The land here would be scarred by the years of ceaseless warfare it had seen, if not for the thundering beat of the Frenzy Heart. Where the tribes bordered were wastelands littered by traps, caltrops, blinds for archers, and even crude landmines constructed out of alchemical reagents. The tribes always had ways around each other, but to challenge a neighboring tribe involved a daring traipse through countless dangers and come out on the other side strong enough to fight.

There was no joy in this place. No warmth. The people of your coven lived in minimal huts that barely held the night chill at bay, and stronger, more permanent buildings were reserved for things like forges and alchemical labs. The air ever ran thick with the odor of rotting iron and bitter alchemy. There was no art to any of the construction, no hint of humanity, just cold efficiency. The corpses of their foes marked their borders, strung up throughout the trees as trophies and warnings alike. The people here carved purpose from paranoia and might, every last one of them... but you.

Or at least, so it seemed.

A heavy storm rolls in, dredging mud into many of the punji-stick pitfalls between your tribe, the People of Anthe, and that of a neighboring tribe, Henthi's Descent. The rain drowns the sound of their approach, but your tribe detects them coming anyhow as shadows slipping between the trees. Tensions had long been boiling between the two tribes, and tonight it would come to a head.

This is what all of your training is for. This is what you're meant to do, who you're meant to be. You duck into one of the trenches, crowned by ferns that cloak your position, because you heard the sound of footsteps winding through the traps further ahead. You pull the cork from a bottle with your teeth and spit it into the dirt, dousing the coils in your malachite stiletto with a bubbling purple fluid, the blade hungrily absorbing the power of the alchemical toxin. A few quiet callouts are shared and two mushroom people come toward your position, struggling to keep their footing in the mud.

You slam your elbow against the overhang of the trench as they get too near, knocking loose a considerable amount of mud and dirt that showers you. It causes a small landslide across the width of the trench, dragging the stumbling warriors your way and causing them to slip into the trench ahead of you, stunned and fighting to stand up in their heavy armor.

You seize upon them! You leap over one of them, pinning him in place while you reach over and slam your stiletto through the leather neckguard of the other, twisting it and ripping it out in hammer-grip, before lifting the head of the one beneath you and punching the dagger straight through his throat. You rip it free and flip the dagger in your hand, standing and drawing the flintlock from your hip.

Hearing the sounds of the struggle past the din of the rain, a third Henthi comes stampeding your way. You peer up and over the trench, greeting his charge with a shot to the head that sends him stumbling over the trench and slamming into the mud a few feet beside you. In your conscious mind you revel in your clean kills and the praise your masters will surely heap upon you, but at this moment, deep within, a blight of doubt begins to creep across your soul.

In the end, your actions were but a small effort to defend the tribe. Given time, the rest of your tribe drove the Henthi back, though not without incurring heavy losses themselves. To you, it was a grueling affair; to the adults around you, it seemed like just any other day, if not a cause for whatever passes as celebration here. A tense few days of watch for a follow-up attack passed, as both tribes licked their wounds and considered their next steps in navigating this situation. For your part, you've been unable to shake the experience you had in the field; that was the first time you had been expected to take the life of one of your own kin, and though you felt in control at the time, it has begun to set in that this is all you would be expected to do. For the rest of your life.

You grow weary of the scent of blood. You dip into the outskirts of the town, following the one nature path that isn't littered with corpses or traps, along a small tributary of the Diamond River. You often come this way when you need to clear your head, especially as it leads to a somewhat safe path to another tribe with whom your tribe had some measure of peace--at least for the time being. There was... a particular boy you encountered here every so often from that tribe, and he had begun to feel like something of an escape from all of... this.

You stop in your tracks, sighting something across the river. A curious thing: humans. Reasoning that the end of the peninsula between the tributary and the Diamond River itself served as a defensible spot as few horrors troubled either river, a troupe of human travelers had set up camp there. They seem like competent folk; they all wear official-looking armor and have well-forged weapons, and most of all they've established potent wards around their camp. Wise, if they want to survive here. These wards would surely cloak the adventurers' presence to the denizens of the forest, but they're still bare to your sight.

They're singing, celebrating in their survival of another pass through the Briar. It seems they're on the way out. You think your people are sparing them because they represent too much of a threat; it would simply be inefficient to attack them. You drag your feet along the river bank, listening to the song and eventually watching them tell stories, their shadows cast long over the peninsula by the warm glow of their fire. You had never seen this kind of humanity between your kin--there was no time for revelry, no space for the unnecessary.

One of them spots you, more than likely because your mushroom cap casts a brilliant light that gives you away from almost any distance. He summons a somewhat awkward smile and waves towards you. A grizzled looking man with a bushy, well-kept mustache, wearing light plate armor. You, not knowing how to react, simply dip behind a tree and grumble something under your breath. You've never exchanged a word with a human, and the others tell you that they're violent conquerors obsessed with the genocide of your people. You hardly read much of that malice in his dumb smile, with that... stupid mustache of his.

