Towering trouble a litrp.., p.35
Towering Trouble: A LitRPG Isekai, page 35
“…or just do that.”
The hulking demon troll batted aside the first of the charging beasts with contemptuous ease. She felt it as just a slight pressure against the back of her hand. Wow, she’d really levelled up in the worm’s stomach—or gizzard, or whatever it had been. If only her body hadn’t left her mind out in the cold.
The rest of the zombies piled on, and the scene began to resemble a movie gore fest, with blood and entrails and body parts flying in all directions, shredded by the whirling, snarling troll’s teeth and claws. Saskia felt waves of hot rage sweeping over her, and she struggled to keep hold of her sense of self.
The taste. Oh god, the taste. Most of these beasts had been dead for days, and this sauna of a cavern was hardly the place to leave well-preserved corpses.
Garrain and his pet—Ollagor, he called him—rushed forward in their wake. Saskia sighed inwardly. She didn’t see how this could go well for the elf. Did he have a death-wish?
A familiar whispering sound drifted across the cavern, and Saskia saw that Ruhildi had pressed her hands to the floor. The label and timer over her friend’s head told Saskia all she needed to know. “Hold up, Garrain!” she hissed. “Ruhildi’s casting a stone to dust spell. And I think I know what she’ll do next…”
The druid hesitated for a moment, before halting fully and calling back his pet. The floor suddenly gave way between the troll’s feet. Pressed down by the weight of the swarm piling onto her, she fell forward onto all fours. At that same moment, the floor hardened again, courtesy of Ruhildi’s rapid-cast dust to stone spell, leaving her hands and feet trapped.
“I know precisely how that feels,” muttered Garrain.
Feral Saskia roared and swayed from side to side. She felt herself straining against the implacable grip of solid rock. The ground shook, and cracks began to form in the stone.
Saskia, feeling her awareness beginning to slide; to become one with the rabid beast.
“Now, Garrain!” she cried. “You won’t get a better chance than this! Cut off my hand!”
“You seem remarkably eager to lose another limb, demon,” said Garrain.
“It’ll grow back! Better than being stuck in your head forever. Go!”
He didn’t need to be prompted again. Glaive held high, the elf sprang forward, knocking aside a pair of zombie spider-things. With a wordless cry, he brought the blade down upon her wrist.
Saskia felt a sharp sting, followed by a burning sensation. But this was far less painful than she’d expected.
As Garrain surveyed the damage, she saw why. Despite the force of the blow, it hadn’t severed the hand. In fact, it just barely parted the rock-hard skin on her wrist and stuck there, sizzling the softer tissue beneath.
Feral Saskia screeched and writhed and shook, jostling the blade free as she craned her neck in an attempt to bite at the elf who had wounded her. Garrain stepped back, circled around and came at her from another angle.
In an explosion of stones and debris, her hand tore free. Great clawed fingers clamped around the elf’s wrist and twisted it. Bones snapped, and his weapon clattered to the ground.
There was a sudden, intense feeling of dizziness, and…something else. Something forming in the corner of her vision, hovering expectantly in the air. It was shiny and circular, and she thought she could make out the shape of a face painted on its gleaming surface.
Without waiting to see what it was, she reached out with mental fingers and seized the object. Her view wavered and shifted, and then she was looking down at Garrain from a great height as she squeezed his broken wrist.
She squeezed harder.
This little shitstain had tried to murder her! Twice! Why hadn’t she killed him already!? She’d rip out his balls and stuff them down his throat! Then she’d rip out his throat and shove it up his…
She hesitated, blinking in confusion as a tiny voice cried out for her to stop hurting the poor guy. It was her own voice. With each passing moment, the voice in her head grew louder, until it was no longer a voice. It was her.
And this rage? This was not her.
Saskia loosened her grip. Almost, she let go, before thinking better of it.
“Sorry!” she said. “But it worked! It’s me again.”
“Release me, demon!” hissed Garrain.
“I don’t think that’d be a good idea,” said Saskia. “Touching you was what brought me back, I think. If I let go…”
“I…see,” said Garrain. “Don’t release me, demon.”
“Och, make up your mind, Garri,” said Ruhildi. She smiled at Saskia. “It gladdens my heart to have you back in your own body, and out of his.”
“Yeah, you and me both,” said Saskia.
The solid stone went soft and flowed away from her. Keeping a steady grip on the elf’s wrist, Saskia stepped out of the sand pit, and gave her back a satisfied flex.
She hadn’t realised how attached she’d gotten to this body until she nearly lost it. This hulking monstrosity was hers, as much as her human body had ever been. Perhaps more, given how much she’d been crippled by her injuries after the accident back on Earth.
She looked down at her free arm, admiring the new flesh that graced its length, beneath the splattered blood and filth. Gone were the lumpy moles, and in their place was something that felt more like stone than flesh. She could still bend her joints, but elsewhere her skin had become as hard as diamond. Well okay, maybe not that hard, but still hard enough to stop Garrain’s magic blade from slicing all the way through it. The new flesh was much smoother than before, as if something had sanded away all the rough edges. Given what she recalled of the deepworm’s gizzard, maybe that was exactly what had happened…
Her new arm was positively bulging with muscles. And her granite abs gave new meaning to the word chiselled. After she grew out of her silly teenage drooling-over-beefcakes phase, she’d never been attracted to that ’roided out bodybuilder look, and certainly wouldn’t have sought such a look for herself. But on this world, with all the enemies she’d made, being strong might just save her life or the life of someone she cared about.
