Might as Well

He made sure to settle the particulars with Lucy and received some reports about the company and the guild. As they were in an area where leaving wasn’t really an option, he couldn’t ride in to save anybody if it was needed.

Apparently, the new prophecies had stirred up some epic shitstorm.

By the time Lucy – through several intermediaries and patsies – leaked the technical information of the Valley of Distortion and one probable location, there was almost an all-out brawl in the streets.

Funnily enough, only seers, shamans, and soothsayers in the Emerald Kingdom received these visions. But as the saying goes, rumors circle the planet before the truth can even tie its shoes.

Everyone was looking for these places. Everyone.

Sam didn’t really get why. They only had the word of the seers that they would get rewarded, nothing concrete – or official from the devs. Still, when they heard the name, everybody’s gaming sense started firing at full cylinders.

According to Lucy, there were even guilds from nearby countries that decided to head for the leaked coordinates, as they believed that the original location would have the biggest reward.

He just prayed they would be distracted by tantalizing bait and didn’t start searching for other valleys.

Sam personally only knew the location of three of them. The coordinates that he gave to Lucy were a total surprise to him. ‘Either nobody found it, or they managed to keep it very quiet…’ Sadly, the other two were on a different continent, in a location shrouded by a magical mist that swallowed whoever entered it. The mist would be removed later by a legendary quest chain, allowing the players to descend on the area and loot it to the ground.

“Any prominent guilds trying their luck in our kingdom?” he asked absentmindedly as he ate his breakfast. Lucy’s face on the projected screen looked down at her notes, then back at him.

“No. The big guilds actually sent some emissaries to the kingdom and to the bigger guilds to reassure them they would be focusing on the distortion in their area,” she stated, stone-faced.

“So they’re already here in disguise.”

“Pretty much. Tim found the Dread Lords’ strawguild, so we can assume the rest also sent some representatives,” came the report from his friend.

“Dread Lords are not bad. Pretty goth and dramatic, but for necromancers, they are pretty chill…”

Lucy just groaned.

Sam ignored her sweet-sweet pain and continued. “What about Shadow Step?”

“We’ve some reports of lone assassins, but they seemingly returned to their old profession. They’re just much stronger…” she reported with a disappointed shake of her head. “Do you have anything that could bait them out?”

For once, Sam was stumped. He had a few things, but even revealing that he knew about them would get him bonked by the banhammer and probably a lawsuit of epic proportions. He quickly wiped his hands and began operating his screen, looking for his encoded calendar.

‘The reveal of the cheaters should be soon-ish…’ he mused before stopping on a particular page. On it, in a coded form, was one of his notes, indicating the time when the first and probably last cheaters of Magic Unbound were found and destroyed by the company.

Private details weren’t revealed about the people, as they were rich, but the other Sam knew enough about the situation. They managed to gather some insider information about some items becoming valuable soon thanks to a quest and went ham on monopolizing it. Then they made a bank and bragged about it.

Thus ended the saga of several very rich and very smart people…

“I think…” he began hesitatingly. Lucy was instantly alert. ‘It seems she knows me well…’

“I think, we need to set up people to start watching the market.”

Lucy didn’t even blink. “Why?”

Sam chose his words very carefully. “Don’t you think that it is weird that nobody has tried to manipulate the market yet?”

“I assumed you were already doing that,” came the retort instantly from his friend.

“Haha… very funny…”

“I thought so too,” chirped Lucy, with a big smile on her face.

“To be truthful, I thought about it, but it seemed too much work,” he lied seamlessly, though he was pretty sure that Lucy saw through it. “But I think enough time has passed that people learned enough about the world in the game that they could play around with market manipulation.”

“Do you want us to do it?”

Sam shook his head. Knowing that several hidden groups hunted down disruptors made sure he shied away from the activity.

“I just want to make use of the chaos…”

“Gotcha…” Lucy replied with a knowing grin.

They returned to the game at the same time, walking out of their respective tents, only to see Lucky sitting at the edge of a small clear area with Hawky on his head, as they watched Melody and Sable square off – the wood spirit returned to her cute form – holding small knives and intently staring at each other.

‘We need some dramatic music and some tumbleweeds,’ he mused humorously.

And just at that moment, one distortion contracted near the edge of the camp and expanded by spitting out a pitch-black tumbleweed that let out a low keening noise as it rolled between the two spirits.

The moment it left the area between them, the two spirits sprang forward and the clearing was filled by the sound of adorable knives clashing.

After they watched the two spirits train and made sure they were all right after they beat the living shit out of each other, the team gathered in front of the last – water-themed – fracture portal.

[Don’t be a waterfowl!]

[Water is the source of life. Here it is the source of frustration. I suppose we will see if your blood is thicker than the water. Keep your head above and eyes alert! No sharks, though…]

[Time Limit: None]

[Penalty: Wet socks. Every morning!]

[Reward: The distortion eases]

[Charges: 12/12]

[Hidden Bonus: Additional growth for the Tree of Rewards]

They looked at each other, nodded, and stepped forward as one.

They arrived in a small bay, bracketed by impossibly tall rock walls preventing them from going backward, and in front of them a pool of water, that upon further look, was almost impossibly deep. And beyond that pool was a bunch of rocks that formed a small hill.

And there was a hole there, leading further down.

“I think we need to head there!” Dan pointed toward the hole in the rock pile.

Their sarcastic answer was swallowed by a gigantic roar as a massive water snake surfaced from the pool, its maw open and serrated teeth dripping with green poison.

The body was at least ten feet thick, protected by slick scales and the maw was big enough that Sam could stand there upright.

