New World, Old Problems 11 – Farming

The foot moved before the arm and made the strike by Reysha so clearly telegraphed that even her opponent, a low-level dungeon monster, could tell that it was coming. The creature’s spindly neck curved back, the dagger slicing uselessly through the air. Any planned counterattack was ruined by the tiger girl immediately jumping back.

Reysha stared and her opponent moved around slowly. It was a Steproot, a wooden monster that was made out of many spindly, wooden legs and a singular long whip that extended about a metre up into the air. The tip of that whip was a hardened, crooked thorn, simultaneously the main weapon and the head of the monster.

Steproot were quite rare inside this dungeon and their heads fetched a high price. This was, for one, because of simple prestige, but also because Steproots were well-known for the way they could evolve. If they managed to find themselves a killed adventurer, fresh or not, they burrowed their legs in the body and used them as fertilizer. It wasn’t pretty and the resulting Corpseroot creature was a bit more threatening. Particularly because they had a tendency to try and leave the dungeon and prey on nearby villages. As both Step and Corpseroots were outpaced by a moderately fast walking human, most of said prey were sheep or other cattle that mistook them for potential food items – only to get a deadly surprise.

It only took a few of those incidents for farmers in the area to gain both an appreciation for adventurers and a burning hatred for those things. Paying extra for Steproot heads was a sort of traditional protection money at this point.

Steproots were also notoriously weak. They were basically blind towards anything further than one metre away, unable to give chase and killed with one good hit. They could meld well with the insides of the Summer Rest dungeon and made for good ambush predators, but their attack was rarely powerful enough to kill outright. Even if they grievously wounded an unprepared adventurer, chances were the Steproot got killed in return. If the adventurer had as much as a healing potion, the Steproot was basically dead.

They were weak and valuable, exactly what the group could have asked for.

Reysha ran forwards, her steps feather-light, only alerting the Steproot when she was in its direct vicinity. Again, however, her limbs didn’t quite synchronize properly. The intent was to use the momentum of her charge for a quick stab, but she only raised her arms when she was already leaning into the motion. Curving its long neck into a C shape, the Steproot dodged to the side.

The monster attempted to lash out, and ram its pointy head into Reysha’s flesh. The attack succeeded, but failed to produce the desired result, leaving an unsightly scratch in the leather armour but not penetrating.

Even sloppy as she fought today, Reysha managed to retaliate properly. She grabbed the Steproot just below the head. Like a snake, the monster was basically helpless against that. Its head didn’t have enough wiggle room to build up any force and it had no extra limbs to help it out. All it could do was try and writhe itself out, something that the redhead didn’t let happen.

“SPINDLY PIECE OF CRAP!” she shouted as she hacked away at the neck, the wood fibre fraying and finally tearing as she thinned it with wild cuts. The head came loose, the neck lashed against Reysha’s leg one time before going limp and the tiger girl hissed and kicked the corpse of the creature, looking like the unearthed underside of a tree stump.

A few metres away, Apexus absorbed the leg of a common dungeon spider into his stomach. It was about the same kind they had faced in the Clearwater dungeon before, just an arachnid the size of a wagon wheel. In the past, he would have just flowed around the thing, but he tried to maintain his humanoid shape as much as possible inside the dungeon, so he had to tear it into pieces and digest it one bit at a time. Eating the spider the traditional way and then condensing his slime back down to levels that let him mimic a normal humanoid shape would have taken a lot of the energy he got out of eating it in the first place.

Although Apexus had a voracious appetite, as long as he just maintained his current form, he wouldn’t need nearly as much sustenance. About twice as much as the average adult needed would be enough to keep the slime sated and half of that would leave him functioning normally, provided access to water. He just wouldn’t enjoy it all that much.

“Congratulations,” the chimeric blob praised the tiger girl, who put the head of the Steproot into her adventurer’s bag. He and Aclysia had watched her fight the monster, Apexus just keeping back and the metal fairy remaining on the ready to assist the redhead by healing. It wasn’t the first time during this dungeon crawl that they had done so.

