The overly comfortable couch pulled me in for a quick early afternoon nap. I just had to get some rest. My overtaxed brain demanded it. Definitely ended up not being a comfortable nap considering I passed out in full battle-rattle, but necessary considering the circumstances. Continuously channeling that amount of pure magical power is not something I’m used to and it definitely took a toll on my body even with magical healing continuously boosting my vitality.
Sitting up in a cold sweat with a pounding heart made my back scream at me, the crystal batteries failing to provide decent lumbar support. Mimicking a long vacation, a full night’s rest, and a blast of wakefulness, a quick infusion of Flesh Sorcery set me to rights and woke me all of the way up.
“I need lights.” I muttered, frowning at the approaching dusk. “And I’m still a damn bonehead. Sleep when you’re dead, buddy.”
Seeing in the dark is for pipedream reserved for black ops military with specialized equipment and I’m not there quite yet. I conjured a pocketful of the flashbang pebbles for later, but kept one of them out. Holding it in the palm of my hand, I changed up the gimpy inscription by adding a dial, my go-to version of a mini-governor spell. The new addition would allow the updated flashbang to absorb ambient mana, of which my house provided plenty, and when I said the keyword `lux’, the enchanted stone would provide a powerful glow of soft white light on demand.
Testing it and popping out a few more lux stones was the work of ten minutes. I conjured and shaped a few ornate iron stands with fancy curved prongs to hold the light stones and placed them around the house. It had taken me a few days but I was getting life back to a semblance of normalcy.
Humans need light. The light from the sun ran our lives for thousands of years. We have to have it, and not having it available when the dark comes clawing at our door robs us of our dreams, the very core of what allows us to act upon the possibilities of life. And how do we sleep peacefully to get to those dreams? With light on demand.
I made another handle of the light pebbles and added a gradient to the brightness with another runic addition so that if I sent out a pulse of mana, they would get significantly bright, about spotlight level.
The fading sun cast shadows that crept across my living room. Hunting time.
*******
Hunting time is waiting time. It’s an art, one that requires patience. I harbored zero false impressions. I am bait, hear me squeak. But this little mouse is angry. Fucking angry. The Tom to nightime’s Jerry. My rage started all over again as I contemplated the events of the past couple days. Sitting in the dark allowed my memories an extra edge, just enough to make my psyche bleed. The love of my life is a tree, cats tried to eat my face, zombies and more zombies and creepy death-wizard-kid OH MY!
Then my thoughts spilled over into a self-defeating spiral of recalling over and over again the simple fact that I’ve almost died several times in the span of three days.
I was afraid, I’m not gonna lie. That fear eventually overloaded itself as it ran headlong into my nerves over and over, no more flight or fight. I wanted to try to sleep, catch some zzz’s before Mr. Scratchy came clawing, but I just couldn’t. I was too keyed up, and also a little afraid that if I used flesh magic to put myself to sleep, I would be out too hard to wake up. Figuring that I might as well put this nervous anger to use, I grabbed some more paper and a pen out of one of the kitchen drawers.
[Goals, what are my goals?] I thought, writing down two columns for my goals, short-term and long term. The dim light from my enchanted sconces proved useful as they lit up the room just enough to read.
Above my goals, I wrote in big letters ‘THREATS/QUESTIONS’. One of my key long term goals orienting on surviving, which part of that would be building a greenhouse for my food and to gather seeds to make that possible. My magic would make that endeavor a piece of cake. The combination of nature-centric magics was uniquely suited for long term solo survival and/or nation-building, which logically led to my second long term goal.
Fortifications.
I could build down like an underground bunker using iron and steel as supports, or maybe just a magic generator focused on giving shaped stone extra power to make it impervious to harm. A hidden bunker, I liked the sound of that. Maybe I could divert a ley line near me with magic from a new mana converter generator; having that around would probably mask my huge power output.
My short term goals would be easier but probably more dangerous. Exploration of the surrounding area would be key. Cars don’t seem to be functioning; I saw that from the old dude grouching about his cars and my own staying kaput. I did have an idea for a stone hoverboard that I could propel with earth magic. There’s two big food stores nearby, a Wiess and a Giant. And not too far away from those is a hardware store and a few pharmacies within a stone’s throw of that. The glove compartment in my car has one of those state maps in it which will be useful for later. My in-depth planning session was interrupted by a timid knock at the door.
