ALL NOVEL Chapter 1494: Chapter 1494 Mossy Horror
--- Kat ---
Kat felt like her legs had just been slapped and turned to jelly for a few moments then all of a sudden the sensation just cut off completely. Though honestly? Kat did not feel better. Her feet sunk down into the ground with a wet squelch as she looked around at the place they'd ended up with no small amount of horror.
It looked like they'd ended up INSIDE something. The walls, floor, and ceiling were covered in a rhythmically pulsing red meat with blue veins running through it all. The ground had just enough water to sink into your shoes and the whole place smelled like gym socks that had been backed and fermented after being soaked with toilet water. But the true horror? When Bower said "Excellent!"
"How is this, in any way excellent?" hissed Kat.
"Ah, this is one of the rarer, if safer types of bubbles you can end up inside!" insisted Bower.
"How?!" retorted Kat with a glare.
Then Hunter cut in, to Kat's surprise, "Because this is moss isn't it?"
"What?" asked Kat as she took a second look around the area. It still looked and smelled disgusting… and if you twisted her arm she definitely would've said that it was meat of some kind. Moss? Really? "Are you sure?"
"Not entirely, but based on my observations and Bower's claim that this place isn't truly a danger the conclusion I rapidly come to is that its moss instead of intestine or something similarly," stated Hunter.
"And she'd be right!" cut in Bower. "Just as proof…" Bower walked over to the wall, clearly having no issues with the squelching noise his boots made as he walked, each step forcing a bit more water out of the 'moss' if it truly was such.
Once he got to the nearest wall he sliced into it with his knife cutting away a large chunk of the red stuff to reveal… a normal looking stone wall. If a particularly moist one. "What?" said Kat dumbfounded. Bower kept cutting away and soon you could see the back of the moss. It did not look much better then the front, it was all tendrils that seemed to dig into the rock face. Possibly for water?
"This… this place is safe right?" asked Kamiko.
"Eh… safe-ER certainly," said Bower. "There's still some danger around but a lot fewer ambush predators then normal. Moss slowly eats anything that spends too long here so it's mostly the bulkier predators. We can take them out, or avoid them. Whatever works,"
"Do we need to worry about losing our shoes?" asked Kat.
Bower shrugged, "It's never been an issue for me," said Bower.
"Right… well that's great and all but it has now occurred to me that Hunter doesn't even have that much," added Kat. Sure it took prompting from Lily, but that was fine.
"I thank you for your worry but I assure you my scales are of much higher quality then whatever footwear the rest of you are wearing. I would feel it if they were wearing away and I appear to be fine so far," stated Hunter.
"Not necessarily. Slight numbing agent on the moss. If I wasn't playing guide I'd be cutting off large amounts of this stuff. It's great for treating wounds if you process it right," said Bower.
"Let's just go," stated Hunter.
Bower shrugged and gestured at them to follow him. "So the trick for escaping these places is more or less just to pick a direction and go for it. As we're in tunnels we don't even have to think all that hard about it. Oh, and you normally want to keep moving in the direction you were going before. It doesn't always line up with the outside, but it normally does so you might as well," explained Bower.
Thus, they were off into the caves. Somehow well-lit caves now Kat was thinking about it. Hmm…
--- Kat --- (About two hours later)
They'd decided to take a break for food. Hunter had burned away all the moss lining the floor of the room and Kat had brought out a table and chairs for them to use. "So… we haven't found any monsters. What's up with that?" asked Kat.
"I find it honestly quite strange," said Bower. "While this bubble type is usually rather light on monsters and not overly dangerous as I've said… over two hours without finding anything? That is cause for concern. Truthfully I don't know WHAT it means that we were unable to find anything.
"I would first suspect that the drake for obvious reasons… but there are no signs of its passage. No large or small footprints that remained in the moss, no burned section such as the path we just created. I do not know if the drake eats moss as well, but I'd have expected something. Find adventures on m_v l|e'm-p y r
"Of course, it could be the monster waves. The drake may have never been here, the monsters may have simply run away… but if that is the case I would have expected monsters to ALSO stumble into this bubble and for there to be some more carcases around. The moss is good at eating away at flesh and muscle but not so much bone. Normally this place is a lot more disturbing,"
"That is a point of concern," stated Hunter, eyes narrowing as she considered her recent memories. "Are you certain it lacks the ability to swiftly digest bones?"
"Totally," said Bower. "I may be old, and this biome may be rare but I still remember it clearly. As I said earlier, the moss is great for healing injuries. A proper paste made of the stuff can have you back up in under a day. If I forgot the details of such an important plant I'd never hear the end of it from Stphn, let alone the gals that process the stuff,"
Kat decided to pull out some of her jelly reserves to Kamiko, help the girl calm down. She was not taking this conversation well at all and had taken to snuggling up against Kat to try and keep herself from shaking. It wasn't really working. Lily might have done something similar but she'd fallen asleep to escape the bad smell and hadn't woken back up. Kat was a little worried about that fact.
*I can only hope that she's still asleep because the smell of the place makes it impossible for her to pick up on the fact that I have food out. Though… now that I'm thinking about it, probably best not to bring out any of the best food. It's already too late for the jelly, but I'll stick to bland stuff for now.*
As Kat had noted, Kamiko had already inhaled the jelly that Kat had provided for her friend. The smell did make it less enjoyable, but Kamiko was much to worried about the creepy atmosphere to take her time. She simply inhaled the jelly before chewing on the last of it and trying to calm down.
Looking away from the demon on her arm Kat asked, "So what are we to do about it? Is two hours a long time to stay in a bubble? Have we been turned around at any point? Are these bubbles empty on occasion? That sort of thing?"
Bower picked up one of the dry protein bars and bit down. The cracking sound made Kat worried he'd chipped a tooth for a moment but he didn't… seem concerned? So it was probably fine. "It's not impossible for the place to just… be empty, but that's an extremely rare sight. Nah, much more likely there's one or two big boys hiding out somewhere. The question is if we can get out before we meet them…
"As for you other questions? Two hours isn't too long. It tends to take between one and six hours I find, so two hours would still be on the lower end but things tend to fall on the extreme sides, either more like an hour or more like six, so I guess the fact that it's taken two hours isn't a GOOD sign.
"We haven't been turned around, or at least not much. I was keeping an eye on that and while we sort of double backed a few times we've always ended up going the right way eventually so that part's fine. I'm just wondering what sort of large beast might be around here… I've not encountered a major monster for this kind of bubble so I can't really say…"
At some point during the conversation, Lily must have woken up because she had a revelation for Kat to share. "So… Lily just informed me that… this is starting to sound like a training area. Could the mist and the monsters all be part of some ancient training device that's gone haywire? Or perhaps… considering it remains contained, still works?"
Bower chewed on the protein bar some more as he thought about the idea. "I don't hate the idea. Mighty tough for a training area… but if the world had a higher average Rank? I could see it. I really could…"