I climbed up the little angled slope toward the cave entrance, still catching whiffs of the horrible piles of dead animals behind me. I held my breath on the last stretch, hoping this detour would actually be worth something and not just another bad decision in a long chain of bad decisions.

  When I reached the top, I finally got to see into the cave. Though cave was a generous word for it. It was more like a shallow nook carved into the earth. The whole space was maybe fifteen or twenty feet wide and went back about the same distance. Honestly, if this were a normal hike back on Earth, it would be the perfect little place to duck out of the rain and eat a granola bar.

  As for my big hope that I would find something useful here, I was right.

  In the same way someone is technically right when you say a hoarder has stuff.

  From the entrance, it looked like a small dump site. Torn clothing. Rotten boots. Leather scraps. Bits of metal. Random broken junk. And mixed into that mess were leaves and plants starting to grow over items, plus the occasional dead animal for fun.

  I stepped inside carefully. The smell was not as bad as the corpse field outside, but it was still bad. Here, the air now had added notes of damp leather, mold, old blood, and that sour bite of decay. As I looked closer, it became obvious what had happened. The Matriarch and her daughters, or whatever they were, had definitely killed people over time and dragged their things back here. Though they had not cared about preserving anything, they just threw everything into one disgusting heap and left it to rot.

  I started pulling things apart, hoping there might be something of value buried in the mess. The wet, rotting piles of clothing and leather clung together in a way that made me want to scrub my hands on a tree every few seconds. I found broken swords, snapped wooden shields, and metal so rusted it crumbled at the touch. I found scraps of paper fused together by mold, with writing mostly illegible but in a language I did not recognize. Bags that leaked what I assumed used to be food. Everything was beyond saving.

  Forty minutes passed before I finally found something that made me pause. I had been tossing ruined junk down the hill outside the entrance, clearing space, when I pulled aside a thicker piece of leather that looked more elaborate than the rest. Under it was a dagger.

  A perfectly preserved dagger.

  At first I just stared at it, half expecting it to dissolve. I picked it up and felt an odd weight - or rather, a lack of it. Steel has a certain heft, even cheap iron does, but this did not feel close to those. I tapped the back of the blade with my finger. It was incredibly hard, but the feel felt wrong for metal.

  Bone.

  Very hard bone, carved into a blade and handle, all one piece from the same material. The grip was wrapped in leather that somehow had not decayed at all.

  I was still trying to figure that out when I shifted the blade in the sunlight to get a better look, and it flashed with a strange oily shimmer that just slid across the entire surface.

  I froze.

  “Oh,” I muttered. “Yep. That is magic. This is a magic dagger.”

  And just like that, I realized I had just broken one of the big rules of fantasy.

  Do not pick up random magical shit.

  That's how you get curses.

  Shit. Well, it was probably too late anyway. If the dagger was cursed or haunted or whatever this world considered “magically questionable,” it probably started doing its thing to me the moment I picked the thing up. So hopefully, if I was cursed it would be something mild, like making all food taste like tiger milk.

  I set the dagger aside with my other stuff and kept digging.

  Another hour passed before I reached the back of the cave. During that time I kept trying to decide what, if anything, I could do with the junk I was uncovering. Most of it was rotted clothing or leather that had fused into gross moldy mats. There were weapons everywhere, but almost all were broken or rusted beyond use. The only exception was a spear which seemed to have been a recent addition that had been snapped in half. The shaft was gone, but the slightly rusted metal tip was still attached to a short length of wood. It was not much, but it was sharp enough.

  After thinking it over, I decided the broken spear was probably my best real weapon. There were rusted swords and what might once have been some kind of large hammer, but I had no idea how to use a hammer in a fight beyond swinging wildly and hoping. I remembered reading somewhere that the best weapons for someone with no training were either a mace or a spear. A mace was basically a club with ambition, and a spear kept things far away from you while you stabbed them. Since I had no mace, this broken spear would have to do.

  I also found some coins scattered around. Little pouches had stayed tied to belts even though the cloth had rotted away. Overall, I had found about thirty-five copper pieces, five silver pieces, and two gold coins. I had no idea what the exchange rate was here, for I knew I had just salvaged a king’s ransom or the equivalent of bus fare. Either way, I put them in my pack. Money was money.

  Then, while clearing the last mound of debris, I finally struck something that made me stop.

  Armor.

