Neil

Looking at the buildings I was relatively certain that whatever I was looking for wouldn’t be here. Jax had said whatever it was had been found it “deep underground” that meant down the elevator to wherever they had been mining.

Afterall If you find something dangerous you don’t bring it into the middle of a residential area to study it, not unless you were comically evil and incompetent.

Looking at my watch again I had about three hours of night eye potion left. When I explored the lowest areas I wanted to use a full potion to make sure I had as much time as possible, so I might as well use the remainder of this potion to search this city. Maybe I would get lucky and there would be something useful here.

Opening the doors as wide as I could I walked down a small flight of stairs onto a stone street. With the potion still allowing me to see in the dark the city was an incredible sight; every single building was made of large stones that were different colors. Each stone looked like they had been stretched out and molded into different shapes then merged together into one. So instead of just regular blocks the buildings looked like a child used silly putty to mix red, black, blue and even green stones into a single large stone and used as a wall. It gave a cheerful amount of color to what would have otherwise been a drab and depressing underground city.

Approaching the closest building I examined its outside looking for any signs of what it had been. The building was tall and fairly thin, I saw no signs or anything else in front.

Judging by the windows on the outside of the building it was four stories tall. There was a door on the ground floor along with two other large windows. The windows and door had been destroyed years before, the remains of the door were still in the doorway, it almost looked like someone had kicked the door in.

Looking into the building I saw what looked to have been a shop. There were several shelves in the center of the room, and although they had been knocked over several of them still stood. Walking through I picked my way through debris trying to avoid stepping on anything, while making sure to check the ceiling and the corners for monsters that could be laying in waiting for me. The room was fairly long and thin, about ten feet wide and thirty feet long. At the far end there was a small counter, probably where the owner had stood. Behind the counter was another door that had been smashed in and a flight of steep stairs leading up to the above floors.

Stepping onto the first floor landing I looked around and saw what appeared to be a small kitchen and dining room. There was an oven, sink with a faucet and even the remains of a table and chairs for 6 people scattered around the room. It could have been a dining room just about anywhere back home. The table and chairs were made of wood and were in surprisingly good condition. I didn’t think I could use any of them but just the fact that most of them are still in one piece was impressive.

Finding nothing of any value on this floor I quickly checked each floor and found several bedrooms, a living room with some intact books in it, although I couldn't read a thing in them. Finally there was an attic filled with half empty boxes. Everywhere I went there were signs of a struggle, knocked over shelves, smashed tables, but no remains. The overall effect was incredibly creepy, like walking through a crime scene after the fact. Leaving the house I looked down the street and considered what I should do next.

I could easily spend days walking through each house, poking people's things but my time was limited and while the city couldn’t be too large, the buildings were closely packed and just on the street I was standing on there at least ten four story buildings, it would take days or weeks to search every building. Walking down the street away from the building that led to the surface I decided to get a better idea of the size of the city, it was clear that the inside of the mountain was much bigger than the outside and if I wanted to see how big it was I would probably have to take a look.

The building with the stairs leading to the surface was in the middle of the city so if I found the walls I would know roughly how big it was.

I walked for about 200 meters passing several side streets and a square with a dusty fountain in the middle before I got to the abrupt end of the city, not the end of the underground, but the city. One moment there were four story buildings, and the next was farmland. Looking out over what was once a field I was finally appreciating both the size of what was built here and the limits of my night eye potion. I could see perfectly until my vision simply stopped about half a kilometer away.

There wasn’t anything growing in the field so there was nothing preventing me from seeing further, my vision just went perfectly until it stopped and I could only see darkness. Continuing forwards I tried to get an impression of the Mana here but if there was a spell making the inside of the mountain larger I lacked the experience to sense it.

Walking on the soft soil I found my attention diverted by something that had crossed my path, a single tree roughly 30 feet from me. It had blended into the gloom of the field and I almost missed it.

“Well that’s not at all ominous.” I said to myself. “A tree that grows in complete darkness, underground, yeah not evil.”

With a sigh I changed my direction and I approached the tree trying to get a better look at it. Don’t leave enemies behind you after all.

The tree was about 30 feet tall and looked like an oak tree, the branches were large and the tree would have looked extremely healthy, if it weren’t for the complete lack of any leaves, and some kind of a large fruit hanging from the branches instead.

“Well this is the beginning of a horror movie, fuck the haunted tree I’m out.” I said as I stopped and immediately prepared to go back to the city. Unfortunately the trees branches chose that moment to start shaking.

“God damn it, what is it?”

DING

Tainted Tree

A tree that has mutated due to exposure to TAINT. Carnivorous and surprisingly fast, this tree craves flesh. Watch out for its fruit!

Surprisingly fast? Well if a tree would be any speed I guess it would have to be surprisingly fast.

The fruits which had been hanging on the tree started to sway when the branches began shaking, first just a little, then more and more until they fell from the tree. Landing on the ground they continued to shake until I saw a half a dozen long spindly legs sprout from the fruits as their fronts opened and the fruits began to quickly run towards me.

