The Hunter’s Guide To Monsters-Chapter 16: The Vine Garden Quest (2)

The monster startled, wings flaring, showing hypnotizing patterns. A puff of golden dust spread around it.

Krow used the leverage of a foot, turned his lunge into a sideways scrabble.

His grip slipped on the vines.

For one terrifying moment, he hung over nearly a hundred meters of air.

Gravity asserted itself, he started to fall. His adrenaline shot up, instincts alarmed.

He flailed, grabbling at the trailing braided balustrade of a walkway, his foot tangling in a mass of smaller vine.

He pulled himself up, sideways, and away from the monster.

The poison cloud settled slowly on the vines, dusting the surroundings in gold. Krow was grateful the wind blew away from him.

No dust settled near.

He arranged himself more comfortably, rested his forehead on a cool green vine, tried to calm down the almost painful adrenaline-flamed pounding of blood in his veins.

"You're a godblasted Sharpshooter!" he growled at himself, angry that he'd attacked head-on like a Swordbearer.

A chittering made him narrow his eyes, tense again.

The monster was already scurrying away, toward the cliff.

Insultingly, it sniffed at him once as it passed him by, with a series of chk-chk-chk-ha noises that sounded like laughter.

Krow calmly unholstered his gun, aimed, and shot a stun-round at its retreating behind.

The mothmarmot dropped, unmoving.

Nice.

Hm. It looked like the cartridges were consumed by the revolver. Maybe it was the fuel?

Tsk.

Magic bullcrap convenience.

Not even in Zushkenar did he understand it, despite the usefulness.

Well, he had time in this life to learn it.

He climbed over the balustrade carefully, couldn't help glancing down and pausing.

Haaaah…

You'd think seeing the Grandshield Forest looking like a mat of green pondscum from the ridiculously immense height would lessen the impact of smaller drops, but no. Apparently, it only enhanced the experience.

He had to grip the vines tightly for a moment to deal with weakened knees, but then strode toward the mothmarmot. He'd recognized that golden poison dust.

It was used as poison, yes. But also was sold in Zushkenar to apothecaries to make anesthetics. Also emetics and de-worming potions, among others, but the anesthetics were the ones that sold at high prices.

In Redlands, he didn't know what it was good for.

Probably the same things, but did anyone have the recipes now?

Krow needed to check an auctionhouse to see if what sold well in Zushkenar was profitable in Redlands. The forums said Redlands didn't have much vendor trash, that every item drop was useful.

But materials degraded.

He didn't want to hoard monster materials just to watch them rot because no one knew how to use them.

He kneeled beside the mothmarmot.

It was nearly as long from pink scaly nose to stubby tail as his whole arm.

It couldn't fly, he mused as he spread the large flaky wings carefully. The wings wouldn't support the weight.

Probably. He'd seen weirder things flying about.

The stun-round was almost out. Krow glanced at the timer hovering over the monster.

He took out his makeshift rock-crystal knife and sliced it through the mothmarmot's throat.

[-32] [Fatal blow!]

Krow turned off those notifications, keeping only the red-colored enemy HP bar visible.

The monster dissolved into blue sparkling lights that dispersed like a mist before him, leaving items and coin. He touched the items.

[You've gained two (2) pouches of Flutterpoison Dust from a monster!]

[You've gained one (1) serpens from a monster!]

That was all very well.

But Krow's mind still stuck on the utter disconnect between what he knew and a monster carcass dissolving into blue glowing motes.

Ah, he forgot.

There was a visual realism percentage that was automatically set to 60%.

He activated the interface, frown disappearing. Where was it again?

"Realism percentage," he questioned the interface.

The Map page enlarged and came to the forefront. Most of the map regions had a small lock that said he hadn't gained the prerequisites to travel them yet.

His eyes dropped lower.

Sure enough, there was a slider under the map that indicated the amount of realistic visuals a player would see. It was locked to 60% in those under age 18, to prevent the gore and blood from traumatizing players.

Actually, he was fairly certain it couldn't drop below 50%.

Checking the requirements of the Butcher subclass, Krow upped his realism to 80%, which was enough to show blood and viscera.

There were more than a few monsters that needed to be butchered in a particular way using feel, scent, and certain anatomical landmarks. His Butcher level was Third Apprentice right now, but he had the memory-skills of at least a Second Wright.

Wouldn't want to let those skills deteriorate because of the game system.

He slid the bar to 95% realistic.

He might want to practice in Zushkenar conditions, but that remaining 5% dealt with most of the clean-up.

No having to launder blood out of clothing, no having to choke on increasingly strange smells of decay or shoveling feces and unusable offal while butchering some monster large enough to swallow a person, no having to wash the butchered items before storing them.

Krow closed the interface with a smile.

He hadn't taken two steps when the world turned red and a notification flashed.

[Warning! Processing power unable to compensate. Reset to default settings? Y/N]

Krow groaned. "Weeping graves."

