Duskbound-Chapter 140 - Book 2, 61

Jensen's life had taken a strange turn, and he wasn't sure exactly where it was going or how he'd gotten here anymore. When he'd taken [Vault Seeker], he'd gained a few skills—[Find Object] and [Appraise]—and mixed them with [Tracking] to form the fabled [Treasure Hunter] skill. His understanding of things was that the hard work was done at that point. He just had to listen to what his skill was telling him and he could find damn near anything of value within a ten-mile radius.

All he'd needed to do was put together the expedition, collect the hidden riches of the old world buried under the new one, and profit. Everybody won in that scenario, but somehow, things never worked out that way. His father had played a huge part in blocking him, no doubt largely in part because Jensen had dared to defy him. The old man had always been petty like that.

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But even now, after he'd found funding and put together a team, things had still fallen through. The Monster Hunters Guild had failed him, and then their internal problems had spilled over and dragged away half the team he'd assembled, including the woman with the extradimensional storage that was the linchpin to the whole thing working. The expedition was far too dangerous to be satisfied with just what he could stuff in his pockets.

He'd resigned himself to wait another month or two if that was what it took for the guild to finish wiping out its infestation of body-snatching monsters. Honestly, he wasn't even that upset about it. It wasn't like he liked the idea of a bunch of parasites infecting society, spreading through the upper echelons of power and redirecting civilization in a new direction.

But this, what we're doing right now? This isn't helpful. This is Velik acting out because he can't bear to sit still for five minutes. If he hadn't dragged Sildra into it…

To be fair, Sildra was just as eager to complete the quest Morgus had bestowed on her as Velik was, if for entirely different reasons. Jensen wasn't exactly opposed to that, either. His reward from the last quest had been unimpressive, but at the same time, he'd done very little to earn anything better. Sildra had gotten a class orb that had upgraded her from uncommon to epic, as he understood things. That was practically priceless. Completing the next step in that quest was bound to be rewarded with something equally incredible.

Not for the first time, he wished [Treasure Hunter] could show him people as well as valuables. Unfortunately, it was susceptible to noise. When he tried to use it in the city, everything blurred into a hazy fog that made it impossible to pick out individual objects. Something about the skill was limited, which annoyingly prevented him from spotting who had expensive and powerful equipment through the skill.

He closed his eyes and activated it anyway, hoping to find something worth the trip out into the mountains. There was the normal haze that shrouded their group—the result of too many of them being well-equipped in a small area—but very little else besides a few small spots where something slightly valuable was probably growing out of the ground.

None of that was worth investigating, not at first glance. It wasn't until Jensen realized that one of those blips was moving that he started paying attention. The mountain trails were isolated enough that the pinpricks of valuable reagents didn't overlap into an indistinguishable blur, which meant that someone was out there, carrying something that [Treasure Hunter] thought was worth taking note of.

Could just be some local with a sack full of gold on his belt, Jensen thought to himself. But if it's not… Maybe one of the hunters returning to Granite Peak for a resupply?

He was interrupted by a tear opening up in the air, out of which spilled Velik. Aria calmly stepped through behind him, and the hole in the world vanished. The woman glanced around at them, sneered slightly at something—hopefully the rough nature of their surroundings, but probably just the fact that Giller was with them—and said, "Corruption in the town. We'll have no choice but to purge it tonight, when our young druid's powers are at their greatest."

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"It should only set us back a few hours," Velik said.

"Being able to extract the monsters without killing their hosts will make things easier," Sildra added. "No one will be fighting us if we can prove the existence of the infestation and save their families."

Jensen hid a wince at the rawness in her voice. It had been easier for him, both because he'd only had to help with one town, and because the dead were all strangers. She'd lost friends that night. Really, they'd died long before then, but the corruption had kept their bodies moving, kept pretending to be those people, so it felt like murdering her own family.

His father's behavior aside, Jensen wasn't sure he could have killed his friends and family himself. Unlike his older siblings, he'd liked most of the people in his life. Perhaps it was merely the fact that he hadn't been the focus of his father's attentions until he'd come back with the wrong class, but Jensen's childhood had been relatively carefree.

"How long will it take?" Velik asked. "And can we get it done without anyone from the hunter team realizing what we're doing? Our objective needs to be to avoid them if possible."

On that, Jensen was in agreement. Letting them find out that Sildra was here would result in a platinum-ranked hunter actively seeking them out to remedy that situation. He didn't care what Velik had figured out with that class orb; there was no way he could stand up to a guy who was over level 60.

"On that note," Jensen said, "there is something moving a few miles away that has some minor valuables in some kind of container."

"How do you know?" Aria asked.

"I am a [Vault Seeker]. Knowing where valuable objects are located is my entire job."

"Could just be someone local," Giller said. "Best to avoid them, either way."

"Can you tell which way they're heading?" Aria asked, completely ignoring Giller.

"Away from the town, maybe toward the mine on a lower trail, but hard to say. I don't know the area well enough to make predictions."

"I'll find them," Aria promised.

With a few more questions, she narrowed down a likely location, then her eyes unfocused and she stared off at nothing. While she was doing whatever it was that she was doing, Jensen turned to Velik and said, "I know you're looking to find some clues here, same as you wanted in Slokara, but it might be time to give up on this one. Our whole plan was shot before we even got here, and we're scrambling to adapt."

"The risk is relatively low," Velik said. "Our 'enemies' aren't real enemies. They won't kill us. If we're caught, we'll likely be restrained in some way and escorted out of the area, and that's assuming we're overpowered. Our reputation with the guild is already damaged by the fact that even if this group doesn't know specifically who's out here right now, they will once they communicate with someone back in Cravel."

"That's… true."

"Also," he continued, "You, Sildra, and Giller aren't part of the guild. They have no legal say in where you go or what you do. I would not be surprised if they press for control of Sildra anyway, given how valuable she is, but we should be able to fend them off."

"What about you and Aria?" Jensen asked.

"I don't care about the guild. They've been a hindrance more than they've helped. I won't be returning to their ranks regardless of how this plays out. As for Aria, she made her choices when she came out here. Whatever the consequences are, she'll deal with them."

"We need to move, now," Aria broke in.

"What did you see?" Sildra asked.

There was a new urgency in Aria's tone. Before, this had been a game to her, something she was treating casually, almost with a cavalier attitude, but that was gone now. Whatever she'd discovered, it had completely erased the haughty persona she'd crafted for herself.

"It's Phun. Something got him, bad. He's limping along, but I'm not sure he's going to make it back to Granite Peak. With some of the townsfolk being infected, I wouldn't trust him to their care."

"If he's not being attacked, a healing potion should keep him stable," Velik said. "There's no need to rush."

"A healing potion isn't going to fix this," Aria said. "He's going to need extensive treatment, the kind he won't find outside of a major city. I just… the wounds… I don't think they're from a monster."

"Isn't Phun close to level 60?" Jensen asked. "I heard he was slated to be the guild's next platinum."

"Exactly." Aria bit her lip and shook her head. "I'm going. Come if you want. Or stay here. I'll understand if you don't want to risk exposing yourself, but they already know I'm here."

"I'll come with you," Velik said. "Everyone else stay put. No point in letting them know who's here or how many of us there are."

"That same logic applies to you," Jensen said, grabbing Velik's arm as he moved to walk past.

"I need to know what we're going to be fighting against," was the reply.

It took a few minutes for Aria to open another one of her portals, and together, she and Velik stepped through. The portal closed, leaving them to stand there. "Well," Giller said, "I don't know about you two, but I say we find a place to relax and wait for the bad news."