Tower Story -- Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Quickly running around the immediate area inside the forest, streaking through the trees in a blur, Bax looked for any other monsters that might be near.  After nearly a minute of running at full speed, out of sight of any Adventurers or the field workers, the only monster he saw was a toothy bird-like creature trying to camouflage itself in the branches of a tree, but he left it alone as it was only Level 3.  He could’ve jumped up and killed it, but he didn’t want to bother with it as he was looking for any greater threats that could be a danger to those nearby – and even the lowest-Level Humans back in the fields wouldn’t be in too much danger from it. 

With nothing detected in range, Bax ran back toward where he’d entered the forest, slightly angry at himself for taking so long to get to the monster.  He second-guessed his decision to hide his strength and speed earlier as he raced for the treeline, as it had ended up with the death of an Adventurer that he was fairly sure he could’ve prevented if he had only arrived seconds earlier.  The fact that he ended up saving the others there was only a slight balm to his conscience, because he knew he should’ve done better.

Are people going to die wherever I go?  Or is this just coincidence? 

He honestly wasn’t sure what to think.  Specifically remembering Paulina mentioning that this side of the river was supposed to be relatively safe, he couldn’t help but believe that his presence had changed things up.  How could it be coincidence that as soon as he arrived, a monster that was above the average Level and a great threat not only to the field workers but the lower-Level Adventurer Parties suddenly showed up? 

It had taken him a while to get over the majority of the guilt he’d felt after inadvertently killing all of the Keepers and the Guides; it helped that it hadn’t been his fault for their deaths, as he hadn’t asked to be there and he had no way of knowing that they wouldn’t have any type of defense against viruses like the flu.  While it also wasn’t his idea to essentially put him on ice for more than an entire cycle, before randomly plopping him down in a world, he still couldn’t help but see a correlation between his presence and these sudden deaths.

I’m supposed to be here to help, damn it!

Shaking his head in an attempt to get himself out of his current funk, he slowed down as he approached the edge of the forest where he could see out into the fields again.  A random glance down at his fist as he walked along showed that the knuckles on his fist were smeared with a little bit of wet blood from the Pantherin he’d punched earlier, so he stopped to wipe it off on some short grass under the nearest tree. 

Ideally, he’d have rather hit the monster so hard that it flew through a dozen trees while it was obliterated by the impacts, which wouldn’t have transferred so much blood to his fist, but he had restrained himself because he hadn’t wanted to hurt any of the still-living Adventurers nearby.  Especially the Anjelou that seemed to have been severely injured by an earlier attack; after seeing that one of the other members of the Party appeared to be the healer, he was almost certain that she could be healed and not become yet another victim of the monster.  The pair that had died was already too many in his book.

He had, in fact, nearly stuck around to ensure that they were fine after he’d punched the Pantherin – but had decided that discretion was still important enough for him at the moment that he didn’t want to jeopardize it any further than he already had.  It wouldn’t have served any purpose other than being highly suspicious to the Adventurers, anyway, as his measly Mend Wound spell wouldn’t have been able to help the injured Anjelou, anyway.  He did wish that he’d gotten her name so he might be able to check on her later, but at the time he'd only been able to focus enough on the monster and the large Saroon that seemed to be the Party’s front-line fighter, which told him the likely Level of their entire Party, before he took off to avoid being noticed. 

With his fist cleaned up as well as he could get it, Bax walked out into the field he’d left not that long ago, finding it deserted.  The only sign that they had even been there was the lower half of the Human that had been essentially eaten by the Pantherin, as the rest of the workers had abandoned it – and rightly so.  They had no hope of killing something like the monster that had invaded the field, so their sense of self-preservation was the smart thing to do.

Walking out to the main pathway leading back to town, he could see some of the slower members of his shift group still running for all they were worth toward the walls in the distance; he was tempted to follow them, but he stopped himself.  He knew that there was no danger nearby now, not that it was a “danger” to him, and if he went back without finishing his shift in the fields, he figured that his punishment might not be complete. 

