Pandora Unchained B1C34: Red-Eyed Silverback Ape

Sorin’s party spent the next two hours recovering. Only Stephan had suffered any injuries from the turtles, but Sorin was able to handle most of them with a few drops of healing potion and targeted stitches.

“They really need to figure out a better flavor for these fasting potions,” said Lawrence, chugging back a small yellow vial. “Sour lemon gets old after a few days on the trail. How are we supposed to survive the next few weeks on this awful stuff?”

“Sour lemon?” asked Gareth. He was currently painting a concoction of crushed demon cores and liquified mana extract on the damaged rune boat with Daphne’s help. “It takes like apple to me. Apple pie. Maybe you’re reacting to something in the potion? Ahah! Found it!” Several runes activated and drank in the concoction Gareth had painted. The network of runes covering the boat remained dim, however.

“Move over and let me fix this shoddy job,” said Daphne, pushing him to the side. She painted supplementary runes in vibrant green ink and connected these lit-up runes to the others they’d activated during their two-hour rest.

“I have good news and bad news,” said Daphne after painting the finishing touches. “The good news is that I’m officially ninety percent confident that we can fix this boat. Moreover, it’s a high class rune boat and will be very useful in avoiding those demonic turtles that are guarding the island.”

“What’s the bad news?” asked Stephan.

“The bad news is that activating the runes will destroy the boat,” said Daphne. “If we use them, we’d better be sure we get to shore.” She sighed and took a swig of her own fasting potion. “Mmm. Fallafel. Yummy.”

“Why is it that you guys all have good flavors, while I’m the only one stuck with lemon?” Lawrence complained.

“You want this?” asked Daphne, looking at her half-empty vial. “Enjoy.” She tossed it to Lawrence, who chugged it down.

“Urgh!” said Lawrence, spitting it out. “That one’s even worse! It tastes like vomit!”

“Lawrence, stop wasting fasting potions,” scolded Stephan. “We only have a limited amount, so we can’t have you wasting them.”

“But it tastes like vomit,” said Lawrence, gingerly sipping the rest. Sorin stifled a chuckle, as did everyone else in the group. It was an open secret that Stephan had tainted the first fasting potion he’d fed him, modifying the otherwise tasty fasting potions to have flavors he didn’t like.”

“Haley once told me that fasting potions taste like the user doesn’t want them to taste,” said Stephan, drinking down a potion of his own. “For me, that’s chicken breast.”

“Chicken breast?” asked Sorin. “Why would anyone hate chicken breast?”

“You would too if your parents forced you to go to the gym 4 hours a day and eat 10 servings of chicken breast every day as part of your education,” said Stephan. “To be honest, it’s not just chicken breast. I can’t stand the taste of chicken. Or turkey, for the matter.” He shuddered as he put away the empty vial.

A half hour later, the entire rune boat glowed with a faint blue light. “Victory!” said Daphne, holding up her arms like the winner of a sporting event. “The spell matrix is now functional. All that’s left now is to patch up these holes and stop water from getting in, and we’ll have ourselves an escape route.”

“Patching up the holes won’t be a problem,” said Gareth, the group’s survival expert. “There’s a fair number of bloodwood trees. Their bark is easy to peel, and their sap turns to glue if we mix it with mashed fern root.

“After that, we’ll only need oars. It’ll take me about 20 minutes to carve out oars from these dead trees. I think that gives us enough of a buffer. You guys can go ahead and begin your exploration.”

“I’ll stay with Gareth and Daphne,” said Stephan to Sorin and Lawrence. “Otherwise, we’ll be fighting half the island within the hour.”

“Relax and let us do our thing,” said Lawrence. He tossed a crossbow to Sorin and shot off into the woods, taking special care not to overly disturb the wilderness.

You’re up, Lorimer, Sorin said to his trusty rat companion. The rat grumbled but scurried into the underbrush, giving Sorin a fuzzy map of what lay ahead and warning him of potential threats and things Lorimer identified as tasty treats.

