but he had been played beautifully like a fiddle by that crook… Avotash probably knew he would open the letters and look at what was going on in the first place and had baited him with this 'proposition' and he had fallen for it, hook line and sinker.

He had to somehow reach Karvadean and investigate the town himself and collect evidence against him somehow before two weeks were up... and somehow not get himself killed. He couldn't hide here forever. From the looks of things, the corruption that was going on was spreading, and spreading fast...

“Heh, heh…” Varhi chuckled as he slowly stood himself up, unsheathing his sword to stare down at it. “Well, if you think I’d just go and die quietly, you’re sorely mistaken. I have something to live for—and until I find out what that ‘something’ is, I am not going to just die quietly…!
“Avotash Masirean, I am going to make you pay for underestimating me...!”

With a rough huff, he moved to sit back down on the ground, sword laying in his lap and he leaned back, violet eyes burning with rage to look up at the full moon which had risen up into the evening sky.

 

* * *

 

“So you’re leaving tomorrow, eh?” Fuyiki asked him.

Sairek nodded. “Yeah. Honestly, I’d love to stay here more. I…actually love it here. I want to keep learning even more things, but we still need to keep going on our journey and we’ve been here for over a week. We were originally planning to just stay the night and keep moving, I think. I’m really glad we didn’t, though.”

“Okay, I get it.” Fuyiki said. “You don’t have to explain it to me, you know.”

“I know. I’m just really grateful—even if I did keep complaining a lot. I'm sorry if I was a bother.”

“Well, at least you are an honest boy.” Fuyiki chuckled. “It’s okay. I know you are passionate about it in the end. You’re not that hard to read. Venting frustrations is healthy too. It’s much better than bottling it in.”

Sairek nodded in understanding as he reached down to dig into his back pocket and pulled out half a handful of seru.

Fuyiki blinked at him. “What’s that for?”

“For helping me out, of course.”

“I don’t need it. I said I’d do it for free, remember?”

“Why do people in this town constantly refuse to take my money?” Sairek sighed with a weak smile.”Just take it. It’s not like I don’t have plenty more. We’re not even that much further from where we want to go, so it’s not like we’ll run out.”

“Not far? I thought you were going to go to Kior’s capital?” Fuyiki asked.

Sairek shook his head. “Cyial said he doesn't think it’s necessary anymore. We’ve… worked out a compromise, more or less. Maybe some other time, but not now.”

“I see I wasn’t the only one teaching you things, apparently.” Fuyiki stated dryly.

Sairek averted the man’s gaze and held his breath. “I learn something new from Cyial everyday. His book of his has a lot of random facts…” Sairek tried to save face.

“Not those kinds of facts.” Fuyiki said.

Sairek looked the other way.

“Well, whatever, as long as it works out for the both of you, then there’s no problem, is there?”

“...Yeah. We'll be very, very careful.”

Seeing that Sairek was still holding the money out, Fuyiki sighed, resigned and held out his hand underneath Sairek's for him to drop the seru safely onto, which he did.

“Well, since you paid so generously, it’s only fair you get your money’s worth. There is one last thing I want you to learn on your own time before you head out tomorrow morning. Please wait here a moment.” Fuyiki told him.

Sairek watched his teacher step away into his bedroom for a few moments. He heard rummaging around. A moment later, Fuyiki came back out, with a large book in his hand, which he held out to Sairek who took it as he examined it. It didn’t have a cover on it, it almost looked like a large notebook even. However, despite its size, it was relatively thin. Sairek didn't think there was even a hundred pages to this. Maybe somewhere between sixty to seventy. “What’s this, exactly?”

“Something I’ve been working on for nearly the past year or so. I was making my own ‘babies first spell book’ to teach impressionable younglings like yourself. To be honest, you’re probably still not ready for anything in them just yet. Much of the spells in there take a large amount of focus to do and they aren’t just your simple bare basic novice spells like you know currently, but if you keep training your body and mind, you will definitely be able to cast and learn them, probably within the next month or two, as long as you keep working hard.” Fuyiki explained, then leaned in a little closer. “Which means the next time you come to visit, I will know if you have been slacking off or not. You hear me?”

Sairek smirked at that. “Doubting me, eh?”

“Just consider it a friendly warning. I’ll even let you keep the uniform, so you have something to wear without being helped by that gem of yours being on you, or ruining your clothes.”

