Azaria 28

Good Tuesday everyone! I hope the week is treating everyone well. 

Chapter 28: Crippling Debt

Lance Teron

Regret. I hadn’t had much of that lately. My actions all born from a sort of desperation due to my situation. That had changed now. I deeply regret my decision to absorb parts from the frog monsters. Sure, the telekinetic ability I got from absorbing the brains of the frogs had been extremely useful even in just the few hours since I’d got them. 

What did I regret then you ask? It was the nearly foot long tongue that I now possessed. I should have realized that something like this would happen when I absorbed the part. The goblin parts had changed my body after all. I guess I had grew laze after the last few parts hadn’t changed my body externally.

At least the legs hadn’t gone too badly. Mine were much thicker, but just made my figure better. I felt I could live with it as long as it didn’t much worse. The benefit was that I could cross distance like a pro now. I had already managed to cross the twenty foot mark after some practice. 

The new prowess gave me the ability to take out the frogs before they even knew I was there, as long as I found them before they found me. The ones at the beginning of the floor were easy enough to find, but the ones further in had much more developed camouflage. It made finding them a bitch until I knew what to look for.

It wasn’t long before I reached the stairs leading to the next floor. Given that I had only been in the dungeon for about two hours, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to head further down. The frogs were getting boring as well and they had provided what I was hoping for. An organ that would give me the ability to resist telekinetic abilities. 

Walking down the passages, the temperature started to rise. The last floor had been warm but cool enough that I didn’t start sweating unless I exerted myself. I was sweating before I even went through the entrance to the actual floor. Bracing myself, I pushed through into the floor. 

Taking a look around from the clearing around the entrance, I was surprised and yet not by what I saw. A forest much like one would find in the Amazon grew around me. The floor had to be several hundred feet high to accommodate all of the tall growth. I couldn’t even begin to fathom at how big the floor itself was, as I could barely see a few dozen feet into the floor.

“All I need is a whip,” I mumbled as I thought about the adventurer that braved temples in some old movies. 

Shaking my head, I looked around trying to decide which direction to head. I took a breath and used Harvest. A few plants lit up drawing my attention. I walked over to them carefully. I really didn’t want to be poisoned. It was good that Harvest ignores that. I swung my weapon and chopped the plant down then poked it with my finger to use Harvest. 

I felt my veins burn for a moment before it passed. The plant had only been blue, so I hadn’t been worried about being rendered immobile by it. Checking my status, I found the new entry.

[Taratata Plant – Toxic]

I concentrated on using the ability, and while I could feel some fumes being released, I couldn’t detect what exactly it was causing. I figured I would have to find a target to truly get to the bottom of the matter. I went ahead and absorbed a few more of the plants since they didn’t cause any physical changes to my body. 

I started moving deeper into the floor looking for a target. A few spots looked suspect but I didn’t find anything at any of them. I was sure I was half way through the floor and still hadn’t found a single monster. When I considered that the plants right at the entrance of the floor were poisonous, the dungeon might not have any monsters on this floor in the first place. 

Continuing to move further, I finally found something. The ground started to rumble underneath me, not wanting to take any chances, I leapt back up into one of the trees. That was when I found I’d made a mistake. The tree branches started to rope around me. I struggled but they were equal to industry grade ropes if not better. 

I extended my claws and fangs and started biting and clawing to get free. The more I bit and sliced, the more that there seemed to be. I struggled and managed to turn towards the tree trunk, gaining more gashes and cuts then I’d care to count. Pulling in a deep breath, I released my flame breath. 

The tree actually screamed from the pain. I was flung like a speeding bullet towards another tree. I tried to twist to catch myself, but I was moving too fast. I slammed back first into the trunk and slid to the ground. I laid there as my back throbbed worst than anything I had ever felt before.

At least I got to watch as the tree monster burnt to the ground. I planned on spitting on its pile of ashes later. I just needed to rest for the moment. I tried to suppress the fact that I couldn’t feel my feet. My vision darkened against my will then I passed out. 

~~~

I groaned as I felt something tapping my face. “You alive?”

I jerked my eyes open at the sound. A man stood with a few other people around him. They looked like divers, but at the same time they didn’t. “Yes, I’m alive.” 

“Good. I hate having to report dead people to the Administration. We have quite a few that show up in here,” the man said. 

While I was listening to the man, I tried to move my toes. Thanking whoever was in-charge of fate, I was happy that I could feel them. I still felt a tinge in my back though, and made sure to make a mental note to get a healing soon. I carefully sat up against the tree. I wasn’t worried it was a monster, as it would have had plenty of time to eat me before now.

“Here. Eat this. It will heal anything you might have wrong,” a woman in the party said handing me pill. I eyed critically, but took it. Again, if they had wanted to kill me they could have when they found me. I used Harvest to check the pill and had to stifle my surprise when I saw it glow purple.

Carefully, I bit half of it off in my mouth, and only absorbed part of it while actually consuming the rest. Relief flowed through my body and the parts that had been burning from pain, quickly cooled down. I didn’t try to hide my sigh of relief. 

“Thank you. That was some serious shit,” I said getting up carefully.

“We have our resources. Which raises the question of why you’re here?” The man said giving me a raised eyebrow. 

I coughed nervously. They were likely the first registered party to head into the dungeon for the day. Jail time for line jumpers were the least of their problems. Depending on what standing rules for the area were, some found themselves at the other end of a shooting range, unofficially of course. 

“I am a little desperate for cash. I saw that only a few parties ran this dungeon and thought something profitable might be in here,” I said most of that which was true.

The man took a deep breath before he rigorously rain his hand through his hair. “Every time. I told you that having every slot registered is what attracts these people.”

“Not much we can do until we get enough to buy the place,” the woman said shaking her head. 

Buy the place? That was ambitious! Dungeons cost a pretty penny and were not something your average dungeon can buy. The fact they were apparently on track to accomplish this was also mind blowing. 

I gulped and twiddled my thumbs. “About this… If I lose my dungeon license I will literally die! Please anything but reporting me.”

“Don’t worry. We understand. We need you to recoup the cost of the healing pill, anyways.” 

“And that would be?”

“Don’t worry,” the woman smiled saintly, but I couldn’t help be see a devil behind it. “It is a nice even number. One million dollars.”

“One million!?” I exclaimed, wanting to fall back to the ground again.

“See? Nice and even,” she said. “The name’s Luna by the way.”

“Yay. So how’s this going to work?” I asked leaning back against the tree. “I doubt you plan to just let me leave.”

“Don’t worry about that.” I was starting to get tired of hearing that from this group. The woman held out a vial of red liquid. I wasn’t naïve enough to not realize that it was anything other than blood. “We have it covered.” She held out a business card. “You’ll be able to leave the dungeon with us in a few hours. Call me on that in three days and we’ll… discuss your payment.”

I held my fist in the air. “Yay…” With a sigh, I fell into line behind the party.