He harvested the cave like a miser picking coins off a tavern floor. One by one, he twisted the driest mushrooms from the walls—moonteeth and luck-buds mostly—and piled them by the mouth of the cave. Then he set about skinning the caps with the edge of a flat stone, shaving them into curls and pushing the dry shavings into a mound.

  After ringing the shavings with a circle of stones, he picked up two more silvery rocks and started clacking them together. It took him longer than he liked. Plenty of sparks spat, and plenty of them landed on his arms, making him wince, but he’d burned himself worse doing carpentry work. Heat was an old friend.

  He struck the rocks a few more times, and when the mushroom shavings finally caught aflame, he tossed the rocks aside and instantly cupped the flame, feeding it his breath.

  Soon, it opened into a proper little fire, licking the ring of stones.

  Nice!

  Now I just keep tossing mushrooms into it to keep it going.

  And oh, he wanted nothing more than to strip his shirt and dry it and bake the shiver out of his bones, but not yet. First, he turned back around to the lip of the cave and scanned the storm-shot forest. No torches. No gleam of helms. Nothing seemed to be nearby.

  Good enough.

  After dumping more mushrooms into the fire to grow the flame, he stepped out of the cave, found a few fallen logs and decently sized boulders around, and dragged them back to the cave. Rain pelted his back as he made a makeshift blockade, hiding most of the flame just in case something felt like visiting while he was out.

  Once he was done, he slipped back into the trees. The rain felt colder now that he knew he had warmth to return to. He moved fast, letting the lightning be his lantern once again: flash, memorize, then run that memory in the dark for ten counts until the next flash gifted him a new map.

  To obtain a Manalight Gem relic, I need one manalight glowcap as the main offering—check—and then two herbs as side offerings in addition to that: stormmint and nightglass moss, which’ll make the gem glow brighter and longer respectively.

  Any gemstone will work as the base offering. I’ve got a small nugget of amethyst resin in my satchel.

  If he recalled correctly, stormmint grew in places with strong wind—so typically up in the trees, close to the canopies—while nightglass moss liked the underside of fallen trunks. Both were common in these woods, but tonight, they were worth their weight in gold.

  His real worry, however, was whether or not that Curator God behind his Altar would even give him a Manalight Gem. After all, Manalight Gems and its variants were all Trinket-Class relics that’d glow for long periods of time, and Trinket-Class relics—typically with unusual effects that couldn’t be classified within the other six classes—could only be obtained from Seluku, the Trickster of the Chamber of Wonders.

  But considering his patron had given him an Elementum-Class relic despite very obviously being not Ninazu, he had a hunch they might also be able to give him a Trinket-Class relic.

  And if they can, then something’s really, really wrong.

  Any country would kill to be able to get all seven classes of relics from a single Altar.

  But he could worry about cosmological balance after he stopped shaking from the cold.

  It took him about five minutes before he found his first bundle of nightglass moss under a fallen log, as expected, and then it took him one more minute before he spotted the bluish glint of stormmint overhead. A quick climb up—an even quicker fall—and he had a handful of them as well.

  Alright.

  Now back… to the…

  His thoughts trailed off as he turned around, paused, and frowned. The trail he’d left behind didn’t look like his trail. The bushes he’d shouldered through leaned the wrong way, and his bootprints were smudged into a general bruise of mud and leaves.

  Rain, yes. Wind, yes. Both could’ve disturbed his trail greatly, but he didn’t think that was the case.

  Calm down.

  Don’t panic.

  He breathed in slowly, keeping as still and quiet as possible. Raining and storming as it was, the forest gave him nothing obvious back, but the hairs on his neck lifted anyways.

  After all, these forests kept a menagerie of nuisances, and with the destruction of Corvalenne, many of them might be more interested in expanding their territory. While he’d been careful not to make too much noise and leave deep footprints, there were definitely beasts that could still see and hear him.

  And as he searched through the most infamous culprits in his head, he heard a young, male voice behind him.

  “Help me.”

  Every muscle in him locked.

  Slow as a hinge in winter, he stepped closer to the fat-bellied tree he’d just climbed and let his ears take over.

  There were many beasts in these woods with ears sharper than their eyes, but only one could wear a human cry like a mask.

  … Alright.

  Here we go.

