94. You Are What You Eat

  [MULAHARTA Status Effect: SNAP FREEZE]

  If only that were the case! What a sight it would’ve been for the entirety of the taproot-spanning Flesh-fiend to freeze solid. As it stood, the size and scale of Mulaharta were such that even the all-seeing Pathsight struggled to accurately represent the reality.

  The [Snap Freeze] effect had in fact been localized to one organ, namely GIZZARD along with all its muscles and blood supply. As its circulation cut out, so too did it lose its hold on a half-eaten Manusya, forcing it to eject Zacko through its weakened sphincter.

  The ‘sgwelch’ was replaced by something more akin to popping and crackling—the fracturing of brittle sheets of ice. Just like that, Zacko dropped onto an icy platform with a heavy thud.

  For one moment, Serac’s concern for her friend overrode her attention on the boss fight. She herself performed a near-vertical drop, sliding down a wall of ice that had been left behind by [Buzzer Beater]. Kneeling beside the motionless Manusya, she saw to her horror that the Tomasens’ spell had done a number on Zacko as well.

  [ZACARIAS BORGES-JUVENTUS Status Effect: SNAP FREEZE]

  “Oh no!” Serac exclaimed, instinctively placing her hands upon the man’s chest and rubbing it vigorously. All that achieved, however, was to give herself frostbite.

  “Rakshasa! I wouldn’t touch him if I were you.” The stern warning came from Renate, who’d hopped down to land beside Serac. “Look carefully. [Snap Freeze] isn’t the only status effect he’s under.”

  [ZACARIAS BORGES-JUVENTUS Status Effect: POISON (x5)]

  “Five stacks?” Serac exclaimed, even louder. “But… his HP is still full! Is GIZZARD still healing him somehow?”

  “No,” Renate spoke patiently, “it’s simply that his blood has stopped flowing, which means the [Poison] has no way to circulate and inflict damage. I’d suggest you leave him as is until we get him somewhere he could be safely thawed. That is, unless you don’t mind him losing out on the Karmic rewards from this fight.”

  Serac was momentarily left speechless, not only by Renate’s bizarre explanation, but also because of the woman’s thoughtfulness. What a considerate way to treat a pair of outrealmers she barely knew, especially when they were all competing for the same Karma! Not for the first time, Serac wondered how a kind soul like the Finless could’ve accrued such notoriety.

  “When you two are finished chatting,” Lars cut in from the side, breaths broken up by exertion, “consider helping us with these.”

  While the girls clucked over Zacko like mother hens, the Tomasen twins had been engaged in a 2v2 with the surviving Rumpejettes. The [Enlisted Husk] had since expired, but evidently not before taking one of its mates with it.

  Serac took to the task with alacrity. Now that she knew Zacko was ‘okay’ (albeit somewhat stretching the definition), she saw the leftover Wildspawns as a perfect opportunity to hone her Wayfaring skills. She happened to be on Chamber Two with plenty of Mana and [Satiety] to spare. As such, there really was no reason not to try:

  [Chamber Two: HARVEST]

  [71!]

  [RUMPEJETTE Status Effect: EARMARKED]

  It turned out to be good practice in the end. With her [Satiety] gauge hovering at just about the halfway point, it was a little trickier to attune to her [Hunger]. A light gnawing sensation in her belly. Just a casual reminder to start thinking about her next meal. In any case, the exercise produced the desired effect, converting five points of [Satiety] into a foraging bullet. With one Rumpejette firmly [Earmarked], Serac eagerly lent the rest of her Cartridges to finishing the job.

  Four combatants, all secure upon their footholds, made short work of the two Rumpejettes. The tadpole giants soon melted into Souldust, leaving behind a supersized clump of Rumpetroll goop for Serac to [Harvest].

  [770 ?]

  [1,540 ?]

  Here, Serac was treated to one of the fiddlier quirks of Pathsight: the dreaded division of Karmic rewards. In this case, she’d shared two smites between four Wayfarers while earning one smiting blow bonus. The resulting haul was, in all honesty, paltry for the Aberrant involved.

