-Aku/Isaac-
I locked eyes with the last centipede in my vicinity. I bobbed left. It copied me. I bobbed right and it followed. I spun around on my heel thinking its noodle body couldn’t possibly do the same, but the level 26 arthropod spun its body whipping its tail at me. From there we both came to a stop locking eyes once more.
There was only one thing left to do. I started break dancing and it tried to imitate me. I say ‘tried’ because it looked really stupid and awkward. Mostly because it’s anatomy didn’t allow it to dance like a human.
Pretty soon other centipedes gathered around forming a circle around us. We both stopped to look around. For a moment I thought I was surrounded, until they began pounding their lower half’s on the ground making rhythmic sounds.
It kinda sounded like the stomps from queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’, but slightly different due to future copy write issues.
That was when one of the centipedes started to chitter chatter, while intermittently flicking it’s mandibles together to make clicking sounds. He was so into it that he accidentally began to spit venom. It was as if it was beat boxing.
The centipede I’d been playing with began to bust a move. It wiggled its body in waves while dipping it's head from time to time in perfect harmony with the beat. It then became a wheel, as it bent its body back and bit down on its tail. The mob began rolling around the circle of centipedes, as I watched stoically from my spot.
It then ended its dance by bouncing its wheel form into the air. Then it uncoiled its body. It dove down in front of me and whipped it’s tail, as if threatening me. I took a step back feeling dissed, as rocks and dust pelted my dress.
“Are you really gonna let him dis your whole-body type like that! Get his ugly multi-limbed ass!” yelled Snowball. She was tucked under my left arm. I nodded in response.
I put her down and began to moon walk while forming my caterpillar aura to allow me to glide. No matter how much I moved my body only went a few feet from where it had been, creating a smooth illusion.
I followed it up with a few aggressive moves and a flip or two. As I danced Snowball beat boxed her own tune. It only seem to add to the one already going.
Casting the platform spell, I created a loop about 3 feet wide. Then began to glide along it with my caterpillar aura, while performing what was called an ‘air walk’ the whole way.
The platform moved going around the crowd, as my caterpillar aura continued to allow me to cling and glide smoothly along the transparent green track.
I circled my opponent a few times then smoothly slid across the stone floor as if in imitation of Michael Jackson. I then ended it with a Qi pulse empowered spinning back flip. I only went up about 7 feet, but with the momentum of my Qi explosion I was able to rotate around 30 times, before landing on the ground with a spin.
With my back turned to my opponent, I walked back to my spot, as if I’d just done the ultimate mic drop. Snowball kept talking shit to the centipede while the crowd around us seemed to be in an uproar. Bouncing and bashing into each other as if in a mosh pit.
My opponent tried the same moves again only to be booed and laughed at. I used this chance to gloat by slowly dancing my way back to the middle of the circle.
I hadn’t even used my best move. The Robot. So I did that now while adding in lightning aspect to make it look like electricity was powering my movements.
Some of the centipedes joined in showing off their own skills. The beat boxing centipede and Snowball kept the music going with a few other centipedes who weren’t as confident in their limb coordination.
The fun lasted a few more minutes until it was abruptly interrupted by an angry Squirmy. “What the hell is going on!? Why are you all dancing!?”
The music cut out as we all looked to the source of the voice. There above us on top of one of the buildings was a girl that looked an awful lot like me. Her hair in a similar bob and a dress almost like mine. Though her color palate was the opposite of what I wore. The thing that really separated us, was those red heart eyes and the horns on her head.
I looked to my new friends. They looked back. Then we looked to Squirmy who had created a ball of green flames. “You either attack that asshole, or you die with him.” He threatened.
That’s when they all looked at each other and started chittering their mandibles, as if in conversation. From my understanding. They wanted me to live and were thinking of a way they could keep me as a pet.
I wasn’t really up for that, but it's nice that they liked me enough not to want to kill me anymore. Now… how would I get humans to not kill them in return? Oh! They started saying other stuff now.
Something about how maybe Squirmy would be cool with that and something about challenging him to a dance off? I was confused. It went back and forth like that for a bit until Squirmy made the jade fireball bigger.
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Out of desperation, one of them skittered over to me and lightly pinched my arm. I didn't understand it at first, but pretended to be hurt when my sympathy kicked in.
“OH! OW, OW! That hurts! Ouchy!” in reality the centipede was only lightly nibbling on my arm. It kind of tickled—like a puppy nibbling on my squishy flesh parts, but I couldn't laugh right now or I’d give the ruse away.
I didn't think it was that convincing, because Squirmy looked like he was about to give birth to a porcupine. “Die, all of you!” he fired the jade fireball down at us.
I gathered up the wind aspects from the area and layered as many platform spells as I could above us. It was only three, but they were wide and curved to force the blast up and away. To add to the likelihood of the redirect I made the whole thing spin.
“Scatter!” I ordered.
The centipedes all ran in different directions. The platform only held the flames back for a few seconds, but kept them from falling on top of everyone.
By the time the attack died down they had gotten away. I could feel the surface of Squirmy’s intent to follow them, but I launched a manabolt to where he was about to move to.
