Joe’s gaze cycled between the troll's massive smile, Myllo’s look of consternation, and Taylyn's clear terror. The russet bearded man approached the tiny woman and began talking quietly with her. Feeling awkward, Joe stepped back to give the pair more space, only to have the archer’s long fingers grip his shoulder and pull them further off to the side.
The tusked hunter tapped his arm of pebbly blue-gray skin for Yuk. A moment later, Joe heard the gangly warrior’s voice twang in his head.
“From the look on yer face, ya got no idear what’s goin’ on, do ya, Joe? Didna no one tell ya about our apocalyptic lassie there?”
“I heard she can create explosions,” Joe sent back, getting a mental raspberry in return from the troll.
“That's like saying Z’s a puppy dog. She don’t just pop off firecrackers, Bucko. Yer sweetheart says Tay could level a mountain. She ain’t done it yet, but I shore wanna see it when she does.”
“Kendell said that? Is she really that powerful at level 20?”
Yuk's clicky mental voice answered before Graymuck could. “We heard Tezeno say that the guild house gets jumpy seers all the time, telling us how we’re harboring Fort Coral’s doom.”
“Harsh.”
“Yeah,” the skittering guilder agreed with Joe. “Kendell told us Taylyn’s has a maxed affinity for Vortex magic. That’s Chaos and Lightning combined. We heard lightning magic can be tricky to control on its own. Can you imagine adding Chaos to it?”
“That’s why ar girl’s a nervous wreck all da time. A true prophet once purdicted her power would be the thing that kills her, so she scared ta death a usin’ it,” Graymuck drawled. “But she also is a gods-damned wonder. Got a control like Broon’s got blowflies. I seen her once shatter a bottle on a shelf, not even knick da rest o’ them.”
“So, the plan is to blow the top off the pyramid, breaking the loom,” Joe uttered telepathically. “Geez, what is it with explosions today? This will be the third one for us. It better not be worse than our first one?”
“Guarantee ya; this one’ll be bigga. MUCH, much bigga. Ya just make sure that when Tay says so, you hit that collar Vexa made ya. Ya wanna be as far away as that port’ll go.”
Joe sighed and glanced back at the pair standing together. His quick look saw Myllo giving the mousling a comforting hug, but then he noted something that caused him to double-take. Instead of the korrigan being twice as tall as the diminutive woman, the bearded man had shrunk down to match the mousling’s two-foot stature. Joe recalled a couple of other times when Myllo had suddenly seemed to be an odd height.
Shaking his head, he dismissed the mystery for another day—someday when he would not be transporting an explosive mouseling into the lair of an ex-king of the Feylands, filled with an army of corrupted undead.
Joe imagined the mousekin would be safest inside the heavily resistant pelt. With a few seconds of concentration, Joe shaped a pouch for her to sit in on the inside of the shaggy morphic armor. It was like what a kangaroo would have for her joey. He also reinforced the section of magical leather and fur that would be covering her. The extra thickness should repel claws. The arrows were still a bit worrisome, but Joe could hold the shield in front of where Taylyn would be nestled.
He then used the last charge on his ring to cleanse himself and the pelt. Having hung across Margen’s back of weeping sores, not to mention his own sweaty state, the air within the enclosed space was way too rank for a guest. Joe could not subject the sweet-looking gentlemouse to that.
“We should get going, Myllo,” Joe suggested as he finished his preparations. “The longer we wait, the more undead the loom is going to respawn.”
“You’re right. OK. Keep her safe, son. And you make sure you teleport out of there as soon as Taylyn gives you the go.”
“Are you ready, Ma'am?” Joe asked, extending his hand to pick up the small guilder.
“Ma’am? I’m not that old, Joe,” she chided softly, stepping into his grip.
“Sorry.” Joe stood, embarrassed, until he noticed the first small smile he had seen on her face since she had arrived. “You’re teasing me, aren't you?”
“Yes, I am. A break in the tension ... something I sorely need.” Opening his hairy coat, he let her step inside. “My, isn’t this snug?”
When she settled, Joe nodded his readiness to Myllo.
“You hanging on tight, Bud?”
“We’re set. Connecting Taylyn into the mind-link now.”
