His defender also managed to hit a single Goblin with a volley of ice spikes that it shot out of its blue flower petals, impaling it and doing quite a bit of damage. In fact, before it even hit the ground it was starting to dissolve and give up its Mana from its death.
With three of the five Goblins defeated by his defender, Fred and the others still had to contend with the two that made it through. Fred told Regnark to ignore them as they landed nearby, as his focus needed to be solely on trying to hit the vulnerable faces of the Scorpions to keep them back; that, of course, was made much easier since they were all within 20 feet – a theoretically easy shot for the accomplished Marksman and hunter that the big man was. Unfortunately, his fatigue from his low Stamina – and the fact that the Scorpions were moving so quickly – made most of his shots fairly inaccurate.
Eisa was already on top of the Goblin Gnome situation, however; she had already instinctively Created another Goblin Gnome of her own, though hers was quite a bit more powerful in comparison to the two that landed surprisingly spritely in their protected circle. At Level 10, hers had enough defense that the knives of the others would just barely scratch its natural protection.
Goblin Gnome (Level 10)
Vitality: 30
Attack: 12, Knife Stab, Bite
Defense: 10
Respawn: 13 Earth Mana
Of course, there was only one of Eisa’s Gnomes and two of the enemy, which meant that Eisa was in trouble if one of them got through to her. Scratch that, actually – five more Goblin Gnomes flew towards them as the Scorpions tossed another volley of the smaller monsters over the pit. This time, only a single Goblin was snatched out of the air by Fred’s Spiker; the other flaming leaf missed and the ice spikes in its petals were recharging for another 50 seconds or so.
Seven-on-one wasn’t great odds, and all but one of the enemies ignored Eisa’s defender and went straight for her. Fred wasn’t going to have that, though, so he intervened with some attacks of his own.
Using his Power, he hit the nearest two in the back with a Fireblast, knocking them down and heavily burning them but not enough to kill them. Since he only had that ability at level 1, it didn’t do much damage; seeing how ineffectual it was, he Slotted another 4,000 Essence into it to bring it up to level 3 and shot another two that had turned toward him in response to his earlier attack. This time, his attack did enough damage to burn the front half of each Gnome, killing them almost instantly.
That still left two wounded and three unwounded ones, however. Fred jumped near the two wounded Goblin Gnomes and Created a steel dagger in each hand with his Unconverted Mana, stabbing down at the same time and dispatching them both with efficiency. He looked up to see where the other ones were, when he saw Eisa jump back from a strike, only to trip and fall backwards. The exhaustion from being low on Mana was evident in her face and body, and she struggled to scramble out of the way of the advancing enemies.
Her own Goblin managed to intercept two of the enemy, keeping them at bay with quick strikes. One lucky strike managed to hit one of its fast and wily opponents, creating a large slash in its mottled brown-green skin that ended up incapacitating it. The strike opened it up to attack, but it had much better defense being a higher level; the attack only scored a thin scratch along the torso of Eisa’s Goblin Gnome, with just a tiny bead of blood showing that any damage had been done.
Fred tossed out another Fireblast at the small Goblin still heading for Eisa but just barely missed; the Gnome jumped forward in an attempt to land on and impale the woman with its knife before she could get up, narrowly avoiding the attack from Fred. The battle seemed to progress in slow motion as he watched the small knife-wielding figure flying through the air in its attempt to kill Eisa. Meanwhile, he thought furiously about his abilities and what would work to help keep her safe.
He needn’t have worried, as Deecy chose that time to make her presence known. She leapt through the air in her normal Dire Wolf form and snatched the descending Gnome’s head in her jaws, biting down hard and snapping its neck before tossing it away. When she turned to help dispatch the others, Deecy found that she wasn’t needed to help with the Goblins nearby.
That was because another four Gnomes were flung inside their circle just then; a single one was snatched out of the air again and killed by his large multi-element flower defender. Eisa’s Goblin Gnome finished off its wounded counterpart and engaged the other Gnome, so it wasn’t able to intercept the newest four heading straight for the still-struggling-to-rise woman. Fred looked at his own Power and winced as he saw what he had used already.
