We enter the forest, it's fairly dark in here, and we can only see a bit. Dalton then proceeds to turn on the lantern just in case.

Dalton askes "None of you guys are afraid of the dark right?"

I just shake my head no.

"Well as long as we are together. I'd be ok with it." Destiny answers

"Alright, then let's go." replies Dalton 

We proceed walking, and as we walk I could see a patch of yellow flowers laid out into a square, and seems to be a gravestone by it. I guess someone must have wanted to rest in the forest. We notice a couple of those plant monsters, but decide that we would walk around them instead of fighting them to conserve energy, even though it wasn't much energy swinging a sword once to cut them down. There's also a main road for the forest that I assume leads out of the forest to the other side to somewhere else, but the vines don't lead towards the road, but deeper north into the forest.

As we go north into the forest, we notice a group of those plant monsters, and decide to cut them down as its a group of those things. Dalton and me look at each other and nod and strike down 2 monsters, we then redirect our swords into 2 more monsters. As me and Dalton are slashing away, Destiny holds onto the lantern as there's still enough light for us to see, and she starts to cast ice spells. Destiny shoots down 2 of the monsters, it seems the monsters are preparing to shoot at Destiny while me and Dalton are cutting them down. I run over to Destiny before they can shoot her and put up the pot lid to block the needles, which I barely make it on time due to my speed being shit.

"Thanks Link." Destiny tells me

"No problem." I reply back

I stay closer to Destiny as I'm not sure if she would notice the needles coming at her or not, so I try not to stray too far from her so I can protect her in case she doesn't notice. Dalton seems to be doing completely fine as he's able to dodge the needles, and he even blocked some of them with his swords, huh neat. We finish cleaning up the plant monsters and take a 30 minute break as it seems Destiny is tired. I guess it's that energy draining thing the mage mentioned about, and I guess I'm a bit tired myself, but Dalton still seems to be in top shape.

"You ok?" I ask towards Destiny

"Yea... just a little tired." she replies

Night starts to fall, and we can only really see clearly with the lantern near us. We head off once again, only this time Dalton is watching over Destiny as I lead ahead. As we continue walking, the forest gets denser. I see a light or a faint glow ahead of us with 2 figures and other things around it.

"Hey uh... I see something providing light over there." I tell the two of them

"Well let's walk over to it then." They say

As we get closer, it seems the light is emitting from a staff, and as we even get closer the figures are actually two people. The other things that was surrounding them are plant monsters and giant fucking spiders with skull marks on there body thing?

"Hey, I see two people. They look like they need help, or err do need help." I tell them

"Ok." the siblings reply back

We get ready or well try to anyway, and run as fast as we can to get to them. I get a little tired, because it's been a while since I have ran, and so I try to catch my breath and take some deep breaths while I catch up with them. As we get even closer, we see that it is a boy in green with leather armor holding twin axes, and a mage girl in a black sweater with a skirt leaned up to a tree as they are surrounded. Dalton charges in blitz and glory as he keeps slashing away at the plant monster and thrusting his swords into the spiders. Leeroy Jenkins much?

"Ya know... I didn't expect Dalton to have so much energy, and be so... into this?" I say with my hand on my chin

"Yea, it's a bit surprising then again he does work out and exercise a bit so it's understandable why'd he be able to do a lot more than us." says Destiny

"Well, we should probably go help them." I say while unsheathing my sword

"Yea." Destiny answers

I grip my sword and charge into the battles aiming at the plant monsters first so they don't target Destiny, as there are a lot more monsters than the group earlier which only consisted of plant monsters. Destiny snipes the spiders with ice that try to attack me, while also not straying too far from our sight. As we are helping the other two adventurers, one of them goes on to say.

"I'm not sure who you guys are, but thank you guys for helping us." the adventurer in green says with a smile

"Introductions later dude. We need to finish the monsters off first." answers Dalton

"Oh, yea your right." the adventurer replies back

The adventurer swings his axes, which cleaves into the plants and spiders which also spill the spider bloods everywhere quite a bit... disgusting. The other adventurer girl seems to be in pain, seems she was stabbed or something, as she has her hand on her right shoulder. It does take us a while to finish off all the monsters as it's mostly us just repeating attacks against the same thing while dodging, blocking, or deflecting. We manage to kill off the rest of the monsters. Most of us are panting and taking deep breaths as we try to relax after just constantly attacking. Dalton gives us a thumbs up, and we give him a slight smile as well we survived.

"Phew... I would introduce myself first, but I need to get one of those antidotes at the town to stop the poison inside of Andr." the adventurer green says as he points at the girl

"Oh yea, we have 4 antidotes so we can give you one to cure her. I believe Destiny has the bag with it." Daltons says while pointing at her

Destiny proceeds to pull one out and say "Yea I do."

"Oh thank god..." the adventurer says

Destiny hands it to the adventurer. He walks up to Andr the other adventurer, and pours the antidote into her mouth. I'm assuming she's feeling real stiff, as I haven't seen her move at all during the fight.

