Zectas Volume III: Malediction of Veneficatl Valley (5 page)

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Adder was still unconscious. Smoke was about to apply first aid on Adder's chest wound. He propped up his injured friend against the glowing green boulder. Before he could do anything else, Adder's wound began to close all by itself.
"Igniz, can you brighten the place up?"
The dark ember sprite increased his luminance. Smoke and Adder had fallen into a jagged pit. He was surprised that they weren't impaled by the deadly stalagmites that stuck out of the floor.
Adder's new virile arm kept on growing and drew Smoke's attention.
"Just what is this thing? Igniz, can you come closer to Adder?"
With his purple hue, Igniz came closer and illuminated over the injured Condortlian.
The virile arm was almost the same length as Adder's right limb. The green hands and fingers were still small and disproportioned, but it was still growing.
He examined the peculiar looking stone and was equally surprised when he read the stone's information.

This stone was the reason why the Condortlians were enslaved. Smoke thought that Adder's recreated limb may have been caused by the Matera Vitalis' unknown information.
'If this Matera Vitalis has such a small reach then that would mean there are other Matera Vitalis scattered all over this mountain.'
He wanted to learn more about the Matera Vitalis, but there was no other helpful information. So, he decided to focus on returning to Condortl.
Smoke tried to use his Earth Manipulation ability to flatten out the spikes and elevate himself and Adder back to the ledge where they fell from.

His eyebrows crossed. He never saw that notification message before. He tried using his ability again and got the same notification.
"Inspect ability, Earth Manipulation."

'Man, this place is old. I wonder if it reaches up to the Phanerozoic era?'
Smoke sat in front of Adder and kept on observing the growing limb. It had finally grown to same size as the Condortlian's normal hand. With nothing else to do, he took out two books and began acquiring their knowledge.
However, the green color was slowly changing. The virile arm had now taken on the color of brown and began to crust all over. It had taken on the form a brown scaly cast.
Another fifteen minutes passed and Adder came to.
"Ugh... Smoke? What happened? I felt like a wild rhinomouse rammed into my chest."
"Hey, how are you feeling? Does anything feel new?"
"Huh? New? Oh... I haven't seen anything like this before."
Smoke couldn't help but smile and nod his head slowly.
"I know! I was surprised myself when I saw it, but I think this could be the best thing that could happen to you."
Adder looked puzzled, he thought that Smoke was talking about the glowing green boulder. He himself had never seen such a big vitalis stone, but he wondered why it could be the best thing that could happen to him.
"Sure, such a big Vitalis stone is a rare find, but this thing is only valuable to the Lizard people."
"No, I'm not talking about the green boulder. I am talking about your left arm."
Smoke pointed towards Adder's scaly brown crusted arm.
Adder's eyes grew wide when he saw his new arm. A million thoughts raced through his mind, but nothing came out of his mouth. Then he heard Smoke speak.
"Do you think this Matera Vitalis stone is a special stone that can cure people?"
"This is a Matera Vitalis stone? I've heard about it, but I thought it was just a myth."
The Condortlian was surprised, and he thought about Smoke's question. It was logical and there was a high chance that this was indeed a special effect of the Matera Vitalis.
Smoke then told Adder what he had observed.
"Really? All I know is that it started growing from a green scaly arm, and later transformed into this brown crusted form."
"My arms were green? Did they start out like a small stump and then grew to be like this?"
"Yes, It did. How did you know that?"
Adder took a deep breath and suddenly began scratching out his brown crusted arm.
"Hey, hey, what are you doing. Stop that."
Smoke grabbed Adder's right hand and held on to it firmly.
"I'm taking this thing off of me."
"Why would you do that? Do you like living with just one arm?"
"It's better than living with one that belongs to a virile. I don't want a monster's arm."
"Wait a minute. Let's calm down a bit. Are you sure this is exactly the same process that the Lizard people went through?"
Adder stopped resisting and relaxed himself.
"Well, when their arms grew back they didn't turn into this brown scaly crust."
"There you go. See, I'm sure this isn't a monster's arm at all."
Despite what Smoke said, both of them didn't believe a word of it. The scaly green arm that grew, clearly belonged to a virile monster.
Smoke thought to change the subject.
"For now, why don't we focus on getting out of here. I already tried using Earth Manipulation but it didn't work. I'm thinking that we could climb up these walls. Do you think you could stand?"
Adder tried to stand up, but he felt dizzy and slumped back down. For the first time, Adder felt the brown crusted arm draining all of his energy. He thought about telling Smoke but decided not to because he didn't want to worry his leader.
"Sorry, I can't." replied Adder meekly.
"Don't worry about it. I'll just strap you on to my back." said Smoke. He then took out his wall climbing harness and strapped it on Adder's body. As he tried to lift his injured friend up, he noticed that he was heavier than he looked.
"You've gotten really heavy. Have you always weighed this much?" asked Smoke.
A confused Adder looked at Smoke, "I don't know what you mean? I feel normal, it's just that I don't have any energy to move."
Smoke had a hard time standing up because of Adder's added weight, but with the aid of his rare gloves he managed to get a firm grip on the wall.
With Adder safely secured, Smoke looked up the steep wall. He started to scale it, with his injured friend on his back. Yet, Adder's weight proved to be beyond the limits of his Claws of Chiropterra.
He could only reach up to the height of four feet before they got pulled down by gravity. He inspected his gloves to check their status.

