Sean’s mind raced as he climbed up the sheer side of the immense, building-sized boulder. He needed a way to win. To turn the battle in their favor. Something that would give him an edge against four different, allied opponents in the most dangerous game of ‘King of the Rock’ he was ever likely to play.
“Oohh, Sean, look! There it is! There’s the pot!” Gel said, pointing his crimson whip in excitement at a car-sized cauldron suspended above a large fire, its mystery-chunk-filled surface bubbling merrily away in the heat. “Look at how majestic that soup is, it’s even more glorious in person! There’s just… so much! I don’t even know what’s in there, but I know I need it in my life. I can feel it in my wobble. We have to dive in. We’re destined to dive in.”
“We’re kind of in the middle of something right now, bud.” Sean reminded his friend, continuing his climb. This boulder is a lot bigger up close than I gave it credit for.
“And?” Gel’s tone made it clear he was perfectly happy abandoning their current course of action, consequences be damned. “They can wait. Look at them, just standing and brooding up there. Holding their silly clubs. We could be soaking in food right now! Tell me that isn’t the best offer you’ve ever received in your entire life.”
“After.” Sean promised. “The second Big Smash goes down, we’re diving right in.”
“Deal… But they better not stop cooking to watch us fight!” Gel said immediately, before Sean noticed one of his former eyes somehow squint down at something behind and below them. “I can’t tell if that one is stirring the pot. It looks like he forgot what he was doing. Hey. Hey you!”
As the slime began berating whoever was currently failing at the forever soup pot, Sean let his friend’s tirade fade into the background. He focused on the fight he was climbing towards, mentally going over their inventory, their abilities, and how they might be able to eek out a win.
When it had just been Big Smash, Sean had had a plan. They had been stockpiling damage up with momentum shift the whole last fight, and he now had a fairly devastating ‘final blow’ saved up thanks to it. Unfortunately, while impressive, that move was a one-hit wonder. Literally. It might still help them take down the chief, but if the other three got in his way then the gelaton would be forced to play his best card early just to survive.
We still have the buffs from death plume up, but depending on how long this goes those could drop at any time. Auntie Ta hadn’t been able to guess how long the effects of the potion would last without testing it, something the druid had been adamantly against for a number of reasons. I don’t like it, but we might have to use the rest of the potions.
Sean was loath to waste valuable, single-use resources on a battle when he could potentially save them for a more dire situation in the future. Problem was, he was having trouble justifying not spending them here. A four-on-two battle against monsters that literally towered over him didn’t sound too bad, except there were four bodies to their technical one here.
Guess we’ll just have to get creative. Sean thought, rolling his neck as he climbed.
He felt no fear. The battle fervor he had been in before had ebbed, slowly suppressed by his undead nature and replaced with a still, immutable calm. Like a cold lake on a cool night. There was another feeling beneath those depths, one threatening to rise to the surface. As Sean reached for and pulled himself up over the ledge, he probed at that feeling. Trying to discover what it was.
It wasn’t until the gelaton stood at the top, shoulders back, midnight black blade and bone shield in either hand, surveying the top of the boulder where his four opponents stood in the now-howling wind that Sean finally understood. Whether it was his instincts talking, his undead nature, or part of the monster he truly was now, Sean didn’t know. Whatever it was, it spoke through him, loud and clear, as the gelaton pointed his dark sword at the enemy’s chief.
At the trespasser in his new territory.
“This.. is mine now.” Sean had Gel convey for them. “All of it. Everything you have.”
Big Smash bared his teeth in a snarl and was about to speak when Gel interrupted him with the slime’s own addition to their threat.
“And your little pot, too!”
Little?
The other three dune giants rumbled with half-amused, half confused laughter as they raised their weapons, but Big Smash forestalled them with a gesture. The giant chief stared down at the pair of them, only twenty or so enormous paces away by Sean’s reckoning.
“You know rule?” Big Smash asked, his voice like that of a hundred rocks grinding together. “Only one up here.”
“Gel, do we know the rule?” Sean mentally asked his friend, slightly off-put at how the fight wasn’t immediately starting after his insulting proclamation. “I thought it was just whoever takes them off the rock is the new chief. What’s he talking about?”
“How would I know?” Gel shot back. “It’s not like their brains have all the information we need in an easily digestible format, I’m doing the best I can here!”
Reluctantly, Sean shook his head ‘no’, though he kept his burning orbs trained on the chief and his lackeys the entire time. More laughter rumbled out of the trio, and Big Smash shook his massive head with amusement.
“Last one standing on rock new chief!” Big Smash announced, his voice like an earthquake.
Cheers like clapping thunder came from the rest of his watching tribe, even the ones Sean and Gel had injured. One had a leg nearly severed off, and was still roaring despite the gushing grey blood he was trying – and failing – to staunch with what looked like the back half of a slain camel. Sean would have blinked at the ridiculous sight, but he didn’t have any time for it. Or any eyelids.
