The change of guard went smoothly. I had been a little worried that Clint would have to take Jun’s turn as teenagers are notorious for being hard to wake up. When I woke up, Jun was adding a log to the fire and seemed awake, alert, and enthusiastic.

“Good morning, Alice.” She loud whispered, but there was no need as Clint was already stirring as well.

“Good morning. Did you sleep well? I see you kept the fire going.”

“I didn’t want it to go out again and I was using it to make some bowls.” She motioned to some chunks of wood that she had resting on rocks that had divots in them. “I saw on YouTube this nature guy once and he used coals to burn out bowls without setting the whole thing on fire. I had nothing else to do while you two slept.”

I inspected her bowls. They were more cup sized as Clint and I could not find very large pieces of logs for our camp structure and Jun only carried sticks for the fire rather than chunks of wood. As if she could hear my thoughts she spoke up.

“I know they are small, but I am sure it will be enough to do a little testing of this water and we could always use cups. Oh! And my skills. I got this new one that lets me see if we can eat something or not and these flowers by the pool are supposed to make tea so maybe we can have tea for breakfast.”

I don’t know where she got the energy to speak so fast, especially so early. My stomach growled. It wasn’t like I needed a reminder that I was hungry. I was glad that I wasn’t the only one who had skills jump up levels from yesterday. We needed to be strong as a party, after all. I was also unhappy that we shared a skill. It reminded me that I was the weakest link to our party, the one without much to offer. If Jun had the same skill set as me outside of combat, what was the point in keeping me around? I shook my head as if it would knock such thoughts out of my brain. Worry about that later.

“Tea sounds perfect, Jun. Thank you.” I set the bowl down and went to the fountain to splash water in my face. Clint was already there, running some water through his hair. The water was cool, but not unbearable as the morning was a comfortable temperature still.

“Mornin’.” He said tiredly. My eyes studied him up and down.

“Did you get enough rest? I know you were tired yesterday and you took the roughest shift of watch.” I asked, concerned.

“Yeah, I slept alright. I might be a bit tired, but just my mind. It feels like a swarm of bees are none too happy in there. Not exactly a hangover but like a boiler that is too hot.” He said, sitting on the ledge of the fountain. His bull head gazed up at the sky. “I really hate it here. Not being with you and Jun, y’all are the best company I could ask for. I just hate having to do all this.”

I sat next to him, nodding. “I feel the same way. Life was a struggle for me and I hate that I have to do it again.”

“It has got to be hell.” He chuckled. “Feels like punishment.”

“I’ll try not to torture you too much, then. Jun, on the other hand, plans to torture us with some kind of tea she is making.” I said, wrinkling my nose comically.

It got a chuckle out of Clint, which was my goal. It wouldn’t do us any good to be too serious or start to let the big depression out. All we could do now is manage the little things we could handle. That was going to take up all of our energy anyways, it was how I had shambled through life.

“Jun, you best not be fittin’ to poison me. I will be coming back from the dead.” He shouted and stood, winking down at me.

“If I wanted to poison you, I’d do it with something that tastes better than this piss.” She retorted, looking down at her bowl of tea with apprehension. “You don’t have to try it if you don’t want to but my books says it is edible.”

Clint laughed heartily and took the bowl from her as soon as he got to her. He tipped it back and drank the whole thing in one go. His bovine snout twitched a little but he did his best not to show how displeased he was with the taste.

“It is a bit bitter, but it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” I wasn’t sure if he was being kind. Either way, it had a positive effect on Jun, who was clearly doubting her culinary find.

I tried the tea to find it just as Clint described; bitter but tolerable. We each drank a few cups while we started talking strategy for the day.

“We should test the water on the Blight near the tower.” Jun suggested.

I shook my head. “There are bound to be more than there were yesterday. People will not have given up trying to get through and that will just compound the issue. I do agree that we need to test the water on the Blight, though. I think we should go the opposite way and find some more off by themselves as we had been doing.”

“We should stay close to camp, too. I say we hunt until about noon, then come back ta set up camp.” Clint offered. “I don’t want to miss out on gaining experience today but this is going to be our home for a while and it needs some improvement. We need better shelter in case it rains and start gathering food.”

After a few more cups of tea and working out some details, we were ready for the day. We left the fire to burn out on its own, hoping it would be smoldering coals when we got back and give us something easy to restart. I left my collection of flowers in a pile so I had room in my bag to collect berries, mushrooms, and roots to check for their ability to be used as food. Jun gathered water into one of her deepest bowls.

