"I'm trying to figure out where to go from here, you know?" I said, gesturing from Blobby to the palm tree towering over the two of us.
Of course, the slime didn't have a comprehensive response other than to jiggle. Through the time we'd spent together I'd come to understand that the traitor of Dreg was intelligent but not particularly philosophical. It's certainly smart enough to sneak in and steal food from the kitchens in Wildwood. I couldn't help but wish that Blobby could actually speak, even if I knew that was a difficult prospect. But what will happen when he gets to the size of a Category 2 Metier Crystal?
The slime had been one of the few to actually come out better from the assaults on the Dreg two weeks prior. The once hip-tall gelatinous creature was probably more akin to a bear after acquiring two Metier Crystal shards in the Death Territory. With the time between then and now, it had acquired the bulk to use those crystals and mitose four ways. It was impressive, and slightly concerning, to see multiple Blobbies ambling about Wildwood.
However, I was almost sure that the creature was doing it on purpose. For all that I knew Blobby was strong in direct combat, it was inherently stealthy. Even the gradient change from a solid lime green to an emerald-jade shade as it grew stronger hadn't affected its ability to hide in plain sight. Only its larger, joined form struggled to be hidden. Somehow, Blobby knew that the people of Wildwood needed a reminder that their struggles and losses hadn't been for naught. I was almost certain it was why the creature had followed me from Wildwood all the way to the strongest threat we first encountered since arriving at the surface. A reminder. Or at least that's what I wanted to think. With how turbulent my thoughts had been it was entirely possible I was attributing things to happenstance.
"You don't need to baby me, Blobby. I'm not the green fighter you helped out that day," I said, glancing sidelong at the slime. I could have sworn I watched it form an appendage just to shake its 'head' at me. "Just because I'm a little stiff doesn't mean I'm weak."
That I was certain about. While before, the creatures I encountered on the road watched the passage of me and my friends through the woods with wariness, they now actively scrambled the moment my Perception landed on them. My vibrosense tickled almost constantly with the passage of spiders, deer, coyotes and a half dozen other creatures in the woods, but all their ripples moved away. I could hardly blame them. It was difficult for me to believe I was Quotient 6 now. With a mental flick, my Status jumped to the corner of my vision.
Subject: Ronan Terrigan
Health: 100% (Unafflicted)
Mana: 100%
Metier Quotient: 6 (4.5%)
Dreg Accumulation: 0%
LPS: Wildwood Bunker, FL
Communications
Party
Skills - (2) Selections Available
Traits - (0% Banked)
Attributes - Growth Quantified
Skills:
Offensive
-
Defensive
-
-
Misc
-
-
-
Traits:
Limestone Skin (12%)
Quake Osseum (24%)
Slurry Ichor (8%)
Harmonic Sinew (31%)
Attributes:
Strength: 1.79 > 1.93
Mobility: 1.63 > 1.68
Perception: 2.09 > 2.20
Refinement: 1.42 > 1.54
Containment: 2.28 > 2.41
My eyebrows scrunched as I stared at the strangest change in my Traits. It wasn't the first time I'd seen it, and I doubted it would be the last time I stared at them as if it would spit out an answer.
Traits:
Limestone Skin (12%)
Quake Osseum (24%)
Slurry Ichor (8%)
Harmonic Sinew (31%)
"Progression... to my Traits," I drawled, scratching my thickening beard as I tried to think of how that would manifest.
My Traits were a large part of why I'd even survived the fight against Galloway. Between the warnings from Harmonic Sinew's vibrosense, the coagulation from Slurry Ichor and the force dispersal and reinforcement of my Skin and Osseum it was still a wonder I'd pulled one over on the Appendage. Unfortunately, neither Tec nor Wec nor Bec had answers for that. They could only speculate that Gec, the Gigantic Entity Cluster we'd freed from the Aberrant Entity, had interceded on my behalf after I overdrew my mana and then took a Pith shower. As for asking Gec, it had remained silent despite all probing.
