I had only taken a few steps before Cax called out. “Stop!”

I immediately raised my staff in front of me and turned around in a circle quickly, looking for the threat he was warning me about. There was nothing within my sphere of light.

My heart was about to jump out of my chest. “What is it?!"

“Sorry,” he said. “That was a little louder than I intended. It’s about the skeleton’s body.”

The body?! What?! I was afraid it had come back to life. Again, I guess. My eyes quickly located it. It was still lying in the same place.

“You should absorb it,” he clarified. “We might be able to get some information from its memories.”

That’s it? I relaxed. “Mate! You scared the shit out of me!”

“You are so on edge a breeze would do the same thing.”

I chuckled. It felt good. “You’re not wrong. About the body, though. Do I have to? If I need to run away, this is my only proof that there’s something happening here. I know I can’t be directly involved without raising too many questions, but I could make an anonymous call about the body. Once they’re investigating this area, they’re bound to stumble across whatever’s going on.”

“Your knowledge on the topic is limited, but your world’s concept of DNA is interesting. Wouldn’t the fact that your blood is on the skeleton and somewhere on the ground around here make it difficult to remain anonymous?”

He was right about me not knowing much about that. All my knowledge on the subject came from TV, so I wasn’t sure how it worked exactly. I was pretty sure, though, that my information wasn’t in any database. That should mean there was no way for them to trace the blood back to me. The question was, was I willing to risk my privacy and safety based on information from fictional shows?

“Damn it!” It was annoying how he could use my own memories against me. I glanced around to make sure I was still alone, and then kneeled down beside the body.

“What do you think we’ll find out?” I asked, placing my hand on the skeleton’s leg.

“I honestly don’t know. A lot about this doesn’t make sense. These intruders are clearly hostile. So why was this skeleton only level 1? Why wouldn’t a hostile force send stronger soldiers?”

He was right, I realized. I was already level 2. And it actually hadn’t taken that much experience to get there. Looking at the body more closely in the light, I noticed it was also really clean and fresh. There were no signs of wear and tear. Apart from the crushed skull I had given it, of course. I wasn’t an expert on the undead by any means, but I didn’t think it was regular for them to be in such perfect condition.

Now that my curiosity was piqued, I was eager to absorb the body. There was just one problem.

Unable to activate [Absorb].

Target requires 60 mana for full saturation.

I currently had 34 mana. That meant I would need to wait about 9 minutes, if my math was right, to regenerate enough. I stood back up and waited, keeping an eye out for any threats. I wasn’t unhappy about the delay. Since no mana was actually used up when absorbing something, this would mean I would have enough to cast Heal three times by the time I continued on. That made me feel a little more confident about my chances.

I moved my light around with some mental commands while waiting, sending it to the maximum range possible in every direction to try and get some early warning of something coming near. The field remained empty the entire time, and I couldn’t spot anything lurking in the tree line.

Once I had enough mana, I returned the light to its position above my head and kneeled down again to touch the body. This time, Absorb activated without a problem. I had to wait about a minute for the process to complete. The skeleton was much bigger than a book and it took more time for the mana to cover it.

As the body dissolved and my mana flowed back into me, carrying its pattern to my core, I couldn’t help shuddering. Taking the books into my body hadn’t phased me. It was essentially just knowledge, after all. But taking in a bunch of bones creeped me out. A quick check of the ground showed no sign of bone anywhere, not even the fragments that had come off its skull. The magic had somehow gathered them too.

“It might take a little time to go through the information here,” Cax said absently. “You can either wait here or you can begin moving toward the clearing.”

It would probably be better to wait for some information on what I was heading towards, but I couldn’t sit still anymore. If I waited any longer, I might lose the little bit of courage I was clinging to. I’ll just go slowly and won’t enter the clearing until Cax tells me what he finds out, I told myself.

I stood up and got my staff set in both hands again, then finally made my way into the forest. I had a pretty good idea where the clearing lay from here and was confident in my choice of direction.

