BXBX NOVEL Chapter 68 Stalker
Jay ate some more bondtussle root as he walked down the hill, a smile on his face as he was happy with his new boots.
“Mmm, these are quite comfortable for some weird other-language boots.” he thought, jumping off a large rock.
As Jay was walking he noticed something strange.
“That seems a little… out of place.” he squinted at a skinny spindly tree with black bark. He didn’t recall seeing it as he was walking down or up the hill last time.
The tree was about as tall as Jay, and it stood out from other trees as it had black bark; most were evergreens or tall with shades of brown and green bark.
“Hmm…I definitely would’ve noticed you before…” he squinted as he slowly walked towards it.
“…what the fa-” he was startled as he got closer, noticing something on it’s branches as he stepped closer.
“…an eye..? An eye! That’s a damn eye! What the fuck!…” he shifted his ring into the orbital-bone form; bones began floating around his body forming a passive shield as he stepped back, pulled out his shield and waited for an attack.
Jay had seen some strange things so far, but this was perhaps, in his mind, the most demonic and twisted thing he had seen so far.
Implanted into the tree’s branches was an eye, staring at him. As Jay looked, he began to notice a few more, mostly where the branches connected. Soon, little slits on the tree opened up, revealing more eyes, all staring directly at him.
Jay’s face scrunched up from the uneasy feeling it gave him, he continued to back up as he was freaked out, feeling like the tree had locked onto him with its eyes. He had no clue what the tree could do after all; he had never even heard of an eye-covered tree..
After a moment all the eyes finally closed, the branches shook, and suddenly the tree disappeared.
“… the fuck was that… Is it gone or invisible… I won’t take my chances.” he went in the opposite direction of the disappearing tree, walking for a while before continuing to head down towards the mist keep dungeon. He was mostly down the hill at this point, and it was closer than the adventurer association.
“I’ll go find some other adventurers… safety in numbers” he thought “…but I’ll stay behind them, just in case.” he shrugged. Jay was going to let someone else be the bait, there was nothing in it for him to take chances with some sort of mutant demon tree.
Jay shifted his ring back into the normal form before quickly heading down towards the bottom of the hill, finding the familiar stone path at the bottom.
With a light jog he followed it before finally making it back to the destroyed tower surrounded by the destroyed wall; the two stone statues still protecting the entrance – of course, these were merely decoration.
Jay looked around for the party of adventurers what initially tried to recruit him, but to no avail.
“Hmm.. the others must have gone in.” he thought as he looked around. The guy who was trying to recruit him into a party was gone now, along with the circle of people sitting down, which would have been his party.
A few other adventurers were standing around, preparing to go in, but they seemed weak to Jay; they still looked excited and bright-eyed as they waited to enter the dungeon, which was a red flag – meaning that they haven’t yet suffered very much.
Shaking his head “they’ll find out soon enough.” he thought as he dashed past them.
Most people who had fought as much as Jay had would lose their rosey enthusiasm quite quickly – of course, if Jay could afford to go at a slower pace, perhaps he would enjoy this lifestyle.
“Ugh, I’ll just go in.” Jay was disappointed by the lack of other adventurers around, as this meant there would be less bait for whatever that eye-tree was.
“It’ll probably be safer in there than out here. Besides, it’s an instanced dungeon, so nothing can follow me into the dungeon unless it’s in my party.” he reasoned.
To the surprise of the other adventurers in the courtyard, Jay jogged through the broken down gate, right up to the dungeon door and entered without hesitation; they all began talking among themselves in disbelief. Seeing someone try to solo a dungeon like this was idiotic – after all, the average level of adventurers was level 4; most wouldn’t even have the extra money to purchase blunt weapons, and this guy just went straight in without a second thought.
“What the? Did you just see that?” One of the adventurers standing near the gate asked.
“See what?” another replied, playing with a small wisp of blue fire.
“Some guy just literally ran in from the forest and went right into the dungeon…”
“Ha, really? Just then? Wow… should we tell someone?”
“I don’t know… he was pretty quick, I wonder what he was thinking…. Do you think he was some kinda high level prodigy or something?”
“I don’t know.. I know there were a few unique classes after the 7th that no one has seen since so maybe they’ve just been put into some kinda crazy training regime and that was one of them?”
“Yeah, maybe…” he shrugged. “ Or maybe it’s just some idiot.”
