The others stood still as I trampled the ground and ran in circles, trying to lure the Borers to me. I stopped after a few circles and focused on the feeling in my legs.
I could feel slight vibrations growing stronger. I knew there was something on its way to the surface.
For some odd reason, I could tell exactly what direction it was coming from and how deep it was. I had no idea how I could, just that I did. I paid attention to the sensations for a while before they disappeared.
I stamped the ground with one leg and found the sensations returned.
"Any luck, El?" Velariah asked.
I put a finger on my lips to tell her to be quiet.
I was too focused on what was going on in the dirt beneath the grass.
I kept stamping my leg and the creature wormed its way up. I had my spear at the ready, right where I knew it was going to emerge from the ground.
The second it surfaced, I lifted my leg out of the way and impaled its body deeply. I then finished the job by cutting off its head with one of my blades. It never stood a chance. This body was the perfect counter versus these creatures.
"Holy crap…" Seralyn said behind me.
"You've got to be kidding…" Velariah asked.
I turned and smiled at them, proud of my accomplishment.
"Turns out, these legs are pretty handy. I can feel exactly where they are." I revealed my seemingly overpowered skill.
"Well, that takes all the fun away," Velariah laughed.
"And the danger," I added. "Not sure if it's a bad thing."
"It is useful," Draco said. "That's for certain."
"So, how do we do this? I would hate to not have you guys do anything, even if it is the safest way to go about things." I said.
"Well, we could kill them when they surface, even if you lure them. If you're positive they can't penetrate your chitin, we should be okay, right?" Velariah answered.
I nodded. "I'm sure they can't."
"Alright, then," Draco spoke, "We'll follow your lead."
"I'll be able to know when they surface and pull my legs up. Just be careful, alright?"
They both nodded.
I smiled. "This is some nice practice for me as well. Who knows how advanced this underground tracking ability can get?"
We walked a few meters. Velariah and Draco took positions at my side, ready to strike anything that emerged from the ground.
Seralyn and Nira stood still about seven meters out. The archer had her bow at the ready.
I doubted she would have to do much; these things seemed quite easy to kill.
I stamped the ground once more, one leg to my left, and one leg to my right, in an effort to lure out the Giant Borers. It took some more time than previously before I felt anything move in the ground.
"Vel, coming from your direction," I said, as I briefly stopped sending tremors through the ground. "It will pass under you, you can stab the ground when I tell you to."
Velariah took her sword and was ready to impale the ground under her feet.
I continued for about half a minute before it was directly under her sword.
"Now!" I called.
Velariah brought her sword down into the earth, a strange slimy sound was heard.
I gritted my teeth.
I doubted I'd get used to that sound. At least I knew that Velariah had hit, and most likely, killed it.
"There's another one nearby," I called out. "This one's for you, Draco. It's coming from under me, so be ready."
"I'm ready," He confirmed.
I hit my leg on the ground repeatedly until it was almost at the surface. The moment it emerged from the ground, I pulled my leg upward, and it missed its bite attack. Its maw closed where my leg had previously been. Within a second, Draco brought both his axes down on the giant maggot, causing it to squirt its fluids out of the large wounds. It died seconds later.
"And that's three," Seralyn called. "At this rate, Nira and I can take a day off."
"I'd prefer you guys to be ready just in case… if you don't mind, that is."
Nira shook her head. "I don't mind."
"Eh, it's fine, I guess," Seralyn said. "As long as I get paid."
"For all I care, you can have my share," I said. "I don't give a crap," I smiled.
"Neat. Free money." Seralyn grinned.
I shrugged. I had plenty of money. I doubted this quest would be worth much. It seemed proper armor made this a breeze.
We continued following the border between the plains and the forest and killed several more Borers over the course of a few hours. We went slowly and methodically, making sure to root out and dispatch as many as possible. We left their corpses for the guild to identify and clean up. Draco cut out a few organs near their rear end and put them in his bag.
I hoped he cleaned that bag every now and then…
We reached the fields in which the coffee was grown. The plants seemed to be coming along nicely. I saw a couple of them were blossoming already.
Beautiful white flowers adorned one row of the plants. Bees seemed to swarm to them from the nearby forest. It filled my heart with joy to see this going so well.
If it wasn't for these filthy maggots…
I had barely set foot in the field and I could already feel several of them crawling about. There were three that I could make out clearly, and then some more. It seemed there was some sort of cap to the number of enemies that I could track this way. Everything beyond the three closest Borers became fuzzy, even though I knew they were within range of where I could accurately track the previous Borers.