With a shrug, he went back to picking out the Phantom Vines in the same field he’d been working in, while keeping an eye out for any sign that he had missed something.

No more than 10 minutes after he’d resumed his work, three different groups seemed to converge simultaneously on his location – or at least in his general location.  First, 3 full Parties of Level 20+ Adventurers were apparently dispatched from the town, and they arrived armed and armored for a fight, likely expecting to find that the fields had been devastated by the monster. 

From the opposite direction, a single Adventurer Party – with this one containing all members at Level 19 – arrived at a run, also looking for the threat that had already been killed.  It took him a second to remember that the Archives mentioned local threat Tasks being automatically assigned to Adventurers when they were identified; he’d been wondering for a moment how they knew about the high-Level monster getting too close to the fields, and that little tidbit of information answered it for him. 

Lastly, he watched with a bit of guilt as the remaining members of the Adventurer Party he’d saved staggered out from the forest, cheeks wet from the tears that they’d tried to wipe away, and the Anjelou that had been injured looking even more pale than usual and holding her chest.  She was on the road to recovery, but it looked like it was going to take little longer until she was completely alright.

At least as far as her physical body; he knew from experience back on Earth how hard it was mentally and emotionally to lose someone you were close to.   

Thankfully, he was also able to use Identification on her to find out her name. 

Ladrexia

Level: 14

Highest Stat: Intellect

Weaknesses: Unknown

Danger Assessment: High

He also glanced at the Fae healer, who he discovered was named Glindir, and while she appeared largely unhurt, her wings appeared to have suffered from the roots that had held her to the ground.  The fact that she hadn’t healed herself told him that she’d spent all of her Mana stabilizing the Anjelou, which he mentally acknowledged was probably the smartest thing to do at the time.  Both of them would survive now – it would just take some time for the healer’s Mana to come back.

The Party coming from the opposite direction of the town reached the area first.  While they did look at Bax with confused expressions on their face, as if they were wondering why he was still there, most of their focus was on the now-diminished Party emerging from the forest.  Even though they were almost a full field over from him, his senses were good enough to hear them clearly.

“Ladrexia!  What happened?  Where’s Arbino?” the front-line fighter from the incoming Party shouted when he was close enough. 

Bax had to turn away when the trio of surviving Party members seemed to break down for a bit, as he was already beating himself up about not arriving in time, before they began to explain what had happened. 

Soon enough, they finished up their recitation of their actions and the fight, including the death of Arbino, who was apparently their Support member, before describing how they had been caught in a rebounded Root Trap.  Bax had been wondering how that had happened, but now it made more sense.  “…I thought I was next after Ar—Arbino was killed, but then… it died.”

“You did enough damage to it?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the still-injured, but recovering, Anjelou shake her head.  “No, we barely scratched it with what we’d done.  Something or someone killed it.  With a single blow, as far as I can tell.”

“Are you sure the pain wasn’t making you see things?  Because that’s impossible, Drex.”

“She’s telling the truth,” the Saroon said in a deep voice, the bass behind it reaching Bax from where he continued to pull up Phantom Vines while he listened and observed.  “Though, none of us actually saw the attack, only the aftermath.”

Hearing that was a relief, as Bax had hoped that he’d been fast and careful enough to avoid being actually observed. 

“You saw nothing?  How is that possible?  Are you blind?”

The healer from the devastated Party spoke up for the first time.  “Knock it off, Palatto.  We were all incapacitated or mortally injured, so we were unable to see anything until the Pantherin stumbled toward us with its head caved in, like some mysterious Level 40 hit it with a giant warhammer.  I don’t know what to tell you, other than something killed it – after it killed Arbino!  That’s what’s important right now, not your questions or your implication that we’re blind.”

Ooh, that’s a spunky one right there; I like that kind of attitude.  And that Palatto’s being an ass, especially to the others when they’d just lost someone. 

Fortunately, any further argument was interrupted when the groups coming from the town finally arrived.  They swept into the area like they were the Feds cordoning off the site of a terrorist attack; they surrounded the field and the other Parties within their perimeter, like they were trying to protect the evidence of a crime or to prevent the people within from getting away.

