After such an eventful first night, one would expect that the days after were also covered in various happenings. This was far from the truth. Besides the constant orgies, which were always interesting, the only things the party did was explore.
The jungle was… disappointing. The word ‘jungle’ evoked an image of massive trees, growing tall and dense enough that one could get easily lost. Sturdy vines slung over massive branches, a great variety of animals, insects, and fungi, all densely populating a massive area.
What John got technically was all of those things, except for massive. There were an absurd amount of trees around and all was dense, so that definitely covered the definition of a jungle, but the scale of it all just felt tiny, especially to John’s mind. Instant Dungeons had gotten him accustod to jungles filled to the brim with ants the size of small cars and the like.
Unfamiliar with the history of the area, John had to assu that the reserve had been created relatively recently or that there were other reasons why the jungle seed to be so young. Considering the proximity to the coast, John would not have been surprised if this area had been exploited extensively during colonial ti for timber.
On one hand, this was good news for the party. Smaller trees were easier for Gno to flatten and so the airplane kept up with the main party’s exploration with relative ease. On the other hand, it made the main party’s expedition a slog. Short trees ant that most branches were lower to the ground, which made getting through them a pain in the sides.
Said main expeditionary party consisted of John, Lorelei, Rave and Momo. Except for Gno, the elentals hung around incorporeally. Reasons for this selection of characters were simple. John needed to be there due to his Barrier Sense, Lorelei’s second sight could give them random hints on where to go, and the other two were there because they wanted to be. Momo, of course, wouldn’t let anyone do this on their own.
They wore tight clothes that wouldn’t get stuck on the branches and little amulets that would prevent any mundane person from taking an interest in them. That only covered so much, however. Even if they were fully invisible, if they ran at above mundane speed and created a tunnel in the woodwork in the process, that would garner Gaia’s Ire. An exploration on foot was the only option.
Except for Momo. Momo often flew up and made note of the landscape. Since she did not have the Barrier Sense, that only served her so much. For so stretches, John let himself be carried and flown around, but that was only so effective and it left the rest of the group, airplane included, too far behind to be a sustainable strategy.
Three days passed like this. They followed a grid strategy, separating the jungle into 150 tre squares that they then covered one after another. Progress was steady but boring. It did not help that, occasionally, John’s barrier sense pinged and they discovered regular Abyssals squatting out in an isolated house. There were enough settlents and towns in the area for there to be so activity by the supernatural side of things.
The fifth day of the expedition shook things up a little bit.
John yawned and sat on the couch in the living room of the mobile hotel. He had wanted a strategy eting after breakfast, but a couple harettes had decided to take the mont to take a prolonged shower instead. Soft moans reached John where he was sitting. A nice backdrop to his general state of relaxation.
‘Might as well,’ he thought and pulled up his Class window. Experience of Love kept him levelling even on this trip. Since he had to reach level 8 in Silver Arcanist to progress in Starforger, that was the obvious choice.
‘For a 6th level Perk, these are all pretty dull,’ John thought. Speed Ray was interesting just because it boosted the most common application of Arcana Ray. Last Spell was more effective than one might think when combined with Skyfall or Unstable Arcana, or whatever other spells with self-set costs he could pick up in the future.
Still, the Mobile Spell Platform was the best. The increased distance made the primary use of the Companion Cube, that being angling Arcana Ray shots, more convenient and that it now could be used to cast all arcane spells enabled it in the first place. The 200 tres maximum distance on top of that was slightly more useful now that he could reshape it. It was kind of useless in the sense that the Companion Cube did not serve as an extension of his senses though.
‘Small downside to the upsides,’ John thought and pressed the button. Then he dismissed the windows.
“What a refreshing… shower,” Delicia sighed when she left the bathroom. Her breathing was still quickened from excitent and her skin rosy in a way that hot water would not cause in an Artificial Spirit.
“Yes, the shower was refreshing,” John comnted drily. “Everyone done then?”
“Give them a sec’,” Delicia suggested.
A second turned out to be three minutes. Once everyone was out of the shower, John gathered the rest via ntal notification. Soon, they were all together. He had a simple announcent to make, “We’ll continue jungle exploration in the afternoon. First, we’ll et with Fianna. There’s a covert location in a nearby town that suits our needs. Two people can tag along, otherwise we’d stand out too much. Lee, you want to stretch your legs?”
“…Do you even know ?” the gar girl asked. “Why would I want to go outside?”
“I thought you would want to exercise those thighs soti.”
“I can do squats during respawn tis, thank you very much,” Lee shot back.
“Alright then, keep your pale visage.”
“Tans are evil!”
“Oy,” Rave raised her voice.
“What about you?” John asked her next.
“Nah, imma take the day off. Talking doesn’t sound that interesting and I have enough of the jungle.”
Ehtra stood up. “I’ll accompany you, Master. Soone who can see falsehoods will be useful.”
“Good thinking,” John agreed. “Anybody else?”
The harettes looked at each other. The question was less who wanted to tag along and more who wanted it the most. “Alright, I’ll go,” Momo declared. “Please let go?” she added, looking around.
No one disagreed. It was her expedition so it was understood she got first claim to anything she wanted to do. Tagging along for a trip that could give new insights was entirely appropriate.
