Chapter 189 - Overextended (Patreon)

Zeke awoke to a world of pain, fatigue, and regret. Groaning, he tried to sit up, but even that minor movement took a monumental effort. Still, he persisted, and when he finally managed to drag himself upright, he looked around. His head was pounding, he was starving, and it felt like he hadn’t had anything to drink in a week. All of this told him that more than a single night of unconsciousness had passed. He sat with his head cradled in his hands for some time before he heard the door opening. He tried to react, but his movements – as well as his mind – were sluggish.

“Finally awake, huh?” said Abby, sweeping into the room. “How do you feel?”

“Like crap,” he muttered, massaging the bridge of his nose. Looking up, he asked, “How long was I out?”

“A little more than a week,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I tried to wake you, but the best I could do was get you to swallow a little water each day. What was it? Did you get poisoned again?”

He shook his head, which was a huge mistake – his brain felt like it was rattling around in his skull. “Left my skill going for too long,” he said. “I didn’t even notice there was a problem until I got back here. Then, when I cancelled it, it just…overwhelmed me, I guess.”

“Which skill?” she asked.

“[Heart of the Berserker],” was his response. “The new armor counteracts the endurance penalty, but I guess the weakness after deactivation is still there. I was stupid not to account for that. I’m just glad I didn’t turn it off before coming back to the tower; I hate to think what would’ve happened if some of the monsters around the lake would have found me unconscious.”

Of course, Pudge would’ve been there to protect him, but there were plenty of creatures in the area that could overwhelm the infernal bear. They’d only managed to defeat the Flameback Turtle because of their resistance to its primary means of attack; without their near immunity to fire, it would have been a very different battle. Even the fire resistance potions they’d used against the fire ants would’ve been insufficient to withstand the turtle’s flames.

That’s when he thought about Pudge. “Oh, shit,” he said, his eyes widening in alarm. “I left Pudge out there…”

“He’s fine,” Abby said. “He came back after we took care of that mob of people.”

“You took care of them?” he asked. “What does that mean?”

“We didn’t hurt them or anything,” she explained. “After you passed out, I went back out there to hand out food. It took a couple of days of me doing that before they agreed to come inside. They’re on the bottom level right now.”

Zeke let himself collapse back onto the bed’s soft pillows, then asked, “Did you find anything out?”

She answered, “Just that things aren’t looking good,” she said. “We really need to progress as quickly as we can, because I’m not sure how long this place is going to survive.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s a war going on,” she stated. “The undead have surrounded Beacon. The city’s blockaded, and the horde is sending war parties out to assault the waystations and any other settlements. Geraldine said the one that hit her town only had one giant and a couple of elite reapers and corpse golems, but they saw a few parties that were a lot more powerful. And it’s not just humans and giants, either. There are gnolls. Caprids. Goblins. The whole island is at war.”

Zeke let out a sigh. Wading through a warzone wasn’t going to be easy. Certainly, he liked his chances, but as powerful as he and his friends were, they could still be overwhelmed. And that wasn’t even considering how he felt about the thousands of people who were likely dying.

With that in mind, he looked at Abby and asked, “Do you want to get involved?”

She looked away, her blonde ponytail bobbing with the motion. “I knew you would ask that,” the woman said.

“And?”

“I want to,” she said. “I really do. But that is the work of years. Maybe decades. Micayne has been building his horde for a long time, and he’s had a lot of help doing it. Who knows how many people Constance sent up there? The Spiders, too. We barely escaped last time.”

“We’re a lot stronger, now,” Zeke pointed out.

“Sure. But we were kind of an afterthought, don’t you think?” she said. “We spent a long time killing zombies, and we barely made a dent. On top of that, I’m pretty sure he had a lot of more powerful undead at his disposal. No, I think we should keep doing what we’re doing. Kill the wyrm, finish our quest, and then grind out the last couple of levels. Then, we can find our way to the next plane.”

