Pain like screaming children jolted Tim in the ear.
Holas’s axe swing shattered Tim’s Protection spell and knocked him and Murphy into the wall. breaking through his Protection and shattering the spell.
“What’s that, Jewel nuts?” He-man Warhammer bellowed.
Murphy licked blood from Tim’s ear. The aura generator pulsed, denting the thick ceiling of crusted aura ash keeping Murphy’s power dormant. There you are. His Hunt spell found it.
Tim cast Draw.
His mind flew to another place. He-man Warhammer was tanner and not as famously dressed, smashing a guy in the face for having a good time. In the memory, Geroh’s crushed skull leaked memories of the woman he’d been kissing, and if a guy had to die, the love he felt in that moment was selfishly the most perfect way to depart. Blessings of this love and loaves of aura like warm baguette slices coated in sweet Irish Gold butter panged out from his aching face and woke Murphy’s flesh. Hot as a toaster, it spurned regen enough for Tim to get a little crazy with it. He cast Draw and Heal to spread the woken donkey flesh closer to the generator.
Tim cast Danger Sense into Analyze and shoved Murphy out of the way of He-man’s hammer. He cast Battleground as he stood and, once he had his footing, equipped Farji and cast Flee.
He aimed his sword at the thinnest point in the warrior’s magic armor. The crease at his belt was blocked across the front, forcing him to twist before launching with Peel. He drove Farji into the exposed hip socket and weak point in the crafter’s technique. His sword penetrated and popped that magic bubble like the hammer had his ear.
A brushfire dosed the retreating magic with Spirit Memory from the aura on Tim’s face, spreading over He-man Warhammer in a rush of collecting aura. Memories filled Tim of whom he’d killed while wearing this armor, from Wachamia to Zevehe and the Outer Rim. Holas had been around some seedy places before he became He-man Warhammer, aka the one Tim called “Jewel Nutz” ran through on his first try.
Tim withdrew his sword and kicked the heavy man down around the tight bend in the stairwell.
Murphy hopped onto the wall and walloped brick puddles before ricocheting into the flying serpent assassin. They entered the core of the stairwell and thudded hard enough to rattle dust from the ceiling.
Murphy squealed, and not in a good way. Surprised pain so great he couldn’t help squirm kind of squeal. Before Tim could crane his neck to investigate the hole connecting their tower to a deep pit of darkness, a pillar of smoke appeared and hardened into a thrown spear. Right into Tim’s solar plexus. Because he reads books.
“That might be all you’re doing if you don’t smarten up.” Indi’s voice called from a brain fog so thick he could taste the salt in his nostrils. It burned and wrung its tight grip over both temples. Tim let it, as that salt took on the familiar scent of the enemy before him.
His MP rose high enough to cast Protection. So many steps to plan to execute quickly enough. His fatigue increased the cost of each spell while regen trickled up his mana levels at a snail’s pace.
The enemy swung his spear and cracked him across the head. Who is this guy? Only the slightest glimmer of shape formed on the outskirts before the smoke swirled and attacked again.
The scent he picked up from Indi’s prison gave him a line into the Magic Hunt he cast out to find this foe’s weak points.
I leave you alone for two minutes.
Dryfu tornado spun through smoke to drill a red-hot poker of an attack into smoke boss’s side. The flash of pain illumined enough form for Tim to catch the elbow, kick it in the stomach and slice his short sword across his chest. Double Whammo.
Smoke screen shot a spear through Tim’s shoulder. Obsidian shot from a volcano hot.
“Enough!” shouted Hot Pepper and shot a magi-rifle bullet into the being’s head, splitting it into a thousand shards and dust lost to the breeze.
Darkness Rising didn’t like that.
The greatest warrior of the dungeon chamber commanded Holas He-Man Warhammer to flee, then churned himself into a spinning black hole, until it wasn’t spinning. Only a void, and whoosh. Hot Pepper and her rifle were sucked down the stairwell, followed by a dozen others, then twenty more. They careened off the walls, pummeling Tim further onto the spear holding him in the wall. The black hole sucked him slowly up the ridges in the rock hewn shaft of the spear. Inch by inch, grating on sharp edges, tearing muscle.
More villagers spiraled through the gap on a wind current born of hellfire, enveloping them in turning wisps of black moss. Tips brushed Tim’s face, melting into the skin. Shivers of pain coursed through his jaw and sent spasms into his neck. A cold tendril scoped down his throat, pressing in on a path to his heart.
Tim invited it in to taste its essence. A reverb of his success over Holas straightened a route through Magic Hunt and he added Analyze at a cost of pain so strange he needed to scrape his teeth over his tongue. Molding death hardened too quickly. It filled him and spread weakness so fast Tim regretted taking the chance. Strength faded and left his hands and feet numb.
A spirit flew past, wrapped in the same life-sucking aura that clenched his body like a box of nails. Before Magic Hunt dissipated completely, he tied an essence of Indi’s cage memory on a BB and shot it into the spirit.
