by Ryan Rimmel
“It's an Earth term,” stated Shart. “Here it would be a life imbalance. The cells of this tree were saturated in life energy. The result is rapid, uncontrolled growth, typically followed by death. “
“Life energy can kill you?” I asked. That didn’t make sense. Life energy was … life energy.
Badgelor facepalmed. “All magic can kill you.”
Shart sighed his ‘lecture an idiot’ sigh. “Any form of energy can kill you, if it is applied in an excessive amount. Some heat is good. If you get so much heat that you start boiling, heat becomes bad.”
I nodded. That made sense. “Didn’t you mention life energy being in the air when we were talking about your tummy space? “
“No, I mentioned that there wasn’t any life energy in my extradimensional storage,” stated Shart. “There is air in there, but life energy will dissipate when not in this dimension. Your body requires life energy to function. When you breath in air, you draw that life energy into your body. It is then taken in by your core. The core uses it to keep you alive.
“On Earth we breathe in oxygen and convert it to carbon dioxide,” I said, glancing over at Shart.
“That might be how it works on Earth, but this isn’t Earth, Dum Dum. It doesn’t work like that here,” replied the demon.
“Earth is weird,” stated Badgelor. Shart nodded.
That was actually interesting. I wondered how atoms worked here. That was assuming that atoms even existed on Ordinal. I didn’t really have any means of checking. I could always ask Shart, but that risked a whole lot of name calling, sighing, assumptions of my stupidity, and Earth bashing. Maybe there was a science skill I could develop. That was something to ponder later. I made a note that life could kill me but realized that that had always been the case.
It was at that moment that I felt the tug for the first time. I’d found Points of Interest before, but they never reached out and yanked me. I didn’t know what we’d found, or exactly how far away it was. What I did know for sure was that we were heading toward something interesting.
“Shart, what does your spell look like?” I asked, stepping away from the tree. My nose was telling me to go north.
The demon wiggled his hands for a moment. “All clear around here. I think we need to go south to run into more pumas.”
When he wasn’t looking for food or threats, Badgelor watched me and Shart constantly. He’d noticed my change in behavior almost instantly and was now staring at me. “What do you see, Jim?”
“There’s something to the north,” I stated. We headed in that direction, and no one argued. We’d all been damaged somewhat, but an extra 15 minutes of walking was just what the doctor ordered. We’d found the occasional healing root, and Badgelor and I had been chewing them. Not Shart, of course, because he’s a demon. That left plenty for Badgelor and me.
I’d also found some other herbs. I had taken the Poisioner perk when I’d leveled to Rogue. It was great for Herbalism, but it also allowed me to find poisonous herbs and make poisons. The first time through this forest, I hadn’t had time to do much of anything but run. Now, we had a little time to spare. I’d been able to find quite a few herbs. While you needed an Alchemy lab to make the truly nasty poisons, there were a few recipes that you could make in the field. The ones I had been interested in added a mild to moderate amount of Damage to your weapon attacks. Those poisons didn’t last very long, several minutes at most, but they could still prove useful in battle.
If nothing else, searching for herbs gave me something to do as we walked. We’d gradually reduced the formation from ‘Saucer 2’ to simple alert walking in a forest. The first time I’d entered the forest, I did so at level 5, and was woefully underequipped. Now, I was at level 7 and decently equipped. That made all the difference in the world.
With our new skills and abilities, the pumas didn’t manage to sneak up on us anymore. When we found them, we were able to deal with them and only take minimal damage. Hours of exposure to this had given me back the confidence that the first trip had shattered. I was whole again, except for the fingers, because these were manageable threats. We could handle them.
Walking through a dense forest is slow work. It took nearly forty minutes before we found a small clearing in the middle of the forest. It was idyllic. Butterflies and flowers were everywhere. The plant life was particularly lush. Around the northern edge of the clearing was a small rise, leading to what appeared to be a cave. It was like something out of one of my kids’ rainforest books. There was such a healthy sense of peace and calm that it made you happy to just exist.
