Chapter 55

Seymour was another medium-sized town.

“This place has had it relatively easy,” Kiyoko told them as they approached its outskirts. “Excluding Adhava, not as clean as Albury, but similar. Nothing nasty spawned locally. The echidna defends the south and then slimes are to their north and east, preventing any creatures coming from those directions. Basically, they’ve only had to defend against migratory monsters from a narrow stretch due east and a wider area to the west. Nothing major has come from either direction.”

“Weak then,” Mike said.

“Yep,” the oracle agreed grimly. “But they’ll be happy to see travellers because they’ve been a bit isolated.”

A herb in the directions of the mountains pinged at the edge of his range. Mid-expert, it was definitely worth getting. If it was this close to the town, the gatherers in Seymour were incredibly lazy or too low level to gather the stuff he wanted. Adrian figured it was the second. “Hey guys, do you think I can go scavenging? There’s a powerful herb.” He pointed.

Jules looked at him suspiciously. “Every time. Is greeting people that hard?”

Joanne and Omala were smirking.

“No.”

“Every time, Adrian.”

He held up his hand in mock surrender. “This is because an expert herb pinged. Yes, I don’t like the whole awkward stranger standoff that happens at the gates. But I can do it. I’m not avoiding it,” he finished defensively.

“Boy, just go?” Kiyoko waved her hand dismissively.

“You’re a coward, Adrian,” Jules yelled after him. “Run away, run away.”

Adrian stepped and went into gathering mode. Kiyoko’s assessment of the area near the town was accurate, there was nothing threatening. From what his herb sense was telling him Seymour also lacked any high-level gatherers.

As he moved, he kept an eye out for anything that might be dangerous. There were signs of some sort of large monster. Its claw marks were as long as his forearm but did not dig in deeply, giving the impression that it was light for its size. Some form of bird, possibly. The tracks were also old, and he didn’t see any imprints more recent than a month ago. Either it had been killed or driven off.

He drifted right up to the edge of the echidna range but did not enter it. The ground was different with the soil looking nothing like anything he had ever seen. It was a spongy purple substance and blue, purple grass grew on the other side of the territory line. The grass hummed with life energy. Each strand was technically advanced rated but only barely. The magic concentration did not tempt him, but the abundance was impressive.

Adrian stopped and studied the dividing line more carefully. None of the blue grass had been even nibbled and his identification did not show it as poisonous. In fact, it was the opposite. The grass was beneficial to most herbivores or omnivores. Everything should have been lining up to eat it. Yet there were no signs of animal tracks anywhere near the boundary.

Interesting.

He knelt and studied the alien grass and then the earth grass right next to it. The blue grass was completely pristine, but the green stalks had insects amongst them. A cursory examination showed spider, aphids and even snails judging from how one particular blade had been eaten.

Why?

It had to be the echidna.

Did it really defend its grass from even beetles? Nope, that made no sense. It had to be some sort of magical barrier. He waved his hand across the border and felt nothing.

Magic focus also drew a blank. If he started harvesting the grass would the echidna come? If it came, would it stay in its territory? Or would it follow him? Regional knowledge did not respond to any of his questions. There were too many unknowns, and the last thing he would want to do was to have an echidna, which scared the oracle, decide to chase him because he had been impulsively stupid.

Adrian stood once more. His mind puzzling over the enigma of the two different landscapes situated right next to each other.

He checked the time. It was a little before midnight and he knew it was time to head back. This mystery would have to wait till the morning. Now he had to find his friends.

Kiyoko!

She was almost certainly planning on meeting him dramatically at the gate. Just for fun at the last minute, he engaged battle wraith and chained his steps together to approach Seymour from the opposite direction.

Wind gusts let him fly effortlessly over the wall. When he landed, he sensed Kiyoko on her horse watching him .

“Did you really think that would work?”

The horse was puffing.

Adrian smiled. “It worked better than I expected.”

She harrumphed, spun her horse around and took off at a gallop. “Keep up.” He heard her yell. With no choice he re-engaged battle wraith, chaining steps once more to keep up with the horse. It moved so fast that he could only just manage it.

It explained how she had met him. The animal was damn quick.

