Robin was halfway to the water, preparing to jump in after the frog that had just eaten his ally, when he saw a light glowing underneath the water. A frenzy of bubbles erupted in the water, and then May shot out, cursing worse than he had ever heard anyone curse in real life.

“Frogs! Why are there dragon frogs!?” She was screaming as she landed next to him, sliding down the web she had snapped out after her leap from the water. “There’s a lot of tadpoles, too, so there’s probably more.”

She was stomping around, glaring at the water, the machete held wardingly between her and the stream. Robin slowly walked over to where she had been, and she followed him, staying between him and the water.

He saw the bodies she had found quickly enough; she had pulled them from the tangle of bones and detritus that had accumulated over time.

Robin was grateful that he did not recognize any of the corpses or the tattered remnants of their clothes. Two of them were missing their legs, with one missing most of the spine, as well. The skin had long since rotted away or been consumed, and what was left was fairly sun-baked and withered. The other was relatively intact, although it had been consumed by scavengers and left to rot in the sun long enough that it was little more than a husk, rather than a former person. The items that May had found were already set to the side, with the exception of the husk-corpse. It had a small silver chain around its thin neck, with a small blue teardrop-shaped gem set in silver on the end.

May spoke in a pointed voice as he was looking at it. “I took the stuff off the other two.”

Robin grimaced and nodded. He reached into the Aliquam Pack and withdrew the Anytool (Journeyman), still in sword form.

He hefted the sword, stepped forward, and stabbed the corpse through the skull.

Nothing happened.

Ah, crap. I probably look like a psycho.

“Good thinking, kid. I wanted to do that, but I figured I would look like a psycho, and I didn’t want to freak you out.”

Robin snorted as he crouched down to remove the chain, yanking the blade out of the skull. The chain slipped off easily enough, although he had to move the head of the corpse a little bit with the tip of his sword.

Ugh. I hope that does not become a regular thing. Identify!

Charm of Waterfinding [C] The sapphire will tug the wearer towards the nearest source of fresh water for two hours when it is infused with a single point of MANA.

Robin read it out loud to May, tossing it to her. She nodded, slipping it on immediately, tucking the sapphire teardrop under her shirt. “Thanks. That’ll compliment my class well.”

He nodded and turned to the items May had set aside. On top of the pile was a small gold ring with a picture of a tiger engraved on the side that looked almost like a wedding ring. Robin picked it up, focusing on activating Identify.

Ring of the Tiger Claw [C] The wearer grows retractable tiger-like claws from the tips of each of their digits. The claws are undetectable when retracted.

Another one that is not useful to me, he thought, flipping it to May, who slipped it on with a slightly abashed look. She suddenly smiled, and Robin winced internally.

“That’s not how you’re supposed to give a lady a ring, y’know.”

I knew it! He groaned out loud, reaching pointedly for the next item - a small, flat knife the size of a key. Robin was surprised to realize when he actually inspected it that it was, in fact, a key, it just had the hilt of a sword rather than the standard round head possessed by most keys. He activated Identify, reading the box that appeared out loud.

Key of Entering and Breaking [R] Once wielded by a master thief who stole a priceless artifact, only to drop and shatter it once they had gotten the artifact to their hideout, the Key of Entering and Breaking may be used to unlock any lock. Both lock and key will be destroyed after use.

“I think I will take this one”, Robin said, slipping it into his pack immediately. May lifted an eyebrow at him, but otherwise said nothing. Robin reached for the last item in the small stack, a standard ZIPPO-style lighter, activating Identify as soon as he touched it. Unlike the other things May had found, the lighter looked old. It had something carved into the side of it, and Robin held it up to the light so both he and May could read it at the same time.

THE ONLY THING I GET OUT OF KILLING A PERSON IS THE RECOIL OF MY RIFLE

“Wow. That is… That is grim, and kind of unsettling to find on thing we are taking off of a dead person”, he said flatly.

May nodded, staring at the corpses. “They gave those out in the Vietnam War. I wonder if they were a veteran, or maybe got it from their parents?”

Robin shrugged silently. After a moment, he awkwardly muttered “Do you want me to read it now…?”

May nodded solemnly.

