To Barter for a Leaf

They had walked a bit more than an hour from the Menhir Clearing. In that time, they had found a minerva owl feather and John had gotten the opportunity to Observe one such sleeping owl, half-hidden in a hollow in one of the great trees.

Qhila had spotted it and pointed it out, at which point John tried the spell at what had to him just been darkness with a vague hint of a shape inside. That it worked had been a pleasant surprise. Aside from the owl he had managed to Observe a few other birds and a squirrel as well.

Those targets had been double nice because hitting the feather had finished his Skill Quest for 25 magical objects, enabling the two hidden ones, one of which was 10 species of Abyssal beasts. He was at six now, the pseudodrakes counting retroactively, which made him briefly wonder if the zombies or rat ogre would’ve done so if he had thought to Observe them at the time.

The other hidden Quest was for 10 different Abyssal people. He’d already filled that out yesterday, so it cleared instantly and took Observe directly to 8.

Observe lvl 8 (Active) [Special Skill]
Examine someone’s or something’s appearance and aura. Observe sheet for people, creatures and phenomena partially unlocked. Observe sheet for items fully unlocked. Dynamic nameplate RS unlocked.
Further Skill Levels are gained through Skill Quests
Cost: 0 MP

The level up from the people Quest had said the sheet for people was now partially unlocked, meaning that the text box he’d been getting so far wasn’t it. He was quite curious to see what the sheet was, but he was fairly certain now was not a good time to test it on Qhila.

Actually, before using it on someone without permission again, he had to ask if examining someone’s aura was some kind of invasive thing. He’d kinda been coasting on the assumption that the Skill was non-invasive, because it said he was just looking carefully until now.

In any case, he had to sate his curiosity on the full unlock of the sheet for items. Which was kinda neat even if the one for the feather wasn’t very useful.

Minerva Owl Feather
Lvl 3 Uncommon
Creator: Unnamed minerva owl
A discarded feather from a minerva owl. Used in crafting and enchanting items related to the mind or to transportation.
Attributes: Cognitive Enhancement, Spatial Distortion, Crafting Material
Skill to Craft: Uncraftable
Durability: 100%

A tooltip confirmed that the Skill to Craft would show what Skill was needed to use his Craft spells to make one.

Knowing that and the Item Level that was now shown on all items, he could tell exactly what he could learn to make himself, and what the odds of doing so via Reverse Engineering were. Knowing that made the whole alchemical crafting for power and profit thing a lot more accessible.

Currently, John and Qhila were leaving the old growth forest they had started in. There were still plenty of the giant trees around, but they were spaced out more. The thinner canopy let more light through to the ground, which in turn meant more younger, smaller trees and more undergrowth. It also meant that most of the moss cover was replaced with herbs, grasses and flowers.

“Is this light enough that we should consider fanning out to look for Nobleweed?”

“It is but no. Molly’s nest is close and both the Hunters and at least one herbalist from the Market visit regularly. There will be nothing to find.” Qhila didn’t turn to look at him, and her voice retained the carefully neutral tone that was like fuel to the fire of his guilt and his anxiety about the future of their relationship.

They continued a bit further before Qhila gestured for him to stop, then called out in a language John didn’t know. A smaller tree with dark green, spiky leaves rustled briefly, before a cluster of leaves twisted about to form the shape of a feminine face.

She responded in the same language that Qhila had used, which John now suspected to be Greek, and after a short exchange the leaves reverted to their original positions. When nothing further happened for a moment, John glanced at his kobold companion, but since she seemed to simply be waiting, he decided to do the same.

A few moments later, the leaves parted to let through the woman whose face the very same leaves had formed just before. The likeness was greater than expected because her skin was colored and patterned with lea- no, actually, it looked like her skin was made out of layered leaves.

Each leaf tip terminated in a small spine that lay flush against her skin. Her form seemed overall slim and lithe, though the toga-like fur garment she wore wasn’t exactly form fitting enough to get much of a look. Combined with being barely taller than Qhila, Molly looked positively tiny.

Molly’s hair was a mane of thin stalks adorned with buds and flowers. At the top it was solely closed buds of white and faint yellow, while the flowers further down opened more and more to reveal the vibrant red inside. This gave an overall feel of a gradient of blonde to redhead, albeit in a shade of red that a human would need dye to attain.

??? ‘Molly’
Lvl 16 Lesnik
Child of the Layline

Qhila and Molly had a short exchange in the maybe-Greek language, then the leaf woman turned her eyes towards John and said something to him. While she did so, the spines rose from her skin to point outward, like a hedgehog raising its hackles.