“Oh, I guess we did know.” Gel said simply. “For a second there, I thought I’d missed something.”
As if on cue Big Smash heaved his right arm back, blue arcs of mana wreathing the limb in unrecognizable symbols. With a furious shout, the giant chief slammed his billboard-sized club into the boulder they were all standing on. It crashed down like a thunderbolt, cracking a several foot-wide fissure into the rock itself. Sean felt aftershock tremors vibrate through the stone below his feet even at this distance, and he adjusted his footing so as to not lose his balance.
As displays went, that alone was certainly an impressive show of strength, but what stole the show was what the chief had done to the weapon itself.
Instead of a billboard-sized club, the chief was now holding an immense stone-grey warhammer, the head of which was a deep, cerulean blue. Chunks of stone flaked off it on all sides, and Big Smash switched it to his left hand to shake the right clear of the rubble leftover from his nearly instant ‘craft’. The dune giant chief grinned at Sean as he did, clearly proud of himself.
“Alright, you have to admit.” Sean told Gel. “That was bad ass.”
“Looks more like bad stone to me.” The slime quipped. “His weapon is so much smaller now! We’ve got this.”
“... just uh, don’t get hit.” Gel amended a second later.
“Oh, well there goes my whole plan.”
“What?!”
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“Kidding.” Sean said, stepping slowly to the side as he tried to judge which of his four opponents were more likely to come at him first. All the while Big Smash just stood there, that big, stupid grin plastered on his face. As if he had already won the fight. “... mostly.”
“You first.” Big Smash announced, sounding once more like he was talking to his tribe more so than his opponent. “Then we plant flower, and then!”
The chief raised his hammer to the sky, and if a lightning bolt had cracked down to power Big Smash’s weapon in that moment Sean would not have been surprised. Thankfully, it appeared his foe wasn’t wielding a massive Mjolnir. If he had been, Sean would have needed to rethink this entire thing.
“We go back for druid,” The chief roared, pumping his hands in both directions as if he were already grasping victory. “And take oasis!”
Sean scoffed, and then he began to laugh. He couldn’t help it. Even facing down what he was, the idea that these fools would go back to face Auntie Ta for a second ass-whooping on purpose…
In the frenzied shouting that followed, the sound of dense bones clacking against one another slowly brought the hilltop’s attention back to the undead. The gelaton was laughing so hard, he was bent neary halfway over. Sean felt his body shiver as his emotions were regulated, but he couldn’t hide the smirk on his face as he pointed his black blade at Big Smash.
“I knew you guys were idiots, but I didn’t think you were dumb. Not that dumb, anyway. You already ran from her once. Ran from us once.” Sean straightened, feeding the words he wanted translated to Gel as the smirk dropped from his skeletal features and his burning orbs blazed. Cold, murderous intent seeped into the slime’s tone, mirroring Sean’s own emotions.
“What makes you think we’re going to let you do it again?”
Silence fell on the hilltop, and all save the constantly rushing wind went still. That question was, apparently, enough insolent banter for the dune giant. Chief Big Smash looked at his squad and jerked his chin in Sean’s direction. The trio locked eyes, came to some decision, and nodded at one another. Then, as one, they started towards the gelaton in a half-circle formation.
In response, Sean charged forward, the wind now at his back.
The key thing most people forgot, when backed into a literal or proverbial corner against multiple opponents, is that if you couldn’t escape – it was almost always better to take the fight to them than it was to let them surround you. That way you could at least try and keep the fight on your terms rather than on theirs. Sean had learned this the hard way as a young man in his pre-military days, and his instructors in the military later on had given him a countermeasure.
‘Shock and Awe’ was what they called it. The core principle of which was to attack with such aggression and ferocity that you caught your opponents off guard, and could then use that moment against them to keep control of the fight. If a group was attacking you, and you could savagely down one, then the rest might think twice before stepping in. At the very least, it would make them more cautious than before. A fact you could then use to your advantage.
The dune giants Sean was facing down right now were already somewhat cautious, having perhaps guessed that the gelaton had some kind of plan to deal with them. Which he did, but he wasn’t going to just tell them that. No sir. He was going to show them.
Show them what happened when they challenged his right to rule.
Only when he was within range of the dune giant on his left, did Sean call the shot.
“Both knees!” Sean shouted, leaping to the side of the giant’s upward swing – a move he had noticed most giants started with. Probably because of the height differential. “I’ll add the momentum!”
“On it!” Gel called, though Sean could hear the unanswered ‘already?’ question ripple through their bond. Even so, the slime didn’t hesitate.
Semi-viscous red liquid surged through Sean’s frame. The gelaton pivoted, twisting his shoulders and hips into a full 360 degree spin as he struck. Capitalizing on the motion, Gel’s crimson battleaxe lashed out at the end of his whip, each of them targeting a separate knee as dark mana glittered along the edges of both weapons.
