Her belly complained with a sharp pinch of hunger, and so Tanisha braced herself. Sour or not, she would—
The color leached from the berries. They turned pasty and pale. There was a swirl of motion, and they darkened like they were being pumped full of smoke. It was unnatural, and unnerving. There was no sheen of light on them. They were just a handful of matte black shapes in her hands.
As she stared, she found herself thinking of the interior of an exhaust pipe of an old car. Dark and coated in pollution, fresh from the source.
There were a half million cars in the city of Seattle, and this black was the color they sprayed out of the back of them as they idled on the streets. Dirty. Gross. Disgusting.
Tanisha blinked, and the berries turned orange again.
A side effect of her stability.
She hadn’t been expecting it, but it made sense. There was no corresponding mechanic in game, but the game couldn’t properly deal with stability anyway. As it was, Tanisha knew she’d have to deal with her stability sooner, rather than later.
The berries in her palm seemed innocuous enough. Her pained stomach demanded her attention. Tanisha raised the berries to her lips. Her hand stopped before she could force them into her mouth. She caught a distant whiff that smelled like the air in the Seattle transit tunnel. Stale from the lack of fresh air. Vile due to the smog from the thousands of buses that filtered through it every day. Ripe from the sweaty press of bodies trying to get from one end of the city to the other. Or beyond.
Tanisha almost retched.
“I have to,” she said in a tone that was full of desperation. Her eyes started to water, and saliva flooded her mouth as if she were about to vomit. “Please. I need food. Something.”
She put the berries in her mouth.
All she tasted was grit and asphalt.
Her whole body shuddered violently and she spat them out on the ground. Tanisha retched, although there was nothing in her system to come up.
“Alright, fine,” she murmured quietly, spitting out a mouthful of saliva. She dropped the remaining berries to the ground and ran the back of her hand across her mouth. “I’ll deal with stability first. I can’t… I just can’t live like this. I won’t live like this. I’ll die if I can’t fix it.” She shook her head, and a sense of self-loathing filled her. “Never again. I won’t let this happen ever again, okay? Just let me survive long enough to turn this around.”
The world didn’t respond. But she could feel an inward sigh of relief. She’d come far enough. Now she would take things seriously.
Chapter 20
There was just one problem.
Tanisha didn’t know exactly how stability was recovered. In the mobile version of dARkness, the simplest way was to sleep. Crafting a special sleep item, such as a bed or a sleeping bag, and using it would restore stability over time while logged off. As long as the durability held out.
But she couldn’t do that here. She wasn’t even sure if she’d be able to sleep. Not to mention she didn’t have the materials to craft anything like that.
There were a few other ways to restore stability in the game, including a lot of consumed items and rare food, but the only thing that came to her mind at the moment was the purple mushroom from the tutorial.
The details were fuzzy, though. Maybe it was walking all day. Or the terror. Perhaps the mad dash through what still felt like an eternity of darkness. Or maybe the low stability was actively impairing her memory.
She knew she cooked one mushroom, and had eaten the other raw.
But which was which? And where had she found them?
Tanisha put aside her other concerns. She actively tried to ignore her aching stomach, and the imposing shadow figures that still circled her but were unmoving. Instead, she focused her attention on the ground, and started to explore the forest around where she’d stopped. The mushrooms had been on the ground. But where?
She came across the red ones, first. Just in case she’d need it, Tanisha snatched up one as soon as she found a single stalk that wasn’t protected by a guardian Stick Folk. They followed her like a cloud, never getting closer but also never dropping behind. But all she found were the red mushrooms. No other colors. They’d all been at the bases of trees, as well, and so Tanisha knew the others wouldn’t grow there. She decided to look elsewhere.
After a few agonizing minutes—where her hunger pains grew tighter and more insistent as her bar continued to plummet towards empty—she came across a large boulder jutting out of the ground.
At the base of it was a single purple mushroom.
And there were no shadowy figures protecting it.
She snatched it up quickly, holding the previously disgusting fungus to her chest like it was a precious bounty to be protected. As she looked across the short distance to the gathered Stick Folk, Tanisha decided it wasn’t untrue. Their ominous presence was enough of a reason to treat this like a true prize.
“Alright.” She looked down at the purple mushroom in her hands. Bane of her taste buds as it was, it would also be her salvation. “Either you need to be cooked, or you need to be raw.” Tanisha looked back at the big rock she’d found the purple mushroom under, and directed her chair back to it. No other tiny purple caps lurked there. “And I guess I have one shot at this. So, if I pick wrong, I’ll definitely die.”
She struggled to find a clear memory. Something that wasn’t distorted by fear. But all she could remember was the disgusting texture of the mushroom. She couldn’t clearly picture it in her mind, and she cursed her low stability bar. Either it was physically affecting her brain functions, or she was just too panicked over it to clear her thoughts.
There was a solution here, however. She knew it. Like a word on the tip of her tongue. She just needed to figure it out.
“I’ve got this. I just need to—”
Tanisha stopped mid-sentence, her head snapping up and to her left. There had been movement there. She saw nothing but the shadowy guardians of her failing sanity. Was it a saladmander? She looked for the tell-tale sign of moving grass.
