4.19

“Fifty-nine. My expectations for the next pit was low but holy fuck.” - Excerpt from Ethan’s Enchiridion of Encounters.

Knife situation had failed.

“Scratch that,” I said to the girl, who I absentmindedly realised was an elf, “Follow me to keep the weirdo busy.”

She helped me up, “Are you sure?”

“It’s that or we let him take out our bard,” I said. The red-skinned tiefling was already walking towards us. The giant piano wasn’t exactly hidden.

“Feel that extra strength and speed?” I asked, “That’s him,” I thumbed towards the sweating orc.

Utoqa was managing the large one, but only just. He was only one lizard and while Mehens, Rivita and the gnome were helping him out, they were only dealing surface wounds. Only Utoqa’s bone tomahawk was dealing any significant damage through the thing’s tough hide, but he was busy fending off the bursts of cold frost dealt by the gecko head.

That chimera hadn’t used its two other heads yet. It almost used the beak before, but closed when its master finished off Noam.

And more worryingly, Utoqa threw away his trinkets right after using them, including the cold-resistant fur cloak. Those things had to be one use, or close enough that it didn’t matter to keep them.

The tiefling was only a few dozen metres from us now. His left hand split into two halves, one grabbing a foggy test tube, the other picking up a chimera corpse. A turtle-like creature with a green shell and dog head.

Throwing both in the air, the arms slammed together, eating both. The lump of the corpse moved up the arm and into his body.

“His right arm is armoured, but not by a lot. Left arm splits into two, each highly dexterous and has at least enough force to cleanly remove an arm.”

As the corpse piece was consumed, a foggy, dirty glow seemed to emanate from him. Green liquid seeped out of his right arm and the cracked armour was covered by a green shell. The cut on his face healed as a line of brown shaggy fur.

“He’s wearing baggy clothing, assume he has hidden weapons underneath.”

The tiefling paused as I said that, before hurrying.

I cast Balm Spores on the girl, healing the bleeding wounds.

“Don’t get grappled.”

His arms split into two and the elf rushed forward.

He began with a right, the large shelled fist aiming for the elf’s face. She managed to parry it, the blow sliding off her blade, but his two split hands came from behind, more like tentacles than arms.

I spat a glob of acid, splashing at the base where they split. The arm screeched as it spasmed, but the man seemed unaffected. A separate entity from him perhaps?

The elf stepped forward, her blade aiming for the man’s neck. Yet when it hit the exposed piece, only the sound of metal clanging could be heard as the blade rebounded back.

She was surprised for a second, an unintentional step back. Just long enough for him to draw back his arm for a grapple.

A bright yellow cap appeared over the edge of the elf’s shoulder, as Yellow threw sneezing spores directly into his face.

The tiefling’s face scrunched up as he sneezed, long enough for the girl to jump out of the damage range.

“Tank, highly variable weapons and likely has all important organs protected.”

“Do you have another way to deal damage to him, girl!?” I yelled as I threw poison spores onto him. Hacking coughs came out as he tried to wave away the green spores.

“Noam still managed to deal damage to his sides and face. Non-essential parts may not be protected.”

“Other than stabbing!?”

“Yes!”

The cultist recovered, throwing out his left arms like whips. The girl dodged, jumping just out the way. I wasn’t as fast, taking a stance, the two limbs slammed into me, the teeth raking through my bark armour. They held, but my footing didn’t. I was thrown off the ground, even with extra strength I simply didn’t have the weight to leverage it. “We really need to fix that.”

The elf yelled in worry as I crashed, “Are you-”

“Murder him!” I yelled as I struggled back up.

The tentacle hands curled around me, I smiled and let out a burst of poison spores. The things fell away, writhing in pain.

Right in front of me, the elf clashed with the cultist again. A glowing sword blow blocked by an armoured hand, and the armour gave. The exoskeleton cracked, drawing blood. The cultist switched tactics, with a spin he tripped the elf, a glint of metal was revealed underneath his clothing. One heading straight to me.

I raised my right arm to block as a long, wicked needle stabbed into it. I felt something thick and viscous be injected. A scorpion tail, some kind of venom was given to me. I flung away my arm, the tail swiftly skulking away before I could attack.

The situation in front had gone to shit, the girl was falling to the ground and the cultist was rearing up a powerful blow. No time to deal with the venom, I had to hope my racial skill would cover it.

