This Quest is Bullshit - Chapter 136

Chapter 136 - These Fields Really Aren’t as Dead as the Name Would Seem to Imply

The journey west went simply enough. Eve alternated between running along the ground and Jetting through the air depending on the terrain, while the others—sans Lumy who floated along on her own—rode on Reginald’s back.

In the air, the drake outpaced Eve whenever her Defiant Charge was on cooldown, forcing her to lag behind then shoot ahead in short bursts. Meanwhile, under the strain of the saddlebags and three passengers, Reginald needed frequent breaks to catch his breath. The end result was an awkwardly lurching sort of travel that still managed to save a vast amount of time over horseback, let alone walking.

When exactly to turn north was a matter up for debate. Most of the markings on the map Eve had found in the Burendian Stronghold referred to landmarks from thousands of years ago, a great many of which had been wiped out by whatever had made the Dead Fields so dead. Fortunately enough, Xandria’s Teeth—the vast mountain range the kept the toxic fog of the Dead Fields from rolling south—hadn’t exactly changed much in the last few millennia.

That gave them a benchmark for how far north they had to travel—far enough to be a pain. As for how far west, the party only squint at the map and measure imprecise distances so much. The fact their destination was like as not hidden in the fog would make their task all the harder.

But that was later Eve’s problem.

Current Eve’s problem was far, far more serious.

“What do you mean you didn’t pack any scones?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” There was so little sincerity in Wes’s voice that its absence might’ve formed a vacuum. He pulled the tragedian’s mask from his pack. “I was so busy practicing my sad clown routine I must’ve forgotten.”

“I get it,” Eve said, anger brimming in her tone. “You want my help getting into character, so you decided I’ll help you earn those fake tears.”

Wes let out a laugh. “Ooh, violence. You know, the first step to overcoming addiction is to admit you have a problem.”

“Ladies, please!” Preston inserted. “Be civil.”

“Ladies?” Wes scoffed. “Please. Eve’s no lady, she’s just a peasant girl from some backwater village.”

Eve snorted. “You grew up down the street from me.”

Wes hemmed and hawed, holding his hand to his chest as if aghast at some minor slight. With an aggressively posh falsetto, he replied, “But at least I compose myself with the proper bearing for one who purports to fraternize with high society.”

It was Eve’s turn to laugh. “Wow, you really have been practicing your clown routine.”

That was enough to break the rest of the party of their stoicism, a chorus of laughter echoing through the clearing in which they camped. Even Lumy joined in, her three lights flashing in time with the fits of giggling coming from Art.

The party flew over the mountains rather than bothering with tracking down the pass they’d used prior, though without that landmark they’d have a harder time finding their first stop within the Dead Fields.

Once they entered the thick fog, Wes with his ugly mask and everyone else with their natural or class-provided immunity, a new dilemma struck. They could, in theory, fly above the toxic mist until they neared their destination, but without its cover they’d be exposed to every high-level griffin, roc, horrifying bat-worm-thing, and other flying monster beyond their ability to fight. Similarly, from the air they’d never know when they actually got where they were going.

Staying within the miasma came with its own problems, chiefly, visibility. Eve had learned early in their first visit that moving through the mist with any sort of speed was a risky prospect at best. In the Dead Fields, they’d be on foot.

That said, the party had grown quite a bit since their last excursion into these mists. While Wes now had the disadvantage of having to see through the slightly-too-far-apart eye holes on his mask, Preston’s Paragon class came with a Primal Instinct that gave them a much better idea of where exactly they were at any given point. Combined with Art’s telepathy providing constant updates on how many living creatures were in the vicinity, the Dead Fields had lost some of that terror they’d once held.

Similarly Art’s ability to detect nearby minds meant that by the time the adventurers arrived at the pond that marked the entrance to Drathis’s cave, they already knew the giant rat wasn’t home.

“Maybe he’s out hunting?” Preston offered as the party stood around the clear water of the pond. “We could wait for him here.”

“We should go inside,” Eve said plainly. “For all we know he’s moved out. Or he’s lying dead in there. At the very least we need to check.”

“I don’t know about that,” Wes argued. “It kinda feels like breaking in.”

Eve looked at him sideways. “You just don’t want to get wet.”

“Have you felt this water? It’s freezing!”

With a particularly sarcastic growl, Reginald tapped Wes on the back with his tail, sending the fire mage careening forward into the pond. The great splash spared no one.

“Look on the bright side,” Preston said as he carefully waded into the pond, “you can finally use that diver’s mask for its intended purpose.”

With a laugh, Eve took a running jump and cannonballed into the pool, her Mana-constructed body unaffected by the chill of the water.

Art and Reginald stayed behind, the former for talons’ poor ability to propel one through water and the latter because he’d grown simply too big to fit into the cave opening. Lumy was kind enough to light the party’s way through the pond.

The good news, as far as Eve was considered, was that she didn’t emerge into the verdant cave to find the decaying corpse of a giant rat in the corner. The bad news was that she did find a massive carnivorous plant that immediately snapped a vine around her ankle and tugged.

