Chapter 77: Chapter 77

Torvald Glenn—The Ravenous Grove

Torvalds's fist tightened around his hammer as he looked up at the ...thing addressing him from the rooftop. It looked like someone plopped eye-stalks on a malformed heart and called it good. It certainly could be one of Vrax’s creations, but none of them had talked so far. He wasn’t counting Duchess; she was more like an evil parrot than a reasoning, talking creature.

Torvald stepped off his mount, landing on the stone with a heavy thud. “A moment of my time? Sure. Come on down nice and slowly.” The creature descended down the side of the wall in a maddening spiral, its small veins letting it scale straight downward. It plopped to a stop a few strides from him and looked up expectantly.

It started in the nasally voice again, so tinged with desperate hope that Torvald almost immediately felt bad for the thing. “My name is Geoffrey, but everyone just calls me Jeff, and I, brave warrior, am a symbiote capable of bestowing great powers on any warrior brave enough to wield me!” Jeff raised his veins dramatically.

Torvald looked down with a cocked eyebrow. “Aight, little guy, what one of Vrax’s jars did you escape from? Let’s get you back there before you wander into someone less friendly. I’m Torvald Bearsbane, by the way, erstwhile babysitter of that mad flesh crafter that made you.” Torvalds's mount grumbled audibly at the mention of the bearsbane title.

Jeff sputtered in indignation. “The flesh-crafting monster didn’t make me! He and his vile hell-dragon slew my previous host; well, technically the dragon cut me out and set about torturing my previous host…. But regardless! The flesh crafter captured me! It took time, but I convinced him of my worth and was granted a token of protection!” He waved the tiniest mark of Vurune that Torvald had seen yet.

Torvald chuckled deeply and then sighed. “That story is so fucked up that no one would even think to make it up. So you tried to fight Vrax and found out that he’s, uhhh, how to put this delicately? Utterly insane but in a fun way and probably a danger to the planet?” Torvald grinned wide but kept his hammer ready just in case he had to splatter Jeff.

Jeff's eyestalks wobbled for a moment. “What do you most desire in this world as a power warrior? Your flesh palace is honestly stunning.”

Torvald cocked his head a bit. “I mean, thank you, I think. I work hard on being this glorious—lots of protein and a whole lot of picking up heavy things, which is starting to get silly now that my strength is so high. The bear lets me pick him up, but he hasn’t been what I would call thrilled about it. Oh, and powers flight easy. I wish to soar through the sky annnddd crater down into my foes like a falling god of war…” Torvald trailed off oddly wistfully, obviously picturing himself in a glorious, wrathful descent on his foes below.

Jeff wiggled. “I can make that happen….”

Torvald finally put his hammer back onto his back with a laugh. “Sure, little guy, that’s why you just cartwheeled down the wall like an evil drunken spider, right? You just didn’t feel like spreading those wings?”

Jeff spoke in a more serious tone, scooting closer to Torvald. “I am a singular creature, a symbiote that was made by mages of old to help their mightiest warriors in fights against the gods themselves! I take whatever makes a being strong and make it more! Even the flesh crafter nearly fell before the might of a troll I had empowered.” He said proudly.

A very tired-sounding voice came from slightly to the side. “Well, the little shit isn’t lying about that; I haven’t had that hard of a time killing anything, well...ever...” Vrax stumbled into the market, his arms full of ancient-looking scroll cases and utterly covered in dirt and ash, all sticking to him in a thick layer of coagulated red-black blood.

“Whoa, what the fuck happened to you? You look fucking awful!” Torvald said cheerfully.

Jeff looked indignant. “Hey, don’t ignore me. I was trying to tell you how I could grant you flight!”

Torvald gestured kindly at the blob. “Shhh, let the adults speak for a moment.”

Vrax let out a deep, deep sigh…. “So, so much. Where to even start? Today at least I made one unknown horror that’s wandering around out there somewhere, and, uh, lured a bunch of paladins into a fight with the Spriggan…” He looked at Torvald almost apologetically.

Jeff flailed his veins “DON’T SPEAK OVER ME; I’M OFFERING YOU UNLIMITED POWER!” He raged upwards at the two. Vrax calmly stepped next to him and deposited him back in a jar with a squishing sound, screwing the lid on tight before setting him safely to the side.

Torvald raised an eyebrow but waited. Vrax patted the jar before turning back to his friend. “Take a quick walk with me; I have a lot to catch you up on. Some of it isn’t for prying ears…”

Vrax quickly led them to another outbuilding that was covered in red berry bushes dotted with eyes across all the berries. Vrax took a seat on an ancient table, and Torvald leaned against a wall, suddenly plucking one of the berries off his arm as it scurried over him. He squinted at the spider-like limbs jutting from the plant, and it hissed violently at him. Torvald slowly set the angry berry onto the floor with a concerned look on his face.

He took a deep breath and looked over to Vrax, who was trying to pull what looked like brains from the seams in his armor. “Seriously, what the fuck happened while I was gone, Vrax? This place looks like a demonic garden; that part I expected, but the frankly absurd amount of blood and destroyed buildings a few hundred strides that way needs an explanation, though.” He gestured towards the bell tower a few blocks over where Vrax had fought Arthur and the others.

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Vrax paused for just a second. “So...let’s start with the big ones. Paladins found me and brought a whole ass extermination party. I killed most of them. One of them killed Sunshine.” Torvald interrupted.

“Wait, really? I honestly kind of thought it couldn’t die at this point.” Torvald said in surprise.

“Ehh, yeah, technically, he isn’t actually dead; he’s in my garden, maybe healing? Not super sure; don’t want to take it out to check. One of those assholes controlled light like a fucking weapon and used my own goddamn dramatic green glow to smite the shit out of sunshine, but anyway, moving on!” Vrax settled back aimlessly, adapting the berries as they walked past him, adding an eye here and there; one he gave a set of wings too. He contemplated how to address the next topic.

