P-03. Trial By Magic, page 31
part #3 of PrimeVerse Series
“Well that's great, but we wiped the floor with the last group, we are so much more powerful than we were just a few weeks ago, even.”
“You are, but it is not enough. If you truly want to be free of the vassal of Chaos, you must learn more. Only you can put an end to her in such a way that she is no longer a threat, at least for a generation. You.” It poked me in the chest.
“What are you even talking about? We have like fifty people in the tribe and I’m the only one who can fight her? You’ve gone all cryptic on me again! Just tell me what I need to do!?”
“I cannot tell you this. This is something you must figure out on your own, to tell you would negate the benefit I would get if you succeed.”
“Ah, right, more of your damn archon games, is that it?” I asked, not hiding my anger. I already knew the answer.
“Yes, but this time it is for my portfolio. If you succeed in what I hope for you to do, then many things can happen, not the least of which might be an upgrade to your class.”
“It's wonderful that you want to tempt me with that carrot, but it still pisses me off that I, that all of us viators, have to play this game with you archons,” I spat. I could feel the heat in my face and I balled my fists so tightly I could have cracked a walnut.
It laughed at this, a full-bodied laugh where it placed its hands on its stomach and everything. What a jerk.
“Hudson,” it said, trying to calm itself. “Think about your statement. What is this world you exist in?”
Right. Well, that knocked me down a peg. I was angry at having to play the game of gods with these archons, but that was just it. It was a game. This entire world was a game. I knew that, I even strategized that way, thinking of my build, and learning skills and teaching skills and completing quests. The archons, their little competition, was just another aspect of that game.
I grit my teeth in frustration. I was taking all of this too personally. Maybe I had to- I shook my head.
“No, I understand what you're saying, what you mean by that. Yes, this is all a game, but this is also my life now. The lives of my friends. We don't get the benefit of having code we have to follow in order to function. We’re more than that. Just tell me what you want me to do.”
It stared at me for a long time, the mirth drained from its face. Had I offended it? It was hard to tell. Yes, they might be some form of AI, but they still had programming they had to follow. It had admitted as such to me. I squared my shoulders, pushing my question at it with my stony silence.
Its expression didn’t change when it talked to me this time, its face wooden. “I cannot say- I will not say- but I will tell you this much. You already have what it takes, Hudson. You have had it from the beginning. Now you must go, your friends need you.” It waved its hand and the light took me back into the world.
I didn’t know it could do that.
Chapter 39
In the respawn menu I pulled up the enclave, figuring I may as well respawn inside it. Madison had brought people in there for safety, and she must have had a reason.
When I tried to select it, the entire thing was black with a fog of war type effect. Right, I hadn’t been in the new one yet. With a sigh, I picked a spot on the walkway next to the enclave. When the light finally cleared from my eyes, I had to blink a few times to understand what I was looking at.
We hadn’t even used any of the spiffy new stone buildings before Carl had come in with his massive strength and tree trunk for a weapon. He proved that paper beats rock with his stupid stick, as the buildings all around were mangled, chunks of stone littering the ground, and huge tree-trunk-sized holes everywhere.
The anger I felt in the Adjudicator’s temple was refined into a white-hot state at seeing what had become of our town. “We didn’t even get to see inside yet!” I shouted to no one, as I spun around, looking for something to take my ire out on. There were gromlin bodies everywhere, interspersed with the occasional villager or wolf corpse.
I popped a core out for one of my random hybrids and summoned it.
Out came a larva the size of a hill bear, its white endoderm glistening with a slick secretion. I bade it follow me as I ran through the rubble, looking for the jackass that had caused all this destruction.
I found Carl on the opposite side of the new enclave, alone and swinging his trunk with an ominous sound as it cut through the air and slammed into the new building. Cracks appeared where it landed, but in a glow of purple light, the cracks healed. Nifty.
“Hey, how was your last meal?” I shouted at him from up the street. He spun to look at me.
