[Shrubley, the Monster Adventurer] Chapter 33 – Fantastical Foundations II

And now we're finally all caught up! Hopefully you've enjoyed our little shrub's journey thus far, there is plenty more in store.

The training was grueling and seemed to go on forever. The days blended together. They only took a break to tend to wounds, to eat, or to sleep. And for two out of those three, they used potions to quickly remedy the issue and return to training.

Cal moaned as he lay down in a plain pine coffin. “Why can’t we go out and get more essences?”

The oppa poked his furry muzzle over the lip of the coffin. “You buggers are too weak! Even I could beat ya one on one.”

“Even if I knew exactly where you could find an essence,” the Countess added, “I can’t be responsible for all of you at once. You survived the journey here, but you were lucky, and you had my help. I won’t be able to get you away again like that, not if we go out to where essences are likely to be found.”

She leaned against the wall and folded her arms. “For that, you’ll need to at least be strong enough so I can trust you won’t stab each other by accident.” She motioned to Shrubley and Slyrox. “Your two melee fighters don’t even have weaponry proficiencies yet. Until they do, going outside is functionally suicide. I know you’ve got a secondlife, Cal, but they don’t.”

“Weapon proficiencies?” Slyrox asked, lifting up her mitts to study them. “Huh, my fists are weapons! Chilly-chilly!”

The oppa snickered. “Mistress, they need some proficiency manuals, don’t they?” Sose leapt atop her shoulder.

“If they can gain a weaponry proficiency on their own, then they will have proven they can handle a manual,” the Countess said. “I’m not going to waste manuals on somebody who can’t even master the basics. Besides, it would hinder their progress without any sort of foundation. If idiotic human shepherds can do it, this lot can too.”

The oppa paused, then nodded.

Shrubley did not bother to bring up that the Countess was relying on his band of adventurers to escape the mirror realm and take down the Snake Lord. While they needed all the help they could get, Shrubley already understood the vampyr’s reasoning.

If they weren’t capable enough to pick up proficiencies on their own, then how could they become strong enough to fend off the snakes?

There was another possibility that Shrubley suspected, though he doubted it. It was that there might not be any proficiency manuals at all, and she did not want to admit that openly.

Shrubley was starting to realize how important morale was. There was a sense of camaraderie amongst them all that imparted comfort and normalcy, but their situation remained dire indeed.

Shrubley and his friends were trapped in a realm that mirrored their own world, hiding beneath the dangerous surface to survive and fight another day.

He sighed. It sounded like leaves rustling in the wind.

Shrubley dearly missed daylight and the simplicity of traveling to his next adventure. He had only just begun, and already it had felt like the life he always wanted. The one he was grown for.

Now it had all gone wrong.

On the heels of that melancholic thought came the understanding that this, too, was an adventure. Just a different sort. One he didn’t plan for but was important to do anyway.

This adventure threatened his life, and those he cared for. From Lucky the cat to Sel the elf, all the way to Countess Haalften, Slyrox, Smudge and Cal.

He wasn’t really worried about the oppa. They were practically immortal and indestructible.

The slime grumbled, his whole spherical body quivering like an earthquake. The only one of their number without an essence.

“Are you hungry?” Shrubley asked. “I’ll get you a….”

And then he saw the item floating within Smudge’s jelly. The sustenance bottle began to dissolve.

“Slimes are notorious for their appetites,” Cal pointed out. “But one of those bottles should be more than enough for him.”

The slime’s grumbling evidently disagreed.

“Holding on, what kind of weapon proficiency can Smudge get?” Slyrox asked.

Cal chuckled. “He doesn’t look like much, does he?”

Slyrox put her arms out in surprise. “I didn’t mean that–”

“The thing is, you’d have no idea,” Cal said, getting comfortable in his coffin. “He looks adorable! So of course, you’d think Smudge wouldn’t be tough. And yet, some slimes are just as strong and hardy as those blood-thirsty mimics. That’s a high bar to match.”

“Why haven’t I heard of this before?” the oppa asked suspiciously.

“Because most slimes don’t make it that far,” the Countess explained softly, giving her familiar a gentle pat on the head. “They are immensely curious and adventurous even if they don’t know it, and they tend to come in shades that are easy to spot. Pink is not precisely good camouflage.”

They all had a moment of silence for the fallen, unawakened monsters.

“What exactly is the trick to a slime’s power?” Slyrox asked.

