Adrenaline Junkie [Book 2 Complete]

"So, have the two of you figured out the cause behind the Grumblebarks' irregular migration?" Tim asked as he held the powered-off camcorder to his side, letting his mana hold it in place as he sat atop another Grumblebark corpse.

'I have theories, but no proof,' Archie signed, mildly disappointed in his lack of sleuthing skills. Detective work was far more difficult than how it was portrayed on television and film - it wasn't as simple as closing his eyes for twenty seconds, dramatically scanning the area, and magically stumbling upon a crucial clue.

He had the magic, but zero detective skills.

"I am the same," Aoife answered, looking a lot more relaxed and less conflicted than before. "Theories and assumptions, but nothing other than those two. There are too many variables to narrow it down to anything concrete."

"It seems I've done an excellent job instilling the basics of sleuthing in both of you," Tim said with a nod, clearly pleased as he acknowledged both Archie's and Aoife's words.

"But you- " Aoife began, a hint of confusion in her voice, before Tim cut her off.

"Tell me your theories and assumptions," he said, interrupting without so much as a blink.

'It could be that a stronger predator, not native to Tanglebloom Forest, decided to make it their home,' Archie wrote, shaking his head slightly, a small grin tugging at his lips - amused by Tim's diversion tactics. 'And with a new, more powerful predator introduced into the ecosystem, well, it probably screwed over the Grumblebarks and the other predators on the established hierarchy.'

'Aoife did kill a Stonecoil Vineserpent that almost sank its fangs into my leg when we were pretty close to the grove,' Archie signed, his brows furrowing slightly. 'And a weaker predator entering a stronger predator's territory just like that sounds… You know,' he trailed off.

"The Grumblebarks could've been forced to abandon their usual territories. Panic-induced migration isn't unheard of in creatures with low intelligence but strong survival instincts. They might've fled purely out of fear." Tim added his two cents in, swaying his head slightly as though weighing Archie's theory. "It's an option to consider."

"What about you, Aoife? What are your theories?" Tim asked.

"Their behavior could have been influenced by a sudden shift in mana density in the forest," Aoife suggested - a theory that hadn't even crossed Archie's mind. "While this is the third time I've entered a forest, the mana density here does feel a bit lighter than the others."

"Something, or someone, might have started siphoning a huge amount of ambient mana, like a group of Swilzos," she continued, her brow furrowing as she pieced the idea together aloud. "That kind of shift could have been the trigger for a survival response in the Grumblebarks and other creatures, especially ones attuned to the forest."

'What's a Swilzo?' Archie asked. What type of creatures could siphon such an absurd amount of ambient mana to the point where it would affect the entire forest?

"A Swilzo is an insectoid that lives within ravines and caverns," Tim answered Archie, slowly nodding and taking in Aoife's words. "They only consume ore and other minerals underground, but if they find themselves above ground with no access to ore, they start using ambient mana as a substitute."

"And it isn't a good mana-to-ore ratio either. I've seen it happen before," Tim sighed, a flicker of irritation in his voice. "A couple of weeks before I found you two trespassing on my property, a few of them made their way above ground. For some reason or another, they got trapped and couldn't go back the way they came up."

"The longer they stayed above ground, the more desperate they got, drawing on ambient mana. It's not pretty - especially when it starts affecting the surrounding area," he scratched the back of his neck, looking a bit frustrated.

"Ruined my property, I tell you," Tim grumbled. "Had to start charging less because of it. And the moment you guys arrived, I decided to tag along. Didn't want to risk Mom popping in and seeing what happened, then grounding me for not acting sooner." He shook his head, still clearly annoyed by the whole situation.

'Quick question,' Archie sighed, signing with a hint of curiosity. 'Are dragons into real estate? You're the second one I've met, and I didn't really have time to chat with the other one, but he did have an altar... well, I think it was an altar,' he added, recalling the strange structure he'd seen back in that building in the Dungeon of the Lost Valley.

"Oh yeah," Tim answered without hesitation, a small smirk tugging at his lips. "It was one of the first things I learned to manage ever since I could spit flame."

He gave a casual shrug. "Owning territory is quite normal for dragons, and instead of letting it go to waste, we use it as a way to get treasures from those who want our protection."

"Getting back to what could have caused the Grumblebarks to act the way that they are, it couldn't have been Swilzos," Tim shook his head. "They have a very pungent scent that can be smelled from half a forest away."

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"That is true," Aoife conceded, her expression thoughtful. "The few Swilzos I've come across while mining, I smelled them before I even saw them. The forest would have smelled like them if they were the cause of the irregular behavior of the Grumblebarks."

"Not to mention the amount of damage they should have caused to the forest should've been plain to see," Aoife continued, glancing around. "But the forest looks fine - if anything, it's a bit more colorful than the ones I've seen before."

A soft silence settled between the trio before Tim leaned back slightly and released a sigh. "Guess this means only one thing."

'That a new predator or group of them came into the forest and started messing with the ecosystem?' Archie questioned, his brow furrowed in thought. Was it just as simple as-

"Nope!" Tim exclaimed, jumping off the Grumblebark corpse and hovering in front of both Archie and Aoife. "It means we need to collect more data."

He gave them both an eager grin. "Let's check out the other groves and see what we can find."

