15. Vesper #2
Cipher laughs. “With the weapons you currently hold, your chances are less than thirty percent.”
“And Locke?”
“Are you sure you wish to know, Vespera? It is always less than yours.”
“Tell me,” I whisper.
He hesitates, not because he’s scared to say it, but for dramatic effect. I’m learning that Cipher really likes the theatrics. “Five percent,” he finally says. “Welcome to the Red Bloom Court, Vespera.”
I suck air through my teeth. “Stay close,” I tell Locke.
He nods in understanding, even if he doesn’t fully understand why I’m telling him that.
He thinks it’s because I’m being cautious.
Instead, it’s just because Cipher told me he has a ninety-five percent chance of dying in this zone and that scares me.
I’m not prepared to go through the Harrow alone.
I definitely don’t want to learn what that’s like, so I need Locke to keep breathing.
It’s selfish of me, and I’ll never tell him that I need him, but I’m only human.
“You have me. You do not need him,” Cipher murmurs.
You’re not flesh and blood, I think. It’s not the same.
He has no answer for that.
There are new plants in this zone, small ones, big ones, some that look stranger than anything we’ve seen so far. To my right, a particularly large flowerhead sits, closed up as if it’s preparing to bloom. It’s larger than my whole upper body, bright red and waiting.
“Look at this thing,” I say, leaning in closer to it.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Cipher advises.
I stop, frowning at the warning, but clearly, Cipher doesn’t warn Locke the same as he did me.
“That’s wild,” Locke says, tapping it with his blunt sword.
The plant comes alive, opening wide to reveal impossibly sharp teeth inside its flower.
It snaps out at me and I fall backward just in time to avoid it, my heart beating loud in my ears at the close call.
Locke to his credit, doesn’t panic, but he does take a step back when the plant tries to snap at him next, doing its best to rip its roots out of the ground in an attempt to get closer.
I watch as it yanks hard and then seems to remember it doesn’t have any feet.
It slowly folds back up, hiding its teeth away.
Though it doesn’t have eyes, I can’t help but feel like its glaring at me.
“New rule,” Locke says. “Don’t touch the plants.”
“You don’t gotta tell me twice,” I grunt, getting back to my feet. The plant makes a noise as if to mock me. I don’t like that. How many of these things are killers?
We get the answer pretty quickly.
All of them. All of the plants are killers. And we’re surrounded by the bastards.
At first, I don’t see any other creatures besides the plants and I start to think the plants have eaten them all. So, it startles me when a small green creature appears on a branch in front of me.
My brows furrow. “You see that?”
Locke follows my gaze and frowns. “What . . . is it? You getting a description window?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. Cipher?”
“You must wait for the creature to perceive you for a description to pop up,” Cipher answers helpfully.
“I swear we’ve gotten descriptions on things that haven’t seen us,” I comment.
“Have you now?” Cipher says. “How very interesting.”
Which gives me no further understanding. Great.
“Alright. I’m going to let it perceive us,” Locke says.
He holds his blunt sword out and shakes the trees.
The green creature whips its head toward us, its large, tube-like neck inflating just a little bit at the interruption.
It has four legs, each tipped with toes that have rounded tips on them.
It holds onto the branch easily, moving around to peer closer at us.
It has a long tail that extends behind it that opens up like a leaf.
The creature is colorful, mostly a bright green with specks of red.
The red climbs up its throat. If it didn’t move, I wouldn’t even know it was there.
The description window pops up.
PITCHER LIZARD
Small plant, unaligned
It must decide that we’re no threat because it settles back on the branch, lifts up its head, and opens its mouth.
With eyes closed, the pitcher lizard sits on the branch so still, I forget what we’re watching for a second.
Until a small insect comes buzzing by. It lazily buzzes through the air, dancing to and from, growing closer and closer to the pitcher lizard.
The lizard doesn’t move, not even when the bug lands on its neck and starts to climb upwards.
It reaches the mouth, trails along the edge, and then just barely dips inside.
The Pitcher Lizard’s mouth clamps shut and it happily chomps on the bug.
“Did you see that?” I ask Locke. “It lured the bug in.”
Locke grimaces. “Let that be a fucking reminder for anything else in this zone. If that thing was big enough, it would eat us, too.”
From that moment on, it becomes easier to see that there are many creatures moving around us, blending into the foliage until they move the barest amount and we finally notice them.
