Chapter 64: Beasts
/Ever seen a 100 percent honest person? Yeah, me neither./
Source: this is my book and I can write whatever I want.
Narrator here. Well, I mean, today the author just sounds salty. We'll quickly restructure that a little, give me a moment.
Hrm-hr.
/Honesty is quite strange indeed. It is something we always ask for, and yet never truly wish to hear. People always imply things, and leave small social cues for us to pick up on. Is there anything you have ever said indirectly or not at all? Well, that makes you a little bit of a liar.
Now, to be quite frank, this is simply a human truth. There are certain things society demands we say, and others that it demands to keep hidden. Sometimes this may keep us from being hurt, and other days, it may lead us to call someone a snake, or a traitor.
Of course, if one lies on purpose, that is a different matter altogether, and yet, things such as norms on what to be subtle on are vastly different.
Allow me to elaborate. When interacting with demons, never pull punches. Be direct, make bets, and they will do the same. No pulling your punches, if you're looking ugly, you'll hear it many times a day.
Now devils, those are a different beast entirely. Devils do contracts, only based on fine print. Teleporting you may mean not keeping your structure intact. Everything must be taken as literal and quite possibly as purely trying to trick you. Imagine trying to make a deal with the biggest asshole you know, like that neighbour who somehow always tries his hardest to fuck you over. Or a rival dad, who has a cooler lawnmower than you.
That's how devils see you, trying to dry you of every single drop of value they can get. Do the same, or drown in their society. Very rarely will they actually do something to benefit you, and when they do it is a debt that must be settled, no matter what you have to sacrifice for it. Refuse to pay up, and you are but free meat for all devils to come claim, no more contracts or negotiations.
And if you are talking to the kin, rules are entirely different once more. Their people rely heavily on body language, and if you do not know enough of it to describe the context, they may very well mistake your meaning many times.
It is all based on culture you see, and quite frankly, it is very important to make sure you know a little on it. Thus, I shall elaborate more on easy adjustments you can make to your communication, ones that anyone can do to get their meaning across, in the next chapter!/
The goddamn narrator, because this author bastard was too lazy to actually write a proper chapter, just because of some heartbreak or shit like that. Work needs to be separated from private life, and it seems like some people are unable to do that. Sigh.
- - - - - -
When Mercury took a good look at the tunnel it was... strange. Like some sort of alien fata morgana, the air was shimmering, and... strange. According to what he had read, rifts were supposed to look as though the air itself had torn, yet this seemed much more... stable. Perhaps that was why they named it a door.
The tunnel actually stood upright on the floor, though only visible up front, as its back was entirely see-through. Looking at it for a while, Mercury felt something off. The air seemed to ripple and shift, almost like raindrops hitting a puddle, yet every time it impacted, the surface of the door slightly changed colour and seemed to... deepen.
It was a mix of colours that looked supernatural, like staring at a nebula in space, yet when it shook, the ripples were uneven, like small cracks in the surface, revealing brighter, or darker hues behind them, before they melded back into the surface and began their shifting once more.
Yet, the strangest part perhaps were its roots, having grown into the ground and fixing the door there, making sure it didn't move even as its very hold in this reality seemed to flicker in and out of existence.
"Holy shit," Mercury said.
"It looks like that for you as well? Sheesh, I already thought I drank too much..."
The cat simply couldn't tear his eyes from the thing. It was so alien, so strange and unfamiliar, yet he felt drawn to it, like there was a tiny, invisible string in his heart that pulled towards the gate. Yeah, he had to step through, he needed to see what was on the other side.
Without even waiting for his team, or giving any more of a speech, Mercury walked a couple steps forward, and put his paws through the split. It felt slightly strange, he could not see them, yet he clearly felt grass between his claws. Only moments later, he poked his head through, exiting the soft, rolling hills, and entering into a deep jungle.
Not long after, he heard a deep, yet soft whirring sound, and his companions were by his side once more.
"That was so cool!!" Elliot immediately yelled, half attempting to go right back through the thing, just to feel that thrill again, only for Marcel to rudely interrupt, and pick the boy up.
"Kid, I say you look ahead. This is a monster nest, any wrong moves and we might be found earlier than we'd want," he said coolly, not one to beat around the bush.
Then, when Elliot was placed back on the floor, they quickly began clearing a perimeter. The jungle was thick, and they needed to remove some underbrush before José came through with the carriage. Getting the dino-horses upset would cause them a lot of trouble. Apparently they were called the "terrezays".
Strange name, but then again, he was a mopaaw.
Still, looking around himself, Mercury found that the area didn't seem too busy. It was actually quite quiet...
[Clear Quest: "Jungle of Weyn" added. Success: clear out the strongest inhabitants of the jungle. Reward will be based on how successful you are. View Criteria?]
There it was. Sure, let's take a look.
