The river, despite being almost a mile deep in the jungle, hasn’t narrowed in the slightest. Exposed roots waver in the shallows along the banks, indicating steady erosion. Along the shore, several of the stupid Spogdig creatures bob about, seemingly without a care in the world. They react to our approach by bobbing gently away, into the faster currents, before rapidly disappearing downstream. Many vines dip into the water, swaying in the currents, like so many fishing lines. Idly, I wonder if they ever inadvertently catch fish. Or, Spogdigs, what with them being seemingly everywhere around here.

“I’m going to get this out right away, I’m not swimming in that.”

“Well, I’m not hanging around while you build a raft.”

“What? No! I mean I’m not going into the rapids.” Her cheeky grin might as well be saying ‘no shit’. “Asshole. Cerberus, what are you thinking here?”

“Merely that there are no trees blocking our way here. We should proceed through the shallows, but be wary. The soil in the water has turned it very murky; a perfect angle for an ambush.”

That… was a lot more helpful than he usually is. Is the absence of pressure from his underlings letting him be more friendly?

“I’ll take the front. Kaythe’s eyes…” -I quickly switch to his vision to verify- “lets me see a little bit further into the muddy water than I can normally. He’ll help me keep watch.”

Cerberus hesitates a moment, but says nothing. Lauren, however…

“Sure, but Cerberus, can I ride on your back?” Cerberus’ glowering hatred easily transcends the species gap in communicating his feelings on the matter. Lauren holds up her hands in appeal. “Hold on, I get it, weird ask, but hear me out! If I’m on your back, we both can keep an eye on Amadeus, and each other without getting in each other’s way. See, if one of us gets ambushed, at least one of us will be aware of what happened to the other, and can act on it. If I’m in the back, I could just slip under the water and you might not notice for a minute.”

On the one hand, she very obviously just wants to avoid having to wade in the water and get soaked, but… “Come on! It isn’t a bad idea!”

“Up to you, Cerberus. I don’t care one way or the other.”

“I refuse. The weight would be too much, and the mud would not support us both. I will take the rear. Nothing will surprise me.”

Lauren frowns, but aside from a few annoyed huffs, doesn’t make a big deal of it, and we all hop into the cold, brown water.

It only goes up to my ankles, at least where we’re walking, but the muck makes every step more of a hassle than it has any right to be. My shoes quickly fill with extra weight in both water and dirt, but it’s ultimately just an annoyance; the system’s benefits make it neither exhausting nor particularly slow to slog through.

The canopy stretches over the entire width of the river, refusing to miss out on any of the precious starlight. The vines that hang down from some of the trees first appeared over the fastest currents in the center, but as we move deeper, they hang more plentifully and closer to the sides. Before long, I have to start brushing them out of the way to get through.

They’re slightly sticky to the touch, making the process much more annoying, but they’re easy enough to pull away from by moving far enough away from their tree. The efficacy of this tactic decays as more of them crowd the way, making passage without touching upwards of five or six of them at once next to impossible.

With so many of this nearly inch and a half thick vines stuck to me, I can’t actually pull them off anymore, but a quick swing of my blade fixes the issue with ease. Immediately, I’m assaulted by the sound of hissing in all directions, and I feel the now severed vines spasming. I jump in surprise, instantly on the hunt for the source of the noise, but my frantic movements only stick more of the severed vines to me. Before, it was only the tips that touched me, so the actual sticking area was small, but now, without something suspending them, I’m getting covered.

With so much happening at once, I fail to notice that the hissing is coming from every vine around me, as they all swing towards me and latch on.

My sword flashes, Lauren yells something, and Cerberus roars in defiance. My strike fails miserably, thrown aside by the seemingly random seizing of the vines that cover my body, and I only manage to sever a handful more. There’s nothing I can do about them as they too seek to limit my movements, and I feel myself being dragged upward.

The vines, once they’re detached, don’t just bind my movements. If they did, I could probably brute force my way through them and tear them apart. Instead, they move with me most of the time, but suddenly jerk one way or another at other times. I can’t rely on a movements going the way I plan because every time I do, one or more of them interrupt it in some way.

The water churns below me,and I see some kind of reptilian beast moving around below. Lauren is nowhere to be seen, and Cerberus’ head is underwater. No backup.

“Predator! I will assist!” Kaythe’s pointed bone spikes aren’t the most effective weapons against the vines, but he does manage to weaken them by putting holes in them. If I could get one clean movement off, I could easily free myself, but that’s the thing: this plant knows that, and actively prevents it. Combine that with the awkwardness of having a pack on my back and being suspended in the air, and even burning Energy isn’t enough to get me what I want.

