Sophia was awake when the soft knock on the door said that it was finally time to get up and get moving. She turned to shake Dav, only to find him already sitting up and turned towards her. “You were awake, too?”
“Yeah,” Dav admitted, then yawned. “My body doesn’t know what time it is. I’ve got to have some coffee.”
“You can say that again,” Sophia agreed. She was pretty sure she was more awake than he was, but that wasn’t saying much. Breakfast and coffee was exactly what she needed.
Once they were downstairs, Sophia started by mixing up her coffee. The correct mix was easy: just as much milk as there was coffee, then add honey until it tasted mildly sweet. She liked her coffee as a sturdy caffeinated milk drink, not as something strong enough to stand a spoon in, and that meant that she didn’t really need much honey.
Well, maybe a little more honey. It might be just as helpful as the caffeine in getting her going this morning.
She could only be grateful that Casterville had coffee. She’d been to places that didn’t. The area didn’t seem appropriate for coffee plants, but she’d seen Arryn’s wagon, which was far bigger on the inside than the outside; it might be imported. It could also be grown in one of the other Conservatories, since it clearly wasn’t grown in the West Conservatory.
Sophia glanced over at Dav. He was, as usual, about halfway through his first much darker cup of coffee by the time she started hers.
Amy walked in right after the food arrived and snagged a square of toast from Sophia’s plate before setting three bottles down in front of Sophia. They were clearly glass, about the size of a soft drink can, with a stopper at the top and a leather band wrapped several times around the neck. A tiny tag dangled from the end of the leather.
There was a design Sophia didn’t recognize on the side, but it was the liquid inside that really caught Sophia’s attention. It was yellow at the bottom and a sort of flecked blue at the top, with an inner glow that made Sophia momentarily turn on her MageSight to confirm that the bottle held some sort of magic.
Energy Drink [https://i.imgur.com/dndrdxZ.jpeg]
Amy held the toast with her teeth as she pulled another trio of bottles in front of Dav, then pulled out a chair and plopped down into it.
“You could have ordered your own toast,” Sophia complained.
Amy took another bite with a grin. “Yeah, but I’m hungry now. I’ll get you more toast when I order. I bet you didn’t think to stop by and talk to the alchemist, did you?”
Sophia chuckled at Amy’s brazen answer. She didn’t honestly care that much about the toast when she had an entire plate of food. Eggs, sausage, and a muffin would do just fine even without the toast.
“Is that where you got these?” Dav waved a hand at the glass containers. “The alchemist?”
“Yep.” Amy waved at the barmaid to get her attention. “I guessed you two wouldn’t think of it. They’re energy drinks, perfect to give you a bit more alertness. They’ll even boost mana and shield regeneration a bit, though not nearly as much as actual rest or food does. Don’t drink more than one an hour unless you want to be violently ill, and two hours is better.”
Sophi’s mouth quirked into a smile at Amy’s tone of voice. “Know that from experience, do you?”
“Uuuugh,” Amy answered. “Never doing that again. Especially not with one that’s about to go bad; the side effects are worse. It’s easy to tell; if the yellow is gone or turns orange, toss it. That usually takes a couple weeks. These days I only buy ‘em if I think I’ll use them real soon. Three should be enough for each of us for the Challenge, even if we take our time.”
“I want to take all the time we need, even if it’s longer than most,” Sophia countered. “I don’t see how we can possibly search the whole East Conservatory in four hours, or even in six. We can kill all of the corpsevines, probably, but that can’t be all there is to this. If it was, someone would have fixed it by now.”
“You think we can actually solve it?” Amy’s words were somewhere between a statement and a question. “I’m happy to try, but it won’t be easy. It’s only been a couple days, but almost everything’s been tried.”
Sophia frowned as she nodded. The one benefit of staying in the Registry building for almost a day after they decided when they’d head to the Conservatory other than comfortable beds was the chance it gave them to talk to people. Rensyn had not-so-quietly discouraged asking around, but none of the three of them let that stop them from asking questions. They didn’t want to try things that had already been tried if they didn’t work. “I know, but we also know it won’t kick us out after we kill everything. We have time to search the place. That has to be part of the Challenge, and at least half of the people I talked to didn’t bother.”
“Just killing the corpsevines is an easy way to make some money.” Amy didn’t try very hard to hide the disdain she held for people who didn’t do more than that. “Searching the place takes time and isn’t worth more unless you actually finish the Challenge permanently, and a lot of people would rather have a straightforward combat Challenge than have to travel around to find enemies. Sure, the Wisps aren’t all that good the second time, but they’re never good past level one, maybe two, near Casterville.”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Dav winced and glanced around the room. “Maybe tone it down a bit while we’re still near others?”
Sophia’s fork clanged on her plate as she went to spear her last large piece of sausage. She looked down, then realized that it was missing. A colorful lump between her and Dav tore another bite off the sausage he stole while Sophia wasn’t watching her plate. “Dammit, Taika, not you too!”
