Drip-Fed

A blizzard swept over the landscape.

The sudden swelling of the cold had caught the party by surprise. One day the weather had been nice and mild, the next they had opened the door of the Mobile Estate to being hip high in snow.

The weather was a greater hurdle to them than a monster attack could have been. Aclysia was capable of walking on the snow without issue. Reysha could do so with some care. Apexus and Korith, however, had no chance to traverse on the surface of the frozen water. They were simply too heavy. Apexus could deal with this by just ploughing through. Korith did not have that benefit. Hip height for them was the entirety of the body for her.

Therefore, Apexus carried her on his shoulders for as long as the weather permitted. Their progress was crawlingly slow. Energy burned to continue forwards eventually forced them into the simple calculation that it was more efficient to just sit it out.

They were snowed in for four days before there was a break in the snowing that went long enough that they could make meaningful progress. They practically ran all day that day, moving as quick as they possibly could. It was not the lost time they were afraid of, but the slow dwindling of their supplies. The abundant monsters usually found were every bit as buried as they had been. In their absence, Apexus and Reysha had to dig into the same food supplies as Korith, dwindling them rapidly.

If they got stuck out here again, there was a chance that they would starve.

On that day, they made enough progress to reach a milder climate. On the day after that, they were entirely out of the blizzard and on the day after that, the landscape was free of snow. Another day after that, they could peel out of the snow clothes.

While all of this world went through seasonal cycles, the area they now approached was affected a lot less by them. The Influence Zone of the Temples of Temptation was a massive desert that was hot all year round. While it was considerably hotter in the summer and more rainy in the winter, it was hot all the same during the days. The nights got bitterly cold as well, just without snowfall.

Before they entered the desert, however, there was the city of Lamb’s Court.

The relief the group felt when the towers first came into view was palpable. They stayed out for one more night, subsisting off their remaining supplies, before marching the final day through a temperate grassland. Between the cold plains behind them and the scorching desert before, there was a fertile green strip that remained at a nicely balanced temperature all year.

There were some fields around the city, but most of the grassland was dominated by livestock – specifically sheep. The Lamb’s Court had recieved its name from how preciously the first settlers of the area had guarded every sheep that had managed to be transported there. To that day, the central and largest building in the city was a big fortress square whose dual purpose was to protect and assure the healthy upbringing of the lambs.

The task had become less important over the years, as the city grew and the Incursions that would devour the livestock less frequent. By this point, cows and pigs had also managed to make their way across. All the same, the culture of the locality had become very focused on sheep. They were just about everywhere, patrolling even the outer districts of the city. It was only when they got to the inner parts of it, where there was too little food and too much activity for an animal to be comfortable, that the sheep stayed out.

It was also there that the party got their first point of shopping done: fresh food. The abundance of sheep meant that meet and wool was incredibly cheap. They found one middleman who sold several farms’ produce in bulk and then began to haggle.

“Any chance we can give you items in return?” Korith asked.

“Depends on the things?” the trader asked, then watched with a slowly raising eyebrow as Korith began to pile on the various trinkets she had appropriated from the village head. “I won’t pry too much, but these seem like personal items?”

Apexus saw no reason to lie. “We had been hired on terms that we found out could not be met. We extracted our payment by confiscating what there was.”

“Ah, tale as old as time,” the trader answered. He was not convinced that this had been entirely justified on the part of the adventurers, but he also was not doubting enough to make it an issue. “I was wondering if your Kobold had just gotten an SP attack.”

“A what now?” Reysha asked.

“Spontaneous Looting? Ah, you must not know the joke, one moment…” The trader went to the back of the room and pulled a book out from behind the counter. It was one of several he kept there to kill time when business was slow. Consequently, it looked the part of the many readings it had gotten over the years. The title read ‘Humorous Racial Facts and other such things’ in a cursive font that made it clear from the start it was all tongue in cheek. “It’s one of the more popular satire books around here,” he explained and opened a specific page.

When offered, the Inevitable party looked to Aclysia to take the book. She was by far the most pleasing orator of the bunch and the most fluid reader as well. She cleared her throat, then recited:

“Spontaneous Looting or SP for short is a condition that is generally prevalent amongst Kobolds, when that condition triggers by certain causes, namely a lack of ‘shinies’ or a promise of ‘shinies’ being denied, a Kobold will start to look for anything they perceive as valuable in their immediate environment, in that state the Kobold will not act according to their regular moral compass and prioritize their basic need for ‘shinies’, the items that end up being seized by the Kobold will be later revalued by the same Kobold when their state of mind stabilizes, it is generally advised to avoid attempting to take back ‘shinies’ as it will likely cause the condition to trigger again, if said ‘shiny’ is of prime importance to you, you could attempt to trade it once the condition stabilizes, also a Kobold shouldn't be held responsible for any damage caused by this condition, as they are not mentally stable when SP occurs.”