The usual approach with monsters during this trip was to either let Reysha fight it alone or pick one out of a group to spare and leave for the tiger girl to spare with. An initiative that greatly decreased their speed but was deeply necessary. Reysha herself had asked for it.

“…Thanks,” the tiger girl responded in a somewhat snappy tone, while she went down on her knees. The floor of live wood wasn’t the most comfortable, but it was better than stone. “…Sorry for sounding annoyed,” she immediately apologized. “I just can’t believe how fucking hard it is for me to kill something this weak!” Her dagger hacked into the Steproots many ‘legs’.

It wasn’t purely a motion fuelled by frustration. Although useless to almost anyone else, the legs of a Steproot were something Reysha appreciated having around. They tasted like bitter carrots, which wasn’t great but it beat the absolutely vile aroma that regular food left in her mouth. More importantly, they didn’t spoil unless kept in damp environments. After a few weeks, the magic would seep out, but that was still much better than all of the complications that came with trying to store flesh.

“You managed to kill it without our intervention, that’s progress,” Aclysia tried to cheer her up through the use of facts. “It is certainly an improvement from the past months.”

“Yeah, see, that only makes me more depressed,” the redhead responded and shoved one of the cut roots into her mouth to have something to chew on. “I can’t get my body to move properly, its frustrating as fuck… or the fact that I haven’t fucked in months.”

“It’s just sex,” Aclysia said. “As pleasurable as it is, I don’t think it warrants getting hung up on like that…”

“Okay, listen here, big booty angel,” Reysha stopped in her answer only to swallow the pulp that had been a root. “For YOU getting fucked might not be that much of an issue, but I haven’t gone this long without SOMETHING in my cunt since I hit puberty.”

“Perhaps you can use this time to reflect on your promiscuity, rather than feel bad over a lack of intercourse,” suggested the metal fairy and crossed her arms. “Sleeping around a lot is not a virtue, you know?”

“First off, younger me doesn’t give a shit about you saying that – I was horny so I went and sought out cocks… or tongues… or fingers… whatever was available and attached to someone I found interesting, really,” Reysha waved off. “Point being, I was having fun and nobody got hurt, so you take that advice and shove it up that beautiful, fat ass of yours. Second off, I haven’t slept around anymore since I met that delicious slime,” she pointed at Apexus, who, not knowing what else to do, waved, “now have I?”

Aclysia sighed, “I see your point, but I think a life lived in sensible moderation makes for a better experience.”

“Yeah, see, that’s easy to say when you’re immortal,” the tiger girl retorted. “When you know your body is going to age and die, indulging becomes a bit more tempting. Everyone needs a vice to take the edge off and, yeah, okay, I like behaving in ‘immodest’” she put the word into air quotes, “ways more than the average gal, but if I had to give up all but one, it would be having sex. Because sex is fucking awesome and it was even better with the lewd slime over there, because he pays attention and tentacles turn out to be fucking awesome,” she sheathed her dagger, closed her adventurer’s bag and stood up.

“I still fail to understand why this is such a big deal for you,” the metal fairy admitted.

“I don’t even know if you CAN understand, Aclysia,” Reysha said, delivering it with a straight face and no mockery or malice in her voice. “You don’t need to eat, you don’t need to sleep, you miss basically all bodily functions and you’re obviously not as horny as I am. Truth be told, the only reason why you can even remotely relate to how Apexus and I feel is because you were made that way. Your actual body lends itself better to a detached, far away guardian.”

Hesitating, Aclysia could only nod by the end of it. “That is what angels are meant to be, usually, so that is no wonder. Darling,” she looked over to Apexus, “would you say she has a point?”

“Yes,” the slime kept it simple. He had listened to the entire conversation while eating the rest of the spider. While he had been ready to intervene if things went shouty, Apexus had been pretty interested in the subject at hand. “I think Reysha feels like I would if I suddenly didn’t want to eat anymore. I would ask myself what is wrong the entire time.”

