The projectiles flew about twenty feet before they stopped, seemingly frozen in the air.
“Where the fuck is the fucker who keeps fucking up my skills?!”
Kerosene Guide
Level 160
Legendary
A few seconds after we crossed the clearing, the creature glowed through the dense trees. The crushed guide, with its head hanging almost by its skin, was still alive despite bleeding profusely and having an open fracture on its left arm. Moreover, it was now covered in a red flame that had taken over its entire body and somehow turned it into a legendary mob.
The three blue eyes were still looking straight at me, and from the half-open mouth came a barely audible sound.
“Ug-donk ug-lo ug. Unr-ug...”
I shuddered, wondering what the fuck was it trying to say. Its neck was severed and its head hung on a piece of sinew, twitching with every step.
Beads of cold sweat appeared on my forehead. The creature, emitting an awful stench of burning flesh and hair, was now running after us, breaking the semi-darkness of the Lands with the light of the flames. Beside it, its conjoined twin like dogs grinned.
“Loki, give me a lift!” Willow, running beside Rat, suddenly shouted. “Hurry!”
I helped her climb up by putting my arm around her waist. I had an idea what she was planning to do. But, would the System consider this weapon to be magical and thus useless against whatever anti-magic skill this thing was using, remained to be seen.
A moment later, I was engulfed in heat: bright orange flames consumed Willow, and a pair of fiery wings erupted from her shoulder blades. Fortunately, the heat didn’t harm me, which couldn’t be said about the fire that was about to be unleashed at our pursuers.
I expected that the portable flamethrower would at least set fire to the surrounding Lands and block the path for the dogs. I had my doubts that it’d work against the Guide.
Alas, the black pines refused to burn. Not a single tree could be set on fire! The black plague that had invaded the Lands was only slightly melting away, glittering in the light of the flames. Luckily, her attack passed through the anti-magic barrier.
The Guide wasn’t set on fire or harmed in any way, which was to be expected. But the attack did take care of the dogs. Despite their speed, their inability to fall (when facing the stream of fire, they simply jumped and landed on the other half, and continued to run after us), Willow managed to aim and eventually hit them. Half a minute later, the first cry of pain could be heard behind us.
Before Willow lost consciousness, the seven beasts fell to the ground, their corpses smoking. But there were still too many pursuers.
***
The chase lasted for about a quarter of an hour. Holding on to the exhausted Willow, I randomly threw bolts at the dodging dogs and the Guide. Each strike went further and further until, finally, every fifth bolt began to break through the barrier that grew thinner the further we went.
Ivan was beginning to get tired and was forced to slow down. Rat was also growing exhausted. But Valkyrie seemed to feel better than the rest of us: she could maintain this pace for as long as she wanted.
Our pursuers didn’t lag behind, gradually reducing the distance between us.
The local fauna saved us. A shot rang out from behind the nearest pine, and a three-foot-long spike pierced the ground where Rat had been a moment ago. Glancing back at the projectile that had almost killed us, the pet sped up, leaving the hunters crouched in the trees far behind.
Multi-eye
Level 59
Multi-eye
Level 45
Multi-eye
Level 98
...
Big-eyed creatures with spherical bodies, numerous legs, and several organs that could shoot thorns, sat perched on the trees, holding on to the trunks with the help of their sharp legs. The trees here grew to gigantic sizes, twice as large as the pines and firs from the other forests and even from the outskirts of the location itself. They grew close together, interfering with each other and blocking the light. A perfect place for an ambush. The Multi-eyes didn’t miss the second time. As soon as the Guide and the dogs appeared under the pines, running after us, dozens of sharp spikes flew at them, nailing them to the ground. The dogs at least. The Guide wasn’t that easy to take down. After catching a few thorns, it suddenly jumped up and tore a thorn out of its body, plunging it into the eye of the largest mob. With a desperate squeal, the Multi-eye fell to the ground where the remaining dogs immediately pounced at it and tore it to pieces within seconds.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), I didn’t see the rest. We were speeding straight toward the center of the Lands where, according to the mini-map, the fragment was located.
***
Another leap forward, and Rat, falling from exhaustion, found himself in a clearing. There was no rot here, and the rare broad-leaved trees looked normal, save for remnants of dried leaves (after all, it was winter).
“So... Are we safe?” Ivan asked, puzzled.
“I don’t think so,” Spider replied, looking at the mini-map. “There seems to be a small island of life in the center of the Lands...”
There were no mutants in this “island of life,” and there was much more light here. It was as if the black infected trees were drawing in the rays of the midday sun, condemning the local inhabitants to a life in semi-darkness.
Soon, we found ourselves in a fairly large clearing, which was an almost perfectly smooth circle with fir trees growing around the perimeter. Despite being a clearing, the trees were also in the clearing itself: in the form of countless roots covering the entire surface.
In the middle of the location was a large stone well, to which all these roots led, gradually thickening and taking on a greenish color, and in which, as the Compass suggested, a fragment of the Key was hidden.
***
Above the well appeared an inscription with an unreadable nickname.
•••
Orange Faction
Level ???
We froze, reading the message over and over again.