I took my time walking through the trees, scanning all around me as I went. I didn’t bother to try and step carefully. My light made any hope of a stealthy approach impossible. Whether it was due to the noise I was making or because of the breach, the forest was still and quiet.

I couldn’t see anything outside the circle of light created by the magical orb hovering over me, which made me extremely nervous. In here amongst the trees, I was reluctant to move it around and kept it where it was, with me in the center.

“Ok, I’ve got it,” Cax said, making me stop walking. “It’s very strange. The skeleton had basically no memories. The earliest images in its mind are of the clearing where you found me. There’s nothing from before that. It was ordered to explore the forest and then when it found the park, it was told to stand guard at the edge. Then…well, you know the rest.”

“Those are really its only memories? Does that mean someone raised it here on Earth? Is that who gave it the orders?” I was picturing a hooded necromancer waiting up ahead, resurrecting its minions and sending them out to do its bidding.

“Possibly,” he replied slowly. “There’s something about the orders. It reminds me of…” He trailed off before continuing as though talking to himself. “No, it can’t be that. It doesn’t make sense.”

I didn’t push him. I trusted him completely. If there was something I needed to know, I was positive he would tell me.

“I guess it doesn’t really matter,” I told him. “It would have been nice to know what we were up against, but we still need to keep going regardless.”

I resumed walking. Suddenly, between one step and the next, the forest at the edge of the light in front of me changed. There was something wrong. Until now, I'd been walking through green and vibrant vegetation, lush with growth as spring got underway. The forest up ahead didn't resemble that at all. It looked sick.

There were black lines running through the trunks of the trees and up their branches. Most of their leaves had fallen off, and the wood that didn’t have the strange black substance running through it seemed to be a sickly color compared to the trees I had been passing. The grass and undergrowth were brown and appeared to be dying. I leaned forward and squinted. I spotted black areas along the ground there, too, just like on the trees.

I wasn’t keen on getting any closer, but unfortunately, I didn’t have much of a choice. I had to go through there to get to the clearing. I took several more steps until I was completely surrounded by the strange, unhealthy-looking forest. I immediately noticed the change in atmosphere. It felt oppressive, as though the air had weight to it. I could almost feel it wrapping around me, clinging to me. I put one arm across my stomach to hug myself tightly and I shrunk down a little, trying to escape the stifling sensation. I longingly thought of my dungeon. I thought of the vibrant energy it contained and wished I could be there now. The feeling of darkness this part of the forest was giving off was like a stain on the world.

I was now even more on edge. What could be causing this? It had to be something the invaders were doing, but I had no idea what it could be. My health wasn’t going down, so apart from the unsettling feelings it invoked, it didn’t seem to be having a negative effect on me. The same obviously couldn’t be said for the plant life.

I stepped up close to one of the trees, making sure not to touch it, and peered closely at the black sections. A dark substance was oozing out of the wood in some places. My eyes widened as I realized that instead of dripping down, the strange matter was very slowly branching off in every direction. If this was happening on other sections of the tree as well, it would only be a matter of time before the entire thing was covered.

I swiftly stepped back, not wanting to risk getting any of it on me. I looked at the ground anxiously. I said a little prayer that my cheap shoes would keep the black stuff out. After seeing what it was doing to the trees, I did not want it coming into contact with my skin.

“Can you tell if it’s affecting me in any way?” I nervously asked.

“Your interface hasn’t alerted you to any negative status effects, so I believe you are currently fine. However, I think your decision to avoid contact with the substance is a good one. See if Analyze can find out anything about it.”

I was about to use the ability on the tree when a loud noise nearby made me jump. Literally. My feet actually left the ground. It was a deep, guttural coughing noise that rang out through the quiet forest. I clutched at my chest. I didn’t know if it was possible for my enhanced body to suffer a heart attack, but it was sure being put to the test tonight.

