Chapter 175 - 166

They found the bird's corpse a bowshot beyond the ridge, pinned among rocky debris. What remained of the bird must have clipped the cliff face after Nick's attack because mottled emerald feathers lay strewn like shattered stained glass; however, given the abrupt violence of [Vacuum Wave], most of the body remained undamaged in a rare stroke of luck. Nick suppressed the thrill that always arose when he got his hands on mana-rich materials; first came field butchery. And it's not like I can get any spell from this. I bet my affinity is higher. But maybe I could use the bones… Mhm, there's an idea. Elia clambered onto the barrel chest, planting her claws for grip, while Rhea unpacked her alchemy knife, which looked like obsidian laminate. It was scalpel-sharp, based on how effortlessly it opened the eagle. Nick grabbed the only remaining wing and closed his eyes. [Wind God's Third Eye] allowed him to sense how powerful an ingredient's wind affinity was, and while the wyvern bone had sung in deep organ chords, this eagle's radius thrummed at a lighter register, producing a pure whistle. There are very few impurities, so it's not a carrion feeder. What is a mountain predator doing all the way over here? They worked in silence, except for the rustle and snap of bones. Elia severed emerald flight feathers at the calamus, stacking them in squared bundles; she chewed on the softer cartilage, an action that should have been disgusting, but which Nick could only find endearing. Rhea took breast slabs—pink, marbled, and probably delicious—and then harvested the tendons, which, when dried, would make fantastic bow strings. Nick, meanwhile, scored along the median wing bones, easing them free. He teased out six magically active fragments, wrapping each in waxed paper and inscribing a quick mark so he wouldn't later confuse their orientation. He placed them into his backpack, suppressing his eagerness. He could already imagine the multitude of ways his latest spell could benefit from such a valuable material. Ofudas made of bone were a thing, right? Oh, well. Even if they weren't, they soon will be. I bet I can get a decent wind bomb out of this. Maybe not in the tunnel, but I can probably get the smaller bones to make a mean piercing round. I can probably reuse most of [Jet Stream]… When they finished, the bird resembled a gutted cathedral. Elia popped the vacant eyes into her mouth, chewing with gusto. Then the trio covered the remains with piles of grass—no sense in advertising to carrion lords—and headed for the tunnel. The map's sketch placed the gate "under the western thorn-tangle, ten strides left of the triple-trunk stone." They found the boulder easily enough, given how much it resembled an actual tree, if without the branches. However, thorn tangles were abundant. Nick's senses could not penetrate the lime-rich soil, as vibrations scattered like sound in fog. He suspected that the same sealing magic which had prevented him from sensing the area below the Messenger's temple was at work here. I can feel a void, which is enough to know it's somewhere nearby, but I doubt we can simply dig. Elia, however, seemed to understand the mechanism. She scraped moss with a claw, mumbling, "Hunting magic, I see… old but still powerful… there." Her fingertip pressed a warted knot that looked identical to a dozen others. With a groan, a slab of dirt folded inward along wooden hinges reinforced with iron that hadn't seen air in decades. Cold, damp breath exhaled—a smell of peat, mushroom loam, and something sickly sweet. Nick extended his senses now that nothing was holding him back. It's interesting how everything becomes visible as soon as a crack appears. I thought it might have been a ward of some kind, but now I'm leaning more towards the idea that there is a seal that only works if every entrance is closed. Spores twinkled in the air like starlight; otherwise, there was nothing. Then, a single dense object registered—soft, organic, three inches tall, sixty yards ahead. He created a tight vortex by twisting his hand and whisked the object forward, enveloping it in a bubble of air. A plump, velvet-textured russet mushroom rotated within the captured sphere. Elia cocked her head. "Cute." Rhea's pupils shrank. "That," she rasped, "is a ten-step deathcap." Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. It figured. "Rating?" "C-rank. Its airborne mycotoxin specifically targets the blood through the skin. Its kill radius is ten strides for most D-rankers." She forced a crooked smile. "It's extremely rare and valuable... but absolutely shouldn't be found in the grassland, especially this far north." She continued to think out loud. "It typically grows in swamps or near apex venomous creatures that release enough alkaloids to replicate marsh chemistry." The color drained from her face. "We're not near a swamp." Nick immediately saw two options. They could either continue their surface trek and risk encountering a second eagle or whatever had driven it from its territory, which would take up to twice as long, or they could descend into a lair housing a powerful, toxic monster—but with loot potential and a direct path to the shrine. Elia clenched and unclenched her claws. "If something has taken residence in the tunnel, it might have done the same in the temple. I want to go in and cleanse it." Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Rhea's pragmatic greed influenced the scale. "One mature cap each could pay Ogden for all the potions he gave us. If we harvest a cluster, we all walk out richer than most adventurers after a B-rank mission." Nick relented. "Down we go. But I will keep a double barrier up the whole trek. If this thing works by skin absorption, we really don't want to come into contact with what led to its creation." He expanded the protective sphere into a ten-foot bubble of co-rotating wind plates that filtered particulates like a cyclone sieve, and to top it off, added a [Force Shield]. That done, he sighed and led the way. The chute sloped at thirty degrees for a hundred feet before leveling into a tunnel wide enough for Marthas to move around without trouble. Old plank supports and copper lantern hooks hinted at smuggling activity; the wood was sponge-soft yet unrotten, soaked in some preservative pitch. Elia formed a fireball, casting yellow light across tally marks. Either I'm right that this is an old smuggling route, or the beastmen were running a merchant empire from these tunnels. Actually, both could be true. Nine minutes in, a second deathcap glowed faintly, fruiting from a seam between boards. Nick snared it, sealed it in wind, and handed it to Rhea, who popped it into a box in her spatial pouch. Fifteen minutes later, they discovered twin caps pushing through a fissure in the chalk bedrock. Spores hung in the air like purple snowflakes until Nick's air bubble pushed them aside. Rhea's excitement returned color to her cheeks. She set down her pack and unfolded a portable alembic kit no larger than a shoebox: a brass spirit lamp, a collapsible condenser, three crystalline phials, and a thumb-sized object she described as a mana extractor. "Give me ten minutes," she said, "and we'll have trivalent anti-tox. We'll probably need it to face whatever has created such an environment." Wrinkling his nose, Nick waved her away, seizing the opportunity to create another bubble around her. You can never be too safe. Elia prowled the perimeter, wrinkling her nose at wafts of coppery spores that failed to penetrate the shield. Nick seized the moment to carve fresh tags from his stock, ripping parchment into strips and burning symbols into them with his finger. Let's get a few utility ones, and then I'll try my hand at bone carving. He placed his fingertip on the cardinal node before drawing the first stroke: a Binding glyph needed at least eight strokes to emphasize force convergence. Secondly, he drew stillness, swirling a half-moon nested inside the bind, capturing kinetic bleed. Third came the silence ideogram—a fine cross-hatched shale line, meant to mute vibration. Finally, for the outer frame, a clamp—a four-corner box anchored with his name, feeding a drop of his mana to ally the tag with his spiritual authority. It was slightly more complex than his earlier attempt, but since [Emakimono] was already at [Proficient], he felt he could afford to push himself. He tested one tag on a loose pebble; when triggered with a whisper, the pebble froze mid-air, enveloped in a faint shimmer. Satisfied, he wrote three more and placed them in his sleeves before beginning to fiddle with the eagle's smallest bone. It took more effort to carve into it, but he felt that the resulting spell would be even more powerful. With a simple gust of wind, I'll be able to send them everywhere within my range. Meanwhile, Rhea poured the thick purple syrup into vials, and Nick was grateful for his foresight in casting another bubble around the cauldron. He did not want to know what it smelled like. Still, she's very good. I haven't seen her brew until now, but she's much better than I am. I really winged it in the dungeon with those healing potions. It's kind