Taylyn Dale (Level 20, Sorcerer/Spark) has joined your party
While Myllo was adjusting his wand, Graymuck whacked Joe on the back, still wearing his ear-to-ear grin.
“Go get 'em!” the trollkin chortled. As the hunter’s hand came away, Joe saw traces of a spell fold around his body.
[Bloodvine Thorns] has been cast on you. Do you wish to remove this enchantment?
Joe might have questioned the quirky hunter’s motives on a typical day. He would not put it past the troublesome troll to give him some sort of joke buff that would end up biting him in the rump. But not now. Right now, there was a threat that everyone, even the jungle tracker, had to recognize. Joe was almost positive he could trust the off-kilter archer. 95% sure. Maybe 90%.
He left the buff on and looked back at Myllo. When the Korrigan saw he had Joe’s attention, he began counting down on his fingers: Three, two, one.
Joe flared [Hunter’s Pursuit], sending the three of them hurling through Myllo’s now permeable forcefield and up the steps.
What he had not counted on was the stairway being full of the dead. Joe jammed a hand forward, hoping to bash his way through. To his surprise, the desire to move the enemies out of his path triggered an item he had forgotten had extra properties. The [Band of the Wary Traveler] dipped into its pool of Joe’s stored movement and launched the ghoul fifteen feet up the stairs. The werewolf-like body crashed through its companions, opening a path for Joe.
Granted, it was not much of an opening. Rather than trying to thread that narrow gap, he decided to widen it. Joe tapped into the spatial ring twice more, hurling a jackal archer and another wolf up into the room above them, thoroughly disrupting any attempt to stop him from reaching the top.
The area they stepped into was enormous. It was an expansive hall, more expansive than a throne room. Oddly, Joe’s first thought would have made the BBC proud. ‘It’s bigger on the inside.’
“What was that?” Taylyn and Yuk asked in unison through the [Parasitic Connection]. The mouseling added, “You mentally muttered whatever that last thing was.”
“Nothing to worry about. Just a stray thought. How long do you need to charge your bomb, Taylyn?”
“I just started,” she replied. Joe realized there was a sense of heat near his heart that seemed to be more than the mouseling would produce. “I needed to see the room up here to know what to make. I’ll need another twenty seconds to get the explosion powerful enough to take out most of this space. I can hold it for about ten more seconds. If I don’t release the [Seed Blast] in that time, I’ll have to add power to it to reset the timer. But, each time I add more energy to it, it gets less stable.”
Twenty seconds doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but in combat, that was an eternity—especially in combat where you were outnumbered fifty to one. There had to be well over a hundred wights, ghouls, ghasts, and mummies in the massive chamber. Several waves of them were bounding towards the small guild strike force. Clawed, rotting hands began to grab at Joe as he ran out of open room to run through.
Before Joe could lock onto a spot to jump to beyond the pack encircling them, he discovered the purpose behind Muck’s [Bloodvine Thorns]. Ghostly briars lashed out at any creature who touched Joe. Unlike the [Lavalier of Talons], which cause sprays of torn flesh and blood, the whipping bloodthorn tendrils snapped through the enemies, harming them but not opening wounds. Not only did the spectral vines inflict Verdant damage, a combination of Wood and Life magic, but they also transferred some of their harm into health for Joe.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
He flicked a glance to check his status and saw he had a small pool of bonus health that was rapidly building into a decent-sized surplus. He wouldn’t be able to heal anything lost from that bonus supply, but they gave him an extra cushion of hitpoints that were consumed before any damage he took went against his actual health.
The spell also thoroughly foiled any attempt to grapple him. The slashing thorns repelled them as much as [Heart Fire] did, but Graymuck’s spell moved with Joe, allowing him to barrel through the first blockage of the undead.
Volleys of arrows filled the air, seeming not to care if they hit their own allies. The thick hide over his reinforced gambeson and the fur-coated shield prevented any of them from reaching his chest or his passenger. Joe’s lower legs were the most vulnerable, but with the sheer number of creatures around him, there was no easy shot at his shins and calves. The worst arrow strike so far was one that found his elbow, a bit above his hairy resistance and just below the edge of his armor. The shaft punched through the skin and lodged into the cartilage of the arm joint. Swearing, Joe yanked it out and healed before teleporting to a safer spot where he could eat more time off the clock.
