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LOCATION: NORTHERN ROAD
CITY: HOURS NORTHWEST OF GRIMWATCH
DATE: NOVEMBER 26, 2025 | TIME: 8:00 AM
Vanessa appeared inside the tent they’d set up just off the Northern Road, in a small, shaded grove. She woke with a sharp intake of breath and blinked against the golden morning light filtering through the canvas.
She stretched, rolled her shoulders, and checked her gear.
Armor—check.
Nightweaver—check.
Daggers—check.
Wraithwood—check.
Satisfied, she glanced back at the tent flap.
Mallory and Darian would probably take a few more minutes. So she closed her eyes and summoned Nyssara.
The ghostly woman manifested beside her in a ripple of pale light, and they fell into quiet conversation. It always felt good—like reconnecting with a part of herself she hadn’t realized was missing until it returned.
When the others finally emerged, Darian took the lead breaking down the tent and stowing it into the travel pack. He slung it over one shoulder, insisting on carrying it himself.
“I’ve got it,” he said with a grin. “No way I’m letting the ladies haul the weight—especially when I’ve got a whole twenty-six Strength.”
Mallory only laughed, noting she had forty-three with her Steward title lifting heavily, of course.
She smirked. “Chivalry still lives.”
Once they were geared up, Vanessa paused. Her gaze caught on the apple trees encircling the grove—lush and thriving, their trunks straight and strong, leaves a deep, glossy green that shimmered slightly in the breeze. The apples stood out like jewels—so red they bordered on unnatural, as if they’d been painted onto the branches.
She stepped closer, drawn in despite herself. Reaching up, she plucked one. It was warm in her hand—not sun-warm, but something deeper, as if the tree had pulled energy straight from the soil and folded it into the fruit.
She focused on it.
---
Heartroot Apple
---
“The System says it’s a Heartroot Apple,” Vanessa said, raising an eyebrow as she sniffed it. The scent was surprisingly clean—like rain on new grass, with just a hint of sweetness underneath.
She took a bite—just as Mallory opened her mouth to warn her of tales of wicked witches.
“Vanessa, wait! What if it’s—”
Too late.
---
You have consumed Heartroot Apple.
+5 HP every five seconds for 90 seconds.
---
A warm current of energy flowed through her—not overwhelming, but clean and constant. Her health was already full, but the sensation was unmistakable.
“Okay, we need to stuff our pockets with these,” she said. “Since we didn’t bring Elise—or anyone else who can heal—this is the next best thing.”
She shared the system message with the others. Darian nodded and began loading the apples into the pack.
They ended up with eighteen in total—between pouches, pockets, and the tent pack. Enough? Hopefully.
“Eat one before a fight, one after,” Vanessa suggested. “Keep your health topped off.”
They checked their maps and set out again, heading northeast along the main road. It was another four hours on foot before the Ironroot Grove would be in sight.
As they walked, the air grew heavier. Humid. The buzzing came first—then the swarms.
Mosquitos the size of bottlecaps closed in, and gadflies began to bite through armor seams. Mallory’s health ticked down by a few points, and she made a disgusted sound.
“Enough,” she muttered—and flared her aura.
A pulse of pressure burst outward. The insects scattered instantly, repelled by something beyond instinct.
Darian blinked. “Okay… what the hell was that?”
“You saw it before, back at The Winking Serpent with the CEO cohort,” Mallory said. “It’s an aura thing.”
Vanessa raised an eyebrow. “I mean, I can make some pretty mean faces—scares off most men I don’t like. But that? That was next-level pest control.”
They laughed.
“Apparently,” Mallory said, “once one of your stats hits fifty, it crosses a threshold. Unlocks new functions. For Charisma, that includes this aura effect. I had no idea it would literally get rid of pests.”
Vanessa glanced down at her stat sheet. “I’m at forty-six Dexterity. Wonder what I’ll get.”
Darian chimed in. “Perception’s at forty-one for me. Almost there.”
Their conversation drifted as they moved deeper into the woods—until the forest around them began to change.
The trees shifted. The bark grew darker. The ground turned soft beneath their boots, and the smell of damp earth grew stronger.
And then, at the edge of a shallow ravine, they saw it.
