Chương 261: Chapter 252 - Interlude 25.1 - A new adventure

1 - A new adventure

"Any questions?" Clarissa looked back at Lucy and nodded.

"Why me? I'm the healer!" she stated plainly. Lucy just smiled.

"Sam is off doing who knows what. Dan is not a leader type and I would rather have a lobotomy with a rusty spoon than placing Katie or Isabella when they are together in charge of anything." Clarissa opened her mouth, then closed it. She couldn't really argue against that.

"What about Tim or Adam?" she said desperately. She really wanted nothing to do with making sure that the herd of hell cats Sam called a team would do its job. Conveniently forgetting that she was also part of that team.

"Tim is making sure that Ironwood stays in our hands. Adam has his hands full running the guild. Plus, he has too many eyes on him. If he were to join you guys, half the player base in the Emerald Kingdom would be there to snipe you guys." She could only grumble about it. Lucy, seeing this, reached out and patted her on the shoulder.

"Relax, you'll do fine! Sam is about to do something massively stupid, so most eyes are going to be on him!"

"He is always doing something massively stupid," she pointed out.

"That's true, but this one is especially big and stupid," replied Lucy cheerfully. In Clarissa's opinion, the other woman was long ago broken by the sheer bullshit Sam produced by his very existence, and now she had no other option but to act cheerfully or face the cold reality. Or maybe Clarissa was a little salty that Sam managed to infest her little sister with his brand of chaos and she had to listen to her talking about all sorts of weird things. Eventually, she just let out a sigh and nodded reluctantly.

"Fine, I'll do it."

"Great! Do you need a recap about the objectives?" Lucy asked while grinning at her.

"No, I remember them. However, what if we find something out of the ordinary? Call Sam?" At this point, she resigned herself to the fact that in nine cases out of ten, it was much more useful to call or send a text to Sam. The man probably knew more about the game than anybody else. It was an inside joke between her and the rest of the core team that both the company and guild saved tons of money because, while other groups had to have teams of researchers on their payrolls; they had Sam.

To her dismay, Lucy shook her head.

"He is in an event space…"

"Damn! So, we are on our own?" Lucy just chuckled.

"Don't be so dour, Clarissa. If anything stands in your way, you can just send Katie to deal with it…" Lucy replied.

"Or that thing that she calls a cat…" Now that was an idea… Clarissa really wanted to see what would happen if somebody decided to take a shot at that thing masquerading (badly) as a cat. Then she instantly sobered up when she realized what she agreed to. Dan watched as the rest of the team prepared to head out. Honestly, it was pretty weird to go on an adventure together without Sam's eccentric leadership. It was really nice to know that no matter what happened, the man had all the answers.

And if not, he had enough power in his back pocket to make the problem go away. Sometimes, Dan felt that he was playing the game in easy mode.

"So, we are looking for some blood maniac priests and have to convince them to go against the other bloody maniacs rampaging down south?" Katie asked as she petted Puffball in her lap. Isabella was leaning against the wall next to her friend, arms crossed and frowning. Clarissa was at the table putting away potions and other supplies for the quest. Clarissa didn't even look up from her task as she answered.

"Not really. According to our information, they're pacifists focused on healing and other similar pursuits. We're not going there to get them to fight with us."

"Is that information called Sam?" Isabella asked with a smile as her own pet, shaped like some kind of wooden fox, wound through her legs.

"What do you think?" came the sarcastic reply. Dan nodded, expecting it. However, as he looked around, he realized something.

"Hey guys, shouldn't we get a tank for the team? Without Sam I don't think we can work around big groups…" he said. While Sam wasn't a tank, he was still great at controlling the battlefield, allowing them to focus on doing damage, healing, or casting spells without worrying about getting a face full of fists, claws, or other body parts. Not to mention liquids.

"Eh," Katie shrugged.

"We can take them!" she declared loudly. That's what Dan was afraid of. He liked Katie, really he did, but relying on her during a battle without Sam's seemingly almost omniscient awareness of the battlefield was a suicide. Clarissa froze hearing that then she looked up from her packing and eyed Dan.

"You might be right." She placed a finger on her lips and thought for a while before visibly having an idea. She quickly turned toward Katie.

"What about your brother? He is some kind of knight, right?" Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Katie grinned but surprisingly shook her head.

"Nah, he has been talking with a cute healer and has been in a party with her and her friends. Don't want to take him away from that…"

"Damn, there goes my idea," Clarissa clicked her tongue in disappointment.

"Then we need to do it on our own."

"I'm sure that with our power and info given by Sam, it's going to be a cakewalk!" Isabella declared cheerfully. To Dan's relief, nobody said the cursed words. He was even afraid to think of them… They left the city behind, using rented horses to head for Brightgarden to drop off a package for Lucy at one of the guilds their politically talented co-leader was talking with. After that, they stabled the hired horses and switched to a quartet of deer of all things.

They were given the animals at the back of one property owned by the Fauna Ark guild, letting them secretly leave through the ranch they owned and hopefully losing a bunch of watchers and followers. However, the deers still confused him even though they were surprisingly talented steeds.

"Auch!" Isabella cried out as the deer bit her fingers. And very ornery… They arrived at their first objective in an hour, where they hopped off the deer and let them go with a quickly shouted order. The deer spent a few minutes grazing the grass and taking a drink from a small spring flowing nearby, then they ran off into the distance. Dan hoped they were going back to Brightgarden and not anywhere else. He knew how much training those mounts cost. He didn't want to pay for their replacement.

