Chương 114: Ethical Person

"Okay," Meno said.

"What if you take off all your armor, I carry you onto the raid boss like a backpack, and you consume the Essencefruit?" backpack Thorn bromance arc absolutely yes ethical carry Thorn looked at Meno like he had just suggested the dumbest thing possible.

"Absolutely not." Meno opened his guild panel, hoping for Chadculator, Sabra, or anyone on the rescue crew who could give him a useful update. Chad was offline in-game, so Meno used the phone link and sent a message asking where they were. The answer came quicker than expected. Chadculator: Almost made it. Died and respawned back on main continent because we didn't get close enough to unlock Naraltan. Can try later. Can't log on right now.

Meno texted back that he had found a way off and they should stop wasting gold on the ship, then shook his head. His guild was not very reliable, though according to the panel Chadculator was level forty, so blaming him for failing a level eighty-five octopus crossing would be a little unfair. Only a little. Meno still wanted the boat. Thorn's party members had respawned by then. The three warlocks and the priest stood behind their guild master, giving Meno ugly looks.

The kill cage had faded once Thorn dismissed it, though Meno kept checking the ground out of habit. Trusting Thorn felt like petting a bear. Meno looked at him.

"Are ships mounts? Or how do they work? Also, do you have the same expensive one as Kestrel?"

"As if." Thorn's face twitched.

"That is a tier three variant. Ten million gold and a very high Karma level."

"Expensive."

"Yes, genius. And ships are mounts that can only be summoned on water." Thorn took out a round transparent orb. Inside it, a small ship drifted in miniature, dark wood and dull metal bands, much less impressive than Crownfall's white warship.

"I have a smaller tier two," Thorn said.

"Durable variant." Meno nodded.

"Sorry. Didn't know you guys were poor."

"Shut up," Thorn snapped.

"Kestrel is always cheating, that bastard." Crownfall rent free poor Stormhold ten million diff Kestrel catching strays ship envy"Whatever," Meno said.

"Here is the plan. We get on my Gravewurm and go to the raid boss."

"You want me to get on that disgusting thing?" Thorn asked.

"Can you focus, or are you busy with your roleplay?" The priest coughed once and looked away. Meno pointed toward the storm center.

"We circle the boss on the mount. I assume you have a taunt ability?" Thorn lifted his chin.

"Of course. Ten-second cooldown. Wears off in two seconds if I do not attack. Medium range."

"Good. As long as nothing hits us, the mount should stay active. When I call it, you taunt to bait javelins into trees and spawn fruit." Thorn narrowed his eyes.

"But we don't pick them up at first," Meno said.

"Why not?"

"Because they are bait for the champions. Once fruits are on the field, they fight over them. With your taunt, it should be easier to make the calamity hit trees, and after enough chaos, one of your warlocks jumps off, grabs a fruit, and throws it to me." The warlocks looked less confident.

"Then another repeats it," Meno continued.

"Once I have two fruits in my inventory, you jump off and survive against the raid boss as long as possible while I ride away."

"Are you making fun of us?" Thorn shouted.

"You're just using us as bait to get yourself more fruit."

"I wouldn't need this nonsense for myself," Meno said.

"I can already farm them." That shut nobody up.

"It will work," Meno said.

"Go with it. You three die, obviously, then respawn at a tree. I check the map, ride toward you, pick you up, and we go straight to the sea. You summon the ship, we sail off, and I give you the two fruits. You consume them. That's it." Thorn folded his arms.

"If it doesn't work," Meno added, "we try something else."

"Your mount will get touched in two seconds by the raid boss after I taunt it, and the whole plan falls apart."

"I know what it does pretty well by now. The Wurm has High Jump. I can handle it." Thorn held his stare for a long second before the raid invite arrived. [Thorn has offered a temporary truce and invited you to join his raid group.]"Wait," Meno said.

"How can you form a group? I thought the raid boss disabled parties zone-wide. Actually, how did your healer even heal you?"

