Tobias clutched at his weeping wounds and grit his teeth against the pain. He had avoided being poisoned by the scorpis deadly sting, but it seemed he would die a dog’s death all the same. He simultaneously cursed his fate and welcomed it. He deserved this.
When the scorpis swarmed the town he had been one of the few guards assigned to help the town leadership away to safety. As his fellows were slain holding back the tide of monsters, he attempted to secret higher ups out of the city. He left good people to die for those sniveling aristocrats, and ended up failing anyway. He couldn’t protect any of them. Not a single one.
A rhythmic tapping on glass nearby caused his heart to race.
This is it, then. I knew holing up on the second floor wouldn’t hide me forever.
The tapping stopped for a moment, then started again with a bit more urgency. The pace was faster and the volume a hair louder than before. Tobias gripped his chipped straight sword with shaking hands and forced himself to stagger to a standing position. His steps may be stumbling, but he would at least die as a true cultivator: on his feet, fighting.
Limping to the window with his sword at the ready, he was shocked to see what appeared to be a note pressed to the glass from the outside.
My name is Samantha Cray. The army has sent me to clear out the town and help survivors. There are supplies to heal your wounds on the window sill, as well as some food and water.
The art I’m using allows me to see, hear, and interact with items around you. If you need anything else, speak quietly and I will respond on this paper. I will leave in a few minutes but be back for you in person soon, if all goes to plan.
Tobias looked down and saw a small cloth bag on the sill. Quietly, he cracked the window open just enough to pull it inside. The paper and a pen floated inside as he grabbed the bag, then he closed the window again. Looking through the bag's contents, he saw some basic medical supplies, two high quality healing potions, a bottle of water, and dried rations such as jerky and crackers.
He immediately downed one of the potions and let out a sigh of relief as he felt his open wounds begin to scab over. Maybe his journey wasn’t over just yet.
----------------------------------------
“Thank you for the assistance. I owe you my life.” the guard said in low tones, bowing his head in gratitude to the room at large, “I’m a Peak Copper cultivator, so please tell me how I can be of help to you. I possess arts that could be of use for creating distractions.”
Samantha scrunched up her spectral face in confusion. She had assumed he was mortal because she didn’t sense a cultivator’s aura about him, but perhaps he was just stealthing to disguise his presence from the scorpis. She jotted a new line down on the paper using [Telekinesis].
I’m going to use [Inspect] on you. Please don’t be alarmed.
He read the addition and nodded his assent before pulling out a stiff block of the ‘jerky’ resource from the bag of supplies and consuming it. Just like when he drank the ‘healing potion’, it dissolved into light as he put it to his mouth.
She touched the guard’s shoulder and used [Inspect].
Tobias Valund - Peak Copper
Highest Attribute: Endurance (24)
Lowest Attribute: Agility (15)
Humans are one of the most adaptable and versatile species. Neutrally attuned beings at a baseline, they are able to convert any type of qi into usable energy. Unlike spirit beasts this stored energy does not coagulate into a core at the time of death, but is released into the surrounding area.
Samantha’s doubts about the nature of these survivors resurfaced. This notification looked identical to what she would see if she used the art on a real person, and had no reference to anything about them being some sort of construct. It was possible that the rift was altering the message somehow to make things appear more realistic, but she couldn’t be certain. The more oddities she discovered in this rift, the more unsure she became about everything and the more questions she had.
In any case, seeing Tobias’s attributes made one thing clear. Even the weakest scorpis had Agility that surpassed his own. He would almost certainly be run down if she let him try and help her deal with the spirit beasts. With this in mind, she wrote another line of text down for the guardsman.
No, just stay safe here until I come back for you.
He looked a bit disappointed at seeing her reply, but nodded in acceptance of her decision. “I’ll defer to you, but know that I’m willing to lay down my life if it’s required of me. If you change your mind, let me know. Until then, I’ll wait.”
Samantha started to pen a farewell message onto the paper but Tobias interrupted her, “Wait. There is one thing...” She paused her writing and he continued, “Please rescue all the civilians first and come for me last. I’ve failed them enough as it is, and I at least have a slim chance at surviving an encounter with a spirit beast. The mortals, though…”
Seeing Tobias’s wounds heal after consuming the healing potion resource was confirmation that the survivors’ conditions were legitimately affected by resources. Now that he was no longer in a critical state, she didn’t need to fight her way into the city center to try and save him right away. As long as he kept his word to lay low and she checked in on him periodically, she didn’t see a problem with a bit of compromise.
I will prioritize saving the others first, but will come for you if I deem you are in imminent danger when the others remain relatively secure. I will check in periodically, and if things are taking longer than expected I’ll bring you more supplies.
Tobias looked down at the note and frowned, shaking his head, “You don’t understand. I’ve already shamed myself by surviving while leaving everyone else to die. I won’t be able to live with myself if I escape before the civilians do! Please… at least let me do this for them.”
Her most recent failure was a direct result of being too accommodating of the survivors’ requests. Had she been more forceful–whether verbally or physically–with the couple in the shop things could’ve turned out differently. They might have been incredibly unhappy with how she handled the situation, but both would have survived. She didn’t want to make that mistake again.