  Perfectly preserved armor.

  I pulled away a layer of stiff leather and revealed what looked like a full set of steel plate. A helmet, chest piece, leggings, boots, arm guards, and even a large half shield. All of it shiny, spotless, not a single dent or mark. The tree women must have dragged it here and then just buried it under junk.

  It even looked like something a proper knight would wear. The entire set was decorated with a detailed tree motif. A full tree covered the front of the shield, its branches spreading across the metal, and a smaller shield symbol was carved into the trunk. The same design repeated all across the armor wherever it could be placed, like the original owner really wanted people to know they loved trees. There was even a black-blue gemstone in the middle of the chestplate at the center of the tree design.

  Maybe it was the tree design that made the Matriarch save it.

  The roots of nearby trees had grown over the armor of it, which meant it had been sitting there a long time. I tried to move the armor, but the roots of the tree held it firm in place.

  Something about touching it made my skin prickle.

  Of course, that was when the shield shifted a little under my hand and caught a sliver of sunlight. The oily shimmer I had seen on the dagger washed over the entire set of armor in one smooth ripple. The shield, the helmet, every piece of metal glowed with that strange slick shine. I could even see my own fingers warped inside the magic glow as I kept my hand on the shield.

  Perfect. Just perfect, maybe cursed again.

  I really hope magic doesn't follow radiation rules.

  Realizing that at this point it didn’t matter, that like the dagger, if I was cursed by the armor it was too late. I just kept working at freeing the armor. I tried pulling up the roots that held the armor down, but they were thick and stubborn. They did not even creak. After a moment of frustration, I decided to give my new dagger a test and went back to my pack to grab it.

  I pushed and tilted the shield and armor around to get a better look at them. The more I handled them, the more something felt off. I had assumed this was steel at first, but it was too light to be steel. When I shifted the pieces the little bit I could, they clinked against each other with a tone that was strangely familiar.

  Almost like soda cans tapping together, though not quite.

  If I had to bet, I would have said the armor was made of aluminum. It made sense. Light, strong, durable. And if magic could reinforce it, you could probably make aluminum into something far stronger than steel. Still weird, but at least it explained the weight. Plus, I'm pretty sure that aluminum does not rust, which would explain why the suit of armor is basically the only metal here not mostly dust.

  I leaned down and ran the dagger along the roots. The dagger cut through them with almost no pressure at all, slicing the thick wood clean. Once I cleared a big enough patch, I leaned on the shield with one hand so I could angle the blade and work through another bundle of roots.

  That was when it happened.

  The moment my hand made full contact with the armor, I felt a flash of something run through me. Not pain, not a shock, just a connection. Familiar with the way my abilities sometimes felt when I focused on them.

  It did not feel like something reaching out from the armor. It did not feel like a curse either, unless curses were surprisingly gentle. Honestly, it felt more like something inside me was waking up and noticing something new.

  I paused, trying to think through what the hell I was feeling. Maybe this was my sound magic. Maybe I could do something with it. I figured I might as well try.

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  What did I have to lose?

  I focused. Really focused. I let my attention settle on the armor and shield. And suddenly I could feel them. Their weight. Their shape. Their presence. There was even a faint sense of the magic woven into them, like threads running through metal. The magic felt old, strong, and strangely elegant. Almost like whoever forged this set had known exactly what they were doing.

  And I could feel it. I could reach for it the same way I had reached for the stone back in the valley. Only this time, instead of pushing energy into something, the connection felt like I was supposed to take something out. It felt like I was using energy in the, like I was connecting to a battery.

  That gave me a strange sort of confidence. If I were drawing magic out of the armor, then at least I was not about to blow myself up. Probably.

  I focused harder. My magic juice bar in my mind started draining. I could feel it dropping, bit by bit, like a cup tipping over. It kept going, lower and lower, until the feeling of dizziness crept in. Strangely, it felt like my magic juice was mixing with another 'juice" that was coming from the armor.

  After a while, I realised that the other magic juice that I was sensing was just more than mine somehow. That even as much as I was struggling, I was just mainly just directing the flow of juices, like there was a fire with a kid aiming a hose and firefighters aiming their hose at what the kid was hitting.

  Right when I thought I was going to black out, something inside the connection clicked.

  I opened my eyes and looked down at the armor to see what had happened.

  It crumbled.