I raised my right arm, aiming a bit higher so as to not hit the prone swordswoman, and cast Poison Spores.

There was a crackling sound, as my arm screamed in strangeness. I couldn’t see what happened underneath the bark, but my arm split and bent as there was a sound like popping popcorn.

Multicoloured dust sprayed harmlessly out of a dozen new openings in my arm, just as the cultist punched the girl, throwing her several dozen metres.

The cultist spoke again as the girl landed with a thump. Waving the scorpion tail that glinted of metal in smugness and triumph, “You think I didn’t prepare for mages?”

Of course, he did. That guy said Ivory Tower was a mainly mages guild.

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The hunt was going well.

Utoqa landed the fourth blow on the creature's front right leg, finally severing it. He jumped back, from his pouch he retrieved a claw as the creature breathed ice again.

Throwing the claw to the ground, it grew gigantic and he hid behind it.

The creature could not keep its breath on him for long, for other hunters wounded it. The bow user split in shadow, one jumping onto the creature’s back and severing stitches, while the bow kept firing. Short soft skin and soft skin sword user darted in and out, not doing damage but being a nuisance. Soft skin sword user seemed to know attacks before they saw them, a useful ability.

Frost breath was off him now, Utoqa jumped out of cover, Gift in hand, he slashed at the flesh, drawing black ichor. He avoided that blood, soft skin spear user already lost an arm to it.

The hunt was going well, but he was running out of Crafts. He cannot Scavenge more from this hunt. The metal pieces soft-skins used had better be worth it.

There was a hard crack towards Utoqa’s left, one of his eyes turned to it. The red horned skin had punched another soft skin with enough force to send it flying.

Red horned skin had more limbs now, two where his left arm was supposed to be, and a tail. He laughed at the bark shroom- Dustin, before his split arms took a crystal vial from his hand, and threw it towards them.

Utoqa jumped back, was it like the cloaked stalker- Celine?

No, the creature opened its third mouth. The one that was a large bird beak, revealing rows and rows of serrated teeth, and there was a sound.

Sucking.

Utoqa jumped further away, as a great force began drawing him towards the creature. He slammed Gift into the ground, anchoring himself.

The thrown vial flew in, along with many of the dead prey. The teeth he hid behind. All flew into its mouth before it closed.

There was a sound, grinding. The beak seemed to rapidly spin. It was chewing.

A dirty fog began emanating from the creature. Its cuts healed, burnt skin calcified into bone some places and grew fur other places. A dozen different heads sprouted from its back and four different tails shot out. Shadow tried to swipe at it, only for a newly sprouted head to shatter it.

Its front right leg grew back.

Hunt wasn’t going well.

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Noam’s body lay unmoving, a web of broken stone around his body.

Slowly, unnoticed on the battlefield, a shadow walked to him.

Celine pulled off the hood of her cloak, as she knelt by the body.

“Baba said that Travellers disappear if they give up,” she whispered. “You haven’t yet.”

Her dark ratty cloak shifted and twirled, almost like a living being. The things strapped to her body were changed. From empty potion bottles to dolls, save for two straps, where glowing red and blue potions lay. The cloak handed her the red potion, and she poured it down Noam’s throat.

There was a hacking cough as Noam returned to consciousness, small scratches and scars healed. His stump of an arm ceased bleeding.

He tried to rise, but he was coughing too much, Celine, held him to stabilise him, helping him sit.

“Ah… let me at him again Decs… I can murder that fucker…”

“You can’t! Your arms off!” Celine urgently whispered. Glancing around in fear, trying to avoid notice from the battle behind her.

“Tis but a… scratch… wound…” he muttered as he slowly regained consciousness.

His eyes finally regained lucidity as the potion coursed through him.

“Ah shit, my arm is actually gone,” he disappointedly muttered as he held the stump.

“It’s here,” Celine said, her cloak moving the severed arm to her side. It was cut cleanly and still bled slightly. “I can fix it.”

“How?” Noam asked, a gentle curiosity on his face.

The girl had a complicated face, but carefully she said, “I will need some things.”

“What things?” Noam asked, seeing her hesitate.

“Blood and hair, best given freely-”

Noam raised his remaining arm, pulling a bit of hair from his head, as well as cupping a bit of leftover blood from his stump.

“Hurry up please,” Noam said, his eyes glancing at the fight. “Dusts will give me a shit time otherwise.”

