Author note:

Man, this bad boy took a lot of editing. I had to get things just right for it all to work well together. But, it pays off some things, including the ending of book 2.

I hope you enjoy it, and of course, we have a ReaderQuest!

Quest ID: JDM-0004-XEA

[Tier 1 Experimental Quest]

Assignment: Wrong Tool, Right Job

Objects are designed with a purpose.

That does not mean they only have one.

Your Task

Choose one ordinary object you already own.

Use it to successfully accomplish something it was not originally designed to do.

Examples
Turn a jar into storage
Repurpose packaging instead of throwing it away
Find a new use for an old piece of furniture

The stranger the solution, the better.

Rules

You cannot purchase anything for this Quest.
The object must still be safe to use.
Simply using an object's normal secondary function does not count.

Completion Condition

One object successfully used for a purpose it was never intended to serve.

Timeframe: One Week

Reward: 8 XP

A tool doesn't need to know what it's for.

—

J D Mullenary Sr
The Original QuestWright

Chapter 70: The Living and the Corruption

As the System dome finished forming, its edges settling on the ground, a notification forced its way into Cass’s vision.

[SYSTEM NOTICE]

Warning: Corrupted being nearby (Black Walnut Tree)

(System Trust I) Note: This tree has a corrupted item grafted deep within. That item has fused with the being's life force, creating a synthetically living corruption. 

(System Trust I) Note: The corruption has weakened all System energy in the area. Extended exposure can have adverse effects.

Purging the corruption will grant…

Update:

Purging the corruption will grant 2,500 points for cleansing, as well as an additional reward upon request for Junior QuestWright Cassio Vale.

Cass quickly read the notification, then closed it, realizing how drastic the change was compared to his previous purge. 

That the points had increased from 750 to 2500 was not a cause for glee. There was a reason the System had done that, and the rising danger level was foremost in his mind as to why that would happen.

Holding up the Quill as a torch, he looked over his opponent.

The corrupted black walnut tree wasn’t large, standing maybe six to eight feet tall. While the height wasn’t impressive, it had a thick trunk tapering into the broken ground below. A broad, irregularly formed, spiky crown made up its top, with branches stabbing toward the roof of the cavern rather than in a wide pattern as he’d seen from most trees. 

There were no leaves to be found, and it was dark, almost black, with a pulsing red erupting from its base as it traveled to its peaks. Overall, it looked about as dangerous as a tree could, and he wasn’t truly prepared to fight it. 

With the precarious position Cass currently found himself in, he made the best choice he could. Namely, he assigned himself a Quest.

Awaken Activated

And another, just to round out his reflexes along with the clarity of the first.

Awaken Activated

Can never be too careful.

But while he’d been activating the Quests and studying the tree, the living corruption hadn’t been idle. The small seeds floating down were suddenly not so small.

Through the Quill-revealed red lines connecting seed to tree, the corruption took on a physical form. Branching from the tree were now several long, whip-like tendrils covered in a violently red glow. As for the one resting on the giant, it began to mangle the man’s chest, tearing clothes as the sharp tip scraped across his chest.

Cass noticed all of this in a moment, along with what was coming his way.

Oh shit!

Three of the tendrils fired out with explosive speed at where he was standing. Without Awaken and the multiplied reflexes it brought, Cass would’ve been impaled immediately. Instead, he leaped to the side, traveling fast enough that it took everything his combined clarity and alacrity could muster to track his own movements.

As soon as he touched down, another set of tendrils shot out while the former retracted. Cass dodged again, his eyes taking in everything as he tried to form a plan.

When it did come, it was simple.

Removing his hatchet from his bag, he moved the Quill to the left as he dodged a third time. Immediately pivoting, he leaped back toward the tendrils still pulling back and swung with everything he had at the thinnest portion.

The hatchet bounced off.

“Shit-”

One of the retracting tendrils lazily spun through the air and struck his midsection. Wind knocked out of him, Cass flew back, bouncing off the System dome before collapsing to the ground. There was no time for any extra thoughts as he rolled, missing a tendril by a hair as he did so again and again, gasping for air that didn’t want to come.

Cass saw Adya banging against the shield as Pellin stared at it, but they were gone in a moment as he pushed off the ground and made it to his feet. A deep breath was all he had time for before the next set came.

Some quick footwork kept him from getting impaled as his ribs sorted themselves out with a familiar burning feeling. Then he tried the hatchet again on a thicker portion of the tendril.

Shit.

On the rebound, Cass went with it, taking two quick steps back as he put the hatchet in his bag, dodged, then removed the buckler.

But while he was adjusting to the corruption, it was adjusting to him, too. The next tendrils came, but only halfway. As one attacked, the other two spread themselves out enough to cover the whole area, limiting his range of movement. Rather than dodge to the side, Cass trusted his reflexes and threw himself back.

Where he met the dome again.

The buckler came up in a hurry as tendril met metal. With a clang, Cass felt himself sliding along the dome, and a fierce burn started in his arm as muscles and tendons strained to hold on. When the tendrils came again, he noticed something.

