95. Gather 'Round the Camp-Lotus

  [REVOLVER Spell: APPETIZER]

  [MP Cost: 3 per second]

  [Satiety Cost (PRETJORD alternative resource): 1 per second]

  [Spell Description: Chamber Two imbuement. Channeling spell. REVOLVER’s entire cylinder receives the imbuement effect for the channeling duration, thereby converting all unimbued bullets to Zealous damage type.]

  ***

  In what had become a precious commodity on her—first day in Pretjord? Second day? She’d completely lost track of time—Serac finally had a chance to relax.

  Presently, five Wayfarers—all thawed and conscious—milled about next to the Waystation. The small outcrop was a little too cozy for all of them to take a seat, especially with the sturgeon twins taking up half the space on their own. So, they all ended up standing, which made Serac a tad self-conscious about her relative lack of stature (and grateful to Renate for being even shorter).

  Zacko, despite being the tallest individual most everywhere he went, was of exactly median size in this particular company. He now made every inch of that height count as he stood with his arms crossed and back straight. With mask off, hair freshly combed, and face settled in his usual sardonic smile, he showed zero signs of having been frozen solid a mere few minutes ago.

  Once again, Renate the OYSTER-wielder had played a vital role in nursing a party member back to health. She did so with careful titration of [Immersion] alternating with [Courage], keeping a watchful eye over Zacko’s HP bar and physical complexion as she slooowly fed the contents of her Pearls into her patient.

  Serac had watched it all happen with rapt attention, with her admiration for the Yaksha woman ballooning all the while. She couldn’t help but be curious, however, why Renate couldn’t simply dump the whole thing in and be done with it. To which the potion master explained:

  “Removing the effects of [Snap Freeze] too quickly would put the Manusya at risk of reperfusion injury, which in his current state could end up dealing him lethal damage. This way, I can give his body the chance to heal itself before all the blood rushes back to his [Oxygen]-deprived tissues. Of course, that also means the [Poison] gets to keep ticking in the meanwhile, but that’s why I’ve got [Courage] on hand to keep his HP topped up.”

  Serac nodded along studiously, having understood almost nothing. Funnily enough, that only made her happier to trust that the frog woman knew what she was doing. Some souls just had that ‘aura’ about them—and Renate certainly possessed plenty of it.

  In the end, the trust was well-placed. For Zacko had eventually come to, albeit coughing, disheveled, and shivering from head to toe. And he and Serac had taken their turn at meditation together: two outrealmers under the watchful protection of three local veterans.

  And what a session it was! Despite having had to share the boss reward with four others, Serac went into her latest meditation with just about the highest Liminal Karma she’d ever had at any one time—surpassed only by the cache she’d lost to the Bone Lord fight. This was mainly thanks to the swarms upon swarms of Wildspawn adds she’d dispatched, both on the way to Mulaharta and during the boss fight itself.

  Even with the increasingly steep requirements, a stash of 60,877 ? allowed her to level up five times, bringing her to a respectable KL-38. After much deliberation, she finally took the plunge and put all five points into:

  [Immanence: 20 -> 25]

  [PRIMAL Mitigation: 17.6% -> 20.5%]

  [DEIFIC Mitigation: 28.4% -> 31.3%]

  [INFERNAL Base AV: 136 -> 144]

  [ZEALOUS Base AV: 142 -> 155]

  [DEIFIC Base AV: 145 -> 154]

  [Satiety Cap: 80 -> 95]

  Of the three choices within the I-series, [Immanence] made the most sense, given Serac already had access to two of the damage types it buffed. And with her newly learned [Appetizer] spell, she now had an on-demand method to instantly give herself 31 extra points of damage per Cartridge, simply by converting it to Zealous type.

  I can’t use it in every fight, because some enemies are resistant or even immune to Zealous. But the best thing about [Appetizer] is just how easy it is to activate, especially here in Pretjord where I can just go hungry to make my bullets hit harder.

  Speaking of… she was surprised to learn that leveling also affected her maximum Satiety value, which was something she’d failed to notice during her last, rushed session. Truth be told, she wasn’t 100% sure how she ought to feel about it.

  On the surface, raising the ceiling on Satiety seemed like it could only be a good thing. More points for her to spend on her Chamber Two imbuements, and a larger buffer against starvation—as long as she kept herself full with food.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  And therein lay the rub. For she now needed more food to sate her [Hunger], and presumably more and more as she continued to level up. How much was too much? She didn’t know, and hoped she’d never need to find out.

  Reconstituted (and reunited with her missing horn!), leveled, and relaxed, Serac was ready to enjoy the company of her fellow Wayfarers. It was to the sturgeons that she directed her first question, one she’d been harboring for some time.

  “Hey, if you guys don’t mind me asking,” she started politely, then wasted no time to go direct, “what was all that stuff about returning to your roots? It sounded like you guys really care about Rotgard. Were you from there originally?”

  Lars’s cold glare knotted into a frown as he puzzled over Serac’s words. Surprisingly enough, it was Hans who spoke first, evidently having caught on quicker than his brother.

  “The Rakshasa refers to Mulaharta’s siren call,” he said gruffly, “the one that used our own memories to lure us in.”

  “But how can that be?” Lars said, disbelieving. “For Serac Edin to have heard the call, she would need to be a ripple-reader. Unless…?”

