The bartender is an NPC, and while I’m not sure I saw him in the Red Blood Court, I know I saw him in the AppleFrog’s. He’d been behind the bar there, too.
“I swear I saw you at the AppleFrog’s,” I tell him.
His eyes brighten. “Oh, you must have met my brother, Bob.”
“Your brother?” I repeat. “You’re twins?”
Twins are so rare, I’ve only ever known one person who had them in Dross. It didn’t go well. One of the twins mostly ate the other in the womb, took all the nutrients for itself, so when the mother gave birth, she pushed out one almost healthy baby and a shriveled mass of meat. Maybe in the Harrow it’s different.
“Twins?” Billy repeats. “We look nothing alike.” He laughs as if it’s the funniest thing he’s heard.
I frown. “You look exactly alike. What do you mean?”
Billy laughs louder. “If you see Bob, you’ve gotta tell him about this. Oh! You might run into more of my brothers, too! They’ll get a kick out of this story. I bet you’ll think they’re my twins, too, on account of your eyesight being so bad.”
I’m not crazy. Billy and Bob are the exact same except for the clothing.
“I swear I saw you in the Greenhouse Tavern, too,” I push, confused.
“That would be Lenny,” Billy nods. “My other brother. There are a lot of us.”
Locke frowns. “How many?”
Billy shrugs. “I haven’t counted. Anyways, I see you two are getting ready to head out today. Make sure you utilize the save chest before you go! It’s quite handy and this is the only one you’ll find in the Verdant Nexus!”
He meanders away, leaving us to stare after him.
“I’m not crazy, right?” I ask Locke. “You saw him, too?”
“I saw him, too,” Locke nods. “But maybe they are just brothers. That’s not the craziest thing about this place.” He slides off the stool. “Now let’s find that save chest and see what it’s about.”
It takes us a while to find it. We walk past the thing three times before the sign appears large and glowing with the words “save chest” fastened to the wall above it. It’s a small wooden chest that glows when I open it. Instead of there being anything inside though, it opens an interface when I touch it, revealing a large chunk of inventory slots that aren’t included in my carrying capacity.
“What happens if I put stuff in here?” I ask Cipher.
“Save chests are a great way to increase your inventory slots when over-encumbered,” he responds. “You can place as many items inside the chest as spaces allow. Be warned, however, that once placed inside the chest, items cannot be taken out unless you find another save chest. They are rare and most players find them useless.”
“So, I shouldn’t put stuff inside?” I ask.
“You should,” Locke says. “Clean out some of your fucking inventory so you can actually stop dropping things.”
Cipher sniffs. “Only place items of the least importance inside. Otherwise, you will have to wait to retrieve them again.”
I end up putting all six stacks of my rocks, a bundle of ten sticks, three shirt buttons, the note that says, “it’s already too late,” and the rotten Arapaima chunk into the save chest. I keep the rest, not knowing how much of it I will need. But at least I’d cleared out a large chunk of my inventory.
Locke doesn’t put anything inside the save chest, reiterating that he doesn’t carry much besides the essentials.
“Let’s go,” Locke announces, his hammer in his hand as if a threat is right around the corner. “We won’t know the general locations of the safehouses until we reach the next region and I prefer not to be out at dark when we don’t know the threats we’ll encounter.”
Svetlana perks up. “Why, little Ladybug? Are you afraid of the dark?”
Locke raises his brow. “The dark? No. What’s in it? To be decided.”
Svetlana harumphs and continues her preening, unconcerned with Locke’s fear.
Leaving the safety of the Mushroom Garden and entering the anthill tunnels again feels like a risk. We don’t know what we’re going to be facing in the next region, but it can’t be good. At least we’re slowly leveling up our XP. Locke is right, we get more for the Minor Bosses, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. The next Tier I level up to requires one thousand XP. That’s going to take a while to reach at the rate we’re going at, but maybe that’s the point. I’m sitting at one hundred and fifty right now. I need to get that number up soon, even if we have to fight every Minor Boss along the way.
It takes us an hour of walking through the anthill tunnels and asking for directions from very flustered ants before we find our way out of it. There are no signs in the tunnels, but everyone else seems to know where they’re going. Luckily, one more female ant took pity on us finally and led us directly to an exit. Once we leave the anthill and enter the lush green forest of the Verdant Nexus again, we head south like Cipher had instructed. It’s still humid here. There are mosquitoes flying all around us again, only persuaded to leave us alone once we rub the bright scented mint leaves on us again.
