"What the fucking hell!" Whack. "I stabbed you in the fucking eye!" Whack. "Just run away!" Whack whack whack. 

It makes a horrible hissing noise and flails its spiky teeth-covered tongue at him. Glossy black drool splatters onto his armor. Three out of twelve eyes are now bleeding profusely and most of the rest have sand in them. The nightmare is, not surprisingly, very upset about this. It lands a few more hits with its claws, but still doesn't manage to do worse than bruise him.

Aaaaaa he doesn't know what he's doing this was a bad plan whack whack whack too late to late to switch plans whack.

The nightmare is getting increasingly unhappy about the eye situation. Three becomes four, five, six... and, several whacks after the twelfth eye, the nightmare explodes, showering the immediate vicinity with glossy black blood and carapace shrapnel. A claw gets stuck in Bruce's armor, up near the shoulder, but the blast isn't forceful enough to knock him back very far or do very much damage.

A shower of Tiny Items drops out of the air where the creature's head was a moment ago, and lands in the gore-splattered sand. There are a few shiny copper and silver coins, and a ragged little scrap of dark purple something-or-other, and... a cherry pit?

ACK WUT oh it's dead thank fuck, pant pant pant time to sit down on the ground for a bit.

A couple minutes of adrenaline crash later: "Hey, we're not dead! . . . Sorry about freaking out and almost getting us killed. And all the swearing."

{is okay,} says the forest spirit, toddling up to hug his ankle. {monster very scary sometimes.}

Bruce puts an arm around the spirit. "You're sweet. We should get out of here before any more come by." He looks around and notices the dropped stuff. Huh. How very Dungeons and Dragons. Might as well take it. He scoops up the loot and the spirit and makes a second attempt to return to the river.

This time nothing chases them.

Also, halfway to the river the blood and monster parts vanish off both of them.

As for the loot: all together he has {8 copper coins}, {2 silver coins}, {1 shadow scrap}, and {1 black cherry seed}. The seed is plantable; the coins have very few recipes attached, just one and two respectively; the shadow scrap has a few more, one of which requires only shadow scraps to craft, although it won't tell him how many.

"Is anything weird likely to happen if I plant this thing?" He asks, holding up the black cherry seed. "Like, is it going to poison the soil or multiply super quickly and take over the whole forest or whatever?"

{no, is just tree,} the spirit assures him.

"Oh good. And . . . that nightmare wasn't a person, was it? Like, it couldn't talk or make complicated plans or use tools or anything, could it?"

{nightmare not talk! only some very special monster talk.}

"What are all the ones that talk? I really don't want to fight those, especially if I can be friends or at least neutrals instead."

{monster try to hurt friend, is how monster,} the spirit says apologetically. {special monster is in stronghold! every stronghold have special monster. most special monster not talk either but some do. cloud spirit or stone spirit maybe know more.}

"Well, if they stay in their strongholds I can just refrain from trespassing; if they show up at my house looking for violence . . . I guess I'm doomed."

{special monster stay in stronghold,} the spirit confirms.

"Oh that's good, we can just ignore each other then." When he reaches the river, he turns downstream and sets a course for the sea that doesn't go anywhere near the screaming forest.

A sandy slime from the desert hops into the river and is carried away on the current.

The river winds all the way around the forest he started out in, passing by the place where he bridged it earlier on, curving past the grassland and the snowy area to the north, and finally empties into the sea a little northwest of the forest, between the snowy area and another grassland. He and the forest spirit are undisturbed on their journey except by occasional gelatinous passersby and, once or twice, a sparkly little fish leaping out of the water and then splashing back down and swimming away.

"Oh hey, fish! Are fish a kind of monster, or are they just, like, swimming around and eating . . . whatever fish-edible things are around here?"

{fish is animal! is different from monster. animal not try to hurt friend, not try to hurt spirit. animal mostly move around and eat plants.}

"Oh good, just like the animals I'm used to." Walk walk walk along the river. Mental note to try chopping down a maple tree in the winter area when he's got the other ones planted, and also to try tapping one and see if it has sap he can turn into maple syrup.

And when they reach the end of the river where it lets out into the sea, where the grassland on the south side and the snowy area on the north side both give way to a sandy shore dotted with palm trees—

A little round head pops out of the water, a few block-widths off the shore, and a little round arm emerges beside it and waves.

{hello!} says the water spirit.

"Hello! Are you the water spirit? I'm Bruce!"

{yes i am! hello!}

The water spirit swims to shore and climbs out onto the sand. Its round blobby body appears to be made entirely of water, but it holds together in sort of the same way as a slime. Unlike the forest spirit's forest noises, its not-voice is made of the sound of falling rain and rushing waves.

Bruce is full of questions about the water spirit's physiology and also retroactively about the forest spirit's physiology but can't come up with a polite way to ask. Also they might not know--he wouldn't know squat about his own physiology if he wasn't from a big old civilization full of dead people and those willing to dig them up.

"Pleased to meet you. I hear you know a lot about crafting!"