By the time Deacon made it back to the area they'd claimed for their treehouse base, the sun had begun to emerge in the horizon. As he passed through the Proximity and Sense Hostility wards Jass and Esmerelda had set up, he'd begun to slow down his pace to catch his breath, and in doing so, he noticed something different about their base.
It looked… better.
Way better than how he left it.
The logs had been repositioned around the campfire into makeshift benches. Someone had cleared out all the half-charred scraps and replaced them with a proper stone-lined pit. A spit had been rigged above the fire, and currently turning slowly on it was the cooked leg of something vaguely antelope-shaped, the meat glistening as fat hissed into the flames.
The Treehouse gained a second floor and many more railings.
"Okay…" Deacon muttered, pausing mid-step. How the hell did they make it that much larger?
Esmerelda was sitting with one leg stretched out and the other bent, leaning back against a tree stump and tossing a log into the lit campfire. Jass sat across from her, sharpening the edge of her glaive with a whetstone, looking more bored than anything else.
"Hey, look who finally made it back," Esmerelda called out, waving lazily at him with two fingers. "You bring any guava juice with you?"
"What's a guava?" Deacon blinked, his gaze flicking from them to the spit roast, then toward the far side of the fire.
That's when he noticed him.
A kid.
He looked like he couldn't have been more than thirteen. Sitting cross-legged in the dirt, chewing on a chunk of meat on a large bone like he hadn't eaten in days, which to be fair was probably true as the tunic he was wearing was ripped, stained with mud and grass, and he had a mohawk that looked like someone used a broken spoon to create it.
[Human Lv 0]
"What the hell…" Deacon said, stepping forward slowly.
The kid looked up, then immediately looked down again, focusing on the meat rather than the stranger who walked into the camp.
"Ah, Deke, meet Arne," Jass said, not even looking up from her blade. "He refused to leave our side after we saved him from getting killed by vikings."
"Yeah, after we killed all the vikings and got people out of their cages, he refused to leave our sides, and while we don't know what he was saying or what the other people in the cages were saying, he kept on wanting to help out," Esmerelda added, tossing a small stone into the fire. "So… we let him cook."
Deacon looked at the kid again.
The kid looked back. He chewed. Blinked. Then gave a half-wave with greasy fingers.
Deacon exhaled through his nose and dropped himself on the log furthest from the fire.
Deacon glanced at the kid again, then shifted his eyes back to Jass.
"Okay. Back up. Start over," he said, gesturing vaguely toward the fire and then toward the kid with the mohawk.
"You're telling me you found him in a cage? And Vikings were involved in this?"
"Yup." Jass set the whetstone down on her thigh and flipped the glaive once, inspecting the edge. "Along with a bunch of others, on a beach about thirty or so kilometers north from here. I was cutting logs into planks, and while making sure the wards she was setting up were up so we could gather logs without drawing attention to ourselves, Esme heard something weird, so she went to take a look." She nodded toward the fire.
"Following the noise, she reached the beach and saw three longboats filled to the brim with people on them. Then just before she was about to turn back around, she got jumped by a scout group consisting of viking lookalikes, but the bracelet we found in the outpost saved her from getting jumped, and she made it back to me, and we killed off the scout group after getting them to lead up to their boats."
"They were also Level 0 like him," Esmerelda said as she mimed to Deacon to toss her a drink.
Deacon raised both eyebrows, tossing her a chilled cola after she nodded in acceptance of the drink. "And then what? You guys learn where they set up their camp so we can raid it?"
"No," Esmerelda said, snapping open the metal, ridged top of her drink. "We did recon them for a bit before attacking them head-on."
Jass let out a short snort. "Long enough to see the kid escape for a few seconds before getting grabbed and clocked in the face for trying to escape. After that, we kinda dropped all hints of being stealthy and just jumped right in the middle of it and killed as many of the viking lookalikes as we could."
Deacon blinked again, shifting in his seat and tossing Jass a chilled orange soda can. "Damn."
"Could've been worse," Esmerelda said, stoking the fire with a stick in between sips of her soda. "They were disorganized. Arguing with each other over everything, even when fighting. Not to mention, they were incredibly afraid of magic whenever we used it. When I asked the spirits to help out with my spells, they became even more afraid."
Deacon eyed her. "And they were Level 0s, like the cannibals we killed? How were they like?"
"Yep, and almost equal to me in strength." Jass leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, the blade across her lap. "But which is absurd with me being eight in my Class and Race. But technique-wise? They were complete goblin shite."
"They might be some of the people that the Floor Three's Quest blurb mentioned," Deacon said slowly. "They might be a neighboring kingdom of Vikings or something like that, and they sent their people along with a couple of slaves they had to look for treasure here."
"So, assuming that they're just another obstacle for us to encounter within the Isle of the Damned, why would they be labeled as Level 0 when they are not?" Jass asked.
The kid, Arne, according to Jass, let out a small burp as he finished his food and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. He still didn't say anything after placing the bones into the campfire and running off to pick more firewood and place it beside the campfire.
