In the middle of a forest clearing stood a campfire. Surrounding the campfire are 3 players and 3 stone wagons. The players are ShadowShark, Ragnarok, and Phil (all humans). They've been tasked with watching the wagons as their other party members logged off and took care of 'personal needs'.

Halfway through their watch they were joined by 2 strangers. One is a grey scaled draconian and the other is a human with his left hand missing. As they were leisurely talking, bright lights appeared signifying their party members logging in. As the other party members approached the fire, Phil got up and met them halfway. A small girl that only came up to his chest stood in front of the group.

[Phil] "Hey Sensei."

[Sensei] "I told you not to call me that. When it's free time, call me Aubrey." Crosses arms and pouts.

[Phil] "My bad. Anyways, we have some interesting guests." Points back at the campfire.

[Aubrey] "Who are they?"

[Phil] Suddenly finds the sky very beautiful. "I uh... didn't get their names."

[Aubrey] Sighs. "Didn't you ever learn manners?" Lets him stew a bit in silence as everyone looks at him then sighs again. "Come on let's introduce ourselves."

There are only 3 logs at the fire for seats. ShadowShark and Ragnarok occupy one. The strangers take up one. And Aubrey sat on the remaining one by herself as the others stood around in a circle.

[Aubrey] "Hello, I'm Aubrey and I'm this party's leader."

[Ian] "Nice to meet you Aubrey. I'm Z an- oof" Gets hit in the side with Ken's elbow. "Wha- Oh right. Ahem. Sorry about that. Just changed my name recently. I'm Ian and this is Ken."

[ShadowShark] "Don't you have to erase your character to change your name?"

[Ian] "The demand was so high that you can now change it twice for free. But it only lasts for the next 3 weeks. After that they'll charge you to change just your name."

[ShadowShark] "Sweet."

ShadowShark and Ragnarok log off and two others occupy the log.

[Aubrey] "Nice to meet you Ian and Ken. Where are you headed?"

[Ian] "We're headed to the water."

[Aubrey] "You mean the sea?"

[Ian] Shrugs. "No one's gotten there yet so some think it could be fresh water."

[Aubrey] "We're also headed in that direction. Would you like to travel with us?"

[Ian] "I don't mind. What about you Ken?" Looks at Ken for an answer but only gets a hard stare back. Sighs. "Alright, we're in."

[Aubrey] "We'll head out once the sun comes up. In the mean time, would you mind telling us how you lost your hand?"

[Ian] "Well... I got hungry and-"

[Aubrey] Holds up both of her hands. "Stop! I don't want to hear something that gruesome."

[Ian] "Huh? I was just going to say th-"

[Aubrey] "No! Shut up!"

[Ian] "But-"

[Aubrey] Gets ups and covers her ears as she walks away. "Lalalalalalala!"

[Ian] Stares at her in silence not understanding what happened before turning to Phil who took her log. "Was it something I said?"

[Phil] "Don't worry about it. I'll talk to her later. I'm just thankful you didn't give away any spoilers."

[Ian] "Right... Where was I?"

[Phil] "You just killed the demon and Ken killed the minions."

[Ian] "Right. Well not much happened after that. The only thing we encountered before finding your camp was some ents."

"Ents?"

[Ian] "Tree monsters."

[Phil] "But how did you lose your hand? And why did you change your name? And why the heck are you carrying 2 swords?"

[Ian] "Like I was trying to tell Aubrey, I lost my hand because I was hungry and saw an apple on the ground. But when I reached for the apple, it suddenly split open revealing rows of teeth and chomped my hand off before I could blink. It turned out to be an apple variant ent. Speaking of," Turns to the crowd. "does anyone know how to grow back a hand?"

[girl in crowd] "I do. But it requires 2 different magics with at least a Beginner rank in both to combine them. And none of us meet the requirements."

[Ian] "Bummer." Turns back to Phil. "What were your other questions?"

[Phil] "Why did you change your name?"

[Ian] "Ah, I changed my name so my ex-party can't contact me."

[Phil] "Then why didn't Ken change his name?"

[Ian] "They never tried to contact him." Shrugs. "Honestly, I think they forgot about him."

[Phil] "Last question. Why do you carry 2 swords?"

[Ian] "Ah, these are the 2 starting swords we were given at the temple. I offered them to Ken, but he seems to like fighting with his hands."

Ents

Spoiler :

Inspired by Dungeon of Apples. Please note that all ents are trees and not the fruit like in the other story. And that these are just some of the variants.

Apple

Unlike the apples in the other story, these apples are mere puppets. The ent that controls them uses binding magic to control them and portal magic to transport what they eat into its' hollow trunk. Similar to the other apples, these apples open up to reveal a lack of fruit and a surplus of teeth.

Lemon

Uses acid magic to dissolve its' food before absorbing it.

Pomegranate

Uses a combination of bomb and blood magic. The core of its' fruit is infused with bomb magic and the seeds are hardened blood. When it senses prey, it'll drop a fruit and activate its' bomb magic causing the fruit to explode like a grande sending its' seeds in all directions. Once the seeds are embedded into its' prey it'll activate its' blood magic to spreed its' influence through the prey's blood system. Once it has control of all the prey's blood the ent will remove the blood from the prey and absorb it.

(Think of bomb magic being similar to Gambit's ability.)

Orange

The fruit can secrete poison in either gas or liquid form.

Cherry

Uses taste and smell magic. (Yes, I know. Most people would probably expect the cherry to have bomb magic to make a cherry bomb.) The first creature that eats from the tree is the ent's 'target'. The ent will then continue to alter the taste and smell of the fruit until the 'target' creature finds its' fruit irresistible. This will cause predators to camp at the tree because the prey will risk their lives to get a bite of the fruit. In turn, the predators will offer a part of their kill to the tree or the tree will 'rebel'.