  Now it was Serac’s turn to frown. How did she read the ripples during that frantic descent, when she couldn’t before nor since? As she puzzled over the mystery that was herself, she felt acutely Renate’s silent yet inquisitive stare.

  “Princess is just built different,” Zacko offered a flippant answer that wouldn’t be far off from what Serac herself could come up with. “You shoulda seen her down in Naraka, taming castles and commanding skeleton armies and shit. I have no clue what you guys are talking about right now, but if it’s something weird and wonderful Serac pulled off, I’ll bet her mysterious third entity had something to do with it.”

  Zacko’s guess was as good as Serac’s, and for all she knew, he might’ve even hit upon the correct answer. But something about this instance of weirdness and wonder had felt different from the previous occasions where the ‘third entity’ had been involved.

  For one thing, there’d been no headache nor an extra voice that boomed through her. And there was also the matter of that woman—the one who spoke to a transplanted Hellspawn with the pet name of ‘Mully’.

  The afterlife worked in mysterious ways. Serac could only hope that she’d have the chance to unravel those mysteries before it was all said and done.

  In any case, the Tomasen twins made no further inquiries, seeming to have taken Zacko at his word. But Renate’s expression didn’t change, with her round, unblinking eyes still fixed on Serac.

  “To answer your question,” Lars picked up where he’d left off, “yes. My brother and I are Rotgardians by birth. And our hearts still bleed for the withering of our homeland and the suffering of our fellow Roots-dwellers.”

  At this, Renate finally shifted her attention, only to scoff at the sturgeon man.

  “You lost your claim to the Roots the moment you cast your lot with the leeches up on the Trunk,” the frog woman spat, with a startling amount of heat behind her words. “And that goes double for you and your brother: loyal hounds to the fattest, most rapacious of the leeches.”

  Serac couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath and hold it. Across from her, Zacko’s smile broadened in amusement. Oh no, not this again, Serac thought. We were just starting to get along!

  To Serac’s surprise and tentative relief however, Renate’s fighting words didn’t trigger more fisticuffs. Both of the Tomasen twins tensed, to be sure, and their glares darkened—but not in anger. Rather, the expression was one of guilt and perhaps even shame.

  “We do not deny it,” Lars said, continuing his role as spokes-twin. “We are Rotgardians by birth, but Stamgardians by profession. It was not a choice made lightly, but a choice nonetheless. Our own.”

  An uneasy silence followed, but it was much preferable to Wayfarer-on-Wayfarer violence. Serac gave it some time before she deemed the coast clear, then ventured a follow-up question.

  “May I ask why?” She tried her darnedest to keep her tone neutral and judgment-free. “Why do you work for Mr Catfish… when you clearly don’t have a high opinion of him?”

  “I do not know how things work in Naraka,” Hans jumped in, “but here in Pretjord, which part of the Realmtree you were born in determines your station in life. As children of the Roots, Lars and I have no hope of being accepted into the Kronvakt.”

  “Yes,” Lars continued. “Say what you will, but Palmr Jorgensen is shrewd businessman. His wealth and status allow him kind of power that Wayfarers can only dream of. Most importantly, he has King Tyr’s favor, which is only reason he is even allowed to hire Wayfarers outside Kronvakt jurisdictions. Only reason Hans and I have work.”

  “I’m starting to get the picture,” Zacko cut in, still wearing his irreverent—almost mocking—smile. “The rules and regulations here are tighter than a nun’s bumhole. The only way a pair of Wayfarers from the Roots could find work—and with it, the means to put food on the table and farm Karma—is to sell your soul to some shady businessman who has an in with the king. That about sum it up?”

  The twins’ silence spoke volumes. It seemed to suggest that there were no holes to poke in Zacko’s summation, but Serac of all people wasn’t so convinced.

  “But… that’s not totally true, is it?” she asked, utterly sincere where Zacko had dripped with sarcasm. “At least there’s one exception to that rule. We’re looking at her right now.”

  With that, all eyes turned to Renate, who then chose this moment to point her gaze to the ground. It was the universal signal for: don’t look at me; I have nothing to add to this conversation.

  “I concede that Finless is curious case,” Lars said with a thoughtful glare. “All these years, we have been led to believe that she was behind ecological collapse that left all of Rotgard barren wasteland—behind Wildspawn activity that terrorized Yaksha population. But… that evidently had been lie. Perhaps not deliberate one, but lie nonetheless. I ask you then, Finless. Why lurk in shadows? Why not come into open where you could clear your name and put your considerable powers to good instead of thieving and smuggling?”

  All eyes stayed on Renate, waiting for an answer. Serac too wanted dearly for the frog woman to speak and offer a clean explanation, but… by now, she’d been in this business long enough to sense that this was a situation that was anything but clean.

  Predictably enough, Renate stayed silent, round eyes downcast. She kept her reasons for both her silence and her loner lifestyle close to her chest. But soon, she looked up again as something else caught her attention.

  The Tomasen twins also stirred at the same time. Hans was closest to the edge of the outcrop, and he now leaned over slightly to peer down into the abyss below.

  “The ripples again?” Serac asked, knowing the drill by now.

  “Yes,” Hans said simply, then continued to read, with his scales vibrating in intense concentration. And then—

  “We have to move,” Renate finally did speak, not to dig into her past, but to warn of a present and pressing danger.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Rising water,” the frog woman said, voice tense with alarm. “Rising fast. We have to climb out of this cave now, or we’d all be flooded—along with the Waystation we’re tethered to.”

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