Bax didn’t really have much time to observe what happened after that, however, though he did see a familiar Elf in a town guard’s uniform shouting, “Report!” at the two Parties that were there already.  His attention was pulled away after that when a pair of Adventurers, both Vaneshta who were Level 25, marched over to him with suspicion in their gazes.  As he stood up from pulling out yet another weed from the dirt, he glanced over all of the Adventurers that had arrived, seeing so many gathered in one place; it didn’t escape his notice that not a single one of them was Human.  Granted, what he was seeing wasn’t necessarily an ideal cross-section of the current local Adventurer population, but after seeing the ones on the boats, the guards in town, and over 20 Adventurers in the field, he was fairly certain that Humans as part of Adventurer Parties was extremely rare.

Which didn’t really make a lot of sense to him.  Sure, he could understand the other races not wanting to have a comparatively “weak” Human in their Party, but then what was to prevent an all-Human Party from forming?  Nothing he’d read about indicated why that might be, so it was something else he noted to find out more about.

“What are you still doing here?  Why didn’t you flee with the rest of the field workers?” one of the approaching Vaneshta asked—no, demanded. 

While Bax didn’t really like the tone as it was directed toward him, he still answered – though with a nonchalant shrug thrown in.  “It seemed like the danger had passed, and I really don’t want to have to come back out here to finish my shift,” he said.  Even as he answered, he walked a little to his left and picked up another Phantom Vine, before tossing it into his internal inventory space.

“What are you talking about?” the other Vaneshta asked, now more confused than anything.  “Everyone knows that you’ll be paid even when an attack interrupts your work out here in the fields.”

Bax gave them another shrug.  “I’m not getting paid for this; I’m working off a punishment.”

“Punishment?  What did you do?”

A third shrug rippled over his shoulders.  “I’m not quite sure.  Something about not registering when I arrived?  I don’t know, but after I was done doing that, I was released and told to work a shift out in the fields as a punishment – and so here I am.”

“Oh.  Alright.”  Bax’s seemingly unruffled attitude had obviously thrown them for a loop, as they didn’t know how to respond.  Or they weren’t used to Humans being so confident in the face of danger.  “Uh, did you see anything?”

Bax told him how the Pantherin had come out of the forest, chomped one of the field workers in half, and then went back into the trees.  “I moved away from the area for a few minutes after that, but when I didn’t hear or see the large monster again, I came back and got to work again.”

Their incredulous stares were a bit uncomfortable, so he ignored them and continued to spot and pull the Phantom Vines as he moved away from them.  Soon enough, stymied by his unflappable attitude, the two Adventurers moved back to the meeting in the other field, giving Bax a chance to listen in again – but it was pretty much over already.  Healers from the other Parties patched up the last of the damage that had affected the injured Anjelou and the Fae, and things were starting to move.  The 3-person Party went back with two of the Parties and the Elf that had come from the town, while the third town Party and the one led by Palatto moved to the forest, likely to resume their patrols or whatever.

Bax caught the eye of the Elf who’d assigned him this punishment as the group heading toward town passed by, and he gave the important town guard a smile and a nod – and amazingly got a nod in return.  When they were gone, he continued doing what he was doing, wondering how long the shift actually lasted.  He’d already been out there for about 5 hours, so he hoped that he only had about a few hours left until he was free.

An hour later, he began to see the field workers return with Paulina at the head.  Needless to say, she looked surprised to see him still working out there.

“What were you thinking?!  You could’ve gotten yourself killed!” she shouted as she stomped over to him, her steps nearly crushing one of the good plants on her way.

Bax pointed this out to her to deflect her question.  “Hey, you nearly crushed that one there.  Aren’t you supposed to be making sure these things are safe so that they can grow?”  He wasn’t sure where the snark came from, but it came naturally when dealing with the attractive woman for some reason.