Fair enough, Archie snorted before he leaped up, easily pulling himself onto a decently high tree branch, and glancing at Aoife and Tim below. 'Do we split up? Because I'm seeing quite a lot of groves marked with their hammer prints from up here.'

"No," Tim answered after mulling it over for a few seconds, now hovering up to Archie's eye level, just as Aoife landed gracefully on a slightly taller branch nearby, her cybernetic half-casts barely making a sound against the bark.

"You are caring for your egg at the moment, which means you aren't at 100%, so we should go all together and watch each other's back," Tim reasoned, looking Archie up and down before turning to face the other groves around them.

Finding one that caught his attention, Tim shot towards their Northeast. "Onwards, Team! Do not fall behind, we have a quest to complete!"

Shaking his head in amused resignation, Archie quickly signed, 'He's going to be the death of us,' to Aoife before leaping into motion, tree-hopping after Tim.

Aoife, who had been tracking Archie and Tim's forms as they dashed toward the northeastern grove, glanced down at the forest floor from her perch atop a high tree branch.

After a few moments of considering whether to follow Archie's lead and leap through the trees, she instead braced herself and jumped. Landing in a smooth roll, she instinctively brought her Scutum up to absorb the impact, despite knowing full well the fall wouldn't have injured her in the slightest.

Muscle memory movements were hard to lose.

Without missing a beat, Aoife retracted her Scutum and dashed toward the northeastern grove.

Leaping from another tree branch, Archie - his body wreathed in thorn-covered vines and hissing steam, courtesy of Thornscourge Expansion and Adrenaline Rush - slammed into the back of a Grumblebark.

His left fist crashed into the upper spine with bone-jarring force, and before the creature could react, his right hand speared through a crack in its bark, plunging deep into toughened muscle.

With a surge of nature mana, the thorns surged, expanding violently within, ripping and tearing through muscle and snapping bone from the inside out, all the while the Grumblebark bellowed and roared in pain, thrashing around to get Archie off of him.

With a sharp yank of his thorn-wreathed fists, Archie tore the creature's back open from the inside, sending a spray of bark, blood, and sinew outward in a grisly burst as the beast collapsed beneath him, drenching the entire front side of his body with its insides.

"A bit brutal, don't you think?" Tim commented casually, firing a heated beam that melted a sphere-shaped chunk clean off another Grumblebark's head. The beam then suddenly refracted behind it, searing through its lower back and exiting cleanly out of its solar plexus. "See how much cleaner this is?"

'You just melted its Beastcore,' Archie dryly signed as he cleaned the front of his body with Forgesmith's Flame. 'We needed to collect those.'

Tim blinked at him, then turned away with a smirk. "Yeah, yeah. Just checking if you were paying attention - observational awareness test, you know? A team leader must always ensure his serv- teammates are always prepared and aware."

He stretched a bit before casually adding, "Anyway, we've got over three dozen Grumblebark Beastcores. That's plenty for a quest like this."

With a few muted flaps of his wings, Tim made his way toward the center of the grove, where a massive, ancient tree stood like a quiet guardian over the clearing they snuck their way into - safe for Aoife, who simply barged into the grove and grabbed the attention of most of the Grumblebarks.

Archie rolled his eyes as he hopped off the Grumblebark's corpse and landed on the slightly more vibrant rust colored grass below, falling into a leisurely pace behind Tim.

This was the third grove they'd visited since he began tree-hopping trek through the Tanglebloom Forest, and with each grove, the forest around them deepened in hue, shifting from its vibrant green forest to a more crimson forest.

Not from the Grumblebarks they'd taken down - no, the forest itself was changing. The usual greens had begun to fade, replaced by creeping shades of crimson and rust, like the forest was slowly bleeding.

Maybe this was why it was called the Tanglebloom Forest, Archie mused. The deeper you ventured, the more it seemed to bloom, twisting into something more vibrant.

And its inhabitants? The Grumblebarks, Stonecoil Vineserpents, Slit Foxes, Pollenlirks - and many of the other inhabitants of the Tanglebloom Forest, were changing too - growing more erratic, more aggressive… vastly different compared to their kin residing on the outskirts of the forest, where they initially began their quest.

Keeping Aoife's earlier words in mind, Archie had started paying closer attention to the mana density of the forest - and sure enough, the deeper they went, the more it shifted.

The ambient mana grew progressively heavier the deeper they ventured toward the heart of the forest. But then, just as suddenly, it would thin out completely, light and fleeting as a breath of wind.

It was jarring when it first happened, almost causing him to lose his footing and trip into a group of rabbits that were violently mating below.

I honestly considered bleaching my eyes after seeing… that, he thought, shaking his head in a futile attempt to scrub the memory of what he'd nearly fallen into and getting closer to that. I didn't even know they could look like that.

Coming to a stop beside Tim, Archie looked up at the massive, rust-colored tree that towered in the heart of the grove - ancient and imposing. As Tim began recording the tree with the camcorder, Archie's Sixth Sense blared, causing him to grab Tim by his tail and kick off the ground away from the tree.

Just after Archie kicked off the ground, away from the tree, roots erupted from where they previously stood and hovered.

"Oh, I guess it decided that it didn't want us to keep on investigating any further," Tim casually said before getting his tail loose from Archie's hold. "We should probably leave now, before it kills us. Our quest is done, we just have to report it now."

What?