A Soldier's Life - 154 -

Chapter 154

I helped Maveith with preparing the bear after harvesting its essence.  It was a major essence for the fire affinity, a downgrade from the apex fire essence I got from the first fire bear.  He was meticulous in his harvest, not wanting to waste anything.  He must have asked me every five minutes if my dimensional space could hold everything.  After scrapping the pelt, he did his best to stretch it on an apple tree.  As soon as the steaks were cut, I sent them to my dimensional space to preserve them.

“We should only spend half a day harvesting the bear before leaving the room,” I said after a few hours. 

Maveith considered and nodded, “If the shapeshifters did not reappear after half a day, then I think that is wise.  Where are we going from here?”

“The vine room, I think.  It seems the safest option to explore,” I revealed my thoughts, and Maveith nodded.

As we processed the bear, we were getting three weeks’ worth of meat from this one kill.  But I decided Maveith could have the organs when we cooked.  I never got used to the chewiness of heart muscle, the richness of liver, and the off-taste of kidneys.  When I dropped the bear head from my dimensional space, Maveith was excited to crack it and harvest the brain.  Maybe if I was still starving, I would try it, but with all the steaks, it was a hard pass for me. 

We collected the apples as well, maybe 200 hundred, before leaving.  We were both munching on apples as we walked out of the room.  Between bites, I told Maveith, “There was a healing potion in the reward chest.  But I am not planning to use it on the griffin rider just yet.  If you are injured again, I would rather have it for you.”

Maveith ate his apple, core and all, “I will try not to get injured again then.”  I just chuckled at his logic.

“Maybe there will be another healing potion next time we harvest the fire bear.  The loot chest was exactly the same as the first time,” I said as we approached the vine room.

The room looked the same.  Three alcoves were covered in thick vines with bright red flowers with yellow veins.  No signs of an exit.  “I will go in and retreat if needed.  Stay here.”

I stepped into the room and was slightly upset nothing happened.  A second step, and I noticed a fragrant scent in the room, probably coming from the flowers.  I took another step into the room, eying the vines, and prepared with an air shield.

My breathing became slightly strained after a minute, and I sent my healing aether to my lungs, planning to run.  I didn’t detect any damage to them.  Then, my eyelids started to feel heavy.  I stumbled backward, slightly unsteady on my feet.  All I wanted to do was lie down and fall asleep.  I stumbled into Maveith in the corridor, and he supported me, worry on his face, “What is wrong, Eryk?”  He shook me a little, my armor rattling from the force, “Where is the healing potion?”  He was getting panicky, but my mind was foggy, and I closed my eyes to sleep.

Water was splashing on my face, and I woke up sputtering.  A relieved Maveith stood over me.  “I was praying to Pluto for you, Eryk.  You were unconscious for almost an hour.”

I shook my head, my thoughts quickly clearing, “I think the pollen from the red flowers puts you to sleep.”  I checked my body, “I am not injured, and I am breathing fine.” 

I sat up, and it looked like Maveith had dragged me about fifty feet from the entrance.  My eyes had to give a double take at what I saw.  The vines from the vine room were twenty feet down the corridor, covering every wall.

Maveith answered, “They do not move fast, but after you left, the vines stirred and followed you out of the room.  I thought creatures could not leave the rooms?”  Maveith sounded uncomfortable.

I hypothesized a guess, “I think the dungeon lets the creatures pursue us once we enter a room.  It is the only thing that makes sense.”  I reconsidered, “Maybe just plants can leave rooms. I don’t know.” I remembered that when I released the goblin, the bear did not pursue it down the corridor it fled into.  I was frustrated with not knowing the dungeon rules.  Then again, maybe each dungeon had different rules.

“The vines are slowly retreating,” Maveith noted, and I focused on them.  It was hard to discern movement with the flowing, hypnotic lights on the floor and ceiling, but I think he was correct. 

I told Maveith what I learned from the room, “The room had a sickly-sweet scent.  I think from the flower pollen.  My lungs burned for a moment, and then I got really sleepy and couldn’t help falling asleep.”

Maveith’s deep voice intoned, “A really vile trap.  The vines probably pull you into an alcove to digest your corpse.  I heard of such plants in the jungles on the southern part of the continent.”

I nodded, standing, and thought I had a bestiary in my book collection in my dreamscape.  Most were elven scripts that would take me days to translate.  Tsinga had some jungles, and I remember paging through the local threats in case someone questioned me. I had skimmed over the flora and didn’t recall these particular vines.  Next time I was in the dreamscape, I would try to find out what the vines were.

I gave Maveith the bad news, “It looks like our only option is the room with the cockatrices.”

Maveith’s large body recoiled when I said it. We had not explored only three rooms: the gold statue room with the black oozes, the dark room that the shapeshifters said we needed a mining pick for, and the massive cockatrice room with the waterfall.

“Eryk, I don’t know,” Maveith hedged, still fearful of the oversized chickens.

“I will come up with a plan.  For now, let’s sit outside the bear room and watch it until the fire bear respawns.  I want to see it with my own eyes,” I informed Maveith.  He nodded happily with delaying our trip to the cockatrice chamber.

We started to prepare a big meal, cooking in the corridor with one of us watching the den entrance.  While Maveith was on watch, I told slipped into the dreamscape and quickly located an entry for the vines in the Tsinga book.

The sleeper vine is easily spotted from a distance by its bright flowers with veins of white or yellow.  The flowers will give off a sickly-sweet scent that will lull the unsuspecting creature to sleep for up to three hours.  Once the creature falls asleep, the vines will drag the creature into its maw and restrain it with layers of vines.  Thick thorns will piece the flesh and inject a digestive acid.

