The jackalope was in a hurry to get moving. Bo suggested they at least tell some of Bloodwhisker’s people they were leaving, but the rabbit man was having none of it. He seemed eager to get on the move, and assured Bo the rest of the jackalopes would be fine until he returned.
The path Bloodwhisker chose surprised Bo. Instead of guiding the pitmaster back to the surface, he charted a course deeper into the earth. The impenetrable darkness made it impossible for Bo to tell which way they were headed. The warren was an immense labyrinth that seemed to spread through the dark soil for miles. There was no way he could have found his way out of this place on his own. Thinking about that, and imagining the immense weight of all that dirt above his head, gave Bo some very unpleasant claustrophobia vibes.
“How much longer until we see some daylight?” Bo asked. He tried to sound casual, like he always tromped through dark caverns filled with humanoid jackalopes who had recently wanted to murder him.
“Soon,” Bloodwhisker said. “This path will get us where we need to be faster. Plus, I didn’t want the tree to see us.”
“What are you talking about?” Bo asked.
The jackalope stopped and raised Bo's hand. The pitmaster felt earth against his fingers, but there was something else there, too. Hair-fine filaments pulsed and wriggled against his skin.
“What was that?” Bo asked, recoiling from the strange sensation.
“The Crimson Forest,” Bloodwhisker replied. “Its roots have spread far and wide. There is not a single part of the warren that is free of them.”
The tree has been busy. Or it was here long before the harvest began.
Dread closed around Bo’s heart. Knowing that the forest was all around them, even now, made his stomach clenched into a nauseated fist. Realizing that the tree may actually be everywhere made him worry he’d never be able to kill it off. “Does that mean the tree heard everything we said?”
Bloodwhisker gripped Bo's wrist again and continued walking. “No, the roots seem to be blind as earthworms. It’s the saplings on the surface that have keen senses. The bigger those little trees grow, the more they can see and hear.”
As the pair made their way through the maze of earthen tunnels, the pitmaster struggled to push his worries away. He didn't know how he would battle against an enemy that grew its spies out of the dirt. Wherever his people went, the tree would find them. Unless…
“How do we destroy the saplings?” Bo asked.
A faint glimmer of light from the tunnel ahead revealed the jackalope’s outline. The deadly rabbit man cocked his head to one side, ears drooping is it considered the pitmaster’s question. “Use that cleaver of yours, I suppose. The Crimson Forest will know as soon as you do, though.”
“Not much I can do about that,” Bo said. “ I really don't care if the tree knows that we're on to it. Blinding the damned thing is worth tipping our hand.”
“I don't disagree,” the Jackalope responded. “When I get back to the warren, I'll spread the word to my people that we need to hunt down and destroy the saplings as fast as possible.”
There is something this rabbit isn't telling us. It knows more than it's letting on.
Bo was certain that Barbie was right, but didn't know what to do about it. He was on fragile footing with the jackalopes right now, and he needed to get them on his side. Accusing Bloodwhisker of holding out on him would not help their relationship at all. And the pitmaster wasn’t sure why the jackalope would betray him now. The creature had turned on the tree and saved Bo’s life. Killing the pitmaster now made no sense at all.
They were rabbits just a few days ago. There is no guarantee they are much more intelligent than the prey animals they came from. Trying to make sense of what they plan is an exercise in futility.
Bo didn’t agree with Barbie. Bloodwhisker seemed a lot smarter than your average rabbit, which would sit in the middle of a highway until it got ran over. If this potential ally was withholding information, there was a reason for it.
Fresh air gusted into the tunnel, distracting the pitmaster. He breathed in deeply, savoring the clean air. June in Oklahoma wasn’t as hot as in Texas, but Bo felt the promise of muggy months ahead on that wind. He hoped the cave would keep his people cool enough, because there was no electricity or air conditioning in their future. Come August, it would be miserably hot outside. That would flare tempers and—
That is a problem for future Bo. There is no sense worrying about something that may never happen. We could all be dead in a few days.
While that wasn't a comforting thought, Bo knew the devil was right. He couldn't afford to waste any energy worrying about summer doldrums when there was no guarantee his people would survive the coming battle with the grunge elves and the Crimson Forest. He had to take one step at a time and deal with each problem as it presented itself. Chasing after trouble wouldn't get him anywhere.
“There is a sapling this way,” Bloodwhisker informed Bo as they emerged from the tunnel into the late afternoon sun. The jackalope popped off, and the pitmaster hurried to catch up.
“How do you know that?” Bo asked.
Because it is still in league with the evil tree.
The Jackalope wiggled his whiskers and shrugged. “I smell them. It's like fresh meat, raw and ripe. You can't detect them at all?”
Bo thought back to his battle against the Crimson Tree. Maybe there'd been a smell, but he’d been too busy staying alive to notice. But when he took in a deep breath, all he caught on the wind was the scent of uncut grass and a loamy undercurrent of red clay.
Because you aren't infested by the tree.
“I don't smell anything like raw meat,” Bo said, ignoring the devil’s paranoid suspicions. “Just grass and dirt. Same as Oklahoma always smelled.”
