Free Web NovelChapter 129: Chapter 125: Temptation Denied
No. If System tells me to drink water, I won’t do it.
I back away and pull the cubs with me. Lightning does too. Despite their yowls and flailing limbs, we wrangle them.
[No.] I resist System, my hackles raised and my whiskers periscoping to sense danger. [No. You told us to collect it. The Eldritch Doe didn’t give us permission.]
Lightning piles on. [We can’t. The doe told us about the flower, but we need to respect it.]
System is cold. Brutal. [The doe is in MY world. I CREATED IT.]
The sensation in my stomach tells me that System is lying. It didn’t create the doe. Someone else did. Maybe whoever created Mushroom Man and the Amulet of Beast Power.
[If you created it, then you should know that it has rules.] I challenge System like Captain Kirk going toe to toe with an alien computer. [It forbade us from hunting in the forest. It has rules.]
[I MAKE THE RULES.]
Oh, System hates being challenged.
Lightning piggybacks on my logic. [Then you made the rules about not hunting while in the forest. So, you make whatever rules the doe might have about the flower. So what are they?]
That puts System on the back foot. [Why would you not hunt while you are in the forest? Although it makes no difference to me. If you weaken yourselves with this foolishness, then I will win more easily.]
It can’t understand why we would obey its own creation. That eviscerates the lie. System has been ruthless about enforcing the other demands of its creations--Kasz and the goblins, for example. Why would it tell us not to respect the doe? Because the doe is not its creature.
[Don’t blame us.] Lightning is all naïveté. Playing dumb. [After all, you just said that the doe is your creation, and you make the rules. We are following your rules by not hunting. Besides, we had plenty of food the last two days. Are we weak, Blaze?]
I puff out my fur and stand tall, lifting my head proudly and showing my bigness and my fluffiness of fur. [Do we look weak?]
A resounding silence from System. Aha. We backed it into a corner.
Lightning refuses to concede now that she has the advantage. [So. The doe is your creation.]
[Stop saying that. You’re repeating yourself. You’ve said it four times. You are taking what I said and using it. You are stealing my words.]
Oh, it doesn’t like having its own words quoted back to it. And it’s not making sense. We can’t steal its words. And even if we could, System stole US first. It stole our lives. It is just accusing us of random faults.
[Fair enough.] I change tactics. [We will just wait for the doe to arrive. I’m sure she will be along at any moment.]
[Return to the camp.]
Oho. First it tells us to take the nectar, and now that we aren’t complying, it orders us back to camp without nectar. As if that’s a punishment. It was our idea to wait.
Lightning lifts Finn in her mouth and I do the same with Leonie. [We were going anyway.]
Reversing course, we walk back to the clearing, mapping out the path in our minds. After all, should the doe appear, we need to find the flower again.
Lobo is an electric presence when we return. I can feel the charge coming from him, like the air before a storm. When he spots us, he growls. [WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?]
I don’t react to his aggression. [Give us a moment. We need to put these two to bed.]
Once the cubs are safely ensconced in the tent, we rejoin Lobo in the clearing to watch him pace. Highly entertaining.
[The cubs ran off.] Lightning wastes no words. [We had to corral them. And we found the blue-dye flower.]
That grabs Lobo’s attention. His ears shoot forward and his tail lifts. [Where?]
I try to slow him down. [We can show you. But we don’t want to try the nectar yet.]
Lobo woofs as if I’ve lost my mind. [WHY? It’s supposed to help us. I don’t know how, but it is.]
No choice but honesty. [System told us to try it, that’s why.]
The fur flies. Literally. Lobo sheds fur everywhere, in a tizzy. [It did WHAT?]
[And it claimed that the Eldritch Doe is its creation.] It’s unhelpful, but I can’t help enjoying his outrage. [We all know that that is specious at best.]
[Try "lie."] Lobo fumes, still shedding and snapping his teeth. [Trying to pass off the doe as its own is low, even for System.]