of embarrassing to know the difference between an amateur and a professional. When Rhea handed them the vials, Nick and Elia had the good grace not to make any faces, though they both clearly wanted to. "Take them immediately if you come into contact with anything. Or you can just chuck them at an incoming attack. It should neutralize almost anything." She explained. "How much to commission a batch?" he asked. It would certainly come in handy for future adventures. "At least ten silver coins per vial," Rhea said, pocketing the spares. "Nightcap spores are brutal to farm." Nick whistled. "That's basically enough to live off for a month at a cheap inn. More, if you are frugal." Rhea shrugged, "People will pay a lot to avoid dying of poison. Shitting yourself to death is not a good experience, I'm told." Nick snorted, nodding in agreement, and they resumed their walk once Rhea had put everything back in her pouch. This chapter first appeared on M|V|L^EMPYR. Only half an hour later, a yawning cavity registered on Nick's senses—a fifty-foot slope of worked limestone ended in a pool as thick as soup. The trio advanced until the flickering flames' corona revealed a shoreline of granulated stone. No insects, no scuttling—it was eerily silent. Nick's first thought was that this had to be a trap; yet, no matter how much he scoured the area ahead, he could find no trace of an enemy lying in wait. This only makes it obvious that there is something. The death caps wouldn't have grown without a toxic environment, and we have yet to find the origin. "This is a trap," he finally stated. It was too still. They stepped closer as Elia conjured twin foxfires—white-hot nuclei with blue halos—and sent them closer to the liquid. Light spilled across the pool, which began to quiver from the heat before rising into a single massive slime. Before he could say anything, Nick sensed a temperature spike from Elia as her expression twisted in righteous rage. White fire surged along her forearms. The slime responded, bulging to meet its new prey. Nick barked, "Prepar—" It was too late. Elia released a scything arc of white flame. The jet hissed, splashing phosphor across the slime lake. Gelatin charred black, releasing noxious clouds that failed to find purchase in Nick's bubbles. Dissolved zones healed, and amorphous blobs thickened, coalescing into a single massive tentacle that swung toward them with murderous intent. Nick flicked his wrists, sending the prepared ofuda into the air. He snapped, "Bind!" Glyphs flashed vermilion, slapping onto the foremost tentacles. Mana chains shot out from the tag, and the tentacle froze mid-lash, quivering and muted. Yet the greater body simply shifted its mass, birthing new limbs that skirted the bindings. Rhea uncapped a tin of silvery dust and flung a pinch; the particles stuck to the slime skin, crystallizing into brittle scabs that slowed the flow. "Aim for core!" she shouted. Unfortunately, Nick could see at least five denser spheres floating in the mass. This slime—if it was a slime—didn't seem interested in conforming to the characteristics typical of most of its species. "On my signal," he said, nonetheless preparing a [Jet Stream] for each. Elia bared her fangs, eyes white with reflected foxfire. Rhea drew more vials from her pouch, holding them between her fingers. Nick raised both hands, and the [Jet Streams] whirled away, carving trenches through the gel and parting the purple flesh like curtains. The cores spun into view, pulsing like hearts the size of golf balls. Elia thrust forth her claws, and a blue-white lance incinerated the first nucleus; the slime shrieked in an ultrasonic wave that Nick felt in his teeth, despite the barriers surrounding them. Rhea's vials arced, releasing quicklime that encased the second core in a stone cast. Tentacles hammered Nick's bubble; the shield rippled but held, and he used the chance to slap an extra Bind tag forward; chains whipped tight, arresting another core mid-escape. Two hearts remained, sliding deeper into the pool. Nick inhaled, taking one of the eagle's bones, compressing every breath into it. He spat into the air, almost feeling as if he were vomiting, and the bone became a supersonic drill that bored through gelatin, punching a tunnel straight to the farthest nucleus. The spell detonated within. Fragmented slime sprayed across the cavern ceiling, sizzling like frying eggs. The final core quivered alone, attempting to merge with the debris. Elia pounced, hurling a condensed star of foxfire that fell like judgment. Purple flared, and black smoke erupted. Silence.