Fredwynklemossering
Vitality: 132/180
Stamina: 145/160
Power: 550/5100
His Vitality was still low from healing Regnark earlier, but he wasn’t too worried about that; instead, he was quickly running out of Power – he had used more than half of what he had available when the fight started, and he was just fighting some of the easiest defenders there were out there. He was worried that he wouldn’t have enough leftover when the Scorpions finally figured out how to get to them, and they would end up dying anyway. He could get Regnark or Deecy to help, but from a quick glance it appeared as though the big man’s attacks were actually doing fairly well at keeping the Crystal bugs from doing anything other than flinging Goblin Gnomes. As for Deecy, a quick query to her didn’t get the best response.
“I’m still very low on my own Mana right now. I have maybe 30 seconds of my giant form before I’ll be forced to rest again, and I’m waiting for the inevitable attack by those Crystal Scorpions.”
A glance at her aura proved that she was correct; the blue and red mana inside of her was looking almost as faded as Eisa’s. Well, there’s nothing for it but to use my Power—. But looking at Deecy reminded him of the large blob of Earth Mana he had left floating in the middle of their circle. With another quick thought – as the enemy Gnomes bounded toward Eisa and Deecy – Fred corralled all of the smaller brown globs left behind by the dead Goblins and combined them with the larger blob…and then shoved the slightly larger blob straight into Eisa as if he was trying to fill her up like one of his defender blueprints.
He could see her stagger backwards as she was just getting to her feet, the Shield of Darkness he had placed on her fading from her form at the same time. The Mana hit her like a battering ram, but instead of ultimately hurting her, it seemed as if she literally shone with a healthy brown aura. A smile lit her face as her aura shone brightly for a few seconds before fading away; the bright light she emitted had the effect of blinding everyone looking at her in the darkness of the night.
Fred was only momentarily blinded as he was looking slightly away from her when she lit up, but the Goblin Gnomes weren’t so lucky; they started to stumble around in confusion, though a quick check of their Vitality showed that they weren’t actually hurt by the light. When Fred was able to see again, he blinked in surprise at where Eisa was standing as he saw a slightly larger figure in her place.
It looked like Eisa…if her entire body had been covered by a thin layer of compressed brown dirt. The packed earth surrounding the figure conformed to the basic shape of Eisa’s body, though its face was relatively featureless; and, seeing as it didn’t have any clothes covering the dirt, it was essentially naked.
Fred thought that it would be prudent not to mention that fact – but he did have to admit that what Eisa had turned into was beautiful.
Not in the sense of what he had learned humans thought of beauty, though, but in what he could only assume was Eisa’s Earth Elemental form. She was perfectly proportioned and sleek, with very little wasted material; in fact, when Eisa started to move, he could see the compressed dirt in the various joints in her elbows, hips, and knees almost melt into a “mud”, leaving her new form flexible enough to move almost effortlessly.
As if she could “feel” the inherent strength in her new form, she immediately attacked the Goblin Gnomes still recovering from the b
linding light she had emitted. With what looked like effortlessness to Fred, she formed her hands and upper arms into sharp bladed implements of destruction and went to work on the Goblins, slicing them apart with clumsy but effective strikes. Deecy just stayed back and watched in surprise, though he could tell she was waiting to help if Eisa needed it.
As they died and dissolved into the ground, she absorbed the small orbs of Earth Mana they left behind, strengthening her slowly depleting aura; it wasn’t fading at a rapid pace, but Fred could tell that the longer she held her form, the more her Mana was used up. Looking at Deecy, he likened the effect to one similar to the Dire Wolf’s as she changed into her giant form.
“Fred! I need some more arrows!” Regnark called out, pulling Fred’s attention back to the greater threat.
