[SP-F01] Fragments of Soil | «Earning a Living: Forager»

[Scar 0]

The silence in the clearing was overwhelmingly quiet, in a way that made the rustling of the grass seem like deliberate sounds. The light that came through the trees was neither bright nor whole, as it was covered by the branches that were full of leaves and the faint digital shimmer that indicated this specific part of the floor. Jack entered the space that was revealed by the disappearance of the smoke that was coming from a campfire. The air was sweetened with the smell of roasted herbs.

In the middle of the camp stood a wagon, its structure half buried in moss and covered with vines.

He stopped and with his eyes he tried to grasp the whole picture that unfolds. His gloved hand was on the blade of his sword in a very light and casual manner, not in a threatening sense, but just by habit. Skilled observation always comes first, followed by reaction.

After that, a woman emerged.

Her clothes were a fine paradox, forest greens and earth-toned browns, both looked like they were made of natural materials but the fact that they have been lived with and not freshly made was apparent, as though she existed in the space that lies halfway between the wild and the civilized. "So, it appears you've found me," she uttered, her voice having a melodic quality that was neither of greeting nor of rejection. "I tend to move around quite a lot, but someone always finds me. I suppose you are looking for some herbs?"

Jack's expression didn't shift much. He studied her eyes, sharp and bright like cut emeralds. "Not quite," he replied evenly. "I heard you could teach me more about gathering. The real kind, not just system-level scavenging."

That earned him a raised brow and the faint curve of a smile. "Most simply expect me to forage their materials for them, but few truly care about the process itself," she mused. "You surprise me."

She took a small, polished compass out of the pocket of her dress. Its metal part was shining under the sun, very old but quite well maintained for its age. "You may borrow my compass," she said, "Dark magic has made it capable of locating an incredibly rare item called a Demonic Shard. Should you find one, and bring it back to me, you will prove yourself worthy of my teachings. Take care, and may good fortune travel with you."

Jack took the compass carefully. The needle was turning twice before it stopped and pointed to the thick forest on the other side of the camp. He followed the point of the compass with his eyes but his face gave nothing away, though his brain was already calculating the routes. The system behind this NPC was way better than the average one, too smoothly for it to be just basic quest logic.

"I understand," he answered in a low voice. "Retrieve the shard, return, and earn your trust."

Giovanna's mouth was almost smiling, with a trace of both amusement and approval. "Precisely. Have fun, Jack. Though the forest looks young, it is far from it, and it doesn't like people who walk through it without a reason."

While he was heading for the forest, the firelight, moving with the wind, was behind him and it was highlighting his figure with the colors of summer and shade. In his hand, the compass was barely noticeable, but it was doing the same thing as the steady beat of his heart, waxing and waning with it.

Every cluster of earth that was underneath his boots was telling the same thing, that truth was, like any other harvest, dependent on patience and the readiness to get one's hands soiled.

***

Spoiler

Scar | HP: 140/140 | EN: 32/32 | DMG: 8 | MIT: 4 | ACC: 2

WC: 622

Edited 6 hours ago by Scar

[Scar 0]

As Jack traveled deeper into the woods the surrounding world seemed to shrink. The air concentrated, beautifully smelling of wet wood and earth, a silence that muffled everything except his breath. He brought the compass back into his view, seeing the color red from the glowing light flicker slightly along with the slight movement of the needle. The tool was now very firm, indicating the center of the forest in front of him.

The path behind him had already disappeared. Roots, similarly to fingers of a skeleton, were quietly taking back the path. It seemed that the forest itself was against giving directions, only letting those who lost their way find the right one. Jack was not upset. It was a good fit for him. He operated in the manner of a slow, highly intentional person with his sight roving the land and mentally recording the facts: claws scratching the bark of a tree very lightly, a subtle indentation in the moss as a place where an animal has passed, wind whistling through hollowed out trees.

Every detail mattered.

Every pattern meant something.

He was close to a broken tree branch that had its bark stripped to reveal the wood beneath that was silver-gray in color. The decomposition was half-complete, perhaps a visual signal of an older spawn zone. Jack ran his fingers along it, feeling the soft give of moisture through the glove’s feedback system. The realism still impressed him, even after so many hours logged in. “Moisture density reads high,” he murmured quietly, noting it like an observation for a field report. “Recent rainfall event, possibly within the last in-game day.”

