Ch 211 – Intuition
Slicing cleanly through the neck of a charging Verdant Prowler, Deacon spun on his right heel to split another mutant from shoulder to hip in a diagonal slash before reversing his grip on his left short sword to thrust it backward and punch through the heart of the beheaded Verdant Prowler that was still stumbling forward behind him.
An arrow shot past his head close enough that he felt the displaced air ruffle his hair and pierced straight through the hearts of two more Verdant Prowlers that had been approaching from behind, leaving baseball-sized holes where their hearts used to be as a result of Valorie's two-second charged Power Shot.
We're getting better at working together as a team, Deacon mused to himself as he kicked off the ground and began sprinting forward toward Leon, who was at the front of the group, where he was currently holding off the majority of the Verdant Prowlers that had pounced on them as the group had started following the cracked stone brick walkway that would theoretically lead them somewhere useful, hopefully toward an exit from this enclosed garden dome they had been teleported into.
"Fuck garden domes," Deacon muttered to himself under his breath as Leon bashed backward with his tower shield and sent five Verdant Prowlers tumbling across the walkway before immediately pivoting to bash another mutant directly on the head with his hammer hard enough to cave in its skull.
Deacon enhanced the strength of his right leg with stamina for just a brief second, lunging forward with explosive speed while simultaneously having the Echoform Reliquary shift from its dual short sword form into its Ulfberht broadsword form.
Using the increased reach, he skewered the hearts of four separate Verdant Prowlers in a single powerful thrust that punched completely through all of their torsos.
At the same time as Deacon was clearing out the forward group of enemies, Bonehead was crouched down beside the thick trunk of one of the massive trees that grew throughout the garden and was harvesting various oddly shaped mushrooms that looked more alien than any normal flora Deacon had ever seen, at least based on the brief glances he'd caught of what Bonehead was collecting.
"System bless garden domes and whoever thought to make them," Bonehead muttered in pure ecstasy as he carefully picked another specimen and added it to his growing collection.
Valorie stood guard at Bonehead's back with her bow drawn and ready, notching another arrow before releasing it in a shot that threaded perfectly through the narrow gap between her brother's upper torso and right arm to strike the heart of the last Verdant Prowler in the current group that leaped out to attack them.
"We're clear for now!" Valorie shouted to the rest of the group, her voice having fully returned to normal after just a few minutes, following a Health Regeneration Potion she had knocked back hours earlier after consuming the honey packet.
Radioactive water was no joke to those with low Vitality.
Pulling Echoform Reliquary free from where it had skewered the four mutant corpses and letting them slump to the ground, Deacon rested the flat of the blade against his shoulder while turning to face Leon, who had just clasped his hammer back onto his hip but kept his tower shield deployed and ready in his other hand, and both giving each other a quick nod of acknowledgment.
Turning around to check on Valorie and Bonehead's positions, Deacon found Valorie dragging Bonehead toward the main group by his hood as the skeleton alchemist gave his complete and undivided focus to the delicate task of carefully transferring the mushrooms he'd just foraged into a glass jar, not bothered at all by Valorie.
"Hey, Deacon," Leon said suddenly, grabbing his attention away from watching Bonehead's struggles.
"Did any of these things have metal embedded in their bodies?" Leon asked while pointing one finger down at one of the Verdant Prowler corpses scattered around their feet.
Following the direction of Leon's extended index finger, Deacon squinted as he caught sight of a faint metallic shine coming from beneath a patch of exposed muscle tissue in an area where three crossroad vines were growing in and out of the mutant's body.
Kneeling beside the corpse while stabbing Echoform Reliquary into the ground next to him to free up both hands, Deacon grabbed hold of the area of flesh around where he'd seen the metallic glint, using one hand to push the tangled vines aside and hold the section of muscle tissue still while his other hand began actively digging into the decomposing muscle.
Ignoring the disgusting squelching noises and the way the muscle fibers continued to twitch and squirm even though the creature was clearly dead, Deacon's brows furrowed in concentration as his probing fingers eventually ended up wrapping around something solid and distinctly metallic.
As Valorie and Bonehead reached their position and stopped to watch what Deacon was doing, he pulled his hand free from inside the corpse and held up an old and heavily rusted key that featured two teeth with horizontal indents carved into the side.
Item Name:Garden Key
Type: Tool – Key
Rarity: Unique
Description: A rusty key that is needed to exit the Dome Garden No.2 of the Mutant Manor Dungeon.
We actually needed to find this specific key to get out of here? Deacon thought to himself in genuine surprise as he got back up onto his feet before looking directly at Leon with obvious gratitude written across his features.
"Good eye,” Deacon said to Leon as he got up.
Saved us hours of searching, went unsaid between the group, but they all knew that Leon saved them a crap load of time.
Deacon was unwilling to let those particular words leave his mouth and give the karmic powers of reality another opportunity to fuck them over for what would be the third time today, especially while he was still standing anywhere near Valorie.