“Don’t move. It's right behind us,” stated Badgelor.
Of course.
Chapter 49: Return of the Puma
My nose was great for treasure and map points, while Badgelor’s nose was great for monsters. If he said he smelled one right behind you, than there was one right behind you. We’d gotten cocky after too many easy fights.
“I’m spell checking right now,” hissed Shart. “There isn’t a puma behind us.
“It's not a puma then,” I hissed back.
That was the answer. Shart’s spell had made us complacent. It had been finding all the pumas for us, so we’d begun to rely solely on it. We hadn’t run into any other monsters in this forest. I hadn’t even considered that there might be something out here that would live amongst the pumas. Whatever could survive with them would surely have to be worse than them.
Standing still when a predator is directly behind you was a skill that I never thought I’d have to learn. I could feel my sphincter pucker up, but I was entirely calm, otherwise. I was giving Badgelor enough time to get into position. I was going to get hit and we were going to go flying into that clearing. I was going to land with some unknown abomination on me.
I was amazed that I remained calm. I continued looking at the clearing while slowly drawing two poisonous herbs and crushing them together on my sword. I couldn’t sense the creature, and that was a requirement for the Dodge, Block and Parry skills. Mitigate didn’t care, but I would have to get hit first. I really wanted to avoid that.
Scanning around for a way out, I found nothing. There was nothing better than just jumping forward and hoping. I hoped that whatever this thing was, it wasn’t that quick. That was another startling realization. Creatures had skills, just like I did. On Earth, I might be able to sprint as fast as a horse for a short while; on Ordinal, horses could naturally sprint, but they had a sprint skill on top of that. The horse would have the edge every time on this planet. Whenever I thought of myself as overpowered, this world tended to smash me flat.
I wasn’t the only one with skills.
I realized I was stalling. Badgelor had stopped moving. Shart was still looking behind me, searching for the creature. I was going to have to spin around. That would give Badgelor the highest chance of getting at the creature's flank.
“3… 2…,” I didn’t finish. There was a whoosh of air, and a massive green and orange striped animal blasted past me. It had totally missed me. I had bent slightly at the knees to pivot, and, somehow, the creature had totally missed me.
“Where is Shart?” screamed Badgelor, rushing out from the trees.
“YOU ALL SUCK,” screamed the demon.
“You got this,” I called back, spinning around to the horror in the clearing.
There was a massive green and orange cat standing in the clearing. It was covered in what appeared to be tumors. Shart was sticking out of the animal’s mouth; it appeared that the overly large feline was trying to shake the demon to death. Upon further reflection, I would say the creature looked vaguely like Battle Cat from He-Man. You know, if Battle Cat had had terminal skin cancer and liked playing in radioactive waste. I used Lore while racing to save my little butt boil.
Life Infused Puma: Level 12
HP: 160/160 + 3200 Overheal
Stamina: 180/180
Mana: 0
Stealth: Journeyman
Jump: Journeyman
Camouflage: Journeyman
Ability: Life Saturation
A Life Infused creature has ingested massive amounts of life energy and survived. Too much of anything is bad for you, and such an infusion often breaks the mind of whatever creature has received it. Until the energy is dissipated, their powers of recovery are tremendous.
3200 points of Overheal? That was basically regeneration. I should know; I had a small pool of Overhealing myself. Of course, it wasn’t super fast regeneration and it worked less well on removed body parts. I nodded to myself. We needed to get in and murder that creature quickly.
The creature’s leap had taken it nearly to the center of the clearing. The clearing had to be nearly 100 feet in diameter. I was not nearly that capable, but I still managed to do a nearly 20 foot leap. I screamed and charged toward the puma.