Your curiosity won't leave you, though. You're a weak mushroom. Plagued by doubt, driven by curiosity, pulled to and fro by the marionette strings that the others cut as effortlessly as they bleed themselves for ritual. But is bloodlust really so much better than wanderlust?

You follow the river bank further down, trying not to be seen. It's very possible, though, that they watch your glow steadily work its way through the thick trees and six-foot understory, but your certainty of your mastery over stealth doesn't lead you to try very hard. Plus, it's not like you're trying to sneak up on prey or anything. You make it long out of sight from them, before emerging again from the brush to dance across the river!

You get a running start and leap, the flat of your sandal rippling the surface of the water but going no further. You dart across as fast as you can using a little water magic trick your coven taught you, though more than once the vicious current nearly sweeps you away. It's a risky maneuver, but your confidence pays off for once! You land on the other bank, stumbling and quietly panting, and dip back into the foliage to start working your way back to those travelers.

You take this approach seriously enough to cast a cloaking spell, muttering the Supernal Speak under your breath as you get closer and closer, your form becoming lost in the verdure. You stalk up to the edge of their camp, low to the ground, and listen to them speak.

"Harry, that was a hell of a strike!" says a young woman whose only distinguishing feature to you is the long golden hair spilling out of her sallet. Everyone in the camp is equipped with the same light steel armor and colors that, if you recall correctly, indicate their affiliation with a human organization called the Verdant Grasp. Though, among the two humans are two strange beings you're less familiar with--you think they're Wildkin, animal-humans. One looks like a fox, lingering near the edge of camp and just listening, and the other looks like a lion. The lion, Harry, stands tall over the humans sitting around their campfire, his proud mane cutting a wide shadow, grinning as the others heap praise on him.

"Really, really, it was nothing! You should have seen Kenneth over there." He nods to the man with the mustache you saw earlier, who laughs gently. "He had my back the entire time. I turned around and saw FOUR dead dire wolves I didn't even realize were there 'till the fight was all said and done!"

"Honestly, shocked things went this well!" says Kenneth, displaying a thick accent--the humans would call it a Mountain accent (and you, the reader, would probably call it Received Pronunciation.) "The Briar's rarely so kind, eh? S'a wonder we didn't get our heads lopped off by some forest horror."

"The night is still young!" bellows Harry, laughing with the rest of the group. "Don't jinx us, is all I'm saying..."

The fox's ears pin back, and he lifts his head, looking dead at you. "We have an intruder. There." He points you out, and you try to hide further, but his mere act of pointing at you has suddenly completely obliterated your stealth glamour, leaving you bare and glowing like a beacon. You're immediately terrified, because that means he must be an exceptionally powerful mage. You couldn't have told him apart from these dime-a-dozen adventurers.

"Oh, it's that mushroom! The one from across the river!" chimes in Kenneth. "Hey, we don't mean you folk any harm, alright? We're just passing through on our way home, that's all, yeah?" He's being oddly friendly, but perhaps he realizes the position he's in--the more senior members of your tribe would have sniffed out that mage a mile away and kept their distance, so he must know you're either alone or part of a very small and very stupid group of raiders. You slowly peek out from under your mushroom cap, huddled on all fours in the brush, looking up at them.

You slowly slink into their ward, feeling the magic tug on you--the fox waves a hand, and it lets you pass. "You are not going to hurt Foxfire?" Honestly, you were taking a huge risk coming even this far, but you crave the warmth. You will reach out and take it, and if it burns you to death, so be it. "Foxfire is... very important. Shouldn't hurt. Special mushroom." This was a trick she'd learned! The humans seemed very willing to believe that her glowing mushroom meant she was a rare and special specimen, like some kind of princess mushroom, even if the truth was much the opposite.

"I'm sure! Anything that glows that much has gotta' be important somehow, I tell ya' what," Kenneth says. The others around him seem just as skeptical as you are of this interaction, but his enthusiasm seems to be shaking the ice from his comrades. You sidle up to the fire, taking a seat on a vacant log and folding your hands in your lap. "Nice t'meet'cha, Foxfire, I'm Lieutenant Kenneth Martin. You must be one of those folks from the ah... the People of Anthe, just due south of here, right?"

If these people know of your tribe, it's possible they'll know that the People of Anthe are a conservative tribe that rarely attack dangerous and powerful outsiders. Maybe that's why he feels so confident interacting with you. You nod, cautiously, often glancing over your shoulder to look across the river for any sign of your coven. If they knew you were here...

"You know we're not holdin' you hostage, right?" he says, his voice getting a bit quieter. "You can go when you want. Just seemed like maybe you wanted to chat. Most of your folks wouldn't even give us a second glance, so I thought it was kinda' interesting that you were willing to talk to us instead of running off."

"... Foxfire is special mushroom," you say, almost meekly. You look down, and immediately a wave of recognition washes over the group around you, even the fox's harsh expression softening. For a being from the People of Anthe to willingly contact outsiders without violent intent is essentially unheard of. The lieutenant, not wanting to make any assumptions, clears his throat gently.

"Your folks basically live by war, right? Blood's the rule out here, as far as I know." He wants to see how you react to that notion, and he gets exactly what he wanted.

