Arthur lay slumped against a tree, one hand working on his side as he extracted the hornet stinger. It had burrowed into him nice and deep, bypassing his armour through a small gap as he'd lifted his arm to strike. Luck or skill, it didn't matter when he chopped the damn creature apart moments later. It didn't, however, mean the damn stinger hadn't stuck in him and caught at something within.
Wiggling the stinger out, trying to get the barbs around whatever organ or part of him it had caught within was an exercise of white-knuckled, tight-breath agony.
"You're just making it worse," Uswah said, crouched beside him. She eyed the occasional welling blood that pooled at the corner of his armour, shaking her head. "Just pull it out."
"Hurts..." Arthur groused. "More. Damage."
"And this isn't?" she raised an eyebrow. "Pretty sure you've squeezed all the poison into your body."
"Toxin." But he was sure she was right by now. He closed his eyes, a surge of pain running through him as his hand, trembling from the pain, twitched it in the wrong direction. Moving his spasming hand aside, he hissed as Uswah stopped asking and grabbed and yanked. He let out a breathless scream, curling up on his side and wincing further as his arm was grabbed and pushed upwards by a rough hand and knee combo before a poultice was slapped on his open wound.
"Hold still, hold it there." Now his hand was lowered, forcing him to grip and push against the welling blood. "Heal yourself."
Grunting, Arthur tried to focus on engaging his cultivation, on healing himself. At the same time, he split his attention such that he could go over the damage the swarm had done to the group. Wandering into a full nest like that was a party-ending story, in many cases. Too many groups had done that early on that the cultivators on the fifth floor had joined together to push back these nests, at least to a safe distance.
Unfortunately, the Tower had a tendency to repeatedly add them back, which meant the occasional unlucky group got the chance to find out what happened what a swarm of angry, oversized hornets could do. If not for the size of Arthur’s team, they would have ended up taking actual casualties.
As it was, everyone had been stung at least once. Some, like Casey, only once, but most had two to three stings. Blood welling, limbs puffy, the group was doing their best to handle the surging toxins and the resulting pain and bleeding. While Arthur was not the most stung—armour was armour after all—he was still one of the worst off other than poor Jan. She'd managed to get three striking her at the same time, one burrowing into a calf muscle, another into her upper arm, and a third most dangerously at the point where shoulder met neck. She was struggling to breathe, the light gorget she wore already stripped away as neck muscles and skin inflamed and swelled.
A death sentence, without the anti-toxins they were using, without the resistance that had been passed on to her as a clan boon. As it was, she was still letting out little gasps of air as she struggled to bring in enough oxygen. Worst, this was only the first platform. Without thought, his gaze slid sideways to fix on Eric and Leia, who had both managed to make it out with minimal damage. He continued to glare at the pair, specifically Eric, till the man looked over.
"What?" he asked, hunching in a little at the look Arthur sent him.
"You," Arthur hissed.
"I didn't do anything!"
"Black. Hand." Another hissing breath and accusation. He could not do much, not without damaging himself but he felt the need to say this.
"Come on, it was your scout!" At Uswah's glare, he hunched even more. "Really! I didn't lead us here."
"Unlucky." Another pause, then two more words. "KL River."
"Now, see, that was just... unusual." Eric looked hunted now, glancing over to Leia who was refusing to meet his gaze. He waved both arms around, as though warding off their accusations. "I'm not bad luck!"
"What happened at the KL River?" Mel, hunched over the corpses and stripping them of their larger-than-normal beast stones, asked curiously. She was sweating profusely, working in the heat, but she had only managed to get a few minor stings and scrapes and was one of the few able to keep moving and not on watch.
"Idiot was leaning against the metal railing. Somehow, the brand new railing gave way and tumbled him into the river," Leia said. "Nearly dropped half—"
"Quarter at most!" Eric corrected, or tried to at least.
"—of the class in with him. The ground gave way too. Someone said it was bad concrete later on. A few people were injured. Bruises, cuts, even a few broken bones."
"But we got a payout from the contractor, right? Kept the lights on for nearly a year!" Eric said.
"Three years later," Leia said, shaking her head. "That was painful at best. And wasn't the only time, was it? We don't let him play Dai Di."
Uswah frowned. "Dai Di?"
"Big 2." Arthur clarified.
