On one hand, Jerome hated being ordered about, hated having to work until he collapsed and then work some more. He had a human right to life, leisure, and the pursuit of pleasures. It was in the World Government's Constitution.
On the other hand, an MMO without quests was a dull, listless affair filled with little to look forward to but the neverending grind. He was sure he’d find the real quests eventually, but until then following Krystyna’s training regimen was the closest thing he’d found to the direction and purpose a quest-giver provided.
His musings might have reached a more firm conclusion eventually, but they were interrupted by the scratchy yell of a gnoll: “There they are!”
At least this training was going to be good for something.
There were seven gnolls in the blurry distance, all but one of them running towards him and Krystyna. Time for battle!
He and Krystyna turned in unison and prepared to face the fast-approaching combatants.
“The devil-woman has multiplied!” one yelled. “Curse these human invaders and their dark magics!”
This would be the perfect time to launch some ranged attacks to soften up the enemy. Jerome didn’t technically know any such skills… but then again, there were still some unexploded trees just standing around.
Options and strategies tumbled in his head. By using Recoil Burst he might be able to not just explode a tree trunk but turn it into an effective projectile.
He put his hands around the trunk of a tall thin one then released a controlled Recoil Burst. As expected, the force snapped the trunk of the tree at the specific place where he had placed his hands. It started to topple and he scrambled to catch it.
The gnolls were a third of the way to them. Krystyna’s armor had assembled around her and she was making the final manual adjustments.
The tree trunk was heavier and more unwieldy than Jerome had expected. It crashed painfully into his arm, which it used as a pivot, the longer part continuing to fall and the smaller part coming up to barely miss his face.
He moved to stabilize it then realized that even if he could hold it properly in his arms he couldn’t get his hands to the right part to launch it.
He dropped the tree.
The gnolls were two thirds of the way to them. There was still time to try one more thing…
A rock. He spotted a perfect-sized one five feet away. Too big and he wouldn’t be able to hold it properly. Too small and…. Well, he wasn’t quite sure. Would it be like a bullet, faster because of the decreased mass, or would it move the same speed as a bigger rock?
No time to experiment. The gnolls had almost reached them.
One of the gnolls raised a spear and looked like it was about to throw it. That would be his target.
He held the stone in front of him with both hands, hastily adjusting his hands so he could support the rock but also not blow off a thumb or finger in the blast. He could get a new body, sure, but in the meantime it would hurt. And who knew how many HP it would take off.
Once his aim was lined up he released as much into Recoil Burst as he could. It took 10 SP (more than usual), but it was effective: the rock zoomed forward straight into the head of the gnoll, knocking it clean off.
“Did you see that?” He whooped. “That was amazing!”
But there was no time to celebrate. Krystyna had already stepped into the middle of pack, the five remaining ones who hadn’t stopped at the beginning or slowed down to try and throw a spear.
The other one, the one hanging back… was it injured? No matter. It didn’t seem to be armed, so he ignored it.
Time to go make some more gnolls’ heads explode.
The problem with that plan was that Krystyna was in the middle of the gnolls. She had more HP than the gnolls, but there was no telling how much overkill went into that shot. He didn’t want to risk destroying his trainer, friend, and maybe-possibly-sexy-times-buddy. He’d seen enough movies to know that if he saved her a couple more times — and respected her intensely while always following her wishes — she’d fall into his arms, smitten forever. Movies would never lie about something like that.
First, though, he had to figure out how to save her. He ran towards her position, strategizing the whole way.
Krystyna dodged a gnoll’s strike and delivered an elbow to its back as it stumbled past her. However, before she could lay on hands and activate Recoil Burst another gnoll swung a club at her. She bent backwards to avoid the swing, then caught that gnoll’s arm in an elbow lock, one hand on the back of its elbow and another on the wrist that held the club. Against a normal opponent this hold would take some time capitalize on, and in the five-against-one melee a quick-witted gnoll might escape before critical pressure could be applied. However, Krystyna was not a normal opponent. She activated Recoil Burst and the gnoll’s arm broke, flinging the elbow in the exact wrong way with a crunch so loud and sickening that it temporarily startled the other gnolls.
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That gave her an opportunity to her hands on another gnoll’s chest and burst the creature backwards, taking it out of the melee for now.
Jerome reached the fight and copied Krystyna’s strategy as best as he could. Before the gnolls took note of his entry he placed his hands against a gnoll’s back, positioning them to— nope, took too long. The gnoll spun around and knocked Jerome in the chest with a club, taking off fifteen percent of his health.
Lesson learned: burst quickly. He realized how useful grappling could be when combined with Recoil Burst; when performing her burst Krystyna had been able to keep her hands stuck to its chest even when it tried to back out of the dangerous position.
Another lesson learned: don’t contemplate future training plans while in battle. The gnoll already had its club pulled back for a second strike and Jerome barely dodged it.
He tried to hit the creature, but the punch barely phased it. For now, it appeared, Recoil Burst was his best shot at contributing.