“Bloody possum,” I muttered. I had always liked the strange noise they made. Until tonight. I was just starting to relax my tense shoulders, comforted by the familiar night noise, when a shriek came from above me. Before I could look up, a weight struck my back, making me stumble forward and scream in pain. Something was cutting into me!

I dropped my staff and reached back with both hands. Encountering fur, I dug my fingers in and pulled. Whatever was attacking me came loose from my back, squirming in my grip, and I yelled out again as it cut into me again. I brought my arms back down in front of me as quickly as I could, and opened my hands to hurl my assailant at the tree I had been investigating.

I picked my staff up, wincing at the pain it caused in my back, while looking at what had attacked me. Wait! Is that the possum?! It kind of looked like one, but it was pretty messed up. Most of its fur had fallen out, so it was easy to see that the same black substance that was on the trees was all throughout its body and tail. Its eyes were disturbing, too. They were bright red with black swirling around inside.

I could see my blood smeared around its mouth and paws. The bastard had scratched me up and taken a bite out of me!

The impact with the tree didn’t keep it down long. It sprang back up and screeched at me again before running forward and leaping at me. I hadn’t expected it to recover so quickly. There was no room to swing my weapon, so I held it in front of me and pushed it into the crazed possum to try and knock it down. It worked, but it managed to catch my arms with its back claws before it fell away, leaving several long scratches.

Now knowing how fast it was, I quickly rearranged my grip and thrust the staff straight down into its body before it could recover. There was a squishing feeling and it let out another scream. It didn’t stop thrashing around and screeching at me, trying to free itself and get at me again. I couldn’t believe it. It must be causing incredible amounts of damage to itself moving like that while it was pinned by my staff, but it just kept going.

Satisfied it couldn’t get free, I analyzed it to find out what I was dealing with.

Infected Possum

Level: -

Health: 14 / 26

Now that my mana had the information, a red health bar appeared over the feral animal’s head. As I looked at it, another two points disappeared.

All I had to do was stand here and it would end up killing itself. I wanted to put the poor thing out of its misery, though. It was fast, so I didn’t want to let it up. That meant I couldn’t bash it with my weapon. Instead, keeping my weight on the staff to hold it down, I shuffled closer.

Stopping just short of its snapping teeth, I hesitated. I really didn’t want to do this. I reminded myself I was doing it a favor by ending its suffering, and then gathered my nerve. I lifted my left foot and brought it down hard on its head, stomping it into the ground. The feeling of its head giving way beneath my foot almost made me throw up. Its health bar was still visible above my shoe, and I saw there was just a tiny sliver of red left. Raising my foot, I brought it down again, finishing off the poor bastard.

Panting, I stepped back and lifted my staff. Looking down at the dead possum, I turned my head to the side and threw up, unable to stop it this time. It was probably the most gruesome thing I had ever seen. Its head was completely crushed, and I could see its brain matter leaking out. The blood pooling beneath it wasn’t red like it should be. It was dark, almost as black as the substance that had clearly infected it.

I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. I couldn’t believe I had done that to the animal. The sight of the skeleton after I defeated it hadn’t affected me like this because dead or alive, it looked the same. But I had smashed this living creature to a pulp. This poor little possum. They were harmless. Why had it attacked me? Why had it forced me to kill it? I don't think I'd ever killed anything larger than a mosquito before. Not on purpose, at least. I started to shut down, replaying the moment I crushed its head with my foot over and over.

“You had no choice. You defended yourself. Keep it together!” Cax told me firmly. “You cannot afford to be distracted in here.”

His voice pulled me back. I shook my head a couple of times. He was right. I couldn’t get caught up in my thoughts. The crazed creature had come out of nowhere. There could be more around. That thought helped snap me out of it. I looked up first, now as wary of the tree branches above me as the ground around me. I didn’t see anything.

“How was it even able to hurt me?” I asked as I checked to see if there were any other dangers around. “The information on it said it didn’t even have a level. It was just an ordinary creature. A sick one, but still. No mana-enhanced body.”

