Tour de Innsville

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Dealing with the rattlegeese with Qhila’s backup was a non-issue, even if taking them out before they reached the traps meant doing it too far from the inn to get NPC fire support. Getting to Fred was also a fairly trivial matter, at least when it came to reaching his general location.

Technically, John didn’t have eyes on the NPC and could be mistaken. But the way that the road curved put his attention squarely on the farm and, especially, the stable. Combined with the cacophony of mixed livestock sounds coming from said building, it was very obvious that he was supposed to pay attention to it. The animals inside sounded panicked, at least to John’s indoorsman estimation.

The large double door facing the street could not be opened. At least not without significantly more applied **** than John had available for the task. He could probably burn through it with some alchemist’s fire given a bit of time, but looking for an alternate way to get in first seemed like a better idea.

One option was the second story window, situated above the unopenable double door. The window in question was open with a wooden beam sticking out a meter or so at the top. From said beam hung a hook.

That would’ve been a great way in if he had a ladder on hand. Maybe even with just a rope. It would probably let him sidestep the likely mess on the stable ground floor. But he had neither, so he found a regular door in the side of the building instead, near the opposite end from the double door.

Opening it made the noise coming from inside even louder. A bigger issue, however, was the gloom. With the twilight outside, the open door cast light on only a small part of the interior, while the rest was cast in deep shadow. He could tell that multiple things were moving about inside, but so faintly that the dark silhouettes melded together and split and re-melded, as though it was occupied not by livestock but by amorphous shadow creatures.

Weighing his options, John quickly used a cat’s eye elixir. Even if it was safe for him to step inside, close the door and wait for his eyes to adjust, that would take time and he was definitely on some sort of clock. While he didn’t know how much time he had left, it was best to be mindful of time being limited all the same. In fact, if anything, not knowing made it even more prudent to go with the quick option. Having a period of color blindness and being more sensitive to sudden light was probably a fairly small price to pay for some time saved and safer progress.

The interior had horses and cows visible over the compartment walls, but John could hear pigs and either sheep or goats as well. The animals were clearly agitated, milling about in their stalls and knocking into the walls with dull thuds and clattering. Most of the compartments looked to still be closed, at least, but a few were open even if their occupants hadn’t left them. All in all, it looked poised for a stampede. It was probably a very bad idea to employ any flashily reactive substances like alchemist’s fire in here, or to hit any of the animals with a stray attack.

It was also clear why opening the big double door hadn’t worked: it was barred from the inside. Near said door was a ladder upwards. ’Figures it’s over there, forcing me to go through the panicking livestock to get upstairs where Fred is supposed to be…’

Grumbling wouldn’t get him anywhere, though. So he focused on the nearest animal pen, containing a brown horse, and tried his best to speak soothingly to it. Though he had no experience with animal care, he figured it was at least worth a try, but quickly realized that he was getting nowhere.

Lamenting briefly that the calming setting on Pheromone Aura didn’t work on animals, he resolved to just try to move through at a steady pace instead and avoid sudden movements.

While moving past the second stall, something darted out from below the stall door and attacked his leg. John reacted quickly to strike at the beast, but stopped in his tracks when his sudden movement clearly spooked a cow. The large bovine rammed the stall door, which creaked in a very concerning way.

While his focus had been directed towards the potential danger of getting trampled by an oxen, the creature that attacked his leg had darted off again, likely disappearing under another stall door or wall. Worse yet, the red dot representing the creature quickly faded from his minimap as well, the belligerent creature apparently having gotten concealed enough from him to do so. As a small silver lining to the whole thing, the critter had at least only dealt minor damage.

The second time that the small creature struck made it clear that he wasn’t going to be able to effectively attack it, or evade its pounce, while moving slowly enough not to spook the farm animals. With the threat of ending up in the middle of a stampede looming, he couldn't defend himself unless he was certain that the attack was going to deal with the pest. Anything less simply wasn’t worth the risk, so he was probably going to just have to weather the **** until he could get out of stampeding range. Made for more Accelerate Recovery EXP at least.

And he got a good look at his assailant. The mutated creature was a sort of reverse gryphon, with the front body of a large house cat and the rear of a chicken. A particularly angry chicken, as he was pretty sure the part of the hit-and-run strikes that had gotten through his pants well enough to do damage was the spurs.

The Observe sheet was uninteresting. The base creature for these roostercats were the roosters, which didn’t tell him much. Beyond that it was the usual stuff for the mutant beasts, including a single Dungeon Point in the First Kill Bonus and a low Level that matched their low damage. He was fairly certain they would’ve been trivial opponents if not for the massive ‘terrain’ advantage.

