Chương 29: Imprints

"What's wrong with it?" She asked as she reached behind her to feel it, her hand came away wet, soaked in her blood. She thought back to when she'd rolled with the creature, it must have got her then.

"Shit." Hazel moved towards her, but Grim raised her bloody hand to stop her, "No, Jeremy first."

"What? No, it's just a scratch. You need it more," he protested.

"C'mon, Jeremy's tough and I don't know how much energy it would take to heal that. It's not worth it to find out," Hazel said, pushing Grim's bloody hand down and moving behind her. Grim didn't stop her, but she grumbled about it, Jeremy wasn't supposed to get hurt, and he did. But if they didn't want to fix that, then fine. She'd let them lie in that grave, at least the scar would look cool. Her mood took a drastic positive swing as [HEALING GLOOM] poured her shadow into her back.

She hadn't felt much pain from her injury before, it blending in with the rest easily, but she noticed it once it was gone. Once Hazel finished, she stretched, noticing instantly how much more limber she was than a moment ago.

"How's that feel?" Hazel asked.

"Better. Now let's see how many shards we got." They spent the next ten minutes gathering up the Boon shards, altogether, they ended up a bit luckier than she had gotten. Most of them had given three compared to the two she had gotten when she'd been alone. She pocketed the shards and led them off into the jungle, slashing trees as she did so to mark their path.

"So, where are we going? You know where any loot is?" Jeremy asked after almost half an hour of walking.

"Loot?" Jeremy jogged a bit to walk beside her, "Yeah, like hidden caches of items and shards. Stuff like that, I thought maybe you'd found one."

"Uhh," she shook her head.

"I was just looking for more things to kill."

"What? You're missing like half the point of going into these things. The monsters are just the guardians, and the stuff they drop is just a cherry on top of the ice cream, you know?"

"No, I don't."

"I like loot, loot sounds fun," Hazel said from the back. Grim rolled her eyes, "Of course you would."

"Where do you find loot?" She asked, looking around as they walked, she even peeled back a large leaf and looked on both sides of it, as if it were hiding clues.

"Well, you know, it's like landmarks or something with meaning? It needs a story behind it for there to be something. Sometimes there's puzzles or an illusion you have to see through. That's not to say it has to make sense to us humans, the system is still in charge and she hates us, but there's definitely some people who are good at figuring out how she thinks."

"Oh wow," she paused.

"Do you think a waterfall would have anything?"

"Yeah, almost definitely. Especially out here with the two suns, doesn't make sense for there to be much jungle when we've barely seen any water."

"What if it were behind an illusion?"

"Like the loot or the waterfall?"

"Waterfall."

"There's nothing like that out here, this place has been picked dry for years. The amount of people who come in here would've found all that already," Grim said.

"C'mon, I think I hear some more up ahead." Both Hazel and Jeremy ignored her as they continued talking. Animals.

"Waterfall and an illusion hiding it? I'd bet money on there being loot there," Jeremy said. Grim heard the bushes rattle behind them and turned, knife drawn, only to see Hazel wading into the jungle.

"Okay then. Follow me to loot!"

"Hey, wait! You can't just run off," Grim yelled after her. Jeremy disappeared into the brush too, leaving her standing alone on a makeshift trail. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Motherfuckers." * The three of them stood before a massive waterfall, it towered over the jungle and at the peak must have given a great vantage point over the surrounding area. The water fell into a pool that could be considered a very large pond. It didn't seem to go anywhere else, but at the same time, it didn't get any bigger. At least it seemed to answer how all the flora in this biome was watered.

"Why didn't you say anything about this before?" Jeremy asked as they stood around the edge of the pond, the roar of the water in the back was deafening, and he had to shout to be heard over it. Hazel looked flustered, as her ears took on a bright red hue, "I thought there was a reason we were ignoring it, how was I supposed to know you couldn't see it?"

"You can ask?" Grim said. She groaned, "Can you see that tree? What about that one? The rock? What about that monkey sneaking up on you? Wait, wait! I was joking about that one."

"Fine, I get your point. Although there has to be some better way for us to utilize that."

"I'll think about it," Hazel said as she used her hand to shade her eyes so she could see.

"Now, where's the loot supposed to be? Or look like, I'm not seeing anything."

