CHAPTER 26 - STEALTH MISSION, HE SAID. DO NOT ENGAGE, HE SAID. WELL, WHOOPS.

“No, no, no…” I muttered to myself, pacing around in a small circle.

It had taken every ounce of my being to stop my protective father instinct from revealing myself and going after Cherry.

Had he found her out?

Why did he have her in his hand?

Where was he taking her?

I was now at a crossroads.

I could either choose to continue my mission and look for the runestones, or try to save her, potentially revealing both of our identities in the process.

There was an obvious choice.

Cherry was a potato. She had several skills and abilities that made her much, much stronger than a normal human. In fact, she was even stronger than I was! If even she couldn’t get herself out of this, then what could I do to help?

Still though, a part of me was worried.

‘Cherry…’ I thought to myself. ‘If you manage to get out of this, I’ll treat you like my real daughter. I’m sorry for neglecting you and I’m sorry for pretending I didn’t care. I was just… afraid. I didn’t want to hurt you- I didn’t think you were real. I didn’t know whether or not I could trust you. I guess a part of me secretly knew that you were trying your best to get my attention, trying your best to be a good daughter.’

Without warning, a line of text materialized in front of me.

[Would you like to use the skill {Set Quest}?]

‘Set Quest’. A skill that I’d never used or even looked into before. I completely forgot that I had it, since I never had Gifted.

‘Show skill information for ‘Set Quest’.’ I muttered, intrigued.

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Set Quest

Lvl: N/A

Category: L’Der

Type: Active

Faith Cost: 20 on activation. Varies depending on the rewards promised.

A method of controlling or instructing your Gifted to perform tasks with special rewards. Compulsory rewards include: Double experience points for all skills used during the quest timeframe. An allocated amount of experience points will also be rewarded depending on the amount of Faith used to generate the quest. Quest conditions and penalties are all custom set by the L’der. The L’Der will receive a notification when the quest is accepted and completed.

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So all in all, I would basically send a quest notification to Cherry. One that I could personalise.

‘Set Quest.’ I commanded.

[You have used the skill set quest. Twenty faith has been deducted on activation.]

A template appeared in front of me.

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{Name Of Quest}

{Quest Description}

{Quest Objectives}

{Quest Rewards}

{Penalty}

___________________________________________

This was simple enough to understand. With the intent on sending a message, and less of a quest, I began to fill out the form. Three rewrites later, the quest was finally up to an acceptable standard. I didn’t want to sound too worried, after all.

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Steal The Key

Hey Cherry, it’s papa. Are you ok? Did Darren find out your true identity? Anyways, it doesn’t matter now. I want you to get out of there. Try not to get noticed. Oh, yeah, and if you get the opportunity, steal the cell key. It’s around his neck. We’ll meet in the bushes on the right of the door you came out of in about twenty minutes- or when I finish disabling the runestones. If you’re ok, accept this quest. If not, ignore it.

Escape from the highwaymen.

Steal the cell key: 0/1

Rewards: 40% xp of current level. Papa’s praise.

Penalty: None.

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To be honest, it was more of a letter than an actual quest. But it would do, which was the most important part. Now all I had to do was wait.

And thankfully, a minute later, I got my response.

[Quest accepted.]

I breathed a metaphorical sigh of relief. Cherry was ok. Now I could continue my mission without any worries. I really needed to hurry.

To find the runestones was easy enough. All I had to do was activate xera vision and look around. Now that I was out of that tunnel, the brightest objects would no doubt be the runestones.

Or so I thought.

‘Xera vision.’

Once I’d grown accustomed to the darkness, I scanned my surroundings. All the huts were covered in that dim green glow, obstructing my sight. As I turned around, I recognized some objects lining the walls of the tunnel as the light bulbs. Not just those, but I’d forgotten that artifacts weren’t rare in this day and age. There were several of those and potions resting in storage compartments in each hut. Just because I hadn’t chosen to use them during my time as baron didn’t mean no one else had.