“Are you sure you want me to take this though? If you’ve been working on it for months…” Sairek pressed.

Fuyiki waved his hand dismissively. “It’s fine. Besides, I’ll be able to see if it works or not.”

“...So if your instructions suck and I come back and I learn nothing because of that, it will still be my fault and I'll be punished?”

“Yes.

Sairek winced. “Well, crap...”

Fuyiki laughed. “I’ll just have to teach you the old fashioned way. It’s works well apparently with you. Now go back to meet up with your friends. An old man like me has to sleep some time, too.”

Sairek nodded. “Thank you, Fuyiki. I’ll definitely be seeing you again later, hopefully some day soon when we're coming back from Yggdrasil. Good bye...”

“Good luck, boy. Stay safe.”

Sairek left Fuyiki's house and closed the door behind him and walked his way back towards the inn. The moon was already out and the sun had set. The streets were lit by lights which helped guide him his short walk back. He stepped inside the inn, giving a knowing nod to the clerk at the desk as he made his way back to his and Cyial’s room.

Cyial was apparently getting ready for bed as the bathroom door was closed with the lights on. Sairek put the book on the bed for now and began to undress himself to sleep. When he was almost done undressing was when Cyial stepped back out. “How was it?” The demon asked him, then looked at the book that was on the bed. “...And what’s that over there?”

Sairek shrugged at Cyial’s first question as he slipped down his pants to be just in his undergarments. It was terribly humid tonight. “That’s a spell book he has apparently been making. He gave it to me, but said I probably wasn’t ready for it just yet, but if I keep working hard, then I should be in a couple months time.”

Cyial fiddled with his tail to get back inside of his robe, before he pulled the robe up and off over his head. Even Cyial’s whole body was coated in a thin layer of sweat from the humidity tonight. He reached over to the book and opened it, flipping through a few pages. “Interesting…” He mumbled. “These are pretty detailed instructions. Fuyiki really seems to care a lot about teaching his knowledge to others.”

“He wouldn’t take my money. Had to force him.” Sairek chuckled.

Cyial closed the book and set it on the table for now. “Phew, it sure is terrible tonight, though. I hope it’s cooler tomorrow. Even I’m having trouble in this heat.” He grumbled as he sat down on the bed.

“How do you think I must feel then?” Sairek chuckled again, stepping towards the window looking out of it towards the moon. “I would hate to be camping outside right now. Glad we’re inside tonight. Then again, maybe the wind outside would make it feel more bearable.”

“That window doesn’t open, does it?” Cyial let out with an exhale, waving his hand in front of his face in an attempt to fan himself.

“Nope... Sorry.”

“Dang…”

“Say, uh, Cyial…” Sairek began as he stepped back over. “Since we’re not going to be alone tomorrow and Nayleen is going to be around… this will probably be our last chance with us being alone for a good while.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you mind if… well… um...” Sairek blushed.

“...Do you want me to leave? I don’t mind getting dressed again—”

“Uh, actually… I think I’d prefer it if you stayed. Then you could… get a 'nibble' again...” Sairek blushed harder.

Cyial smiled at him. “You’re too kind.”

“Oi, don’t make me change my mind.”

Cyial laughed gently, then patted the spot on the bed beside him. “Alright, but I am being genuine.”

Sairek moved to sit beside him as he undressed himself completely.

“...Two more times since then though…? At this rate I won’t have to worry about going hungry at all.” Cyial teased with a smirk.

“Agh! C-Cyiiiaaalll…!” Sairek whined.

"I'm joking, I'm joking." Cyial said, hands held up in surrender. "Really, it's important for you to know these things anyway, I suppose. ...You really do seem to enjoy trying them out right afterwards in the restroom afterwards, though." He chided, eyes squinted.

"Oi!!"

* * *

“Hiiii–YAHH!!”

Varhi stumbled and collapsed down to one knee as he swung his sword from overhead, cleaving yet another one of these abominations in half with a downward slice. He turned his sword around towards the ground and pressed the tip of it down into the wood of the bridge for support as he breathed raggedly for a moment. He was getting so exhausted fighting all of these things, but there was no time for him to rest right now. He stood back up and grunted in effort as he planted his hands against the hulking fungal mass, pushing it off to the side with all of his strength, leaving its corpse to splash into the river below to be carried off.

