Chickenman slumped on the rickety wooden chair just outside the clinic door, elbows braced on knees, staring into the wall of forest as though it might eventually take pity and cough up the answers he needed.

  Thin shafts of afternoon sunlight stabbed through the canopy in dusty golden spears, but they never quite reached the ground here only enough to remind him how thoroughly the shadows owned this place. The clearing felt too exposed after days of being crushed between trees, yet the forest itself watched him back silent, patient, ancient, and utterly uninterested in his problems.

  "What the hell actually happened before all this?" he muttered, grinding the heel of his palm against his forehead hard enough to leave red marks. "My memories… just gone. Like someone reached in, scooped them out, and threw the rest away."

  A heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder sudden, iron-hard.

  Chickenman lurched forward with an undignified yelp, nearly pitching face-first into the dirt. The grip tightened, yanking him back down into the chair with the casual indifference of someone who had done this many times before.

  "Whoa, whoa, easy there. You look tense as a bowstring about to snap," came Tobias's voice from behind, slightly muffled by the ever-present curved beak of his plague mask.

  Chickenman let out a long, bone-deep groan and slumped deeper into the seat. "Not funny. Sneaking up on people like that."

  "Not my fault you've managed to cram a lifetime of disaster into one single day," Tobias replied, dry as old parchment. He planted both gloved hands on his narrow hips. "Anyway. I've got a job for you, Chicky."

  "A job?" Chickenman squinted up at him. The sunlight bounced painfully off the polished lenses of the mask, turning them into twin dead moons. "I barely know this place. Hell, I barely know myself." His gaze drifted again to the black leather, the stitched seams, the long beak that never seemed to leave Tobias's face. "Are… are you always wearing that thing?"

  "You think I dragged your sorry carcass out of the woods, burned through a very expensive vial of antidote, and did it all out of the goodness of my heart?" Tobias's tone carried the particular dryness of someone who has long since run out of patience for gratitude. "Should've left you to rot beside your chicken. And yes, the mask stays. It's part of the identity. Now shut up and listen."

  He turned to fully face Chickenman, coat rustling. "You know Hucolus Mushrooms? No, of course you don't. They glow blue. You'll know them when you see them in this godforsaken dark forest." Without waiting for a reply, Tobias pivoted on his heel and vanished back inside the clinic.

  "Damn it… just great," Chickenman muttered, rubbing his eyes so hard sparks danced behind his lids. "Like my life wasn't complicated enough already."

  A minute later Tobias reappeared and tossed a worn leather satchel straight into Chickenman's lap, followed immediately by a pair of comically oversized leather shoes that landed with twin heavy thuds.

  "There's your equipment," Tobias said. "My lucky dagger and a strip of dried meat inside. Don't expect much this is a clinic, not a guild hall or a bloody charity."

  Chickenman sighed, unlaced the satchel, and pulled out the dagger. The blade was pitted with age, the edge more suggestion than sharpness, the handle wrapped in fraying leather cord. "Really? Can't I get something… I don't know… less pathetic than what I already have?"

  Tobias crossed both arms and leaned against the doorframe. "There's a perfectly good tree branch in the woodpile if you prefer something more rustic. Or, if the goddesses of fortune are feeling generous today, you might find my old broken sword in the shed. Take it or leave it, also i wanted that satchel back once your job is done."

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  Chickenman groaned louder this time and shoved the dagger back inside. He slung the satchel over his shoulder and forced his feet into the shoes. They flopped around his ankles like a toddler wearing his father's boots. "Another great. Rusty dagger and oversized shoes. I feel like a proper adventurer already."

  "If you don't want them, I'll happily take them back and give them to someone more grateful. And competent," Tobias said, voice flat. His masked head tilted slightly toward the clinic window, where Inferna stood gazing out at the backyard, arms folded tight across her chest. "Why don't you take her with you? She might actually know the forest better. Could keep you both from dying stupidly."

  Chickenman followed the direction of the beak. "Who, Inferna?"

  "No, the rats in the walls. Of course her, you dumb bugger," Tobias replied, sarcasm thick enough to spread on bread.

  "Fine," Chickenman muttered, pushing himself to his feet. "If it'll make you happy." He brushed past Tobias and approached the window. Inferna didn't turn until he cleared his throat. "Hey. The doctor assigned us a job."

  Inferna finally glanced over, one dark eyebrow climbing. "A job? Better be easy."

  "Huh, I thought you'd fight him on it," Chickenman said, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. "You hate the guy."

  "I've got nowhere else to go," she answered, eyes flicking toward Tobias with pure venom. "So for now I do whatever that beak arsehole says. Doesn't mean I have to like it."

