I awake before the sun with a shiver. The shirt hadn’t been enough to keep in my body heat, and the phrase, “The Hermit is dead,” still sings it’s hushed reverent tones inside of my head. I reflect on it for a moment. The Hermit was the nickname given by the guild to my grandfather. He was a legendary Guildsmen — having personally been involved in many grand battles against the monsters. He was credited with what little progress in reclaiming Atoria that the Guild had made over the course of its existence was thanks to his involvement. To the world he was a legend, but to me he was just grandpa, and when he was gone I felt lost. I looked up to him. He would teach me. He would guide me. He would tell me stories of his battles and I would watch them play out in my mind. But those days were gone. The Hermit was dead. A longing lingers on past the dream. 

“I should have packed a blanket.” I chide myself as I huddle around the dying white ash embers of the camp fire. 

I use a stick to stir up the ash and create a spot of exposed earth. I reach into my satchel and tear off another Sheep’s Head seed cluster and put it in the bald  spot, along with a handful of twigs. As soon as the heat from the nearby smoldering white ash touches the seeds they ignite and catch fire. The twigs soon follow, and I slowly rebuild the fire. An elk howls in the distance and my heart leaps into my throat. I huddle as close as I can to the small circle of light created by the fire. 

Basking in the warmth of the flames, I reach for my journal and pull it out. I flip through the pages until I find the one with the request near the end of the journal. Beneath the initial paragraph were the words, “13/50 Sheep’s Head,” barely legible in the dim orange light of the small campfire. Had I miscounted? No. I was very careful with it. Maybe whoever requested it wanted the entire plant. What other use did the heads have? Oh well, I thought. They were common enough that I would be able to find some more throughout the day. The others were...a hundred Mothwort, and thirty Atoria’s Tears. I commit them to memory, and put down my journal. I have another chunk of stale bread for breakfast. 

The first thing I’m getting when I have the money is some better food. I shiver. No, a blanket, and maybe some heavier close and then a blanket. I pull everything out of my satchel and stuff the rolled up sleeping pad on the bottom, then put everything in around and over it. By the time that I have everything in there, the flap barely closes. Maybe the first thing I should get was a bigger bag.  I pull my cloak from the stakes and dust it off before covering my shoulders with it, and letting it hang off of me. 

I wait by the fire until the first rays of sun began to turn the violet sky gray. The most violent creatures ruled the night, and so it was much safer to travel during daylight hours. Mothwort is a type of mushroom that grows in a very specific place — inside of the hollowed inside of fallen, rotting pine trees. It was mostly gray in color, with an eye like pattern that grew in yellows and greens on the top, much like the patterns on the wings of a moth. The cap was safe to eat, and actually tasted decent when grilled, but the powder that fell out whenever the cap was torn had an anti-venomous property. I wasn’t sure if the stems had any properties, but I’d collect them just in case. 

I found the first log by mistake. It was still early morning — about half an hour after I had broken camp, when my leg fell through a rotting log covered by crawling vines, and countless seasons worth of brown, fallen needles. I get small cuts along my leg up to my knee, where it had fallen in and I pull myself out, and begin tearing at the wood to peer inside. I had accidentally crushed a handful of them, but otherwise there was a good number in the log, of all sizes. I first pick the largest ones, and place them in another piece of spare clothing. Then the smaller ones. They  grew all through the log; on the walls and on the ground. I only pick the ones that seemed the fullest of that strange powder. I lay them side by side in another one of my spare shirts. All in all, I collect twenty-seven full Mothwort, and ten broken ones.  I save the broken ones in the same piece of cloth as the wild mint and the oregano. I wish I had a place to store the powder staining my hands and clothes. I put glass vials on my mental to-buy list. I put everything in my satchel and continue on my way. 

When I am well and deeply into these pine forests, surrounded by the towering redwoods and climbing the foothills of some coastal mountains, I feel a sharp pain begin to form like a ring around my left wrist. Instinctively I swat at it, thinking it was one of the many biting flies that inhabited the forests. My hand hit something sharp, and hard, however. I look down in a panic. 

A black vine, with spiked, barbed thorns the size of those in a patch of briar, or on an unkempt rose bush, had wrapped itself around my wrist like a shackle. I pull at it, but it doesn’t come loose. I pull out the horseshoe dagger from my belt and hack wildly at the vine. It seems to try to unwrap itself from my arm and pull back into the darkness of the underbrush and flee — tearing long red lines through my flesh as it does so. After a couple of more good hacks with the dull blade cuts it free from the main arm of the vine. The rest shrinks back into the shadows, and I pull the vine off of my arm. Bright red liquid pours out of the hacked end and stains my dark blade. A few of the thorns remain embedded in my wrist and I pull them out, one by one. They are surprisingly fragile, and it’s only after I inspect it further that I notice that they’re all hollow. Even the vine is hollow; bright red liquid still seeping out of the cut. A shiver runs up my spine. 

