“This is the first joint expedition of our two sects. Therefore I fully expect everyone to behave accordingly and treat each other with the proper respect. Moreover – I expect everyone to have each other’s backs since there is no telling what dangerous circumstances you will encounter.” Lady Evelyn happily began to debrief the sixteen disciples in the hall.
Five of them arrived last night with the delegation from the Angelic Dawn and ten were handpicked by elder Cross, in addition to Leo, of course. This time the two sects didn’t directly choose their biggest delinquents, but these were not people who would be missed too much either.
The ten disciples form the Sacred Order were delighted to hear they were about to be sent off to another realm along with five ladies. Although none were particularly beautiful, it didn’t mean they couldn’t have a good time while away, right? The girls, full of smiles, were also throwing glances towards the youths who tried to puff their chests out or pretend to be bigger and taller than they actually were.
“Elder Willis, you’re up!” The sect master called for the head of the Administrative division and sat down next to her counterpart from the Angelic Down.
“I’m happy to see the two sect masters chose such capable young people like you!” Elder began with the politically correct opening line, “Nevertheless the task you have been given is not easy. You will be teleported to the realm called ‘Greenland’ where you will look for an object called ‘poison pearl’. The realm itself is rather peculiar – it’s full of life and living creatures, but at the same time every single plant and being is poisonous to us.”
The gathered crowd gasped, finally realizing this was not going to be a leisure vacation, but elder Willis rushed to calm everyone down, “Don’t worry, don’t worry! To make sure you’re safe, we’ll be providing you with plenty of antidotes and poison cleansing elixirs and the duration of the expedition will not exceed the amount of supplies you’ll get.”
These words seemed to have pacified the fifteen youths and elder inwardly heaved a sigh of relief. Then he continued, “Alright, now about your goal. The poison pearl is a wondrous object created by nature. It tends to absorb all the poisons in the world thus becoming the most toxic item in the world itself. Obviously we don’t want you to bring back something like that – we want you to find it in its initial form, in short – before it is ruined. Please note, that when you do find one, you’ll have only few days to deliver it back thus all of you will be instructed how to operate the teleportation platform in order to return back home.”
“Next, I want introduce you all to your team leader!” Elder Willis beckoned to Leo to stand up and continued, “Please meet, Leo Renaud! Even though he might seem to be the youngest person present, trust me, he is the most experienced of you all. He has successfully completed multiple missions, including the last one – a special mission from the sect master that lasted for over two years in a savage mortal realm.”
Leo honestly hated the current situation. While the five Angelic Dawn’s disciples curiously measured him with their eyes, the male disciples looked at him with ones full of hate. Clearly everyone was still upset about the training ground incident, but unfortunately there was nothing he could do.
“Are you sure, elder?” One of the oldest Sacred Order’s disciples asked with a frown, “He kind of seems unreliable. What cultivation does he even have? Is he actually skilled or has only been lucky a few times?”
The questions were seemingly logical, but were said with scorn and ridicule.
Loud laughter filled the meeting hall, but it abruptly ended when lady Evelyn suddenly spoke, “Leo didn’t ask for this position – I appointed him. Do you want to question my judgment?”
The guy from earlier bit his tongue in regret – he clearly could’ve waited until the big-shots left and then begin to show off.
“Alright!” Elder Willis also decided to help out, “I want all of you follow Leo’s instructions if it was me giving them, are we clear? Questions anyone?”
“Yes!” Surprisingly it was Leo who spoke. Since he knew they were going somewhere, he kind of modeled different scenarios in his mind during the past days, but everything depended on the next answer, “Are there native people there?”
“Yes, we’ve confirmed as much.” Elder Willis said, “Anything else?”
“How long exactly have we got and how and in what situations do we use the anti-poison supplies?” Leo asked, actually surprising the two sect masters and the present elders.
He was the youngest, but clearly he had been through some rough times in the Dreadlands to gain such mature way of thinking. Of course, Leo would never admit these questions were mostly coming from Jack during their late night discussions.
Turns out the expedition was planned to last around six months, but Leo had hard time imagining for how long the sect master planned to send them away initially considering the pile of alchemy supplies currently nesting in his amulet. Of course, he had no clue that it was meant for much larger amount of people, thus the impression he got was that lady Evelyn intended to send him in almost permanent exile.
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Afterwards the group was instructed on the proper use of the alchemy supplies and then came the highlight of the day – learning how to operate the teleportation platform. Everyone knew these things were capable of bringing people to the immortal realm and everyone present, including the elders dreamed of one day going there. Unfortunately for now all they could was to hop around different mortal realms since, as it turns out, no one here even could afford to teleport to the immortal realm.
It came as a great shock to Leo when he realized that the stones he used to get to the Golden city last time were considered priceless treasures and were not even found in the Aurora mortal realm. The spirit stone mines the Sacred Order possessed only now and then produced the medium ones, the so called heaven rank spirit stones. In addition, to teleport to another mortal realm, they had to use a small pile of medium rank ones, but at least those were not that scarce, albeit still expensive.