“Was that supposed to be funny or something?” he said with his head cocked. His voice was deep and thunderous, and he had an accent that sounded like he was trying to talk around an air bubble. I noticed he spoke like the other gromlin-people I had met, haltingly, like he was having to think about what language he was using.
“Well, I was going to say ‘compensating for something’? But I didn't want to seem crass.”
He had to think a moment before his face contorted in anger. “I’ll show you compensating for something,” he said as he stalked towards me.
“Oh man, please don't, I really don't want to see that.” I mimed throwing up.
“You little...” He wound back and I recognized the attack he was about to make. I rolled to the side and sent my bear-larva- my barva- in to defend me. It came around the building and charged at Carl, just as Carl was charging me.
The only interesting thing this hybrid had inherited, besides the size and charge attack of a bear, was that its mandibles were replaced with a bear mouth. Big ole sharp teeth and all. It looked truly disgusting, but effective.
The two creatures slammed into each other, and my barva’s mouth ripped a huge chunk of flesh out of Carl. “Argh!” he screamed, an actual ‘argh’. My barva tossed the hunk of meat to the ground, as if it wasn’t even worth eating.
I rolled behind Carl and flash froze the ground under his feet, causing him to lose traction and slip onto his butt with a resounding thud that shook the ground. My barva wasted no time leaping onto him and taking huge bites. Carl screamed, in agony or anger, it was hard to tell. But instead of trying to get up, he grabbed my bug pet in a bear hug and started squeezing.
I DualCast Mana Orb, creating a spear with one hand, and launching a Mana Arrow out of the other. The arrow slammed into his face, leaving a line of blood across his cheek while I ran forward, spinning the spear in my hand to distract him from killing my pet.
It didn't work.
I stabbed, but he bit at my spearpoint and chomped down, breaking it with his teeth, and spitting it to the ground. He smiled at me with his big, ugly ogre mouth, and hugged my beast tighter, popping my poor barva like a zit, white innards and ichor exploding everywhere.
I popped a Mana Sheild quick enough to protect myself from the grossness of the exploding goo, but Carl was not so lucky, having been veritably painted with it. He frantically wiped at his face and spat over and over. He started to wretch and I smiled, taking advantage of this moment of weakness.
With my barva dead, I popped out my tried-and-true friends, Marle and Lucca, launching them at him, followed quickly by my broken spear. “Go for the eyes boo!” I shouted. And my two lovely companions did just that, digging their furry little claws into his face, Marle biting him on the nose and Lucca attempting to claw out an eye. He screamed.
My spear hit him, piercing through his trapezoid, blood leaking out. Lucca’s burning debuff popped, and he started turning red from the heat.
At least that's what I thought had happened.
It turns out he’d actually activated some kind of rage skill. In a deft action that seemed impossible for his size, he popped back to his feet, and slammed his hand into his face, turning poor Marle and Lucca into summoning glitter instantly.
He looked at me and actually roared. Like a crazy person, he screamed, his muscles bulging with energy and spittle flying from his mouth. I felt his presence then, like I was suddenly standing in gravity that was half again as strong as I was used to. That couldn’t be good.
He moved crazy fast, not a charge attack like a normal sped-up movement, but as if I was watching him in 2x time, it was so fast. His fist the size of my head careened into said head, sending me flipping ass over teakettle, landing painfully into the side of the enclave.
“Ouch,” I managed to squeak out. That hurt.
My health was down to 40% and he wasn’t done with me yet. This time he did charge, telegraphing it enough that I was able to roll out of the way, his body hitting the enclave with such force that he blew a hole into it. Light seeped out where the stone was cracked, healing the building, but the hole remained, as if there wasn’t enough magic to span the gap.
I was gasping for breath, wondering how I was going to get out of this. He was much tougher than he had any right to be. What had he even done to earn such a powerful race or class or whatever he was? Sided with evil? Pft.
