"Where are you going?" Cel asked

I won't find any valuable resources this close to the nest, Don explained Let's head further out before using the scan. We only have so many uses after all.

Cel flitted up behind Don, briefly illuminating the surroundings before stopping her wings, using them as airbrakes to gracefully land on Don's shoulder. Don's steps were unsteady in the darkness and he lost his footing when a patch of the uneven floor slid out from under him. It stopped a moment later and Don regained his balance but Cel's perfect landing was ruined. She was able to right herself and regain her perch with a little help from her wings but this time Don was looking her way and with her so close, the sudden flare left streaks in his vision once again. Cel held on to Don's ear for balance this time.

"Rust it! Can't you control that at all?" Don asked, finally cracking.

"In theory, yes. But It takes practice and I've been spending my time learning how to fly. It seemed much more useful than learning how to, not glow. What's your excuse, did you forget how to walk?"

My CON is way too high compared to my STR. Don grumbled It feels like I’m carrying a whole other person.

“Wow, looks like someone has been doing their homework.” Cel commented, genuinely impressed “How bad is the imbalance?”

Attributes

STR: 11 → 12

CON: 18

INT: 10

DEX: 10

AGI: 10

END: 12 → 13

WIS: 11

Cel looked over Don’s attribute card and whistled appreciatively.

“Not bad for 3 days. That’s an impressive constitution. No wonder you triggered a memory loss quest.”

What does that mean? Don asked

“Get moving and I’ll tell you. Your current attributes should only make you feel 50% heavier than normal. If anything it will just help you train so stop complaining.”

Don dismissed the screen but not before he noted the new Attribute added at the end.

DEX: The Dexterity attribute governs your hand-eye coordination.

It affects Fine motor control, Crafting Speed and Crafting Success rate

Don started moving again, picking his steps more carefully this time. The floor was deceptively treacherous. In places, soft earth would give pleasantly under Don's bare feet. Loamy soil pushing up between his toes. In others, stacks of waxy leaves would slip out from under him with almost no resistance. The Jungle floor was positively littered with bushes hiding thorns nearly an inch long under leafy camouflage. Some of the tangled, grasping roots were firm, useful footholds. Unfortunately, it was hard to tell them apart from their more springy cousins which snared and tripped Don more than a few times before he adapted, testing his footholds before trusting them with his weight. Conveniently, Don could blame most of these stumbles on being distracted by Cel. She continued to tell Don personal information about himself as he carefully picked his way through the maze of tangled brambles and tree trunks.

“So memory quests are kinda special.” Cel began “They usually appear to protect citizens from overwhelming mental trauma, like getting dropped into a nest of baby harpies of having a run in with the furies. There are ways to unlock your memories again, but the quest usually requires some sort of trigger to activate it, and there's no telling what that might be.”

You’re telling me I can’t remember who I am because I was traumatized?

“Not exactly. The quest stopped the trauma from taking place, it’s also responsible for your memory loss, and don’t ask me what happened to you. The more details I divulge, the fewer rewards you’ll get for completing the quest. You might even end up with your memories locked away forever.”

I don’t care about any stupid rewards! I want to know what happened to me!

Cel looked at Don like she had just been slapped.

“How can you not care about rewards? Either way I’m not saying anything.”

Don shouted and raged in his head but Cel wouldn’t budge. When Don stopped weedling he settled into sending a low simmering resentment across their mental link. Cel just changed the subject.

“I see you have made a start at training your attributes. That’s good. You will only be able to train those until you reach level 1 or the attributes reach 20. Certain factors at play that I can’t tell you about also mean that time is not on our side so we're going to have to keep training and progressing as fast as possible.”

What do you mean we?

Cel ignored Don’s grumbling and went on.

“Training STR and END will be easy with your current weight. All you have to do is keep moving. We can work in more difficult exercises as you become able to handle them. AGI will have to wait until your STR is up some more. It’s hard to move fast if you are being crushed under a weight you can’t lift after all. We definitely don’t have to worry about your CON at the moment. Your INT is pitiful but I guess you haven’t really had access to many books in the last few days. We can work on that some later. There’s a work around we can use but it’s hardly your most important Attribute at the moment. What I can’t figure out, is how you managed to increase your WIS. That’s a notoriously hard attribute to train.”

Why? Don asked

“Huh?” Cel responded. She began to explain why WIS was difficult to raise but Don stopped her.

I meant why should I work hard to train my attributes? Despite Don’s earlier eagerness to grow stronger he wasn’t going to just let Cel boss him around.

