Drip-Fed Pt. 09

"I'll need new pants after this," she asserted. Where the brown leather armour on her torso was structurally intact, despite several scratches and other battle marks, her pants had sustained several holes and slits. It was to little wonder, many of the enemies in the dungeon had their primary attack tools below the humanoid waistline. Adding to that, her pants were more intended to be flexible then grant proper defences and their riddled state was a foregone conclusion.

"We won't have money for new pants once we're done here," Apexus reminded her.

"Yeah... guess I'll have to wear my 'civilian' pants for a little while," she sighed and got up. "Anyway, let's get going."

It took them a couple more hours and several encounters to make their way further in. At a few points, they had to reorient themselves. Either because they were genuinely not sure where they were or because they had stepped off the correct path to engage with a treasure room. As a beginner dungeon, Summer Rest had a fundamentally static layout, but sometimes chests appeared in certain rooms or halls, guarded by numerous enemies. Since they were there for the purpose of getting money, they took those whenever they found one.

Regardless of such distractions, they eventually made their way to the boss room. "We're in luck," Apexus said, when they made their way into the large chamber that preceded a boss room in beginner dungeons like this. A humid warmth filled the room, coming from a circular healing fountain in the middle of the hall. Like usual for these things, it was fairly shallow. The fireflies didn't seem to mind the heat at all and just sat on the walls like usual.

Apexus' comment was in regard to the door to the boss room, however. Interlocking roots formed two halves of a gate, just waiting to be swung open. That state meant that the boss was currently present and nobody else was fighting it. In any other case, the door would have been locked by means they couldn't overcome. Not that they had any reason to.

"Should we fight the boss now?" Reysha, while taking a sip from the water of the healing fountain, for pure thirst reasons. "Once we're in there, we can't get back out." That was correct, in this case. Dungeons generally had one of two approaches to what happened after a boss was beaten. Either the door opened and the group was left to backtrack or the door stayed close and a shortcut back to the entrance revealed itself. Summer Rest was in the latter category. "Might be smarter to just search around here for a little while longer. What do the finances say?"

"We should already have all we require," Aclysia responded. "Defeating the boss guarantees us another item. Even if I wildly overestimated the value of the things we acquired so far, I would be surprised if we needed further funds after gathering that final piece. Boss loot tends to be more valuable."

"Sucks that it'll only be a single item though," Reysha bemoaned. First time beating a boss, the rewards were more gracious. "Not like we had any luck in this dungeon overall though."

"We had good monetary success," Aclysia shrugged, while they all walked towards the door. "Even if we gained nothing for personal usage. What can be extracted from this place wouldn't last us long regardless."

"Let's hope that changes in the future," Apexus said, while leaning against the gate of melded roots. It moved slowly at first, then slid open almost on its own. The trio stepped into the boss room without much worry.

It had the shape of a funnel, with the base describing the broadest point and the ceiling steadily growing more and more narrow, until ending in a one-metre wide hole. Like usual, the fireflies sitting on the walls provided the illumination necessary. The floor was similar to a sawed-off tree-trunk, with several rings giving a pleasing symmetry to the light wood.

The trio kept their eyes focused on the hole in the ceiling. Once they were about five metres into the room, a sort of maw peeked out of the hole. It was a beak surrounded by four serrated pincers. It was large enough to grab a person and bite their head clean off. "We will cover you where necessary," Apexus promised.

"Alright... let's see how well I do," Reysha nodded and stepped into the middle of the room. She jumped back immediately, as the boss dropped down to devour her.

Hanging from its hiding hole on a thick bundle of roots, the head descended to ground level and uselessly snapped at the empty air. Black flower petals rose around its head as it hissed in annoyance and completely left its spawning pot. The roots peeled out of the unified rope, extending outwards like tentacles. Each of the dozen tendrils ended in a hardened hook, which the boss rammed into the walls of the room to secure itself above the ground.

To Reysha, the creature looked like a malformed mixture between a carnivorous plant, an octopus, and a spider. Although its large maw and pincers were extremely threatening, the creature suffered from the same drawback as its cousin (the Steproot), being poor senses for anything but its immediate vicinity. The Voraroot, as this monster was commonly called, swayed its head through the room like a large pendulum in search of its prey.