ROAAAAAAR

“Firelance!” came from Dan, and a lance of blue fire slammed into the monster, scorching its hide. The action galvanized the rest of them, and soon the monster was bombarded by all sorts of attacks.

Finally, after a minute of fight, the snake monster slumped down, scorched, scarred, and missing chunks of its flesh, courtesy of Katie.

However, before they could celebrate, Sam called out. “Quick! Let’s harvest it!” Then he ran forward and began enthusiastically cutting into the beast.

“Ewww!” came the response from Isabella. “Why?”

“The meat is super valuable. Ponce nobles go bananas for this stuff!”

“How bananas?”

“Do you want new swords?”

In an instant, the rest of the team was next to him, kneeling in the mud mixed with the monster’s blood and carving into the monster under Sam’s direction.

After collecting the snake meat, some of the scales, and the remaining poison from the sacs, they cleaned themselves with the Clean spell and entered the hole.

Which, in turn, led them underground into a damp cavern with stalagmites and stalactites illuminated by gentle blue light originating from some weird moss on the ceiling of the cavern.

There were several pools dotted around the cavern, but because of the low level of illumination, they couldn’t see if all of them were as deep as the one above ground.

The team cautiously walked forward, all of their senses trained on the area. It was naturally Sam who found the first monster thanks to his advanced mana sense skills. He motioned to the others, but by the time they looked in the indicated direction, they could all hear the chittering sound coming toward them.

Weapons ready, they prepared for the fight.

Only to see a bunch of giant horseshoe crabs turn the corner around a gigantic stalagmite. Their shells were dull gray and covered by the same moss that was illuminating the cavern. They clacked their claws menacingly and rushed forward.

Then the cavern shook a little, dislodging a little dust from the ceiling, and another giant snake emerged from one of the dark pools and snatched up one of the giant crabs, and after a loud crunch sound, it returned to its hiding space.

“All right, guys! Make sure you pay attention to the giant hidey-snakes!” Sam called out as he directed a mass of wind blades at the crabs, intent on turning them over to expose their less protected underside.

“I wonder if their blood is as valuable as real crabs…” Clarissa mused as the rest of the team decided to have crab for lunch.

Sam shrugged. “We can collect it and see if it is useful. I have some empty barrels in my inventory.”

The horseshoe crabs were pretty good mobs as they dropped an actual Healing Blood skill book. Which would allow the person to use their blood as a healing agent or alchemical reagent.

“Does this count as blood magic?” Clarissa asked, remembering Sam’s ban on said magic.

He looked over and smiled at her apologetically. “Pretty much, yeah. But don’t sell it. I’m working on protection, so when we have it, you can learn the skill.”

“Cool,” she answered, and the skillbook vanished into her inventory.

“What is that?”

“Ceiling snake.”

“WHAT?”

“Ceiling snake.”

They stared up at the roof of the cavern where a ‘snake’ crawled on uncountable tiny legs, upside down, while the serpentine head at the end of a long neck snaked around, dripping saliva and poison on the damp ground.

Clarissa turned to Sam. “Please make the ceiling snake go away!”

“What did it drop?” Isabella asked as they butchered the ceiling snake. Clarissa was especially brutal during the process, as she really didn’t appreciate the monster.

“Some really valuable scales for armor crafting, poison sacs, and of course, Healing Blood and Poison Blood skillbook.”

“Lame…”

“Indeed,” Sam agreed while continuing the butchering process.

“Soooo…”

“Yeah…”

“What even is that?”

“Apparently ceiling snakes and giant horseshoe crabs can breed.”

“But, why?”

“Dunno… devs were horny?” Sam answered while shrugging as they eyed the chimeric amalgamation of horseshoe crab and ceiling snake as the monster crawled toward them. It had thousands of tiny legs, a scaled body, and a long serpentine neck, but the body had random shells placed with spikes protruding from them and the head had two small arms growing out of it that ended in giant claws. Perfect for shoveling food into the monster’s mouth.

“I don’t care. Make it go away!”

Sam sighed, looked over to Dan who nodded back and soon a firestorm enhanced by a generous amount of wind mana was consuming the crime against nature, humanity, and just general good taste.

They ended up in a giant cavern, half of it covered by water and no exit in sight.

“Boss room?” asked Katie excitedly.

“““Boss room.””” Came the unanimous answer from the rest of the team.

To prove their words, the cavern shook, and dust fell, with some weaker stalactite joining them, and a giant snake’s head emerged from the water. Thankfully, it was crab free. Then another head joined. And another.

They watched as seven heads altogether emerged, attached to a rather robust body but comically small appendages. All fourteen eyes were focused on Sam and his team.

“Anyone not clear how to deal with a hydra?”

Sam made sure that nobody answered negatively, then took his sword and motioned toward the monster that was opening its mouth, showing green light gathering in all its maws.

“Then please be my guest…”

“Wow… Hydra Blood… extreme regeneration, but your blood turns poisonous.”

“We can sell that to those addicts…”

“Better to auction it off…”

They chattered among themselves while butchering the boss monster and going through the loot.

“Hey!” Dan called out, waving a skillbook around. “Check this out!”

They gathered around him and took a look.

[Hydra Breath: Conjure a small amount of poison and shoot it at speed. The poison conjured depends on what poison you have ingested last.]

Sam simply gave the book to Clarissa. “Here, this will be a nice offensive option for you.”

“Thanks!” replied Clarissa as she quickly learned the spell.

They spent a few more minutes cleaning up the scene, collecting material from the corpse, and then headed for the portal that appeared after the boss monster was defeated. They had eleven more runs to do…