"Definitely on the other side of the waterfall, as to how we'd get over there? I have no clue. The force of the water would push us under immediately, and we'd either get battered or drown," Jeremy said. Grim watched as they pondered over solutions for the next ten minutes, content to dip her feet in the water. She hadn't seen any creatures around or in the water, so she felt safe enough to do so.

It was interesting to her watching Hazel interact with other people, she was always open and a bit carefree but there was none of that deferral that was present when they spoke. Inside her was a bit of an ugly feeling that was growing, but she did her best to stomp it out, it was frankly silly to get jealous over her shadow interacting with her adopted brother? She wasn't really sure what Jeremy was, adopted roommate? That didn't seem right, but she didn't have many other options. Would it always be this confusing?

She hoped not. Hazel was hers, and that would not change just because Jeremy was here. As to the problem they were having, she'd figured it out several minutes ago but wanted to get her thoughts in order first.

"May I borrow your ring, Jeremy?" Grim asked. He was deep in argument with Hazel and barely responded to her, instead only pealing off the ring and giving it, focused on his own conversation, "Yeah, sure, just don't lose it."

"Wouldn't dream of it," she said as she walked to the side of the water, mentally amping herself up. Her heartbeat increased, and she was feeling a deep reluctance to what she was about to do, it had seemed like a good idea a moment ago, but now the reality of the situation was hitting her, "Fuck it." Hazel noticed at the last second as she started running, "Wait, what are you doing?"

"I'm getting the loot!" Grim yelled as she leaped, holding her left hand above her head. She activated the Boon on the ring and let it absorb the water crashing down on her. In the jump's apex she saw the ring glow brightly as it stopped absorbing after reaching its full capacity. The water slammed into her, nearly causing her to do a flip, luckily with her momentum and the slight delay, it was enough to get her to the other side. She found herself submerged and disoriented in the water.

Although she could swim, it was only barely, and she took some time to get her head above water. There was some solid rock, and it took her a moment, but she heaved herself back onto dry land. She flopped herself out and lay there, drawing in breaths. She didn't have the strength yet to lift her head.

"What was that?" Hazel asked as she stepped into her view, her eyes furious.

"You could've died."

"... Loot," Grim said.

"Grim! Are you okay?" Jeremy shouted, but was only just above a whisper compared to the roar of the waterfall. Hazel got as close as she could to the water and cupped her hand close to her mouth as she shouted back, "Yeah! She's okay, just wet."

"That's good, how am I supposed to get in there?"

"One second!" Hazel said as she turned around, and Grim felt her wriggling the ring from her finger. It took her some trial and error to figure out how to activate the ring and dump the water out. She got some distance from the waterfall as Grim found the strength to push herself into a sitting position.

Hazel started running towards the waterfall, and Grim pushed off the floor, diving to catch her leg, she caught her before she gained too much speed and they spun and ended up in a heap with Hazel lying on top of her.

"Ugh, why are you so heavy?" Grim asked. Hazel's mouth opened wide, "How dare you and—and that's besides the point. Why'd you grab me?"

"You were going to jump with just the ring, it's not going to be enough. You're gonna have to copy it if you want both of you to get through."

"Oh," Hazel crawled over and sat Grim up, dusting her off before standing up herself.

"To be honest, that never crossed my mind that I could do that."

"Mine too. Might've saved me a bit of flailing."

"Yup, yup. Well, I'll be right back then." Hazel jumped back into the water, and this time Grim saw as the ring gave out, the water started flowing into her instead. She didn't catch the rest as they passed through her view but a minute or so later she saw Jeremy barrel through the waterfall. The ring gave out but Hazel stood above him with her hand outstretched absorbing the water as it threatened to crash down on them. She lasted only a second longer before there was too much and she was smashed into the pond.

"Hazel!" Grim yelled as she pulled on their connection and found it behind her.

"I'm okay," Hazel said as she stepped out of her shadow and shook herself like a dog, coating Grim with the freezing water just as she was starting to warm up.

"Little help?" Jeremy drowned out, struggling to keep his head above water.

"Oh shit." The two of them jumped in and pulled, she knew he could swim, but his armour had weighed him down enough. Together, the two of them were able to orient and pull him into shallower depths. He caught his breath in much the same way Grim had.

"Did... we... find it?" Grim turned around and looked around the cave they had just risked their lives to enter and started laughing.

"Yeah," she paused.

"We did."