We traveled away from the tower and agreed to call the tower north for now, just to have a direction to associate with. Who knew if the sun traveled east to west here. It was about a half an hour before we came across our first Blight. It was the kind that was covered in vines. June attempted to sneak closer to see if her bowl of water would make it wander away. She stepped into the range that we knew would gain the creature’s attention. I held my breath but it didn’t help Jun. Neither did the water.

The Blight jumped into action. Jun threw the water at the rushing creature with no effect, pulled her wand, and blasted it with her wind as Clint rushed up and took its head clean off. The creature slumped, we were awarded coin. Test complete, the answer was no-the water had no effect.

“Maybe… maybe it only works while the water is running and connected to the fountain. We could dig a trench.” Jun said, out of breath from the encounter.

“I don’t know who you got in mind to dig a trench, but it ain’t me.” Clint said with a laugh. “I think we’ll just be happy that it works at the fountain.”

“At least we have that.” I agreed.

The rest of the morning when much like yesterday. Those two attacked what Blight we came across one at a time and I collected possible edible foods and some vines I thought might make good rope. Twice I got the chance to heal. One shouldn’t wish for friends to get injured, but I really needed to increase my healing skill.

Clint decided to call it a day once the sun was high above us and we made our way back towards our camp. Jun was on cloud nine as her magic took down one Blight on its own. She was starting to be able to cast that spell quickly back to back as well.

“I am going to get so powerful that I can take out all those bastards around the tower and everyone in town will thank me.” She said as she stomped along and made voices to her imaginary townsfolk. “‘Oh Jun, you are magnificent.’ ‘ Oh Jun, you are so powerful.’”

“Don’t turn into a tyrant with all that power, Jun.” I said, laughing. “I don’t think you can take them all out yet, but I am sure you could kill your fair share.”

Our camp was just as we had left it, though the fire was nothing but some smoldering coals now. With no one able to get past the tower, it seemed rather safe out here. I was hoping this wasn’t a false sense of security I was feeling.

I helped Clint plan out where the posts of our new structures would go. We pulled free some stones and stuffed in some thick logs. Jun went through all the stuff I had gathered as possible food and was sorting it out as she referenced it in her book. The pile of edible was much smaller than the pile of inedible. At least there was some stuff we could eat.

By mid afternoon, we had two lean-tos built and a hearty lunch of berries and wild mushrooms. While not a fan of mushrooms, I was a fan of having something in my stomach. I lay in the grass near our cobbled camp and watched the clouds and I digested food. Jun soon came to join me.

“Alice,” she started nervously. I pushed myself up to lean on my elbows and gave her my full attention, which only seemed to make her squirm more. “I’m dying to know what is happening at the tower. Maybe people stopped trying to come through and the monsters despawned. Do you think it would be ok if we went and checked. Carefully! You know, staying back and stuff. Maybe we can get some fish at that pond on the way back too.”

“Might be smart to check on the situation. I think it is a good idea. What does Clint think?” I asked, laying back in the grass.

“Oh, I, uh, didn’t ask him. I just thought with you being the leader and all…” She trailed off.

I had not viewed myself as our party’s leader. That was unexpected. “I thought we were just a team. No real leader.”

Jun shook her head. “No, you are definitely the leader. You have all the good ideas. We would have probably died trying to get back to the tower and be stuck on the other side with everyone else now. We wouldn’t have found such a good spot for camp or such a nice camp. I was freaking out, really freaking out, but you just know what to do.”

“Mostly lucky guesses and I do not tell you what to do, I just make suggestions and we agree on it.” I said, feeling uncomfortable. I wasn’t a leader, I liked to think I could be but I was far from confident or capable of leading people. “So let us go ask Clint what he thinks of your plan. If he agrees, we will go check out the tower.”

Jun darted off to Clint and relayed her plan as I slowly got up. It wasn’t a surprise that he agreed, Jun’s plan was a good one. I think Clint was also swayed by the prospect of fish. He didn’t seem the type that could be well fed on berries and mushrooms. I gathered my newly emptied sack and we set off again.

The tower was closer than I remember it being. Or maybe the moshpit of Blight had just grown. I think it was the latter as the sea of cursed plant creatures was a lot bigger than before. Now and again, we could see red sparkles rise into the sky, indicating the death of someone who tried to enter the floor which only brought more Blight to the area.

“This is bad.” Jun said, stating the obvious.

