Vraxious—Outside Hopes Path

  Vrax cursed quietly to himself; the trial reveal was, in so many ways, not what he was expecting. He wasn’t mad about it; certainly it was right up his alley. Hunt something big and scary in the forsaken lands. The second half was what got to him.

  He had to present it to a holy beast of Vurune; all of them sounded frankly terrifying, and he was almost certain he had seen the Serpent of Bloom before. The entrancing crystalline snake covered in moss that had been hunting Forsaken wolves for fun near Hopes End right before he got his class. That had to be it; it would also explain why when it riffled through his thoughts like a damned librarian, it had just let him go on his way when it realized he was on a pilgrimage to Vurune’s shrine.

  So find an Apex… Whatever the hell that means, the first one to come to mind is a Voruk, but I still think that would probably be a death sentence for me. Even Duchess would probably end up as a snack. Annndd make sure it’s a damn impressive one, or congrats, you are fighting a nearly tier-three holy beast.

  Guess I'll just have to explore the forsaken lands more until I find something that perfectly fits the bill. Ideally it would be something at the peak of the first tier. Something that, while undeniably powerful, I can still kill. Good excuses for me to bugger off and explore while Red and the others set up the guild hall and such, though...

  Vrax finally trotted up to his waiting friends. Torvald was on his bear watching the sprigging run around in the field with a concerned expression. Edward and Stereos were off to the side having a soft conversation, and Jonathan…

  Jonathan appeared to be trying to teach the infant spriggan how to fight. He also had a bit of a slur to him as he slowly swung a branch at the wobbling tree. “And Duck!” The spriggan more flopped than ducked, but it quickly swung a clawed hand up, clipping the stick in a shower of bark.

  “I mean, not what I was going for, but that’s the right spirit,” Jonathan huffed out. The Spriggan stood up and happily creaked at him. Vrax squinted; the Spriggan had a bright red knitted scarf around its neck with some ominous-looking runes on the edges.

  “Guys? Who gave it a fucking scarf? And why? I mean, it does actually look kind of cool, but still,” Vrax asked as he hopped off of Malice and joined the others near the teleport anchor.

  Stereos raised a hand. “I may have taken it upon myself to provide our newest team member with a modicum of creature comforts; also, it has his name embroidered along the edges in the language of the scholars.”

  “But I didn’t name him yet…”

  Stereos looked a bit bashful. “Well, while you have been preoccupied, I have been running them by your newest horror, and he practically hopped in excitement when I said ‘Luxovoras,’ which means ‘light eater’ in the old tongue. Or Lux for practicality’s sake.” Lux hopped excitedly on hearing his name but landed in a gopher hole and went down in a small tangle before starting to dig at the gopher hole seeking revenge.

  Vrax rolled his eyes. “Didn’t even get to name the child I carried around with me for months!” he joked.

  “As a spear!” Torvald shot back.

  “I think it’s a cool name.” Jonathan added

  “Oh, just get on the anchor,” Vrax said in mock exasperation before snatching Lux off the ground with a grunt. And carried him over to the anchor as well. Lux flailed for a moment and then stuffed the gopher he had somehow already managed to snatch into his mouth, spattering Vrax with a clod of dirt and blood.

  Vrax sighed and spat out a mouthful of dirt before vaguely addressing the teleport anchor. “Hey Malaketh, I’m cashing in on a teleport! Take us to your closest anchor to Hopes End!” There was a long few seconds where nothing happened and everyone looked around.

  Jonathan blinked hard, trying to clear his blurry vision for a moment. “Maybe…” The world abruptly shifted as they all stood in a dense patch of scraggly bushes surrounded by willows. One of the bushes leaned over slightly towards Vrax eyes along its stem, popping open as branches shifted into small claw-like hands. Its hands extended out, small thorns growing longer and more needle-like by the second as it sought to drink Vrax’s blood.

  Vrax poked it and channeled adapt life, quickly turning it into a glowing green version of itself. “No, be good,” he said like he was reprimanding a child.

  “Alright, let’s do a quick run to Hope’s End to pick up the world’s most vulgar guild master!”