He'd forgotten that neuro-virtual headsets were also locked to 60% realism if without the support of the bio-cradle processors.

"Reset, yes," he grumped sourly.

The world returned to its overwhelmingly ordinary pleasantness, the red faded away.

He snorted, walked away.

Stopped to saw a copper ringbell flower from where it sat between several pale flower clusters. He tossed it into his inventory and moved on.

He'd sooner stepped on the rock of the cliff than a now familiar chitter sounded on his right.

The revolver was in his hand immediately, and tracking the sound.

[Mothmarmot Lvl 3]

Another stun, another throat-slicing, another mothmarmot burst into blue glow-motes.

[You've gained one (1) pouch of Flutterpoison Dust from a monster!]

[You've butchered a monster to acquire its Golden Silky Fur!]

Krow lifted his brows.

It looked like the Butcher subclass worked even at 60% realism. Why did the subclass page recommend 80% then?

Unless at 60% it was a random –

Chk-chk-kreeeeeee!

Krow whirled, revolver raised.

The sound of pebbles sliding from above had him turning again.

Chk-kreeeee! Chk-Chk-skreeeee!

Oh.

Of course the things ran in packs.

Of course they did.

Krow briefly lamented not being in the foothills, where he knew most of the monsters. Though since it was this early in the game, a lot of the native wildlife in the foothills hadn't been hunted to near extinction.

He grabbed the cylinder of non-enchanted bullets, replaced the one equipped on his revolver. Stepped back onto the vine walkway, then started to climb.

The monsters were on the cliff-face, the wind was blowing at his back, so unless they jumped toward him, he'd be safe from the dust and the claws and the teeth.

[Mothmarmot Lvl 2]

He aimed. The revolver barked once and the mothmarmot squealed.

It didn't die.

Krow cursed as he peered to see that only a third of the monsters HP had been sheared off by the ordinary bullet.

He now knew he should stock up on mage-bullets as soon as possible. Seriously useful, those stun-rounds.

Several more monsters appeared.

He emptied the revolver, changed cylinders, emptied that, then boosted himself up on a vine that didn't support a walkway.

Chk-chreeeee!

Tsk.

Krow opened the revolver chest on his lap and quickly fed bullets into the emptied cylinders. He emptied the original one, then filled the chambers with flameburst rounds. The way the golden poison dust was covering the cliff-face, if the wind changed….

He wasn't going to waste a free revival on his very first quest.

Finished, he jumped onto a walkway and climbed higher, almost to the level of the lip of the crack.

Chk! Chk-chk-kreee!

They gathered on a ledge opposite him, golden motes swirling around them. Krow eyed them, then equipped the flameburst bullets and carefully aimed.

Beside the mass of outraged mothmarmot bodies, there was a slightly translucent hunk of stone.

The flameburst bullet left then barrel differently from the others, leaving a faint red trail behind. It hit the stone, exploded into a dozen red-tinged shards.

Krow lunged behind a mass of vines, curling away with the cape protecting him. Rock crystal shards embedded themselves in the vines around him, a few hitting the cape through the holes in the vine web.

None penetrated the cape, momentum lessened.

He tugged his hood lower and made himself smaller.

There was a panicked chittering from the mothmarmot pack.

Krow turned to peer at the results.

The mothmarmots on that particular ledge were decimated, the other groups screeching in fright and anger.

He stuck the revolver barrel through the vines, and looked for a likely spot to aim. There weren't really that many rock crystals near the mothmarmot groups.

He sent a second flameburst bullet, covered as it exploded.

Jumping up, he moved for better vantage.

Two more flameburst bullets and the mothmarmots learned to avoid the cliff.

They jumped onto the Vine Garden and scurried toward him, rage in their eyes.

"Son of a toothsucker!" The vines now under his feet weren't conducive to quick running; they depressed with each step, like walking on a less bouncy trampoline.

His opponents' claws and light bodies made them step surer on the swaying battleground.

Krow snapped a cylinder of non-enchanted bullets into the revolver to replace the explosive ones, started shooting immediately.

The first monster died, the second leaped at Krow and got a face-full of cape while the third got a face full of bullets.

Krow dropped the revolver, took a knife and slammed it into the nape of the mothmarmot attempting to chew through his cape-covered arm and slowly bleeding his HP.

It burst into blue glow-motes and items.

Whoa, good thing they couldn't keep continuously puffing out that gold-colored poison dust.

[You have achieved Lvl 2!]

Krow ignored the items and the notifications. Only smiled briefly as his health shot up to 100%.

He dropped down to the walkway, retrieved his revolver, and leaped to a massive lone vine, wobbling before regaining his balance.

The mothmarmots headed in his direction shrieked in anger.

[You have gained one (1) point of Dexterity from training!]

Krow shut off those notifications with a snarl, and started reloading.

There were maybe ten left, with Lvl 2 to Lvl 4.

"Where are all the Lvl 1 monsters," he complained under his breath. "I just got here today, you know!"

