Chapter 69: Dumpling Soup (1/2)

There was a small jetty from which they could see the village. There were several dinghies tied up, one of which had been sunk in the shallow water. A streak of dried blood was on the part jutting above the waterline.

“Looks like someone’s hurt,” Clive said as he tied the airboat to the jetty.

“I hope so,” Jason said.

“You hope someone’s hurt?” Clive asked.

“You can fix hurt. Can’t fix dead.”

Jason stopped, looking at Clive.

“You can’t fix dead, can you?” Jason asked. “It never occurred to me to ask.”

“Not at our rank,” Clive said. “Some gold rank healing effects can bring you back if they’re used immediately,” Clive said.

“Like magic CPR,” Jason said.

“I don’t know what that is,” Clive said. “There’s also diamond rank, but there are always rumours about diamond rank.”

They walked towards the village. Like the others they had visited, there was no one to be seen. The people had holed themselves up as they waited for adventurers to arrive. The buildings were mudbrick, with woven reed doors and window shutters. Many of the doors had been scratched into shreds, revealing barriers of stone or metal that had been placed behind them. The people of the delta were prepared for monsters.

Jason loudly announced their presence and the village mayor came out to meet them. She described the monster, which sounded to Jason like a claw-footed, six-legged crocodile.

“That’s a mangrove snatcher alright,” Clive said.

“Is someone hurt?” Jason asked.

”There is,” the mayor said. ”We're worried because the healers don't make it out here every month. Even if they do come, I don't know if he can last that long. The injury is bad enough, but the infection has set in.”

“Best show us, then,” Jason said. The mayor started leading them through the village.

“I imagine infection would be a problem here in the delta,” Jason said.

“It is,” the mayor said. “Do you have healing abilities?”

“I can handle the infection,” Jason said. “The injury will take a potion. Unless you can heal injuries, Clive?”

“No,” Clive said, shaking his head. “I have some self-healing, but I can’t use it on others.”

“We can’t afford potions,” the mayor said. “We could probably put together enough for some healing ointment, if you have some.”

“Ointment won’t get the job done on deep wounds,” Jason said. “I learned that the hard way. I’ll probably use a potion, maybe two.”

“We really can’t afford it,” the mayor said.

“We’re here to save the day, Madam Mayor,” Jason said. “All part of the service.”

The mayor looked at him, nonplussed.

“You’ll just give us a potion?”

“Adventure Society,” Jason said, flashing her a smile. “We’re here to help.”

The mayor called out at a house and the barricade was removed from the door. Inside was a man laying on a bed, stripped down to his underwear, with a stained-through bandage wrapped around his leg. He was sweat-covered and muttering to himself.

Jason winced.

“I’d better get straight onto that.”

Jason walked over to the bed, where a woman was dabbing the man’s forehead with a wet cloth.

“Excuse I,” Jason said as he stood next to her. He held a hand over the injured man and chanted out his spell.

“Feed me your sins.”

Red life force shone out from the man, tainted with the yellow and purple colours of a bruise. Those infecting colours rose up from the red light, disappearing into Jason’s hand. What remained was the clean red glow of life force, which retracted into that man’s body.

You have cleansed all instances of disease [Infection] from [Human].You have cleansed all instances of disease [Sepsis] from [Human].Your stamina and mana have been replenished.Stamina and mana cannot exceed normal maximum values. Excess stamina and mana are lost.

The injured man took a shuddering breath, then started looking about, confused. His eyes became focused, looking at all the people around him.

“Welcome back, mate,” Jason said. “I’m Jason. Adventurer, raconteur, man-about-town.”

“What?”

Jason pulled a knife from his inventory. It wasn’t his fighting knife, but a magically sharp utility knife he had purchased. He dug it under the filthy bandages and cut them away with a single, smooth slice. There were deep claw marks underneath that started pulsing out blood immediately. Jason pulled out a healing potion, carefully pouring it into the wound.

“Alchemist mate of mine made this stuff,” Jason said. “More effective on external wounds than just chugging it straight down.”

The wounds quickly closed up. An iron-rank potion was more effective on a normal person than it was on an iron ranker. The fact that it would be longer before they could use another was a middling drawback, which was why many adventurers kept a high-rank potion on hand for emergencies.

In moments the open wounds had closed into glaring welts. Jason took out a tin of ointment and handed it to the woman by the bed.

“Give him a half-hour for the potion to work its way through his system, then use this,” Jason instructed. “There won’t be a mark left on him.”

“We can’t afford this,” the woman said, although Jason noted how tightly she clutched the tin.

“On the house,” Jason said. “Well, on me. This is your house. Come on Clive; we’ve got more villages to check on.”

“Something’s not right,” Jason said.

“You mean other than your idea to stake me out, covered in meat?” Clive said.

“Still with this? It was an early stage of planning.”

The third and fourth villages were like the first two, with villagers barricaded inside. Nothing else demanded immediate action and they turned their minds to hunting the monster. They sat down in the shade of a large tree, Jason on a folding chair from his inventory, Clive on the shell of his rune tortoise familiar, Onslow.

“I understand the part about covering me with meat,” Clive said. “I don’t appreciate it, but I understand it. But tethering me to a stake? I’m not going to wander off.”

“You might,” Jason said. “I’m sensing resistance to the plan.”

“I could just pull out the stake.”

“See, this is the kind of resistance I’m talking about. It’s not my fault your world doesn’t have goats.”

“I still don’t know what goats are. I’m surprised you didn’t want to use Onslow as bait.”

“I’d never do that to him,” Jason said, reaching out to scratch the tortoise under the chin. “But when I said something’s not right, I meant about these monster attacks.”

“How so?” Clive asked.

“How fast is this mangrove snatcher thing?”

“They attack in short bursts of speed,” Clive explained, “but if you’re talking about overland speed, then no faster than a person.”

Realisation crossed Clive’s face.

“Every village reported daily attacks,” he said. “There’s no way one monster got around to every village in a day. There’s more than one monster.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Jason said.

“We need to know how many there are,” Clive said. “Given the distances, it’s at least three or four. It could be more than that. People don’t stop when they spot the first monster to check if it brought a friend.”

“Well, I don’t have a way to check how many there are,” Jason said. “But I should be able to tell once we’ve got them all.”

“Oh?”

“I told you about my quest system, right? I got a quest for this contract, the same as the others.”

Quest: [Contract: Mangrove Snatcher]

A number of villages have reported being attacked by a mangrove snatcher.