Chapter Thirty-Six: Quests Cleared

THIRTY-SIX

Sepsis of a magical mushroom stunk. Raw sewage with rotting eggs on a hot summer day. That was all Roan could think about as he leapt to the side as the giant shadow, an abscess he noted, started to drain out of the mushroom in a pressurized stream. Every zombie froze as their wiggling mass of roots froze.

Something large and solid spilled out of the liquid rot, hitting the ground with a wet splatter. Roan reached over with his hammer and pulled it toward him as the abscess continued to drain. The strike team were efficiently killing the anomalies now, but more than one shot him a glare as they watched him standing to the side.

Roan ignored them as he pulled the mass toward him. It was slick with the black goop, but it looked like a partially formed body. A full grown person that had been folded up into a pretzel. He could see a hand and a pair of feet, but they each had seven digits on them. It jiggled as if there were no bones to it, just a mass of jello-like flesh.

“The alert hasn’t gone through that I stopped the escape attempt.” Roan stabbed the flesh with the spike on his hammer and ripped sideways. Chunks of gelatinous flesh flew away and he kept slashing at it, tearing and ripping it apart until he finally got the alert he’d been waiting for.

QUEST COMPLETED

ESCAPE ATTEMPT THWARTED

2,500 CREDITS EARNED

Roan couldn’t stop the smile that came to his face from that alert. All across the cavern the anomalies seized up, spasming as the strike force continued to slaughter them. Bodies fell to the ground as they worked faster and faster, intent on finishing the work before they stopped seizing.

“What makes this so special?” Roan whispered as he looked at the wound in the great mushroom. It had stopped spitting black goop and was already healing, green light filling the darkened flesh. There was still a hole in the mushroom, opened by the spike but widened by the flow of goop coming out of it.

“This is going to be gross,” Roan muttered as he rolled up the sleeve on his hand and jammed his hand into the open wound. It was hot, not scalding, but not far from it. Mush rolled around his hand and slid free to slop to the ground as Roan pushed his hand in deeper and deeper until his arm was wedged up to his shoulder.

“What caused the infection?” The thought kept rebounding in his mind as his fingers kept searching, digging through flesh as the heat began to increase. Roan began to think he’d done this for nothing as he started to reach healthy flesh with nothing to show. Up and down he waggled his arm as much as it could go, searching for anything to make this trip worth his while.

His fingers snagged on something cold. A smile spread across his face as he dragged the shard free of the mushroom. As soon as it cleared the mushroom the wound healed instantly. The giant mushroom flared once and then began to dim until it was a gentle light.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author’s consent. Report any sightings.

QUEST COMPLETED

FIND THE SOURCE OF THE CORRUPTION

REWARD: ITEM TOKEN (COMMON GRADE)

BONUS QUEST COMPLETED

CLEANSE THE CORRUPTION

REWARD: MANA CORE SPLINTER 1/5