Chapter 025 (Proofread)

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‘ ‘ for thoughts.

“ “ for speech.

* * for actions.

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Full Thanks to Mecani for Proofreading this chapter.

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Jack spent the workweek travelling towards the Mysterious Clearing on the druids. He regularly encountered gnoll groups on his way. He used his ranged hit and run tactics to dispatch them whenever Charlie was on cooldown. He summoned Charlie as frequently as possible. This had two main reasons. He actually enjoyed hunting with Charlie, and it also helped him build up the Summon Charlie spell. He also tried luring individual gnolls with force imbued darts, but the gnolls seemed to behave like a pack. If he provoked one, the full group attacked him.

He had noticed that, the tougher the battles, the more experience his Summon Charlie spell gained. Only twice more did he encounter gnolls roaming in groups larger than five of them. On both occasions, he waited covered head to toe in mud for Charlie’s cooldown to refresh before dealing with them. He was becoming better at dealing with the gnolls, and his teamwork with Charlie was improving too. His summon didn’t go berserk any more.

The gnolls were challenging foes to say the least. They had a pack mentality, and coordinated among themselves much better than the other monsters he had encountered so far in Asunder Online. Since the gnolls were around lv80, Jack gained very good experience from them. He had leveled up quite a few times by killing around a hundred gnolls in total. The gnolls however, where an unsuitable mob for leveling up.

This was because, even though they provided Jack with great xp, the experience they would provide a party in their late 70s to early 80s (level wise) would be quite low. Also due to the damage dealing potential of the gnolls, most usual parties would require a significant bit of downtime after every battle, unless they heavily relied on expensive consumables. Furthermore, monsters in a dungeon were of generally a higher density, as compared to the surface areas like forests.

(A/N: By surface areas, I mean non-dungeons. The MMO term for this is plains, but it might be confusing with planes. By planes I mean other dimensions - as explained in the Chapters dealing with the spirit pact.)

He decided to refrain from investing his stat points as he could dispatch the gnolls with some careful planning and taking advantage of the terrain to avoid a bulk of their melee damage. Looting the heavy two-handed weapons of the gnolls was quickly filling up his inventory and he was forced to abandon a lot of them. He did grind his Mana Identify on the gnoll equipment before he abandoned it.

As he was progressing closer and closer to the territory of the druids, he wasn’t coming across any hostile encounters. Even though his Danger Sense wasn’t alerting him to hostile presences, he felt that he was being watched. The wildlife seemed to be tracking him, albeit from a distance.

He noticed that various animals, including wolves and birds of prey were always around him. They however were always stayed a safe distance from him. He summoned Charlie once, and voiced his concerns to him. His summon however, seemed unconcerned and he felt that his summon was lazy and relaxed through their telepathic bond.

Jack: ‘Perhaps the druid coven is tracking me through the animals of the woods? Well Charlie seems unconcerned, so I might as well get on with it. He is connected to Irfit after all, so he knows more than he can tell me.’

Sometime after breakfast on Saturday, Jack arrived at the mysterious clearing. The aura around the place was serene, as if it was soothing all his worries and fatigue. In the center of the clearing there was a roughly circular stone pool. The pool was filled with crystal clear water.

In the center of the pool, there was a statue. It consisted of a slender featureless woman, who was holding a globe to her bosom. There was a serpentine figure coiled around the globe. The whole statue and the stone pool were covered in a blue-green moss. For a while, Jack admired the serenity and beauty of the almost surreal scene. Soon, a mental nudge shook him to his senses.

Jack: ‘Oh Right. Why the fuck am I daydreaming? I am supposed to call the druids now. I recall the procedure, but let me see my NOTEPAD, just in case.’

He reviewed the NOTEPAD regarding the instructions he had to follow. He then withdrew the stone coin given by Master Janus. He unequipped his Dryad’s Silver Amulet of Life, and weaved in the necklace through the hole in the stone coin. After adding the stone coin to his necklace, he equipped it and placed his hand on the basketball sized stone globe of the statue and released some force mana in it. The statue and the fountain blazed like a beacon to Jack’s Spirit Senses.

Jack: “I am grateful to you Gaia, for shouldering my burden, but I am the captain of my fate and the master of my soul. I will never serve any deity, including you.”

After saying the keywords, the radiance of the statue dimmed until it dissipated after fifteen minutes. He was getting a tad impatient as no druid had approached him.

Jack: ‘I guess it will take some time for them to approach me. This place seems to be secluded and the environment seems very conducive to meditating. I might as well grind my meditation till someone comes to pick me up.’

Jack then removed the stone coin from his necklace and stored it in his inventory. He took a cross legged lotus posture pose near the statue and cleared his thoughts, preparing to meditate. After entering meditation, he experienced a profound calmness and inner peace.

He was lost in his altered state of consciousness for a couple of hours until he felt sleepy. He exited his meditative status and frowned. Never before during meditation had he felt sleepy. Furthermore, he was becoming drowsier as each second passed.

