Deecy shrunk down to her Pup form almost immediately after flinging the Crystal Scorpion into the night. She limped away from the last of the Scorpions, which was rapidly gaining on Fred and Regnark. Thinking quickly, Fred grabbed the Earth Mana blob from the second Scorpion the big man had killed inside the pit and used it to create a weapon.
“Keep it right there, Regnark! I have a plan – just don’t let it move from that spot,” he told his friend quickly, as he threw out a Fireblast right into the Scorpion’s face, causing it to flinch back and pause in surprise.
Regnark immediately went to work, exchanging blows but keeping out of range of the stinger as much as he could. Fred flung out another Fireblast into its face when it appeared as though the stinger was about to strike, which made the Scorpion pause in its attack. While he wasn’t doing a lot of damage, that wasn’t the purpose behind their defense.
The big man stumbled after blocking another pincer attack, and the stinger struck down at the temporarily off-balance Regnark. Just as it was about to impale Fred’s friend, a Goblin Gnome jumped into the stinger’s path where it was impaled and knocked the Scorpion’s aim off just enough to miss the human entirely. Fred glanced behind him to nod at Eisa in thanks and moved to fling another Fireblast out – but there was no need.
Fred grabbed at the fur covering Regnark and pulled backwards while yelling, “Fall back now!”
Without arguing, the big man flung himself backwards so quickly he took Fred with him. It was a good thing, too, as the large slab of heavy stone he had Created with the blob of Earth Mana high above his territory slammed down with tremendous force – right on top of the Crystal Scorpion. Even the tough crystalline exoskeleton couldn’t handle the weight and force of the stone falling from 250 feet and it was almost instantly squished flat, with some of the crystal covering its body crushed so violently it turned to a fine powder.
The powerful slam of stone against crystal shook the ground and knocked everyone off their feet, their ears ringing a bit from the tremendous noise the impact made. When Fred picked himself up and gave Regnark a hand up, he looked back to see how Eisa had fared. She had been blown off the side of the circular platform from the shockwave, but she seemed to be fine; when she climbed back up the nearest crumbled ramp, she looked at the large stone in astonishment.
“What the—? Where did that come from?” she asked, disbelief at what she was seeing evident in her voice.
“No time, we have the last one still incoming from where Deecy threw it and…Deecy? What’s wrong?” Fred asked concernedly, as she had collapsed on her side and was panting heavily – a highly unusual action from the normally stoic Dire Wolf.
“The…stinger nicked me…as I was flinging…it away…”
Even her voice sounded weak to Fred, and he rushed over to her side. Tt took no time at all to see the jagged wound on her side, the blood having stopped flowing from the shallow scrape and only a dark-green substance leaking out. Fred immediately tried to heal her with all of his Power, alternating from Vitality Transfer to Heal Minor Wounds – but nothing he had did more than delay the inevitable. He frantically searched for some sort of “Cure Poison” ability that he may have adapted, but he couldn’t see anything that might counteract the toxic sludge eating away at her body.
While he was working to heal her, out of the corner of his eye Fred saw Eisa rush over and grab every blob of Earth Mana left behind by the defeated Crystal Scorpions, including her own and her destroyed Goblin Gnomes. When she had collected them all, she Created two more Scorpions, though they looked slightly larger than her first. Regnark grabbed his discarded bow and quiver and hooked the warhammer to his waist.
“We’ll take care of the last one, Fred – you take care of Deecy,” Eisa told him, and all he could do was nod as he frantically tried to stop the last of her Vitality from leaving her body. The colors of her aura were fading fast as it also combated the poison consuming her, but it was starting to get extremely faint. Within a minute, Fred was completely out of Power and the Dire Wolf’s breathing started to slow as her body began to give up the fight.
No! This isn’t fair – there has to be a way to save her!
Fred pounded the ground and looked at the impact in the dirt his fist made from his frustration – and had an idea. If giving Earth Mana to Eisa strengthened her, maybe the same could be done for Deecy? He had nothing else to try, so he fed her everything he had left of Water and Fire Mana inside his Cores, which ultimately didn’t amount to more than a dozen total. He had spent the rest of his Mana on—
Without giving it more than a split-second thought, he “deleted” his Flametripper Spiker for the second time that night, and immediately brought the Mana it left behind next to him and the still-fading Dire Wolf Pup. He could tell that even the small influx of Mana had done her some good and was counteracting the poison as the Fire and Water Mana fought against it. Fred sent what he had received from the deletion of his defender straight into her and watched her aura flare brighter and stronger. The blue and red emanating from off of her body quickly ate away at the dark-green poison, and her breathing strengthened as a result.
But it wasn’t quite enough. Her aura faded after it consumed more than two-thirds of the poison he could see, but after about a minute it wasn’t strong enough to do any more. Fred could hear another battle going on within earshot, but he ignored it as he desperately tried whatever else he could to save his friend.