"Because you upgraded the normal summon incantation into a zone calamity," Thorn said.

"That whole restriction was overwritten. It is a different thing now. Do I have to explain everything?"

"Yes. What about the faction restrictions?"

"That is for Guild membership, PvP and NPCs. If I offer a truce, we can group up just fine."

"Good to know," Meno said, and accepted the raid invite.

"I have reached my limit for fail clips today," Thorn said.

"Do not mess this up."

"Thought that was your content strategy," Meno said, drawing an ugly look from Thorn. Meno mounted the Gravewurm. The Stormhold party climbed on behind him with visible suffering. Thorn rode directly behind Meno, shield strapped across his back, looking like his dignity had taken a larger hit than his HP bar. The warlocks packed in behind him, and the priest took the rear with both hands gripping the worm's ridged side. The Gravewurm was big enough, but not graceful.

Bus-sized mount, five other passengers, and a level one hundred twenty zone calamity ahead. Great. Meno started toward the center. The Gravewurm's body rolled under him in long muscular surges, and Meno could feel when its weight shifted before the jump stat even mattered. That was important, because steering this thing like his own body was already ridiculous. Steering it while Thorn shouted taunt timings in his ear was going to be fun. The storm center opened in front of them.

The Second Dream Incarnate hovered above a field of lightning scars, wings spread, golden eyes bright. Champions fought beneath it in shifting clusters. Meno counted seven: two Korka, one Faol shaman, a Lonachi rogue, a Harku mage that might have been Raku or his cousin, the Smovo monk, and Torno the Thornado Bard holding a live concert.

"First pass," Meno said.

"Do not taunt until I call." Thorn grunted, and the Gravewurm accelerated. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Meno kept wide, circling the calamity outside the densest champion pile. The boss tracked the existing fight at first, which bought them distance. A Korka warrior ate a punch and crashed into a tree, while Torno started playing flute at the Lonachi rogue with a sound bad enough to make one warlock tense like he might jump off voluntarily.

The calamity's hand lifted, and golden lightning shaped into a javelin.

"Now." Thorn braced one foot against the moving Gravewurm's back ridge and shouted like a maniac, nearly deafening Meno in one ear.

"Face me!" A red-black mark flashed across the calamity. The Second Dream Incarnate turned, and the javelin followed its eyes. Meno drove the Gravewurm straight toward a leafless tree, then kicked the mount's High Jump a heartbeat before the throw. The worm launched upward with all six riders clinging on in panic. The javelin passed under its belly and punched through the tree, lighting the trunk blue from root to branch. One fruit began forming.

The shockwave snapped through the air behind them, close enough for the Gravewurm to buck on landing, but Meno kept the mount clear and used its next stride to recover before the calamity's wing dash crossed the space they had just left.

"See?" Meno said.

"Handled."

"Focus," Thorn said. The Essencefruit formed behind them, and the champions noticed at once. The Lonachi rogue vanished, the Harku mage teleported, and one Korka broke off from the calamity to charge the tree. Torno floated slowly after them while playing flute holding the Smovo monk in a bubble. The first fruit worked exactly as Meno hoped; the fight began splitting.

"Again," Meno said. They circled wider, but the calamity had not forgotten Thorn. Its next punch came with lightning coiling around the fist. Meno cut inward at the last second, letting a Korka champion move between them, and the fist slammed into the Korka's shield instead. The impact threw the champion into the path of the Harku mage's spell, and Meno jumped the Gravewurm over both of them while the warlocks behind him made noises that were not tactically relevant. Golden lightning gathered again.

"Now." Thorn taunted, and the boss turned harder this time, wings folding as if it wanted to dash rather than throw. Meno saw the shoulder angle change and forced the Gravewurm into a low sideways slide instead of a jump. The wing dash missed them and clipped the tree. No fruit. The tree shattered.

"Wrong attack," Thorn snapped.

