1

Once more, Emma was the first one awake. She hauled herself out of the bedding and instantly felt the morning chill strike her skin. She pulled on her chain mail and rushed over to Zack, who had the fire blazing. “Good morning,” she said.

He glanced at her and smiled. “Good morning, little lady.”

She looked around and saw Brett sitting on the other side of the sleeping group. “How did the night go?” she asked.

“Good. Brett and I discovered we can run Basic Heal to alleviate our fatigue.”

“Oh, that’s great! How many did you have to run?”

“About one per hour.”

“You should tell the others.”

Zack said he would, and they exchanged small talk. Once Emma was warmed up, she excused herself to talk with Brett. As she walked over to him, she noticed he was whittling a branch with one of his push daggers. “Hey there, workaholic,” she whispered playfully.

He gazed at her, puzzled.

“Two nights in a row,” she clarified. “You really shouldn’t have.”

Brett stared at her, dead-eyed, without saying a thing. Emma felt her skin crawl. Then his expression changed completely, like he’d turned on a switch. The gentler face she knew was back. “Oh, thank you, Emma.”

She tentatively sat beside him. They stared out at the surrounding forest. A thick fog had settled over the ground, reducing their visibility to just six feet.

“It’s pea soup out there,” he commented.

Emma agreed. She studied him as he peered into the mist. His face reminded her of the tarp gravediggers would place over shoveled dirt, concealing the messy work from the funeral attendees. Emma believed he was a tortured soul, but one that could be redeemed. She rested her hand on his shoulder. “Brett, why don’t you catch a few winks before everyone wakes up?”

He looked at her gratefully.

“You can squeeze in over there,” she said, pointing to a spot behind Ethan.

Brett was beaming now. “Thank you, Emma. You’re so thoughtful.” He got up and walked toward the sleeping zone. Then he abruptly stopped and hurried back to Emma. He planted a very wet kiss on her cheek. He thanked her again in a hot, urgent whisper and scurried off to the bedding.

Emma could feel Brett’s thick saliva cling to her cheek. She resisted the urge to wipe it away until he slipped under the leaves in his leather armor.

2

While Brett lay snoring under the canopy of leaves, everyone else woke up and got prepared for another trek. The team’s mood was gloomy, a result of the paranoia that remained with them from the previous night. Harper and Miguel were the sole exceptions. They went about their mundane tasks with a happy and contented disposition.

“Damn lovebirds,” Ethan grumbled to his brother, who snorted loudly.

When they were ready, Emma woke Brett. He looked up at her and smiled genuinely. Having slept in his armor, the healer was ready to go and the team got moving.

Zack walked up behind Brett and slapped him on the back. “Let’s get that blood moving,” he said amiably.

Brett turned to him with a smile that was much less genuine.

They marched through the forest as the sun burned away the morning fog. As they chopped at the ferns with their swords, Damon detected surreptitious movements in his periphery. He scanned the woods, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. Still, it remained with him; a feeling that something stealthy was tracking them.

3

Five hours later, the forest abruptly ended. One moment they were walking among the redwoods and firs, and the next they found themselves wandering through a dense orchard of apple and pear trees. They were the largest fruit trees the members had ever seen, ranging from twenty to forty feet tall. Butterflies, bees, and flies gently buzzed around the ripe fruit that hung from the trees. The aroma of the fresh fruit enveloped them with sweet and inviting scents.

After the drudgery of hiking through the swamp and then the vast forest, the orchard felt like heaven. The descending sun reinforced the sensation, casting dappled yellow hues through the trees.

“Oh man, look at all that food,” Zack muttered.

Damon grabbed an apple from one of the trees. He bit into it. The taste was incredible as the apple juice slid down his throat like warm wine. While Ethan lifted the smaller members to the trees so they could grab some fruit, Jordan and Emma scampered up with their claws. Harper discarded a squirrel from her food inventory and deposited an apple into its slot. It didn’t feel right, using one inventory slot with just a portion of fruit. She tried adding another and was excited when the system allowed it. She added more until, with the eleventh apple, the system notified her she’d reached the slot limit. Laughing, she informed the group of her discovery.

They roared back.

The fruit was the closest thing they’d had to fresh water since transferring to Epiphany. They had nothing to collect rainwater in and didn’t trust the water in the cave pool. The fruit juices were like ambrosia to the thirsty team. They indulged in the experience, losing their tight V formation.

