by Macronomicon
Which was probably why he got Telekinesis, and Ron got Necromancy.
Amanda was an idealist, so she healed.
Jessica… Jeb glanced over at Jess, who was sitting on the Palanquin, her eyes closed, feet crossed.
He didn’t know what Jess had, or how her personality would manifest when it interacted with Myst. Jess seemed cold and practical, wary of men in general, and slow to trust.
The question was, was that the Jess who pressed the Impossible button, or was this what the Tutorial had made of her?
He traced her rounded cheek with his gaze, noting the faint freckles.
Jess’s eyes popped open, catching Jeb staring at her.
Shit.
“I did it!” she exclaimed.
“Did it?”
“Check this out.” She said, making a dramatic pose and tensing.
Nothing happened.
“Was something supposed to happen?” Brett asked.
“It’s too much Myst. Hold on…” She tried a few more things, her frown deepening.
“Ah, here.”
Jessica held up a finger and Jeb watched as a thread of pinkish Myst swirled out of her hand and condensed around her finger. It settled into the shape of an armored finger ring, with an inch-long talon jutting off of it.
Cool. If that’s the first thing she can make right out of the gate, then she should be able to armor her entire body in no time. There’s even the possibility she might be able to make more than armor, possibly weapons or enchanted gear. It’s a good fit for her. She probably hasn’t even started taking in Myst seriously yet, so we can expect a lot of improvement.
“That’s –“
“That’s hilarious!” Ron said. “It’s like a magical girl transformation! What are you gonna do with finger armor?”
Jess jabbed him with the razor sharp talon, punching through a joint in his armor.
“…I stand corrected.” Ron whispered, clutching his bleeding side.
“Jess,” Amanda admonished, healing Ron with a tap on his side. “There was no need to go that far.”
“He stands corrected.” Jessica said, brows raised.
“it’s a good power,” Jeb said. “I can already think of a couple ways you can use it. Now you just gotta draw in Myst and burn it...
“It’s not a star.” Jessica said.
“What is it?”
Jess actually blushed.
“It’s…a magical wardrobe. I fill it with Myst folded into bolts of cloth. The more I add, the bigger the wardrobe gets, but some of them spill out because it’s not a one to one ratio. I use the ones that spilled out to make clothes.”
“So it’s functionally similar to mine. Where did you get the idea?” Jeb asked.
“Amanda was saying we would make me some new armor if we had to,” She said, motioning to herself. “I remembered, I used to watch…anime when I was younger, and there was a girl who could summon armor and weapons. I thought she was badass. When I tried making a core with that in mind, it clicked.”
Ron put a hand on her shoulder. “Everyone thinks Erza Scarlet is badass.” He nodded sagely.
Jeb frowned.
“Who?”
Brett raised a hand.
“I’m starting to feel left out here.” He said.
Jeb sat down with Brett and explained Myst and his experience with it. Even Amanda was able to make some improvements in how she used her Myst. Amanda had, until this point, dipped directly into her ‘well of life’ rather than use the stuff that sloshed over the edge, stunting the growth of her powers.
Brett didn’t currently have any Myst, but he was eager to get some.
That meant levels and accolades.
Are there any more bosses left in the forest? There’s gotta be. If not the forest, then the lands beyond.
Jeb saw a familiar lump in the ground to the south.
“Hold up.”
Jeb jumped off the palanquin and zoomed forward, crossing the distance to the barrow in moments.
“We meet again, scarab dungeon.”
Jeb distinctly recalled promising to pay the dungeon a visit again when he was strong enough to tear the guts of the dungeon out of the stone.
Well, he was strong enough now.
He walked into the single hall and hopped over the beam, then stood under the hollowed out ceiling where he’d stolen the lens.
He reached up into the stone and yanked.
There was a crack and the entire dungeon rumbled. A moment later, the center of the ceiling fell loose, slamming down onto the earth in front of him with a cacophonous explosion.
When the dust cleared, he was faced with a massive wedge of stone.
“Are you okay?” Amanda called from the entrance.
“Fine!”
“That made a lot of noise!” Brett said. “Whatever you’re doing, make it quick. I don’t want this to be our last stand!”
Jeb crouched down in front of the wedge and ran his gaze along the rough stone.
There. A silvery dot that had no place in the stone. When he looked closer, he could see a faint difference in the quality of the stone on either side.
A seam.
He grabbed either side of the seam telekinetically and wrenched the stone apart.
With a crack, the stone split, revealing more of the guts of the scarab trap.
It was a god-damned gold mine.
There was a little tube that looked something like a fuse, except it seemed to have a blue sphere at one end and a prism in the center. The other end had a tiny hole.
Myst seemed to be sucked into the hole as a vapor, then when it hit the prism, it was changed into a light-wave and ejected out through the glass sides, creating a steady rainbow glow emerging from it.
Very Small Myst Generator (Uncommon)
Found in enchanted objects that need to perform a discrete external effect without input from the user, The Myst generator passively draws in Myst and converts it to a usable state for lenses.
Due to the cost inherent in creating them, they are seldom found outside military and industrial applications.
