A stray branch etched a line of fire across Robin’s cheek as he ran, following close behind the fleeing figure of Eli. Around them, the wood rustled, trees and plants moving in unnatural ways, bending under the brunt of Cherry’s fury. Fortunately, they weren’t at full-on Evil Dead levels of movement.

Yet.

‘This way,’ Eli called from up ahead. ‘We’re not far now!’

Not far from what? Shelter of some kind, yeah, but what? Robin’s mind was spinning with all manner of warding stones or circle of flame, but he didn’t know what to look for. Best not get separated, then.

Robin tried to put on a burst of speed, but Eli remained almost out of sight ahead of him. The cleric was just faster on his feet. Robin really shouldn’t have given up running after this past Christmas.

He also wasn’t used to running in a forest that was quite this thick with underbrush and fallen branches. Robin tripped over a concealed limb and nearly went sprawling. It was only though dumb luck and some serious windmill action with his arms that he didn’t face-plant in the loam and decaying leaves in front of him.

When he righted himself, Eli was nowhere in sight. He’d saved himself a tumble but lost his guide!

‘Eli!’ he shouted. ‘Eli, can you hear me? Where are you?’

Come on! Focus! It’s a world of skills, one of which is Survival. Robin quirked an ear in case Eli shouted back at him but bent his eye to the woods, looking for signs of passage.

It can’t be that hard, right? They were running full tilt, not exactly trying to conceal their tracks. And this was a forest floor, not the stone of a mountain tunnel. It should hold tracks easily.

It did, quite clearly. Robin’s own trail was painfully clear. He cursed, and the spectre of what-might-have-been, if he'd taken [Mask of Myriad Faces] reared its ugly head, not for the first time. If he had it now, maybe he could track Eli by scent. No. No use second-guessing his choices now. He had more important worries. Right, he knew where he’d seen Eli last. He just needed to continue carefully in that direction until he spotted the trail.

Robin moved forward as quickly as he dared, which was not that speedy a pace at all. Anxious whispers mocked him from the corners of his mind, where they partied with his fears and got drunk on the adrenaline spiking at the base of his jaw. He had to hurry. Eli could easily outpace him, and if the cleric ran up a stream or hit a patch of rocky ground, Robin might lose the trail.

A few agonising minutes later, Robin found the signs of Eli’s passage. At least, he hoped it was Eli’s. Though any of his allies would do. There were definitely footprints here. Too big too be Grathilde’s or Ora-Jean’s but the right size for Lantha or Fiamah. It was probably Eli’s. It made the most sense it was Eli’s. Focus!

Robin shook his head to clear it, and set off following the trail, speeding up now that he had it. He still couldn’t move as fast as he had before, but the pace soothed his anxieties a bit.

Though why hadn’t Eli stopped? Had he not noticed? Robin picked up the pace a bit more. Maybe something had happened. He had no idea how Cherry might move through the wood. Dryads in some literature could literally step into one tree and out of another. A perfect ambush power, if used correctly.

Frell. He really did not know enough about this world he found himself in. And relying on superficial similarities between this place and the games and literature of his own world would probably get him killed sooner rather than later.

‘Red! Stop!’

Eli’s voice slammed into his ears just as he was about to follow the cleric’s tracks into a small clearing. Robin windmilled his arms again, this time to grab hold of a nearby trunk and arrest his momentum. The bark scraped his palm, but he managed to stop himself from tumbling headfirst out of the trees.

It was a small clearing, only a dozen or so strides across. It was dominated by the blasted trunk of what had once been a massive tree. An oak? Robin had no way to tell. When it died, it had left a huge gap in the wood. Now, that space was filled with lush green grass and some form of flowering vine. Verdant tendrils studded with star-like yellow blossoms wrapped around the tree and snaked through the grass. Robin could just make out several similarly bright coloured gourds in various stages of growth peeking through the grass.

Eli was sprawled near the base of the dead tree’s trunk, one leg and an arm partially elevated into the air and bound to the dead wood with the living vines. Robin involuntarily began to take a step forward when he saw the nearest vine slither toward him. He froze.

‘What is that thing?’ he called to Eli.

‘Ghilded Ghourd,’ came the reply. ‘It’s a sentient plant, very dangerous. You’re going to have to find something you can use to smash as many ghourds as you can. That should weaken the vine enough that you can tear me free.’