What was that now? The sixteenth one? Seventeenth?

Damn it, he was already losing count.

He had adopted a strategy of just holding out on the bridge. That way one, maybe two, could face him at once and he could just funnel them in. Sure they were eager to follow him into the water of the river, but only if he gave them that option. They were not very smart. They took the shortest path towards him and were more than happy to line up one by one, waiting for their turns to take a crack at him.

How generous of them.

He also took off his chainmail armor and opted to use only his leather armor instead, though he kept the platemail for his gauntlets, elbows, legs and of course his visor on, leaving the chainmail back at his camp. Even in the satchel, it had too much weight to carry with him like that. It would disrupt his balance.

If he did end up falling into the river, he wanted to be able to swim even in an exhausted state. Besides, swinging his sword under that much weight for this long would have caused him to collapse from exhaustion long ago and with these things, he considered just not getting hit and tossed around to be a more wiser strategy than simply trying to endure their blows. His left side was still throbbing in a bit of dull pain from earlier. It had indeed been bruised, as predicted. Bruised quite badly, and this exertion probably wasn't helping it heal.

Varhi looked up as he heard another red spotted one creaking its way towards him. He grunted through clenched teeth as he shakily forced himself back up onto his feet.

This nightmare just never stopped. They just kept coming and coming…

The spotted ones were more dangerous than the hulking brown ones. They were a bit faster, and they were clearly poisonous in nature. However, they weren’t nearly as strong or durable.
They released a hideous toxin once they were done in, though. A cloud of spores always sprayed out from them and Varhi was running out of drinkable water to bathe himself in. Getting sprayed in retaliation as he did the killing blow was sometimes just unavoidable and he had to always go in with his breath held and his eyes closed unless he was absolutely positive he could execute a maneuver to get the kill as well as get out of the way in time. He had no way to take care of these things from afar. Even if he had a ranged weapon like a hand crossbow, he doubted these things would really care with how little they reacted to pain and how little thrusting his sword into them was. He’d just be wasting ammo. The pot lid just didn't do enough damage, and he wasn't going to risk it falling into the water, either. The only thing he found that stopped them from moving was chopping them into bits. Even then, sometimes just in half wasn’t actually enough; sometimes he needed to chop them down into even more smaller bits to make sure the damn things were dead.

“...Let’s go.” Varhi breathed to himself. He reinforced his stance, halting his panting and steadying his legs before dashing forward as the hulking mushroom raised both tendrils up. He’d been ready to raise his sword overhead again, however, the thing let out a screech at him.
Well, the screech wasn’t what had particularly bothered him. They had all screeched at him, and even the brown ones let out some… croaking or groaning noise to him at times when they were attacking. The problem with this one in particular is that it sounded particularly vaguely resembling human; and it wasn’t hard to see why…
There... was a distorted human's face attached to the stem. It wasn't directly in front, but off-center to Varhi's right side on what he had considered these things’ “faces”. The mouth had even opened as the creature screeched at him, though the mouth itself from the face hadn't made the noise. However, what disturbed him the most was when the eyes of the human shaped head had moved to center on him, looking; watching him. With intellect.

Varhi hesitated and froze stiff. He was just frozen in horrific realization at this abomination. The human's face, ashen in color just like the trees and pale, gurgled, cracked lips moving as if trying to speak to him. It let out a high pitched wailing “Uuuuurrrrrllllpp…”

And then Varhi felt himself abruptly meet the wooden floor of the bridge on his back with an equally abrupt pain to his chest.

“Ughnh...!”

He looked back up in time to see the thing beginning to step on him. He quickly pushed himself up and backward, landing on his back just in time to avoid being crushed.

“Eeeeeeeehhhhlllpppp… mmmlggeeeeeeee...”

Varhi ground his teeth together tightly. Blazes... Whoever the poor person was trapped inside that thing was sentient and still aware. They were crying out for help. At least, that's what it freaking sounded like to him.

So much for hoping the village was still intact. Unless that was one of the missing guards that had not returned, but he doubted that. No way Varhi could retreat from this now. What a damn nightmare this shit was…

“I’ll release you from… J-Just deal with it a little longer...!” Varhi huffed out. He pushed himself back up to his feet with a tired grunt. The bridge creaked under the creature’s weight. It had a couple times already for a few of them before he pushed them off into the river, the bridge had always held steady, though. He put faith in it that it would hold.

