94. You Are What You Eat

  [MULAHARTA Status Effect: SNAP FREEZE]

  If only that were the case! What a sight it would’ve been to see the entirety of the taproot-spanning Flesh-fiend frozen solid in a snap. As it stood, however, the size and scale of Mulaharta was such that even the all-seeing Pathsight struggled to accurately represent the reality.

  What had really happened was that the [Snap Freeze] effect had been localized to one organ—namely GIZZARD and all its muscles and blood supply. And as its circulation cut off, so too did its hold on a half-eaten Manusya, forcing it to spit Zacko out through its weakened sphincter.

  This time, the ‘squelch’ was replaced by something more akin to popping and crackling—like the fracturing of brittle sheets of ice. This was quickly followed by a whole (and normal-sized) Zacko dropping onto an icy platform with a heavy thud.

  For one moment, Serac’s concern for her friend overrode her attention on the boss fight. She herself performed a near-vertical drop, sliding down a wall of ice that had been left behind by [Buzzer Beater]. And as she knelt down beside the motionless Manusya, she saw to her horror that the Tomasens’ spell had done a number on Zacko as well.

  [ZACARIAS BORGES-JUVENTUS Status Effect: SNAP FREEZE]

  “Oh no!” Serac exclaimed, instinctively placing her hands upon his chest and rubbing it vigorously—as if she could melt the ice purely via friction. All that achieved, however, was to give herself frostbite.

  “Rakshasa! I wouldn’t touch him if I were you.” The stern warning came from Renate, who’d hopped down from her platform to land beside Serac. “Look carefully. [Snap Freeze] isn’t the only status effect he’s under.”

  The frog woman was right, of course. For a second line of text now appeared below the first:

  [ZACARIAS BORGES-JUVENTUS Status Effect: POISON (x5)]

  “Five stacks of [Poison]?” Serac exclaimed, even louder. “But… his HP is still full! Is he still somehow under GIZZARD’s healing effect?”

  “No,” Renate said patiently, “it’s simply that he hasn’t got any blood flow, which means the [Poison] has no way to circulate and inflict damage. I’d suggest you leave him as is until we get him somewhere he could be thawed safely. That is, unless you don’t mind him losing out on the Karmic rewards from this fight.”

  Serac was momentarily left speechless, not only by the sheer bizarreness of what Renate had just described, but also because of the frog woman’s thoughtfulness. What a kind way to treat a pair of outrealmers she barely knew—especially considering they were all competing for the same Karma. And not for the first time, Serac wondered how such a kind soul like the Finless could’ve accrued the notoriety she had.

  “When you two are finished chatting,” Lars cut in from the side, his breath noticeably broken up by exertion, “consider helping us with these.”

  While the girls clucked over Zacko like mother hens, the Tomasen twins had been engaged in a 2v2 with the surviving Rumpejettes. The [Enlisted Husk] had expired, of course, with its 12 seconds having long elapsed, but evidently not before taking one of its mates with it.

  Once prompted, Serac took to the task with alacrity. Now that she’d been reassured that Zacko was ‘okay’ (albeit somewhat stretching the definition!), she saw the leftover Wildspawns as a perfect opportunity to hone her Wayfaring skills.

  She happened to be on Chamber Two with plenty of MP and Satiety to spare. As such, there really was no reason not to try:

  [Chamber Two: HARVEST]

  [71!]

  [RUMPEJETTE Status Effect: EARMARKED]

  It turned out to be a good bit of practice in the end. With her Satiety gauge hovering at just about the halfway point, Serac found it a little trickier to ‘attune to her [Hunger]’ like last time. She found this milder form of [Hunger] to be something akin to a light gnawing sensation in her belly—just a casual reminder to say: hey, maybe it’s time to start thinking about your next meal.

  In any case, the exercise produced the desired effect: that of converting five points of Satiety into an imbued bullet meant for foraging. With one Rumpejette firmly [Earmarked], Serac eagerly lent the rest of her Cartridges to finishing the job.

  Four combatants, all of them secure upon their footholds, made short work of the two Rumpejettes. It took the Wayfarers no time to reduce the Tadpole Giants into Souldust as well as a hefty clump of gelatin for Serac to [Harvest].

  [770 ?]

  [1,540 ?]

  Here, Serac was treated to one of the fiddlier quirks of Pathsight: the dreaded division of Karmic rewards. In this case, she’d shared two smites between four Wayfarers while earning the smiting blow bonus for one of them. It all resulted in a Karma haul that was downright paltry for the Aberrant involved.

