by R. A. Mejia
Mana 62/102
The no-longer human mage rose onto his Yettaur paws, flexed his new arm, and marveled at his powerful body. He looked down at his grotesque physique and excitedly proclaimed, "So this is what he meant. The power is intoxicating. I'd given up the strength of the warrior when I chose to become a mage, but he said I could have both if I was willing to make the sacrifice."
"Who said? Who is your master?" the Witch asked, her hands outstretched and glowing white.
"The city will meet him soon enough. But you, you interfering old hag, won't be there." A black glow surrounded the monster mage's hands, and a beam of black energy shot out. Evanora released her own white beam, and the two opposing energies met with an explosive flash.
Harrison looked down at his hands with frustration clearly apparent on his face. Then he flexed his new arms, made a fist, and said, "Let's see how you handle the direct approach then." He started forward, and while his first two steps went well, his hind leg stumbled as if it could not quite get the timing with his front legs in sync. The mage awkwardly staggered like a newly born foal, but he was still making progress towards his goal. Each step of his paws blackened the ground where it fell, and a creeping decay spread out from him.
The Witch seemed to understand what was wrong and waved her hands toward us. "Quickly, strike him down before he adjusts to his new body. I will hold off his magic."
A white glow appeared around her, and as it widened, the mage’s corrupting influence halted in place. I hated to think what would have happened had we touched the mage before. But now we had a chance. I called out to the goblins, "You heard her! Attack! Kill him"
With a roar, Greebo and the other goblins took up the call as they rushed forward with their weapons bared.
I sent Parker to help then called the Flintlock Rifle out of my internal inventory, took aim, and fired. The round hit the mage on the shoulder and blew away a chunk of unprotected flesh. Yet, a moment later, the wound started to regenerate, the muscle and skin re-growing.
As the goblins reached the monster Harrison had become, they slashed at his front legs and heavily furred undercarriage. The monster mage roared in anger, and he instinctively reared up, lashing out with his claws. Frik and Frak danced among kicking legs, their short swords a red blur as they cut through fur and flesh. Greebo stabbed up into the monster’s vulnerable underside. His short sword dug deep into Harrison’s furred flank, and the mage cried out again in pain. The raised body of the monster came down hard, and though Greebo was able to twist the blade to cause extra damage, the sword snapped in half, leaving Greebo to stare at the hilt and pommel in his hands. Two clawed feet came down on my friend hard, and I cried out as I lost sight of him.
I dropped the spent rifle and called out the second already-loaded one. I fired from the hip, anxious to distract the Frankenstein mage from the goblins. The shot missed and ricocheted off the cave wall but came close enough to the mage’s head to shift his focus to me.
It was only a moment’s distraction, but it gave Greebo time to scramble away, a bit bruised but whole. He whipped out the knife he’d used when we first started to adventure and with a shout, ran back into the fight, slicing at the legs of the monster mage.
Harrison stepped backwards, trying to make room to kick the goblin’s attacking him. and shuddered as the broken blade embedded in the underside of his Yettaur body started to bleed with each slow step. Hoping to provide more time for the goblin fighters to recover, I laughed and taunted, “I guess your regeneration doesn’t fix everything.”
Harrison snarled, clenched his fist, and tried to strike Frik, who nimbly dodged the blow and struck back. Yet the problem remained. Even though Greebo and the twins continuously slashed and stabbed him, Harrison’s wounds and health continued to regenerate.
I’d seen how the Everwoods Witch had dealt with the troll warrior and in less than a second fabricated an infused paper cartridge. As I reloaded my rifle, I saw the monstrous mage swing at Greebo with a punch, and the goblin laughed at the awkward attack. It was so easy to read. Unlike the troll berserker whose arm he was using, the mage obviously had no skill at hand-to-hand combat. But the goblin’s laughter stopped short. Even as he ducked the blow, it hit the cave wall with a crack, breaking stone. I realized that, even if the mage did not have the troll's skill at fighting, he had all of his strength.