Torvald waved a hand in front of his face. “Yoo hoo, are you okay there?”

“Goddammit, man, yes, just give me a second…. So the next bit I’m not supposed to talk about, so please don’t share, or I might get, well...dusted.” Vrax paused for effect.

Torvald made an out-with-it hand gesture impatiently. “Vrax, for the love of the gods, just spit it out. I haven’t slept in two days, and the only reason I even made it back here instead of wandering through a thicket for the last two days is because my mount is a glorious bastard.”

Vrax raised a finger. “Actually I’m really curious about that. Where the fuck did you find a bark bear? They are…” Torvald practically growled, setting Vrax back onto the matter at hand. “Ehm...well, I met the king.” Vrax looked expectantly towards Torvald.

Torvald had the most “stop fucking with me” face he could muster. “Ha, ha, Vrax, and what was the most dangerous man on this half of the planet like? Did you have tea? Did he enjoy the plant life ogling him?” Torvald said with as much sarcasm as he could muster completely over Vrax’s shit today.

Vrax was too tired to recognize the sarcasm. “Fantastically reasonable man, all considered, showed up to have a chat, figure me out, and such. Turned a building to dust around me to prove a point. I’m not dead, and we made a deal, so all in all, far better than I would have expected.

Torvalds’s face dropped like a rock in surprise. “Oh shit, sorry, you weren’t joking….”

“Nope.” Vrax caught Torvald up on all the drama since he had been gone, especially the conflicts with the paladins and the deals he had made with the king.

Torvald finally removed his face from his palms to respond to Vrax, who had been talking for nearly twenty minutes at this point. “So if I understood all that right...the paladin scouts at least are probably pretty solidly neutered for a bit since you fed them to a fucking crazy sadist Spriggan…”

“Yeah, sounds accurate.” Vrax quipped.

“Anddd you have some meetings with important people to have in semi-secret to get this eldritch horror show of a kingdom some actual influence, that the fucking king set up for you because secretly he's rooting for you?” Torvald finished quizzically.

“Actually I think he’s planning to use me as, like, a proxy battleground. He’s allied with that other country’s have to fight through before they could get any forces into his kingdom, but that’s just a guess.”

Torvald pulled a wine bottle from his bag and began mercilessly chugging, finishing about half of it before he came up for air. “Alright...so that means we are going back to Hopes End, so...dungeon time. We are probably high enough level now to fight through the second level and get to the so-called real dungeon we have an invite for.” Torvald was starting to look excited again, realizing it was time for more dungeon delving.

Vrax leaned over, snatching the wine bottle before realizing he still had his armor on and couldn’t take it off until he deposited the baby murder tree somewhere. With a sigh, he handed it back. “Yeah, I’m actually really looking forward to the adventurers guild meeting that’s set for right around when we should arrive in Hope’s End if we leave in the next day or two. I really don’t know what to expect for the Knight Academy meeting. Chronus arranged for us to have it in one of the VIP rooms of the Dragon's Maw. Alright, I’m going to go get some sleep and a bath and try and pretend I didn’t just accrue a lifetime of trauma in the last twelve hours. Torvald, any other questions?”

Torvald “sipped” on his wine bottle mightily again, mulling it over. “Actually, yeah, Jeff? Is he full of shit, or can he actually make me stronger? Every time I see you, I feel like I’m falling farther behind your bullshit class’s infinite minion nonsense.”

Vrax chuckled. “Firstly, they aren’t minions; they do whatever the hell they want. I just kind of point them at the edible bad guys. As for Jeff, I don’t really know; he certainly seemed to make the troll he was bonded with damn near immortal. It took me and Duchess and Sunshine plus a full garden to get him out of the bastard; that slowed its healing enough for us to win…” Vrax looked a bit guilty as he said the word "win" and took his leave, muttering something about duchess and her pet troll.

Torvald went straight back to the market and picked up Jeff’s jar, unscrewing it and plopping the blob onto his hand. “Can you really make me stronger? No mind control, no bullshit? This stuff always has some hidden cost.” Jeff's eyes bugged out in sheer excitement.

He practically stumbled in his words he was so excited. “No, no mind control. You are in charge. I can talk still, of course; the only cost is I get a small share of your essence, and well, I have to kind of eat and replace your heart.” He finished a bit meekly, obviously wishing he had sugarcoated that a bit more.

Torvald let out a booming laugh. “Oh, okay. At least I know you aren’t lying at this point. If you were trying to trick me, you would have said literally anything other than that.” He spat out through hearty chuckles.

“He, he, yeahhh…” Jeff squeaked out nervously. Newest update provıded by noⅴelfire.net

Torvald held him up, spinning Jeff slowly and getting a good look at the creature. “Death or glory,” he muttered to himself before addressing Jeff again. “Do it.”

Jeff bounced excitedly so hard he actually jumped off Torvald’s hand and onto his chest with a veiny slap. “My rise as the ultimate bonded life form finally begins; no more scraps in the forest! You won't regret this, my precious flesh palace!” He excitedly said.

Torvald grimaced a bit at the flesh-palace comment. “I sure hope not, but if I do or you turn out to be an evil parasite or something, know that Vrax will turn you into a bundle of nothing but pain and probably make you into a chair.”

Jeff recoiled a bit. “Noted, now! Could you make a small cut near your heart for me?

Torvald grumbled to himself, “Not a great start…” But he pulled a hatchet from his bag and did as asked. Jeff slid over next to Cut, eyes turning a very concerning shade of red as his form began to flatten and stretch, becoming much more liquid than it was previously.

Torvald gulped and took a deep breath in and out slowly before nodding to Jeff.