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Neil 

 

“NEIL! This way!” Yallia shouted from somewhere in front of me to my right. 

 

Not slowing I changed my course slightly to the right and sprinted towards her voice. “Coming!” 

 

Behind me a small swarm of feral fruits were chasing me with one or two sounding like they were right on my heels. 

 

“Over here!” Yallia shouted from directly in front of me and almost as soon as the words had left her mouth she appeared in the long grass her spear moving towards my head as soon as she saw me. 

 

Falling down I slid underneath her spear and actually managed to see it collide with a Feral Fruit that had jumped towards me. Striking it full in the torso the fruit exploded in a shower of gore that splashed all over my face and shirt. Using my forward momentum, I scrambled to my feet and I kept running barely slowed down by my dive and slide. I tried to get some distance between the Ferals as Yallia distracted them, using her spear she kept them at a distance and backed up to avoid letting them surround her. 

 

When I was about twenty feet away I stopped and planted my feet, griping my spear as tightly as I could I yelled out. “Yallia! Ready!” 

 

A few moments later it sounded like a herd of wild animals was rushing towards me in the long grass.  

 

“NNEEEIIILLLL!” Shouted Yallia. 

 

With the sounds directly in front of me I shifted to the side a little to make sure that Yallia wouldn’t bowl me over and answered her. “Here!” 

 

She appeared in the grass suddenly and she had just enough time to duck under where I would be swinging before a Feral appeared in the grass leaping after her. Swinging my spear as hard as I could I caught it with a glancing blow to the side of its body and managed to rip off two of its tentacles while scoring a long gash in its side. Immediately after I swung at the first Feral a second leapt through the grass directly at me.   

 

Still mid swing I wasn’t able to recover my balance and it bowled me over. Rolling in the grass I lost my spear and heard a crunch in my backpack as bottles and flasks were crushed underneath me.  

 

The Feral’s tentacles grasped at my arms and legs but fortunately it wasn’t able to get a very good grip on me and I was able to throw the monster off of me. Scrambling to my feet I would have loved to run towards the downed Feral and stomp it to death but a rustling in the tall grass behind me told me that the rest of the Ferals were already closing in on me. 

 

Hearing sounds of struggle from somewhere behind me I turned and started running towards the sound. Pushing through the grass I saw Yallia on the ground wrestling with one Feral as a second injured Feral was stalking towards her head. Speeding up I rushed towards the injured Feral and kicked it as hard as I could in its injured side.  

 

I was incredibly grateful for my hiking boots as my toes actually sunk into its side before the rest of my foot connected with it and it was sent careening into the tall grass out of sight. 

 

Turning to the other Feral I kicked it, once, twice and then a third time before it finally lost its grip on Yallia and was knocked into the grass as well.  

 

Hearing the grass rustle behind us as more of the monsters closed in, I gripped Yallias leather jacket and pulled her up onto her feet.  

 

"Are you ok?” I asked. Rather than answer she turned and ran into the long grass. Caught flat footed it took me a few moments before I started running after her. Just as I started running I caught sight of two Ferals running through the long grass towards me maws open and tentacles propelling them across the ground in their uneven gait. 

 

Following Yallia as quickly as I could I kept losing sight of her in the grass. With the noise of me crashing through the grass and the unknown number of Ferals chasing after me I couldn’t really follow her by sound either. “Yallia!” I shouted in between sucking in panicked breaths. 

 

A few moments later I heard a shout of “HERE!” from off on my left. 

 

Changing course I ran until I found myself running into a clearing, Yallia stood in front of me holding her knife pointing towards me. Falling down to my back I slid past her as she prepared to face the Ferals that were right behind me. 

 

Scrambling to my feet as quickly as I could I slid off my pack and pulled my own knife from the sheath on my belt. Turning I saw that Yallia was already on the ground stabbing one Feral over and over again as a second was trying to grapple her with its tentacles. 

 

Running towards it I kicked it in its side sending it tumbling away. I would have loved to finish it off but a second Feral leapt from the grass at me and I was barely able to get my hands up in time to save my face.  

 

Turning with the monsters momentum I brought the monster to the ground and I managed to get on top of it and start stabbing it with my knife as it pulled at my face and body with several of its tentacles leaving shallow gashes in my skin and clothes. My knife slipped into the creature easily enough but it seemed no matter how much I stabbed it just never stopped struggling. Taking a different approach, I focused on stabbing the tentacles on the half of its body that I could easily reach. When several of its tentacles had been severed I rolled over, once, then twice and used the momentum to throw it away from me. 

