Rise of a monster a mons.., p.17
Rise of a Monster: A Monster Evolution LitRPG Adventure, page 17
The heartbeat below them quickened.
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump!
“Whoever it is might be waiting to attack. Can you lift the door?” Sean asked, slipping the satchel down from his shoulder and onto the floor as quietly as he could manage.
“Sure thing, boss,” Gel answered, swinging his right arm down. It took another minute or so for the slime to manipulate his fingers to grab the oddly placed handle, but he eventually managed it.
“Ready?” Gel asked.
“Ready,” Sean said, readying his one good arm to attack just as Gel hefted the trapdoor open and flung it back in a single swing.
A bat no larger than a baseball flew up and out of the trapdoor the second the opening was clear. Sean struck out at it, but the winged creature simply darted to the side and dashed for freedom.
Whereupon it got chomped mid-flight by blue flame-covered teeth.
Sean and Gel looked at the large skeletal horse in surprise. Paying them no mind, the burning-blue horse simply chewed on its newfound meal with single-minded intensity, grinding into the bat as if it were a clump of fine grass.
“Hey!” Gel protested. “That was mine!”
“And now it’s his. Or possibly hers,” Sean said, shaking his head in amusement as he peered back down at the open trapdoor. “Whatever it is, you can add ‘angry flaming blue horse of death’ to tonight’s list of creatures I am not picking a fight with.”
“So what you’re saying is that’s a ‘yes’ to picking a fight with it later. Fair enough, I suppose,” Gel grumbled, shaking Sean’s arm at the creature threateningly. “Hear that? Your days are numbered, Angry Blue. Eat my bat, will you…”
Sean chuckled to himself, his jaw clattering soundlessly as he descended the now-revealed wooden stairs that led into a hidden room below. Gel glared at ‘Angry Blue’ the entire way, muttering about future reprisals.
Arriving at the bottom, Sean took a quick look around. Then, because he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing, he rubbed both of his empty eye sockets with his left hand and looked again.
It was an honest-to-God wooden treasure chest! Dark metal framework bound thick planks of polished, ocher hardwood. The chest itself was covered in a thick layer of dust, the majority of which had fallen into carved patterns that decorated the exterior. Brushing it away with one hand revealed that the patterns all traced across six prominent sigils that had been carved much deeper than the rest. They intertwined with one another, sitting dead center in the middle of the chest.
Where the lock should be, Sean realized.
“Gel, what are these—”
“Press the first one on the left twice, third from it three times, and the one on the far right six times,” Gel said, as if reciting from memory. “Then count to three and press the first one again. Should open right up without setting any of the traps off.”
“…and how exactly do you know that? Bancroft give you his secret stash codes, too? And what do you mean, ‘traps’?”
“This isn’t Bancroft’s,” Gel said simply, and his tone gained a softness Sean hadn’t heard before. “It’s Barry’s. Barry Aleweather. He kept his old adventuring gear down here. The code will disarm the traps. Just make sure you press them in the right order. If not, just wait a few seconds and start over. It resets pretty quickly, but the external flame traps only trigger if you try to open it without the code. Not something we want down here, being under the stables and all.”
“Alright, easy enough then,” Sean said, reaching out to tap the buttons in the order Gel had specified. It wasn’t like the slime would lie to him, after all. Although… “I thought you said this Barry guy was a merchant?”
“Adventuring is how he got the money to be a merchant. People always need help, and barrels aren’t cheap, Sean.” Again, it sounded like Gel was reciting words he had heard from someone else, but the slime quickly snapped out of it. “Anyway, the memories of what he kept in there were a little fuzzy. Decayed bits aren’t great at retention, apparently, so I don’t know exactly what he had in here… But there should be at least a few things worth our time.”
“Memories?” Sean asked, his attention sharpening on what that word suggested. “How do you have this guy’s memories?”
“How do you think? I told you I ate him. Got his brain, too,” Gel replied, as if he was puzzled to even get the question. “It tasted kind of like feet? Never figured that out.”