The Ironroot Grove.
They stood at the edge of a shallow ravine, gazing out over a forest unlike anything they had seen before.
The trees here were massive—taller than any they'd passed on the road, with trunks as thick as siege pillars and bark that shimmered faintly like iron beneath layers of moss and rot. Roots jutted from the ground in twisted arcs, coiling through the soil like petrified serpents. Some had split open, exposing metallic veins that pulsed faintly with a dim gray glow, as if the trees themselves had swallowed ore and learned to live with it.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
A low mist clung to the grove floor, turning the undergrowth into a hazy tangle of shadows and shapes. In the distance, the buzz of wings echoed off the trunks—slow, deliberate, too heavy to belong to normal insects.
Vines hung like cables between the branches, swaying gently despite the still air. Each step forward seemed to dampen sound, as if the grove was swallowing noise and breath alike. The entire forest exuded pressure—not malevolence exactly, but weight. Age. Authority.
Vanessa studied the mire ahead and muttered, “So uh… when exactly does a swamp become a grove? I mean, they could’ve just called it the Ironroot Swamp, right?”
Darian and Mallory both laughed.
“There are a lot of massive trees here,” Mallory offered. “I suppose that technically makes it a grove.”
Vanessa pulled out her bow and scanned the canopy. “Well, these bugs aren’t going to kill themselves.”
She nocked a spectral arrow and loosed it toward a massive wasp-like monstrosity hovering among the vines. It twitched mid-air, antennae snapping toward them.
---
Ironbrood Wasp, Level 8
---
Before the first arrow even struck, a second was already in flight. The spectral shots hit—one in the thorax, one glancing off the wing—but barely seemed to faze it. Still, they had its attention now. It had been hovering alone, separated from the rest of the swarm—just far enough for Vanessa to pick it off without drawing the hive.
It turned toward them with a sound like a screech filtered through static, its stinger pulsing with dark heat. For a moment, it hovered over the bog water, drawing some kind of energy from the ground. Then it shot forward at terrifying speed.
Darian reacted instantly. He whipped both Parallax rings outward, one curving wide and missing—surprising him—but the second clipped a leg, throwing off the creature’s charge.
Mallory was already in position, spear low and steady. She cast Brand the Corrupt, and a jagged crimson sigil bloomed across the wasp’s thorax, pulsing like a heartbeat of judgment. The glow around its body flickered as the pain slowed it for half a heartbeat. Then it regathered its strength and surged forward again—this time, directly at her.
Vanessa loosed three more arrows in rapid succession, now aiming for weak points. One struck the underbelly. The second hit the chitin between wing joints. The third—
—landed directly in its eye.
The wasp shrieked and twisted midair, its stinger curling toward Mallory. Blinded, it lashed wildly.
Darian darted forward, slicing across its neck with one of his rings. In the same breath, Mallory lunged and drove her spear straight through its chest.
The Ironbrood Wasp collapsed to the ground, spasming once before going still.
---
System Message
You have slain Ironbrood Wasp, Level 8.
275 experience points have been awarded.
---
Standing back, they assessed the situation. It had taken all three of them to bring down one wasp, but none of them were injured, so they felt confident they could each handle one alone—so long as they didn’t pull the whole swarm.
After a quick strategy session, they each ate a Heartroot Apple. Then Vanessa stepped forward, bow in hand, and loosed a single arrow. She had chosen her target with care.
---
Ironbrood Wasp, Level 8
Crimson Lancer, Level 9
Ironbrood Wasp, Level 9
---
This time, she’d pulled a mosquito along with the wasps.
They readied themselves. As the trio of enemies came into range, Vanessa and Darian opened fire from a distance. Mallory, with no ranged capabilities, waited at the center, poised to cast her defensive spell—Protect the Innocent—if needed.
Vanessa’s arrows now struck only exposed gaps and vital points. Darian focused on disrupting their movement, clipping wings and disabling limbs. Mallory cast Brand the Corrupt on the Crimson Lancer, pulling its aggro entirely to her.
The mosquito darted forward with uncanny speed. Mallory struck first, thrusting her spear toward its center mass—but the Crimson Lancer veered at the last second, her attack only nicking one wing.