"I noticed." The calamity hit the ground ahead, already sweeping back toward them, but Meno kicked High Jump and launched the Gravewurm over the follow-up. The passengers slammed into each other behind him. The priest lost grip, one warlock grabbed his robe, and all of them came down in a tangled pile while still technically mounted. Meno kept moving. worm raid Thorn screaming inside mount parkour this plan sucks On the third pass, Meno waited through the punch and the eye glow before snapping, "Look away."

The priest looked anyway, so he locked into a kneel on the Gravewurm's back and slid toward the side like a sack. Thorn grabbed his collar and hauled him upright just as the calamity raised another javelin.

"Now." Thorn taunted. Meno lined the tree, but the javelin came faster than the previous ones. He used Jump too early, realized it midair, and commanded a Gravewurm so its landing angle carried them sideways. The javelin tore through the space beneath the mount and hit the tree behind them by a margin Meno did not enjoy thinking about. Second fruit. Now the field broke open. Seven champions scattered into smaller fights around two fruits, with the calamity trying to punish Thorn through all of it.

Chululu's cousin stabbed the Korka near the first fruit. The Smovo monk dashed toward the second and got lifted by Torno's wind bubble again. Raku's maybe-cousin tried to net both fruits and got tackled by Bruuwol's distant relative.

"One more bait, then the next two are pickup," Meno said.

"Warlock one, get ready."

"I have a name," the first warlock said.

"Congratulations. Jump when I say." They needed one more bait fruit before trying to secure the actual two, so Meno aimed for a tree farther out, away from the clusters already forming around the close ones. The calamity tried the forced teleport punch on Meno as the designated driver instead, but Sleepless Grip caught the movement effect before it could drag him off the Gravewurm. The raid boss dashed in front of him anyway. Meno threw the Gravewurm into a full-body side leap at the last instant.

The punch missed Thorn by inches and hit the rear warlock instead. The warlock died instantly. Silence lasted half a second.

"Good thing we had a spare," Meno said. Thorn shouted something the game helpfully censored. The dead warlock would respawn at a tree later. Fine. Probably. Meno still had two warlocks to throw at fruit, one priest, and Thorn's ego, which counted as an armored summon. Another javelin formed, and Thorn taunted with actual fury when Meno called it. This time Meno lined the tree and timed Jump perfectly. The javelin struck clean, and a third fruit began forming. The champions went completely mad.

Three fruits on the field changed their priorities. The calamity still pulled threat, but every champion wanted Essence. Fights broke into ugly small conflicts: monk versus rogue, Korka versus mage, Thornado versus everyone's hearing. Torno switched to the thunder instrument, and the ground quake knocked two champions flat. The quake rippled under the Gravewurm just as it jumped.

Meno cut the landing short, bounced hard, and nearly lost control before Thorn's shield wall popped on reflex, catching a Korka projectile that would have killed the priest. Meno used the wall's edge as a visual anchor, angled the Gravewurm around it, and cut toward the second fruit.

"Warlock two," Meno said.

"Go." The warlock jumped, landed badly, and rolled before scrambling toward the fruit under fire from a Lonachi archer. Thorn summoned another wall, saving him. The warlock grabbed the fruit.

"Throw!" He threw it underhand like a person who had never thrown anything important in his life. The fruit sailed low, but Meno leaned off the Gravewurm, caught it with one hand, and shoved it into inventory before the system could tempt every nearby enemy toward him. [Essencefruit Acquired]"Good," Meno said. The warlock died to a Korka axe a moment later. Pickup two needed to be cleaner, but it was not.

The third warlock jumped near the fruit while Raku's maybe-cousin split into copies and surrounded the area with lightning. The warlock died instantly, collapsing with the Essencefruit still trapped under one hand. The priest saw it happen and jumped after him, casting some kind of levitation spell before he hit the ground. The magic caught late and ugly, slowing him into a sideways drift just long enough for him to scoop the fruit. Meno turned the Gravewurm straight at him. The priest threw.

