RD 3 Ch 22 (Patreon)

Chapter 22

Simone and Gloria never did find the ninja. The woman had likely slunk away after her two compatriots had been downed. Simone respected the move. Gloria would have trounced the ninja on her own.

Gloria had taken the two spatial rings and then put out the fires before they became a full blown forest fire. 

"You know, if you exercised a little restraint, you wouldn’t be having to put out forest fires," Simone added. 

"I did exercise restraint. I blew up most of the fireballs before they hit the ground. I was really just trying to get a concussive effect, rather than trying to burn people with the fireballs." Gloria replied.

"No, you just burn them with giant pillars of flames." Simone deadpanned. Those seemed just as incendiary.

"The pillar structure is easier to squelch the fire around it," Gloria waved a hand dismissively. 

The two of them moved at a good pace through the forest, it seemed wherever they were was like an instance in that there wasn't going to be a day-night cycle.

Simone checked a watch in her spatial ring. "I think we should probably get ready to sleep for the night. It would be best if we don't wait until we're actually exhausted."

Gloria's eyes unfocused for a second, likely checking her own spatial rings. "Good point. I doubt that Ninja will get past Bran's talismans anyways," Gloria said. With a wave of her hand, a tent that Bran had prepared for her appeared.

Simone had the same one in her own spatial ring, but the first tent was big enough for the two of them. Fitting Nyx in as well would be a bit of a squeeze. The Gorgon could take up a surprising amount of space with her tail.

Meanwhile, the tent was warded extensively, almost as if Bran wanted them to be impervious while they slept. Which, probably was his actual intent.

Simone crawled inside and threw down her own bedroll, rolling it out before throwing a talisman down underneath her pillow and fluffing it to make sure she would have a comfortable night's sleep.

Bran had made this tent to protect her, and she had complete and full trust in him and what he'd made. Bran was the man that had created miracle after miracle in front of her. It would be ridiculous for her to believe this tent was anything but safe. 

Gloria zipped up the front and they could both feel the shimmer of the inscriptions that Bran had put all over it going into effect.

They gave off a light glow to prove they were activated. At that point, the tent became transparent, and they could see outside as if it wasn't there. Only the zipper was visible, showing all the effort and care that Bran put in his inscriptions to make sure they could still find their way out.

“Bran said the tent could survive five full strikes from him before the inscriptions would give out.” Gloria said, looking around at the tent with a certain kind of curiosity.

Five strikes was plenty of time for Simone and Gloria to get ready if something did attack them. 

Simone nodded along, having gotten the spiel from Bran along with Gloria. 

"I kind of want to test it out," Gloria said. 

Simone shrugged. "You can test it out on your tent, but don't you dare test it out on mine. Actually, you know what? You use up your tent and you don't get to sleep in mine," Simone added. It would be a shame for Gloria to destroy one of Bran’s hard made creations.

Gloria pouted. "Maybe we should just have some fun."

Simone gave the other woman a long look. "You're going on a bit of a power trip," Simone said.

Thinking back to the stairs and Gloria's bullying of the other Initiated, she realized exactly what was happening. Gloria was finally figuring out where she was in the pecking order of the Initiated. Simone waffled her head back and forth, trying to decide if that was reasonable or not.

Either way, it didn't matter. Gloria could do what she wanted and figure it out as she went. If something happened to her, Bran would just slaughter whoever dared touch this woman. And at the end of the day, Bran would probably be proud of her for achieving more spoils within the vault.

Both of them were hungry to grow stronger and use it. Simone could imagine just how powerful Gloria felt.

After a long thought, Simone adjusted her thinking. "Don't burn the tent and I’ll help you beat up everyone else and take all of the fruits." Right now she needed to give Gloria an outlet for this new hunger, not to mention Bran wanted them to be stronger.

The fruits were probably a trap in one way or another, but Bran could probably disable it for them so they could use them later. They would only be more valuable without a downside.

Gloria had a giant grin on her face. "You'd better, Sister Simone."

It had been a while since Gloria called her a sister.

***

The next two days were much the same for Simone and Gloria.

Simone was able to check on the berries that she’d been carrying. She pulled the berries out of her pockets, only to realize they had wasted away. They had not ripened for her, and it seemed her experiment was a failure. 

"If we can't pick them now, can we just have to let them sit on the vines?" Gloria asked as they continued to walk around the forest.

“Trouble then is keeping track of all of them. We can assume they will ripen before this trial ends. However, if the time is short then it’ll be a mad rush at the end for everyone to pick the fruits.”

At this point, they had met two other groups that resulted in a small conflict before breaking away. There was nothing to fight over. The fruit simply wouldn't ripen, and the beasts only dropped meat. There was nothing of value for them to compete over, at least at the moment.

Simone realized once the fruits ripened, all hell was going to break loose. Until then, she wanted to focus on finding Bran. 

Though it seemed like most had been dropped in this forest. Simone’s best guess was that they were being given enough time to form teams.

The last group they had encountered had five people, and if it wasn't for Gloria's oppressive magic, and being able to surprise them as a caster who could shrug off blades, they likely would have been surrounded and left in poor condition. Even now, they weren't rushing about, both of them having realized that the risk far outweighed the rewards.