“Hey, we might want to consider camping here,” Zack enthused.

Damon and Harper shook their heads. “It’s too early to quit for the day,” the orc general replied. However, they had stopped, appreciating the idyllic scene and feasting on the fruit.

Emma walked over to Jordan, who had just dropped from his tree. “This would be a great place to cash our rain check,” she murmured.

Jordan felt excitement surge through his body. “Oh, you flirt,” he whispered.

Emma giggled. She strolled away from him, swinging her hips for his bemusement. As Jordan watched her, he heard a noise, barely perceptible, over the sound of the breeze and leaves. As he strained to decipher it, time appeared to decelerate. He could see Emma walking, her rounded hips moving slower now. He moaned. I think I’m going to explode! he thought to himself. Jordan could smell her hair from twenty feet away. He wondered briefly if the fruit was poisonous, or was giving him hallucinations, but didn’t bother asking anyone. He was oblivious to his surroundings. He saw only Emma.

Jordan didn’t realize it, but his vision had changed to a radial blur awash with the green and yellow colors of the orchard. And there was that noise, still there. He could define it more clearly now. It sounded like music but had an ethereal quality. It echoed in his mind and sounded like a distant church choir. Only now the music was growing louder, and he realized it was a chorus, but it was unintelligible. He couldn’t make out the words, but the melody was beautiful. The music enveloped them from somewhere inside the orchard.

4

Zack was leaning against a large apple tree with his head down. As he munched his third fruit of the day, he heard what sounded like new-age music floating through the orchard, but couldn’t determine where the music was originating from. “Hey, who turned on the Enya?” he joked casually.

Janna snorted, and he looked up to find her. She was standing opposite him. Despite the laugh, she appeared worried. He scanned the orchard, looking for the rest of the team, and realized they were dangerously scattered, savoring the fruit. Some were sitting on the grass with their weapons cast aside. Jordan, Emma, Miguel, Harper, Angie, and Damon had grown sedated, lulled expressions on their faces. He studied them, feeling growing anxiety and despair.

He looked for Brett and found him to his right. The nurse was eating an apple with that idiot smile pasted on his face, but didn’t have the tranced expression the other six members had. The music was louder now. He looked for Ethan and spotted him near a tree. “Ethan,” Zack whispered. “Ethan!”

The orc looked up from his apple.

Zack gestured at the dazed members. “I don’t know what, but something is going down!” he whispered.

Ethan peered around the orchard, and his expression changed from contentment to anxiety. He rushed over to Zack. “Are they under some kind of spell?” Zack asked urgently.

“I… I don’t know,” Ethan replied. “Um… try checking your status.”

They checked while the music continued around them. It was more defined now but didn’t have lyrics, just a series of changing tones and pitches.

“My status says ‘normal.’ How ‘bout yours?” Ethan asked.

Zack nodded. Brett and Janna joined them, looking concerned. “Dudes, what is going on?” Brett asked.

“I don’t know,” Zack answered, “but I think we’re in big trouble. They’re under some kind of spell. Let’s see if we can snap them out of it.”

They each took a member. Brett ran to Miguel and slapped him across the face. It worked. The young mage’s eyes focused, and he glanced around sleepily. Janna worked on Angie while Zack attempted to rouse Damon. Brett, satisfied with Miguel, moved on to Emma and rocked her shoulders.

Ethan rushed to his brother, who was slumped at the base of a tree, and shook him. Jordan’s eyes had glazed over. Ethan shook harder, calling out his name, and his brother slowly refocused. “Jordan, pull up your status screen and tell me if you see anything unusual.”

Jordan peered at his internal menu, then gasped. “It says I’ve been ‘enchanted’ and all my mental capabilities have been reduced by fifty percent!”

Ethan cursed and hoisted him from the ground. “Try walking.” Jordan started walking sluggishly. “Faster, Jordan! Put some effort into it!”

“I’m trying,” he replied, “but my legs won’t move any faster than this. It’s like I’m underwater.”

Ethan swore. He looked around and noticed most of the team members had reached some level of consciousness. Harper was still under the spell, but Miguel appeared to be back to normal. Ethan watched him cast Basic Heal on himself. He asked Miguel to check his status, and the mage confirmed he was enchanted.

“What do we do?” Ethan asked.