“Slash!” Sean called out, just as their attacks connected and a blood-red prompt flashed in his vision. “Now double it!
You have used the ability ‘Slash’ on Dune Giant for 86 damage (86 total, base 23 with held weapon plus 14 from slash and 16 from momentum shift [cap reached], damage multiplied 200% due to a critical strike and reduced by 20 due to your target’s ability: “Sandskin”).
The pair of them had not wasted their time in battle earlier. They had experimented, both with momentum shift, slash, and with ooze echo – and the pair had discovered something interesting thanks to Sean’s sudden over-abundance of mana. Specifically, due to their bond and so long as they had more than one weapon, Sean could activate slash on every weapon they were holding so long as he spent the extra mana for it. Ooze echo, it turned out, counted.
There was also no cooldown.
“Ooze Echo!” Gel bellowed, as Sean spun in place as the pair of them switched targets to hack at the opposite knees. A crimson twin of Sean’s own midnight blade appearing briefly to deliver a devastating blow of its own against the giant. Interestingly, Sean actually received a prompt for this attack – despite not generally getting one when Gel normally attacked.
Gel has used the ability ‘Ooze Echo’ on Dune Giant for 70 damage (70 total, base 23 with held weapon plus 14 from slash, damage multiplied 200% due to a critical strike and reduced by 20 due to your target’s ability: “Sandskin”).
You have severed your target’s legs.
The dune giant above them barely had time to cry out in startled agony before his newly severed legs gave way. Grey blood fountained into the air, covering Sean and Gel in wide, spurting arcs. Wherever the grey liquid met its crimson counterpart, sizzles of steam rose into the air as the slime eagerly consumed it.
Shock. Sean thought, turning his burning gaze on the fallen giants’ companions. The gratuitous horror-film vibes of the picture he was painting right now, was written all over their shocked faces. The gelaton swapped his sword to his left hand and reached into his pack as that silent moment stretched on, retrieving the second potion he had prepared for this trip, hoping he didn’t have to dip into the third.
And now: awe.
With a casual flipping motion, Sean flung the silver mist-filled bottle crackling with white lightning through the air at the other two. Contrary to his expectations, neither giant swatted at it. These two, at least, must have been paying attention earlier. Both giants dove away from the potion in different directions, abandoning their weapons in their haste to not be sucked into a vortex of death like their clanmates had been earlier. Even Big Smash crouched into a defensive position behind his cerulean-tipped hammer.
It didn’t help. Because the contents of this particular bottle weren’t designed to attack the body, but the senses. The second its contents spilled out, Sean dropped both his pack… and his weapon.
—--------------------
“What does she mean it ‘assaults the senses’?” Sean asked Gel. The gelaton held the relatively small bottle up to his orbs, peering into it. “That’s a pretty broad spectrum to work with.”
“She means it doesn’t explode.” Gel affirmed, talking out loud for the druid’s benefit. “Which means it’s useless to us. Sean here only likes bottles that go boom.”
“That’s your preference.” Sean retorted, twirling the bottle around to look from a new angle. The little storms inside were mesmerizing to watch. “If it’s useful, I’m going to use it. I just want to make sure I know what it does.”
“Oh, I’m sure he will like it. It’s called a ‘Stormbrew’ for a reason, after all.” Auntie Ta’s lip quirked to the side in a way that was almost a smile. She tilted her head to regard the pair of them for a moment before continuing her explanation.
“Have either of you ever been inside a thunderstorm? Not below one. Inside one. With the rain, the clouds, and the thunder all rolling past your face as lightning strikes in every way imaginable.”
The druid’s eyes gazed off into the distance for a second, the memory of some distant time coming into focus behind her irises.
“... Yes?” He had been in an airplane more than once. Pilots weren’t supposed to fly in thunderstorms, but they weren’t supposed to do barrel rolls either. Sean had never met a professional pilot who wasn’t willing to do both.
“Oh. Really?” Auntie Ta’s eyes flicked back to him as Gel translated, curiosity crossing her face. Warabe groaned, and the expression vanished as she returned to her work. “There you have it, then. A rough idea of what the potion in your hands will do.”
“It’ll drop a thundercloud?” Sean’s skepticism had died a few days earlier, when the tunneling charge had blown a mining-company-sized borehole directly into the earth. But this still felt like
a bit much. “How big of one?”
Gel relayed the question, and Sean’s healthy level of respect for the powerful caster in front of them inched up another notch.
“How big are the clouds?” Auntie Ta asked, that same twitch of a smile tugging her lips. “Try not to hold onto metal if you throw that one. It will attract bolts in a way I promise you won’t appreciate.”
Duly noted. Sean thought, filing that important safety tip away for later. Don’t play lightning rod with the stormbrew potion. Should be easy enough. Even dense bones don’t attract lightning.
… do they?