The first few days on the road were relatively uneventful. I found myself walking farther than I usually would be able to and was happy to use the road while I still could, before the growth finished reclaiming it for nature.

From what I’d read the roads had all been constructed by a massive government known as the Roman Empire. They were known for their military formations and excellent use of spears on top of their sprawling road network, allowing them to maintain supply lines and communications with parts of their empire. As far as anyone knew, as long as I kept following this road I’d end up in Rome eventually, as that is were all roads led.

That would have been pre-nerf however. Ever since the cataclysm nature had gone wild from the excess Aether released into the air. It wasn’t uncommon now to find fully grown trees sprouting from the center of the roads, or entire cities that had been swallowed up by forests and wildlife. The chances that the road still led to Rome were slim to none, but I still followed it while I could as it was much more friendly on the traveller than the brush surrounding me.

Even when there wasn’t a massive forest the grass rose past my head in most places, making it treacherous to travel through and easy to lose your way. Sooner or later I’d have to depart from westway and head along the smaller dirt paths that led through the growth.

Unfortunately it was a lot closer to sooner rather than later. When I finally reached the end of the road I’d been traveling for four days. The beaten road faded slowly into a thicket of large trees that stood at least three times higher than me. The leaves ranged in color from dark green to a vibrant red, reminding me that it was going to be getting cold soon as well. Perhaps I should have kept the jackalope hide and had a coat fashioned for myself. No, the spear was going to be more useful. I was far more likely to die to a beast than the cold in the night, and I could always keep hunting and look for a town to trade for warmer clothing.

The trunks of the behemoth trees that took over the Us 98 were black in color. Not black like the road I was walking up, but the kind of black that seemed to drink in the light around it and expel out antilight to force their gloom on all who observed them. Seriously, I didn’t know that plants could be so menacing. I took a second to prod the bark with my spear just to verify the trees weren’t going to sprint into action and try and murder me.

Naturally they didn’t, they were just trees afterall. I stood there shaking my head at my silly antics, what did I expect?

If I was reading the sun correctly I had a few hours left until the night set. Camping on the road statistically made more sense as it was flat and less likely to have bugs crawl into my clothing overnight but every time I looked back at those trees I got the creeps again. Since the trunks of the trees were too close for me to travel past anyways, combined with the fact I kept getting the eerie sensation that I wasn’t welcome there, I decided I’d head north off the road and look for another way past the forest. From what I could see the trees got progressively less… aggressive looking farther from the road as well, and the grass was still only about waist high along its outskirts.

With that in mind I set off into the grass and realized a couple things, the grass came up almost to my chest and the step off the road was a lot farther down than I’d anticipated. I took a bit of a tumble because of the expected drop and rolled, dropping my spear and luckily not impaling myself with it. I stood up and brushed myself off before grabbing my spear and looking around to make sure nobody saw that. Stupid, of course nobody saw it, I’m alone out here. Still I had the feeling I was being watched and even the trees seemed more like they were laughing at me than threatening me.

I gave the black titans one last glare before turning around and heading out into the grass. To polish it all of I’d gotten a message on my interface letting me know I’d made 0.001% progress toward unlocking the ‘Acrobatics’ skill. Stupid interface.

I was cautious as I travelled through the grass along the edge of the forest but it seemed relatively barren. If it weren’t for the occasional bird call or squirrel jumping from the trees I’d assume the area had no animals in it at all. That would be very unfortunate as I definitely had planned on doing some hunting to supplement the lack of travel supplies I’d packed.

By the time the sun was setting I’d made a lot more progress than expected headed north. It wasn’t nearly as fast as traveling along the road but it was a lot better than I’d expected. The forest had thinned out on my left and was passable now, but I felt like it was probably safer to camp out on the outskirts. So as the last of the light faded away I decided to set up camp.

It took about 15 minutes, but before long I had a sizable area cleared of grass, thanks to my skinning knife, and a nice grass mattress to soften my rest for the night. Waste not want not and all that jazz. I apprehensively entered the forest to gather stray branches to build a fire, doing my best to be expeditious. Although this part of the forest did not feel nearly as menacing as the southern area, it still felt like somewhere I shouldn’t tread lightly after dark. Yes, camping outside had been a good idea. I knew I’d have to travel through the forest at some point, but I was glad it was not going to be tonight.

It didn’t take long to get the fire going. I lied down on my makeshift grass mattress and used my pack as a pillow as I stared up at the stars. They were a bit harder to see so close to the campfire, but still very much visible. It reminded me just how vast and wonderful the world was, and how small I was in comparison. I’d read a few stories that referred to the stars as gods and more that told me that there were more humans living out there.

I slowly closed my eyes to rest while still chewing on my travel biscuit, tomorrow was going to be an eventful day and I wanted to get up early enough to do some good hunting.

My eyes snapped open an indeterminate amount of time later. The sun still wasn’t up and my fire had faded to a smoldering pile of embers. I was still tired and did not feel the need to relieve myself, so why did I wake up?

Rustling off to my right, in the tall grass, alerted me again. It wasn’t very loud at all, but in the dead silence of the night it was a give away. Even the insects had gone silent, and whatever was moving out there was doing its best to move slowly and quietly. With my right hand I reached over and grabbed my spear slowly, careful not to alert it to the fact I’d detected its presence.

There was a bit more rustling and then nothing. The tension in the air made my tongue feel heavy in my mouth and I started tensing up. Countless seconds that stretched into eternity passed as I waited. I could not see all that well in the moonlight and my fire had faded so I needed to wait for the visitor to act first. As I fought the sensation to swallow the hostile finally acted.