Her expression and demeanor also looked… Well, John felt like it would be racist to think ‘prickly’, but he also couldn’t currently recall any of the synonyms that he knew existed. And whatever term he mentally labeled her current attitude didn’t help him understand what she said.

He started in English, “[I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I only speak English,]” he changed language, “Low Draconic,” he changed again, “[and bad French.]”

“[Why are you here?]” the Lesnik responded in English, with a tone that was flat, irritable and generally sounded like she just wanted this over with so she could be left alone. Like a retail worker getting a bunch of questions from a customer 2 minutes past closing time.

“[Uh, Qhila needs two of your leaves to brew something. I’m not sure if the plan was to trade them for favors, goods or just money, I don’t really know what you’d want…]”

“[Why are _you _here?]” So it wasn’t getting visitors in general she was unhappy with, it was just John having his usual effect on girls. Fantastic.

“[Well… she needs the stuff to try to clean up a mess I caused, so the least I could do was try to help get the ingredients…]”

Instead of responding to that, Molly went back to talking to Qhila in maybe-Greek, leaving John out of the conversation. He couldn’t just walk away, fixing things as much as he could with Qhila was too important to ruin over a stranger being rude, but it irked John substantially.

After what felt to the Gamer like hours of conversation, but which his phone insisted was about ten minutes, Molly turned around and returned to her tree. Qhila turned to leave as well. “For the first leaf, we will slay a cordy-boar that could give her grove a fungal infestation if it heads this way. It would be too risky alone but the two of us should manage.”

John thought he heard the faintest hint of a waver in the carefully neutral tone at that last sentence. That aside, he had a few questions. “If it’s that risky, is it really worth only one leaf?”

“To her, yes. If we don’t, the Hunters will sooner or later. Sooner rather than later, even. Too much infestation makes for a poor hunting ground.”

“I see… Second, and probably more important, what’s a cordy-boar and how do we fight it?”

“A boar infected with cordyceps. Abyssal cordyceps, that is. I think it has a mundane cousin that only infects ants. Fighting it is a three step process. First, we set a lure, then we poison it and then we keep our distance until it’s immobilized. Then I suppose finishing it off makes step four, but by then we’ve already won.” She had stopped to rummage in her bag, then held out a spray bottle. “It orients mainly by scent and this smells like a threat. If it’s getting close to me, spray it and make some noise to draw it away. I’ll do the same if it gets close to you.”

John accepted the bottle with a nod. “Stick it with a [DoT] and [juggle aggro] ‘till it dies. Got it.”

“What?” John had known that was coming the moment part of the sentence came out in English instead of Low Draconic.

“Err, just summarizing the approach in video game lingo. By the way, this Abyssal cordyceps can’t infect us, can it?” The zombie fungus from The Last of Us crossed John’s mind and he didn’t much care for turning into a Clicker. Come to think of it, wasn’t that supposed to be a mutant cordyceps too?

“Technically yes, but the worst it will give demihumans is a carrier rash. But if you get one of those, you should probably steer clear of farms until it goes away…”

They continued for a while in silence. Progress was slower than it had been in the old growth area, what with having to navigate undergrowth. Still, they got to a decent distance away from the Lesnik’s home before the area started to change again.

The ground started to clear out some, though leafless shrubs were still scattered about. The canopy was thinning out as well, making the ground more well lit here than it had been since they left the clearing with the menhir. Despite that, this area felt more foreboding than the primeval gloom earlier. The few leaves in sight were blotched with sickly discoloration, and roots, branches and trunks had splotches of mold in pale, putrid shades of green, yellow and white. The scent was unpleasant as well. While not one John was actually familiar with, he instinctively associated it with sickness and decay.

There were plenty of ‘regular’ mushrooms as well, and they seemed to be the only thing in the area that was thriving. John knew that many mushrooms were symbiotic with the rest of the forest, but he had a feeling those weren’t the ones blossoming here. Observe proved him right on that count. Parasitic, decomposer, parasitic, parasitic, decomposer. On and on it went. And the shrubs and trees were all listed as either dead or dying. Several of the mushrooms were tagged as Crafting Material by Observe, though, with Item Levels as high as the low 20s. And a few descriptions mentioned alchemical uses.

Whispering John asked, “Should we collect some of the stuff here?”

Qhila shook her head. “Boar first.”

John nodded and they continued. Rather than just heading in one direction, however, Qhila was starting to course correct a lot. Before each, she either sniffed the air or sucked her index finger and held it in the air for a moment.

John assumed that they were now looking for the best place to put the lure. An assumption that was largely confirmed when his kobold companion started getting things from her bag again.