"Well, I guess I should introduce myself, I'm Zuj. I was here to do this quest with Andr here, and my other partner Shiro. We all got split up a couple hours ago, we were post to finish the quest and turn in today, but we ended up getting lost yesterday. Then we all got split up today. So who are you guys?" answers Zuj

Dalton stands up and says "Well I'm Dalton, that is my twin sister Destiny, and that edgy guy is Link. We were sent here to check up on you guys since you guys hadn't appeared, but it seems your other friend isn't here so were not done just yet."

Destiny gives a polite smile and my expressions don't change, but I nod at him I guess.

"I see, I'm grateful that the guild would send out others to check on us. Well hopefully the antidote works faster so you can talk and move again Andr." answers Zuj 

Though its still slowly getting through, Andr is able to give off a nod. We ended up resting for a bit so we can regain our energy. We spend about 30 minutes resting so we can get some energy back, and as I look up, its night time. Though I don't know what time it is, but it's got to be around 10pm I'd say, but hell do I know lol. Andr is able to get up and now talk to us, and as she does she proceeds to thank us for saving her life as she probably would of died and made Zuj leave her behind.

"I would never leave a comrade behind..." says Zuj frowning

"Well I would have made you leave, even if I couldn't have moved. It would have been better if someone made it out alive..." Andr says as she sighs

"Well luckily those three came and found us, maybe we have been blessed?" Zuj says

"Stop making jokes, you're not even religious." she says

"Hey no need to call me out." Zuj says as he laughs

"I guess we five should get going to find Shiro." Dalton speaks up

"Yea we should, hopefully he's ok." Zuj replies

We all get up to grab our belongings and weapons. We then go back onto our journey deeper into the forest. I look behind us and I see Destiny and Andr talking, it seems Destiny is asking how Andr was able to light up her staff to make it glow and emit light. We continue walking around in the forest, and slash up more creatures as its probably better that Destiny and Andr preserve their mana. We continue to walk, and notice that the vines grow thicker and wider as we walk. We also hear the sound of slash and screeching of a spider. We all follow the direction of the sound or well try to anyway.

We see a man holding a katana slashing at spiders, and then he puts his sword on the ground and then slashes upwards sending a beam at 2 spiders cutting them in half. That attack oddly reminds me of the demon fang move from the Tales series. Also how the hell has he made it this far without a light source!?!? Why are none of us questioning this?

"Hey that's Shiro!" Zuj and Andr tell us

Were all kind of standing while he just slashes at the spiders.

"Soooooooooooooo, are we helping him or are we just standing here" I ask awkwardly

"Oh, uh yea." Zuj and Dalton say

We go to help Shiro, he doesn't really bother with our presence as he continues to slash at the spiders. Now that we're a group of 6 with better numbers this time it should be easier, then again we did fight a horde of like a shit ton of monsters earlier as a group of 5 so we'll be fine. We finish killing the spiders off and sheath our weapons.

"Glad to see you two safe. So who are these guys?" Shiro says as he sheaths his katana

"Those guys are Dalton, Destiny, and Link. They saved Andr's life earlier and rescued us." Zuj says with a smirk

"Good grief I thought you two would escape and be fine while I distracted them. Guess not, glad you two are safe though. Thanks for rescuing them." Shiro says as he gives off a sigh and scoffs

I look at Destiny and Dalton and shrug, but they probably don't understand why I shrugged in the first place.

"Well since all of you guys are here, we can go kill the main source of where the plant monsters are controlled." Shiro says as he points at the cords of vines

Shiro starts to run in a direction leaving us five behind. . . we all end up running after him as he seems to know the way to the main source of these plant monsters. Though to be honest, if we had a holy flame thrower this all could be purged easily. Maybe Dalton could learn something similar when we encounter plants next time, but then again this is a forest and that's not a good idea for the ecosystem or in general, but it is the easiest solution. We catch up to Shiro, and I end up having to catch my breath as I'm technically the least fit of the group it seems. I look back up and there appears to be this giant flower bud thing attached to the gates of this building.

This flower bud monster giant thing keeps spewing out the monsters while it grows more uh vines? The vines seem to attach to the monster allowing it to control them.

"Frontal assault." Shiro says

"Wait that's just reckless." Dalton tells Shiro

"You got any better ideas?" Shiro tells him

"At least I won't run head on into a battle like a idiot." Dalton replies

"Yea that's true... fine you, Link, Andr keep the things off me while Destiny and Zuj deal with the extras or well work around that idea you five." Shiro answers

"Well that's better than running head on I guess." Dalton tells us

Shiro proceeds to charge head on before any of us are actually ready. . . I shrug at the group, and they also just shrug and we all just charge into battle without an actual plan, but well it could be worse I guess? wait I'm not the positive one here why am I saying that? And now were in the heat of battle surrounded by plant monsters. Dalton is slashing around with his dual wielding which uh. I'm not even sure how he's even getting that combo to work, Destiny is shooting icicles hopefully she doesn't run out of mana, Zuj is throwing his axes and cleaving plants, Andr is just using a bunch of fucking magic that is like a light show, small explosions, ice, fire, dark, and more.

