Orcette began to stir as they were preparing to continue and held her head as she sat up slowly, then she stood even slower as she groaned with every movement. "Primordial energy likes being told what to do about as much as me apparently. How long was I out?"
"An hour and a half or so, how are you feeling?" Kayla replied before offering her a waterskin, which Orcette took gratefully.
"Like I was unconscious for an hour and a half I guess. Thanks for looking out for me, Kayla." Orcette said as she petted her head and returned her waterskin.
"You should thank Jonah too, he carried you for most of it."
"Kayla, you'll learn this when you're older, carrying a beautiful woman is payment to most men." Orcette giggled as she stared back blankly.
Lucas then helped her up, Kayla stored the bedroll and waterskin and then Jonah offered to take point for a while so he could put his constant practice to use, then Orcette joined him regardless and gestured to the others to trail back a bit and give them some privacy.
"How are you feeling?" She asked whilst being as vague as possible.
"You mean aside from wondering who killed?..." Jonah sighed and stretched as he thought for a second. "...Honestly, don't know, I wanted to stay but having someone pull the plug so quickly was a shock. It would have been all over the news immediately because of streamers."
"Yeah, any clue who might've done it?"
"Yeah, I have my ideas, but I don't know whether I should thank them or hate them."
"For what it's worth, I'm only probably alive while they do the paperwork with the hospital. Then I'll be here with you forever, so if you need to talk..." Orcette put a hand on his shoulder and patted it lightly.
"Who's writing our vows now?..." Jonah said before they both started laughing. "...Now, step back, I'll need room to practice myself."
"On that note, Lucas. The slimes down by the river avoided Jonah, why don't the creatures here?"
"Well, long story short, dungeon creatures are much more aggressive than their outside world counterparts. They don't have the same sense of being out of their league and spawn from thin air within half an hour, so bear that in mind..."
As Lucas continued his explanation on dungeon ecology, Kayla suddenly warned about a danger being nearby, bringing everybody to a halt as Jonah looked back for her to point it out and he retrieved his radial shield.
Shield equipped he edged closer and suddenly another serpent lunged from behind the bushes it was laying in wait behind and with one swift movement, Jonah twisted and cut its head off with a wing, staining the feathers with its blue blood.
"Nicely done, but good luck getting that out..." Lucas chuckled briefly, then approached. "...You two should come watch, you'll nee-"
Jonah interrupted him by storing the Serpent's corpse and head. "I would be happy to learn, but we shouldn't ask anymore from a girl doing her best already."
Lucas looked at Jonah curiously for a fleeting moment, then realised and apologised to Kayla and simply told Jonah that he wanted him to kill the next one with a spiritual weapon and that from then on, they would all be active and would need to be aware of their surroundings.
After that Lucase took point and things got a bit more chaotic at first, but then Jonah got them in formation and working as a proper team.
"Well, that was shockingly bad at the start, but Jonah got you working together and organised..." Lucas looked at Jonah and asked with a tilt of his hand if he should air his thoughts, continuing the moment he nodded. "...Kayla, you were right to try and throw the knives, but until you're confident, you need to prioritise melee when you have allies in front of you.
Orcette, you did well, but you messed up from step zero. You're a hunter and should have brought a shortsword for close-range and a bow or crossbow, I didn't tell you earlier because I wanted you to focus on primal energy channeling.
Jonah, don't take this the wrong way, but a person can't stab through a shield just because it's theirs you got in the way of Kayla's knives like a rookie..." Then he stopped for a minute and looked at the blunted edge and withdrew a whetstone to sharpen it on the move. "...You are seriously sturdy, interesting how you're a pillow to them when they're sleeping."
Jonah accepted the feedback, then pulled a bloodstained feather from his toga and twisted it in his fingers before he walked over to Kayla and put it in her rolled sleeve. "Sorry about the blood, but it might act as a warding charm outside."
"You're using me as a test subject, aren't you?"
"Mostly trying to keep you safe, but I do want to know if it works, how well it works etc."
"Thanks..." Kayla looked at Orcette's bucklers, then at the feather peeking out of her sleeve. "...I really feel protected."
Lucas was in borderline hysterics and just had to give his copper coin worth. "Yeah, Jonah, you shouldn't play favourites."
"I believe a child carrying Angel blessed gear would be at greater risk, would they not? I don't intend to be an overbearing guardian and I'd rather not spend my time worrying if you got mugged because you looked like an easy target with a big score."
"Hate to say it, Kayla, but Jonah's right. I wish our city was free of crime, but no such city exists." Lucas admitted as he gestured for them to keep moving.
"Kayla, when we get back, we'll see about getting you some better armour made up." Orcette offered as a compromise, all too happy to spend Jonah's money.
As they ventured further into the Boundary Forest, the trees grew larger and more gnarled, the mouldy scent of decomposition grew stronger as well and then a sickly sweet scent filled the air and Jonah called them to a stop.
"Wait. That scent, Lucas, you said there were carnivorous plants here?"
"Good. I did, was wondering if you would know that bit. Girls, if you didn't know, carnivorous plants often smell sweet to lure in prey."
Jonah followed the scent until he found a plant that seemed to have a large barrel shaped body with bright-red blooms growing around the rim. "Is it mobile?" Jonah asked, wanting to know if he could leave it or not.
"No, it's not, you can leave it be unless you want to level up desperately."
"Kayla?"
