Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

‘So I found the forest, now I just need the moss, the mushroom caps, and the weeds.’

Arthur began his search for the ingredients starting with the moss that he found on the west side of a few trees, there was only one problem. ‘How much is a pound of bark? Should I just take as much as I can find while I search for the other stuff? In the worst case scenario I will just have some extra to sell if I need to.’

Arthur continued his search for the blue retten caps and the pokeweed. He was able to find a handful of the blue retten mushrooms at the base of some trees that had a thin white bark with black stripes on. The moss on the other hand grew mostly on trees with dark and thick bark.

As Arthur continued down south of Antium into the Pelcester Forest and after an hour of searching he found a rather large pond that through the murky water he could spot a few small animals swimming around. There were a few different types of these strange water bound animals, some were larger than the others, one even had something that looked like a moustache.

Aside from the animals in the pond Arthur also found five stalks of pokeweed and a small cave leading into a small hill. Near the cave were more stalks of pokeweed. ‘With that I might be done with the pokeweed and I can focus on the blue retten mushroom caps.’ And so Arthur rushed over to collect the stalks.

Arthur counted all the pokeweed he had and was happy to discover he now had fifteen. ‘Now I just need to find four more and I think I will be done. I have a lot of the moss, it is probably a pound by now but I will pick up any more I find.'

Arthur looked to the cave just a few meters away from him. No sounds came from it so there probably weren't any animals living there. ‘I should remember to return here when I get a chance, maybe I'll find something in there. But for now I need to find those mushrooms and get back to Antium before it becomes night again.'

After about half an hour of searching Arthur was able to find four more blue retten and quickly began walking north back to Antium to hand in the ingredients and sleep in a nice bed. But as he was walking back he saw some smoke in the distance, only about one hundred meters to the north east from where he stood. ‘Who would want to stay out here in the woods when it is far safer in Antium. They are either very cheap or very poor. For now I will ignore them, but if I see them still there sometime in the future I will go and see why they are staying the night out here.’ While Arthur did not hate the outdoors, his time in the forest searching for ingredients was quite irritating. The only upside to it was that he was learning a bit about foraging.

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+ Foraging Level 1(New)

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It wasn’t all that much but when before he would simply try to pull the mushrooms out of the ground now he would conjure a small knife to cut them and take them. It still was both time consuming and annoying. ‘I completely understand why Axia Gellius doesn’t come and do it herself. She likely has important things to do as a noble but this is so time consuming and tedious to do. If I ever become a rich mage I will just hire someone else to do this for me.’

After making a small promise to become rich so he wouldn’t need to go foraging again Arthur jogged the way back to Antium once he had gotten onto the dirt road.

Arthur returned to the city as it was starting to get dark and since only a handful of people were entering the city at the time he did not need to wait all that long to enter. The guards only needed to inspect what he was carrying to be sure he wasn’t bringing any ‘contraband’ and they let him through the gate.

Arthur quickly raced to the mages guild, several of the people that were still walking around at the time gave him a look of either worry or greed when they saw his equipment depending on whether they were a peasant or a thief. Thankfully none of the thieves made any move on him.

The guild was practically empty when Arthur entered, only a single clerk was at the front desk. She did not pay Arthur any attention when he walked down the hallway and to room eight.

Room eight was just like the front desk where only one clerk was available, it just so happened to be the same man as the last time Arthur was there. “Back already?” The man was a little surprised to see Arthur again. “I figured you would be back early tomorrow like everyone else always is.”

“Well I have the ingredients now so I might as well turn them in now and get my ten copper coins.” The man did not reply and just took the ingredients as they were handed to him and counted them out while he sorted them into their own bags.

For the bark the clerk brought out a flat metallic object that consisted of several parts. When the bark was placed on the top a small dial on the side moved from the left to the right, the clerk continued placing bark on the device until the dial reached a large one.

“That's all you need to give us.” He spoke and handed back the remaining bark that amounted to about a quarter of what Arthur collected. “And here is your money Mr. Arthur.” The clerk handed Arthur a small purse that contained ten copper coins. With a small nod Arthur turned and left the guild and returned to the The Free Parrot Bar and for ten copper coins he rented the same room for himself.

Arthur sat down on the bed and slowly began eating the last burrito that he bought in the morning while he watched out the window for any activity along that strange path. Since it was still light out when he started watching Arthur was waiting quite a while. To pass the time he practiced his hydromancy forming it into spheres that he had moved around while they mixed and broke apart.

After several hours of waiting Arthur finally noticed someone walking down the path, two someones to be exact. They were carrying something long that required two people one at each end to carry. Arthur quickly rushed out of the tavern and onto the path.

When Arthur started getting close he ducked down below the height of the grass that was easily two to three feet tall depending on the area. As he got closer Arthur could see in greater detail the two people and the object they were carrying.

Both of the people were wearing dark red cloaks that concealed their entire bodies. The only other feature Arthur could discern was their height which was well above five feet, that being the height limit for elves making them two humans. What they were carrying was a bit more interesting, it was about five feet in length and was wrapped in a brown cloth. The front end had something large sticking out that the cloaked man in the front used to carry it while the one in the back just held onto the bottom edge.

For several minutes the two cloaked humans walked along the path not saying a word while Arthur watched from a distance, he occasionally even needed to crawl on the ground to avoid being seen. Eventually they reached a small clearing where the trees acted like walls, preventing anyone from entering. The one thing that stood out was all the shovels and raised piles of dirt.

The humans brought the object they were carrying to an area that didn’t have any disturbed dirt around and placed the object down. Well one did, the other just dropped it and gave it a kick. “Would it kill you to show a bit of respect to the dead Epidicus.” The second human asked in a hushed voice.

“That bitch led both me and Kolvar on for almost a year.” The Epidicus reached for a shovel as he spoke. “She knew that we both liked her but she kept us at each other's throats like we were her toys.” The anger was quite evident in his voice.

“I know what she did, but that doesn’t mean you should be disrespectful to the dead.”

“You want to know the worst part about it.” The Epidicus turned around while he held his index finger up. “That bitch was over 200 years old and this wasn’t her first time pulling that crap.” He got real close to his partner, their faces almost touching. “I am doing the world a favor by erasing her from the lives of everyone she has ever thoroughly screwed over.”

“Ok ok, I get your point.” The second human raised her hands and took two steps back. Arthur, who was several meters away, was able to pick up on just enough of the conversation to understand what the object they were carrying was. ‘A dead body, that isn’t good. This must be some sort of graveyard they have for other victims of what they are doing.’ Arthur thought back to all the different evil activities that require mortal sacrifices from demon cults to the various amounts of forbidden magic that heartless people with more money than time have used in the past to obtain power and or a longer life.

‘I don’t know enough about what has happened to the corpse, if I can take a look I could probably take a good guess as to what they did to it. But I should probably let them dig the hole and then kill them so the guards don’t think I was the one who did it.’

Arthur waited for almost two hours for the two humans to finish digging the hole, it was a long and boring two hours for him and the two digging the hole had stopped to take several breaks during that time. “Finally, we are done.” The second human said as they huffed.

“Now we just gotta put the body in and fill it back up.” Epidicus leaned on his shovel as he looked at the big pile of dirt the two of them just dug up. “I will tell lord Darius that we have finished, you can go straight home.”

“Well that makes this a little awkward.” A voice came from behind and both Epidicus and his partner turned around to the source. “Who the hell are you?” Epidicus reached behind himself for the dagger they were given upon their joining of the sect.

The person in front of them was covered by the shadows cast by the trees but they could make out the heavy armour he wore along with the large sword at his hip.