He tried to send the Nature Mana he received from his Spiker’s deletion, but it just passed right through her without doing anything. A single point of Earth Mana had been converted within the last minute, so he tried the same with it – only to have it pass through the Dire Wolf’s body just as ineffectually as the Nature Mana. His Power had also regenerated another 25 points, so he used the least-costly healing ability he had on her – which only delayed the inevitable another minute or so.
Well, there’s only one thing left to try.
Doubting it could work, he mentally reached inside his Human Core and grabbed over 1,000 Unconverted Mana from his dwindling stockpile. He held it in his hands and gently moved it over to Deecy’s form and placed it against her side where the poison was centered, careful not to touch it himself. His hopes were dashed as the clear-colored Mana passed right through her without doing anything and he sighed in defeat.
But then her aura started to suck up the Mana and absorb it, drinking it like someone would drink a cup of water after being stranded in the desert for days. Fred checked his reserves of Unconverted Mana and kept feeding it to her aura, eventually bringing his total down to 215 before it stopped. He knew he could convert some Essence to start making more if he needed to, but he was glad it hadn’t sucked him dry.
The change in Deecy was apparent and immediate once her aura drank in as much Mana as it could hold. The poison practically evaporated and her wound – as relatively shallow as it had been – was healed, and her breathing steadied to the point where she actually sounded healthy. The Dire Wolf Pup opened her eyes and immediately sat up, her tongue lolling out of her mouth in a wolfy grin.
“Wow…that was close. What took you so long?”
Fred laughed, relief at her full recovery and her snarky attitude sending him into hysterics. Eisa and Regnark came back from defeating the last Scorpion, grins on their faces as they saw Deecy sitting up looking as healthy as could be.
Finally, Fred calmed down and scratched Deecy behind the ears, almost in an effort to make sure she was alive. “I’m glad you’re alright – but try not to do anything like that again, okay?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on it. But enough with all that…we’ve got to get moving. This whole battle has likely alerted the entire forest, especially since you decided to drop 20 tons of rock on top of a Scorpion.”
She was right – they had to get moving. Fred told Regnark what the Dire Wolf Pup had said, and he nodded his agreement.
“There are swarms of those things – and
worse – out there. We need to get gone,” the big man said.
“I agree – but at least we’ve got transportation,” Eisa said with a smile, pointing toward the two Crystal Scorpions she had Created, only looking slightly worse for wear from the fight with the last enemy bug. “But where should we go?”
Fred didn’t have to think about it for long. “We go west – it’s about time we find the Guild.”
Part II – Westbound
Chapter 7
Traveling on Crystal-Scorpion-back wasn’t as comfortable as Eisa would’ve liked it to be, but it sure was a heck of a lot faster than walking. Trying to stay upright on the quickly moving crystal bug was difficult, but the process was made a bit easier when she wrapped her arms around Fred, who was sitting just in front of her, legs hanging over the sides of the giant Scorpion. Being pressed up so close to him made her heart race, but it was tempered by the need to constantly watch where they were going and attempt to adjust her balance to the changing terrain conditions.
Deecy was at least comfortable, though, and Eisa kind of envied her being held in Fred’s lap.
After Deecy was healed miraculously by Fred – Eisa still didn’t know exactly what he did, but it was effective – and stated their need to leave as soon as possible, they all scrambled to prepare for their departure. There wasn’t much that Regnark and Deecy needed to do, but there were two things that Eisa and Fred needed to accomplish.
The first was to find Eisa’s Pocket Interface Bag, which had been buried underneath the same dirt wall she had been after the Earth Core exploded and she had…died. It was still hard thinking about that, so she did her best to ignore the fact that she had been dead only a few hours ago; so many things had happened since then and they were in a hurry, so the ignoring process was made much easier.
Anyway, when Fred was able to clear away some of the dirt and found her PIB, she discovered it largely intact and undamaged. Eisa wasn’t looking for it for her own personal possessions, however; she had been the one entrusted with keeping something that would be hard for Fred to replicate: the Class Selector used by the Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate. The Class Selector helped those who had a Sub-dermal Interface Artifact select or remove one of their classes – which Fred had used extensively when he was training the townspeople of Gatecross.
They needed it for two reasons. The most obvious one was that Eisa didn’t have a class since she had been…reborn, or whatever she wanted to think of it as. Selecting a class would give her some bonuses and help shape what kind of Adventurer she wanted to be; the only thing, though, was that she hadn’t yet decided if she wanted to follow her previous path as a Necro-healer or not.
The second reason they needed to obtain the Class Selector was one for the future. If – no, when – they found the Core Power Guild and the townspeople of Gatecross again, they would be able to change the townspeople’s classes to whatever was necessary for Fred to teach them additional abilities. Right now, they were stuck as Researchers, which was great for the defense of Fred’s now-destroyed dungeon in Gatecross as it gave them extra Power to use, but it wouldn’t let them advance too well on their own.
The other thing they needed to do was distribute their Essence that they had earned from killing all of the enemy Goblin Gnomes and Crystal Scorpions. Since there were only three of them (Deecy couldn’t absorb any of it, since she didn’t have an SDIA), they had actually earned quite a bit from the powerful giant bugs. Each one was worth just under 9,000 Essence, and when they added in the little bit extra that the smaller Goblins gave, each person had absorbed 54,030 Essence.
