Master Of None

"So you took the entire night sleeping to realize that goblins didn't really smell that bad?" Gil immediately saw the opportunity to tease Remey a little. 

"Psss I should have just made you take my watch too. You were like a fan girl who couldn't help but talk about magical arrows more and more. That poor goblin is traumatized." Her words cut in to him pretty hard. It was true that he had gone on pretty heavily about arrows but by no means did he think he could cause trauma. 

"You at least gained some information. I tried to learn more about the monsters we needed to avoid in the forest but I didn't understand any of the names that the goblins use. Even with Onyx helping us it was very tough to make the proper connections. The only monster I gained information on is the monstrous mushrooms." Su was just disappointed since she couldn't put the face to the names when it came to the forest monsters the goblin spider rider spoke on.

"Well something is better than nothing, I hope it is good news?" Walker had some small hope that this year the monstrous mushroom species were by chance slow growing and would not be around much. 

"Apparently the purples slimes have been eating the mushrooms too. Well most of them, apparently the black spotted poison mushrooms are left alone. I am thinking it is because their poisonous spores cause decay just like the purple slimes. Pretty much they cause the same kind of damage to the forest." This was not what any of them wanted to hear. Knowing that there was another species of monster that would usually be kept in check by others of its species causing chaos was very bad. Especially with the decay effect they caused. 

"So two monsters that need to be dealt with. The slimes are still the focus but if we see one of the black spotted monstrous mushrooms we should safely take it out and make sure the spores do not spread." Walker looked like he was shaken by this knowledge. It would normally be tough to deal with one monster causing decay. Now to learn of the second that would be growing unhindered he wasn't sure how the forest would last the spring and summer. 

A small cracking sound to the party's side caused them all to stop in their tracks. The rain had let up as they slept but the ground was still soaking wet and muddy. Walker was easily able to form a frost whip whale they all looked for the source of the sound. 

"There!" Gil released a normal arrow at a greenish grey fur shot away from a bush. The arrow was too slow to catch the running monster as the blur escaped. 

"What was that thing? It moved through the forest like it was walking through the trees." Remey was surprised at the speed she had just seen. She knew that if she needed to compete in a battle of speed with such a creature then she would most likely lose. 

"It was wearing a small gold collar. I didn't see much else but it was definitely not a normal monster." Su had seen the motion and picked out the defining detail as it had fled. She was not able to gain a lot but her new vision skill was really paying off. 

"Why would it have a collar? Is it a tamed monster do you think?" Gil was looking at the tracks it had left behind and found they were incredibly faint. "It looks like this is a track from a moss wolf. They only live in the deepest parts of forests. It should not be here at all. This is still too far out. We might call this the deep sun hollow forest but that's our name. I think the eleven kingdom still calls this the outskirts." 

"So a monster that shouldn't be here and it was also wearing a collar" Walker was putting the pieces together while Midnight gave the slight tracks a smell. She could give them a hand in tracking it since Gil could have more trouble following the minsters tracks. 

"Are we going after it? It might be someone spying on us." Su had reached a similar conclusion as Walker. He also thought this was someone's monster that was scouting the area or watching them. It had run away because it accidentally let the party know it was watching. 

"If it is good news or bad, I don't know, but it went that way, the decay is leading us." The un-surety in Gil's voice was enough to tell that he was thinking this was an enemy. The intensity in the party jumped to a higher level at that moment. 

"We can stay on guard and look abut for trouble. But we need to keep following the slime trail. If the monster's path goes away from the slime then we will ignore it." Walker felt the pressure of the massive slime threat of other's lives. He did not want to waste any more time. 

With this, the party kept a watchful eye on their surroundings while they followed the decay. There were small puddles of slimes without cores developed on the ground that they kicked dirt on to keep from being exposed. If the slime puddle was exposed and gather the mana from the decay around it, then, it would definitely become a small purple slime. 

They were not seeing any active slimes which was very worrying. The decay, however, had increased in intensity showing that there was an increased amount of the minster there recently. The large trees that had begun to rot and fall made the party worry more and more about the real size of the slime they had started to pursue. 

"Ah, stupid vines. I keep tripping on this thing." Remey was walking a little behind Su and had been caught up by the same vines they were passing three times now." 

"Just watch where you are going. It's not that hard." Gil wanted to get mess with Remey a little since he knew she would find an excuse to hit his arm later anyways. 

"Ugh, I am watching but they somehow keep getting tangled on my boot." Her annoyance was stronger and stronger as she struggled to shake off the thin vines. 

"Where are these vines even coming from? They are darker than the other vines around." Su's notice of this detail prompted some worry in Walker. 

He looked at the very dark brown vines that looked like they should be a tough solid bark instead of a flexible vine. He felt like something was off especially since Remey was having trouble getting the vines off of her boot. Using his all around appraisal skill he decided to give it a look.

'Iron vine trap

The iron vine trap is a carnivorous plant based monster. It uses the sunlight as a heat source to speedily break down the bodies of its prey. It is known to slowly ensnare its prey with its vines before coming out of the ground to swallow it whole. The vines are as tough as iron so most animals and weak monsters can not escape and are slowly crushed. The vines are a very sought after forging material for healing gear due to their strength and natural mana.' 

"Remey stay still!" Walker grabbed the vines on her boot and started to pull. "This is a monster, if we can pull it up out of the ground we can beat it!" His shout was enough to get the entire party to grab the vines. 

Remey was still tangled by the vine ut after hearing that it was a monster, she slid off her boot. She was not happy to have a wet foot but helped them pull the vine. The dark brown vine was soon under tension and a few feet away it dipped in to the ground.

Walker saw soft mud around where the vine was in the ground and knew that they could easily pull it out. Midnight gave a harsh growl as she put in all her efforts to pulling out the vine. The ground around where the vine dipped in to it started to rise up. There was a large bulb looking shape being pulled out as the party tugged with all their might.

There were other vines that were being pulled up from other directions that were visibly moving towards the parry. However, their speed was extremely slow and they did not worry about them while they finished pulling the large bulb out of the ground. The large bulb had an opening at the top that revealed a stomach like inside. There was acid inside that definitely caused the prey it caught to break down and become nutrients. "Now that it is out we can chop off these vines!" 

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