“You yourself are still only level 2. You are far from invincible. Please remember that,” he warned me. “Even a regular animal can hurt you, especially one falling from those heights with its claws out. You would have to be a much higher level to walk away uninjured from that.”

I took his warning to heart. It was a good lesson to be reminded of. Now that I could do magic and my body was better than before, I think I had started to feel like I was safe from regular things. Clearly, I was wrong. And it made sense if I stopped and thought about it. Currently, my strength and constitution were effectively only 20% above the human peak. That was good, to be sure. But like Cax said, it was far from enough to make me invincible.

“Anyway, it looks like I was right to avoid the black stuff,” I said, changing the subject. I looked back down at the corpse of the possum and fought down my nausea. “Whatever it is, it really messed this fella up.”

“About that…,” Cax began.

A screen he must have held back during the fight appeared. I had a sense of dread before I even started reading it.

You have been infected with void energy.

The mixing of void energy with the mana in your body can have unpredictable results.

Seek treatment before permanent damage is done.

My mouth was dry again. I swallowed a few times, trying to moisten it while I processed what I had read.

“That explains what made the possum like that,” I was finally able to say. “But where did this void energy come from? What the hell is it?”

“I have never heard of it before. But that must be the strange energy I was sensing before joining with you,” Cax said, sounding intrigued and a little excited. For someone who enjoyed learning as much as he did, I guess I could understand why he felt that way. Still, I didn’t appreciate him getting enjoyment out of my predicament.

“I’m just going to heal myself up and then we can keep going,” I told him. “I really hope we can get some answers once we reach the breach.”

“I’m afraid that won’t work,” he told me. “Your Heal spell only fixes damage, not diseases.”

My mouth dropped open. The only reason I hadn’t been freaking out was because I thought I had an easy way to fix myself up. It was definitely time to panic now!

“Don’t worry,” he said, feeling my concern. “Killing that creature gave you 5xp, so you have enough now to unlock and learn a spell. Cure Disease is a Life element spell that I absorbed from an adventurer back on my world.”

I had been so caught up in the violence that I hadn’t even felt the energy enter me when the possum died. I breathed a sigh of relief. I became so focused on removing this death sentence that I ignored the sense of anticipation I felt coming from Cax.

I opened my interface and selected my experience points. I went into the Spells section and was confronted with a long list of options. With a thought, I narrowed it down to just the one I was looking for. Confirming my choice for the cost of 20xp, a screen appeared. But instead of information on my new spell, the contents were surprising.

Synergy detected.

Your [Cure Disease] spell can be merged into your [Heal] spell.

The progress towards the next rank of your [Heal] spell will be reset to zero.

The mana cost of [Heal] will be increased by 10 points (20 points --> 30 points).

Do you wish to combine these two spells, resulting in the loss of your [Cure Disease] spell?

“Excellent!” Cax exclaimed. “It worked just like it would for a regular adventurer.”

“Ahhh…,” I said eloquently. At least now I understood the reason for the anticipation I had picked up from him just before. “Care to fill me in?”

“Certainly! Remember when I told you about ranking up your spells? How you can apply the insights you have gained about that spell and apply them to evolve it in various ways? Well, being able to cure diseases is one of the common evolutions for the Heal spell.

When you learn a new spell that has the same function as an evolution for a spell you already know, you are given the opportunity to merge it into the existing spell. The drawback to doing it that way is that you lose the progress towards ranking up, since the fundamentals of the spell are changed. Also, the mana cost goes up by more than it would if you chose the exact same option as an evolution. If you chose the cure disease rank-up evolution for your Heal spell, your insights into the base spell would result in better efficiency and increase the cost by just 5 points instead of 10.”

“What’s the benefit, then? Why not just keep it as a separate spell?” I wasn’t worried about losing my progress. I had only used Heal once, so it wouldn’t be a big thing to reset it to zero. But I needed a good reason for increasing the cost of the spell by that much.