Spluttering, she looked like she was about to slap him; it wasn’t funny, especially considering the deaths that had happened as a result of the monster attack, but he nearly laughed anyway.  Fortunately, he was able to control his face and the impulse to laugh at her, which was helped by bending over next to her and pulling up yet another of the seemingly countless Phantom Vines spread throughout the fields.  At first, he thought that they just constantly sprung up even through areas that he’d already passed through, but he was relieved when the fields that he’d finished already appeared to still be clear of any weeds.

In a calmer voice, as well as ignoring what he’d said about nearly stepping on the plants beneath her feet, she asked, “Where did you go?  Why didn’t you run away with the rest of us?”

Though he thought it might make him seem like a coward, he told her, “I figured it would be safer in the trees rather than being out in the open field.  Once the danger seemed to be over, I came back to finish my shift.”  He waved around at the field he was currently standing in.  “By the way, I finished that second field and I’m nearly done with this one, too.  Should I do another?  Or will I have time before this shift is over?”

Bax could feel her disbelieving eyes following him as he grabbed another Vine and stored it away.  Rather than return the gaze, he kept working, pulling out the last few within sight in the field he was in; there were more Phantom Vines spread throughout an adjacent field, but he was fairly certain that it wasn’t one that this shift had been assigned.

“You… You’ve pulled all the Phantom Vines out from all three fields?  That’s impossible.”

Shrugging again, which Bax found himself doing a lot lately, he said, “Impossible or not, it’s the truth.  So, what now?”  With that question, he pulled the final one out of the ground, looking back at her with his arms crossed against his chest.

Silence descended between the two of them, even as he noticed the other field workers getting to work all around him.  Finally, she responded with a sigh, followed by, “We’ll just have to see, then.  Let me take you to the Weed Shredder.”

She turned around and he followed her as she walked down the pathway leading to town; unlike what he expected, they didn’t go the entire way.  Instead, they turned about halfway there and made their way to a large, high-roofed, barn-like building made out of wood and stone with windows shining light inside.  As they walked through the large opening at its front, he quickly deduced that this barn was for storage – and for the Weed Shredder Paulina had mentioned.

Unlike a modern industrial machine that he was somewhat expecting, as he didn’t really have any other experience with low-tech devices, Bax was surprised to see what appeared to be a large wooden box on top of four reinforced stilts, elevated so that the top of the box was a few feet above his head.  To the side of the elevated box were approximately a dozen wheelbarrows, similar to what he’d seen some of the field workers from the previous shift pushing around.

What fascinated him, though, was how the box seemed to glow with a purplish aura that was just barely detectable; he could feel the energy that was imbued in it, and he realized that this was likely a bit of Magitech that he was looking at. 

“Alright, head up there and start unloading what you’ve pulled up.  I’ll arrange the wheelbarrows down here to catch the shredded fertilizer when it falls out below.”  She pointed to a set a steps that led up the side of the box, which he quickly moved to and walked up, looking over the side of the box to what was below.  Unfortunately, he was disappointed in not seeing some sort of medieval torture-looking shredding machine; instead, there was simply a glowing wooden plank that seemed to be sitting on the bottom of what looked like a large wooden bowl with a small hole on the bottom, perfectly centered. 

“How does this work?” he asked, unsure how this was supposed to shred something.

It was her turn to shrug now, with a smirk on her face.  “I have no idea.  Just start chucking in the Phantom Vines and see for yourself.”

The moment he pulled out one of the weeds he’d obtained earlier and dropped it inside the box, he immediately saw what she was talking about.  The wooden plank was apparently carved to have sharpened edges, and it began freely spinning around in circles inside the box, almost seeming to hunt down the weed he’d thrown inside.  It reminded him of some of those neat magnetic toys he’d seen on Earth where a piece of metal would be suspended in the air and perhaps spin around, looking like it was defying gravity; in this case, however, he could sense that it was the energy imbuing both the box and the wooden plank, causing it to move all on its own.

