Pandora Unchained B1C33: Manabane Swamp

Manabane Swamp was one of the few large water bodies in Bloodwood Forest. As a result, much of the forest’s energy was concentrated within its putrid and corpse-infested waters. The demons inhabiting it favored Death and Disease instead of the dominant Evil of Bloodwood Forest, Violence.

The swamp was a shallow one, such that a brave adventurer could theoretically cross it on foot, if he was careful. In practice, the adventurer would die a gruesome death via the leeches, mosquitos, and venomous insects infesting the swamp, not to mention the high population of crocodile and turtle demons that called it home. A tight canopy of interlocking branches blocked out all but a tiny amount of sunlight, making it difficult to spot these threats before they were lethal.

“Demon mosquitoes are the worst,” said Lawrence, slapping a fat, thumb-sized and smearing blood on his unique. “Even one-star mosquito repellent can’t scare them off. And they always hit you where it hurts most – your ankles and your wrists.”

“Stop exaggerating,” scolded Stephan, the sole rower on their boat. “We’ve got bug-repelling smoke filling up a cloud around the entire ship. If that mosquito managed to land on you, it’s because you let it.”

“Did not!” said Lawrence. “They happen to like my blood. There’s nothing I can do about it!”

“They like Daphne’s blood too, but you don’t see her complaining,” said Stephan.

“She’s literally using a shield of fire mana to scare them off!” said Lawrence.

“You want a fire shield?” asked Daphne, finally looking up from her book. “Then pay up. I told you, it’s only a hundred gold for twenty-four hours of protection.”

“That’s highway robbery,” muttered Lawrence. “I’d rather be eaten alive.”

“Suit yourself,” said Daphne with a shrug.

“Don’t you cultivate the shadow element?” asked Sorin. “All you need to do is circulate your mana, and the mosquitos won’t even be able to see you.”

“Says the poison cultivator,” grumbled Gareth. Painful mosquitos bites could be seen on his hands, neck and ears. “I think my repellant is wearing off. Care to give me another dose?”

“Of course,” said Sorin. He flicked a glob of poisonous mana over to Stephan, who then smeared it on every inch of his exposed skin. The mosquitos hovering around him sensed the difference and immediately retreated. Two tried to get to Gareth but were cut apart by tiny blades of wind mana.

“Why don’t I get poison repellent?” asked Lawrence.

“A hundred gold,” said Sorin, holding out his hand. “I can’t in good conscience undercut my companion’s business.”

Sorin then circulated his mana to replenish his stores. It was necessary to be frugal with mana in Manabane Swamp, but Sorin had discovered himself more or less immune to the swamp’s constant leeching effects.

“How is everyone holding up under the mana suppression?” asked Sorin.

“I’m at about 80%,” answered Daphne. “But I can feel my mana stores depleting themselves at an alarming pace.”

“Let me take a look,” said Sorin. He put a hand to Daphne’s neck and felt at her pulse. Meanwhile, his spiritual force and mana sank into her body and observed her meridians.

Mana was circulating healthily within them, but tiny blue strands were worming their way through her skin and flesh and entering her blood stream, where they vanished along with a small amount of mana. Sorin tried to suck them up but was unable to do so before his poisonous mana dispersed.

“I’m sorry,” said Sorin. “I thought I could do something about this miasma, but it seems I was mistaken. At most, I can somewhat resist the erosion.”

“Then what do you recommend?” asked Stephan.

“The only way is to keep sipping mana potions to keep up our reserves,” said Sorin.

“But you’ve confirmed it’s a poison?” asked Stephan.

“If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be so resistant,” said Sorin. “Truth be told, I’m very happy to have made the discovery. It means the poison I’m looking for is definitely here in this swamp. Only the one-star poison, Manabane Chrysanthemum, can achieve this effect.”

“I’ve never heard of such a flower,” said Gareth. “And I make it my business to study plants, medicinal and otherwise. What are its properties? How does one find it?”

“Manabane Chrysanthemums are white flowers roughly the size of one’s fist,” answered Sorin. “When concentrated and injected into a person’s bloodstream via stab wound, it will cripple their cultivation by destroying their mana sea.”

“That’s terrible!” said Lawrence. “You might as well kill the person!” Then, realizing whom he was speaking to, he laughed awkwardly. “Just ignore me. I can be a little silly sometimes.”

“You’re not wrong,” said Sorin, grimacing as he remembered the experience. “In fact, you might not know this, but my cultivation was crippled specifically because of the effects of this poison. So I know more than most how devastating its effects can be.

