“[TAUNT]” “Come at me!”
Gilbert’s cries eroded the perpetual stillness of the grove, evoking a guttural screech from the queen with her eyes stained with globules of blood. Zayne swerved his way around opposite where Gilbert stood, scouring the trees for good branches to step on, then landed on a broad branch. Leaves rustled when his weight rested on them.
Below him, a few exchanges of snapping tongue and shuddering steel clamored, each slam on Gilbert’s steel sent him further back into the tree line. Zayne spotted Wyne and Oswul on the other side, aiming their respective weapons with nervous eyes. Arrows and magic pelted the queen’s egg sacs, each hit producing a sickening squelch, accompanied by a tirade of yellow goo bursting from the holes they punched into its back. The queen howled with a rancorous shriek, sweeping its gigantic pair of arms around, thrashing the forest floor with her might.
Then Zayne followed up once he felt the queen had been sufficiently distracted. With both Adrenaline and his poison ready, he pounced whilst holding his breath, praying that their plan worked in some capacity. Paired with his descent, his blade plunged deep into its shriveling egg sac and his spear pierced its scaly skin underneath the dripping sac of goo. With a momentous pull, he generated enough force to drag himself down, carving a straight line from where his blades punctured the poor mother. The yellowish goo mixed with the outpouring of blood underneath, darkening its color with the shade of violet and red.
It wailed from pain, eyes flaring with wrath and outrage. Zayne ducked under its swerving arms, then leaped away from another slam. His vision darkened from the lack of air. Zayne found little choice but to retreat for now, hoping that he’d at least dealt sufficient damage with his first attempt. The poison should be taking effect soon. He surmised as he maintained a safe distance from the bleeding queen, avoiding its occasional tongue flick with a steady rhythm in his steps.
After what felt like hours; they noticed that the haze around its eyes had dissolved into the thin air, its once viscous red coloring had melded with the empty air, allowing their eyes to see past the smog. A tiny triumphant punch tapped his abdomen, his eyes swelling with the possibility of victory. With a sharp twist of his head, he saw that the siblings appeared to feel the same too, each holding back a twisted smile under their breath, unwilling to release it in fear of jinxing their chances.
“[Taunt] Here I go!” Sensing the momentum, Gilbert lead the charge with a mighty roar. The queen swerved its head around to meet his advance, but another arrow lodged its head on the sides of its eyeballs, causing it to swerve away. Zayne held his breath as he sprinted forth, dodging the queen’s slow retaliation as he slid under one of its random swings, then sprang high up to meet the queen’s eyes. Two bladed edges penetrated its irises, causing it to jerk upward, then he pushed his spear further, reaching as deeply as his steel allowed, basking in its frothing blood and foaming innards. He felt something hard stopping his spear—its skull—and yanked his spear out while maintaining his footing, and then…
He plunged again. And again. And again.
The fight ended somewhat unceremoniously. A dead carcass the size of half a building rested on the flooded forest dirt, its blood drenching the soil, its innards coating the surface with white, gray, and yellow pusses coagulating with its violet blood.
“Wow… We… we did it?” Gilbert heaved as he planted his hind on the floor, gasping for air, the tension they held for the past few minutes now too much for their bodies to bear. “I-I thought the fight would never end.”
Oswul and Wyne approached the corpse, studying its limp body with their eyes. “Aside from the haze… this queen appeared normal,” Oswul concluded with a victorious sigh, and Wyne found solace far away from the aftermath of their battle. The hum of the thicket returned upon the death of the merloc queen, but that wasn’t all, its death meant one thing;
Mission completed.
Their triumph aside, Zayne pushed his hand atop the queen’s carcass, extracting its gem with a frown. An essence gem. Please. He begged inside his heart. At first, he expected a white gem, but the scarlet light show threw his head in a loop. “Wait…” He muttered as the gem formed between his fingers; the glowing lights faded too quickly for the siblings to notice.
What the hell is this?
