Wosche wandered along the small path, focussed on nothing but ensuring he remained listless and carefree. Between the gentle pools of dappled light painting the forest floor and the endless blanket that was the Dark Forest’s canopy overhead, he found it easier to relax than he’d initially expected.

The Dark Forest. A shiver went up his spine as the cool morning breeze kissed the back of his neck. He readjusted his collar, flicking it up for some protection. Only a few hours past the first light of the day and Wosche and Riu were already out on another adventure. Or rather a happening perhaps, given mushroom hunting wasn’t exactly on the same level as the tales of the Good Gods of Yore. 

With a glance down at his sad little wicker basket, he refused to give any attention to the word errand as it bounced around the back of his head. Spending time with Riu was always a good choice and he had no doubt the morning was going to be a good one once he got his bearing.

It was the fact he was up so early. After staying up late after training the night before, he’d expected to have a nice sleep in to rest and recover. He’d imagined himself snug in bed while Teon and Ellen were up at dawn to train yet again and that thought had filled him with a sense of immense peace. The double training sessions were a commonplace for those training for tournaments or the like and Wosche had contented himself with the fact that those days were long gone for him. 

Evidently, he’d been too vocal about how much he’d enjoyed the idea of sleeping in because Riu had come to bang down his door only a handful of hours after they’d gone to bed. When he told her he didn’t want to go, she’d stated that she wouldn’t leave until he opened the door or the tavernkeeper threw her out. 

Knowing how poorly Hivier the tavernkeeper would deal with the situation, Wosche had rushed to the door before he could put his shirt on. 

Then, before he knew it, he was out in the Dark Forest with Riu with the loose instructions of picking mushrooms to sell or eat.

Wosche couldn’t fault her execution, she’d scolded him for being half-naked in front of her, forced him into proper clothes and then had him out the door and by the West Gate before he’d even realised what was happening.

Wosche smiled at memory, happy until his basket shifted at his side and the two lonely mushrooms he had found slid across the bottom. One was a nice, big, brown one with big frills that ran up the mushroom’s head with a proud prominent uniqueness about them. The second was dwarfed by those frills, being a piddly collection of little white stalks with little brown caps attached.

He bounced the mushrooms in the basket into a corner and hurried to catch up to Riu. Despite her weaving from one side of the road to the other to inspect every rock, fallen log, nook, and crannies she could see, her pace was far quicker than his slow trudge. 

Wosche frowned, “If you want me to find anything, you should check one side while I check the other.”

“If you hurried up, I wouldn’t be able to check both sides before you got here.” Riu replied unphased as she peered into the underbrush.

“It is entirely too early in the morning to hurry.” Wosche replied with a fake yawn.

“Which is why you’ll end up with nothing.” Riu commented idly back as she hopped through a large fern to join him. 

Wosche increased his speed to pass her, spite driving him forward. He got the response he wanted; a slight huff of vexation and Wosche cherished his petty little win. 

A large boulder ten metres ahead of them on the left spurred him on and he drifted over to the edge of the path to try and get there first. With a quick glance back, he noted that she’d not tried to race him as he rushed to beat her to the punch. He burst through the brush that stood on the edge of the road, forcing his way past the ferns that tangled around his legs and his eyes fixed on scanning the area around him for anything that looked valuable. Mushrooms were what he had come from but, at this stage, anything that he could feasibly use to fill his basket would do. Sweeping the large fern fronds away, there were only the hardiest plants inhabiting the space at the very bottom of the forest. He pushed towards the large boulder and loathed the way the ground at his feet only became rockier and less interesting. 

He picked which stones he stepped on carefully and watched for any herbs or roots that would be easy to pull out. He found a huge amount of ferns that looked almost identical. Flipping one of the larger rocks on his way to the boulder, Wosche watched as a score of insects fled from his sight. Some of them were interesting but hardly profitable. A skink wriggled out from the side of the chunk of stone but quickly escaped into a small crack deeper in the small outcropping.

He could pull at more of the rocks, dig deeper as he hunted the small skink. It had some interesting patterns on its back and seemed like an interesting prize. A good catch if he could find it between all of the rocks. 