“Slimes can change into anything,” Cal answered. “I’ve seen a slime do it.”

“Anything?” Slyrox asked slowly, eyeing Smudge.

“Anything,” Cal repeated.

There was a faint rattling sound from the coffin, then came the slow hollow wheeze that told them Cal had drifted off to sleep.

“What do skeletons dream of?” Shrubley asked from his little bedroll beside the coffin.

“Milk?” the Countess answered. “Who knows? They are not your typical monsters, since they almost always have to be created.”

“Almost always?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Sometimes a person has a strong enough desire to return to the land of the living that they come back as an undead, no matter what. Most of the time, it’s a combination of desire and errant necromantic energies to fuel the process. Now shut your various talking holes and get some rest.” She patted Sose and closed the door behind her as she left.

Sose looked up at his mistress. “You are very hard on them.”

“They need to learn that just because they’re Awakened monsters, the world isn’t going to treat them any differently than a bloodthirsty beast,” she told him, heels clicking on the polished stone floor as she ventured deeper into the corridors.

“Sooner or later, Sose, they’ll have to kill an adventurer. Not because they want to, but because some fool will think they’re only monsters and won’t think anything of it. How many people in Pandaemonium have had to take refuge just to stay ahead of the people with [Hunt Books]? It’s the only safe place, and even then there are strict rules for entry.”

“We could take them there,” Sose offered.

“If we could get home, maybe. Even then, if they were still Mundane? You know as well as I do that they would be refused. The barriers and protective wardings would kill them. There are rules for a reason.”

Sose licked his paw thoughtfully. “Perhaps we could give them one of my–”

“No.” The Countess laid the word down with the finality of a coffin lid shutting. “Any essences they gain, they have to earn. You know how it is.”

He nodded slowly. “The way of monsters.”

“I don’t take any pleasure in it,” she explained, more for herself than the oppa. “But if they don’t learn this lesson and fast, they’ll find themselves at the end of an adventurer’s sword. Some idiotic backwater farmer who spent all his days tending sheep and tilling fields with bright shiny dreams of getting an essence power and joining up with the Guild. He’d see something that looks like a monster and then that’d be it.”

“But the shrub–”

“He’s the worst one!” the Countess snarled. “He wants to be a Hero. He’s already gotten one of them to join the Adventurers Guild with him! What rank idiocy is that? How can a bush be so convincing?”

“It was just a skeleton.” Sose snickered. “They aren’t exactly known for original thinking.”

“Milk-drunk fools,” she muttered as she reached what appeared to be a dead end. With a quick glance behind her, she reached up to an iron sconce and pulled down.

Sose kept an eye out too.

The wall turned, admitting entry into her inner sanctum. It rotated shut behind her. She looked at the arrays of potions, materials, and equipment. Most of it wasn’t suitable for the monsters, but the koblin might be able to wear some of it if she ever took off that ridiculous suit of hers.

“Think they’ll become strong enough to help us get the manor and its lands back?” Sose asked. He wasn’t worried. The oppa believed she could do anything she put her mind to. So in his mind, the Haalften’s didn’t need that band of misfits.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly, running her fingers over the black edge of a wicked axe. “I’m no teacher, Sose. I studied at the Academy, but even that was long ago. And I’m no longer strong enough to protect them if we run into more serpentii.”

She shook her head. “I have to rely upon my levels more and more each passing day. I doubt I could even work up a Bronze aura at this point. And we haven’t even gone over attributes, levels, or the influence of ranks yet. What they need is real experience, but that is likely to get them killed here.”

“Real experience, eh? I might have an idea for that.” He clenched a paw, and Fantasy essence drifted off his fur like inky paint given life.

Seeing the Fantasy mana swirl like painted reality, a small part of the Countess’ heart yearned in a way she had not felt since she was a young woman.

She climbed inside the opulent oversized coffin and folded her arms over her chest. “Sose.”

“Yes, mistress?”

“Tell me about the Lords of Cruor again, and the Shard you come from.”

The oppa grinned in the way only an oppa can. “It would be a pleasure, my Lady.” As the oppa spoke, the air over the coffin swirled with vibrant paint, depicting two gorgeous creatures against the dark of night. “The Lords of Cruor, the great vampyrs, Lord Havyk and Lady Ruencrad, rule the nightworld of Noctus. Wise as they are strong, they banished the evil light dwellers and covered their world in a comforting blanket of darkness so that all may thrive….”