Liquid floods my mouth.
It’s slightly viscous, and tastes like iron.
I spit it out onto the ground, and see its deep red color.
[Well, that fruit’s a bust!]
{Yeah, I guess its name makes sense though.}
I toss the fruit we’re holding, which appraisal identified as a Bloodfruit, aside.
[Next up!]
Gloria grabs a light brown, pear-shaped fruit from a big leaf we’ve been using as a plate.
It’s been a little while since we made our way into the new jungle area, and we’ve mostly adjusted by now. We found a little shelter that, so far, doesn’t seem to belong to any other monsters, there’s a little stream nearby for water, and now we’re trying to find the best tasting of the various fruit trees growing in the jungle here. It’s not difficult work, most of them have been pretty good so far.
We haven’t encountered any mean neighbors yet either, so we’ve been taking it much easier than usual. Though, something about the monsters we have seen is… off.
They’ve all been running from us, but the glimpses I’ve been getting are odd, to say the least.
[Slightly, lots of juice. It’s fine, but not worth the effort.]
{Agreed.}
[Next!]
Gloria tosses the fruit aside.
We haven’t come across any more traces of human settlement since the Manaflow tree, unfortunately. It’s not for lack of looking either, we’ve been doing a lot of exploring since coming down here. If there is something here, it’s hidden well.
We take a bite of the next fruit. It’s chewy, almost rubbery. It kind of reminds me of gum.
Swish
Something moves in the bushes nearby.
I’m not concerned, this happens quite frequently. We’ve been being observed since the moment we came down here, but we’ve never managed to catch a glimpse of our observers. At this point, it’s just a part of life down here. I don’t think they’re dangerous, whatever they are. I think they’re watching us because they’re afraid of us.
[Ptheh!] Gloria spits out the fruit [Can’t deal with that anymore, yuck. Next!]
{So, based on flavor, texture, and rarity, we have a total of… three fruits to add to our diet. Not bad, it’s good to have some good food for once in our life.}
[Next, let’s get some meat!]
{I don’t know about that, everything around us still seems pretty scared of us.}
[Hehehe… That’s no issue! Have you already forgotten our roots?]
{What do you mean?}
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
[Tsk tsk tsk. Fir, you’ve gotten far too used to hunting directly.]
{No, you were the one who did all of that…}
[Remember our first meat, Fir! Traps, Fir, traps! We need use traps!]
{Huh, that’s… not a bad idea!}
[Hehehehe! I know, I’m a genius!]
{So, how will we set this up?}
[Here’s my idea…]
We trot through the thick brush of the jungle slowly, carefully stepping down a planned path. The only light illuminating our path is the odd bioluminescent plant, which there are actually a surprising variety of in this jungle.
[Everything is as planned so far!]
{Yeah, we just started the plan, not really much that could have gone wrong yet.}
Plants crunch beneath our every step. If there’s anything else in this part of the jungle right now, it knows we’re here.
[Now, get ready for phase two!]
Finally, we reach the next part of the path. Suddenly, the path becomes devoid of any kind of scattered plant life. Now, our footsteps are silent, padded by the soft, almost muddy dirt.
Soul sight!
I gather mana into our eyes, and slowly begin looking around. It takes a bit, but eventually my eyes land squarely on a faint light glimmering in the dark corners of the jungle. It’s moving slowly, clearly taking its time looking for something. For us.
Our observers have completely evaded us thus far, but no longer. We won’t just catch a glimpse of one of them, but actually catch one.
[It’s within range! Let’s do this!]
Being careful to make no noise, we climb up the tightly clustered branches of a small tree. We must’ve tried this a hundred times by now, making sure we could do it silently.
Once we reach our designated spot, we push a small rock off the branch of the tree, sending it plummeting to the ground. It lands exactly where we’d hoped, on a small pile of delicate sticks and dry leaves.
As soon as it hits the spot, a loud crunch echoes through the trees of the jungle.
And our pursuer takes the bait.
{So, how will this work again?}
[Sigh! Working with someone who cannot comprehend my genius is so frustrating…]
{Just explain the plan to me Einstein.}
[It’s super simple! I’ve noticed that the things following us seem to use the noise we make to keep track of us. That’s why we find it so hard to see them, they don’t need to be within our line of sight to watch us! We’ll spend a few days clearing a small area of all the stuff on the ground that makes noise, so we have an area where we can be hidden from them. Then, we hide somewhere that’ll give us a good physical advantage, maybe find a small tree to climb. Once we’re in position, we throw somethin’ to make noise below us, luring them to come check out what made the sound. That’s when we drop on ‘em, get a good look at ‘em, and get some meat!]
{Hmm… okay, yeah, that could work. Let’s do it.}
A small shimmering blue light sits right below us, looking around, trying to find us. It’s time to say hello.
[Let’s do this!]
We drop down, pushing ourselves off the branches as we fall to try to get a bit more speed.
We land directly on top of the little blue light, and I immediately feel something struggling beneath our body weight.
Let’s see what you are!
I dispel soul sight, and conjure a mana light instead, illuminating the small clearing we made.
Urgh… I don’t think I wanna eat this…
The monster we’re currently on top of is a little green humanoid, with cloudy eyes and large droopy ears. It thrashes around, trying to escape our grasp.
It reminds me of someone else… Hopefully Gloria doesn’t feel like getting another pet.
{So, what should we do?}