EG Monster Island Chapter 22

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE *** 

Thanks for all y'all's comments and suggestions about the story! Hopefully, your feedback is helping me make a better story to share with everyone. Remember, this is draft one, and updates will come!

Have a great week!

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

A little less than an hour after dawn had all of us, including our Bonds, standing in nationstate groups in front of an ornately decorated building. Jamila brought out her tiny Bond for the first time on our trip. “This is Fluffy,” Jamila introduced us. “He’s only just come out of hibernation.”

“Hibernation?” I asked as Fluffy jumped into my arms and smelled my face. The tiny flying squirrel then hopped onto my head and proceeded to make a nest in my hair. I glared at everyone that was laughing at me, but the silly thing was cute enough that I wasn’t going to knock it off.

“He was only level two when we Bonded,” she exclaimed, smiling up at the creature on my head. “The Bond evolved him to a Woodland Flying Squirrel from being a Wood Flying Squirrel and increased his level to three. It took him the last two months to finish adapting to the change.”

“And he’s going to be ready to join you in the jungle?” Jon asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “He will not be a fighter, but he can help find higher quality Aether herbs and supplement my healing ability.”

“I am glad to meet you,” I looked over at Jamila with a questioning gaze, “Fluffy.” I reached up and stroked the squirrel’s head. After a minute, it jumped over to Jamila and chittered at me.

We arrived at our destination. Each corner of the building stretched ten meters into the air, with various fantastical Beasts carved upon the pillars. Two doors made of a shimmering wood engraved with trees, vines, and flowers. “Welcome to the Lealaf Council,” a massive Ashkhas woman said. Her fur was a deep tan, streaked with gray and missing in chunks from wounds that didn’t heal properly. “I am Head Sayaad Jumana and will be overseeing your deployment and equipping for this event.  All of you, follow me into our headquarters.” She turned and walked back into the building.

“The teams with the lowest total score so far will be sent into the Muskh Ghaba first,” she called out over her shoulder. “But you will all be provisioned equally.” We were led into a massive hall. Tables, chairs, stools, and couches littered the right hand side, while three Ashkhas manned booths that led into a wide storage area to the left. The writing over the booths read Herb Collection, Beast Subjugation, and Mission Assignment. When we walked in, all three of them hurried into the back, and a veritable stream of workers walked out with bags and lined up behind the Mission Assignment booth.

“Find a table to be seated at,” Head Jumana called. “The third Topraki team, to the waiting Sayaad’s. They will explain your mission, your goals, and the scoring methodology. Advisors, to me.” She then walked to the other side of the building, selecting an elevated table that was obviously set apart from the others.

We waited for an interminable amount of time, too nervous now to speak. Aleks’s team got called up first, in fifth place overall, and then Ming’s team in third. They spoke with the attendants for a couple of minutes, and then we were directed to take our turn. Only one Ashkhas team was left. Two Ashkhas men and two women. One of the young women had dark brown fur, while the other three were a light tan. The two boys looked nearly identical, obviously brothers. The older of the two guys caught my eyes and nodded. I nodded back with a grin, then turned to follow Vaya to the other side of the hall.

“I am Sayaad (Name),” the older Ashkhas gentleman said, standing in front of three others who were all holding slightly bulging backpacks. He looked us over, and I felt a quick scan of Aether, and saw a thin slice run across the eight of us from the attendant. “Hm, good. Your Zarorzel has a suppression collar. You will be sent to a level four collection area.” He quickly looked at a map. “Area seventeen. From there, you will collect Aether plants and hunt Beasts. Everything you harvest that is level three or higher will contribute to your score. Higher level plants and Beast parts are worth more. Level four is worth double level three. Level five is four times level four. If somehow you collect a level six item, it will be worth eight times the level five. Do not attempt to harvest anything at level seven or higher, as that will violate the agreement with the (Dire Ape name). Head south from your arrival point to find higher level items. Do not journey more than ten kilometers from your arrival point. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” I said.

“Good. Now, you are each being provided a Deep Bottom Backpack with two days of provisions. Additionally, between all of you, you will have a complete set of cookware, two tents, two sets of skinning and butchering gear, two sets of plant harvesting gear, and eight healing pills. These are all mid-Condensation level, except the backpack, and you may keep them at a cost to your final score. The Backpack is a low Core level item, and will cost a significant amount of points if you wish to keep it.”

“May we bring our own bags as well?” Vaya asked, holding up one of the bags she’d brought from Craesti.

“Yes one bag each, as well as any healing, Aether gathering, or Aether recharging pills, potions, or powders. Weapons and armor are allowed as well. Anything else must be cleared,” he said.