"So, here we are. You got any answers for me, bud?" I said, focusing on the palm twenty feet away from me.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
When I'd first seen it, I'd barely registered what a Quotient that high meant, other than bad news. Now I knew it meant this tree had somehow managed to kill an exorbitant amount of creatures to get to this point, or a select number of really strong ones. Samuel's research into Attuned plants was still in its infancy, but there was something heavier about the palm than any of those experiments. Its trunk swayed, lighting up the ground in ripples of motion even in the absence of wind. A coconut fell inconspicuously from its crown.
I almost wanted to call it out on its bullcrap. Sending a silent prayer to the bird that had died to teach me of the geode palm's attack, I triggered
Like a homerun hit, the
One of the palm fronds manually plucked one of the coconuts. Like a strange, many-fingered hand, the geode palm grasped the coconut and released it. Its whole trunk bowed, letting the coconut roll down its body instead of impacting the ground. It repeated the process another time, two coconuts waiting patiently at the foot of its trunk. As if to make a demonstration, another of the coconut bombs thunked on the far side of the tree, exploding into a glimmering mess of crystals a few seconds after impacting the ground. The two plucked coconuts remained perfectly still.
"Some kind of bait?" I asked, quirking my eyebrow at the tree.
All I got in response was a sway of its body, but it was worth considering. Thinking back on the unfortunate result of the plant Infusions with Samuel, it was entirely possible the Geode Palm was sentient to a certain degree. I wasn't some kind of Turing test expert to evaluate the borderline of sapience, but if the palm was trying to resolve my visit peacefully it brought yet another ethical complication to the problem of fighting creatures on the surface. Pith, and even Dreg, were all about evolution after all.
"You think you can snag that for me?" I asked Blobby. As hardened as I was by my Traits, I had no illusion that getting an exploding coconut to the face would leave me shredded. Probably not dead, but definitely hanging sullenly by its door.
Blobby gave me a 'look' before one of the cores in its body rolled out of the larger bulk. The slime shrunk considerably, its gelatinous body pulling tight around its three remaining crystals. Not waiting for further instructions, the smaller Blobby rolled forward. The Geode Palm shivered, rustling its leaves, but didn't move as Blobby sucked the two coconuts into its body. Less than a minute later, I sat holding the two fruit-seed-geode things. I was tempted to try to open it, but opted against it without at least having a healer handy.
Not feeling closer to the answer of my original question I took leave of the palm. It swayed gently as I turned, but I wasn't sure if it was the wind or it was waving of its own power. At the very least, the two 'offerings' would cause a stir in town.
It wasn't long after leaving the palm that I entered the range of other Implanted. Blips of the Dreg warriors appeared in the minimap at the corner of my vision as I strode towards the forward base Wildwood had set up to deal with the spider Dungeon. It had gotten the very original name of Base Arachne, but the people there didn't seem to mind. With the constant presence of at least one squad at the fortification, they'd even gone so far as to make a little patch to fasten below their Wild Guard Emblems to signify they were part of the squads that rotated there.
As they saw me approach boldly down the road, the watchman hailed me and they started to open the gate to let me in. The other two squad members hidden inside the fortified walls were excited and surprised to see me arriving. An older human with some turquoise ridges flaring out from his triceps that went by Creek was the first to actually form some words.
"Mr. Vanguard! We didn't know you were planning to head this way," he said.
"Just out for a walk. I've been too stiff... the last few weeks," I said, losing some of my social cheer as I recalled what had led me out of town. Dai would be proud of my loner moves.
The slight shift wasn't missed by Creek, and he nodded gravely. "Yah. It's a bit unnerving how quiet things have been since the raids."
"Thank you so much, sir!" the guard that had been up on the wall blurted. He was practically twitching as he wrung his slender elvish hands.
Based on the fact that I didn't actually recognize him, he had to be part of one of the trainees being given experience before being assigned to a squad. With the impetus of the tendrils scattered, the Wild Guard had pulled back on their push to form squads. Instead of having four newbies to a veteran, they had flipped the ratio while rotating out those suffering from Ava and Sarah's training.
Almost simultaneously, Creek and the other woman guard, also an elf, smacked him on the back of the head. "Learn to read the room, Larry!"
