Chapter 45 – What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas
"Jake!" Screamed a woman's voice out of the fog startling him a bit.
He peered over the shield in to the mist and saw Keena running toward him through the poison fumes carrying Rey in her arms
"Make a path!" She screamed, meeting her eyes with him.
"On it!" Screamed Jake and used his skill. He tried to save up in mana as much as he could so he fought depending on his own body almost the whole time he fought but this was not a time to save up. He saw poisoned monsters under him turn and rush at his friend in the fog.
"Haaaaa!" Roared Jake smashing his shield forward and a mass of transparent energy broke out of his shield hitting everything in his path like a brick wall, stunning and killing monsters where it passed.
For a moment there was a straight path leading to the wall where not a single monster moved. This moment was enough for Keena. She rushed past him and climbed the stairs to get to the wall, with Jake standing back to guard the stairs against the rushing from the side's monsters.
Keena put down Rey in the middle of the crowd of adventurers and kissed him, pressing the object in her mouth back into his mouth like he did it for her before.
"LISTEN UP EVERYONE!" She screamed after laying Rey down.
"Rey and Noah found a way to get us out of here!" She screamed over the sounds of battle. "In a few moments we will have a way to survive in the fog and retreat to the center of the poison cloud. Let the monsters die of poison on their own! But before that, I need all the potions you can get me!"
"You heard her!" Screamed Margaret. "Get your potions out and give them to Keena! We are getting out of here fellas!"
"Oooooo!" Screamed adventurers with a renewed fighting spirit.
Keena ran around the wall jumping over people and monsters trying to bite at her, while adventurers transferred their potions to her simultaneously trying to fight.
When Keena stocked up she rushed to Rey that barely regained consciousness after getting a random heal from one of the clerics and smashed her lips into his, hungrily kissing him and taking the object in his mouth back to herself. Then she jumped off the wall again rushing to the center of the poisonous cloud.
*******
Noah's vision was blurry from over intoxication of potions. Last time he created a slime out of leftover poison that his body ejected, he did not see how much mana it took, as he was unconscious and also sucked out all the life energy out of the forest, restoring his spirit and health to the maximum of his body's vitality shortly after.
Now that he used the skill /Kyaan damee/ on his own, he realized just how potent the skill was. Breathing a speck of life into an inanimate object was no joke. Mana was sucked out of him like crazy. Even with all the potions he stole from Samantha and her friends, he barely had enough to create a tiny globs of sentient slime like creatures that he then left in the open to absorb the poison from surrounding and become stronger on their own.
He sat in the lotus position with his eyes closed and concentrated on the skill. Using it was not as easy as he thought either. He had to concentrate all his senses on the surroundings and imagine just the right amount of cloud to be condensed into a creature with his skill. Too small an amount and it would take too long to absorb surrounding fog and grow, too much and it would suck his mana dry making him unconscious.
The after effect of potion overuse was gaining on him too. Potions quickened the user's inner metabolism using his own body's resources to restore the mana. He downed stamina potions after that as well. This would give his body a concentrated dose of all that was needed to restore strength, as well as increase his digestion to make his body absorb it quickly and effectively. Then he would down a health restoration potion to cure himself of any internal damage this combination of potions caused. After that he repeated his slime creation process.
However, no matter how well the potions restored him, it could not replace the healthy dream the overused body demanded. Also every potion component was a kind of poison on its own and with every use it accumulated inside letting him feel intoxication, that he had to wear off by another skill /Cure poison with poison/. Although that skill helped lift the intoxication, it used a mind resource to create malign energy that destroyed the poisons within him. This made him feel weary even more. Over time all this stocked and he felt like dropping and taking a nap, luckily his other skills, that did not allow him to sleep and held him lucid even if he wanted to sleep, fought drowsiness allowing him to push himself forward to even stronger weariness.
Sounds of quick steps were heard coming from the fog.
"Noah!" Screamed a woman's voice through the red white mist colored from the red ball hanging like a miniature sun in the sky. Some time ago the ball started to dim, but another flare was sent flying to the sky to replace the one that was losing its magic.
"Here!" Answered Noah.
Keena rushed out of the fog into his view a moment later.
"I brought potions!" She said breathing hard from running full speed.
"Good." Answered Noah's weary voice.
"You ok?"
