In retrospect, Will should have been concerned when he had noticed that the merchant had no guards. Despite that, Will was not too concerned about the outcome of that fight. Sure it sucked to fight people, but if he had been any other guy, they would have handed him to the kind of people who would never have let him see the light of day. And the haul from the merchant was certainly worth it. The man had been carrying more money in his lockbox than was really advisable given the current situation in the country. All together it amounted to a few silver barons, but was all in the kind of smaller currency that was far more spendable.
As for the cargo, he had been carrying a mixture of fairly expensive items. There were a few rugs of high quality, a variety of foodstuffs, as well as some decorative odds and ends. Will realized that most of this could easily be loot from the bandits that he had been unable to sell. Fencing items was probably really easy at the moment given the situation in Brythorne. Will took it all into his inventory, leaving just the cart and its two horses. The horses had been surprisingly fine with Koma’s display earlier, which meant that they were either drugged out of their minds or really good stock. The cart was a fairly large covered wagon in good condition. It would be nice to have a replacement for their cart they had left behind in Martel. Will had tried to add the old cart to his inventory, but it turned out that his inventory did have a size restriction.
“So, does anyone have a plan about what we are going to do now?” Will asked. “We were supposed to come to Brythorne for safety, but the bounty has made living in a town impossible. Do we just make camp in the forest? Find a convenient cave?” This got the attention of the rest of the party, who had piled into the wagon with one of the followers driving.
“Damn,” Emerys said. “Maybe we can find the hideout these bandits used. There will likely be more loot at least. Maybe they actually chose a good camping spot.” The camp was not well hidden and the bandits had tracked a path from there to the road. Will wondered at how the bandits had not been caught already. The camp was months old at least, meaning that the bandits had been operating for a while. It said a lot that adventurers had not been sent to deal with them yet.
They decided not to stay in the bandit’s camp,instead going further into the forest. They did manage to scavenge some odds and ends, but it seemed that there was no great store of loot left by the bandits. There was a purse hidden here or there with a few coins, but it didn’t amount to much in the end. The heavy iron chest gave them hope, but the thing was quite bare.
The next day they decided to move toward a larger town called Stinburough. There was a fairly large guild hall there. Moreover the town was nestled between the sea and a monster infested territory where hiding out would be fairly easy. It would allow them to get what they needed, but be safe from those who wanted to find them. The journey only took a few days, which was good, because the prices of everything only got worse as they got close to Stinburough. Their money supply wouldn’t hold out nearly as long as it should.
When they finally got close to the city, they broke off from the road and started off into the wilderness. Moving through the wilderness with a cart wasn’t the easiest thing, but it wasn't too bad either. With either Will or Emerys walking beside it, they could fairly easily lift it out of any problems it encountered. Will took this as an opportunity to practice his dimensional locking, and was soon able to control most of the gates in his body. There wasn’t a new skill, as his concept manipulation covered this, but it was a new way to apply the skill which took some getting used to. After not too long he figured out how to close the gates in his feet separately from the rest of his body. It was hard to get a piece of ‘reality’ in the gate as it closed, but Will was able to significantly reduce the weight of him and anything he carried on the ground. He couldn’t do anything like Emerys did holding the giant sword up, but it was a start.
As they left the road however, things started to take notice. Something crept through the shadows beneath the trees, and Will was reminded that this area was not used because of how many monsters were in the area. It took a half hour of trudging through the forest for them to be attacked for the first time.
A small hoard of creatures that Will supposed might have once been foxes sprang at them from the underbrush. They had the reddish orange hue and distinctive faces of foxes, but their bodies were larger, and far more muscular. More than that they zipped along with far more than the agility normally attributed to foxes, who were fast enough already. Will summoned his sword immediately, and managed to cut down two, but there were nearly twenty of them for him to fight. Five of them tried to bite him, but he was saved by his cloak, which weathered the bites with minimal damage. The other fifteen or so tried to jump into the wagon to be met with a hail of arrows, bolts, knives, and spells. Will finished the ones harassing him, and looted the corpses.
