Jen wiped the sweat from her forehead as they continued to race towards the plateau with the transport pad for Pudding to use, and said, “The Good news is, the remaining deck droppers have no idea anyone has been helping Pudding, unless the Tracking Elf tells them what he saw. The bad news is, they are going to know someone’s been helping him when they inspect the scene of the fight with Lord Deathless. If we don’t take the quest and head to the Oracle Deck, they'll hire tracking elves to use any blood or hair they find to track us down. If we survive the Oracle Deck long enough, by the time we return, the tracking material’s linked to us will probably have faded and disappeared.”
As they neared the plateau, Pudding kept reaching down and picking up limbs until he couldn't physically hold or balance any more of them in his arms, and Jen could hear him speaking to Jee, “We must trust dem to hav a chance of getting her back.” Jee shrugged and dropped back in Pudding’s pocket.
Jen thought, “Strange, I wonder what he’s up to. I don’t blame him or Jee for being worried, we don’t know him well enough to trust him with all of our secrets either.”
As they reached the transfer pad, Pudding explained, “You know it will cost 50 gold to accept de quest, or you can agree to pay de system half of all de loot you get in the Oracle Deck. If you no pay half, you no can return. I say you pay de gold. I no have the money, so I must bargain de loot.”
Tamako new that Sam didn’t mind running when necessary, but since he wasn't able to use his storage rings with the crossbow bolts, his logs, or anything else, and since he was just now getting back some of his mana after the battle…all in all, Tamako knew he was on edge with stress since they were utterly unprepared for a deck jump to the Oracle Deck.
Sam texted to Jen, “Boss, this is the scene in the movie where everyone gets blown up because they talk instead of run.” Jen gave Sam a slight nod, privately messaged Slim, and then said to Pudding, “Enough talk Pudding, we are going to pay for your jump to the Oracle Deck. You have less than a minute to tell us what to expect, before we are accepting the Oracle quest and jumping.”
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Pudding nodded, cast a spell on the arm-length limbs he was holding and said, “I have animated these limbs, Jee and all these limbs are companions and dey travel wid me.”
Jen watched curiously as the limbs used all the little branches sticking off the main trunk of each limb to move around. Some of the limbs moved like stick people, while a couple of the limbs moved on the ground like centipedes.
Pudding explained, "When we arrive on the Oracle Deck, these limbs will try to protect us against anything that might try to attack us, while we be still weak from the mana drain." He then cast a different spell on five limbs that didn't have any branches and weren't moving around, and explained “Each of us can take one of these limbs. They are animated, but they can't move. With the spell I jus cast on dem, you can put your mana into them. The teleportation will not drain the mana from dese limbs. When we arrive in the Oracle Deck, you can draw your mana out of dem to help you recover more quickly... maybe your recovery from the mana drain be three times quicker than normal. Dat is one reason why da deck droppers wanted me.”
Jen, Tamako, Slim, and Sam quickly mirrored Pudding's actions and put as much mana into the limbs as they could. Sam, Jen, and Tamako also secretly placed their concrete-crusted storage devices in their mouths as they all stepped onto the teleportation pad, Slim glared at them and said, "You're all going to owe me some serious interest on this system loot fee I'm paying for you." A moment later, the rainbow and fireworks swept them up sending them to the Oracle Quest Deck.
*******
“Karen, I could tell there were three of them with him, but no idea what they really look like, levels, or anything else,” said the Ranger.
The life mage, Karen, was pissed at the two fucking morons she had been working with for the last 100 years. They were powerful, but their stupidity and arrogance had finally caught up with them. With a slight grunt she let off some anger, causing the life out of half the vegetation in the valley to drain away. “No use wasting any more time or energy wishing we had Bob. However, he and his new friends better pray I never find them. We’ll go back and take ten of the guild’s best fighters as cannon fodder. Now, let’s get the hell out of here and get to the Oracle Deck” she said to the Ranger, and turned back towards the city.