 

Getting up I saw that Yallia was back on her feet and fighting two of the Ferals at once. She was having far more luck than I had. Fighting with a knife in each hand she was able to dodge and dance around them keeping them at a distance. She also seemed to be using her wind magic to cut at them as she dodged their jumps, even when she missed with her knife's gashes were still being opened in the Ferals sides. Realizing that I had been fighting without using all of my abilities I formed a water bullet and sent it towards the moving grass catching another Feral directly in its face as it came out of the grass. The bullet entered its head easily and actually passed straight through the Feral killing it instantly. I really needed to remember to use my magic more often. 

 

Yallia managed to kill one of the Ferals she had been fighting and turned her attention to the second one so I turned my attention back to the Feral I had just thrown away. It was already unsteadily turning towards me, a quarter of its tentacles on the trailing behind it uselessly on the ground. 

 

Slowed as it was I was easily able to dodge its clumsy attacks and countered with my knife leaving several deep gashes in its side. With the damage adding up the Feral faltered for just a moment and I took the opportunity to drive the knife as deeply as I could into what I would normally consider its head. This finally finished the creature and it fell to the ground dead. Breathing heavily I looked around the clearing for more enemies but saw none.  

 

Yallia was likewise panting her hands on her knees as she scanned the tall grass. Movement in the grass in front of us told us that at least a few more Ferals were still moving, but the fact that nothing had darted out of the grass yet told us that they were probably injured. 

 

Walking into the grass we followed the noise until we found two injured Ferals, killing them by simply stomping on them until they had been crushed we were finally able to take a moment to catch out breaths. 

 

“You know when you mentioned being attacked by a tree, I had assumed you were full of shit.” She said touching the side of her face which had blood tricking down it. 

 

“Yeah I know, that’s why I didn’t mention the fruits.” 

 

“Is that what those were? What do you call those things?” 

 

“They’re called Feral Fruits, I usually just think of them as Ferals. Do you remember where the tree went? I’m pretty sure it can make more fruits if we let it.” 

 

Yallia looked around and pointed in a direction that was to the left of us. Although the cavern was extremely large, it wasn’t so big that it would be possible to be lost forever, eventually you would find the edge and be able to head towards the center of the cavern. However as we only had another hour with our night eye potions we couldn’t risk being lost. 

 

“I lost my spear.” Yallia said. 

 

“Same, they wouldn’t be too useful against the tree anyways.” I said picking up my bag and looking inside it. Quickly identifying the potions that I still had I cursed. Out of all the potions I had brought with me all but one night eye potion and one stamina potion had been destroyed. There were two health potions back at our camp, and I still had MRE packages filled with a healing powder that I only needed to add water to, but every other potion had been destroyed. Three healing potions, one night eye potion and one stamina potion all gone. 

 

Taking out the MRE package with the healing powder in it I opened it and poured some of it into my bowl. Adding some water from my canteen I mixed it together and handed it to Yallia. She drank it and immediately sighed in relief. Although she still had some blood running down her face the gash on her head had closed. 

 

Wetting a cloth, I wiped at her forehead checking to make sure that the wound had been closed all the way. 

 

“Take off your jacket.” I ordered. 

 

Yallia raised an eyebrow but shrugged out of her jacket. Quickly checking her for any other cuts or bruises I didn’t see any open cuts but it looked like she had something on her forearm that hadn’t been healed by the potion. Mixing more water with healing powder I dripped the potion directly on the wound and saw it close in front of my eyes. 

 

“Now you, take your shirt off.” Yallia said when I had finished checking her for wounds. 

 

“You don’t need to take my shirt off to see if I’m injured.” I said a little uncomfortably. 

 

“Yes I do, I can’t tell what's your blood and what isn’t. Where you rolling around on their corpses?” 

 

Looking down I actually did have to agree, during the fight my clothes had gone from pretty dirty to covered in blood, mud, and god only knew what else. Shrugging out of my shirt I watched Yallia as she looked at my chest, wiping dirt away to check my injuries and even pouring water over me to make sure a cut wasn’t hidden by the grime. Turning me around I felt her hands skim over my back for a few minutes before she declared that I only had some bruises on my back and would probably be fine. 

 

"Good, now we just need to take out that tree before it sends more Ferals after us. Their small enough that they would be able to make it into the office.” I said as I put my shirt back on and turned around. Yallia looked like she was ready to start arguing with me when I held up my hand to slow her and then explained my plan. 