“Something like that,” the redhead agreed and then had an idea. “Not the best comparison of all times, but imagine if you suddenly lost any motivation to cuddle but still had the urge to.”

“Oh,” that was something the metal fairy understood. Although it wasn’t as much a fundamental urge as sex or eating, both based on deep-seated, biological needs, it was something very real for the angel. Bowing her head in apology, she said, “My condolences. Although I still disapprove of promiscuity, that kind of feeling must be awful.”

“Again, I don’t plan to be whoring around again anytime,” Reysha pointed at Apexus, who waved again. “I somehow love this thing. Don’t ask me how that happened. Okay, the life-saver part helped. And the tentacles. The lifesaving, the tentacles and the vibrating. Holy shit the vibrating,” she remembered that unique sensation. “Fucking hell, think you can make a tongue do that?”

“Don’t have a tongue,” Apexus said. “Guess I could make a tentacle in my mouth and have it vibrate by extension. Should work.”

“Fucking Hellroots below, there are gods,” Reysha exclaimed and got herself an unappreciative glance by the literal divine creation in the room. “…Even that prospect fails to make me horny, shit…”

In the silence that followed the end of the topic, Apexus rose to his feet and rotated his ears, always listening for any other adventurer’s that could be approaching. Reysha and Aclysia could just talk to people, but his own looks were too hard to explain. Wearing one of his robes would have fixed that, but they got in the way during combat and if they tore that would lead to problems of its own. Best to just go about things in the nude, so to say.

The dark blue, translucent slime stood in the wooden room, a cavity of the innards of the gargantuan tree that made up the dungeon. Harmless fireflies the size of thumbs sat on the walls, easily illuminating the environment through their sheer number. Aside from that, the Summer Rest dungeon was quite boring to look at and even easier than the dungeons in Ctania. It really was the ideal vacation for low-level adventurers.

That the group had ventured into this dungeon and, Apexus in particular, cleared it a number of times before certainly helped in making it even more of a cakewalk.

“How is our progress?” Apexus asked.

“Good,” Aclysia answered, running estimations for their earnings through their head. “We had already saved up around three gold coins and I estimate that our current yield today will get us another thirty silver.”

That was a good yield. On average, what they got out of a delve into this particular dungeon were about twenty silver a day. Over the two months, they had earned just above six gold coins in total, half of which had gotten reinvested into their new equipment and the little things they had bought to make life more pleasant.

Nudru’s owed debt stretched to four gold coins. He assured he could at least contribute half of one himself. It wasn’t like he had just sat on his behind the entire time he had been on Summer Rest, but as someone who needed to eat food that was cooked and pay rent, saving was a lot harder for him. Adventuring was also a lot more profitable than the bureaucrat jobs he had been pushing since he put the dangerous life behind him.

They just needed to earn a little extra. It would cost them all they had gathered for themselves, but the group only ever really needed money when there was a need for new equipment. They preferred to hunt for themselves, given their unique food preferences, didn’t mind sleeping or bathing in the wild and were just generally less inclined to partake in the goings-on of society that required a level of liquidity.

A word whose application to money Apexus still didn’t understand. He was liquid, money clearly wasn’t. Aclysia had explained that it had something to do with cash flowing, but that sounded even more stupid. The slime just accepted it as another odd thing about language.

“Wish I had someone who just took my entire debt back then,” Reysha complained. This entire thing was because of her, but that didn’t stop her from bantering about it. “I owed the Adventurer’s Guild five gold and nobody went out of their way to help me.”

“Yes, but at least his debt is comparatively small, given that it was for several people” Aclysia returned. “Your loan was designed to finance initial equipment and pay the rent for the first few weeks that were needed to get settled. His loan only paid for whatever equipment his group was missing or wanted upgraded. As he told us, they were hunters beforehand.”

“Just hope… I just hope the debt collectors will be satisfied with getting the agreed sum,” Apexus chimed in. That was a common fear between the three of them and they hadn’t quite decided what to do if that turned out not to be the case. They didn’t arrive at an answer at that moment either.

Instead, they made their way deeper into the dungeon.