“Right. You mentioned that before, and that gives you his memories… how, exactly?” Sean had thought Gel had just been joking earlier, but apparently not. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how memory works.”
“That’s exactly how it works. Are you seriously telling me you’ve never gotten the memories of a dead man after consuming him whole?” Gel asked incredulously. “This is, like, one of the fundamental laws of corpse-eating!”
Sean paused for a moment, mostly because the premise of a ‘fundamental law of corpse-eating’ was ludicrous. But, then again, he had never done that. Not in this world anyway, and certainly not in the last. Jerking himself out of that line of thought, Sean realized he’d missed the proper timing for the sigils entirely and now had to start over.
“Of course I haven’t,” Sean replied indignantly as he began inputting the unlock sequence for the chest again. Then, once more, he stopped. “Wait. You mentioned earlier that it took some time to… ‘digest’ when you ate someone, and you ate my brains.”
“Sure did.”
“So…?” Sean stretched the question out, hoping the slime would pick up on his point.
“So…?” Gel echoed, clearly not seeing where Sean was going here.
“Have any of my memories come up yet?” Sean asked, more curious than anything else. He wasn’t upset at this new revelation, though he might be later, depending on what memories Gel managed to siphon out of his gray matter.
“Ehh, not yet. It’s not a perfect transfer, and the digestion of someone’s psyche takes time. Not to mention you were dead for however long beforehand and you didn’t want to be eaten right away…” Gel explained, clearly getting his own digs back in at Sean for the satchel thing. “The more the brain decays, the less of whoever it was is left for me to absorb. And no offense, Sean, you were delicious, but you were starting to turn.”
It took Sean several minutes to figure out whether or not he was offended by that. So long, in fact, that Gel spoke up again before he did.
“If it makes you feel better, nobody can get your memories out of me,” Gel said reassuringly. “I also promise not to share any of your deepest, darkest secrets for anything but my own personal amusement.”
Sean bent down and stared at the slime in his chest. Bonded companions they may have been, but the sheer amount of information about him the slime had just admitted to having – or, at least, potentially digesting and having later – was enough to make any big data company back on Earth cream its metaphorical pants. A fact which did not sit well with him in the slightest.
I know he’s living in my chest now, but we’re going to need to set some healthy boundaries.
“You… are worse than Facetome,” Sean said finally. “But part of that is on me. So, while I get that you having access to my memories isn’t technically your fault, I’m going to be straight with you here. If you ever, ever share any of my ‘deepest, darkest’ secrets with anyone, I will feed you straight to that antlion or whatever other nightmare I can find, even if it means I have to jump headfirst into its mouth to do it.”
Sean let his words sink in for a moment before he added a firm, “We clear?”
This time, it was Gel’s turn to pause. The slime seemed to tremble ever so slightly in a way that seriously reminded Sean of someone taking a gulp.
“Crystal.”
Sean waited another moment, eyeing the slime until he was satisfied. “Good. Also… if you ever do finish digesting my memories, I want to know more about you in return. That way, we can both get to know each other a bit without one end being all lopsided. Deal?”
“On one condition.”
“What’s that?” Sean asked, curious to hear what his bonded companion might be angling for. Gel didn’t exactly ‘want’ many things that the slime couldn’t eat, in his experience.
“I want you to answer any questions I have about your memories. Or at least some of them, whichever you feel comfortable answering. I never get any context for these things, and it’s incredibly confusing. Trying to patch together an understanding of something from the memories of fifteen different people is impossible, sometimes. Like figuring out what is and is not a spice. It’s… frustrating,” Gel explained, and the sincerity in the slime’s tone caught Sean off-guard. “So, that’s what I want. In return, I can promise to keep answering any questions you have about whatever you want to know. I’m an open slime! Well, not literally because it’d be impossible to keep food in that way, but you get what I mean.”
Huh. Alright, didn’t expect that.
It was actually an entirely reasonable request, given Gel’s situation. Having your only insights into the world come in fragmented pieces that made no sense by themselves had to be traumatizing in its own way. Sean could empathize with that, and really, who was he to say no?
