[Shrubley, the Monster Adventurer] Chapter 113 – Where the Monsters Roam

During Shrubley’s travels, he opened his [Verdant Inventory] and checked over his planted spare weapons in his enchanting pots.

“I don’t quite have it right yet,” he said, musing aloud.

As he turned around a pot, a polearm planted in a pot shifted, then fell out of the soil. For some reason, the growing process hadn’t fully taken hold.

Frowning, he picked up the Mundane Ranked polearm, inspecting its rarity. He shook his leafy head. The item hadn’t changed much in condition, which wasn’t to his liking.

Perhaps he would just have to wait longer.

Shrubley diligently checked the other pots. Those planted weapons were doing considerably better. The soil retained much of its mana, whereas the pot that failed was almost entirely dried up.

He carefully replanted the polearm, then set the enchanting pots back into his inventory to continue growing.

I need to figure this kind of Enchanting out so I can improve my [Death’s Razor]. My chosen weapon deserves to be just as strong as me! Shrubley thought.

He could have resorted to using the Count’s weaponry, but Shrubley was holding onto it until the vampyr returned to retrieve his things. It seemed like the right thing to do.

“Shrubley, you do realize he was attempting to duel you, right?” Miranda said.

“He… was?” Shrubley didn’t know what to think. That certainly wasn’t what it looked like at the time to him.

“Yes,” she said, putting a large hand over her face. For some reason that eluded Shrubley, she did not elaborate further. “So by dueling rights, they are yours.”

“They are gifts?” he asked.

“No–wait–yes, Shrubley. They are gifts. He wanted you to have them, but it’s a game, you see? He will act as if he did not give them, even claim you are stealing, but it’s just a game. He is playing. Do you understand?”

Sose nodded quickly, backing up Miranda’s claim. If Shrubley could not trust an oppa, then there was something very wrong with the world.

Shrubley looked up at the bright sun in the sky as they climbed up into the foothills surrounding the western reaches of the mountains. He would miss the misty mornings in the valley around Talvar. “Like… the children I saw playing in Taamra? They were playing Monsters and Mercenaries, fighting each other and dropping down pretending to be dead, then getting up and switching sides!”

Miranda tried to wrap her head around that. “Yeeees. It’s a game he wants to play with you. Where he’ll challenge you to a duel and fight you to the ‘death’ as you say, then whoever loses gets to keep the spoils of the fight. Anything left behind isn’t actually lost. They are leaving it as a gift.”

“Ah, that sounds like fun!” Shrubley said. He wasn’t used to being included in games, so this was an interesting change for him. “I hope we’ll be able to have a proper match soon.”

Miranda had no idea how this was working, but she didn’t bother to question it any further. Shrubley had to learn to defend himself, and if her fool of a husband was going to persist in these silly little attacks, then she was going to make sure Shrubley was prepared for them.

Even if that meant lying to him and making the little shrub think he was playing a game.

It wasn’t like he could actually kill her Count. As a vampyr, he was immortal. Even if Shrubley did manage to kill an Iron Ranker as a Bronze–a very impressive feat that was beyond even Shrubley’s prodigious talents–a droplet of blood would reconstitute him again.

Death was nothing more than a mild inconvenience for vampyrs.

But there are some things worse than death, she reminded herself. Some people were too cunning and cruel by half. There were ways to immobilize a vampyr for long enough that it would feel like an eternity.

Not that Miranda would ever speak such horrors aloud.

“I shall like to play this game!” Shrubley announced. He struck a fighter’s pose, hopping around on his wooden feet in a circle as if he expected to be attacked right then and there.

“He’ll wait until nightfall,” Miranda told him. “It’s, uh… one of the rules of the game. No attacking except at night. And if possible, he’ll try to do it while you are alone.”

“He didn’t last time,” Sose pointed out quietly. “What was he thinking?”

“When does he ever think?” Miranda mumbled. She hoped he didn’t forget to bring his vial of blood with him. She gently touched the crystal vial she kept on a chain around her neck and nestled between her breasts.

If she ever was turned to ash, the vial would drop and shatter, instantly revitalizing her.

The few vampyr hunters she faced in her life were never prepared for that. It always did her cold, dead heart good to see the shock on their faces before she buried her teeth into their necks.

Ah, good times.

Unfortunately, with the way the Empire was civilizing, there were far less vampyr hunters these days. It wasn’t as if she looked forward to them, but sometimes she could see why it might be fun to stir up old rivalries.

It wasn’t as if she actually lost anything. More battling meant higher ranks and more levels for the survivors. To a monster, that wasn’t such a bad thing, but as an Awakened, she craved more than her base instincts.

Being an Awakened was knowing the difference between sustaining yourself on food and water but nothing else, versus living an actual life. Reading, learning, forming bonds and friendship, seeing the land grow and become tamed by your own hands.

Creating something worthwhile.

Monsters knew nothing of that.

The one time that blood vial failed, Sose fiercely guarded hundreds of backups in his inventory. Most vampyrs were not so fortunate to have an unwaveringly loyal soul aeder as their familiar, and one who was attuned to the dark no less.

He also liked to bite people and collect their blood. All oppas were tiny little thieves, but hers stole blood.

It was a small amount, only a drop or two, but that was all she would need in times of emergency.