Aclysia and Apexus kept to the wall, while Reysha ran straight at the head. The moment it noticed her approach, the Voraroot aimed its maw in her direction. The anchoring tentacles stretched with creaking sound, as the boss lashed out.

Reysha, once more, dodged long before the attack arrived where she was. As intimidating as the boss looked, it was slow. Slow enough that Reysha could get behind its head and stab at the base of one of the tentacles. Not slow enough, however, that she could do that and not get body-slammed by the head of it and tossed to the floor.

The boss hissed triumphantly, spread out its pincers and moved in to add a number of unsightly trenches to her torso. Reysha shook her head to re-orient herself and only saw what was about to happen when it was too late to get out of the way.

A ball of heated light hit the boss' head, causing it to flinch back and give Reysha the necessary room to roll off to the side. When she was back on her feet, she heard a shout coming her way.

"Keep to the safe tactics!" Aclysia reprimanded. "You're not in a shape where you can just rely on your reflexes."

Reysha wanted to shout back that she was well aware of that, but she wasn't exactly fighting that way. Nodding, she fell back several metres. Once the Voraroot had recovered from the shock, it went back to scanning the room through pendulum movements. Just that the one tentacle Reysha had stabbed at didn't properly move anymore, causing the circling of the head to be slightly off.

Dropping into a slight crouch, Reysha concentrated on Sneaking. While avoiding the searching and quietly hissing head of the boss, she stalked along the walls. Her target was a particularly low anchored root-tendril.

With one quick jump, she grabbed onto it. The boss noticed immediately and loosened the tentacle to grab the prey towards its mouth. Reysha had other plans, only holding onto the tentacle for as long as it took to ram her dagger into it a few times and separate the hook from the rest of the limb.

The boss screamed in pain and then rage, as the tiger girl let go and left it unaware where she was now. Two of its twelve tendrils were now incapable of supporting the weight of the head, causing it to hang a little bit lower than before. Not enough to be of an advantage yet, but enough to make for a start.

Whereas the tentacle she had damaged at the base was completely useless, the one she just crippled was still able to lash through the room. Slow as the movements were, it was still an extra thing to avoid, as she made herself towards the next tendril she could reach. After repeating that process four more times, the Voraroot head was hanging mere centimetres above the floor.

Reysha dropped down, positioning feet and hands for the start of a sprint. 'Now comes the dangerous part,' she thought and smiled a little bit. Then she started running. Gaining as much momentum as she could, she jumped the moment she hit the edge of the Voraroot's awareness.

She held onto the side of the boss and just started stabbing at the back of its head. The flower petals and thrashing movements tried to shove her off, but she held on with all she had. One by one, she ruined the tendrils, until there was a snapping sound and she, the head, and the few still attached roots all fell to the floor. With panicked speed, the boss pulled all of those tentacles towards its mouth, forming a deadly cocoon.

Apexus was ready to intervene but, in a display of her old speed, Reysha jumped over the now lying head before she could be caught. In one seamless motion, she unsheathed her second dagger, whirled around and let herself fall onto the wolf-sized head. Both blades sunk in to the hilt into the gnarled body of the Voraroot and reached something central. One last shiver went through the tendrils and the pincers, then everything about the body became limp.

"...That wasn't too bad," Reysha said, as a tunnel opened at the back of the room. Inside they found their reward chest and their way out. "Let's hope it really is enough."

"Yeah," Apexus said, to both of those things.

"Y-you came back!" Nudru exclaimed, after the trio opened the door to their house and marched inside. He had been hiding under the bed, thinking the approaching people might be the debt collectors, already having found him again. A not entirely unjustified fear, given how close they were to the city.

"Of course, we came back," the masked Apexus said and tilted his head. "We live here."

"I mean... uhm..." the failed Scribe wasn't sure how to answer that. In the end, he just went with admission. That the masked man was odd, even he with his lacking knowledge realized. "Yes, you do."

Aclysia closed the door and the trio sat down around the stone tablet on the floor. "Come over here," the angel said in the tone of divine benevolence. "We have to finalize our plans."

