Blessed time 2 coda a li.., p.10
Blessed Time 2: Coda: A LitRPG Adventure, page 10
“Veronica,” their father replied, squaring his shoulders subtly as he prepared to stand his ground. “You always complain about how the kids are never home. I know you’re concerned about them, but you need to calm down. They’re both going to be adventurers. Micah and Trevor will have to face danger every single day. Even if you want to protect them, you can’t. At some point you’re just going to have to rely upon them to handle themselves.”
“But Micah’s so young—” She deflated like a balloon, her righteous anger flowing out of her as she wilted under his words.
“Micah”—his father turned to him, tone leaving no room for games—“tell your mother that you’re being careful. You know that she worries about you, and don’t think that I haven’t noticed that you’re playing some sort of prank on Trevor. Your mom might be too worked up to notice that half-smirk on your face, but I’ve been around you boys long enough to know what’s happening.”
“It’s fine, Mom,” Micah gave in, letting his mischievous smile blossom across his face. “I’ve been fighting monsters with Trevor, but it isn’t anything we can’t handle. He’s been really cautious about picking our fights. If anything, you could almost say that it’s me pushing him.”
“Almost?” Trevor hissed, shaking his head at Micah. “Like how you almost pushed us into fighting the nightwasps?”
“Stop picking on your brother,” their mother said absently before sighing and sharing a meaningful glance with her husband. “I think it’s about time for that pie. I want the boys to be safe, but…”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, closing her eyes to center herself. For a second, no one spoke. Then she let the air back out, opening her eyes as she smiled weakly.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was quieter, almost a whisper. “I don’t like to admit it, but Jon is right. I’m upset that the two of you aren’t spending as much time at home as I’m used to, and it’s causing me to lash out. I understand that it isn’t helping anything, but I can’t help myself.
“I think we just need to just focus on having a good afternoon.” She smiled wanly. “Micah and Trevor are home, and that’s what really matters.”
“We?” Their father raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.
“Fine,” she replied with a laugh as she walked over to a cabinet to retrieve the pie. “Me. I need to lighten up. Now stop pushing your luck and enjoy the pie.”
“So Daddy and you aren’t getting a divorce?” Esther asked, wide-eyed, as their mother set a plate of pie down in front of her.
“What!?” Jon interjected, a cup of water halfway to his mouth before he broke in a coughing fit. “How in the name of the Sixteen do you know what a divorce is, young lady?”
“Debby’s mom is mad that her dad lost his job and didn’t tell her.” Esther nodded sagely, a forkful of apple pie traveling to her mouth. “Her mom is upset because instead of going to work each day, he went to some rose petal place. Apparently they got in a big fight about it, and now Debby might get to live with her grandparents!”
“Dave lost his job?” their father asked, cocking his head slightly, his hand poised just above his plate. “I suppose Michelle would be pretty angry if he wasn’t bringing in any attunement and was spending what little they had at the Rose Petal House.”
“So you know its full name.” Their mother’s gaze zeroed in on their father like a hawk that had spotted prey. “Strange how much you know about Basil’s Cove’s most famous brothel.”
“Veronica?” The word was hesitant, almost a question. Trevor and Micah made eye contact, both wisely opting to remain silent. “You know that I sew the costumes for the girls. Of course I know some of the details of their business. I have to in order to do my job.”
“No.” Their mother’s voice had an edge to it that could cut iron. “I didn’t know that you made costumes for ‘the girls.’ I didn’t know you knew anything about ‘the girls.’ I especially didn’t know that you were close enough with them to simply refer to them as ‘the girls.’ I am finding this conversation very informative.”
“Dinner was great”—Micah stood up, ignoring the mostly full plate of pie in front of him—“but I should probably get going. Trevor and I have to talk about our training regime for the weekend.”
“Uh…” Trevor nodded quickly, frantically trying to swallow the mouthful of pie he was chewing on. “Yeah, we should probably get out of your hair so we can get to that.”
