Chapter Thirty-Three: Vacation

Chapter Thirty-Three: Vacation

The first several days of travel were uneventful. The expedition was attacked regularly, but it was no issue for the bloody monks.

They had all trained in the Proving Grounds. They all made regular pilgrimages to far off lands, and to do so, they had to travel across the Grounds and back again. Fending off attacks while travelling with over one hundred of their brothers and sisters was a walk in the park for them.

Many of the monks even ranged further afield, returning to camp each night boasting of the beasts they’d slain in Goddess’ name. Tom was perfectly happy travelling with such a large group that they had no real worry of serious injury or death, for once.

Being ambush predators for the most part, the creatures in the Grounds tended not to bother with such a large, well protected and prepared party. On the flip side, their larger numbers also drew attention from further away, and there were always those monsters desperate enough to eat to try their luck. The factors seemed to mostly balance each other out.

By the end of the third day they’d amassed a large following of scavengers, all looking to take advantage of the beast corpses left in their wake. Winewolves, scavenger birds, and the small, earthen dogs, all followed after them in ever growing numbers. Each night, when they made camp, the air was full of the sounds of yipping and barking as they fought over scraps.

Tom was enjoying himself greatly. He had a captive audience of over one hundred seasoned veterans of the Proving Grounds at his disposal, and he was ensuring he made use of every single waking minute.

Rosa rolled her eyes at his antics, but dealt with the second hand embarrassment with grace because she knew he wouldn’t be dissuaded. Darius, on the other hand, found it hilarious, and worked with Tom to draw unwilling and unsuspecting monks into conversations as they travelled.

Tom talked to them about anything and everything, but especially the flora and fauna of the Grounds, and their fighting styles and Ideals. Most of the monks were happy, excited even, to discuss such things with him.

For the first week, at least.

Soon enough, even the most gregarious monks tired of the in depth discussions. Tom did manage to find a couple of monks who matched his enthusiasm on the topics. A couple of scouts were keen to talk at length about the strangest and most curious creatures they’d come across in the Grounds, and Tom got the distinct feeling that the rest of the expedition felt he was doing them a favour by tying up a burly monk in conversation every night when he returned from his daily jaunts.

The brawny fellow was somewhat of a trophy hunter. He had even brought along some special spatial storage items for him to bring his grisly trophies back. He was older, and absolutely covered in scars -a testament to his long and successful career. He also loved talking about his exploits just as much as Tom liked hearing about them.

Both the scouts and the hunter spun many tales of strange and unusual creatures in the Grounds. One of the scouts had encountered an earthquake golem in their youth, which had years later been destroyed by a previous Abbot. They’d also once seen one of the famous grand herds of bison in the Thresh, the huge plains south of the Proving Grounds on the other side of the extensive Tavern Alley river.

The other scout had never ran into any of the truly rare beasts in the Grounds, but talked at length about the strange sprites and golems they’d seen in the Rust Sands: oasis and mirage sprites, and clay and iron golems, even one rust sprite.

The hunter had once seen a marsh dragon, fully grown, right at the border with the saltwater marshlands to the north of the Grounds. He proudly produced a single, milky black scale for Tom’s inspection. It was bigger than a dinner plate, and certainly looked a lot like the scales of the forest drake that Tom had fought.

The hunter had only observed the dragon from afar. Actually engaging with a fully grown dragon in combat was tantamount to instant suicide for anyone but a Flawless Idealist. Even for a Flawless Idealist, fighting a dragon was a dicey proposition.

When fully grown, not only were they much larger than drakes, but they could fly and use their signature breath attacks as well. The real danger was more subtle though. Dragons had decades more experience at least, usually a hundred years or more, and were subsequently much more intelligent and cunning.

The nearby monks rolled their eyes as the hunter told the story. Tom got it. They must have heard it repeated hundreds of times. If he’d ever seen a fully grown natural born dragon he’d certainly be telling the story a lot.

The scouts and the hunter were also curious about the Deep Green, and they spent hours in conversation about that too. All of them had spent at least a little time in the Deep, but the world was unfathomably large, and one could spend a lifetime in any given environment and still not see all the creatures and phenomenon that it contained.

Tom regaled them with his fight with the forest drake, to which they expressed much amazement. To hunt a drake and kill it when only a complete Idealist was a solid achievement. He produced one of its scales for the hunter, gifting it to him. Thereafter, the hunter had sought him out straight away whenever he got back into camp, giving Tom choice essences and such that he’d found. Tom thought it was well worth it. He still had a few scales lying around that he’d kept as souvenirs, and the hunter having another trophy seemed to make him happy.

