As it turned out, a single use of Clean only removed enough of the foul smelling liquid for normal humanoids to no longer smell it. It took two more applications to get all the little droplets spread over a wider area that were relevant for people with enhanced senses- like, say, werewolves.
It was still a very effective use of mana, and I didn’t even have to spend a point to learn the spell. Then again, it was as low of level as a spell could get- but if something did what was necessary, it was actually better for it to be lower level unless it was involved with a contest of power. Random liquids didn’t exactly fight back, for which I was glad.
“Thanks, this is much better,” Tylissa said. “We should be getting closer. The traffic in this section is heavier.” She sniffed. “Quite a few passed through here.”
“Any orcs?” I asked.
She shrugged, “How should I know? As a general rule, people all smell similar enough in a group. I could tell you if one has been smoking, but not if they’re an orc.”
“... have they been smoking?”
“Several of them,” she nodded.
Weird. Though I understood people liked to destroy their lungs, it never appealed to me. Regardless of the type of plant, I didn’t want it in my lungs.
She poked around by a dumpster for a few minutes, scrunching up her nose. I understood, because even I could tell it smelled bad. Unfortunately, I doubted I could clean a whole dumpster full of trash. What would the spell even do? I was curious, but now wasn’t the time to expend unnecessary mana.
“I think it’s behind or around this,” Tylissa gestured, “Some entrance. But I don’t know if moving it would be a good idea. It might trigger something.”
Magnet Man stepped forward, reaching out. “Hmm, there’s definitely something. Pieces of a lock, and something else. Not all of the parts are metal so…” he shook his head. “Well, we just need to step back. Also, everyone get ready. We can presume this will set off an alarm.”
Tylissa was the first to comply, since she wasn’t even supposed to participate in combat anyway. “I’ll get out of sight. Get in contact if you need me to track someone fleeing.”
Four of us. If Midnight were here, it would be an easy split for one of us two haste two of our companions, and the other the pair of us and the last. Eight mana each wouldn’t deplete us too much. But here, not only couldn’t I guarantee there wouldn’t be another trap immediately after, it would be a little more than half my mana. I had Stoneskin up on myself, so I just held back with my staff at the ready, ready to adapt to what came.
Magnet Man yanked the dumpster away from the wall, and I felt his powers fiddling with something else. There were no explosions or anything, but something did fly directly out from the wall, hitting the dumpster with clangs and a few other sounds. The bricks had swung open to reveal a normal sized doorway heading down some stairs into a dimly lit hallway.
“I’ll head in first,” Magnet Man said.
I considered telling him to be cautious, but that seemed redundant. I had cast Force Armor on everyone to provide another layer of protection, so we would merely have to deal with whatever else remained.
In that first little hallway, nothing. However, there were doors on either side and at the end. Magnet Man opened the door on the right, stepping away as he did so. A figure immediately lunged towards him, but in his current position they had to catch themselves and take extra steps to actually reach him.
This was another drow, based on the pointed and dark ears and the way he was dressed like the previous assassins. What followed as a dagger thrust towards Magnet Man was one of the most interesting magical interactions I’d ever witnessed.
An arm thrust forward, then stopped. Then, as if a wall suddenly fell away, it jerked forward then stopped again. It was much quicker to happen than to describe. It was only a fraction of a second as Magnet Man’s powers activated, were sliced apart, and activated again in sequence. I had the feeling the dagger was going to win that exchange, if Knives hadn’t inserted her own efforts into the mix. Several blades of red energy flew through the air, forcing the drow to pull back- without his own weapon, as it was still held in place. A moment later it dropped to the ground with a distinct clatter, seemingly through the dissolution of Magnet Man’s power once more and not him choosing to release his grip.
I felt bubbles of power popping up across the hall. “Watch out, they’re also coming from the other door!”
Bombino reacted first, leaping for the door. Instead of flinging it open or holding it closed, he reached out a hand and laid his palm flat on the door. The whole thing began to glow red and black, then he slapped it.
A good portion of the resulting explosion went back towards him with no discernible effect, as if he were an immovable object. The rest propelled the door forward, ignoring that there had been a door frame and hinges keeping it in place a moment before. Bombino’s explosions weren’t really bright which I was thankful for, as it allowed me to see a couple orcs off to the side of the door. There might have been a couple directly in front of it, but if so they were no longer in that position, AEGIS or not.
I had to do something, and as darkness began to swallow up the room to the right with the drow as they created magical darkness, I decided their power negating weapons were a greater danger. I had been ramping up my mana for something, and that thing took form about the time two more drow were replacing the first into the hallway.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
It was bad to get into the habit of using your new tool all the time, but Chain Lightning seemed like exactly what I needed here, dealing with an unknown number of enemies in a dark room. From one of those at the door, it leapt into the room following my direction. I had been very careful to guide it to not come towards us, and I hadn’t realized that would mean missing one of those by the door. But it was just one. I felt it leap towards two, three, four, five… before suddenly losing its momentum on the sixth. It should have had more power- it wasn’t punching through AEGIS barriers after all- but such was life.
Two orcs shoved their way into the hallway, causing Bombino to step back. He launched a tiny explosion in front of one’s face as she swung at him, distracting her aim slightly and allowing him to step back. Obviously such a quick attack would not damage an AEGIS, but it was good enough.
The other stepped towards me, our eyes locking. “You’re the one,” he grunted.
“... You speak common?” I was momentarily surprised.
