A fourth gaze impacted against his shield, then another. Serenity could feel as the overlapping gazes tore a hole in his shield against curses. He had to hold them here until they died or start over; if he waited, he’d only be in worse circumstances. They’d all be aware and watching the shore if he took time to recover.
Well, maybe not if he actually retreated, but that was never wise to count on. He didn’t know anything about the behavior of basilisks that had been in hibernation for millenia. He’d only half believed they even could hibernate that long; most things couldn’t. Dragons could, along with many elementals, but seeing the basilisks here meant that Serenity now knew of only three types of creature that he could confirm had the potential for excessively long hibernation timeframes.
Oh, also some seeds, though that wasn’t really the same thing.
Serenity tried to distract himself from the pain he knew was coming. He’d been partially petrified before; it sucked. A lot. They’d been prepared with counteragents that time, while he was counting on his far higher Curse Resistance this time.
Only … it didn’t hurt. In fact, he didn’t feel anything at all, even though the shield was definitely leaking. Serenity tried moving his body; nothing seemed to be stone. The fact that his clothing was unaffected wasn’t a surprise; the clothing on the bodies they’d seen also wasn’t turned to stone. Some of it was metal, but some had once been plant fibers or animal hide; either way, it wasn’t stone. It was almost like the basilisk’s gaze only worked on living material; while those were both organic, they were no longer alive.
Serenity started to laugh. No wonder they weren’t affecting him; he was immune. It wasn’t his curse resistance at all; it was the fact that he was an elemental!
When he thought about it, it made a sort of weird sense; they were gathered together in a group and clearly willing to use their gaze attack despite others of their kind being there. That probably meant that basilisks couldn’t petrify other basilisks. All he had to do was assume that they were also technically unliving, probably elementals of stone, and it was clear he fell under the same limitation on their attack.
It would also explain the extraordinary hibernation time. Stones could simply exist for a long time without eating or, well, anything; clearly basilisks could do that as well. Even compared to other elementals, basilisks could probably hibernate for an unusually long time.
Serenity turned to Ita. “Don’t step out here until you’re completely ready. When you do, you’ll have to be fast; the shield doesn’t hold up for long. Don’t hurry; I’m fine. I’m immune to their gaze.”
The basilisks must have also realized that he was immune, because one of them leapt towards him. With Serenity distracted, talking to Ita, it managed to take a bite out of his left shoulder. The bite sheared through the protective cloth, his T-shirt, his flesh, and even through bone, though it didn’t manage to completely bite through the upper arm bone before it started to fall down his body.
The basilisk’s feet clawed at Serenity’s side, trying to keep hold of him, while he shook his upper body to get it off. His left arm wasn’t responding properly, but his right had no trouble pulling the crystal hilt off his belt and engaging it.
Serenity felt an inordinate amount of mana pulled from his mana pool to light the manablade and more was needed to keep it lit. That had to be because he’d triggered it while it was still under the manaflow, but shouldn’t the shield from the cloth remove that issue?
Serenity didn’t have time to look. Instead, he pulled the manablade above the level of the cold fiery river, then turned it to stab the basilisk on his shoulder. The relief from the lowered mana drain mixed with the relief when the basilisk released its bite and tumbled backwards into the manaflow.
Serenity immediately took two steps away from the basilisk. He wasn’t certain how bad the damage he’d inflicted was for it and he definitely didn’t want to get bitten again. He didn’t take his eyes off it even though he could only barely make it out through the distortion of the manaflow; he’d rather take a bite than let it bite Ita. He could heal in minutes, she couldn’t.
A scream from the basilisk in the river was the first sound he’d heard any of them make other than clicks as they moved over the stone floor. The basilisk darted out of the river, directly away from Ita, screaming as it moved.
Serenity watched it as it moved past some of its fellows; it seemed smaller than they were, even though he hadn’t noticed any particular size difference before. It streamed some of the manaflow’s fire behind it as it ran, as if it were on fire itself.
The basilisk ran until it butted head-first into a wall. It then rolled itself into a ball like a pillbug, but somehow continued to thrash and roll around until the fire was out. The screaming didn’t stop until the fire did. By then, the basilisk was only perhaps half the size it had been.
It continued to move for a little bit after the fire went out, which told Serenity that it was probably still alive … well, not dead yet. As an elemental, it had never technically been alive.
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Serenity tried to move his shoulder, but it was still damaged and didn’t want to move without a lot of pain. He could wait for it to fix itself. Serenity deactivated his manablade then took a step backwards, towards the middle of the manastream where it would fully cover him. He didn’t want to be far enough out that another basilisk would leap at him, but he also didn’t want to lose sight of them.
He took a moment to go over what he’d learned from the encounter.