  “This is what happens when Wayfarers share their Paths.” Trippy, who up to now had happily watched from the sidelines, didn’t miss his chance to nag Serac about her life choices. “Dilution. Erosion. Deemphasizing of individual merit. Call it what you will, but this is the surest way to lose yourself in a faceless multitude.”

  “Oh, shush!” Serac was too annoyed to use her inside voice. “Since when did you become such a joykill?”

  “What did you say?” This from Lars Tomasen, whose normally impassive eyes widened like a startled child’s.

  Oh gods, Serac realized, Lars thinks I just called him a ‘joykill’, and he looks genuinely hurt about it! The thought of it nearly made her burst out laughing, but she resisted the urge long enough to deadpan, “Nothing. Is Narakite joke. Carry on.”

  And carry on they did. For the Wayfarers still had one job left—the most important of all. With GIZZARD frozen solid and all the Wildspawns in the vicinity dealt with, this last and most important job also happened to be the easiest.

  Thwack! Slam! Bang! The boss’s Health bar melted before the Wayfarer’s eyes, as they each picked a spot on the wall to leave their marks. Except these marks never had a chance to be permanent. As soon as Mulaharta’s Health reached zero, its entire root-spanning body faded into Souldust.

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  “Whoa!”

  Serac stepped back in alarm as the wall she’d been punching with PULVERIZER gave way into open air. It would’ve been incredibly tragic to fall to her death after she’d just smited her biggest Aberrant yet.

  [5,280 ?]

  5000? That’s it?

  Serac’s face fell as she reckoned with this division between five Wayfarers (the presently unconscious Zacko had also been very much involved in Mulaharta’s smiting). This one really hurt, considering how Zacko had been looking forward to a fat return of investment on his VISAGE spend. As it stood, he’d lose more Karma than he’d earned, having spent [15,000 ?] on [Sinner Aspect] and a few thousand more on [Dreamer]…

  Through all of Serac’s unhappy arithmetic, Trippy’s silence was deafening.

  “A bit anticlimactic, isn’t it?” Serac forced herself to be cheerful as she called over to her fellow smiters. “You’d think a big fight like this would deserve a big finish, but we might’ve been a little too effective setting up the smite. At least all this Souldust is pretty to look at, though.”

  Indeed it was. As an entire arena dissolved into Souldust, it blanketed Serac’s vision with swirling, glittering particles. All those teeth and all that flesh and all that [Hunger]. A Hellspawn worm so gargantuan it filled up one whole root of the Realmtree. Now, it was all gone. All gone, along with its—

  “Oh no!” Serac came to another realization. “What happens once this whole thing has gone poof? How will we climb back up?”

  “Worry not, Rakshasa.” This from Lars, his cold glare back in full form. “My brother and I can build footpath in opposite direction. I suggest you bring your climbing boots.”

  Lars followed this with a pregnant pause, staring at Serac as if waiting for her reaction. As much as Serac liked the sound of Lars’s plan, she didn’t quite know what he wanted from her. In the end, she gave a hesitant thumb-up, to which Lars turned his back immediately… but not before letting slip a look of obvious disappointment. What was that, a Pretjordian joke? Was I supposed to laugh?

  As it turned out, not all of Mulaharta had disappeared. One broken-off piece of GIZZARD had somehow been spared from Dust-ification. It now fell onto the nearest platform as a barely distinguishable block of pale, frozen meat.

  Serac bent down to examine it, and was shocked to find a Pathsighted label: [???]. Whoa… what is this thing? Trippy?

  “Just a guess, Wayfarer, but I believe it may be a consumable item. One not even Pathsight has any knowledge of. Not surprising, considering its convoluted provenance.”

  Consumable? You mean I’m meant to eat this thing? Serac’s gut reaction was one of revulsion. Perfectly natural, given her fresh memories of a red-green, engorged Zacko sticking out of GIZZARD’s sphincter. But she sat with the notion a while longer. Is it really so strange? Before GIZZARD was a Zealous Instrument, it was just a regular old internal organ. Which basically makes this thing ‘offal’.

