“No further.” Its voice carries meaning, but the sound is of so many rushing leaves. If I hadn’t noticed there was no wind passing through these trees, I would have honestly believed I hadn’t heard it over the sound.

However… “Why?”

The thing’s face twists in what could be a scowl, and the giant Cathid clacks its lethal maw with obvious annoyance. Its mouth, directly under its still disproportionately large eyeball, hangs slightly open, and a translucent, viscous liquid drips to the floor below.

“You desire an explanation? I forbid your passage. That is why. Attempting to move further into this forest will result in your death, demise, and displeasure.”

“I… what? The way you talk is so… nevermind. Look, we don’t want to fight or anything, we’re just looking for some deepwood moss. Do you know where I could find that.”

“Spots of high Mana concentration deeper in the forest. This information is irrelevant to you; you will not pass. Outsiders are not welcome.”

Frowning, I try to ignore how obviously hostile the other two in my party are looking and continue. “Is there a specific reason you can’t let us pass? If you can tell me, I can probably figure out a way to mitigate the issue.”

“Those in the past, present, future have entered and laid waste to what is ours. The system encourages it.”

“I need the moss to heal myself.”

“A most difficult situation, but for you alone. My path is clear.”

“I’m not leaving without it.”

“A pity.” From the dirt in front of me, faster than I can follow, three spears shoot towards me and pierce my lungs and spine. My body fails me, and I fall bonelessly to the ground, already focussed on healing. I hear shouts of anger, growling, frustrated straining…

“Leave that one, it will die shortly regardless of what you do. The poison on those spears has Mana nullifying properties, so no healing magic can save him. Will you go, or do you insist on suffering the same fate?”

Mana might be nullified, but Energy doesn’t give a shit. I don’t bother containing the poison, as it harmlessly flows through my blood. It registers only as an extremely light yellow in my Energy view, similar to a foreign body. Nothing to be concerned about.

“You waste your time and mine.” I suddenly feel the extremely unpleasant sensation of wood scraping on bone as the spear in my spine is pulled the rest of the way through. Silently thanking whoever did that, I get to work on fixing my nerves and supporting vertebrae. My body starts to ache at the missing Oxygen, but my the system keeps any issues at bay for now. I need to restore partial breathing functionality soon, or I’ll have to use Energy to keep my cells alive… and that won’t last long with my regeneration cut in half due to the Health loss.

The body can eject foreign bodies if there is a natural egress for them, which is why being impaled is such an issue for me. I can’t force the thing out as easily. So, in cases like this, where I’ve been completely disabled, I’m fucked without outside help.

I hear the creature droning on as another spear is removed. Too fast! But I can’t speak to tell them so. What was left of my breath bubbles out from the newly cleared hole in my chest, letting one of my lungs deflate and collapse.

My lower body screams in pain as I finish the initial neural framework for sensation, adding to the difficulty of what I’m trying to do, and my entire body begins glowing with a dull red. First the peripheries, moving in, in slow, steady waves of increasingly bright red. I finish my repairs to my spinal cord and fix the hole in my lung, carefully moving my hand to cover the front hole. I still can’t move much or I’ll destroy my unprotected nerves, but covering the front hole means I only have to fix the back one before I’ll have one functional lung again.

With my Energy at a quarter, and replenishing ever slower while my Health ticks away, I feel a visceral fear in my chest. A quick realization that, despite everything, I could die here, like this.

‘Cerberus dies with you.’ I know, but maybe the treaty will hold. ‘Kaythe depends on you.’ Hopefully he can stay with me… when the system recycles us.

‘So just die… and let that thing win?’ It’s face, the shitty dark mannequin face, flashes through my mind. If I die, I’m at its mercy. I already broke the rules once… it’ll know. I have to finish this.

An audible growl escapes my chest, the first action for my newly whole lung. The motion of my other lung sliding along the spear that runs through it nearly shatters my consciousness, turning all my perception into white hot agony for a moment.

Lying on my side, on the verge of passing out from the pain, I grab the last spear, and pull. Splinters from the shaft embed themselves all along my soft tissue, and I can feel my teeth straining under the weight of how hard I’m biting down, but the spear moves. Hand over hand, I force it out.

The pain slowly recedes even as my vision fades to black. My brain, shutting down due to lack of Oxygen. Energy fixes it, for now, but my body is hurting. My breaths are mostly ending up in my chest cavity, and blood is pooling in my lungs. I’m not breathing, I’m drowning.

The wounds pull together as fast as I can manage, but I have to leave my chest open. I take as deep a breath as I can… shallow. It forces a tiny amount of air out of my chest cavity, and I quickly stop up the hole with my hand to prevent more from getting back in. Slowly, repeating this agonizing process, I clear the air from my chest. Release the hole, breathe… plug the hole, exhale.

Why are my breaths so loud? Because the forest is dead silent around me. The creature, the Cathid, Cerberus, and Lauren all stare at me with expressions ranging from abject confusion to delight.

“Where are the wounds? How did you remove the poison?” The creature breaks the silence.

I cough at it, blood pouring from my mouth as I struggle to clear it.

“Deepwood moss: a potent Mana restoration reagent, capable of restoring and expanding the Mana channels of the imbiber. You are a mage, clearly seeking the moss to empower yourself, yet you claimed to need it to heal you earlier. Explain your lies or die.”