Chapter 60: Chapter 60: Vampra

Nay pulled another torch out of her inventory and handed it to Nom. She led them by mini-map, choosing directions at the forked tunnels, making it to the warren. She checked the remaining time left on the Fleet-footed spell.

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[Fleet-footed]

[1:34]

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The first thing they noticed about entering the warren was the change in temperature. It was warm down here, which meant something or someone was generating heat.

The main hollow of the warren was nothing like she was expecting. Instead of some hollowed out and darkened burrow in the earth, there appeared to be a well-tended garden in here with bio-luminescent lichen light.

It was a bizarre botanical garden.

The green leaves and stems of root crops were poking up out of the ground. They were spotted with mold.

Lichen clung to the root ceiling above, providing light. Moisture dripped onto the plants.

The vines here were not green, but the color of flesh. There was an assortment of strange pitcher plants, the leaves dark ass night with red veins running along the plant matter. There was a swollenness to them that reminded Nay of overfed slugs.

There were dionaea-style snap traps that looked like they had human teeth. Other growths had strange leaves and filaments and even pink tongues.

These plants were arranged in grids. Nay concluded that meant there was a gardener who had designed this layout and was tending to all this.

Nom whispered. “Are there any magic pictures to go with your magic words describing the Vampra?”

“I’ve got nothing describing the Vampra.”

“What good are these quest logs when you don’t have any sort of monster or creature codex to go with it?”

“Sorry, next time my interface gets upgraded I’ll ask them to install it. I didn’t have time to ask at the Interface Dealership during my last visit.”

They made their way through the garden and passed a large plant that stopped them in their tracks by its sheer vibes.

It was a dionaea-style snap jaw plant, but it was massive. Its coloration was that of a purple bruise. There was a giant bladder on the stalk, and it drooped towards the ground. They could see through the green and crimson plant fiber membrane. It provided them a glimpse of the bladder contents.

There was an entire deer inside of the plant. It was half-digested.

“How the hell did a deer get down here?” Nay said.

“Maybe it got lost,” Nom said.

“Or something brought it in here.”

“Okay, now I’m having second thoughts again.”

They kept walking and got a clear view of the back of the warren.

Vampra was chilling in a carrot pitch, nibbling on one of the vegetables. Upon first glance it looked like a giant rabbit, but sharp claws poked out of its cute, furry feet.

There was a Death’s Head marking on its chest. It looked like a tribal tattoo of sorts. Its ears swiveled on its head, tracking their movement. They pulsed with a red glow.

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[Delicacy Detected]

[Death Head of Vampra]

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Then a quest prompt appeared.

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[Quest Detected!]

[Quest: Separate the Delicacy from Vampra]

[Reward: Death Head of Vampra]

[Accept Quest Y/N?]

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“It has a Delicacy,” Nom said. He trembled with anticipation. He became more focused.

It stirred upon their presence.

The white-furred chest opened up, revealing a porcelain humanoid form within. It reminded Nay of a young version of The Sketsis. It, too, was female and the face had enough human features to make Nay feel a mixture of sympathy and horror. They shared the same Uncanny Valley effect, a bewitching revulsion.

“Ah,” Vampra said. “Have you come to see my garden of delights?”

She perched on her hind legs, gazing at them with inhuman eyes.

That’s when Nay got a prompt.

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[Reputations Menu]

[Factions]

[The Scar: Friendly]

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Vampra’s origin was The Scar, just like The Steksis. No wonder she was getting similar vibes.

“Have you come here to help tend to my garden?” Vampra said. “Corpse Shade could use a gardener with a tender touch.”

She gestured to the massive snap jaw plant with the bladder containing the deer corpse.

“I don’t really have time to explain,” Nay said. “You're the mini-dungeon boss here. I need to defeat you for your loot. But do you just wanna cut through all the bullshit and just give it to us?”

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[Reputations Menu]

[Factions]

[The Scar: Unfriendly]

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Corpse Shade rose up behind them and whipped forward, striking. The snap trap struck the ground, shaking the warren, closing its jaws over Nom.

“Didn’t think so,” Nay said.

The stalk lifted up and Nay could see Nom flailing inside. His body pressing against the plant matter, making it bulge.