  It was a laughably short jaunt out of the forsaken lands back to Hope's End. The anchor Malaketh had sent them to was only a couple of leagues north of town and in the very fringes of the forsaken lands. As they rode up to the defensive walls of the town, Vrax made sure to note where the border in the field ended.

  Yeah, it shifted back again… not fast enough, though... Maybe a few more strides; at this rate it will still be at least a couple years before it naturally recedes far enough. It's high time I started helping the forsaken lands along.

  Vrax waved the others on towards the town as he got to work. He walked across the field to the edge of the willows, stopping right before the ones he had added a slight green glimmer to. “Welp, here goes nothing. I need to make damn sure everyone that I actually like in town has an adapted mark before I leave.”

  Vrax started slowly using his cistern to rot the ground around him and then used the stigmata to sow seeds in a line that extended all the way from the willows across the field up to the edge of the border. He left a retriever hive and then a lurker in the rot within the field, hoping that they would propagate after this.

  Then, as carefully as he could, Vrax began pouring his cistern out across the streak of desolation extending from the willows. Hissing vines crept out from the rot, twitching bushes followed, and finally a line of adapted willows began sprouting forth like a glowing spearhead across the field.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Vrax watched intently as more and more seeds from the forsaken lands and his own experiments took hold. Bushes trembled in excitement at new life, and their berries skittered to and fro searching for bugs to bring back to the fold.

  By the time it was all done, Vrax looked at the setting sun in contentment; this new patch of the forsaken lands touched right against the border and was practically teeming with his creations. If this didn’t help push the border back, nothing would.

  Vrax made his way through the cozy streets of Hopes End and straight to the bustling doors of the Hog’s Trough; he was sure he would find Red here somewhere. As always, it was like walking into the bad part of an adventurers guild. Everywhere he looked, people practically dripped danger.

  Torvald and Stereos were already at the bar drinking. Jonathan, however, was deep in conversation with Gregory of all people, which Vrax found concerning on just principle. Gregory perked up when he saw Vrax walk through the door. He raised his smoking pipe up in greeting and turned back to Jonathan, making a "go on" gesture and glancing towards Vrax in amusement.

  Ahh shit, that’s what’s happening. They passed off the fill-in-the-locals duty to Jonathan. Great.

  Vrax looked around; more than a few people waved in greeting or raised a cup. Finally giving up on finding Red himself, he went up to the bar with the others to just ask Raphael.

  Raphael bent his bulk over already, pouring Vrax, his favorite vintner wine. “Ahh, the famous demon summoner returns! Burn any orphanages down or lay waste to a city while you were gone?” Raphiel joked before handing over the glass.

  Jonathan’s head snapped over in misunderstanding. “Hey, hey, the alleged arson was in fact candles!” Vrax gave him an incredulous look and went back to Raphael.

  “Well, candles and a lot of lantern oil.” Jonathan finished to raucous laughter on that side of the tavern.

  “Well, shit, glad he’s making friends.” Vrax took a sip of his wine.

  Rafael nodded. “Yeah, I don’t know where you found that guy, but he fits right in. Hell, he already got in a duel with the first person who tried to shit-talk the new guy and see what he was made of.”

  Vrax’s eyes widened in interest. “Oh damn, how did that go? Actually, who was it with too?”

  Raphael chuckled. “Who do you think?”

  Vrax thought for just a second, “I would say Elmric, but…”

  “Yeah, he’s been on Gregory’s shit list for starting too many fights lately; it wasn’t him. For once.”

  “Well, for most likely to haze a newbie that leaves…oh shit, really?” Vrax looked over at Jonathan, impressed he was still standing.

  “Yep, fucking Samuel left his goddamn cottage for a beer, and as for how it went, honestly, a lot better than you would think. Samuel went pretty easy on him. I think the endless swearing and "planty" version that he called Jonathan Jr. made him laugh hard enough that he really pulled his punches.

  “Didn’t pull them on me though…” Torvald said through slightly swollen lips…

  “You asked him to fight. I don’t feel the least bit bad for you,” Rafael jibed and filled Torvald’s tankard again. ” Also Vrax, my wife loves kids and all, but can you please? GET THE FUCKING SPRIGGAN OUT OF MY KITCHEN!” As if on cue, an amused creaking sound echoed from the kitchen, followed by the deafening clamor of falling pans.