“Who in the fucking hell?” I started, jumping up while putting down my new life’s journey. I grabbed my spear and strode to the door. Looking out the quartz window didn’t reveal anything. Again, a soft knock.
“Hello?” I called. “Who’s out there?” I went to the window near the door and tried to get a bead on my knocker from the side. As my face was pressed up against the window something slammed into the locked door from the other side. The force transferred through the window to me, knocking me back. A long slimy tongue caressed the window from bottom to top.
“Idiot!” I cursed at myself. Stupid suburban instincts getting in the way of survival. What fucking monster knocks politely?
“Come out food.” It hissed. “I can hear your heartbeat.”
Uhg. The only thing slimier than that tongue was the voice in charge of it.
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“Come . . . let me take that fear away forever, so . . delicious.” The sibilant tones slimed across my overstressed nerves.
I checked the reinforcement enchantments of my house, still strong. The strength/fortification enchantment backed by my generator had no difficulty dealing with this thing’s attack. Or tongue caress. Whatever you wanted to call it.
All I could see of my tormentor was its shadow flickering across the quartz window. I still couldn’t really make out its visage or what it was but the thing did keep taunting me, and that’s what really mattered. My spear began to pulse with light in tune to my heartbeat. I had been geared up for hours, ready for this fight. My left hand went down to check on my flashbangs.
Now, three options quickly presented themselves. Ignore this shit and not sleep. Go full-on Conan the Barbarian on its ass. Or, lure the creep inside my house where I could apply some pressure from the house wards. General mythology lore was pretty clear that creatures coming into a house uninvited kept them pretty weak which is why they work so hard for an invitation. Kinda like a vampire. I liked the last option the most but that was technically a crapshoot because I didn’t know if it was true or not. Didn’t want to bet on a ‘maybe’.
Also, I didn’t want our fight to get out of control.
I still had my tree-woman in the living room and last I checked she can’t exactly defend herself right now. Besides, Elizabeth spent many long hours decorating the house just the way she liked it and I didn’t want to deal with her anger if it wasn’t that way when she woke up.
[Conan the Barbarian it is, bitch.] I grimaced, resigning myself to the fact that my ass won’t be able to sleep. This was a hell of a gamble and probably not a genius level play, but I hadn’t tested out my spear yet. It’s like asking a waitress at Starbucks to build you a new car from the junkyard and then driving down a hill towards a lake to test the brakes; not smart. Fun, but still not smart. At least I have my guns.
Simple anger overrode that logic train right into a ditch. I kicked open the door with my spell-warded boots.
“Bring it, you skinny-ass slimy-motherfucker!” My spearpoint led the way out the door as I threw two flashbang pebbles right after the dark form stumbling back in surprise. My flashbang pebbles bounced off the banister of the porch and went off just after I closed my eyes followed by a shriek of epic proportions.
[So glad I shoved those earplugs in. Score one for forethought.]
The freak tumbled back into the far end of the porch furiously blinking its eyes. It clawed at the brick porch column or support, its talons gouging long furrows out of it. I grabbed a few more of the flashbang pebbles and the new Lux pebbles from my other pocket. Quickly throwing those at its feet, I screamed “LUX!” followed by a pulse of raw magic overcharging the pebbles.
If the monster wasn’t happy a second ago, it was pretty damn pissed now. The overcharged flashbangs blew it into the yard and wrecked part of my porch, the light hitting the creature like a hammer from God. The demon looked humanoid from what I could see. It was sprawled out on the lawn rubbing at its eyes and screaming bloody murder. At over seven feet tall with the build of an obsessed meat-head put on a rack, it looked like a mutated monkey pulled straight out of a schizophrenic’s nightmare. The sinuous, lanky arms were covered in dense muscle and tipped with eight-inch claws looked absolutely deadly - and if that weren’t enough, the freak sported a mouth full of teeth to make a shark green with jealousy.
[I probably don’t want to tangle up close with that.] I thought, figuring distance would be my best friend even as the pucker factor went way past ten. Its bald head, covered in brownish-green skin, leaked a thin trail of blood that smoked as it touched the grass. Since it was so kind as to be on all fours in my lawn just a few feet in front of me trying to shake off its light-induced delirium, I used my Earth Sorcery to turn the dirt into quicksand. It’s own weight caused it to rapidly sink into the ground.
The monster flailed its arms, paddling to stay afloat and making far too much progress for my liking.