They travelled for 15 minutes before Lorimer stopped him. Lawrence appeared beside Sorin and tugged him into a bush. “There’s a group of bronze tusked demon boars over there,” said Lawrence. “We’re going to bypass them since we don’t want to cause a fuss. They’re very territorial and will even fight two-star demons when provoked.”

There were many more such instances. They encountered chameleons, salamanders, and vipers, as well as vampiric creatures like musk deer and five-line demon racoons. Each creature had their own habitat and mannerisms, and disturbing them wasn’t worth the effort given the greater prizes awaiting them.

Twenty minutes later, they arrived at a small clearing, seemingly empty of demons. It was only when three vicious-looking monkeys fell out of the sky and Lawrence jumped down after them that Sorin realized his error.

“All the other demons are gone,” said Lawrence. “There’s seems to be a lot of nice stuff around here. Why don’t you harvest them while I keep watch?”

Sorin looked around and spotted no less than 5 types of medicinal herbs and 2 types of medicinal roots, all growing in the same area. Strange,thought Sorin. This doesn’t seem to be a place that’s particularly rich in natural energy.

But money was money, so Sorin got digging. It was when he was excavating the roots that he realized why so many plants had grown in this place; they monkey demons Lawrence had killed had dragged countless decomposing carcases into the clearing to nourish the soil with their energy.

Sorin and Lawrence had no use for these bones, but to Lorimer, they were a delicacy. While Sorin took precious medicinal ingredients, Lorimer gobbled up bones and half-rotted carcases, as well as low-value herbs that Sorin didn’t bother picking up.

“Bad news,” said Lawrence when Sorin finished gathering the last herbs. He was painting heavily usually pale. “You were right. Theres a two-star demon guarding this place.”

“Any sign of the manabane chrysanthemums I mentioned?” asked Sorin.

Lawrence shook his head. “I didn’t get past the guardian, but my mana started to erode quickly when I got close to its territory.” He led Sorin and Lorimer down a winding trail to a small valley at the center of the island. Dirty swamp water trickled into the valley from all sides, but as it ran down the valley slopes, it turned increasingly clear before eventually settling into a pristine pool at its center.

“This is definitely the place,” said Sorin. He could feel is mana growing fainter with every breath he took. “There’s one over there/ Also there, there, and there.” There were over twenty crystal-blue chrysanthemums growing on the outskirts of the valley. “I think these chrysanthemums are what’s purifying the water pouring into the valley.”

“Then we can’t take too many,” said Lawrence. “Same goes for all the plants growing here. Their guardian will be upset if we take a few, but it’ll lose its mind if we take everything.”

Sorin agreed with Lawrence and edged in to take a closer look. He was about to reach a manabane chrysanthemum when he suddenly felt a dreadful pressure weighing down on him.

A gust of wind blasted Sorin backward onto the ground. He stood up, ears ringing, and looked at the canopy, where an ape demon hopped from branch to branch. “Is that the guardian?” asked Sorin, trembling. The creature had conspicuous silver fur on its humped back and smoldering red eyes.

“That, my friend, is a Red-Eyed Silverback Ape, a two-star demon,” said Lawrence.

“That’s a very longwinded name,” said Sorin.

“But a very descriptive one,” said Lawrence. “That thing’s a brute. All it has going for it is strength. But it has a lot of it compared to most two-star demons. Even Stephan wouldn’t last half a minute against it.”

“Then what can we do?” asked Sorin. Even if they couldbeat it in a fight, they’d alert all the creatures on the island once the battle started.”

“I guess there’s no avoiding it,” said Lawrence dramatically. “It falls to little old me to play the hero. I’ll distract the brute while you go in and rob it. I have only one request. Take care of my women and my children.”

“What women and what children,” snapped Sorin. “But it’s good to know you’re more than a peeping coward.”

“Oh, I’m still a coward,” said Lawrence. “I wet myself the first time I saw it. But since it’s strong, not fast, I’m pretty confident in running circles around it.”

“Godspeed,” said Sorin. It wouldn’t be easy distracting a two-star demon with a blood thickening cultivation base. “Leave the looting to me and Lorimer. We’ll make sure to get our money’s worth.”