“Heh, maybe he just has no life.” another chimed in with a chuckle, as he continued slinging rocks into the nearby forest.
The adventurers all chuckled for a moment outside the dungeon before they went back to their normal conversations, checking their gear and talking about their varying battle strategies.
“Hm, I guess it’s permanently overcast here” looking up at the rolling clouds, Jay sat down for a moment.
“I’m still not back to full mana, so I’ll summon the boys to protect me while I rest for a while. This time, I’ll at least make it into the first pyramid.” he challenged himself.
Shifting his ring, he summoned Red and Lamp. The gas pulled some extra bones out of the ring, snapped a few others and popped some cartilage, and before Jay’s eyes, their bone bodies were all back to their normal shapes once more, no more dents or caved in rib-cages, and their health back to 100%.
Jay took out the bone hammers and threw them on the ground before his skeletons.
“Protect me.” he simply commanded before beginning to meditate, sitting cross-legged and alone in the dark dungeon.
– – –
“Mnnh, mmm” Viladore woke up from his deep afternoon sleep with a grumble, rubbing some gunk from his eyes as he slowly woke up.
“Well, time to prepare for my next student, that heat manipulator.” Viladore got up from his desk, having a glass of water from a jug on his desk and unwrinkling his clothes.
“Now, my notes for this kid…” he looked around his desk for a moment before setting his eyes on his cube – which currently appeared to have a lump on it.
“…” speechless, his eyes bulging as he leant closer in shock, seeing that his cube had a growth on it.
“RE- REPORT!” he slapped his hands on the desk, wanting an immediate response from the cube.
“Master, mana was detected 2 times out of 328 iterations. Successful absorption happened one time. Appendage growth reached 13%. Mana sense practice resumed, shall I continue master?”
“YES!” Viladore celebrated as his hands began to shake lightly, beginning to jump around the room – as much as an old man like him could anyway.
“Yes yes yes! It’s working! Progress!” He walked back and forwarth, rubbing his hands in joy before gazing lovingly at his cube again.
“It’s just a lump, sure, but this is proof of concept.” he shook his head “I can’t believe it’s finally working.” he felt a sense of completeness in himself.
“Finally…” he picked up the cube, poking at the lump on the side. It was rock hard with a smooth surface.
“Brilliant…” He gasped, “So, when did you sense it?”
“23 minutes and 15 seconds ago, master.”
“What? Why didn’t you wake me!”
“I attempted to, master. “
Viladore could only sigh, “Dammit, not again… I’m getting old.. Well, maybe tomorrow. It was around this time of day too, perhaps that has something to do with it… Hmm, what keeps happening in the afternoon…” he paced back and forwarth in his office.
“I’ll definitely be awake tomorrow. I’ll cancel class for tomorrow afternoon if I need to. Damn.. class.. I had better get going.”
He left the room, closing the door, then after a moment, opening it again and sticking his head through “Keep practising.” he gave one last instruction before snapping his fingers, causing his robe to fly off the hook and leave through the door with him.
– – –
“A hobbit-boar… not the nicest meat, but it’ll work.” Trenly aimed his bow at the small forest pig, squinting his eyes as he slowly pulled back.
*Struush* the arrow whistled through the air and found it’s target.
“Oh good, instant kill. I won’t have to chase it while it runs off and bleeds to death.” he put his bow in his inventory and pulled out a small hunting knife as he walked towards the small pig.
“I’ll only gut it. That’s how most butchers get their meat from hunters anway. Jay can teach me how to butcher it properly” he thought as he skillfully navigated the small pigs insides with a knife, removing it’s intestines, bladder, lungs, stomach and kidneys.
Usually, hunters would remove all the organs, dumping them on the forest floor before selling the carcass, sometimes taking the liver for themselves if they felt like saving some money on lunch. A skilled hunter would not burst or rupture any organs so as to not taint the meat, and this was one of the first lessons he learnt.
He took out the liver and heart, putting them separately in his inventory with the carcass, wondering if Jay would want to use them later.
“Ok, done.” he wiped his knife on some nearby moss before storing it too.
“Didn’t take too long to find something. It’s a shame that this was all I could find, it’s like all the larger animals have disappeared or something… oh well. Hopefully I can start working for Jay tomorrow.” he smiled, heading back to Losla with his prize just as the sun was even down.