The forest was dark. And by dark, I meant pitch black. The understatement of the phrase reminded me of someone saying something like ‘the sun is bright’. Like it WAS bright, but that was kind of underselling it. Even in the middle of the day, once we entered the interior, the canopy became thicker and too dense for light to slip through. Combined with the densely packed trees and thick undergrowth, the whole place had a deeply claustrophobic feeling to it, and I found my finger tightening on the trigger of my 1911 at the slightest noise.
My friends, meanwhile, were doing fine. They were all moving nearly silently through the brush, though two of them were trailing behind on ‘farguard’ in case the sniper rifles were needed. They were mostly there for large open spaces like where the spiders were waiting, or in case we needed to hit distant enemies high in the canopies, but they were still doing much better than I was.
“Shit!” I yelped, whirling for the tenth time and raising my gun. Of course, there was nothing there. Or at least, nothing there anymore. Based on the moving branches something had been around until I looked. “I hate this place,” I hissed. “Do deciduous trees even GET this dense? This feels more like a jungle than a forest. The only thing missing is the heat and the humidity. Because seriously, it’s so damned cold in here.”
My breath was misting on the air and the grass crackled under my feet as I walked, but it didn’t seem to have much effect on the actual plants. Ron looked as unhappy as I felt, but he just shrugged, not moving his eyes or his M4 from the path ahead.
Sonia was also sporting an M4, but hers was trained behind us, watching our backs to make sure nothing snuck up on us. Despite the serious amounts of attention they were giving this job, we’d still gotten ambushed four times. Three of them had gone down just fine to the bullets, but the fourth had been too fast to catch even with semi-auto fire. Ridley had stepped up and put that one down, moving with speed that was hard to track with the human eye, Whack and Blight making quick work of the long limbed armadillo creature.
“Keep it down,” Ridley hissed. “You see those red flowers at the base of the trees? Those are Dust Lillies. They only grow in the cast offs from Dust Wasp wing powder. Dust Wasps are blind, like a lot of the stuff down here, but they have excellent hearing.”
We were currently operating by flashlights Ron and Sonia had attached to their M4s, so the fact that the local critters were blind was useful to know, but given how loud the guns were, it made this area in particular more dangerous than we might have hoped.
I recoiled, and Ridley must have spotted my flinch at the mention of wasps (magic wasps? What fresh hell was this?), because he let out a low chuckle. “It’s fine,” he said quietly. “They don’t tend to linger close to the ground. And their presence means we’re approaching the territory line between them and the Royal Trinity Bees. The bees gather pollen from a specific strain of flower that only grows in proximity to indigo tier mana trees.”
“So we’re almost there?” I asked excitedly. I was already more than sick of this place. I’d been excited to come out and experience the world, but it had quickly become clear that I was not made for this kind of adventure. I was very much a city mouse.
He waggled a hand. “Well, after a fashion. We’re almost in the right place. But if you want to actually RETRIEVE an indigo fruit it’s not going to be that easy. The tree I’m leading us to is one of the nearest, but also one of the most dangerous. The only upside is that it’s the only one we might have a chance to steal from. Because the monster that lives in that tree is territorial, and it allows no others near.”
“So…why is that a good thing?” Cal asked skeptically. “Won’t it try to kill us?”
“Probably,” Ridley acknowledged. “But it’ll try by itself. As opposed to the residents of all the OTHER nearby trees. Which live in swarms and packs. No, this particular tree is inhabited by a tusked Shoggoth. It’s…deeply unpleasant to deal with. But it’s not too fast. Just big and scary. It’s also a heavy sleeper. Every indigo fruit I’m aware of came from the Shoggoth tree.”
I blew out a breath. “And when does it sleep?”
“Around twilight,” he said bluntly. “Which should be soon. I hope. It’s hard to tell. One of the downsides of coming in here. Anyway, we need to be careful when we approach. That thing isn’t fast, but it also isn’t afraid to jump out of that tree, and it falls QUICK.”
Still, despite the serious warning, I was feeling a little bit better at the news. We were coming close, and once we got the fruits I wouldn’t need to do this shit again soon. Next time, I was going to massively overlevel my whole crew. I’d bring everyone with us and strap everyone with our best weapons.
My fantasies about future armies were unfortunately not to be enjoyed for long, because after about ten minutes we stopped at a large, empty clearing. Ridley looked up, nodding with satisfaction. “Yup. Twilight. Thought so.”
I blinked, looking around for trees. There was a large empty space here, surrounding one huge tree. It kind of reminded me of the circle around the door, and I briefly wondered if I’d stumbled on another. The ground around it was just dead, torn dirt with no plantlife in it. It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at.
“It tore up the trees?” I hissed in panic. “Those things are like ten feet across. How strong IS it?”
