Smooth seas never made skilled mariners, as the old proverb goes. Adversity and hardship brings about personal growth; an individual can either choose to fold and collapse under the pressure, or be tempered by these challenges and emerge stronger, more resilient, and wiser than before. To become a master of anything, a person must be willing to endure the pain of making mistakes so that they might learn to better hone their craft. Tinsmiths and bodkins increase the quality of their repairs with finer materials and cleaner techniques, infantrymen sharpen their skills with training and exercise, seafarers become acquainted with their vessels to better navigate uncharted waters, and so forth. From tinkers and tailors to soldiers and sailors, nothing is gained if nothing is ventured.

But Gilgamesh is none of these professions, so for him to get completely lost in the thick of the Wanderwood, the very place where his bogus journey first started, only makes sense in context, and certainly not because there was a minor struggle to find some measure of rationale for having him get lost in the forest to begin with.

"Oh, for pity's sake, really?!" Gilgamesh scoffed aloud as the absence of immediate narrative justification grates on his nerves, "You're inactive for, like, several months, and now that you're conveniently back, you can't even be bothered to come up with an adequate reason for me getting lost here?!" Expecting a response but receiving none—rather, none that would actually matter in the long haul—he groaned in dejection. "Everyone else gets a skilled narrator, and I'm stuck with this crap..." Starved for an explanation behind this admittedly lazy attempt at storytelling, Gilgamesh huffed, puffed, and fluffed his way aimlessly through the Wanderwood, peering through the sun-dappled canopies and scanning the forest floor in search of anything that could provide him with some semblance of an actual plot structure.

Thankfully, no outside influences or superfluous interventions were needed here, as Gilgamesh began to notice an ever-growing abundance of burned plant matter, scorched and singed in various degrees of severity. Further examination of his surroundings would reveal the presence of small nicks and cuts against certain tree specimens, although their intended purpose remained unknown to him.

"Either someone doesn't know how logging works, or they really hate forests," Gilgamesh speculated to himself, trying to understand why the culprit would attempt to incinerate the Wanderwood from within its borders. It could be likely that the party responsible for all this arboreal destruction was just as lost as he was. Or, he might be on the trail of some wroth menace intent on spreading bedlam to the world at large. Whatever the reason was here, Gilgamesh could feel his instincts pushing him further along the burned path, preparing him for the worst case scenario. If all of this truly was the work of some rogue devil, then he would have to be the one to vanquish it.

If only he knew where his favorite spear was...

"Gee. If only I knew where my favorite spear was. What a mystery. Better get the gang here to solve this one. Split up. Find clues. It's Old Man Jenkins. Quelle surprise." Gilgamesh spoke monotonously, sarcasm bleeding from every word that left his mouth. "I better find Excalibur later on, or I'm gonna start filing lawsuits for emotional damages..." Sure. Good luck with that. This guy is sitting behind seven proxies over here.

As he ventured deeper into the Wanderwood, irritated by the direction his own story was headed and the apparent lack of cooperation from the powers that be, Gilgamesh barely managed to spot a diminutive presence standing out among the charred thickets and brush. Beady yellow eyes over smooth skin in eau de Nil, rounded physical features, and a little burlap cloak draped over an equally tiny body, with a fish-like tail protruding from beneath. In one of its hands (if it could be called that, given the lack of opposable digits) rested an antique oil lamp, a tongue of incandescent flame dancing behind the glass.

It is the other object in its grasp that makes Gilgamesh freeze with visible concern. Glistening parallel to the flickering lamp was a cleaver, not unlike the kind that professional chefs use to prepare their dishes. Banal and mundane as it looked, however, Gilgamesh could feel every muscle in his body tense as a wave of dread consumed him entirely. It was as if the mere act of seeing the knife had awakened his most basic primitive instincts and dragged them to the foreground against his better judgement, urging him to flee while his life still remained intact, even as he stood immobilized with expectant fear. The more he pondered these facts, the closer he came to an understanding of what this creature actually was, and when the identity of this creature finally dawned on him, his heart sank so deeply it nearly felt like it had lodged itself inside his lower intestine.

This was a Tonberry, a living curse given flesh and purpose, spawned from the blackest pits of Hell to carry out unspeakable acts of terrible vengeance against the sinners of the world. Attempting to confront one would be tantamount to suicide, as their waddling gait and non-threatening appearance gleefully betrays the sort of twisted horrors they have the potential of unleashing; not only can a Tonberry weaponize the resentments of the dead, their hallmark weapon is capable of ending lives with a single, well-placed strike. Truly, the stuff of nightmares.