‘On it!’ Robin began casting around for something he could use as a weapon.

‘Quick as you can,’ Eli yelled. ‘This thing is already trying to invade my mind.’

‘It’s what?’ Robin whipped around to look at the tableaux again. As he watched, the vines shifted again, and this time he clearly saw the tendrils coiling their way into Eli’s ears. ‘Right. Be with you in a sec!’

What was with this world and snakey things trying to get inside your head, literally? Robin shuddered at the memory of the priest of Urkhan and the serpent that lived in his empty eye socket.

There! A seasoned branch, reasonably straight. That would do for a quarterstaff. Robin snapped off a few twigs and gave it an experimental twirl. Had he trained in the use of the staff? No. Had he spent too much time as a child pretending to be Robin Hood, Bugs Bunny, and various Jedi? Oh frells yeah.

Proficiency Unlocked: Melee Combat.

Oh yeah. That would do nicely. Robin whipped open his interface and dumped what little experience he had gained from his recent, well, experiences, into the stat. It was enough to bring it up to 2.

His opponents were mostly gourds—err, ghourds—so how hard could they be to hit? Even if the vine could move under its own power? Staff in hand, Robin prepared to enter the ring of cleared woodland.

‘You call that a gourd?’ He called out as he moved into position. ‘I’ve seen bigger bulges at a bee sting convention!’ Might as well try [Cutting Words] to see if or how well it worked.

The grass rustled, and Eli keened in pain. Robin froze. What had just happened?

‘Smash the ghourds!’ Eli yelled. ‘Distract it from taking over my mind!’

Frakking frell! The vine was linked to Eli. The magic had hit them both. He’d have to trust the cleric that smashing the wanna-be pumpkins was safer.

Robin roared a battle city, lifted his staff and brought it down like a spear, thrusting into the gourd. Ghourd. The seasoned wood easily broke through the tough outer rind, puncturing it like a nail through an over-full tyre.

He was not prepared for what happened next. A jet of fizzing golden liquid erupted from the thing, propelling a handful of pearl-white seed across the clearing.

Robin took it full in the face. And into his still-open mouth.

‘Yes! Just like that!’ Eli yelled. ‘Quick! Smash some more!’

Robin yanked his staff free and blinked his vision clear. He coughed and swallowed, spitting to clear his mouth. The stuff tasted oddly of pineapple. His face was sticky but at least his eyes didn’t sting. He brought the staff down lengthwise across the next ghourd, though, rather than spearing it. The thing cracked and half the ghourd went skidding across the clearing, propelled by the eruption of the juices inside.

‘Watch out!’ Eli’s voice rang out.

Robin looked around wildly. The vines were snaking their way toward him. He jumped up and freed a hand to dance through the motions of [Lesser Phantasm]. Any extra confusion had to help, right? He conjured a boulder and darted around it.

The vines lashed through it like it wasn’t even there. Frell. Either the thing was immune or it was using some other sense to track him. Something that didn’t equate to sight. Smell would probably work better. Plants communicated with pheromones, didn’t they? Though that was his world, not this one, so who knew?

Robin spun his staff around and clipped another ghourd, hitting it right at the juncture where it joined the vine. It shot off into the wood like a rocket. He Dodged out of the way of the lashing vine, coiling madly like a snake with its head cut off.

Hit. Run. Hit. Run. Jump. Dash. Robin panted as he sprinted around the clearing. The grass around him almost sounded like it was hissing its fury.

‘Red! Watch out!’

Eli’s warning caused him to glance around the clearing. The vines had bunched up around the remaining ghourds, but that wasn’t all. The rich loam of the clearing shifted in several spots around the corpse of the old tree. That was not good. No way was that ever good.

Snarling, spitting black dirt, ragged forms clawed their way up out of the ground. The rotted form of a massive stag stared at him, golden gaze unblinking. A trio of wolves also slavered and snapped as they struggled free of the soil, and several hares and badgers popped free easily due to their yellowed claws being so suited for digging.

‘They’ve each got a ghourd in their skull,’ Eli yelled. ‘That’s what’s animating and controlling them! Same game as before! Smash them!’