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Nay drew Thorn and ice scythe, the Dire Knife imbue flaring around the blades.

She moved to engage the grotesque dionaea trap. She felt a searing pain on her shoulder and side and was suddenly flying through the air. She crashed into the earthen wall, dazed. Part of her cloak and tunic had been obliterated and her exposed skin was burned.

The hell?

She looked at Vampra, who was charging up some type of energy attack with her bunny ears. The ends glowed laser red and there was the charge of electricity in the air.

“Oh shit –“

A beam of energy blasted out of the bunny ears and lasered at her. She did a rising handspring and dove out of the way.

If it wasn’t for the Fleet-footed spell she would have been smoked. The blast blew a crater into the earth and rock.

In front of her, Nay noticed the leaves and stems of the root vegetables shuddering and vibrating. They were moving. Little brown and flesh-colored root arms exploded out of the soil. They were root tendril appendages. They pressed against the earth. With a pop, the bulbous and gnarled root bodies emerged.

They had faces with glowing red eyes, the vivid hue of maraschino cherries. They had little brown noses and pouty mouths that made the things look constipated in perpetuity. They were filled with sharp thorn-teeth.

Vampra mandrakes.

There were a dozen of the vicious mandrakes. They leapt onto her like a pack of piranhas, their roots scraping at her, trying to twine around her. Their teeth gnashed and nipped at her, tearing flesh through her clothes. They bit the back of her legs, her back. One tried to bite her ear.

She screamed and rolled across the garden, tearing up posts and barreling through the stalks of plants. She uses the moment to do a kip up, launching herself back to her feet. Mandrakes popped up into the air from her movement. She sliced one in half with Thorn. Pink entrails and green goo spilled out of its top half and it released a high-pitched mew.

Three of them hit the ground, scrambling right-side up before charging her. She swung with ice scythe, taking their heads off like a reaper come to sow. Separating wheat from chaff. Mandrake heads rolled across the ground, leaking green goo. The pouty mouths pouting even more, the maraschino eyes rolling around in the sockets. Their thorn teeth chittering.

She scrambled away as the others righted themselves. They were joined by more vampra mandrakes pulling themselves out of the ground. A self-induced harvest because they sensed fresh meat. Another Vampra ray blast flew over her shoulder, its heat singing the ends of her hair. She ducked and twisted, moving away from the little army of mandrakes running at her.

It would almost be comical if she wasn’t already torn and bleeding from their attacks.

“This is no way to treat a lady!”

She raised Thorn and ice scythe and went to throw them, activating Salvo of Knives. Mid-motion, the weapons disappeared out of her hands. And reappeared across from her. Thorn was now in the forehead of the mandrake, its hilt quivering. Ice scythe spun in a crescent pattern, cutting through several of the mandrakes at their waists, slicing them in half.

A cluster of spirit daggers rained from the ceiling, hitting the mandrakes nearby Thorn’s target, impaling them to the dirt or just passing through their root-shaped bodies, immobilizing them. Some of them coughed green goo as they died, their maraschino cherry eyes bulging in their last moments. A few of them let out pitiful mews.

“No, don't make pitiful noises! Why are you trying to be cute now?!” Nay said. “I don’t feel sorry for any of you. Y’all are assholes!”

Her weapons disappeared again, only to reappear in her hands. “Whoa.”

And that’s when she saw Vampra hopping towards her. For a moment, time slowed for her, just to feature a giant monster bunny rabbit leaping in slow motion. It was majestic. It planted its forearms into the ground and threw its lower body forward at her, kicking at her with its clawed hind legs.

Nay sprinted to the the side, dodging the nasty looking claws. Vampra hopped high into the air and twisted, landing on her bottom, sliding away from Nay like a dog dragging its ass along a carpet. Its two bunny ears began to glow red, charging up.

“Fuck that,” Nay said.

She lunged towards Vampra and swung ice scythe. It was a backhanded swing. Right as the blast of energy was going to laser her down, ice scythe severed the bunny ears, prematurely releasing the burst of energy in an explosion.

Nay was airborne again for a brief moment. She landed at the stalk of the Corpse Shade plant.