And me? well I'm not doing much but slashing. Shiro is trying to get close to the bud thing, but it keeps shooting needles at a pretty fast speed that he can't close the distance. As more monsters surround us four giant fucking plant monster things with skulls attached to their shoulders appear out of the back sides of the building. Jesus christ what the fuck. Dalton is able to cut and shred one of the giant plant monsters, Andr pierces the monster with light spear things and makes them explode causing the monster to explode. Zuj and me take on one, in which I distract it from him. Zuj cleaves one of its arms off by throwing his axes and I cut its legs and Zuj finishes it off by throwing his axes like boomerangs into the middle of the monster which uh he didn't have to do but ok sure I ain't judging.

My better question is how is he using them like boomerangs? where are the physics, but then again magic exists. I look over at Destiny and she is held by one of the arms of the giant plant monster. . . oh I probably should have helped her instead of Zuj to be honest. I run up to the monster and slash its left leg to tip it over to then cut its right arm holding onto Destiny. I pick up Destiny and get away from the monster.

"Hey you ok?" I ask

"Yea... I'm fine." she says as her face gets slightly red

I'll just pretend to ignore that. As I look back at the monster Dalton comes in and cuts it in half and then stabs a thing that seems to be the core of the plant. It's a greenish plant that looks like a heart with a yellow heart inside the middle of it. Well I guess that explains why Zuj threw his axes at the one earlier and why those things don't have vines plugged into them.

"Oi Shiro, what's taking so long to kill the monster?" Dalton yells

"It'd be easier if I could get it to open its damn bud thing, and if I wasn't attacked at all angles." he yells back

Well he does kind of have a point as these knight looking plant monsters start appearing around him. Also there are more plant monsters around us now, great.

"How about this Shiro, Link blocks the projectiles and cuts that plant off its cord or something, and you finish it off since you don't wanna engage?" Dalton tell Shiro

"Yea sure, it'll make the battle faster than it was already post to. Plus then I can deal with the plant guardians attacking me or protect you from them." he answers

I just nod at them and shrug. Now that I think about it, it's been like four minutes or something. Then again we're all getting tired so we should probably stop this so we don't get ourselves killed. I'm already tired myself, but hey adrenaline vs plants. So I go to Shiro and well prepare my pot lid to block the needles as I charge through. Sadly there's no way for me to block all the needles, so I charge ahead and block the needles that I can, but the flower bud monster thing is shooting faster, and well slightly aiming where I'm not defending so I do end up with needles in my leg and arm.

I get a look at a couple of the plant guardians and they are armed with swords and axes though I'm not sure how a plant would lift those, but hey it's a magical world I live in now. I should probably stop thinking as logical and realistically as before coming to Ntaj or I'll just hurt myself thinking about it. It's like the time I thought about the. . . actually maybe I don't wanna bring that up. But hey at least Shiro is protecting them from me while I slash that bud monster thing plant. . . wait why don't I just call it plant in the first place. I mean sure it's not a normal plant, but like why am I making it harder on myself in the first place? Oh well.

As I reach the plant thing I slash its vine under it off and grab it, and force its bud open to reveal a thing... its body is like a stick and its head thing is just a sphere with fuzzy things on it. It hisses at me and shoots a needle at my cheek. I slash it off its bud or now flower since I technically made it bloom by forcing it open. I grab the mother fucker and yeet his ass to Shiro, while the thing is going to Shiro I take out the needle on my cheek. It hurts, but I do have a bunch of other needles shot onto me so I shouldn't wine too hard. I'm starting to slow down though.

Shiro turns to me and grabs the plant, and starts to cast magic. He casts fire magic which he holds over his left hand and burns the plant alive. Okay then. As the plant thing dies, the other plant monsters start to wither, and fall to the ground turning brown. It then breaks apart into the ground. I sigh and just scratch my head as I turn towards the group. Destiny starts to walk over to me with Dalton.

"Hey uh Link are you ok? I mean you aren't, but are you feeling ok?" Destiny askes me

"I mean I feel fine? I think anyway." I assure them

I start walking towards them I feel my body getting stiffer, and then I fall forward and land face first, and start feeling tired. As I was falling forward I swear I saw a figure further out, but maybe I'm just seeing things as well wouldn't be the first time and its pretty fucking dark out. I guess the poison is getting to me, but I'm sure I'll be fine as I'm pretty sure we have 3 antidotes left unless they used it all, but I'm pretty sure they didn't get poisoned during the fight, right? Well I'm sure if they're out, they can just buy one or something. I close my eyes, as I do that. I can hear Destiny call my name out with Dalton and even Zuj and Andr. . .