Wosche paused and dropped the rock back onto the ground. He stroked his chin, enjoying the small stubble that scratched along his fingers, “A worthy quarry.”

He hummed happily to himself. It was a good pun. He only wished Riu was closer by for him to share his rock-based hilarity.

Several metres back, she stood at the edge of the path with her hands on her hips and watched him. 

“Just trying to find my quarry!” Wosche shouted back to her, eagerly waiting for her to react. 

Her face didn’t change. She stood stolidly and waited for a moment before she called back, “Why did you say that?”

“I said I was just trying to find my -” Wosche stopped himself mid sentence as he noticed her shaking her head unimpressed, “Oh. Because quarry is rocks and when you want to find something.”

“Uh huh, I get that.” Riu prompted him with a slight grin, “But what made you think it was worth yelling to me?”

Wosche stuck his tongue out and turned back to the boulder. After several more steps, he arrived at the large, round slab of granite, “Winner, winner. I regret nothing.”

“You’re an idiot.” She called back to him with a thumbs up. 

“It’d be stupid not to be.” Wosche said airily and ignored her eyeroll. Sometimes he just liked to say things without thinking. It helped to keep life interesting when he couldn’t predict what was going to happen next.

Riu turned her back and wandered to the other side of the road. Wosche left her to her own search, determined to find something cool to show her once he returned. 

Around the boulder he went, trending carefully as he watched for any of the plants that would be worth taking. His experience with cooking helped, he knew rosemary, sasparilla, lingonberry, and the easy ones like blueberries and strawberries but that was for the northern forests where the underbrush was not as chaotic. Even on the very edge of the Dark Forest in the south, it was a dense wall of vegetation that they needed to fight through, filling with plants he didn’t recognise.

Flowers might be worth picking if he got close enough to them, he supposed. If they could be ground up into a powder, he could imagine some of them could be helpful. 

A quick step onto a flat piece of rock and Wosche plucked several bright purple flowers from a bush and he dropped them into his basket. Someone at the market would know and a copper coin was a copper coin after all.

He moved back through the ferns along a messy path of stepping stones. On the boulder itself, there was a large collection of moss growing from its top, all the way down to where he stood. He gave a chunk a yank and fought harder than he wanted to pull off a piddly little amount. The moss was green, coarse, and it filled up the bottom of his basket, three features that were fast becoming what he qualified as worth picking that morning. 

He used the moss to side step around the boulder, moving up its side slightly to avoid having to wade through the dense undergrowth as much as he could. A fallen tree became his next salvation, cutting a path through the plants and giving him hope for some mushrooms that might have taken up residence beneath its mass. 

With both his arms out, he balanced along the sideways trunk like it was an exceptionally wide tightrope. The basket weighed down his right hand slightly but he accommodated quickly to hop haphazardly along the tree to get deeper into the forest. 

He frowned as he noted how fresh the trunk looked under his feet. The insects of the forest hadn’t even begun to eat away at the timber and the snapped branches and broken ferns indicated that the tree had fallen recently.  

With a sigh, he stopped on his way across the log and checked back on Riu, “Tough to find the good stuff out here. Especially so close to town.”

“Don’t whinge.” Riu called back, “Finding good herbs and mushrooms takes time.”

“Oh, well we have time, I guess.” Wosche replied mildly as he slid down to sit on the log. His feet landed heavily on the ground beneath again and he noted a small cluster of coriander with its little white flowers poking out from amongst the broken wreckage of a large monstera fern. 

Wosche shoved the monstera fronds aside and grabbed a handful of the top of the coriander. With a twist and a yank, he tore a large handful of it off and inspected the healthy looking leaves and flowers before tossing it into his basket. 

Coriander was a good win, useful for his cooking if he couldn’t sell it. He could even place the pot he’d bought a week ago on the window ledge of his accommodation like he’d planned and see if he couldn’t grow the coriander from there. Then, once he sorted out a more permanent place to live, he could use that coriander as his first herb in his garden. 