Gilgamesh scowled nervously, not at the Tonberry before him, but at his own rotten misfortune. The one time it doesn't pay to be an expert in combat... "Well, at the very least, it'll probably be quick and painless. Might as well get this over with..." he mumbled before cautiously edging his way out into the open space, the smell of burnt leaves lingering below his nostrils, a prelude to his own inevitable demise. Without his spear, the weapons collector is forced to curl the fingers on his hands into tightly balled fists. There would be no fanfare this time, no proud declarations of valor, no reason to issue such bold challenges.

As he prepared to face an ignominious end, however, Gilgamesh took notice of the Tonberry's apparent demeanor, and furrowed his brow when his instincts for battle failed to detect any sort of hostility from the knife-wielding critter. In fact, the Tonberry almost seemed more preoccupied with their immediate surroundings than with the prospect of enacting horrific revenge against anybody in general, much less a particular individual. Had they caused all this environmental damage? So much for preventing forest fires...

"Maybe if I move slow enough, I'll be perceived as invisible," Gilgamesh hypothesized without any trace of irony whatsoever. "Or does that only work on dinosaurs? Wait, do dinosaurs exist on this planet? Are Tonberries dinosaurs? Can dinosaurs be invisible, also?" He immediately abandons his half-baked combat stance to straighten himself out, thumbing his chin contemplatively as more questions continued to pour into his immediate headspace.

Honestly, if Gilgamesh gets stabbed here, it's entirely his fault.

"Well, they can't stab me if they can't see me!" reiterated Gilgamesh, waving an open hand in front of his face for added emphasis.

Screw it.

Let's see what happens next.

Honestly expecting to be stabbed without ceremony at this point, Gilgamesh nearly launched into a double-take the moment he heard another voice answer his questions in a tone so resoundingly low and rich in its timbre, he could have sworn the writing department had tried to hire a second narrator while he wasn't looking. A few paranoid glances would remind him this wasn't the case, but that still leaves the question as to how a critter with no mouth (or, none that he could visibly observe on the Tonberry's face, anyway) produced a voice worthy of an Academy Award for Best Performance.

Aside from feeling a rather mild hint of jealousy for the much smaller monster's clearly superior vocal character, Gilgamesh shifted his stance the moment he heard the Tonberry verbally acknowledge his presence, then scowled when he was basically told how much he sucked at being invisible, ergo remained an easy enough target for the Knifening™ he was certain would follow afterward. "Tch. Shows what I get for trying to copy stuff I see in movies..." Gilgamesh grumbled aloud.

Before the Tonberry resolved to pull an Alfred Hitchcock and leave his body in the bathtub, however, they would address Gilgamesh with a question, or, rather, a series of questions, which really ought to be a foreign concept to something so innately murderous and begrudging as a Tonberry. It would take some additional concentration on his behalf to retrieve what few brain cells he had inside the vacuous black hole that is his skull, or "The Second Void" as Exdeath liked to refer it as, until a wave of illuminating comprehension washed over the swordsman.

"Wait, you think I'm the reason you're lost?" he threw the question back at the Tonberry, then lets out a bellowing laugh. "If I were the master of this labyrinth, I'd have held your baby ransom and forced it to do musical numbers with talking goblin puppets while you raced around on a time limit." Gilgamesh looked around, folding both arms into his meaty armored chest. "Unfortunately, I don't have the budget, hourglasses, or the hair dressers for that right now, and last I checked, there's a shortage of infant children, so I'm as far up this creek as you are, O paddle-less one." He could only hope that knife couldn't also moonlight as one. "As for why I'm here, your guess is as good as mine. I'm still trying to figure that one out."

In his endeavors to conjure an explanation for his presence in the Wanderwood, Gilgamesh had barely noticed the glimmer of tears rolling down the Tonberry's cheek, something that would normally elicit a sense of concern, were it not for the fact that such a sight seemed jarring on its own, given the creature's legendary reputation for violence. But, being the curious and empathetic sort of fellow he was, Gilgamesh could only wonder if he had something on his person that might help them out of this predicament.

"Hm. Actually, give me a moment." Gilgamesh implored, turning around so that the Tonberry could not personally witness him using one hand to pull at the waistline of his trousers before nearly thrusting the other hand straight down inside. Moving it around with hectic urgency had produced an inexplicably audible cacophony of tinkling, clattering, banging and clanging as the idiot swordsman hummed and hawed through his entire inventory of acquired odds and ends. With every item he seemed to grab, his face would turn and twist and bend in all manner of different expressions, not only suggesting that he had probably forgotten about having acquired a majority of these knickknacks throughout his lengthy and glamorous adventures, but also indicating the sort of character that seemed like his house would be considered, at the very least, a stage-two hoarding hazard.