He told them all about finding the Lily of the Hearth, and several other natural treasures he’d found. Most he’d sold to Bubbles, some others he’d kept, either because the alchemist couldn’t identify them and had no use for them, or because Tom had simply liked how they looked or felt.

He removed a sheath of ghostly white grass from his wisp storage. He’d found it during the guerilla raids against the orcish army, growing beside a small pond in the Deep. The grass was white as bone, and left behind a strange afterimage of itself for half a second when it moved. It made a low, mournful sound when the wind moved through it -or when it was moved through the wind, now that it had been plucked.

He’d noticed it because of the outrageously dense mana concentrated in the grass, though no one he’d shown it to had known what it was. When he showed it to the hunter, he just about caused a riot. Only Abbess Sunrise stepping in got everyone to calm down.

The grass apparently grew very, very rarely in the Grounds too. The monks called it Soulweed. Eating it was said to cleanse undue corruption of the soul. Tom was perplexed, but the hunter explained that the monks were always worried that the amount of beasts they killed was tainting their souls with the foul mana the beasts contained, slowly and irrevocably ruining their chances at meeting Goddess in the afterlife.

They of course had ritual prayers, soul-strengthening incense, catechisms and purification potions and all manner of other ways in which their soul might be cleansed, at least until they reached the higher tiers at which stage their soul could resist such influence itself, but Soulweed was regarded as the best. And Tom had a lot of it.

Sunrise held an impromptu auction for the grass on Tom’s behalf. Everyone wanted some. Sunrise extracted all manner of goods and promises of payment, noting them all down diligently and efficiently. Tom simply watched, bemused. He had no use for the grass himself of course, not really believing that his soul was being corrupted, and not particularly caring even if it was. If it ever became an issue for him he could get Bubbles, or another alchemist, to whip him something up, and he thought Sweet Suffering probably gave him decent protection against such things anyway.

It turned out to be moot. Abbess Sunrise finished the auction, parcelling out the grass to the winning bidders, before getting everyone moving again with a hint of exasperation. She handed Tom back a few stalks of the grass, as well as the promissory notes and assorted goods.

“For your own use,” she explained. Tom kept silent on the matter. “It would not be becoming for you to give away all such a boon.” She paused. “And boon it is, no mistake. I am wishing you did not stop us in the middle of the march, but it is very good that so many will go to battle with the enemy with purity in their hearts. I thank you, Tom Cutter.”

Tom shrugged, but accepted the thanks. He was more interested in the goods the Abbess had won for him. People had given up all manner of things: potions and essences, coinage, weapons and armour pieces were all there, but minor natural treasures made up the bulk of the haul.

Tom could picture the look of glee on Bubbles’ face when he dropped this in front of him. Natural treasures made the best alchemical reagents, and the further away alchemical ingredients came from the more valuable they were. Travel around the continent was not getting any less dangerous, after all.

Flora and fauna were not the only things Tom was learning about though. He had always been interested in Ideals themselves, and about combat of any type, and here a huge range of both were represented.

The differences in combat between Wayrest and Horizon were stark. The monks were individual warriors, and did not combine into any cohesive army. They could gather as a single force, certainly, but it was not the same thing. The different cultures led to a number of differences in their Ideals.

Wayrest tended to spawn a large amount of Sword, Spear, Bow and Shield Ideals, but Mace, Hammer, and Axe were also relatively common. The Deep had all manner of well armoured or otherwise well protected denizens, and maces, hammers and axes were all perfect for damaging them.

The monsters in the Grounds were ambush predators, lightly armoured for the most part, relying on speed and deadliness to quickly subdue their prey. Accordingly, the monks had a higher representation of Sword and Spear Ideals and less heavy weaponry, the better to respond to threats. They also had more throwing weapons-adjacent Ideals, things like Hatchets, Knives, Darts and Javelins.

In terms of more general Ideals, the monks trended towards things like: Ice, Rock, Sun, Moon, Mountain, Plains and Grass. This was in direct contrast to Wayrest’s most common, general Ideals: Tactics, Teamwork, Wood, Forest, Plants, Water and Earth.

Upon consideration Tom decided there was a certain amount of truly common Ideals to both cities. Things like Fire, Air, Strength, and Endurance seemed to be commonly held Ideals in either location.

Because of the Monastery’s more pragmatic view on Ideals, or perhaps because of Wayrest’s until-recently-outmoded view on them, there was also a profusion of more eclectic Ideals among the monks too.

Tom was thriving watching the monks fight off the regular ambushes and discussing their Ideals with them afterwards. Most of them were more amenable to talking on that topic as opposed to beasts, but even so they had their limits.

Watching the famed Bloody Monks fight in their element, unrestricted against all kinds of exciting beasts? Tom almost felt as if he was on some kind of bizarre vacation tailored specifically for him. He never wanted it to end.