“Countess?” Shrubley asked, marching along and looking at every shadowy nook in the path as if checking to make sure an ambush wasn’t going to come out of there. “What will happen to Pandaemonium if another war between monsters and the core races breaks out?”

Miranda nearly missed a step. She glanced at him. He knew enough to be dangerous now that she had gifted him the knowledge of the Dungeon Dimension and where monsters originated from, but she realized she had been rather lax about Pandaemonium.

In truth, she wanted him to see its glorious majesty firsthand.

“There are many things I would like to say,” Miranda said. She tugged her dark silk hood up a little more to keep the beating sun off her skin. While she wouldn’t burn like her husband, the sensation was unpleasant and further sapped her strength. “I would like to say that the monsters would win. That we are legion and would trample the pathetic core races into the ground.”

Konko tried very hard not to look anywhere but at her own two ratty, mismatched boots. She didn’t feel right wearing the ones the Countess gave her, and with the woman talking like she was, Konko was ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

It was hard to remember at times that Countess Haalften was a monster.

Just for fun, Miranda put a hand on Konko’s shoulder.

The girl screeched and jumped nearly a foot vertically before she mastered herself again.

“That being said,” Miranda continued as if nothing had happened, “the Empire is powerful and Pandaemonium is near its seat of power. Even if the Empire were defeated–and I am not sure it could be without significant loss of life–there are the other nations to contend with. A united world might very well wipe out all monsterkind.”

“That… is very bad,” Shrubley concluded. “I am not a bad monster.”

“No, Shrubley, you are not.” Miranda took her hand from Konko’s shoulder and gestured grandly at the mountains and then back toward the valley. Somewhere in the distant blue haze was Talvar. “And therein lies the problem. They will only destroy the Awakened monsters.”

“But why would they do that?” Konko asked. “You are the only ones who can be reasoned with. The only ones who make sense. Normal monsters are just rabid beasts, conglomerations of mana and random chance. A typical monster is no more alive than a storm is.”

“Partly right,” Miranda said. “However, a storm never possesses the power to become truly alive. Therein lies the major difference.” She sighed. “The truth is that I do not know what would happen, Shrubley. I think a war between the two factions would be devastating for the Shard itself. It would not be able to handle so much death and devastation at once. Something worse would happen. Something I cannot yet fathom.”

“Then… we must make sure the Dungeons like Dungeonley are kept safe,” he reasoned.

Miranda wanted to say more, but she didn’t know how much she trusted Konko and besides, she had no concrete evidence that somebody–or some thing–was behind it.

“What will you name the next Dungeon?” Sose asked Shrubley, already suspecting the answer.

“That is up to the Dungeon,” Shrubley told him. “I do not make the names. I am merely a conduit.”

The oppa stared. “Are ya messing with me?”

Cal looked sidelong at his friend suspiciously.

Slyrox giggled into her mitt while Smudge snored gently atop Shrubley’s head. A large snot bubble inflating and threatening to burst with each exhalation.

“Oh, the color’s changing, Countess!” Konko said, holding up the potion she had brewed the night before under the Countess’ keen and often disapproving eye.

Miranda leaned over the young woman.

Inside the vial were swirling motes of scintillating material that were remarkably sensitive to mana fluctuations. The color of the liquid shifted to a faint blue-green and the swirl of shining motes flowed in one direction. To the south.

“I suppose we’re not going to be going over the mountains today,” Miranda told them. “All right, Konko. Let us know if it changes again.”

“You don’t want me to lead?” she asked, confused.

Miranda laughed. “And have you eaten by the first monster that jumps out while you’re distracted? No. You can see the potion change hue or direction from the middle of the group just as well as from the front.”

Despite herself, Konko blushed. She had not expected the Countess to value her life and truly keep her protected.

The woman had been true to her word, which had surprised Konko despite growing up on stories of how fair but tough the Haalften woman was.

It was not every day a human girl learned how honorable a vampyr could be.

The rest of the day was spent ranging up and down the foothills surrounding the Oulstand Mountains. Konko directed them as best she could, often assisted by the Countess.

Every so often, Smudge pointed out patches of alchemical herbs that Shrubley, Cal, and Slyrox harvested. Beneath an errant hill, Cal was even lucky enough to find an outcropping of gold ore. It wasn’t much, but even with the tools Cal had at his disposal, harvesting quickly was out of the question.

That was until Smudge used his Hunger essence to swallow up the gold ore for the skeleton to use later. He used his Stone essence to slowly eat away at anything that was not metal.

It was slow going, not only because they weren’t sure how far away the Dungeon was, but because the closer they came to the base of the Oulstand Mountains, the more difficult the terrain became.

They arrived at a cleft in the foothills, a massive rent that split the stone and earth without a bridge in sight.

Miranda’s group was still mostly Mundane Rank. Only Shrubley had managed to attain a proper rank. Smudge, while technically eligible for Copper, was still Mundane just like the others.

By her reckoning, even Shrubley would struggle with such a distance. She would have to ferry them over one by one. It would have to wait until night fell and her powers came back in full.

“Oh!” Shrubley said as the sun fell below the Oulstand Mountain peaks to their right. “My compass!”

Cal looked over excitedly at the smooth dial that had a very clear glowing needle pointing and quivering. The [Guidance Stone Compass] was pointing directly down into the ravine while Konko’s concoction was directing them across.

A choice had to be made.