“Who the fuck is that?!” Ivan finally exclaimed.
“I think... This is the real Lands,” Amoeba whispered.
Chapter 9
THE MIRACULOUS WELL
There were a lot of odd things in this Game. Too many. I lived in the Primordial Waters, gnawed on the entrails of a dead fly, became a parasite in the body of my killer... To say nothing of the weird locations like the Screeching and Black Mountains, the Hall of the Ancestors, the Pilgrim dungeons, the Valley of Light, and, finally, the Uncharted Lands itself. You’d think that by now I wouldn’t be surprised by anything the Game threw at me.
But here I was, surprised.
How the hell was there a player living in a well in the middle of the most dangerous location in the area when there was a flaming zombie with a lamp and a pack of wild mutts right at their door? And what was up with these roots? They covered the entire clearing. In several layers! I looked like a circulatory system: a huge number of vessels that thickened as they approached the heart, which was apparently the well itself. The roots, twining and thickening, taking on a greenish color, skirted the stone wall and went underground where the fragment was supposedly hidden. As we approached the well, the roots looked more and more like tentacles, though they remained motionless.
How the hell did we manage to see the player’s name (although written in symbols) if they were hiding down this rather deep well? If they were sitting at its bottom, why did their name shine so brightly? That had to mean that they were closer to the surface, and probably watching us as we approached, ready to pounce. Also, why was their level hidden? Were they even alive? If so, how?
But most of all, I was haunted by Amoeba’s words.
“What did you mean by that?” I asked.
“I’m... not sure,” he replied, studying the roots. “But it seems to be the Lands.”
“We heard you the first time,” Spide
r grunted, trying to make an incision in one of the roots to see what was inside.
“I would advise against it, my friend,” Amoeba said. “The player might not like it if you poke them like that.”
“Who are they?” Willow asked, finally coming to her senses. “What’s a member of the Orange faction doing here? And so deep underground?”
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. They’re right here, under us. All of this,” Amoeba waved his hand, “is them. The Orange player. They’re the Lands. We’re standing, so to speak, on their body.”
“What?”
“They’re the most gigantic organism we’ve ever seen!” Amoeba explained. “And not only in the Game. You remember the Great Banyan tree? A huge, huge tree with an area of four acres... Its impressive size is attributed to numerous aerial roots.”
“Right... It was in India...” Spider mumbled, deciding to postpone the dissection of the Orange player for a while. “The main trunk had to be cut down, so now it’s considered a colony, and not a single organism.”
“That’s right!” Amoeba exclaimed joyfully, ignoring Spider’s grumbling. “The Lands is the same single organism, except the trees are connected with underground roots. I was wondering how the disease spread from tree to tree and managed to infect the entire area. As you can see, the roots come out of the ground, intertwine, take on a greenish hue, and gain similarity to tentacles. The Orange player is connected to the Lands just as the trees are connected to each other. More precisely, they are the trees! That or they’re in symbiosis with them...”
The biologist continued to talk, spinning his theories, and my attention was grabbed by a small translucent cloud that suddenly formed above the well. It stopped in place and began to ungulate, gradually taking on the shape of some small creature, vaguely resembling a baby bird.
“Do you see that, too?” I asked Ivan who didn’t seem to notice the cloud at all.
“What?” he asked, looking around.
“Never mind...”
I approached the well, looking closely at the “bird” while the rest of the group argued over whether there was something that indicated where the player ended and the actual Lands began. The bird, turning in the air and almost falling down, lifted up a wing and pointed at me, then did the same with the other wing and pointed at the well.
“You want me to go down?”
The bird nodded happily, almost falling over again, carried away by the cold wind.
While my friends were arguing (Spider being the loudest one, believing that the player began where the roots turned green, while Amoeba insisted that the player was the entire Lands), I did a little work on my pet’s physical appearance. After a couple of minutes spent in the Lab, Rat lost a little weight and some of his armor, and instead of the Braineater’s short tentacles, acquired a long and durable one that could pull us out of the well.
***
“Loki? What are you doing?” Willow suddenly cried out.
“What?” I paused on the edge of the well. “I’m gonna go see what’s down there.”
“Not alone, you’re not!” Amoeba shook his head and walked over to the well.
“But I won’t be alone. This bird said that this was for my eyes and ears only.”
“What bird?” The biologist asked. “I didn’t see any bird. Did you happen to smoke Third Sight this morning?”
“It’s probably a mental message from the player,” I said, ignoring his joke. “You couldn’t have seen it. They want to talk to me. I’ll go down and you’ll stay here and jump to my rescue if anything happens.”
They exchanged glances.
“Oh, come on! If they wanted to kill us, they would’ve done so by now. How many Orange players are there in the Game? They could be the only one left. Who knows what we could learn from them!”
In all honesty, I had no clue why I was insisting on doing this on my own. There was something subconscious to it. My intuition, which had sharpened over the years, was telling me to go. I just knew that I had to do it.
Besides, there were no mental influences. I could feel those things. First of all, I was fully aware of what someone felt when they were being manipulated. Second, it was hard to imagine just how much Mental Strength one had to have to get past my defenses without me noticing.
