Vraxious- Kings Road
Torvald had urged Vrax down the road immediately upon reaching the meeting place overlooking the city from the hill. Vrax was concerned but trusted Torvald's judgment. He was half jogging ahead of him, pushing the armored box at an unhealthy speed. It hissed and growled at every bump, at this point having stopped mimicry about fifty potholes ago.
Torvald finally stopped when they were a solid three leagues from the city around midday. He wiped the sweat from his brow and gave the box a pat.
“So… I’ll just get right to it. The dungeon copied your Daisy, and the first floor of the dungeon has turned into a fucking charnel house. It has dotted them all over the fungal forest as wandering elites, and apparently a lot of new adventurers are having a really bad time with a psychotic, bloodthirsty, untiring plant monster that has no evident weak points.” Torvald said while giving Vrax the most judgmental stare he could.
“Haa...uhh...well...at least we know the daisy is effective?” Vrax weakly tried to joke. His face warped through a few expressions before settling on concern. “How bad is it actually?”
“Well, I don’t think anyone has died yet, at least that I heard about. Thankfully, the daisy seems more focused on, in my mouth you go, than on making sure something is dead. It was the hot topic of discussion at the shop I was at. The adventurers are mixed between concerned and excited because they apparently give great essence gains for their low level if you can successfully kill one.” Torvald explained.
“What are the odds no one knows it’s from me? Probably not good; I did just use it in a fight in a damn amphitheater in front of a few hundred people,” Vrax asked.
“Oh, everyone would already know it’s from you eventually even if the dungeon wasn’t being a sarcastic asshole about it. You are about as subtle as a Mynoch rushing through a china shop while on fire. They might not know your name or what exactly you look like, but, heh, the dungeon can apparently add notes to identify descriptions that people with an advanced identify can see.” Torvald said and pulled a little crumpled sheet of paper out of his vest pocket, handing it to Vrax with a told-you-not-to expression.
Vrax read it. It had a little note on top that said, Identify description of new wandering elite, first floor, with tidy handwriting below that was obviously not Torvalds's and had a short description.
[Maneater Daisy Tier-1](lvl6) Reportedly seen as high as (lvl12)
Original design kindly donated to the Whispering Grotto by The Paladin Of the Forsaken Lands.
“Shiiiiiitttttt…..” Vrax wheezed out. Torvald boomed out a laugh in response and started pushing the squeaking box of horror back down the road. Vrax stared at the sheet for a few more moments before jogging to catch up. They traveled in relative silence for the rest of the afternoon. Vrax distracted himself by practicing adapt on random flowers as they walked. Leaving a small trail of wildflowers that sprouted little root legs skittering around on the road behind them.
They finally made camp a good three hundred strides from the road in a thicket that Vrax had spotted from the top of a tree. It wrapped around them on three sides, open on the side that faced away from the road, giving them a very sheltered location. Vrax sealed off the open part of the thicket with adapt and then focused on it, making the brambles thicker and slightly sharper. By the time Torvald had started a fire, they had a full wall of grasping, thorn-covered brambles covering them from all sides.
“Ready to open the box?” Vrax asked Torvald.
He stiffened up for a moment. “No, but we need to let the poor little monster out; he’s been in there all damn day.” Torvald responded and poured a little water bowl for the soon-to-be-released abomination.
Vrax walked over to the box and made sure Torvald was wearing his adapted mark. He put a hand on the box, and a slight glow with the impression of his hand emanated from the top, followed by a soft click-whish as the door on the front swung open. Vrax stepped back as a pair of bladed hands grasped the edges of the opening, and then another pair followed by the flicker of tongues, and finally a curious eye peeked around the edge. The Dreadfeast left the box; the way it moved was deeply disconcerting. It halfway crawled and halfway slithered, using both its serpentine bottom half and its deadly claws to pull itself free from the box with a haunting grace.
Vrax stepped up to it as it rose back on its tail, cocking its head up at him, nearly as tall as he was when it sat like this.
“Uhh, what now?” Torvald asked, breaking the silence. The Dreadfeast turned towards him, its whole body contorting towards him without it actually moving from where it was at all. Torvald's eyes widened, and his grip on his hammer tightened as he looked down the triple deep maws of fangs.
“I guess we feed it?” Vrax mused, looking at the soup pot sitting next to the campfire.
“What? I’m all out of disposable orphans, Vrax. I don’t think it wants fucking soup!” Torvald chuffed, still staring down the unmoving horror.
An owl hooting above them broke the stalemate. The Dreadfeast flashed towards the noise, weaving around Vrax under Torvald’s legs and right up to the brambles. Its tongues flickered upward, probing into the brambles for a moment before they all heard a confused-sounding hoot followed by a squawk of panic and an explosion of feathers as the Dreadfeast ripped the owl through the brambles and into its hands with its tongues.
They watched in confusion as it held the still flailing bird in four of its hands oddly gently, raising it above its head with a retching victory bark. Then it slithered back over to the campfire and just sat there, still holding the owl, tongues gently probing at the bird occasionally.
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“The hells?” Torvald asked.
Vrax just shrugged and sat down next to the Dreadfeast, pouring himself a bowl of soup. They all sat at the campfire eating dinner. Torvald had finished his third bowl of soup when the owl finally stopped hooting. The Dreadfeast looked almost disappointedly at the bird and made a huffing hiss before gently placing it deep within its maws and biting down with the loud discordant sounds of breaking bones.
“Uhh, on that note, I think I’m going to get some sleep….” Vrax said the Dreadfeast had slid up next to him and seemed like it was trying to drape itself across his legs like a hound.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to sleep again.” Tovald grumbled, stuffing himself into a sleeping bag and propping a rock up behind himself. “I’ll take first watch, obviously. You can work on bonding with your new hunting hound.” He incredulously looked at the sleepy form of the Dreadfeast sprawled halfway onto Vrax, its bladed tails flickering contentedly as it hooted softly as if mocking its last meal.
