Insomniac Player

The wall of vines stretched out ahead of them, endless in both directions. It didn’t look like plant life so much as one single organism wearing a forest’s shape.

The vines shifted against each other, slow and constant, tightening and loosening in a rhythm that looked uncomfortably close to breathing.

Damien’s hand found the First Blood Dagger on instinct. "...They’re moving."

"I noticed." Daria stepped forward, no intention of squeezing through that tangle the way he clearly meant to.

She raised her staff instead, orange mana gathering around the crystal at its tip. "Stand back."

He obeyed without argument.

➤[Skill Activated: Blazing Wave]

WHOOSH!

A wall of fire rolled out of the staff and crashed into the vines, and the plants screamed, an eerie, almost human sound that rolled out through the trees behind them. The vines thrashed once before catching properly, and the smell that followed reminded Damien uncomfortably of burnt meat.

"...Shit. They were actually alive."

"Dungeons don’t grow ordinary plants," Daria said it like a rule she’d learned the hard way once.

Within a minute, the fire had carved a tunnel wide enough for two people to walk through side by side, embers still smoldering along the edges.

She twirled her staff, mock-formal. "Ladies first."

"I’ll scout." He was already moving.

"You’re ruining my dramatic exit line."

He laughed and stepped in first anyway. The air changed the second he crossed the threshold, cooler, thick with moisture, pressing against his skin in a way that felt almost deliberate. The walls weren’t stone at all, just root after root woven together into something like a living hallway, dense enough to blot out any sense of what lay beyond them.

Flowers bloomed straight out of the walls in places, petals too vivid for the dim light, some of them leaking a faint glowing nectar that lit the tunnel in soft, uneasy color. Beautiful in the way that made Damien’s skin crawl a little, the kind of beautiful that usually meant something wanted to be noticed.

They walked in silence for a while before Daria spoke up. "...Can I ask something?"

"Sure."

"That horn."

He glanced over. "The Horn of the Chief?"

"How much did it cost you?"

He blinked. "...Cost?"

"Yeah." She shrugged, easy about it. "The Horn’s only ever given to First Generation Players who cleared the tutorial. A hundred and twenty-seven total, across the entire cohort." She tilted her head at him. "So I figured you must’ve bought it off someone."

Something in him bristled at that, more than he expected. "I didn’t buy it."

"No?"

"It was a reward."

She went quiet for a second, then laughed, not mean, just genuinely thrown. "...You’re funny."

"I’m serious."

"If you’re actually First Generation," she said, slower now, "why are you only Level Twelve?"

That landed exactly where it needed to.

He didn’t have a clean answer ready. Part of him wanted to just say it, the coma, the two lost years, waking up alone in a field while the rest of the world moved on without him, but the words stuck somewhere behind his teeth. Explaining all of it meant handing her the whole shape of his weakness, and he wasn’t ready to watch her expression change once she had it.

"...A player gave it to me." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I’m not saying who."

Her eyes narrowed. "Someone just hands out a legendary boss relic."

"...A very generous person."

"...Sure." She clearly wasn’t buying a word of it.

He looked away, mouth twitching. Technically not even a lie, in the strictest sense. The goblin chief had absolutely gifted it to him. Just after losing his head over the matter, so to speak.

◇◇◇

The tunnel opened into a wide circular chamber, several paths branching off it. Left. Right. Straight ahead. Three more sat half-hidden behind thick knots of root, and one more waited behind a waterfall that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Damien frowned. "...A maze." He unfolded Anthony’s map, hoping for something useful. All it showed him was a single giant question mark, mocking him from the center of the page.

"...Great." He tucked it away and looked around instead, reading the room the way he’d read Ironfall, floor, moss, airflow, the faint pattern of old footprints pressed into damp ground. "The waterfall path’s fake."

Daria blinked. "How do you know that?"

"No moisture in the air near it. Real waterfalls leave a trace even from a distance."

She checked, and her eyebrows went up. "...You’re right."

"That one." He nodded toward the right-hand tunnel. "Collapsed recently. See the dust still settling on the moss."

Correct again. She stared at him for a long moment. "...Scout."

"Occupational habit."

He pointed at the narrowest gap of the six. "This one."

"Why?"

"Air’s moving through it." He closed his eyes for a second, feeling for it. "If it’s flowing, something’s on the other end pulling it through. Dead ends don’t breathe."

"...Makes sense." She followed him in, and something about the way she fell into step behind him without another question felt like a small kind of trust neither of them had bothered to name yet.

◇◇◇

Twenty minutes later he stopped walking.

"...Something’s wrong."

The tunnel looked exactly like the last five. Daria glanced around. "I don’t see anything."

"That’s the problem. There’s too much nothing." No insects, no drip of water, no shift of root against root. The whole passage had gone unnaturally still, like it was holding its breath waiting for something to happen.

Something did. The floor vanished under both of them at once.

"Whoa!" He caught a root on reflex, body swinging hard against the wall. Below, a massive flower unfurled slowly, petals red and jagged like a mouth full of dull knives, acid gleaming at its center. Patient. Waiting.

"...That’s a man-eating plant," Daria managed, and then the root in his hand snapped.

He dropped. The flower lunged up to meet him, mouth stretching wide enough to take him whole.

"Damien!" A fireball detonated straight down its throat.

BOOOOM!!

It shrieked and recoiled, petals curling backward, and he hit the ground rolling before scrambling upright. "...Thanks."

She smiled, smug about it. "You owe me."

"Absolutely do."

She started toward him, and the ground shifted under her next step before she could finish the thought. A second flower burst up, bigger, faster than the first, vines already wrapping around her legs and hauling her toward its open center.

"...What?!" Her spell caught the thing full in the face and did nothing; it kept pulling regardless, fire barely slowing it down.

"Damien!"

He was already moving. The dagger came out in one motion.

SHING!

The blade sliced clean through the vines wrapped around her, and he didn’t stop there: one cut, two, three, until the plant folded apart in pieces, dark green sap splattering across the roots underneath.

Quiet settled back over the chamber. Daria pushed herself up slowly. "...That was close."

She brushed the sap off her sleeve, and her eyes caught on the dagger still in his hand.

She froze. "...Wait."

He looked over. "What now?"

She pointed. "That dagger."

"...This?"

She stepped closer, studying it properly this time. "That’s the First Blood Dagger. Where did you get it?"

He offered an awkward smile. "Another gift."

"...Another legendary item."

"I’m surprisingly popular, apparently."

She crossed her arms. "You’re surprisingly suspicious, is what you are."

"Fair. I’d say that too."

She looked at the dagger a moment longer, some half-formed theory clearly turning over behind her eyes, something about how a blade named for a first kill had ended up in the hands of a scout who claimed to have barely started fighting. She didn’t say it out loud. Whatever she was piecing together, it wasn’t finished yet.

Meanwhile, Damien thought she mistakenly called First Blood Dagger a legendary item while it’s an epic rank.

"...We should keep moving." She said it lightly, but something in her tone had shifted, sharper than before, more watchful.

Damien nodded and stepped past her into the next passage. Behind him, he caught the faint sound of leaves rustling somewhere with no wind to explain it, close enough that the hair on his arms stood up before he could name why.

He didn’t mention it. Not yet. Whatever was out there in the vines, it could wait until he actually knew what he was looking at.