Jack: ‘Oh great. Did the druids drug me? What is this sparkling in the air… sleeping spores? It will take a lot more of that to send me to dreamland.’

Jack resisted the urge to sleep with all his willpower. After what seemed like hours of struggling, but actually was closer to a few minutes, he could resist the urge to sleep. His danger senses wasn’t tingling, so the druids probably had no hostile intentions. Still he didn’t want to admit defeat so easily.

Jack: *shouts* “Sleeping Spores. Really? I come in peace, follow the necessary protocols and yet you druids try to make me fall asleep? Well it will take more than that to knock me out.”

The druids seem to take that as a challenge, because soon golden spores materialized all around him, and Jack felt constricted, claustrophobic and he was slowly but surely losing consciousness. He struggled and raged with all his willpower, to fight off the debilitating effects of this new variety of spores. After a while he could flex his muscles reasonably well and could cling to consciousness without much difficulty.

Jack: *shouts* “Now you resort to poisoning me? Just come out and let’s discuss this face to face. Or I will simply meditate here and waste both our time. I doubt you want to kill me, or you would have done so already.”

Jack waited a few minutes alert for response, but receiving none he started meditation. Soon after meditating, he was assaulted by more spores. These spores were different. They made his thoughts run wild, making it impossible for him to meditate. He felt a sudden urge to laugh and dance hysterically, but it took all his concentration and willpower to remain barely lucid. Suddenly he heard a harsh whisper from behind.

Harsh Male Whisper: “My my, you are a stubborn one. No matter. We can easily deal will the likes of you.”

Before Jack could turn and face the person who was whispering, someone poked a spot in between his neck and jaw and he instantly lost consciousness. When Jack regained consciousness, he was lying down on the grass in another location. He sat and took in the surroundings.

For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating. He seemed to be in a small village inside the forest. There were many huge trees. He couldn’t make out how tall they were, and he estimated the smallest of them to have a diameter of almost 5 meters! From the base of the nearest tree, he could see what looked like a ladder.

However, it was as if the ladder had grown from the tree. It was a little after dusk in game, but he didn’t have any problems with lighting. This was because; many of the trees had some sort of lime green lichen growing on their bark. The green lichen bathed the whole area with a gentle light.

He shifted his attention to the trees themselves. In the canopy overhead, he could make out what looked like paths formed out of interlocking branches thicker than him! Near the tree trunks, where these paths ended, there was what seemed like dwellings… which had grown out of the tree themselves.

He then shifted his focus to the denizens of this secluded village. He could see a variety of animals all around him. But they were different, than their counterparts he had encountered till now. He saw wolves almost as large as horses, bears over 10 feet tall, and various other large beasts like foxes, stags, leopards etc.

One of the wolves looked him in the eye, and he felt deep intelligence from the gaze. It was as if the wolf could gaze into his soul with just a glance. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a tree move. It was comparatively smaller, being ‘just’ eleven feet tall, and twice as thick as Jack’s width.

The tree turned and he saw that it had something resembling a face on it! It looked as if someone had carved a couple of eye sockets on its trunk, and the sockets gleamed blood red in the gentle light. The tree suddenly yawned, and a jagged crack below its eye opened wide, and its eyes turned the color of its bark.

Jack: ‘Is that a treant? Well looks like the treant is sleepy… This village is truly breathtaking! I feel an underlying harmony in here.’

Harsh Male Voice: “So you woke up? Let us meet the elders.”

Jack: *gets up and turns around to face the source of the voice* “You!! You are the one who drugged and kidnapped me! That was very rude, by the way.”

Hooded figure dressed in animal furs: “And your resistance was amusing! Now let us meet with the elders, shall we?”

Jack: “Was that necessary? And what is your name?”

Hooded figure dressed in animal furs: “Outsiders cannot know the location of our coven, under any circumstance. It was mere ‘protocol’ to disable you before transporting you here so don’t take it personally. I thought you would know better than to ask my name. For your stay here, you may refer to me as ‘Guide’.”

Jack: ‘So the druids are iffy about their names like spirits eh? Or is he just messing with me? I might as well get on with it. No point in being pissed at him for drugging and kidnapping me this time. At least he didn’t rape me or anything…I hope.’

Jack: “Well then Guide, please lead the way.”

The hooded figure ‘Guide’ nodded, and beckoned Jack to follow him. He led him through the massive trees for a few minutes until he witnessed a strange scene. The earlier tranquility of the village was lost, and before him he witnessed huge eighteen feet tall treants. They were arranged in a circle and were facing inward.

Inside the circle of treants, there seemed to be a layer of ash on the ground. The treants also somehow seemed…sick with the ash covering their barks and their leaves weren’t as lustrous. In the center was something that looked like a grey statue of a slender male. Its face had an expression of agony and it looked as if he was screaming at the sky. His face was quite handsome and had a gem with a dull green-brown glow embedded in its forehead.

