Wraithwood Botanist

B2 - Chapter 24 - Killian Roskbaro

Aiden eyed me suspiciously. "You got ideas?"

"Yeah. Give ’em what they want. The beasts around here want sacred food. Specialized herbs. Cores. Water from the river."

"And if they don’t take that?"

"They’ll attack us."

"And what then?"

I smiled enigmatically, making him shiver and turn away.

"Listen, Aiden. A few months ago, I was a botany major at CU. Okay? I studied plants. I paid my taxes and avoided group outings and liked Facebook posts of friends having children, so I didn’t have to go to their baby showers. But let me tell you something: I killed hundreds of animals in the first week I was here. Not because I wanted to—but because there was no choice. That hasn’t changed. So you have two options: you can play by this forest’s rules, or you can wait here for the next couple weeks while I do what needs to be done. Okay?"

Aiden nodded this pathetic nod.

I winced and turned away. "I wish we met under different circumstances." With those words, I disappeared into the forest to research what I could get to bribe the beasts around here.

2.

Aiden sat down by the river, trying to process Mira’s words. He heard it from Elle and Halten and Elionis and Brexton, but something about hearing it from someone like him... some geeky nobody from Earth... made it hit harder.

He understood (at least as well as anyone could understand a sudden shift and encouragement to mass murder) that it was a requirement. And after surviving the Bramble, he understood that he needed to fight to survive now that he was stuck here.

But still.

How could someone casually throw away the ideas and beliefs they developed as an adult? How could someone shed twenty-five years of socialization in a peaceful country and adapt to such a grisly lifestyle?

He didn’t know—

—but boy, would he love to. He envied Mira because she adapted—and he was sitting around thinking about it.

"Can you come out, Elle?" Aiden asked quietly.

A sudden explosion of fireworks lit up the sky, and a pixie flew out from behind his back, doing circles like the Blue Angels while strange and wondrous music played in the background.

"This’s a bit, even for you," Aiden said dryly.

The music ground to a halt, and Elle turned to him with puffed-out cheeks. "Can’t you see I have to? That girl’s Oracle is a depressed loner and he had a flashier entrance than I ever have. It was shameful, Aidee, shameful, I tell you! I refuse to be outdone again." Elle crossed her arms and pouted.

Aiden smiled thinly and looked at the ground. "She must be pretty amazing, huh?"

"Oh, Aid~ee," Elle said conciliatory, flying down and grabbing his cheeks with her tiny hands. "That girl’s a total psychopath. Don’t you never compare yourself to her."

Aiden’s eyes widened. "Wait. Really?"

Elle’s face cracked up, and she laughed. "Of course not, silly. You think a psychopath’s gonna risk their life to save some dragon she’s never met?"

"Oh..." he laughed, and his mood dimmed again.

"Hmmm... you look like you feel like you’re worthless. Ammirite?"

Aiden laughed a dry laugh and looked down and nodded.

Elle gave him five seconds of silence. Then her face lit up, and she grinned. "You know what I think you need?"

"What?"

"To speak to your patron."

"My... what?"

"Patron, silly. You completed the quest, didn’t you?"

Aiden’s mind went blank, and he opened up his Guide for the first time since finishing the quest and saw the notification.

—---

Neophyte Aiden Roe has completed the following Legacy Quest.

Legacy Quest: Curse Tamer

Summary: Well, look at you, you little demigod seducer, you! You just went from contracting a worker spirit beast to a cursed demigod in three days. You’re on a roll—so let’s turn it up a notch. There’s a spicy sitch brewin’ in the Fourth Ring, and we need a courier who can bring goods between here and there. Unfortunately, everyone about to take the request is about to die during the tryouts. :(

That’s where you come in! Tame a cursed avian in the third ring and drop off packages if / when they come in. If you do, you’ll get a request equal to the packages you deliver. And lemme tell you—they’re tasty.

Duration: N/A

Requirement(s):

Make a contract with a cursed bird to drop off supplies in the fourth ring.

"I... don’t know."