“There’s no—” their father began, only to be interrupted by their mom.
“Why don’t you take Esther with you?” Her eyes tried to burn a hole through their father’s chest. “Your Dad and I have a lot to talk about.”
14
Reclaiming the Grove
Micah’s spear passed through the dryad as the tiny humanoid lunged toward him, letting the wood of the haft slip through its body like it was a mirage. He winced under the wet rag draped across his mouth as the monster giggled, letting out a puff of red pollen from the flowers wreathing its head. It reached toward him with a thorn-covered claw.
He kicked out with his right foot, exploding into motion with every point of his enhanced Body and Agility. The dryad squeaked, trying to twist its body away from the blow, only for the sole of Micah’s foot to catch it in the torso and send it flying through the air.
With a wave of his hand and a muttered word, he caught the monster with updraft, preventing it from hitting the ground or a tree where it could take advantage of its Wood magic.
Micah sprinted forward, ignoring the cloud of red pollen as the wet rag around his mouth hopefully filtered out the spores. With his Body attribute they wouldn’t harm him too much, but he certainly didn’t want to find himself talking to things that weren’t there in the middle of a life-or-death fight.
He caught up to the dryad as it floated, squirming in the air. With a blur of motion, his spearhead caught it in the chest. There was a moment of resistance as its wooden body tried to rebuff the spear head. Then the enchantment activated, pulsing destructive energy into the flailing monster as the razor-sharp blade of the spear pushed all the way through the dryad’s tough form.
The small wooden being went slack, and Micah turned to look for another target. Nearby, Trevor struggled with a pair of dryads, barely holding them off with a flurry of air knives and violent swings of a spear coated in swirling clouds of green Air magic.
After ensuring that Trevor wasn’t in immediate danger, Micah made a note to ask him about the ability he was using later. Trevor had never been terribly forthcoming about the Wind-based martial art he’d received as part of his blessing, but if Micah was going to integrate him into his team for the journey into the Great Depths, he would need to know everything that Trevor was capable of.
Despite the deer’s practiced indifference toward the juvenile panther, the two of them made a good team. The buck agilely interposed itself between the large cat and the dryads, fending them off with its antlers. Every time one of the half-dozen monsters around them made a move, the deer would almost teleport in front of it, in position to gore the diminutive wooden monster if it followed through with its intended action.
The panther would use the openings created by the stag to pounce, swatting dryads aside with casual ease or dragging them past the deer to savage them at its leisure.
Even as he watched, a pair of dryads rushed toward the stag, only for it to fend one off with its lowered head while it slammed the other with a hoof. The kicked monster staggered woozily for a fraction of a second before the panther flowed around its companion with practiced ease, clamping down on the monster’s head with its massive jaws.
Before any of its companions could come to its aid, the giant cat flicked its head to the side, cracking the wood of the dryad’s neck while its limbs flailed futilely. Even as its thorny claws tried to find purchase on the panther’s thick fur, she leapt backwards, interposing the deer between herself and the monsters once more.
With a crunch, the panther’s jaw flexed and crushed the dryad. Its companions chittered and squealed as they tried to circle around the stag to get at the panther. Almost dismissively, it dropped the wooden corpse next to a small pile of its similarly deceased associates.
Smiling, Micah fired a pressure spear into one of the dryads. The Wind magic wasn’t terribly damaging, only cracking the creature’s bark and sending it flying, but that was all the opening he needed.
Micah stepped into the gap in the dryad’s formation, triggering the Time enchantment in his spear. A rainbow of possibilities surrounded his quarries as one expertly sidestepped his thrust.
He adjusted his grip, yanking backward on the spear as the monster danced inside his guard, a cloud of spores trailing in its wake. Just as it pulled back its claw, thorns glowing brown with some sort of spell, the crossbar of his spear head slammed into its back and pulled it toward him. Its strangely expressive eyes widened as Micah triggered the sonic enchantment. The spear head blurred, pulsing as the vibrations tore deeply into the dryad.
