The next day was an exercise in patience—wandering close to the house, Liam ran across a cocoa-dirt path that wound through the grasslands. With few other places to go, he followed the path and tried to keep his head down low.

For a good few hours, he didn’t see a single soul. Then a procession of three gingerbread men and women rolled by on a cart made of the same chocolate wood the house had been constructed with. It was carried along by what appeared to be a candy-corn unicorn. Liam hid in the bushy grass around the path and watched them pass in silence.

They were in similar licorice armor as him and seemed to be in good spirits. But he wasn’t about to risk another encounter with these beings just yet. Not with so many at once. If it had been a singular gingerbread man, he’d take his chances. To confirm whether or not all candy creatures were beings of pure evil. He’d be a poor scientist if he extrapolated a conclusion based on only a singular point of evidence.

Even if the idea of throwing himself on a plate to them horrified him to his core. But the weight of the sugar-glass sword offered some comfort, for when he eventually would. The day wound down and the bright blue sky turned into a familiar dark night glittering with stars. No recognizable constellations, and a far-too-giant moon.

Unlike the bright sun, Liam could make out the almost too-smooth surface of this celestial object. With abject fear, he realized that it looked too spherical. As if it were a giant white jawbreaker in the sky. Nope, nope. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about the implications. Just go with it. Accept it.

Liam dropped the matter and found a bushy place concealed from the road to sleep.

When he awoke, his throat was scratchy and parched to an extreme. He kept going on the path, reasoning at some point he’d encounter something worth taking a risk. But after evading three more groups of gingerbread men, he began to worry that his timeline was going to accelerate. If he couldn’t find water, he’d need to make a move before the deprivation weakened him. Putting him in the risky position of trying to confront several potentially murderous cookie-men at the same time, while suffering from dehydration.

Finally, an opportunity presented itself. A lone gingerbread man in a tattered pink robe walked down the chocolate-dirt path with a cane.

It looked to be in a better situation than him—but Liam didn’t doubt that if it came to having to slay the old gingerbread man, he stood a good chance. He collected himself, trying to ease his over-excited heart and rushing adrenaline, before pushing himself out into the road. A hand sitting on the hilt of the sugar-glass sword strapped to his waist.

The old gingerbread man paused, swaying in the road. Cracks on its dark-crust face, and gray frosted beard waggling as it pulled its hood back.

“Er, hey there!” Liam said, eyes twitching to scan the rest of the road and confirm to himself once more that there wasn’t any additional candy-people hiding in the green apple bushes.

“Huh? What was that, sonny?” The old gingerbread man asked, tilting his head and cupping a hand around his ear. “Come closer. Can’t hear you.”

Liam closed a bit of the distance, still keeping a few feet between himself and the old gingerbread man. “I uh. I’m lost. Do you know the nearest river around here?”

The gingerbread man gave him an appraising look. With a slow nod. The old man set its bag on the ground, and began to ruffle through it—pulling out what looked to be a sheet of fluorescent blue… candy wrapper?

Liam worked his jaw, seeing the scribbles from his distance on the page. No words—but paths and shapes. A map. This gingerbread man had a map. It tilted its head to him, giving him a fond smile. “Come here, sonny. I think… I think I can point you in the right direction…” the old man tapped the man with one of his hands, and gave a smile.

Maybe I was wrong. That other one was just unhinged. Yeah. I did walk up to see another of those gingerbread men attacking it—then it eating it. That makes sense. Some kind of criminal… Liam let out a sigh, letting the hope burn in his chest that not everything was out to get him here.

He moved closer to the old gingerbread man, carefully taking in the map sketched onto the waxy paper. He could see lines, and cities, they appeared to be in a place called the ‘Ginger Empire,’ which, go figure with the abundance of its inhabitants. “Where are we on this map?” Liam asked, none of the landmarks doing much for him. Though, some of the names… Fudge volcano, he saw the candy cane forest. But the scale? He had no clue.

“Right here…” the old man’s hand tapped the surface, at an angle that was hard to see with Liam’s current position. So he leaned closer. He heard the gingerbread man take a sharp inhale.