An arrow hammered into Joe’s back, punching right through both layers of armor. This shot was several times more potent than any of the previous ambusher attacks so far. It also lodged itself in a terrible spot. To pull out the shaft, Joe would have to stop and morph a double-jointed arm to reach it. Or he would have had to if a swarm of beetles and centipedes had not crossed over or tickled their way under the shaggy surcoat and began wigging the arrow out of his flesh. Joe numbed the area while Yuk worked and scanned the enemies to find the source of the extraordinary attack.
Of course, his attacker was the statuesque figure standing on an elevated dais far across the cavernous room. The Erlking was impossible to miss. Off his shoulders billowed a striking azure cloak. He was a giant standing over seven feet tall, but the fey lord had the build of an elf, fit and lean. This, as well as the tattered wrappings covering his face and arms, gave him a twisted, scarecrow-like appearance.
In one hand, he held a curving dark wood bow. With the other, he was drawing a new arrow from a gem-encrusted quiver hanging from his belt. Beside the arrowcase rested a long, thin, straight blade, equally adorned with jewels. A flickering glow surrounded the rapier’s sheath, hinting at powerful Feyland magic.
“Kneel!” the Erlking commanded, pointing his ornate recurved bow at Joe. The power of that demand washed over Joe like a surging stormy tide. It had a weight that pushed down on him. But before it could crush his will, it slid away, allowing Joe to keep charging around the bestial mob blocking his path. Joe had thought major resistances were pretty awesome. Superior resistances were downright amazing.
“Good thing that wasn’t aimed at us,” Taylyn declared. “Thankfully, sitting as I am in the pouch here was close enough. I didn’t lose the focus on my casting.”
“Yeah, we felt it too,” Yuk admitted. “Half of us are currently crouching all over you anyway. We couldn’t help it. We had to obey. Arrows out, Joe.”
“Yeah. I felt it pop free. Thanks, Bud. So Tay, what would have happened if you had lost focus?” Joe asked, using the ring again to bowl over the closest wight, making a gap for them to charge through.
“At this stage,” the timid mental voice replied, "it would be very painful, but we should have been mostly ok. You two are tough to damage, and I am largely bomb-resistant. At least to my own creations.”
Anything but reassured, Joe tried to cut around another pack of mummies and wights when the ground under his feet erupted into a swath of burning sticky ooze. Joe’s boots dissolved in an instant. Unable to free his sizzling toes from the caustic substance, Joe prepared to jump when a pearl tumbled from the shaggy hair covering his chest. The moment the opalescent orb hit the ground, a flash of light erased the corrosive goop and freed Joe’s acid-scorched soles.
Joe gritted his teeth and sent healing to the tender flesh, which was now directly slapping against the stone floor. Stopping was not an option. Even that momentary pause in the caustic glue had allowed the archers to hammer him with barbed missiles. One had lanced under his wolf-headed hood, slicing his cheek. “Thanks, Yuk. Quick catch.”
There was no chance of initiating any sort of offense other than occasionally slashing with a claw or punching with the shield. Joe dashed in, a long looping, zig-zagging path, not even really aiming for the loom rattling away on the Elrking’s dais. He was just trying to give Taylyn the time she needed while not getting overwhelmed by the enemy. [Bloodvine Thorns] were great for breaking holds, but if enough of the dead managed to pile onto Joe, they could bury the three of them, not caring how many were destroyed in the process. If Joe’s eyes were harmed or covered again, like in the cavern, They would not be able to use his [Medallion of the Medic] to escape.
Other spells followed the acid patch, but thankfully, none were as effective as that first magic attack. Joe was splashed with fire, shocked with lighting, and seared with other sizzling caustic attacks. The morphic pelt grew increasingly singed from the incendiary and electrical burns, but Joe could heal it easily. Acid was the worst. Corrosive attacks were far more painful and much more demanding to recover from.
Joe was responsible for the straight damage. The effects that stopped their constant movement, such as cones of trapping ice or fountains of webbing, were split between Yuk and him. If Joe could quickly teleport away, they would save the pearls, but if the spell tangled them up even for a few seconds, Yuk got rid of it as quickly as possible.