“I have a portable Alchemy set,” I said, pulling it out of the bag I’d brought.

He looked it over, and nodded, “This is fine.” Bridget got a small Inscription set cleared, and he waved away Vaya from pulling out a pack of healing powders, bandages, and other wound treatment items. “Now, the main danger in zone seventeen will be the Dire Apes and the (Psychedelic) Mushrooms. The Dire Apes typically travel in groups of seventeen to twenty four and will have at least two level five leaders in each. Dire Ape Cores are worth half-again as many points as a non-Dire Ape at each level, because they can breed to become a menace that will attack outlying farms.” We all nodded to show we understood.

He continued, “Psychedelic Mushrooms release spores that will cause hallucinations in anyone below Core. These will eventually destroy your mind, causing you to collapse into a coma until the spores finish growthing throughout your body and make a new colony of mushrooms. You will be examined for spores when you return.” He turned to Vaya. “Do you know how to burn out invasive plants?”

“I do,” Vaya nodded sharply.

“Good. Cover your nose and mouth with cloth to block the spores as much as you can. A Psychedelic Mushroom is worth double any other plant at its level. If you find a level six colony or higher, mark it on the map you will be given and run away. If you are unable to run, take the collar off your Bond and hide in his burning aura. Every one of you will be given a talisman that will send out a distress call. If used, we will send a group to get you. This will cost you all of your harvests, but you will give you a chance at life. Be cautious, though, as it will take time for you to be rescued,” he gave us a severe look, which was more intimidating than I thought it would be from a feline face.

“Will do,” I said.

“Good. Now follow Sayaad (name),” he gestured to one of the helpers. A younger female Ashkhas stepped out while we collected the bags from the others. She led us down a hallway I’d seen all the other teams go, with rooms to either side marked in the numerals of the Ashkhas language. At number seventeen, she opened the door to a small room. There was a small lectern with glowing runes Inscribed upon the top and six slots on the side along with a two meter by two meter platform ten centimeters off the tiled floor.

The platform was nothing but Inscription runes, Inscribed so densely that I could barely see the stone it was made of. “Step up onto the platform please,” (name) said. I exchanged glances with the others, then shrugged and walked onto the strange thing. There was barely enough room for all of us, with Sia riding my shoulder and Zim riding Jon’s. Kami filled a quarter of the space by herself. “We tell every first time Sayaad, hold your breath,” she told us. “Engaging in five, four, three, two, one, now.”

I sucked in a breath at two, then the world dissolved into static. A sense of motion and a massive surge of vertigo was followed by a blast of humidity. We were in the jungle. Sia screeched, launching off my shoulder with a blast of Fire, as I bent over and vomited breakfast all over the side of the platform. The vertigo hit harder, and I collapsed to my knees. It took a huge effort not to fall on my face in the gross mess I’d made.

Sia screeched again, and I felt the heat from an attack flow over me, but I couldn’t look up from emptying my stomach onto the vines covering the ground. I heard Vaya shout and pushed hard to stand. A dozen Apes were attacking my team, and I was only safe because Sia had deflected three of them by himself. “Give me one,” I sent to him, and the Fire in front of the rightmost Ape vanished.

I was not capable of sending a ranged attack, the world still spinning around me, so I focused on the Iron Bones, Granite Skin technique. Librarian Narwan’s training paid off in that instant, as I was able to bring up the third level of the technique while being only partially functional and in five seconds flat.

The Ape hooted before slamming a fist at me, brimming with Metal and Earth Aether. I tried to dodge, but stumbled to the side and took the hit on my left shoulder. The burst of Aether formed into a spike of metal that ripped into my technique, shattering its protection and then glanced off my armor as I turned. I backhanded the creature, but wasn’t able to get an Aether Blast Technique to form on my hand. The Beast grunted, then another fist hit me in the stomach and launched me two meters backwards.

I kept my feet, the dizziness vanishing as if it never was. I grinned at the creature, then blurred forward with the Gusting Northern Wind Technique while drawing my trisula. The Core level weapons glowed with the Ice Aether I pushed into them, holding an Aether Blast until the Beast blocked my strike. The point of my weapons stabbed into its forearms, and then it screamed when I blew them both apart. I ended its misery with another stab, piercing its eyes to destroy the brain.

A quick look around showed everyone else was doing okay, so I sprinted towards Sia.  He dodged an attack from one of the Apes, who I realized was giving off the aura of a level five Beast. A strong level five at that. I could feel his frustration, knowing that he could instantly obliterate the annoying creature if he rejected the collar, but that would invite reprisal from level eight plus Beasts watching over their offspring.

