After Gora explained what exactly a Giant Headworm was, Rita told them the entire story. From how she’d woken up on a bed covered in cold snot, to how she’d hidden in the bathtub – Gora had to endure some good natured ribbing from the others at that – and being chased by the ‘Giant Headworm’. Ava studiously made notes in a thick, leather journal that she’d fished out of her tent.

All that Rita left out was Alice. ‘I have a second person living in my head’ wasn’t just something you came out and said without people thinking you were a bit loopy. The last thing Rita wanted was for these folks to think she was crazy, after they’d nearly killed her before.

The conversation wasn’t just one way, however. Rita discovered that the others were not so much a cohesive team of friends as they were a loose collection of interested parties. Ava, Samual and Zaxier had all independently signed up for a guided trip which the Delver’s Guild had organized.

It was a common occurrence, apparently. The Delver’s Guild in Grailmane – a city, as they explained – was apparently the premier organization for collecting knowledge and organizing trips into the dangerous territory known as the ‘Nightmare’. Capable people with little or no experience about the dangers would sign up for a guided expedition, basically where they pay the guild to provide a guide and connect them with a well-balanced group of other individuals who also wanted to go in. The guild also took care of the organizational aspects, from food to planning the route they would take.

For this particular expedition, Gora was the guide. According to her, she’d done dozens of trips before, but it was only the fifth time she’d led a Delve all the way to the Nightmare Tree at the centre.

Rita immediately started badgering them with questions about this so called ‘Nightmare Tree’. She’d heard the word several times, but nobody had properly explained what it was or what it did.

It turned out it was not very tree-like after all. Gora described it as a tall, green, organic-looking spire that grew up out of the ground. It wasn’t visible through their window since it faced the wrong way, but it vaguely reminded Rita of something she’d seen from her apartment window. Could that have been the strange, out of place tower she’d seen in the distance?

For a few kilometres around it, it projected an area of sorts, called the ‘Nightmare’ or ‘Nightmare Tree Domain’. It extended past the city ruins that were all around them, the ‘City Zone’, and out into the wilderness around it for some distance, the ‘Wilderness Zone’.

In this area, monsters known as ‘Nightmare Spawn’ appeared. They varied from weird amalgams of animals to twisted and insane forms of humans and other creatures. They attacked on sight and were, bar none, the single richest sources of rare and exotic Essence. Professional delver teams were entirely guild sponsored and focused solely on harvesting these rich bounties.

Where the monsters came from was a subject that was heavily debated in academic circles. What was known, however, was that no matter how many were killed or cleared out, there always seemed to be more. There seemed to be no danger of ‘overfishing’. In fact, the greatest danger was to the delving teams themselves, with about one in eight teams disappearing never to come back at some point in their careers.

Another feature of the Domain that nobody could explain was the formation of Campsites, like the one they were in right now. Little bubbles of sanity marked by little blazing campfires; traditional Delving involved moving along pre-explored routes from Campsite to Campsite. They were, or at least had been thought to be, completely safe from the monsters.

“As far as I’m aware, you’re the first Nightmare Spawn to ever set foot in a Campsite,” Gora said. “Though judging by how easily you barged in, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those other disappearances had been caused by monsters blundering inside by accident while everyone was sleeping.”

That explained why Rita couldn’t see the damn entrance from the other side. From this side it was perfectly visible, however, and she blushed slightly at the thought of everyone sitting here and watching her while she searched the tiny little entrance hall.

What had they thought of her talking to herself and acting like an idiot?

This was also not the only Nightmare Tree. Between Ava, Gora and Zaxier, they knew of at least four more, though for a resident of Grailmane, which all of them were, it was the only one that they could practically reach. The others were either completely too far or were in lands controlled by hostile entities. Even Gora had never been to a different one before.

Some further prodding about the rest of the world revealed that no, it did not look like this everywhere. While the region around Grailmane, tucked against the Ashpeak Mountain range, wasn’t very lush, to the north, on the other side of the mountain, you could find vast grasslands with rich soil and flowing rivers.

The world seemed so… normal. Just her luck that she’d woken up in such a shitty part of it.

Ava found it fascinating when Rita freely admitted to having had a life as a human before waking up in her current form. Her scribbling intensified as she hung onto every word.

She was trying to explain that yes, despite having had no magic, they still had big, flying metal birds called airplanes, when her translation suddenly stopped working.

One moment Ava was still writing furiously, the next she just stopped, frowning at Rita.

