“And that’s precisely thirty”, Sheeno said once she was done dressing the last [Regal Beech] we killed and handing it over to Undine to have it cleaned further.
We were on the very edge of the forest region, so this was probably the last body that we would add to the count, or at least we all reasonably thought so, whilst still hoping to find some more on the way back.
Speaking of which, I almost forgot that Cherry and her gang will join us only for the first half of our voyage, without considering the part where we made our way back to the [Guild], after which they will go back on their own and complete the [Quests] we did together for us, where Merglobth will be responsible for holding on to our side of the reward until we can claim it ourselves.
I probably would have been more concerned about leaving my ‘supposed livelihood into the hands of some tag-along, but we had been traveling for three days together already, so we already all were at the point where we knew the others wouldn’t stab us in the back, and believe me there have been a lot of chances for that.
“Well, I guess it’s time to enter the horrible hellscape then…” I said, while throwing a grimace to our left.
It was a biome that I briefly glanced at when using the spider-car, and what I saw at the time did not do it justice, and I’m kind of glad it didn’t at the time, since it could have possibly given me nightmares if I had been given enough time to observe it more clearly.
There were the previously observed bones seemingly growing out of the ground, some in ribs-like spike formations, while others resembled more conventional decrepit white trees; still, those were the tamest things around, more concerning were the rivers of bubbling blood and the short and reddish earth riddled with tiny holes veritably teeming with creepy tiny crawlies, almost all dangerously poisonous, by the way.
Twid followed my gaze and mirrored my expression, “yes, I’m not a fan of that zone, especially the smell…”
Because yes, during my car trip, I failed to notice the smell too, and it was a nauseating mix of sulfur and rot, like the sickening broth you would get if a serial killer dropped their kills into the bath of a volcanic hot spring, and then forgot about it. Truly revolting, and something that someone below [Lvl 10] would probably empty their stomach to at the first whiff.
The other two Gnomes also nodded, while sporting a grimace of their own, and even Cherry couldn’t help but scrunch her nose at the smell. Sheeno appeared to be the only one unaffected, simply observing what would be our new area of exploration for the next few days, and while Undine was hiding it quite well, my [Aura] was telling another story, and that story was filled with a healthy amount of disgust.
“We have only one target to find and exterminate, right?” Sheeno was the one to ask.
“Well, there are some useful materials we could make an effort towards finding…” Twad idly stated, not really prone to going through with his own suggestion.
“But none of us want to stay in that area more than strictly necessary”, Twud said which didn’t really need to be said.
“So yes, she was right”, and Twid reprimanded his three brothers for wasting time.
They bicker for a while longer, while the grown-ups in the [Party] discussed more serious matters.
I, to my dismay, was not included among the grown-ups. But since they were talking about boring stuff I let it slide and simply listened in to their conversation.
“That sound like a mess ready to happen”, Sheeno said with a ready eyebrow.
“Unfortunately yes, but there is nothing I could do personally, so the best I could do was get away from it all and preferably distract some of their force in the process”, Undine said with a sadness that shouldn’t belong in her voice.
“I still can’t believe that they’re behaving this ruthlessly with a possible [Demonic Incursion] on our doors: It sounds insane even discussing it!” Cherry was furious at the notion of what the Jeofferneys were up to.
“Unfortunately they’re not the only ones”, Undine reminded them while almost grinding her own teeth.
“Right, the [Demi-God of Purity] and the Fyratta family are both making aggressive moves as of late”, Cherry observed, further worsening her mood.
“There are even talks of an insurgency within the [Beast Kingdom]”, Sheeno remembered, earning confused looks from the other two.
“An insurgency? There? But didn’t the Noble Lion fight his way to supremacy just a decade ago?” Cherry was the first one to voice her confusion.
“Yes, but some are arguing that he was already old at the time, and that some fresh blood should take the throne in his place”, Sheeno continued, showing off her knowledge of what had been happening in the [Nexus].
“But he’s not the type of ruler to take such words lying down”, Undine said, receiving a nod from my girlfriend in return.
“Exactly, he’s in fact quite bloody about it, and the talk of insurgency didn’t get worse only because the blood so far has only been shed by his hands, personally, further proving his might in front of the populace”, She further explained.
