Chapter 19 - Prison Break_Trust me, I'm an Engineer

#Prison Break

war·den [wawr-dn]

noun

1. A person charged with the care or custody of persons, animals, or things; keeper.

2. The chief administrative officer in charge of a prison.

SMASH!

The sound of shattering stone signaled the start of combat as the Warden plucked a chain out of Nowhere and flung (more like "shot", as the force behind it was that impressive) it forward. It deflected off Kenobi's shield and embedded itself deeply into the stone ground with the aforementioned sound.

By giving the chain a good yank, the Warden propelled himself forwards towards Kenobi.

"HAH!" yelled Splay Mark as he swung his NaS sideways along the chain in attempt to strike the boss.

When it seemed like he was certain to get cleaved in half, he shot yet another chain at one of the pillars that wrapped itself around the pillar as though it was alive and pulled himself just barely to safety.

But Splay Mark wasn't done yet. He quickly turned and brought his NaS down in a vertical smash, which was blocked by the Warden with the chain pulled taut with his hands.

"A chain, cannot block a heavy weapon such as this." (Splay Mark)

The impact produced by the blow was enough to drive the Warden to his knees, and forced the chain to bend so that the blade struck the Warden on his shoulder.

"In that case... I'll take care of you first!"

The loose end of the chain wrapped itself around Splay Mark's waist, and the chain that was embedded in the floor came to life and grasped his right wrist, effectively disabling him.

"What...!?"

"And now to stop the mage from casting that spell.."

With that, he formed another chain and swung it like a whip at Voltanis.

"[Rescue]!"

Once again, Kenobi arrives just in time to protect his ally from harm by receiving the blow on his buckler.

"Come out! [Ratatoskr]!" Voltanis raised one arm and, of all things, a squirrel crawled out of his sleeve.

"That's a squirrel," said the Warden, deadpan.

"It's not just a squirrel. It is The Squirrel!"

In the blink of an eye, Ratatoskr scurried along the chain and leapt at the Warden, clawing and biting at an unbelievable speed. It was by no means doing any harm, but it was doing a good job of occupying him.

"Ratatoskr is tasked with delivering messages from the top of Yggdrasil to the bottom! His speed and skill are unmatched!" Voltanis bragged, as though it were his own accomplishments, "Notrem! You're up!"

*Finally, it's the main characters turn!*

"[Shower]! [Snap Shot]!"

The Snap Shot hit its target first, hitting him in the forehead, causing him to stumble as he leaned backwards from the force of the bolt {I had removed the flint barrel, as there wasn't anything for me to burn on him}. By leaning backwards, he exposed more of himself to the bolts falling from above.

Critical Hit!

Other than the initial headshot, only one other arrow (I used my Sword-Bow for the Shower skill, as it's easier to manage a high-angle shot with a bow rather than a crossbow) hit vital targets. Of the five arrows created by the skill, four of them landed on the Warden, more than I actually expected.

"Blast You!" the Warden swore at me and swiped off the arrows stuck on him before firing a chain at me.

Moving quickly, I sidestepped the chain, which embedded itself in the floor behind me. Following that, yanked on the chain and came at me in exactly the same way he went at Kenobi.

*Fast! ... But...*

"A telegraphed move lik~"

C-R-R-B-R-R-BOOOOMmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

"Impossible~!"

Since I had long stepped far away from the chain, the punch didn't hit me but there was no doubting what I heard.

"That was, a Sonic Boom!??!"

*A punch that breaks the sound barrier!?*

For something to break the sound barrier is common. The cracking sound of a whip is actually a mini sonic boom. A bullet can easily break the sound barrier as it exits the muzzle. Even Kenobi seems to have managed it under ideal conditions.

But for a person to break the sound barrier should be impossible, and to concentrate all that force into one fist even more so.

"This is the secret art passed down from Warden to Warden. It was developed in order to knock out the two Giants below, in order to bring prisoners in and out without danger. These days, I actually have to hold back when I punch them, as I could kill them in a single hit."

"Tch! It's easy to dodge as long as we avoid your chains, and I even realized that you're pulling your chains out of your tattoos. As long as we keep an eye out for that, you can't even hit us!"

"Oh-hoh! You're a sharp one. It's true that I've been using it inefficiently. So what if I do this?"

After saying that, every one of his tattoos disappeared as he unloaded the chains in every possible direction.

"It should be effective, if I do this, shouldn't it?"

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This Chapter was brought to you by:

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*Wait, did something weird just happen?*

Thankfully, it seems that the Warden's intention wasn't to hit us with the chains, but rather to create a battlefield that suits him.

The chains he fired were embedded into walls and floors, as well as wrapped around the pillars, basically creating what was similar to a laser field seen in many spy movies, but with chains.

http%3a%2f%2fimages.familyvacationcritic.com%2fE...xhibit.jpg [http://images.familyvacationcritic.com/Espionage-exhibit.jpg]

"FREE!" exclaimed Splay Mark, as Ratatoskr managed to unbind him from the chains by chewing through them (wait, what? how?), "But it looks like we can't move freely anymore."

"That's right," the Warden said smugly, "And what's more, I can move as freely as I want."

He took a few steps in my direction, walking though a chain in the process.

The part of the chain that touched him turned into a tattoo as he passed through it, not at all impeding his movements. It was as though he was Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean walking through the walls of his ship.

"[Ball Lightning]!"

"GArrgH!"