"Tired."
"What can I do?"
"These globs." Said Noah pointing at the fifteen balls on the ground. "This is the first batch. Take them to the guys on the wall. I am making a second batch now. How many people are left alive?"
"Thirty five or fourty." She answered.
"Ok. Share them between each other until I make more. If you don't come too deep into the fog, where poison concentration is very high, you will be able to stay lucid until other guy neutralizes all poison and gives back his slime to other. That's all I can offer."
"Ok." Said Keena picking up the small spheres from the ground. And stocking potion bottles in front of him instead.
Once she was done she disappeared in the fog again.
Noah stretched his hand to pick some of the potions she just brought and started to down them one after another, repeating his slime creation procedure again and again.
*******
Jake dropped down another dead monster body from the stairs seething heavily from weariness. He was almost overpowered a few times, barely saved by Edd and some other fellow timely help that covered his back on this side of the wall.
At that moment he heard a loud sound of war horn somewhere in the far distance.
"Well…" Said Jake between heavy breaths. "At least they came."
"They'll never get through that horde in time to get any of us alive." Answered Edd breathing almost as hard as Jake.
"Yeah. They have it easier because monsters rush in frenzy toward the broken monster bait turning their back on them. But they fight in the open there unlike us. Bet they struggle to barely make a step closer to us." Said Jake. "Until this forest is out of monsters, it's hopeless to depend on city guards reaching us." He answered by catching another monster with his shield and piercing its eye with a quick sword thrust from behind the shield.
"So we go with Keena's plan?" Asked the other guy behind Jake.
"Best choice in my opinion." Answered Jake.
A few moments later cat woman in rangers armor jumped out of the fog and rushed up the stairs stepping on the heads of surprised monsters and jumping away before they could react to bite at her.
"I am here!" Screamed Keena once she rushed on top of the wall.
"Ooooo!" Screamed adventurers in delight
"There is a problem though fellas." She said making them suddenly drop in spirit.
"This thing is definitely useful against poison as I am still alive! BUT! There are only fifteen of them for now and more are still being made!" She said.
"Huh? What the fuck, Keena. You said we all getting out of here!" Screamed one of the adventurers in anger.
"Yeah! Lucky for us, this thing is multi time use!"
"What?"
"We share them between us until we get more!" Said Keena.
"Share them how?" Asked Margaret
"Like this!" Said Keena and pressed her lips in Rey that was barely able to just hide from monsters to not get in the other guys way. His weary body was in no shape to even lift his knife. Keena kissed him with a juicy kiss giving him the object in her mouth and then threw the globes to stunned adventurers around her one by one.
"Just give it to the other guys that start to feel drowsy from poison and heal yourself with a health restorative potion. Then ask someone else to give it to you when you start feeling drowsy again after breathing poison for some time. Don't go too deep. The poison is more potent the deeper you go." She explained.
"The fuck? There is no way I am sharing it with someone like that with any of those arse holes here. There are mostly men here!"
"Suit yourself." Said Keena throwing Rey's weary body on her shoulders. "Kiss or die man!" She said and jumped off the wall again. Disappearing into the fog.
"You can just spit it out and give it to others!" Said Marge. "Don't be fucking babys you dimwits!"
"Damn easy to say when you have your husband here that you can share it with. Which girl here wishes to share one with me?" No one answered his question. Once the girls heard Keena they immediately reacted grabbing a guy they'd wouldn't be too disgusted to share the slime with. So no one was left to pair up with him
"See!?"
"Do you want to live or not fellas? Make your choice!" Roared Jake. But not surprisingly there was a girl that held to him from behind that appeared as if out of nowhere when Edd was looking around to check who to pair with.
"No time to be idiots here!" Rush to the village center screamed Marge and she and her husband followed Jake that was already rushing into the fog with a girl in his hands after he cleared the way with his skill.
"Fuck!" Just rush to fog guys! We'll solve it later if we are alive!" Screamed another guy rushing off the wall with a girl at his side too.
"What decide? You just rushed off to not let us steal your girl!" Screamed others and soon one by one they all jumped off the wall and rushed into the fog with monsters following closely after them.
******
"Don't get too deep!" Screamed Marge's voice from the red fog. "The deeper we go the stronger the poison and the faster we get drowsy!"