“No, no, no, no, FUCK!” I screamed, pumping more mana into the churning dirt, pulling at its body with earthen hands under my control until only its head was showing. With increasing control as I practiced under pressure, the soft earth eagerly became my playpen of horrors. It acted like a swimming pool of hungry sand under my influence.
[Hey, if it works, don’t fix it.] I wheezed internally, taking a deep breath. Pulling a crap ton of power from my batteries, I blasted the dirt with my will instantly transmuting the earth around the flailing monster to stone. Taking a step back and tossing out a couple more light stones around the yard, the surrounding area lit up giving me forty yards of clear sight. Gotta make sure this fucker doesn’t have friends hiding in the shadows.
A ripping and grinding sound spun me back around. My prisoner had pulled an arm free and was furiously working on the rest of himself. Its black blood stained the hardened soil and stone with an angry hiss.
“Tasty HUMANS full of mana should just lie down! Easy prey DIES faster!” It muttered as it relentlessly struggled to free itself, blood dripping from the jagged stone ripping at its shoulders. Deep midnight eyes narrowed as freedom inched its way closer.
“Fuck you!” I yelled as I pulled out my .45 unloading the entire magazine into the creature. I had it at a momentary disadvantage which gave me a few seconds to test it out. Eight rounds lodged themselves in its emerging chest and belly while one round hit it in the neck. It didn’t seem to care.
[SHIT!] Dropping my empty handgun into my leg pocket. Keeping my AR-15 slung, I hauled it up with one hand and unsteadily fired ten rounds into its chest and a few into its face. The bullets stuck in the top layer of its skin like I had tossed marbles into thick clay and the rest bounced off as if they were rubbert. Gritting my teeth at the lack of utility of modern firearms with this bitch, I dropped the rifle letting it in its sling and gripped my spear with both hands. Thinking quickly, I pulled a quarter of the energy that my battery vest had and channeled it all at once down the staff.
I couldn’t miss. I was six feet away.
The resonating pulse that went from my vest to my arms and into the staff was absolutely legendary. My own mana, all of it, attached to the stored power from the vest and drained out of me as my weapon sucked down all I could offer. I watched in almost slow motion as the pulse flowed down the wood into the three Ripple-twisted crystals, raged outward from the runic channels into three different elements, and then forced together in the tri-blade. Barely contained life-ending disaster exploded into existence at the tip of the spear.
I was not strong enough.
The resulting explosion launched me back into my porch. Thank the Ripple my shield gauntlet was alive and well, absorbing enough of the impact to allow me to stay conscious as I leaned against the cracked brick wall of the porch.
I looked up, furiously blinking through the afterimages. The small suburban lawn was a smoking oblong crater that extended into the street. The far end of the crater petered out to a sharp tip where the remnants of the monter’s skull burned with a green and black flame before disintegrating.
“Holy fuck.” I sputtered and coughed, gripping the suddenly ice cold spear even harder. “No fucking way he could have lived through that.”
The jagged crater itself was molten, the sides steaming and slipping down deep into the earth. Shadows from the lux pebbles made it look like it had no bottom. My thoughts wandered. [Time and magic would fix my yard, but the street, well, that would just be ugly. Asphalt is not a naturally occurring element in nature, meaning I probably can’t conjure it. Eventually, I’ll just fill in the scar with smooth gray stone.]
I yanked back on my current train of thought. [Why am I contemplating fixing my yard when I just detonated a monster to kingdom come?]
The lux pebbles cast long shadows in every direction as they began to dim. They really only served to highlight my distinct and oddly armored form against the backdrop of my house. Clouds covered the night sky as I turned with my spear held tightly in both hands.
[Eh, screw it.]
Figuring that nothing wanted to mess with me for a few minutes at least, I got started cleaning up my mess. Trickles of mana flowed into me from my amulet allowing me to First, I fixed what I could of my porch, substituting conjured granite for modern building materials. Turning to the yard, I conjured diffuse sprays of water aiming at everything around me to lower the temperature and discourage fires. At the same time, I then slowly conjured dirt and clay to fill in the hole. The entire time I was putting everything back together, I kept an ear out for signs of life, stopping every twenty seconds to look around.
It is just so weird to not see street lights, or lights on in the neighbors’ houses, or even people for that matter. My house is literally a few streets away from a college. I still expected to see a bunch of rowdy college students strutting around to show off their epic wishes or bad choices.
My spear finally started to return to a normal temperature. After collecting the surviving light stones from my clumsy battle, I turned towards the house to get some much needed rest.
“Greetings mortal.”