The murder bunny stopped and pointed at a scraggly red twig that had pushed its way up from the earth. It didn't look like any tree Bo had ever seen. Rather than small limbs and clusters of leaves, the slender bole had sprouted a crown of worm-like tendrils. The appendages spread out from its crown, wriggling and undulating in ways the wind couldn't explain. As Bo watched, even finer fibers spread from the top of the tree like tiny, boneless fingers.
“Gross,” Bo said. “The tree can hear us through this?”
“Yes,” Bloodwhisker said. “It could talk to us through it, if it wanted to.”
“Yeah,” Bo said. “I'm not interested in what it has to say But I hope you can feel this tree. And you feel it every time I hack off one of your roots. Let it be a reminder that you picked the wrong human to mess with.”
He equipped his cleaver, grabbed the top of the two-foot-tall “tree,” and hacked it off at ground level.
Blood spurted from where the pitmaster had severed the sapling, and the thing twisted in his hand like a mortally wounded serpent. With a grimace of disgust, Bo hurled the gruesome twig to the ground and stomped it into a red paste beneath his hooves.
“That was effective,” Bloodwhisker said. He pointed off to the west. “The minotaur lizard battle was this way. I'll point out more saplings as we go, and you can destroy them.”
Curious that the rabbit won’t destroy them itself. Makes you wonder if it can.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
That was suspicious, but Bo didn’t want to risk his shaky alliance accusing the rabbit of still being in league with the Crimson Forest. Besides, that theory still made no sense. Why would the tree allow the jackalope to destroy part of it and let Bo escape?
The Crimson Forest is immortal. It's been around for so long it no longer thinks like you or I. It is a monstrosity with plans that extend for thousands of years. Maybe all of this is just a diversion to it. A way to amuse itself. Or maybe it just enjoys tormenting humans. That is a lot of fun, you know.
Bo didn’t want to believe the devil. Searching his thoughts for another answer bore no fruit, though. And though the jackalope dutifully led Bo from one sapling to the next, the creature never harmed one of the revolting twigs. The pitmaster destroyed them all, his worries and suspicions growing until they finally reached the sight of the minotaur lizard’s former spawning point.
“Let's see what we've got here,” Bo said, nodding his head to the shallow bowl surrounded by lizard corpses. “Doesn't look like anybody touched the bodies since I left.”
“You were only gone for twenty-four hours,” the jackalope responded. “That's not much time for even scavengers.”
“Good point,” Bo replied. “Help me gather up some of these horns. I’ve got a challenge I need to knock out.”
“The sun will be down in a couple of hours,” the jackalope replied. “Will you be able to find your way home in the dark?”
“There will be moonlight and starlight,” Bo replied. “I'm not blind, you know. I just can't see in pitch blackness.”
“The warren isn't pitch black,” the rabbit said, then shrugged. “At least it's not pitch black to me.”
“Right,” Bo said. “Well, other than our horns, we don't have a lot in common.”
The Jackalope chuckled at that, a strange sound somewhere between clicking its teeth and grinding its molars. Then it pulled a heavy knife from the sheath hanging from the belt around its narrow hips and hopped off to hack at the nearest lizard corpse. Bo went to work gathering horns with his cleaver.
According to the Grail System training I received prior to being deployed to this hideous world, fallen monsters will remain intact for up to seventy-two hours unless they are looted.
“Good to know,” Bo murmured as he hacked the horns off another lizard. The process was tedious, but easy. Every time Bo chopped off a horn, it disappeared, and he received a short message that the trophies were placed in his personal storage. The monster's body then vanished in a puff of purple smoke, leaving nothing behind.
Things were a little tougher for Bloodwhisker. Because the jackalope wasn’t a champion, he didn’t have a personal storage space. That forced the killer bunny to hop over to Bo with his arms laden with horns and hand off the trophies. Despite that, though, Bo and the bunny gathered fifty horns in less than half an hour. When the last one disappeared into Bo’s personal storage space, a new message appeared.
CHALLENGE COMPLETED!
Collect Horns
You have gathered 50 minotaur lizard horns, which are currently stored in your personal inventory. You may repeat this quest once per week.
REWARD: One Community Build Token
YOU CURRENTLY HAVE ONE COMMUNITY BUILD TOKEN!
“Are you all right?” Bloodwhisker asked.
“I'm fine,” Bo said. “Why?”
“You glowed for a moment,” Bloodwhisker responded. “It was unnerving.”
“I just wrapped up a challenge,” Bo said.
Stop telling this thing everything you know.
“Oh,” Bloodwhisker said, as if that explained everything there was to know about challenges and why Bo had glowed. “Let’s check the pit. I need to get back to my people. If I'm gone too long, they will wonder what happened to me. Neither of us wants that.”
Bo grumbled when he realized he'd set himself up for a lot of trouble. If anything happened to Bloodwhisker while they were out on this little mission, the rest of the jackalopes would assume Bo was to blame for it. He should've pushed the jackalope to tell his people where they were going and what they were up to.
It's almost as if he laid a trap for you to blunder into. You cannot trust this creature.