As it turned out, Sophia had to order more breakfast at the same time Amy ordered hers. Fortunately, Rensyn didn’t arrive and tell them the previous group was back from the West Conservatory until after they both had the chance to eat.
Feather Line Break [https://i.imgur.com/JcKTy4K.jpeg]
The entrance wasn’t through the same tunnel that Lillah Gardener showed them; instead, they could travel directly from the city down an overgrown path that was probably once a road. These days, even the path was more than a foot deep in greenery. There was a slight risk that they’d run into a corpsevine outside the Leveled Challenge, but it was early enough that it was very unlikely.
Indeed, long before they saw an enemy, the Guide told them they were in the Challenge.
Message [https://i.imgur.com/ZwLMklM.png]
You have Entered a Leveled Challenge!
Challenge: Lair of the Corpsevine
This Leveled Challenge must be fully completed within a year of its origin. Failure will result in a Monster Challenge on the nearest Nexus City, Casterville.
First-time completion of this Leveled Challenge will qualify as a Minor Feat.
Full completion of this Leveled Challenge will qualify as a Major Feat and result in additional rewards for both the participants and the nearest Nexus City, Casterville.
The message wasn’t the same as the one Sophia remembered from shortly after she and Dav landed in the Broken Lands when they “passed within the area of a Shard of Kestii,” but it was close. Sophia wasn’t sure if that made it nostalgic or if it just brought home how rare it was for areas to be limited by the Guide. Probably both.
Amy grinned. “I’ve always wanted to do a true Challenge. This one should be pretty easy, since we’ve fought a bunch of corpsevines before. The fighting bit, at least.”
“Might be a bit harder than you think,” Dav cautioned. “We don’t have Samuel as backup and we don’t have other fires as distractions. I don’t want to be attacked by multiple groups at once.”
Amy shook her head. “This is a Leveled Challenge. That’s not supposed to happen unless the Guide thinks it’s reasonable.”
“Is it reasonable to expect the fights to be easy when they’re scaled to us?” Dav shrugged. “Let’s be a little cautious.”
Sophia shook her head at the byplay, then reached up to Dav’s backpack. “Taika, you probably shouldn’t be in Dav’s backpack. Can you fight or scout?”
“Mmm,” Taika almost squeaked as he looked around. “Not for corpsevines. They are harder to see than real animals. I think I can make you harder for them to see, too. Will that work?”
“Sure, let’s give that a try.” Sophia reached up and caught Taika around the chest. The brightly colored fluffy fuzzball let her lower him almost halfway to the ground before he squirmed out of her grip and jumped up onto a tree branch where he could speak to her without looking all the way up.
Taika crouched on the branch and closed his eyes as he concentrated. The air around him wavered with magic as his fur took on a green tinge. In places, it seemed to turn into leaves, while in others it just dyed his fur in an odd irregular pattern. It wasn’t what Sophia expected when she thought “harder to see.” It was more like camouflage than invisibility.
CamoTaika [https://i.imgur.com/yaQWc7q.jpeg]
Sophia concentrated for long enough to use her MageSight. She was right; he was moving quite a bit of magic. It didn’t seem to be concentrated just on Sophia; instead, it seemed to fill the air around the entire group. It was quite a bit of magic and while it seemed well controlled in its effects, Taika didn’t seem to be able to control the area he affected very well. “This is going to be all you can do for a while, isn’t it?”
Taika didn’t answer. Instead, waves of color washed across the entire area. It was only an illusion, clearly, but Sophia thought it might well work if the corpsevines depended on the senses it fooled.
Sophia turned to look at the others to make certain they were covered by the illusion as well. Amy seemed to be covered in leaves and vines, with a waterfall of vines that ran down her back over her hair. Dirt marks appeared on her face; they looked almost more like small bits of mud than ordinary dirt.
CamoAmy [https://i.imgur.com/sYekylN.jpeg]
Sophia turned to look at Dav; she had to see what Taika’s illusion did to him.
His armor was still visible, but it was duller and the scales looked like leaves, now. Like Amy, he had leaves in his hair. Taika even managed to change the color of the scales on Dav’s face.
CamoDav [https://i.imgur.com/j1kSlBC.jpeg]
Dav chuckled and grinned at Sophia.
Sophia tilted her head at him. “What’s funny?”
“You look like a wood elf,” Dav said with another chuckle. “Your ears are really obvious. I can really see what Arryn meant, now.”
Sophia sighed and dug a small mirror out of her back and took a look. It wasn’t as funny as Dav seemed to think, but she could sort of see what he meant. She was covered in leaves just like the other two and her eye color was wrong, green instead of purple. The really annoying part was that she looked even younger than usual.
Sophia frowned at Taika. “Did you have to give me freckles?”
CamoSophia [https://i.imgur.com/z5tjxJS.png]