  “This is what happens when Wayfarers share their Paths,” Trippy, who up to now had happily watched from the sidelines, didn’t miss his chance to offer a pointed commentary about Serac’s life choices. “Dilution. Erosion. Deemphasizing of individual merit. Call it what you will, but this is the surest way to lose yourself in a faceless multitude.”

  “Oh, shush!” Serac was too annoyed to use her inside voice. “Since when did you become such a joykill?”

  “What did you say?” this from Lars Tomasen, whose normally impassive eyes had widened in startlement.

  Oh gods, Serac realized, Lars thinks I just called him a ‘joykill’, and he looks genuinely hurt about it! The thought of it nearly made her burst out laughing, but she resisted the urge long enough to deadpan, “Nothing. Is Narakite joke. Carry on.”

  And carry on they did. For the Wayfarers still had one job left—the most important one of them all. And yet, with GIZZARD frozen solid and all the Wildspawns in the vicinity dealt with, this last and most important job also happened to be the easiest.

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  Thwack! Slam! Bang!

  The boss’s HP bar melted before the Wayfarer’s eyes, as they each picked a spot on the wall on which to leave their marks. Except these marks never had a chance to be permanent. For as soon as Mulaharta’s health reached zero, its entire structure began to fade into Souldust.

  “Whoa!”

  Serac stepped back in alarm as the wall she’d been punching with PULVERIZER gave way into open air. It would’ve been tragic indeed if she’d fallen to her death after she’d just finished smiting the biggest Aberrant she’d ever come across.

  [5,280 ?]

  5000? That’s it?

  Serac’s face fell as she realized that this was the result of division between five Wayfarers—for the presently unconscious Zacko had also been very much involved in Mulaharta’s smiting. Then, her mood dropped even further as she remembered that Zacko had been looking forward to a fat return of investment on his VISAGE spend. Well, as it stood, he’d lose more Karma than he’d earned, having spent 15,000 ? on [Sinner Aspect] and a few thousand more on [Dreamer]…

  Throughout all of Serac’s unhappy arithmetic, Trippy’s silence was deafening.

  “A bit anticlimactic, isn’t it?” Serac forced herself to be cheerful as she called over to her fellow Wayfarers. “You’d think a big fight like this would deserve a big finish, but we might’ve been a little too effective setting up the smite. At least all this Souldust is pretty to look at, though.”

  Indeed it was. As an entire arena dissolved into Souldust, it blanketed Serac’s vision with swirling, glittering particles.

  All those teeth and all that flesh and all that [Hunger]. A Hellspawn worm so gargantuan it filled up one whole root of the Realmtree. And now, it was all gone. All gone, along with its—

  “Oh no!” Serac came to another realization. “What happens once this whole thing is gone? How will we climb our way up?”

  “Worry not, Rakshasa,” this from Lars, with his cold glare back in full form. “My brother and I can build footpath in opposite direction. I suggest you bring your climbing boots.”

  This was followed by a pregnant pause, one in which Lars stared at Serac as if waiting for her reaction. As for Serac, she liked the sound of Lars’s plan but didn’t quite know what he wanted from her. In the end, she gave a hesitant thumb-up, to which Lars turned his back immediately, but not before letting slip a look of obvious disappointment.

  What was that? A Pretjordian joke? Was I supposed to laugh?

  As it turned out, not all of Mulaharta had disappeared. One broken-off piece of GIZZARD had somehow been spared from Souldust-ification. It fell onto the nearest platform as a barely distinguishable block of pale, frozen meat.

  Serac bent down to examine it, and was shocked to see a Pathsighted label: [???]. Whoa… is this thing still alive? But no, it doesn’t have a health bar. So then what… What do you think, Trippy?

  “Just a guess, Wayfarer, but I believe it may be a consumable item. One not even Pathsight has any knowledge of. Not surprising, considering the creature it originated from.”

  Consumable? You mean I’m meant to eat this thing?

  Serac’s gut reaction was one of revulsion. Perfectly natural, given how little time had passed since the sight of a red-green, engorged Zacko sticking out of GIZZARD’s sphincter. But then… she sat with the notion a while longer, until a new thought formed in her mind.

  Is it really so strange? Before GIZZARD was a Zealous Instrument, it was just a regular old internal organ. Which basically makes this thing ‘offal’.