Reloading finished and the pan primed, I aimed high, not wanting to hit the goblins attacking Harrison’s lower half and pulled the trigger. The explosion of powder made Harrison twitch and the minié ball lodged itself in his chest, just below his sternum with a wet thud. I saw Harrison smile as the flesh closed over the rifle wound.
“Firebolt.”
The spoken word activated the infusion in the minié ball and the flesh that had just healed started to glow, then it blacked as fire burst through, setting the skin around it aflame. Harrison’s smile turned to anguish as he furiously slapped at his chest trying to put out the small fire. The monster mage’s health dropped and unlike the other wounds he had sustained, it did not regenerate.
I knew I had a way to permanently injure him. I fabricated another paper cartridge infused with Firebolt and reloaded my Flintlock Rifle. I got off another two infused shots before Harrison pushed past the goblins slicing and stabbing his legs and charged me. I missed my next shot as I dove to the right, barely avoiding the mass of flesh and fur. I’d thought that I’d avoided him, but a powerful kick to my back sent me flying through the air to land face first next to the goblins.
As I got to my feet, I checked my health and found that one blow had knocked off thirty percent of my health. Worse when I checked my mana, I found I had only enough for one, maybe two infused shots and Harrison was only down to half his health, and it was rising.
I heard Greebo call out, “How are we supposed to beat that monster? He’s so much stronger than us, and it feels like we’ve barely hurt him.”
“He burns just like a troll,” I said.
Greebo scowled and asked, “Do you have enough fire magic to burn him to death?”
I shook my head and looked down at my rifle wishing I had more mana to infuse fire into my ammunition. Then a memory flashed through my mind. An explosive accident that happened while I was testing the Flintlock Rifle barrels. “I have a plan, Greebo. Just keep him off of me for a few minutes,” I said as I tossed him my Flintlock Rifle and half a dozen paper cartridges.
He gave me a weary smile as he caught the rifle, clearly growing tired from the fight. “You got it, Bolts.”
I retreated across the room to where the Everwoods Witch sat and hid behind her, hoping that the white magical shield she had cast over herself would hide me while I worked. I heard the rifle crack as Greebo fired and the battle cry of the twins as they charged the monster-man. I knew that I needed to hurry, but pushed the sounds of the battle away as I focused on what I needed to do. I knew what I wanted but had never crafted one before so I did not have a pre-made schematic. First the casing. Iron was too tough and paper was too thin. Plus, it was liable to get soggy. Then I recalled the thin copper sheets I’d made night after night for a class quest. They were ductile and just tough enough to handle a little rough treatment.
As my fabrication tool came to life and the emitted red light started to build the sheet, I glanced around the opaque magic shield hiding me and saw Greebo running to his left trying to find an angle for his next shot, the Flintlock Rifle held in both his hands longer than he was tall. Frik’s left arm hung uselessly at his side and blood dripped from several rents in Frak’s studded armor. Yet the twins were rolling and dodging the fists and clawed feet of the monster-mage as they sliced his legs. The goblins were tiring but were not letting up.
The copper sheet was fabricated in less than a minute, but it felt like ages. I returned my attention to my work, knowing the faster I finished, the faster I could relieve my goblin friends. I rolled the sheet into a tube about a foot long and pinched the end. It kinda looked
like a shiny copper ice cream cone. I called the gunpowder from my internal inventory and poured into the open end of the cone. It was enough gunpowder to make 12 paper cartridges, triple the amount I’d used in testing the Flintlock Rifle barrels. The powder in, I realized that just the explosion might not be enough and quickly dropped in a dozen minié balls. Between those and the copper shrapnel, I hoped it would get the job done. Last, I needed an ignition source. I didn’t have a fuse, instead I took one more minié ball and infused it before dropping it into the tube. Folding the end of the tube sealed it.