I instantly regretted spending any time analyzing. The puma had already torn into Shart. He was screaming as he pumped dark purple blood everywhere. What the massive creature hadn’t considered, when choosing her snack, was that Shart was a demon. Demons had acidic, poisonous blood. Worse still, for the feline, was that Shart was, essentially, a dimension in and of himself; he held more blood than anyone could reasonably expect to contain. Despite the fact that purple poison was now fountaining everywhere, Shart was not in danger of bleeding out any time soon.
One spurt shot straight into the puma’s face. A bursting sound followed, as the poisonous blood all but disintegrated that side of the cat’s head. This, in turn, caused one of the tumors on its face to pop, splattering Shart with a greenish colored fluid.
The puma screamed in agony. Shart screamed in agony. I screamed a war cry and stabbed the puma with my sword as I crashed into her with my shoulder. Between the pain and my sudden attack, the feline was stunned enough that Shart fell from her jaws. I lunged again, knocking her clear of my screaming demon.
Unfortunately, my impact had caused several of the tumors on the cat’s side to explode. Green liquid sprayed toward me. Instinctively, I brought up my personal barrier. The results were mixed. Due to the missing fingers on my right hand and the sword in my left, the barrier wasn’t nearly as well shaped as it should have been. With my left hand, it was a 5 sided disk that was large enough to cover my entire upper body. With my right hand, the barrier kind of resembled swiss cheese.
My missing fingers, and the magical control points they represented, allowed holes to exist in the barrier. Those holes gave the green puss an opening. Most of it struck the barrier. While the pus looked like a fluid, it didn’t behave anything like liquid. I’d say it acted more like a black snake firework, one of those where you light it and a column of ash spews forth. This blob had a magical base, though, which made it slightly more terrifying than a children’s firework. As the pus struck the barrier, the outer edges of the material began expanding and glowing a brighter color of green, before it simply fizzled out. It looked like the magic was eating itself from the inside out. My barrier took some damage and my Mana was slightly depleted, as was expected, but nothing serious. At least, nothing serious happened on the left side, where the barrier was strongest.
The right side, with all its holes, was another story. I felt several splatterings of magic on my right arm. The magic hissed onto my armor for a moment; I briefly thought that my armor had stopped it. I was incorrect. It took several more seconds for the pus to eat its way to my skin, but when it did, I felt an incredible jolt of joy. It felt like my entire body was super powered. I could do anything. It lasted for a moment, then the pain hit me.
I hadn’t seen the damage at first; it was under my armor. However, I had grown a massive tumor right next to my elbow. It was the size of a lemon and right next to the joint of my armor. Lacking anywhere else to go, the skin started pushing out of the armored joint, so that every time I moved my right arm, I was first pinching and later cutting through my skin. That was one of the many reasons that casters favored loose clothing.
My Iron Will perk let me ignore pain, to a point. It was less effective on magical attacks for reasons that are best described as “This Universe Sucks.” So, my battle cry turned into a high pitched scream the next moment as the supercharged puma got back to its feet and rushed toward me, while my skin was playdoughing out of my armor. I brought my blade up to block with my left, but my right side maneuvering caused my armor to slice through a hunk of skin, giving me a bleed effect.
Life magic sucked.
I tried to sidestep the creature, but it was faster than its smaller cousins. As I danced to the left, its paw shot out, slashing into my armor. The metal yielded slightly, and I felt several claws piercing my flesh. I brought my blade up against its front leg. I focused more on aiming than massive damage and that paid off. I managed to avoid the three tumors on its leg and open a rent in its flesh.
As the two of us separated, it landed close to the edge of the clearing. I turned and saw something unexpected. I also saw something highly unwelcomed. The tumor next to the wound began twitching and then popped. The green fluid mostly landed on the puma, and the wound that I had just made sealed itself. Several smaller tumors replaced the larger one that had just popped.
Oh, great, they are offensive and defensive.
The magical pus could heal the puma, because its body was used to handling enormous loads of life energy. My body was not. I’d get a minor healing effect for an instant, followed by a fast growing cancerous tumor wherever the puss landed.
