VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 59: Where’s the Lamb Sauce?

Slowly but surely, with emphasis on the slowly, they made their way through the dungeon the way that their leader wanted it to be done. With constant emphasis on saving mana and conserving energy, their pace was painfully slow. An entire hour had been spent in this dungeon, trudging from encounter to encounter, and it was boring her to tears.

She wanted nothing more than to leap from these ranks and go wild on these beasts, to tear them limb from limb. But no... Surround them and carefully hack away at them like they were a lumbering tree that needed to be felled.

Even if they were trying to conserve energy, there were dozens of ways they could have been more efficient with their attacks, yet their wonderful leader said nothing. He simply stood at the front of the pack, posturing to his skull shaped camera and giving lectures to it as if he was gods gift to fighting. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Then again his streamer name, according to the Druid, was ’TheSupremeCommand3r" Which was not just a mouthful, but so damned pretentious it bordered on nauseating. But that made his attitude all the more understandable.

He was role-playing as some drill sergeant, and had a fragile ego on top of that. Both were such perfect reasons to abuse people for no reason. How wonderful.

The constant shouts for conserving mana was what confused Belladonna the most. As far as she was concerned, they weren’t expending that much. Even if she went all out at her max, teleporting around the place and rapidly switching Infusions, with how slow they were she would have regenerated most, if not all, of her mana by now.

Not just that, but they were leaving a lot of loot behind. Some people would take bits and pieces from the monsters they killed, mainly teeth and claws. But no one moved to butcher them.

That could be explained by a storage issue, after all there was only so much meat you could carry before it got in the way, but not everything had to do with meat.

The questions nagged at the back of her mind, as she snuck over to Vestra and whispered in her ear.

"Hey, You have your source, right?"

"My... sauce? What are you- Oh, for the meat? No, I just cook it a little. It’s not as nice, but it’s good for mana." She answered with a cute smile that made Belladonna frown deeply. She opened her mouth to correct her new friend, before shaking it off and smiling back before stepping away.

Subtly, she tapped the symbol engraved into her temple, switching her vision. The usual array of dazzling colours manifested within her eyesight, especially around the forest. She could actually see the difference between the living trees and the normal ones, just by the colour of their mana and the way it shifted.

But while that was interesting, and somewhat helpful, she pulled her eyes away from the treeline and towards her friend. Vestra had some magic surrounding her, just like before. Her body a colourful display of what she assumed to be illusion magic, masking her wounds and helping her in other way.

However, focusing closer, she peered past that surface level magic and into the depths of her mystical secrets. Some mana flowed through her body, but it was stunted and a mere trickle of what it should be.

Where there should have been a bright centre, as her source, there was only a hazy gathering of random mana she was passively absorbing from other sources.

It was as if she was a giant lake, with hundreds of rivers leading out of her. The rivers were blocked in places or barely allowed the water to flow, but that didn’t matter much as there was no water in the lake to begin with.

Only what filled it with random rainfall, which quickly flowed out of the lake and into the rivers. Nothing was ever stored in the lake to properly feed and carve the rivers.

As she looked over the druid and other spell casters, the same issue arose. No matter who she looked at, she couldn’t see a source. There was the beginnings of some, but it was all haphazard and half formed.

Narrowing her eyes, Belladonna ignored the headache that was starting to form, as she rapidly scanned the corpses that they were leaving behind, until she found exactly what she was looking for.

If she moved out of line again, there was a high possibility that their supreme commander would yell at her again and actually boot her this time. But thankfully, that’s why she had her trusty assistant.

"Beans..." She muttered under her breathe, drawing a curious glance from someone nearby before they went back to ignoring her. After a few seconds, a weight appeared on her shoulders and an adorable head of black fur poked out from underneath her hair.

"Mmrr? Mmrrow!" Beans chirped curiously, then let out a purr of understanding without another word needing to be said, such was the benefit of the bond. He nuzzled against her neck for a moment, before disappearing into the shadows.

He manifested in the treeline, waiting for the group to pass, before pounding onto the Living Tree’s corpse and easily tearing it open with his adorable, flesh ripping claws.

Beans dove inside just as the Druid turned curiously, something tickling at his senses, but when he saw nothing he simply shrugged and turned away. A few moments later, Beans manifested in the shadows underneath Belladonna’s hair and poked his head out once more, however this time clutching a green gem in his mouth.

"Good boy Beans." Belladonna cooed softly, taking the Source Remnant from him before scratching him under the chin.

"Do you think you can find me some more?"

Beans let out another soft purr as he dissolved into shadows, eager to please his new master. Belladonna chuckled softly, slipping the crystal into her Bottomless Bag. The only issue now, was whether she should share what she knew or keep them all to herself.

One was the right thing to do, but then again... every time that she looked towards the asshole in charge, it made the little voice in her head rumble with bloodlust and throat ripping glee.

Thankfully, she had plenty of time to think about it, as they were walking for another half hour. In the time, despite all the mobs they had killed, Beans had only brought back fifteen Source Remnants. A disappointing number, but unsurprising.

On the plus side, they had finally stopped walking because they had finally reached the boss room. The chamber of the Gatekeeper.