“I almost want to keep you around just to see what your advancement options are,” Levi told the now-unresisting vine section as its health began to regenerate. “But if there's a chance to actually get that rift cat, I'll drop you in a heartbeat.”
He had a hard time seeing the shadevine as a being; it looked more like a magic plant and didn't seem to care what he did with it. He looked at its stats again, trying to decide whether it was worth tying up a minion slot.
Its mana potential was insanely high, higher even than Flomper's by a quite a bit, but it was physically very weak. If he had a lot of them available, they could be cycled in and out as they died, but each one was so fragile he'd constantly be forced to revive them. It might be better to treat this creature as a one-time use attack rather than a permanent minion.
“Do you mind being used and discarded after a single attack?” Levi asked the limp vine.
It didn't react.
“I'll take that as assent.”
Skarm poked him, looking up at him with concern.
“No, that's not a universal policy change, why would you assume that?”
Skarm gestured around himself, eyes dramatically wide as if searching for something he couldn't find, then shrugged.
“I'll bring Two back as soon as I can, I promise.”
Skarm crossed his arms and tapped a foot on the floor. Centoo bobbed his head in agreement, hitting the floor with five of his legs in a quick tap-tap-tap, then looking at the ceiling pointedly.
“Flomper is an important member of this team, I don't regret choosing to bring her back and I won't have you teasing her behind her back,” Levi said sternly.
Skarm pointed at the wall with an exaggerated look of concern.
“She's not a coward. She's an ambush attacker. Which, if I might remind you, you are too.”
Skarm patted Centoo's side with a look of pride.
“That might be true, but you're still not fighting head-on. You jump around from fight to fight, not staying pinned down.”
Skarm snorted.
“I agree, there's nothing wrong with strategic fighting. In fact, I applaud it. But you can't judge Flomper when her methods are only a little different from yours.”
Skarm climbed back up Centoo's back, rescinding the argument, though with poor grace. Cen looked between him and Levi. Frosty hopped up and down on Cen’s head, waving her legs in the air.
“No, we are not fighting.”
Cen shuffled back a few steps, looking innocently at the ceiling. Frosty drooped in disappointment.
“Since when are you rooting for team conflict?”
Cen didn't meet his eyes.
“Cen... are you secretly an anarchist?”
Frosty jumped up and down happily.
“Ah, the spider's a bad influence.”
Cen reared back, putting his front few pairs of legs protectively between the frost spider and Levi.
“Ohh, I see how it is.” Levi shrugged. “As long as you're all working well together, I don't care. But if you're secretly hoping for me and Skarm to come to blows, it's not going to happen.”
Skarm nodded vehemently, and Centoo skittered over to place himself and his rider between Frosty and Levi.
Cen drooped in shame, and Frosty swayed from side to side, then raised two legs in a spidery shrug. Cen shifted to align his body alongside Centoo's, both of them in front of Levi and facing away, and Frosty waved her legs in the air.
A moment later, Flomper poked her head out of the ceiling, then hopped down to land on top of Frosty, who was still perched on Cen’s head. The two toppled off, rolling over and over from the impact, sliding down Cen's back, then disengaged themselves and stood there on his back half, exchanging quick gestures that Levi couldn't interpret.
“You sure you don't want to get in on all this fun?” he asked the limp shadevine. It remained utterly inert. “And here I thought Cen was stoic. Are you sure you're alive?”
The shadevine didn't move. Levi checked its health and stamina, which were both nearing full, and its mana, which was still less than halfway recovered.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
“I like your abilities, but your personality leaves a lot to be desired.”
The shadevine remained unmoving.
“Fine, I'll find an annoying boss to throw you at, then unbind you. Would that make you happy?”
The shadevine gave no hint of a reply.
“Or would you rather stay with me forever? Come on, you've got to work with me here.”
The shadevine lay there.
Levi shrugged and tied it around his wrist. Out of the way, but easily accessible if he wanted it. The shadevine gave no sign of protest at being treated like a rope.
When Levi looked up, he saw Skarm and Cen looking at the immobile minion with uncertainty.
“Yeah, I'm not sure it's a team player.” Levi shrugged. “I'll find a use for it sooner or later.”
“Did you learn whatever you were hoping to find out?” Gordon asked. “Or are you planning to stand there bantering with your minions all day?”
“Yes, the shadevines are very weak, but they have an insane mana capacity. It's not something we can casually outlast. We need area damage and a lot of it if we're going to take on a boss room full of the stuff. That, or some way to keep them spread out and slow down the fight so regen can keep up with the drain.”
