Berries

Thomas

As night fell, the group set up camp. With little effort, the two of them found and grabbed as much wood they could carry from a dead tree, placing what they broke off in a pile as they shivered against the cold.

"You going to help?" Thomas asked the creature still inside his rucksack.

"You guys have got it, I believe in you."

They carried on ignoring the imp.

Anjan crouched next to the stacked pile of wood, and after some attempts shot out a small burst of fire. The wood was ignited and a steady flame grew.

Anjan handed out some berries to Thomas. "Watch out for the poisoned ones.”

The effects and names of the berries appeared to be highlighted for the two of them as they were passed from hand to hand. The system seeming to catalogue the items.

Notification

Item Effect

Sundering oat Intense vomiting

Lunar fruit Unknown

Badland berry 25% increased focus

Glue berry Unknown

"You're not going to try the glue berry, right?”Thomas exhaled.

“Probably not, but the lunar fruit doesn’t look so bad.” Anjan put his hand out to show two large red fruits, almost like plums. They looked like they would be more satisfying than the other fruits, given their larger size.

Thomas sniffed it and even nipped a bit of the surface. It tasted a little bitter.

"I don't trust it."

Too late, he saw that Anjan had already munched half of his. Thomas furrowed his brow but lifted the lunar berry to his mouth. “I guess a fruit like this is kind of meant to be eaten.”

The fruit’s size and shape didn’t scream ‘poison’ — Thomas reasoned to himself that the plant wouldn’t have wasted the energy on creating such a large fruit if there wasn’t some evolutionary drive to be consumed that was present. Also, the stray thought lingered that even if they both died, they would at least be able to find each other.

No notifications came, and so they cautiously started lying down beside the fire.

“I’ll take watch if you want to sleep first,” Anjan said into the dark.

They waited a while next to the fire, neither of them able to sleep whilst Kurt still watched what was on the tablet.

"What are you watching?" Anjan asked.

After a brief silence, "Hot fuzz."

Anjan tried to think about those words but as he pictured what they meant he was overcome with nausea and a splitting headache. He was brought back to reality and instead everything seemed nice, he started to feel a bit warm and the fire almost seemed to grow more contrast compared to its surroundings.

"Nice," Anjan replied.

They lay in silence a while longer, still unable to rest, suddenly Thomas burst out, “You know man, you’re great. You’re literally like, the best. I fucking love you man, even you tiny imp friend.”

"Eh?" Kurt responded.

“You’ve always been such a sound guy. Love you too, dude,” Anjan replied.

“Man, this place, camping in this crazy world, surrounded by the stars. Check out those moons. It's just so fucking amazing.” Thomas was pointing to the sky with a wavering finger.

The light of one of the moons, encircled by a ring of rocks, was a dusky red. Another moon, slowly drifting across the sky, was twice the size and more of a dusty grey-blue colour. Kurt even momentarily looking up from his device.

"You guys are being weird."

Anjan chuckled, getting up to his knees. “We should just do something, like right now. I’m not in the mood to just lie around, I wanna get moving.” Kurt lowered his tablet with a cold stare.

"Didn't you guys just die?"

“Whatever kuty. Yeah boi. Let’s do it!” Thomas rose to his feet with equal fervour and picked up a burning bit of wood, waving it around in the air. As he did so, a cascading wave of howls sounded off in the distance.

“Oh my god,” said Anjan. “There are dogs!”

Analysing toxin….

Before Kurt could add anything else, Anjan had run off in the direction of the howls. Thomas following close behind, and as he picked up pace he noticed a notification pop up, stating New Effects Identified, and a smiling emoji icon appear in the corner of his vision.

Status: Mania

Effect: Impulsivity increased, fear lowered, appreciation increased, rational analysis inhibited.

Catalogued berry effect