“Unlike the Fyratta who have been clinging unlawfully to the [Fire Throne] even after the king’s death”, the Elf said, sending the amazon a complicated look.
“Unfortunately yes, and there are even talks of them allying with the [Temple of Purity] to strengthen their stance and power base”, Sheeno grimace when remembering her own circumstances that brought to her banishment.
“Of course they did”, Cherry scoffed.
“At least Dryads and Dwarves have begun speaking about peace…” Undine reminded them both.
“True, but their cold war had to end at some point: The mountain they were fighting over did get taken over by a host of [Dragons], so they had already been forced to al least a temporary truce”, Sheeno pragmatically said.
What they were discussing was all very interesting, especially for me since it clued me in on some important [Information] that I had been solely lacking in contemporary situations. Rubicon had done his best back at the [Guild] during my ‘punishment’, with Sheeno’s help to boot, but now more than ever it dawned on me that this [Nexus] was much more alive than I normally gave it credit for.
For a moment I almost feared, that, at some point during the [Integration], I had begun considering all the people that I didn’t interact with as some kind of static ‘npc’, but no, it was just me falling in my old apathetic routine by not caring about what didn’t directly influence me.
Getting [Emphatic Aura] was probably a big boon that helped greatly in getting over this hurdle that I created for myself, and I almost regretted the fact that it had [Evolved] before I could explore more in-depth what it had been capable of.
“Should I go back on my decision to just let the [Evolutions] happen naturally?”
Not really.
If you remember correctly-
[Buddy] took the time to delete what he had just written character by character, making my eyebrow twitch in irritation at what I knew was coming.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
What am I saying? Of course, you don’t.
And there it is.
No functionality is lost upon [Evolution], it only provides improvements.
“Then why are there [Upgrades]!? What’s the difference, and why did I never encounter one before?”
Upgrades are solely a qualitative change for the better, while Evolutions bring new utility and tools without altering too much of what was there in the first place.
“Then I feel like I got a few [Evolutions] that should have been [Upgrades]…”
Maybe, or maybe what you are speaking about was simply too limited, to begin with, and what might have been perceived as a simple jump in power or quality was instead the result of some of those restrictions disappearing, giving you more things to play with.
I had to think about that harder than I wanted to: On one hand, the answer wasn’t satisfactory, on the other this was probably one of those things I had to figure out on my own, and [Buddy], with all of its new limitations, was trying to give me as many hints as it could.
“I can accept that, for now.”
Good, because everybody has been awkwardly staring at you for a while now.
I blinked stupidly, giving my surroundings a quick glance and noticing that [Buddy] was right; I had noticed that they had stopped talking, but I was so immersed in my mental conversation that I didn’t notice their attention shifting towards me.
To be fair, I honestly thought that my chat with [Buddy] had been brief, but now all I could think about was that I couldn’t wait for when my [Mind Stats] were high enough that this stopped happening. I had hoped that I was there already, but apparently not.
I coughed awkwardly into my first, “soooo… everybody’s ready to go hunt a Giant?”
* * *
We kept on moving on foot, deciding that since the den of the [Bone Giant] was reported as being ‘dangerously close’ it meant that we were likely to miss it if we were to go through the land too fast. Just how could we miss a Giant was beyond me, but I didn’t want to be proven stupidly wrong so I kept my mouth shut and just accepted their plan as what it was: the safe bet.
Nothing wrong with it, honestly it was something that I should consider taking myself more often, but that’s just not my thing.
Yeah, okay, that sounds stupid. I really should start taking safe bets whenever they’re handed out so clearly.
Why am I instinctually inclined to make dumb decisions? I’m not sure, but if this was DnD my dump stat would have been ‘wisdom’ and I would have put myself in the alignment table definitely as chaotic-
*Thump*
I miss a step, but my coordination is high enough now that I’m able to recover before anybody noticed anything. But I didn’t really care, because I was still laser-focused on that wave of power that momentarily washed over me.
“What was… that?”
Well, you were talking about ‘alignment’, and it seems like you may have made a step toward discovering yours.
“What? Do people actually get categorized by the [System] based on how they act, and then get something out of it!?”