I pulled out a core I’d been saving for Cora, but figured this was as good a time as any. I called on the beast within it, a hill bear patriarch combined with the single giant wolf core I had gotten from the last gromlin attack. It appeared before me, a little smaller than a standard hill bear patriarch- smaller than I had been expecting- but with a much longer snout. It was leaner and lithe, the picture of agility, like someone had modernized a classic car, but with a bear. I sent it in while Carl was still getting his feet under him after hitting the building, and the bwolf immediately lunged for his hamstring, ripping a chunk of flesh out, blood spraying like a fountain. Nice.
“Hah sucker, try to charge me on that leg!” I shouted. If he noticed my words, he didn’t say so, only another bestial roar. He reached out and grabbed at my bwolf, but was too slow for its nimble maneuvers, and got a finger bitten off for his trouble. Another injury he didn't seem to notice. His eyes were nearly pure black, like the pupils had dilated the entire diameter of his cornea. He was deep in the throes of some kind of barbarian rage.
I launched Mana Arrows at him, each one penetrating his thick hide, leaving bloody holes in him. I would have to whittle him down, but as long as I had a tank in front of me, I could do this all day. I just hoped it didn’t actually take that long.
I popped a Poison DoT, trying to stack up more damage.
Wait a minute, where was everyone else? Had they all ran into the enclave? Had they all... died? “Uh, a little help here?!” I shouted at the hole in the wall, hoping my words would carry to someone inside. Maybe they didn’t know I was back yet.
Carl reared back and in a two-handed attack, swept the tree trunk at my bwolf, I could almost hear in my head ‘player 2, defeated!’ as the bwolf was sent flying, the initial strike dropping its life to less than half, and the resulting collision with a stone house bringing it down almost to nothing. I was hopeful it’d get back up again, but the structural damage collapsed a huge section of the wall onto it, ending its summoned existence. Balls.
Big creatures didn’t seem to be the way to go here, so it was time to try something new. I summoned various failed experiment cores, things that combined with larva but ended up more larva than anything else. I summoned my limit, three, infusing them with Poison, Burning, and Slow, then chucked them at Carl.
They landed and squirmed around, doing minimal damage but landing their effects. To keep him from squishing the bugs, I blasted a Mana Orb right in his face, getting his attention. As he did his stupid roar again, I shot another Mana Orb into his mouth and I don't know if it was bravado, the berserker rage, or he was simply that tough, but he chomped down on it eating the explosion with nothing more than a wince, then belching as loud as you’d expect an ogre to belch. Okay, that was pretty badass.
He stalked towards me, his injured leg not slowing him, not even flinching when he put his massive weight on it with each step. I noticed him get into his charge position and quickly DualCast a ball of light to his face and a patch of frozen ground right in front of him. “Hey, chill out!”
My orb of light blinded him to the ice patch and his first pace of his charge attack sent him slamming into the ground, hard. I wasted no time and jumped onto his back, a created spear in my hands, and began jabbing him with it in the neck, in and out, spraying nasty ogre blood all over myself, but hoping for some kind of serious wound. His flesh was tough, like he was wearing permanent leather armor, but I persisted, penetrating it several times before he was able to fling me off of him by rolling over.
He jumped to his feet and I was having a hard time deciphering if his rage just made him stupid or if he felt like screaming was going to have some effect beyond the initial ‘making him look scary’, because he did it again, so I shot him in the mouth with a Mana Arrow. This time he didn't take it stoically as his teeth clamped shut and his eyes screwed up. No doubt, that had hurt.
I might actually stand a chance of winning this fight. Which made me feel good considering how far I’d come from my first few days of simply throwing rocks at things.
Carl grabbed his tree-weapon off the ground, and I prepared myself to dodge it, backing up out of his reach. I had another Ice/Light combo prepared in my mind, thinking I could continue to cheese him to death with that mixture.
Then he threw his weapon as effortlessly as a baseball, and my focus on the spells disappeared along with nearly the rest of my health as I was hit and sent flying. Broken rib injuries flashed on my HUD, along with a high Pain debuff and a Winded debuff. I was done for, the debuffs incapacitated me, and being unable to move was going to be the death of me. Well, Carl was going to be the death of me, but the debuffs would serve me on a silver platter.
