Chapter 457: The Bet

“Woah, A Divine Blessing. What a lucky little ducky you are.” Raev said with a raspy laugh, as he spewed out a thick cloud of smoke that quickly filled the corridor.

Belladonna glared at him, whipping her hand out in his direction and sending a gust of air slicing past his head. It carved the cloud in two and rapidly funnelled it out of the room, which Raev watched with a goofy smile on his face.

“I’m guessing that Almera is the Goddess of Nature?”

She asked with a slight sigh. With the rate that she was encountering Gods and their acolytes, she was really going to have to do some reading on the pantheon.

At least to know their names and what would piss them off, so she didn’t encounter anymore Elarian situations.

“Not exactly. Almera isn’t exactly a Goddess… She just kinda is nature, you know?”

“No, I don’t. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Revenant rolled his eyes with a heavy sigh, and stepped forwards to translate Raev’s drug induced ramblings.

“Gods rule over certain aspects of the world and bend it to their will. Some of them create their aspects, like Sylvi created basically all of illusion magic, whilst some of them adhere to it or enforce it. But Almera literally is nature. She is everything within it. Every tree, every blade of grass. She is literally the Earth beneath our feet. Did you ever think to learn what the planet was called? It’s not Dawd, it’s Almera. Almera is the entire planet, and that is her personification. She is Mother Nature.”

Belladonna paused for a few seconds, digesting his words. It was a difficult distinction to understand, especially if some Gods inhabited or exceplified their aspects of Divinity.

But clearly there was some weight to it.

“Do you know what the Blessing does?” She asked, eventually – and reluctantly – having to turn to Raev when Revenant shook his head.

“No clue Spooky. Every blessing is different and there is no way to tell, until it comes time to use it. Do you feel anything different about yourself? Any new skills pop up on that fancy word screen of yours?”

Belladonna narrowed her eyes at Raev’s question, before turning her attention back to Figg. He was slowly turning back to face the group, his eyes locked on his hand as he wriggled his fingers slowly, still able to feel the velvety touch of the moss and the way its power flowed through him.

The crystal on his head dimmed, its glow completely fading away yet the crystal remained, Cemented into Figg’s bark-like skin.

“I don’t think so. Nothing new has appeared. It just says it at the bottom of my status. [Blessing of Almera]. When I try to pull up more details, all it says is ‘patience little sprout’. But… I don’t feel any different. Do I look different?”

Belladonna glanced up at his forehead briefly, before giving him a warm smile.

“Nope! Not at all. You look like a gem.”

“Phew, That’s a relief.” Figg sighed, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, just barely missing his newest addition as he had to move his hand around the antlers.

“Although, my head does feel a little heavier.” He muttered as he tilted his head from side to side.

“You’re probably just imagining it. Come on, we need to get deep inside to find the boss of the castle. The thing that killed the scavengers isn’t coming for us, so we don’t need to waste anymore time tip-toeing around.”

Revenant caught up to Belladonna as she started to confidently stride down the corridor without a second thought of caution.

He fell into step beside her, leaning close as he spoke lowly.

“So, you noticed it too, huh?”

“Of course I did. My Perception stat might not be the highest, but that doesn’t mean my eyes don’t work.”

“Maybe… It’s the brain I’d be worried about. That thing rarely seems to work.” Revenant muttered, stepping to the side and leaning just out of the way of Belladonna’s retaliatory punch, before leaning back in.

“You know what this means though, don’t you corpse boy?” Belladonna said with a wicked smirk.

“Damn…” Revenant grumbled, “Of all the things you constantly forget, why couldn’t that have been one of them.”

“My memory is perfect when it comes to money. Now cough it up.” Belladonna cackled, holding out her hand and making a ‘gimme’ gesture with her fingers, until Revenant reluctantly slapped the five square, purple coins. Nux, each one worth a hundred gold Regils.

“Woah, that’s a lot of money. What did I miss?” Figg asked as he jogged over to them, grabbing Belladonna’s hand to look closer at the glistening purple coins.

With a wave of her hand, like a stage magician, Belladonna flicked them into her shadow and gave Figg a sly smirk.

“We are just finalising the details of a little bet. He bet that what was killing everything was invisible, and he was wrong. So I win.”

“Wait… so you know what’s killing everything? What is it?”

Belladonna chuckled softly, “Have you not taken a proper look at the armours? At the moss that’s growing on them?”

“The Moss? You aren’t saying…” Figg muttered, before whipping his head towards one of the armours and glaring at the moss that was innocently growing across the chestplate.

He held out his hand and raised his staff, readying his magic to overpower the control of the evil moss when it sprung to attack, now that it had been discovered.

But it didn’t make any such move. Instead, Belladonna just laughed again.

“No, it’s not the Moss that’s attacking. Look at how its growing, more specifically. Do you see how it’s missing around the joints, and has been broken there?”

Figg frowned, and leaned closer to the armour. Inspecting the areas that Belladonna had mentioned, until he could finally see what she was talking about.

She was right, the moss had been broken at the joints. It had once grown there, but had since fallen off. Yet the portions on either side remained perfectly intact, so it couldn’t have been a result of metal poisoning, and the gap was too small to cause structural issues on its own.

Belladonna smiled at Figgs confusion, before leaning over and whispering in his ear.

“It’s broken, because they’ve been moving.”