"Oh hey, it worked."

Voltanis fired a ball of lightning at a nearby chain, where it was conducted and somehow transferred to the chain that was passing through the Warden.

It seems that the chains were somehow linked together, meaning that shocking one of them would shock them all.

Which only caused the odds to skew slightly in our direction. It was still mostly in the boss's favor.

"You'll regret that!" the boss yelled as he yanked on a nearby chain.

Fortunately for Voltanis, there weren't any chains near the Warden that led to him. It would take two or three "yanks" as the Warden leapt from chain to chain before reaching Voltanis. It was still faster than running, and it made it difficult to target the fast moving boss.

After finally reaching the chain he was looking for, the Warden pulled at it and fully expected it to hold, only to have it snap in half.

"What?"

Looking at the middle of the chain, I realized that it was badly corroded.

"Looks like this sword came in handy after all," said Kenobi, who was standing next to the chain. In his hands was an unfamiliar longsword, glowing with his "Bless Weapon" effect.

From the way he held the weapon, it was clear that it wasn't something he was used to, but rather something he picked up recently and was still figuring out the finer points of.

*That's the Rusted Longsword!*

The weapons that were dropped by the undead mobs in the Prison! Perhaps their debuffing attributes were buffed up via blessing them, but if they could corrode enemy equipment this effectively, then they were definitely valuable!

"Watch where you place your hand!"

The Warden, who was holding the broken end of his chain in shock, received a different kind of shock from Voltanis's spell, followed shortly by two of my arrows in his knees, and then a NaS in his face.

Our onslaught would have continued if he hadn't been able to grab on to a nearby chain and “pulled” himself out of harms way.

Once safe, he fired a spare chain he had hidden somewhere on him at one of the chains above us that linked two of the pillars. Using the chain he held, he made like batman and climbed up out of reach.

“I have more than one trick up my sleeves,” said the Warden as he fired the chain he held at the ground and aimed his “supersonic punch” straight downwards.

The punch resulted in a shockwave that shook the entire room.

You have been stunned!

Time remaining: 1s

*Shit*

C-r-r-R-Brrrooom!

CrAck!

Within the time it took us to recover, two cracks could be heard. The first was the sound of the Warden's fist, as it broke the sound barrier.

The second was the sound of Kenobi's buckler and arm being broken by that same fist.

THwoK!

“HUAH!”

My bolt and Splay Mark's NaS immediately struck at the boss, preventing him from performing a follow-up attack. Kenobi managed to survive with a sliver of health as the Warden's punch had just barely been turned away by his buckler.

Once again, the Warden fled to the safety as he phased through a tangle of chains, preventing Splay Mark from chasing after him, before shooting his chain upwards to climb to safety.

"[Ball Lightning]!"

The Warden's body convulsed as electricity coursed through him via the chains and he involuntarily let go of it, causing him to fall flat on his back.

Stolen novel; please report.

"[Shower]!"

The small hail of arrows missed as the boss rolled out of the way and straight into Splay Mark.

"HOME RUN!"

With one mighty baseball swing, Splay Mark caused the Warden to fly towards the still-injured Kenobi. Kenobi braced himself against one of the pillars, held out his rapier (as he could not wield the longsword with one arm) in front of him, and impaled the Warden from behind.

*Taking advantage of his unarmored characteristic in order to easily impale him!*

"[Flare]!" Voltanis fired a blindingly bright firebolt towards the immobile boss and struck his face, shortly before he manged to free himself of his impalement (does this sentence make sense?), "He's blinded! Get him!"

"[Charge]!"

Both Kenobi and Splay Mark made to take advantage of this opening, but the Warden pulled out a chain that came to life as it repeatedly swung itself at us. Kenobi was able duck behind the same pillar he was bracing against, but the rest of us managed to get hit more than once, with Splay Mark receiving the brunt of the attack.

*Damn! Forgot he could do that!*

When his vision cleared, the Warden began his next series of attacks. First, he fired the chain he held to a spot behind me and used another one of his punches, which I managed to dodge by stepping well away from the chain. But before the punch was completed, the chain freed itself from the ground and fired itself towards Voltanis, and the Warden moved almost instantly towards him, phasing through multiple chains while he was at it.

This went on for some time as he leapt from Voltanis to Kenobi to Splay Mark to Voltanis again and back to me and then Kenobi and so on and so forth.

Due to the unrelenting attacks, Voltanis was unable to concentrate enough to cast his spells.

But when all hope seemed lost...

"Squeak!"

SMACK!

The Warden charge at full speed at Voltanis, fully expecting to phase through the chains that were in his way, but instead was clotheslined by the very first one!

*That was Ratatoskr! It must have set up Leyding and Dromi as a trap!*

(HAH! you guys forgot about the squirrel didn't you?)

The force of the impact was so great that not only did it do a significant amount of damage, but the Warden actually managed to do one whole backflip before landing in a somewhat upright position.

"[Lunge]!"

Critical Hit!

Taking advantage of the situation, I stabbed the boss in the heart with the bayonet on my crossbow barrel. The blade slid in easily due to the Warden's unarmored nature.

Using the momentum of my lunge, I pushed and shoved the boss until I had him pressed against the chain. Splay Mark, next on the scene, grabbed his arms from behind, followed shortly of Kenobi and Voltanis, who clung to each of his legs. In this manner, the boss was effectively immobilized.

"Take this!"

BOom!

CRACK!