  Right there on the ground. It just collapsed into fine gray dust like someone had snapped their fingers.

  “Oh come on!” I said, staring at it. “That is not right!”

  Before I could even process the loss, I felt something else. A pull, or maybe a shift, deep in my chest. The sensation moved outward, sliding through me like a current until it reached my right hand. The same hand is still holding the dagger.

  Then the energy hit the dagger like a punch.

  A heavy, thick rush surged into it, enough that my hand tingled and my fingers twitched around the grip.

  And then it stopped.

  Nothing. Quiet.

  “Well, great,” I said. Looking down at the dust, “Did I really just destroy the armor?”

  I had no idea how to even wear armor like that, or if it would have fit me anyway, but it definitely would have been useful. The shield alone would have saved me from a dozen near deaths. And it would have given my poor metal water bottle a break from being my only defensive tool.

  Still reeling, I lifted the dagger and looked it over. Maybe the energy had done something to it. Maybe I had enchanted it. I rotated it, angled it toward the light, even flicked my thumb along the flat of the blade. Nothing. No glow. No oily sheen. No magical swirl. Nothing at all.

  “Maybe the enchantment cancelled itself out,” I muttered. “Maybe the armor already had magic, and I somehow shoved both together and they… exploded? Great. Amazing. I just picked the worst possible choice.”

  I let out a long breath and held the dagger up.

  “Well, you can still help me kill things, right?” I asked, mostly to fill the silence.

  Which is when the dagger sprouted a mouth.

  A real mouth.

  Full lips, teeth, movement, just appearing on the side of the blade like someone had glued a piece of a person onto it.

  It started biting the air.

  No hesitation. No warmup. Just instant chomping.

  “Holy hell!” I screamed and dropped it. The dagger clattered to the ground, mouth still snapping open and shut like it was trying to chew its way through reality. It landed mouth-side down, bounced, tipped, and then moved in these weird, tiny jerks as the mouth kept on biting.

  “What is actually happening right now,” I muttered as I took a few involuntary steps back.

  And of course, that was when a new pop-up appeared.

  “Oh” I said softly. “What did I do?”

  Trying not to panic, I opened my ability list and focused on the Magic Mouth description.

  Oh right.

  I completely forgot about that last part.

  I remember reading it when I first got the ability. I had skimmed straight past that part because my brain had latched onto the horrible implication that the skill was designed for something sexual. After that, I guess everything else in the description evacuated my memory to make room for embarrassment.

  Now here I was, staring at a dagger crawling around in the dirt like the world’s worst wind-up toy because I had apparently reached a high enough level to give inanimate objects a mouth.

  It must have taken my question about helping me kill things and translated it into one instruction. Bite everything forever.

  That still did not explain the armor, though. Did I need to feed the armor to the dagger? Was the armor some kind of magical fuel source? Had I just liquified something priceless? I really hoped not, but I had to just put that thought in a little mental box and sit on the lid. My main concern now was whether the dagger was still useful or if it had become a possessed utensil that would try to eat my fingers.

  Slowly, very slowly, I reached down and picked the dagger up by the hilt. The mouth kept biting in little rhythmic chomps. I rotated the blade until the mouth faced me. It felt like holding a dead fish with a human smile.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Um… could you stop biting, please?”

  The dagger obeyed immediately. The mouth closed, then shrank down like someone letting the air out of a balloon, and it faded until it was gone entirely.

  “Okay,” I said. “That is progress, I guess.”

  I lifted it again and spoke to it.

  “Can you make your mouth appear…please?”

  The surface of the blade rippled for a moment, and then the mouth pushed outward from the center of the metal, forming like a bubble being blown in reverse. A full human mouth, complete with lips, teeth, and the faint sheen of moisture.

  “Stay still,” I said.

  It stayed still.

  I stared at it for a long time. My brain kept trying to make sense of it and failing. The mouth worked in a way that ignored every law of physics. It did not distort the blade. It did not widen the metal. It did not stretch anything. It simply existed on top of the dagger like some cartoon logic had been taped over reality. A perfectly normal human mouth glued onto an object that should never have one.

  “Open your mouth,” I said.

  The dagger obliged. The lips parted, revealing human teeth set into nothing. The inside of the mouth was pure darkness, a void that swallowed the light around it. No throat. No tongue. No depth. Just an impossible opening in solid metal.

