by Dakota Krout
“While I admire your straightforwardness, I am not a fan of the task itself.” Joe infused his mana on the assassin’s shadow, and a Shadow Spike sliced into flesh.
“Hmm.” The man looked at his knife, only to see that it had stopped just before penetrating Joe’s chest. “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but I do have my orders.”
“Any chance that you could tell me why I’m being attacked?” Joe wasn't sure where his calm clarity was coming from, but for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to muster fury or battle rage. “Also, why is my team not attacking you? I think that this is a situation where they should be screeching war cries, and there should be sharp metal flying at you.”
“Ah, I can see the confusion.” The stranger was mechanically stabbing his knife at Joe’s chest, and the latter could feel the shell weakening. “Sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but we are currently inside of a trap formation. Specifically, this is the formation ‘Apathetic Advantage’. It is used to remove one’s emotions and is usually used by my organization to capture powerful beasts. They tend to be arrogant and will refuse most bonds and such if they know about them. Truly, I’m not sure how you are able to keep functioning.”
“I see. That would certainly explain why I am not sending constant streams of attacks at you as I normally would.” Joe nodded at the other man, keeping his Shadow Spike channeled to increase the damage over time. “Again, might I know the reason behind the assault?”
“I suppose that there is no rush.” The Jester skittered back, moving a distance that seemed impossible with a single movement. This also removed him from the effect of the spike, and it collapsed after a moment. His daggers vanished like a popping soap bubble, and he looked at a small scrap of paper. “Let me see… Joe. Ah, yes. Kill command ordered due to infringing upon the monopoly of the Zoo to contain, train, or sell Rare to Mythical creatures.”
Joe stared blankly at the smiling-mask Jester to the point where it seemed that the formation had taken complete control. The colorful individual started to pull his knife out again, but Joe suddenly shook his head. “Thank you for the information, but I fear that there is nothing I can think of that would explain this situation.”
“Oh? Did you not sell a Bunnicorn in the city?”
There was enough of a reaction on Joe’s face that it was apparent he wanted to fly into a rage but physically couldn't. “I see. This is over such a small matter? Is there any way to resolve this peacefully?”
“I suppose that I could offer you a capture quest to complete as compensation,” the man responded after a moment of contemplation. “I am authorized to do so, and it seems that you might create an issue if I attempt to slay you. Are you certain I can't simply check this off my to-do list? No? I see. In that case… let me see you. Hmm. Coffee addiction, level four? That must be an issue on long-distance missions. Here is my offer.”
Quest gained: Too Many Zoos! The Zoo has offered you a chance to show that you aren’t trying to compete with them! Capture a Rare or higher rarity animal and gift it to the Grand Zoo of Ardania within a month. Reward: Kill order rescinded. Small non-combat pet (Coffee Elemental). Failure: Kill order remains in place.
“A Coffee Elemental? I’m not even certain what that means.” Joe remained fixed in place, no expression crossing his face.
“Allow me.” The colorful man held out a hand, and after a moment, a coffee jug-sized creature appeared on his hand. In his other hand, a coffee cup appeared. The strangely liquid creature flowed into the cup until it was full, then vanished back into the man’s many robes. A dash of sugar was added, and a spoon was placed in the cup. “Here you are.”
“Thank you. Any poison in here?” Joe took the cup and looked down. Tiny liquid arms grasped the spoon and spun it around. A tiny voice came from the cup.
“Drink me! I’m delicious!”
“That’s some strong coffee,” Joe commented a moment later after the entire contents of the cup had literally poured itself down his throat.
“It really is. No, no poison. That would be rude to do mid-conversation.” The man nodded. “The Elemental has no combat utility, sadly. Do we have a deal?”
“I couldn't possibly say no,” Joe agreed easily. The man nodded, handed him a button to press when he was ready to speak with him again, and vanished. A moment later, Joe could feel his mental state evening out. “What in the craptacular abyss was that?”
“Ugh!” Alexis grabbed her head. “That was horrible! I felt like nothing mattered! I couldn't even be bothered when Joe was getting stabbed!”
The entire group seemed to agree with the assessment, though Joe was feeling something else at this moment.
Caffeinated! Temporary changes: Movement speed +10%! Charisma -2. Intelligence +1!
He smiled brilliantly at the others and started skipping along the path. “Oh well! New quest, awesome rewards to be had! You ready to go? I am! Let’s ask questions later! I really wanna hear more about formations. Those seem useful!”
“You know that you nearly died there, right?” Jaxon called as Joe started to gain some distance from them.
“These things happen!” Joe called back happily. “In this case, I feel the threat was worthwhile!
“Is he okay?” Poppy’s questions only earned a shrug and a few chuckles when Joe tripped and popped back to his feet without a comment.
Chapter Eighteen
“Hey. Look at that.” Alexis pointed into the distance, and the group tried to see what she was pointing at. With her main characteristic being her high perception, she was able to see things that they couldn’t as of yet.
It took a few more seconds of walking until Poppy spoke up, and the sight came into view for Joe at that moment. “Is that another group of people? Like that huge gathering of people going off to farm?”
