Chapter 70: Curious Rewards
The woven hellscape of thorns and branches surrounding Belladonna quickly started to disintegrate around her whilst she tried to extract herself. It started off slow, with the greenery wilting away as if it had been starved of all nutrients. Then once they were fully blackened and shrivelled up, they simply turned to dust.
Like Dominoes falling, the giant body disappeared, causing Belladonna to fall with a startled yelp, until she landed in the growing pile of dust that was slowly being scattered to the wind. Then a few seconds later, she let out a grunt of pain as Beans landed right on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her.
Not that he seed apologetic about it, as he curled up into a ball and let out a smug and satisfied purr.
High above, where the core had been when Fahven Bu’ul was still alive, now floated a small seed made of pure erald. It slowly drifted down, unbothered by the law of gravity, until it touched the ground and proceeded to subrge itself in the dirt.
After a few seconds of waiting, wooden roots split apart the dirt, twisting themselves together to form a thick tree trunk made of deep black wood. Blood red leaves sprouted from the trees branches and golden apples, seemingly woven from pure light, rapidly blossod and hung from various branches.
Belladonna and Vestra gathered around the tree in awe and confusion, staring at it as if they were waiting for sothing else to happen. Yet after the grand spectacle of growing in an instant, that’s all the tree was willing to do.
It was only when Figg ca staggering over, leaning heavily on his staff to support himself, did they understand what it was for.
"Yeah, We were confused the first ti too. That right there, is the boss’ loot drop. If you pick the apples, they will turn into the loot. One of them should be a set of tokens, which is what we use to finally pass through the gate and into the rest of the ga.
As for the rest, that’s down to pure luck. So... who’s feeling lucky?"
The three of them glanced at each other nervously, waiting for the others to make a move. Luck wasn’t an in ga stat, so it had to fall on their real life luck instead. For one reason or another, none of them moved from their spots as they thought about their own miseries.
When they had stood there for an entire minute, while a confused Beans sat on Belladonna’s shoulder and looked between them all, they eventually just broke down laughing.
There were 9 golden apples total, with the very first one picked always being the tokens. So they decided to take 2 apples each, as Beans was included since he was the one who got the final blow.
As soon as Belladonna plucked her first apple, it glowed with a blinding light and completely dissolved. While she was unable to see, she felt the weight shift in her hand and, when her vision finally returned, she found herself holding a set of fingerless gauntlets made out of wood.
Those might have been good for her, if she didn’t already have her bear skin armour which was tougher than the wooden gloves. Although she could sense so faint traces of magic from them, so perhaps they were enchanted.
Still, she moved onto her other apple and found sothing that was definitely useless to her. When the light died down, she was left holding a twisted wand made of the sa black wood as the tree, while a green crystal acted as the poml.
As for the others, Vestra pulled a cloak that seed to slightly shift colours, like a form of basic camouflage as well as a leather pouch containing money, while Beans pulled a scroll and another pouch, but this one was filled with various herbs instead of money.
That might have been a junk item to most players, but to her and a few alchemy loving players, that was even better than the gold. Money was good, but free ingredients were the best.
Finally when it ca to Figg, sothing strange happened. His first draw went off without a hitch as he drew a simple wooden staff in the sa style as the wand that Belladonna received. However when it ca to his second, as well as the final draw of the group, that was when the strangeness occurred.
The apple glowed briefly, as if it was about to transform, before it suddenly dimd down and returned to its previous state. Figg frowned deeply, looking around at the other two in a search for answers, but his companions simply shrugged.
A mont later, however, sothing began to writhe around inside of his bag. The bag itself seed to co alive, flailing around on his waist as sothing inside tried to force itself out, until it finally burst free from the top of the bag.
The curious orb of Amber floated in the air, seemingly taking a second to regain its bearings, before darting towards the golden apple. The two collided before Orb was seamlessly absorbed by the golden apple, which then began to glow brightly once again.
The apple transford in the blinding light, like it should have in the first place, and when the light died down Figg was left holding the sa orb of Amber that had leapt from his bag. The only difference, however, was the presence it exuded and the slight glow from the droplet of blood contained within.
Belladonna’s nose twitched and her mouth watered, completely on instinct, as she stared at the Orb in his hand, which radiated a deep and ancient power. One that should have been intimidating, yet was filled with a strange warmth and acceptance that overshadowed the danger hidden deep within.
"What is that...?" She muttered softly, holding in her instincts that were screaming at her to devour the orb.
Figg almost missed her question, as he was too busy staring at the Orb in absolute disbelief and awe. Only after a few seconds did he look up with a dreamy, far away look in his eyes as he answered with barely a whisper,
"It’s a race change item."
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