  If he hadn’t read The Tales of Seeker Orland over and over as a kid, he wouldn’t know about this beast, and he wouldn’t know how to deal with it.

  Instead of turning around to address the voice, he whirled hard—and then jerked his entire body to the side.

  The air hissed as a metal beak longer than his arm speared past him and buried itself into the fat trunk. The impact cracked wood like bone, bark flying in flakes. As he staggered to the side, the giant bladebeak kiwi—large as a mule, grey feathers slicked to its frame, its talons sharp enough to gouge trenches—tried to wrench its head back, but its beak was lodged deep into the tree, refusing to come free.

  As the kiwi shrieked and glared at him with eyes black and flat as river stones, his lips twisted into a nervous grin.

  “Bye.”

  Then he bolted.

  He tore through the forest, speeding through the terrain from memory. He still remembered where his cave was, so he managed to get himself a thirty second headstart before the kiwi wailed again.

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  It’d broken free.

  Ten seconds later, he slammed shoulder-first into his makeshift barricade and shoved it aside just enough to squeeze through. Then he dragged the logs and stones back in place, jamming them tight.

  The little fire he’d nursed in the center of the cave was still alive, and it’d grown a bit. Bless the mushrooms. He could use some of that blessing himself, though, so he immediately slid to the back wall where he’d propped up his Altar and upended his satchel—dumping out a manalight glowcap, a bundle of stormmint, and fistful of nightglass moss.

  Then he reached into a hidden compartment and tossed out a thumb-sized amethyst resin, which was only called an amethyst because it had a sparkly purple color. Otherwise, it’d just be another cheap piece of resin… but it’d have to do.

  “Hey, Great Curator God, whoever you are,” he breathed, dropping to his knees and clapping his hands together, “I’m Dain Sorowyn, you know me, we spoke once, can we speak again?”

  Reddish-purple light immediately veined across the plank as the portal swirled open. A small grin crept up his face only to be dashed when a heavy slam rocked the blockade behind him.

  He flinched and glanced over his shoulder just in time to see a bladed beak pulling free from the hole in the wood again. The kiwi was already chiseling, splinter by splinter.

  Exhibit me damned.

  I’ve got… thirty seconds.

  Fortunately, bladebeak kiwis were nocturnal, which meant—like all beasts of the night—they'd be freaked out if they were hit with a sudden flash of light. That'd either scare the kiwi away entirely or give him time to charge up a shot and aim for its vitals properly.

  He needed his Manalight Gem now.

  While the four pale, bony hands slid out of the portal like serpents, he didn’t even wait for them to complete their full, eerie entrance. He just shoved his offerings forward on the ground, nudging them under the splayed fingers.

  “I don’t gotta introduce these offerings to you, right? I’d like a Manalight Gem, if you’ve got that somewhere in your section of the Divine Museum,” he said, throat dry. “Please? Quickly?”

  The hands made a motion like a nod. One of them snapped up the gleaming glowcap. Another plucked the stormmint by the stems. The third pinched the nightglass moss, and the last took the amethyst resin. All four vanished back through the portal, quick as snakes.

  Another brutal jab shook the barricade. A crack ran down the biggest log. He braced his feet, ready to turn and fight—

  But finally the hands reappeared and tossed something at his knees. A reddish-purple gemstone skipped, spun, and came to rest beside the fire.

  He blinked down at it.

  It was a gemstone relic alright, and it definitely looked like a Manalight Gem that adventurers would hang around a necklace or bracelet for light, but he didn’t hesitate this time. He whipped out his Tag and slapped it onto the gem as more cracks splintered behind him.

  Black letters washed across the golden paper.

  ***

  Name: Bloodlight Eye

  Type: Passive Trinket-Class Cursed Relic, Common-2

  Attribute Addition: +1 Clarity

  Ability Description: The holder can cause light to emit from the gem at will. The gem can also terrify anything staring at it, but is less effective against stronger beings. The passive drain is 0.2 mana regeneration per hour.

  However, the gem must be embedded into the holder’s body, and the surrounding area will become pale, slightly cold, and slightly numb to sensation.

  ***

  … Cursed again. He grimaced. Of course. And what’s with the relic’s name?

  But he had no choice right now. After all, against the beasts of the night, a strong source of light wouldn’t just be a strong source of light.

  As the barricade shuddered—then bulged as an entire head punched through this time—he slammed his prosthetic palm down on the gem, and the gem pressed back.