“Looks like it, but how in the world did they get all the way out here without getting killed off?” Alexis shook her head. “We are a small group of people that are frankly a little overpowered for this area, and we were still having trouble! What kind of people do they have protecting that group?”
“Prolly the kind we don’ wanna mess wit,” Bard rumbled uneasily.
“It’s fine. We aren't doing anything to make anyone else mad.” Joe shook his head and continued onward. The coffee had evened out with his high hydration, and he was still feeling pretty good. “I doubt that anyone is going to attack us. They don’t want to look bad in front of all their new recruits.”
As they approached the mass of people who were standing in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere, shouts of alarm went up. The people shouting were still wearing the starter clothing, and the majority of them weren't even carrying a weapon of any kind. People in armor started appearing to block the small party’s path. “Hold! What are you doing out here?”
“Walkin’?” Bard rolled his eyes and continued forward. “What kinda sot are ya? Get off the road if ya’re not walkin’!”
This was obviously not the answer the man had been expecting, and it seemed that he was uncertain how to react. The crowd parted fearfully as Joe’s team walked through, but when the group didn't do anything strange, the people began to calm down. Joe shook his head at the sight. “Poor suckers didn't know what they were getting into. Looks like they’ve been having some trouble.”
His eyes lit up as he spied the reason this group must have chosen to stop and wait here. “A shrine! Nice! Here we go, Ardania! You guys ready to go take an actual shower instead of a cold-water Cleanse?”
“Absolutely!” Jaxon told him with a firm nod. “It is terrible when people don't have the self-awareness to realize that they are causing issue to the people around them. Showers are a must!”
There was a long silence, and the other members of the team decided to let the comment slide. They walked up to the shrine, getting stopped by people who were acting as guards. “Who are you? What do you want here?”
“Just trying to pop into the shrine.” Joe was s
tarting to get annoyed by this group. This was a road. “What’s the issue?”
“Oh.” The guy hadn't drawn a sword or anything so dramatic, but he still stood in their way. “Look, we are trying to use this shrine to keep our captain alive. The deity of this shrine keeps everyone who enters from dying but doesn’t heal or remove the effects. We had to send someone to try and find an antidote for scorpion venom, and I gotta tell you, the building is pretty full right now.”
At least this guy was being reasonable. Joe smiled gently and started walking past the man. “I don't mind helping out. Can you tell me who it is that you are trying to save?”
“You can't just–” The man’s face darkened, and he reached for his weapon.
“Chill,” Joe ordered. The word from normal society made the guard hesitate, and Joe took the chance to pop into the small shrine. There were people stacked up like logs in here, and it was obvious that there were more issues than a simple scorpion sting. “What in the heck happened here?”
“Got attacked,” the frustrated guard told him, having followed Joe inside. “We were able to hold off the monsters, drove them off even, but a few of us got pretty messed up.”
“Anyone just hurt?” Joe looked around, but there was no indication of who had status effects and who was simply injured.
“That section over there.” The guard gestured at the closest pile of whining bodies.
“Mass Heal.” Joe held out his Mystic Theurge staff, and a stream of water reached out to ten people at a time. They were mainly low-level, so the tendrils of water would break off and connect to another as the people reached full health. “If you are all healed up, please hurry out of here. I need to get to everyone.”
People thanked him; many even seemed to want to kiss him. Luckily, he was involved in healing people, and the respect for doctors back on earth transferred over to this new world quite nicely. “What’s next?”
The guard was staring at Joe like he was a mythical creature. “A healer?”
“Pretty much, yes,” Joe conceded the point without quibbling. “Who should go next?”
“Uh… we have a few that are unconscious, but the people that are poisoned are in pain. So, them next?” The guard brought Joe over to a stack of people that were sweating and breathing heavily. Looking over the group, it was obvious who was in charge and who were people that were supposed to have been protected. Joe started with the newbies.
Cleansing water flowed out of his hands, and one person at a time, he started to remove the venom from their bodies. Then the unthinkable happened. Joe contorted in pain and fell to the ground twitching, his mind burning with confusion and blurry thinking. In a few moments, he groaned and sat up, clutching at his poor head. “I ran out of mana! You have got to be kidding me.”
Blood flecked over Joe as the person he had half-healed coughed, once more suffering the effects of venom rushing through his body. Joe had no choice but to wait as his ability to Cleanse was reliant upon having an abundance of mana. The deadlier the poison—or venom in this case—the longer it took to clear out the various issues caused, not to mention the venom itself. This meant more mana, which was sadly a resource that he was back to ‘standard’ with. Boo.
Not that he didn't have an advantage. His skills afforded him a ten percent boost to clearing poisons in someone’s body, and he was going to be relying on that pretty heavily today. Joe looked around at the literal stacks of people and shook his head. Drat. This was going to take quite a bit of time, and he couldn't convert the shrine while it was keeping all these people alive. Well… he could, but that would make him a terrible person.
As his mana approached full, he got back to work and healed the person in front of him, following up with a healing spell that brought the person back to full health. Joe saw that his mana had dropped by a quarter and knew that if he spaced out individual healings instead of trying to fix everyone instantly—as his ingrained instinct from the army demanded—he would be able to heal the group without suffering backlash. As he Cleansed the next person, he watched his mana and worked on feeling out better ways to utilize his skill.