In his hand, a glowing gem sparking with ruddied lights blared bright. It had the usual white-transparent coloring on its core, but shrouding its edges was the same red haze emanating from the queen’s eyes.
[You obtained a monster gem : [Corrupted Merloc queen]]
Corrupted?
“Did you get the gem?” Gilbert asked from where he sat, unaware of Zayne’s perplexed face. “Zayne? We’ll use your gem as proof we’ve cleared this mission, so…”
“Y-Yeah…” He turned and showcased the shimmering gem to the others, “Here. What do you think?”
The siblings gave the gem a cursory look, then turned away with little interest. Huh? What’s with the relaxed expressions? “Is the gem different in any way?” He asked, approaching the topic with cautious fascination, “Guys?”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“It looks normal enough to me,” Oswul said, intrigued by Zayne’s additional question, “Wyne, do you see anything different with this one? It said [merloc queen] when I scanned it.”
Wyne shrugged. “Same here.”
“Oh… Okay… I’m just-” Zayne shook his head, confused, “I’m just… seeing things.”
“Well it’s been a hectic day, I must admit,” Gilbert groaned as he roused from his seat, “It’s about time we head back, no? We need to tell Restin that everything’s sorted out now. Hopefully.”
###
Their trek back to society was shrouded in an air of utter silence. For the siblings, they wished to take in the peace after the absolute chaos of the merloc queen fight, but Zayne’s mind long discarded that thought; all he wished to do was to consume the queen gem and see what would happen.
“No more merlocs in sight,” Oswul observed the horizon with his hawk sight, “I think this is it. The farmlands should be safe for some time, but we still had to report what we saw.”
“Indeed…” Gilbert yawned, “Man, I’m beat…”
“Since zayne is leaving tomorrow, I guess that makes it the three of us fending for ourselves,” Wyne moaned beside him, casually brushing the web of vines and leaves on her side, “What about the guild try-outs? Are we going to wait for Zayne to come back?”
“Please don’t,” Zayne raised his hands, “I’ll proceed at my own pace, you don’t have to wait.”
The sight of the farmlands soothed them upon their exit. Each sibling breathed relief as they made their way back into familiar territory, grazing the tall grasses as the party returned home. First, they reached Restin and delivered the good news. He thanked them adamantly as he released the mangy dogs outside, smelling like… well, dogs from the full day they’d spent inside. “A merloc queen? But… why did they decide to attack out of nowhere?”
Gilbert gave a soft shrug. None of them wished to tell him the news before consulting the hall first. It was until they met Pherey again that Zayne told her about the queer merloc they’d found, “This is the first time I’ve heard about it,” She spoke while tilting her head aside, waving her hand, “Wait for a second, I’ll call for an officer. He’ll handle the rest of your report.”
“I’m here.” The haughty voice of a man chimed from Zayne’s back. “A monster emitting a haze, you say? My, my…”
Pherey cleared her throat, “Uh… Mr. Yorel, this party mentioned about-“
“I’ve heard your conversation,” Yorel dismissed her words with a dismissive wave, “Come with me, the four of you.” Outstretching his left hand, he lead the party towards a door far away in a corner. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Yorel of the noble House Terey.”
Terey… A man in his thirties, sporting a sleek and tidy vest with a green suit, embellished with golden adornments and other luxurious decorations Zayne couldn’t name. His platinum hair covered the side of his head, reaching just above his narrow shoulders, and his neck supported his somewhat bony face. Two hazel eyes studied his appearance as he did him, then he smiled once he was satisfied with what he saw. “I believe this is the first time you’ve heard of Terey? It’s not strange, we’re not a particularly popular noble household.” He spoke with a hollow grin, “I believe the three of you are nobles too, are you not? Those violet eyes-“
“House Galant,” Wyne replied sharply, her voice filled with displeasure. “We’re not here to discuss nobility, Mr. Yorel.”
“Ah, that’s right. My apologies…”
Zayne dipped his head as a hello, unsure of what response he should give. He shifted his attention to the siblings trailing his steps, each returning a curt smile, yet none spoke another word.
