With the radish guardian and the little ones right on their heels, the two players didn’t stop running.
Notifications kept popping up in front of Tacha, but she simply waved them all away. She wasn’t mad enough to get disatracted in a life and death chase.
When the guardian was almost upon them, it stopped in its tracks and looked back. Tacha and Frӧst kept running straight, not bothering looking back. They felt that the guardian wasn’t chasing them anymore, but they surely weren’t going to stop to ask why.
That would’ve been silly.
Only when theboth of them were too tired to run, did they stop. Panting, they looked behind, the little radishes were still chasing them, but the big guy was nowhere to be seen.
When the mob of radishes saw that the demon and its evil assistant stopped, they stopped too. With arms at the ready, they roared with a powerful warcry. Not hearing a response, they roared again, now with more energy.
Hearing no response, they turned around and they were puzzled at seeing only trees and mushrooms behind them. Slowly, they turned around. The silver devil and its lackey was just staring at them.
Then they saw it taking a radish out of thin air. At the sight of the corpse of their kin they screamed their lungs out and dispersed in all directions. If they ran away like that the devil wouldn’t be able to kill them all, right?
The two players looked on as the radishes ran away terrified. Frӧst glanced at the radish in the grandma’s hands and looked at her with a look of enlightment. Noticing the stare, Tacha frowned at him “What?” the boy shaked his head “Nevermind, I’m too tired to deal with more of this”
Letting out a sigh, the granny checked on the notifications she had ignored.
Miasma is leaking out of the Meadow Gate.
Close the gate to stop it!
The Guardian Rukkh sensed your presence.
The Guardian Rukkh rallied the nearby Overgrown Radishes.
Under the influence of the Guardian Rukkh’s Nemesis trait, plant monsters will attack you on sight.
Closing the notifications, the granny tiredly took out the firestarter in her inventory “Suit yourself. I’m logging off” as she said so, Tacha light up a fire to prepare a camp. Frӧst was giving her a look that said ‘does it look like the right place to you?’, but she completely ignored it.
After confirming that the system recognized the makeshift camp as a safe space, she logged off after exchanging goodbyes.
Left alone, Frӧst decided to head back to the town. He had no desire to rest at the inn, but he had to reorganize his plans in a safe place and the forest full of monsters didn’t fit the requirements.
ᴥᴥᴥ ≈ ° ≈ ᴥᴥᴥ
As he was chasing the silver devil, guardian Rukkh sensed the great mushroom calling for help. Stopping the chase, he rushed back. When he reached the great mushroom he saw red fog coming out from beneath it.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
After a moment of panic, the guardian sat down in front of the mushroom and started glowing of a similar light blue of the mushroom. As he was concentrating, the guardian frowned in pain, the purple markings moving on his skin.
With a joint effort of radish and mushroom, the red fog receded back to where it came. Now that the gate was closed, the little radishes could approach the great mushroom safely.
Tired, the guardian chose to retire nearby. He could’ve gone back in spirit form inside the great mushroom to recuperate; however if the devil were to come back to the village he would be unable to help in time.
Until he was sure the little ones were going to be safe he wasn’t going back. Now that two devils might be on the loose he couldn’t afford to hide away!
ᴥᴥᴥ ≈ ° ≈ ᴥᴥᴥ
When she came out of the game, it was quite late afternoon, almost 7pm. More accurately, with it being an october day, the sun had long set. To say that it was evening was more correct.
Setting the pair of earpiece and gloves on the night stand, grandma Ariel jumped off from the bed and went through the drawer on the opposite side of the bedroom. Setting aside a bunch of papers and documents, she took out an old notebook with care.
The dark brown leather cover was very worn out, having lost its original color in the lower middle section. The granny saw its pages were sticking out a bit, reminding herself to repair it later she put it in one of her pockets and got ready to go outside.
She grabbed a torch and put her gardening outfit on. Even though it was night, she wasn’t deterred from checking out the state of her plants.
Ariel circled the house, reaching the back garden. Passing past the cranberry and blueberry bushes, she headed straight for the Azaleas in the back.
With the torch, she checked the Azalea trees. After a careful examination, she saw that a couple of them had a few leaves that were turning yellow. Holding the torch with her mouth, Ariel took out the worn out notebook from her pocket and quickly skimmed it until she found the plant’s notes.
‘(…) if the soil is not acidic enough, the Azalea will have stunted growth and its leaves might turn yellow.’
Leaving the notebook on the ground, Ariel rushed to the shed where she kept all of her gardening equipment. Grabbing a pH meter inside one of the cabinets, she went back to the Azalea plants.
The granny checked the soil with the device. Seeing how it showed it having a neutral pH, she was concious of how she had left it alone for too long. The fact that she had to do it only once a year made it worse. With her getting older, she was starting to forget a few things.
With a low mood, Ariel held a little hope that she could see the plant bloom this coming spring. She wasn’t sure on how much time the soil needed to become more acidic and this made her more apprehensive.
Wouldn’t her late husband be sad if he couldn’t even see his favourite flowers next year? She would be ashamed if she couldn’t properly take care of the plant he liked the most.
Grabbing some garden sulfur, she mixed it with the soil around the Azaleas, not forgetting to mix some too for the nearby berry bushes.
When she was done, tired, she sat down on the ground. Cupping her hands on her nose, she breathed out to warm it up. Blankly staring at the light coming out from the torch, she took time to ponder a few things.
She was already 79 this year. She wasn’t young anymore. Ariel always believed that she would always remain energetic, but in some corner of her heart she knew that it wasn’t true. Her body, no matter how athletic in the past, couldn’t resist the passage of time.
Just a couple of months back she had hurt her left ankle, and even though it had healed quite well, the pain flamed up from time to time. Even earlier, while she was taking care of the soil it suddenly hurt. Still, she gritted her teeth and just finished the job, since if she stopped to take a break she wouldn’t have had the strenght to continue.
“Connor… growing old alone isn’t fun at all…”
The grandma sighed. Nine long years have gone by since he passed away. The first two years were very hard for her; thankfully after that she managed to regain her regular routine. She didn’t know what she would have done without those naughty grandchildren of hers.
With a smile she got up and dusted off the soil from her clothes. That was enough brooding coming from her. Out in the cold wasn’t the proper place to lose oneself in the memories.
Now that the Azalea was taken care of, she could take it easy for a while.
At least, in regards of the garden. She still had to prepare for the gathering in a couple of days. She couldn’t show herself with empty hands to those old fogeys afterall.