As a result, Eisa had increased to the G-10th Rating already, though she didn’t really see any advantage from that since she didn’t have a class. She immediately distributed quite a bit of it to her base stats of Body, Brawn, and Mind – mainly so that she hopefully wouldn’t die from a single knife thrust from a Goblin Gnome. She did save a portion of what they had earned for whatever class abilities she would have access to, but she decided to wait to select a class until they were moving, as they needed to leave as soon as possible.
Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate Interface
Name: Eisa Howells
Class: Unselected
Rating: G-10th
Essence Needed to Rate-up: 48270
Total Essence: 54030
Available Essence to Distribute: 23390
Body: 10 (0/10240)
Brawn: 10 (0/10240)
Mind: 10 (0/10240)
Vitality: 50/50
Stamina: 50/50
Power: 50/50
Base Physical Attack: 10
Base Physical Defense: 10
Power Regen Rate: 0.3/min
(Additional stats and abilities available once class is chosen)
Eisa had brought all of her stats up to 10 so that she felt a little more “normal”, and the boost to her overall Vitality and Physical Defense was a welcome difference. She had felt more than a bit vulnerable fighting against even the enemy Goblin Gnomes; before she had lost all of her Essence as a result of dying, she wouldn’t have been in the least concerned, as they would barely scratch her if she was hit by them. But with practically no defense and very low Vitality, she was theoretically a single stab away from dying.
And that concern didn’t even consider the giant Crystal Scorpions – she couldn’t even imagine what would happen after being hit by one of them.
Fortunately, her new abilities with Earth Mana as… whatever she was now… had allowed her to survive. The sheer strangeness of being able to create a monster that would fight for her had faded, and the excitement of what she could do now filled her whole being. Eisa was just glad that she hadn’t been filled with the memories of the Earth Core like Fred had mentioned Deecy had been; she didn’t think she’d be able to handle foreign thoughts and information invading her mind.
What did pop in her mind after Fred had thrown a big blob of Earth Mana the first time was something that scared her at first, but it was similar enough to her Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate Interface that she quickly adapted to it and took it in stride. She remembered how she had pulled it up earlier just before they left the area around Gatecross, as she held onto Fred a little tighter as her Scorpion ride maneuvered over some tree roots.
Shard Status
Eisa Howells
Elemental Origin: Earth
Shard Level: 3
Next Mana Threshold: 500
Earth Mana: 208/320
Defender Creation Options
Goblin Gnome (Level 1 Base Cost: 4 Earth Mana)
Crystal Scorpion (Level 1 Base Cost: 125 Earth Mana)
Special Abilities
Earth Elemental Form (Activation Cost: 15 Earth Mana, Upkeep Cost: 2 Mana per minute)
The halfway transparent screen that popped up was similar to her normal Adventurer Interface, but instead of being called that, it instead said Shard Status. It also referenced that she was at Shard Level 3, which she assumed was like some sort of Rating – that was the only thing she could compare it to, at least. Eisa hadn’t seen the screen at first, and it was only when Fred had bombarded her with a large influx of Earth Mana that it popped up; at the time it had said Shard Level 2 with a maximum Earth Mana of 120 – and that she had the Special Ability of Earth Elemental Form.
She had tried it right away, desperate for something that could save her at the time. It had felt extremely weird at first, as her body felt like it was hardening and inflating a little bit at the same time, but after a few seconds it just felt like she was wearing a really thick bodysuit that clung tightly to every part of her body – including her head. She wasn’t sure if she had been actually inside the compacted dirt that surrounded her or if her body had changed completely, but overall it was…comfortable and “normal”-feeling.
And she felt powerful.
Well, powerful enough to destroy those Goblin Gnomes, at least. Eisa wouldn’t have wanted to test her form against the quite-a-bit-more-dangerous Crystal S
corpions. She thought that it was likely she would’ve been smashed apart just as easily as her normal human form would’ve been. As it was, though, she reveled in the fact that – with just a thought – she could transform her arms and hands into bladed instruments of death, which she used liberally on the small ugly creatures attacking her.
She hadn’t spent much of her Adventuring career on the front lines attacking monsters with her brute strength (which wasn’t much when compared to the ones normally up there), but after that fight she could see the appeal of it. Using her own strength to destroy the monsters had a certain appeal to it that staying back and using skills and abilities from afar couldn’t give. Upon reflection afterward, however, she realized that the front-line melee life wasn’t for her. If forced to do it, she would, but she felt more comfortable staying out of direct confrontation.
Unlike Regnark, apparently; she was in awe of his physical prowess, not to mention the sheer size of him. While Eisa had seen bigger and more powerful DAS members while she was with her old group and closer to the capital of the Craytion Kingdom, the ferocity of the fur-clad man’s attacks was a bit scary. Fred had mentioned off-hand that he was a Berserker-Marksman class, which seemed contradictory, but it also seemed to fit his fighting style.
Dungeon World 3: A Dungeon Core Experience Page 6