“I can do that,” Sean agreed readily, projecting some of his own sincerity back. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Gel cheered and whooped in his mind as Sean returned his attention to the magically locked chest they had discovered.
“Now, unless you have any more revelations to share, I say we crack this thing open,” Sean said, pressing the sigils in their proper sequence. “I could do with some treasure right now.”
“None that I can think of, though I am now very invested in figuring out what a Facetome is. It sounds absolutely delicious. I don’t know who thought up combining books with meat, but I’m here for it.”
“I’ll tell you all about it later, once we’re clear of this place,” Sean promised, pressing the last of the sigils in with a finger.
“Deal.”
The chest made a series of internal clicking sounds, which were followed by a rush of air and what sounded like the lighting of a gas grill before it began loudly rocking back and forth. Just as Sean was about to jump back from the thing in case Gel had gotten the combination wrong, the chest’s lid suddenly flew open.
Inside lay bundles of dark clothing, armor made out of some unrecognizable crimson material, and a few blackened leather bags that looked as if they’d been scorched. With Gel’s help, Sean spread the chest’s contents out on the dirt floor so he could get a good look at everything.
Once it was all laid out, Sean tallied up what they had found: a set of crimson leather armor (far too small to fit) that seemed resistant to stretching, a cloak made out of fine black cloth that did fit, a thickly wrapped bone bow (no arrows), an ornate silver dagger, a rather unassuming hatchet with a dull blade, and a burnished copper… trumpet.
Sean put that last one off to the side.
The first of the leather bags held a small assortment of copper, silver, and even a few gold coins with stamps Sean didn’t recognize. Gel assured him they were valuable though, so into the satchel they went. The second bag was filled with neatly folded papers with unidentifiable seals resting atop them and a single silver ring. And the third…
Gel ate the third bag before Sean could stop him.
“Hey!” Sean protested as his right arm flung the entire charred bag into the omnivorous, goopy mass in the center of his chest.
“What? You opened the first two, I wanted that one,” Gel said defensively. “It’s only fair.”
“But if you’re going to just…” Sean sighed, forestalled his complaints, and then just chalked the loss up to the slime’s share of the loot. “Never mind.”
He earned that one, at least. Wouldn’t have gotten any of this without that code.
Still, not being able to see what exactly had been in the bag had Sean curious.
“How was it?”
“So so. Smell was far better than the taste, nothing at all like that satchel, so I couldn’t resist! Though the flavor was sort of like an old liver stretched over a hot stone for too long, you know? Kinda bland.”
“Uh-uh. And what about what was in the bag?”
“Hmm? Oh yeah, that was good. Top-notch flavors. A handful of herbs, I think. Went down real smooth. Dissolved like that.” Gel swished his gelatinous mass around once for emphasis. “Pity there isn’t more. I haven’t had zest like that in a while.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re satisfied,” Sean said, placing the second bag containing the papers and ring inside their satchel. “Sounds like you finally got to try some spices.”
“People season their food with herbs?” Gel asked, suddenly curious.
“Yes…” Sean responded slowly. “What did you think spices were?”
Gel sent back the mental equivalent of a shrug. “I don’t know, I figured it was just more meat. Like a really good arm or someone’s good leg.”
“Not… usually. Meat is normally the biggest part of a dish, and you work in other flavors to complement by adding vegetables, sauces, herbs… whatever you have on hand, really.”
“Ohhhhhh…” Gel sounded like Sean had just shed light on a great universal truth. “That’s why people keep so many things around that they’re not eating. To season their food with! It all makes so much sense now. We’re going to need more of those.”
Sean had the distinct impression Gel wasn’t just referring to things people kept in their kitchen, but either way, he decided to let the matter drop.
“Now, I’m thinking we keep the dagger, keep the hatchet, stuff the rest of this armor in the satchel, and leave the bow, cloak, and… trumpet here.”
