[Shrubley, the Monster Adventurer] Chapter 27 – Mint to be II

The room was cool and dry, a welcome reprieve from the oppressive heat above the ground.

Cal was awkwardly pressing two of his fingertips together in an unfamiliar gesture that Shrubley didn’t comprehend. Magic of some sort?

He shrugged and ambled on over to a table, crawled up into the seat and sat down after stowing his sword and shield.

Even sitting, the Countess still managed to tower over everybody else standing. This wasn’t much of an accomplishment, even in Cal’s case, who was well under 6 feet tall even while standing.

And it wasn’t as if the koblin was much taller than Shrubley.

The koblin went over to the vampyr’s side, looking much like a child beside her mother.

Countess Haalften turned a wry look on the young koblin. She looked back at Shrubley. “I take it you are the leader? These misfits appear to follow you. And they would have followed you right to your deaths if I had not come back for you. What are you doing here?”

Shrubley folded his hands atop the dusty table they sat at and kicked his little feet back and forth as he took in the candlelit room. It looked like an ancient family crypt. Though he noticed that none of the names were Haalften.

Still, it was a room constructed mostly of stone blocks with several larger plaques of stone with writing. Names and dates, it looked like. Shrubley did not understand what it meant, so he turned his attention back to the woman before him and told his tale in full.

She stopped him several times to ask questions, to which he gladly clarified, but the whole of it was still unknown to him.

Shrubley had stumbled onto something that, if he was quite honest with himself and Countess Haalften, he was ill-equipped to handle.

“You may have stepped into something bigger than you could have ever imagined,” Countess Haalften said. She leaned back, and the chair creaked worryingly under her.

She wasn’t fat in any way that Shrubley could see, but she was dense. There was a thickness to her curves that suggested she could have arm wrestled Lurl the Barbarian and beaten him without breaking a sweat.

In which case, Shrubley felt the need to ask, “You seem very powerful, my Lady. Why do you not simply eat the smaller creature that has harmed your husband?”

Countess Haalften was indeed powerful. She had ruled as a vampyr for generations, and she was always kind to her people and only asked for a small recompense for her generosity and kindness.

It was the proper way of things for a vampyr of her lineage, to live in symbiotic peace rather than savage violence.

The Red Tithe wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep her sated and the worst of her bloodlust at bay.

She sighed. It had been an age since she last feasted.

“Perhaps I could have, once,” she said. “But the creature you call the Snake Lord, he ensorcelled my husband and managed to trick me into some damnable well. I found myself here, alone and without sustenance.”

“You are dying?” Cal asked with great concern.

“No. I am a Vampyr Lady, strong enough to sustain myself on ambient mana alone should I need to, but my power has waned significantly. I made the mistake of feeding on one of those snake creatures and their poisoned blood has weakened me further. Until I get proper blood, I am probably little stronger than either of you.”

Unconcerned until this point, Slyrox squeaked in alarm. As a koblin, she most certainly had blood.

“You have nothing to fear from me, little one,” she said soothingly. “Out of all of your friends, you are the only one with blood, but it is not the blood I need. A pity.”

“Not for me,” she said in a tiny voice.

“No. Were you a human, I would have been unable to contain myself and likely would have drained you until you were little more than a withered husk.”

Slyrox melted and flowed down her chair, fell to the ground, and scrambled under the table until she was up on another chair beside Shrubley.

They looked like a pair of children trying to face a rather stern parent in a round of bargaining.

Look at what I am reduced to, the Countess thought to herself.

“We can help,” Shrubley said. “We are adventurers.”

That earned a startled and belly-deep laugh from the Countess. She clapped a hand demurely to her plump lips in surprise. Then she realized they were not joking. “You are adventurers?”

Shrubley showed her his badge.

“Since when did the Guild start letting in….” She trailed off, sensing a dangerous glint in the shrub’s eyes. Interesting.

“Since I joined,” Shrubley said proudly.

“You are a greenie, yes?”

“In more ways than one!”

It’s like talking to a puppy. Lady Haalften folded her large hands on top of the table. “I had most of the blasted serpentii around here locked up in the guildhall until you four ruined it. I don’t know what use you’ll be other than bait. The fact that you didn’t die immediately proves that you are more useful than those adventurers that appeared a week ago.”

Shrubley’s leafy brow furrowed. “The pair in the guildhall?”

“The very same. I take it you saw them then. As you can see, the serpentii strip their prey clean until they resemble bleached bones. They possess vicious poison that erodes anything they inject with it.” She suddenly sat upright and stared urgently at Shrubley. “Did you happen to grab a small jade amulet one of them had?”