  Vrax grimaced. “Got it! Come here, you little shit, it’s nap time!” Vrax scrambled into the back to add Lux back to the Menagerie. The little demon had a roast chicken leg stuck to each finger. Was utterly covered in flour and was wearing an apron. Vrax’s mouth dropped as he looked towards the matronly figure of Raphael’s wife, who was apparently orchestrating this madness.

  Abagail smiled at him, her ruddy features equally covered in flour. The kitchen looked like a wild beast had coated the tables and brickwork oven in chicken grease and then just thrown flour at it for fun. “Darlin! As always, it's great to see you! Now I do love the youngsters reminds me of what it was like rearing me and Raphael young 'uns, but ahh…”

  She gestured broadly at the chaos. Lux creaked happily and opened the oven curiously. One of her thick hands hauled its scrambling form back away from where it was trying to climb into a still-lit oven. “As you can see… your youngster is a bit of a handful, and Raphael is getting a bit mad about the mess.”

  “It’s eating fucking everything! I saw it pour a damn jar of bacon grease on the floor!” Raphael shouted back and stuck his head around the corner, his features going red as he saw the even further atrocities committed in his kitchen.

  Abagail picked up Lux and handed him to Vrax. “This is yours…and that will be four gold for the damages.” Vrax winced and looked at the filthy, very happy monster in his arms. He added him to the menagerie with a grumble; his armor didn’t wrap around him this time. Why? He had no damn clue, but he wasn’t going to question it too hard at the moment. He handed over four gold with a very sorry expression.

  When he rejoined his companions at the bar, Rapahel sighed and slid him another wine.

  Jonathan took a seat next to Vrax; he was drunk, like drunk drunk. Vrax was pretty sure he hadn’t stopped drinking since before the arena fight. “Hey, bossman, I hear you play a lot of pranks around here. Want to help me get back at a bundle of muscles and ego who slapped me around for a few chuckles?”

  Torvald zeroed in on the conversation in interest. “Oh, that’s a damned good idea. I wouldn’t mind knocking him down a peg either!” He tried to whisper, but in his excitement, it still boomed out.

  Even Jeff popped out of Torvad’s hand to join the conversation. “My meat palace has a point; that man was far too confident. I did not appreciate how he kept laughing while he slapped us in that supposedly friendly spar.”

  Vrax pounded the rest of his wine and gestured for Rafael to keep them coming. “Now guys, don’t get me wrong, that would be fucking glorious, but if we are going to go about this, we would need a damn good plan. We would need to be clever about it, or else all of us are going to get the shit slapped out of us.”

  Jonathan winced at a memory. “How damned strong is that guy anyway?”

  “Mid second tier with a purely physical class of some kind. If I remember right, it’s an uncommon variant on a monk, but he’s always in status-obscuring items… like half this fucking town,” Vrax said bitterly. It was a bit annoying to him that he had an advanced identify and still didn’t know the exact level of half the paranoid bastards he had grown up with.

  “Now I don’t feel quite so bad about how handily I got my ass beat,” Jonathan mused. Torvald nodded aggressively in agreement.

  Vrax slid his next glass of wine over towards himself as he began plotting. “Alright, so here’s the thing about Samuel: he’s a big foodie. The time he doesn’t spend training adventurers or fighting he uses to tend his fancy little garden or cook overtly convoluted dishes that he insists are actually good.” Everyone looked at Vrax blankly…

  Vrax sighed and took a hearty gulp of his wine. ”Wouldn’t it be funny if he went to try and pick from his garden and his garden tried to eat him…” Looks of realization washed across his friends faces.

  Jonathan slurred out what would be the first of many ideas in a rapidly spiraling brainstorming session powered by alcohol and bad ideas. “Alright, hear me out, Vrax. How big can you make a carrot? Or better yet, can’t you mash things together? What if you made a carrot just mashed together with a drake of some kind? And we just buried that bitch in his garden. Bam, carrot attack in the middle of making soup…” Raphael raised an incredulous eyebrow but just kept shining a glass and eavesdropping.

  This is going to be fun. I really hope I can outrun at least one of these fuckers if he catches us, though. Wait, fuck, I still haven’t asked about Red. Meh, I’m sure he’s around.