Breaching Light (1)

The two suns shine brightly through the window when I wake up. I jump out of bed and run downstairs for breakfast breakfast.

"You seem excited today, Nick." Carroll says with a flippant smile.

"Yeah, I think I'm starting to get this adventuring thing down."

After selling the Punctastar corpse yesterday,

"Well, I hope you have a good day today." She slides me a small piece of rock candy on my way out.

"Thanks, mom." The words feel like tar in my throat, but I force them out as honestly as possible. I smile and pop the small treat into my mouth. She quickly hugs me goodbye as I run out the door. I arrive at the gate several minutes later. It seems I've managed to beat the kids today. Sampson is on duty today, so I ask him for a spar, and we have a friendly chat.

Thwack!

"Are you heading into the forest again today?"

Wack!

"That's the plan."

Thud!

"Oof. Well, you kids be safe, ya hear?"

Crack!

"Hah. We will. I got some Monster's Bane, so we should be fine." I step back to indicate a pause in the spar and pull the cloth ball from my pocket.

"Wow, how did you get ahold of that?"

"I have a friend in the guild who helped me out."

"You cheeky bastard. You're not playing with any of those nice young ladies at the guild, are you?"

"Of course not," I say with a chuckle.

"You'd better not or you'll be hearin' from me."

"I'll keep that in mind, old man." I take up my stance and smirk defiantly at Sampson.

"Wha? I'm not even thirty. How can you say that?" Sampson resumes the spar with renewed vigor. I've been getting good enough recently that he's had trouble landing any hits during our sessions. Due to this, he's unconsciously started taking more defensive actions, which I negated by goading him. I can tell that he used to be much better, but years of complacency aren't discarded easily. We continue for about a half-hour or so until the rest of my party arrives.

"Morning."

""Good morning, Nick."" I flinch at their synchronized responses.

"Sakura, I was wondering if you know of any flowers that grow in the forest?"

"Hmmm… There are some, but they mostly grow above the fungal layer. If we climb about halfway up the trees, we should be able to find some."

"No, that's okay. Maybe we'll worry about that later." I decline when I think about the types of monsters that inhabit the middle layers of the forest.

"Before you go," Sampson bends over to catch his breath. "Keep in mind that the Monster's Bane only works for a few minutes. The monsters can still move when they are affected. It's just that they are much weaker due to their mana flow being disrupted."

"Thanks, Sampson. We'll keep that in mind."

"Are we leaving now?" Josh asks.

"No, let's go through our routine."

We finish our workout faster than normal. I think we're all excited to get to our base in the woods. The kids seem giddy, and I notice myself growing impatient as well. In our excitement, we run ourselves into the ground and fall in a heap at the finish. I'm gasping for breath and looking up at the only cloud in the sky. Sakura lies next to Josh as they do the same.

"It looks like an angry face!" Sakura says excitedly.

"Hah, I see it."

"It just looks like a cloud to me."

"You don't see it." Sakura is surprised by Josh's answer. Autistic people have difficulty seeing faces in things. Apart of our brains that causes us to see deities on toast and faces on the moon that these people seem to lack.

I think back to a certain scene in "A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime," which describes an autistic boy's inability to make a connection between a stereotypical smiley face drawn on a piece of paper and the smiling face of a person.

"You're weird." Sakura grabs his arm with a giggle.

"Are you two ready to go to the forest?"

"Yes!"

"I'm ready."

The newlyweds answer with their standard levels of enthusiasm and we leave for the forest. Presumably the edges of the forest have been stripped bare of any useful ingredients so I don't even bother looking until we get to our base. Once we're at the fort, we start moving wood down to the cave.

"Let's call this 'the Den,' and we'll refer to the fort as the FOB."

"Okay."

"Sounds good to me."

After the abridged naming ceremony, we head down to the bottom of the cave. I relight the torches to give us light and begin explaining to Josh how proper workout equipment looks.

"First, we'll need a few benches that look like the long stools that we sit on at the Adventurer's Guild. It needs to be sturdy, and we have to put some cushioning on top of it."

"Okay." Josh gets to work carving the benches, so I decide to leave the rest of the explanation for later. I talk to Sakura about possible rope replacements, and she tells me about the vines falling from the giant tree branches.

"Make sure to get the young vines because they're more flexible. You can tell how old they are by the color and size. Young vines tend to be thinner and dyed a light shade of brown." She articulates herself surprisingly well so she may just be regurgitating this information from a book.

We stay close to the den while we look for underdeveloped vines. I lay an armful of them near the cave's opening and go back for more. After dropping off three more armfuls, I feel satisfied. A veritable mound of vines is laid out in front of me.

"Now we just have to break down the vines into thread and weave them together."

"Why don't we bring the vines down to the den so you can make the rope by Josh."

'Gasp!' Sakura's eyes sparkle at my idea, and she sprints to the basement with a huge armful of vines. I sigh and follow after her with an armful of my own. I get Sakura set up properly and go out looking for ingredients.

"Human!"