Krystyna kicked another gnoll behind the knees, knocking its legs out from under it. She recoil bursted it into the ground, its head bouncing several times.
It wasn’t dead though.
Jerome ran over to finish the job, forgetting the gnoll behind him. A solid strike of its club, connecting loudly with Jerome’s back, took thirty percent off his health and sent him tumbling forward.
The gnoll loomed over him, preparing what it clearly thought could be a killing blow. It reared back, club behind its head. Jerome inched his feet forward just a bit and put them on the gnoll’s ankles.
And activated Recoil Burst.
The gnoll’s ankles blew backwards. They might have broken. But it wasn’t all good: center of mass being what it was, the rest of the gnoll fell on top of Jerome and took another five percent off of his health bar.
This was a problem because Jerome was not especially strong, and the Grappling skill he’d inherited from Krystyna wasn’t fully activated by practice yet. So the gnoll, not missing a beat, started clawing Jerome’s face and neck.
If he could just get his hands some purchase on the thing’s chest, its arms… anywhere, really. He tried to put his hands on its stomach, thinking it might not notice or be able to move out of time quickly enough, but the gnoll simply took a short break from savaging Jerome’s face to bat the arms away.
Jerome was down to 10% health. He needed to transform.
Would you like to transform?
* Norrruru (ockdine, 19 hours remaining)
* Nabako (gnoll, 24 hours remaining)
Ockdine or gnoll? The ockdine might be more effective in battle… but the gnoll could cause so much more chaos. Also, gnoll and human speech seemed mutually intelligible, and he wanted to be able to communicate with Krystyna to coordinate tactics.
He selected Nabako, the gnoll.
The transformation took hold, his limbs sprouting hair, his muscles bulging, his posture becoming more stooped and feral. His HP bar went back up to 100%.
Nice.
He took advantage of his opponent’s confusion and clawed at its face, then kicked at the thing’s body to extricate himself.
From there he was free to run around slashing at the others, harrying them and causing confusion. He slashed at one of them. It swiped back then paused in confusion, giving Jerome a chance to get in a second swipe. Then the slaughter started. Simply put, Jerome was half as good at being a gnoll as the gnoll whose body he stole. He could cause confusion and distraction, but as a battlefield force his current form left something to be desired. Also, the gnoll that had pinned him: not confused anymore.
So he scampered backwards, taunting the two gnolls and drawing them away from Krystyna.
Krystyna was kicking ass, but she was down to half of her health. More worryingly, she was down to a quarter of her SP.
That was to be expected with a long battle. Several of the gnolls must be close to death and after that things would get easier. That’s how these things worked.
He inspected one in order to get a gauge on things and saw, to his chagrin, that it was at full health.
As was the next one.
And the next.
Looking around, he couldn’t find the gnoll with the broken arm. There were five of them and none of them had broken arms.
Of course! The gnoll that stayed back… it was a healer!
Jerome sprinted as fast as his gnoll legs could carry him away from his current opponent and towards the magic user. It looked at him with a smirk. Did it not see the transformation? Did it not know that Jerome was coming to kill it?
He lunged, claws bared, snarling… then, just before he was about to claw the smile right off the creature’s face, Jerome stopped in mid-air.
He hung there, suspended and confused. His legs were off the ground, and he could move his limbs as much as he wanted, but his center of mass was trapped in one spot. He was pinned to the air like a butterly to a naturalist’s board. His swipes, though they came within a half foot of the healer’s face, were completely ineffective at hurting it or getting himself out of this spot.
Krystyna was too far away to help, and her position wasn’t looking so good. Four gnolls had her surrounded and on the ground. One tried to pin her and got appropriately launched into the sky, but two of the others kept just the right distance to poke her with their spears while another used his club as a bludgeon. Her SP was low enough that she could do little but dodge and roll, and even that ineffectively. Jerome saw one of the club strikes slam into her arm.
The cry of pain she gave fill him with dread. She who had dispatched the first batch of gnolls with ease. She who felt confident enough to order him around in training. A man feels an instinctive protectiveness towards beautiful woman and a natural fear of whatever can hurt the kind and strong people who mentor them. The current situation triggered both of these feelings in Jerome, all while he couldn’t move his center of mass even an inch. He was enraged and terrified.
Time to get out of this trap.
Would you like to transform?
* Norrruru (ockdine, 19 hours remaining)
* Tikak (gnoll, 24 hours remaining)
He selected the gnoll, Tikak. He was already in gnoll-form, so the change wasn’t dramatic, but he could feel his facial structure changing. In addition, the couple hits he’d taken off of his health were healed up.
. But one important thing didn’t happen: he wasn’t freed from the magical spell like he was supposed to be. MMOs had been very clear on this point, that changing form freed you from all movement impairments.
Jerome felt betrayed by the very fabric of reality.
The mage inched towards him but stayed just out of his reach of Jerome’s claws. It regarded him with clinical interest.
“That’s an interesting ability you have, human. Time to pick you apart.”