"He's been stuck to our side ever since," Esmerelda said. "Didn't even flinch when I started casting again, like the viking lookalikes did or the other prisoners. Speaking of which, as soon as we opened up their cages, they just ran into the jungle, not even giving him a second glance as he wanted to stay with us." She tilted her head at him. "While he doesn't try to talk much, which wouldn't really help considering we don't know what he's saying, he keeps trying to help us out. Brought us those root veggies we're going to roast soon, cut us some firewood, and turns the spit without being asked when the both of us are doing something else."
"Okay, you girls find any goodies after killing them? Like what we go from the cannibals that we killed?" Deacon asked, offering the kid a chilled cola, who looked at the glass bottle in confusion.
"We got quite a lot of veggies and fruits from the ships along with a crap load of coins that add up to around 25,000 gold," Jass said, watching Deacon mime how to open the soda bottle to Arne. "The gear we got from them was just about as good as the gear we got from the cannibals, but it's all fur gear, so it's pretty shitty for us to wear right now, so it's probably best for us to use them for things to toss into the Altar of Offering."
"How much are they by themselves?" Deacon asked, before chuckling at the bewildered and aghast expression Arne had when he took his first sip of cola.
"180,000," Esmerelda smirked, before her smirk turned into a full-blown smile as Deacon's jaw dropped at the number.
"How? What makes it that valuable?" Deacon asked, eyes wide in shock, stopping himself from popping open his soda can.
"We got a crap load of them," Jass smirked, "so they all add up to 180,000 gold in value, which brings up the total amount stored to… a lot."
"255 thousand, give or take a couple thousand," Deacon blankishly answered. "I didn't need to sell the pearls, I had more than enough with just selling the gold."
"So, we already have half the amount needed for the five of us," Esmerelda chimed in. "Also, what took you so long? It's been like four days. You got caught up in something?"
"Ah," Deacon sighed, scratching the edge of the chilled can of soda against the underside of his chin, debating if he should say what had happened. "I got a crap load of herbs from Meadow's Reach for Bonehead so he could just climb to Floor Three when he finished up with his things back home on Floor Zero. It just took a lot longer to get and find the Waystone for it, and the instructions Bonehead gave me had me pick them up at random points throughout the day in order for them to be properly harvested."
"So, no fighting happened?" Esmerelda asked, her eyes shooting to his own.
"Why do you ask?" Deacon replied back, internally sweating as he put down his soda can, it wouldn't be good for them to hear that he killed two people belonging to a guild and let a spy get away. "Do I look like the type of guy who gets into fights?"
"Yes," were the immediate replies from both Esmerelda and Jass, and two more coming from his left, causing him to shoot up onto the ground and twist himself to face the direction the two other voices came out from.
"… Fuck you both," Deacon let out in relief as he let go of the hilts of Echoform Reliquary's dual short swords and fell his ass onto the log he was previously sitting on.
Bonehead and Sam chuckled at Deacon's expression as they made their way towards the campfire, giving the kid a glance before plopping themselves onto a free log.
"How come you two didn't say anything when they passed through the wards?" Deacon asked, turning to Esmerelda and Jass, who smirked at him and gave him nothing other than that.
"… No beer for the both of you," Deacon said, only to be met with two pebbles to the head that sent him onto the jungle floor on his back.
"Ignoring Mr. Dumbass here," Sam smirked as he saw Deacon remain on the grass and showed no signs of getting up. "How have you two been? It's been a hot minute since all five of us gathered together."
"Ah, you know, same old same old," Esmerelda shrugged before making her way towards Deacon, and instead of helping him, she reached over and grabbed the pack that she had given him to store the gold and pearls.
Reaching inside, she pulled out two Spatial Sling Bags and two sheets of mana parchment that each containing the enchant script needed to key themselves to the anti-thieving enchantment. Tossing Jass her Spatial Sling Bag and parchment, as she looked through her own Spatial Sling Bag, she noticed that she had her five Leave Tickets, a bundle of kindling, a bundle of parchment, and three six packs of chilled cola.
"Just killing cannibals and viking lookalikes," Jass answered for her as she was looking through her own Spatial Sling Bag. "Just a casual couple of days for us girls… Oh, and touching up the treehouse."
Bonehead and Sam let out a whistle of approval as they caught sight of the giant two-floor tree house. "You two watch Survival Crafter? I thought it was just us three," Bonehead asked, pointing at himself, Sam, and Deacon.
"I built the first floor copying Survival Crafter's design for when he was on Floor Fourteen's jungle continent," Deacon said with a groan as he got up off the ground and sat back atop of his log and picked up his chilled soda can and nursed it against his head.
"And we just made it better," Jass said, before her brows furrowed. "Deacon, where is our beer?"
"It just turned morning," Deacon said, turning to them incredulously. "What do you need beer for?"
"Girl stuff," they answered immediately. "It's great for your hair and skin, and let me tell you that being in the jungle is horrible for us both. Also, they are really good for mosquito repellent, which we are in dire need of, as well as an AC."