“What?! What are they?!”

DING

Feral Fruit

These fruits crave the flesh of anything untainted, and they will hunt in order to return that flesh to its host tree. While not individually threatening their numbers and swarm tactics can make them very dangerous.

I was about to start running when the tree uprooted itself and began shambling towards me as well. It was far slower than the fruits and outrunning it would usually be easy, but as it was a tree it was in fact pretty surprising how fast it was moving.

Turning and running back to the city I considered my options. The tree probably couldn’t chase me into the main building but the fruits could, and I had no idea exactly how many of the fruits there were. At least 10 from what I had seen. If the tree could create more and send them after me then for all I knew there could be an infinite number of them. It didn’t seem too likely, but with magic nothing was certain.

I wasn’t willing to look behind me but I didn’t need to, judging by the sounds the Feral Fruits were gaining on me, and wasn’t that just the strangest sentence ever. As I ran I kept looking for a good place to lose them, if I needed to fight them then I wanted to do it at a time and place of my choosing.

Finding a building with a door that was mostly in one piece I ran inside and closed the door behind me, pushed a large cabinet in front of the door, and then I took off my bag.

The short sprint and terror left me gasping in air as quickly as I could, rifling through my bag as fast as possible I identified potions and then put them down. Finding a stamina potion I drank it and felt a tightening in my stomach as I started to get dangerously close to Mana shock. While I tried to judge if I could have any more portions the Ferals, as I started thinking of them began to throw themselves against the door. Carefully picking up the poison I reapplied it to my weapon before closing the bag and putting it in my pocket, I then put my bag back on and tightened the straps.

Running through a small living room I found a door to the street behind the building just as the front door began to crack from the repeated impacts from the Ferals. Exiting the building and closing the door behind me as quietly as I could I started running down the street at a dead sprint. If I needed to kill all of these things then the only way I could do that was a battle of attrition, fortunately the stamina potion would be perfect for that.

I made it to the end of the block and turned left, jogged to the end of the building and then hugged the building and looked down the street I had been on a few moments ago and saw it was empty, all of the Ferals must have gone in the building after me.

Running up the street as quietly as I could I still made a far too much noise as potions kept clinking in my bag in a way that had me worried they would be destroyed soon and two Ferals left the building to investigate.

I was able to get a much better look at them now and I could see that they were blood red with black pustules that wept an inky black substance. They had several tentacles coming off of their backs and what I had taken to be legs were in fact just more tentacles, what I had taken to be a mouth, was actually more of a beak.

Running at the two Ferals as fast as I could I heard the Ferals make some sort of a wet gurgling noise but I was on them too quickly for them to do too much more than that.

With a loud grunt I struck the lead feral as I ran past it, my post striking it directly in the side. It was about as perfect of a hit as I could hope for and it managed to go in one side of the monster and out the other, a shower of gore splattering out the far side.

Slowing and then stopping myself I looked at the building seeing three more of the Ferals coming out. I didn’t have time to see if it would be all of them or just a few before the other feral that was out of the building started charging at me, half a dozen of its tentacles stretching towards me.

The tentacles were about a foot long so I had a much further reach than they did but if they managed to close the distance they would have many more weapons available to them. So keeping them at a distance was extremely important.

Darting forwards I thrust my spear at the feral using all of my momentum and weight in the strike. I caught it directly in its what I considered to be its face, managing to break its skin, or flesh, or whatever a Feral Fruit had, and my spear sunk in several inches.

Turning I started running at a full sprint, if the poison worked on it then that should hopefully be enough to kill it, if not then it was best to learn that they were poison resistant soon rather than later. I was approaching the end of the city and returning to the farmland when I realized my mistake. I was heading straight back to the field. That meant heading back to the Tree of Surprising Speed. Turning to the right I entered another building closed the door behind me ran towards the back of the building. There wasn’t a back door to this house unfortunately but I did see three windows at chest height that I was able to climb through as I heard the Ferals crashing through the door behind me.

Landing hard on the ground I stood up and checked to make sure nothing was sneaking up behind me and faced the window with enough time to see a feral pull itself through the window with its tentacles. Bringing the post down on it as hard as I could I was rewarded with a spray of blood that made me gag from the stench. A second and third feral started to pull themselves through the windows beside that one. Hitting the second feral as hard as I could I managed to cave part of it in and injure, but not kill the monster. The third feral took this opportunity to launch itself at me and it was only a quick duck that managed to save me.

Cursing myself and my stupidity I started to run, I had hours left on my night eye potion and with the stamina potion I could outlast my enemies with no problems whatsoever. I shouldn’t ever be in a position where two or three of my enemies could attack me at once.

Running through the streets I ambushed individual Ferals over and over again, never getting tired and never slowing down, slowly whittling the number of enemies down to nothing. I managed to get confirmation that the poison did actually kill the Ferals when I spotted a dead Feral on the ground, it was the first one that I had stabbed laying down almost only a short distance away from where I had stabbed it. I guess the poison even worked pretty quickly on mutated monster fruit.