Cen clattered his legs, then made sweeping gestures as though pushing something aside.
“You sure you can keep it up long enough?”
Cen looked at Centoo. Centoo looked at Cen. They both looked at Levi and nodded firmly. Frosty jumped up to catch his attention, then waved her front four legs in the air happily.
“And you'll help keep them in place?”
She bobbed in agreement.
“Sounds reasonable. Alright, we have volunteers for shadevine wrangling.” Levi retrieved the other remnants of his purchased clothing and beckoned Cen. “I don't have enough to fully protect you, so you'll need to stay fast and alert, but this should at least protect you from a bit of the drain as you push them around.”
It took some time to fasten scraps of fabric around each of Cen's many legs, leaving only the tips exposed for stabbing. It wouldn't be a very good deterrent against the shadevines, but at least it would slow down damage to the centipedes.
He repeated the process with Centoo, running out of material before he'd gotten more than halfway.
“Were you some kind of seamstress in your past life?” Gordon said. “You keep making up excuses to do sewing projects.”
“I'm not much of a crafter, I just picked up the basics. Got to be able to do repairs and innovation in any free moment.”
In truth, he'd come to envy, and then later resent, those who could spend their days in creation instead of destruction. But by then he'd put too much of his strength into fighting techniques. He'd traded in any crafting potential for more combat abilities and convinced himself that crafting wasn't for him. What little he knew, he considered insignificant and of low value.
Levi stepped back. “Done. We clear on the plan?”
“Run to the boss room, signal you when we reach it, and be ready to jump inside once you catch up.”
“Perfect. Everyone all healed up?”
Nods.
“I'm going now, be ready!”
Levi ran at the rift cat, blade extended as though to strike.
The cat pounced, flickering away in midair to appear right above him, but Levi anticipated its deceptive movements and swung his sword around to intercept it. A flare of mana and Beast Bite clamped down on the cat's forepaw as Levi slipped aside. The weight suddenly dragging on his sword almost knocked him down, but he crouched with the movement and retained his stability.
“I have it, go!”
Everyone else ran past, rushing through into the next room. The rift cat flickered away, its body slipping free of Levi's sword.
It slammed into his back before he could reorient, claws slicing through his basic armor and stabbing deeply into his body, then vanished again as he twisted to retaliate. The motion hurt, his breathing suddenly tight and painful. The claws must have punctured a lung.
The cat reappeared in the center of the room, crouching, but not jumping. If it tried to go after his team, that would be a problem, but it seemed to be focused on Levi.
He'd been hoping he could hold it in place, but he could live with this outcome. They watched each other for a long moment, neither making a move.
The rift cat's teleportation might be limited to three uses before it rested, or it might simply be toying with Levi. Perhaps it thought it had done enough damage that it could sit back and watch him weaken.
Whatever the case, the delay would work in his favor. He was only fighting to buy time for his team to reach the boss room, so any damage he did to the rift cat now would be pointless.
Levi let the glow of mana lapse from his sword as he pushed a surge of health into the tear in his lungs, helping them to recover.
It wasn't a technique he used often; the risks of overdrawing health were far more dire than those of oversurging stamina or mana, and doing it had always been strongly discouraged. Health could most efficiently heal the body at its steady own pace. Usually, you’d want to slow it down further, rather than push it out faster.
But with how deeply the cat's claws had penetrated, he needed to take the risk. He had to be in a condition to run the moment his team signaled.
The rift cat chose that moment to pounce, teleporting above Levi's head again and plummeting down toward him.
Flomper appeared, burrowing quickly toward him, and Levi knew that this was the signal even before she poked her head out to squeak loudly at him.
He swung his blade up as he turned, caught the diving rift cat and swung it around with their combined momentum. The cat hissed and flickered away, but Levi was already sprinting for the next room. He leaped over the pit of shadevine, through the swarms of wisps and their hurled globs of darkness, then saw his team up ahead waiting by the open door to a writhing mass. Dark shadevine filled the boss room so completely that he could see no sign of the walls or floor.
Too late to turn back now.
The rift cat blinked in front of him, jaws open in an angry snarl. Levi was already running on extreme stamina drain, but he pushed a little harder and jumped right over the cat's head, tumbling down its back to topple into Centoo.
They took this as the signal and dove en masse into the boss room. Flomper tumbled out of the ceiling into Gordon's arms just in time; they were the last two through.
Then the door slammed shut behind them, sealing the rift cat out and trapping the party inside.
----------------------------------------