“My friends! Y’all loved Two-step, so we’re gonna keep bringing you exclusive fucking interviews with the elite of Lost Angels! Today I’ve got one of the few n who can claim to step foot into the sa clubs as the Guildmaster! He may not be Tier 6, but he’s Tier 6 loaded! The head of one of LA’s most successful Families, here is Mr. Konrád Kalmár!
“Konrád, tell my listeners what life is like at the top!”
“Demophon, it’s a pleasure to be here. Well, let say that life on the top is good! It had better be, considering the battle it takes to stay there! My father and grandfather built the Kalmár family into the powerhouse it is today with hard work, and everything I do is to carry on their legacy and leave it for my children.”
“Well, that’s very fucking noble, Mr. Kalmár! Surely there’s more to it than that! I an, don’t tell anyone, but I have snuck into your parties before! Shit is going down when you’re having a good ti!”
“Oh, we know, Mr. Kerner, we know. It’s always a pleasure to have you, of course. I’m told that a few of my n are particularly fond of throwing you out. How is it that it never seems to stick?”
(prolonged silence)
“Secret DJ Skillz, baby! You can’t expect to get rid of just by throwing out once or twice! Now, next question…”
- DJ Demophon Kerner, with guest Konrád Kalmár on K-RAD LA, April 5th, System Year 453
The landscape we were passing through wasn’t that different from the area closer to Sunland. Rocky, hard dirt in places, with so sandier areas. We were still bracketed by the huge Angel’s Spine mountains further to the north, and the smaller but closer Shadow Hills to the south. Though it seed the Shadow Hills were getting less imposing the further east we went. There were occasional shrub brushes, and many varieties of cactus.
Traces of the ancient cities still littered the area, mounds scattered here and there. So of them had bits and pieces of obviously man-made objects sticking out – sharp corners of stone, usually. Others just looked like piles of dirt, though I was sure if I went digging through them I’d find more debris. I tried to ignore them, because thinking too much about what things had been like before the Wasted War was fucking depressing.
At one point, Hassan dropped by to guide the four of us a hundred yards or so to the north of the road, where he stopped and pointed out one particularly lush, green cactus about the size of a small barrel. It had thick, broad leaves with only a few dull-looking spines, spread out over an area maybe six feet across.
“Identify this plant,” he instructed us, and we all complied.
Plant: Succulent Cactus
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“It sounds quite innocent, perhaps even tasty, doesn’t it? Certainly looks lush and full of water. Does the na appear as Succulent Cactus to all of you?” We each nodded in turn, and he continued. “Its real na is Fool’s Rest. It’s actually a monster with a deceptive status – your Identify Skills are too low Level to detect the lie yet. Animals and small monsters think it's a good source of water and try to eat it.”
He reached out and lifted up the leaves with the training sword I used when sparring. Under the shade of the leaves there was a dried out corpse, so kind of small animal from the looks of it. It was mostly bone, and thin dark roots had grown up through the remains.
“It does, in fact, have quite a bit of water in it. But its sap is actually a potent stamina poison, which can knock out even sothing as large as a person quite easily at your Levels. Once the creature has nibbled on it and passes out, the roots co up and pierce into the unconscious victim. It sucks the blood right out, killing it, and eventually digests the flesh and even the bones as well. This particular one is dium-sized, they can grow quite a lot larger.”
I stared at the plant monster in fascination, wondering how such a thing was possible. A plant that had deceptive abilities? Was that the sa thing as lying on your public profile?
Elin interrupted my train of thought by asking eagerly, “Should we kill it?”
“It’s a waste of ti, they’re quite hard to kill. Plants are like that, you sotis have to rip up the roots completely, burn them out, or poison them – and after you go through all the work, the Essence is usually pretty shit.”
I frowned. “The treants weren’t that hard to kill, and they gave us a good amount of Essence.”
“Treants are monsters pretending to be plants. This is a plant that just happens to eat at. Regardless, I brought you out here to help make sure you understand why it’s dangerous to try and live off the land, and show you first-hand that you can’t rely on Identify to tell you if sothing is safe to approach or eat. Unless you’ve got a knowledgeable guide, pack your food and water with you. You can supplent with at from kills of monsters you’re familiar with and that you know are safe to eat – at least, around here, in the wilds.”
“The wilds?” Raylan asked for the rest of us.
“When you visit Lost Angels, you’ll find plenty of people there that have never been outside the city walls, or if they have, not more than a few miles or so. Lots of them like to call everything outside the imdiate area the Wastes.” He snorted derisively.
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“Never fall for that line of bullshit. The real Wastes – out past Fort Delta – it’s like comparing your sparring bouts to what Mason showed us last night. You can hardly find anything less dangerous than a Fool’s Rest out there. A plant monster in the Waste would never survive letting a predator get that close to it. They’ll poison you a hundred feet away with the sweet scent of their flowers, shoot out spikes to impale you from twice that far, or send their roots out questing underground, ready to strangle you when you sleep. Or all three.”
I shivered at the grim description. I wasn’t sure if it was 90% fear and 10% excitent, or maybe… 80% fear and 20% excitent? Don’t be an idiot Az, you’ve got a long way to go before you could even think about tackling sothing like that. If ever.
Hassan led us back to the group, switching to Comms to continue his spur-of-the-mont lecture.
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