The idea was a pleasant one. He’d explain he needed a place to settle in town and the money would be worth it as a long term investment. It just made sense to him but he wasn’t the one that needed convincing. 

Wosche scrunched his nose and let the thought slip by. He needed to focus on his morning, relaxing, having a laugh, and relishing in the limited time he got off these days. He hopped back onto the fallen log and gave one last look back at the remaining coriander that morphed back into the rich vegetation at his feet. 

He hadn’t realised just how much of the poor little plant he’d taken on second glance. Much of the top part of it that had managed to break out from the large fronds was now in his basket, leaving only the tiniest part of the coriander now visible from where he stood. 

Wosche stepped back into the fray and grabbed onto the largest of the monstera fronds. It snapped easily as he ripped it from the ferns stem and he snapped the next one down just for good measure. He tossed the fronds into the surrounding forest and kicked back the other bushes that surrounded the small tuft of coriander that remained. He made a semi circle of dirt around the coriander before he stepped back to admire his handiwork. It had some room to breathe and he pulled out the shrub closest to it to ensure it would have some time to regrow just in case. He inspected the roots of the shrub he’d ripped out and figured they might be of some value and tossed them into his basket as well. 

“Are you good over there?” Riu’s voice floated over the boulder to him.

Wosche stood on his tiptoes to see Riu over the way. She was ahead of him again and gave him a little wave as their eyes met. Wosche waved back and stepped back up onto the log to get a better look, “Yeah, just having a blast.”

Riu held his gaze, scowled, and then began to search near her feet again. A heart string pulled slightly and Wosche caught a tiny smile curling at the edge of his lip. He turned his back on her and looked deeper into the forest, refocussed and ready to find something of note to show her. 

A collection of violet berries caught his eye as something of interest. They were nestled high up at the top of the tall, slender plant. Large leaves spread out from the stalk-like trunk of the plant and each leaf had a serrated edge to it as they stuck upwards.  Most of the plant was a dull green, with the stalk and the top of the leaves matching in a dark emerald green but the bottom of the leaves were a striking deep vermillion. 

While the berries were the main draw for the striking plant, Wosche couldn’t help but be intrigued by the new flora for him to investigate. 

The top of the plant was just above his head, with the berries only just within his reach but the leaves gave him pause at the idea of trying. They looked horribly sharp even from a few steps away and the closer he got, the more sure he was that they weren’t something he ought to mess with. 

Yet, mess with them he would. The berries looked plump and the fact they would be a pain to get meant they would probably sell for something. Cautiously stepping forward, he reached over to one of the leaves at his chest height. With his forefinger and thumb, he pinched the leaf and forced the stalk down towards him. The berries were clustered in a tight bunch within the top of the stalk. Wosche carefully worked his left hand around the leaves and wrapped his hand around the stalk. A quick adjustment of his right hand shook the leaves around his arm and made his stomach turn. His left hand found his knife and he brought it up to the stem at his face height. It took half a minute of tense sawing with his knife before the stem gave and he was able to rip the top section off. 

A quick step back and Wosche watched the rest of the plant swing back and forwards. He scampered back far enough not to get whacked and checked out his goodies: a dozen berries and a good amount of the leaves. 

With the tip of his finger, he brushed the edge of the biggest leaf to sate his curiosity. The serrated edge sliced clean through the first layers of his skin and drew blood immediately. 

“Ah fuck.” Wosche muttered as he rubbed his finger on his shirt. The leaf had cut deep with even the slightest amount of pressure and left him with a painful throbbing finger and small hint of regret. 

He took a few more steps back and noticed several more of the tall stalks in the vegetation around him. Knowing what to look for was helpful and he saw several more bunches of berries dotted through the thick crisscrossing branches of the forest. 

Even he could see how discretion was a valuable trait at times and he turned back to the log. He plucked the leaves carefully from the stem and sliced the bunch of berries off. The leaves and berries went in his basket, his knife back in its holster, and the rest of the plant went into the nearby ferns. If the berries turned out to be valuable, he could always come back with better equipment and get a lot more of them if he so pleased. 