The morning came without incident, and they set off once again; they had absolutely no luck getting it back into its box. Vrax settled for putting an adapted collar around its neck and tying the leash onto his vambraces. If it decided to eat a random passerby, he would have a fighting chance at restraining it.
The first group they passed was a tense affair. Vrax and Torvald watched the approaching caravan with trepidation. They swung wide off the road to give them plenty of room, not knowing how the Dreadfeast would react to people not protected with the mark. The merchant caravan, a sprawling three-cart affair, noticed their odd behavior and sent forth a contingent of three guards mounted upon fine black warhorses to greet them.
The Dreadfeast slinked slightly away from Vrax and halfway hid in the roadside ditch, only its top half looming out terrifyingly, tongues flicking high in the air, tasting the approaching guards.
“Hail travellers! What cause have you to give way? There is plenty of room for us both on th…” the friendly guard in a faintly glowing white chainmail halted abruptly mid-response, angling his hooked lance towards the Dreadfeast.
Vrax ambled next to the Dreadfeast, mustering as much confidence as he could, and patted it fondly like one might a dog as it let out a mimicked scream of a man being torn open threateningly towards the guard. ”Ahh, well, good sir, my tamed beast is a bit shy, and we didn’t want it to spook your horses.” Vrax said as the Dreadfeast's tongues reached very threateningly towards the nearest horse, just hovering in the air a stride away from it.
The guard didn’t look away from the dreadfeast as he responded, “That’s mighty kind of you. I’ll tell you what, we can wait here with you while the caravan passes to avoid any misunderstandings. I just tried to identify…that...and I think I felt a blood vessel burst.” The guard said, his tone making it clear this wasn’t a request.
A tense few minutes passed as the caravan clattered by. The Dreadfeast snatching a rabbit that dashed nearby in its clawed hands didn’t help. It stared uncomfortably at the man's horse while stuffing the still wriggling rabbit deep into its last maw. Just as the last cart passed by and the guard looked about ready to leave, he added something.
“Be careful; we got ambushed about a day ago. They were a bit over your level and ran off when we fought back, but odds are they might see you two and that big metal box you are lugging around and think you are a free meal.” His voice had lost most of its unkind edge. With a final wave, he turned and caught up to the caravan.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Vrax said in relief, patting the still-chewing horror.
“Sure as shit still wouldn’t trust it around some poor unarmed farmer though.” Torvald added,
“Oh gods no, I think it would eat them in their sleep.” Vrax agreed.
They continued on successfully, passing another small group without any real incident other than Vrax and Torvald having to haul the Dreadfeast away from a basket of chickens it really, really wanted to get ahold of. The group of four farmers nearly fled away from them after the Dreadfeast started screaming at them when denied the chickens. Actually screaming with the voice of what was probably an old man.
They slept better the second night, less worried about being eaten alive. And continued to stroll down the worn cobble and dirt road. Occasionally having to stop and let the dreadfeast hunt small animals in the nearby shrubbery or skitter up a tree and come back with a captive bird or squirrel. Near the end of the day Vrax stiffened suddenly, seeing the slightest flash of mana in the forest off to the left. The setting sun made anything more than that hard to pick out in the deepening shadows.
“Torvald, someone else is here.” Vrax said quietly, pulling his spear free from his pack.
Torvald didn’t respond; he was squinting at a figure in heavy fur armor quite a bit farther down the road that had just slid out of the forest. A bird of prey sat on the man's shoulder, and he held a single-handed axe loosely dangling down by his waist.
“Dinner time!” A motherly voice emanated from the dreadfeast, who was practically bristling at the change in energy, quills shivering on its spine and tail blades sliding off each other.
“How are we going to play this?” Torvald asked.
“Try and talk first; if they don’t play ball, I’m going to let the daisy out and let go of this fucking leash, then set up my garden against that boulder. Vrax pointed to a somewhat sheltered hill slightly off the road with a boulder as tall as two men ringed by three stout oaks sitting at the base.”
“Sounds foolproof.” Torvald whispered just as a burly-looking man clad in a mishmash of chain and platemail stepped onto the road slightly ahead of them, a longbow in his hand with an arrow knocked and an obviously tamed beast trailing in his shadow. The beast looked like someone had taken a bear and mixed it with a marble statue, its shoulders coming to the man's head and thick plates of stone dotting its joints and snout. Vrax used Identify on the two bandits and the beast.
[George Urundell Tier-1](lvl19)[Deepwood Tamer]
[Finley Shaw Tier-1](lvl11)[Falcon Totem Barbarian]
[Slate Blood Bear Tier-1](lvl16)
“Name’s George! Now let's not have any bloodshed. We have you outleveled, and although you have a mighty scary-looking beast there, as you can see, we have our own tamed monsters. Empty out your pockets, give us what's in the box, and no one needs to get hurt.” The burly man said in an almost affable manner. The vibrant red and gold falcon in the distance launched from its owner's arm and circled them threateningly to punctuate his point.
“Whoa, now we are broke as shit, low-level adventurers. How about we not let this get out of hand?” Vrax tried, raising his hands defensively and ducking a bit as the falcon swooped towards him, flaring its wings threateningly. The Dreadfeast snatched the bird out of the air in a blur of tongues, ripping it down and tearing it in half by the wings, roughly shoving them into its mouth. Feathers slowly wafted through the air around it as it defiantly flared its tail blades towards George. Everyone stared at it for a moment.
The barbarian in the distance let out a pained shriek. “That motherfucker ate Skylord!!” he screamed in rage as a skill activated. Vrax went ahead and let go of the Dreadfeast leash.