Chapter 5: If Lost, Please Feed
The silence in the clearing was so thick you could have carved it with a butter knife.
Elizabeth was vibrating. Not visibly, but Liam could tell, the same way you can tell a pressure cooker is about to go before the valve actually blows. Rogue, completely unaware that he had just flirted with someone who could probably out-grind him blindfolded, was still smirking.
Mirra had better survival instincts. She grabbed Rogue by the back of his cloak and hauled him toward the bushes. "Stop talking," she hissed. "Stop moving. Stop breathing if you can manage it. That girl has a kill-streak in her eyes."
Liam, meanwhile, was checking his inventory.
[Rabbit Toad Hind Leg (Raw) x1]
[Rabbit Toad Venom Gland x1]
[Status: Poison Immune — Permanent]
I am eighteen years old, he thought, with the exhausted clarity of a man who had just been paralysed face-down in forest dirt. I am a legal adult. I can de-bone a duck in twelve seconds. And yet here I am, being treated like a runaway toddler by the girl who beat me in the midterms.
He pushed himself upright, armour clanking, and typed into party chat: [Quest: 2/50. We are wasting daylight.]
"Wasting daylight?!" Elizabeth rounded on him, cat ears pinned flat. "You were just paralysed in the dirt because you treated a venomous monster like a juice box. The game has been live for three hours, and you’re already speedrunning your own death."
Liam had to tilt his head back so far to look at her that his helmet nearly slid off.
[It tasted like grape soda], he typed. [High quality. 8.5 out of 10.]
"IT’S POISON," Elizabeth and Mirra said at the exact same time.
Technically, Liam thought, it’s an unrefined syrup with a toxic finish. A little carbonation, a touch of honey, and you’ve got a bestseller. But sure.
Rogue finally peeled himself free from Mirra’s grip and looked between them with the pragmatic energy of someone who had a quest timer running. "Look, I don’t know if you’re his sister or his legal guardian, but the kid holds aggro. We’ve got 48 more toads to kill before the evening rush, so unless someone has a better tank standing around looking weird in the forest, I say we keep moving."
Elizabeth looked like she was considering several crimes. Then she glanced at the quest notification floating above Liam’s head, did the mental maths, and exhaled through her nose "Fine," she said. "I’m following you. As an observer. Like a safety inspector. Do not touch anything without permission."
"Are you joining the party?" Mirra asked, hopeful.
"No," Elizabeth said, in a tone that closed the subject permanently.
The next hour was a masterclass in psychological endurance for everyone involved except Liam.
The pattern established itself within minutes. A Rabbit Toad would emerge from the brush. Liam would slam into it with [Bull Rush], clinical and efficient, absorbing every hit with the patience of a man who had decided pain was simply data. Rogue would finish it. The toad would die. Then Liam’s hand would move toward the corpse.
"Liam, no," Elizabeth would say.
His hand would stop an inch from whatever organ he was reaching for. [Just a small taste], he’d type. [For science.]
"Put the organ down."
He would put the organ down slowly, with visible grief, and then the moment Elizabeth turned to check her map, something would quietly disappear into his inventory anyway.
She’s good, Liam noted, watching her effortlessly deflect a stray toad that lunged at her from the left without breaking stride. Fast reactions, clean footwork, zero wasted movement. She’s just completely missing the point of this forest. This is a buffet, he thought. She’s treating it like a biohazard site.
"Is she his girlfriend?" Rogue whispered to Mirra as they followed the small clanking figure through the trees.
"She looks like she wants to report him to the authorities," Mirra whispered back. "Also, he’s currently hiding mushrooms in his greaves."
Liam didn’t look up from his quest tracker.
[Quest Progress: 38/50]
[Absorption Progress: 12/1000]
He had managed to pocket four mushrooms, two venom glands, and a tuft of something labelled Rabbit-Fur-Moss that he didn’t fully understand yet but felt important. He’d done most of it while Elizabeth was busy telling Rogue his dagger rotation was inefficient, which it was, and Rogue was nodding with the hollow expression of a man who had stopped listening three corrections ago.
If I use the Hearth flame from Hestia to automate the carbonation, Liam thought, watching another toad collapse in front of him, I can skip the bottling problem entirely. Day 1: permanent poison resistance in a refreshing drink. Nobody else is even close to this.
"That’s fifty," Rogue announced, rolling his shoulders. "Quest done. Let’s get out of here before the kid tries to eat a tree."
Liam stopped walking.
There was a patch of glowing blue mushrooms three feet to his left, pulsing with a faint light that his brain was already translating into flavour profiles.
"Liam," Elizabeth said, her hand moving to her sword with the reflex of someone who had been doing this for an hour. "Don’t."
He turned his head toward her slowly. He didn’t type anything. He just looked at her, the iron helmet giving nothing away, and let the silence stretch until it had a texture.
[They look like blueberries], he finally typed.
"THEY ARE EMITTING PURPLE SMOKE."
[Blueberries can do that.]
"THEY CANNOT."
Rogue turned to Mirra. "Should we leave them alone? This feels like a domestic situation."
"I think this is just what having him at your party is like," Mirra said quietly, with the expression of someone updating their expectations in real time.
Liam took one last long look at the mushrooms, committed their location to memory for later, and turned back toward the town. Four mushrooms in his boots. Ten venom glands. One very angry Elizabeth.
Quest complete.
Good start, he thought, and waddled out of the forest.