So, she lied.
Very well. I’ll come for you last.
Tobias looked incredibly relieved and thanked her profusely, “Good luck, soldier.”
----------------------------------------
With the wounded guard taken care of for now, Samantha recovered her expended qi and went to rescue the next survivor. The old man on the outskirts of the oasis was the owner of a small farm, but all of his crops and livestock had been killed off by the scorpis.
A few scorpis workers lingered in the area to snack on the carcasses or carry them back towards the city, but Samantha and Silas quickly dealt with them. As much as she would’ve liked to avoid fighting and risking drawing attention, the open land left nowhere for her to hide when escaping with the survivor. Fortunately, these spirit beasts were too far from the city to gather a larger group with their chittering when they were attacked. Unfortunately, she still had to fight three of them at once, which resulted in a slew of injuries for both her and Silas. This was also her first time encountering the poison in their sting.
While deflecting a stinging attack with the handle of her warhammer, the spiked tail ended up scratching her hand which introduced a miniscule amount of the poison into her system.
Neurotoxin has activated [Poison Connoisseur]. Current neurotoxin resistance at Rank 0 - 0%.
She didn’t immediately feel any hindering effects or pain from the poison, so she was able to finish the fight without too much trouble. It wasn’t until the adrenaline began to leave her system that she was confronted with its effects.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
First, her entire body broke out into a sweat and began uncontrollably trembling. Then, her stomach churned with nausea and she vomited repeatedly. It became hard to breathe, and her heart felt like it occasionally skipped a beat. The scratch on her hand swelled up and gained an infected appearance, and the veins around the site of the wound seemed to darken.
Afraid she would lose consciousness in the open, she grabbed the closest scorpis corpse and dragged it into a nearby barn. Silas consumed healing herbs to address his non-poisoned cuts and passed some of the healing along to her, but it didn’t help to alleviate the symptoms of the neurotoxin.
Her head reeling and body suddenly aching, she laid back in a pile of hay and asked Silas if he was able to retrieve the spirit pearl from the scorpis. Silas sniffed at the carcass from several different angles, but eventually reported that it didn’t have one.
It seemed that even the spirit beasts in this rift were strange, and any plans she had to increase her cultivation from harvesting their cores would be impossible. While she could still train her attributes fighting them, the lack of ambient qi or beast cores meant her cultivation rank would remain unchanged while she worked towards completing this quest. She didn’t think that even raising her attributes to their maximum values for this rank would be enough to give her a chance against the Ancient Cliff Drake that awaited her just outside the rift.
Disheartened by the discovery, she tried to breathe through the pain until the poison left her system. The small amount she received meant the effects faded after a few minutes, but it felt much longer due to how utterly miserable it made her feel. If she wanted to fight a larger group of these spirit beasts, she’d need to increase her poison resistance or risk being incapacitated in the middle of a battle. Sitting back up, she looked down at the scorpis stinger with a grimace. Her immediate future was looking... unpleasant.
Cutting the stinger off and storing it in her bag for later, she took a quick look around the barn for anything useful. There were several bags of ‘grain’ resources, as well as farming implements such as pitchforks and plows that were also marked as resources. The only things she could use was a long loop of sturdy rope, and a two-wheeled cart that looked like it was meant to be pulled by a horse or bull. She loaded up the nearby resources into the cart bed for later, then made her way into the farmhouse to make contact with the survivor.
The old farmer was more than happy to accept Samantha’s escort out of the city, and she delivered him safely to the rift exit in short order.
Quest progress updated!
Hostiles Remaining: 145/150
Survivors Rescued (Optional): 3
She quickly checked on the remaining survivors’ conditions to ensure that their situations had not taken a sudden turn for the worse. Confirming everything was much the same, she sat down near the exit and pulled out the severed scorpis stinger. Trying not to overthink things, she scratched herself with it to poison herself and offered it to Silas.
“You need to gain resistance too.”
He flattened his ears and drew back his lips, “Do I have to? I will just fly high so I won’t get hit!”
“Some of them can shoot poisoned spikes, and there’s no guarantee you can avoid being poisoned the entire time we’re fighting here.”
He gave her a sideways glance and she sighed, “I know it’s not fun, but it’s important. I need to trust that if you’re poisoned you can take care of yourself and I don’t need to worry about saving you. I’m going to be relying on your help a lot.”
“...Fine.” Silas huffed.
Samantha could tell that he was still miffed at needing to do this training alongside her, but there was an undertone of something akin to pride in his emotions. He was happy that she needed him and that his contributions were useful.
He stuck out his tongue and pressed it to the sharp point of the stinger until it just broke the skin, then recoiled. “Bleh! Disgusting.”
----------------------------------------
Neurotoxin resistance has increased to Rank 2 - 0%.
Samantha tossed away the nearly-spent stinger and groaned.
Finally!