"I'd rather not attack anything that isn't a threat." Kayla responded with a shake of her head, earning a hug from Orcette and a smile of approval from Lucas and Jonah, it was rare to find a young girl so ready to set boundaries.
"I'll take it then, I'm still not one-hundred percent and I'm hoping leveling up will help." She stepped up to, and went to slash the barrel open, but Jonah blocked her and told her to be careful.
"...Getting yourself covered in stuff that is designed to lure in and digest prey is not the smart thing to do." Jonah said, instructing her to cut the far side of the barrel, which was then met with more mocking mimicry.
A little annoyed by it, he put his hands up in surrender and let her do as she pleased, returning to Lucas' side.
"For what it's worth, you weren't wrong, but sometimes letting them make mistakes is the best way to be the good guy." Lucas joked quietly, not wanting to further annoy them.
"What's the point in letting them keep their egos a few seconds, just so they can take a bigger hit and get into more trouble."
"Do angels date?" Lucas asked with a serious tone, taking Jonah by surprise as Orcette pretended not to hear.
"That is the last thing on my priority list, why?"
"If you did, I was just going to say that the truth about women is that they want someone who lets them make mistakes and helps them clean up the mess after."
"I believe any relationship should balance the wants of all involved. Anything less will simply end in heartache." Ironically, Jonah found the subject to be one where he felt he and his new image overlapped.
As Lucas laughed, Jonah found himself feeling a bit self-conscious. He had not only never had a relationship, but actively avoided them because of this very point.
He simply didn't see how two people could ever balance their lives completely and wasn't prepared to rob somebody of their wishes or sacrifice his own, which he found strange since he never really had any.
Orcette had heard him though and was doing her best not to be upset by it, turning inward as she mulled it over and finishing off the plant, before looking at her ID even though she already felt better.
"Officially level 3, feel better and ready to move on..."
Jonah and Lucas winced, her visible detachment from them making it seem like she was angry about the micro-managing, rather than simply considering his stance on relationships.
"Tell you what Jonah, the rate we're going, let's just take care of each other..." Lucas said as he patted Jonah's shoulder yet again and followed after Orcette.
"Sorry Lucas, I think I've chosen some high maintenance charges for myself."
As they all moved forward, the amount of carnivorous plants and their different iterations seemed to boom.
Most were immobile and used bait and trap to capture their prey, but as they moved deeper, they found some that behaved more like spiders and attacked anything that disturbed their runners or vines.
At one stage, they came across two such plants attempting to canabilise each other, though the moment the party stumbled onto them changed matters.
They were simple creatures, a large ball shape roughly a metre in diameter with a gaping maw, filled with countless inverted thorns to stop prey getting out.
The only real issue with them though, was that they could close the opening and build up digestive juices which they then spat and the multitude of vines that they used as whips and bindings.
When Jonah was first hit with the juices, all it really did was clean the blood from his feathers and surprisingly, eat away at his jeans.
The one that had spat at him, got overconfident and went in for the kill, giving Jonah all the opportunity he needed to slice the central bulb in half.
The second learned from that though and opted for lashing him with dozens of the thorny vines, salivating the entire time in anticipation of the meal.
Jonah's body however proved too sturdy, as the vines lashed him, the only real damage inflicted was to the vines as they were stripped of thorns.
It was a disappointing battle all round, Orcette's lack of preparation meant she was ill-equipped, there were too many vines for Kayla to get close and with Jonah it was an unstoppable force pushing against an immovable object.
In the end, Jonah began to feel a bubbling sense of dissatisfaction, a numb sensation gnawing at the edges of his mind. 'Why aren't we making any progress? This is pathetic...'
As the thought crossed his mind, he looked across to Lucas, who was standing defensively. '...So that's it, he's trying to push me into a breakthrough with spiritual manipulation. Fine, the bit I'm struggling with is visualisation, but what if I cheat?'
Jonah focused his spiritual energy into his shield and eventually a golden blade seemed to project out of the circumference.
As the blade formed, it severed several vines which sprayed him with a milky substance, but he didn't hesitate as he swung in a wide arc and threw the shield which carved through the body of the plant and kept going.
"Well, there goes your shield, that's what you get for taking a half-steps, Cheater." Lucas laughed, whilst Jonah tried to see how far it went through the fountain of fluids obstructing his vision.
"Yeah, not my smartest move, any ideas Kayla?"
"Don't know why, but I think it flew for about a kilometre, I think we're best leaving it though. I get the feeling that getting back on track will be harder than leaving." Kayla seemed confused by her own words, but appreciated the pat on the back they earned her.
"Still though, leaving Angel blessed gear in here could have problems, your call Lucas." Orcette stated, surprising the others by breaking her prolonged silence.
"Good call, Orcette. You're right, we can't leave that here, hang tight. I don't know how long this will take, but it shouldn't be too long." As he spoke, Lucas' entire body started to crackle and then with a thunderous boom and flash of light reminiscent of lighting, he was gone.
Where he had been stranding was now nothing but two lighting charged footprints that were glassed around the edges and drew Jonah's attention.
"What's up?" Orcette asked as he crouched down to inspect the glassing.
"Glass, mud doesn't turn into glass in our world, not mud thick with organic matter anyway. That means that everything we know about our old world is meaningless here and shows how much they wanted people to see this as an entirely different one."
Then another thunderous boom sounded next to them announcing Lucas' return. "Are my footprints really that interesting, or decided to worship the ground I walk on?"
Lucas was laughing, but he was clearly intrigued by Jonah's interest and wanted to understand it.