…
You have received a new quest: Cradle of the Dryads.
Find a safe place where the seed of the Dryad tree can grow. Look after it until it starts to bear fruit.
Reward: hidden, variable.
Penalty for refusal/failure: the forces of nature will become hostile towards you.
…
You have received a new quest: The Last Guardian.
Return to the Peaceful Woods and find out whom the remains where you found the amulet belong to.
Reward: hidden, variable (depending on the results).
Penalty for refusal/failure: none.
…
“Now go and don’t look back. Quickly. I won’t be able to hold them for long!”
Jeb and I stepped onto the narrow and dimly lit path. The rain had grown stronger and we could hear its rustle, although not a single drop penetrated the mossy wilderness, through which we were shown the way.
If only we knew where the path led.
Chapter Fifteen
THE DAY WAS waning. It rapidly grew darker in the dense forest. My first impression was deceptive — it wasn’t the trees themselves but their lower branches and the dense undergrowth that parted before us, forming a narrow track.
We walked quickly, at the limit of our endurance. The vegetation was setting the pace, with the thicket closing up behind us, as if urging us onwards and whispering, ‘Faster, faster, faster’.
Thunder faded in the distance. The trail turned several times, led us to a ford across the river and then back into the depths of the forest.
“Jeb, I’ve long wanted to ask, what’s your level of realism?”
“Seventy-five,” he was breathing heavily and looked like he was about to fall behind.
“Yeah, I thought you were gaining experience points faster than I am.” I tried to distract him from the monotonous and exhausting hike. Weasel was feeling the best, perched on Jeb’s shoulder, glancing around and sniffing the air.
“I wanted to reduce it to fifty percent, but I can’t.”
“Is your VR capsule working OK?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know how to check.”
“What about your memories? Are they coming back?”
“Nope... It’s like I’ve always lived here. Sometimes I see fragments of the past, but they seem dull, as if they’re not real.”
That was a problem that we’d have to deal with. As soon as we found a genuinely safe place where we could rest properly, we’d take a look at it. Surely Jeb’s interface would show some data? For example, I had indicators showing the state of my VR capsule and they were all growing green. I also had a separate window showing my IP address. It could be used to find out the real location of the device.
“Light ahead!” Jeb said huskily.
We stopped. It had gotten dark. The sky was clear and filled with stars, the moon peeking through the gaps between the tree branches, its cold dim light flooding the clearing.
“Are we out?” I was delighted.
“Looks like it.” Jeb glanced around him nervously.
I checked the map. The ‘fog of war’ covering the unexplored regions was pierced by the thin thread of our passing.
“Send Weasel off to explore. He’s been sitting on your shoulder the whole time.”
The animal eagerly leaped to the ground and disappeared into the gloom. I switched to the local area map. Immediately beyond the forest edge, appeared the crossroads and a symbol indicating a tavern. Two emerald circles denoted the respawn point and an active portal. The name ‘Mercenary Tavern’ appeared as well.
A large scattering of red dots around the structure lit up a moment later.
Mobs, judging by the markers. User signals looked slightly different. The dots were motionless, but Weasel was rushing from side to side, as if dodging attacks, as he skirted the tavern building.
He completed the circle and sprinted back at once.
Fifty-four scarlet marks! They surrounded the respawn point and the teleport stone in a particularly tight circle.
“What are we going to do? Shall we go around or try to fight our way through?” Jeb asked.
“Let’s at least find out who’s hiding there?” I suggested. “The markers are static, did you notice?”
“Yeah.”
The grass rustled and Weasel reappeared.
Jeb squatted down and stroked the animal’s fur. “Well, who’s hiding there?”
Weasel opened his mouth wide in response, as if yawning, then snapped his teeth sharply.
Whoever those creatures were, they had big, toothy mouths!
The markers on the map remained still. I set out a route in my head.
“Let’s go.”
The glove on Jeb’s hand glowed with crimson streaks. He was ready for battle although it was obvious that he was deadly tired and had no desire to participate in another fight.
Yes, it had been a long day. All the more reason to find a safe place to rest. After all, we were somewhere on the border between the Wild Lands and low-level regions. I hoped that we’d make it.
The moon was shining brightly enough. I could see the outline of the tavern up ahead. The silence was extraordinary. There was only the faint rustling of leaves disturbed by a light breeze and the repetitive creaking of the sign at the entrance to the abandoned building.
The tavern roof had collapsed. Everything was overgrown with weeds. A weak glow came from two places — the respawn point and the teleportation stone.
Where were the mobs?
