Chapter 408

“Alright, so the summary is that the effects of multiple global spells in the awakened areas are mutating and cloning the exiles into the crazed.” The old lady begins her story without explanation or any form of clarification as to what exactly she is talking about.

“Wait, back up a bit. How? Where? Since when?” Cain asks, trying to understand her rambling. 

“I’ve been waiting here forty-three years for you to show up. If you can’t be punctual, at least try to keep up.” The seer complains, rolling her eyes at Cain as if her statement should make perfect sense and need no additional details.

“Madam, I’ve barely been in this world for two years.” Cain points out, but she waves away his argument. 

“Because they were trapped in the vortexes and driven crazy before being cloned and scattered through the zone, the Crazed are irredeemable. They’re not even real people. But if you find the originals you can cut down on the number of crazed that are being created.” She continued as if Cain’s counterpoint never happened. 

Cain is starting to get the basics of what she’s talking about now, and the implications of it are more than a little bit horrific. It’s a wonder that the entire awakened area hasn’t been overrun, but perhaps the number generated daily is low, or a lot are killed by various causes. That description she gave sounds a lot like what was happening with the ogres in Sunnyvale, but because the dungeons never fully formed here, the crazed are spawning in the outside world instead of needing to be brought outside the dungeon to rampage.

“That is a very valuable vision. Can we offer to cook dinner for you in thanks?” Cain offers. 

“Finally, you got a little sense in your head. I made a bench over there so we can sit. You can leave that handsome chef Puppet here when you go as well. I’m sure we will get along splendidly.” 

Cain hadn’t made a Puppet to cook yet, but the old lady seems to approve of whatever he was going to pick. It is a strange sort of mental pressure, not knowing what she was expecting him to decide upon, especially since she expects it to be left behind for her benefit. Deciding to mess with her a little, Cain creates a middle-aged alligator-type beastkin with a thick gut and a wide range of culinary skills, then hands him a collection of ingredients to start making dinner. 

The old lady grins and slaps the chef on the backside as he goes to the fire to begin his work and the burly gator winks at her. It seems she was right, they do very along well. Cain decides he will free the Puppet when they go, so the two can have their happily ever after down here in the hollow of the river valley.

Cain doesn’t leave them totally defenseless though, he gives the gator the [Area Camouflage] skill at ancient quality to go with his cooking skills. If the old lady lived here for over 40 years, she can take care of the rest.

“Do you have any leads on where some of the vortexes might be? The sooner I can find one the sooner I can start working on a way to remove the exiles trapped inside.” Cain asks while the old woman watches the gator cook.

She has a hood up over her head and a scarred and wrinkled vaguely human face, so Cain has no idea what species she actually is, but she seems to be really enamored with the big beastkin.

“I haven’t found any myself, but I saw in the vision that one should be straight south of that nearby city, in an abandoned quarry between two jet black stone faces. Not shiny like obsidian, but not granite, do you know what I mean?”

Indeed Cain does know because the entire city is made out of it. “I know the stone, and we can search for the place. If we can remove the exiles and block off the vortex to keep others from coming in, do you think we could really solve the problem? Or will we need to do something about the vortex itself?”

“Just getting them out should be enough. But I haven’t had a vision on how to do that, only that I should tell you to try to do it.” The woman shrugs, accepting the hastily prepared bowl of deep-fried vegetables from her new chef.

“At least knowing that it should be possible is a start,” Cain assures her, before ordering one of his Echoes to go look for the vortex, but not to enter it or allow a Summon to enter it. 

Who knows what kind of mayhem would ensue if the vortex cloned a bunch of Crazed Ancients. At the rate that the Echoes have been tearing through groups of enemies that have made life difficult for the city, if the echoes were the template for the crazed forces, it would be a disaster. 

The sun begins to drop towards the horizon faster than expected, while the Echoes hunt down every crazed they can find on the way to the place where the seer believed the disturbance that caused the crazed is. By flying up above the forest, they believe they have found the quarry, though they haven’t seen any sign of the vortex yet, and are still a fair ways away.