“So you can fight when the time comes.” Cel said plainly

Who would I fight? Don scoffed

“All sorts of things!” Cel said with a little too much glee

Why the void would I want to fight any things?

“You’re not going to have much choice in the matter” Cel said.

What? Are you going to force me to fight now too? Don accused

“No, don’t be absurd. The sorts of things that are going to want to kill you will force you to fight. I guess you could run away instead but even that won’t work unless you get stronger.”

Don was really getting fed up with this bloodthirsty fairy. She kept talking about fighting like it was something to look forward to.

It didn’t help matters that Don was already breathing heavily. Every step was difficult. Balancing his strangely heavy body and navigating the uneven and loose detritus wore him out very quickly. The only saving grace was that he could chat with Cel in his head without interrupting his breathing. Checking his Status confirmed that he was down to 18/65 SP. He stopped in order to recover, watching the number increase a couple of times. Each increment took about 5.55 seconds. It should take him a little over 4 minutes to refill his stamina pool completely.

Wait how do I know that? Don thought a little too loudly in his surprise

“Know what? Have you been listening to me? What was the last thing I said?” Cel demanded. Don didn’t care.

How do I know there is a 5.55 second delay between each SP point I generate? Cel glared at Don but answered him all the same.

“I’m surprised that you know anything sometimes. That’s just your timesense. All citizens can do that.”

Are you sure? Don was pretty skeptical. The human nervous system has limits after all. The average person has a full quarter of a second delayed response to visual stimuli. There’s no way I could measure time that accurately based off of a purely visual event. Wah! How do I know that? Who the void am I?

“Well, you’re not a human anymore so you should stop judging yourself by human standards” Cel’s response was a little callous and it hit Don unexpectedly hard.

Yeah, well at least I’m making myself useful. Why don’t you just go and look for food like you said you could.

“Fine!” Cel shouted before zipping away. She illuminated a wild scene of rampant greenery in the moment before she darted behind a fern larger than Don himself. Don felt a tugging sensation from the center of his chest, just below his lungs as Cel siphoned off the MP necessary to cast her spell.

Don tried to slip into another trance but he was unable to find his center. He quickly gave up and started playing around with his newly discovered timesense. He checked his SP generation again and got a little giddy after the fifth time in a row he came up with the same result down to the hundredth of a second. Cel came back at that point.

“You were right there isn’t much this close to the nest. We’re going to have to go a bit further out.”

I still need to rest a bit longer. Don protested

“No way, If you keep going when your stamina is low your END will improve faster. Quit your lounging. You have plenty of SP to go another 5 minutes. Just try and pace yourself and you’ll be fine.”

Don was awfully tempted to ignore her advice but judging by the description of END, it could lessen his need for eating and sleeping. That would go a long way toward reducing his drain on the ColoColo while also increasing the number of hours he could work each day. That was worth a little discomfort. Don laboriously climbed to his feet and started to trudge through the dark jungle once more.

What can you tell me about this DEX attribute? It wasn’t there last time I checked.

“That’s just an Attribute given to anyone who takes a crafting profession. It’s not important right now.”

It sounds pretty important. Don objected From what I can tell it affects how quickly and successfully I can make potions. All these other attributes are interesting but that’s clearly the one most suited to an Alchemist.

“Maybe for an alchemist with a shop in a safe little town but you don’t have that luxury. You can hardly walk a few minutes without gasping for air. Get your head out of the clouds.” Cel shut him down without mercy.

Don continued to walk through the night, snapping branches, rustling leaves and the occasional demonic curse, the only noises to disrupt the peaceful night. In between stomping around, fuming about his partner, and stopping for too-short breathers, Cel finally sensed something with her [Natural Resonance].

“Oh yeah! Who’s awesome? I’m awesome!” Cel cheered herself as she flew up into the canopy, chasing away the shadows lurking there.

Clusters of Kaeru nuts hung from the tree and nearly a third of them glowed with a soft inner light. They looked like misshapen little light bulbs scattered haphazardly through the branches. The only problem, they were easily thirty feet off of the ground. The nuts lost their shine after Cel let her spell lapse and Don bravely made his first attempt at tree-climbing.

