Dave

Fallen Jungle

56th of Cycle 2, 1015

The object that Rea gave me was wrapped up in a leaf, and when I peeled it open, I found a creamy green substance inside. I spread it over the wound on my stomach and felt a tingle reverberate throughout my body as the bleeding stopped. It looked a lot like the healing ointment Jason gave me a few days ago, but it was a lot more potent, apparently.

Why did she decide to save me? In her eyes, I was a spy working with Jason and was a serious threat to the safety of her village. The rational decision was to kill me, so why?

My time to contemplate her decision was cut short when a few howls echoed across the jungle. I jumped up to my feet and reached for the bow on my back but stopped in horror when I realized it wasn’t there. My knife wasn’t in its sheath either. They took my weapons…

The thought of fighting a gang of wolves unarmed didn’t sit well with me, so I turned to run away but noticed that the howls weren’t coming from a single direction anymore. They were coming from all around me.

I’m surrounded.

I looked around and saw shining red eyes piercing the darkness as they circled around me. I felt a familiar feeling of helplessness wash over me. Why was this world so dangerous? From the moment I got here, I’ve been attacked by everything that moves, and even some things that don’t move. I’m weak, and now that Jason wasn’t here to help…

A charging wolf snapped me out of my thoughts. I decided that I wouldn’t go down without a fight, so I faced it and put my hands up like a boxer. It opened its jaws, revealing its sharp white teeth as it leaped at my neck. With a quick dodge using fleet-footed, and a jab at its side, I knocked the wolf to the floor.

The rest of the pack decided to join in the fun. A dozen wolves charged at me, and I activated my vision skill when one of them jumped. With the increased time to react, I weaved through a hole in their charge and smiled when I heard a few of them slam into each other behind me.

I looked back as my vision skill ran out and saw that the wolves were trying to surround me again. I backed away slowly and wondered how long I would have to keep this up.

Then, to my surprise, the wolves ran away. I stood there on guard for a few seconds, waiting to see if they would return or not, but they didn’t. I shrugged and turned around to walk away, only to find the reason for the wolves’ sudden retreat.

An elephant-sized lion was standing about a dozen feet away from me. It let out a roar so deafening that I swore my eardrums must’ve started bleeding, and it closed the distance between us with one step. It tilted its head to the side, opened its mouth, and brought it down on me in an attempt to swallow me whole. I ran out of the death zone at full speed and kept running away.

The lion didn’t appreciate my attempt to survive, and it chased after me with a furious roar. I tried weaving through some trees to outmaneuver it, but it ran straight through them like it was running through a piece of paper. I stopped trying to weave through the trees and focused on running. I was just barely beating the lion in speed, and I was increasing the distance between us slowly. Maybe I can just keep this up until it stops chasing me.

As if to spite my last thought, a message popped up in front of me.

NOTICE

You are leaving the designated area for the quest ‘The Silver Panther.’ Refusing to turn back will result in immediate death.

Well, turning back will likely result in immediate death too, but here goes nothing.

I turned around on a dime and dashed at the lion, and it made a sweeping motion toward me with its front paw. I didn’t have time to back away, and even if I did, I would end up dying from the quest requirement, so I decided to take my chances and activated my vision skill. I vaulted over its paw with an amount of agility that I didn’t know I had and landed under the lion. I avoided its hind legs with a quick step and emerged from under it.

Before I could celebrate my success, my dangersense activated, and I heard a hiss from behind me. I dived into the dirt and rolled away as the lion’s snake-tail missed me by a hair. Then, I scrambled up to my feet, jumped behind one of the knocked over trees, and activated my stealth skill. The lion let out a series of roars as it stomped furiously around.

If I could translate its roars, it would be saying something along the lines of: “Cursed humans with their clever tricks!” or “Come out and fight, you coward!”

The ground vibrated more and more as the lion approached the tree I was crouching behind. My heart felt like it was going to come out of my chest, and I regretted my impulse decision to hide instead of running away.

To my surprise and relief, the lion stepped directly over the tree. Its tail hissed and snapped at me again, but I vaulted to the other side of the tree before it could bite me. The snake hissed and shook around violently as the lion obliviously waltzed through the destroyed jungle.

Is it finally over?

After a few minutes, when the lion hadn’t returned, and a stray pack of wolves hadn’t assaulted me, I assumed that it was over. My heart rate slowly returned to its original state, and I let out a long-held sigh.

I felt too tired to look through a bunch of skills, so I decided to save that for tomorrow. I looked around and found a tree that had fallen over but had just enough space under it for me to squeeze into. I crawled under the tree and shut my eyes.

Today was hectic, too hectic. Hopefully, tomorrow would be a little slower…

Probably not.