It was no surprise how the highwaymen had so many treasures. They were highwaymen, after all.

‘How damn lazy are these guys?’ I thought in annoyance. ‘Even their houses are made of magic!’

Xera vision was practically useless in a scouting situation like this.

I was going to have to use another method to find the runestones. I already knew they were set up in a triangular formation, and taking just one of them out would break the magical restriction immediately.

I opened my status window and skimmed through the skill list for anything that could help.

Perceive domain? No, it’d done its job.

Mind speech? That wouldn’t do anything.

Divine being? No, that wouldn’t help with finding the stones either.

I had nothing.

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For the first time in my life as a potato, I had drawn a blank.

‘What do I do?’ I called out to no one.

‘What do I do, A.S.S?’

I stared down at a yellow blade of grass, waiting for a quest window to appear. Anytime I’d been in trouble, the system had always stepped in to give me a helping hand. Surely it would be the same this time, right?

Ding!

The quest notification sound rang in my head.

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Rescue The Haven Guild

Time is running out.

Save your friends.

Time left: 60:00

Free the people: 0/10

You will receive a temporary buff once you have rescued half the people.

This buff includes: 3x xera capacity increase, 2x xera regeneration increase, all skill cooldowns are reset, 3x xp boost for all skills used during buff period.

Rewards: Progression to next stage of Path

Penalty: Their extreme disappointment in you.

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But that wasn’t the only thing that I had received from the system.

[Sometimes a question without an answer can be answered with another question.]

What the hell was this shitty advice?

I needed to find where the runestones were hidden. If I couldn’t find them, there was no point freeing the people because the magical barrier would-

Then it hit me.

It wasn’t a question of ‘where the runestones were located’, but a question of ‘where a magical restriction would be set up’. If I looked at it that way, the answer was obvious.

The cells.

Why would they set up a magical restriction around their entire camp? That gave them no advantages if any prisoners broke out.

With this thought in mind, I hurried toward the opposite side of the camp. The sun dipped into the horizon as night time began to arrive.

Slinking through the overgrown greenery on the inner edges of the campsite, I made my way to the other side of the camp. By the time I was a hundred percent positive I was halfway across, another few minutes had ticked by. I was being extremely careful not to be seen or heard by any guards or people in general. Who knew who else had those lizard belt pets that could see me?

The number of guards seemed to be minimised to the two doorways and a few others located around the campsite. The other people looked like common folk and carried no weapons. Just why were they living with the highwaymen?

The hill on the opposite side was slightly lower and seemed to be less vertical. I reckoned someone could just climb over it, provided the grass was rooted deep enough to be used as handles.

Once again, I activated xera vision and looked around. The lying figures of Edith, Jay, Raul and what I assumed were Fern and Lena gave me a motivation boost.

‘Just you wait.’ I thought to myself. ‘I’ll get you guys out of there in no time, and you can give me all the headpats and lap pillows in the world.’

Now back to searching for the stones, I moved past the cell and pressed myself against the dirt to get a clearer view of the tunnel.

The only glowing objects were light bulbs, light bulbs, and more light-

Click.

The part of the hill I leant against gave way and sunk in. When I released the pressure, a small panel of dirt and grass, just big enough for a person to crawl into slid to the side, revealing a short cave-like hallway leading into a room.

I marveled at the technology. It wasn’t magic, for sure, since I hadn’t noticed it while xera vision was activated. But where did it lead?

I crept inside, sticking to the wall.

The ground here was made of stone, like someone had carved out the room inside of the hill. Everything was natural. There was no wood.

The furniture in the room gave me an idea for what it could’ve been used for.

Thick layers of cobwebs covered the corners of the walls and floor, like the cave had been abandoned a long time ago. The room was almost bare apart from an old desk and chair next to the right wall and a bookshelf of some kind on the left. A dead light bulb and a brown bag of white powder lay strewn across the table. Trash littered the floor. Whoever had stayed in here probably didn’t know the definition of cleaning.