The last tendril to attack him was stuck against the dome. The thicker ends were pulling, but where it touched the System energy, it couldn’t move.

Right.

Cass dodged the next attack by rolling forward, then to the side, as another followed it faster than before. When one tendril got a little close, he swung his buckler, bashing it. Though instead of moving the tendril, he shoved himself away as the thick tree limb didn’t seem to feel his presence at all.

“Right,” He tiredly said to whoever might be listening, then ran toward the dome at his top speed. The ground was already torn apart from all of the attacks, so his movement went from quick steps to tiny hops. A stray limb came at him horizontally, forcing Cass to duck as another attacked from behind. 

Cass’s face met air resistance for a second time as he was thrown forward. Then, a tendril pierced through his right shoulder right after he struck the dome with his body.

“Ahhh!”

It wasn’t the pain that caused him to scream, though that did have a profound effect. It was the feeling of something invading him. 

From the trunk end of the tree to the part squirming in Cass’s body, a series of throbbing, oscillating red pulses burst from the tree and deep into the wells of his figure.  His scream ratcheted up higher and higher until suddenly, it tapered off and fell away as his mind went somewhere else.

Deep in the recesses of Cass’s thoughts, a new window was forcibly opened. 

The experience screen appeared. All the paths he’d unlocked, starting with Survivor all the way to the single mark he shared with Adya. Everything he’d worked for across the last half a year of his life. Everything he’d planned and built. Everything that would lead to who he hoped to one day be.

And in the time of less than a heartbeat, a red crack formed at the bottom.

Like watching an infection spread, the red corruption traveled north. It stopped at the first nodes on its way, slowing as it filled them to the brink until they too shone with corruption, then moved on to the next. And in the background of it all, Cass heard a small shattering noise and felt the very moment his first block of reputation cracked.

It’s corrupting my Calling. This needs to stop. This has to stop!

In that moment, Cass feared he would be taken over by the corruption, doomed to become a monster the likes of which he couldn’t imagine. But he was not alone.

Hello…what is this?

Cass couldn’t do much of anything at all as the Source spoke. His vision went along for the ride as the System entity shifted their view, the Reputation screen coming forward.

And at the very bottom of his System Reputation was a missing block.

Now that just won’t do.

Why aren’t you fighting back?

How? It’s tearing me apart!

Are you Cassio Vale, intrepid window-washer?

Or are you the Bringer of Hope you’re so desperately trying to be?

So…find a little hope for yourself.

You didn’t get the Quill through your affable personality.

You got it by being stubborn and reaching for more.

The Source’s words forced Cass’s panic down as he had to pause and consider what it was saying.

He hadn’t had a reason to come to the System Reputation screen in some time. Its tower stood so high up that if this were the real world, it would take days to climb it. Cass’s eyes went to the missing block in the center, which he’d broken to get to the Quill.

I get it.

The Source is right. I’m not weak, I’m not a pushover, and this isn’t the end of my road.

I just need to fight, and now I know how.

There’s my guy.

Good luck!

Cass’s mind traveled back to the experience screen just as another block in his reputation shattered. Almost every node was infected as the Paths lit up in red brilliance, spelling out their forms from the divided lines of Survivor to the criss-crossing pattern of Logistics.

Taking a mental breath and realizing Awaken was still running, Cass leaned into his instincts.

These are my paths. My nodes. I earned every single thing here. I’m the Versatile QuestWright. The Bearer of the Quill. Nothing happens in my mind that I don’t want to happen.

And if I can break a block of Reputation to gather the Quill, then I can control this space however I choose.

This is my Calling.

There were several options present. Several routes by which he could fight back. The corruption of his body and power was beginning to affect his mind, his thoughts growing sluggish, Awakened or not. So he doubled down on his instincts, not trusting any mental process to get the job done, relying only on his gut feeling about what was right.

Trusting himself, Cass reached out and gathered the original yellow flame of Cinder. It came to him easily.

He didn’t know how he could grasp it; he only knew that when he wanted it, it was there. Another block shattered as he reached forth.

With no trepidation, he inched it close to an infected node, spreading the flames across the first unlock he’d ever gained on his paths.

Autonomy.

The red corruption boiled away, leaving the node as it was before. Realizing that waiting was a fool’s errand, he did another, and then a third node. Only to find that, as the third returned to its usual state, Autonomy was infected yet again.

Cass didn’t think of a solution and didn’t consider the problem. His instincts had been right so far, but he hadn’t pushed hard enough.

He was working at this on too small a scale.

While still holding the flame in his mind, Cass reached out and grabbed the Path of Logistics itself. With a flicker of thought, Cinder splashed across the webbed Path, lighting it afire. With a mental heave, he threw the burning net across the entirety of his experience screen, grabbing the edges of the Path and pulling them tight.

With nowhere else to go, every part and parcel of corruption burned away as the powers of Cass’s self-control and progress overcame the invader. The corruption fell, and Cass followed it with the burning Path until there was nothing remaining.