Lightning rubs up agains him in a sisterly way. Funny, I never noticed how she treated Damon in the human world. But, looking back, Amber and Damon have always had a sister-brother bond. [It’s unraveling. It’s spiraling. It was spouting complete nonsense. It said that the doe was its creation, and then when we agreed, it accused us of stealing its words.]
Lobo perks up. [Hmmm. Sounds like it’s having a few glitches.]
Lightning huffs. [It made no sense. I would have said that it was trying to trap us--]
[It was.] Lobo is positive. [But it didn’t do a very good job. You respected the Eldritch Doe. Not that I wouldn’t like a power-up from that blue-dye flower. But it has to be collected in the correct way. This world and this game have rules beyond System’s.]
I agree. [You can’t just do what you want in whatever order you want. The Eldritch Doe proved that to us. What have you been able to find about the blue-dye flower?]
Lobo woofs. [Not much. It’s thought to boost you up to Level 10--]
Lightning scoffs. [What forum did you read that in? And is it real?]
[Well, no one knows. There’s the rub. The flower’s effects are a mystery.] Lobo’s ears flick in displeasure. [It is, apparently, different for everyone.]
I growl. [Big help, these forums. They’ve been goldmines so far...]
Lobo is rational. [And they still are. This flower is something that not everyone unlocks. Of course the information is going to be spotty. But, like the Amulet of Beast Power, it may be our only hope. If we can obtain it.]
Lightning sniffs the ground. [The doe hasn’t been in this vicinity recently. How can we talk to her? Tomorrow morning we’ll leave the forest behind, and we’ll miss our chance.]
I wash my fur while we all consider the problem. [Maybe we should keep watch tonight. At least one of us should. Wait up and see if the doe comes.]
Lightning and Lobo embrace my sensible idea. [It’s our best shot.] Lobo is enthusiastic, his tail wagging. [You and I can take turns.]
[Hey, what about me?] Lightning refuses to be left out. [I found the flower, too. Technically, I saw it first. I was just ahead of Blaze.]
[But you need to sleep with the cubs.] I bat her with my paw. [We can’t have them wandering off again. We might not be so lucky next time.]
Lightning grinds her teeth. [You could stay with them too. And i could stand watch.]
Lobo woofs, his version of laughter. [She has a point.]
I call her bluff. [So, who should stay with the cubs first?]
[Oh, definitely they need their mother after all this. But I’ll relieve you in an hour.]
She pads over to the tent and slips inside.
Lobo and I patrol outside. This campsite is even smaller and more closed-in than the one where we slept last night. Not much room to prowl, but also not as much to guard. We keep a lookout for the Eldritch Doe. I’ve determined that its smell is distinctive. Sweet, but also loamy, with a hint of fungi, as if fungi grew on its fur. Maybe that’s what the bioluminescent patches are. Fungi.
No whiff of that smell tonight. The doe might as well be a ghost. Perhaps it is surveying the forest animals, getting a head count, making sure we really have kept our promise about not hunting. Although wouldn’t the doe know instantly if we’d been faithless?
Lobo grumbles. [I don’t like waiting.]
[I know. But System trying to get us to eat the apple in Eden makes me more determined to do everything by the book. Just not System’s book.]
Lobo reaches out his paw and gives me a "boop" on the nose. [You’re tired.]
[Am not.]
[I saw you yawn.]
[Okay, maybe a little. But Lightning is on watch.]
[So? Let Dag watch.]
I shake my head. [He doesn’t like the doe.]
Lobo growls. [Fine, let Gussie watch.]
[Forget it. This is our duty. I’ll sleep later. Maybe if I eat a crunchy exotic fruit, I’ll stay awake.]
Lobo sighs. [I miss coffee. I mean, in the game.]
[Me too. And I miss sleep in my actual bed...]
The fur stands up all over my body.
The smell! The Eldritch Doe is here.