I try a different tactic, instead rallying my Energy to Eliminate the vines. Managing this many fronts at once is extremely difficult, but, even with Kaythe buying me time, I can’t risk taking them on one by one. I’m pushing orange Energy out of my body in every direction but Kaythe’s praying it goes and does what it’s supposed to. I just keep focussing on the word ‘Eliminate’ over and over, accepting the system prompts before they even fully pop up. Just like with the blood sucking seaweed in the underground lake, these things don’t have much willpower of their own. Unlike them, these each give one max Energy, along with a few Power.

With a sudden lurch, I’m released, falling into the river. Somewhere along the line, I was dragged further out, over the deeper sections of the river. Although the deeper water cushions my fall, any benefit from that is lost in the terrifying, brown, frothy mess I’m dumped into.

Immersed in the water, I find that my eyes can see a little more clearly than I could from the outside, and I immediately recognize two shapes as being Lauren and Cerberus, along with five more that are most definitely monsters. One immediately breaks off from the group hounding them and darts directly at me, clearly hoping to catch me by surprise.

My sword is useless in the water; it’s way too large to move quickly through it, and the freezing effect would only make that worse. Kaythe, however, has bone spikes.

Like a spring trap, Kaythe plants both spikes firmly into the head of the strangely crocodilian shaped monster, and the water darkens with a blueish tinge as blood pours from the wounds, followed by a much larger cloud of green from its mouth. I close my eyes to keep whatever that is from following the current right into my eyes and rush for the shore. My various water-based skills make it easy, despite the fact that I’m fully clothed and heavily weighed down by my sword and gear (and Kaythe).

I carefully raise the tip of my head from the water, just enough to see, and halo my sword to get rid of the the lower hanging vines. Without a target to grapple onto, they fall harmlessly into the water and are swept away. The remaining vines hiss loudly and move to intercept where they think their assailant is, but actually end up moving out of my way. The frothing by Cerberus has a lot more red in it than it used to, and I’m pretty sure Lauren hasn’t gotten a breath this whole time. That would have been fine for me, given all the skills I have, but I doubt she has the same ability. Just as I get there, Cerberus’ head roils to the surface, jaws firmly clamped around the armored neck of one of the giant lizards, and I waste no time (but plenty of Energy) slicing the posterior half of its body off.

Ignoring the dismayed sounds coming from the beast, I dive in, silently ordering Kaythe to prioritize saving Lauren over anything else. I can feel him mentally hesitate at the ‘anything’ part of that, but he agrees anyway. One of the monsters hovers at the edge of the fray, bleeding steadily from two wounds on its face, while the rest…

Lauren is fighting tooth and nail. Two daggers, one in each hand, and frantically kicking with one foot to keep from being washed downstream. The other leg dangles uselessly, savaged almost beyond recognition. She’s only just holding on against the current, and doesn’t have a hope of dodging anything. Every one of her assailants bears signs of her fury, with one missing an eye and moving significantly slower than the rest. In the moment it takes me to understand the playing field, they swarm her.

Bubbles cloud my view even as I throw Kaythe into the fray. I packed him full of Energy as best I could, even though I’m sure he doesn’t know how to use it. Any advantage is important. I latch onto the nearest lizard and assault it with my quickly diminished stock of Energy. This thing puts up far more of a defence, both physically and in terms of Energy. It twists and rolls in the water, trying to shake me, and frequently belches out globs of the green shit from earlier and swims through it, letting it settle on my skin. Fortunately, all it does is tingle a little, but I doubt it would be that way if I got it into my eyes or wounds.

After almost twenty seconds of fighting, my relentless assault breaks through its defences and I eliminate it. My mind swims for a moment, but I don’t have time to consider it further. The body goes limp in my hands, and I swim quickly to where Lauren is barely holding onto her last remaining dagger, a massive bite wound on her right shoulder indicating why.

Kaythe has wrapped himself around the most injured one, digging further into its wounds and hanging on despite being bashed against the ground and scraped against other monsters. Cerberus had finished off the one I’d cut in half and snaps with uncanny speed at one that seems intent on dragging him further in.

All at once, I realize he’s holding back because Lauren is in the way. With a burst of speed and the last dregs of my Energy, I hurtle towards her, grab her by the armor, and launch both of us out of the water. “Sorry about this, Kaythe.” With an ear splitting crack, lightning springs from Cerberus’ mouth into the water, frying everything within. I feel Kaythe’s pain as his spasms dislodge him from his quarry mid battle, sending him helplessly into the rapids. He has no idea how to navigate in water, and it shows.

Nothing more emerges from the water to follow Cerberus when he stalks back to where Lauren and I are lying, surrounded by the tangled root system of a partially eroded tree. He says nothing, but settles in, vigilantly watching the area while I set to fixing the myriad broken bones, destroyed tendons, and missing flesh that is Lauren’s body right now.