The compass pointed a little to the left. Jack didn’t wait to see where it was pointing, but followed him. His feet were a little buried in the earth which was still soft. The ground trended downwards towards a ravine covered in ferns that shone a little under the scattered sunlight coming through the trees’ leaves. The scented air here system was so intricately layered that even quiet had its own sort of language.

He stopped again, letting his eyes adjust. No enemies. No visible item nodes. Just the living rhythm of the forest, the kind of quiet most players would call boring. To him, it was perfect. It gave him time to think, to observe the mechanics behind the illusion.

“This zone isn’t random,” he thought. “Resource clusters are deliberate. Placement follows terrain logic, organic, but patterned. Someone designed this space to feel alive.” 

He glanced back at the compass. Still glowing. Still pointing forward.

Jack let his air out slowly and the sound was swallowed by the silence of the woods. The gathering was not the main point of the quest; it was about comprehension. Giovanna had made that clear, only those who sought meaning in process, not product, were worth teaching. 

He pressed on.

Change of leaves could be felt overhead and the slight buzz of insects had started getting louder, an ambient crescendo to the forest’s heartbeat. As he went farther down the temperature got lower and so did the mist that was coiling around his boots. It was sticking to him, cold and heavy as if it was a warning of him going into something older, deeper, and invisible. 

Once again Jack halted and lifted his eyes to the thick treeline ahead. Not far from there compass was flashing faster, like a heartbeat being heard through earth and rock. 

He didn't move closer just yet.

He simply watched, listening to the forest breathe.

* * *

WC: 591

[Scar 0]

The‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌ forest had gotten darker. The weak sunlight that managed to pass through the canopy above had a dull, greenish tint, it was completely absorbed by leaves that overlapped each other like the scales of a massive creature that was lying and breathing slowly above. As Jack followed the compass' pulse which was getting calmer and the red glow turning into a very delicate ember, he slowed down his movement. It felt like the right place to begin.

He was kneeling close to some moss and removing the upper layer of damp growth with his hand to get the ground underneath. The soil was heavy, cold, and was laced with very thin veins of red light that shimmered very gently and then disappeared. His ear adjusted to the faint sound signal. The signature was weak but familiar, residual traces of the shard's influence, maybe.

"Composition seems right," he said under his breath. He took a small knife out of his belt and with its flat side moved a little earth from the side. The smell that came was quite metallic and sharp and also mildly acrid. He stopped, and his eyes got smaller as he looked at the layer brought out. The digital depiction was almost like the real thing with all its faults, lumps, little rocks, the moisture that was glistening in the right way with the light. It was not only a texture map. It wasn't just a texture map. It was behaviorally reactive.

He reached deeper, and that's when the shift acme.

The soil trembled. Barely, but enough. Not from beneath him, but somewhere close.

Jack froze.

The compass in his palm gave a faint, involuntary flicker, as though detecting something unlisted. Slowly, he rose to a crouch, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light. The wind had stopped. There wasn't the sound of birds, neither that of insects. Silence was so tight that it even seemed to be his heartbeat that was making too much noise. 

Then he spotted it.

Just beyond the roots of an old oak, something stirred, a subtle sway that didn't belong to the wind. The movement repeated, rhythmic, deliberate. It was a plant that was almost a meter and a half tall and it was changing in quiet beats as if it was inhaling. At first glance, it looked like a giant pitcher plant, its trunk being covered with layers of green horror. Two handle-like vines were hanging from its sides, serrated leaves were going along them, the edges were sharp enough to cut bark.

However, what attracted his eyes was the mouth.

The center of its head was an enormous, red, open mouth and viscous liquid was coming out from it, slowly, in small, separate, and equal strands. Every time it opened, the droplets made a slight hissing sound when they touched the ground.

The tag blinked faintly in his HUD. Jack’s breathing slowed. His mind shifted gears instantly, from observation to calculation. Attack range. Reaction speed. Environmental hazards. He tracked its movement, noting how it turned toward vibrations rather than sound. 