When I was certain that the last one was dead I stopped in the street and checked my watch. About half an hour left for my night eye potion. I could probably take one more potion today without having to worry about Mana Shock, but I really didn’t want to push it too much. If I ran into a problem later it would be best to give myself some leeway if I needed another potion.

I was about to start back to the center of the city when the Tree made an appearance again. It was standing directly between me and the building that would let me get back to my camp, and worse was the fact that its branches had a half a dozen Feral Fruits on them.

With a series of plops three of the Ferals fell to the ground and their tentacles started to sprout from their body. I hadn’t thought this thing would be so persistent. If it could keep sending its fruits after me I might never be able to sleep again until I killed this thing. But how the hell did you kill a tree with a shitty spear?

Letting the Ferals come towards me I was able to easily dispatch two of them but the third managed to lunge at my face when I was distracted.

Bowling me over my spear clattered away out of reach. Using both of my hands I pushed away from the monster as its tentacles grasped my body and tried to pull me towards it sucker, small hooks on the tentacles ripped into my arms and back. My fingers sinking into its flesh, a sticky, disgusting liquid fell onto my face and chest. Removing one of my hands from it I pulled out my knife and began stabbing its body. Rolling on the ground with it I kept stabbing over and over again until it finally went its tenticles limp and it died under me. Tearing the tentacles off I cried out in pain as dozens of small barbs tore at my skin opening dozens of small cuts.

I had just started to stand up when something hit my left side sending me flying. Dropping my knife when I landed I groaned and tried to get my feet underneath me when I heard more than saw the tree standing over me. I tried to dive away from it but something grabbed my leg and pulled me straight up in the air.

Screaming in pain, it felt like a vise closed on my leg. I was certain that my leg was going to snap at any moment. Trying to think through the pain I saw the tree in front of me. Its front was covered in an inky black ichor that I assumed must be taint. Seeing what that did to everything that had touched me I really didn’t want any more of it on me.

Reaching into my pocket I pulled out the MRE package that contained the poison, opening the bag I shoved my hand into the package, and grasping the toxin I started rubbing it all over the trunk of the tree. Smearing the toxin onto the monster I tried to get as much onto it as possible as with a shudder dozens of small suckers opened on the trees bark.

Shoving my hand into one of the suckers I jammed the poison inside of it and I tried to twist away from its trunk while I started to feel a burning on my hand and my head started spinning.

As the pressure on my leg increased I screamed even louder, that was when the entire tree started shuddering and convulsing. Whatever gripped my leg slackened and I managed to wriggle away from it falling and landing on my face and shoulder. Crawling away as quickly as I could, I tried to stand up but I fell over when the pain in my leg was too much. That was when the tree stopped shaking and it started to slowly slump over even its branches slumping down.

Gulping down air I could feel my hand burning, my stomach started doing flips and my vision swam. It felt like the entire world was spinning around me. Quickly opening my bag I poured a healing potion over my hand and drank another one immediately afterwards.

My hand stopped burning and the world stopped spinning but my leg still felt like it was broken, and my side was tender as well. Feeling my magic I knew already that there was no way that I could avoid Mana shock. All I could do now was try to make it back to my camp, seal the door behind me and hope that nothing ate me while I was passed out.

Getting my bag back on I found my knife and spear so I started back towards my camp as quickly as I could using my spear as a crutch. The stamina potion was still working thankfully so I wasn’t in any danger of being winded, but I still found myself drooping over almost passing out on the stairs. My spear clacking on the ground with every step and my injured leg sliding on the ground uselessly behind me.

When I finally made it to my office I threw open the door and stumbled into the room. Limping my way to the desk I was about to try and push the desk in front of the door when something darted at me from behind the desk. I turned to face it, about to swing my weapon at it when a bright light flared directly in front of my face blinding me.

Shutting my eyes I half dove half fell back and to the side and held my weapon in front of me hoping to buy myself a few seconds while the spots in front of my eyes cleared.

It took at least ten seconds for the spots in my eyes to clear well enough that I could see anything and I was amazed that I wasn’t already dead. But when I could finally see again I spotted something else in front of me.

It was a young woman wearing a brown leather jacket, khaki colored shirt and pants and a hat that looked like a fedora, but unlike most people who wore fedoras it actually looked good on her.

She was holding two knives in front of her, but held so that their points were facing down and not directly at me. She slowly backed away and then put the knives in sheaths on her belt then put her hands in the air saying something.

I started to stand up, lowering my weapon and using it instead to help stand up. My bag felt incredibly heavy and I could barely stand up anymore so I shrugged it off, the strap on my back catching my spear and forcing it out of my hand. I took a half a step forwards intent on getting a better look at the person in front of me, but instead gravity seemed to shift and before I knew what was happening the ground rushed up at me and I knew no more.