Chapter 12

  “The earth creature can wait.” The guide tossed Danny a knife. There was no way Danny would be able to catch it without warning. Just before the tip bit into the arm he raised to cover his face, the knife hung suspended in air, coated in blue. Danny snatched it out of the air.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” Danny asked.

  “Skin it.” The guide gestured to the dead boss bat. Danny looked at the revolting scene around him. It made him want to gag. The smell of the bodies voiding their excrement stung his eyes and the horror of bones sticking awkwardly out of leathery skin and flattened, leaking skulls sent his stomach turning. The supernatural fog above had begun to fade once the Midnight Myotis had fallen, allowing every gruesome detail to be put on display.

  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Oh no you don’t, native. Last time you didn’t harvest a single thing from the Matriarch. I will not let you make the same mistake twice.” Danny began to feel like he was floating. Looking down, he realized that he was. He was enveloped in that familiar blue energy and being manhandled toward the boss bat’s corpse, where he was unceremoniously dropped to the ground. “Skin. It.”

  “But what about Indy?”

  “The earth creature can wait.” The guide repeated.

  “But what about that carving of the fairy?” Danny pleaded. It had elicited a reaction from the guide earlier, so Danny hoped that this would get him out of monster skinning duty.

  “Nothing around here could damage that. It can wait.” Danny looked hesitantly at the monster carcass. Hesitantly he drove the knife blade into the hide and began to slice it open. That lasted about a second before the fairy floated over and instructed him on “proper skinning form.” The fur, fangs, wings, eyes, and even the organs were extracted. Anything that could have special properties. These bat monsters were unique to Earth, according to the guide, so there was no prior information on what would be useful or not. System Identification was not useful either, merely offering things like [Midnight Myotis Liver: A liver from the Midnight Myotis] Not exactly the most illuminating.

  This was par for the course, apparently. The System gave information that was considered “widely known” or that the individual Identifying the material would already know. For monster parts that had never been used before, there would be no details to display. Therefore they collected everything. The guide wisked it away in a flash and Danny was thankful that he would be free of the stink of carrying around monster parts. They left the bodies of the lesser monsters intact. Monster corpses broke down in a day or so. That was the reason Danny had been unable to collect anything from the Matriarch he had killed while they were staying at the temple. Danny was ready to begin the search for Indy, but his guide had other plans.

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  “Are you really sure that Indy will be fine?”

  “For the last time native, ‘Indy’ is a beast, not some child to be coddled.” Danny tried to stamp down the anxiety. The fox was definitely faster than the bats, trickier too, and only a portion of them went after him. He also had a handful of levels on them too…

  “Here.” Danny was cut off as the guide stopped at a massive tree. Like all the others in this section of the forest, the needles were absent. The massive branches shot out like daggers into the sky. A littering of small animal bones and guano covered the ground beneath the tree. It reeked. These bats were quickly beating out the Horrors on Danny’s “grossest monster list.”

  “Somewhere there should be—”

  “Found it!” Danny shouted. He pulled a brown cape-looking thing from a pile of bones. He wasn’t sure why, but he just had this feeling that something good was over here. Sure enough, [Deflector Cloak: Crafted by the Zebo Corporation. The Deflector Cloak is resistant to piercing and slashing attacks and also dampens impacts on the wearer.]

  “Hm. Not bad.” The guide said after floating over to Identify it for himself. “Should last you a little while. Danny couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. With how strong the healing necklace was, he thought he would get a cloak of invisibility or something. His disappointment must have been visible. “Not everything is going to be like that necklace you have there. Besides, anything is better than what you have. Which is nothing.” Danny reread the description. Depending on the extent, he figured that resistance to piercing, slashing, and impacts could be pretty useful.

  “What is the Zebo Corporation?”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “Then why would the System mention them by name?”

  “Because they must have donated enough.” The guide answered. “Now do you want to go look for the Earth creature or not?”

  “What do you mean donated?”

  “They gave it to the System.” Danny waited for further explanation. After seeing that he wouldn’t be getting any, he followed after the guide who had begun to float in the direction they had come from.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “I know that. I meant why are they donating to the System at all, surely the System doesn’t need charity.” Danny pushed.

  “No, the System doesn’t need charity. You do. How do you think the System can provide little trinkets to those who clear monster nests? How do you think the temple you first arrived at came to be on Earth? Donations.”

  “So it’s just goodwill? Helping out the little guys?”

  “It’s for recruitment as well. To build a reputation with the natives and win over the most promising recruits to their faction.”

  “So should I just leave this here? What about my necklace, there wasn’t any faction mentioned in that description. Do I owe someone something now that I have taken and used it?”