First, basilisks could jump. That was a complete surprise; they looked like armadillos and armadillos couldn’t jump. At least, Serenity didn’t think they could; even if they could, he couldn’t believe that they could manage four feet vertically and three feet horizontally from a standing start. Basilisks clearly had far more jumping ability than any Tier One creature. Serenity didn’t think he’d seen anything similar before roughly Tier Ten in his first life.
Second, basilisks could bite through bone. His own bones were tougher than ordinary bone; that came with being Tier Eight, but it also came with being a dragon. Even his human form’s bones were tougher than they should have been. That was the only thing that had saved him from having his entire shoulder bitten through; as it was, a second bite might have done it. That shouldn’t be a surprise, really; they ate stone. The only real surprise was that they actually had the dentition to do it, rather than having some special ability that made stone easier to eat.
He had to be really, really careful if he decided to be in close. Ita’s suggestion of killing them from a distance looked even better than it had before.
Serenity half-wished he could wear his armor for this, but that wasn’t an option unless he gave up his manablade. His other two forms were serving as armor for his parents, and they were better there than here; he was sturdier than his parents. Dragonscale armor would help in this situation but it probably wouldn’t be the sort of perfect protection he’d been getting used to. His scales were strong but there were limits to what a scale could manage.
Third, the manaflow was even worse than he’d assumed it would be. The basilisk clearly wasn’t flesh and blood, but it had been more than half dissolved by the manaflow on the brief period of time it spent inside, along with the burning after it got out. It could probably go through the manaflow in one direction, but it wouldn’t be able to come back. That gave an explanation for the stone bodies on the other side; some of these basilisks had gotten through. They must have been killed once they were there, however, or the partially eaten statues would have been fully eaten.
Or perhaps all of the basilisks that crossed the fiery stream escaped? There were those statues on the other side of the gate. They weren’t even partially eaten, which implied that either the basilisks weren’t acting for food or they didn’t have time to eat. It also implied that there weren’t any basilisks in this section; the bodies would be long gone if there were. Unfortunately, it didn’t say there was no chance some had escaped and were elsewhere in A’Atla’s tunnels. He’d have to do something about that when he got back to camp.
Fourth, the stream seemed to be getting colder. With the damage to the cloth that created a shield against the manaflow and the fact that the fiery river was actually cold, that seemed like a very bad sign. Serenity took a moment to look at the shield with his manasight.
As he suspected, it was flickering in places. It was a sign of good design that it hadn’t outright failed; most enchantments did when they took enough damage. This one gave warning of imminent failure.
Imminent failure.
There were more of the protective coverings on the basilisks’ side of the stream, but Serenity didn’t want to try to get to them; the basilisks were in the way. It was a better idea to return to where they started. There was another one there.
Serenity stepped all the way into the river. “Ita! I’m headed back to where we started.” He didn’t wait for her to respond; he didn’t have time. At least, he might not have time. He knew she’d heard, because she followed behind him all the way out of the stream.
The shield still held when he reached the shore, but it was flickering badly enough that his feet felt like blocks of ice. The moment he stepped completely out of the manaflow, the shield vanished. Serenity wasn’t certain if that was simply being lucky or if it had been designed so that the loss of strain allowed it to finish failing, but he was betting on design. No one was that lucky.
The fact that Ita’s winked out only seconds after she hopped out of the manastream supported his guess. Hers, however, could be reactivated by stepping back into the fiery river. Serenity didn’t even try to test his wrap; it was no longer intact enough to use and that was enough.
What Serenity did try to test was his shoulder. It wasn’t done healing, but the flesh had all healed; all that was left was a deep ache. Serenity decided not to try moving it. He didn’t need to cause more damage before it was done healing. “I think we’re done for today.”
“We are?” Ita sounded surprised. “I’ve just gotten the nerfgun reloaded.”
Serenity chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t like giving up, but I think it’s the better choice right now. It’s been a long day even before that fight, and that fight says it’s time to stop for now. We know something about what we’re facing and can prepare. It also means the basilisks will probably settle back down; that’ll give you a better chance to hit them, since I doubt they’ll stay at the edge of the river and I bet your spells won’t work properly in the manaflow.”
“I can set up a portal for tomorrow,” Ita offered. “That way you won’t have to walk the whole distance.”
Serenity shook his head. “But you would, since you can’t go through your own portals.”
“It doesn’t matter for me,” Ita insisted. “Someone else can come with you. Someone more useful than I am. I can manage the portal.”
Serenity shook his head. “If you can restrain the basilisks, there isn’t anyone I could bring who’d be more useful.”
They argued back and forth all the way back to camp, where they arrived just in time for dinner.