August knelt at the edge of the flat ring, looking down into the trees below. He was close enough now that the lake was completely hidden from sight by the trees. They were taller than he’d first thought and thick around the trunk.

The slope here was steeper than the previous one, but he judged it to still be manageable as long as he was careful. The grass was thicker here, and the ground was not uniform, small ledges and mounds breaking up the downward slope.

August took a few quick breathes to psych himself up and then stepped down onto the slope. He dug the flat end of his spear into the next ledge down, using it as leverage to hold him against the slope.

He shimmied down to the ledge and then down the next three after that, the speed of his descent increasing as he grew more comfortable. The trees rose above his head now, the thick leaves and foliage beginning to cast shadows over him.

August found himself remembering the mound behind his parent’s house, the one that he’d lay prone on before rolling down to the bottom. He had to have done that half a hundred times before Alice, the girl next door, had tripped and broken her ankle. That was a day he’d had burned into his memory always, the sight of blood, the sounds of screaming, and the sight of her enraged father slamming the back gate behind him as he carried Alice away. The hill had been leveled after that, and Alice had missed two weeks of school before he’d seen her again.

August slowed his pace, chastising himself because a fall from this height would be far more devastating than that small mound had been to Alice. By the time he reached the halfway point, he had caught a flash of blue through the trees, the wrong shade for water. He wondered if he saw the sky through the trees, but the angle was wrong, and a glance upwards showed that the color was wrong as well.

“What is that?” August said uneasily.

He lost sight of the sliver of blue after that, and when he finally touched down on the forest floor, he sat down against the bottom of the slope, resting in the shade. The trees towered above him now, and sitting beneath them like this was far more daunting than he’d thought it could have been.

If anything fell, even just one of the smaller branches striking out from the great trunks would likely kill. He’d seen what a falling tree could do to a house, and it hadn’t even been a third of the size of these ones.

It wasn’t something he could discount either, because he could see fallen branches, carpets of leaves and other, smaller trees, dead and lying across the forest floor. Plenty of materials to work with, at least.

August spent several minutes recovering and just listening to the noises of the forest. More than once, he heard the sounds of whistling, some species of birds making their nests high above and out of sight from the ground.

Once he was feeling rested enough, he stood up once more and took his spear in hand. He hovered at the treeline for a moment and sent a nervous glance back up the slope, wondering if he’d made the right choice.

He wished Alex was here, or even Eric, either of them would have known what to do—well, given the situation, they wouldn’t have known for sure, but Alex would have pretended at least. Eric had enough aggression to push through anything, and Alice would have let her optimism carry them all forward.

If they’d been here with him, he’d have been swept up in their momentum, just like always. All this indecision was pulling away at the edges of his mind, and he didn’t like the feeling.

“Alice isn’t here,” August murmured before taking a deep breath.

August stepped into the tree line, but there wasn’t any relief waiting for him, just more uncertainty. The chirps and whistles of the birds high above continued unbroken, his presence within the trees not enough to disturb their song.

He passed right by one of the trees and reached out a hand, brushing it along the bark—there were deep holes littering the surface, an inch wide and five times as deep. It looked as if something had stabbed deep into the bark.

August started paying more attention to the trees and began to notice more of the holes, some higher up, some low. Whatever was responsible for doing it was either determined to stab trees, or there was more than one of them.

The purpose of the holes, however, alluded him entirely—he imagined a giant hedgehog barreling through the trees and running into them, leaving the holes behind, but it seemed far too whimsical given what he’d already seen.

His collection of sticks and rocks continued to grow as he quietly walked through the trees, the little number next to the icons in his inventory steadily increasing into the double digits. The more he collected now, the less he would need later. A long tangle of vines curled around one of the trees, stretching higher up and across to another one, the plant trying its best to strangle the trees at their base.

August stopped next to it and took his shard of flint out, working the edge against the vine until it broke through. He used the freed end to unwind it from the rest before cutting it off above his head and placing it in his inventory. He added four more lengths of it before he was unable to reach any of the other higher vines.

He’d already lost sight of the slope behind him, but the compass kept him moving on a direct course west towards the lake.

A sprinkle of blue caught his eye again, and this time he was able to get a far better angle to see what it was. It wasn’t the lake; it was, in fact, a tree—a blue tree. As in the bark, leaves, and roots were all colored a light blue.

August knew that tree leaves came in various colors; cherry blossoms, for instance, were a naturally occurring thing—but blue wood? Somehow it looked natural, though, unnaturally natural.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the strange tree species was the light blue orbs that were hanging from the branches—at first glance, they looked remarkably similar to that of an apple.

August stopped several meters away from it and called on [Analysis].

Blueroot

Status: Healthy

The tree was healthy—August shook his head and turned his gaze specifically to the fruit and called on [Analysis] once more.

Blueroot Pome

The fruit of a Blueroot Tree, nourishing but sour.

He spent a moment considering moving on before he shook his head—if there was a place to be a picky eater, it wasn’t here. He stepped forward and began picking off the low-hanging fruit, placing all but one of them inside his inventory, he sniffed the fruit, but its smell held no hints to its dark secrets.

The quest description on the right side of his vision reappeared.

Survive

Water - 0/1

Food - 1/1

Shelter - 0/1

Fire - 0/1

August slowly brought it up to his mouth and took a bite—It was the single most sour thing he’d ever eaten, and August hated sour foods more than anything else. His eyes narrowed to slits and began to water as he fought to continue chewing the fruit. It didn’t taste bad either; it was just so incredibly difficult to actually get through the process.

Why did it have to be sour?

Blueroot trees didn’t seem very common, but he did spot two more of them near the first, all completely covered in fruit. Sour or not, if he couldn’t find another food source, he’d be able to survive on these, at least temporarily. He didn’t know what the effects were of an all-fruit diet, but it probably wasn’t good.

August forced himself to take another bite of the fruit through tear-filled eyes.

“You’re a sad excuse for an apple,” August gasped, swallowing with difficulty. “That’s what I’m calling you from now on—you’re a fucking Sadapple.”