Bran was coming and they got nothing from encountering new people.

"How is your Bran finder?" Gloria asked, and Simone took her little contraption out of her spatial ring. 

"He's closer," Simone said. "No idea how close, though. It's not like it comes with an actual distance finder." 

Gloria shrugged. "I bet if Bran had one of those, he could tell you exactly how many miles, feet, and inches a person was away from him," she said. 

Simone laughed. "Yes, well, we can't all be as incredible as Bran, now can we? If we were, I don't think this would be nearly as much fun." She missed Bran.

"I'm glad you two are having fun," a voice that sent bad chills down Simone's spine spoke up behind them. Seemingly out of nowhere, another group had appeared. This one was led by a handsome man with long blonde hair and dressed like he was one of the Three Musketeers or belonged to a renaissance fair. 

"Well, this is an adventure after all," Simone smiled, checking out the man who seemed to be the leader of the group and preventing herself from frowning.

[Name: Antonio Riccio 

Level: 231

Class: Duelist S

Status: Healthy, Angry 

Strength: 2193

Agility: 3419

Vitality: 2318 

Intelligence: 1854 

Spirit: 1739 

Skills:

…]

His stats were well above anything she or Gloria could handle. Even working together staying alive against him would be difficult.

As the group behind the man fanned out. Simone was forced to keep her calm again, as a certain ninja was tucked in amongst the ranks. Fighting this man alone was already a losing proposition. Add in the others and they needed to get out of here.

"Oh look, it's our friend!" Gloria smiled at the ninja. Either she wasn't afraid, or she simply didn't care.

The ninja scowled. "You murdered two of our guild." 

"Guild?" Gloria tilted her head.

"We are members of the Free Player Alliance, but we decided to form a smaller, closer-knit group of our own." Antonio, clearly the leader, stepped forward. His hand rested on the rapier hilt, but it felt like he could draw it before any of them could blink. "However, I'm not an unreasonable man."

The words were familiar. It seemed he'd heard the story of the steps from the people behind him.

This wasn’t good. Simone tried to discreetly look through her spatial ring for a solution.

"All you have to do is pay a toll to go on to the next step." His thumb ran along the pommel of the rapier. "Now what do you think the toll should be for the second trial? It should certainly be more than the first trial. After all, how many fruits have you gathered?" He flashed a smile. "We've only found unripe fruits, but I'm sure if we take a look at your spatial ring, you'll have plenty of ripe ones. How about this? You give us all of your fruits, you tell us where you found them, and if you don't... Then..." He hesitated, a broad grin stretching across his face. "I'm sure we can find other items of equal value in your spatial ring." 

Simone cast a sideways glance at Gloria to see what the woman was going to do. They were clearly outmatched. But of course, the mobster looked like she was going to fight.

Antonio, the wannabe musketeer, flashed forward faster than Simone could track. Simone used Wracking Pain on him, but he only flinched.

However, the flinch was just enough time for Gloria to summon a wall of purple flames to ward him off.  The mobster turned and grabbed Simone before jumping into the air, flames jettisoning from her other hand and legs, extending her jump like some sort of comical jetpack. 

"Don't think that's gonna keep him gone for long," Simone warned. 

The wall of fire was already smashed through by their angry opponent. He covered the ground between them in moments, standing below them even as Gloria continued to try and get some distance. 

"Talisman?" Gloria asked. 

Simone whipped out one of the emergency talismans Bran had prepared for them. "Close your eyes," Simone said, "and let us down. I think we can run faster than this." 

The other seven in Antonio's group were not idle. They were spreading out, and some of them were already taking aim with ranged abilities.

Simone ignored what they were doing and focused on her next move. Instead, she activated the talisman and threw it down away from them.

The talisman burned up in golden fire before exploding in gold sparkles that covered the air and expanded to take the whole group in. 

Simone landed with Gloria in a less than graceful landing, but at least they kept to their feet.

"Run," Simone held onto Gloria's hand and began sprinting through the forest while Antonio screamed behind them. 

The man was rubbing at his eyes as gold glitter continued to sparkle around them. The talisman that Bran had given her was effective. He had said as long as their eyes were closed when it went off, they'd be fine. However, anybody whose eyes were open, would feel the equivalent of powerful, magical pepper spray. Their eyes would be burning for hours, and even a high level Initiated would take some time before they could fully recover.

It seemed to be doing just that.

Antonio had completely forgotten about Simone and Gloria while he thrashed and rubbed his eyes while screaming for healing.

Gloria tensed up, and Simone nearly smacked the woman upside the head. But she restrained herself.

“Don’t. Even if you keep throwing fire at him, once his eyes are good he’ll crush you.” Simone warned.

“Chill. I’m just making a barrier.” Gloria threw a line of purple fire out between them. Rather than suppress the fire in the pine needles, she pushed it out and the dry tinder went up in a woosh of flames.

“Hopefully he’s not fire resistant because there’ll be a lot of it in a few minutes.” Gloria threw several more balls of fire at Antonio’s group and then turned to join Simone in running.