Pitcher lizards are everywhere, but we also see other strange creatures, too.
Tiny frogs that leap away when we push through the underbrush, strange lizard-like creatures that move too fast to pop up a description window, insects that fly around and become food for the toothy plants.
“Look at that one!” I say, excited, to Locke as we give a wide berth to a particularly large snapping plant. “See it? Right there?”
A small bird comes fluttering through the trees to land on a branch in front of us. It’s tiny, smaller than my fist, and it’s almost completely green. It tilts its head at us and the description window pops open when I touch my implant.
SNAPTRAP
Tiny plant, unaligned
“It’s so little,” I coo, reaching out a finger toward its pointed beak. “Hi, little guy.”
“Don’t touch it,” Locke grumbles. “It’s little, but I bet it could take your finger off.”
“He’s curious,” I say, smiling at the Snaptrap. “Are you hungry? I can give you food.” The Snaptrap hops closer on the branch in answer. “I knew you would be.”
I open my inventory and scroll to the bottom . . . to find it empty. I know I shoved a whole bunch of food in there from AppleFrog’s, but now that I’m looking, it’s not there at all.
“What the fuck?” I grunt, scrolling through again just to doublecheck I didn’t miss it. “Where’s all the food?”
“Food procured within a safehouse is not transferrable,” Cipher comments. “You will not be able to carry it within your inventory or in your hands.”
“You could have told me that before I filled my inventory up,” I growl. “I left behind so much stuff to make sure it fit.”
“You did not ask,” Cipher replies. “I figured it was a lesson best learned in your own time.”
The Snaptrap makes a noise of displeasure and I glance at it again.
“Sorry, buddy. I apparently don’t have anything to give you. Locke?”
“Nothing,” he replies, shaking his head. For emphasis, he holds out his empty hands.
The Snaptrap hops closer in annoyance. It opens its mouth to let out a little insulted chirp. This time, both Locke and I stumble back.
Because the cute little creature? Its mouth didn’t just open like mine does. Its mouth opens in four parts, spreading open like a flower to reveal red insides and sharp little white teeth. It does it again, chirping, demanding the promised food.
I take a step back. “I don’t have anything. I’m sorry.”
It launches off the branch and darts toward me. Throwing my hands up in surprise, I duck, trying to keep it from attacking my face as it screeches in anger. After a few circles above me, it flies away, off to terrorize the other creatures of the Red Bloom Court.
Locke glances at me. “I’m not about to be killed because you wanted to pet an animal. No talking to the wildlife.”
I scowl. “Don’t be an asshole. I’ll talk to whatever I want to.”
But I don’t, in fact, talk to anymore of the creatures here. Until we level up, we’re vulnerable, and he’s a little right. Even if it pisses me off that he is.
I guess I did inherit something from my mother after all.
Her love for animals.
Nothing we encounter looks like anything we’ve seen before.
Dross isn’t rife with wildlife. We have rats, a few types of insects, maybe two small birds, and a variety of other pests.
We don’t have any larger mammals. The dogs and cats died out long before I was born, mostly due to being a ready food source when there wasn’t any other.
As far as I know, there haven’t been any flying creatures larger than the small brown finches in Dross in a very long time.
But here, in the Harrow, the zones are teaming with wildlife.
I’d been amazed by the trees at first, but now, it’s the animals I’m enthralled with.
If I were an artist, I’d sketch them all, but that’s one thing I did not get from my mother.
My hands are too rough for that of an artist.
“Oh shit,” Locke says, his eyes glazed over as he checks the map. “We’ve been going in the wrong direction for the safehouse.”
I sigh. “How far are we off course?”
He glances up. “Far enough we won’t make it before the sun sets I bet. We’re gonna have to camp in the forest.”
“You’re fucking with me,” I grunt. “Look around here, Locke. This place is a literal nightmare during the day. You think it’s going to magically get better at night?”
“It’s not like we have much choice,” he growls back. “Look, if you think you can do better—”
“Stop,” I grunt. “We don’t need to fight right now.
We need to figure out a safe place to sleep.
” I tap my implant and watch as the map appears.
We’re not just a little off path. There’s no hope of making it to the safehouse today at all.
But there is a strange white line running through this section.
“Alright. We head in this direction. It looks like there could be somewhere safe to stop for the night.”
Locke shrugs. “If the plants don’t fucking eat us you mean.”