Weasel jumped off Jeb’s shoulder, ran forward, stood up on his hind legs and began to gnash his teeth again.
Understood. It was dangerous to go any further. But who was waiting for us here?
In the moonlight, I could see only strange vine-like plants with large (the size of my head), elongated fruits hanging on long grassy stalks.
No matter how closely I looked, I couldn’t see any frames. Who was hiding in this thicket? The unusual plants had climbed over every surface, their shoots twining around the walls of the dilapidated building, the shadoof of the well, the crooked gate posts and the separately growing trees.
The teleportation stone exuded a golden shimmer so it was working in normal mode.
I gestured for Jeb to step back. A fireball could fly about twenty meters. There was no reason for the mage to be in the thick of things.
I picked up a heavy stone and threw it right into the midst of the strange plants.
No response. Well, I was just going to have to risk it. Hiding behind my shield, I slowly walked forward toward the respawn circle, crossed the line that Weasel had indicated and then everything became clear. The nearest fruit suddenly split open, dividing into petals covered in large, sharp teeth!
I managed to deflect several rapid attacks with my shield, cut down the closest stalk, it’s mouth spitting caustic juice, and fell back, yelling, “Jeb, burn them!”
The wall of vegetation moved threateningly. The vines were much more dangerous than they had seemed at first glance. Their flexible green trunks peeled away from their supports and reached for us! The plants were like a tangle of snakes, eagerly pursuing their prey!
…
Exoral. Level 25.
…
The frames seemed to indicate that we could take on the plants. They posed a serious threat only to the lonely traveler. Imagine if a player had passed through the portal and immediately found themselves surrounded by a dense network of predatory flora from the Wild Lands?
Odd that nobody had cleaned them up yet.
Jeb and I worked quite well together. While I distracted the Exorals, deflecting their blows and corrosive spit with my shield, he successfully burned them with fireballs.
The problem was that his store of mental energy was still not very big. He had destroyed only a third of the predators when his mana ran out.
“Dan, retreat.”
I followed his advice and withdrew to a safe distance. The vines ha
d roots, after all, so they could only extend to a certain length.
“What are we going to do?” I puffed.
“Give me the Intellect ring,” Jeb asked.
“Here you go.”
“Awesome!” he perked up. “Now, as soon as I regain some mana, I’ll serve them something special! I’ve got this one spell that will be perfect.”
The Exorals wouldn’t calm down. The fireballs had left large burnt patches in their midst but the greedy plants continued to extend dark green shoots in our direction.
I watched them. A hint appeared in my mind’s eye with a link to an Encyclopedia article.
Exorals are carnivorous flora from the Wild Lands. They posed little danger before the invasion of the Abyss but they then mutated somewhere on the border of the Dark Frontier. The new type of Exoral became much larger and what’s worse, they began to gain levels with every consumed victim. Individual Exorals can reach Level 50-60 and can pose a serious threat to even a group of explorers.
Features: spit toxic juice to weaken their opponent.
Respawn after death and lose levels. A colony of these plants can be wiped out.
Particularly aggressive during the fruit ripening period. Ripe fruits (that fall to the ground) serve as food for some birds and animals that contribute to the spread of their seeds.
Article author: Curious_Michael, a famous explorer.
…
“Ready, Dan. Look at this,” Jeb used the glove to launch a small ball of fire into the midst of the plants, which turned into a puddle of lava as soon as it touched the ground. This type of pyromancy would be no threat to a mobile mob, but was fatal to carnivorous vegetation, with many of the trunks crumbling to dust.
“We’ll gradually make our way to the teleport this way. I don’t want to spend the night here!”
I nodded in agreement. Mobs respawned after four hours. We wouldn’t have enough time to rest properly before the regenerated plants surrounded the tavern again. So that’s why the building stood abandoned.
* * *
It was almost midnight. Jeb and I were dead tired after fighting our way to the portal. The burning hot lava puddles required a lot more mental energy than a simple fireball and my companion had to rest often to restore his mana.
“We need potions.” he sighed.
“We’ll buy them when we get to the town.”
“They’re expensive. I’d rather go into herbalism and alchemy.” Jeb replied dreamily. “I’ll wander through the Peaceful Woods, collecting herbs and recovering my skills.”
“You can see them?” I was surprised.
“Yeah, but they’re nearly at zero because I lost so many levels. Alchemy is on 1 and Herbalism is on 2 right now,” Jeb stood up, the fiery streaks on his glove glowing brightly again.