After inching over and sitting down on the floor, there being only three tree stumps, Nudru cleared his throat. "Is this... really wise?" he carefully asked, looking at all three of his benefactors.

"For us to get involved with you? Fuck no," Reysha returned. "Lucky for you, I'm screwed in the head in other ways than a few months ago."

"Uhm... no, I mean, the three of you sitting together," the dark-haired scribe swallowed when the niceness Aclysia displayed switched into physically noticeable annoyance. The metal fairy had grabbed her beloved slime and was cuddling him with as much enthusiasm as she could without displacing his robe and Apexus was answering the motion in kind.

"Are you suggesting we separate?" the white-haired woman asked and narrowed her eyes.

"N-no, of course no!" Nudru threw his hands into the air, as if to surrender. "It's just that it's bad luck for two women to sit together with one man, you know?"

Apexus and Aclysia did not know about that and Reysha just groaned. On the inquisitive gaze of the two, she explained. "It's some rumour that gets peddled among adventurers. Basically, one man sitting with two women means that the group will mysteriously vanish or eat itself from the inside, is the stupid fucking idea. Just some tall tale."

"I see," the slime just noted. That was just another odd construction of society to him. "Is it something we need to pay attention to? Is that important like this whole currency thing?"

"No, its just something stupid, idiotic morons and other dumb fucks believe in," Reysha cussed, evidently quite annoyed at the rumour.

"S-s-sorry," Nudru hung his head. Personally, he believed that there was something to that rumour, but this clearly wasn't the environment to bring that up. Especially since those three were committed to helping him. "Feel free to ignore my complaints..."

"Done," Reysha responded with a smile that felt surprisingly carefree. Then she was reminded what this whole thing was for and the myriad of things that could go wrong. The smile shrunk, but didn't vanish completely. "To the point -- Aclysia?"

"At once," the metal fairy responded and grabbed the bag in which they kept their valuables.

About ten minutes of unloading and sorting later, they had just about three gold coins and ten silver in pure coin, a fine leather quiver, a small iron amulet of mediocre craftsmanship, five blank slates of copper (each about the size of a playing card), a simple iron scimitar and, lastly, a fine satin glove with extensive summer-god iconography. That had been the boss loot and it looked a lot more valuable than the rest.

The metal fairy pointed at the finely stacked amount of money. "The value of this is unquestionable. Granted, I have not checked for counterfeit coins, but we have been given most of them out of common market circulation. The remainders we got out of the dungeon itself. I do not doubt the genuine nature of any of these coins." Her hands moved over to the items. "The quiver is alright, I would guess it to sell for about five, maybe six silver coins. The amulet is a little less valuable, created easily and with little materials, one or two silver coins at best. The copper strikes me as almost valueless."

"It's the standard shape they use for those identification cards the Adventurer's Guild hands out," Reysha told them. "Which, I guess, only makes them more worthless because the guild shits them out on the daily."

"Affirmative," Aclysia nodded and moved on. "The scimitar would be worth more if it was proper steel, but even as iron it should fetch a good price. I estimate about eight silver pieces." Reysha nodded, that was a considerably higher price than her daggers had gone for, but that was of little wonder, given the difference in size. "The glove, I'm not sure about. Its main value is artistry, rather than anything tangible. I would offer it up along with the money, rather than try to sell it in a hurry. That wouldn't work in our favour. Even with that, we end up at about 3 gold and 40 silver, thanks to the other things we already sold to nearby farmers. Adding your own savings to that puts us at about 3 gold 90 silver. If you sell the items for the estimated price."

Like every city that had a dungeon nearby, there were numerous traders around that bought items off adventurers and then sold them further for a profit. Nobody liked those middlemen, largely because the only skill their profession needed was bartering and they were exceedingly good at it. However, because adventurers weren't (usually) interested in getting into the fine details of trading, they still flourished as much as the adventuring profession in an area did. They basically operated as a distribution node.

