Jeb gave him an M&M, which he immediately shoved in its mouth.
“Anybody else interested in answering three questions?” Jeb asked, shaking the bag.
The leader fairy gave a groan of indignation, but his face was still stuffed with an M&M, so he couldn’t protest too hard when the others came forward, jumping up and down eagerly and waving their hands.
By going through the rest of his M&M bag, Jeb was able to play twenty questions, getting the lay of the land.
The world tortoise was the boss of the tutorial, and it was a kaiju-like tortoise that stood some five hundred feet tall, a walking fortress immune to any and all physical, mental and magical attacks. It was so huge, that one of the fairies said they’d seen a master pyromancer’s empowered fireball splatter against the side of its nostril like a popping zit.
The World Tortoise’s shell was riddled with hives for vicious symbiotes that defended their homes to the death, numbering in the tens to hundreds of thousands. Anyone that tried to go all inner-space on the thing and stab it’s heart directly got torn to shreds in a matter of minutes.
Well, this is hopeless.
When asked what level it would take to kill something like that by himself, the answer was somewhere in the mid two hundreds, with plenty of skills and equipment.
When asked how long it would take someone to reach that level, the answer was somewhere approaching three hundred and fifty years of dedicated training, assuming rejuvenating elixirs were consumed to keep the User young.
Well, that’s not good.
The forest itself was normally crawling with the tortoise’s parasites, but due to the Safe Zones, they were less than usual. Once the Safe zone was gone however, the woods would be overrun with monsters spawning indefinitely from the creature’s shell. Those creatures could be dealt with on an individual basis, by someone ranging from level ten to fifty.
They rarely moved individually, however.
The good news was that there were more Safe Zones, and therefore more humans out there. They could join forces at some point to try and take the tortoise down.
North, the direction he was originally planning on going was littered with sticky trap plants that, once they seized a man, wouldn’t let him go until they’d been pulled underground and digested. There were also aborigines with poison darts to contend with, a not-so-charming combination. A moment’s inattention could lead to being eaten by a tree or poisoned by frog-people.
To the west were stealthy raptors with steel-shearing talons that ambushed their prey and cut them to pieces before they even knew what was there. Past them were rocky mountains with jets of fire and earth and fire elementals that would crush you or cook you. Possibly both.
To the south was a lake with sirens in it which would lure you to your doom unless your Nerve was above twelve. Even if it was, they possessed elemental magic that made them deadly combatants anywhere near the water, which they never strayed from. A good way to get drowned.
To the East…boars. Or boarlike creatures. Big lumbering masses of meat that charged you as soon as look at you. Physically dangerous, but not particularly smart.
Forewarned was forearmed. South, West, and North were out, so he would go East, toward the boars.
Jeb changed his loadout, grabbing a couple of the biggest spears he could find, the biggest crossbow he could find, a shield and a short sword.
If he could spot the big animal before it spotted him, a bolt to the heart might drop it before it had a chance to gore him.
He remade the fire, despite the tree’s general unease around the blaze, and dropped a bunch of green wood on the flame, creating another rally point.
Let’s try this again. Is there anything I missed this time?
Oh right.
Jeb focused on the pile of MRE’s and held his hand out, focusing on the Myst around him. Move, you fucker, move, you fucker! With a mental grunt of effort, Jeb tried to move the Myst over to the MRE and have it carry the tan package of heavy plastic over to him.
Move, move, MOVE!
Nothing.
Damn, well, it was worth a shot. Telekinesis was the go-to superpower. Jeb supposed he’d have to find out more about what the hell Draw and Output capacity were through trial and error. He couldn’t sit around not doing anything, though. For now, he needed to go get some levels.
Still, it wasn’t like his Myst was completely useless. He’d bartered for a ton of information for the low, low price of a travel bag of M&M’s. In a situation like this, knowledge was power, and his Myst had gotten him plenty of it.
There were probably hundreds of humans getting lured into the lake or pulled underground by venus flytraps right now.
Ignorance kills. Another one of dad’s favored quotes.
Jeb dropped his hand and walked over to the MRE’s, grabbing as many as he could carry in his backpack and heading out.
Why carry so much food offsite?
Because he didn’t trust the fairies not to try to get into them while he was gone. The plastic was tough and he doubted they could get it open, but still. Plus, he didn’t want them to come to the conclusion that All MRE’s had candy in them – they did, but he didn’t want them to know that –. Once he had reached an acceptable distance from the clearing, he started opening them one after the other, taking the different candies from each MRE and jamming them in his pockets before shoving the food back in his backpack.
If they wanted to call him M&M-Lord and dedicate their lives to serving his whims, who was Jeb to argue with that?
Future bribes secured, Jeb crouched
