The edge of the clearing had come alive with a nightmare cornucopia of twisted abominations, none of which were brave enough yet to edge into the open terrain that once served as the carnalis bloom’s hunting grounds.

“So, once we’re out of this shit, we need to talk,” Jack muttered to the others.

“Like, we need to talk we-need-to-talk, or like, ‘hey, I have a thing I need to tell you’, we-need-to-talk,” Layla furrowed her brow at him.

“The second one,” he stared into the jungle.

“Then say the sec-” she started.

“Will you two shut the fuck up? Look,” Rory jabbed a finger at the tree line, where several of the chimera had taken tentative steps toward the temple.

“Anyone see a hole we can slip through?” Erin was scanning the clearing.

“I do,” Layla stared at the dreadnought, until she turned and locked eyes with the succubus, her incredulous expression growing by the moment.

“There! Right there,” Jack pointed at a spot to the northwest.

“I don’t see any gribblies,” Rory’s voice held a dash of audible hope.

“We should go, now,” Jack pulled on Erin’s armor and began to head down the steps. “Layla, when we get to the edge, sweep either side of trees with dragonfire. Rory, do your disappearing trick. And Erin…”

“Yeah?” she glanced at him as they took the steps two at a time.

“Smash.”

-----

Jack’s plan was wildly successful, given that the metric was “get out of a terror-infested magic meat-forest while surrounded by a wriggling horde of blockbuster CGI movie-monsters and don’t die horrifically while doing it”. By any other reasonable metric, they muddled through by the skin of their teeth, coming out of the north side of the non-meat forest surrounding the Writhing Wood lacerated, contused, concussed, scraped, scratched, singed, corroded, and envenomated.

“Ugh, my health is still dropping. And my leg is numb now,” Layla pulled her dress up, revealing the cluster of stings on her calf, surrounded by suppurating bruised flesh.

“Here, drink this,” Rory reached into his Arcane Storage and produced a lime-colored potion.

Layla popped the top on the bottle and downed the contents.

“Tastes like mint, and goes down like how slugs look,” she wrinkled her nose.

“It’s a tier two magical antivenom,” Rory busied himself with digging amongst his storage.

“Is there anything you don’t have in your magic box?” Layla snarked.

“I could ask you the same, tart,” he grinned back.

“Oooo, that was good,” she laughed.

They marched for another few miles west, making their way back toward the shore, the relief of having left the Writhing Wood behind slowly overcoming the tense readiness of the past days.

“That was bad, right?” Erin started. “Like, that was the worst thing we’ve been through since getting here?”

“Yeah. It was… it was rough,” Layla breathed out a sigh.

“I suppose it’s too much to hope for a nice inn to just materialize on the beach when we get back to the coast,” Rory groaned.

Jack had been walking ahead of the group by a few yards, when he stopped short.

“Hey, so, remember that thing that I said I needed to talk to you guys about?” he said.

“Yeah, back up on top of the temple?” Layla asked.

“When I broke the heart, it gave me a bunch of aether and the Mutation magic skill,” he replied.

“Well, first, yay. And second, ewww,” Layla made a sour face.

“Of course, we’ll figure out how to split the aether, but I don’t know what to do about the skill,” he grimaced.

“It’s just a skill, Jack. It’s not gonna turn you into a monster,” Erin patted his shoulder.

“Actually, that’s exactly what it’s for. Each spell you learn lets you make a specific kind of change to your body, in exchange for permanently committing a small chunk of your mana to the change. If you release the mana, the change heals like a wound and the body part gets hard to control,” he replied.

“You can’t use it on enemies?” Rory asked.

“Yeah, you can, but the only one I could choose is called ‘Tumorous Malady’. I’m pretty sure it gives people super-cancer,” a quiver of visible disgust ran through him. “Every time you cast it, it does a buncha Spirit damage, and on a crit, they suffer an ailment called ‘Carbuncle’ that makes them vulnerable to physical damage for a short time. If they run out of Spirit, they get ‘Rampant Neoplasm’, which I’m pretty sure kills them.”

The horrified expressions shared among the other three were exactly what Jack had been concerned about in the first place.

“I’m not gonna take that spell,” he blurted out.

“I mean, it’s your build, mate. Just…” Rory shuddered.

“Mostly the options I have are stuff to increase Strength, Agility, armor, and a few that give entirely new body parts, like an extra finger or pointy claws,” he stared toward the distant sound of waves breaking against the beach.

“That doesn’t sound… so bad,” Erin took his hand.

“I’m really just thinking… you know… of not leveling it,” he squeezed her hand.

“I get that,” she smiled at him.

He pulled her close and hugged her tightly.

“But uh, can you teach me?” she grinned.

“You wanna learn to give people super-cancer?!” Layla gaped.

“No, I wanna give myself extra combat stats,” she stuck her tongue out at the succubus.

“But you have, like, garbage mana,” Layla winced.

“Yeah, exactly. I can commit smaller amounts of it to get permanent benefits, since I can’t really cast a bunch of spells,” she rolled her eyes at the mage.

“If that’s what you really want, yeah, I think I can teach it to you. I’m not sure if you’ll have to learn the Tide and Wood skills first, though. I got the skill as a… reward, I guess… for breaking the heart,” he waffled.

A member of your party wishes to accept [Gift of Mutation].

Would you like to relinquish this trait to Erin Amanda Ward?

[Yes] [No]

“Oh. Well. That’s unexpected,” he stared at the panel, then tipped it so Erin could see.

“That’s fuckin neat,” she laughed.

“I wonder how much of our builds we can swap around like this,” Rory pondered.

“Probably not much. I expect just stuff like that,” Layla replied.

“I don’t have anything else in my list that I can give up,” Jack offered.

“What did you do, go one by one and think about trading them?” Erin asked.

“Yeah, pretty much,” he smiled wearily. “Sure you want the gross meat magic?”

“Yep. I’ll be careful with it,” Erin grinned.

Jack waved his hand through the yes on his panel, then watched as a swirling mote of greenish-blue light drifted out of his chest and floated toward Erin. She reached out and grasped the shimmering spark of mana and it abruptly disappeared. She opened her panel and picked through the garbled nonsense as the others watched.

“I have an option open right now, so I’m gonna go ahead and take the one that improves Strength. It’s got a neat name, too. ‘Myostatic Augmentation’. Oh, and I got a tier zero spell for free. ‘Body Sculpting’. Ooooh, that’s cool. I can make little changes to my appearance. Seems complicated though,” she continued to scroll through her panel as she absently talked over the new skill.

“You get a free tier zero spell every time you learn a new type of magic,” Rory lectured.

Layla leaned over and whispered to Jack.

“You know, if she gets any stronger, she’s gonna be insufferable,” the succubus giggled quietly.

“Pfft. You think that’s bad. Think about what happens when she figures out how to make herself hotter,” he replied.

“Oh. No. Whatever will we do?” Layla rolled her eyes at him.