“Getting back to your question, the flowers produce a poison mist. It has no direct effect on mana, but when absorbed via skin contact or respiration, it will worm its way into a human or demon’s meridian system and destroy their mana reserves. The miasma in this swamp can only be explained by a large quantity of manabane chrysanthemums.”

“How exactly do we fight this poison if the concentration increases?” asked Gareth. “Is there an antidote to this poison?”

Sorin shook his head. “No antidote, so be careful of any flowers you see. If there’s anything that I can recommend, it’s water. The poison loses effectiveness in water, which is why the most powerful life forms in this swamp are aquatic. There are no avian demons to speak of, and all insects you see are resistant to poison.”

“What about Lorimer?” asked Gareth. “Why is he fine?”

“I actually have no idea,” said Sorin. “But I won’t look a gift-horse in the mouth. Keep up the good work, Lorimer.”

In fact, Lorimer was better than fine. The toxic miasma in the swamp was allowing him to steadily grow in strength. The swamp was also full of lifeforms that offered themselves up as snacks.

“Crocodile,” said Gareth lazily. A massive set of jaws burst out of the water and tried to devour their rune-covered canoe.

“Screeee!” Before anyone else could react, Lorimer jumped out of the boat and into the crocodile demon’s mouth. The crocodile wailed and thrashed as Lorimer dug his way out through the creature’s mouth and into its skull. It then tunneled its way out of the crocodile’s eye and jumped back onto the ship as the creature sank back into the swamp’s murky waters.

Sorin held out his hand. “You had the last one, Lorimer. This one’s ours.” Lorimer glared at him and bit down on the crystal, but Sorin glared back. “We agreed on a fifty-fifty split, Lorimer. I let you eat the demon cores you keep, but don’t think I’m a pushover.”

The rat snorted and tossed the crystal into Sorin’s hand, who then tossed it over to Gareth. “It’s pretty amazing that he can even eat those things,” said Gareth. “Usually, demons eat the corpse but not the core.”

“He’s a special one alright,” Sorin agreed. In fact, he was quite pleased with this arrangement. The half they’d agreed on was directly strengthening Lorimer. Though Sorin wouldn’t be getting a share, he had no regrets, because a stronger Lorimer would only benefit him. Over thirty 1-star demons had already fallen to the vicious rat. Thanks to their cores, Lorimer’s power had already reached the 6th level of blood thickening and was only now showing signs of slowing down.

They continued travelling through the swamp in a straight line, only stopping to wait for larger groups of demons to pass. Thanks to the runes on their boat, the aquatic demons had a hard time spotting them. Only a few stragglers managed to pierce their veil and cause them problems.

“There’s an island up ahead,” said Gareth. “We’ve also reached the 5-hour mark, which is 3 hours from our point of no return.” In the end, it was necessary to maintain full mana reserves for safety reasons. Based on their current stock of mana potions, they would only be able to remain in the swamp for 24 hours. Sixteen hours was the limit they set to maintain a buffer of safety.

“Then let’s see if this island has anything good,” said Stephan. “Everyone, battle positions. Conserve your mana, if possible. Especially Daphne.”

Their boat slowly approached a mass of mists. It was only thanks to a small gravel beach jutting out from the mass that they could confirm it was an island. As they drew closer, the mists thinned, revealing the bones and weeds growing on the gravel beach, and the wrecked remains of canoes. Each of these runic boats bore the mark of the Bloodwood Outpost.

They were barely thirty feet from the island when suddenly, the entire group stiffen. Stephan growled and half-shifted into bear form. “Something’s wrong,” said Stephan.

“You’ve got that right,” said Gareth. “We’re surrounded."

Lorimer was squeaking anxiously and pointing into the water from the side of the boat. “He’s saying we should get out of the water and get onto the island,” Sorin translated. “He says whatever’s on the island is much less dangerous than what’s underwater.”

“I can only row so fast,” said Stephan, doing his best to steer the boat through what appeared to be a swarm of tiny turtles. Their shells knocked the ship, threatening to capsize it. “That’s it. All oars on deck, including Laurence.” The mosquito-bitten adventurer moved to one side of the boat. Sorin and Lawrence joined Gareth to balance out the ship and barely maintain its course.

“Are those bubbles?” Daphne suddenly exclaimed.

“Those appear to be bubbles, yes,” said Gareth. “Wait. That’s bad, isn’t it.”

“Very bad,” confirmed Daphne.

“Why is that bad?” said Lawrence. “Don’t bubbles push us up?”

“Bubbles are a bad,” said Daphne. “You’re too dumb to get the math behind it.”