He winced, but before he could answer, I heard a loud, terrible grinding noise. We all looked up, and up, and up, until our eyes finally settled on something…terrifying.
The Shoggoth was huge. Not huge in the way a bear is huge. Huge in the way a fucking BUS was huge. It was easily ten or fifteen feet tall, covered in coarse grey fur, and built solidly like a linebacker. Its shoulders were almost as wide as it was tall, and its arms hung low, dragging the ground, or would have if it had BEEN down there. Instead, they seemed to be designed to allow it to swing perfectly between oversized branches. Its ears were huge and batlike, and it had a muzzle like a wolf, but set with a pair of curling razor sharp tusks that looked designed to hurt more coming out than going in.
“Ok,” I said slowly. “What are the chances the rifles will work on that?”
“If we’d brought an anti tank rifle with tungsten tipped bullets maybe,” Cal said scathingly. “Otherwise…maybe if you tagged one of its eyes?”
Which would be both easier and harder said than done. Easier because the damned thing had SIX of them, three on each side, but harder because they were tiny pinpricks on its broad face, and that was without counting how far it was.
“Yeah, shooting that thing is a hard pass,” I said immediately. “But that wasn’t the plan, right?” I glanced at Ridley. “You mentioned something about sneaking past it?”
“Well, normally it would be asleep now,” he said sourly. “But maybe. If its awake there must be a reason. Whatever is causing the disturbance could be a distraction. We’d just need to figure out what that is.”
Denny cleared his throat. “It’s a bird,” he said bluntly. “A big one. It’s circling the tree, taking swipes at that thing whenever it turns its back. It looks like its aiming for the fruits that are up there. But I think it got one and it’s about to leave.”
My eyes widened. “Shoot it,” I said quickly. “Nothing fatal, just wing it on the side closest to the Shoggoth.
Ron’s eyes lit up. “Of COURSE,” he said gleefully. “The fruits are up there. If the Shoggoth fights they’ll be shaken loose.” He glanced at Ridley. “Can they survive the fall from up there? If it knocks some loose?”
I grinned. “I bet we can help.” I focused on my Purchase skill, reaching out for something I’d seen before. A net. I’d seen a few of them at the sporting goods store, and I snagged some tiki torches too, for the sharp stake at the base. Then I hurried over to the spot below the Shoggoth and, making sure I wasn’t being seen, started setting up the nets. The whole thing ran me a hundred, which wasn’t too bad.
Once that was done, I decided to hedge my bets, and by that I meant literally hedge them, so I started dragging bushes over to position them below the net just in case. Behind me, I heard a sharp crack, and then above there was an outraged caw. Apparently the plan worked, because the Shoggoth roared in hatred and the tree began to shake wildly.
We all backed off, hoping to avoid debris. And boy was there debris. It plummeted into the net, most of it caught, though a few of the pieces slipped through and hit the bushes. It took a minute for the first fruit to fall, and it slipped through the net, shattering on the ground when it missed the bush closest to it.
Another fell, and that one broke. The third though, that one bounced off the net and fell perfectly into a bush. I darted forward, snagging it without bothering to price it. I’d seen it and I could buy them, but I didn’t have time to worry about cash right now.
There was another thwack of fruit on net beside me, and I barely readied myself before one of the damned things smacked me in the side of the head. I snagged it and turned to run, knowing that two was the best we were going to get here. I reached the edge of the forest at a sprint, and behind me, I heard the tree groan. “Run!” I bellowed as they all turned and took off.
Behind us, I could hear the Shoggoth approaching the ground. Apparently it had noticed us. I didn’t stop to think, I triggered Barkskin for both protection and regen and bolted at top speed through the trees, trying my best to follow behind the others. My gun was jammed into my waistband and I was pretty sure it would have hurt if not for the pattern, but I was holding a fruit in each hand so I didn’t care.
Finally, the five minutes ran out and I collapsed to the ground, wheezing. The others weren’t far behind, catching up within seconds. Ron and Sonia set up a perimeter as the rest of them collapsed, short of breath from running for so long.
“That,” I panted. “Was terrible. Never again.”
Ron laughed, but nodded. “You got the fruits?” He asked tiredly. I nodded, tossing him one, and he eyed it with interest before passing it to Ridley. “There you go,” he chuckled. “All paid up.”
Ridley couldn’t speak from breathing heavily, so he just made a toasting motion with the fruit. Speaking of the fruit, now that we had a moment, I decided to analyze it to see what we’d ended up with.
Second tier mana fruit. Value- 7,500 Delyrans = 375,000 USD. An indigo fruit from a first tier mana tree.
I grinned. The price was based on the market value, not on scarcity. That was steep, but it wasn’t impossible. I could get more of these. I started making plans immediately, I had to gather more cash as soon as possible. Which meant I needed to find something of value to sell. It was time to explore that crypt we’d found.