After several hours of alternating between poisoning themselves with scorpis venom and checking on the survivors, she and Silas could both tolerate it much better now. With Rank 2 resistance of [Poison Connoisseur] granting a 2/3rds reduction in both effect and duration of the relevant poison, small exposures to neurotoxin resulted only in mild nausea whereas before it was crippling. Heavier dosages would still significantly hinder their fighting ability, but they could at least keep their wits about them well enough to escape instead of becoming incapacitated. She still wanted to raise their resistances higher, but they’d need a fresh source of poison to continue training. She figured she could accomplish two things at once if she rescued the final pair of easily-accessible survivors and killed a few scorpis in the process.
First, she needed to prepare the couple for her arrival. Since they had barricaded themselves inside of their single-storey home and covered up all the windows, she couldn’t use the same exact method she had with the guardsman to communicate. Instead, she entered the home in spectral form, commandeered some paper and a writing utensil they had laying out, and wrote to them that way.
They were initially–and understandably– frightened at the mysteriously floating objects, but once they realized what was happening the relief on their faces was practically palpable. They were eager for her to help them escape and immediately began unblocking the front door so that she could enter.
While they did that, Samantha snuck her way through the oasis town and into the area where the couple was hiding. It took a bit longer than she would have liked due to needing to avoid several patrolling scorpis, but apart from that the journey was relatively smooth. As soon as the general area was clear, she rushed to the front door and entered the home before deactivating [Translucence]. Her sudden appearance caused the woman to let out a squeak of alarm, but Silas confirmed that the sound hadn’t drawn any unwanted attention.
As Samantha discussed her plans of escape with the pair, she couldn’t help but get a sense of deja vu at how the conversation was unfolding. Similar to the older couple, these survivors were adamant that they escape ‘together or not at all’. Neither wanted to be left alone, or risk their partner dying while separated and never seeing them again.
As they continued trying to argue with her and with each other on how to proceed, she contemplated the eerie way in which some phrases and wordings they used were nearly identical to the older couple she had dealt with. She had a hard time believing this was a coincidence. While there was a chance that the separate couples just happened to share the same mindset, it was also possible that this was the quest’s way of giving her a chance at redemption from her last failure. Regardless, she wouldn’t do things the same this time around.
“Both of you are being incredibly selfish. You see that, right?” she said with a disappointed shake of her head. “Here I am risking my life to save you, and you’re trying to dictate the terms in which I do it? Furthermore, your insistence that I take both of you puts all of us at greater risk. This stance you’re taking isn’t out of love at all. It’s out of fear. And I refuse to let your fear get one or all of us killed.”
“It’s selfish to want to survive together?” the man questioned angrily.
“Yes! What loving husband demands to tag along and slow the group down rather than see his spouse to safety before him? Are you truly so cowardly you can’t stand a few minutes alone?” she countered.
He recoiled from her accusation like she had slapped him, “O-Of course I want her to be safe! It’s just that it’s so dangerous outside, anything could go wrong.”
“So you think making my job harder will improve our chances?” she pointed out, releasing the barest hint of her killing intent to put more pressure on the couple. She didn’t like flaunting her cultivator status, but this conversation just kept going around in circles.
The change in his behavior once she started using her aura was like night and day. The man kowtowed and pressed his forehead to the ground, “Of course, you’re right, master cultivator. I can see now I was being foolish. Please, take my wife first.”
That was… an oddly quick turnaround. In any case, I’m glad they’ve finally come around to my way of thinking.
With that settled, she gave the signal to Silas to begin the distraction. Picking a lone worker scorpis as his target, Silas entered into a steep dive from high above. Extending his talons outwards, he snatched the head off the scorpis’ body before it had even registered his approach. The head chittered as the body lashed out at the empty space around it, and Silas used the sound to draw any nearby beasts away.
----------------------------------------
The couple waved gratefully to her as they dissolved into motes of light. They shared one last embrace and kiss before they fully vanished from view.
Quest progress updated!
Hostiles Remaining: 146/150
Survivors Rescued (Optional): 5
Perhaps it was unwise of her to acquiesce to the wife’s request to wait at the rift exit until her husband joined her, but there were no scorpis around and she’d never seen any venture this far from town. Samantha did make the wife promise to escape right away if she saw any scorpis approach, but that hadn’t been necessary.
Silas landed in the sand nearby and dropped a fresh scorpis stinger next to her.
“Thanks for the help Silas. I was able to save both of them this time.” she reported.
“Good! There is one problem though. I don’t think this strategy will work for the others.”
“How so?”
“The soldiers don’t follow the head!” Silas explained, “Or, only follow a short distance.”
From her many stints surveying the oasis, she knew that the concentration of scorpis soldiers got more dense the closer she got to the main nest in the center of town. She had expected to do more fighting while rescuing the final survivors due to their proximity to the nest, but hearing this made her worry. She might be forced to completely clear out the areas in order to make it safe enough to extract them instead of just fighting those that lingered behind while Silas distracted them. Who knew how long that would take her?
“That is an issue… we may just have to focus more on eliminating them going forward.”
“Should we start now?”
Samantha picked up the fresh stinger and shook her head, “No, not yet. We should take this opportunity to raise our resistances as much as we can, just in case.”