I got ready as well. We’d worked up quite a sweat over the past hour, cutting down the toothy fruits and trying to widen the path leading to the portal. The Exoral colony was like the mythical Hydra. We’d chop down one maw, and another couple would appear on the fresh shoots. It was the pits! The red markers kept multiplying as the plants used their life reserves to grow clingy brown tentacles. They then tried to grab me and drag me into the thicket.
Curious_Michael did not mention such an ability so I would need to update his article.
Jeb threw a lump of lava. The flash was bright in the darkness and a viscous crimson puddle spread over the ground, burning the soil and snapping the knobbly tree-like trunks.
I cut off a tendril with my sword. We were nearly there...
“What are you doing here, unkind people?”
The voice made us turn around.
“Can’t you see? We’re clearing the way to the portal.” Jeb snapped.
Two villagers appeared in the light of the rapidly cooling lava. An old man leaning on a crooked staff and a dashing hero holding a blacksmith’s hammer in his mighty arms.
They were clearly NPCs.
“Is there a village nearby?” I hazarded a guess.
The blacksmith glared at me from under heavy brows. He seemed to be waiting for a sign to attack. Both frames were red so they were hostile towards us. Why would that be?
“Don’t be angry with us, father,” I decided not to escalate the situation. “I thought we were doing a good deed.”
“Yeah, a good one, right,” the old man muttered. He looked at us intently and meanly. “We went into the dark forest, collected the seeds, planted them and now you’re burning them down!”
“Wait,” I was completely taken aback. “You’re growing these things here on purpose?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“To keep scum from wandering through here!” the blacksmith boomed, throwing his hammer from one hand to the other.
Something wasn’t right. The portal seemed ordinary enough. I could clearly see its golden glow. It wasn’t connected to the Abyss in any way.
“What did the other people do to displease you?”
“They’re not people, they’re bandits!”
“Mercenaries, you mean?” Jeb asked.
“Bandits, mercenaries, hunters, knights — they’re all the same!” the old man replied darkly. “They were nothing but trouble. They’d go into the forest to hunt the animals but couldn’t manage. And what do you think they did then?”
“They ran away?” I guessed.
“That’s right! Of course, they ran away. Through our fields and our crops. And they dragged the beasts after them, so that the village guards would have something to do. And when they got drunk at the one-eyed’s tavern? We’d get no sleep, no rest! How are you supposed to live if it’s after midnight and people are knocking on your door, asking, ‘Do you need any help, esteemed elder?’ Yeesh... Why would I need help when I’m sleeping?”
“So, you decided to plant carnivorous plants beside the portal?” Jeb had accumulated a bit of mana and the glove on his hand smoldered ominously.
“We did,” the old man nodded. “And we won’t let you burn them! We’re going to make a fence like this around the village, too!” he promised darkly.
“Look, we need to get into town,” I decided to make another attempt to smooth things over. The NPCs here had clearly started developing and weren’t keen on players.
“See the road? Off you go. Sixty versts and you’ll reach the town.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Jeb exploded. “How many days will that take?”
“Well, you asked for it,” the old man lost his temper too and quickly cast some kind of buff on the blacksmith, who raised his hammer and rushed at me.
“Jeb, stay back!” I yelled as I automatically performed a roll to get out of the way. The blacksmith was strong but clumsy. The hammer had barely left a deep dent in the ground and I was already standing behind him, my blade pressed to the nape of his neck, warning him, “Don’t move or you’ll be in trouble.”
The old man uttered an inarticulate curse.
“We’re going through the portal,” Jeb snarled. “Whether you like it or not!”
“Fine, fine.” the elder backpedaled. “Lower your sword, will you? Let’s find a peaceful solution.”
“That’s better,” I noticed that both character frames became yellow and thus neutral.
“Don’t burn the toothies,” asked the village elder. “There is another way.”
Well, I wasn’t too surprised. I had guessed at once that they were still using the portal somehow.
The lava puddles had long died out. The moon was barely peeking out from the massing clouds. It was quiet and cool. Two village women appeared from the darkness. Each one was holding a canvas bag. They approached the carnivorous plants and started throwing them pieces of meat, making the vines stretch away from the portal. Then, incredibly, when the two bags were empty, the sated Exorals slumped to the ground.
“Check them,” the elder said to the blacksmith.
He fearlessly entered the thicket but the carnivorous plants
didn’t react as they were full.
“Go on!” the old man wanted to get rid of us as quickly as possible. “Leave and don’t come back. Just look at you, burning our toothies!”
Edge of the Abyss (Respawn Trials Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 23