“What? What’s wrong?” Rita asked when Ava waved to get her attention.

When the woman spoke and her words were entirely incomprehensible, Rita’s heart sank. She checked her tronic, but it still looked fine. It just wasn’t working anymore.

Ava held out her hand, pointing at it and Rita handed it over after a moment’s hesitation. Maybe she’d broken something by accident?

“Okay, looks like you just ran out of juice,” Ava said, once she’d dropped the tiniest bit of the glowy blue stuff on the device.

Rita sighed in relief. “Oh! Is that all? Then you can just recharge it, right?”

Ava shook her head. “Sorry, it’s not that easy. It doesn’t actually store anything, you have to feed Essence directly into it. I could give you the Essence but…” she glanced over at Gora. “If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to waste a lot and Gora’s kind of already giving me a look.”

“Don’t worry,” she continued as Rita’s face sank. “Give it some time to build back up in your body and you should be fine again. I’m actually rather surprised that it managed to exhaust your internal Essence, normally these tronics are ridiculously efficient that it is all but impossible.”

“But… how am I supposed to talk to you guys then?” Rita asked.

“If you’d like, I can keep a hold of it for now?” Ava suggested. “Just for emergencies. Then I’ll give it back once you’ve recovered a bit. Eat something, that might help speed it along.”

“Okay… alright,” Rita sighed and went to rummage through the food cabinets, looking for anything that wasn’t dried meat or those sickly sweet berries.

Around her, the others immediately started talking in incomprehensible gibberish. She watched Ava carefully put the tronic away in an inner pocket of her robe. It sucked not being able to understand them. Especially since they were clearly talking about her.

The slightest little smidgeon of doubt began creeping into her mind. She’d been so elated at finding other people to talk to, she’d never stopped to question whether she should trust them. She’d just left her most valuable possession, according to them at least, in the hands of people she barely knew. Had that been smart? What would Alice have said?

Shit, she’d forgotten about Alice! She was no longer raging; at some point she’d just grown quiet. Rita had been so absorbed in finally having real people to talk to that she’d completely forgotten about her! Back when they’d thought Alice was going to be the one to do the talking, she’d agreed to let Rita ‘come up for air’ occasionally, so to speak. Rita herself had done nothing of the sort, however, and now she felt horribly guilty. What if staying enraged and suppressed for so long had caused her permanent harm?

She glanced over at the group, who now seemed to be in the midst of an argument of some kind. Surely, they wouldn’t mind if she just popped outside quickly? Just to get away for a bit?

Except… it was dangerous. She was under no illusions about that. In here was safe, but outside there were all sorts of monsters and things prowling about.

But… Alice. Fuck. She couldn’t just abandon her. And she was starting to get worried.

Making a decision, she changed direction, stepping out of the safe room. The conversation cut off abruptly, the moment she left the room and she glanced back to see nothing but a smooth wall behind her.

Against narrative expectation, nothing immediately made a meal out of her. The top floor of the apartment building still appeared to be as uninhabited as ever.

Hadn’t she walked all the way here through the empty wasteland? She’d survived it before, right? Why be scared of it now? As long as she was careful and kept her eyes open, she should be fine. And this time she had an idea what she was up against and she had somewhere to flee to, if worst came to worst. All she had to do was follow the buzzing in her head…

Shit. The buzzing was gone. She couldn’t feel the location of her new friends anymore.

Well, that was unfortunate, but hardly a train smash. She took the time to memorize the number of the apartment that the door had been in. As expected, it was completely invisible again, as if it was never there. But that didn’t matter. She knew how to beat it, now. Just close her eyes and lean back.

As she carefully navigated the stairs down, eyes open for any threats as she mulled over the events in her head. The buzzing had disappeared… around about the same time her translator had stopped working. Was that connected? Had they both been hooked up to the same ‘battery’?

That would explain what drained her juice so fast. If her internal Essence was like a cellphone battery, running multiple apps drained it faster. Stood to reason. So, if she had a second app running in her head and draining her battery, say some kind of locator magic, then it all made sense.

Well, for a given value of sense.

She stopped two floors down from where she’d left the group and slipped out of the stairwell and into an open apartment. The whole place was deathly quiet, and there was no sign of anyone, or anything having disturbed it recently. Now that she knew a bit more of what was going on, she realized that didn’t mean it was safe, but it was a good sign.

She could wait here for a bit for Alice to recover while she idly checked for anything worth looting. Surely a place like this could have a couple of electronics left over, right?