From the gem on his forehead, the same dull green-brown lines were pulsing across the statue. The green –brown lines appeared to have covered the top third of the statue. His ears were slightly pointed, but not quite enough for an elf. Jack assumed that it was probably the statue of a half elf.

Outside the circle of treants, there were three figures sitting cross-legged on the grass. Jack noticed that the grass seemed brown, almost dead, instead of the lush green he had noticed earlier in the village. The central figure was again a statue of a beautiful elven woman who seemed to be meditating. Beside her, sat two elven women, each of them was holding one of the statue’s arms.

As Jack approached closer and closer, he felt uneasiness, an almost restless and violent urge which seemed out of place. This was in sharp comparison to the tranquil feeling he had experienced when he woke up. As he and Guide approached, the elven druid on the left opened her eyes and said.

Elven Druid: “Greeting Bhikku. What brings you here?”

Jack: *takes out the stone coin from his inventory* “I was inducted into the Brahman Sangha when I cleared the dungeon this coin lead to. Sometime later, I encountered a pedestal with a similar but larger depression. My master seemed to think that you druids would have the ‘key’ to that prison. He was also worried as to why you druids hadn’t contacted us this year, and ordered me to render aid in any way possible.”

Elven Druid: “We indeed have the part of the key you are seeking. But as you can see, we are… occupied at the moment. We cannot discuss the matter of the key until this situation is resolved.”

Jack: *storing the coin back in his inventory* ‘figures… need to help them before I get my “key”.’

Jack: “What exactly is happening here? I can no longer sense the tranquil harmony of your village. Instead I feel agitated here, almost violent. And that statue looks to be in a lot of pain.”

Elven Druid: *sad smile on her face* “That Bhikku, is just the shadow of The Blight in action. Already three of our guardians have fallen trying to snuff it out. That ‘statue’ you see, is actually one of our guardians fighting a seed of The Blight.”

Jack: ‘The Blight? Irfit said I could eat spirits infected by The Blight without any penalties. And it looks like they are having trouble containing the blight. I may get some powerups eating some infected spirits, and my quest did order me to aid the druids.’

Jack: “Is there any way I can aid your coven in fighting the blight? This oppressive feeling that it is radiating, unhinges my very soul. And my master did instruct me to aid you.”

Elven Druid: *frowns* “While we appreciate the offer, we will deal with it in time. It was our folly that unleashed it, so we have the responsibility to contain it”

Jack: “And how long will that take? Weeks? Months? Years? And how many guardians will you sacrifice?”

Elven Druid: “Oh so you feel you are more qualified to fight The Blight? Even the youngest of our guardians have years of discipline and resolve that will outclass you. Do you even know what The Blight is? What is the source of your arrogance? If your soul is wavers even for a moment… The blight will devour you.”

Jack: *smirking* “After being inducted into the order, It took me around half an hour to reach a level of enlightenment which usually takes others months, perhaps years of meditation. Your guide was also quite rude, and had to drug me with three different spores and poke my neck before he could render me unconscious.”

Jack pauses as he notices the expression of the Elven Druid change slightly. The druid seemed to be debating internally, whether to allow him to fight The Blight or not. She was on the fence, and he decided to apply a little push to influence her.

Jack: “Also, I am sure you can make out that I am Irfit’s vassal. I have a spirit pact with it, and it obliges me to fight The Blight wherever I encounter it. I am sure the servants of Gaia are aware, but I wouldn’t be granted this pact, if it didn’t see merit in me.”

Jack: *observing the subtle changes in the druid’s façade* “Your guardians may be more disciplined, but cloistered here, there perspective is limited. Perhaps, it needs a fresh outlook to fight this seed of The Blight. And trust me; I have a weapon to fight the Blight, which even Irfit acknowledges. It is a double-edged sword however, and I do not wish to unleash it unless absolutely necessary.”

Jack was of course referring to his spirit eater abilities. Irfit had hinted that given enough power, a spirit eater could even devour its soul. The seed of blight was already quite weakened by the sacrifice of the druid guardians. He felt confident, that with the aid of the current guardian, he could devour its corruption. Jack’s persuasive statements seemed to have convinced the elven druid, and she relented.

Elven Druid: “If you wish so Bhikku. However, The Blight tempts all it corrupts with its sickly seduction of power. If you give into it, we will sacrifice ourselves to incinerate the corruption before it takes root in your soul. That will strip you of almost all the power you have accumulated till now. Do you still agree?”

Jack: ‘So if I fail the quest, massive nerf to my levels and skills? Well the penalty for failure was ‘???’. I can’t expect it to be a light slap on the wrist now can I? Hopefully the rewards are equally good. They say: nothing ventured, nothing gained. And I plan to gain shitloads, so risking shitloads is a given…’

Jack: *smiling* “That just means I have to succeed don’t I? So how do we begin?”

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A/N: Double Chapter. From now on I may post multiple chapters on some weekends, but may skip a weekend every month or so. So probably expect a skipped weekend this month.

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