Seven people stumbled out of a hostile jungle into a peaceful clearing.
It was beautiful. Open. Sunlit through a break in the canopy.
Dotted with low-hanging branches bearing bright orange fruit that glowed faintly at the edges, pulsing with a rhythm that was almost hypnotic and should have been a warning.
Serena looked at the clearing. At the orange fruit. At the low branches.
She plucked one.
Hyran's soul visibly left his body. His composure, which had survived the cliff, the steam, the vines, and the quicksand, broke on the sight of Serena Frostborne picking an unidentified glowing fruit in an artifact environment on a hostile continent.
"SERENA! DON'T."
She screamed. High-pitched, startled, the involuntary shriek of a woman whose Master Mage had just shouted at her at maximum volume while standing four feet away. She tossed the fruit out of pure fight-or-flight panic.
It exploded.