"Alright, is everyone good to continue moving forward?" Deacon asked while watching as Bonehead finally managed to close and seal his glass jar before grabbing onto Leon's extended hand and allowing the much larger man to pull him up onto his feet.
Seeing nods from everyone in the group, they resumed following the cracked stone garden walkway and towards a wooden pergola covered in greenery.
As they had approached the vine-wreathed pergola, they could see large purple flower buds hanging from its ceiling and wrapped around the base of its support beams. As they just passed through it, those very buds began to bloom.
Leaping back in a panic that they would expel some poisonous pollen, the foursome were quite surprised to see that the large bulbs birthed out Verdant Prowlers.
And of course, those flower buds immediately shot to the very top of Bonehead's priority objectives list for sample retrieval, which meant the group had to wait an additional twenty minutes for Bonehead to finish carefully harvesting them after they had killed the Verdant Prowlers that they birthed.
After approximately two and a half more hours of roaming around and stopping periodically to let Bonehead harvest any interesting herbs he spotted, the four of them finally managed to locate what appeared to be the same rusty garden gate they'd originally entered the Dungeon through.
Stepping up to the garden gate with the key ready in his hand, Deacon inserted the rusted metal into the lock and twisted it, holding back what would have been an extremely relieved sigh as he heard the satisfying click of the mechanism disengaging and felt the handle give way, allowing him to pull the gate open and reveal the interior of the manor beyond.
Taking the lead position to enter first, Deacon stepped through the gateway while the rest of the group followed close behind him.
The moment all four of them had completely crossed the threshold, the rusty garden gate behind them suddenly dematerialized into countless motes of grey ash before vanishing entirely, leaving behind nothing but an empty, open gateway.
At the same time, the key that Deacon had been holding in his hand met an identical fate and crumbled away into ash.
That's actually pretty convenient, Deacon mused to himself as the ashes in his hand vanished. Saves us the time and effort of having to pass around a physical key between party members, as well as preventing us from cluttering up our pouches and spatial storages to keep hold of all keys we find because we are unsure if they could be used to open another door.
Refocusing his attention back onto analyzing his team's new surroundings, Deacon took in the interior of the manor and noted that it looked exactly like how he would have expected a wealthy noble's house to appear, albeit one that had been completely abandoned for a couple of decades based on the current state of it.
The walls around them appeared to have been constructed from well-shaped brick and treated wood that had been painted in a dark velvety burgundy color that, in Deacon's opinion, was quite tacky.
Along the walls, there were scattered bits of torn and peeling wallpaper, though the damage was mainly concentrated along the edges and corners and was relatively sparse overall.
The floor of the large entrance hallway they'd stepped into was covered in what had once been an expensive-looking carpet that was now faded and worn from years of neglect and stained in various places with some greyish liquid that had seeped into the fibers, and surprisingly the ceiling was still reasonably well-lit by numerous candle wicks mounted in ornate fixtures that somehow continued burning despite the apparent abandonment of the building.
Glancing over at everyone in the group and receiving confirming nods that they were all ready to proceed deeper into the manor, Deacon continued to lead the way and directed them all down the main hallway toward a door at the far end that had been left slightly ajar.
As they neared the partially open door, Leon suddenly came to a complete stop in the middle of the hallway, which caused Valorie, who had been following directly behind him, to bump her face directly into her brother's armored back.
"Hey! Give some warning before you just stop like that!" she exclaimed in annoyance while rubbing her nose, her raised voice causing the other members of the group to stop their forward movement and turn around to see what the problem was.
"What's going on, Leon?" Deacon asked while walking back toward the twins' position.
Leon had already turned on his heel and was now walking toward the right wall of the hallway, stopping when he was just a few inches away from the brick surface and staring at something at eye level with obvious curiosity and confusion written across his face.
"I don’t know,” Leon said, his tone making it clear he wasn’t quite sure at what he was looking at.
“It’s just that… this particular brick looks weird compared to all the others around it," he muttered, cocking his head slightly to the side.
"What specifically about it looks off or wrong to you?" Bonehead asked while cocking his skull slightly to the side in curiosity.
Leon paused for a long moment as he continued staring at the brick before finally answering. "...Everything about it just feels wrong, like it doesn't quite belong here with the rest of the wall."
Unable to help himself, Leon reached out his hand and tapped the suspicious brick lightly with his index finger, and the moment his finger made contact, the entire brick suddenly popped and dissolved into a burst of white smoke that quickly dissipated.
As the rest of the group tightened their grip on their respective weapons and tensed, Leon reached into the rectangular hole left behind by the vanished brick and carefully pulled out an object. Turning around, he revealed to them a thin, ornate wooden box featuring the Tower’s official insignia carved into its lid.
"A loot box?!" the other three members of the group exclaimed simultaneously in complete surprise as they saw what Leon had found.