Before
My knuckles are white as I clench them around the shaft of the torch. Eyes looking suspiciously in all directions, I do my best to get out of this wretched collection of trees, Bastet at my side. From time to time she ranges forwards and back, scouting ahead and watching for attack from behind. Unlike before, though, she never goes very far ahead, certainly not out of sight. After all, we don’t want to risk the trees around daring to trap her simply because she’s wandered too far from the fire I’m carrying.
I jog most of the time, preferring speed over stealth or caution. Unlike the journey up to this point, I don’t use Fade at all and, in fact, turn off my passive Stealth just to save on stamina. Without those two consuming my resources, my stamina goes a lot further. In fact, with my recent increases in Strength (Endurance), I only lose a bit more on jogging at a moderate pace than I recover. Interspersing jogging with periods of fast walking allows me to move as quickly and efficiently as possible. And frankly, it amazes me how long I can continue without stopping for breath – I’d never done much long-distance running before coming here so being able to just keep going is a novelty for me.
The way I’d been travelling before the venus-human-trap trees had been faster periods of running interspersed with slower periods of walking. I’d done it that way because of the cubs – they get restless if they’re in the sling for too long. It’s not great for them to be trapped for too long, anyway, so the periods of walking allowed them to climb out. That way they could have a bite to eat, water to drink, and then stretch their legs by walking with the ‘pride’. Then, back into the sling for another period of running in order to cover as much distance as possible. Of course, that had also been interspersed with attacks from the various denizens of the forest, but the fights were generally over quickly enough.
None of that now, though. No way am I letting any of the cubs wander around this death-trap of a forest. So instead I’m just trying to move as efficiently as possible to maintain a steady pace forwards. At least with Bastet ranging forwards and back she’s able to suss out the terrain ahead of us. We’ve already avoided two places where the earth suddenly fell away thanks to her. Not that the banks which would have suddenly vanished under my feet were particularly high, but if I’d landed badly, I’d probably have hurt the cubs far worse than I would have hurt myself.
Despite our attentive wariness, the trees don’t try anything more. Perhaps they don’t dare considering we’ve already escaped their trap once. Or perhaps it’s the guttering torch in my hand that they don’t dare risk combating. Either way, I’m thoroughly glad when I see the end to the trees appearing ahead. Just as well: my torch is starting to splutter a bit, the pitch having been mostly consumed already.
It’s surprisingly abrupt, the end of the trees. Even the ground looks different, darker. The plants that grow around the trees are all more vibrant in colour than the ones that I can see in the normal part of the forest. As for the venus trees, they’re all weirdly uniform in colour, and mostly so in shape. They’re all a darker brown than the normal trees of the forest and the roots dangling down from their branches sway sinisterly, and sometimes counterintuitively, in a breeze that I can barely feel. Looking back at them now, they all look like shadowy reaper-like cloaked figures with arms held out to embrace those who seek death. But perhaps that’s just my experience with them talking. After all, I didn’t notice all those details walking into the copse.
I shiver and turn away. Even if it’s longer, I decide that we’ll be coming back by the river route. Taking a moment to recover my bearings compared to Kalanthia’s memories, I set off again. The cubs are wriggling impatiently. They’ve been trying to escape the sling for a good half an hour already so I let them out as soon as I feel we’ve put enough distance between us and the trees to make it safe. Well, as safe as we can be exposed in the forest like this.
Bastet and I take the opportunity to eat and drink too as the cubs play. I’ve been feeding them scraps to try to keep them quiet while getting out of the trap-trees so they’re not particularly hungry. We are, though, and take it in turns to eat eagerly while the other keeps watch.
“Have you ever come across those things before?” I ask Bastet as we get going again, the cubs following at our heels. The adult raptorcat makes sure they don’t go astray, nudging the cubs back into line if they start wandering elsewhere.
In response to my question she sends me an uncertain feeling. Then a series of images follows, the interpretation difficult. I frown as I try to parse through the meaning carefully. It takes me a bit of work, and I realise why after a while. Not all the memories are Bastet’s.
It’s an indication of something I’d already suspected – that she was capable of telepathic communication with the other raptorcats before Kalanthia killed them. What’s for certain is that one of the memories is from a male raptorcat which obviously travelled further than Bastet did. I know that because part of the memory is of him drinking from a much wider version of the river, his reflection telling me that his appearance was significantly different from Bastet’s. Through her eyes, the fact that he’s male is immediately apparent too. So unless raptorcats are capable of transsexuality and changing their appearance, at least that memory must be one she received telepathically. And if that one was, it lends credence to the idea that the others are too.
Anyway, the provenance of the memories aside, the fact is that from what I can gather, normally these kinds of trees are found much further down in the valley. Closer to the Energy. That’s not the only weird thing, I realise as I check my status screen, in response to a nagging feeling.
