“Why was it inside the mouth?” Riu asked as I wiped my hand along the side of my robe.

  “No idea,” I replied, picking a bit of blood clumped blonde hair from my fingernail.

  The fairy was just a bit bigger than my hand. Well, I think she was. Most of her was in a gnarled pile at my feet.

  When I inspected her, the system labeled her as a “Spore Fairy” and that I needed to kill three more to unlock its information. Then I gasped. Riu and Kojo stared at me with concern.

  “What is it?” Kojo asked. Then he noticed I was smiling. “Are you alright?”

  “Oh, I’m great,” I said, plucking my prize from the floating menu that hovered over the fairy’s mangled corpse. “Better than fine. I’m fantastic.” And for once, I wasn’t being sarcastic.

  The grimoire appeared within a puff of smoke, then gently floated down to my open hands. It was thick, about the size of a school textbook. It was bound in green dyed leather, the image of a leaf dominating the front cover. It opened automatically as I stared at it, mist flowing from the pages.

  Would you like to learn the following spell?

  Venomous Touch

  Spell Tier: C

  MP Cost: 13

  Duration: 30 Seconds

  Spell Type: Nature

  Description: This spell imbues your hand with a powerful venomous aura. Any living creature touched by this aura will receive the status [Major Ailment] and suffer continual damage for (5) minutes.

  Note: Creatures affected by this skill become immune to it for a period of (24) hours if they survive the initial exposure.

  A separate notification appeared, hovering next to the spell’s description.

  Would you like to activate the skill – Grimoire Roulette?

  I looked over the offered spell one more time. It wasn’t necessarily bad on its own, but for me it was kind of useless. If I ever got close enough to touch my enemies, I was probably about to die. And though it was a part of myself I didn’t particularly like, I did love to gamble.

  Here goes nothing. I activated grimoire roulette.

  The pages of the grimoire started flipping by themselves, multicolored light flashing from the parchment. Whatever skill it landed on I was forced to keep. I just had to pray it was a good one.

  Downpour

  Spell Tier: C

  MP Cost: 40

  Duration: 10 minutes

  Area of Effect: 30 feet

  Cooldown: 1 hour

  Spell Type: Nature/Summoning

  Description: This spell summons a rain cloud in the sky above the caster that will continually generate heavy rain for the duration of the spell.

  Note: Summoning augments also apply to this spell.

  The first thing I noticed was an XP notification for grimoire roulette. I hadn’t even considered that it too could gain levels. Then I spotted the hefty mana cost of my new spell. It was far higher than anything I’d seen so far, and for a moment I had a hard time seeing why. It’s just rain, it can’t be that strong, can it? But what if we could drink it? That would eliminate any need to scavenge for water. And I don’t know what summoning augments are exactly, but I have a few ideas. Plus, I had to remember this was the level one version of the spell. My other tier C spell, fireball, had grown in power significantly from just level one to level three. Maybe this would be similar?

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The grimoire turned into what I could only describe as magic particles, then the bits of green light flowed into my chest. It felt kind of like someone had pressed a heating pad against my skin.

  I told Riu and Kojo what spell I’d obtained. Kojo looked particularly interested in it.

  “If we see more of these things,” I said, nudging the mushroom guy’s corpse with my boot. “I’m taking them down.”

  “Understandable,” Kojo commented, leaning down. He plucked a small glowing stone from the splatter of gore. “The system says this is a magical amplifier, but it’s too small to use on its own. Perhaps we can gather more of these as well?”

  “Maybe,” I replied, walking forward. “We’ll keep an eye out on the way. But we should be going.”

  Kojo immediately started leading us forward. He assured the group again that we would be reaching a much less disgusting portion of the forest soon. Riu looked a little sick as we walked, probably from the smooshed humanoid that we left puddled on the ground. Couldn’t quite blame him for that. My entire hand was still blood slick and sticky. But I would crush another if it meant I got my hands on another grimoire.

  We ended up encountering two more of the mushroom people on the way to that creek Kojo mentioned. I’d blasted one with a fireball without thinking about it. It caught on fire easily, but the “forest” around it proved basically flame proof.

  Neither of them had a grimoire on them. I guessed those drops were rare. That or I was unlucky. One of the mushroom dudes dropped something called a “Spore Heart” that the system designated as an alchemy ingredient. It looked like a tiny green mushroom to me. Riu ended up holding onto it.

