Read Novel Full Chapter 2314 Take My Breath Away
Chapter 2314 Take My Breath Away
--- Kat ---
The portal in the other greenhouse took them somewhere neat, another island with a number of portals, though this one ’only’ had five if you didn’t count the one they came through. On the other hand, it was much smaller. There was barely any space for the portals in question. You could visibly see them all from the centre where they were dropped out. At least it meant they weren’t attacked at all.
From there, the group tried to find the next notable spot but that came with an issue. After one dead end portal that just had them fighting more of those lightning snakes in a fairly similar environment to last time they returned and entered into a second portal... and Appoline started to struggle.
The area they were in seemed to be a frosty mushroom forest type deal. No visible trees were around, instead you could see a bunch of giant mushrooms with vine like growths hanging off them. It actually made them look a bit like the fake mushrooms in a water park, especially with the way ice crystals hung off the ’vines’ and shifted slightly in the wind. Even with that, it wasn’t too cold...
But Appoline was still struggling. They’d only taken a few steps away when Appoline started to breathe heavily. At first Kat thought it was just to try and deal with the cold, but before long she was slowing down and breathing in a rather loud and obvious way. "Appoline are you ok? What’s wrong?" asked Kat as she stepped backwards to return to Appoline’s side. She’d been keeping to their standard pace which was apparently too much at the moment.
"I... I’m not sure," wheezed Appoline. "I can’t detect any poison in the air but I’m struggling to breathe. The chill shouldn’t be making things this bad. I’ve experienced far worse cold but still... I’m struggling to breathe." Appoline pulled out a potion and downed it.
Once she did, she straightened up and breathed in deeply... only to cough a bit afterward and return to her previous state. "Ok not good. That was my general filtration potion. It should be preventing me from getting poisoned but it doesn’t seem to be working. I can tell I’m running low on breathe..."
Kat glanced around and tried to see if she could spot any small spores from the mushrooms or something but nothing was showing up. Gritting her teeth, Kat focused a concentrated ball of demonic fire into her hands and then expanded it until it was roughly twice the size of Appoline’s head. Then, very carefully, Kat moved it throw Appoline’s face before holding it there for a few seconds and expanded it as much as possible before dropping the effect. "Did that help at all?"
"No," wheezed Appoline.
Kat clenched her teeth as she looked around. She wasn’t feeling whatever this was... and Lily was sleeping calmly. Though perhaps that’s an issue. Kat tapped Lily gently waking her girlfriend. *Appoline is struggling to breathe. Can you smell anything odd in the air? And are you breathing fine?*
[Yeah I think so? Not feeling anything odd when I breathe in but smell wise... I can smell the mushrooms but it doesn’t smell dangerous? There might also be a few monsters that have come through the area but not recently at all. I’m also reviewing your memories... I can’t think of anything that would be doing this to her. Nothing in the air smells off...]
Not what Kat wanted to hear, but Appoline was clearly still not doing well so Kat decided it was better to be safe then sorry. Picking Appoline up and into the crook of her elbow Kat sprinted off back to the portal, diving through it and taking a few more steps just to be safe. Once they were there, Kat gently lowered Appoline down to the ground and placed Lily next to Appoline.
Kat then took to the air, scanning for anything she could spot that might cause problems while they tried to work out what was wrong with Appoline. The elf seemed to still be breathing heavily... but as she did so, Appoline said, "I’m feeling better now. It’s taking a moment for the effect to wear off fully but I think whatever it was isn’t following me. Weird that it’s leaving so swiftly though."
Lily nodded for the pair of them as Kat floated back down. Once on the ground Kat shrugged and started to pull things out for them to camp and rest for a bit. It had been some time since their last break and with Appoline already down, they might as well stop for real. It wasn’t as if Kat would be comfortable moving anytime soon.
A few minutes later, Appoline sat back up, "Blegh, that was not a fun experience. There was no poison involved, I’m almost sure of it... but still it felt a lot like there was. Felt as though I was being strangled."
Kat raised an eyebrow at that. "Was there some sort of constriction?"
"No, I just had no air to breathe, even though, well, there was air to breathe. I could feel it, and I was quite actively breathing..." explained Appoline.
Kat’s eyes went wide as she glanced off to the side. It was hard to tell without being at the edge... but the goal had always been to try and get further up the mountain. There was also the fact Appoline had lived in a closed off city her entire life. It was possible she simply didn’t know about oxygen deprivation at higher levels. Felt like an odd blank spot though. Surely it came up when making potions?
Or perhaps she took sufficient effort to prevent fumes being an issue and thus never got to experience a lack of oxygen in the surrounding air? Whatever the case, Kat had a pretty good idea of what the problem was... but less of a good idea as to what they should do with that information. It was also unclear why Lily was so unaffected. Still, before pointing this out to Appoline best to ask. *Do you think my reasoning is sound? And yeah, why didn’t you have issues?*
[My best guess is because I’m tiny? I don’t really know if that has anything to do with it, I’ve never looked up how differently sized animals handle higher altitudes. Really not the sort of research I’ve ever looked into... but I think it would make sense? There is also the fact I wasn’t really moving around at all, just resting on you. Plus, Appoline was really trying her best to breathe deeply so that might not have been helping?]
[Though you’ve got a good point on the ’no idea how to fix it’ part... because I don’t either. I know you can get acclimatised to it slowly but is that different for elves? Is that why she was so effected? And like, is the difference extreme enough between here and wherever the portal takes us that she can’t adapt before the oxygen deprivation starts to cause problems? I don’t know, and this could be awkward.]
*I doubt she’d accept us leaving behind. Plus... we’re... maybe seventy-five percent of the way to the clouds? But it’s quite clear that the mountain goes a good distance above them... so we might be closer to fifty percent of the way up? Less maybe? When it exploded the bits from the top might have gone FURTHER upwards and that would really screw with my estimations.*
[Yeah that could be a major issue actually. If things are already this bad for Appoline... maybe she can figure out a potion solution? Though the issue with that would be ensuring that she has enough ingredients to keep making more and more of them.]
With that decided, even if there were still issues to work out, Kat and Lily explained to Appoline what the problem was, or at least, what they thought the problem was. It left the elf looking thoughtful. "Hmm... I hadn’t considered something like that. I guess I had no way to know altitude could cause a problem like that. Though the symptoms should have clued me in, I just assumed there was no way...
"It does leave me in a massive bind though. I’m... not entirely sure how to create a good potion to fight that off. I can of course make something to provide me oxygen, and for an extended period of time as well... but I certainly can’t make something that last for days and even freshly stocked up I doubt I have ingredients to last more than... hmm... a week? Though if I need the potion active even when I’m asleep perhaps it’s as low as three days."
Kat hummed for a few seconds. "Right, well... we can test to see how well you can deal with it by hopping back and forth through the portal... or try one of the other ones? Perhaps they’re higher up but not SO high that it causes you issues?"