Micah’s off-hand left the haft of his spear as he grabbed the disoriented monster’s extended arm, ignoring the fading motes of Wood mana after his enchantment disrupted the spell. His fingers closed around its wrist at the same time as his right leg planted itself in the dryad’s tiny chest, bracing the wriggling creature to prevent its escape.
The Time enchantment wore off just as Micah pulled with the entirety of his enhanced Body attribute. For a moment, the dryad screeched as its shoulder creaked ominously. Then, with a crack, he pulled the arm free in a spray of dark green sap.
It sprawled backward, screaming incoherently as the tension from Micah’s grip was released, its remaining thorny claw clutching the literal stump on its shoulder. Micah discarded its arm, wiping some of the sap on his thigh before he grabbed his spear with both hands and impaled the monster.
“A little help, Micah!” Trevor’s frantic voice pulled his attention away from the four remaining dryads that the animals had well in hand.
He turned, just in time to see Trevor trip over a root that glowed with a dryad’s mana. One of the two monsters fighting him pounced, while the other extended a glowing claw, its magic forcing a cocoon of roots to grow from the ground, intent on immobilizing Trevor.
Micah didn’t even think. He triggered the Time enchantment, taking advantage of the world slowing to a snail’s pace to analyze the rainbow pathways traveled by the airborne dryad.
The spear left his hand with the speed of a swooping hawk and struck the monster with the force of a runaway carriage. Even without the sonic enchantment pumping the throw’s damage, the razor-sharp blade cut through the dryad’s hardened exterior, digging through the monster’s heartwood only to explode out of its back.
The other dryad turned to Micah just in time for him to reach it, unarmed but for the skinning knife he’d whipped from his belt. It spread its arms wide, screeching its hatred at Micah as he charged it.
It swung at Micah, trying to dissuade his attack, but he simply ignored the swipe. The dryad’s advantage was in its size and magically enhanced mobility. If it would sacrifice that advantage to stand and fight, Micah would happily trade blows with it. He could heal himself later; a small price to pay in order to protect his helpless brother.
Its claws dug into his skin, injecting burning streaks of poison and disease into his muscles. Micah barked out a word and felt augmented healing slow the spread of the dryad’s magic. He couldn’t hope to match its skill with Wood magic, but if there wasn’t a consciousness to guide the spell, it would be a simple matter to root it out later.
The dryad’s eyes widened as it realized its mistake. The monster tried to step backwards, only for Micah’s left hand to grab it by the back of its neck, preventing it from moving. The knife stabbed into its stomach, barely punching through the hardened bark armor.
The second stab broke his knife, the ordinary steel blade unable to cope with the magically enhanced “skin” of the dryad.
It didn’t stop Micah. Even as the creature’s claws drew ribbons of blood down his flanks, he dropped the hilt of the knife and grabbed the front of its head. His fingers dug into its bark skin as he triggered sonic bolt.
The Air mana coursed through his body, settling into the well-worn form of the spell. Almost on instinct, Micah twisted. Something inside his mind snapped, unleashing a wave of vertigo and dissociation.
The mana changed form as it was leaving his hands. Rather than a glob of mana that leaked energy until it pulsed just before striking a foe, it became a sphere. His hands defined the outer limits of the new spell, its boundaries reflecting back any mana that sought to escape. It still felt like sonic bolt, but without the spell’s instability and chaos.
Micah blinked, an orb of energy engulfing the monster’s head in a tempest of energy. Faintly, he heard a dissonant screech of static as the dryad twitched twice in his grip before going slack.
The spell dissipated and the dryad dropped limply from Micah’s grip. The bark covering its face and head were split and pitted, revealing the tender heartwood beneath. All of its orifices leaked dark sap freely.
He kicked the body, hissing in pain as the motion reopened the gashes on his sides. The dryad didn’t move, and already he could feel its poisons lose their focus and edge.