Mine. Jeb shoved the finger-length glass tube in his pocket, then scavenged as much of the rest of the trap as he possibly could.
He found a Myst capacitor that made the one in his lantern look like baby-time, along with a little snarl of magi-tech that was responsible for making the capacitor click ten times.
He grabbed that, and several feet of what looked suspiciously like fiber-optics, stuffed them all into his bag and hustled out.
The beam in the center of the hall was dark, not having a constant supply of Myst delivered to it.
I wish I had time to steal the trigger mechanism too, but Brett’s right. We can’t afford to dick around here too long.
Jeb hurried out and the train of humans and zombies got back underway.
Not a moment too soon, because a few minutes later, they heard the sound of stone being ripped to shred by claws behind them. Imagine what a living chainsaw would sound like, and you’ve got an idea.
It wasn’t long after that they started running into trouble. The monsters started nipping at their heels.
Whenever a creature caught up with them, Ron would have some of his zombies hold it in place while they kept going.
Stopping to fight the creatures would get them bogged down faster than you could say it.
They were losing four or five zombies here and there, but they managed to put pursuit behind them after a while.
They were passing north of the clearing Jeb had woken up in when a fluttering faerie slammed into the side of Jeb’s head like a bird against a windshield.
Thump!
Jeb felt tiny hands grab onto his ears as Smartass dominated his field of vision, hovering barely an inch away from his nose.
“M&M Lord! You have to help us! Giant monsters are eating all our babies!” Desperation and panic were carved on the little creature’s face. He didn’t really have any choice but to see
it.
Jeb didn’t have to help them, but he sure as shit owed the fluttering idiots a lot more than the shoeful of M&Ms he’d given them.
“Keep going west,” Jeb said, rising into the air. “I’ll catch up.”
Chapter 14: Gigantism is in the eye of the beholder
“This way!” Smartass shouted, streaking off into the distance.
Jeb put a windshield in front of him and blasted through the woods, swerving around massive trees like a certain landspeeder in a popular film.
The woods stretched out around him as he put on speed, looking almost like a hallway as he whipped through the woods.
The hallway outside the room.
The thought began burrowing its way in through the top of his consciousness. The canopy above him began to seem jagged and ominous. His nerves felt like they’d been dipped in ice.
No time for that bullshit! Baby faeries! If I’m dead, I’m dead, goddamnit!
Jeb thrust the dark thoughts aside with a shout and put on more speed, his thumb unconsciously tracing the scar on his hand.
He reached the former safe-zone in less than a minute, coming to a hard stop in the middle of the clearing, the wind swirling to catch up with him.
What he saw…was less than impressive.
“Shoo, shoo!” the Faeries were swarming around the upper branches of their oak tree, their fluttering wings nearly preventing him from seeing the…squirrels being harassed from branch to branch by angry faeries, their cheeks stuffed with nuts.
To be fair, the squirrels were bigger than the faeries, but Jeb had been expecting more from the word ‘giant’.
“Smartass, your young don’t grow inside acorns, do they?” Jeb asked.
“No, why would they do that?” Smartass said, glancing at him sideways, brow raised. “Those acorns are the pride and joy of our tribe. We use them to make tools, clothes, poop bombs and so on. Their tough shells and delicious insides are absolutely essential for every convenience of the modern faerie.”
Jeb’s eyes narrowed as he watched the faerie’s gaze drift away, expression guilty.
“You invested all your money in the acorn business, didn’t you?”
“Please!” Smartass said grabbing him by the ear and kneeling on his shoulder. “They’re eating all my stock! If you don’t help me, I’m ruined. Ruined!”
Jeb was tempted to help, except for the fact that once he did, he would be opening the door to an ocean of stupid requests.
“Maybe next time you’ll diversify,” Jeb said, keeping his heart as ice cold as possible while his one-time apprentice bawled his eyes out.
Wait a minute. They have telekinesis too. From what he could remember they could at least move a rough shovelful of it.
“Can’t you use magic?” Jeb asked.
“No, you don’t understand!” Smartass said. “These furry destroyers are far too perceptive and fast for our magic to catch them! You’re the only one powerful enough! Please, catch them with your gigantic sausage fingers, or grab them with your super-duper magic!”
“Listen,” Jeb said, gently brushing Smartass off his shoulder. “It’s not safe for me to be here, so I’m gonna catch up with the rest of my group. If there’s a life-or death emergency, don’t hesitate to call.”
Smartass opened his mouth to respond when a girl’s scream tore through the clearing.
Jeb whipped his head around and spotted Casey The Pregnant Teen stumble out of the woods, cradling her stomach as she waddled at top speed. He didn’t know if it was because she was pregnant, or because she hadn’t gotten any levels, but it wasn’t very fast.
A spine whipped out of the woods and embedded in the young girl’s shoulder, whirling her around and sending her toppling to the ground. She desperately caught herself on her hands a moment before she landed on her stomach, a scene that nearly made Jeb bite a hole in his pants.
Every human instinct in his body was telling him this:
Pregnant women get a free pass.
Smartass’s jaw dropped as Jeb lunged forward to help Casey.