Lawrence blended into the shadows and appeared behind the ape moments later. The creature had yet to spot them and was munching on spirit fruits growing on a large tree near the center of the valley.

Crystal Demon Fruit, thought Sorin. Completely useless to cultivators but priceless treasures for demons. Wait… why would he…? His jaw dropped as Lawrence grabbed one of the crystalline fruits and took a bite out of it before tossing it hard between the ape’s legs. The creature howled in rage and spun around to face Lawrence.

“Urgh! This stuff tastes awful!” said Lawrence in an exaggerated manner. “Do you have anything better tasting around here?”

Not good! thought Sorin as the ape’s eyes turned red. It sent a violent fist crashing down towards the branch Lawrence stood on.

Fortunately, this action was well within Lawrence’s predictions. He appeared on another branch fifteen feet away holding three more fruits. These ones were blue-gold wind pears, top-grade one-star ingredients worth 100 gold each.

The ape let out an angry roar and threw itself at Lawrence. But just like before, it smashed into an empty branch, and Lawrence appeared not far away, with even more fruit in his hands, looking completely unharmed and unperturbed.

The rogue retreated out of the clearing branch by branch, but not before taking a few other expensive fruits with him. They were the kind that didn’t need any special precautions to collect – Sorin had to admit that Lawrence had common sense when it came to this.

Three minutes later, when the ape’s raging no longer caused his surroundings to tremble, Sorin picked himself up and ran over to the nearest manabane chrysanthemum. All soil within three feet of the flower was infertile and devoid of mana, and Sorin, who had the protection of his poisons, was unable to fully resist its erosion.

Fortunately, he had come prepared to harvest such a plant. It was strong against mana-infused containers and but was weak go gold. Sorin scooped up the plant, root and all, and placed it in a gold-lined box before sealing it. Only then did his mana stop burning away.

Sorin took a sip of mana potion and made his way over to the next chrysanthemum. He repeated the process until he had a total of four flowers, more than enough to cultivate the Ten Thousand Poison Cannon. Though more would be useful to him, he was concerned about disrupting the ecology of the valley. Wanton destruction went against the principles of both adventurers and physicians.

Lorimer didn’t have such compulsions, however, and ate everything in site. It was only due to Sorin’s strict directions that he left behind seeds and duplicates of every plant. His aura increased sharply with every plant consumed, and it wasn’t long before he broke through to the seventh level of blood thickening.

Several minutes swiftly passed. As the red-eyed silverback ape smashed apart trees and dug up the land to find the elusive cockroach, Lawrence, Sorin and Lorimer made out like bandits. There were thousands of herbs and roots in the valley, far too many for Sorin to take away. He only had twenty large cases that could accommodate several types of the same ingredients, so he made sure to select only those worth 50 gold or more.

By the time Sorin arrived at the pool at the center of the valley, his pack was stuff full of medicinal ingredients. Logically, it was time to return, yet looking at the island at the center of the pristine pool, he felt an itch that he couldn’t help but scratch; there was no way he could leave without seeing what lay in the middle of such a rich garden.

Sorin was surprised to discover that the clear water at the center of the valley was only two inches deep. It was covered in lily pads and filled with non-demonic animal life. How can there be nothing growing here?thought Sorin as he crossed the shallow pool and arrived at the secondary island. The air on the island was completely lacking ambient mana. Even the trees were mortal trees instead of the demonic trees infesting Bloodwood Forest.

He soon found the culprit of this strange mana-deficient atmosphere: a single demonic tree, short and squat, bearing jade-colored fruits. Sorin was about to approach the tree when he was stopped by Lorimer. “You’re saying there’s a second guardian? And it’s easy to see?” Sorin squinted but was unable to locate said guardian. “What do you mean, it’s sitting in the tree?”

His eyes widened when he finally saw tufts of green fur hidden amongst the tree’s jade-green leaves. A large ape demon much bigger than the red-eyed silverback ape lay sleeping on the tree’s largest branch. And on that branch, he saw twenty emerald-colored fruits that gave off an unmistakable two-star aura.