  The lips hung slightly wider than the blade itself. The top lip curved beyond the flat of the dagger, and the bottom lip did the same underneath. They were too large, too fleshy, too human.

  “Oh, this is so messed up,” I whispered.

  The mouth on the dagger seemed to…blink once, except it did not have eyes, so the movement must have been a twitch in the metal. It was almost like it was trying to understand if I was giving it an order. I pulled it a little farther from my face.

  I tried to tell myself that at least this strange new upgrade was better than nothing. I had a weapon now. Sort of. A weapon with teeth that followed instructions. That counted as progress in this nightmare world.

  But even with that thought, a cold feeling crept down my spine. Because now I had to figure out what I was supposed to do with a dagger that could listen. And worse, what else it might do.

  The tongue slid out from the darkness and extended about six inches. It looked disturbingly normal, a wet pink tongue as you would expect on a dog or a person. I reached toward it on instinct, then immediately pulled my hand back. I might be stupid, but I was not stick-your-hand-onto-a-magic-tougue stupid.

  “Can you rotate your tongue?” I asked it, already regretting the question even as the words came out.

  I expected it to flick up, or maybe lean left or right. Instead, it started spinning in a full circle, like you would expect a ceiling fan to. A perfect three hundred sixty degree rotation, like a propeller made out of meat. Even knowing this entire thing was the result of a spell that ignored physics, I still felt my stomach clench. There are things your brain refuses to accept even when they are happening right in front of you.

  “Stop,” I said quickly.

  The tongue froze mid-spin. Little drops of saliva went flying.

  I rubbed my face with my other hand. “This is my life now,” I muttered. “A magic dagger with an inhuman tongue.”

  I figured I should at least test how real the void inside the mouth was. I grabbed a stick from the cave floor, something about as long as my arm, and held it like someone testing the temperature of a pool. I eased it toward the open mouth.

  The stick slid in past the lips and vanished into pure darkness. Gone. No resistance. No sound. No sign of anything appearing on the other side. Nothing. After about 2 feet of the stick disappeared, I pulled it back out, and the stick reappeared whole and unchanged.

  “Yeah, that is not cool,” I whispered.

  I know that I had experienced some crazy stuff the last few days, but there is something about seeing some Bugs Bunny hammerspace randomness casually break the laws of physics that felt like it was breaking my mind.

  The dagger stayed perfectly still, mouth open, like it was patiently waiting for more sticks to eat.

  “Close your mouth and disappear,” I told it.

  The mouth shut, the tongue withdrew, and the whole thing collapsed back into smooth metal as if it had never been there.

  “Alright,” I said. “Please keep it like that until I tell you otherwise.”

  Nothing happened, which I decided to interpret as obedience.

  I tested it by saying, “Stick out your tongue.”

  Nothing. No mouth.

  Good. One less thing to be terrified by for the moment.

  I walked back to my bag and wrapped the blade with some of the remaining ration cloth so the mouth could not pop open in my pack and start chewing holes through everything. The cloth was probably nowhere near enough protection, but it made me feel slightly better, which was something.

  I scanned the rest of the trash pile, but I had already combed through it all. The dagger, the coins, and whatever I had accidentally absorbed from the armor were probably the only worthwhile things these tree monsters had ever collected. Everything else had been here long enough to turn into mulch.

  Time to go.

  I picked up the two bags I had with me: my original backpack from the airport and the leather satchel from the warrior woman I had insulted off a cliff. I also grabbed the broken spear I had set aside. Not ideal, but better than bare hands.

  “Alright,” I said to myself as I stepped out of the cave. “Next question. Where do I even go?”

  The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to get as far away from this corpse collection as possible, preferably in a direction that did not involve tree women, death piles, or anything with a mouth where it should not be.

  I looked around for any sign of a path or clue. That was when something in the dirt caught my attention.

  Tracks.

  Interesting ones.

  I crouched and looked closer. Something heavy had walked here. Big, round impressions, almost like a cow’s hoof prints, but deeper and spaced far apart. Next to them were human footprints, lighter and smaller. It looked like someone had run up to the large creature, then the two sets of tracks left together.

  “Huh,” I said softly. A person and their large animal, a cow maybe? If it were something like a horse, they would have ridden it out.

  And honestly, that was the most hopeful thing I had seen in days.

  With no other options, I decided to follow the tracks of the person and whatever giant cow thing they were walking with.