Then, he was back in the outside world, taking a deep breath as the incredible pain in his shoulder reminded him he was still in deep trouble.

The limb piercing him no longer held the red stain of corruption, only his blood, as Cass screamed while pulling himself across the dome. It might’ve been his imagination, but he thought the dome pulled back for a moment to let him fall.

Even as his feet touched the ground before collapsing, he was forced to immediately roll as a new corrupted tendril punched down. Moving back to his feet as he sucked in breath through the edges of his teeth, Cass saw the limb that had caused him so much trouble already begin burning red again.

He dodged again, then did something he’d considered but hadn’t yet tested. Swapping buckler for hatchet again, he rolled and came up, Quill held tightly as he shifted it to match the hatchet in his other hand.

When the tendril pierced the spot he’d just been standing, the Quill hatchet came down to meet it. Cass never thought he’d hear a tree roar.

Rwaah!

The Quill didn’t cut the limb. It instead passed through the tendril, and after it left, no corruption remained. Though that was true, the hatchet that followed it surely did some work, as Cass successfully trimmed the tendril down in size with a roar of his own.

And now I have a plan.

For once, the Corrupted Tree paused, and that was all Cass needed.

Quill-hatchet still gripped, Cass placed it directly over the ever-sharp one he’d partly purchased back in Liora. After a very brief mental exercise, Cass molded the Quill form to layer itself onto the hatchet held tightly in his right hand.  Rather than form an object of its own, the Quill became a wrap, snugly surrounding the weapon so he could be sure that it would touch the tendrils before the axe’s bladed edge could follow it up.

Dodge and attack became the new strategy as his gambit worked. By allowing the Quill to touch the corruption first, the tendril just became another piece of tree to be hacked.

Cass worked through several before making it over to the giant on the ground. The man’s body must’ve been immeasurably tough, as there still wasn’t a mark on him, but the corrupted tree seemed to have tried fairly hard, as most of his clothing now sported holes and tears.

Good thing it doesn’t know human anatomy, or this could’ve been very bad.

The tendril still scraping at his figure was destroyed like the others, the repeated roars of the corruption having no effect on the Versatile QuestWright as he finally started his advance on the tree.

When he got closer, Cass was surprised to find the tree recoiling from him. Its limbs creaked as it leaned back, only to find the cavern wall holding it in place.

“No no, you’re not going anywhere.”

A pair of tendrils from the left brought a dodge and a small hop before Cass buried the hatchet into a root just breaking through the ground. A horizontal swipe had Cass leap, kicking off of another intended attack before swiping the Quill-covered axe across the branch. It wasn’t broken, but it wasn’t moving either.

The Corrupted Tree seemed to have had enough as it began an all-out assault. That forced Cass to do something even he would consider reckless.

Rather than dodge or move back, he ran forward, screaming out his denial of death, denial of corruption, and denial of loss of self. The tree sensed what he was about to do and angled every tendril to hit him right at the edge of its trunk. The branches came, crossing from every side.

Then Cass stopped and took a step back as they connected with only air and each other.

“Gotcha.”

Hatchet high, Cass brought it down, not to break through all the thick tendrils, but to tap each and force the Corrupted Tree to hold still as all the red bled away. 

Frozen in a permanent self-hug, it couldn’t do anything as Cass stepped upon the very things that were trying to kill him, wound his arm back, and plunged it deep into the center.

The Tree roared again, but it was a pitiful thing that quickly faded as Cass went all out, striking it without mercy. Once the center was chopped open, he continued hacking away, bleeding the corruption out of the thing until he finally found a single, deeply red stick buried within. 

With a last swing, he cracked it in half.

[Corrupted Black Walnut Tree Purged]

Rewards:

2,500 Points

Requested reward: Granted upon entrance of the Index

[SYSTEM NOTICE]

Your agreement with the Source has been met.

Your Index total has been reduced by 534,643 points.

Your System Trust has increased by 1.

Breathing hard, Cass was still staring at the tree, unbelieving that the corruption wouldn’t come back, when a hand touched his shoulder. He spun around, expecting another tendril with his hatchet already held high, when he realized it was just Adya.

She gave him a tight-lipped smile as her eyes flickered at the hatchet before meeting his own.

“You okay?”

Cass took a deep breath. “Yeah. That was…something else.”

“No shit,” Pellin said calmly, looking the tree over. “You think there’s any corruption left in the thing?”

Cass pointed at his head. “According to the System, it’s gone. Why?”

“No reason.” Pellin stepped over and fired his weapon a few times, then picked up some scattered wood off the ground. When he noticed them both looking, he shrugged, “It’s for experimenting. Give me a minute to gather a bunch of this. Could be great for my workbench.”

Adya turned and pointed at the giant on the ground, “What do we do with him?”

Cass sighed, then scrubbed a hand through his sweaty hair, wincing as his shoulder continued to heal, albeit slowly. 

“Bella!”