Despite the attacks dealing only scratch damage each time, he ended up being down 40 HP in crossing the barn. The frequency of strikes had escalated quickly, to the point where John was certain there were multiple of the damnable critters.

John went a few steps up the ladder, eager to lure the roostercats somewhere where he could actually wring their necks. Then it dawned on him that they might not actually follow. If they did not, he would have to lead the NPC through the danger zone. Since it was a child NPC, the creatures’ damage would be a lot more threatening to him. So it was best to spend as little time as possible near the mutants’ favorable terrain. Which meant leaving by the front gate.

Unbarring it was easy enough, but the moment he got the doors more than a hand’s width open, the sound of many pieces of wood tearing sounded from behind him. Time to get the hell out of dodge.

Throwing the doors open as hard as he could, he immediately ran to follow one of them. He still got hit by something on the way out. Knocked down and bruised, he rolled the rest of the way, barely avoiding having his arm stepped on by a horse before he got behind the door to safety.

Moments later, the stampede had passed. Returning to the stable, he saw that no less than 6 roostercats remained inside, all pouncing towards him in unison. A wide spray of bleach stopped them in their tracks and left the rest of the fight a one sided mop up. After a faceful of bleach, the beasts behaved much like the similarly sized pseudodrakes from John’s first barrier. They were objectively tougher, but John’s own growth more than made up for the difference, leaving it all feeling like he was revisiting old foes.

Once they were cleared out, he spent a few minutes healing before climbing the ladder. Poking his head up to the stable hayloft, he almost poked himself in the eye on the tip of a crude wooden sword. Holding it was a boy of around 10 years of age in an oversized leather vest over rough spun wool and wearing a rusty bucket for a helmet.

“Oh. You’re not a monster. You’re one of the adventurers staying at the inn. Are the monsters gone?” As the speech bubble popped up, he tucked the sword into the belt keeping his vest in place.

They climbed down after John confirmed that the monsters were gone and that they were heading to the inn. Once out of the stable, Fred the Farmboy stopped and looked around before exclaiming “I can’t leave without Sosig! I’ll be right back, Mr. Adventurer Sir!” and darting off, leaving the speech bubble behind.

Smelling a cutscene-equivalent, John decided to stay put and wait. After a minute or so, his patience was rewarded as Fred returned riding a pig that was about as tall as Qhila. The beast came with its own nameplate, proclaiming that it was Sosig, Lvl 16 Hog with 300 HP.

The trip back was an amusing affair. Sosig joined the fight against the mutant ‘waves’ they ran into on the way with porcine glee, and while the big hog didn’t deal much damage, he did knock the belligerent beasts around like pins in a bowling alley. That naturally made actually disposing of them easy for John, especially the second wave which happened close enough to the inn for Qhila to join in as well. Unfortunately, Sosig didn’t stick around once they got all the way there, instead fading at the door along with Fred.

Finally, it was time to decide between the hunter and the crone. Since there was only one saveable NPC left, that might doom the one he didn’t choose. Or one of them might be a trap. “Do you have any thoughts on which one might have the best Boon or which is most likely to be a trap?”

“I don’t know how to even begin to speculate about their Boons, but the hunter’s cabin sounds like a remote location right by heavy vegetation. Definitely the best spot for an ambush.”

That tracked. As long as the mansion mentioned in the Quest name wasn’t closer to the crone, the hunter’s cabin did seem more likely to be a trap. But since fishing for hidden keywords had been a bust, he had no way of knowing where the manor was. “I think she’s our best Boon bet too. The main archetypes for ‘crone’ NPCs in fantasy games is either the unofficial village healer, a witch, or both at the same time. The witch part could be a trap, but since she lives in a cottage and the Quest all but spells out that the villain lives in a mansion, that would be a bit of a non-sequitur. Assuming a good witch, the most stereotypical sort of Boon would be potions or elixirs, while for a village healer it would be healing or healing consumables.”

“Fast acting healing potions or elixirs would be nice.” Qhila assented. The ingredients for quick-healing alchemy were expensive, so they had opted for a bigger arsenal of other stuff instead. As a result, they had a single instantaneous healing potion for Qhila in case of emergency. Otherwise, they relied on Accelerate Recovery and tinctures that operated on the same time scale.