The three of them set out imdiately. The plane sat on a stretch of brown stone that cut through the greenery like the road right next to them. It was too narrow for the plane by several sizes, but still a good orientation point. In front of the plane was currently untouched jungle, behind it more of the stone that ended abruptly where the Mobile Barrier stopped. Anything Gno had done on the way just stopped existing. A convenient aspect of the Illusion Barriers, in this case.
The trio left the Mobile Barrier and set out on foot. It was a fifteen minute walk to the town. A few thousand people lived in this location. By statistics, this ant that there were a few dozen Abyssals around. In reality, this particular town was a void spot. Abyssals often lived in clumps and with rida nearby, most preferred the city. The few that didn’t either were so weak they wanted to stay out of the crossfire or so powerful that they could afford not participating in the local power gas.
None of those were here. John’s Barrier Sense pinged regardless, directing them to a small restaurant in the middle of the city. They entered the barrier, then the building, and found Fianna waiting for them.
The forr rcenary had dark brown hair at the mont, confined in a ssy crown braid, and her skin had assud a diterranean colour. Both were changes at a base level, so John’s illusion penetration did not notice anything. He noted that she had dark rings under her eyes. It was rare but not unheard of that Abyssals got visibly affected by stress and lack of sleep.
“Welco, sir,” she greeted him.
“Good day to you – you doing good?”
“Just a minor cold. Not the first ti I had to contend with one of those.”
John wanted to ask questions, but he knew for a fact that there were so diseases that had managed to mutate into being dangerous to Abyssals or had been engineered to be that way by a biomancer with a nihilistic or misanthropic bend. Typically, such diseases only managed to surface when the Abyssal in question was already weakened, but John was thinking from the perspective of soone that was so high level they never affected him.
“Let’s see,” John reached into his inventory and retrieved a health potion. “Does this help?”
Fianna took the flask and gulped it down in one go. By the ti she lowered the glass from her lips, the bags under her eyes were already gone. “It does,” she answered and handed the bottle back. “Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t ntion it,” John put the flask away, then pulled out a whole belt of vials. “Mutagens for the next 31 days, straight from Delicia.” In order to keep her disguise up, Fianna required repeated intake of the mutagens, otherwise she would revert to her usual form. The drawback to a thod that was harder to penetrate than illusions.
Fianna took the vials and placed them on the table she sat on. A table that the trio then also took a seat on. “So, what can you report?” Momo asked, eager to hear anything at all.
“I have good news and bad news. They’re connected, so I’ll start with the good. I have found a tribe that has beco disillusioned with their traditions and are in the process of modernizing. While their insights may be diminished by the passage of ti, they still have so. The bad news is that they reportedly have been in contact with another group.”
Annoying but not unexpected. If there was such a tribe, they would be the natural party to go to first for anyone interested, and since this area had beco a hotbed of high-powered interests…
Ehtra stared at the rcenary. “Any description on this group?”
Staring back with military professionalism, Fianna shook her head. “I was able to make contact with the tribe. I decided to keep that contact shallow and basic. Once I had a location, I did not dig further. I do not want anyone to be able to connect your appearance to .”
“Wise,” John said, while Ehtra closed her eyes. ‘Seems like she deems Fianna trustworthy for now.’ “Anything else to report?”
“Nothing I deem important, sir. I can fill you in on the details, in case you want to attempt to establish a pattern.”
“Go on,” he requested.
“Very well. As I began my investigation on the local tribes, I eventually found a man with black teeth that recently defected…”
What followed was a nearly two-hour summary of local rumours, guilds, and the complicated interconnection of alliances and rivalries. While much of it was interesting on a gossip level, the Gar did not manage to gleam anything of worth from it. If any of the local ongoings were connected to expedition parties then those parties covered their tracks well enough. Pleasingly to John, that included his own efforts.
John cut her off when the details were entering a level no longer useful to them. “What will you do next?” he asked Fianna.
“You will advance south, correct?” the scout asked. She continued after receiving a nod in response, “Then I will do so as well. I will attempt to find a suitable location for the next teleportation outpost.”
“Good. On your way, then. We’ll leave thirty minutes after you and go east.”
“Understood, sir,” Fianna answered and got up, leaving the trio alone in the room.
“East?” Momo asked.
“No reason to go back to the airplane when the tribe is so close,” John answered and checked the map that Fianna had left on the table. It was the kind that could be bought from any tourist shop in the area, marking out the walkways to one of the more remote cenotes. A less popular one, courtesy of not being open to the public for swimming. “All of the teleports are ready, so it’s not like we have to be afraid of not having backup.”
“Finally, sothing interesting is happening,” Ehtra mumbled.
“You were getting bored?” John teased.
“Yes. Being around you is torture,” the grey angel barked back. “I yearn for progress in any form.”
John gave her a look of deadpan amusent. For so reason, that alone made her blush. Ehtra continued to be a mystery to him and yet she was also an open book. Listening to his instincts typically worked well enough to engage her loving side. “You don’t an that.”
“…Maybe I don’t,” Ehtra grumbled. “Anything interesting?”
The question was for Momo who, rather than participate in the banter, was feverishly cross-referencing a bunch of notes she had on the laptop just withdrawn from her inventory with the map. “If there’s a tribe there, then it stands to reason that…” she mumbled and added a number of markers to her map. “…Not all cenotes were populated, but enough of them were to get water around… I’ll need the na of the tribe, that’ll help put other places into perspective. Provided they are on the list of tribes I have nas of, anyhow.”
“Well, let’s hope for the best,” John said.
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