Abruptly, Kiyoko and her mount came to a stop. “I can’t believe you kept me up this late,” she muttered as she slid off the animal. “Don’t you know that an old woman needs her sleep.”

A kid who was below thirteen, so did not have a class, came out of what looked like a makeshift stable to grab the horse. He was awake and ready to take the horse, which told Adrian that Kiyoko had probably been waiting here for him to return.

The tween gave him grumpy looks, and Adrian realised that returning so late had kept more than Kiyoko awake

Kiyoko dusted down her clothes. “Here.” She waved at a building labelled comfort inn. The previous standard automatically opening glass doors and floor to roof windows next to them had been replaced with wooden boards. To replace the sliding doors, an impressive solidly crafted, polished door had been installed. It was large and looked heavy. It added a sense of strength and stability to the building, though the wide glass windows in the rest of the structure meant it would be a long while before it could stand against any sort of attack.

The door swung open silently and on well-balanced hinges based on how easily. A prim and properly dressed lady in her fifties stepped out.

Level 13 Hotelier

This class specialises in running multiple establishments. They have skills to fill most roles in their businesses.

Adrian looked further and smiled. She would not get the boost that the innkeeper would have because she was more generalist than Tubs, but just serving him would get her a massive increase in agility.

“Welcome to the comfort inn, sir. If you follow me, I can show you to your room. Everything’s been prepared.”

Without any further conversation, she led him straight to the second floor. The room he was assigned was nothing special, but there was a plate of food set up on the table. A dinner plate with beef wellington and vegetables on it. The meal steamed, which told him it had just been cooked. Advanced preparation thanks to Kiyoko, once again.

There was also a second plate encased by an aluminium cover, which he assumed was dessert, and then along the edge table, leaning up against the wall, a selection of drinks: beer, sparkling wine, shiraz, and five different trader bottles, including his favourite sleep shortening liquor and even a sleep potion.

“Dinner, dessert, drinks, and the bathroom has plumbing. If you need anything, pull on this rope.” She indicated a little handle with a string that went up and outside via a dedicated hole in the wall. “It’s a little primitive, but effective. Then someone will come and give you what you desire. We’re full service. You want something we can get it.”

“This is perfect.” Before he finished, the door was already shutting as she thankfully read his mood and gave him his space.

Adrian was too preoccupied for company. That echidna barrier was curious. Happily, he ate his meal and drank some beer. The meat was perfect, and he ignored the alien drinks sticking to the beer. Afterwards, he had a quick shower. The water temperature was good, but there was no pressure. After the luxury of the training facility, it was a bit of a letdown. He wondered if there was such a thing as a pump to give themselves pressurised showers. A problem for another day.

It had been a long day. Starting with the slimes and then hours of gathering. With a sigh, he collapsed on the bed. It was a little soft, but as beds went, it was passable.

He woke up smiling. The dream had been surreal. Emily had been in it and they were both flying, and then they ended up chatting to a dragon about the best type of fertiliser for roses.

The room was dark, so he rolled over to his other side and went back to sleep. He woke once more and could hear talking. He groaned, sort of wishing he could sleep longer. There was a loud bang downstairs and reluctantly he pushed, rolled out of bed. While it was available, he had another quick shower, brushed his teeth and then, by wearing his Ambusher’s Set and then magicking it off, dressed instantly in casual clothes.

The hotelier lady met him downstairs with a meal of eggs and bacon and coffee. “Coffee? It’s real,” she promised.

“Yes.”

She blurred away and by the time he sat at the offered table she was placing down a freshly brewed cup.

He took a sip. “God, I missed that.” Adrian looked around and then frowned. He was the only one in the dining area. “What time is it?”

“Just after ten.”

“Wow, I slept in. Where are the others?”

“I was told to tell you there’s no rush.” She smiled and walked over to where she had set up a makeshift office. Several exercise books were there, and she was going through numbers.

Her class was focused on running multiple places and she had progressed it to level thirteen. Non-combat classes could kill things to level up, but they could also do it via using their class skills. She did not like someone who had gone out and killed things. “How many businesses?”

“Seven, four swap meets.” She caught his perplexed expression. “Stores that buy and sell. They’re there to bring hunters and crafters together. While energy is the base currency, we also do a fair bit of bartering. Then there is this place and two rougher pubs for the hunters.”