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The pelts were still recognized as fox pelts, but the meat was recognized as monster meat, which Will was informed was not good to eat. Not that Will wanted to eat fox meat anyway, they were too cute. Still, the meat could be rendered down into a magical sludge that could be refined into various alchemical ingredients, so it wasn’t worth throwing away. Will frowned when he got no cores from the foxes and when he asked, Amalise explained.
“You have gotten the wrong idea about the rarity of cores. You fought Madracora, and then you fought curseforged abominations. It was very lucky for you to get a core from Madracora, but curseforged always have physical cores. Most monsters do not have a physical core unless you cast magic on them to stabilize the core. And these creatures are barely monsters anyway. Sure they have spiritual cores, but the mana has hardly had time to warp their bodies. It isn’t until the manawarping has reached significant levels that a physical core forms.”
“So, do people use curseforging to make cores on demand then?” Will asked.
“Yes, but they usually only use monsters and spirit beasts. It is still a horrific process, but at least it’s not murder.”
They were attacked a multitude of times as they ventured further. Most were inconsequential however, with only one or two posing any real challenge. Still, if the followers were not experienced adventurers, they would have been in serious danger. Will, Emerys and Amalise could travel the monster infested wilderness without much bother, but it would be nearly impossible for a normal person.
Eventually they came to a hill, one they had been looking for. Near this hill was an old fortress that had been last used over five hundred years ago.The government of Brythorne had wanted to claim more land so they funded the construction of this fortress. Except they were unable to field enough powerful individuals, and the fort was lost only ten years after it was built. If the structure was still intact, it would be a good place for the group to set up a home base. They weren't worried about the monster waves that had rolled over the fortress the last time, because they weren’t trying to hold any actual land. They would make the fortress their den, and any monsters that had a problem with that could come and try to kill them.
They crested the hill and laid their eyes on what they hoped would be their future home, even if only temporarily. The fortress was fairly small as fortresses went. It consisted of a castle with a walled bailey that had several large towers along its perimeter. The castle itself was small, but the whole building had a second wall surrounding the entire perimeter. It was quite defensible, and Will was starting to get excited. Who hadn’t dreamed of living in a castle at least once in their lives?
However as they approached problems started to present themselves. For one, the power of the monsters rose sharply as they approached the fortress. They were not just fighting more aggressive wildlife, but mutated creatures with too many limbs or heads. In one particularly difficult fight they fought a honest to gods chimera. It fought mostly like a lion, but the cobra it had for a tail made engaging the thing difficult. When the goat head bleated, it became difficult to move until you broke the effect with some sort of magic or skill. Several of the followers as well as Emerys took wounds in that fight. Fortunately they found a universal antivenom potion in the stuff they got from the alchemist, or a couple of the followers may not have made it.
And so it was that they made it to the destroyed barbican. It seemed that most of the thing had been made of wood. Which meant that only the stone corner supports were still there. As they passed the first crumbled support, they all received a notification.
Now entering the Deep Woods Fortress Dungeon.
Objective: Kill the boss and claim the core.
The first response was Emerys’ cursing. After he was done telling the dungeon what monsters it could… Well… They all turned to discussion. Dungeons were rare, at least official dungeons were. Dungeons only happened when a system relay node, AKA the dungeon core, was left out of human hands for too long. System relay nodes were very good at capturing power, and could allow you to do a variety of otherwise impossible or costly things, like raising a fortress out of nowhere in a single day. However, if the power wasn’t used for something or another, the node would get rid of it. Usually this meant empowering a monster and generating a dungeon. Apparently Brythorne had sent a System Relay Node here to help reinforce the fortress, but it had been lost when the fortress fell.
It was understandable then when the group was immediately split on what to do. Dungeons were dangerous, especially fairly old dungeons like this one. They talked, and surprisingly, it was Emerys heading the side that wanted to leave, while Amalise argued doggedly for staying. They looked to Will to break the tie. He looked back and forth between Emerys and Amalise.
“Let’s go in.”