Shadow Slave

Grasping the coin in his fist, Sunny took a step forward, then cautiously walked around a thick vine sprawled across the floor of the small cabin.

Or was it a wall?

Since the ancient ship was laying on its side and at an angle, it was hard to differentiate the floor from the ceiling. The surface beneath Sunny's feet was skewed, forcing him to bend to be able to keep balance. The piles of debris and the vines weren't making things any easier for him.

By now, Sunny was almost sure that the vines were a part of a larger creature. His suspicion only grew when he climbed through the narrow doorway and left the cabin. Finding himself in a wide corridor, Sunny felt that the sweet smell permeating the murky air became much stronger.

Here, everything was covered by a thick layer of reddish moss, with twisted vines growing through it as they stretched in every direction. Sunny could help but feel as though he was now inside some giant being, with the wooden carcass of the ancient ship serving as its bones, the moss representing its flesh, and the vines being its veins.

The warm breeze that blew through the wreck at rhythmic intervals reminded him of slow breathing of a slumbering giant. It came from somewhere deeper in the ship, bringing with it the sickeningly sweet smell, and then disappeared for a dozen seconds, only to appear again.

'Let's, uh… not do anything to awaken that thing, then.'

Sunny thought for a few moments, and then decided to keep both shadows wrapped around his body instead of sending them to explore the ship. In situations where a confrontation with an unknown enemy could happen at any moment, having them close by was of paramount importance... at least that approach had saved his life many times in the past.

Taking a step forward, he felt the moss spring under his foot, and then swayed. His vision blurred slightly…

'Argh…'

His worse expectations did not come true. Unlike the Blood Blossom, the tiny grains of pollen — or spores, or whatever it was that he had breathed in — had not tried to take root in his lungs and grow through his flesh. Instead, they simply poisoned him.

consciousness and falling to the ground, his body then becoming overgrown by the reddish moss, slowly digested by it, turned into nourishment for the creature that had usurped the

he wasn't

Blood Weave went into a frenzy. It seemed to really dislike anything

just had to endure

balance and waited for his vision to become clear again. After a

few minutes later, still suffering from pain and weakness, he picked up a second coin from the moss and stared

with a crescent moon drawn on their forehead smiled at

you so

in the moss a couple of meters

like breadcrumbs to lead an unsuspecting treasure hunter

'...Very convenient.'

other to the third coin, picked it up, hid it in his pack, and then cautiously moved deeper into the

the other side. The vines out here

a grim expression on his face. Although he could not see through it,

was a much larger, vast and open space. He judged it to be the main cargo hold of the ancient ship. And in

that blew through the ancient ship from time to time came

that he had no desire to disturb the slumber of that being. Instead of trying to open the door, he jumped up, grabbed

rest of the mundane cargo, anyway. Unless he was absolutely certain that he had no other choice, he was not going to enter

was of a rather high opinion about his abilities, but not so high as to forget all fear. That thing inside was not for him to fight, at least not