It’s not hunting yet, he thought. It’s waiting.

He lowered his posture, one hand resting on the handle of his weapon. The situation for an attack would present itself, but not yet. Not without certainty. He saw the creature sway once more, its body dimly lit, and it seemed like it was drawing energy from the earth itself.

Momentarily, Jack’s eyes went back to the patch of earth which he had disturbed. 

Failed attempt, he thought silently. Lesson learned. Foraging required precision. Timing. Awareness. He had rushed it, focused too narrowly on detail and not enough on the rhythm of the environment. Now the forest was responding with another test of its kind. 

He slowly exhaled, his heartbeat getting steadied again. Patience first. Motion second.

So he was staying there, calm, silent, and of analytical nature, and thus waiting, the very moment when instinct and logic would be in agreement, while observing the rhythm of the ‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌monster.

* * *

Spoiler

foraging.

ID: 255945 | LD: 2 | Failed

WC: 670

Edited 6 hours ago by Scar

[Scar 0]

The forest had gone utterly still.

Jack pulled his breath back very quietly. His hand that was holding the weapon tightened. The Nepent kept moving in such a unusual way. The vines were stretching and relaxing, and the mouth was opening and closing looking for food. The place where the liquid had hit hissed more with every droplet. The burned places looked as if they were smoking.

He studied its stance carefully. The movement pattern was predictable in structure, slow, with brief intervals of stillness. A patient predator. Its reaction time would likely trigger within a set proximity radius.

Jack changed his position, his hand going to his waist. The mud pressed against the sole of his boot for a second and the sound of his step was lost in the forest's noise. When the Nepent's mouth opened wide, he moved.

The first step was silent.

The second, decisive.

Shining out from the shadows of the oak, knife in hand, Jack swung the blade quickly, efficiently and to the point of severing the stem just below the head of the branch. The move was flawless if only in theory, timing was matched perfectly with the monster's breathing.

But theory rarely survived contact with reality.

The Nepent's body twisted unexpectedly at the last moment, vines snapping taut as if pulled by some invisible reflex. Staples from Jack's sword met only a couple of leaves that had been torn and the plant matter sound was cut by a hiss, the sharp intake that echoed the whole clearing.

Missed.

Before he could fully reset his stance, the creature retaliated. Its two-vine arms lashed outward in a blur of green and crimson. One was directing the blow to the place where Jack had just been, while the other was moving parallel to the ground, the leaves at its end shining with something that looked like acid.

Jack reacted instinctively, but even his reflexes were informed by analysis. With a retreat and turn he took ground off the wet earth and at that same moment, through his heel, he regained his hold. The foremost blow had fallen at quite some distance from where the aim was; the second one was done of such speed and closeness that only the swift brushing of heat through the sleeve was felt.

The monster's vines smacked against the earth with force, sending up a spray of dirt and decayed leaves. Tiny droplets of acid hissed as they landed on nearby roots.

Jack composed himself again and brought out a sharp breath through his nostril. Too reactive. Overshot the rhythm. He tightened his grip, forcing his thoughts into focus. His combat style wasn't built on brute strength, it was founded on observation and adaptation. One mistake wasn't failure. It was data.

The Nepent shifted again, its mouth opening wide as it let out a wet, gurgling hiss. The crimson liquid within it churned like boiling water. It was agitated now, but also predictable, its aggression followed stimulus.

"Alright," he murmured under his breath, tone calm and level. "Now I know how you move."

He changed the position of his foot a little, and the whole time, he was waiting for the next attack. The time when the forest was devoid of any sound seemed to be over as it now was pulsating with energy. The mist that was around was also getting denser and denser and it looked like a shapeless fight between a mentally analytical human and an instinct-driven animal was going on.

Who was going to be the fastest learner among them was going to be decided by their next ‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌confrontation.

* * *

Scar | HP: 140/140 | EN: 30/32 | DMG: 8 | MIT: 4 | ACC: 2

Little Nepent | HP: 84/84 | DMG: 28

Spoiler

battling.

ID: 255949 | BD: 3+2 = 5 | Missed!

ID: 255949b | MD: 4 | Missed!

WC: 603

Edited 2 hours ago by Scar