There was explosion of movement from the grass closest to me and a large shadow burst out at my bedroll. I rolled off to the side, bringing my spear up to guard as I heard a heavy thud resounding from where I’d been laying moments before. I struck out and managed to score a glancing blow against the creature.

From what I could see in the light provided by the new moon and distant stars I was facing some sort of small bear-sized rodent. It came up to around my chest and was glaring at me, it’s eyes reflecting the dim light and letting me know how angry it was. I’d managed to scrape open a gash along it’s right forearm and shoulder. Serves it right.

I liked my chances against an overgrown rat and put my weight on the back of my feet as I prepared to lunge forward and finished this battle. My heart was pounding and my legs still felt sore from days of walking but I was confident that I’d win this engagement since I’d managed to arm myself and avoid the initial ambush.

I jabbed forward with my spear only to leap to the left and do a roll as I attempted to avoid a new development. The thump I’d heard wasn’t the rat landing, but its tail impaling my backpack where my head had been resting. As I leapt forward the tail came flying through the air at me, scarcely missing me. Unfortunately it was not a regular tail.

Now that its secret weapon had been revealed it hissed at me and displayed it freely as it wavered back and forth above the rodent. The tail was at least as long as the creature, somewhere around six feet, and half as wide as a man. It resembled a scorpian’s stinger but was able to rotate freely as if it were a snake’s tail. As I stood there slightly transfixed with the motions of the tail it lashed out at me again.

I hadn’t gotten up from where I rolled yet and was limited in my movement as I was pretty close to the tall grass again. My odds of winning the battle were still relatively okay, but if I let it back me into the grass I didn’t like my chances. As it were I was forced to leap forward, doing my best to keep my spear in my hand, and scramble to stand up. I swung wildly at the tail which was still close behind me and managed to score a scratch along the surface. The consistency of the tail was somewhere between a snake and an insect carapace.

The creature stared at me wearily, with a keen animal intelligence in its eyes. I circled it widely, putting the dying fire between myself and the predator. It slowly tred closer to me as it seethed in rage. Really? I should be the one angry here, it was attacking me after all. So sorry I didn’t roll over and just let you kill me. Wait, rolling over was probably what made it angry in the first place.

I chuckled a bit out loud at the ridiculous train of thought I was having in the middle of a life or death situation. The rakopian, or at least I think that is what this particular breed of beast was called, was alarmed at the noise and hissed at me. Apparently it liked being laughed at just about as much as I did. Since I was not going to be able to get very close without being impaled by the venomous stinger, and the rat was far more agile than I was, I’d developed a plan.

As it tensed to attack again I put my plan in action. The rakopian’s tail sprung forward like a pissed off cricket and I side stepped it again. It seemed prepared for this and adjusted the path of its tail but not before I kicked the embers of the dying fire into its face. Disoriented and temporarily blinded, the creature did not see me leap forward to perform a coup de gras and impale it with my spear. Some might argue that the creature wasn’t really mortally wounded, but the moment it decided to interrupt my sleep its life had already been forfeited.

What I didn’t account for was it pulling its tail back to shield its face when it was blinded. I managed to penetrate the head of the stinger and even impaled a second layer of flesh in the tail before my spear was ripped from my hands. I’d been so concerned with the tail the entire fight I forgot that this was still a dangerous beast, which it was more than happy to remind me.

As the rakopian’s tail was taken out of commission with my spear it whipped it backwards and leapt forward, tackling me to the ground. With my arms and legs were pinned down by its freakishly large paws as it began snapping its jaws at my face. Saliva splashed all over my face and smelled like rotting compost, causing me to gag momentarily, but I managed to hold it away from my face by its neck.

I couldn’t believe I was going to die to a fucking rat. In several of the stories I’d read large rats were beginner level fodder that would die from a mean look, and here I was about to be done in by one.

The snapping of its teeth grew louder as it slowly as the strength slowly sapped from my arms. Then the weight suddenly shifted.

Another creature had burst forth from the trees and tackled the rat off me. As they tumbled close to the grass I got my bearings again and rolled away from the conflict. It looked like some sort of dog saw my plight and decided to intervene. Unfortunately, it was just a dog and therefore not much help. I needed to act fast or it was going to pay with its life for helping me.

My spear was still lodged in the beast’s tail so I pulled my skinning knife out from where it was sheathed on my left leg. The two circled each other and when the dog was between the rat and myself I decided it was time to try something new.

“Growth”

I poured all of my 10 mana into the [Weak Growth] spell, attempting to overload it with additional mana and force it to do my will. The tiny bits of grass that I’d sheared off with my knife earlier in the evening as well as the stalks of chest high grass behind it burst into action. The grass underneath the rakopian’s feet burst into growth and wrapped around the creature’s legs as the stalks behind it also grew and reached out to wrap around it and constrict the movement of its tail and back legs.

I was instantly fatigued and a few messaged popped up in the interface but I couldn’t concentrate long enough to read them. Although I’d surprised the beast, it was still grass that ensnared it and that would not last forever. I stumbled forward with my knife in hand, intent on finishing it off while I could.

As I approached it the dog leapt onto the opposite side of the rat’s head in order to distract it. Its head turned toward my canine hero in order to respond to the few chunks of its face that had been misplaced and allowed my knife to fall into its neck.

Literally fall. I went to lunge at its neck and lost my balance, falling forward with my knife hand outstretched as my vision faded to black. Not ‘it’s dark and there is no fire’ black but ‘oh man I can’t breathe and I haven’t eaten in two weeks’ fade to black. I vaguely recalled the sensation of my knife arm feeling resistance as my conscious fled this plane to resume the night of sleep that I’d lost.