Miguel thought about the question for a moment. “Locate the source of the music.”

Ethan searched the area, but all he could see were the fruit trees. Frustrated, he turned back to his brother, who was still struggling to walk. Then he saw a projectile soar from the trees behind Jordan, piercing his shoulder.

5

Ethan could see that it was a wooden arrow that had punctured Jordan’s right shoulder, but it looked like something you would buy in a craft store. It didn’t have an arrowhead and was just shaved, bare wood that had been whittled to a sharp point. The arrow was thin and had squeezed through the links in Jordan’s chain mail, protruding just below the collarbone. Behind them, Zack ran by with his sword equipped. Jordan lost the strength in his legs and slumped.

Ethan eased his brother to the ground, then pulled the arrow from his body. “Healers, I have a man down over here,” he shouted. He ran after Zack, who was fifty feet away in another part of the orchard. “Zack, what the hell are you doing?” he asked.

“The arrow…” the Marine said absently as he concentrated on the surrounding area. “It came from this direction.”

Ethan searched with him. All he could see were the trees. The orcs circled the region, but there wasn’t anything unusual in the grove with them. Even though the music was louder in this part of the orchard, they still couldn’t pinpoint it. Behind them, Ethan overheard the team members yell and scream. He spun around and saw that Janna was down with an arrow sticking out of her thigh. “Janna’s been hit,” he told Zack, shifting his attention back to the grove. As he turned his head, he detected something moving out of the corner of his eye. Huh? Was that the tree? he wondered. He stared at the tree in front of him. It was one of the larger trees in the area. “Zack. Did you see anything move?”

“No,” Zack replied, walking toward Ethan.

As Ethan stared fixedly at the tree and Zack approached, he saw the bark of the tree shift. “It’s the trees themselves. They’re alive,” he yelled triumphantly as he slashed his sword against the tree. He heard a pained cry as his blade chipped bark. A humanoid body flinched from within the shape of the tree before returning to its disguised form. At the same time, the choral melody that had enveloped them stopped jarringly. Then, like a record winding up on a turntable, the music whirred back to life.

“Whatever it is, it’s using some sort of camouflage,” Zack muttered. He swung his gladius and hacked a deep grove into the tree. The creature shifted again, and a pair of pale blue eyes opened from within the surface of the bark. “There you ar—” Zack growled.

A tree limb swung across, slicing both of their necks.

As he covered his neck with his palm, Ethan saw his HP drop 21 points.

The monster separated from the tree, revealing its humanoid body. Its female body was almost entirely composed of wood. The hair on its head and between its legs was an entanglement of small leaves.

As the monster skirted away from the tree, Ethan noted that they’d been cut by one of four arms that slithered like wooden tentacles. Five thin, finger-like claws protruded at the end of each tentacle. The monster’s blue eyes gleamed as it hissed at them, exposing light-brown incisors.

Ethan wondered why Creature Description hadn’t popped up in his vision. “The monsters… they… they use camouflage,” he shouted back to the group as he covered his bleeding neck. “Attack the tree trunks!”

The creature slashed at Zack’s hand with its claw, causing him to drop his sword. Then it leaned forward, opened its mouth, and bellowed a melodic scream. Ethan felt his mind become cloudy and realized he was falling under the enchantment spell. Suddenly, he couldn’t move his limbs more than a few inches.

The creature grinned upon seeing its two combatants incapacitated. “Your woman don’t belong here,” it croaked as sawdust drifted from its mouth. “They will die.” The monster flashed a grotesque smile of misshapen wooden teeth as it flapped its tentacles at the surrounding trees. Ethan saw two other shapes move from the trees and advance toward them. They were smaller than the large beast that attacked them, but were beautiful and enchanting in appearance. Their feminine forms were endowed with round ligneous breasts.

“Your woman not welcome here,” the enormous beast purred as its tentacle slapped the sword out of Ethan’s hand, “but your man-folk are welcome.” The mother beast’s tentacles wrapped around their bodies, binding them and drawing them closer.

Ethan fought against it, but he was powerless, like a fly caught in a spider’s web. As the blood continued to flow from his neck, he glanced over at Zack and saw that he was in worse shape. Zack’s eyes had rolled up in his head, showing just his whites. As the large monster spun them in, he saw the smaller creatures reach for them. “Woman will die,” the mother beast crooned musically, “but you man-folk will make our children.”