Yes and no.
Others are recognized as either “good” or “bad” by the [System], that is how people know that they might be about to receive “divine punishment” at any moment, but that is not what I was talking about.
I was hinting at something broader that I cannot speak of, besides letting you know that both Gods and Demi-Gods are deeply entrenched in the concept.
“That’s… that’s a lot more than simply ‘hinting’, [Buddy]: You practically told me that to stop being mortal one needs to resonate and embody the ‘alignment’ that better fits them- wait a minute, why is ‘alignment’ not within brackets!?”
Something as advanced as ‘alignments’ is outside of the purview of the [System], since it is strictly related to the realm of the Gods.
“But [God] gets to be within brackets!?”
Look, I did not make the System, I only live within it.
If you want to complain, go back to the [Temple] and contact the [Goddess of Truth] or the [God of Creation].
“I… don’t think I will be doing that…”
Smart move.
Now begin again with your pulses of [Detection]: You have stopped for a while now.
That threw me for a loop: I was so surprised by the multitude of revelations, one right after the other, that I didn’t even notice that I had stopped casting my passive net around us, and I didn’t know if there were any dangerous critters ready to pounce on us anymore.
“Wait a sec!” I suddenly exclaimed, grounding our convoy to an abrupt halt.
“What!?” Cherry harsh-whispered testily.
Right, I probably shouldn’t shout, especially since I don’t know what’s around.
Casting [Unavoidable Detection] I see that there’s nothing hostile in our direct surroundings, but something peeked just at the edges of what I could perceive when pushing myself.
“I think I found the [Monster] we were looking for”, I stated, and that got everybody’s attention.
“Did you already locate the [Bone Giant]?” Undine was the one that asked the question that was hanging on everybody’s lips.
“Well, it’s a [Bone Giant], all right, but I can be sure that it’s ours”, I responded distractedly, my attention invested in my [Detection] in an attempt to change the query prompts to see if it could tell me if that [Monster] was the one for the [Quest], but only getting inconclusive results so far.
“This close to the Rainbow Forest, what else could it be?” Cherry asked, pretty sure in an attempt at being sarcastic.
“It’s mate?” I asked back, and she seemed to be very taken aback at receiving an actual answer so decisively.
“T-that… that’s a troubling thought, but nothing in the [Quest] missive stated anything about multiple exemplars or signs of their mating rituals”, the [Tree Elf] muttered almost to herself, not as sure as before of the [Information] we were provided with.
After all, a bit had passed since the last update had been posted, so there was a real chance that the situation had changed.
“True, but preparing ourselves for the worst couldn’t hurt”, I sagely said, which earned multiple raised eyebrows.
Which was strange, since I normally do prepare for the worse, knowing my luck and [Luck].
“Since when were you this careful?” Sheeno asked, bumping her hip against my side.
“It’s still a work in progress: Don’t get used to this”, I cheekily replied, bumping her right back.
“Ha!” She couldn’t stop a snort and the start of a laugh from coming out, but she quickly covered her mouth and shot me an accusatory glance.
“Even if it was somehow my fault that you’re a naturally loud person, you don’t need to worry because there’s nothing easily angerable between us and the Giant”, I said, and my mate slapped my shoulder in retaliation at the first part, but sighed in relief at the second.
We quickly reoriented ourselves toward our established target, returned to our approximation of a formation, and resumed our ‘march’ in a somewhat orderly fashion. We also began discussing tactics, realizing that since we were about to fight our strongest opponent yet, even more so than the beefed up [Leaf Avatars], we had to concoct at least something that resembled a plan, especially since this [Monster] was known for being able to pierce through the sturdiest of shields and barriers with sheer might alone, meaning that one of our best advantages could turn out to be useless in front of it.
“A fifty meters tall boney monstrosity that is capable of shooting projectiles of varying size from all over its body, with both body and projectiles made of a self-produced calcigenous substance that is hundreds of times denser than normal bone, making it both heavier and sturdier than it would normally have any right to being. If this thing wasn’t slow as hell I would have fucking lost it right there and then when Sheeno had proposed to fight it.”
Now, if only I could find some magick beans then maybe I could get some gold out of this.