The darkness would’ve made it hard to see if not for ‘Night Vision’. Less than a day after evolving ‘Area Of Awareness’ and it had already become one of my most used skills.

Once I was positive no one else was in the room, I switched on xera vision for a double check.

Surely a suspicious room like this would hold some secrets.

To my dismay, nothing lit up except the light bulb on the desk.

Wait a minute.

The light bulb on the desk?

I deactivated xera vision.

The light bulb was off.

‘Xera vision.’

The light bulb was glowing.

I deactivated xera vision.

The light bulb was well and truly off.

Intrigued, I flew up to the table and lifted the dead bulb.

It was heavy. Heavier than a normal light bulb should’ve been.

A normal light bulb was made of a spherical layer of tempered glass attached to either the end of a torch or a wooden slab. Attached to that slab was an enchanted stone that would glow when charged with xera. I turned over the light bulb now and used telekinesis to pry open the wooden slab.

Pop!

The bottom gave way, and a small white marble like stone covered in carvings dropped out the bottom.

It radiated power.

I could tell at a glance that this was the runestone.

I couldn’t help it.

I laughed.

It was genius, yet so simple.

No one would ever look for runestones in the lightbulbs, and I couldn’t see it with xera vision either.

Not wasting any more time, I clutched the runestone and exhaled slowly. I needed to destroy it. It was the only definite way to release the magical limitation. I didn’t have enough time to find another way.

‘Alright. Alright.’ I always found pep talks useful.

‘Focus.’

I shut off my vision and focused only on the object in my invisible hands.

Crack.

The stone shattered in my hand, and a series of rapid warnings filled my vision.

[You have exceeded your xera limit.]

[Skill: {Potato Battery} has temporarily increased your xera capacity.]

[You have exceeded your xera limit.]

[Exterior variables have overridden your ability to absorb xera.]

[Skill: {Potato Battery} has temporarily increased your xera capacity.]

[Skill: {Potato Battery} will cause your body to self-destruct if you do not use your additional xera within 1:00.]

It took another twenty seconds to read through the notifications. By that time, my xera had shot up to a shocking three hundred. I didn’t know whether it was because of the runestone’s remains, but I needed to do something about this and fast.

Something dropped from the ceiling and landed with a thud behind me, but I was too preoccupied with trying to prevent the explosion to notice.

“A potato, huh.”

Now that got my attention.

Whatever it was that I’d been trying to do, I stopped it instantly and turned around.

A dishevelled man stared down at me with red-rimmed eyes and filthy black hair. He was covered in several pieces of worn armour and had a skinny frame. I recognised him as one of the three highwaymen that had met us this morning. The childish one. He didn’t look very childish to me right now. He looked insane.

“Now, now, don’t get all silent on me.” He said.

Shit. Shit. Shit. How did he know? Had he been watching me the whole time?

“Thanks for disabling the runestones, by the way.” His psychotic grin stretched from ear to ear, revealing rotting green teeth. “Now I finally have an excuse to have some fun.”

I still didn’t reply, hoping he would just walk away. After all, what confirmation did he have that I really wasn’t just a normal potato?

“Ok, let’s do it this way. If you don’t reply by the count of three, I’ll get Darren to dip you into boiling wax. That won’t be very fun for you, will it? One… Two… Three.”

Just as his hand reached down to snatch me up, I conceded. ‘What do you want?’ I asked quickly, keeping an eye on the countdown timer.

Ten.

“What do I want?”

Nine.

“It’s simple, really.”

Eight.

“I want you to fight me.”

Seven.

“Old Lando’s been keeping me hidden away.”

Six.

“He thinks I have to be kept under lock and key.”

Five.

“Now that the magic restriction is gone,”

Four.

“You’ll be my little snack before dinner.”

Three.

So he wanted a fight. Well, I sure wasn’t going down without one. ‘You want a fight?’

Two.

‘Then you get a fight.’

One.

‘Mutation.’

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[Potato Body is on cooldown. 0:21:03]