Bo didn't want to think about that, but the devil had a point.
Shit.
“Okay,” Bo said. “Let's do this.”
The pitmaster and his jackalope sidekick hopped down into the minotaur lizard spawning pit, which held plenty of lizard corpses and the champion’s bloated, brutalized body.
The loot is likely within the champion's body. You didn't have time to search it before the jackalopes attacked.
Bo crouched beside the champion and put one hand on its side. He’d no sooner thought about looting the creature than messages flashed through his mind.
You have looted a Minotaur Lizard Champion, Vassal of the Crimson Forest! You receive:
Three Strategic Gambit cards:
Allied Heroes
Type: Power (Strategic Gambit)
Activation: 3 Strength
Generates: 3 Resolve
Power: 3
Description: POW Heroes rise to lead your forces to victory! During this gambit, all allied forces receive +2S, +2C, and +2R.
Rarity: Uncommon
Upgrades: None
Heel Nipper
Type: Power (Strategic Gambit)
Activation: 3 Resolve
Generates: 3 Strength
Power: 3
Description: Your forces harry the foe from all directions, causing POW wounds to spread across their forces during each round this gambit remains active.
Rarity: Rare
Upgrades: None
Pyrrhic Ambush
Type: Power
Activate: All remaining wound levels
Generate: --
Power: 5
Allies appear to attack your enemies. During the first round after they appear, all ambushing forces have +3S, +3D and may activate cards or attack before opponents can react.
Rarity: Legendary
Upgrades: None
Additional Looted Items:
1 Flawless Minotaur Lizard Champion Hide
2 Blank expert decks
10 Dominator Fibers of the Crimson Forest
500 crypt coins
Reconciling Challenge: Destroy the Spawn Points...
Two spawn points destroyed.
CHALLENGE COMPLETED!
Destroy the Spawn Points
The Jackalope and Minotaur Lizard spawn points have been destroyed!
REWARD: You have received two Community Build Tokens. Destroying the Thunder Bison spawn point will reward you with a third.
YOU CURRENTLY HAVE THREE COMMUNITY BUILD TOKENS!
“Where's the treasure?” Bloodwhisker asked, ears twitching as he looked at Bo with suspicion in his amber eyes.
“Sorry,” Bo said. “The system moves everything to my personal inventory when I loot something. This is what we have.”
You don't have to tell him everything. Leave out the decks.
Bo hesitated. He doubted the jackalope would know if he withheld information about the decks, but that was a serious lie by omission on Bo’s part. The pitmaster didn't want to start his alliance with the jackalopes on the shaky grounds of deception. Despite Barbie’s advice, Bo listed out all the treasures for the jackalope.
“What are these decks?” Bloodwhisker asked.
“They’ll give you some powers,” Bo explained. “But accepting a deck will also tie you to me, because it’s my community focus that turns from them useless blank decks into either scout or craftsman decks.”
Bloodwhisker sat back on his haunches to consider his choices. “I have no use for a pelt or money. The decks could help my people, though.”
You see? Now we’ll lose both decks to this sneaky rabbit.
“They probably will,” Bo agreed. “If I could convince you to only take one, though, I think it would be better for both of us.”
The jackalope twitched its whiskers and looked deep into Bo's eyes. “I see how it would be better for you, but how is it better for me?”
“Because whoever takes one of these decks is bound to my community,” Bo said. “I'll know where they are at all times. It probably won't bother you, but I'm not so sure the rest of your people would see it that way. They might think whoever has a deck is a spy for me. But if you’re the only one with the deck, they wouldn’t have to know about the bond.”
“Perhaps there is wisdom in your words,” Bloodwhisker said after a moment’s consideration. “Very well. I'll take one deck. Make it a scout deck. I think that's where my people's strengths lie.”
“I agree,” Bo said.
He held the deck out, thought about it becoming a scout deck, and felt a faint, but definite, shift in the cards. The jackalope took it from his outstretched hand, and its eyes went wide.
“This is more than I thought,” Bloodwhisker said. “So much information.”
The rabbit covered its eyes with one paw and lowered its head. The creature lurched forward, bumping into Bo.
Before the jackalope could recover from the overwhelming flood of Grail System information that had poured into its mind, shadows fell across the red clay bowl.
The pitmaster's head jerked up, suddenly wary of an ambush. Bloodwhisker’s people might have followed them. If the Crimson Forest wanted to kill him again, this would be the best chance it would get.
But there were no enemies at the top of the pit.
It was Martin's men, spears slung on straps across their shoulders, bows held tight in their fists. The men’s eyes held murder as they looked down at the jackalope leader, and Bo's heart stopped as he watched their weapons rise with arrows nocked against the drawn strings.
There was no time for words. The jackalope’s amber eyes burned with anger as it whirled away from Bo, its primal senses alerting it to the danger a split second before all Hell broke loose.
Then arrows flew, the jackalope jumped, and Bo watched his carefully laid plans fall apart right in front of him.
[https://i.imgur.com/IfLmv9q.png] [https://i.imgur.com/mpipaN7.png] [https://i.imgur.com/ZmWAQEd.png]