As I looked down on what I’d made, it reminded me of a slightly overstuffed burrito. It wasn’t perfect, or pretty, but I only needed it to work. I sent the improvised weapon to my internal inventory to keep it safe and activated my integrated Blacksmith Hammer and my special ability Bone Breaker. My right hand and forearm transformed and I stood and saw the fight. Harrison was spinning like a dog chasing his tail, trying to dislodge Frak who had stabbed his hind quarters and was hanging onto his sword for dear life. Greebo and Frik looked on helplessly, unable to attack for fear of harming their friend and brother.
Frak lost his grip on his sword and flew away to crash into the hard-stone wall. He dropped unmoving to the ground and I yelled as I charged the monster mage before he tried to trample the prone goblin. Whether it was from my scream or from the loud metal sound my metallic feet made as I ran, Harrison turned towards me and growled as he pulled his arm back to strike. But he never threw the punch, instead a minié ball bored into his face, tearing away flesh and bone. While Harrison reeled back and screamed in pain, I circled around to his right and swung straight at his leg. Yet the mage was smarter than any dungeon monster and pranced back just in time to avoid the blow. With a guttural growl, he reached down to grab me, and I was too close and too slow to stop him from reaching me. I yelled, “Let me go, you butcher!” but the mage just laughed in response. He squeezed down hard, pinning me in a bear hug, and I heard my iron plating bend and my wooden frame groan underneath his strength.
My eyes would have bulged out of my head if I had been made of flesh and blood, and I never would have been able to speak due to the air being squeezed out of my lungs. But I wasn’t made of flesh and blood. I was a Metalman. I was made of tougher stuff.
“Parker, now!”
The eight-legged mechanical form of my Trap Spider dropped from the ceiling onto Harrison Freud’s, stabbing down with his sharp needle stinger. The mage cried out in alarm as my mechanical companion repeatedly stabbed into his back. The damage was healed almost instantly thanks to the troll’s regeneration, but the poison seemed to have some effect because the arms loosened around me just enough for me to wriggle free.
I landed on my feet with a thud. I quickly noticed that Harrison had finally stopped prancing around the cave, and I swung my Blacksmith Hammer with every point of strength that I had, twisting my body with the swing for extra power just like my little league coach taught me. Bones crunched underneath my blow as my special ability finally activated, and the front right Yettaur knee snapped and bent back in a direction it was never meant to go. The mage screamed, and I had to roll to the side to avoid being crushed underneath his weight as his body toppled forward, its front legs unable to support it anymore.
Parker was thrown off the beast’s back, and he went flying into the cave wall. He tried to get back up, but his legs were clearly damaged, so I said, “Hold, Parker.” I didn’t want the mechanical Trap Spider to further damage himself; he’d already done enough to help us.
“You insolent flapdoodle! I’ll rip you to pieces and melt you down for scrap metal. I don’t care what he wants with you! No one will stand in the way of Harrison Freud!”
The curses continued to spew from the Monster mage’s mouth as he tried and failed to get back to up. I transformed my hammer hand back to normal and lunged between the kicking clawed feet, and grasped the broken blade that had snapped off in the underside of the man-monster and yanked it with both hands, opening up a foot-long rent. Harrison screamed as his flesh was ripped open and the Yettaur intestines spilled out. Even as I pulled the broken blade out, the flesh started to seal. I knew I only had a moment and said the command to bring the package I’d made from my internal inventory. It appeared in my hands with a flash of light and before the wound I’d made fully healed, I stuffed the football sized, hastily made package into the body of the monster mage.
I yelled for the twins to retreat, then stepped back, glad that I’d accomplished my task, and my moment of inattention cost me. A clawed foot caught me square in the chest and knocked me back ass over tea kettle. The room spun around me as I flipped and crashed onto the stone floor. It took me a moment to orient myself and get onto my hands and knees, and look down at myself. My iron chest plates were caved in and cracked in places and though the armor had absorbed some of the damage, I was down to less than a quarter health.