I ducked through a wall of Fire from Sia, and ignored the scorching heat. Our Bond reduced the effect on me, and the weaker of the two Beasts fighting Sia bellowed in anger and pain when I appeared just behind it. I slashed open its hamstrings, letting it collapse to the ground. I ran around the fallen Beast to flank the stronger one, charging up an Air Aether Blast. The Ape pulled up a clump of stone and threw it at Sia, almost like an Earth Bender. The sound of it moving cracked as it broke the sound barrier.

Sia conjured a small Metal block, deflecting the stone attack into one of the three Apes attacking Jon and Kami. It collapsed as its leg was blown off by the redirected attack. Sia retaliated with a burning orb of Fire, enclosed by Air, that exploded over the Ape’s skin with only its fur singeing. The Ape hooted with a derisive tone, and I heard, “I shall make your Core into a necklace once I have drained it of your vitality” from the creature.

“You overreach your station. Flee for your life, stupid monkey,” Sia sent back to him, along with a wave of Fire and Lightning that caused the Beast to scream. I took advantage of its distraction, moving behind it and shooting my overcharged Air Aether Blast into its butt. The blast of Aether exploded, covering most of the Beast with scythes of Air Aether that ripped apart its skin and muscle.

A wave of Earthen spikes shot out of the ground towards me when the Beast turned towards me. I sideslipped most of them, but two stabbed into my shin and calf on my right leg. I twisted, breaking them off and letting the Earth dissolve into Aether while sending a burst of my own down to the wound to close it off. The Ape screamed, bounding towards my position with a ferocity that belied its interactions with Sia. I deflected two fists, my bones creaking in pain as massive bruises formed on my forearms, before Sia appeared on its head, smashing his beak through its skull. “You should have listened,” Sia sent to it as it died, sadness permeating his communication.

I felt rage and regret from the Beast, and then it died. A few more blasts from the others preceded the last Beast falling. “Anyone hurt?” Vaya yelled out, panting next to the corpses of three Apes.

“Kami,” Bridget gasped, pointing at the collapsed pangolin. Bridget herself had blood running down her face and part of her shirt was torn, revealing the armor underneath it. Vaya hurried over to Kami, and I rushed over as well, trusting Bridget to let us know if she needed help. I pulled out a healing powder, having made a dozen in preparation.  A chunk of her scales on her back had been shattered by an attack, her blood oozing out. Vaya put both hands on either side of the damage and a green and blue film seemed to cover it. Over the next few seconds, the wound was scabbed over, then healed into pink skin. The Aether she was using changed to Earth and Metal, and Kami’s scales reformed in front of me.

I was just standing there, holding up a powder, when Vaya slumped. Kami turned around and gave her a lick. I crouched next to Vaya and put my hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just a little tired,” Vaya said. “That took more out of me to heal than I thought it would, especially after that fight.”

“Well, you rest and gather,” I said, standing up. “Sia, Zim, can you explore around us to see if we are clear? Stay close, though. Lampart, you are on guard duty. Jon, Bridget, help me get the Cores? Uh, what else is valuable from the Apes?”

“Meat, tendons, organs, bones,” Vaya said. I looked over to see her holding a small pamphlet. “This was in my bag.”

“Um isn’t that all of it?” Jon asked. He was sitting next to a very large Ape, and I noticed he was pushing Aether into his high-Condensation level shield to work at one of several large dents in it.

“We’ll, none of the digestion system,” Vaya kept reading. “And not the skin. It does not say why. Let’s fill up one of our bags with this stuff.”

“I do not know if it was lucky or unlucky that a group of Dire Apes was waiting for us at the platform,” Bridget said, cutting into the chest of a level four Beast to extract the Core. I looked at her closely, noticing she was favoring her left arm slightly.

“Hopefully the weaker teams weren’t ambushed like that,” I said, walking over to the level five that Sia and I defeated together. “Light, even some of the stronger ones would founder. We only did so well because there are eight of us. Thankfully, most of us weren’t hurt too bad. Right?” The others nodded. I sighed, putting away the healing powders and getting out a belt knife.

It took us another hour to cut apart the Beasts. We were able to harvest the majority of the Beast’s meat and organs, along with all of their Cores and bones. Remarkably, all of it fit into one of the new backpacks we’d been given, with room to spare.

Sia and Zim both reported no higher level Beasts within a half-kilometer, giving us a little bit of breathing room. Bridget and Jon roamed about, and together with Lampart they found a couple of level three herbs to harvest. Vaya finally announced that she was ready, the last of the Apes was packed away, and everything was secured that wasn’t in direct use.

