NOVEL NEXT Chapter 119: I can sell you for so much money!
The stairwell twisted downward like the inside of a shell. The stone walls grew increasingly glistening, and no one had commented on the shift, though Griesa did pause to poke the wall with a screwdriver. It jiggled. She recoiled and wiped her hand on Blorbo.
What. No. Get it away from me.
The substance was smeared all over his surface. Slimy, sure. Gross, yes. But whatever. As long as it's not actively corros—
[Stun System Glitched—Functions Online]
What? I'm no longer stunned? This substance is actually the best thing ever. I love getting slimed all over my face.
[Reason for Glitch: Highly Corrosive Substance]
[Skill Activated: Poison Taste Tester]
Threat Level: Moderate
Substance identified: Mucosal Acidiform Residue (Tower Class Variant)
Effects: Corrosive to organic-inorganic composite materials (wood, stone, leather bindings, bones of minor nobility)
Status: Subdermal reaction in progress.
-5 HP / 5 minutes if contact continues.
Recommend immediate relocation or application of 'Antigloop' salve.
What? But… but… Corrosive acid isn't poison? Fix your definition, Sys—[-5 HP]—tem!
HP: 11/82
Blorbo emitted a small, defeated squish. It's corrosive. I'm losing health. I'm actively taking damage from this tower's ambient mucus.
Then they reached the third level, and stopped.
A wet gust of air hit them full in the face. Before them stretched a sprawling swamp… inside the tower.
Trees—if they could still be called that—rose out of ankle-deep brackish water, their bark covered in pulsing runes and dangling ropes of parchment. Moldy tomes floated by like lily pads. Fungal lanterns croaked from between the bulging roots of sunken desks, like frogs. Rusted chandeliers hung crooked from the high stone ceiling, some still sputtering with flame. A floating bookshelf drifted past, its volumes sealed in slime-resistant wrapping and muttering to itself in dead languages.
What is this place? This is even weirder than the candy realm. Surely there can't be anything weirder than this showing up.
That was when a cabbage floated toward them.
The cabbage was perched elegantly on a narrow, lacquered plank of wood that drifted across the swampwater like a noble gondola. The plank had doilies.
Griesa squinted. "Is that a vegetable?"
The cabbage stopped just short of their group. It turned slightly and slowly toward each of them.
Then it spoke, "Well," it said, in a witheringly posh tone that smelled faintly of bergamot. "What a ghastly little parade this is. I assume you are not from the Reading Pool. No badges. No etiquette. One of you is leaking on the furniture."
Did it just… talk?
Everyone stared. Lena's mouth opened, closed, then opened again. "You're a… you're a talking cabbage!"
The cabbage recoiled. "I beg your pardon," it said, scandalized. "I am a talking head of cabbage. Heads have that property. They converse."
"I can sell you for so much money!" Lena attempted to grab the cabbage as the wooden plank floated past, but the cabbage flared with sudden righteous indignation.
"How dare—!"
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A shimmering ward flared to life around the plank, flinging Lena back with just enough force to knock her into Rob's arms.
"I am SIR Archibald Farnswain the Third!" Sir Archibald Farnswain the Third the cabbage straightened his outermost leaf. "Attempted larceny, social impropriety, and touching without consent all within your first forty seconds of arrival? This must be a new tower record. Do they not teach you people manners above the second floor?"
Anders let out a snort so sharp it startled a passing tome off its lily pad.
"Sir Archibald?" he scoffed, arms folded, brows drawn so low they practically shaded his eyes. "What, do they just hand out titles to salad now? What's next, Baron Rutabaga of the Leftovers? Honestly, knighthood used to mean something before the foolish Knights started selling sirs like novelty mugs."
Sir Archibald gasped. "The gall."
Griesa whispered, "Oh no."
But Anders was already drawing glyphs in the air, his fingers sparking with aggressive turquoise light.
"Enough of this botanical detour," he growled. "Either you show us the way out of here, or you get reduced to ash this instance."
He snapped the final sigil into place. Runes flared around his feet. The swamp wind seemed to freeze in its tracks.
"Very well," Sir Archibald said, adjusting his doily platform with a dramatic flick of leaf. "I choose... option three."
There was a sound—not quite thunder, not quite violin screech, somewhere in the family of "furniture dragged across wet marble while being insulted by a choir."
Anders' spell backfired.
The turquoise rune-crackle fizzled, warped, and pinged backward into his own boots, launching him three meters into the air and directly into a floating bookshelf. The bookshelf hissed something rude in Old High Varnic before dropping him into the brackish water with a damp thud.
He looked perfectly fine, however. Might have cast a second spell somewhere in the air to cover his buttocks.
How?! This guy eats a congregation of 51 Mages for breakfast and loses to some leaf?
Sir Archibald sniffed. "I am the guest custodian of the Reading Pool's ambient defensive subfield, you arrogant onion-scented nincompoop. Do not threaten a cabbage operating within jurisdiction."
Marin kindly asked, "Good Sir, we only wish to traverse through. Is there any way for us to proceed without disturbing the swap?"
Sir Archibald hovered slightly higher on his plank, regal and infuriating. "You poor, deluded surface-dwellers," he said, as if describing mold on a crumpet. "This is not just a swamp. This is the Reading Pool. A curated labyrinth of forgotten knowledge and forgotten manners. You may wander for weeks and still never reach the next stairwell—unless you possess the key." He paused dramatically. "Which, regrettably for you, is in my possession."
Anders, still dripping, tried to mutter a spell and got corrected by the bookshelf.
"You mean we're trapped?" Lena said.
Sir Archibald adjusted a frilly corner of his doily. "Unless you exterminate me, yes. But of course, doing so would mean you never acquire the key. It is soul-bound to my elegant core. Destroy me, and you may wander until your bones become footnotes in the wet margins of history."
Everyone went very quiet.
Then Rob stepped forward. "How do we get the key, then?"
The cabbage turned slightly, as if deeply pleased that someone in this ghastly ensemble had asked a proper question.
"To proceed," Sir Archibald announced, "you must win in an ultimate test of wits and…" He let the silence build until it became unbearable. "…style."
Great. It's going to be a table duel, isn't it.
[-5 HP]
HP: 7/82 (self-healed by 1)
Please! Someone clean this substance off me!
The swamp gave a sudden gurgle. Without warning, a wave surged upward from the shallows, arching dramatically over the rooted trees and sending mist in all directions.
What? How? Where? What could even create a wave inside an enclosed structure?
And then he carved down the wave with absurd elegance, his cabbage-leaves fluttering like royal banners in the wind.
"…What in the name of boiled philosophy just happened?" Griesa whispered.
Blorbo was still leaking acid and trying to blink.
[New Quest Received: Swampway Surfin']
[Beat Sir Archibald in Swampway Surfers.]
[Note: No human has ever succeeded. (Including Mistra Lureil, three-time Grand Curl champion of the Velvet Sea—R.I.P.)]
Reward: New Common-level Skill: Amphibian Drive (Common-tier)
Gain +15% to all stats while fully submerged.
Movement Speed underwater: +30%
Breath-holding duration: +500%
Prerequisite: Currently being poisoned. (You can accept this quest.)
Failure: Death.
Accept: Yes/No
What?! Why do I have to be poisoned? And when ELSE am I EVER going to be fully submerged underwater?!