A whiff of fragrant air blasted when Yorel turned the knob and pushed. Inside, an elegant desk draped with a verdant green embroiled cloth, gold and silver lines curling against one another on its edges. A simple white vase stood at the side of his desk, its mirror-like polish loomed over the occasional books and letters organized neatly below it. A red flower flourished under the bright sun seeping in through the arching window across the entrance, its radiance bleeding through the draperies and tapestries tied neatly on both sides of the opening. On the left, a large bookshelf filled with books Zayne hadn’t ever seen shadowed the incoming brightness. A large painting of a serene environment hung on the center athwart the bookshelf, to their right. “Welcome,” Yorel spoke, breaking Zayne’s somewhat obvious admiring of the tranquil room. “It’s been a long time since my services are required. Basin is… too peaceful before the Burg invasion.”
He pointed to the row of empty behind the table, “Please, take a seat. I believed you mentioned a merloc queen with the ability to pass paralyzing gases through its eyes? How queer…” Yorel found his place across where they sat, clasping his fingers together on the table, smiling, “Now, please, tell me your story.”
Gilbert spoke up, retelling the tale of their encounter in a summarized fashion. Yorel listened to his tale with keen interest, yet despite that, his lips remained sealed. “So… that’s it? Alright… Can I see the monster gem? You haven’t cashed it in, right?”
Zayne pulled the merloc queen gem out of his satchel. “Here.” Raising the gem high, he let the warmth pass through its transparent surface, still fearful of the red mist it produced. “What do you think?”
“It’s a normal merloc gem…” Yorel sighed, “I don’t see any reasons why you want to lie about it, so I’ll trust you, Galant. Consider your report… well, reported. Heh…” He smirked at his joke. “You can return to the clerk for your rewards, I’ll put in something extra for the report too, so look out for that.”
###
Zayne walked out of the hall 20 silver richer today, and the same went for his party. Gilbert couldn’t stop rolling his coin pouch in his hands while Wyne was busy storing her coins in her satchel. Oswul grinned from behind, gleeful of their recent gains, no doubt, but his smile came from a sense of ease after the close encounter they’d just gone through. Well, it’s not any worse than the goblin chief, Zayne mused to himself, eyeing the distant shops for anything new to purchase. The ugly scraping clangors of his battered weapons needed polishing too, so perhaps he should begin from that. The prospect of spending his hard-earned money irked him, but some costs couldn’t be avoided, not when lives were at stake.
Gilbert yawned once his festivities died down, the effects of his lethargy took over once no more danger and tasks were present. A surge of weakness rushed Zayne too, but he held off his sleepiness in favor of the immediate tasks he wished to do.
“So… What are we going to do now? Another mission?” Wyne asked, “I… need to sleep, I think,” She yawned, hers slightly cuter than Gilbert’s, “Haa….”
“Zayne? How about you?” Gilbert lowered his gaze to him, “You don’t look like you’re ready to sleep yet.”
“Well, the sun’s still up.” Zayne nudged his head toward the sky, “-you’re right… I have weapons to repair, and plans to make. But I do need sleep for tomorrow. So… I think this is goodbye for now? How about we meet in the inn for a dinner later?” He said, smiling. He had plans to scour the Eternity once again, but considering its cooldown, it wouldn’t open up until it was late in the night.
The siblings waved goodbye as Zayne trudged the steps toward the opening near the corner of his current district. Before heading to a blacksmith, the general store appealed to him for a specific reason; a good lantern to light the darkness within the tower. The friendly seller parted with a somewhat cheap looking one for 3 silvers after a few intense rounds of haggling, a feat Zayne learned to stomach from his past. Copper coated its sturdy column frames and a queer device rested in the middle of the glass cage, accessible through a latch on top—a monster gem lantern, the man said, and the purchase came with a free gem that lasted for three hours. According to him. Merchants loved to skew their estimations to make things sound good.
Once that business concluded, he turned to a small corridor leading elsewhere outside the hall district.