You frown, glancing away in burning shame. Two shames that exist in endless conflict--shame at the butcher your people were raising you to be, and shame at the lack of conviction you put behind the butcher's blade. "Yes. Foxfire's people kill often. Might is important. Other people trample you, kill you, unless you're the strongest." Your recitation of this mantra is less than enthusiastic.

Kenneth glances between his other comrades, pity on his face, and receives shrugs and frowns. "You really think that's how the whole world is?"

That question turns on a lightbulb in your head. Your eyes widen and you glance towards him for a moment, but then quickly at anything else, trying to pretend like the notion didn't affect you. "It's how Foxfire's world is. Your world maybe different. But Foxfire can't go there. So what? What use is your world to me?" you almost hiss. Your attempt to be scary is half-hearted, and is received with only more pity.

"Who said you can't? It's just across this river, y'know. We're headed back to our world right now, it's not so hard. There's a bridge out west just ten or so miles out. We're headed that way. All I mean to say is, our worlds ain't so far apart as they seem. You aren't stuck out here." Admittedly, encouraging the People of Anthe, manufacturers of the Frenzy Heart and among the few legitimate threats to the world, to cross the river is an interesting gambit from the lieutenant. You sit in thought, staring into the fire.

"What is your world like?" you ask, simply, and plainly. The question stuns Kenneth, who blinks, not really sure how to answer. He's not really the kind of guy to have considered the world very deeply, so to find the words to describe it doesn't come easily to him. He starts trying to spit out an answer, but as he stammers, the fox clears his throat and steps into the glow of the fire.

"Ahem. We live in a world of rules. A place where the weak are protected from the strong, because all people's lives should be treated with equal sanctity. We as the Grasp seek to give all people the opportunity to live their lives in comfort, dignity and peace." His speech is a little scripted, certainly one he's recited before, but it still speaks to you. You glance around to the others in the light, and sense consensus.

As your eyes dart around the campfire, catching the light in each of these strange human's eyes, an overwhelming flood of different emotions crashes upon you from all directions. Shame at what you are, shame at what you could become. Fear of missing an opportunity to live a better life, fear of the unknown. Fear of these humans, and of the People of Anthe, the Henthi, the Briar itself...

You cannot manage a response, because you're already darting back into the woods. A little clamor occurs among the camp as they call after you, but you are gone from their sight before they can meaningfully react.

The walk back to your tribe will be a slow and ponderous one, as you chew on what you've been told. Is there really a better world out there? Somewhere not so dominated by struggle?

As you walk past the peninsula on your way back, you peer over and see Kenneth one last time. He seems to notice you as well, and he waves, probably smiling. Awkwardly, you wave back, cursing yourself as you do.

...

It has been a few months since the Henthi incursion against Anthe, but tensions have settled. Without war to occupy your mind, you, like your kin, grow restless. The others comb the forest in search of worthy prey day and night, refine their weapons, train incessantly, and convene to design new machinations of war for their inevitable next conflict. You, though, try to make yourself scarce.

The People of Anthe rarely abide idle hands, so you've taken to pretending to be out hunting, so long as you eventually come back with some nominal pittance of flesh and bone for the Bodyweavers. Though the Briar abounds with danger, it feels ever more like a refuge from the mire of sorrow that your tribe has come to be. After a particularly harsh argument with one of the Elder Witches, you're on another one of these 'hunts'.

Really, you're squatting in front of a tree, carving detailed images of mutilated stick-figures with your stiletto. Not that anyone could tell but you, each scene depicts you brutally killing the Elder Witch in a variety of creative ways. Ironically, it is perhaps these little carvings that would make your handlers most proud out of anything you've done in a long time.

Fuming over that thought, you slam the stiletto into the tree, leaning against it for a moment and just... sighing. You slump against the tree, bitterly glaring out into the treeline in thought.

Suddenly, though, you feel something land on your cap. You look up, but then realize that you can't really see anything past your cap... and feel another gentle little 'thunk'. You narrow your eyes, looking as straight up as you can, and feel an acorn land right on your nose!

"Blechphfhhf--" you groan as you bat the acorn away, only to hear gentle and familiar laughter from above.

"What has this tree done to you, hmm?" A handsome deathcap looks down upon you from his perch some ten feet above, a smug smirk on his face as he casually drops another acorn towards you, which you slap away in the process of almost excitedly bolting upright--though, you slow yourself down and try to act cool, looking away from him and turning up your nose aloofly.

"Foxfire has many grudges with many trees! Trees do all sorts of evil terrible things," you insist, a tremendously sly and impenetrable cover for what you were actually out here doing.

"Oh...?" he says, as he carefully starts descending, landing on his feet in front of you. You position yourself between the carvings and him. "And what terrible-evil things did this one do?"

You pause, staring at him for a moment, and then say with full seriousness: "There was a nest of wasps on it, and one of them stung Foxfire, unforgivable! Tree's fault."

He stares in return, and then bursts out laughing, "Of course, of course! Whatever Foxfire says."