“Ain’t no one gonna get through that. The whole town is stuck, except us. We have to fix this.” Clint said, frowning out at the mess in front of us.

“How, though? We can’t fight that many. Maybe we can run real fast and trick them away until we die, but how many will follow?” Jun squatted and drew in the dirt with a stick as she thought.

“If it is a curse, maybe we can find the cure.” Clint offered.

It was the first time I considered that there was a source to these mobs. I had forgotten that Clint wasn’t attacked by Blight when he first arrived. He had described what I thought to be a goblin. We had not seen any such creatures yet, only the Blight.

“You might be right. Maybe the Blight are an event creature meaning there is a way to end the event. If that is the case, there is a source, like there is a source to the special evil warding stream.” I chewed on my lip for a minute as I thought. “This will take careful planning, some luck, and muscle. Might take a couple days to do, but I bet we can find the source and reopen the way again.”

On the way back to camp, we paused to fish at the small like we had seen before. Clint was amazing at spearing fish, easily catching four in no time while Jun and I struggled and failed spectacularly. Four was about all we needed for the day. It was best to not over fish as we might need them later. There was no telling how quickly stuff in this game respawned as far as farmable materials. It might not at all since it seemed like the Blight were not despawning.

As we sat around the fire, fish skewered to green sticks for cooking, we felt kind of at a loss for how to resolve the Blight issue. There weren’t any clues so far about where the Blight were coming from. Clint had confirmed that they were not the creature that had killed him when he first arrived. All we could guess is that the Blight attacked anything that was moving and living, killing off the normal monsters of the floor. Everything had to be out of whack due to this event.

With no concrete ideas in place, it was decided that we would pick a direction tomorrow, travel several hours to see what we could see and then return back to camp. I didn’t like this plan, but I did not want to go against it either and sound like I was bossing the group. I really wasn’t the leader, after all. I knew with how much the other two had grown, they could handle a wandering Blight, but I would have to be extra careful and avoid them at all costs. It was agreed that I would follow the stream of evil warding water as it would be the route least likely to have Blight along it.

The night was uneventful and our sleep was restful. Berries made a fantastic breakfast, coupled with some nuts that Jun found. We adjusted our camp, refreshed the beds and gathered some more wood so when we got back to camp. I was ready for the day.

Ok, I wasn’t. I really didn’t want to go off on my own. The agreement was to travel until noon and turn around to come back. That would make us meet back up in the evening well before the sun went down. Sadly, I waved goodbye to my party members and headed off down stream.

The forest was quiet. There were a few birds now and again, but mostly it was just the sound of the infrequent breeze dancing through the crazy colored leaves and the babbling of the stream. I didn’t like the quiet, it put me more on edge so I began to hum. Humming turned to whistling and whistling to singing.

I sang just about all the songs that I knew and came to mind. It helped pass the time. Admittedly, it also distracted me a little too much as I had not noticed the lake in front of me until I practically stumbled into it.

“What the…”

The stream had backed up here into a temporary lake, flooding the forest in ankle deep water. Now this was interesting. I had no shoes to get soggy and my hooves didn’t feel strange stepping into the water, so I proceeded. I felt comforted knowing I was walking through the evil warding water. It meant that I wouldn’t be wandering into a nest of Blight.

The newly formed lake seemed to have been caused by a nest of thick vines choking the water flow into a small canyon opening. It was a struggle to get over the blockage until I found that I could grip stone well with my hooved feet if I didn’t think too much about it. On the other side, there was barely a trickle where water seemed to have run regularly. The canyon seemed to keep going and going. It was nearly noon and I was ready to turn back when I saw where the canyon led.

It widened in front of me to a foreboding pit with a mess of bushes in the center on a small raised area. I realized that it wasn’t a mess of bushes but a full on hedge maze. The center of it was a tall statue of a cloaked figure with its hand raised. In its hand was something so dark it seemed to pull the light from around it in. The black orb pulsed and every tenth pulse a speck of shadow escaped and fluttered about.

I watched in awe for several minutes until I saw what the escaped shadows could do. When they reached the top of the canyon wall, most disappeared from view. One, however, ran into a tree up on the canyon wall and sank into its bark. The tree grew dark and then twisted, mangling with a creaking sound until it turned into a Blight.

“Shit.”

I was far enough away that the Blight that had just been born would not have noticed me, but I still ran at full speed back towards the safety of the water. It was clear to me that the water needed to be running around the maze to prevent that statue from infecting the forest around us. I had to get back to the others.