A mothmarmot jumped straight to him, trailing gold dust, claws and teeth bared. Krow put three bullets into it mid-air, then resumed reloading.

"You know you should ease people into a world like this, right, game makers?" he continued. "How can people stay if you toss them down the abyss immediately?"

He glanced down and shuddered.

Chk-chk-keeee! Kreee-keeee!

There were two mothmarmots crawling down the vine. Five bullets, and the items drops were falling into the shadows of the crack under them, lost forever.

"Just a suggestion, maybe make automatic pick-up a default on Lvl 1?" Krow sighed, forlorn. "Why does it activate only at Lvl 5? How is that logical, huh?"

He twisted, firing another five bullets. The second mothmarmot didn't die, and the third shrieked as a bullet grazed it.

Krow equipped a new cylinder into the gun. He was running out of bullets.

He stowed the chest, got up from where he was straddling the vine, and ran.

Chk-chk-chk-keeee!

"Yes, follow me, you little ratbugs!"

He jumped from vine to walkway to another walkway, leading to the cliffs.

There was no way he was losing anymore drops.

Once on solid ground, Krow started up the rocky path, staying far away from the patches of golden dust.

He boosted himself up a ledge after checking that there were no monsters above that could ambush him, and started picking off the enraged mothmarmots that were hard pressed on his trail.

"What kind of pack animal doesn't retreat when most of them are killed?" Krow protested, as he aimed more carefully than earlier, so as to not waste bullets. "Aren't your low-level monsters supposed to all be cute, Redlands? Godforsaken programmers! You think this is cute?"

Each non-enchanted bullet he fired barely took ten percent off the enemy's life.

The last four mothmarmots had entered a towering fury.

Their golden coats tinged with red, their eyes bloodshot and raging, they advanced implacably toward Krow. Their wings and antennae were open and rigid, vibrating ominously as they slowly turned transparent. There was a constant cloud of gold dust around them.

No way Krow was getting close to that.

He exchanged the non-enchanted bullets for his last cylinder of flameburst rounds.

Low-level stun-rounds wouldn't do anything to a monster in rage, even if the monster was also at low levels.

He aimed and waited.

They were soon going to pass a hunk of – there!

The rock crystal exploded, taking out the lead monster and the one closest behind it. Unfortunately, their bodies protected the others, the HP of the last two diminishing negligibly.

Two flamebursts didn't kill the third, but it dropped to the ground, unable to move. Krow turned the revolver and the last two bullets on the last monster.

It slowed, but didn't stop.

[Mothmarmot Lvl 4 (Enraged)]

Krow thought he had time to reload a cylinder, but the monster lunged. Krow fumbled, then kicked the mothmarmot away, jumping off the ledge and retreating further up the path to avoid the poison dust.

He snapped the cylinder into place. It took three non-enchanted bullets before the mothmarmot dissolved into sparkles.

Krow aimed the last bullet in the gun at the still breathing monster further down. The bullet hit it in the head, and it let out a single screech before it too, became blue glow-motes and items.

With a sigh, he dropped against the cliff-face, panting.

His limbs were heavy and slow.

A glance at his HP bar and he grimaced.

The game creators had made every detail of Redlands to be as close to realistic as possible, which meant his low VIT had his HP currently being leeched by an Majorly Exhausted debuff.

It looked like he hadn't avoided all the poison because there was also a Minor Poison debuff that was leeching even more HP.

He took out a cuji pear, and started eating.

Food generally alleviated Exhaustion by a percentage, depending on quality and compatibility.

When he could move easier again, he sighed in relief.

It was possible, in Redlands, to die of Exhaustion.

He opened his profile and noted that he had five stat points unused. He placed four in VIT and one in MND.

He had noticed – belatedly, a part of his mind grumbled disapprovingly – that the mage-bullets had been reducing his MP bar.

HP: (78%)

MP: (93%)

Debuffs: Minor Poison, Minor Exhaustion

*

Name: Ilas Krow (Exhaustion, Minor Poison)

Level: 2 (74%)

Race: Draculkar

Location: Vine Ladder Gardens

HP: 79%

MP: 93%

Str: 8

Dex: 9 (+2)

Mnd: 8

Vit: 7

Element: Shadow

Magic Aptitude: 11

Battleclass: Sharpshooter [~Skills~]

Crafterclass: Enchanter [~Skills~]

Subclass: Scout [~Skills~]

Butcher [~Skills~]

Tinkerer ::Expand::

Equipped Main Weapon: Starfall Revolver

Equipped Shoulders: Darkfall Hooded Cape

*

Krow couldn't fully remove the now regular Exhaustion and the Minor Poison debuffs, but at least they won't kill him before he finished the quest. Upping his VIT had improved his HP regeneration a little.

He leaned back against the mountain, letting the cool breeze relax him, eating pears.

Collecting the item drops could wait for later.

He was going to enjoy the view first.