It was only when he got back to the log that he realised just how many of the sharp leaved plants dominated the area around him. The right side of the log had a huge mess of smaller stalks mixed in with the other plants. A lump formed in his throat as he thought about how he’d bounded across it before. Wosche stepped to the left and carefully weaved a path back towards the forest trail, stopping only to grab a little fern he did recognise. He took the whole fern and smiled at the memories that came with it. It was a roopaw, he recognised it from when his mother would bring it home from the markets, ecstatic about how she could grind it into their soap for a pleasant smell.  

As he returned to the path, Wosche held the shrub up for Riu to see, “Check this out! Roopaw!”

A heavy silence greeted him as the forest swallowed up his excitement. Riu was on his side of the trail now, completely absorbed in her own foraging. She’d stooped down to look at something with her back to him and seeing her gave him a devilish idea. Jumping out to scare her was a stupid idea. It was childish, ridiculous, and totally worth it.

It served her right really. He’d informally claimed this side of the path and she’d chosen to join him. Only ten metres away but deep enough in the undergrowth for him to try and sneak up, mischief was necessary. The Dark Forest embraced his sinister plan and swallowed him up as he crouched. He dropped his basket by a large mahogany tree, grabbed the shrub he’d taken out of the ground before, and crept forward. 

With her back turned to him, she was working to dislodge something from the ground. He could hear her muttering as she worked, her basket at her feet as she struggled to pull at something. 

There were little other sounds in the forest as he worked hard to creep silently through the bushes that separated them. A bird call and gentle swish as the wind passed them by but nothing that he could use to hide his movements. 

He’d not get too close. A respectable distance and then jump out with a shout. He couldn’t recall Riu bringing her guns or any weapon besides her knife but he wasn’t willing to risk a bullet wound if he was wrong.

With only a few trees between them, Wosche slowed his breathing down and tried not to let the pressure raise his heart rate.

A small twinge of pain shot through his arm as he passed by one of the sharp-leaved plants. Wosche let out a hiss of disapproval and moved past it. He had never seen a plant like it before and suddenly it was everywhere. He took shelter in the shade of a tree trunk. 

Riu stood up a few metres away and Wosche felt the chance for his prank begin to slip from his grasp. 

“Boo!” Wosche leapt out from his hiding spot, waving the shrub in the air wildly above his head. 

Riu stood and waited for him to awkwardly stop. He gave his hands another shake above his head and she half-assed a gasp in response, “Oh no! A hideous, smelly, ugly monster!”

Wosche scowled at her before suddenly squirming in irritation. Some of the dirt from the shrub had fallen into the back of his shirt and worked its way down his back. He tossed the shrub away and he danced around as he tried to flick the dirt from the bottom of his shirt. Most of it came out and he stooped down to pick up the shrub to show Riu, “Is this valuable?”

Riu pulled her basket back up her arm and stared at him impassively, “Why in all Good and Mighty did you pull out the plant if you didn’t know what it was?”

Wosche looked at the shrub in his hand and tried to figure out just how to explain, “It crossed me.”

Riu raised her eyebrow at him before scooping up her basket and heading back towards the path. Holding her basket in front of her, she rammed her way through the lowbrush with little trouble. 

Wosche hurried to grab his basket again before following her path to join her, “And it looks cool, I think. Any idea what it is?”

“I have no idea what you’ve picked up, but you should probably be more careful.” Riu swivelled back to him once she reached the path. A small smile graced her face and she held out her hand to take the shrub from him.

Wosche held the leafy prize back from her, “No way. This one is mine. If you don’t know what it is, then you must not want it.”

Riu pulled her hand back and tutted, “Very well, if you don’t want me to tell you.”

“Oooh, I knew it was good. Am I rich?” Wosche grinned as he handed it over to her. 

“Yes.” Riu plucked the shrub from his hand and turned it over as she inspected it, “Your parents are, at least. But see this bud here. That would have become a cream coloured flower. It is an exceptionally old and rare flowering plant found in this region of the jungle…”

Wosche’s heart skipped a beat at the idea of finding something truly rare. He leaned in close to look at the bud and got bonked on the nose as Riu tilted it towards him. 