Just as the implications set in another biting pain begins at my right ankle and  wraps around it like a snake. It goes up my leg before I begin hacking. It shivers in pain and begins to retract. This time, however, I allow it. Just as it releases from my leg I reach out and grab it, and pull it taut. It tries to pull away, tearing at the flesh of my palm, but I wrap it around my knuckles, grit my teeth. I follow it along it’s path until I come across the source. 

As I near it, I gag. The visceral smell of rotting flesh mixes with the sweet smell of pine in a way that made my stomach churn. The emaciated corpses of hares, squirrels, birds, and a fawn with white spots still decorating its graying, tan hide. I could hear the faint, pained whimpers of some animal as I move further along the vine’s trajectory. It’s not long after I begin hearing them, that I see the source of the vine. A writhing, black mass in the rough shape of a pentacle clings to the trunk of one of the redwoods. It is as black as the sky on a cloudy and moonless night. It undulates like the sea. Vines creep along the trunk, and wrap around the bodies of various animals. A fox whimpers as it lays and twitches on the ground. I finally let go of the vine in my hand and it retracts into its body. Pain radiates out of my hand, but I only have a second to assess the damage to my hand. It’s as if a wild animal had attacked me, with how raw it was. There was no pain, aside from a consistently pounding numbness. 

There’s not a lot of time to think too deeply about it, as the black vine shoots out again and reaches towards me. I see it this time, and react by turning my body away from its trajectory as it nearly reached my throat. It drops the sparrow it had wrapped in one of its tendrils and launches it towards me while the other retracts. It zips by my head as I stumble on a step backwards as I slip on the corpse of a bird. As the first closes it shoots out again. I put up my arm to block it, and it wraps around like a snake. The thorns bite and tear into my flesh, and the other vine retracts and shoots out at me too. I manage to turn my neck so that it only wraps around my shoulder. They release as they don’t find flesh. I stand up and the free vine shoots out again. I am too slow and it reaches my throat. This time, there is pain as the vines sink into the flesh. 

Everything around me grows gray, as the vines drink deeply of my lifeblood. I manage to eek out a yelp of pain before air begins to become scarce. My head swoons, and I shiver. It is cold. Very cold. And I am tired. Very tired. I fight through the urges to curl up in a ball on the ground and let the weariness take me. I approach the tree; a guttural growl forming in my throat. I cough. It hurts to do anything. 

I grab hold of the vine around my neck. The one holding the fox still releases and wraps around my other arm. I don’t care. I will die if I don’t do anything. It bites into my forearm as it wraps. Another wave of dizziness washes over me, but I do not stop. I grit my teeth. Thin strings of blood flow from my mouth, as I plant my feet on the tree on either side of the undulating mass. 

“Let. Go. Of. Me.” I manage to grunt out. My body shakes and trembles. “I’m not going to die here.” My voice cracks. My fear propels me. 

I pull. I fall backwards to add my own weight to the life-or-death tug of war I found myself in. If a wriggling mass could panic, this one does so. Its last two remaining vines drop whatever they have they wrap around my waist and bite into my exposed abdomen. I do not relent. I cannot. To yield is to die. A guttural, visceral yell — no, a bestial roar, breaks from my throat as I grab hold of the vines so that they cannot escape, and begin to pull. My legs push against the redwood and it creaks. The wriggling mass tries to pull its tendrils away from me, but I hold them fast. I pull harder, then fall backwards; taking the entire mass of the thing’s body with me. 

I take a few well-earned breaths. My shoulders heaving, and blood flowing freely from the cuts on my arms, my throat, and my stomach; staining my clothes a dark red. The mass wriggles a bit before becoming still. The vines unwrap themselves from me and I breathe. I breathe like it is water and I’m a man who hadn’t had a drink in days. My body shakes and my heart pounds in my chest, and the blood still flows. 

I toss things out of my satchel until I find the shirt with the Sheep’s Head. I pull it out and frantically tear at the leaves. I chew on a few and then spit the paste out on my hand and begin rubbing the paste on the wounds on my throat, arm and hands. It takes about five plants worth of leaves to cover all of my wounds. I lay there huffing for a moment as each the plants start to bubble and burn inside of my wounds. I muffle a scream. I don’t want anyone or anything hearing me as I writhe in pain. I black out.