“Shi—” Eve barely managed to mutter the curse word before she landed hard on her ass and began to slide across the mossy cave floor towards the left of three twelve-foot-wide open maws. With a moment’s thought, she dissociated her left foot into a cloud of white Mana, causing the vine to whip back with only her boot.

“Gods damnit.” Eve pushed herself to her feet. “I’m gonna have to fish that out of a pile of plant slime now.”

“Eve!” Preston gasped as he emerged from the pool behind her. “Be careful! There’s something dangero—”

“Yeah, I picked up on that,” she cut him off, drawing her club and Appraising the thing.

Level ?? Greater Strethian Humantrap

“Oh, I get it,” Wes muttered. “It’s like a flytrap, but human-sized.”

Eve looked at the giant plant and back at Wes. “You know any twelve-foot-tall humans?”

“You know what I meant,” Wes snapped back. “The nice thing about plants is—” he set his hands alight— “they burn.”

“Nope,” Eve said, swatting at his hands until their flames went out. “Nope, nope, nope. That thing has my boot.”

Wes blinked and lowered his hands. “Alright. And what’s your plan then?”

“Do you really have to ask me that?”

Wes sighed. “Overwhelming force?”

Eve grinned. “Overwhelming force.”

She Charged in.

A thorny vine whipped through the air, crashing into her chest. A three-inch thorn made it through her armor and struck a rib, sending waves of pain up Eve’s spine, but she’d taken more than her fair share of hits. One flash of golden light later, and she was good as new.

Her charge barely faltered.

Two more vines swept at her, but she Jetted up and over them, bringing her club about in a mighty swing to strike at the plant’s left mouth. With the added power of Mana Rush bringing her up to over seven hundred thousand Strength, ‘overwhelming force’ might’ve been an understatement.

The plant’s jaw exploded.

Eve leapt back as the humantrap lashed out in whatever a plant’s approximation for pain was. “Why didn’t Art sense this thing anyway?”

“It’s a plant,” Preston stated the obvious. “It doesn’t have a brain.”

“Which means,” Wes added, “there’s no one place you can hit it to kill it.”

Eve shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.” Before her Defiant Charge could time out, she dashed into the wreckage of the mouth she’d destroyed, scanning the mound of plant-parts for a hurried few seconds. Moments later, her hand darted into the fine paste she’d made of it to grab something and Jetted out in time to dodge another swipe of vines.

“Okay,” she said, waving her sludge-covered boot through the air, “you can burn it now.”

The entire humantrap came alight in a massive fwoomp, filling the cavern with acrid smoke as it slowly succumbed to the blaze. Conveniently enough, the same measures the party had taken to survive in the toxic fog protected them from harm the smoke might’ve done, but Eve did still have to smell it. She gagged.

Even from outside, Art kept a watchful mind’s eye on Wes’s mental state. The moment the kill notification came through, the young trellac took control, forcing Wes to extinguish the inferno against his—or, more accurately, the devouring flame’s—will.

You have defeated Level 108 Greater Strethian Humantrap: + 17.1m exp!

“There, that wasn’t so hard,” Wes said with a grin.

“Speak for yourself,” Eve replied, stooping over to rinse her boot in the pond. “I almost lost a perfectly good boot. This is gonna smell like plant digestive acid for days.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s an improvement over how your boots normally smell.”

“Anyway,” Preston coughed. “The problem now is we have no idea what happened to Drathis.”

Eve scowled, glancing over at the pile of ash that had once been a carnivorous plant. “Well, it’s not like we’ve left any evidence behind to search.”

Wes shook his head. “I don’t think the plant ate him. That thing hardly seemed mobile, and Drathis is smart enough not to let something like that grow on accident.”

Preston raised an eyebrow. “You think he planted it on purpose?”

“He’s right,” Eve muttered. “Look around. None of his stuff is here.”

Sure enough, the bone racks where he’d dried animal hides, the cauldron in which he’d boiled pelsid ooze, and workbench at which he crafted everything else were all mysteriously absent from the Scavenger’s old haunt.

“Then where did he go?” Preston asked. “And why leave the humantrap behind?”

Eve shrugged. “Maybe he thought somebody was hunting him. Maybe he went to try and find more of his kind. Maybe he noticed the plant growing on its own and decided he was better off moving out rather than trying to kill it.”

Hey guys? Art interrupted the conversation. There’s somebody out here.

Eve waited patiently as Preston sent back instructions, only for Art to reply with a mental image of a sound echoing through the fog.

A series of deep croaks filled the air, followed by an all too familiar voice talking to either to its frogs or to itself. Eve could never know with Drathis.

“Finally back,” the giant rat grunted. “I sure hope my favorite pet giant carnivorous plant is doing well.”

As Art’s vision came to an end, Eve, Wes, and Preston all turned to look each other in they eye, faces aghast as they’d ever been. After two years now of adventuring together, they’d each managed to pick up a number of the others’ mannerisms. In fact, the three of them had grown so in sync, they all reacted in exactly the same way at exactly the same moment.

“Shit.”

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