I spent a few minutes examining the Aether flows around us, and then headed south, following the fourth largest flow. “I think this one will be level five,” I said. “The other three are at least level six. Let’s avoid that for now.” It took ten minutes of walking, carefully avoiding leaving a trail. We didn’t want to let any predators follow us to either the plants we were harvesting or back to the platform.

“Did any of y’all feel nauseous after the,” I paused, realizing there was no word for teleport in their language, “transport?”

“Only mildly,” Jon said, “I saw you puking up afterwards.”

“Yeah, it messed me up,” I grinned at him. “I wonder why it affected me so much more than you all.” We talked quietly for another few minutes, then I waved everyone silent. The Aether flow had turned into a whirlpool. I crept carefully forward, moving aside a small bush’s leaves to look into a small gap between trees that held a rose bush. The roses glowed red, blue, and white, giving off a flickering aura that alternated between Fire, Water, and Light. “Sia,” I whispered mentally at him, “do you sense any Beasts?”

“No, but my senses are reduced severely by this blasted thing,” he scratched at his neck, careful to not take the collar off. Zim and he shot off, and they circled the tiny clearing in only a few minutes. I had to guide them back to us. They kept getting lost.

“I think the flowers are putting out a zone of confusion or misdirection,” Bridget said. “I had to help Kami find us again. She kept getting turned around.”

“That makes it more likely that the plant doesn’t have a Beast guarding it,” I said. “Vaya, follow me in. We’ll take a cutting and some flowers, but only two of each color.”

She gave me an exasperated look, “I know how to harvest a bush.”

“I know,” I replied with a wink. “Jon, can you mark the location on the map?” Jon grunted in assent. Bridget and the Bond’s moved to guard the clearing. I slowly walked towards the roses, when a small streamer of Aether shot out of the plant. It sank into my head, and suddenly the clearing was full of thorns dripping with poison. I glared at it, forcing Aether through my head to push out the foreign connection. With a snap, the plant shuddered and reappeared in my eyes.

“Careful,” I said, “it can project illusions. Keep your mind clear and filter with Aether.”

“Thanks,” Vaya said, crouching next to the plant. We examined it for a few minutes, fighting off the occasional mental attack, before deciding which flowers to cut. I pulled out one of the two herb pruning kits we’d been given, while Vaya got out the other. I carefully selected a single piece and sliced it off at an angle, getting a ten centimeter long branch that had a single red flower on it as a cutting. Vaya pruned off five more flowers while I dug a small patch of the dirt around us to stick the cutting in, then poured a bit of water on it and wrapped the whole thing with a sackcloth. I did have to redirect her a couple of times, when I looked over to see her cutting the dirt.

She smacked me once to stop me from cutting her foot rather than the plant. “This thing is insidious,” I laughed, rubbing my head where she hit me. We finished packing everything up, and slowly left the clearing. Just at the edge, I bowed to the plant, “Thank you. We will treasure the cutting and make sure it grows well.”

The plant shivered for a second, then a small bundle of Aether flowed over to the bag we’d put it in, holding a puff of pollen inside. I pulled the cutting out, and the pollen settled into it. In a second, small roots extended from the bottom, and a new leaf popped out the top.

“Okay, we are not turning in the cutting, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. The flowers should give us a bunch of points,” Vaya said. “While the cutting would be more, I think we can get it to grow in the Grotto. That’ll be awesome.”

“Yeah, a Light Affinity bush that also affects the mind is pretty great,” Bridget said, looking speculatively at the cutting.

“This way,” I said, following another level five Aether flow. After a few minutes, a frantic sending from Zim sent Jon sprinting off to my right. We rushed after him to find a (Jungle) Lynx slashing at the wounded Owl. Jon sliced it to pieces before any of us could react, then bent over Zim. I pulled out a healing powder and carefully dumped it on the bite and claw wounds while Vaya healed him. It was touch and go for a few minutes before Vaya sat back.

“He will be okay, but I need a half hour to recover before finishing healing,” she said. “He will not be able to fight much for another few days, though. That Jungle Lynx nearly killed him.”

“It was a peak level four,” Bridget said, holding up its Core. “Hence why it was able to hurt him so much so quickly.”

“Hopefully we don’t run into too many ambush predators at our level or higher,” I said. “But keep a lookout. Sia, be careful.”

“I will,” Sia said, alighting on a nearby branch. “The canopy is so thick I will not be able to explore well afield of you anyway.”

“Zim, you ready to continue?” I asked. Zim hooted an affirmative, and we moved towards the next Aether confluence.