Name: Markus Wolfe
Race: Human
Class: Tamer
Level: 2
Energy to next level: 95%
Energy absorption rate: 21u/hr
Energy towards debt: 1%
Intelligence
12
Mana: 120/120
Wisdom
12
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Mana regeneration rate: 300u/hr
Willpower
17+3 (+20%)
Health regeneration rate: 20u/hr
Constitution
13
Health: 130/130
Strength
12
Stamina: 49/60
Dexterity
12
Stamina regeneration rate: 120u/hr
Class skills
Dominate – Beginner 4
Tame – Beginner 2
Fade – Novice 8
Non-Class skills
Lay-on-hands – Initiate 1
Stealth – Beginner 9
Animal Empathy – Beginner 8
I’m up to ninety-five percent in my Energy store. Considering I haven’t killed anything since before entering the area with the trap-trees, I find that surprising. It suggests to me that the Energy density in the copse was significantly higher than the area around it.
I mean, that’s a bit of an assumption: I certainly wasn’t going to open my status screen to check at the time. Still, it makes sense to me. As far as I know, Energy only comes when either killing or dominating a creature; we did neither to the trees. Therefore, the only Energy I should have gathered would be from my general absorption. With my current Energy absorption rate, well, with what it was before it increased to twenty-one units per hour, I was gaining a single percent every three or so hours. So to have suddenly gained about six percent in only a few hours? Something else must be going on.
Checking my message box, I realise that the nagging feeling didn’t come from having gained a point, or the opportunity to gain a point by spending some of my gathered Energy. Instead, it’s a new message entirely.
Congratulations!
You have received a Quest.
Quest: The Vine-Strangler Copse
Quest type: Regional
Description: You have encountered Vine-Strangler trees in an unusual location, at an unusual stage of development and with an unusual level of Energy in the area.
Objective: Discover why Vine-Strangler trees are growing in this location and the reason for the unusual level of Energy.
Time to complete quest: Unlimited
Suggested difficulty: Initiate
Reward: Rare Bronze chest
How interesting, I muse to myself. Apparently this new System comes accompanied with quests, and somehow I’ve triggered one. How? Is it because I made note of something strange? But there have been lots of strange things and I’ve never triggered a quest before. Or is it something else?
Another question to add to the list. By this point, I’m amassing quite a few. It’s a little strange that my System stone absorbed memories have nothing to say on this point; is it that unusual? Well, I guess I’ll find out later. Maybe.
I suppose that I might have received this quest because otherwise I doubt I’d have pursued my feelings of strangeness any further. After my experience in the forest, I was rather looking forward to putting it behind me and never thinking of it again, but perhaps I’ll revisit it in the future. If a ‘rare’ bronze chest is worth risking going through that forest again, that is.
I look at the table hovering in front of me with a little more attention. Apparently it’s a regional quest type, whatever that means. Does it mean that if I leave the region, I’ll fail the quest automatically? Or that I had to be in a certain region to gain it? I see I have unlimited time to address it – that’s good since I’m definitely going to rescue Lathani before even considering investigating this wretched forest. A fairly vague objective – they don’t exactly give any clues. Not like the quest logs in the games I played that had quests.
Suggested difficulty is apparently for Initiates. That sounds rather similar to the way my Skills have been ranked so far. I’ve only got one Skill at that level – Lay-on-hands, of course. It started at Beginner, ranked up to Novice, and then increased to Initiate. All of those terms indicate that I’m still at the relative beginning of things, even having ranked up twice – an initiate isn’t much further forward than a beginner in most uses of the word. Does that mean that the quest is quite easy, but not the easiest? If so, I wonder what reward chests I’d get for a Beginner quest. Probably nothing worth actually doing it. Whether a bronze chest is worth the effort either, I guess I’ll have to find out. Though is a ‘rare’ bronze chest different from a normal one? Or are they all considered ‘rare’?
I feel a nose press against my hand and close the screen to find Bastet nudging me. She sends a mixture of impatience and query. She’s right, we need to get going again. I hadn’t realised that I’d actually stopped while checking my screens, and we still have a way to go. Plus, it’s going to be dark fairly soon and I’ll need to create a small shelter for us all. I reckon that we’ve got about three hours of travel time before we’ll need to stop for me to create a small campsite.
Calling the cubs over, I pick them up and tuck them into the sling again. They’ve been walking for a while and we need to maximise our speed as much as possible. I want to get to the lizard-folk’s area tomorrow, and hopefully find their den or wherever they’ve taken Lathani. To do that, we’ll need to intersect with the river again today so I can make sure I have my landmarks correctly identified.
Cubs tucked away again, we take off once more.