“That sounds like a lot of work.”

She shrugged. “Better than doing nothing.”

“That’s true.” Adrian focused on his food and a short time later took the last sip of coffee. “That was great. What now?”

“Oh, they’re out of town and you need to get there in,” she consulted her internal clock, “oh, look at that, you have six minutes.”

“What?”

The hotelier smiled. “She said if you keep her waiting then she’s leaving.”

“What? You couldn’t tell me earlier?”

“I had strict orders to wait till you finished your coffee.”

With a curse, Adrian sprinted out of the door.

Air or Shadow?

With a shrug, wind gusts picked him up, and he hurtled just above the houses. Above human towns, he was a lot less likely to attract the ire of anything dangerous. He had seen the descriptions of numerous monsters and a lot of them actively avoided sapients. What was safe here would not be elsewhere.

Travelling at three hundred plus kilometres per hour it only took him a little over a minute to get out of the town. He landed at a run. His map updated with the coordinates that he needed to reach. They were a couple of kilometres out of town.

Battle wraith closed around him and then he sprinted forward, with literally every stride becoming a shadow step that crossed fifteen metres. He pulled up right at the destination shown on his map. Kiyoko was there, but everyone else was fifty metres away.

The oracle smiled at him. “Did you enjoy your run?”

“That was mean.”

“Bah, I know you. You had fun.”

“Maybe.”

“You have these skills you need to let them loose. They’re fun.”

They were right next to the echidna territory. His heart beat faster despite himself. Just standing nearby, he could feel the threat from the grass. It was palpable. Maybe this was why nothing touched the grass.

“I was here last night,” he told her. “The area felt unwelcoming, but now it feels forbidding. Has anything changed?”

Kiyoko still on top of her horse studied the dividing line. “You’re very perceptive. The grass is networked. What’s changed is that the echidna is awake. That dark, bloody, dangerous feel you’re getting is the echidna’s intent. This area is its and anything that goes near it will be destroyed.”

“Aura project? I didn’t realise that was possible, let alone on this scale.”

“With the right tools,” Kiyoko nodded at the grass. “Lots of stuff is possible. As for this. An environment from another planet has been transferred on top of ours. It’s a premium territory, probably more valuable than a grandmaster-level plant.”

“What?”

Kiyoko ignored him. “Though I’m not sure how an animal from our planet ended up in charge. Maybe the previous controlling monster got displaced during the transference. Possibly it never made it to Earth and is raging in fury on its home planet or it got dropped elsewhere on Earth.” She shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter. The echidna’s in charge now, and if we’re getting you through that’s what we need to deal with.” She dropped her head, her eyes distant. “And we need to get you, though.”

Adrian knew she wasn’t talking to him anymore. He remembered that deadly fungus she had made him harvest and keep. Made him promise to keep hold of it for at least a month before destroying it. Kiyoko had not stated it explicitly, but he knew that to Kiyoko, getting that fungus to Melbourne was important. Was she doing this for him or for that purpose? Adrian did not know, and like with Jaracol what was best for him could also align with the events’ wider needs.

In his domain, he felt the others approaching.

Kiyoko did not turn around or acknowledge them. “Thank you, everyone, for coming. Today’s aim is to scout the enemy. We need to get eyes on the echidna.”

There were two unexpected presences in the group behind them. Adrian turned to face them.

The first was a tall man with white eyes.

Magus Videre

This is a class awarded to someone who has been blind since birth and gives them the ability to observe magic at a more fundamental level than most.

The second was a fat man of about forty. He was clean shaven and looked like one of the older computer nerds who had never held a professional job.

Examiner

An examiner is a critical role in any militarised group and has skills to see unique aspects of everything observed.

While Kiyoko had got them to come here was clear. If you wanted to learn more about a mysterious enemy, it made sense to bring people along with perception-based skills.

“Understand the echidna to better assess how to fight or avoid it effectively.” Kiyoko continued after a long, thoughtful pause, “My instincts are warning me that this won’t be simple. So, we’ve got the best. Adrian, Derek and Tommy.”

“Is all this necessary?” Jules asked.