When the prey wakes, they have awareness but feel no pain as their body is metabolized over the course of two days.

Repeated exposure to the pollen of the sleeper vine will allow one to build up immunity.  The beast tribes of Kwainongkwa expose their children to the flowers early so they can resist the effects.

There are numerous alchemical uses for the flower and the plants’ small amount of nectar and pollen.  See Gundry’s Alchemical Plants of the Kingdom of Keisinia for more information.

I didn’t have that reference book, but at least I had good news for Maveith on exiting the dreamscape.  Maveith was still watching the earthen mound’s entrance.  “Maveith, good news.  We can build up an immunity to the effects of the red vine flowers with repeated exposure.”

Maveith was chewing on a bear kidney he had just fried, his eyes focused on the entrance, “We should do that instead of trying to kill the cockatrices.”

“But one mistake and I will be plant food,” I noted.

“Don’t you trust me to pull you to safety?”  Maveith’s deep voice sounded hurt.

“Are you really trying to guilt trip me right now?”  I countered. 

“Guilt? Trip?” Maveith went into contemplation mode to puzzle out my colloquialism. “I am sorry, Eryk. I do not understand,”  He finally said, giving up. 

“It doesn’t matter.  I will be the bait as I am accustomed to it. But right now, the fire bear is back,” I noted, pointing and standing.

Maveith’s eyes flashed to the den.  “A day, give or take an hour,” the goliath stated confidently.

“Hopefully, every room is the same, so we can prepare,” I said, watching the bear exit and shake its coat.  The fur rippled like flame, and I judged the bear to be the same size as the one we had killed a day ago.  “Well, big guy, it looks like we are going to be eating a lot of bear meat.”

I stepped into the room, and the bear locked its focus on me.  I casually walked up to it, and it seemed more curious in me than ready to fight.  Its eyes started to go fiery red, but those eyes were suddenly in my dimensional space.  A giddy Maveith rushed into the room, “I could eat this bear meat every day.  I still don’t understand your aversion to the kidneys. These are the tastiest I have ever eaten.”

Maveith attacked the bear with his skinning knife while I went and shattered the stone reward box. I had focused on the earthen mound, and this box just appeared in the blink of an eye.  Maybe it was teleported by the dungeon with displacement magic.  Maveith was not concerned with the chest, as his prize was the bear.

Sifting through the debris, I gathered up the silver coins and the two potions, one healing and one aether recovery.  I was pleased the loot had remained the same.  I turned the aether recovery potion in my hand.  It was valuable, but I now had three of them.  I broke the seal and drained it.  Not because I needed to, but so I would know what to expect when I used one in combat. 

The feeling was akin to drinking a hot beverage rapidly.  The heat branched out from my stomach through my limbs and kept going.  I realized the potion contained more aether than my core could contain and bled away from my body into the environment once my core was full.  It was wasted on someone with a small core like mine.  On the bright side, it could quickly recharge my dimensional ability.  I spent some time making one of the potions easily accessible under my armor. 

I then harvested another major fire essence from the bear.  Maveith watched in fascination as the collector worked, and I snatched the essence before it rolled to the ground.  However, when I offered it to Maveith, he was only interested in the essence of quickness. 

The apples were back as well, and I decided to pick them and let Maveith have all the fun processing the boar.  I still had dried blood under my fingernails and in every crevasse of my armor.  I felt very unsanitary and smelled worse.  The waterfall pond in the cockatrice chamber was looking very appealing to me at the moment.  With our luck, there was probably a fifty-foot gator hiding in the water that fed on the cockatrices.

“I think there are fewer apples this time around,” I noted to Maveith after I finished.  I laid them all out on my tent tarp, and the pile seemed smaller.  “I am going to count and compare.”  Partly, I was curious, and also, I wouldn’t have to help with the fire bear.

Maveith was engrossed in his work and waved me to do the task.  I found that I was right,  214 last time, and now I have just 178.   Were the apples growing back slower?  Or maybe the dungeon was not happy with me and how I was killing its creatures.  We spent half a day in the room before returning to the vine room. 

The vines had completely retreated back inside the room, and the corridor was clear.  “Do you have any rope?”  Maveith asked.

“No, why would I have rope?”  I said, confused.

“You seem to have many things hidden in your space.  Rope would have been a smart thing to have,” Maveith said matter-of-factly.  “We could have used it to tie around your waste, and I could pull you to safety.”

“Well, I don’t have any rope,” I said tersely, as rope WOULD have been a good idea—then again, almost everything in my space had been liberated from Legion Halls in various cities.

I schooled up some courage and entered the vine room again.  I inhaled the sweet scent and backed out of the room.  I made it about ten feet before blacking out.  Waking, Maveith was standing over me.  “Eryk, you were only sleeping for half an hour this time!”  I gave him a thumbs-up, but as I sat up, my head spun, and I vomited. 

I was having the worst hangover of my life.  I washed out my mouth with water from a canteen.  “I think I need more time between being exposed to the flowers, Maveith.”  It was a good half an hour before I felt right again, and the vines took another hour to retreat back into the room from the corridor.  I still could have fought, but it would have been unpleasant.

My next foray into the room had me taking about eight minutes to recover under Maveith’s watch, and the hangover was still prevalent but not any worse.  On every trip after into the room, the time decreased for how long I was forced to sleep.

I lost track of how many times I was exposed to the flowers, but finally, I was able to inhale the sickly sweet scent and only feel slightly drowsy.  It was time to try and clear the vines.