[Criteria for success: Clear speed, collateral damage done, party member remaining health percentage, amount of healing dealt, amount of damage dealt, amount of enemy attacks blocked, amount of enemy attacks parried, amount of enemy attacks dodged, amount of enemies killed, percentage damage to bosses, personal damage taken, amount of stamina used, amount of mana used, amount of levels acquired during the clear, amount of items acquired, relative difficulty compared to character strength (character strength is an objective evaluation and takes into consideration even the numbers the system does not directly display), concentration during clear, judgment of harsh situations, adaptability when in contact with dangerous enemies, secondary and tertiary contribution to fights, amount of enemies scouted ahead of party, traps disarmed, relative trap disarming success, successful enemy attack percentage, discovery of secrets within the tunnel, communication ability with party members, joint total damage done, joint total healing done, amount of value extracted from the dungeon (excluding items dropped by monsters, this specifically refers to corpses, minerals, and other items not classified as such by the system and requiring manual processing through the use of applied Skills)...]
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Alright, note to never ask that again. What a wall of text, felt like he was reading a novel or something. What a funny thought.
Still, at the very least he wouldn't be judged regardless of his level, but more on how well he did compared to his strength and that of his party, which is nice. It also means that if he brought Avery in here, he'd probably do very fucking poorly, since the man would outscore him in most categories.
Seems like his companions were a good choice at least.
"Seems like the quest is out," Gilah noted.
"Yeah. Be wary, it means that everything in here has gotten theirs just now as well. They can't read it, but they sure get angry at intruders," Marcel answered, already looking around while tapping his staff against some of the plants. It looked like he was chilling them down, making the local flora wilt rather quickly.
Mercury quickly helped with this, cutting down ferns and grasses with his claws, while Elliot began escorting insects outside their little clearing using blasts of wind. They could survive flight from any height, and these were probably mutated insects anyways, so no one in the party felt too bad for them.
As they expected, it didn't take very long for them to have a tiny perimeter and soon after that, José drove the carriage through. They had created a rather small clearing, and quite frankly, it looked like the grass was already growing back, but it was better than nothing.
"Now what?"
"We continue for a couple minutes," Marcel said. "If we face anything in here, it's going to happen in waves. I had to read so much about this, so you now get to sit through some of that. We're in what looks like a jungle, right, so basically, we can expect two things: beasts, and aggressive plants. This is some of the lower end stuff you'll find here, but it's still tough enough, due to their sheer mass. We want to have a space cleared that we're familiar with, before a horde of lions stampedes through here and wipes the floor with us, got it?"
""Yes sir!!"" Gilah and Mercury both snapped a salute and got back to work. The woman had even pulled out a machete by now, and was using it alongside something else. Seems like she was drawing the moisture from the plants, and making them turn into dust. Gruesome.
Not even 5 minutes later, they began to hear sounds. It wasn't the passive humming of insects and rattling of bushes that was permanent in a jungle like this, but instead, it sounded like a surprisingly human scream, coming from somewhere up north. Then, there was another, a little more high pitched, then a third, excited and shrill, before a deep roar silenced them all.
But the cacophony of noise only grew as time went on, soon it seems as though any beasts you could find in a jungle were trying to drown each other out. Monkeys were screeching at the top of their lungs, tigers and lions seemed to be roaring with fury, and Mercury was pretty sure that he had heard the trumpet of an elephant for a moment.
And in addition to that, there was another sound that none of the cat's human companions could hear. It was perhaps the most jarring, highest pitch sound the feline had ever heard, a noise so horrible that dragging a thousand nails across a chalkboard might not do it justice.
They had been inside the door for maybe half an hour in total when the first beasts found them. By then, a decent amount of space was cleared, though there were still some large trees and boulders lying around, since those could not be removed anyways. At the very least, the monsters wouldn't be invisible until the fuckers were breathing down the party's necks.
Still, the first attack that hit them came completely out of nowhere. A stone, flying from amidst the trees, and smacking against the side of the carriage. The terrezays got a little scared at the noise, but José quickly calmed them down, working to keep the animals still when a couple more rocks came flying in.
"What do we got?" Mercury asked, half-yelling to get himself heard over the fury of the jungle.
"They're throwing- rocks-! Something with- hands-?" Elliot gave his best guess while throwing down gusts of air around himself. He was their prime defender against any form of ranged attacks, since they didn't exactly have a shielder to block them. The kid was valuable, to say the least.
"Bah, monkeys," Gilah said, spitting on the floor. She still had the machete firmly in her hand as she waited for those furry bastards to show their faces.
Mercury quickly gave a nod to Marcel. If the forest-dwellers thought they'd just stand there, and let themselves be pelted with rocks, they were most certainly wrong. Instead of just taking it, the receptionist took his staff and began drawing in the air. Some bigger spells especially needed incantations and gestures to execute fully, which could lead to a battle of wizards looking like a dance-off.