“I have good self-control!” Korith protested.

“Most of the time,” Reysha agreed. “I do remember that one time you pounced at a gold coin someone had dropped.”

“I gave it back!”

“Very reluctantly.”

“It’s a total stereotype!”

“The above excerpt was taken from a serious study conducted by one Deekin Shinetake, a Goldborne kobold who often and loudly advocated that kobolds just had to take all the shiny stuff in the world,” Aclysia continued to read.

“You’re making that up.”

“I am not,” the metal fairy turned the book to show Korith where it said so on the page. Grumbling, the blonde dropped the topic and continued to present all that they had taken from the Southstrait to the trader. After turning a few more pages, Aclysia decided to read out another jab.

“It is widely known that the tiger girls of Ragressia only love three things: indecency, themselves, and knives.”

“Wha- how dare they!” Reysha responded with fake outrage. “I do not love myself and love is way too shallow a word to describe my relationship with indecency and knives!”

“Is rampant nymphomania a well-known factor in her species?” Aclysia wondered.

“Rampant? No. Above average? We here think so. Not that we have a lot of Ragressians wander around. There’s a community of twenty or so in the northern district, but they spend most of the year venturing into the desert to clear Incursions.”

“Want to swing by them?” Korith asked.

“Nope, I am very good,” Reysha answered. “I don’t have the kind of camaraderie with my folk you do, squishy,” she continued when the blonde gave her a confused stare. “Ragressia is my home because I was born there and it certainly shaped me. That being said, I do not have a really deep connection with it. Dunno, I just don’t.” She shrugged, the whole thing too ephemeral to be put into words adequately.

“I see…?” Korith did not quite get it. The Hoard and its worshippers were close to everything to her. Even if she had met so many people whom family meant less, it still surprised her somewhere whenever it happened.

“Well, I got you, that’s what I care about.” The redhead grinned and gave her shorter comrade a playful bump with her knee.

The trader had finished his inspection of the trinkets offered by that point. He was ready to take them off their hands for an okay discount. Korith took it, because they did not know when they would next get the chance to sell that stuff. Afterwards, they were several sacks of rations richer. Rations that they swiftly stowed away where they belonged in the Mobile Estate.

After that, they went to the local Adventurer’s Guild building for three reasons. One was to get recommendations on who to go to locally to get their equipment, especially Korith’s armour, professionally repaired. Second was to sell all the excess items they had from their dungeon dive and the cleared Incursions. Third was to ask if they knew anything about the Atlas Party’s progress.

“So, you are the Inevitable, ey?” The clerk was a brawny dwarf and embodiment of his people. Despite his position as a bureaucrat, he insisted on wearing pauldrons and his long, dark brown ear was parted into three thick braids. “You got here slower than I thought.”

“We did a dungeon dive on the way to prepare ourselves for the Trauma Influence Zone,” Apexus responded.

“Smort,” the dwarf said in a peculiar accent and checked on all of the items that had been put on the table. “How’s 2 Platin for all of that?”

“…Acceptable,” Korith answered. 20 Gold was about as much as they could have expected, considering they were not selling any magical items this time around, just Mana Gems and various monster parts.

With some fresh money in their pockets, the other two topics were a little easier to get into. “Any news on where the Atlas Party might be?”

“Mhm… eh, I’ll tell ye, why not? Just wait a sec’.” the dwarf disappeared in the backrooms for several minutes. While the many Distance Feathers that were being used for communication between the outposts allowed for word to travel fast, finding the logs of such words did take a moment. Eventually, the dwarf came back. “Say they passed through the Possible Strait a couple of weeks ago.”

“Interesting,” Apexus answered and gave a thankful nod.

If the Atlas party had passed through that territory while the Inevitable was still busy in the dungeon, that meant they had not stopped to do their levelling yet. Likely, they were closing in on Respite, the civilized are northeast of the desert.

If Apexus was right in that estimation, his party was truly well-positioned to win this race. Not only were they closer, they also had gotten in the appropriate level range already. The southern route had certainly allowed them an advantageous position here. Risk taken was reward gained.

“When you make the report that we came through, include that we wish for the Atlas Party to be similarly informed of our last location,” the humanoid chimera said.

“Will do,” the dwarf said. “Anything else I can help you with?”

“We require the services of an armourer, specifically to replace the straps and buckles on her armour.” Apexus gestured at Korith.

Unsurprisingly, the dwarf knew somebody.  They went out and immediately spend half they money they had earned on the repairs. Much of that cost was them needing it done as soon as possible. Two hours later, everything was back together properly and they went north.

After the cold, the desert was next.