  Serac paused her pondering to steal furtive glances around her. It was clear that none of the other three Wayfarers had noticed her or the [???] in her hand.

  The twins were already on bridge-building duty. As for Renate, she busied over Zacko’s [Snap-Frozen] body, lashing him against her back in preparation for the climb. It was a sight to behold: the Manusya’s well-built figure being carried by a diminutive frog woman. Or it might’ve been, had it not been for the giant shovel she already lugged around everywhere.

  With a silent apology to her fellow Wayfarers, Serac pocketed the [???] before anyone could see her. I hope you’re happy, Trippy, she thought sarcastically. Maybe I’m more selfish than you give me credit for.

  But the truth was even more straightforward than that. Put simply, Serac was curious. About what effects [???] might produce. About what it would taste like. And when push came to shove, she didn’t want any cooler heads to kibosh her possibly ill-advised culinary adventure.

  The climb back up to the Waystation took longer than the descent. It was also a lot more pleasant, as far as an acrophobic Rakshasa was concerned. There was no need for her to worry about her footing, as long as she took slow, careful steps on the icy platforms.

  Occasionally, she looked over at Renate to marvel at her strength and resilience. The Yaksha woman had managed Zacko’s added weight with nary a complaint nor a shift in demeanor.

  Calm, competent, and purposeful with her every movement. That was the model of Wayfaring Serac wanted to emulate, and Renate the Finless embodied it to perfection. Not to mention she did it all on her bare feet (brrr)!

  But there were moments during the climb where Renate would stop—not to complain nor readjust her load—but to look over her shoulder and down into the depths below.

  With Mulaharta gone, the ‘taproot’ had become a bare, dark, and bottomless abyss. Whenever Renate stopped, however, it seemed to Serac that the frog woman could see—nay, read—something that yet lurked in the darkness.

  “What is it?” Serac asked on one such occasion, only to be rebuffed with a:

  “Nothing. Just being vigilant.”

  The Waystation was, of course, exactly where they’d left it, upon an outcrop at the mouth of the taproot.

  Seeing the pure-white lotus flower amidst the dimness of the cave felt to Serac like coming home. Like an overexcited child, she hopped and skipped ahead of the other Wayfarers, before remembering her manners and waiting for her turn at meditation.

  In terms of who deserves it most, I’d say Hans first, just for his terrible ordeal as GIZZARD food. Lars second for his construction work. Then Renate for lugging Zacko all this way. If I’m being honest, I probably did the least amount of work, so I’m happy to wait.

  The Tomasens took their first turn at meditation, as was richly deserved. It didn’t escape Serac’s notice that, this time, Lars sat down without so much as a second glance at Renate. Maybe he was simply too exhausted to remember his beef. In any case, Serac allowed herself a smirk at the sturgeon man’s expense.

  The girls were paired up again as they waited their turn with the Waystation. Renate went right back to work, laying Zacko down in preparation for the ‘thawing’. Which, once again, left Serac with a bit of downtime to herself.

  Suppressing another pang of guilt, she turned her back on Renate with as much casualness as she could muster. She then pulled out [???] and examined its pale, fleshy mysteries anew.

  “Are you sure about this, Wayfarer?” Trippy made a half-hearted attempt at kiboshing Serac’s culinary adventure. “We quite literally have no idea what this thing does. Won’t you at least wait until you’ve reconstituted and leveled up?”

  I might not get a chance then! Serac complained, making sure to use her inside voice. Besides, what’s the worst that can happen? Even if it turns out to be bad, the Waystation is literally right next to me.

  “… I can imagine many different ‘worsts’ that can happen. But I’ve also been with you long enough to recognize when you can’t be persuaded. Go ahead, Serac Edin. Have your [???] and eat it too.”

  Trippy was right, of course. Whenever Serac’s mind was on a single track like this, she was very difficult indeed to dislodge. Best just to get it over with, and live with the consequences as they came.

  Serac popped [???] into her mouth and chewed.

  To her disappointment, the thing was rather bland, more ice than offal. Perhaps she should’ve waited for it to thaw, or perhaps it lacked a bit of Chef Petey magic. Well, I suppose ‘bland’ is still preferable to absolutely dis—

  Then all pretense of being a food critic fled Serac in an instant, as Pathsight informed her of exactly what [???] did:

  [REVOLVER Spell unlocked]

  [Chamber Two: APPETIZER]

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