She let out a lilting laugh and handed him back the plant, “If you had let it grow.”

Wosche took it back and gave her a dirty look, “So, what is it called though? I need to know if I am going to sell it.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Riu replied suspiciously. With a brief tap on his shoulder, she moved back along the path, moving further into the forest. 

Wosche squashed the plant into the side of the basket, making sure his hand got nowhere near the sharp leaves again. As he once again worked to catch up to her, he came up alongside her, “Why wouldn’t I believe you, my good friend Riu?” My Good-loving good good friend, good Riu?” 

“It is the idiot fruit tree.” Riu responded flippantly while she strode along the path. 

“Woow, so we are being like that now?” Wosche huffed as he walked along with her, “I will just have to see what Maive says when I bring it to her.”

Riu let out a slight guffaw but said no more, instead going back to her hunt on the side of the road. 

Wosche chose to stay with her rather than go back to the other side. Her basket overflowed with a wealth of interesting bits and pieces. A large swathe of vines provided a bed for a variety of mushrooms, herbs, flowers, and roots that filled up more than half of her basket. 

“Holy Fire. When did you get all of that?” Wosche pointed at the basket.

Riu swivelled the basket into the crook of her right elbow, far from his reach, “When you were meandering. I found some ginseng, so that should sell for a bit. Which means I’m going to buy quite a few egg tarts this morning.” 

“Oh, I would love some egg tarts!” Wosche jumped in, his mouth watering at the idea of going to the quaint market stall they’d found the previous week.

Riu slowed to inspect the side of the path while she spoke, “You’ll need to get foraging then.”

“I thought we were working together.” Wosche crooned, trying his best to feign emotional pain as he waited for her.

“I am not sure how you came to that delusion. I brought you your own basket.” Riu replied. 

“True.” Wosche tapped his chin with his finger, “But I like to think of us as a team in many ways. A team with two equally-important baskets.”

Riu gave him a blank stare before she turned back to wander along the side of the path once more.

Wosche waited to see if she looked back at him. By the time he gave up, he had to jog to catch up to her once more, “So, why do you think they call it the Dark Forest?”

“I’d not considered it. Maybe because it is scary.”

“Or maybe because it is in the north so it gets dark faster?” Wosche nodded thoughtfully, “But it is The Dark Forest. What makes this one darker than any of the other ones in Northern Coia.”

“It doesn’t get darker faster in the north.” Riu replied matter-of-fact, “But all the stories of the creatures of the Dark Forest probably don’t help. Trolls, and witches, and ankhegs and their lairs.” Riu stopped and picked some cone-shaped flowers that stood proudly from one of the bushes on her side.

“And then the people who go missing sometimes.” Wosche mumbled as he thought of the horrid stories his parents had told him, “New question, why are we in the Dark Forest?”

“Because you thought it would be funny to tease Teon.” Riu affirmed while she tucked the flowers into the vines in her basket.

“I knew it. You don’t go mushroom picking!” Wosche clicked his fingers and pointed at her accusingly, “You made me wake up early.”

“I did.” Riu admitted easily, “But The Dark Forest is probably just a name. It’s dramatic like all of the names in Weidenland: Dark Hold, Dragon’s Teeth, Blood Peak, umm,”

“Valley of Sorrows,” Wosche added to help her, “It’s the easterners, don’t you think? The Breisachian folk and all their wheat fields and gentle hills named our lands with scary names.”

Riu let out a slight huff in amusement, “The Golden Plains is a much friendlier name.”

“Exactly, Eastern Weidenland doesn’t have many scary parts either, except the Ruins of Fohoven of course. But then you have the Blue Lake, The Golden Plains, even the Winter Woods sound quite welcoming if you don’t think about what winter is like in the north east.” Wosche felt himself ranting but lent into it. Sledging Breisachians was a popular pastime in Weideland and he’d come to enjoy how silly it all was.

“Far more preferable to the Dark Forest.” Riu flashed him a smile as she went deeper into the woods again to pick something.