“Obviously. You dumb?” He didn’t give me a chance to respond, swinging his axe. Training took over, my quarterstaff coming up to catch beneath the head of his axe and lever it to the side.
I felt power flow through him, and the next swing was stronger as he used the power of barbarian rage. Even at the optimum angle, my arms trembled at the force of his attacks. Strangely, his face continued to appear calm. And there was no more expenditure of mana, even though it was supposed to be a constant drain.
“A staff, huh?” he muttered. “Not great lethality there, but fine for a mage I suppose. Until…”
Another surge of mana, once more feeling like a few points all at once. The axe pointed towards me as I held my staff in a guard position and then… I felt it twisting in my hands. Magic? I tried to resist, activating the power in the staff. I was too late to completely stop what was happening, but my staff went from straight resembling a gnarled branch, retaining its form slightly due to the metal core.
What was that? It didn’t make any sense. I tried to bring up my staff to stop the incoming chop, but my grip was all wrong and I didn’t contact where I intended. And then the axe suddenly came to a halt.
I leapt back, feeling Magnet Man’s power grabbing onto the axe. I wondered how he was dealing with the AEGIS, then I realized that the axe head had to be outside that. The orc I was fighting struggled against Magnet Man’s grip, and I got an idea.
I dropped my staff. I was going to be very upset about its state later, but for the moment I couldn’t think about that. Lightning crackled around my right hand, and then my left. I stepped forward, slapping them onto either side of the stationary weapon and forcing the power through the axe, down its handle. The AEGIS reacted slightly, but it only shaved off of a portion of the effect.
A fully powered Shocking Grasp wasn’t anywhere close to my most damaging ability, but two of them was not a lot of mana either- and one was usually sufficient to knock out a person. Even so, when two didn’t bring down this particular fellow, I wasn’t that surprised. He wasn’t just a random guy, and he certainly had some levels. I did feel him gathering mana for something more, when the handle of his axe hit him in the chin. Repeatedly, with his grip on the weapon going from overly tight to nothing at all over the course of the lightning magic.
If my understanding of electromagnetism was at all sufficient- which I was going to be honest and say was probably untrue- it would have really screwed up any sort of magnetic control on the weapon. But that was still not Magnet Man’s power. He just controlled metal, and through the fact that the metal head was firmly attached to the rest, he levered it to smack the orc’s jaw until he went down.
Knives had stretched large blades all across the frame of one door. Bombino was lobbing explosions through the doorway with the orcs. There were times for restraint, and times we were fighting Doctor Doomsday’s minions. We couldn’t exactly expect them to play nice.
“Thanks,” I said to Magnet Man. I wasn’t ready to handle that orc, even if I should have been stronger than him. Unexpected abilities had really ruined my internal flowchart. With a moment to breathe, I considered using much of the rest of my mana to help with the orcs… but I felt something at the end of the hall. “Uh… some sort of powered… something!” I gestured vaguely down the hall. “Multiple behind the door!”
I needed a weapon. The axe… was no good. I had no experience with the things, and I wasn’t going to assume anyone would give me a few practice swings to get used to the differences. I did have a backup weapon, though. Not one good for fighting up close, but I could stop people before they got to us. Storage pulled it out, and then I cast Haste.
The door swung open to reveal just… humans. Humans with guns. Like me, except I didn’t recognize the type of gun. Nor was I going to wait and see what was different.
My first shot was center of mass on the woman in front. She was knocked backwards, which said to me that they were wearing bullet resistant vests. Why wouldn’t they be? Doctor Doomsday could at least equip them with that much, when the orcs had AEGIS and the drow had dispelling daggers.
Why didn’t they have AEGIS? The answer came from the definitely super tech powered guns. One of them shot a beam right at me, a weird yellowish one. It only clipped me as I stepped to the side, but I felt most of my Force Armor unravel. Not like the dispelling, but in a somehow more unpleasant way, like it was being ground into powder.
Three shots to make sure that one went down, and then it was only people in the room behind cover. The furniture did not seem like it should withstand anything, but after a few shots failed to damage a couch I had to reassess my understanding. I had to target people directly when they came out of cover. Watching people peek around a corner in slow motion was enough for me to draw a good bead, shooting at a head and an arm and a careless leg. No doubt it seemed like I was firing frantically, but I was actually being quite calculating in my shots with the benefits of Haste.
I saw another beam fling vaguely towards me, striking some of the wall and nearly erasing it, leaving behind only dust. Some sort of disintegration ray? I wasn’t sure if Stoneskin would help against that, and really didn’t want to find out. The only good thing about it was that the ray traveled somewhat slower than a bullet- I could actually comprehend it traveling while Hasted.
Magnet Man ducked down, and I learned one more good thing about the guns. Specifically, that they shared significant properties with other guns, such as many parts being made of metal. A few disintegration beams swayed around in the room, ripping apart the door and some of the walls around the area. A few briefly drove down the hallway towards us, before everything stopped.
“Aww. Anti-control contingencies,” Magnet Man sighed. “At least they might be disabled?”
My thoughts rapidly considered where we might need Chain Lightning. Or some other big spell. As the dust settled, however, I couldn’t hear any more active enemies in any of the rooms. Had they all died? It was possible, but after quickly poking my head into the rooms I saw that whoever had been left had run away. I also noticed a half-melted dagger with no matching assassin. It seemed one of them had actually cut apart my spell as it was chaining between people. That likely only saved a couple of them, but it was still concerning that someone had been able to do that.