26. Vesper
VESPER
“Okay so . . .” Locke begins, his eyes unfocused as he studies the map. “It looks like we may have completely opened up the Verdant Nexus. Can you ask Cipher if that’s true?”
“You could ask him yourself,” I point out, raising my brow.
Locke shakes his head. “Bastard doesn’t respond to me anymore. I’m surprised I still get the notifications.”
“That is because they are pre-programmed,” Cipher chips in helpfully. “I could turn those off, too, if you would like.”
“Oh sure. Answer when you start to look bad to your favorite,” Locke grumbles. “Fucking bot.”
Svetlana balances on my shoulder, preening herself without a care in the world.
I’m still not sure how having a familiar so small helps, or what it means in general, but the large praying mantis is growing on me.
She hasn’t spoken much this morning—strange for her—but that just seems to be because she’s busy with all the preening.
She’s been meticulously cleaning herself for about an hour now.
Sighing, I stretch my legs out, careful not to jostle the praying mantis on my shoulder. “Cipher, have we opened up all of the Verdant Nexus?”
“Yes,” the system answers immediately. “Traveling in any direction you have not been outside of the current location will open up an entirely new region. I would suggest travelling South. You are not yet a high enough level nor do you possess the keys to travel East.”
“Alright,” I nod. “And how long until the next Harrow Gates open?”
“Sixteen days, five hours, thirteen minutes, and twenty-seven seconds,” he responds immediately
Sixteen days. Fuck. Dox has been stuck in Dross for almost two weeks now, both of us separated, and if she’s still alive, she’ll be able to come through when the Harrow Gates open next.
I can’t go backwards. Cipher made it clear I will not survive the transition.
So, she has to come here. I have to believe she’s okay, that she’ll make it.
If there’s anyone who is strong enough to do it, it’s Dox. I just have to survive that long.
We’re still inside the mushroom safehouse, which we now know is called The Fungus Garden. The leafcutter ants appear to have grown it for their food source, but it also serves as the safehouse. They constantly eat pieces and build up more, so it’s a perpetually changing shape outside.
We’ve been resting here for a few days, long enough that the moist, mushroom smell no longer tickles my nose.
In fact, I’ve gone mostly nose blind to it, making it possible to move around without wrinkling my face up.
The food here is amazing, though. Almost as good as the AppleFrog’s, so the smell hardly matters once we’ve adjusted to it.
This time, I don’t bother smashing as much food as possible into my inventory since I now know it disappears when we leave.
We’re sitting at the bar now, all three of us tearing into the plates in front of us. One last meal to tide us over. We won’t know when the next one is coming.
“Hey, Billy,” I call.
The bartender comes over with a raised brow. “Yes, Player?”
“You never did tell us how you beat us here,” I say, pointing at him with my eating utensil. Svetlana had called it a fork. We don’t have them in Dross so I believe her.
“What do you mean, Player?” he says. “I have not left The Mushroom Garden in years.”
The bartender is an NPC, and while I’m not sure I saw him in the Red Blood Court, I know I saw him in the AppleFrog’s. He’d been behind the bar there, too.
“I swear I saw you at the AppleFrog’s,” I tell him.
His eyes brighten. “Oh, you must have met my brother, Bob.”
“Your brother?” I repeat. “You’re twins?”
Twins are so rare, I’ve only ever known one person who had them in Dross.
It didn’t go well. One of the twins mostly ate the other in the womb, took all the nutrients for itself, so when the mother gave birth, she pushed out one almost healthy baby and a shriveled mass of meat. Maybe in the Harrow it’s different.
“Twins?” Billy repeats. “We look nothing alike.” He laughs as if it’s the funniest thing he’s heard.
I frown. “You look exactly alike. What do you mean?”
Billy laughs louder. “If you see Bob, you’ve gotta tell him about this. Oh! You might run into more of my brothers, too! They’ll get a kick out of this story. I bet you’ll think they’re my twins, too, on account of your eyesight being so bad.”
I’m not crazy. Billy and Bob are the exact same except for the clothing.
“I swear I saw you in the Greenhouse Tavern, too,” I push, confused.
“That would be Lenny,” Billy nods. “My other brother. There are a lot of us.”
Locke frowns. “How many?”