They would get something like 75% of the actual market price for each item, but it would get them that money immediately. They had reason enough to believe that this was for the best, when it came to Nudru's health. The trio also wanted to get this affair done with as quickly as possible. Their instinct to help may have been stronger, but the wish to minimize contact with others was very much present still.

"Do you agree with my assessment?" Aclysia asked Nudru, while slinging both her arms back around her darling.

"That does sound smart, yes," the Scribe answered and looked wonderingly when he was offered the adventurer's bag. The empty thing dangled from Reysha's hand, while Nudru just stared. "Uhm, I feel like I need further explanation...?"

"Put stuff in bag," Apexus stated, his deep, almost commanding voice clashed with the simplicity of his words and tone. "Leave the money and glove, for now, and sell the rest. We cannot go to Adventurer's Guild building for reasons."

"You should also make contact with your debt collectors," Aclysia added. "Tell them that you have the money and want to meet them at a place that is remote."

"Remote, and at a place and time of their choosing -- but within the next few days," Reysha also chimed in. "We don't want them to think that you have back-up about to take them out."

"Also tell them to bring something that guarantees that they won't bother you again in the future," Apexus had the final word. He had no idea what that something would be, but insurance was needed.

Nudru swallowed, still intimidated by those three figures, and tried to summarize all of that. More for himself than for anyone else, he thought out loud, "So I'm supposed to head into the city, sell the items, see if I can get into contact with the debt collectors, tell them to meet me a remote place of their choosing, soon but at a time they pick and that they should give me insurance. Is that right?"

"Yes," the slime kept his answer simple. "Go now."

"S-sure thing, s-sir!" Nudru said, hastily threw the sellable items into the bag and then hasted towards the door.

"Sir?" Apexus wondered after he was gone. He would have asked earlier, but he still tried to solve it on his own before the Scribe was out. "Why 'sir'?"

"He's intimidated and thinks you to be his superior, instinctively," Aclysia offered an explanation. "Given the difference of power in your situation and bodies, this is no surprise." The metal fairy then looked over to Reysha. "If you feel up for it, I would appreciate it if you could follow Nudru from a distance. A precaution, should they feel it necessary to assault him again."

"Got it," the Rogue nodded and got up. Grabbing one of the cloaks, she pulled it over her head. "I'll be back before he is -- unless I need to carry him back." Aclysia just nodded.

_________________________________________________________________________

It was not necessary. As a matter of fact, everything went scarily smooth. Nudru headed towards the town he actually lived in, sold the items and was immediately approached by guys that had roughed him up a few days earlier. They still thought he was an adventurer so waiting for him at the guild building had been the most logical place to wait. It certainly helped that the booze was relatively cheap there.

Nudru presented his conditions for handing over the money. Despite being surprised at the idea that he would already have the entire sum (and the fact that he could even walk at the moment), they agreed. They named a place and time, remote, as had been demanded, and assured they would have a guarantee for him. There was no violence anywhere in the conversation and they just parted. Reysha returned to the house, Nudru was right after her and then reported all of it.

Just two days thereafter, the group headed out to get to that meeting.

"Remember not to mention us in any detail," Aclysia said for the third and final time, while they approached the meeting site. "We're going to reveal ourselves if necessary, otherwise we will be hiding in listening distance."

"Unless they have brought their own goons to keep watch over the area," Reysha added. "In that case viewing distance will have to do."

"T-that's good... yes... good," Nudru nodded along. "What are you going to do if they break their end of the bargain though?"

"Depends on what they do," Apexus told him truthfully, having no great concept of white lies. "If they threaten you, we will try to save you. If they kill you, we will run away." If he could at all avoid it, the slime would always do his best not to kill any sapient creatures. He would compromise on that ideal to avenge Aclysia or Reysha, but a Scribe he was helping was not worth killing humanoids over. Especially not in their current situation.

"I-I see," the meek man nodded a bit too abruptly. He wasn't much shocked to hear they wouldn't try to avenge him, he understood that they weren't friends and was still confused why they even helped him in the first place. It was the mere idea that he might die that got him to stutter. The group stopped when the density of trees thinned to unhidable levels. "H-here goes nothing then!" Nudru exclaimed louder than he had meant to and then went on his way. The trio remained where they were.