He felt a little silly watching Eisa at work, but it was fascinating watching her learn how to use her new abilities; the experience was a whole lot different from what he knew Deecy could do, mainly because Eisa was human and existed before this big change in her. He couldn’t help but feel proud that she was embracing her new-found skillset like the veteran Adventurer he knew she was.
But that was neither here nor there, as he whipped his head back to the bear-fur-clad man, using his Mana-formed Object Creation to Create another two-dozen arrows as he did so. He immediately ran up to Regnark and shoved the arrows into the man’s nearly empty quiver; only then did he look up and check his Territorial Sight to see what the situation was.
The Crystal Scorpions had already flung their passengers and were running around the circular pit, looking for a way across. Regnark had managed to injure one of them with a lucky shot to one of its eyes, but they were still moving too quickly for the big man to hit them. Most of the arrows he fired missed by only the barest margins, but even though they were close, they still hit and ricocheted off of the bugs’ crystallized exoskeletons, leaving no more than a few chips or cracks here and there. Although the damage done was minimal, the impacts still kept the Scorpions from staying in one place too long.
That all changed when they had unloaded their payload, however; as soon as they discovered there was no accessible way across the pit, almost as one they descended into the relatively short depths, wedging their bodies down inside the 10-foot-wide hole and maneuvered themselves so they were facing the inner circle where Fred, Eisa, Regnark, and Deecy were relatively safe.
And then the giant bugs started to slam their pincers into the inner wall of the pit, gouging out a portion of it and causing a small bit of the compressed dirt to collapse. Fred hadn’t made the walls into stone like he had done with some of the other defenses he had set up in Gatecross, as he didn’t think it was necessary at the time and didn’t want to use too much of his Mana to do so. And since it wasn’t necessarily part of his “dungeon”, there wasn’t any of his mana imbuing the walls, protecting them from destruction.
This just got a whole lot more interesting.
Chapter 6
The one fortunate thing out of all of that, though, was that – other than moving their massive pincers in an effort to destroy their safe area – they weren’t moving around that fast. Despite the danger of getting too close, Regnark was able to quickly step up and fire point-blank into one Scorpion’s face and then another, filling them with five-six arrows each. The strikes destroyed their eyes and caused critical fatal damage, which killed them quickly.
Unfortunately, that was all the big man had time for. Eisa and her little Goblin Gnome finished off the rest of the enemy Goblins and were standing in the middle of their quickly crumbling circle. Fred grabbed one of the blobs of Earth Mana that came from the newly fallen Scorpions and sent it straight into her, calling out, “Eisa! Try to make some more of your little friends there!”
She nodded at him before she paused and tilted her head to the side. “I can do you one better if there’s just a little bit more of that Mana for me!” she called out in response.
Fred had an idea about how to use the remaining Earth Mana blob for his own attack, so instead he pulled all but 1 of his 22 Earth Mana inside of his Core Structure and flung it out toward her. She didn’t even wait until it reached her body as she held up her hand and seemed to grab the small brown orb out of the air; when it easily absorbed into her aura, he saw her smile again – at least, he thought she did, as there was a crack in her Earth Elemental form’s face that was upturned. Her aura extended out from her like it did when she Created a Goblin Gnome, though this time it was much, much bigger.
In fact, it was the size of a Crystal Scorpion, which soon materialized on their crumbling platform, almost pushing Fred off the side in the process.
“Sorry about that, Fred! I’m still getting the hang of this!” Eisa shouted in apology.
Regnark turned around at the commotion in the middle of retreating from an enemy Crystal Scorpion making its way up the now-destroyed side of the pit. When it didn’t attack her – and in fact turned away towards where another one was making its way up the crumbled remains of the inner wall – he turned back towards the one he was retreating from and shook his head in disbelief.