It could have been hunger that drove him rather than bravery, but something prompted him to try and scramble up onto the lowest hanging branch. It was too wide around to grip effectively with his hands so he wrapped his arms around it and walked his feet up the knotted trunk until he could hook one of his legs over the limb as well. It creaked and bent ominously but held. Don looked up and planned out his next step only to realize that he was completely stuck. He couldn't go up from where he was and his arms were already tiring from holding up his unnatural weight. He unhooked his legs intending to put them back on the ground. Don didn't expect the momentum that his dropping legs would generate and his arms were yanked free of the limb. He spun in the air and landed face-first on a tangle of the tree's roots.

Don lay there, giving himself some time to groan and recuperate as a coppery taste flooded his mouth. He also checked his stats. The short attempt drained a shocking amount of Don's SP and he was also missing almost 10 more HP from his total after all the little falls he took throughout the night. He was going to need to start with all the SP he could get if he was going to actually drag his fat ass all the way up to the nuts.

Don rolled over to his back. He watched Cel glide back down to him.

“What are you doing?” She asked

I can’t climb that thing when I’m dead tired. Let me rest for a bit. Don fully expected Cel to come up with another reason for Don to suffer but she surprisingly agreed.

“I guess it can’t be helped with how imbalanced your stats are. Take the time to come up with a better strategy while you’re at it. That was some quality slapstick but you’re going to need to do better than that if you want to get any of those nuts tonight.”

Don mulled over his options and came up with one he thought was pretty good.

Why don’t you just grab them? You don’t have any trouble flying up there. Cel laughed at his suggestion.

“There's no way I could harvest those things! They’re bigger than I am. You’re the herbalist here anyways. I found the plants, it’s your job to figure out how to bring them home.”

Don didn’t think it was that funny but something she said prompted a new line of thought.

Maybe Herbalism is the answer here. All I can do is pick plants, but there aren’t any restrictions on what I do with them once I harvest them. Don mused to himself

Without any concrete ideas though, Don let himself lapse into a meditative trance. It was rudely broken by Cel a few minutes later.

“What are you doing? She complained, “Your SP is full again, let's see if you can actually make it onto a branch this time.”

Don was still partially immersed in the clarity he can only find through meditation and let the irritating comment pass. He had an idea.

Can you use your [Natural Resonance] again? Don asked

“Why? We already know where the food is.”

Just do it. Don wasn’t in the mood to explain his plan, he would rather just test it out. He felt the brief draining tug at his center as Cel activated her skill. The tree above them lit up like some kind of festive display, but this time, Don looked for vines. No less than three of the neon chords flared into light within the 5-meter radius of her spell. Without waiting for the light to fade, Don peeled the vines free. It was easy now that he knew how and they all came away without tearing. He walked back to the base of the Kaeru tree and lowered himself into a sitting position with the help of the trunk.

Don braided the three vines together. He didn’t really know what he was doing but he knew that a single vine wasn’t enough to hold his weight reliably so he was trying to make a stronger chord. He ended up with an ugly, crooked rope but he managed to twist the ends enough that they held together. Don hefted the vines. They were a little heavy but easy enough to manage. The bulky braids even made it a bit easier to grip.

Cel watched curiously as he worked but didn’t interrupt him. Don took his rope and tossed it up into the tree. It fell back down without accomplishing anything for the first few attempts but Don finally managed to get it over the branch hanging almost directly above the one he fell from earlier. He twisted the two hanging ends and tested them by bending his legs until all his weight was on the vines. They creaked but held. Don reset himself and put his hands as high up the vines as he could reach. He then scrambled up the trunk with his feet. This time when he hooked a leg over the lowest branch, he was able to use the vines to pull himself the rest of the way up until he was straddling the lowest branch in the tree. Cel whooped. Don wasn’t about to forgive her for the humor he felt leaking across their connection while he was struggling with the last stages of his maneuver, but he still appreciated it. Don let himself smile and checked his Status.

HP: 73/90 SP: 41/65 MP: 43/50

Active Effects:

Partial Amnesia: You cannot recall specifics about your life or certain recent events.

Hunger (Rank 3/5): -60% SP regen

Sleep Deprivation (Rank 1/5): -10% WIS and -10% INT

He used more than a third of his total SP just climbing to the first branch. Don decided to try and make it to the next one before resting again. He used his makeshift rope to balance as he pulled himself up to stand on the narrow branch. It bent and swayed under him disconcertingly but grew still once Don was situated. He found that the next branches were much closer now that he was off the ground. Don held onto one of them as he unslung his rope and secured it over a higher branch. It was much easier to make the next step. The branch he aimed for was only as high as his chest instead of being over his head. When he was straddling it he still had 33 SP remaining. His next step was even more efficient but Don’s grip on his rope was growing weak so he decided to rest again. He put his back against the trunk and did his best not to look down. It was a long way now and considering how bad his fall from the first branch hurt, he didn’t want to take any risks. Don waited for his SP to regenerate. He didn’t dare meditate in his precarious position so he had to just wait it out. He started fiddling with his rope. It had come partially undone during his climb. The ends were a little torn up from his claws and one of the vines was a little flattened in the middle too. Don set to rebraiding it and didn’t notice what Cel was doing until she asked him to scoot over.