The fruit spun too high, forcing Meno to stand on the moving mount, jump off its back with False Wings, catch the Essencefruit midair, and kick back down onto the Gravewurm's head ridge before the mount outran him. The priest died a moment later. [Essencefruit Acquired] Second fruit secured.

"We leave," Meno said. The Second Dream Incarnate lifted both wings. Circles spread across the ground in overlapping layers, blanketing the whole area before Meno could angle the Gravewurm clear. Leaving on foot was dead. Staying low was dead. The only safe surface was the raid boss itself. Meno drove the Gravewurm straight at the calamity and commanded the mount to jump, launching them onto the boss's upper back in one ugly leap. Thorn saw the route one beat later.

"Oh, you absolute—""Jump," Meno said. Thorn swore and leapt off the Gravewurm with his shield raised, slamming onto the Second Dream Incarnate's back as spike rain hammered the ground below. The boss twisted toward the new weight, and Meno used the movement to steer the Gravewurm down the opposite side.

"Good luck," Meno said, already leaving.

"Face me!" Thorn taunted the boss. Meno peaced out the other way. The Gravewurm sprinted away from the center with only Meno left alive on its back. The calamity ignored him for three full seconds, then the champions around the fruits surged into its path and stole enough attention to keep Thorn alive slightly longer. Meno looked back as a lightning javelin formed. Thorn blocked it with a diamond-body cooldown and lost almost his entire shield. The next wing dash erased him from view. [Thorn has died.] The map updated, and a marker appeared far northeast under a green-leaved tree. Meno turned the Gravewurm that direction immediately. The ride out was almost as bad as the ride in, but the present champions were too busy fighting over the bait fruits to give chase. He reached Thorn's respawn tree. Thorn stood under the leave with his party. He looked at the mount, then at Meno, then at the empty distance behind them. For once, he did not say anything.

"Get on," Meno said. The party mounted again without a single complaint about the Gravewurm. Meno rode straight for the sea. The cliff edge appeared after several minutes of tense travel. Jagged water waited below, dark and sharp with stone shelves. Thorn took out the transparent ship orb while still on the Gravewurm.

"I can summon it from here if you hold steady." Meno did not hold steady. He drove the Gravewurm straight over the cliff.

"What are you—" The mount dropped beneath them, carrying Meno, Thorn, and the others toward the water. For one awful second, everyone was falling together. At the last moment before impact, Meno summoned Preypool without warning. Water erupted. It swallowed them, filling the air around them and turning the fall into a violent plunge. They hit the sea in a choking mess of limbs, armor, bubbles, and shouted half-words that became mostly water. Meno surfaced first. Thorn came up nearby, coughing hard.

"You absolute bastard."

"Saved us fall damage," Meno said. Thorn swore again, dragged water out of his beard with one hand, and activated the ship orb. A large dark, ship suitable for twenty people unfolded onto the sea beside them. It was sturdy rather than pretty, with reinforced sides and a single mast, much smaller than Kestrel's floating ego. They climbed aboard wet, furious, and alive. The priest grabbed the helm, and the ship turned away from Naraltan. Behind them, silent lightning flickered over the flat blue continent.

Meno took the fruits from inventory, and Thorn held out a hand. Meno gave him one fruit, then the other.

"Drop them, and we are not going back." Thorn sat on the deck with both fruits in his lap.

"Shut up." He activated consumption on the first one. Two minutes passed with the ship rocking through the Jagged Sea and everyone watching the sky for birds. The first fruit vanished. [Thorn has acquired Essence.] He started the second. Two minutes later the second fruit also vanished in Thorn's hands. [Thorn has acquired Essence.] Thorn stood, and looked toward the sea route ahead.

"PBG," he said.

"What?"

"If this trial erases my character, I also want you to delete yours." fair request tbh don't do it he will die on purpose tasted fruit now evil Meno leaned against the rail and watched Naraltan shrink behind them.

"Sure, I will just reroll healer and join Crownfall."

"Don't need to go that far." Thorn laughed.

"Fine. If you die, I will delete my character."