With a slightly surprised face, Celine took a dusty, brown doll from her belts, and carefully, she let the blood drip onto the doll, as well as dipping her fingers in it.

Quickly, but with great proficiency, she drew a circle of blood on the ground, the bloodied doll in the centre, she took the hair and scattered it around the doll.

Holding her hands together, her fingertips touching each other to form a triangle, she quietly chanted in a language old and ancient. One simultaneously incomprehensible and understandable.

“Bind the flesh, bind the bone.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The blood writhed, as if living, rising and spinning.

“Form the link to make like-kind.”

The sprayed hair moved, weaving themselves into the doll, stitching cloth together.

“So bleed as one, heal as one.”

The doll began to shake violently, writhing. The right arm exploded off, white fluff flowing like blood. The doll’s head was slammed into the ground, five times, not more not less.

“Now one fate, forever twined.”

The spinning blood fell onto the ground, and the doll ceased moving.

“Well that was intense,” Noam muttered casually.

Celine let out a tired gasp, catching her breath before her cloak handed her a needle, threaded with a white silvery thread.

“Now this might hurt,” she said as she held the needle.

She placed Noam’s arm by his side, before picking up the doll and its severed arm. Carefully, she stabbed the needle through the arm stump of the doll. Noam felt a pinching feeling, the same spot as the doll.

Celine threaded silver thread through the doll, and a phantasmal silver thread appeared through Noam’s arm stump.

Carefully, she pulled the thread through, before joining it with the severed doll arm.

The silver thread on Noam’s arm mimicked the action, stabbing itself into the severed arm.

She repeated the action, using the silver thread to create another connection. Each time, the phantasmal thread on Noam’s actual arm mimicked the action, and slowly, the silvery thread stitched Noam back together.

“Now that,” Noam said with a smile, “Is awesome.”

He looked at his weapons, thrown on the ground. Dual swords didn’t work, neither did polearms.

“Wait.”

The weapons handles were pointed away from him, from that perspective…

“I have an idea, do you have any cloth?”

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Shit.

The cultist rushed towards Naukoth, I had to stop him, but my magic was disabled. Of course, antimagic measures existed! This was a fucking high fantasy world! What kind of venom did he use? Why did the possibility never cross my mind!?

“Shut up and stop him!”

“How!?” I yelled back as I stepped in between them.

The cultist splayed out his tentacle arm, the insides of it were splayed with sharp knife-like teeth.

I had no options. “I lose a contest of strength due to lack of weight. I have no magic. What could I do!? Analyse my way out of this!?”

“Just block the way for a few seconds!” my other yelled.

The tentacle arms flew towards me, faster than a whip and twice as dangerous. Could I use Pacifying Spores? No, that thing definitely had a higher CON than me. I braced myself for impact, knowing full well it’ll do nothing.

There was a whirring sound, as something metallic spun through the air and severed the mouth arm.

Both pieces fell, just as the weapon hit the ground with a thump and I saw what it was.

Noam’s hook sword, the crescent guard embedded into the ground.

The cultist turned to see Noam standing, his left arm forward in the motion of throwing and his severed right arm attached by some ethereal silver string was holding a glowing blue potion as he chugged it. His remaining hook sword was stabbed into the ground from the hilt end.

He threw the empty bottle to the ground, the glass shattering.

“Now,” he began, taking a deep breath, “Now, you have my attention, you pyjama wearing goat fucking goblin smelling pussy armed son of clype acne-ridden red-faced baboon assed worthless bag of filth pissed from the bleeding dickhole of a gonorrhea suffering murloc spawned from the snivelling worm eyes of a bleating foal. I’d insult you but Mother Nature has clearly beaten me to the punch, or was it your own mother? You curdled staggering mutant dwarf insult to decency richly suffused with offal and the drool of sewer slimes so deficient in basic human cognitive function that it goes beyond understanding.”

He took another deep breath.

“I’ve seen fungi more charming than your backstabbing ass stitched from whatever good looking parts you could beg from a butcher’s store to compensate for your negative charisma. And how the fuck are the sperm that won? I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone actually look better with a knife in their face! I’d call you dung but that’d be an insult to dung! You micropenis bobby dipshit pillock lickspittle gremlin milksop, have some decency and at least try to hide your face! And no, I am not insulting you, but describing you!”