  I’d also killed enough of the mushroom men to unlock their information, but it was sparce. They were apparently nature constructs the spore fairies used to carry them around. Some of them the fairies used as mobile homes or minions. They dropped those spore hearts and then something called a “Root Actuator.” I had no idea what that could be.

  It took a while to reach the area with the creek, but when we broke through the underbrush and into the light, I almost didn’t believe my eyes. We’d stepped from a nightmare jungle to a place ripped straight from a fairytale.

  The trees and plants were bright and healthy, the grass long and smooth. Light shone everywhere from jutting blue crystals that dotted the forest. A small creek wound through a clearing about fifty yards in front of us, the water clear. There were a few white-tailed deer drinking from it, green dragonflies buzzing around their heads. There were also clouds of what looked like sparkles floating about.

  “Wow,” Riu said, lost in the moment.

  But I knew better than most what a pretty lie looked like. Even if Kojo hadn’t told us about what’d happened here, the perfection on display would set me on edge.

  “Be careful,” I said, stepping into the light.

  “We set up camp there,” Kojo pointed at a bend in the creek. “But there are no signs of the fires we built.” He looked around, his brow furrowing. “It’s as if we were never here.”

  “This is like a set in a play,” I said, slowly advancing through the waist high grass. “This is probably meant to lower people’s guard. Once they’ve been dealt with, the stage is reset.”

  We reached the water, the smell of wildflowers thick in the air. There were dozens of them scattered along the shallow bank, most of them red and yellow. Riu leaned down to them, and I blocked his descent with the end of my staff.

  “I wouldn’t touch anything,” I said. “This whole place is some kind of trap. That could include the flowers.”

  Kojo peered into the water. It was clear enough that we could see the bottom. Besides a few minnows swimming downstream, there was nothing remarkable about it. I could see why someone would trust it was safe enough to drink.

  We rested for about twenty minutes before we pressed on. There was an incredibly shallow portion of the creek that we jumped over. None of us wanted the water to even touch us, just in case.

  Then we came across a dirt path, the ground recently churned by many feet.

  “These are boot prints,” Kojo said, running a gentle hand across the ground. “There should have been many more infected. Perhaps they were drawn deeper inside.”

  “And right toward the kiosk.’ I groaned.

  “This path does head right for it,” Kojo added. “I sense our objective is close.”

  Riu moved past us both, an edge to his eyes that I’d never seen. “Let me go,” he said. “Alone.”

  “What? Why would we do that?” I asked. Something had gotten into him. I realized then that I’d never even asked him who he was looking for.

  “I will sneak,” Riu answered. “See what is in front of us.”

  Going alone like that was dangerous. Too big a risk. But it also made sense. If we got caught out, I couldn’t run. For me there was victory or death. My leg ensured I could never run from a fight.

  “You have silent feet,” Kojo observed. “Stick to the side of the path, and you should be fine.”

  Riu didn’t hesitate even for a moment. Within a few seconds he’d disappeared between the dense trees. But Kojo was right. Even when I focused, I couldn’t hear him move unless he was right next to me.

  “He can handle himself,” Kojo said, turning to me. “You needn’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried,” I lied.

  He smiled. “With luck, he will report the area before us is clear and we will find this kiosk without trouble.”

  I chuckled at that. “Except we know there’ll be a boss there.”

  “Do we?” He looked down the path, eyes narrowed. “Perhaps only some kiosks are guarded by bosses, or perhaps none of them are. Believe nothing the game masters tell you. Trust only in your eyes and ears. Those at least will not betray you.”

  Except sometimes they do, I thought, remembering the man on the bridge. The one I swerved to avoid. The one who I learned later wasn’t even there.

  One of those glowing blue crystals was nearby, and so I attempted to inspect it. When nothing popped up, I leaned down and plucked it from the ground. It continued to glow, and so I stuffed it into my inventory. If we ever found ourselves in a cave or something, they could come in handy.

  “You should probably grab some of these too,” I said, grunting as I straighten my sore back. “They might even be worth some mone-—”

  A massive shape stepped out of the bushes, face half moss eaten, a red mushroom in one eye socket. Vine tentacles swarmed on either side of its ribs, and it turned its giant head toward us, its remaining eye focused right on me.

  “That’s a bear,” I said, as if it needed classification.

  It stood up on its back legs, roared, then the forest all around us filled with groans.

  I shot the bear with a fireball right as dozens of infected poured out of the forest.

  We were surrounded.