"Bit of a problem here, guys," I said. "There are multiple hostiles, and I can't track them all."
I decided to be honest. "So be prepared for anything."
"Finally, some action," Seralyn commented.
If I could, I was just going to take this slowly. I'd try to lure one at a time, stop shaking the ground, finish it off, and then repeat from there.
I started sending shockwaves into the dirt, and soon after, felt multiple borers tunneling their way to me. The first one was coming from my front, so I held my spear ready for when it exposed itself.
I used my pedipalps to hit the ground in front of me, causing it to alter its direction slightly, and thrust my spear in the dirt in front of me the moment it got close.
Its momentum caused it to emerge from the ground, all the while my spear ran through its body. It impaled itself entirely. I pulled up my fangs and delivered it a dose of venom, hoping it would award me some corium that way.
"Vel, your turn."
I called out to Velariah, who stood ready to decapitate an oversized maggot.
I pulled up my leg when it surfaced, and Velariah's swing cleanly cleaved it in two.
"Draco!" I called out.
I pulled up my other leg and Draco brought down his axes the moment the maggot shot out of the ground with its maw wide open.
The sight of those teeth would probably haunt me for some time, too.
Something was wrong…
I stopped hitting the ground, yet more signals were being sent to my legs.
More of the Borers were making their way over to me, and I couldn't count them. There were far too many and I started to panic a bit.
"Multiple Borers approaching. I don't know how many, I can't count them."
I looked behind me.
"Seralyn, Nira, I suggest you two hop on. These things are coming towards me without me moving a leg."
I didn't have to tell them twice. Seralyn quickly ran over to me and placed herself in the sacred spot that would normally be reserved for Velariah. Nira spread her wings and flew herself onto my rear, where she seated herself and gripped my midsection with her claws.
"Better get ready to dance," I called out.
I stamped the ground with all the legs I had at my disposal, trying to draw their attention.
I was successful.
The Borers kept popping up from the ground below me and tried chomping my legs. Some were successful and tried to sink their teeth into my chitin. Of course, they didn't succeed. I was glad I'd checked before.
I kept stamping and drawing more of these pests to the surface. They popped up like moles in a good round of 'Whack-A-Mole'. Velariah and Draco had their hands full trying to deal with them.
I used my spear to kill off a couple of them at my sides. The ones in the range of my spear didn't live to tell the tale, or in their case, become worse pests.
The ones unfortunate enough to bite into my legs soon paid the price as well. I continued to crash my legs into the ground and impaled them in the process.
Seralyn shot one of the Borers that emerged from the ground and was about to chomp into Velariah's calf. She used her special attack and set the arrowhead on fire. The beast curled up and got fried from the inside out. The scent coming from its body smelled somewhat like chicken. It actually smelled… kind of nice?
What the fuck?
She used the same attack multiple times, only intensifying the smell of chicken as we fought off the swarm of oversized maggots. One of the Borers appeared under one of Draco's feet and closed its maw around it.
He simply stared at it, lifted his foot, and severed the beast's head with an axe.
His confidence in his scales wasn't misplaced.
Slowly but steadily, I found my legs registering the movements in the ground normally again. We'd culled enough of them and I could only sense two more.
"Below you, Vel!" I shouted.
Without thinking twice, the elf stuck her sword in the dirt beneath her and drove it in as deep as she could.
It seemed to hit whatever was coming for her. The vibrations soon disappeared.
The last one breached the surface in front of me and started wiggling its way to me. I cleaved it with my blades and severed its maw from its body. The body changed direction and continued to wiggle forward, away from me. It kept losing its body's contents until it stopped moving altogether.
With that, the 'battle' was over.
This really was just pest control. At least the coffee was safe…
"What a mess," I said.
"Any more coming?" Velariah asked, still in combat stance.
I shook my head. "Nothing."
"Great," She replied.
Velariah walked over to the fence and used it to wipe the dirt and gore off her sword. Draco helped out with removing the Borers that were still impaled on my legs.
"A mess, indeed," The white-haired elf said as she returned and observed Draco working.
She then shook her head. "Seriously, El, at this rate, we're going to have to install better plumbing for all the baths you're going to take."
I sighed. "Trust me, I'm not happy about this, either."
"At least we got through that without issues," She said. "Did we get them all?"
"I don't feel any more."
"Good," She said, then turned her head to Seralyn. "That means you can get off my girlfriend."
I smiled and shook my head.
That was kind of funny.
"Oh, excuse me. This was Elania's idea in the first place, remember?"