“Stop arguing and prepare to evacuate!” snapped Stephan. “Gareth, cover us! Sorin, grab Daphne!”

Gareth jumped out of the boat and fired three arrows into the mouth of a large turtle as it emerged from the water. He then stepped onto its shell and hopped onto the next turtle in sequence, all the while keeping his bow out to cover their group’s retreat.

Stephan was the least nimble of their group. He directly shifted into full bear form and jumped into the swampy waters before they reached the bubbles. He was immediately beset by demonic turtles that tore out chunks of his flesh. Yet he could only grit his sharp teeth as he paddled toward the shoreline.

“You going to be alright?” Lawrence asked Sorin.

“I’ll be fine,” said Sorin. “Are your spells ready? Are you mentally prepared?”

“Just watch your hands,” Daphne said coldly. “I value my life, but I’m not against taking you out with me.”

Sorin grabbed his pack and slung Daphne over his shoulder. He then jumped off the boat and onto a turtle shell like Gareth and Lawrence did. But because of their combined weight, it immediately began to sink. Sorin used Adder Rush to hop to the next turtle, but he fell just short of it.

Fortunately, Daphne was ready for such an occurrence. She blasted flames towards the back, pushing them forward by a foot, enabling Sorin to secure their perch. “Duck!” Daphne yelled. Sorin fell down on all fours as turtle came flying out of the water, missing him by less than three inches.

“Lorimer!” Sorin shouted. “Do your job and keep these things away from us.” The squeaked and jumped off Sorin’s shoulder, intercepting another flying turtle and biting off its head in a single gulp before diving into the water.

“Will he be okay?” asked Daphne.

“I’m not worried about him one bit,” said Sorin. He looked around and saw that the turtles had spread out. Aside form the frustrated demon he was standing on, the others had all retreated twenty feet in every direction. “I don’t suppose mages can fly, can they?”

“I can lighten us, if that helps,” said Daphne.

“Do it,” said Sorin.

“Sustain - Feather Fall!” shouted Daphne. Sorin immediately felt lighter. Not light enough to jump onto the next turtle, but light enough for his next best idea.

“Hold on tight,” said Sorin, jumping. They flew ten feet into the air, crossing half the remaining distance to shore in a single leap.

“We’re not going to make it!” yelled Daphne.

“Shut up and hold on!” snapped Sorin. They were about to hit the water when they suddenly stopped falling and flew towards the beach. Blood leaked down Sorin’s hand as his trusty mithril string bit into his flesh due to their combined weight. “Pull us in!” he shouted at a bloodied Stephan before falling into the water.

Stephan smashed a turtle off his shoulder and wrapped the mithril string around both his arms before pulling with all his strength. Sorin held onto Daphne as with one arm as Stephan yanked them through the water before a turtle could so much as take a bite out of either of them.

Seconds later, they dragged themselves up onto the gravel beach, coughing. “This isn’t… sanitary,” said Sorin, shuddering. “I think… I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Then it’s a good thing I bought some of these,” said Lawrence, dumping a potion over both of their heads. A clear mist washed over their bodies and pulled away the dirty and bacteria laden water, leaving them fresher than if they’d gone to a bathhouse and gotten a professional scrub-down.

“Good call,” said Daphne, giving Lawrence a thumbs up.

“Just give me a hundred gold and we’ll call it even,” said Lawrence with a grin.

“They aren’t even worth three silver,” said Daphne. She opened her pack and was relieved to discover that its waterproof feature was not without merit. Her books, non-magical ones included, had all survived their dunk in the water.

“I don’t want to be a pessimist, but it looks to me like we’re trapped,” said Sorin.

“For a short while at least,” agreed Gareth. “I did a bit of scouting once you were safe and sound and found a washed-up rune boat. The runes are a little worn out, but we could touch them up. Thoughts, Daphne?”

“Maybe?” said Daphne. “I’d have to take a look.”

Sorin picked himself up after throwing up the last of his breakfast. “Stephan, you look terrible. Are those turtle bites deeper than they look?”

“I’m just thinking about the penalty we’ll have to pay for failing to return the rune boat,” said Stephan. “That’s 2,000 gold, straight off the top.”

“I told you we should have taken the insurance,” said Gareth.

Stephan sighed. “Then we can only hope what’s on this island is enough to make up for the loss. Sorin, what are you doing?”

“Just collecting valuable weeds,” said Sorin, taking out a low-grade medicine storage box. He used a gold knife to cut a stalk of purple grass just above the roots. “Purple Butterfly Grass is a one-star ingredient that goes for 15 gold a stalk. And there’s ten whole stalks just growing here without anyone picking them.”