The bolt caused him to stop, as it rocketed in front of him. He glared at me creating another jade fireball. “You just had to run into this version of me. If I was alpha, or delta, I’d kill you where you stand, but I can’t afford to waste resources like that.”
Squirmy blasted the building he was on causing it to erupt in an explosion of green flame and smoke. Using the distraction he disappeared. I sighed. There was no point in getting worked up without a release. Instead I retrieved Snowball.
I scanned the area, making sure there were no more enemies around. Just because I made friends with a few centipede didn’t mean all centipede would stop attacking me. Once I'd confirmed the coast was clear, I entered one of the abandoned shops.
The shop wasn’t one that was super popular, since it was lower ranked and had less interesting items, but it had the basics of a magic shop.
A lot of the potions had been broken and spilled, but I managed to find a few mid and small potions. Curious, I activated Qi sight. The bottle glowed showing me that it was nothing more than… heat? Not quite. It was… the concept of bonding and… refinement. so bonding, refinement, water, and healing life aspects.
I wonder how they managed to saturate water with healing. That must be what the bonding aspects were for. That makes sense, this stuff was brewed after all. I bet I can find bonding aspects in food too. The mid potions had more life aspects than the small potions.
I also managed to find a few mana potions. They were of the small variety and only held about 55% water aspects 15% bonding, 15% refinement, and 15% null. It was interesting to see that the aspects were separate, but at the same time together. It should have all turned into null.
The odd part was that the null aspects seemed to behave differently. They were following a pattern of sorts. Actually I think they held a concept inside them, but I wasn’t sure what. It was a bit more complex than the bonding one. The life aspects from the healing potions also behaved strangely. Maybe it was an intent thing.
When I have the time I’d like to learn to make potions. It sounds like it could be fun. Since I couldn’t be apart of the guild anymore, maybe I could open my own potion shop.
Oh! I bet I could turn my chicken soup aura into a potion! I bet that would sell like crazy! Healing without pain! And you feel all warm and cozy! I wonder if I can make it out of different flavors? Like hot chocolate! Oh, what about juice? Like apple, grape… or blue raspberry! I could even copy the flavors of those strange plants in my inner garden.
Lucky for me the garden had been revived. It wasn’t in the same place anymore but it was in the castle courtyard now. Aku’s been taking care of it for me.
The potions weren’t what I was here for, but it could be useful if I needed to make a quick healing aura. The null aspects could be a little helpful. I checked the glass counter and glanced into the display case.
There were a few low level wands and a few spell scrolls. The wands were useless since they were meant for intelligence and wisdom boosts. Two things I no longer had access to.
The spell scrolls might have been useful, if it wasn’t for the fact I didn’t possess the necessary focus pool to power them. Not to mention I didn’t exactly know what aspects were needed to cast the spell inscribed in the scroll.
There was a few other things. Like amulets and rings, but they only boosted intelligence and wisdom. Hold on! This ring looks like a caster ring. I opened it’s status screen and was immediately reminded of the childish theme my menu was stuck with.
Item name: Ring Of Binding
Rarity: Common (C)
Type: Ring
Intelligence: 5
Wisdom: 2
Durability: 100/100
Effects:
1: Captured Spell (bind -20%): Allows wearer to cast a weakened version of the spell (bind) once every 30 seconds without having the spell equipped or unlocked.
Spell effect: Summon shadowy chains to restrain a single target for 8 seconds. (Cost: 7 F)
I’ve used the spell before and while I don’t exactly remember what the spell circle looked like, I knew what aspects it used, or at least I had an idea of what was needed. It had to be similar to how the platform spell worked, but with shadow aspects instead of wind.
Still, didn’t that mean I could cast ‘bind’ using the platform spell? Then again platform wasn’t sturdy enough to fully bind someone. Otherwise Cain wouldn’t have been able to break out of that pin tactic I used.
If anything wind doesn’t feel like it could capture someone. To me it aligned more with the concept of freedom. Maybe it could also be aligned with trickery.
I was reminded of a time when I chased after my homework that got caught up in the wind after being attacked by one of my many mortal enemies. Every time I tried to grab it the wind would pull it away until it dropped it in a puddle.
How could nature be so cruel. I recycled sometimes. While wind was more aliened with trickery, it didn't exactly scream ‘bind’. I bet I could make a wind spell that specifically makes skirts flip.
Chuckling, I smiled at the absurdity. Then my laugh turned a bit creepy as I imagined flipping random girls skirts that were walking by. “ah! No. What’s wrong with me. That’s a bad thought. I’m not a… well, no I am a pervert. BUT! BUT I have shame! That’s right I feel bad about it so I don’t do stuff like that… unless I can find a way to use it in battle.
I bet Lorie would shake her head. Zubu would probably punish me for it. Mr. Brutus would laugh and probably have me try it on Cosmo. Cosmo would yell and immediately feel bad when I stopped smiling.
“I have a wife though!” I shot up looking around in a panic as if she were here to judge and take away my computer privileges. I sighed when I remembered where I was. “What was I doing again?” I asked Snowball.
“You were trying to figure out how to cast the hokus in the doohickey.” She answered. Sometimes hearing the info without a bunch of madness attached was nice.