There was a sonic screech as the blast took off part of Vampra’s face. The creature twisted to the ground, falling into a patch of its carnivorous flowers.

Above Nay, there was some type of serpentine struggle happening in the bowels of Corpse Shade. She could hear Nom crying in anger inside. “I don’t wanna…but I gotta!” There was a wail. “Damn you!”

There was a gnashing of teeth. There was a great tearing of plant matter. Right where the mutant flower’s sphincter was located. Normally used for secreting pollen and the waste juices of its prey, it currently had the tip of a tentacle bursting through it. Nom’s head burst out of the sphincter, his fins poking through the vegetable and flesh matter, tearing the orifice open wider. A brutal reverse osmosis.

Chlorophyll and other botany juices drenched Nay. She squirmed, totally grossed out.

Nom slid out of the back end of Corpse Shade, drooping down to the floor, contained inside a membrane. It was like a baby giraffe still inside the embryonic sac falling out of its mother. Nay used Thorn to cut Nom out of the stomach lining membrane.

“These moon cakes better be fucking delicious!” Nom said. “I just chewed my way out of that thing’s asshole!”

Corpse Shade shrieked, its thorny vines flailing. It twisted on its stalk and hate radiated off its snap trap visage, sensing Nay. It reared its head back as if it was a giant serpent, preparing to strike.

And strike it did.

With a rush of air, its trap mouth opened and it whipped towards Nay. She swung an underside swing with ice scythe, and the curved blade entered Corpse Shade’s lower jaw, penetrated its mouth and punctured its upper mouth, skewering the whole apparatus.

Nay, utilizing her Iron Rank strength, held the head in place, stopping the strike. With her other hand, she used an overhand grip to stab Thorn into its throat. She pulled the combat dagger down, ripping Corpse Shade’s throat open in a vertical slit. Brown and green plant juice spilled out of the wound.

The odor of rotting flesh hit her full in the face and she gagged. But the thing went limp, impaled on ice scythe.

“Another Delicacy,” Nay said.

She yanked ice scythe out of it and spun. Corpse Shade hit the ground, lifeless. Nay made eye contact with Vampra. The top of the bunny monster’s skull was gone, part of its brain exposed to the world.

It was an odd Mexican stand-off, between human girl and Scar monstrosity. And it only lasted about a second before Nay threw her blades at it, activating Salvo of Knives again since it was off cool down.

But instead of appearing inside the monster like she expected – and she had really hoped one of the blades would be poking out of its exposed brain – Vampra rose into the air and held its forelegs in the air as if signaling a touchdown. Under flaps of chitinous scales fell from its armpits as if they were wrings. They gave off a silver sheen.

Nay's weapons appeared. The scale reflected the blades, turning the attack back on Nay. They flew back towards her, blade and points first. To make matters worse, the salvo of spirit knives that fell from above were reflected as well. Suddenly, they were falling towards Nay and Nom.

Nay sprinted, crashing into Nom and pushing him away from the volley of blades. Thorn and ice scythe flew past her. The combat dagger hit the bladder of the plant, releasing a toxic pollen gas into the warren. Ice scythe took the heads off some flowers and embedded into a root protruding out of the wall.

“Are you okay?” Nom said. She inspected Nom. He sat up, and he was knife wound free.

“Nay!” Nom said, warning her.

She turned her head just in time to see Vampra hopping at her. It pushed its lower half out to claw her with its hind legs again. She was about to get turned into a Nay-ka-bob. But then the bunny creature froze in the air. It was gently vibrating, held in place by an invisible psychic force.

Nom was using his Mind Shiv spell on Vampra. “Finish it!”

Nay didn’t hesitate. She sliced off the hind feet and claws with ice scythe and drove Thorn into Vampra’s exposed brain. Her Kinetic Point meter was full. She activated Gore.

Its wounds ruptured from within. Its stumps where its feet were showered Nay’s torso in gore. Its brain exploded, splattering Nay and Nom’s faces. The cut on its side blossomed, spurting out liquefied viscera.

Nay and Nom stood there in the botanical garden from hell, covered in the innards, secretions and juices of the creatures that dwelt here.

“I’m beginning to think a Bathe Ability would be really useful,” Nay said.

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