He’d dragged him out of sight of the rest of us and stripped him before his paralysis wore off. Now and then we’d hear him cry out, but most of the time, we only heard occasional quiet words.
Eventually he returned, and Horkesh was healed. I discussed quietly with her why she shouldn’t rush off to attack, and she agreed to wait for my lead in future.
We gathered and rested, waiting on mana to refill, while a much more cautious Horkesh sent her drones out to search the surrounding area. We examined the loot from the six Drow; everyone who wanted one now had at least a sword and a dagger of Drow design, and most had more than one. Jian was experimenting with the twin scythes and looked to be loving every second of it.
I grabbed the alchemical kit, finding it to be considerably higher quality than the one I’d had before, and I disassembled it with familiarity, slipping the alembics and tubes free, and stashing them in my bag. I also ‘Examined’ one of the flowers that lay on the table.
Deathbloom Flower
Further Description Yes/No
Details:
This flower from the rare Deathbloom plant can only be grown in darkness. Light from any source other than its own bioluminescence will cause the plant to begin to decay. Deathbloom plants must be fed on a mixture of fresh soil, decomposing flesh, and highly oxygenated blood to ensure the greatest chance of the plant putting forth flowers.
Uses Discovered:
1) Poison
2) Increased Virility
3) ?
4) ?
Rarity
Magical
Durability
Charge:
Rare
Yes
99/100
N/A
My improved ‘Examination’ skill and increased alchemical skill meant that I now saw two uses for the ingredients, and I sniggered at the fact that such a deadly plant could also be used to put a little peck in the pecker. I looked around at the corpses of the fearsome Drow and grinned as a new thought came to mind: maybe the reason they were such assholes was that, as a race, they suffered from whisky dick?
It made their general hatred of all other races and their massive superiority complex so much more understandable. I decided to pass around the good news and got a wide variety of grins in return. The conversation changed to reasons the Drow were such assholes immediately, such as why they were all so skilled with their weapons… after all, they had to be used to ‘handling things’ and trying to do the most with what little they had…
We rested for a few more minutes, all of us feeling a little better, and I checked over the notifications I’d been ignoring so far.
I just looked at the bottom line; having had little real effect in that last fight, I’d gained a huge 1600xp in total on my own, and as I was in a party, I’d gotten a further 2000xp from that.
It wasn’t much, considering how hard the fighting had been, and I casually asked Miren about her gains, biting my tongue when she happily admitted to rising by three levels in the last few days. She and the rest of the squad were gaining bucket loads of experience more than me, including a quest to protect me!
Everything they killed gained them more than double my experience, then they got the same again in bonus!
I sat there, my jaws aching from clenching them so hard, as they all chatted happily about how hard, but rewarding, the fights were.
I was getting hosed with the rewards! I knew that Jenae had said I was going to get far less experience than I should, due to the injuries I’d sustained in using all the Spellbooks, but fuck, seriously? I was going to be leveled past by my own team soon.
I forced a smile… I was happy for them all, I really was I just had to get a healer up to the level I needed sooner rather than later, or this was going to get embarrassing.
I started stripping the flowers in the cavern while I waited for my mana to regenerate. The rest of the team, seeing what I was doing, spread out and helped, netting me eighty-seven flowers, which improved my mood considerably. The real prize, though, was that the Drow mage had a rather nice silver bracelet that increased the wearer’s maximum mana by fifty points, as well as a much more impressive Bag of Holding than my own.
I’d hefted it when Lydia had passed it to me, looking it over nonplussed, until I ‘Examined’ it.
Bag of Holding
Further Description Yes/No
Details:
This Journeyman level Bag of Holding provides 50 spaces for storage. Each slot is capable of holding up to 99 identical items before filling a second slot. Weight reduction is 84% and there are 47 slots currently available.
Rarity
Magical
Durability
Charge:
Rare
Yes
82/100
N/A
I couldn’t help but let out a whoop as I checked the grid, finding there were thirty-six gold coins, two magelights, and a trio of vials of Deathbloom poison.
Deathbloom Poison
Further Description Yes/No
Details:
This poison is one of the most reviled in the realm. Not only does it commonly kill its victim, doing 100 points of damage on contact, but it also lowers the target’s health and mana pool by 10 points per second for sixty seconds. This reduction is permanent and cannot be healed.
Rarity
Magical
Durability
Charge:
Special
Yes
100/100
1/1
I knew straight away this was a weapon I didn’t want to fall into the wrong hands, and by that, I meant any hands but mine. I called across to Arrin, and tossed him the bracelet, getting a grin in return, and I went through the rest of the loot, finding that the two bags of ingredients held a combination of Sweet Thyme and Chamomile.
Knowing they’d obviously been planned for use with the Deathbloom meant I either had part of the recipe for that poison, or possibly a way to give someone a hard on they could beat a dragon to death with.
I