Zeke pushed himself back up, saying, “This doesn’t sound like you.”

“Doesn’t it, though?” was her retort. “I’ve made a lot of bad decisions, in this life and the last. I married the wrong man. I didn’t leave when I knew I should have. I’ve played it safe when I should’ve been aggressive, and I’ve made choices that, in hindsight, were completely moronic. Like going with Julio, way back when. And because of my bad decisions, people have been hurt. Some have died. I died because I couldn’t force myself to leave my asshole husband.”

Zeke didn’t know what to say, so he remained silent. After a few more seconds, Abby continued, “I’m trying to be better, though. I’m trying to make the right choices. And even though every part of me is screaming to help all those people, to fight the undead horde and try to kill Micayne, I know it’s the wrong choice. Even if we manage to win, what does it gain us? Nothing.”

“We’d save a lot of people.”

“We can’t save everyone, Zeke,” she stated. “Not even most. And even if we could, it’s not our responsibility.”

“Do you really believe that?” he asked.

Again, she stayed silent for a long few moments before answering, “I don’t know. I’m trying to.”

“I don’t,” he said. “I mean, look – I know I’m not responsible for everyone. But if I see an opportunity to help, I’m going to. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t. It’s the same as you handing food to those people out there. You have an instinct to help, same as me.”

Even as he said it, Zeke wasn’t so sure he believed it to be true. He’d long known that Abby didn’t share his convictions. Where Zeke would throw himself into battle for no other reason than to avenge a bunch of strangers, Abby was a lot more pragmatic with her approach. She was willing to fight, but left to her own devices, she would only do so if there was some tangible benefit. Otherwise, she’d ignore anything she deemed someone else’s problem.

The only exception was that she seemed perfectly willing to follow Zeke’s lead, regardless of whether or not she agreed with his reasoning. Sure, she struggled with the morality of killing – and in a way that Zeke never had – but when push came to shove, she would do what had to be done.

The moment that thought came to mind, Zeke began to wonder if his relationship with Abby was based on the same dichotomy. Was she with him because doing so led her to increased strength? Did she really like him? Or was he just a means to an end?

“Are you okay?” she asked, scooting closer. She reached out to cup his cheek. “I think you need more rest before we make any decisions on what to do.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, pushing the dark thoughts away. “You’re probably right. But first, I’m starving.”

With that, he summoned a pre-made meal he’d had stored – a whole roasted chicken-like creature and some potatoes – and started in. It was more difficult than he expected, given his overall lack of energy, and by the time he had finished, he was covered in grease. That necessitated another shower, which was an adventure all its own. Still, he managed, and when he got back to the bedroom, Abby had helpfully changed his sheets.

“They weren’t that bad, were they?” he asked.

“I’m not answering that,” she stated. “Just think about what you just asked.”

Collapsing back onto the bed, he did as she asked, and when he did, he remembered that he’d been passed out in that bed for a week. Yeah – it was probably better not to think about how soiled that bed had to have been. Once he was tucked back in, he found it difficult to keep his eyes open, and predictably, he was soon overtaken by a deep slumber.

The next few days were more of the same. He was mostly bedridden, but as the days passed, he was at least able to keep himself awake; without much else to do, he reverted back to the strategy he’d developed during his much longer convalescence: alternating between working on his runecrafting and meditating on the concepts he’d begun to understand. The latter was slow going, but with the former, he managed to make some headway by using his experience combined with the information in the book, Runic Composition. He’d thought he had begun to exhaust the book’s usefulness, but it felt like the more he discovered, the more helpful it had become.

Specifically, Zeke had begun to explore the viability of runic traps. If he’d been able to draw even rudimentary traps in the pit, the fight against the turtle might have been much, much easier. And with a fight against a wyrm looming over them, he knew they needed all the advantages they could get. So, if he couldn’t drag himself out of bed, he would do whatever he could to help their chances of survival.