The cultist shook as if physically wounded. Words beat on his body and his face contorted in anger as he turned to Noam. All reason and sense lost.

“And I bet your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!” he yelled.

That was the final straw, as the cultist charged, screaming in a blind rage, his body lit aflame, but my attention wasn’t on him.

I looked at Noam. His posture was slightly leaned forward, his eyes never left his opponent. He picked up his hook sword, holding it by the blade. The hook underneath his pinky and the guard held up in a way that looked like an axe.

“Celine fixed him up.”

And he was no longer smiling.

Noam nodded, knowing I was looking, before rushing the maddened and on fire cultist, an axe in hand.

“That is dealt with,” we both thought at once.

I rushed to check the elven swordswoman, a pile of bodies broke her fall. I quickly checked her pulse, bark moving away to reveal my bare fingers. Still alive, I grabbed her eyelids, forcing them open. Movement, she winced slightly, still conscious.

“She’s still conscious,” a voice muttered from beside me.

“Can you help her?” I asked Celine.

“I have some herbs that can help… but I gave my emergency health and mana potion to Noam…” she replied apologetically.

“Stabilise her,” I said, “Guard her at the very least. I need to help out on the other side.” Not that I knew how.

Yellow had jumped off her at the moment of impact and was surveying the battlefield as I instructed. The chimera fight was going poorly. That thing was faster and possessed far more limbs after drinking what I was sure to be some version of Oasis Water. Had to be diluted or weakened somehow, the mutations were far too random.

If that was the same Oasis Water I had read about, the only thing we could’ve done was run.

Noam was handling the cultist, now purely focused on taking down the opponent instead of dragging it out for fun.

But he still needed his other weapon.

I ran, grabbing his thrown weapon with my remaining left hand, raising it much like he did. “NOAM!!”

He gave me a grateful look, which quickly turned sour as the throw went completely wide.

“Great aim.”

Ah shit, I still had trash DEX.

Nonetheless, Noam jumped towards it, catching it in mid-air by the handle. The cultist tried a swing at him, but he was too blinded by rage to calculate the distance correctly, his arm fell just short.

“DON’T LET HIM DRINK THE OTHER POTION!” I yelled. That last potion remained the most dangerous factor in this battle.

Almost as if reading my mind, he used his twinned weapons to slash at the cultist’s sash. Cutting it off, before kicking it towards me.

Oh goddamnit! That idiot! It can’t crack onto the ground!

I rushed to grab it, jumping forward with my arms outstretched. Crashing into the ground just as the sash hit my face. The tube still safely sealed. With great care, I stuffed it into my cap, before turning my attention away and rushing towards the chimera. The cultist was far too blinded by rage now to do anything that could harm Noam.

Right now I had to stabilise the other situation.

The chimera had grown several times uglier if that was even possible. Rivita was in shock, Yellow saw her eyes go blank when her shadow got chomped, what an annoying drawback. Utoqa no longer attacked, instead focusing purely on defence, while Mehens and the gnome were completely off to the side, Mehens trying a crossbow that failed to pierce that thing’s skin.

They needed either another DPS or a tank.

I didn’t know when the venom would cease working, for all I knew it would last for hours. We didn’t have that.

Right now wasn’t the worst situation possible. Utoqa kept its attention, but we didn’t have an effective DPS except him and he could only fill one role at a time. Torrin had been ineffectively trying to cast spells since the battle began. I needed to tank it and let Utoqa act as DPS. Yellow was running towards us now and Noam had the cultist handled. We had no healer but if we could pull off the classic trifecta-

“Grrf!”

The music stopped. Something I had slowly, but surely put at the back of my mind.

Both Yellow and I turned towards Naukoth, to see the severed mouth arm of the cultist coiled around him like a demented snake. His own shovel-like hands were straining against them, trying to pull it off, but the thing contracted and Naukoth’s head popped like a grape.

“Shit.”

Behind us, Utoqa became just slightly too slow and was hit by a tail. Sent flying before crashing into me.

My vision became rolling earth, but I could still see through Noam and Yellow. On the other side, there was the sound of clanging metal as Noam slammed his axe into the cultist’s neck. It didn’t cut, but he hit it with his other blade, pushing it into his skin. Drawing blood.

He slammed into it again, finally forcing the guard halfway into his neck! Once more and blood sprayed as he decapitated him.