  He clenched his jaw in pain as the gem felt like a hungry mouth, chewing and burning its way into his metal palm. His right arm may be a prosthetic, but considering he could feel temperature and pressure, he didn’t see why it wouldn’t be considered his ‘body’, so he kept his hand on the ground until he heard a sick little click beneath his palm—and then his metal hand immediately went cold and numb.

  Good!

  Now—

  The barricade finally gave a scream as the bladebeak kiwi hammered its way through, its full feathered bulk cramming the entrance. It screeched once more—making his ears ring as the sound reverberated off the walls—but before it could peck forward and spear him through, he thrust his right hand up at the beast.

  To his surprise, the gem in his metal palm warped, twisted, and opened into a glowing purple eye, glaring back at the bladebeak kiwi.

  The beast kiwi froze like it’d been turned to stone, its beak inches from his hand. Its body locked. Its feathers still bristled in the wind, but its shoulders were hunched as though every nerve had been nailed in place.

  He felt the terror a little, too—that ugly, gut-deep pressure coming from his own hand—but he gritted his teeth and held the light steadily.

  “Stay right there,” he whispered. “Don’t… move.”

  With his Bloodlight Eye keeping the bird pinned, he poured mana into the rest of his prosthetic slowly. A reddish-purple thrum lit the veins in the metal, and he aimed—not at the bird itself, but at the campfire between them.

  He hadn’t wanted to use more mana tonight, but given the light from his Bloodlight Eye had stunned the bird instead of making it run away in fear, he had to do this.

  He fired.

  The windsphere sucked up the flame before ripping forward like a fireball, engulfing the kiwi whole. It immediately shrieked, writhing in the narrow mouth of the cave, then wrenched itself free and bolted back into the rain.

  Dain watched it stagger around, blind and aflame. The initial blast shredded half its head, peeled flesh from bone, and so it was inevitable that it eventually slammed skull-first into a tree and disoriented itself even further.

  Soon, its body slid down the trunk of a tree, and it couldn’t rise again.

  … Chisel me blind.

  Only when the storm’s downpour smothered the last embers crawling along its feathers did he let his gem’s light die. Darkness swallowed the cave momentarily as his campfire threatened to sputter out, so while his chest throbbed with the afterburn of siphoned lungs, he forced himself to scramble forward and blow at the flames, feeding it more air.

  Then he coughed, feeling light-headed again. It wasn’t as bad as before—he hadn’t overfed his prosthetic this time—but he really, really shouldn’t use his prosthetic again tonight. He was already nauseous enough as was.

  As he collapsed against the wall of the cave, watching the small flame grow again, he looked down at the gem in his metal palm. True enough, his right hand felt cold around the eye and numb as well. He held it near the fire and felt very little.

  Thank the gods for the unexpected synergy, though. The sensations he felt with his prosthetic arm were already slightly numbed to begin with, so his Bloodlight Eye chewing and eating into his right hand didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should’ve if he’d used his left hand instead.

  ... But what the hell are you cursed relics, anyways?

  The forest didn’t answer, though something out there was watching. He felt them, a scatter of eyes in the treeline, patient and curious about the commotion—but not moving closer. Not yet.

  Quickly, he staggered out of the cave, hauled the dead kiwi in by its scaly legs, and shoved more logs and boulders in place to block off the entrance. Only once he was sure no beastly eyes could peer inside did he slump down by the fire again, shoulders sagging.

  Exhaustion swept in like a tide. First things first: he peeled off his soaked shirt and held it to the flame, steam rising as the fabric hissed. The warmth also licked at his chest, chasing away the tremors. For the first time all night, he let himself breathe without having to look somewhere else every other second.

  Then his stomach growled.

  He eyed the kiwi carcass.

  Dinner.

  Can you even eat bladebeak kiwi meat?

  As he pictured the meat skewered and roasting, his gaze drifted back to the Altar.

  He had an idea.

  Gods help him if he was already done with the Altar tonight. Not yet. To begin with, he’d gone back outside to gather offerings for a Manalight Gem partly because he wanted to communicate with his patron properly, so if he really wanted to know what ‘cursed’ relics really were, he just had to make another offering and open the portal.

  He wanted a Manabrew Potion this time.

  And, conveniently enough, he had more than enough of an offering sitting right beside him.