It used her momentum against her, slamming its proboscis through a small gap between her gauntlet and bracer. Mallory gasped, feeling her health drop by nearly ten percent. But the momentary distraction of her vital essence flooding into it gave her an opening—she clenched her left fist and smashed it into the mosquito’s face, right between its compound eyes.
The creature staggered back, stunned, and dropped briefly into the bog—but recovered fast. Mallory managed a single stab into its thorax before it launched skyward again, blood glistening on its needle.
“Why can’t these things have health bars like in video games?” she shouted, laughing despite herself. Like the others, she was bruised, bleeding—and absolutely exhilarated.
Deciding to end it, she feinted a clumsy overextension, inviting the Lancer to lunge. As it impaled her side with its needle, she dropped her spear, grabbed the creature by the head, and—with all 43 points of Strength—slammed it repeatedly into a nearby rock.
Three times. Then four.
The insect fell still, twitching once before going limp.
---
System Message
You have slain Crimson Lancer, Level 9.
300 experience points have been awarded.
---
Meanwhile, Darian was locked in a tight duel with his wasp, chipping away at it with surgical strikes. He had earned the passive skill Primal Moment during his first combat trial—but it had never activated.
Until now.
The wasp clipped him twice during an exchange, and his health dipped just as the effect from his Heartroot Apple wore off. He wasn’t in mortal danger, but time was no longer on his side.
He made a call.
As the stinger lashed out, he slipped beneath it, pivoted behind the creature, and raised one ring. Just then, the world around him seemed to slow—subtly, but unmistakably.
The beat of its wings became visible. Trackable. Predictable.
He moved with absolute clarity, slicing across its thorax at an angle. The motion was clean. Final.
The wasp dropped instantly.
---
System Message
You have slain Ironbrood Wasp, Level 8.
275 experience points have been awarded.
---
Vanessa was still engaged, but it was clear she wasn’t in a rush. Her daggers remained sheathed as she danced around the wasp’s strikes, flicking Wraithwood against its legs and wings like a baton.
It was only when she noticed the others watching her that she ended it.
In one fluid motion, she drew a dagger in her left hand and drove it clean through the wasp’s right eye—as if she had just been playing with it the entire time.
---
System Message
You have slain Ironbrood Wasp, Level 9.
300 experience points have been awarded.
---
They had all taken hits—small, but real. Fortunately, out-of-combat regeneration was already restoring their health. They took a short break, shared observations, then pushed forward.
Vanessa pulled a group of five next. The fight left more bruises, but no one dropped below eighty percent health. They moved with growing confidence and synergy, clearing the rest of the area in short order.
Then they reached the largest tree, deep in the grove.
It was massive—two feet thick at the base, easily sixty feet tall. Torvyn Ironbrand had given each of them a woodcutter’s axe, and now they set to work, striking from different angles. Once they had carved deep enough, they focused their blows to bring it down in the desired direction.
The crash sent up a bloom of swamp mist.
They trimmed the branches and stripped the trunk clean, leaving the log resting in the shallow water, fog curling along its length.
“Uh… we never talked about this part,” Vanessa said, eyeing the enormous log. “I guess we shoulder it and head back?”
Mallory took the front and Vanessa the rear with Darian in the middle. Together they carried the log toward the Northern Road.
As they passed back through the Heartroot orchard where they had camped previously, they stopped there again—same spot, same routine.
They pitched the tent, ate liberally of the apples, and laughed over bruises and bugs. Their bond had deepened—their relationship sharpened by shared danger.
Before laying down beside the others, Vanessa pulled up her interface and applied her free points. Like Mallory and Darian, she had gained a level.
---
System Interface
Character Status
Name: Vanessa Cho
Age: 38 years
Level: 6
Race: Homo Sapiens—Augmented
Class: Spectral Huntress (Rare)
Profession: N/A
Titles:
Trailblazer
Core Attributes (Stats):
Strength 21
Dexterity 50
Endurance 35
Vitality 35
Intelligence 23
Wisdom 23
Charisma 21
Perception 48
Health: 525 / 525
Stamina: 350 / 350
Mana: 276 / 276
---
“Not a bad haul,” she whispered, smiling as she curled up beside Darian and closed her eyes.