Monster Hunting 401: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure by Andrew Karevik (best books to read txt) 📕

full blown mental attacks and we still had the Eldest to deal with. Now was not the time for testing out shaky hypotheses. Once the poor people of the Shadewood village were free and safe in the mountains, then I could afford testing out some theories on this stone. Until then, it was better to focus on the task at hand.

Eckshaw was waiting for us by the wagon, standing perfectly still. He made no reaction as we returned, carrying the gem in tow.

“I’ve been trying to fight back,” he said quietly. “I know you two must be planning something. And I keep trying to push it out of my head, so I can help you.”

I made no response. I shot a look at Trig, glaring at him in the hopes he understood not to talk shop with this man. Those words could be sincere, or they could be attempts from the Eldest to learn of our true intentions. Trig pulled the blindfold off his eyes, took one look at me and then nodded, indicating he understood.

“You suspect me, I understand,” Eckshaw continued, turning to face me. “And I cannot fault you. But…if you are going to try and kill the Eldest, I would ask that you enlist me. I know its weakness. I’m just not strong enough to fight back. To stop it from getting a hold of me.”

“I am sorry,” I said. “But we’re just passing through. We need the green fire and that’s it. There’s nothing that can be done.”

Eckshaw said no more. He merely made a strange, guttural sound from his throat. It was a mix between a groan and a chuckle, reminding me somewhat of the beast we had just slain. Perhaps this was a test from the Eldest after all.

Chapter 26

They say a watched pot never boils. And perhaps that was true, because as Trig and I sat across from the alchemy cauldron, waiting for the ingredients to finish, it was as if time itself had simply stopped working. I don’t know how long we waited, but our eyes never left the cauldron, waiting for the timer to go off. Once the timer clicked, four little holes would open up in the bottom of the big black vessel, allowing four separate tubes to connect at once. Then, the Estoan and Firnin would be extracted through a process I wasn’t particularly familiar with. I just knew the Estoan drained to the left and the Firnin drained to the right. They’d pass through the long, curled glass tubes and drip into the filtering vials.

But I wasn’t too interested in the alchemical ingredients. Rather, I was waiting for the Yield results to pop up. To learn the secret weaknesses of the Orphine species. My first run with the Orphine had been frustrating, for it kept changing up its attack methods. From damage links, to telekinesis, to paralytic juices, the amount of abilities the creature had seemed to be endless and unpredictable. Hopefully the yield would give me a baseline of what to expect.

Making a charm from the Orphine was an unsavory task. There wasn’t a single piece of the beast that wasn’t slimy, bulbous or unsettlingly squishy. Not a single hard part on the creature meant that I’d either be making the world’s most disgusting bracelet, or I’d have to dry out some of the skin to make leather. The only problem was that without the sun around to dry the damned skin, it would take forever to dry naturally. Gross bracelet it was.

As I sat across from the cauldron, furiously trying to get the remains of a proboscis into some kind of knot, there came a flash from the cauldron, followed by the clicking sound of the timer finishing.

“Finally!’ Trig groaned as he hopped up. “That took forever.”

“Or did it?” I said, standing up as well, eager to see what the yield description would say. “No telling how fast time passes these days. Or nights.”

Orphine Yield

Firnin: 750 points

Estoan: 1,000 points

Lab Bonus: +100%

Weaknesses Revealed:

- Fluid Filled: The Orphine’s body is primarily composed of bodily fluids designed to regulate its temperature, energy level and psionic output. The Orphine’s body composition is 90% fluid and 10% skin mass, allowing them to shift shape, size and in some cases, even their appearance. These fluids are paralytic in nature, sapping energy levels and transferring them to the Orphine.

- Dehydration Vulnerability: Due to the high presence of fluid in the body, the Orphine must maintain a low body temperature at all times. High levels of heat and humidity can be lethal to an Orphine, as it has no internal cooling mechanism to combat rising temperature levels.

This wasn’t the information I was looking for, but hot damn was this helpful! Though the weaknesses didn’t reveal its psychic abilities whatsoever, the Orphine was still extremely vulnerable to dehydration due to this fluid dependence. No wonder the Eldest had created green fire in order to give light to itself and the village. The green fire didn’t really radiate heat. In fact, it seemed to make things colder, if anything.

So…killing the Eldest didn’t really require us to make an all-out attack on it. If we could come up with some way to increase the temperature of its hut, without the beast realizing what we were doing, we could theoretically dehydrate it to death. Like…well, like sprinkling salt on a slug.

The question was how could we raise the temperature without getting caught? It’d have to be fast, fast enough to kill the damn thing without it having a chance to send the people of the village out to their deaths. That meant we’d need some way to generate a vast amount of heat in a short amount of time. Making a single attack or hostile gesture towards the beast would undoubtedly set it off…hmm…

My eyes turned towards the cauldron. Trig was hovering over it, carefully trying to pull the lid off. Each time he tried to open it up to look inside,