“For the hunter, my initial guess would’ve been an NPC ally since all the mutants are made from animals, but after seeing Sosig I’m not so sure. I think the pig is the Boon for getting the boy. The hunter might still make for a ranged DPS sort of ally, but there is a strong possibility it’s something else like temporary gear or some sort of information or shortcut based on him knowing the area instead.

“If he’s a DPS ally, he brings something we’re not really lacking, making it worse than the potions. If it’s anything else… it’s probably at most at a similar value to a Boon specifically making up for something we don’t have.”

“Go get her then, instead of wagging your chin about it.” It was not hard to tell that the reprimand in her tone was hollow, so John decided to interpret it as her trusting his judgment in these matters enough that she didn’t need the rationale behind it. At least not when the proverbial clock was ticking.

The trip out to the cottage was a fairly trivial matter, though getting accosted by a whole 4 packs of vipermoths along the way proved that they were spawning more frequently, just like the attackers at the inn.

Cora’s cottage was positioned at a bend in the road that directed attention towards it, much like the stable had been. It was a much smaller single story building with bundles of dried herbs and chicken feet hanging from the edge of the thatched roof. The bundles had uncommon magic item glitter and Observe revealed that they formed a folk magic ward against vermin that would break if they were removed. ’Score one for the village witch theory.’

He could also see movement on the ground outside the building by the entrance. Closing a bit of distance, it turned out to be several “long rats” as Qhila had called them. Only, that description fell extremely short of actually describing how disturbing these creatures were. They looked like a large rat had been stretched in the middle until it was about as long as John’s leg, with more rat legs added to support the elongated body.

The part that made them really nasty, however, was how they moved. Despite having the appearance of a distorted mammal, they moved in the twitching fashion common to aggressive arthropods. Additionally, they moved in a semi-undulating fashion, as though their bodies were segmented beneath the fur.

Observe revealed them to be mutated rats called rattipedes, and called out limited tremorsense and rapid twitch reflexes as traits it had gained in addition to their disturbing appearance. Between no mention of them getting offensive traits like venom over regular rats and their low Level, in the same range as the vipermoths and roostercats, John had no compunctions about just walking in and stomping them dead.

Once he was about three strides from the cluster of rattipedes, they suddenly turned their attention towards him. At the same time, he got hit with a debuff.

Instinctive Disgust
This creature triggers a deep-seated instinctive disgust that makes it difficult to focus on fighting anything else while it is near.
-20 -16% damage dealt to creatures other than the source. (Debuff reduced by Gamer’s Mind)
Source: Rattipede

’Great, evasive debuff sticks. Just what we needed.’ Trying to stomp or punch them quickly revealed just how evasive, as he was largely just pounding the dirt. At least just keeping moving was enough to prevent them from getting any successful bites past his Ratcatcher’s Pants, resulting in a stalemate of both sides defending too well.

After a little bit, he realized that he wasn’t getting this done with just the “stomp and dodge” dance. He would’ve preferred not to spend any of the alchemical arsenal on these small fry. Or at least not spend any of it besides alchemist’s fire, which was a fairly plentiful resource at this point. The problem with using alchemist’s fire was that the creatures were between him and the cottage, which he didn’t want to set ablaze. The wide spray from the Alchemfist was more or less guaranteed to do so, but also the only way he felt reasonably confident in actually hitting the beasts.

Except, it dawned on him, he did have one option that might lead to good positioning for it. He grit his teeth and threw his shoulder against the door to the cottage, feeling a moment of resistance before it opened with the sound of something tearing.

He didn’t particularly worry about having broken the door, as he turned around, checked that he was still close enough to be fairly certain not to hit the doorframe, and gave the rattipedes a spray of alchemist’s fire.

They were still moving fairly vigorously out there when the fire started to die out, so he gave them a second spray. Then he turned to the NPC, who looked nowhere near as worried about a stranger breaking her door and barging into her home as she should be. Especially given that her eyes were practically all milky white with blindness.

He hadn’t been paying enough attention to her to catch what she had said when she did so, but fortunately, a speech bubble was hanging around. After a short exchange that included another unsuccessful round of fishing for hidden keywords, they were on their way.

The blind old lady was very slow on her feet, unsurprisingly but frustratingly. At least dealing with the spawn waves they crossed wasn’t too challenging. Between John having some experience with the various foes by now, having only one person to protect, and going for aggressively reducing enemy numbers at the start, there wasn’t any real threat there. At least until he got a system message that came up in an attention grabbing way instead of staying in the chat log.

The Horde Approaches.