"Aaagh! I feel drowsy. Give me the antidote" screamed someone else.
"Here. Take mine."
"Me too! Give some to me!"
"Kyaaa. Which bastard grabbed my tits?!" Screamed people from the fog.
The poison mist was so thick that after they ran a few meters deep they could barely see anything. Just making a difference between monsters and people through the shadowy silhouettes in the red fog. Between rushing from person to person to get a globe that absorbed poison from their body and fighting off sluggish as if drunk monsters in the open, their plan to pair up soon crumbled making everyone run around the fog on sound seeking for an antidote from others.
"Yo dude! Give me antidote" screamed one guy grabbing at the person in the mist.
"Fuck off, I have not healed myself yet."
"What? Bastard, share it!"
"Get off me? What the hell! No, release me! ....Ughhh fuck! Ptfui. Ptfui. Why did you kiss me, you bastard?" Were heard conversations when someone who refused to share was forced to share it.
Soon people even stopped asking, just forcing to share their slime with them through a kiss. And in the dim fog no one could even differentiate anymore who they kissed. Was it a girl or another guy?
"Hey you give me your slime!" Screamed a guy grabbing a person in fog and yanking him to turn around ready to force a kiss on him just like he was forced a few times already, but in the last moment he saw an ugly mug of monster opening it's stinky mouth pouncing at him.
"Fuck!" Screamed the guy from fear of almost kissing that ugly mug while slashing it in two.
"NOAH, YOU UGLY BASTARD, GET US MORE SLIMES BEFORE I DIE FROM SHAME HERE!" Screamed aggrieved Edd's voice in the mist.
*****
"Can you people stop making out and get this new batch of slimes to the people out there?" Said Noah to the couple that was passionately kissing while laying on the ground just a few meters away from him the whole time while people in the fog struggled to fight for their life.
"Phaaa" Breathe out Keena with a heavy but very delighted voice. "Mmm just a bit more."
"Keena…" Said Rey's voice from under her. "Let me rest a bit and get these slimes to the people." He said between hard breaths.
"Okay." She said, "But there is no way I am kissing anyone or letting you kiss someone else too. So give us another slime too, Noah."
"Take these," said Noah pointing at another fifteen slimes while barely holding his posture in a sitting position. "Lead the people here. I think the rest will be ready by the time everyone gets here."
"Fine." Said Keena and disappeared in the fog shortly after.
"Thanks man." Wheezed Rey's voice in the fog. "I almost died from suffocation instead of poison here."
"Help me reach those potions, Rey. I can't lift my hand well here."
"Sure." Said Rey and crawled a few meters to Noah dropping down near him and lifting potion from the pile in front to hand it to Noah.
"You, holding there, man?" Asked Rey, laying on the ground on Noah's side.
"Barely." Said Noah after downing a potion and starting to concentrate on his skill again.
"Thanks. For saving our asses." Said Rey.
"Don't interrupt." Said Noah weakly.
"Sorry.." said Rey and went silent.
By the time Noah was done with the last batch of slimes everyone gathered in the circle around him, sitting with weary and dispirited faces with only a shadows of silhouettes seen in the weak red fog dimly lit from flare in sky. The center of the village was quite safe from monsters. The poison concentration was so high that only the bare minimum could reach here in a very bad shape and were quickly dispatched without problems.
Once Keena brought them a second batch of slimes and called everyone to the center with a lot less threat from monsters, people calmed down a lot. The mad rush for antidote was taken under control and people calmly handed over the slimes from person to person while sitting.
When the final batch was ready and everyone got at least one slime to fight the poison in their bodies, dead silence hung over the group of leftover adventurers.
Noah dropped to the ground absolutely strengthless. Even after receiving a heal from one of the clerics it did not help him much to restore his tired mind.
"Listen up bastard." Said Edd's voice in the fog. "Don't you fucking dare to tell anyone about what happened here. If I ever hear you spreading rumors about it, I'll kill you with my own hands."
"What's the village name again?" Asked Noah, laying on the ground.
"New-vega." Answered Jake. "Why?"
"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" Said Noah remembering the picture he saw in his mind realms comment section.
"Yeah!" Said Edd'a voice from the fog. "What happened in Vegas stays in Vegas you lot!" Soon this world had a new very popular saying without many people even knowing what it meant.