"It’s ’cause he’s waiting for you to reach out. You don’t do that? You’re a spineless lily liver loser that’ll be dead by nightfall. That’s what he’ll think. So, I..." Elle pointed to her little chest dramatically, eyes closed and nose raised, "your wonderful little pixie bride has been a good partner and bridged that gap." She kept her eyes closed for a few seconds and then opened one to check Aiden’s reaction.

"Uh... thank you?" he said.

"Mmhm! Praise me more."

"You’re the best."

"Awww, you’re so sweet. Now check that box, sign your soul away, and we’ll get this party started!"

He hesitantly complied and was shocked when his patron responded immediately. He set a meeting for an hour from then.

"Oooooooooh, he was wat~ching you~," Elle sang strangely, fluttering up to a tree branch and sitting. "I can’t WAIT for you to meet him."

3.

The nice thing about finding the things that animals love is that they tend to enjoy the things that they are around. Not always. Sometimes, they like the good stuff that’s hidden behind a large pack of carnivores, like the bag of aleisma fruit we just picked up after piling up eighteen horse-sized carnivores outside a cave right next to the fruit, but for the most part, it’s just lying around.

In only an hour we found a full bag of things that beasts love, left behind after the Diktyo River massacre, as I called it, and the subsequent fire. We still found claw marks and fresh corpses killed by the soul-jacked animals that were still rampaging through the forest.

We could tell it was them because the wounds were savage and unpolished, and their soul core was left behind. We took the core and some meat and moved on.

I hope he can find one to ride, I thought about Aiden. If he steps on something, he’s toast.

To me, the world was a sea of subtle colors that became more pronounced when I concentrated. Purples for poisons and golds for food. I avoided one and stopped for the other, picking up spices and fruits to get me through the trip.

Aiden didn’t see any of that. In fact, he didn’t even have a plant identification skill! The guy would be walking around like it was a normal hike in the forest when half the things here were poisonous. It was a serious problem.

Getting him an animal would change that. He could ride and stay off the ground. And if we needed to run, the animal would run. Simple as that.

Don’t get your hopes up. I thought. He didn’t have to live through this shit...

I just went through hell beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. From day one, I almost died many times, and by week’s end, I was slaughtering beasts to survive.

It changed me.

Aiden? Not a chance. I was protecting him, so there was no need—no desperation—that would make him change. So, I doubted that an awkward animal lover like him would do what needed to be done to survive. So, I cut my losses mentally and moved on, praying that I could do 90% of the work and get serious results.

4.

Aiden was nervous as the clock struck the agreed-upon meeting time for Killian. Then that nervousness turned to fear when a humanoid walked out from behind him, covered in buzzed fur that was black as a void, making his body seem like a walking shadow, deleting the backdrop he stepped in front of as if someone simply cut the area away with a photograph.

His eyes were pure white, and he stood before Aiden.

I can speak, Killian said telepathically.

"I-I see."

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"You’ve asked for a lecture. About what?"

Aiden felt a sharp pang of hatred for Elle at that moment. She didn’t say—doubtlessly on purpose.

"I... want to know how I can tame animals without killing them."

Killian narrowed his eyes and snorted. "Let me ask you a question. If you were a beast. Would you respect you?"

Aiden smiled wryly.

"Didn’t think so."

"Then... what can I do?"

"Go out and kill some beasts. Until you do, not a single one of these creatures will let you walk away breathing. Without killing..." Killian scoffed. "It’s in a carnivore’s nature to kill. It’s the way they survive. It’s how they live and continue the cycle of life. Stop denigrating beasts with your ideals."

The god disappeared as fast as he came, leaving Aiden in a state of shock. Then Aiden looked up to address Elle but she was gone, leaving him alone to contemplate what he was just told.

It was the same thing, yet again.

Kill, kill, kill. Natural order this. Celebrated path that. At least here, it made sense. If he didn’t learn how to kill, he and Halten would die. He was certain of it.

Aiden gazed at his friend, wheezing hard as he fought off the fog that was corrupting his soul.

I need to... he thought. For Halten.

He opened his Guide and went through the skills and spells tabs, searching for something that would give him immediate power. And the more he read, the deeper his resolve became. By the time Mira returned with a huge foraging sack full of various plants and mushrooms, Aiden was ready. He looked her in the eyes and spoke from his heart:

"Will you teach me how to hunt?"