“No, thank you,” I said, swallowing hard so I wouldn’t be sick.
The creature watched me pass, a strange look of confusion on his face. His dot was red with a cross on my map. The strange appendage, a thick vine branch I now realized, twitched oddly. I kept moving, clomping onto the bleachers.
Carclass="underline" It’s an elite and a city boss. You didn’t tell me they could be both! Holy shit. A city boss. Is this still going to work?
Mordecai: Uh. I was right, though, correct? It’s a Pestiferous Vine?
Carclass="underline" Yes. It’s fucking huge, though. It’s as tall as the tent!
Mordecai: It should still work. The core will be the same size. I think.
Carclass="underline" You think? Holy shit, Mordecai!
“There are a few different kinds of collective mind-control vine monsters, but the combination of spores and parasitic worms means it’s likely something called a Pestiferous Vine,” Mordecai had said last night. This was after the recap show, but before we’d gone to sleep. Signet had mentioned “the vine” a few times, and I’d asked Mordecai if he knew what that was. “It’s a sign of lazy writing, if you ask me,” he’d said. “It’s like on earth television shows. Every time there’s a cop show, the cop’s marriage always sucks. There’s always a storyline with a serial killer. There’s always that asshole lieutenant. These vine things on the third floor, they’re… what is the word? A trope. That’s it. Pestiferous vines are a trope for these shows. It’s because of the volcano story. The girl finds her grandma had turned into one of those things.”
At this point, we’d already agreed that Donut and I would be idiots to have anything to do with the circus quest. But Mordecai had insisted on turning the subject into a lecture regarding collective mind plant monsters, which were common in the dungeon, as they were common in the universe.
“Every season,” he’d said, “crawlers fall by the hundreds to these things, especially on the sixth floor. But plants are always easy to kill. Very easy to kill, as long as you know the trick. The problem is the trick is different for each one. Take that Pestiferous Vine, for example. It’s a plant that infects other mobs. It’s called a vine and it looks like a plant, all right, but it’s really a hybrid fungus combined with a type of plant you don’t have on earth. Don’t get me started. Anyway, it excretes these mold spores that infect parasitic worms, who in turn infect other mobs. What happens next depends on a variety of factors, depending on the mob and the type of worms. It’s fascinating stuff because there are literally billions of combinations. And these vines are real, too. This isn’t made-up for the dungeon. Anyway, once the worms infect the mobs, this tri-symbiont, well, maybe tri-parasitic depending on how you want to look at it, relationship forms.”
“So how do you kill one?” I asked. My head started to hurt from the conversation. Donut had lost interest and was running around with Mongo in the restaurant.
“For the Pestiferous Vine, it’s kind of a good news, bad news thing. The good news is they’re one of the easiest ones to kill. The bad news is it’s not instantaneous. The vine loves moisture, and it loves blood. You drip a few drops of blood directly onto one of the vines, and it’ll slurp it right up. But,” Mordecai said, leaning in closely. His eyes sparkled as if this was the most interesting subject in the world, “if that blood is from something that had been poisoned, it breaks the link with all of its symbionts. It takes about fifteen to twenty minutes to work, unfortunately. But one moment the vine is alive and well, the next, it’s mulch. It doesn’t feel it. It doesn’t know it’s been poisoned. But it’s still dead.”
“Does it kill all the other mobs?”
“Depends. Some immediately go insane. Some drop dead. Some don’t realize anything has changed.”
“So, you poison yourself, dribble some blood on it, and it’s dead?”
“That’s right. It won’t know, but if it suspects, you need to be careful or it can save itself.”
“How? Is there a cure?”
“Yes. If you’ve given yourself an antidote, and you give the plant an equal amount of the same blood, it will cure it. You can’t just pour an antidote potion on there. It has to be the same blood. So be careful. If it knows you poisoned it, it’ll try to get its monsters to bleed you.”
Assuming Mordecai’s information was correct and still valid, then I could kill Grimaldi right now from my spot in the bleachers. Still, I was nervous. Mordecai had warned me multiple times that when it came to elites, the rules didn’t mean shit.
I sat down on the cold bleacher next to the vine. I tried to act casual, but I knew I had to be fast. If these producer guys had been watching my feed last night, it was possible they had already deduced what I was about to do. Everyone in the arena continued to ignore my presence. I took a deep breath. Okay. Here we go. I pulled my nightgaunt cloak off and put it over my legs, like anyone settling in would do. My constitution lowered by four points when I removed the cloak, but it also removed my poison resistance.
Poisoning myself was easy. I had a ton of potions. I pulled a health potion and held it in my hand. I drank one by clicking it in my hotlist, and then I quickly drank the one in my hand before the potion cooldown. I’d done this once before when Donut had been injured during the fight with the Juicer.
You have been poisoned!
“Oof”. It felt as if I’d been kicked in the stomach by a damn horse. It took everything I had not to double over and cry out. Before, I hadn’t felt this part. My health started to plummet. I kept one of the lemurs’ juggling knives in my belt, and I pulled the palm of my hand across it, cutting deep enough to create a long gash. I squeezed my hand together as blood rained down on the vine.
I cast Heal on myself, which didn’t stop the poisoning. I waited the next few seconds before my potions opened back up, and I took one of my few poison antidote potions. I’d received those way back in the very beginning, from a silver adventurer’s box.
I gave myself a second to just breathe. I pulled the cloak back over my shoulder and looked about to see if anything had changed. Nothing. I hazarded a look down, and the blood was almost all gone. All that remained was a few drops that’d landed on either side of the thick root.
I had no idea if it worked or not.
11
I waited a few moments to see if there was any sort of sign that the city boss was sick. There was nothing. It was time for the next part of the plan.
Carclass="underline" Zev. I did it. But the plan has changed. I want you to message them right now and tell them exactly what I say.
Zev: Oh my gods, Carl. The net is going crazy. Only a few people understand what you just did. But word is getting out. Your numbers are just going up and up. It’s amazing. Both of these dramas playing out at the same time.
Carclass="underline" Zev. Are you listening? This is important.
Zev: Yes, yes. I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Carclass="underline" To the producers of the program Vengeance of the Daughter. I just poisoned Grimaldi. Even though he’s an elite, I suspect you’re going to let him die. I know this is all part of your plan. This is Signet’s story, not his. The title of the program says it all. This is just the first act, the origin story. This is really about her getting down to the Hunting Grounds and fucking up those High Elves and maybe the Naiads, too.
I also suspect that as soon as Mr. Grimaldi here dies, all hell is going to break loose. And when that happens, I will probably die. That’s also part of your plan, isn’t it? I’m looking at the three poles right now, and I can see how you’ve set this shit up. That center pole isn’t going anywhere. But that third pole looks like it’s made out of popsicle sticks. Just a little push, and it’s timbeeerrr. Hell, that thing will probably break on its own when Grimaldi dies.