As he recovered, Abby and Carlos volunteered to escort the refugees to Jariq, and they set out on the second day of Zeke’s convalescence. Talia wanted to go as well, but everyone decided that that was a bad idea, considering her undead nature. She accepted, though she wasn’t happy about it.

Finally, as the second week came to a close, Zeke began to regain his strength in earnest. Another few days, and he was back to normal. So, fifteen days after the fight against the turtle, Zeke and Pudge returned to the lakeside to find that the area’s inhabitants had picked the giant corpse clean. All that remained was the enormous turtle shell, and even that had lost much of its rocky coating.

Neither were terribly surprising. Even mundane animals wouldn’t let a perfectly good corpse go to waste, and he’d suspected that it would be no different in the Radiant Isles. As to the disappearance of the rocky coating, without the magic wafting off of a monarch-tier creature, it had crumbled to dust.

He stared at it for a long moment as he considered his plan, which was simple enough. The shell had proven it could withstand the acidic lake, so he intended to flip it over and use it as a makeshift boat. There were two problems with that, though. First, it had a pretty massive hole in what would be the hull. Second, he had no means of propulsion. Even if he could get the thing to float, he had doubts about whether he could make it move.

He glanced around, hoping to see something that might solve one of his problems, but he didn’t immediately find anything. So, he sat down to think about the conundrum. As he did, Pudge wandered around, looking for something to fight. He found a few small creatures, but none of them were powerful enough to challenge the infernal bear.

Finally, he cast his mind into his spatial storage, and after a few minutes, his thoughts alighted on something that could potentially solve one of the problems. An instant later, a few mottled red-and-black and leathery skins appeared in his hand. They’d come from the salamanders, and judging by how quick the monsters were to retreat into the lake, Zeke suspected that they were resistant to the acidic water. Still, he needed to check.

So, he went to the water line and dipped one of the skins into the dark liquid. When he pulled it out, Zeke was happy to see that it had remained intact. He pumped his fist in victory. Now, he only needed a means to attach the skin to the shell as a patch, and he’d have his raft. For that, he planned to use some of the leftover putty-like substance they’d used in the obsidian caverns.

After testing it out and seeing that it was unaffected by the acid, Zeke went to work. First, he patched the interior of the shell – a horrible experience, given that it still contained quite a bit of rotting and liquified turtle – and after finishing, he left through one of the leg holes. Then, he climbed atop the shell and, after stretching one of the skins into place, repeated the process on the other side.

Was it perfect? No. Would it last? Probably not. But he judged that it would be good enough for a single trip out to the island in the center of the lake. Besides – it wasn’t as if he had any other options, if he wanted to complete the quest he’d received. If it came down to it, he thought he could survive for around thirty minutes in the lake before his flesh succumbed to the acid, but it wasn’t exactly his preferred option.

Next, Zeke went to work cleaning out the turtle’s bones and what little flesh he could find. He didn’t want to carry any extra weight; he suspected that the shell would barely float, so he didn’t want to push his luck. It took most of the next three days – between which, he returned to the tower to rest – before he was satisfied.

As he’d worked, he had come upon a solution to his other propulsion problem, and using one of the turtle’s bigger bones and more salamander skin, he managed to fashion a rudimentary paddle. Again, it wasn’t perfect – he knew enough to know that much – but he hoped it would be enough to get him to the island and back again.

So, on the fifth day, he and Pudge flipped the turtle shell over and shoved it into the water. After leaping to the top, he told Pudge, “Stay in the area, buddy. I’d take you with me, but…well, I don’t think you’d survive if you got dumped into the water.”

Pudge wasn’t happy about it, but he’d agreed to let Zeke go alone. Reluctantly. And with tons of complaining. But he’d done it, and that was all that mattered.

Hefting his paddle, Zeke pushed off the shore, and floated out into deeper waters. As he did, he couldn’t help but think that he was really pushing his luck. Still, if the quest was anything like the ones he’d been given before, it would be well worth the risk. Comforted by that thought, he paddled ahead.