The mummies were not dormant during Joe’s winding journey around the hall, but they were turning out to be the least effective of the dead beastmen. Nothing they could do would frighten, captivate, or befuddle Joe through his sash-enhanced traits. Stun seemed to be the attack they used the least, which was fortunate. Joe had repelled almost all of the occasional dazing attacks that had been used against him so far. The few stupifications that did stagger him were whisked away by one of Yuk’s pearls.
The Erlking attempted to control or dominate Joe more than once, but even his legendary enchantments failed to penetrate Joe’s highly fortified mind.
Just as Joe was about to ask how much longer Tay needed, a stunning attack blasted his thoughts to ribbons.
Yuk cleared it, only for another brain-shattering blast to land right on the heels of the first one. As Joe lost speed, balls of fire and bolts of lightning honed in on where he stood still. Wobbling on gummy-feeling legs, Joe stood under a rain of arrows - the spearing missiles punched through gaps in his armor and his now bare feet.
Yuk’s shouting voice solidified and then blurred in Joe’s head as the tatterdemalion burned through their supply of dispels. He managed to catch a couple of Yuk’s mental shouts each time, and then the next stunning spell would kick his mind around like a football.
The Lord of Larks and the mournful thralls had switched entirely to stunning attacks. Joe’s mind turned into a speed bag being pummeled by a world-champion boxer.
“ grubb uuhshoo wuwoojug … YOU OK? huuhvum luddud … JOE!! The king is directing them! …. uvsasoo ascuvo dabbama … WE SHOULD BAIL! ….. wogugga duugdawa dubbu … erstand me?”
Joe had his head clamped into his hands. He could feel blood streaming down his cheeks from his nose and eyes, but also from where his own claws had sliced through his scalp, digging the talon points into the bone of his skull. His mind was on fire, as was his body. Yuk was screaming. Taylyn was screaming. Joe had no clue whether they were to focus him or crying out in pain.
He just knew they were screaming.
Screaming, and he wasn’t doing anything.
A marauder’s claw ripped into his throat, and Joe couldn’t remember how to heal.
A body tackled them, and they fell, slamming onto the stone floor of the ziggurat.
Blows were raining down on them as Joe curled around the little woman he was sworn to protect, pulling his hands from his head to shield her.
His mind just fumbled and stuttered as one stunning blast after another sent his brain spinning.
Joe felt his talons punch through his reinforced palms, unleashing spears of pain, but it was an agony he controlled. Right behind the grinding feeling of his claws against the bones in his hands came a roar of fury. The wildness howled through Joe. Its savage presence swelled, trying to fill every part of his uselessly numb body. For once, Joe didn’t try to contain it.
He let it out.
A howl more ferocious than any belonging to the dead roared from under the pile of thorn-lashed bodies on top of Joe. He felt the lupine marauders recoil—some dove off, fleeing from the challenge that bayed out of the wildness.
Your skill [Pack Master] has increased to rank 17.
Joe’s body bent and twisted under the press of the undead. His knee bones snapped backward, and his spine and shoulders twisted painfully.
Your skill [Morphic Form] has increased to rank 26.
Skill Evolution: Your advancement with your transformative abilities, as well as your acceptance of the primal spirit within you, has resulted in the opportunity to evolve one of your skills. You may evolve your [Morphic Form] skill to [Skinwalker].
Joe had a flash of anxiety over that opportunity. Skinwalkers were creatures from horror stories.
But at the moment, he was not the one in control.
The wildness spent Joe’s one free attribute into Vigor and accepted the skill evolution. It skipped over the skill’s description, seeming to know precisely how the new ability worked. Joe felt the [Hide of the Hunter] settle more tightly around his body, merging—becoming no longer two separate things but conjoining into one unified form.
The hood slid down his face, settling onto his cheeks. The eye sockets formed around his own. The pelt’s jaw-bones found his mandibles and melded into them.
Moments later, the wildness flicked a long tongue over their new mouth, filled with sharp white fangs.
Heaving upwards with a strength far beyond anything the manthing had possessed, the primal werewolf, with Joe within it, rose from the cringing bodies at their feet. They bayed once more, cowering the rotting packs before fixing baleful eyes on the only being in this chamber worthy of challenging them.