Cain’s walk back to the city gates is a relaxed one, now that he knows for certain that there are no crazed in the area. Too many groups went out today for anything to have survived this close to the city. But if the information Cain gained was correct, that might not be true by tomorrow morning.

For the most part, the mood in the city is elated, celebrating the fact that finally the issue of the crazed might be temporarily solved. Cain doesn’t want to dispel that feeling by mentioning that more are being created every day, so he keeps silent and joins in on the reverie. It sounds like the crazed don’t reset at midnight, only grow in numbers, which matches the description that the villagers gave Cain of the crazed being more active at night. 

Why nobody had noticed the vortex is a mystery to him as well. But that one will be solved as soon as the Echoes reach the quarry.

“Did you do well today?” The shorter of the tea merchants asks as Cain passes by the market to go claim his daily quest reward. Free money is free money, so maybe he will treat the Inn to a few rounds tonight courtesy of the Quest Hall.

There should also be the gold from the hunters, assuming that the Echoes killed more crazed than they did. Cain and the companions might have spent most of the day with a somewhat crazy seer, but at least the Echoes took their job seriously.

The locals do their best to hide the stares and whispers, but while Cain makes his way across town it soon becomes clear that there are a lot of rumors going around about him today, calling him an awakened Shadow Mage, despite what his interface says. Since they made no attempt to hide and even stole kills from other groups, the Echoes really drew a lot of attention, and people are formulating their own guesses as to what Cain’s Progression path to the Flesh Crafter class was. 

The echoes currently also look exactly like him, except with a layer of shadow over them, which was a dead giveaway as to who they belonged to. There’s no chance he will be able to blame their misbehavior and kill stealing on someone else today, or likely at any point in the future, at least not in this city.

“If it isn’t the exalted Duke Cain, Awakened Lord of Shadows.” One of the hunters greets him with a sarcastic smile and a bow. 

“So you met my friends too, did you? I instructed them not to harm anyone but the crazed, but they have a bit of a mind of their own you see.” Cain smiles back and the hunter begins to laugh. 

“After seeing them in action, we prepared the gold, but some of us wanted to wait here and see how you did overall. Finding large groups to hunt could have been difficult today.”

There is a long line for the quest reward redemption, but once Cain steps into line he is ushered forward, with the others either glaring at him or thanking him for the assistance as he passes by. 

Cain feels like he has become a minor local celebrity for the day. He might only be recognized by adventurers, but almost all of them do recognize him. 

“Greetings Duke Cain. Let’s see here your total kills for the day are… still changing? Can you have your summons stop fighting for a moment so that we can get a count?” The worker greets him, raising laughter through the crowd. 

[Almost finished?] Cain asks the Echoes and gets back an affirmative grunt before the combat feed suddenly stops again.

“There you go. That one was my fault.” Cain apologized to the Quest Hall worker, who brought up the Quest scroll again.

“One thousand three hundred and thirty-seven. For a total daily gain of six hundred and sixty-eight gold, with one kill transferred to tomorrow’s count.” The worker answers, trying to be professional in the face of such a massacre. 

“Well, that should cover the bar tab for the evening.” Nemu laughs, and the worker hands over the money with a smile.

More than a few locals want to drink with them tonight, so Cain sends Evangeline flying ahead in her blue feathered beastkin disguise to warn their hosts to find a second server, and possibly a third for the night. Everyone is hungry, and they all have a pocketful of gold.

If the other groups that he met at the Quest Hall are surprised that Cain is staying beside the common market, nobody says anything, but there isn’t nearly enough room for everyone inside the Inn. It seats fifty, they brought five hundred. Fortunately for them, the city doesn’t prohibit drinking in the streets, so the entire common market quickly turns into one large party, with every food and drink vendor getting in on the festivities. 

The party continues until well past midnight, with the crowd slowly thinning out as the night progresses. Not all the groups will be going out tomorrow, but the quest is ongoing, so many of them will be doing their best to make as much money as possible before the quest is ended due to lack of targets in the area. Cain and the companions will also be headed out again, but not so much to hunt ancients as to find the vortexes and see what can be done.