The movement came again.
But it was no saladmander.
The motion was a jerking lurch.
Of a Stick Folk.
One of them forced its way out of the shadows created by where a berry bush met a tree. It pushed towards her. The steps it took were jerky, obviously a struggle. But it was moving towards her, steadily. Its arms were stretched out, with intent that made its featureless form seem equal parts eager and hungry.
As Tanisha inhaled to scream, another lurched itself out of the shadows from behind a nearby tree. It too descended ever closer, one jerky step at a time.
There were at least a dozen more figures still lurking in the shadows.
And as much as Tanisha wanted to freak out—get the torch and axe out of her inventory and just start flailing around—she knew she had to hold on. Everything had shown her that her stability bar was tied to her mental state. She had precious little bar left to spare.
“I’m going to run away now,” she said aloud, not so much to herself but to the world around her. To the False Lands. “I’m not panicking. This is me thinking clearly and making the smartest decision available.”
She turned away from the unsettling creatures lurching like zombies towards her, and directed her chair to flee. Despite her racing heart, and the rapid pace her chair set for her retreat, Tanisha carefully controlled her breathing. She forced herself to stay calm.
This time, the Stick Folk did not keep pace. The chair slipped between two of the unmoving figures, and Tanisha was able to get a good distance from them before the moving ones got anywhere near her. Just like the bees, the slow-moving shamblers fell far behind her, and eventually Tanisha slowed down to a more fuel-efficient pace once they disappeared behind the foliage of the forest.
“Okay,” she said, keeping her voice calm and even, despite the nervousness that lurked, “that was a calm and calculated response. Definitel
y not borne of any sort of panic or anxiety.” Tanisha looked down at the status bar for her stability. It was nearly depleted, but seemed to be holding steady at just a tiny sliver. It wasn’t at one, and it wasn’t draining. She was good.
The forest was still full of shadows, however, and as she watched, more Stick Folks formed from the darkness cast by bush and tree. But these were thin and immaterial. They weren’t stepping into the light and—
Almost in response to that thought, one of them began to jerk and move.
Tanisha’s mouth opened with a sharp inhale, but her teeth clicked together loudly as she snapped her mouth closed. She swallowed the frightened yelp that wanted to jump past her lips.
She was calm.
Of course, she was calm. Perfectly calm. Calm enough to not scream.
This was fine. Everything was under control.
The tiny sliver of purple bar in the lower corner of her UI ticked down.
“Oh, come on!” she shouted, aiming her frustration at the bar. “I’m calm! I didn’t scream! I’m in control! You stop moving right now!”
The bar didn’t respond.
Tanisha calmly—with shaking hands and gasping breath—turned her chair around and directed it to move away from the shadowy figure that lurched towards her. She set the chair at a brisk walking pace, instead of a sprint. Her fuel bar was dipping below half, and if she was having trouble remaining calm enough for the purple bar while she was riding high on a leggy mech, she didn’t want to see what would happen if she were moving around on her hands.
Walking burned significantly less fuel than running, anyway, disproportionate with the amount of distance covered. And walking was fast enough to outpace the discordant lurching of the Stick Folk.
“This is getting old, fast,” Tanisha said. She had to deal with this soon. And the way to deal with it sat in her lap, undisturbed by the smooth movements of her chair. The red and purple mushrooms rested side-by-side. It was the purple one that was her way out, but only if she could remember how to consume it.
A thought came to her.
The quest log.
Tanisha opened her inventory and navigated to the book icon. Unfortunately, it was nearly useless while moving. The semi-transparent gray coloration of the menu made the Stick Folk lurking behind it almost invisible, and Tanisha worried she might not see one coming for her if the menu was open. Similarly, only having one hand down to control the chair made its movements a little less smooth. The chair didn’t jerk and rock, but it listed to one side, and seemed to curve in that direction slightly.
But she didn’t have a choice. It was either this, or experimentation.
She clicked on the completed quest, and the menu popped up the expanded quest text for her.
Welcome to the False Lands: Open your inventory screen. Your inventory allows you to easily store and carry a number of items—
Tanisha frowned and scrolled the text up. The mushroom bit had been the last thing before she was free of the tutorial. Every chunk of text moved past at a snail’s pace. It was frustrating, to say the least, but Tanisha kept scrolling anyway. She watched as the crafting portions crawled by, then the combat.
But before she could get to the part she wanted, something grabbed her.
A shadowy hand was wrapped around her wrist, keeping her from scrolling. Another hand closed around her other wrist. It twisted her arm away from its position just past the armrest. The chair came to a stop.
Tanisha couldn’t help it.
She screamed. A piercing, agonizing, fearful scream.
Being touched unexpectedly always weirded her out, and the violence of the grab made it ten times worse.
Her brain sent signals to her legs, ordering them to kick out at her attacker, but the signals would never make it to their destination. She did flail her arms, struggling against the slimy grasp of the Stick Folks. But her flailing was detrimental, as it didn’t loosen their grasp, and only served to close the window she’d spent so long futzing with.