Billy shrugs. “I haven’t counted. Anyways, I see you two are getting ready to head out today. Make sure you utilize the save chest before you go! It’s quite handy and this is the only one you’ll find in the Verdant Nexus!”
He meanders away, leaving us to stare after him.
“I’m not crazy, right?” I ask Locke. “You saw him, too?”
“I saw him, too,” Locke nods. “But maybe they are just brothers. That’s not the craziest thing about this place.” He slides off the stool. “Now let’s find that save chest and see what it’s about.”
It takes us a while to find it. We walk past the thing three times before the sign appears large and glowing with the words “save chest” fastened to the wall above it.
It’s a small wooden chest that glows when I open it.
Instead of there being anything inside though, it opens an interface when I touch it, revealing a large chunk of inventory slots that aren’t included in my carrying capacity.
“What happens if I put stuff in here?” I ask Cipher.
“Save chests are a great way to increase your inventory slots when over-encumbered,” he responds.
“You can place as many items inside the chest as spaces allow. Be warned, however, that once placed inside the chest, items cannot be taken out unless you find another save chest. They are rare and most players find them useless.”
“So, I shouldn’t put stuff inside?” I ask.
“You should,” Locke says. “Clean out some of your fucking inventory so you can actually stop dropping things.”
Cipher sniffs. “Only place items of the least importance inside. Otherwise, you will have to wait to retrieve them again.”
I end up putting all six stacks of my rocks, a bundle of ten sticks, three shirt buttons, the note that says, “it’s already too late,” and the rotten Arapaima chunk into the save chest. I keep the rest, not knowing how much of it I will need.
But at least I’d cleared out a large chunk of my inventory.
Locke doesn’t put anything inside the save chest, reiterating that he doesn’t carry much besides the essentials.
“Let’s go,” Locke announces, his hammer in his hand as if a threat is right around the corner. “We won’t know the general locations of the safehouses until we reach the next region and I prefer not to be out at dark when we don’t know the threats we’ll encounter.”
Svetlana perks up. “Why, little Ladybug? Are you afraid of the dark?”
Locke raises his brow. “The dark? No. What’s in it? To be decided.”
Svetlana harumphs and continues her preening, unconcerned with Locke’s fear.
Leaving the safety of the Mushroom Garden and entering the anthill tunnels again feels like a risk.
We don’t know what we’re going to be facing in the next region, but it can’t be good.
At least we’re slowly leveling up our XP.
Locke is right, we get more for the Minor Bosses, but it still doesn’t feel like enough.
The next Tier I level up to requires one thousand XP.
That’s going to take a while to reach at the rate we’re going at, but maybe that’s the point.
I’m sitting at one hundred and fifty right now.
I need to get that number up soon, even if we have to fight every Minor Boss along the way.
It takes us an hour of walking through the anthill tunnels and asking for directions from very flustered ants before we find our way out of it.
There are no signs in the tunnels, but everyone else seems to know where they’re going.
Luckily, one more female ant took pity on us finally and led us directly to an exit.
Once we leave the anthill and enter the lush green forest of the Verdant Nexus again, we head south like Cipher had instructed.
It’s still humid here. There are mosquitoes flying all around us again, only persuaded to leave us alone once we rub the bright scented mint leaves on us again.
“Hi-yah! Yah! Yah!” she shouts as she slices the small bugs out of the air that fly too close to my face. Honestly, she’s a damn good deterrent herself. Not once do I have the mosquitoes buzzing in my ear. Locke isn’t so lucky.
Because we’re still in the Leafcutter Empire, there are large insects we come across as we push through the trees.
A group of large beetles skuttles away when we break through the foliage in front of us after about an hour of working up a sweat and trying to get somewhere.
The trees are thicker here, and much harder to cut through.
Thankfully, I’m able to use my Bloodsense Fang to cut through it.
Svetlana raises up high on my shoulder as the beetles rush away. “That’s right, you crawling dung eaters!” she shouts after them. “Be afraid! Be very afraid!”
Locke and I share a look between us. My expression is amused. Locke’s is anything but. Svetlana still hasn’t grown on him, and I’m starting to worry she never will. Lucky for me, Svetlana doesn’t seem to care about Locke at all, so it won’t affect our growing bond.