Carl roared again, and beat his fists on his chest all King Kong like, spittle and foam spraying from his mouth. Yuck.
He stomped his way over to me, the redness in his face slowly draining, as, I assumed, the rage dissipated. “Hud... son... I don't like your little stunt you pull when you die. So instead of killing you, I think I’m just going to break as many bones as possible, then I’ll take your girl. She’ll have a great time living in the cells at my headquarters. Who knows, maybe she’ll enjoy seeing a real man like me take you down so hard she’ll forget all about you.”
“I doubt that. And gross,” a voice said behind Carl. He spun and I could see who was behind him. But I didn’t need to; I would recognize that voice anywhere.
Madison stood, her staff in hand, lightning sparking off the tip. “Sorry it took us so long Huddy, I had to review my skills.” A group of our townsfolk fanned out from behind her in a defensive stance.
“S’ok,” I coughed, spitting blood, and I think a couple teeth, out. “Hope you got some good ones.”
“Oh, I did,” Madison said, the electricity around her staff lighting up brighter. She pointed it at Carl and a blindingly white blast of energy shot out from her staff, blasting him right in the chest and sending him to the ground. Smoke rose from his torso, which was still moving with breath.
He stood up, laughing and spitting blood. “Is that the best you’ve got?” he asked. I know, I thought it was cliché, too.
“No, that was the distraction.” The townsfolk that had moved into position around him had their hands raised, and a pink energy began flowing between them, linking all the casters to a deep magenta thread that surged from Madison.
In a circle around Carl, a line of runes formed in glowing energy, and an opaque field of power formed a barrier around him. He spun around on his enormous feet.
“What is this?” Carl asked, trying to step through the barrier, but found it unyielding. He slammed his fist against it, and the area where he hit lit up bright magenta, sending a flare of brightness through the barrier that pulsed on the lines of energy through the townsfolk. He did it again, hitting it even harder with a double fisted blow, but the barrier held, more light pulsing.
Madison strode forward, confidence in every step. I swear she was swaying her hips more than normal, like she was on a catwalk. If I wasn’t in so much pain, I would have found it extremely enticing. I mean, I did anyway, but I still hurt.
The magenta beam of energy stayed with her as she came closer. “This is a neat little trick I just picked up,” she said. “Do you like it?” She gave him a beat to respond and when he didn’t added, “Carl, I think it’s time we had a talk.”
He roared again. “Dude!” I shouted, pressing my palms over my ears. “That stopped being impressive about the 10th time you did it.” It hurt to shout, and my chest burned as I tried to inhale enough air. “Madison, can you heal me?”
She shook her head. “We need to deal with him first.” She kept her focus on him, not looking to me at all.
Carl used his charge attack, slamming into the barrier again, and rebounding off it in a way looked quite painful. The barrier stood, lighting up brightly, but I noticed the group of people holding it up flinch back as if struck. “You can't keep me in here forever!” he shouted.
“Just tell me,” Madison said, “why Cora is so obsessed with us. Why won't she just leave us alone? She can play her little chaos game in another direction.”
He slammed his fists into the ground over and over, finding the barrier went under his feet as well. “You don't get it,” he said, giving up his pounding temporarily. “You are the closest people to us, so even if she wanted to leave you alone, she couldn’t. The Chaos we bring to you strengthens us, and soon you’ll either join us or die.”
“How very melodramatic,” Madison said with a roll of her eyes. “Well, you can tell her that we are done being her punching bag. We are done playing catch up to everything this world throws at us. If you come at us again, you’ll regret it. This power that I’m showing you is nothing compared to what I can do now.”
She slammed her staff into the ground, white, electric energy exploded out from it and arced to the magenta line of magic that connected her to the others. The line lit up with sparking electricity, going through the townsfolk without harming them. The runes on the ground of Carl’s prison lit up, and a tornado of lightning began swirling in his energy prison, slamming into him over and over.