"Ohhh!" Uswah got it. She wasn't that sheltered, though Casey looked puzzled. It was a popular card game, a mix of trumps and poker and was named after the eponymous “biggest” card in the deck, number 2. Alongside mahjong, the game was highly popular, what with the ease of transportation.
Pushing himself upwards, Arthur focused on the myriad corpses around, many of which had been pulled apart for cores. Then, he turned to the nest that had been shattered somewhat, though a lot of it still lay intact. Reminded of the weird coincidences and one other issue, he raised his free hand and pointed at the nest.
"Break it down." He made sure to pull his kris out and lay it on his lap as he added, "And don't get us stung."
"You sure?" Leia said, staring doubtfully at the nest.
"Yes. Loot inside. Maybe."
Leia nodded, grabbing Rick and pulling him along. Together, the pair moved forwards, Uswah backing off and starting her sling spinning just in case. It wasn't the most effective method of killing creatures, but for the few that might still be left behind, it should work.
Or so they hoped at least.
***
The group, many healed enough at least that well-wrapped bandages could stem the blood flowing, gathered around the gathered loot. Not the monster cores, which had already been sorted and divided into pouches to be carried by Mel, Casey, and Arthur. Here now was actual loot they had found within the cracked and split hornet nest. Loot worn by the corpses of dead climbers.
"Dead bodies save me," Casey whispered, grimacing as Eric and Leia tore into aforementioned corpses with gusto, peeling off shredded clothing and armour with nary a care. "Don't you people have manners."
"Nah." Leia said. "Arthur's like us. We learnt not to care, a while ago. Bodies are bodies, you know?" She shrugged. "They're dead and don't need any of this."
"Not the loot, but—" Casey winced as Eric cracked some ribs just so he could extract the armour faster. Thankfully, the bodies were all mummified and stripped of flesh, something in the way the hornets had utilized the corpses for food and building materials leaving them mostly dry. The couple of still-rotting corpses in the distance had been left behind, after being stripped of course. "—the care. We could do this slower, maybe not break any bones..."
"What? You want to bury them afterwards?" Leia rolled her eyes. Eric snorted beside her and then paused when he looked around to see none of the others were laughing with the pair.
"Shit. Seriously, Arthur?" Eric said, looking at the man.
He shrugged, ignoring the byplay. Different clashing cultures now, and he had no intention of getting in the way of either. Instead, his focus was more on the things they'd extracted.
Broken armour, most of it not much better than what they had. Not a bad thing, overall, and probably salvageable if they had the time and skills to do so. He pushed most of that aside, not caring to worry about that. He was hoping to see the climbers still had pouches of monster cores— Yao Jing was sifting through the nest for them. Those they found were passed to Mel to keep track of. As their main bookkeeper, overseen by Uncle Lam, she'd sort out the split later.
Random equipment, camping utensils, clothing pieces, Tupperware, and ropes, all that was pushed aside. None of it pulsed or gave indication it was magical. The few that might be Arthur set aside for others to peruse; but at their level it was unlikely they'd find anything immediately useful. After all, that was the kind of thing you'd expect at higher levels.
Except for...
"That parang enchanted?" Arthur asked Mel, who was turning the weapon over and over.
"No. Not enchanted but... good material?" she muttered, unsure. "Water steel, see?"
Also known popularly as Damascus steel, even though the entire process of making water steel likely originated from India. Some also called it Wootz steel, or so Arthur vaguely recalled. Of course, these days, with the exceptional smelting process of modern-day presses, the addition of the popular markings was a matter of show rather than practicality.
Except, you know, with mass manufactured works like parangs, many which might not even have good steel used for their construction. Or, if a proper blacksmith had taken their time to prep the material and included monster cores within, such that the material could actually be enchanted later on.
Much like his spear.
"So, enchantable."
In answer, she handed it over long enough for him to sense the Tower pulling information for him. As usual, not much, but enough.
"Keep it. Let's keep looking," Arthur said.
When they were done, the group had found only two more items of interest. Quite the haul, if you included the monster cores. The first was a bracelet that glinted and, surprisingly, provided detailed information after Casey had handled it. The fact that the bracelet looked similar to the one she carried might have been answer to why.
Not much of a bonus, but it was passive. Which meant that even if you were sleeping, you'd still be gathering energy. Taking into account the way they all lost a little Tower energy each day, it helped offset the need for constant cultivation. After some quick debate, they passed the bracelet to Uswah for now.
The other item was even more interesting, though Arthur knew that it was going to cause even greater arguments in the future.