She hopped off and started retrieving her arrows from the killed Borers. Nira jumped off as well, a beat of her wings carried her through the air a short distance before she landed gracefully.
I took a few steps and focused on my legs.
It was quiet, almost eerily so.
I started stamping the ground again.
Nothing.
I walked a few meters and tried again.
Still nothing.
The others saw what I was doing and followed me as I repeated my actions throughout the entire length of the field.
Nothing…
"Any ideas?" I asked. "I can't sense anything anymore."
"Seems we dealt with them all at once," Seralyn said.
I got the feeling she might be right.
"But how?" I asked. "They seemed to attack all at once. Do you think they have some sort of communication?"
"That would be one explanation," Draco said.
"Let's roll with that for now," Velariah spoke. "Let's check the rest of the field quickly and get something to eat. I'm positive we missed lunch."
"That sounds like a plan," I concluded.
We made our way through the rows of coffee plants and I sent shockwaves into the dirt at several locations. None of them yielded any reply from the pests.
I looked around and saw that none of the plants here had been affected by the Borers.
The coffee gods could be proud of their apostle.
We exited the field and found ourselves on the dirt road to the village.
I lowered myself and cleaned my weapons as best I could. Nira handed me my scabbards and I sheathed my blades again. I thanked her for keeping them and we proceeded to move to the guild hall.
Once at the guild, Draco handed the Lore keeper the creepy contents of his backpack while we seated ourselves in our corner.
The place was almost empty, an obvious result of it being past lunchtime. The quest board was empty too. It appeared the new quests regarding the goblin problem had not been posted yet.
Velariah ordered food for all of us, but my head wasn't quite there.
I was building up more and more anxiety about the ritual that was planned for me. I had my eyes closed and started building negative scenarios in my head.
I hated myself for it.
Would it reveal that I was a monster or something? Would the Grandmaster know?
I couldn't be. Even if I was, I heard this specific Grandmaster was one of integrity. He was someone that Valtheril seemed to know, personally.
"Will you stop worrying?" Velariah said softly as she laid a hand on my back.
I guess I still was too easy to read.
"I'm sorry, Vel…" I whispered. "I can't help but feel something will happen…"
"I'll be there. Nothing can happen."
"How does this ritual work?" I asked.
I had never received any information on how the ritual was conducted.
"The Grandmaster has a collection of rare herbs and fungi. They are processed into a paste, which is then placed on your hand. You will receive a piece of paper on which you put the paste, like a stamp. It will then form letters and turn into a special kind of ink that only you, the owner of the described inherity, can read."
She paused for a second. "That's what you have to do. Everything else is handled by the Grandmaster. There is going to be incense burning that can be a bit… overwhelming, but try to stay focused."
"It's not so bad," Seralyn added. "The ritual itself is fairly simple. The lead-up to it is the worst. I kind of know what you're feeling right now. It's even worse for some people of whom a lot is expected in life."
"Like you?" I turned to Velariah.
"My inherity is relatively simple, but I know what it's able to do, that is, if it follows the same path of my father, which is a distinct possibility. I don't worry about it too much, even if expectations are high."
"Thank you, Vel."
Her comforting words seemed to dispel some of the worries that haunted me.
Nira's expression had been one of worry when looking at my face, but she too seemed to be lifted by Velariah's words. She smiled at me after the elf stopped talking.
Draco finished his business with the Lore Keeper and took a seat at the table.
"You guys alright?" He asked.
I nodded. "We were just discussing the ritual."
The lizardman smiled. "I am quite curious about your inherity. Please do share with us when you know what it is."
"Is that normal?" I asked. "Seems to me the idea of having a paper with text that only you can read is so it remains secret."
"It's common for parties to know what all their inherities are," Velariah said. "If you have anything you don't want to share, nobody will force you to, though."
"No, it's fine. I'll tell you guys about mine. I was just curious what the etiquette was regarding this whole thing. You know why…"
"I do like this more honest version of you," Seralyn said.
"I do prefer to be honest about things myself as well, but you know I didn't have much choice in this matter specifically."
"Agreed," The archer said.
The waiter appeared at our table with a plate of drinks which he put down in front of each of us. It seemed the others had gone for my favorite drink as well.
"Here's to you, Miss Elania," Draco held up his glass, preparing to toast. "Here's to finally getting to know your inherity, and to our party's future adventures."
I smiled from ear to ear as I joined his toast with my glass.
The others joined as well.
"Thank you, Draco. Here's to us."
Our glasses clinked, the sound only intensified my smile.
This new world was turning into quite something…