  “Well, that necklace must have been taken from a dead Leveler on one of the other planets, or maybe the faction didn’t donate enough.” The fairy said, growing annoyed. “Eyes on the next step, not on the clouds. That’s how you stay on the Path, native. Focus on finding your fox friend for now. You will learn more soon enough, no point in rushing.” Danny had so many more questions, but it was clear that his guide had finished entertaining the conversation. The guide was also right, he had more pressing concerns. They were nearing the place where Indy had run off.

  “Indy!” Danny began to holler. He walked in the direction he remembered the fox running in and shouted periodically. Despite the fairy’s repeated assurances, Danny began to feel a gnawing panic. His calls grew more frequent, louder. Soon, he was screaming as loud as he could. Growing resentment toward the guide built. If he hadn’t stopped me from looking earlier… The anxiousness and frustration boiled over and just as Danny passed a gnarled tree with a hole in it he turned to give the fairy a piece of his mind. Infuriated by his uncaring demeanor, Danny began.

  “I—” Just then a familiar orange blur leapt out of the hole in the tree, plundered statue in its mouth, and landed in front of Danny. Out of the corner of his eye, Danny could have sworn that he saw the guide breathe a sigh of relief. “Indy, you’re okay!” The fox dropped the carved fairy at his feet. “Oh, uh… Good boy, Indy!” Danny considered chastising the fox for running off, or taking the statue in the first place, but he figured that would give mixed signals at this point. He decided to roll with it and began to scratch the vulpine between the ears. He thumped his leg in appreciation. Danny bent down and picked up the statue to examine it closer. A fairy with a sword raised in a martial pose was the subject. There wasn’t much in terms of distinguishable features, just a blank face and expression. “What is this?” Danny asked the guide.

  “One of the three Pillars of the Fey. A training treasure that is the pride and joy of my people.” Danny didn’t have a response. The guide must be familiar with this thing and that was why he was so confident that nothing would happen to it. “A little farther and we will reach our destination. I’ll explain then.”

  The rest of the trip was uneventful. Dead trees jutted sharply into the air all around them. The fog may have lifted, but whatever had caused this section of forest to become a dry, dead graveyard was not so easily reversed. Danny, led by the guide, saw a raised stone platform in the distance. Pillars stood on the foundation, set above the dirt and mud and separated from the decaying trees. Each of the pillars was built out of rough stone and mortar, giving a time-worn appearance. They were roughly chest height, which would be about twice as tall as a fairy. At the top of each of the pillars was a circular recess that perfectly fit the base of the statue. None of the statues were present, the empty recesses were the only indication that something once stood atop the pillars.

  “What happened to the rest of them?” Danny asked.

  “I’m sure the same that happened to the one we found. Now put it on the one on the left.”

  Danny slid the statue into place. Once it was in position, a green light shone from within. A brilliant emerald shine preceded the appearance of another fairy. This one had blonde hair that flowed in the air as though underwater. Her skin was more similar to the pink-white of Danny’s than the green of the guide’s. She wore a flowing white dress with a sword strapped to her side. Orange and black wings, similar to a Monarch butterfly, extended from her back. “Alei Tacht?” She seemed surprised. “With a human? Very strange.” She circled Danny as she appraised him. Unlike the guide, she gave no indication of effort when flying. Her wings didn’t move, her hair was the only thing that shifted as she soared.

  Danny had never been given a name to call his guide outside of “sir.” He wondered if that was his name and if the two fairies knew each other. The guide glared at her.

  “Enough. Danny, this is the Training Spirit.” The guide said. “She will instruct you in the Hin-Alei, the Dream World.”

  “Do you two know each other?” Danny was ignored.

  “Each of the Pillars represents one of the core stats. Body, Qi, and Soul. The one we have is the Pillar of Body, so that is where we will begin.”

  “Is Alei Tacht your name?”

  “You will never repeat that. Never. Do you understand, native?” The guide said, even more curtly than usual.

  Startled, Danny responded, “Uh, yes sir.”

  “Feed the statue your Qi. Now.”

  “Yes sir.” Danny hurriedly complied. Approaching the statue, Danny put his hands on either side of it. He fed the statue of the sword-wielding fairy a stream of his Qi. It was simple now that he had opened the Gate of Sensation. When he had first activated his Necklace of Rejuvenation it had been like fumbling for the light switch in the dark, now it was broad daylight. But instead of reminiscing on how far he had come, Danny experienced an escalating drowsiness. In a few seconds, his head hung asleep as the rest of his body remained standing.

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  “Have you not told him anything?” The golden-haired fairy asked Aspen.

  “Nothing that the native does not need to know.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “Hm. A human using the pillars at the direction of the great Aspen Salica…”

  “It’s an Integration. I am a guide. I am not the one who donated a set of Pillars, I merely directed the native here.”

  “I see. I do not remember the Alei Tacht retiring. How long has it been?”

  “A lifetime.”