Suppose we ought to get ourselves comfortable. This could take a while...

"Let's see here... Devil's triangle? No," Gilgamesh said, tossing aside a rather nondescript three-sided musical instrument, along with its accompanying metal striking rod, as it landed against the triangle with its signature ting. 

"Pandora's lunchbox? Nope." Following the triangle went what looked like an ordinary plastic bento container stamped with a cute cartoon moogle. 

"Huh. That's where my Double Dice Monsters set went..." Gilgamesh said to himself in a tone of mild amusement before tossing aside a small cardboard box that had been sealed shut with copious quantities of tape, accompanied by the sound of rattling miniatures and ivory dice. 

"A wand of magic missile? Pfft. And without any charges left, of course..." he grumbled, tossing aside a stick that had been further accessorized by the intelligent act of using superglue to fix a large glass marble to it. 

"...'Crusty, Stale Jokes for Bakers and Breadwives'...?" Without thinking twice about it, Gilgamesh nearly chucks aside a large, dusty book containing all the worst bread-based puns and pithy one-liners penned by first-rate comedians and third-rate hacks the world over. 

One can only guess why he had that on him.

Gilgamesh suddenly gasped, then grimaced. "Yikes! My old science fair project?! Should've thrown you out a long time ago..." he said, very carefully lifting a small glass cube containing the remnants of a thing no language, living or dead, has ever penned a name for, long since decomposed, or perhaps transmogrified, maybe evolved, into an amorphous mass of flesh and gelatin, wiggling inside the container with vague menace; etched into one side, in a script since rendered ancient and forgotten, is the phrase: "Gil-Nye the Science Fly". Recalling simpler times with a wistful sigh, the swordsman casually throws it aside after about five seconds.

"Okay, seriously now. Where the heck is it?! I know I kept it, for pity's—" Gilgamesh growls as he resorts to tossing out everything including the Barney Bag, from gizmos to gadgets, odds to ends, and even some old string. Before he could fall victim to the jaws of madness and sing a song about the experience, a resounding beep! erupts from his pantaloons, and his face lights up with a mixture of elation and relief, because he was not about to do any of that. "Ha-ha! There you are, you little devil!"

With hallmark bravado, Gilgamesh hoists his hand up to the charred forest canopies, his sausage-like fingers wrapped around a metallic circular contraption that very clearly seemed electronic in its composition and alleged function.

"Tonberries, one and all! Bear witness!" cried the swordsman. "I give you: 'The G.P.S™'!!"

Oh, what is he doing now—?

They often say that genius and insanity, much like alcohol and bad life choices, go hand in hand with one another, existing as two sides of the same spinning coin. But, since Gilgamesh is liable to steal the coin being used in this figure of speech here, it must regrettably be replaced with a significantly less valuable alternative. Imagine the coin is made of chocolate and wrapped in gold-leafed tinfoil, instead. The metaphor still works, and nobody loses any money; it's a win-win for everyone, except Gilgamesh, obviously.

Of course, the Tonberry simply couldn't allow him to just bask beneath the flickering light of inspiration, which probably looked more like a dingy streetlamp on the verge of burning out. No, not only are they going around killing all the plants and trees, but they're also a born natural at killing the mood, too, which caused Gilgamesh to gradually scowl as his earlier torrent of masterfully penned quips were dismantled with meticulous surgical precision. Haven't they ever heard of hyperbole before?

Still, it felt pretty good being told his motivations were unfathomable, although anyone with common sense might wonder if that's really worth being proud of, but Gilgamesh would smile proudly all the same. "You have the luck of speaking to a genuine force of nature, my fishy-tailed friend! I aspire to break past the limits of imagination and make the impossible possible! That's the way I roll!" The Tonberry might as well have called him a lunatic, and he'd have still taken it as a compliment. Unrelated note, he was almost sure he had a pair of cool sunglasses tucked away somewhere.