Fred stepped up next to him and yelled to get his attention, as he was doing his best to walk backwards and fire at the same time. “Here, I’ve got something else for you to use now!” Fred handed the big man a massive, heavy steel warhammer that he remembered some of the front-line Adventurers liked to use – like Metch, if he remembered correctly; he himself could lift it and move it around, but he didn’t fancy trying to swing it. Regnark, though, dropped his bow and quiver with a slight smirk on his face, and grabbed it from him, swinging it back and forth like it was a thin stick.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had one of these? I didn’t even need to waste my time with those arrows.” At those words, Regnark stepped towards the Scorpion he had been retreating from and roared like the bear his furs were made of. With a mighty swing, the warhammer impacted one of the pincers moving to grab the human and shattered a sizable chunk of the crystal covering it. With a surprisingly graceful turn – considering his size and the state of his Stamina – Regnark spun and smashed his warhammer into the other pincer trying to grab him from behind. More crystal shattered upon impact, and Fred could see that the “normal” Scorpion pincers underneath the exoskeleton had been nearly crippled in the process.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), the big man’s gracefulness was short-lived as he stumbled a bit as he turned toward the face and mouth of the Scorpion and raised his Hammer to deliver what appeared to be a rage-fueled blow to its head, when the stinger struck out at him with shockingly fast speed. Regnark was saved from being impaled and pumped full of what Fred figured was likely lethal poison by his stumble, and instead of being hit in the chest with eight inches of stinger, it instead struck at the warhammer. The big man had a solid grip on it, however, which was good…and bad.
The good part was that he didn’t lose hold of his weapon, which would leave him relatively defenseless. The bad part was that the stinger struck so strongly and swiftly that Regnark was flung backwards 15 feet and nearly collided with Fred, who dodged out of the way at the last moment. Without any other impedance to its upward climb, the Crystal Scorpion made it to the top of the inner circle with only minor wounds to its pincers.
Meanwhile, Eisa’s own Crystal Scorpion was facing off against its counterpart and was slowly losing. While the enemy bug was Level 5, Eisa’s was only Level 2; there was a big difference in both attack and defense, and it was more than obvious when her giant Scorpion started having its crystalline exoskeleton ripped away in chunks.
Eisa wasn’t going to allow her big creation to go down without some support, though; she somehow canceled her Earth Elemental form and Created two more Goblin Gnomes the same level as the first and sent them to harass the enemy Scorpion. While they couldn’t harm the exoskeleton even a little bit, they were fairly fast and managed to close in on it without too much trouble – and they promptly jumped on top of it
, reminiscent of the riders that had been on there earlier. They immediately converged on its face and started stabbing its more-vulnerable eyes, gouging out one of them before the bug’s stinger impaled a Goblin Gnome through the back, causing it to turn even more green than it normally was, before it died and dissolved into more Earth Mana.
Eisa’s Scorpion took advantage of the enemy’s distraction to approach quickly and attack with its own upstretched tail, striking and impaling its stinger inside the mouth of the bigger, stronger Crystal bug. Although it initially appeared to be immune to the poison from the stinger – as the enemy struck out with both pincers in the now-vulnerable position Eisa’s Scorpion was now situated and practically tore it apart, as well as striking another Goblin Gnome through the back and lifting it up as it died – the lethality of the substance eventually caused it to collapse on its belly, its strength drained as the poison went to work destroying its insides.
While all that was going on, Deecy was also battling against the third Scorpion, the time finally coming for her to use her giant form to help defend herself and the others. She was so large and quick that she was able to avoid even the lightning-fast strikes of the Scorpion’s stinger, though she couldn’t manage to do any major damage to the crystal-encased bug.
“I’m almost out of Mana. I’ve got one more thing I can do to give you all some time, but then it’s up to you.”
Fred heard her as he was helping Regnark back to his feet and he turned toward her with a question on his lips. Before he could ask what she was going to do, she dodged a pincer strike by just inches as she bit down on the large crystal appendage. Deecy then lifted the entire Scorpion up and flung her head to the side so quickly – while letting go with her jaws – that it flung the bug into the night at least 200 feet away. Fred couldn’t visually see where it went, but it tumbled for a while before coming to a stop. Based upon its Vitality when he looked at it with his Territorial Sight, it was injured, but it would likely be back.
Dungeon World 3: A Dungeon Core Experience Page 5