In the basement, Tim felt the cage keeping Indi, Holas and… Tim kept pushing…the other end of the tendril yanked Darkness Rising’s chest.
Gotcha.
Death’s sponge sucked the ever-loving will to live, twisting Tim in a corkscrew so brittle and dry he could have been coral snapping into silt. He coughed a throat of daggers, spilling blood on the bricks. He collected another loogie and hocked it in Murphy’s eye.
The poor donkey recoiled, then understood as a gleam lit his pupils and he gained a boost at the transfer of his master’s blood.
Murphy kicked his chest with both front hooves. Aura dust billowed out from the impact as his healing spell disabled Darkness’s tendrils over Tim.
He took a deep inhale of scorched air and sent Battleground on the wind. Darkness’s tornado spell tore victims in a whirlwind of spirits blurring past him, sucking in the Trojan Horse Tim sent in his spell.
Aura wafting from Murphy’s absorbed into pores to bless his nerves. Tim sent the new energy right for the last known traces of tendrils. Magic Hunt and Battleground whooshed through his chest, scanning Darkness’s insides for the next point of attack.
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Another villager whipped down the stairwell on his way to the Darkness and his Black Hole spell. Tim flicked a hand and threw a cast of Aura Light onto the man’s voice. Tendrils stretched closer to his heart, turning his heartbeat into a mad race for help.
A blast of energy erupted from the basement, flashing light into his stairwell. The tendrils hardened and stabbed. Sharp tips punctured his heart.
A body thudded into the wall above Tim in the stairwell. No. No more. The agony in his chest tightened another full turn, making him blind and straight stupid.
The body flew into the passage.
Tim let go of the Magic Hunt in his chest and redirected it to the body. It latched its aura hooks onto the void tendrils and vampire sucked for dear life. Whipping Tim off his feet, the desperation in his foe’s grip fueled Tim’s endurance to make it to the end.
Tim saved the last big portion of MP and AF for his landing, so he didn’t Peel. The turbulence pounded his vertebrae with merciless abandon. Darkness tugged him around the winding stairwell and Tim looped out as though from a water slide into a vast ocean of black.
The rest of his foes had fled, likely to avoid joining the ones peppering the painting like faint stars in its unreal sky.
Tim turned the aura way up and drove his sword tip forward through the vibrating resistance while Darkness yanked him closer. Spirit Memories of the enemy’s recent victims greased his blade, fueling him with revenge and strength to stab and slash a finish empowered by a Double Whammo of Aura Light and Farji’s business end.
The wall sparked and deflected his attack.
Tim kicked off the wall into a backflip, casting Battleground at his next landing.
A blunt object struck Tim in the jaw, spinning him off target.
Battleground stretched far enough to where Tim’s toe landed on the line. A boost of ability allowed him to duck under the next flying black piston. It shot out and retracted into the void in a blink.
Tim activated Aura Blades and equipped his dagger and axe, cast Protection and faced his frickin fears.
A shadow fist punched him square in the nose.
Blood gushed and the force threw him down. His head smacked the ground. Stars burst and reality tilted off its axis.
Murphy brayed and landed on Tim’s chest. The rebound of healing filled him with strength. He shoved donkey hooves out. A red boomerang of aura protection rimmed the outer hooves as donkey flew for donkey glory.
Piston after piston chipped away at the red star dust.
Murphy kicked out a one-two into the wall and was thrown by a piston to his side.
Tim charged the wall and went a bit nuts in revenge. The aura blade eroded as much as cut, absorbing into the hidden weak points. He yanked it out before the surface could trap him. Slashing and driving his blade into the void wall. Spirit Memory bled soul strength from its recent victims, enhancing the striking power of each attack struck cracks his aura seeped into. Once it saturated the wall, Tim sent the light on a supercharged, overhanded axe strike into a wide fissure. Cat Kiiiya!
His axe blade burst the wall like glass. It shattered out, then sucked back in by the tendrils of smoke forming the dark obsidian into plated armor. Seven feet of see you later punk strength flexed under the new gear.
Aura Light Cat Kapow! Tim stabbed into the Greensight guided prick of light. His dagger sliced with white light on a deep trough up Darkness’s thigh. Metal skipped off bone convincing Tim to tuck his elbows, twist, turn his ankles and Double Whammo Aliya! Equipping Farji into his right hand, and noting Murphy’s position behind his foe’s legs, he swung for Darkness’s chest. The impact sparked a room filling flash, stunning Tim’s sword arm. His blade cracked Darkness in the side of his helmet, cracking a chunk from ear to shoulder.
Murphy braced under Darkness’s knees, and Tim Double Whammoed his axe into the other side of Darkness’s head. A second spark as bright as lightning’s handshake buffeted Tim off his feet and his foe toppling over his donkey’s back.