“Check if some of the trees are still sturdy enough to climb.” John had kinda wanted to see her put the lure together, but he didn’t hesitate to do as instructed. Doing this right was more important, and if things worked out, he could ask her later.

The trees looked like they should be okay at a glance, but the first branch he tested came off with surprising ease. Not only that but it felt like it had crumbled off more than it had snapped, and the sound was muted to match. Investigating with Observe revealed that the branch had all of 12 % durability remaining and the tree wasn’t much better off.

So instead of testing each tree manually, he Observed the lot and headed for the only one that was both listed as ‘infected’ rather than ‘dead’ and had more than 50% durability left. Testing one of those branches didn’t feel encouraging either, but at least it just splintered a bit at the base instead of coming off entirely.

When he got back to Qhila, he found that ‘lure’ was a bit of an understatement. She had cleared a small, flat area of sticks and toadstools. A spike impaling a strip of jerky was attached to a contraption of sorts on said flat patch. The mechanics of the contraption was beyond John, at least on casual inspection. But the rod with jagged metal spikes on was obviously supposed to give anyone taking the jerky a whack.

It was way too obvious a trap to get anyone with human level intellect with. But since they were after a mushroom piloting a pig, that probably didn’t matter. In any case, Qhila was carefully spreading a syrupy liquid on the barbs, so he decided to hold off on disturbing her until she was doing something less delicate and tossed out a few Observes in the meanwhile.

The jerky was perfectly ordinary, and unsurprisingly made using the Cooking Skill. The stuff Qhila was applying was an Item Level 15 necrotizing venom dealing 5 damage per second per dose for a full minute. Nasty. And then there was the contraption.

Kobold Modular Trap System: Hobbler
Lvl 25 Uncommon
Creator: Skytail Tribe trapsmiths
Modular system of arcano-mechanical parts for trap making. The current configuration is designed to deliver a crippling blow to the leg.
Attributes: Arcanotech, Trap, Modular
Skill to Craft: Arcanotech Engineering or Trapsmithing
Durability: 49%

Now that was a good argument for trying to make space for Arcanotech Engineering in the future. He also wondered if having that Skill would give him a damage figure for the trap, like he had gotten for the venom.

Qhila finished and looked at John over her shoulder. “Trees?”

He shook his head, then pointed at the least damaged one. “That one might work for you, but none of them can take my weight.”

She nodded, put things away in her bag again and held up a small spritz bottle like a perfume might come in. “Back up a bit. Once I spray the bait, the boar might be here in less than a minute.”

John did as asked, then she sprayed the jerky, quickly put the bottle away and grabbed the one thing still left on the ground: a kobold sized crossbow with pistol grip made out of some matte-black material, like modern compound bows.

She scampered away and quickly took up position behind a dead tree. At the same time, John marveled at the effect of the stuff in the perfume bottle. Suddenly, the scent of spiced jerky was everywhere. Not in an overpowering or intense fashion, as one might expect from something scent enhancing, but as though the jerky was much closer than it really was. So much closer, in fact, that he not only felt like he could taste it, he had even made a semiconscious and disappointing attempt at chewing the mouthful that his nose and tongue insisted was there.

It took maybe half a minute before they could hear the boar crashing through what shrubs remained of the undergrowth. Not long after it crested a small incline and came into view, running full bore towards the bait.

John wasn’t an expert on porcine senses, but he didn’t feel remotely well enough hidden to reasonably expect not to be noticed by a wild animal. The cordy-boar gave no indication of knowing he was there, however, or maybe just no indication of caring.

Only when it slowed down to a near-stop a meter or so in front of the bait did John get a proper look at the thing. From the ground to halfway up its flank, it looked like a normal boar, complete with short, bristly fur and being a lot bigger than John had expected. He knew that pigs could get quite large, but seeing a full grown hog in front of him was a different experience.

The size wasn’t the only intimidating aspect of the beast. The bulbous growth covering the thing’s back looked like a mix of tumor and haphazard carapace, the rough, brown lumps of fungal tissue emerging from ripped skin in thick sheets. The overall growth was roughly in the shape of a toadstool littered with pits and crevices between the sheaves of parasitic mushroom. Occasionally, an ominous brown puff of spores emerged from within before dispersing too thinly to be visible.

Cordy-Boar
Level 12 Cordyceps-Infested
HP: 150/200
MP: 0/20

Physical Appearance:
A large boar with an advanced stage of Abyssal cordyceps growing out of its back and skull.

Information:
Raise Observe Level to Unlock

Loot Table:
No system loot from naturally occuring creatures

First Kill Bonus:
No system loot from naturally occuring creatures