Varhi huffed three times for breath, then rushed forwards again, he jumped right to dodge the first tendril limb, then leapt and rolled to the left to dodge the second. He held himself steady with his left hand and pushed himself up to run again, getting behind this abomination. He had learned they were quite slow to turn around by now and he had started using that to his advantage. This time was no different.

Varhi charged back towards it as it was in the midst of turning to face him, and as he charged, he concentrated a faint amount of will into his greaves. The silver metal sparked with an abrupt weave of ethereal for a couple of seconds as he expelled the energy in them and propelled it downwards as he pushed himself up off the bridge in an empowered jump, using the raw energy to rocket himself up and forwards, allowing him to gain height that was much higher than just his legs alone could achieve. So high, he was above even this hideous abomination.
At the apex of his jump, Varhi gripped his greatsword around into an overhead swing, blade still behind his back before he swung it down the middle of the creature’s spotted cap and down the middle of the thick stem with all of his strength and fueled with all the ire he had at the terrible existence that was this creature.

“Hrrraah–!!”

The momentum of his jump caused him to collide into the mushroom's form and he readied himself by planting his boots against it upon his landing into it and immediately kicked back and off of it and pulling his sword out just in time before those nauseating spores began to release up into the air and down all around the creature from the split opening of the creature’s cap where Varhi had cut it wide open. He landed several feet away, skidding backwards a bit against the wood with his left hand touching the bridge for balance.

These things made a noise that sounded like a deflating balloon when they were dying, and their size quite literally shrank down as they wrinkled down upon themselves from the spores being expunged out of their system. Varhi huffed, greatsword's tip sinking into the wood of the bridge again and bracing himself with a hand on his left knee as he watch in satisfaction as this thing rightfully shriveled up and died.

When it was done releasing the spores and the wind had blown them out of the way in a harmless direction to his own safety, Varhi half walked, half stumbled his way back to the corpse of the creature, finding where the human face was, still intact.

He resisted vomiting as even though the mushroom itself had died, seemingly anyway, the face, still attached to the split half of the stem twitched, eyes rolling to look at him, mouth twitching as it gurgled another wailing sound that sounded like it was in pain and it's face contorted into that of someone in utter agony, screaming.

“...hhhhHHHHYYYYY—”

*SSHHLLP–!*

Varhi gritted his teeth, thrusting his sword through the face, making sure whoever had been trapped inside that was truly out of their misery for good with their soul being released from that twisted torment. He had to take a moment to turn back around, coughing and gagging slightly in disgust, both from what he had just witnessed and from what he had just done. His stomach threatening to rebel against him. He needed a moment to calm himself, regain his composure, swallow the bile rising in his throat back down and take a breath.

Killing monsters was no problem. People were harder, but sometimes it had to be done, especially if they threatened him. He never aimed to kill, but it just sometimes couldn’t be avoided. It was self defense, after all.

Putting people out of their misery though, begging for help, even when they were beyond help like that, was just…

It was just hard.

"Dammit...! What is this all for...?! What a miserable waste of innocent human life...!" Varhi cursed, shaking his head back and forth. He knew it wasn't his fault, but it made him feel like a failure.

He shook his head again, but this time to clear his thoughts. Now wasn't the time to think about it.
He planted his sword hard into the wood of the bridge as he turned back around. He placed both hands against this disgusting mass, grunting in effort as he pushed with the last of his remaining strength, rolling it slowly until it passed over the side of the bridge into the water with a large splash, letting the current carry it off to eventually join the other sixteen or seventeen corpses he had pushed off in similar fashion.

He grabbed his sword again and began to walk, dragging it behind him as he began the hour-long walk back to his camp, with only the full midnight moon to guide him for light once he got out of this fog. It would probably nearly be sunrise again when he got back, but that was fine. He doubted he’d be willing to sleep at night alone in this damn forsaken place. He’d rather be up and alert at night when it was harder to see and have the light of his campfire give his location away more easily and sleep, than during the day where the light of his campfire wouldn’t be much of a problem and it would be harder for one of these things to sneak up on him without the cover of darkness.

...After all, he knew that damn face he had just mercifully skewered was going to haunt his thoughts for the next couple of days. No way that was going to be getting out of his head any time soon. And he couldn't shake off the concern that very soon, it may not be the only face he would be seeing that would begin to think about...