Tanisha screamed again, and this time it was more anger than fear. She would not be handled like this! It wasn’t like she was weak! Tanisha twisted her arms violently, ripping one wrist out of the shadowy grip. With a snarl she pistoned her fist rapidly as soon as it was free. She struck the figure in the upper chest and face, before realizing she was trying to hit a shadow.
It wasn’t like attacking a crabstrosity or a saladmander. Maybe it was because the Stick Folk were different, or maybe it was because she was attacking with her fists. Or perhaps it was because her stability was nearly empty. But she struck solid matter.
The attack didn’t pass through the creature with a tug of resistance, and it didn’t draw a red number.
It was like punching human flesh, and part of it was viscerally satisfying.
The creature recoiled from her attack, but it refused to release her other arm. Which was fine by Tanisha. She punched it again, this time as hard as she could muster.
And she could muster some pretty good strength. Years of being in a wheelchair had meant she developed pretty good arm muscles.
The shadowy figure didn’t just recoil. It cried out. The sound was like the squealing of an improperly-prepared potato in an oven. A shriek from the depths of her nightmares. The Stick Folk fell away from it, shadowy hands clutching what could be considered its face. Tanisha dropped both hands to the sides of her chair and, at her direction, the mechanical wonder darted away, leaving her attacker behind.
“New idea,” Tanisha said, trying to keep her breathing under control. “Can’t stop to scroll through the quest. So, logic puzzle time.” She looked down at the two mushrooms in her lap, glad to see them both at hand. “What at my variables? Two mushrooms. One I ate raw, and the other I ate cooked. But how do I figure it out?”
The answer hit her suddenly, and she felt silly for having struggled at all.
She could eat the red one. Her health bar was still full, in spite of the clutching hands of the False Lands’ smoke monster. No matter how she ate it, she’d know the answer based off the results.
Simple.
Tanisha popped the red mushroom in her mouth raw. The texture was exactly as terrible as she remembered, but she chewed it just the same.
There was a wrenching sensation as soon as she swallowed. It hurt. A lot. Like a physical blow that bent her over. A full half of her red bar dissolved away instantly.
She smiled wryly, forcing it through the pain. “There’s my answer.”
The tutorial had told her the mushroom eaten the wrong way would have the adverse effect. So, instead of healing her, eating the red mushroom raw hurt her. It hurt a lot, but she tried to not focus on that huge dip to her health bar. She could get more red mushrooms. The forest was a pretty great place to find them.
She popped the purple mushroom in her mouth immediately. Her teeth ran over it the bare minimum required to call it chewed, and she swallowed. She told herself it was because she didn’t want to waste anymore time so thoroughly messed up by the stability mechanics, but it was just as much to get the taste out of her mouth.
Blessedly, the purple bar jumped up to just the halfway point. The world around Tanisha changed drastically for the better. She hadn’t realized how much the colors of the world had dimmed and dulled until they came back in full technicolor spectrum. The world grew quieter as well. Just as she hadn’t realized how bleak her surroundings looked, the constant oppressive chattering noise had grown louder so gradually that she hadn’t noticed it at all. Now that it stopped, she felt significantly better.
The Stick Folk weren’t gone. Not entirely, at least. Much to her chagrin. But there were fewer of them.
As she looked around, Tanisha saw three, and all of them were much farther away from her. They looked thin and immaterial, more like steam than smoke.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Never again,” Tanisha said, repeating herself in an affirmation. “Let’s play this straight.”
Chapter 21
With the world around her now looking much more manageable, Tanisha could finally stop and think. She could no longer go about fooling herself—Otekah’s castle was a pipedream. But only at the moment. The way she was going to find the trail again was by combing the forest to look for the torch she’d dropped the previous night. And there was no guarantee it wouldn’t despawn.
But she couldn’t even begin thinking of returning to that until she dealt with the cards she was previously dealt.
She was trapped here, and the rules said she needed to play along to live. That meant managing her status bars for now. And they were all in pretty poor shape and in need of her attention.
Despite it no longer being the lowest bar—in fact, it was her highest right now by percentage—her stability was still just a little over half. Purple mushrooms appeared hard to come by in this area, so Tanisha swore she’d keep an eye out for the stony outcroppings they spawned around. Her health bar was missing half of its total, but red mushrooms were plentiful. All she’d need would be a fire and she’d be back to normal.
Tanisha chuckled. It was amazing how fast she could get over her distaste of fungus when her life was on the line.
Regardless, because those two bars would be managed easily, Tanisha didn’t think of them as priorities.
The pinching pain in her stomach was insistent—a crackling fire that hadn’t been sated by the two mushrooms she consumed. She desperately needed food. Tanisha wondered briefly if she could find a blue mushroom somewhere. That would fill her belly immediately. But she didn’t even know where to begin looking for one. Instead, the berry bushes that dotted the forest seemed a much more reasonable target.
As long as they didn’t turn into smog again.
Tanisha’s stomach roiled as she approached one of the bushes cautiously. She remembered the horrid smell and taste of those orange berries from just minutes ago. Her brain refused to separate the effects of the stability bar from reality. It wasn’t just the smog, though. They were still the neon orange of poison, and so her mind swore it was justified in its fear. But her stomach’s growling wore out.
Darkness Named Page 15