Yet, Marcel finished surprisingly fast, placing a magic circle in mid air and finishing the whole speech in just a couple seconds, before tapping his artwork.
"Usually I'd say 'let's dance', but monkeys never much appreciate my humor.
As soon as the receptionist-turned-mage tapped his staff against the magic circle, cold air shot out from it into the direction of the furry menace, and immediately after a couple surprised yelps and crashes, it seems the rocks stopped. Only for a tide of furious little and bigger chimpanzees to storm through the leafage and leap at Marcel.
"Oh shit."
"Duck, boy!" Gilah yelled at him, already taking a swing before he even moved and smashing the machete in the open mouth of one of the monkeys. Their teeth were serrated, like a fucking sawblade., and their eyes red with rage, but a knife cut them all the same.
The drunk also quickly took the spot in front of Marcel, using her mage's staff as a club to beat down the monkeys, and soon Mercury took her side, tearing at the bastards with his fangs and claws. Despite his size, the damage he did was serious, his sharp appendages digging their full length into the forest dwellers and carving them up.
Moments later, they were hit by buffs from both Marcel and little airstrike, making some of the cutting and tearing a bit easier.
Mercury was focusing as hard as he could. The sounds in the background still gave him a headache, and occasionally, Gilah would fling a half-conscious, raging and flailing monkey at him, which made the job much more chaotic. At the very least he had Marcel and the kid to cover his flanks, but he still couldn't shake the headache he got from that ear-wrecking sound. What fucking miscreant would make such noise?
Still, with some support from his comrades, they slowly beat back the monkey tide, and when the raging eyes of the chimpanzees turned back to normal, some of them even began retreating.
But there was no rest. Blood had been spilled, and the predators of this place had smelled it. Within not even a minute of the monkeys disappearing, Mercury could hear snarling and deep breathing from some place around them.
"We've got company."
"Again?" Gilah complained, pushing herself up from a rather short rest on a stump, as she brandished her weapons once more.
Mercury himself scanned all around their clearing, trying to find anything amidst the foliage, but it seems that they were being stalked by an excellent hunter. Well, not excellent enough.
Elliot took the time they had on hand, interweaving his mana with the air, and essentially shooting out a sonar blast. This was almost like he touched the stuff all around them, and while it may consume quite a bit of mana, it was still worth its cost.
"We've got 3 big fluffy cat feeling things, 2 up front, one behind the door."
"I'll cover José," Marcel said, already walking towards the carriage and prepping some other spell, Mercury was sure. He and Gilah would have to take the front, it seemed, while Elliot would provide support wherever it was needed.
"I'm gonna blast ours, be ready," Gilah said to all of them, already swinging her staff through the air. It was quite a bit more robust than Marcel's, and its tip looked like a steel cage with a heavy glass sphere inside. Mercury saw it being used as a mace, and he knew that it most certainly was heavy.
"Here goes nothing.
As the cat suspected, he soon heard short yowls in the forest, only to see two camouflaged tigers slowly walk into the clearing. They looked similar to the ones he knew back on earth, except perhaps a little larger, and with green-brown fur instead.
"Big kitty!" Elliot said with a smile, very little worry in his head.
The tigers slowly advanced towards Mercury and Gilah, both of them sporting wounds on their sides, yet they certainly weren't mortally wounded. Instead, it seemed to have made them all the more angry, yet wary at the same time.
Mercury began to feel his fur rise, as his entire body made him look as big as possible.
"I'm so fucking dead," he thought to himself while hissing and growling at the tiger in front of him.
Then, seconds later, his giant brethren let out a roar and pounced, one of them on him, another on Gilah, and the third one giving an attempt to appear behind Marcel. The godseeker had been more than wary though, being a careful type, and when the monster leapt at him, he tapped his staff against the magic circle, blasting the thing's stomach with a wall of ice.
"Hah! Fucking! Bitch!" he yelled, perhaps thinking of someone specific as he beat the tiger's head with the horse-whip that came alongside the carriage.
"Mercury!" Gilah pressed out in between dodges, entering half a dance with the tiger as she slashed out with the machete, then retreated half a step, both swiping at its legs and trying to knee its underbelly. The two were having a bit of a back and forth, side to side, with neither getting a clear advantage.
"I'm busy!" the cat ground out, scurrying between the tiger's legs. Sometimes his small size was an advantage.
"Your friend's a nutcase!"
"BU-SY!!" Mercury gave Elliot a quick glance, and the kid hit him with an equally quick little buff. Made him light for just a couple seconds, yet that was just long enough for him to leap far over a bite from the tiger and land on its back, where he dug every natural weapon he had into the feral beast.
Yet, natural weapons didn't seem to be enough, since he only slightly got past the thick hide, and he wasn't able to carve it up as much as he was with some enemies before. And thus Mercury summoned his pouch of rocks, upside down, above the tiger.
Oh yeah, we're doing this again.