Feeling a prodding sensation in the back of his mind to keep the story rolling forward, Gilgamesh held out the strange gadget for the Tonberry to observe in better detail, showing that it had a number of buttons protruding from the metal frame, its liquid crystal screen flickering with lines and symbols and digits that formed even greater patterns. "I got this little doohickey from a guy in orange karate clothes," Gilgamesh said, using a thumb to push one of the buttons down to change the inputs on the screen. "Said it was used to find these things called 'dragon orbs' or something? I'll admit, the way it was phrased made it sound like a double entendre, so I took the liberty of disinfecting this thing after I gave up all of my savings to buy it, but apparently it uses 'electrico-magnetronicular' waves to locate stuff." The crimson warrior simply shrugged, unable to elaborate any further on either the device's inner workings or his rather stunning mutilation of the word 'electromagnetic'. "Perhaps it can also find us a way out of these woods?"

Since Gilgamesh neglected to read the enclosed instruction book, navigating the various menus and interfaces had proven about as difficult as trying rescue a princess from an evil turtle monster while trying to have a nice spaghetti picnic, but at least that guy had like, decades of plumbing experience when it happened the first time around. It took almost a full minute of hemming and hawing until the master swordsman had finally found the setting he wanted, and with a few more clumsy button presses, which took about another minute, he had successfully calibrated the gadget to begin sending out its high-frequency signal all over and around. Two additional markers blinked into view shortly afterward, one demarcating magnetic north, the other representing geographic north.

Ping. Ping. Ping. Every three seconds or so, another ping would chime out from the device as a small circular band of luminous pixels spread out from the center of the screen until it reached the display's edge before vanishing entirely, only to repeat ad infinitum.

Gilgamesh frowned halfway. "Doesn't look like it's giving us any feedback here," he said, turning his gaze toward the only direction the device had indicated on the screen. "Means we ought to probably start moving around some. I think if it makes the noise twice, it means there's something close by." He had no way of verifying any of this, because he seriously didn't know how most of the gadget's features worked in the first place. If nothing else, giving Gilgamesh a common objective to work towards had the unforeseen benefit of momentarily nullifying, or at least suppressing, whatever sense of terror he felt by being in the Tonberry's presence.

It is often claimed that patience is a virtue. Well, it tends to be considered one among religious communities, anyway. But Gilgamesh was no monk—he lasted barely a week before they fired him for reasons better left to the imagination—so this well-established axiom has little to do with his own character and more to do with that of the Tonberry growing increasingly frustrated with the swordsman's offhand prattling and obvious confusion over how to operate his own electronics.

If they wanted to, they could do it. Right now, even. Slice his leg tendons, then bleed his throat dry. No one would ever hear him scream for help, either, or find the body.

But that would be too simple, wouldn't it? Too easy.

If only it really were. One does not simply "get rid of Gilgamesh." He was like a cockroach in nuclear winter, or a planarian worm, unable to be exterminated, unwilling to simply just "go away". He could withstand even against the most inhospitable conditions and/or people. Even if the little green critter decided to act on the spontaneous impulse to repeatedly plunge their knife into his face until it resembled the science fair project he just got done throwing away, Gilgamesh would still find some way to haunt him from beyond the grave like the world's worst poltergeist. Despite the current perception of events, or until the duo were somehow able to find their way out of the woods, he wasn't stuck with the Tonberry; the Tonberry was stuck with him.

Even so, the creature sees it necessary to begin exercising threats against the warrior in motley rags, demanding he get to the point and start being useful to their search for an exit out of the Wanderwood. Gilgamesh merely squints in contempt at the Tonberry after hearing them spout some nonsense about being the "World's Grudge" or whatever, stuff about "following no way but forward", and just being an outright menace to society in a forest that's totally abundant with an absence of society. Plumes of dark smoke seemed to coil their way around the monster's knife for the briefest of moments before subsiding entirely, their demeanor also adopting a more shameful tone.

It would have worked, had Gilgamesh not taken offense to their displays instead of folding under the pressure, like most other humans would have. "Guide you?" he repeated, holding back the urge to mock their audacity. "You want me to guide you?? What do I look like, a life counselor?!" He can no longer restraint his rising anger, nor keep his voice from elevating in volume. "I'm trying to help you to the best of my ability with what little I have to work with, and you're basically telling me it isn't enough." Both arms fold into one another as he starts pacing furiously around the forest floor. "Then you go out of your way to point a goddamned knife at me, like that's supposed to make me want to help you more?!?" He turned his nose up, away from the presumptuous Tonberry. "Well, you can just forget it, buster! Go ahead and kill me if you want, but I don't make a habit out of lending aid to people who don't appreciate it being offered to them!"

And, just like that, everything falls apart at the seams; the Tonberry was famously a creature of spite, but so was Gilgamesh, and he had just proven himself willing and ready to accept fates far worse than death as petty revenge. If they still wanted help at this point, it would require more than mere contrition or apologies to sway Gilgamesh.