Danger. Every instinct in Liam went on high alert, he started to pull back as the old man dropped the map.

The gingerbread man sprang towards him, mouth wide open to reveal white-sugar teeth open in a snarl. Its teeth snapped as it took a bite at where Liam’s throat had been a moment before. Liam hit the ground scrambling away from the horror of the candy man.

Its eyes were wide, a creepy-ass grin taking its crinkled face, as it jumped at him again. Liam punched at the gingerbread man—fist digging in and making the thing let out a groan. He shoved it off him, getting to his feet. The old man writhed on the ground, the blow hurting it more deeply than Liam thought. At the end of the day he supposed, it was ancient and weak. Liam drew the sugar-glass sword, eyes trained on the old man

“Why?” He asked, the point of the sword shaking.

It turned to face him, getting enough of itself together to push off the ground. It snarled at him. “Humans. Must. Die!”

“But why? Speak to me!” Liam tried again, backing away as the old gingerbread man slowly stood. It moved slowly, so he didn’t take it as a serious threat. As long as he kept range on it, the old gingerbread man didn’t stand a chance of catching him. Maybe the threat of that would keep it away. Save him from the guilt of slaying this thing. The cannibal had been one thing—but with this old man he’d gone out of his way to accost it on the road. Even if it tried to take a bite out of him, this situation had been preventable.

The old gingerbread man swayed, gathering itself. “Your kind is a blight on this world! You must not be allowed to survive!”

It dug in its pocket, and before Liam knew what was happening, threw a handful of rock candy at him.

He expected the rock candy pebbles to hit and for the old man to flee. A meager distraction and Liam would have let the gingerbread man get away with it too. He didn’t have it in his heart to kill indiscriminately, much less a fleeing creature. Even if a small part of him suspected it to be a pure-evil being.

What he didn’t expect was for the rock candy pebbles to violently explode in a burst of multicolored smoke and fire in his face. Liam slammed to the ground, covering his eyes and dropping the sword as the impact from the blast flung him over.

A second later that mad gingerbread man leaped on top of him—mouth snapping and closing as its frail hands fought against him and tried to push his defenses away. Froth ran down from its mouth—little flecks of cream splattered on Liam’s face as the old gingerbread man's teeth clattered above him, desperate to take a bite. Liam barely held on, it took each ounce of his strength to fight gravity and hold this rabid gingerbread man at bay.

One of his hands scrambled for the sword, knowing that if he let the old man have the advantage with its sudden ferocity, it’d get past him and sink its teeth into his neck. He grasped the sugar-glass blade and awkwardly swung it into the old man on top of him.

It sunk in—and he desperately sawed it back and forth—the twisting body of the gingerbread man on top of him only inflicting more damage on itself. Viscous drops of its red syrup blood speckled him in their brief and violent struggle. Liam kept thwacking the blade into it, again and again.

Slowly the gingerbread man weakened. Either from blood loss, or its age catching up. Liam shoved it off and took a few more chops at it with the sword until it stopped moving.

He took deep gasps of air, taking in its dead face. Still screwed up in an awful expression. Like a demon.

You have gained +1 Strength

Gingerbread Man Slain! 75 Experience gained!

Liam stared at the blue box, feeling beads of sweat run off his forehead. But there was a map to take. Not to mention the gingerbread man had what looked like a flask attached to its pack. Maybe he’d found enough supplies to get him going. He took a couple of steps away before a dreadful message appeared.

Location: Gingerbread Man’s Heart.

Compatibility: Spell is compatible with the Gastromancy family tree.

Eligibility: H.E.L.L has determined you meet the requirements to learn this spell.

Binding Ritual Instructions: To bind this spell, consume the heart as the moon reaches the highest point in the sky.

Grow. Grow. Power. Consume. Liam. Consume. Us.

Liam stopped in his tracks, reading over the instructions once more. A spell. The first spell he’d run over in this world.

And this prompt told him to obtain it. He needed to eat the old gingerbread man’s heart. Liam hesitated, looking at his sword and then at the freshly dead gingerbread man. What the fuck is wrong with this place?