Within seconds, the weed had been sliced, diced, and torn apart as if he’d dropped it into a blender, and he could see the sides of the box coaxing the resulting pulp down through the hole.  He bent over the side of the stairway and saw it falling into the wheelbarrow below.  Glancing at the impatient expression on Paulina’s face, he nodded to himself, now understanding at least the basic principles of what he was working with, even as he pulled out a second and third Phantom Vine and dropped it in.  The same result happened as it did with the first, so he kept going, steadily dropping on after another.

“Hold for a moment!  Changing wheelbarrows!” he heard from below, and he paused.  No more than 10 seconds later, he resumed; he saw Paulina easily pushing a full wheelbarrow off to the side before racing to get an empty one to replace it.  A quick estimation of how many of the weeds it took to fill that one made him take a look around at how many were still empty; he was fairly sure that there weren’t enough to handle what he’d brought.

But perhaps he’d be wrong.

Instead of saying anything, he resumed his Vine destruction and fertilizer production, while Paulina worked to push the full wheelbarrows aside and get empty ones to replace them.  After the sixth, he could see confusion on her face as she looked up at him.  “You still have more?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah.  I’d say at least another 6 wheelbarrows; more like 8 or 9.”

“How?!  How did you pull out so many of them?”

He chuckled at her incredulousness.  “I don’t know; I guess I’m just that good?”

Shaking her head, she pushed another empty one up to the bottom of the Weed Shredder.

No more than 10 minutes later, he’d filled up all of the empties – and he still had more to shred.  Paulina, still shaking her head in disbelief, started grabbing some empty wooden barrels and rolled them over to the Shredder, where he was able to resume the shredding process.  In the end, he nearly filled up 2 of the barrels before he ran out, and then he offered to move the nearly-full barrels where she wanted them.

That was almost a mistake, as the barrels were heavy – for a Level 2 Human, at least.  It was only when he saw her struggling to even move them a little as he went to pick one of them up that he paused in his action to easily lift it; instead, he pretended to struggle to shift it to the side, showing only a little more Strength than Paulina.  It took a few minutes to get them into place along the barn wall, and she let out a breath of relief when it was done. 

“So, is that it?” he asked, brushing off his hands.

She chuckled a little hysterically for moment as she looked at him.  “That’s it?  Do you have any idea what you just did?”

“No.”  He added another shrug for fun.

She began walking out of the barn as she explained.  “Normally, we’ll work through most of our shift before our entire group descends as a whole to weed through the fields we’ve been assigned, passing over them in a coordinated wave so that we can be sure to get them all.  This usually takes around 40 of us 2 hours to get all three fields done, but you somehow weeded them all in something like 5 hours – and we were even interrupted when a monster unfortunately attacked.  In addition, I think you pulled more weeds than we’ve ever found before; this has to be some kind of record,” she said, waving back into the barn to emphasize her point.  “So, when you ask if that was it… I don’t even know what to say.”

Oh.  I wasn’t even trying to move that fast.  “So, uh, does that mean my job on the shift is done?” he tentatively asked.

Nodding, her eyes unfocused for a moment.  “Yes.  I’ve authorized the completion of the shift, which fulfills your Task.  Your ‘punishment’ has been fulfilled.”

Opening his APPS, he wondered if his Tasks had finally updated with something – but there still wasn’t anything there.  Regardless of its absence, it appeared as though he was now in the clear – and he was eager to get back to town so that he could start figuring things out.

Getting some clothes would also be nice.

As the day was growing later, he figured he might need to hurry before any of those shops and temporary stalls closed for the day.  With a smile and a wave to his erstwhile “boss”, he thanked her for showing him around the fields.  “Oh, and for putting up for me all day.”

“Anytime you want to pull more weeds for us, you’re more than welcome to come back out.  We’ll even pay you next time,” she called out to him as he took off down the pathway to town at a reasonable pace.  He waved back at her in acknowledgement, seeing her staring at him leave with her hands on her hips and the corner of her lips curling up in a smile she was trying to hide. 

“Finally, back to what I was doing before I was so rudely interrupted by the authorities,” he mumbled to himself as he set his sights on the distant town gates.