When everyone, including Leo, had finally memorized the Aurora mortal realm’s coordinates, the disciples had the time to finally get acquainted. Obviously this was the time the guys were looking forward the most, but after Leo’s appointment it kind of became awkward. The team leader, after scratching the back of his head, looked around and since there wasn’t anything he wanted to say, shrugged and left, and instantly the mood of the disciples became more relaxed.
When before the departure the group gathered at the main square in front of the building with the teleportation platform, everyone had already become good friends. The girls wisely hadn’t promised their hand and heart to anyone, obviously intending to keep their options open, but no one seemed to mind. The atmosphere was joyous and lively and wasn’t even spoiled by the arrival of the group leader.
This was not his first teleportation with a bunch of hostile people, thus, the moment everyone was blinded by the light, Leo stealthily repositioned himself, but fortunately this time no one died. In fact, everyone instinctively grouped up closer the moment their sight adjusted.
Even before that the first thing that greeted the group was a wave of hot and humid air. To Leo it seemed like he had returned to grandpa Noel’s shack where the old man performed the cleansing ritual.
Even before everyone was drenched in sweat, their clothes were already wet from the humid air almost as if they were standing in a rain. What was even worse – anyone could see at most fifteen, maybe twenty yards away and even then the nearby trees were hidden behind a thick fog. If one looked up, it got even worse – the tree trunks disappeared in the fog already five, six yards above the ground, but the biggest problem was – there was no wind.
Leo didn’t expect much, but apparently they had arrived to another Dreadlands, except the Greenland might be even worse.
“F*ck me!” A loud shout proved the last suspicion was correct.
The first guy who stepped off the platform found himself almost knee deep in the mud. In fact, it was not really a muddy ground, the soil was wet and it only visually resembled a solid ground while actually being something more similar to a swamp.
“Alright, let’s bury the spirit stones first.” Leo tried to act as the group leader. In fact, Jacked helped him practice for the past couple of days, “Let’s pick two locations that seem the safest.”
The group grumbled a bit, but everyone was too pissed at their sect masters and the whole world to argue. As expected, Leo had to do the most work himself, but he didn’t intend to complain. He already had a plan, at least for himself if the group refused to follow his orders.
Unfortunately everything went downhill much faster than Leo anticipated. While he was busy burying the spirit stones, he didn’t notice several people were already bitten by some insects and few moments later their faces swelled up, becoming particularly ugly. Even the girls lost their allure instantly, but no one currently could care less.
“Antidotes, everyone!” The first guy who noticed his buddy’s ugly transformation, shouted and one after another people began to chunk down potions. Leo, of course, was the only one who could afford doing so, but as long as some cow-sized spider didn’t spit poison all over him, there was no need to panic.
Jack was one of the guys who concocted the medicine and he explained in detail how and against what the potions worked. These insect bites were definitely not reason to panic, but it was useless to try to explain that to a group of overreacting youths.
Leo was definitely not looking forward to trekking through the swampy forest, but since he was the group leader, he had to show a proper example.
The first thing he had to do was to make sure they knew how to come back to the teleportation platform no matter which way they went. Of course, since no one knew where they actually were, the easiest way to find out was to scale a tree.
Unfortunately it turned out to be impossible. While under normal circumstances Leo could scale any of the trees in the vicinity even though they were so huge at least ten grown men were needed to hug one, they were covered in a thick layer of slippery and poisonous puss.
There was no way he could bank on finding another teleportation plate that could bring him back to the teleportation platform like the last time, thus the current situation was quite a predicament. Fortunately there were some brighter minds in the group.
The eldest of the girls had similar thought to Leo’s and said, “I guess our best bet is to mark the trees as we go so we can find our way back. In addition, if we began to wonder in circles we’ll quickly find it out.”
Before Leo could say anything, one of the guys said, “Why don’t we elect elder sister Gabriela to be our new leader. Obviously I respect the sect master’s decision, but clearly she’s more experienced and better suited for the job.”
Needless to say, after a short discussion Leo was relieved from his duties and the proudly smiling Gabriela with a fat plump on the cheek from an earlier mosquito bite became the new group leader. Obviously Leo had nothing against it, in fact, he was surprised how civil his fellow disciples were – in the previous group he would’ve surely long lost the bag with the antidotes to someone who intended to ‘keep them safe’.
According to Gabriela’s instructions, a couple of volunteers began to mark the trees the group passed on their way. Their swords quickly turned into pus covered sticks, but they pretended to not notice and diligently performed the new duties.
Leo thanked the heavens he had a hunch he needed to learn how to walk on not-solid terrains, because while he with the incredibly heavy weapon sunk ankle deep, most people were struggling sinking up to their knees. At some point one of the guys stepped aside to answer the nature’s call, but before he could step far enough he soundlessly disappeared in the muddy ground along with his relatively large backpack. It happened so fast and seemed completely surreal, but no matter how many times people counted, there were only fifteen left.
From that point on everyone found longer branches and used them to check the ground before placing a step. They joyous atmosphere was long gone and finally everyone in the group had realized they were completely screwed.