I didn’t make the rules for humans, Jeb thought as his body picked itself up and flew forward at max speed, arriving beside the girl with the oversized belly.
Jeb didn’t have time to dick around. He didn’t know what the situation was, or whether or not the spine was poisoned.
He knelt down beside the black haired teen and made a fist around the inch wide spine perforating her shoulder, brutally yanking it out with a spray of blood before she could realize what he was doing.
Like ripping off a bandaid.
“AAH-“
Jeb siphoned out a huge gob of Myst and channeled it through his cane, keeping his eyes on the forest. The cane created a radius of healing energy that seemed to soak into Jeb’s bones. Naturally the expectant mother was in the area.
“Aah?” Casey’s scream ended in a question as her shoulder patched itself up.
The undergrowth shook.
Jeb held his right hand out, splayed, as he grabbed Casey’s arm with the other.
The Mystic trigger deployed the shield in front of his hand, moments before three more spines almost the size of his wrist whistled out of the woods, ricocheting off the plane of force.
“Are you okay!?” Jeb asked, creating some mind-bullets.
“Ugh,” Casey half-sobbed, her goth mascara running down her cheeks as she stumbled. Did she have make-up on her?
I’ll take that as a yes, Jeb thought, pulling her back as three creatures leaped out of the woods.
They looked…half tiger, half porcupine, half lizard.
150% asshole.
They snarled in a way that would almost be cute if they weren’t obviously about to eat people.
“Yia!” they chirruped, leaping toward the two of them.
“Pardon,” Jeb said, picking Casey up, causing the girl to yelp as he stumped backwards, a risky proposition with a pegleg.
The three monsters lunged toward them.
The first one smashed its nose on the invisible shield hanging in midair. The other two dodged around the paralyzed monster with catlike reflexes, angling for the two of them.
Jeb sent his mind-bullets toward the closer one, sending a spike of hardened air through the creature’s forehead and scrambling its brain.
He shifted his arm under Casey’s legs and aimed his finger at the third one leaping at them, paws wide.
“Juggernaut.” Jeb gave the command of one of his ‘full auto’ triggers.
A hundred spikes of telekinetic force shot out of the space in front of his finger in the span of four seconds, tearing the leaping monster to shreds.
Jeb clomped backwards further as he struggled to put more distance between him and the last creature, the one stunned by the plane of force.
He was preparing to skewer it from the side with his mind-bullets when it staggered back from the shield and gave a bloody howl that sank into his skin and froze his spine.
Leaky cum-guzzling son of a bitch!
Jeb directed the bullets around the shield and through the creature’s skull, scrambling its brains a bit out of spite.
“Alright, we gotta get out of here before – “
The little goth teen let out a strangled cry and curled around her stomach, her expression showing extreme pain.
“What’s going on? Did you get hit?”
Casey didn’t say anything for roughly half a minute, simply gritting her teeth and sweating.
A moment later, she caught her breath, panting. “My stomach has been tightening up so hard I think I’m gonna break. Something’s wrong with my baby.”
Contractions?
Any man in their forties, whether they want to or not, whether it be from romantic comedies or experience with their sister, in law, or wife, has osmosed a bit of pregnancy knowledge.
“When was the last one?” He asked.
From his vague knowledge they started hours and hours apart and gradually grew closer together, until it w
as baby time. If they were lucky, the last one was an hour ago, and he’d be able to get her to –
“A few minutes,” She gasped, her eyes tearing.
Jeb bit back a torrent of curses.
She’s on the home stretch.
“You need to take off your skinny-pants. Baby’s coming.” Jeb said, clomping over to the oak tree and setting her down.
“What?”
“You didn’t know?” Jeb asked, frowning.
Casey shook her head, causing Jeb’s ire to flare up. Every single prospective parent nowadays would do some kind of research about the process, either from curiousity or fear.
“You had nine months and the internet, how could you not know – “
Jeb cut his tirade short, seeing the teen’s fearful eyes gazing up at him, watery with tears.
Everybody’s got their own circumstances. Remind me to find her parents and kick the shit out of ‘em.
“I didn’t know, ah swear.” She said, her voice wavering, a hint of a southern accent peeking through.
“Okay, there’s nothing to be concerned about,” Jeb said soothingly, doing his best to calm her down.
“I’ve done this a bunch of times before.”
Lie.
“I did an at-home birth with my wife for both our kids.”
Jeb had never been married.
“And helped with a few overseas.”
Also untrue.
“I know what I’m doing.” Jeb said, giving her a grin and a thumbs-up.
Complete and utter bullshit.
She looked like she felt better, though, and that was what Jeb was going for. A relaxed pregnant woman was better than a terrified pregnant woman, all other factors being equal. He couldn’t change the fact that he was unqualified, only how Casey felt about it.
“Alright, let’s get those pants off. Junior’s not gonna be able to get through denim.”
When he saw Casey struggling to get her hands over her own distended belly, he took the initiative and began unbuckling her pants.
“Hi, my name’s Jebediah, most people call me Jeb. I’ve got a strict rule of being on a first name basis with a woman before taking her pants off.” He said, hoisting her hips up and yanking the tight denim down, undies and all.