Smoke was surprised to see the restriction section in the item because it did not display such an information before. He thought that the item must have only shown it now because his weight went beyond 500 pounds.
He was shocked to learn that Adder's weight must have been more than 300 pounds, since he was only 190 pounds himself.
"Alright, that's it. I don't think we could go out that way."
Adder felt responsible. He knew that it was his increased weight that was literally bringing them down.
"Sorry about that, Smoke. Why don't we rest for a few minutes? Who knows, maybe I'll recover then?"
"Sure, let's do that. I'll cook us some grub as well."
Smoke prepared a medicinal sand cat stew. When the stew was finished he began to spoon feed Adder.
"You don't have to do this. I'll eat when I can move my arm."
"Don't be stubborn. I want to get out of this place as soon as possible. Even if it means forcing this stew down your throat."
Adder obediently ate the medicinal stew, until the whole pot was finished. As they rested, Smoke thought to investigate the pit they were currently in.
What he really wanted to do was to chase after the enraged Centaurs, but Adder's health and safety was his top priority at the moment.
He decided to give Laernea a call. Since he didn't know if Adder could recover at all in less than a day.
"I need your help, we fell down this pit while we were chasing the mutated Centaurs."
The lioness Lioumerean's voice trembled as she spoke.
"What?! Are you okay? I'll be there right away."
"Laernea, wait. Bring a ton of rope, some digging equipment, and Condortl's best Healer. I don't know how deep this place is. Let me send you our coordinates."
"I'll be there in a few minutes. Rope, digging equipment, but why do you need a Healer? Condortl only has Tanda left, and he is only slightly better than our first aid ability."
"Adder got injured, but he's stable now."
"Okay, don't you worry, Smoke. I'll be there before you know it."
After Smoke called Laernea, he decided to resume his original plan and investigate the pit.
"I'll be back, I'm just gonna look around a bit. Maybe there's another way out or something."
Before Smoke left, he thought about what he saw from the top view while he attempted to scale the wall.
"You know, if you look at the glowing Vitalis stone from the top, it kinda looks like an arrow pointing toward that wall. Nah, its probably just my imagination."
Smoke and Igniz went off to search for an exit. The Vitalis' low luminance was enough to give some visibility to Adder, who sat down beside it.
Slowly, Smoke walked further away. Igniz hovered above him and lighted his path. He squeezed himself in between the protruding stalagmite formation.
At the corner of his eye, he found a mysterious ivory colored object. His Cunning of the Dire Fox did not sense any monster, but he thought that it was always better to be alert.
There were monsters with special abilities that cancelled out his sensory ability. He took out his Dasende's Chain and Sickle and held on to the sickle's handle tightly.
The compact space limited his weapon's true potential, but it was his only decent melee weapon. He had given most of his weapons to his private army members.
Silently, he creeped towards the object. When it was within his range he instantly lunged his sickle and scattered the dried up bones of a person.
"Igniz, over here. I can't see what this is."
His symbiote flew towards the scattered bones. Smoke found the ragged clothes of a Condortlian. He inspected the remains and found writings on a torn out cloth.
He reflexively began to acquire the cloth's information. After five seconds, a notification popped up.