Robin whirled his staff and scored a lucky strike, the end of it clipping one of the wolves right in the eye. The resultant explosion was messy but effective. The carcass went down and did not rise again.

The other animals began to circle around him, showing an unnatural level of coordination. The vine was controlling them all. This could get bad, fast.

Robin whirled the staff like a baseball bat, smacking one of the bunnies out of the air as it lunged for his jugular. It went flying but he could tell he missed the skull. It would be back.

He dashed across the clearing, hurdling a ghourd and its defending vines. He had to keep moving or he’d be surrounded. As an experiment, he tossed out three [Lesser Phantasm]s as he ran, conjuring up the thickest, most pungent smells he could remember. Bleach. Aging cheese. Weed killer.

His targets were the deer and the two remaining wolves. They were the easiest to see. Robin turned quickly and brought his staff down on the badger shambling after him. It cracked like an overripe melon which…well, it kinda was.

The deer and one of the wolves were headed in his direction. The other wolf was shaking its head and trying to snuff something out of its nose. So he could interfere with their communication, at least a bit!

Robin crushed the ghourd-skull of another badger and darted around the tree. The badgers were the easiest targets. Small enough to be taken out in one hit, and much slower than the rabbits.

‘Deer?’ he shouted, ‘more like, oh dear what the frell happened to you!?’ These ghourds weren’t connected to the vine and he was hoping his [Cutting Words] wouldn’t be carried through to Eli.

A scream from the cleric disabused him of that notion.

‘Sorry!’

‘No, that wasn’t as bad,’ Eli yelled hoarsely. ‘If you need to, I can stand half a dozen or so hits like that. Just—make ‘em count.’

Robin stumbled into action. He was panting, the adrenaline spiking his energy levels up even as he felt his muscles begin to protest their extended treatment. He played a deadly game of tag, trying to keep the tree trunk between himself and as many of his foes as he could.

Staff twirling, mind whirling, he fought his way through the rest of the badgers and all but two of the rabbits, smashing the rest of the ghourds in the process. The remaining wolf he managed to fell with a lucky combination of a distracting insult that left the creature wide open for Robin to slam his staff down bodily upon the thing’s skull. The twin plumes of golden juice that prompted drenched him head to toe.

The stag remained, with the two hares harassing him from the sides, keeping him from focusing. The massive rack the stag boasted foiled his attacks too easily, and he could only risk one more use of [Cutting Words].

Robin spared a glance for Eli. The elvish cleric had stopped shouting. He was pale, bound to the tree, eyes rolled back in his head. The vines had stopped trying to trip him up as actively when the squash-zombie-animals arose. The plant clearly had its own limits it was up against.

Blood dripped from cuts all across his body. He could tell that when—possibly if—he woke up tomorrow he would be feeling each and every one of the bruises already purpling his flesh.

The end of his staff drooped. The rabbits darted in, trying to flank him as the stag charged. Robin let the rabbits sink their incisors deep into his calves, keeping his focus on the stag. It lunged. He shouted.

‘Oi! Bambi! If I were your mother, I’d have let that hunter kill me in front of you!’

The deer staggered, hit side-on by the insult, arresting its momentum enough for Robin to slam the staff into the rack of antlers and twist, bearing down with his weight.

The staff turned. The antlers followed. The stag’s neck twisted around after and Robin drove the rack into a tangle of vines. He lost his grip on his weapon, but rather than go after it, he reached down to the rabbits trying to savage his legs even further and popped the ghourds in their skulls by squeezing his fingers through their gaping eye sockets.

The scent of pineapple rose to his nostrils, sharp and sweet. Robin flung the juice off his hands and turned his attention to the struggling stag, now tangled in the same vines that controlled it. Already they were wriggling around, trying to untangle themselves from their puppet.

Robin’s staff was still caught up between the mess. Well, there was more deadwood around. The tree’s fallen branches had not yet fully rotted away. Robin grabbed a nearby stick, thick as an axe-handle, and stabbed wildly at the struggling stag’s head until a lucky blow punctured the ghourd inside and ended the whole performance.

The vine quivered and went slack. Robin let himself collapse to his knees, panting.

He’d free Eli in a minute. He just needed to catch his breath first. That, and one more thing.

Robin caught himself on his blistered and bleeding palms as he fell forward and vomited his guts out.