I heard a scrambling sound and looked up to see that not only had Harrison’s undercarriage healed, but so had his hind leg. With a mighty heave, he rolled off his side and then got back to his feet. He looked down at his body and though the burns he’d suffered from the infused rifle shots had not healed, the rest of his wounds had. “All that effort for nothing,” He laughed once. “Nothing you do will stop me from crushing you and your gob friends.”
“One thing might,” I said and pointed at his undercarriage. Harrison’s gaze followed my finger and just as he realized where I was pointing, I shouted, “Firebolt!”
Then there was the loudest explosion I’d ever heard and the bottom Yettaur half of Harrison seemed to disappear as it was torn apart. Legs, intestines, blood, flesh, and fur flew across the room. The smoke from the homemade bomb obscured my view of what was left of the monster mage as it dropped to the stone floor, but I could hear a low moan from the area.
I got to my feet and saw a movement amidst the clearing smoke and used Inspect.
Harrison Freud - Mutated
Level 11 - Monster mage
HP 13/122
Mana 62/102
Greebo, rifle in hand, and the twins cautiously approached the man that had killed their friend. They saw that he lived, though only barely, the lower half of his body gone and burned by the explosion of black powder, unable to regenerate.
Harrison looked down at himself and whimpered. “No, no. This can’t be happening. I’m special. I’m chosen.”
Greebo raised the rifle in his hands, aimed at the mage’s head, and with words filled with grief and rage yelled, “For Manny!” and pulled the trigger. The minié ball tore through Harrison’s skull, blowing brains and bone out the back. The twins raised their swords and snarled, “For Manny!” as they brought them down, taking the last bit of Harrison’s life.
Chapter 42 - The Gnome Council Calls
I almost didn’t believe it. We’d won. I had to double check the headless misshapen body with Inspect just to make sure.
Harrison Freud - Mutated
Level 11 - Monster mage
HP 0/122
Mana 62/102
“So, he did die then? No special final form?” I asked as I stood next to Greebo and Evanora healed Frik’s broken arm and Frak drank a red health potion.
Greebo shook his head. “No, nothing like that happened--thank the Dark Gods--or we’d all have been killed.”
Evanora’s healing done she stood and said, “It was a near thing as it was, Repair. After my battle with that troll, my magic reserves were drained. I only had just enough to hold back the mage’s dark magic. You and your goblins friends did a fine job ridding the world of that abomination. My fellows will be here soon to take what is left of him to be analyzed so that we can try to figure out who his master was.” She tsked then continued. “It's a terrible day when I see forbidden dark magic like this make a resurgence.”
The Everwoods Witch stood and took a step towards the room’s exit. I held out a hand and grabbed the cloth of her robe. “Wait, you’re just le
aving? I have questions.”
She paused, then tilted her head and nodded towards me. “Well, I can try to answer some of them.”
“How did you suddenly become so powerful? I can recall seeing your level and class when we first met, and it wasn’t nearly high enough for you to have a chance against that troll, much less beat him like you did.”
“Oh, that’s the easiest of the questions. When I fought in the Dungeon Wars, it was only too common to learn spells to hide or alter your level. After all, if your enemy underestimates you, it offers an advantage--as the troll learned to his detriment.”
“Oh, so you have a special spell? Don’t suppose you’d care to share that with me? I need to appear before the Gnome Council tomorrow, and I have to have reached level 8, but don’t think that I’ll make it. So, if I could appear to have reached level 8, it should be as good.”
“There are three problems with what you’re asking. One, the spell is one that my order would not let me share. Two, I’m afraid that it is already tomorrow. Three, I’m afraid the spell won’t pass a close inspection of a powerful mage, which the gnomes undoubtedly have on their council. But there may be a way for me to help, though.” Her eyes glowed white as she looked at me and she smiled, “Yes, I think I can work this out just right if you forgo any other rewards.”