There was an interesting phenomenon at play. Some people were far more mana intensive to Cleanse, and the mana cost was adjusted accordingly. He asked the patients why, but none of them knew. No one had a special resistance to being healed, so he could only assume that a higher-leveled creature had injected them. Joe mused on this issue for quite a while, and near the end of his second hour at work, he finished with the last person.
Skill increase: Cleanse (Student 0) Congratulations! You have reached the student ranks! You have battled the effects of poison, disease, and other detrimental effects for so long that helping others has become second nature to you! This skill begins to hum and will alert you when you use another skill that resonates with it!
“Oh, that’s awesome,” Joe muttered as he finished reading over the notification. “Basically, it’ll let me know when I can upgrade it with a high chance of success? Yes, please!”
“Pardon my interruption, I just wanted to personally thank you for healing my people and myself.” Joe turned and saw a robed woman covered in dried blood and holding out a hand. Realizing that this must be the captain that he had originally come to heal, Joe shook the outstretched hand and smiled.
“It was the least I could do. You are trying to help such a massive group of people at the same time. I feel a little inadequate only being able to help them once.” Joe’s words caused the Captain to brighten, and Joe got a notification.
Reputation increase: You have reached ‘Friend’ status with the Guild Leader of ‘Golden Greens’. (+3500).
“I’m just glad you came along!” The Captain chuckled. “I wish I had a way to repay you, but we just started this guild and pooled our money to buy a huge farmland.”
“Interesting.” Joe looked at the shrine and back to the guild leader. “Does your guild have any allegiance to an in-game deity? Mine could potentially help you all out quite a bit. Also, I’m Joe.”
“Teddy. Also, not that I know of, though we were thinking about finding a nature-aligned deity. It just makes sense.” She told Joe with a shrug. “I’m a mage, but I’m pretty bad at long-range stuff, so I thought maybe I’d go for plant growth and such.”
“You’re a rogue, and you know it!” One of her guildmates rolled his eyes as he walked past.
“I am not!” Teddy shouted back. Joe noticed a glint of light in her hand and thought that she was casting a spell. Nope. A knife. It vanished a moment later like it had never existed. “Sorry about that.”
“How do you explain all the knife wounds on the creatures you killed on the way here?” the man persisted, ignoring the nasty glare he was getting. “No joke you're bad at long-range ‘magic’, you stab everything to death! Even the things that poisoned you were all stabbed to death, No signs of magic–”
“Alright, you can go now!” Teddy glared at the man until he complied. Joe tried not to laugh; this was way too familiar to him.
“Give me a moment, will you?” Joe walked over to the shrine and started the process of capturing it. There was no noticeable effect until just before it was captured. Then the shrine vanished into motes of light all at once, and a book-style shrine formed out of darkness and water before solidifying. Joe dropped to the ground, nearly wrung out of mana. “Oof. That was pretty. Teddy, could you do me a favor? Try out my deity. You will all find hidden things easier; you might even start plowing and find that your field is full of diamonds. If you don't like the bonuses you get, you can always switch away.”
Teddy looked around at the new shrine, playing with a small knife that vanished into a pocket when she looked at him. “I guess… if they don't have a deity yet… sure. No promises that people will convert, but I’ll do it and lead the charge.”
“Nice!” Joe smiled; then his eyes took on a cunning gleam. “One more second…”
One minute later, the two of them returned to the shrine, ha
ving popped back to Ardania in an instant. Teddy shook Joe’s hand firmly, a wide smile on her face. “Oh, I liked that. Any of us can use that as long as we are a ‘follower’ of Tatum?”
“Absolutely.”
Chapter Nineteen
Joe hummed happily as he walked down the path. One hundred and thirty new converts to his faction. That was how he was thinking of his deity affiliation: a faction. His small team had gone back to Ardania and slept at an inn, getting a good rest and a good if very small portioned and expensive meal. It appeared that rationing had taken effect, and if that wasn't enough to kick this quest into high gear, Joe didn't know what else would.
“A couple more days of travel, and we should be able to find whatever village might be in the forest!” Joe told the others as he looked over the quest information one more time. “The map is out of date, but there has to be someone living in the area still.”
“That forest?” Jaxon pointed into the distance.
Joe looked up and saw trees ahead, but frowned and looked at his crude map. “That can’t be right. The forest shouldn’t start for at least another sixty miles.”
“To be fair, whatever map you have is a couple hundred years out of date, isn't it?” Poppy offered a plausible explanation.
“Not sixty miles of forest out of date!” Joe countered with pure disbelief, slapping the paper in his hands.
“This is a different world, Joe,” Alexis pointed out. “You gotta assume that there are a lot of things going on that wouldn't be happening in our world. If this is a magical forest, I am pretty sure sixty years is plenty of time to take over a huge amount of land.”
“Ugh.” Joe shook his head. “You guys are right. So, yeah, we should get ready to fight at all times now. From what I read; this place is going to be really hard to navigate. If it extends this much further than it used to, especially so.”