“Well, in this specific case, if someone is suffering from a disease, then they have likely lost some health as well. You would need to cast two spells to help them recover immediately. Two separate spells would cost more mana than the merged spell would. Also, when you have multiple effects in one spell, it can often rank up faster since you are only using that one spell instead of sometimes using another. The final benefit is that if you were going to choose that evolution in the future, it frees you up to choose another one when the spell ranks up, which will give your spell more functionality.”

It didn’t take me long to think about it and realize the benefits were definitely worth the extra cost of 10 mana. I confirmed the combination.

Spell merge complete.

[Cure Disease] removed and its effects combined into [Heal].

[Heal] has been reset to the beginning of rank 1.

Heal

Repair damage, cure disease, and restore 25 health.

Cost: 30 mana

Range: Touch

I wasted no time in casting my improved spell. The relief as the energy healed the earlier wound caused by the skeleton and the multiple injuries from the possum was wonderful. Most importantly, the diseased status disappeared from my interface. I was left with only 1xp now, but that was definitely a worthwhile use of my experience points.

No longer in pain and worried about going crazy, my attention shifted to the glow coming from the corpse at my feet. I didn’t want to get down close to the mangled body. I put my foot on its tail and tried looting it that way. Thankfully, it worked even through my shoe. The shimmer of energy turned into a perfectly round piece of meat as big as my hand.

To say I was disappointed was an understatement. “What the hell?! I thought you said loot was tailored. I don’t want possum meat!”

“It’s magic, not a perfect science,” he replied calmly. “Besides, it’s more about what you can use, not what you want. And this is useful for you. You eat.”

“Not infected meat, I don’t!”

“It’s safe to eat. The energy would have cleaned it up.”

“It’s lying on the dirty ground next to a dead animal!”

“Wash it?” he suggested helpfully.

I threw my hand up. “Forget it! I’m just going to leave it there.”

“Aren’t you going to analyze it at least?” he asked.

“Nope. Not wasting the mana on that. Now that my Heal spell costs so much to use, I need to be careful. I've only got 34 mana points left. That's enough to heal myself once. I don't want to drop below 30 mana just so I can confirm that it's possum meat.”

Still avoiding touching the dead possum with my bare skin, I activated Absorb through the contact with my foot. I knew Cax would want to get any information out of it he could. Plus, since the ability didn't use up any mana, it would only cost me a bit of time to make him happy and maybe gain some insight into this strange void energy.

The possum was much smaller than the skeleton, so I was pretty sure I had enough mana to cover it. The energy began to flow out of my center without a hitch. “Sorry this happened to you little buddy,” I told the poor creature sadly as it faded away a short time later.

“Thank you,” Cax said once the process was finished. I waited for him to go through the animal’s memories. “There’s not much here to help us,” he soon said. “It doesn’t seem like it came into contact with the black stuff the trees are infected with. It must have caught the disease from direct exposure to the void energy in this area. That means you should hurry and get out of here before you become infected again.” In a completely serious voice, he added, “If you do want to linger, I wouldn’t be against it. That way we can find out the length of time it takes for the energy to infect a human. It might be useful information.”

“Stop treating me like a damn guinea pig!” I told him. All I got back was a sense of amusement. Smartass!

I was back at full health and I had enough mana for one heal. I also had a health potion in my pocket. I was as ready as I was going to get. I must be close to the clearing where this all started by now. I was actually surprised that the commotion from my fight with the possum hadn’t drawn in any more enemies.

Looking around again at the sickly forest surrounding me, I felt an anger begin to grow inside me at what had been done to this once beautiful place. The fear was still there, but the anger pushed it into the background a little and gave me something else to focus on.

I had reluctantly accepted the quest to come here and had been thinking of ways to pass the responsibility off ever since. But now, I had a burning desire to follow this through to the end. I was going to discover what was happening and put a stop to it myself.

Was there a connection between this invasive void energy that was corrupting the forest and the skeleton in pristine condition that somehow had no sign of the energy on it and no memories? It was time to get to the clearing and find out.