Satisfied that his foe was dead, Micah cast refresh and augmented mending in short succession. Despite his low mana, the spells did their work, cleansing the Wood-magic induced ailments from his system and closing the wounds.
Trevor broke free from the roots and vines surrounding him, tearing and ripping at the plants until he rolled out onto the grass of the grove. Micah nodded to him as he picked up his spear and turned back to the fight between the animals and the remaining dryads.
There were only three left, and between Micah, the animals, and Trevor, the battle ended quickly. Their spears restricted the dryads’ movements, landing deep blows on the creatures each time they tried to dodge or retreat from the panther’s attacks.
The stag stood firm as the brothers pushed the surviving dryads up against it, giving the juvenile shade panther every opportunity in the world to dart into the fray and kill the distracted wooden monsters.
Finally, Trevor was twisting his spear in the last of the dryads while the panther batted a severed head, chasing after it as though it were a fleeing rabbit. Micah smiled slightly, leaning on his spear. The battle had been a lot harder without Onkert support, but he wasn’t going to risk summoning another daemon until he had access to the trees and a proper opportunity to investigate his resonance with Elsewhere from the last timeline.
He suspected that he could still summon the daemons normally so long as his body didn’t pass into Elsewhere and mark him with its taint, but that was a risk he was unwilling to take without further research.
Still, he frowned slightly. It almost felt like he was casting a ritual when he’d altered sonic bolt on the fly, and that wasn’t something that happened. Sure, spellcasters could research and create new spells, but that was a matter of research and calculation. Even Karrin Dakkora couldn’t change a spell as she was casting it.
He opened his status, and the frown grew noticeably as he reviewed the changes. He’d gained two points of arcana, one point in spellcasting, two Moon attunement, and a new third-tier spell titled sonic orb.
Even the pitched battle against the dryads couldn’t explain those gains on his own. Especially the points in arcana. He’d only ever earned arcana after doing something profoundly stupid involving Elsewhere.
Micah bit his lip. Whatever he’d done, the new spell was incredibly powerful, dealing intense sonic damage at very close range over the course of a couple seconds. As far as he could tell, he hadn’t interacted with Elsewhere, but that moment of vertigo during the battle wasn’t normal.
“Hey, Micah,” Trevor called out as he pulled his spear from the downed dryad. “I’m not trying to complain about the experience—the gods know that I basically gained a full level in just this fight—but you said you could raise my affinity if I helped you clear out the grove, and, uh—”
He paused, blushing slightly before clearing his throat.
“I kind of wanted to spend some time with Claire once we finished up out here,” he continued, itching the back of his neck nervously. “Do you think you could do whatever that ritual thing was so I can get back to Basil’s Cove?”
15
A Chat and a Ritual
“Are you sure about this, Micah?” Trevor licked his lips as he glanced nervously at his brother from inside the half-constructed ritual circle. “I know I asked for you to hurry the ritual up, but, uh, you seem to be checking that book of yours an awful lot.”
Micah looked up from the Folio, leaving his finger on a passage about the influence of the confluence of weather conditions and altitude on the ritual. A frown flashed across his face.
“I would prefer at least another day to prepare,” he responded, annoyance slipping into his voice, “but you were clear that you wanted this done today. I know most of the ritual already, but there were some complications with my magic during the fight that I’d like to investigate first. Plus, it’s not like I’ve ever actually used this ritual before. I’ve read notes on its casting as well as descriptions several times, but there’s a world of difference between a book and practical experience.”
“What do you mean you’ve never done this before?” Trevor asked, his Adam's apple bobbing. “I thought you did this sort of thing all the time in your last life?”
“I never got the time,” Micah said absently as he tried to make out his scribbled annotations on the three-hundred-year-old treatise. “Doing this ritual right would take days and a lot of spare magical energy that I didn’t have. It just seemed like something else was always coming up.”
