Wraithwood Botanist

"Stand over there," I told Kline, pointing to a tree upwind. "Don’t want to inhale this. It’d be a bad time."

Kline didn’t hesitate. He hopped over a log and lay on a rock where I told him to, ears twitching as he looked around. Then I set to work.

Desiccate, The purple leaves I held instantly withered, and a tip broke off, floating in the breeze. I quickly put the rest into the mortar and ground it with the pestle, making quick, uniform strokes with my wrist.

Perfect, I thought when it was dust. I pulled out a funnel and tapped the dust into the bottle. The alcohol would extract the toxins from the plant tissues, but I wasn’t done. I closed my eyes. Extraction. There was Extraction and Essence Extraction, one for normal active compounds and another for magical compounds. Doing that instantly turned the tincture I made into deadly poison—if ingested.

I didn’t need to tell anyone that. It was dark purple and smelled of ground Tylonal mixed in Everclear. Definitely not good for your health—

—but that was the point.

I now had an itch-free poison that was topically safe, even safe to get on cuts, that was very poisonous to ingest. Now, it was time to wear it.

I pulled out cotton swabs I had for insect repellent, put it on the bottle’s lip, and rocked it back and forth. "Come on, Kline," I said, dabbing my face, wrists, and neck. "We gotta get you… Kline…"

Kline was backing away like a possessed human scuttling backward, putting his feet on logs and slinking over them.

"Or be visible," I said dryly. "Didn’t know my cat wanted to be a walking billboard."

Kline paused, looking at me with a sheepish expression, instantly regretting his knee-jerk reaction.

"I think people who want to be right over being right are extra badass," I said. "So if you want extra morning snuggles, I’d get a move on."

Kline’s little shoulders slumped, and he walked back toward me, emasculated but better off. I giggled as he came into my arms, and I patted him down with the poison. He kept wiping his nose, clearly hating the smell, but it was worth it. We were invisible to these bastards. Or at least inedible.

Even on a time crunch, I vowed to start researching all the wildlife in the area I was going to. Doing this much would have prevented that attack entirely.

Life lesson learned.

Once I finished putting on my poisonous purfume, I looked up into the sky.

"To Lithco and the gods watching these legacy quests, allow me to make something clear."

Elana still hadn’t gotten over Brivelt attack when the audio on the feed toggled on—a rarity. Gods were notoriously sensitive, so having an ignorant mortal complain about them resulted in unnecessary retaliation—hence the muting. Thus, hearing the audio meant something strange was happening.

"To Lithco and the gods watching these legacy quests," Mira said to the sky, "allow me to make something clear. My head hurts, I’m mildly traumatized, and I hate my life—but I’m moving forward to complete this legacy. I’ve researched my enemies and created poisons to ward off the brivelts. I’ve learned to avoid poisons and trap plants. Kline can handle most beasts. If I had time, I’d push forward without hesitation, but somehow, I got saddled with three time-consuming death quests, and I didn’t even have the time to eat lunch, let alone practice mental shielding. So, cut me some slack. If I get dinged for this, it’d be annoying.

"Information request: give me an auto-updating map of the safest path to and from the quamper ball mushroom."

Kori laughed. "Seriously? She made demands to gods over something this petty? This girl’s got bigger balls than you do."

Hapsel’s face contorted in rage when he realized that Kori was looking at him. "Hey. I’d take that—"

"She doesn’t have balls you brute," Elana interrupted. "How dare you imply my apprentice has something so ugly between her legs."

"Oh, so she’s your apprentice now," Kori mocked. "You’re losing touch in real time."

Elana rolled her eyes. "If she wins his legacy, she’ll surely choose my subclass. If she doesn’t, she will accept my legacy. I can’t believe you’d assume she would be anything but—"

"Hold up," another god said. "What… Oh…" The woman suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter.

"What?" Hapsel asked.

She responded by pointing at the screen.

Elana turned back to the screen and noticed that Mira had only walked maybe fifty feet before turning on her spore barrier and pulling out the water sack plant. In front of her was a massive red puffball that was half buried underground, making it look like a mound. The only peculiarity was that it wasn’t hidden by leaves in the center, making it look like a red ant hill.

"Wait… is that it?" Kori laughed.

Mira made sure that Kline was safely under her barrier before she stepped on it, resulting in a volcanic explosion of yellow spores that glittered in the air. Mira quickly raised her hand and clenched it, sucking all the spores together in a spinning sphere as if it were the most natural thing in the world. To make things more surreal, she folded the translucent flower bag twice from the inside to make the lip wider—while it spun—before capturing all the spores in the bag. Lastly, she folded it back out and twisted it closed, knotting it three times before storing it in a preservation chamber and using Seal to preserve it.

