Chapter Four Hundred and Forty-Eight - Ego

I slowly raised my arms over my head. "Uh, I surrender?" I tried.

There was a long moment of tension as I was stared down by a whole group of explorers, every one of them on a hair-trigger.

Then Awen emerged, stepping closer to me. "Broccoli? Awa, hit me with Cleaning magic," she said.

"Okay?" I replied, a little confused, and called up my magic.

One of the other explorers shouted for me to stop, but by then my Cleaning magic was already sweeping across Awen's legs.

Unsurprisingly, she was covered in mud up to her thighs, and I could imagine how awful it must have been to have mud in her boots.

By the looks on their faces, they were wary of me, and I guess that made sense. After all, even with all the dungeons I'd been in, only one time had I run into another group. Dungeons were weird, isolated, self-contained worlds, and it probably felt strange to encounter another person when you expected to be isolated and alone ... especially if that isolated world was filled with mud, and the person emerging from the tree line (me) was unnaturally spotless. My friends knew that that was normal, but to anyone else... yeah, I could see why they might think it was a little weird.

"That's the real Broccoli," Awen said.

There was a shout up ahead, and all the attention twitched from me to something barrelling out of the woods.

It was a pair of grenoil. They were dressed like young explorers, wearing mostly lighter, leather gear and gambesons with short swords in hand. They skidded to a stop in front of us, spinning around to face back the way they came. "Flies!" one of them shouted.

"Damn," Calamity said.

I stepped a little closer to the group, still keeping some distance between us, not to spook anyone.

"Broccoli, the flies are dangerous," Awen warned.

I nodded. I'd kind of put that together from context clues already, but the confirmation was nice anyway. A nasty buzz came from the trees, and I looked up in time to see a bunch of giant flies the size of my head swarming out of the trees. They had bright yellow and black patterns, and shot toward us like some of those blurry-fast hummingbirds.

Calamity fired, and an arrow zipped through two of the flies before lodging into a tree.

One of the grenoil aimed a blunderbuss at the sky, and I jumped at the thundering boom as the weapon discharged. The blast sent a couple of the flies crashing down into the grass, their wings aflame and their bodies twitching.

Then the rest of the team joined in. Awen fired her crossbow, then reloaded as quickly as she could. Calamity fired a few more arrows into the swarm, and soon slower -moving spells joined the ranged attacks.

I saw one grenoil casting something, and a moment later the ground erupted with vines that rose up and lashed out at the flies, trying to trap and capture them. Another grenoil was casting a spell with a wand, a bright blue circle with runes inscribed spinning around her, then she released it, and a blast of icy wind shot out.

I joined in, flinging a dozen fireballs at the bugs, but I only hit two or three. My flames weren't nearly as strong as the others, but that didn't seem to matter. The flies went down to a glancing blow.

They dropped like ... well, like flies. The last few were taken out close to the group. A few sword swings and spear thrusts and they were dead.

Ding! Congratulations, you have brought about the final hour of Time Flies, level 3 (x19)!

EXP reduced for fighting as a group!

"What were those?" I asked.

Calamity grunted and lowered his bow. He was breathing hard, but it didn't look like anyone had been seriously injured. "Time flies," he said.

"They fly through time?" I asked.

He blinked. "No? They're called that because of their ability. You get bitten by one and your senses get messed up."

"Like, your sense of smell?" I asked.

Calamity glanced at me. "No. Time. Your sense of time. He pointed to one of the members of the Exploration Guild party. "Hannah got bit a while back."

The grenoil that he was pointing to, Hannah, I assumed, was sitting on the grass and leaning against a tree. She had a bandage wrapped around her forehead, and was glaring at the forest. After a few long seconds, she turned towards Calamity. "Did you say my name?" she asked.

"Yeah," Calamity said.

Some ten seconds slipped by, and I was about to say something myself when Hannah finally replied, "Okay."

It looked like she was a few seconds behind everyone else, or something like that. It would be pretty hard to fight that way, I imagined. Or talk. Or do much of anything else, really.

The Exploration Guild group broke up, one of them, a more elderly grenoil, pointing this way and that, and setting people in group's of two to face different directions. Then he walked over to me and Calamity and offered a webbed hand. "Jean-Pierre," he said.

"Broccoli, Broccoli Bunch," I said. "Are you this team's, uh, leader? Sir Tissue?"