There was a horrific scream and Yellow turned to see the chimera crying out in pain. Only one head cried out, and it was the middle one. The stone feline head.

We crashed into a large stalagmite. Utoqa slammed into me, his fall was cushioned, but he fell off, spitting blood.

I tried to stand, only to fall and realise the ground was shaking.

“No, the whole cavern is shaking.”

Everywhere I looked, stone seemed to shake violently as the middle headed screamed.

Ah.

So that was what the middle head did.

The cavern collapsed, and rocks fell upon us all.

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“Wake up!”

Darkness.

“I said wake up!”

There was a voice screaming in my head.

“Get up you dropped child!”

My return to lucidity was sudden. A moment there was darkness, the next, I found myself in a small, darkened crevice.

“WAKE UP!”

“I heard you!” I yelled back in frustration.

My body felt sore. My right arm felt strange. As if someone had rewired every nerve there. It was bleeding as well. Viscous brown blood fell from it.

I tried to stand up, stone debris falling off of me, including the stone that had knocked me unconscious. My hand fell on something.

It was the Magician card, and it was pointed away from me so that I saw it upside down.

“Where did that come from?” Regardless, I put it into my cap, before surveying the place.

The stalagmite me and Utoqa fell against. A single large stone slab stabbed into its tip, creating a ceiling that shouldered the worst of it. Where was Utoqa?

I saw him. He laid next to the stalagmite, slightly obscured by a pile of stones. There was a large stone shard one protruding from his gut.

“Shit.”

I hurried towards him. My soft blue glow lighting up the darkness somewhat. Kneeling beside him, I brushed away the loose stone and dirt to check him over.

The shard was approximately seven centimetres in diameter and four centimetres in width. Stuck inside where the intestines should be.

“He’s a lizard folk, would they even have similar anatomy?”

“Be useful and search up lizard anatomy,” I shot back.

“Fuck… I’m not sure. These diagrams can’t translate well to a biped form.”

I was more worried about blood loss. Even now the liquid pooled into an ever-growing pond.

What could I do? “You can’t remove the shard, that would exacerbate the bleeding.” I had no health potions, nor can I use magic, wait. No, I had to check.

I tried casting Light Spores with my broken arm, but nothing except ineffective dust sprayed out of the shattered remains.

“Was it just localised to that arm?” No, it didn’t matter, I shouldn’t risk destroying my only other operational arm. My only healing spell was Balm Spores and this was beyond its ability to fix. Maybe it could stop the bleeding, but that wasn’t a surety, not with a wound this big.

What kind of venom was injected into me? Had to be specialised in magic disruption, I was feeling no other side effects. Unless they were extremely subtle.

“Wasn’t your blood yellow?”

Yes, it should be. “It only appears brown because it’s under blue light.”

“Mixing yellow and blue doesn’t yield brown, but green,” he shot back.

“Then what-”

“Orange,” he quickly answered. My vision swapped to his, a google search page. “Complimentary colours.”

Then whatever venom it was, it made my blood orange. Made it a darker hue.

“One. Darker hues, towards red.”

Two. Magic disruption effects.

My mind connected the dots.

“Iron!” we both thought at once.

The cultist injected pure iron into my system. Likely in a dust form. That was why magic failed.

“But how does that help?” I asked.

“It opens up the other option.”

Oh.

Yes, that remained an option.

Utoqa stirred, and I leaned down beside him, “Who is there?” he weakly called out.

“Me, Dustin,” I replied.

“I am… Hurt…”

“I don’t really have the means to fix that,” I replied, slightly apologetic. “My magic is sealed and I don’t have a good healing spell regardless.”

He gasped in pain, straining to speak, “No… No way?”

“There is one way,” I said. “But I would prefer your agreement on the matter.”

“I agree,” he instantly said.

“I- I didn’t even-”

“I agree, Dustin,” the lizardfolk repeated, his reptilian eyes strained on me, the only source of light in the room. “I will survive,” he spoke with a monotone and… almost fanatical type of certainty, “Survive, no matter what.”

I looked him in the eye.

There it was.

The madness that made people want to live.

I sighed. “Very well then.”

From the inside of my cap, I pulled out the crystalline test tube holding the Oasis Water, putting it to the side, I picked up his tomahawk with my left hand.

With only the slightest bit of hesitation. I cut two fingers off my useless right hand.

“Let us be logical about this. It wouldn’t do to find out halfway I’m poisonous.”