Don looked down to see the fairy clutching small cracks on the surface of the tree. Her face was red with exertion but she was smiling broadly.

What are you doing? Don asked

“Well, this looked like fun. I wanted to try it.” Cel replied. By the sense of joy and accomplishment flooding through their connection, Don knew she wasn’t lying either.

You know you can fly right? Don pointed out

“Yeah but I’ve been flying around for days. It’s almost too easy. Flying up into a tree is no different from walking a straight line but this climbing thing, I could get into this.” Cel reached up for another handhold. The flake of tree bark came away from the trunk and Cel fell into the air with a frustrated curse. She still managed to glide onto a lower branch without any difficulty.

Don shook his head and checked his status again. His stamina had recovered to the point where Don was ready to make the next two steps which would finally bring him in range of the nuts.

With 3 ranks of hunger, and with food finally in reach, Don wasted no time in reaching out for a Kaeru nut.

"Not that one, it's not ripe." Cel chided Don. She had flown back up to hover brightly next to him. Don swatted her away but she easily evaded the attack. Unfortunately, in his moment of annoyance, Don forgot where he was and the swipe unbalanced him. Don reached out and snagged the branch, already heavy with nuts. He thought he caught himself for a moment. In the next moment, he continued tipping over, the branch in his hand unequal to the task of supporting his weight. There was a crunch, a snap, a jerk and Don was suddenly freefalling. He didn't fall for long before he came to a sudden stop, held up by a lower branch. The brief pause ended just as suddenly with a loud crack and Don was falling again.

This process repeated three more times before Don found himself tangled up in a large, sharp bush at the base of the tree. One of the branches he broke in his fall crashed down next to him, but then rolled onto Don, pushing him down into the thorns even harder. He was pretty sure he cracked at least one rib. Breathing was agony. This wasn't helped by the fact that Don was once again low on SP from his climb. A cursory check told him he was down to 52/90 HP. He got the branch off of himself and clumsily extricated himself from the prickly bush before dropping to a mostly bare patch of earth.

It wasn't until Don's SP was mostly recovered that he realized he was still clutching onto something. He had about 6 feet of a branch, still covered in food! Don quickly pulled a nut from the branch, smashed it against a nearby boulder sticking up from the earth and stuffed the flesh into his mouth. Then he spat it out.

"ugh, what was that?" Don thought

"That was what I tried to warn you about." Cel chided "Those nuts weren't ripe." Seeing Don's blank stare she clarified. "They weren't ready to eat yet." She squeezed her eyes shut and the majority of the clusters on Don's branch glowed green. With obvious strain in her voice, she said: "These are too young". She squeezed her eyes shut even tighter and the glow faded before fewer clusters lit up with an earthy inner light. "These are ready to eat" the glow faded again as Don tried to memorize the 'ready' nuts. "And these are overripe," Cel said as a very few nuts began glowing red. "Picking unripe food is usually a bad idea. Not only can you not eat it now, but you also can't eat it later on when it would normally ripen."

Don looked at all the unripe nuts he had wasted. He felt ashamed. He was supposed to be collecting food for the tribe and he only managed to destroy more food they could have gathered themselves. All because he kept ignoring Cel or refusing her advice. Sure she wasn't as forthcoming as Don would like, she was short-tempered and annoying, but things always seemed to work out better when he listened to her. Don might never have even found any food without her help. It was easy to blame his current situation on her after the way she took charge in the crypt but with his little misadventures with the various ColoColo and now even with a task as simple as gathering food, Don was coming to realize that his previous training and skills, whatever they might have been, were useless here. He was going to have to trust Cel. After all, she did seem to be trying to help, in her own twisted way. He wasn't ready to admit this out loud of course. His pride wouldn't allow that. Fortunately for them both, the decision echoed across their Soul-Bond, resonating deeply with them both. They would now trust each other on a deeper level than either of them would consciously understand.