Team Ben was stopped and staring at the crystal spire jutting up from an ancient, stony stump. Their [True Map] had led them here, stubbornly insisting against both Vivi and Ghost Ears's insider knowledge that this was the only proper entrance point for hunting down the closest of the Gremlins.

"What is it?" Ben asked, perfectly content to both be the leader, as well as the guy who didn't know things.

"Obviously it's some kind of Crystal," Vivi said, verbally capitalizing the word 'Crystal' and making it obvious he was talking about an entire class of things, rather than simply being a pain. "No way to know for sure unless someone touches it, but I'd bet-"

"Oh, it's a [Wilderness Crystal]," Short Bus said, nodding his head, which was about even with the top of the purple, blue, and iridescent spire. "Yeah, yeah," Short Bus continued, and Ben got to watch how an Aeon Slug face-palmed. Vivi's eye-stalks shot up, all alert, then fell forward limply, smacking him in his own face. Ben chuckled when Vivi recovered, and slugged his way over to Short Bus, grabbing his hand off the crystal with a telekinetic yank of his eye-stalks.

"And it could have been a random [Teleportation Spire] and yeeted," Vivi said yeeted, and Ben immediately noticed that, "you straight into an active volcano, or worse, a violet core dungeon. I don't know why our maps are insisting that we head into one of the shifting parts of the Overcavern Forest, but from this point on. . ." Vivi took a deep, sluggy breath, bodily forced Short Bus away from obsessively poking one of the sharp, jagged growths on the spire, and 'stood' with it behind him. The point rose up behind the mountainous ridge of his body, creating what Ben felt must have been an unintentionally striking image. "Questors, who I have involuntarily conscripted to my cause, I thank you," Vivi said, and gave a bow with all the parts of him that could bow, "though you are forced to be here on pain of death, I thank you again."

"Did you just say 'yeet'?" Ben asked, interrupting the formal and somewhat forced atmosphere Vivi was strongarming into existence.

"Smartest Phones are extremely popular in the Summoners Tower," Vivi said, then cast [Silence] on the group, "We embark now on a dangerous mission into the Shifting Woods, an ever-changing swath of reality filled with danger, mystery, and treasure. No two trips into the Shifting Woods are ever the same-"

"Oh, everybody think really hard!" Short Bus telepathically said, excited, "he can silence our mouths, but he can't [Silence] our minds."

"Oh shit Bus, you're right!" Ben telepathically said, delighted to find that Short Bus could host a telepathic Zoom meeting of sorts, acting as a router for mental communication.

"This is a useful thing to know," Ghost Ears mused, his voice louder than most of them were used to hearing from his [Extremely Tiny] body.

"************" Red's thoughts were a broadscale broadcast of violent images and disturbing sounds. Thankfully, Team Ben featured as the perpetrators of the violence and disturbing sounds, and helpless gremlins as the victims.

"Red your brain is acting up," Short Bus said, while Vivi silently fumed, having not been included in the list of people allowed to speak.

"*********#$**@*----- Oh, I think I figured it out," Red said suddenly, her voice sounding mostly normal, "Yes, a fine skill to use to kill those little wretches who pulled me from The Beyond."

"Could I finish please," Vivi said, sounding defeated. Team Ben, to their credit, then gave Vivi their full attention.

"Proceed, [Royal Summoner]," Ben graciously intoned, the crown resting light on his brow.

"Thank you," Vivi said, then continued with a bit less pomp, "I'll keep it brief. From here on out, just don't touch anything weird. This applies to all of you, but especially Short Bus," Vivi said, and the group only then realized Short Bus had somehow snuck behind Vivi and was once again obsessively touching the [Wilderness Crystal] and muttering to himself. Quite a [Sneak], for a practically deaf person of that size!

"Bus, come on," Ben said, and Short Bus stopped trying to break one of the evenly interspaced crystal growths off the [Wilderness Crystal].

"Especially Short Bus," Vivi repeated, "at least until I've done some basic identification work. And, I want all of us to keep some perspective on this trip: We aren't here to complete our Quest in one go, we don't even need to kill a single Elder Gremlin to satisfy The Quest and buy us another week. According to our [Rule Lawyer] and his team, all we've got to do is make a day trip at least once a week. We could keep that pace up for decades at least, not kill a single Elder Gremlin," Vivi missed the sharp look Red directed at Ben, and also missed the subtle head shake Ben directed back at Red, "and not suffer any ill consequences. There's no need for us to put ourselves in danger, agreed?"

"Agreed, lord Vivi," Ghost Ears said, adopting the respectful tone he always used when talking with the Aeon Slug.

"All right," Ben said, "everyone, move out!"

--

Light filtered down green through the dense, cavernous canopy that so characterized the Overcavern Forest. Team Ben walked in careful silence, not wanting to add to the ambient sounds of distant buzzing; of the flapping of giant wings; of howls and clicks and the cackles of distant monsters looking for something to fight. The gloom was oppressive, and the gigantic proportions of the forest confused the senses, leaving Ben unable to accurately gauge how far away everything was.

Nobody wanted to speak, not even telepathically, unwilling to split their focus away from their assigned tasks. Red, keeping an ironclad overwatch of a short distance sphere around them. Her eyes hovered overhead, missing nothing.

Short Bus and Ghost Ears ranged ahead of the group, scouting for threats. Somehow, the smallest and largest member of the party were also the most stealthy.

Vivi kept up a constant stream of defensive spells, and remained alert and nerdy, ready to provide a prompt and concise answer about anything that looked remotely magical or dangerous, should anyone ask.

Ben, was luggage. Anything anyone needed, he had. Anything anyone found that looked remotely interesting went straight into the Utility Pocket. Ben fully acknowledged that until he [Evolved] back into a full human, and was able to get his class system fixed, he was basically dead weight.