  An hour later they were deep in the forest.

  Dried leaves and pine needles crunched under every step. Inferna walked with one hand raised, a small, steady flame dancing in her palm enough light to keep the darkness from pressing too close, not enough to announce their presence to anything that might be watching.

  "I've never liked forests," she muttered, eyes sweeping the trees. "Especially dark, thick ones like this. Feels like the trees are breathing down my neck."

  Chickenman kept his gaze forward, mind too crowded with his own questions to offer much conversation and he eating dried meat Tobias gave him. Find glowing blue mushrooms. Collect them. Get back. Simple. He could manage simple.

  Inferna stayed a step behind, tense, glancing over her shoulder every few paces. The air had turned colder unnatural, crawling-under-the-skin cold.

  Then the forest simply… changed.

  One moment the trees crowded in, low branches clawing at the sky, Inferna's firelight flickering nervously across rough bark. The next, everything opened.

  Chickenman stopped dead.

  Before them lay a wide, perfectly circular clearing unnaturally clean, as though someone had swept the forest floor with meticulous care.

  The same impenetrable wall of trees ringed it on all sides. In the exact center stood a single ancient oak, massive beyond reason, trunk thick as a small house. Its bark was deeply furrowed, carved by centuries of wind, rain, and time. Enormous roots sprawled outward like veins claiming dominion over the earth.

  But what stopped Chickenman's breath was the soft, ethereal blue glow coming from the oak itself.

  "I see it. The… Holucois? Hulo— Halu…" He stumbled over the name, tongue tripping.

  Inferna's eyebrow shot up again. "Hucolus."

  "Yeah, right. Hulsoku." He started toward the tree.

  Inferna shook her head in disbelief, clearly still not over the fact that she was babysitting an idiot who knew nothing about this world. She kept watch anyway, eyes darting, flame flaring slightly brighter.

  The mushrooms weren't growing on the bark.

  They sprouted from the empty eye sockets of a human skull, half-buried in the dark soil at the base of the oak.

  "Huh. Poor guy died alone out here," Chickenman murmured, feeling a strange pang of sympathy for someone he'd never known.

  Then he noticed the rest. Rusted chainmail, cracked and green with age. A kettle helmet still perched crookedly atop the skull. A soldier long dead, yet somehow still on duty.

  "What the… why would a soldier be buried in the middle of nowhere?" he muttered, crouching. "Hey, come here for a second."

  She quickened her pace. "What? Whoa…" Her eyes widened. "A soldier? What the hell is he doing out here? Here, in the deep dark of the forest."

  "Exactly my question." Chickenman noticed the skeleton's bony hand still clenched around something buried in the dirt. He worked it free with effort a short sword, still sheathed.

  Despite the decades or centuries it had lain there, the blade and scabbard were remarkably well-preserved. No heavy rust. Edge still keen enough to draw blood with a careless touch.

  He drew it slowly. The steel sang faintly as it cleared the scabbard, catching Inferna's firelight in a brief, hungry gleam.

  "This'll come in handy," he said, a small, genuine smirk breaking across his face for the first time in hours.

  Next he lifted the kettle helmet off the skull. It slid sideways on his head immediately.

  "You need a coif first to secure it, dummy," Inferna said, voice thick with sarcasm. "What, have you been sleeping under a rock for a million years?"

  Chickenman ignored her. He'd just scored a decent sword and helmet. Small victories.

  "Now… right. The mushrooms." He crouched again beside the skull. "I'm sorry, fella. But I need your eyes."

  He drew the rusty dagger from the satchel and carefully sliced the first glowing blue mushroom free from the socket. It came away with a soft, wet sound.

  "That's one. Few more to go," he muttered.

  Inferna spun toward him. "Few more? We need more than one?" Her voice carried clear annoyance.

  "Well, we've only got one so far. Maybe Tobias needs a handful?" He turned to face her, mushroom glowing faintly in his palm like a tiny captured star.

  "I don't give a damn what the beak arsehole wants," she snapped, voice rising. "We found the mushroom. Let's go back. He never specified how many, did he?"

  "I… guess not," he replied.

  "Good. Then we're done." She turned on her heel and started walking without waiting, flames flaring brighter in her hand as though daring the darkness to follow.

  Chickenman secured the short sword to his belt, then hurried after her, one hand clamping the too-large kettle helmet in place. It clanked softly against his skull with every step.

  Behind them unnoticed in the perfect stillness of the clearing the skull's empty sockets, as though the long-dead soldier were watching their retreating backs with patient, hollow interest.