He nodded, then gestured to the pin on my bandoleer. "I wasn't expecting anyone else from ze guild here. By ze looks of it you were picked as errand-girl for something? Zat can't be good."

"Uh, yes sir. It's been, uh, a very uncomfortable morning," I said.

Jean-Pierre grunted. "Well, what are you here for? I hope it's not to help zese two friends of yours?"

I blinked. Was he insinuating that I was here to help Awen and Calamity cheat? "No sir. Guild Master Mathilde sent me. There's an emergency in Port Royal, and we need the guild's trackers. She said you were the best."

The grenoil rubbed at his chin. "Ah, Mathilde. What's going on in Port Royal?"

Booksie was kidnapped."

Rubbing his chin, Jean-Pierre frowned. "Bookise. Say, wasn't zat ze name of--?"

"The wife-to-be of the dragon Rhawrexdee?" I nodded. "Yes."

The older grenoil winced. "Zat's... not great. And ze dragon isn't known for being forgiving."

"Last I heard, we hadn't told him yet."

"Even worse."

I winced, and Jean-Pierre nodded along.

"Say, what does zis Booksie look like?" he asked.

"Oh, she's a bun, a bit smaller than me, brown hair, kind of quiet. Bookish. Long ears that stay straight," I said. "Why?"

Jean-Pierre looked to the others, and then back. "Zis dungeon is acting weird, you know."

"I did notice the sign at the entrance," I said.

The grenoil nodded. "You'd have to go deeper to see ze difference, but zis isn't like other dungeons. It's less violent and more peaceful. Zere are no traps, just animals."

"Animals, and those flies," Calamity added.

"Animals and zose flies, yes. It's not ze kind of challenge we'd normally use for testing, but.... "

"Evil Roots?" I asked.

Sir Jean-Pierre Tissue just looked politely confused, but Awen shook her head. "I don't think so," she said. "I thought the same, but it doesn't look like there's anything wrong. Just odd."

"Okay? I... don't mean to be rude, but a weird dungeon, at least one that's not affected by Evil Roots, isn't as important as finding Booksie."

"I suppose not," Jean-Pierre said. He glanced deeper into the forest. "I just have a bad feeling about it. Gather up, and let's get back to ze exit."

"Okay!" I said.

"Wait," one of the others said. This was one of the two grenoil that had come running back, chased by those time flies.

The entire team wasn't all that big. There was Jean-Pierre, then two teams of two grenoil, Awen and Calamity as their own, and then a final group with a human man and a mage in long robes with a hood that obscured their species.

"What is it?" Jean-Pierre asked.

The grenoil pointed to me. "Who's zis one? Is she coming with us?"

"She's from ze guild," Jean-Pierre said.

"Does dat mean she's in ze test?"

"It means zat ze test has changed," Jean-Pierre said. "But I suppose introductions wouldn't hurt?" He looked at me and I shrugged. I had the impression he wanted to know who he was dealing with too.

"I'm Broccoli," I said. "Broccoli Bunch. I'm an explorer. I'm also the captain of the Beaver Cleaver, and both Awen and Calamity's friend. Uh, I can move fast, have a few offensive spells, but mostly I specialize in Cleaning magic and, I guess leadership stuff?"

"The ship is called the what?" the human asked.

"The Beaver?" Awen asked.

The group seemed to relax a bit, but there was still an uncomfortable tension hanging over the group. Were they still nervous about the testing?

"Right. Now that ze pleasantries are out of ze way, let's get back to ze camp. We'll regroup and zen I can start explaining," Jean-Pierre said. He waved towards the path leading back, and the rest of the team started marching off, each person taking their turn to face the forest, then march a dozen steps before looking again. I stayed next to Jean-Pierre, taking in the way everyone, even my friends, moved in little stops and starts.

"Why is everyone moving like that?" I asked while making a forwards-and-back motion to emulate how one pair would move up, then we'd catch up only for another to run ahead.

"Oh. It's because zere is an attack coming," Jean-Pierre said.

I perked up. "There is? Where? What is it?"

"We're not sure," he said. "But zis way, we'll be able to react. It's a classic trick, really."

"Okay," I said.

He nodded, then paused. "So, what sort of trouble has Mathilde been getting herself into?"

"Ah, I think it's the big kind," I said. And wasn't that the truth?

***