Book 2 Chapter Fifty-Five: Relaxation

FIFTY-FIVE

“This is nice,” Roan said to himself. The fire from the small party cast flickering lights across the glowing water while the, admittedly well-played, guitar strummed constantly. Roan floated on his back and stared up at the stars above him, hardly visible through the thick foliage. The scent of cleanly burning wood was nearly as pleasant as the warm waters that supported Roan.

Whatever vitality giving treasure that was glowing at the bottom of the pool, it made the waters relaxing but kept him alert. Aches and pains that he hadn’t even realized he had were vanishing. The tightness of healed wounds faded, strained muscles healed, and the pain in his bones that had been there since his last temper finally disappeared.

“It is a good thing to heal in these sacred waters,” the druid said. Roan managed not to jerk upright and look around wildly, his heart suddenly racing. Somehow the creature had managed to sneak up on Roan, slipping through the water silently. Only its narrow face and antlers were above the water.

“There’s no wake to it moving through the water.”

“Yeah. It was relaxing.” Roan managed not to curse as he straightened in the water, treading it lightly instead of floating.

“I sense your displeasure and for that you have my humblest of apologies. It is just that when I searched you for corruption I found a reverberation in our powers and wished to investigate.”

“You can cleanse the corruption?” Roan asked. If they had another way to cleanse the corruption then his monopoly of corruption cleansing was about to be broken. He still hadn’t figured out how to charge up the old amulets with his bloodline, but it was on his to-do list.

“Do you know what the corruption is?” the druid asked.

“Nope. It just twists things around,” Roan said. The undead on the first level hadn’t been corrupted, it had been the life treasure that had animated them. Only the dragon had been corrupted on the second level and then it was only a minor amount in comparison to the Dreadhawks which were fully corrupted creatures.

The Prisoner on the other hand. Roan had to suppress shivers at the memory of that thing and the bonus quest they’d received.

“Look upon this pond and what is it that you see?” the druid asked.

“Water and a vitality treasure.”

“It is an ecosystem. It is in balance. The water flows and moves and feeds the land, the land shall feed us, and then we shall eventually feed the waters,” the druid said.

“Sounds simple.”

“I simplified it to what you could understand,” the druid said, smiling and showing off sharp teeth.

“Think it just called me dumb. It’s much more intelligent than most mobs, unless this is like Hana. It’s not a rabbit-kin, but maybe not all of the tower inhabitants are rabbits?”

“Now, what happens when the water in this pond grow still?” the druid continued.

“I don’t know. Didn’t really grow up in a place with a lot of water,” Roan said. The druid dipped its head slightly in recognition.

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“Then I shall continue my analogy without questions. When the pool grows still, it will stagnate. There will be growths inside of it, some of them deadly to the creatures that drink the water.”

“Alright, that’s simple enough. The corruption is stagnant water. But, stagnant what?” Roan asked. He realized the answer nearly immediately. It was mana. The water in the analogy was the magic of the world.

“When mana grows stagnant, it no longer moves freely, then there can come abnormalities. Most are benign, but we believe that somewhere on our planet, in the deepest depths, a pool of corruption has found a host and has mutated further. Now it spreads, consuming the life force of the planet.”

“That’s the biggest plot point we’ve found so far. Is this what’s happening back home? The Thirteenth isn’t functioning properly and corruption has begun to spread around it, killing the land?”

“So you have to start getting the mana to move again?” Roan asked. The druid smiled and nodded again.

“That is correct. We must find the root of the corruption and excise it.”

“It’s definitely the big-ass dragon imprisoned in the depths of the planet. Still doesn’t explain the Prisoner, but I still don’t think the Prisoner was part of the storyline, even if it was similar to what we were fighting.”

“How do you excise it?” Roan asked. Immediately he felt the system alert blare through his skull.

HIDDEN QUEST FOUND

ESCORT THE DRUIDS TO THE CENTER OF THE DEADLANDS

REWARD: 3X UNCOMMON-GRADE MARKET TOKENS

“If we are led and protected closer to the epicenter of the corruption, we would be better able to study it. Will you escort me?” the mob said. Roan was now convinced the thing was a mob, nothing else made sense with how robotic it seemed now that they were back on track for the conversation path it was supposed to take.

“Yeah, I’ll take you along,” Roan said instantly. Uncommon-Grade armor cost twenty-five thousand a piece. The quest was worth seventy-five thousand credits, which would be worth nearly any headache he dealt with.

“Good. I think if I could observe your power working against the corruption, then I shall be able to find a better way of healing the world. I will need my rest. I shall meet you at your ship at sunrise,” the druid said. It turned and walked away, gliding out of the pool without another word.

“That explains something. My bloodline is a cleansing bloodline, or at least that’s what the tower said it was. It works against the corruption as if the corruption was a virus or germ. Or the magical equivalent of it. Is that what this is? A magical sickness infecting magic itself?” Roan pondered it as he walked out of the water dressed only in underclothes.

He’d dunked his leathers in the water and had been pleasantly surprised when every ounce of grime had slid right off. That the water in the small lake wasn’t a grimy mess was another blessing he attributed to magic. The water might be magic, but it was still water. The leathers were sodden and Roan had no desire to put them on at the moment, instead he bundled them up and carried them all.

The polearm was right where he left it and he balanced everything in one arm while pulling another mana enriched meal out of a ring. The hot potato had been split in half and stuffed full of cheese and butter. Roan groaned as he bit into it, steam burning along the top of his mouth. The rich food hit his stomach like a bomb and he groaned in pleasure.

“Alright, get a bit of sleep and then in the morning before we take off look at the level skills available. Have all the supplies I need thanks to Amir, but a bit of firepower would be useful right now. Should I buy the translation skill? Those papers do need to be translated. There will be at least one other market stop on this trip. Can I wait till then or do it now?”

Roan’s mind was full of plans and questions, while his body was the most relaxed it had been in years. For the first time in his short life Roan wasn’t hyper conscious of his surroundings as he climbed up onto his ship.

Nobody else was on the ship, all of them still out relaxing and talking around the bonfire. Roan set his gear down and spread out the leathers so they could dry and leaned down on the deck, licking the grease from the butter and cheese off his fingers.

For the first time in days he finally felt safe and relaxed, the atmosphere of the sanctuary taking hold on him. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall asleep.