  Serac paused her pondering to steal furtive glances around her. Clearly, none of the other Wayfarers had noticed her or the [???] in her hand. The twins were already on bridge-building duty. As for Renate, she busied over Zacko’s [Snap-Frozen] body, lashing him against her back in preparation for the climb. It was a sight to behold: the Manusya’s well-built figure being carried by a diminutive frog woman. Or it might’ve been, were it not for the giant shovel she already lugged around everywhere.

  With a silent apology to her fellow Wayfarers, Serac pocketed the [???] before anyone could see her. I hope you’re happy, Trippy, she thought sarcastically. Maybe I’m more selfish than you give me credit for.

  The truth was even more straightforward than that. Put simply, Serac was curious. About [???]’s potential effects. About what it might taste like. When push came to shove, she didn’t want any cooler heads to prevail and kibosh her possibly ill-advised culinary adventure.

  The climb back up to the Waystation took longer than the descent. It was also a lot more pleasant, as far as an acrophobic Rakshasa was concerned. No constant worrying about her footing, as long as she took slow, careful steps on the icy platforms.

  Occasionally, she looked over at Renate to marvel at her strength and resilience. The Yaksha woman had managed Zacko’s added weight with nary a complaint nor a shift in demeanor. Calm, competent, and purposeful in every movement. That was the model of Wayfaring Serac wanted to emulate, and Renate the Finless embodied it to perfection. Not to mention she did it all on her bare feet (brrr)!

  There were moments during the climb where Renate did stop. Not to complain nor readjust her load, but to look over her shoulder and down into the depths below. With Mulaharta gone, the ‘taproot’ had become a bare, dark, and bottomless abyss. Whenever Renate stopped, however, it seemed to Serac the frog woman could see—nay, read—something that yet lurked in the darkness.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Just being vigilant.”

  The Waystation was exactly where they’d left it, upon an outcrop at the mouth of the taproot. Seeing the pure-white lotus amidst the dimming cave felt to Serac like coming home. She hopped and skipped ahead of the other Wayfarers, then remembered her manners and waited for her turn at meditation.

  In terms of who deserves it most, I’d say Hans first, just for his terrible ordeal as GIZZARD food. Lars second for his part in the construction work. Then Renate for lugging Zacko all this way. If I’m being honest, I probably did the least amount of work, so I’m happy to wait.

  The Tomasens took their first turn at meditation, as was richly deserved. It didn’t escape Serac’s notice that Lars sat down without so much as a second glance at Renate. Maybe he was simply too exhausted to remember his beef? In any case, Serac allowed herself a smirk at the sturgeon’s expense.

  The girls were paired up again as they waited their turn. Renate went right back to work, laying Zacko down in preparation for the ‘thawing’. Which, once again, left Serac with a bit of downtime to herself.

  Suppressing another pang of guilt, she turned her back on Renate with as much casualness as she could muster. She then pulled out [???] and examined its pale, fleshy mysteries anew.

  “Are you sure about this, Wayfarer?” Trippy made a half-hearted attempt at kiboshing Serac’s culinary adventure. “We quite literally have no idea what this thing does. Won’t you at least wait until you’ve reconstituted and leveled up?”

  I might not get a chance then! Serac complained, making sure to use her inside voice. Besides, what’s the worst that can happen? Even if it turns out to be a bad idea, the Waystation is literally right next to me.

  “… I can imagine many different ‘worsts’ that can happen. But I’ve also been with you long enough to recognize when you can’t be persuaded. Go ahead, Serac Edin. Have your [???] and eat it too.”

  Trippy was right, of course. Whenever Serac’s mind was on a single track like this, she was difficult indeed to dislodge. Best just to get it over with, and live with the consequences as they came.

  Serac popped [???] into her mouth and chewed.

  To her disappointment, the thing was rather bland, more ice than offal. Perhaps she should’ve waited for it to thaw, or perhaps it lacked a bit of Chef Petey magic. Well, I suppose ‘bland’ is still preferable to disgus—

  Then all pretense of being a food critic fled Serac in an instant, as Pathsight informed her exactly what [???] did.

  [REVOLVER Spell unlocked]

  [Chamber Two: APPETIZER]

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