Such a display was elementary to gods, but for a new neophyte it was a showcase of real magical talent.

Despite that, no one could get over the situation enough to care.

"Ten strides!" Kori roared, eliciting some laughter. "And the way they came from was safe, too! Spent an entire info request to take a few steps and turn around!"

Elana flushed red. She didn’t like anyone speaking ill about her apprentices! So she turned to him. "It still would’ve taken her forever to find it!"

"Yeah, ’cause a big ass red blob’s hard to spot," Hapsel snorted. Kori laughed harder.

Elana sent a deadly glare to the laughing gods, but they couldn’t stop themselves. They just chatted on, completely ignoring Mira as she bought a new skill and started carving up one of the brivelts with her pocket knife. They only started watching again when she stormed off, moving down the same path she took to get there. Then they laughed, dragging the other alchemists in with their infectious laughter.

It was funny—but Elana wasn’t smiling. She felt slightly moved by Mira’s brooding.

Poor girl, she thought. What I’d give to give everything to you. Gods didn’t determine the score the Oracle granted actions, but if she could, she would lavish that girl with all the praise and rewards even the most beautiful of apprentices got. She deserved it.

5.

Fuck you, fuck me, fuck everyone! I couldn’t believe that I ruined my score and made a grand declaration to the gods just to walk 50 feet and turn around! I was hoping that it would at least tell me to take an ultra safe secret passage somewhere, but it didn’t. The map said I’d be taking the same route.

I was pissed—

—and I couldn’t even complain!

What I never mentioned was that the quamper ball mushroom was, in fact, a trap plant. I mean, the thing exploded like a landmine when I stepped on it! So when I got within 20 feet, I instantly got the notification.

But look—I almost just died. A gaggle of bats the size of petite, underweight women were flying at me at the speed of sound, and I barely survived by blinding my cat and cracking my own skull open with a flash of light. Now, I was in an area that could have had a nest of the freaks, and I wanted to leave and lick my goddamn wounds. So I don’t regret using the information request—

—but seriously? Fifty feet? Fifty fucking feet? I could see the area that I went to from where I made the poison!

I was so salty that I didn’t even feel excitement or joy when I bought the Mana Sharpening skill, a general skill that allowed mages to wrap objects in mana to cut with it. It was a gold request, but it was critical, considering that I was eating massive slabs of meat Kline cut with his claws!

As soon as the trial was over, I’d also buy the Fundamentals of Soul Meat Cooking skill, which would allow me to cook this meat without burning it on a 12-hour fire.

I tried to think about that more than my vast annoyance, but I couldn’t. There was a three-hour hike back to the shelter, and I knew I was going to stew over all of it.

Yet I didn’t despair. I’d be able to take out my frustrations soon. These spores were as dangerous as raw uranium, and I had a lot of them.

6.

While Mira was hiking back to her shelter to begin mental shielding training, Aiden was standing in front of a massive steel door painted in arrays. Compared to Galfer’s Gate, it was far smaller—but it felt just as big. It was at least 50 feet tall and was surrounded on both sides by archers wielding glowing bows wrapped in runes. None of them looked like guards. They were adventurers—all mean and out of place, hired hands for this event. It felt as evident as night and day.

This wasn’t the outside of the Cursed Aviary—it was within it. Aiden had already walked through the warehouse, seeing small birds whose beaks snapped through the steel hooks workers fed them meat on and large ones the size of drones and jets. Now, they were in the deepest part of Cursed Aviary, staring down a gate fifty feet high and twenty-five feet across. It was unsettling.

"Wait here," the aviary warden said, signaling to two guards to release the arrays locking the door. A woman nodded and dropped to the ground, putting her hands onto an array and filling it with mana. The arrays on the gate lit up with red light, and the locks started unsnapping one by one.

Suddenly, the adventurers around Aiden started staring and whispering about him.

"That him?"

"Yeah."

"Doesn’t look like much."

"He’s not. He won’t even be a snack."

"Don’t scare ’em," a female said, trying and failing to hide a thin sardonic grin. The man looked away playfully with a smirk, and she pushed his arm.

Aiden knew they didn’t mean him any harm—but he hated people flirting over his life.

"Just ignore ’em," Alitalia said.

"I’m trying." The door clicked a moment later, and the man who was flirting at his expense moved to open the door with another man.

"Try not to be a snack," the female said to the adventurer.

He turned to make a witty comeback, but he missed the moment, so he kept quiet, playing it off by rolling his eyes and moving toward the door as the female smirked, watching him.

Before he got there, Aiden’s guide—the warden-style man who ran the —stopped him.

"I suggest you take this seriously," the warden said. "If you don’t, you might regret it."