Kiyoko shook her head at the question. “Of course it is. If it wasn’t I wouldn’t be doing it. We know it is an echidna that uses nature magic. Plants, to be exact, and what else can it do? We can guess by the size of its territory that it is at least at the top of class 3 and potentially class two. Hell, it could be a class one for all we know?”

“What?” Adrian exclaimed in surprise before he could help himself.

“We don’t know,” Kiyoko said, turning to face him. “Native animals are hard to classify, and that’s why we are here. We can’t fight a class two.”

“I thought it was a confirmed class three?”

Kiyoko shook her head. “No such luck. But we’ll find out. We lure it to us and then try to kill it. If it’s too powerful, then we do a staged retreat and come up with a better plan.”

“How are we fighting it?” Adrian asked for all of them.

“Charlotte is going to lure it here by killing the grass with life steal. It will not appreciate that. Then Charlotte tanks while the rest of us burn it down. Mike, Derek and Tommy.” She pointed at a small hill in the distance. “You want to set up there.”

Mike grimaced in annoyance, but did exactly what Kiyoko had ordered. The oracle waited until they were about halfway to the hill before nodding towards Charlotte to attract the beast’s attention.

Charlotte swung the blade, shearing through a single blade of glass. Then her hands went crazy with Magic Focus. He could see the connections between Charlotte and grass form. She kept swinging, adding more and more of the links.

Then the entire patch stretching out ten metres changed colours. The grass had comprised purple stems and blue leaf matter, but the blue faded to yellow and the purple to pink.

“It’s all dying,” Charlotte said in surprise. “I can feel the life energy being drained into me.”

“Keep going, dear.”

She cut some more blades of grass, adding another round of life drain to the battle. Large sections of the grass had finished transforming and were a sickly orange colour, stretching out almost fifteen metres and spreading. When he looked at them, there was no life left.

“Good,” Kiyoko said. “You can stop. Let’s back up and give it an opportunity to respond.”

They waited in silence. Charlotte was ten metres in front of them, as far away as she could while maintaining the link to her grass killing. The dead patch kept expanding till it was almost a hundred metres wide. The dying process stopped, and the echidna did not emerge.

Curiously, Adrian got closer. Previously, the line had been green grass parallel the blue, purple stuff. Now that the alien grass was dead you could see the transition between earth and the alien territory. It was a stark line. A complete change in soil, brown to purple and there was no mixing between the two of them.

“Let’s try over there,” Kiyoko said, pointing to the closest point where the vibrant purple, blue grass butted up against earth’s green. “We’ve stung it, let’s see how many more stings we need to get a response.”

They all moved to the new spot, and Charlotte walked forward to be on the divide.

“Do you want me to change anything?”

“Same as last time, dear. Maybe an extra ten percent mana.”

Charlotte nodded and went to work. Once more she sliced individual blades of grass but the physical damage was small. It was the cascade of the life stealing magic in a growing half circle from her that was significant. The death radiated outwards, first colour changes and then an absence of life.

It was all linked after this death wave finished propagating. There would be hundreds of metres of land cleared.

They waited.

There was no response.

“Maybe it doesn’t care and we can just sneak through,” Adrian suggested.

Kiyoko glowered scathingly at him and then pointed further along the boundary. This time they had to walk about eighty metres to get to a spot where the grass was still alive. The dead patches Charlotte had created were significant. Kiyoko kept them walking another thirty metres till the grass was a healthy blue and purple.

“Again.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Charlotte said.

Adrian agreed completely with her. The sense of foreboding from the grass had only grown. It felt like it was a monster about to lunge and eat them for a pre-dinner snack.

“I agree,” he said before he could help himself.

Kiyoko snarled at him from on top of her horse. “If there was a risk-free way, I would take it. Go ahead, dear.”

Charlotte took a deep breath and her axes started flashing. After a temporary pause, the wave of death and sickness radiated out once more.

“That will do.” Kiyoko’s voice was tight and unlike the other times her horse seemed to move itself so that it was at the back of all of them. Putting them between her and where the echidna was going to emerge.

He felt a ripple in his awareness.

The tenor of the grass had changed.

It was active, it was angry, and it was coming fast.

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