Badgelor, who had been sneaking through the forest, suddenly launched himself at the puma’s back. He landed claws out in four separate tumors before biting down on a fifth. As far as battle plans went, I’d describe it as horrible.
A thick mist of tumor juice surrounded the puma as Badgelor’s eyes went wide. All his paws expanded massively, as they started growing super tumors. Next, his head expanded to several times its normal size, as several tumors started growing at his jawline. The poor badger didn’t even manage to scream before he flopped down next to the puma, unconscious.
Well, unconscious for now.
For all of that, the puma didn’t even seem to care very much. Whatever wounds Badgelor had made were already healed. The creature started pacing toward me, a low growl escaping its throat. I noticed something, as it paced closer. The leg that I’d wounded had been healed, but it was still walking on it funny. When it growled again, I saw the exposed teeth; several of them were blunted.
No, several of them were regrowing.
Poison worked on her. Not very well, but much better than normal physical attacks. I checked Lore again. The feline was down 8 whole hit points, but the Overhealing had been reduced to 2532, down from the 3200 it had been at the start of the battle. I hadn’t caused anything like 600 points of damage to the puma. It had a few minor poisoned statuses as well, but that didn’t seem to explain why so much Overhealing had been used.
Then, I had a stupid idea. First, I cast Breaking Wind on the puma with predictable results. The puma was momentarily distracted. Next, I activated my Barrier skill. I then used my Duelist Lunge talent. A magical barrier snapped into existence, even as I took the sword in my left and rocketed toward the puma. Instead of aiming for an increasingly hard to find clear patch of flesh, I aimed straight for one of the tumors. My aim was good, and I drove several inches of steel into the creature’s marked skin.
The tumor exploded, obviously, but I had my sword sticking through my barrier. My non-magical, but well-crafted sword, could actually stick through my barrier without any consequences. The exploding tumor pus, on the other hand, clung to the barrier and burned away. Even better, the puma was so infused with life energy that the barrier actually pushed against it, acting like a conventional shield.
Pulling my blade back, the wound remained on the puma’s skin. The healing effects of the tumor had been nullified when it clung to my barrier. Unfortunately, my barrier had been seriously weakened by blocking so much life energy. It was now covered in obvious spiderweb
cracks.
The puma had obviously been expecting the explosion to heal it and to do more damage to me. The fact that neither had happened caused it to growl in anger and begin swiping at me with both paws. I began dancing backward, as the preternaturally fast puma decided to test the limits of my armor.
Within moments, it got a solid strike, carving a vast rent in my armor and driving me back a pace. I managed a repost a moment later, but the result of that was another cloud of toxic life energy, as the wound sealed up. Two more slashes from it, and I was sent sprawling backward. I had managed to land and roll, bringing up my sword to block the bite that the puma had attempted to follow up with.
Blood was welling up from its teeth as it bit down on my blade, refusing to let go. I was holding on with both hands, but it was shaking me around, trying to get me to release my grip. As it moved, one of the tumors on its face began to darken, like a pimple that was just about ready to go. I released with my right hand, bringing up my cracked barrier. I managed it, just in time.
The flash of my barrier in its eyes, combined with the popping of the tumor, was enough to cause its head to jerk around. This action tore the sword from my hands, but it didn’t go quietly. The sharp metal of the blade dug into the puma’s gums. Blood and teeth fell from its maw as it stumbled backward.
“Dum Dum. I need my Dum Dum. Come here.” I heard the weak voice and turned to see Shart. He was laying in a pool of his own entrails nearby. I rolled toward him, narrowly missing a pool of blood and...something, before coming to rest next to the demon.
“Please tell me you have something,” I said, grabbing a shortsword from my waist and holding it blade down. When the puma leapt on me, I would start Wolfensteining it until it killed me. It would be just like when BJ and a Nazi both got knives and stabbed each other until one died. The puma had spit out my sword and was shaking its head, blood flying everywhere. It glared at me with murder in its eyes.