To her surprise, the blood-haver spoke, “Slyrox has.”

There was a curious glint in the Countess’ eyes. “Well, well, perhaps you aren’t as useless as I thought. Give it here, girl.”

Clearly used to command, the Countess had her hand out, waiting. She looked down after a few seconds, surprised to find it empty still.

“What does it do?” Slyrox asked slyly, without offering the item. The koblin’s smoky lenses betrayed nothing.

A vicious little smile curled on the Countess’ lips. They’re not quite as easily cowed as I thought. Maybe I can use them…. She let her hands fall to her lap. “You will recall that I said I was a Vampyr Lady? I have ruled the Haalften lands for quite some time and was not without my own means of power and prestige.”

Slyrox motioned for her to continue, clearly growing more confident.

The Countess cleared her throat. “I had… connections with the Guild. An arrangement, you might say. Before I was too weakened, I used the last of my powers to send a message to those two adventurers you found. They were to retrieve a special item for me, one of great power. Did you notice the amulet is made up of countless jade serpents?”

Slyrox nodded.

“It is our way back,” she said simply. “Without it, we can’t get back through the well, and anything we might do would be utterly useless. With that amulet, however, we can claw our way back through the portal and return to our rightful Shard.” She extended her hand, palm up once more. “So, unless you know how to use such an artifact, I suggest you hand it over.”

“Hmm, does Shrubley have brain-fruit?” Slyrox looked to Shrubley for what he wanted done. The shrub monster had saved her once already, and that went a long way towards earning the little koblin’s trust.

Technically, the Countess had done almost the same, but Slyrox had already grown attached to Shrubley at that point.

In just a few short days, Shrubley had learned a great deal about not only other people, but himself as well. And what he learned most of all was when somebody much stronger than you was asking you for something, there was a reason they were not taking it.

Sometimes that reason could be as simple as laziness, and other times it was because they could not.

He was not dishonest or untrusting by nature, and he rather liked Lady Haalften, but he was not stupid. At least, not too stupid. Shrubley shook his head slightly and Slyrox nodded.

The Countess slammed a fist onto the table, shattering it on impact. She snarled, revealing her long pearly white canines as she rose to her full commanding height. “You will give me that amulet!”

Shrubley folded his woody fingers together over his middle. He looked her dead in the eye and said, “No.”

There was a long, drawn out moment where anything could have happened. The Lady looked as if she wanted to tear Shrubley’s throat out–not that he had one–but she didn’t.

Instead, Shrubley was sure he saw an amused, calculating look in her ruby-red eyes.

Slyrox covered her eyes with her mitts. Fortunately, she had been clever enough not to take the amulet out in the open.

Shrubley figured she must have an inventory like he did, although what a koblin might specifically have, he wasn’t sure.

Unsure what was going on, Smudge oozed over onto Slyrox protectively. The process certainly wasn’t fast. It took effort for the slime as it slowly encased the koblin.

“Am I being assimilated?” Slyrox asked from within. The koblin, quite surprised and a little bit confused, floated within his gelatinous mass, seemingly safe.

With a swipe of the Countess’ hand, the table lifted off the ground in a dozen different pieces and sealed itself back together as if it was never damaged to begin with.

Shrubley’s mana was mostly spent already or else he would have used [Lifelong Student] to try out whatever essence power that was. He was sure it was not a spell.

“Incredible,” Cal whispered at this display of unknown magic.

“Very well,” the Countess said, steepling her powerful hands. “Even in my weakened state, I could still crush all of you. I may not be the Steel Rank I was, but even as a Copper, I could kill either of you with little more than a thought.”

Shrubley nodded. He could sense the waves of strength coming off her. She reminded him of his first encounter with an adventurer of Taamra. That man in shining plate armor that had so kindly welcomed him to town. She felt as strong as him.

“But you won’t,” he said. “Because we are the only hope you have of getting out of here.”

The Countess’ eyes weighed and measured Shrubley to within an inch of his life. I’ve never seen an adventurer so green yet so calculating. Just what is he? She made a dismissive gesture with one hand, her long fingernails glinting like sharpened claws. “I haven’t ruled it out just yet, but it does seem an awful lot of trouble to go through for very little reward. I mean, you don’t even have blood.”

Shrubley leaned forward on the table. “Then I propose we work together.”

“Bold of you to assume I would deign to work with you. I have henchmen that are already Iron Rank.”

“They are not here,” Shrubley said in that infuriatingly calm voice of his. “We are.”

Lady Haalften smirked. Touche.