He also acknowledged that Team Ben was better suited to seeing a fight coming from literal miles away and deciding if it was worth the trouble, as opposed to taking on all comers in a straight up brawl. It was nice way to say that their party composition was all utility, and no DPS. Ben was hoping to fix that problem with nuclear bombs, but he didn't have those stocked in his Utility Pocket yet, so for now, Team Ben was all about sneaking.

Vivi slugged his way over to Ben and 'handed' him a screen displaying his [True Map], which was absolutely covered in red dots. Nobody had needed to explain to Ben that the red dots were monsters. Ben shook his head and put his finger to his lips, and Vivi nodded with his eye-stalks, then pointed at a distant tree.

Crawling on a distant tree was a titanic insect, easily dwarfing the size of the Bladed Slayer, or indeed, any living creature Ben had ever seen. The scale of it beggared belief, and it was surrounded by a swarm of insects that must have each been the size of a house.

[Plus Player one time tooltip!]

[You are looking at a [Titanic Skull Cicada], just one of the many types of Titanic beings that can be found in the Overcavern Forest! Gaze upon it's majesty, and know for a fact that the recommended raid size for fighting such a creature is 5,000 - 10,000 combat classes at the layer cap. Fully equipped in the best enchantments money can buy. Lucky for everyone that wandering Titans are neutral monsters, and will remain neutral monsters for as long as the Capitol Crystal doesn't fall to monsters!]

[What an ominous statement!]

Ben shook his head and continued praying that his group could get through the day without getting into a fight they couldn't win. Ben looked at his own [True Map] and shared it with Vivi, pointing at a golden dot on the northern edge. The dot represented the closest Elder Gremlin, and according to the map, they weren't even close yet.

"How much longer," Ben whispered as quietly as he could, which was still a bit louder than he felt he should dare to speak.

"Just a little more, and we'll be off the hook," Vivi whispered back, even more quietly than Ben. It didn't escape his notice that the Aeon Slug was trembling.

"Fuck," Ben said, and they kept walking.

--

Gradually, then abruptly, the forest had become more beautiful. The oppressive gloom and the many, many wandering Titans had cleared up and given way to an area more peaceful. It shone with nearly rainbow light, and Ben spotted caves under the skyscraper sized trees of the Overcavern Forest that led deeper, with lights coming from them.

"Dungeons," Vivi said, pointing at the nearest one, "extremely weak ones. That right there? That's the lowest grade of a Violet Core dungeon I've ever seen, look at how it's just barely affecting the light."

"Huh," Ben said, looking at the nearest cave, "I guess that light is a little purple. What, do they all start as white?"

"Yeah," Vivi said, "but I don't like this at all. This looks like a dungeon nursery, and that means a mature Violet Core has got to be wandering around here somewhere."

"Lord Vivi," Ghost Ears said respectfully, "I believe you are correct. There are no monsters in this area, which means they've been driven off by a superior being of some kind. How much farther do we have to range?" Vivi sighed.

"Deeper," was all he said, and the group started to feel uneasy.

--

The murk had returned, and ominously purple lights danced in the air.

"Vivi," Red of all people hissed, "we can't go further than this! I can practically see the danger in the air!"

"Uh, you don't need magic eyes to see that sister," Short Bus said, his eyes wide as he stared at the pillar of purple light in the distance.

"This place is seriously giving me the creeps," Ben said, rubbing his arms.

"If we don't keep going," Vivi said, his skin starting to ripple colors the way it always did when he was scared, "The Quest will strike us dead the moment we turn back. The Gremlin is this way, and we have to put in a good amount of effort to reach it, and we still haven't satisfied the requirements yet."

"Deeper?" Ghost Ears asked.

"Deeper."

--

They rounded a corner, and saw a strange tree from behind, with purple light coming from it. With apprehension, they walked further to see the tree had been twisted to from a horrible face, with burning purple fire inside it.

"Deeper," Vivi said, the group starting to feel real terror. To their horror, they had entered an entire forest of trees just like the one they'd seen.

"Deeper!" Vivi said.

"Deeper!" Vivi cried, the purple fire from the tree blasting out and nearly killing Ghost Ears in a consuming blast.

"Deeeeeeeppppppeeeeeerrrrrrrrrr," one of the trees intoned at them with a malevolent, deep voice, then cackled. Then, all the face trees began laughing, fire belching out and scalding them with the heat.

"Oh my Aeons," Vivi said, suddenly all intellectual, "that's an actual portal to an actual hellscape" Ben smacked Vivi upside his eyestalk when he saw the Aeon Slug start to get closer to start investigating. Vivi, without missing a beat, continued speaking. "Whatever's twisting the forest like this must be like, insanely powerful. Deeper, but we're almost done."

--

They stood hidden and trembling at a distance, gripped by the deepest kind of terror each one of them was individually capable of feeling. Before them a great violet pyramid rested in the forest, the stone lit from within by the sheer magical force of the violet dungeon core contained inside it. Ben knew, knew with the deepest part of his being that the Violet Core boss monster was on the other side of the pyramid, and that even taking a single step forward would alert it to their presence. They stood no chance at all.

"V-v-v-vivi?" Ben managed to stutter out, "i-i-i-is this d-d-deep enough?"

"Y-y-yeah," Vivi squeaked out, "yeah, that's deep enough."

"Guys," Short Bus said, his eyes wide, "I'm so fucking scared right now."

Team Ben ran from the Overcavern Forest like cowards. But, like cowards, they would survive another day. When the returned to their apartment, Ben felt struck by the fact that he was not as prepared as he thought he was.

"Next time we go in there?" Ben promised himself, "we're going to be fucking ready, and we aren't going to be fucking walking."