He watched as Clarissa stood in the middle of the meadow with closed eyes, using her Mana Sense. After all, other than Sam, who was a rule unto himself, she had the best mana sense in the group. The area he could sense was much smaller than the others, but his were more focused on sensing what the enemy was doing. Dan even hoped to develop some kind of predictive or precognitive skill that would allow him to foresee what kind of magic his enemy would cast.

Lara and he spent a lot of time theory-crafting when not in the game. Sometimes it was interrupted by other actions, but eventually, they always ended back on the topic. To Lara, it was just fascinating and a way to prove her intellectual superiority. But to Dan, it was a way to prove he could succeed without Sam's help, as even their fearless leader admitted that he had no idea how to create a precognitive skill like that. Some parts of him hoped he could show up Sam for once…

Clarissa opened her eyes and let out a relieved sigh.

"Can't sense anybody. So, we are either alone or they're much stronger than me…" she declared and the rest of the team also let out their own sigh.

"What's next?" Isabella asked.

"You were pretty quiet on what we had to do…" Clarissa nodded then brought up her system screen and after a few seconds the rest of the team received a notification. As they read over it, she also took the time to wonder at it. She didn't think it was possible…

'But I suppose with this game, there are no limits…' [Nun of your business!] [You and your team have been given a quest to find the Church of the First Drop and gain their support in the ongoing conflict.] [Time Limit: None] [Penalty: Lucy will be very disappointed] [Reward: Lucy will be very proud of you] She didn't know how Lucy did it but she ended up giving Clarissa a quest that she was now sharing with the others.

She didn't know why it was important as they weren't getting any reward from it aside from their usual salary and bonuses due based on their contract, but apparently, some skill of her boss made this possible.

"Wow! Lucy is awesome!" Katie exclaimed as she finished reading. Dan also nodded, looking impressed.

"This is great and all, but still doesn't tell us what we have to do…" Clarissa couldn't really argue with that.

"Indeed. Our first task is to find a small-ish valley with a stone formation. There we have to do some kind of blood sacrifice and then follow the signs."

"That's not really much to go on…" he said in response. She took out a hand-drawn map and showed it to them.

"I have been given this…" They all gathered around her and took a look at it. Finally, after a minute of staring, it was Isabella who spoke up.

"Well, at least we know what he is not good at…"

"Hold it! Hold it!" she yelled in panic as she tried to keep up with the frenzied claws of a four-legged and four-armed bear monster as it and Katie tried to out murderblender each other. Isabella was sitting on the ground, exhausted and out of mana, while Dan was keeping back a bunch of mad squirrels with a firewall and pinpoint precise strikes both from him and Hawky. She was simultaneously healing both of them while keeping up the buffs and topping up their mana.

"I'm trying!" yelled back Katie as she rolled away, avoiding an overhead hammer strike from the angry bear.

"Maybe try helping!?"

"I'm already doing that!" she yelled back in frustration as she watched the berserker's health dip down again.

"Run!" she yelled as they were running from a rampaging horde of tigers coming at them.

"We're already running!" Isabella yelled back while running next to Dan and trying to hum a few bars to keep up the speed buff that was allowing them to keep ahead of the horde.

"Where the fuck is that goblin?" she yelled back angrily between two harsh breaths trying to keep her lungs (and intestines) inside. Then she heard it.

"GIGA DEEP IMPACT!" A guttural roar followed by maniacal laughter caused them to stumble to a stop, Isabella dropping to her knees and Dan resting with his hands on his legs, breathing heavily. Clarissa had enough energy remaining to turn around to witness Katie (jumping from somewhere in a flat forest environment with sparse trees) impacting the approaching horde like a demented meteor.

She was wreathed in eldritch flames that were so black that Clarissa could have sworn she saw galaxies being born and burn inside them. Then those flames touched the monsters and with a great whoosh, flames obscured Clarissa's sight. Thankfully, the roar of those somewhat masked the pained screams… Clarissa huffed as she stared at the unapologetic face of Katie as she kneeled before them, Dan and Isabella also standing there looking rather ruffled and singed at the edges.

"I said I was sorry!" she whined. Like a whiner.

"Your spell destroyed all the loot!" she declared for the second time.

"But it saved us and gave us extra experience! I didn't see you doing anything but running!" she shot back with a glare.

"It was a tactical retreat to regroup and figure out a way to defeat the enemy," she stated imperiously while avoiding eye contact.

'I knew this was a bad idea…'

"Is this it?" Dan asked tiredly, as they saw a small circular area surrounded by rocks falling from the mountains with a broken stone flooring in the middle. Clarissa shuffled forward exhaustedly and looked for a symbol that she was shown. The symbol, half a stylized heart with three drops of blood falling from it, was on one of the rocks around the edge of the area that she just realized was actually a natural formation of rocks with broken pillars and other architectural elements.

"Yes…" she declared almost in a whisper. Isabella simply fell to the ground and let out a choked sob.

"I can't believe we made it…" Katie, armor shredded beyond recognition – not that it stopped her from flinging herself in the middle of monster groups – happily took a seat next to her friend.

"I still think we could have made friends with those bees."