Despite the hazy cloud in my thoughts, I couldn't help but chuckle at the youth's enthusiasm. Youth, huh? I'm not that much older than he is. "It's alright. There really isn't anything for you to thank me for. What we did... there was no chance I could have done that alone."
"Oh, I agree sir, but it doesn't make it any less awesome! From your Status you made it to Q6! Everyone knows what you, The Torch, and The Whisper did," Larry said, enthusiasm not at all diminished by the reprimand from his superiors.
"Well, that may be the case but I wouldn't call The Torch that unless you want to smell like smoke for the rest of the day," I said, shaking my head at just exactly what had happened when Daniela had finally discovered her nickname. "Plus, you forgot about The Flower."
The youth looked more aghast at the fact that he'd forgotten to mention Ophelia than the possibility of Daniela lighting his trousers on fire. You had to respect his commitment to the image of the 'named' Wild Guards.
"Mr. Vanguard--"
"Ronan, please," I insisted.
"Ronan," Creek continued. "Since you are here, I was wondering if you could help with something..."
"Out with it man! I'm just another guy, if I can lend a hand I am more than willing. What did you need? Particular critter making your lives difficult?" I asked, giving the Status of the three a cursory glance. Other than the Q2 of Larry, both the woman and Creek were Q4s. Not the top of the Wild Guard by any stretch, but if they were struggling with a creature it had to be a tough Q4 or even a Q5--
"We were hoping to expand Arachne. Sarah wants to send more of the fresh recruits here, but the space is... cramped as is," Creek finished lamely.
"Oh. Ah, yeah that's not an issue," I said, surprised. A strange buzz flowed through me as I realized I wasn't going to fight. They wanted me to build. Suddenly the fog that clung around me wasn't quite as oppressive, and I started to ask a flurry about the basics of the improvements they wanted. Creek was reserved, the woman --who I learned was named Mav-- got way too detailed and Larry went absolutely bananas with the idea that I was going to be working on the base.
At the end of almost an hour of discussion and of walking the fairly bare bones base, I had a very good idea for what I wanted to build. Just because it sounded hard, I even opted to take one of Larry's harebrained ideas.
Ever since arriving at Q6 I'd been holding back testing the extent of my power. The qualitative change was hard to gauge, despite all my attempts to quantify it. Prodding at the new limits of my mana and Skills was the best way I'd found to test it. Now I had an excuse.
For the sake of showmanship, I moved to the other side of the road from the old building that had been turned into base Arachne. I eyed the short stumps of ankle breakers I was sure Timothy the fae had made around the base, and I eyed the rough wooden wall that had been erected around the whole building. It was flanked by both the road leading to Wildwood and the wide, cracked blacktop of US 301.
With a deliberate motion, I planted my hands on the ground. My antler helm thrummed as I fed it enough mana to trigger the first step of
As soon as that visual was there, and I noticed that the guard trio was giving me weird looks, I sheepishly released the hold on another 20% of my mana.
For a breath, nothing happened. Then the ground rumbled, dipped and heaved.
A square column of stone roughly three foot wide sprouted from the ground at a not insignificant rate. Five, ten, fifteen, til just shy of twenty feet. The dull ache in my body from expending almost half of my mana pool was completely forgotten as I looked at the unnaturally smooth structure. Striation patterns of various soils that had been compacted together marred the surface of the column, but it didn't detract from that fact I'd created the two story tall column in less than five seconds.
The guards were equally speechless, until Larry broke into wild cheers and hurray's. "That is freaking awesome! Am I going to be able to blow over something like that when I get to Q6? Can I get faster? Will I..."
The overeager youth's voice drifted into the background as my eyes took in the whole of the stone column. It had been costly, mana wise, and the ache in my body wasn't insignificant after forcing my visualization on the Skill to form it, but it was damn worth it. And it gives me a direction. Even if the Dreg were scattered to the wind, it didn't mean Earth was safe. The sacrifices and struggles up to this point weren't over, because kids like Larry still needed to learn to use their powers to survive the next critter or corrupt thing that went bumping in the night. There was still a future to build, and I had just the power to start laying the foundations.