All in all, I wasn’t leaving without the fragment. I had to go down. Nothing prevented my allies from coming to my rescue if things went south. All they had to do was jump down and cut the Orange player apart with their swords.
“Well... If you’re so sure...” Ivan drawled.
“Under one condition!” Willow said in a tone that indicated that there was no room for argument. “Promise to stay outta trouble and call us the moment you find something.”
“I promise,” I replied with a smile.
***
The bottom of the well couldn’t be seen, as it was lost in the darkness. The stone that was thrown down to test the depth either hit something hollow and didn’t make a sound, or it didn’t reach the bottom. The latter was unlikely.
Hooking a tentacle on one of the roots and, sitting on Rat, jumping down without dying sounded like a much better plan back on the surface. The tentacle stretched and trembled but it held the pet’s weight. Hanging fifty feet below the ground, I gripped Rat’s rough fur tightly with one hand, and with the other sent a bolt of lightning into the darkness.
I exhaled: there wasn’t much left until the bottom.
“You can let go,” I said to Rat, jumping down carefully.
Listening to the rustling as my pet struggled to get free from whatever it got stuck on, I looked around the well. Roots covered the bottom... A lot of roots. They went down the walls, thickened, and finally took on the appearance of tentacles, and probably reduced the depth of the well by several feet by simply pilling on top of each other. In the very center, I could see the player’s snout peeking under partially elastic, partially already stiffened tentacles. Observing it, I came to the conclusion that the player’s head alone was twice the weight of Leshy’s original body.
It had an ellipsoid shape, pale green in color, a huge mouth, and several rows of beady eyes, glazed and long blind. What little I could see was covered with so many scars that I couldn’t help but wonder how they survived this long. The worst of all was a gash as wide as my hand. The blow had evidently pierced the player’s skull and left behind a terrible mark, now overgrown with flesh and skin.
“Loki, is everything all right?” Willow’s alarmed voice came over the comm channel.
“Yes, everything’s fine. It looks like someone had stuffed an octopus into a jar and left it to die there...”
I went to the wall to see to what extent the water level would be as this was a well after all, but to see anything between the tentacles turned out to be quite a challenge, so I had to push the roots apart since they were much more pliable here.
“H-H-Hello...” a thin voice came from nearby.
Drawing my scimitar from its scabbard, I instantly turned toward the speaker, ready to cut them down. Rat hissed, folding his tentacles to use them as a bat.
“P-P-Please!” It was the same hazy image of a bird from before, three times smaller than me in size.
I exhaled but didn’t let go of the scimitar.
“Who are you?”
“M-M-Me?” The thing stammered, horrified. “I’m P-Progl-Log, a player from the Orange faction... Y-You’re... standing on my body...”
I wondered what would happen if I smacked the bird.
“But—”
“P-Please...” the bird interrupted me with difficulty, this time practically disappearing into thin air. “I-It’s very hard for me to maintain this form... Listen!”
Player [•••] wants to send you a message.
Accept?
Gangrene.
It happened a long time ago. Since then, more than one species had changed in the Game, and the higher magical beings who saw this event died of old age, passing on
their knowledge to their heirs. The heirs also died, passing their memories on to the third generations of mages, including Graybeard and the Piper.
The Screeching Mountain looked almost the same back then. There were fewer tunnels, but it could be seen even from there — the Orange Faction’s base. Progl-Log had been circling the faction’s domain for months, driving mobs away from the grass growing on the hills. The grain was very important to the Orange faction as they made delicious food from it. But that wasn’t the point.
Progl-Log was a highly respected player and was considered the second best in the entire faction. However, this only happened after a devastating pandemic swept through the surrounding locations. It was so bad that it made the people tear the infected meat off their bones.
It was awful to even think about it. Fortunately, at the time of the outbreak, about a third of the Oranges were out on a campaign so the virus missed them. Progl-Log included.
At the cost of their life, one of the doctors managed to take a sample from an infected corpse and make an antidote. Or rather, find it. The antidote was the same grains that covered the hills in front of the Screeching Mountain. Previously, grain was used quite rarely as Oranges preferred to eat the herbivores that lived in the area. However, after the pandemic, they became an integral part of the diet and their value increased tenfold: no one was eager to get infected and meet their end in terrible agony, especially since dried and ground grains were rather tasty.
Perhaps there was no need to explain why Progl-Log, the best warrior and the only mage in the faction, had to guard these plants. It had been four months now.
In the last few weeks, some black bipedal creatures had been running around the location actively devouring the grain. Like pieces of clay, they clung together and could take care of any predator that dared stand in their way.
They were strong, but even they stayed far away from Progl-Log who had grown rather strong and whose tentacles could squeeze all the blood and guts from any such lump of black creatures. Straining a few tentacles, Progl-Log raised their body several feet into the air and like a giant hybrid of an octopus and a spider, walked straight at the mobs running away in fear. Their Warrior of Light and High Priest abilities painted the tentacles green, greatly enhancing their power, especially in a fight against the vile creatures that worship the Darkness.
Reborn: Evolution: A LitRPG Series (Warlock Chronicles Book 3) Page 10