Sean couldn’t have said why, but the trumpet gave him a weird Aztec/Mayan curse kinda vibe. He had also never actually shot a bow, and without arrows, the thing was essentially double-useless to them.
“Your thoughts?”
“Cloak is too good to pass up – look at how fine that stitching is on the collar! I want it. I need it!” Gel proclaimed, growing more animated as he spoke. “Drape it around your shoulders. It’ll keep the sun off me when I want some shade and we’ll look amazing wherever we go. There are no downsides.”
“Fair enough,” Sean said as he swept the cloak around his shoulders and set about packing up the rest.
Not sure why he cares about the stitching. But if it makes him happy, it’s probably worth it. Does feel kinda nice on my shoulders, too.
When he was almost done, Gel added, “On second thought, let’s take the bow. I want the trumpet, too.”
“So… you want everything.”
“Of course I do!”
Looking from the innocuous yet still creepy-feeling instrument to their already bulging satchel as he prepared to re-pack everything, Sean couldn’t help but ask the obvious.
“Why do you even want a trumpet? You can’t play it, you don’t have any lips!”
“So? Neither do you!” Gel retorted, using Sean’s arm to stuff the trumpet haphazardly inside their satchel. Then, with smug satisfaction and another hint of recitation, he added, “Besides, you never know what will come in handy on an adventure.”
Sean soundlessly sighed his reluctance away and stood up, weighed down slightly by the bulging satchel and the bow strung across his shoulders. He suspected those last words had come from Barry, but it was still good advice. Even if having the trumpet so close to his bones made him feel like he was carrying a live snake.
Ah well, not like it can hurt me. Maybe we can sell it somewhere later, or trade it for something useful.
Sean cast a last glance around the room. There was nothing he could see. Nothing save the now-empty sigil-covered chest.
If we’re not coming back… Sean’s orbs settled on a discarded length of wood resting against one side of the wall. A smile slowly split its way across his skull. Might as well make sure nobody comes looking for what we took.
Grabbing the stick, Sean climbed back up to the stable. Angry Blue turned its bright, flaming head in their direction just as the pair ascended the stairs, its powerful bone jaws still grinding away at the mangled body of the unfortunate bat it had caught earlier. Dark blood pooled in the dirt and hay below its mouth, forming a congealed mud.
Sean headed right for its stall, his new blunt instrument held out in front of him.
“Oh, yes!” Gel whooped, suddenly excited. “Get him, Sean! Get him!”
Sean walked up and held the stick just above Angry Blue’s face, making sure to get the end of it inside the flames. The skeletal horse eyed the length of wood for a second, then Sean. After a moment, seemingly satisfied, Angry Blue resumed summarily ignoring the both of them.
It didn’t take long before the end of the stick was crackling away merrily. Curiously, the flames were red instead of Angry Blue’s… blue, but Sean didn’t let that bother him as he turned back toward the trapdoor.
“Uh, Sean? What are you doing?” Gel asked.
“Giving Bancroft something else to worry about this evening,” Sean answered confidently. “Something that isn’t us.”
Walking over to the bales of hay, Sean jammed the stick up against the side of one. Orange flames immediately took hold of the first stack and began to spread rapidly across its surface.
“I feel compelled to remind you that we haven’t gotten away yet. There’s still a powerful necromancer somewhere around here, probably looking for whoever destroyed his cellar earlier, and here we are about to light the world’s largest signal fire,” Gel commented as Sean moved from one bale to the next. “Right inside his front yard.”
“Oh, I think he’ll be too busy for that,” Sean said, dropping the stick atop another of the bales of hay. “Besides, he won’t be searching for us for very long.”
“Why’s that?” Gel asked as the rest of the undead horses in the stable all began to step cautiously back from the flames.
It turned out that, much as Sean had expected, even horses made of bone still had no love of fire. They reacted in fear, rearing up and kicking their stalls. Only Angry Blue seemed unfazed, watching the spreading red flames with mild disinterest. A disinterest that lasted right up until Sean strode over to the creature’s stall and tore off the length of rope serving as a lock to keep the gate closed.