Greensight flashed a green line at the base of Darkness’s neck. Tim turned his handle to match the line, reached back for a full-bodied strike and launched for the kill.
Farji carved at the base of his neck, spraying black Venom with water pressure as intense as a sprung hydrant. The aura heated and shook Tim’s blade all the way through severing the spine.
The suction gasped, releasing its hold on his blade. A purple light strobing through his skin beaconed from every orifice, blinked, and imploded into a pinprick.
This light shot heated XP into Tim’s hands, eyes and beyond. While he hadn’t stopped Holas, Feranand or his acolyte, the Spirit Memories he absorbed from the perished gave him a fire to see these people avenged. His clearing of the prophecy blessed XP into his Priest class, and Ambassador and Negotiator XP rolled in for his work with a local community. Double Whammo, and hand to hand were only the start of the rewarded XP into his hands. Memories flitted into clarity showing Feranand’s travel patterns from Wachamia out and where to hideout to keep the mission rolling even if he had to flee North for a time.
The light blinked out, releasing his tunnel into Venom’s war chest.
He gone.
Tim relaxed his tired arms, scratching Murphy’s bushy head. “Good donkey.”
Indi crawled up onto Tim’s shoulder and slouched in a huff of exhaustion. “I did alright, too,” he said. “Thank you, both.”
No malice there. A little sarcasm, but far more respect and relief.
Tim patted his head. “Glad to see you too.” Tonda was the only one missing.
“She took off on the trail to catch Feranand,” a scout said upstairs.
Tim reached for a water jug from another of Dar’s soldiers and poured some into a bowl for Murphy before quenching his thirst.
“Dar and your friends diverted toward that when we realized Shade was defeated.” The scout waved them to follow him down Chiltonton’s dirt packed street. “S’Trace was wounded. Bring your donkey. I’ll show you.”
Tim didn’t need the help and was too curious of the extent of S’Trace’s injury; he cast Danger Sense one a line for home plate. He’d found adding a twist of Aura Light gave it length and bounce. It pinged off the stairwell brick and zipped out of sight. The burst ricochetted off the stairwell and out like a rocket for S’Trace’s essence.
Meanwhile, aura cookies flaked off Murphy’s neck. Tim crunched into a few, noting a less gritty, vomit inducing flavor. Kinda like Wheat Thins.
Tim’s Danger Sense found S’Trace at death’s door. His brother was also unconscious at his side.
“Break’s over.” Tim hopped on Murphy and gettied up for his friends. A vision of bullet holes oozing Venom’s black ichor drove him at a fast clip.
S’Trace had wrapped his brother’s head wound and cast the last of his mana on the hardened white foam encasing it from nose to the back. He’d passed out with his hands on Hur’s shoulders, leaking from too many unkempt wounds to let him sit.
On the ride to the alley where they lay, Tim crafted an aura arrow with flakes of Murphy chips. Once in sight, he cast Healing Bridge. He drew his arrow and let it loose in time with the bridge spell absorbing into S’Trace’s lower ribs. The arrow lanced the spell deep into the magic’s defenses. A crystalline surface exploded and disintegrated into red dust. In its place, Tim’s spell hardened the magic slipstream preventing the warrior’s regen from clotting the blood; now in an ice texture, it lost its hold on S’Trace’s auramatic white blood cells and started to heal himself.
The magic resistance required several more casts before the stink was gone enough to get him to healing himself. The Bridge bounced and arched from bullet hole to bullet hole, creating a network to allow Tim to better control how much AF he spent on each wound, as well as quickening the attack on the magic poison’s weakening defenses. The bridges carried the boost from his aura arrow and Murphy’s chip enchantment. XP filtered into his crafting skill and Healing Bridges went to town.
Tim readied another aura arrow enchanted with aura chips and loosed it in time to catch his Healing Bridge before it landed on Hur’s head. The boost sent a shimmy of pink surprise into a thicker bridge, with the aura chip magnifying the healing and growth of new brain and skull. Tim couldn’t believe the rivulets of detail in the brain tissue, then skull and fresh skin spreading a smooth surface down over his face and healing cuts, bruises, swelling, broken bones. The bridge pressed the shape of his face like a delicate massage willing the remnants of pain to leave the body.
At the end of Tim healing S’Trace and Hur his eyes rested for a single exhale before—
“Is that a healer!” Someone shouted.
Tim lifted his tired head, forced open his eyes, and melted into the need written on the villager’s soot worn and bloody stained faces. He raised a hand and waived the man and his family to come. His wife held a small child draped in a bloodied blanket. Black grease smeared by sweat surrounded deep burns in the girl’s face.
Tim’s heart lifted next. Priestly blessings flowed out empowered by a steady supply of aura chips and refusal to stop while screams shouted anew to bring healing where needed.
Predators in the night struck while their prey was down.
It was all Tim could do to heal those who returned to him and his donkey, standing tall to generate the aura he needed.