Forgotten Lighter of the Forgotten War [P] The Forgotten Lighter of the Forgotten War was carried by a soldier fighting a war he did not believe in to support a people who did not want his presence, the Forgotten Lighter carries the pain and shame of the soldier in every flame it lights. Flames set by the Forgotten Lighter are invisible, odorless, and silent to any individuals who are outside the range of the heat generated by the fire. This range can vary based on the size, location, and fuel source of the flames. The Forgotten Lighter may be refueled with the infusion of a single point of MANA. The Forgotten Lighter is not affected by moisture, though the flames it generates are affected normally. The flint and cotton of the Forgotten Lighter are refreshed with each application of MANA spent towards refueling.

“That thing is an arsonist’s wetdream”, May said frankly.

Robin spluttered slightly before finding his words, which turned out to be “Um, yeah, definitely.”

“Sorry, kid. I keep forgetting how old you actually are, what with the ‘stabbing a corpse in the head as a precaution’ kind of thing we keep having to do, and all.”

Robin nodded, grateful for her understanding.

“Do you mind if I take this one?”

She nodded. “Go ahead. Just be careful with it, it could be pretty dangerous.”

He nodded as he slipped it into his pack.

“Was there anything else?”

She shook her head. “No, everything else was rotted into mush. I think the only reason those things survived is because they’re magical.”

Robin stood up, nodding. “That makes sense. Let’s get moving, then, after I gather up a few more of these bones.” He gestured to the large pile, having spotted what seemed like more of the Fin Whale ribs he had found before.

They headed up the slope towards the treeline where Opal hung waiting, and then continued towards the slope, staying just past the edge of the trees as they trekked towards the ocean.

The trek through the woods took them several hours longer than they expected. May commented that this was normal while hiking; distance was deceitful on any hike.

As they came closer to the ocean, the slope down to the stream gradually became more and more steep, until it could no longer be called a “slope” and instead had to be upgraded to

“cliff.” The pair spotted several more of the giant frogs, but none came directly after them, instead being content to stare them warily, their eyes barely showing above the surface.

“Have you noticed that they are getting less bumpy as we move away from the killing stone?”

May shook her head. “I haven’t really been paying attention to the level of skincare of the frogs.”

“Well, they have been. I have a theory about why! Do you want to hear?”

May made an affirmatory noise, and Robin continued speaking, his voice rigid and formed, like he was giving a lecture.

“Okay, I have been thinking about this since it attacked. Did you know that frogs absorb liquids through their skin? It actually makes them more susceptible to water pollution and secondary air pollutants, but in this case, I think that the dragon might have been wounded at some point by the massive things it was hunting, and it might have bled into the water, where the frogs might have absorbed some of it.”

“I guess that makes as much sense as anything else, really.”

“There are more of the tadpoles here, too. I think the dragon blood might have made them a little more aggressive, as well. The dragon-frog was probably eating a lot of the tadpoles in the area. Robin looked over the edge of the cliff as he spoke, watching some of the massive, half-meter long tadpoles he was speaking of swim about in the (relatively) shallow water at the shore.

As they approached the area where the stream let out into the ocean, the trees began to thin out, and the landscape began to dramatically rise in slope, forcing them to hike uphill.

Both were at the peak of human physicality, however, and a mere hill was no challenge to them. When they neared the top, both fell silent, approaching the top of the cliff with an anxious hurry to their step.

The ocean stretched on past the horizon, as it always had. The sheer sameness of the ocean compared to what it had been been before the Ysari System was a stark reminder of just how different their world had become, and they spent a few minutes staring out at it, until a flash of light below them caught both of their attention.

Robin glanced down and after a moment, sighed deeply. “May… Are you seeing what I am seeing?”

May let out a sigh herself. “Yes, I am. I wish I wasn’t, but I am.”

The beach was dotted with the electric tumbleweeds, each of them different from the next in shape and size, from small ones the size of trash cans to massive ones that dwarfed the ones they had encountered, like moving barns. There were only two that were that massive, but two was enough.

Robin drew his revolver and opened the chamber, checking his remaining rounds, preparing to reload it completely with MANA bullets. To his surprise, there was already one bullet, a black one.

Where did that come from? Identify!

Death Aspect Bullet

Holy yoshi… is that from the shattered boulder? Yeesh… maybe it is a good thing that we did not spend very much time there.

“Well… I guess we go down the coast now. From up here, I mean. Obviously.”

Robin nodded in agreement.

He was in no rush to step into tumbleweed territory.