 

By the time I finished explaining my plan she still looked uncertain but agreed to at least give it a try. 

 

Walking through the long grass for several minutes I was starting to think that Yallia may have been as lost as I was when the grass in front of us suddenly cleared and we could see the edges of the cavern. 

 

Lumbering towards us in the distance was the Surprisingly Fast Tree we had stumbled upon when we reached the edge of the field.  

 

“Ready?” Yallia asked me. “I won’t be able to do this for very long.” 

 

Taking a moment to feel my Mana before I answered her I took stock of myself. I still wasn’t at risk of Mana Shock, at least not unless I took a few potions at once. I was still tired and wouldn’t want to run again any time soon, but I still felt able to follow through with my plan. 

 

Pooling my mana in front of my right hand I focused on shaping it into a disk. Adding my water affinity to it I reinforced its shape, added some teeth to the end of the disk and began spinning it. The water saw wobbled a little at first before I managed to stabilize it but after a moment it spun easily in front of my hand. Increasing its speed as fast as I could the saw began to actually emit a whirring sound as it cut the air. 

 

Nodding at Yallia I watched as she raised her hands towards the tree that was lumbering towards us. A moment later the tree slowed down and actually stumbled forwards, slumping towards the ground. Walking forwards trying to keep the saw steady I pushed it into the trees trunk where it began cutting into the wood. Increasing the speed of the saw and pushing harder it cut into the wood faster and faster as the tree began shaking back and forth. At first it shook slowly but more and more violently as I pushed the saw in deeper and deeper.  

 

Just as I pushed the saw in more than halfway the tree began to shake its limbs at me and it was all I could do to avoid getting hit by them while keeping the saw steady and moving forwards. 

 

From behind me I heard Yallia cry out as the tree suddenly began thrashing far more violently. Yallia had lost her concentration and the dark affinity mana she had been using to slow the tree stopped. Unfortunately for the tree it was too late, I had managed to cut almost three quarters of the way through its trunk and the extra movement just caused its trunk to finally crack and the tree fell sideways a black ichor oozing from the wound. 

 

It continued to struggle on the ground for a few minutes before it slowly stopped moving. 

 

“Fuck you tree! You god damn son of a bitch!” I shouted at the corpse as I flipped it off. This earned me a surprised look from Yallia. She had been slumped over, hands on her knees breathing heavily swaying slightly, but she still looked up at me after my outburst. 

 

DING 

 

 

Just the one ding? I had been hoping for a few, the last fight had spoiled me. 

 

Beside me Yallia her hands still on her knees panting in exhaustion said, “That, was not easy.” 

 

“Are you ok?” I said walking over to Yallia who by now had fallen into a sitting position. Nodding her answer she was still breathing too heavily to say anything.  

 

“I can see why you don’t try and use dark affinity to do this more often.” 

 

Taking a few deep breaths Yallia slowly started to make her way to her feet, giving her a hand, I pulled her up. “Using it on living things is always more difficult. Something like a fire or sound is much easier. There better be something good around here.” 

 

“Probably not, but you never know.” 

 

Despite my words I was actually feeling fairly hopeful. Along the edge of the cavern were small buildings carved directly out of the rock into the stone as well as a small overgrown garden.  I counted one large storehouse that looked like it housed tools. Almost everything inside was of course rusted hunks of junk unfortunately, the ones that were intact were nothing that we needed. The other buildings all looked to be simple living quarters. Looking through the living quarters they appeared to be made for Lamia with small ramps instead of stairs, and beds in rows instead of individual rooms. Everything was also much wider than the houses in the city, probably to accommodate the extra space Lamia would need. 

 

The garden was completely overgrown and every plant in it was poisonous to even touch, let alone eat. I still carefully grabbed a few samples of each using a couple of empty MRE bags. I could probably make a more effective poison from them.  

 

Most of the living quarters were useless to us. The beds long ago rotted beyond useless, the bathrooms dusty and without water, which I confirmed that when I tried to start the showers only to get nothing. I was about to leave when I spotted something that I realized was possibly the most valuable thing I had seen in the underground aside from the maps and other books. 

 

It was a comically large cooking pot. I found it laying on the ground upside down in a small cooking area. The outside of the pot was corroded but when I turned it over the inside while dirty actually looked to be in fairly good condition. 

 

Yallia having noticed my attention walked over to me. “What are you thinking of doing with that? Were you looking to make soup for two hundred people?” She asked sarcastically. 

 

“Nope, I’m thinking bath time.”