Saskia felt strangely unselfconscious in her nakedness today. Maybe it was the time she’d spent away from her body giving her a new perspective, or maybe it was the fact that her newly hardened skin made her look more like an animated statue than a living, breathing creature. Would she feel the same way once she cleaned all the blood and mud off? Right now, it didn’t seem to matter. There were more important concerns.
“Okay,” she said, drawing a deep breath. “How about we see about getting this arlium out of my hand, so we can send you on your way, Garrain.”
Easier said than done. If her suspicions were correct, the reason why she was back in her own body was because the elf’s wrist was touching the arlium, not because of its contact with her own flesh. She explained as much to Ruhildi and Garrain, whereupon he carefully pressed a finger against the crystal in her palm, and she released his broken wrist.
The arlium seemed to have sunk deeper into her hand over the past few days since she’d watched herself emerge from the deepworm. Now, she could only see a circle of glowing amber the size of a large coin. This surgery was going to be long and full of ouch.
“I think you should be the one to do it, Ruhildi,” suggested Saskia.
“Aye,” said her friend. “Methinks the leaf-ears might slip and fall and stick the knife into your back.”
“Now look here—” protested Garrain.
“Broken wrist, remember,” interrupted Saskia. “You won’t be cutting anything with that hand, and the other is occupied.”
“Would that he’d broken both wrists,” muttered Ruhildi. She pressed a knife into the seam where Saskia’s flesh met the glowing red crystal.
Saskia winced in anticipated pain. None came.
Ruhildi pushed harder, using both hands, but all Saskia felt was a slight pressure. And there wasn’t so much as a drop of blood.
Suddenly, the knife slipped and sliced across Garrain’s finger. He jerked it back reflexively.
Saskia stared into his eyes, which were smouldering with outrage. She glanced at Ruhildi. Then she laughed. “I guess you don’t need to keep touching it after all. Nice job, Ruhildi!”
“’Twere an accident,” said her friend.
“A happy accident. Well he’s not happy, of course.” Saskia flicked her gaze toward Garrain, who had his bleeding finger pressed to his mouth. “But he’s never happy.”
“I’ll be happy when I’m standing under leaves and sky with focus in hand,” said Garrain.
“We’ll figure this out, don’t worry,” said Saskia. “Lemme see how deep this thing goes…” She activated her X-ray medical overlay, and held up her hand. A little gasp escaped her lips. She swept her gaze down her arm, stopping at her chest. “Okay, we might have a problem.”
“Explain,” he said.
“Well, as it turns out, the arlium runs really dogram deep. Like all the way down my arm and into my chest, and there are threads of the stuff reaching all through my body. It looks like some kinda glowy red root system.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
“I’m not making this up! I have no idea what’s going on here, but I don’t think it’s gonna be coming out any time soon.”
“Pray that you are wrong, demon, for if you are correct—”
A meaty thwack rang out across the cavern, and the elf doubled over, clutching his groin where Ruhildi had kicked him.
“Och shut your prattlehole, impotent keeper!” said the dwarf. “What are you going to do? Flop your broken wrist at us? You’re fortunate we didn’t just end your worthless life days ago! Sashki has been far kinder to you than you deserve, you ungrateful shite!”
Saskia sighed as the two of them faced off for what would no doubt be a very one-sided confrontation. That was quite enough of that. She reached out and lifted them both into the air; one in each hand.
“What are you…put me down!” shouted Ruhildi, while Garrain just glared at her.
“Thanks for defending me, Ruhildi, but please don’t kill him,” said Saskia. “And Garrain, you’re in no position to be threatening me. So just shut the hell up and let me figure this out, okay?”
She lowered them both gently to the ground. When they didn’t immediately leap at each other’s throats, she relaxed and let her gaze turn inward once more.
The network of arlium reaching through her body was even more extensive than she thought, branching off into tiny filaments thinner than a strand of hair. They extended to her toes and fingertips, and threaded around every major organ. There may actually be more arlium inside her now than there had been in Garrain’s staff. But if that were so, where had the rest come from?
She peered down at her reflection in a nearby rock pool. Okay, this was creepy. There were even threads of arlium reaching into her brain, like some freaky body-snatching alien parasite.
Saskia dismissed the X-ray overlay, sighing inwardly, and inspected her newly-hardened face. Still as hideous as ever, she thought with a slight grin. In truth, she’d gotten used to her distorted visage over the past few months, and she’d long since stopped cringing at her own reflection. Those now-familiar facial features remained—just writ on a tougher substrate.
It was then that she noticed that something new was forming in the corner of her vision; yet another oracle doodad. Soon, it had coalesced into what appeared to be a vial of bubbling blue liquid.
Fantasinating. A potion?
When it came to potions, the colour blue had come to symbolise a very specific thing in games. She had no idea why, but very few game developers even considered breaking from tradition in this respect. A blue potion was almost always a mana potion.
In a typical game, mana was fuel for magic, in a very literal sense. Mages had this invisible well of mana that they drew from to cast spells. When you ran out of mana, no more casting for you.
This world didn’t have anything called mana, but Ruhildi had mentioned another magical resource. She’d called it essence.
So was this new widget on her interface some kind of virtual essence potion?
That didn’t make much sense. There was no such thing as an essence potion. According to Ruhildi, spellcasters drew essence directly from the world tree using wands or staves tipped with arlium. A spellcaster’s proficiency and her chosen focus affected how quickly she could draw essence, the degree of control she had over the resulting spell, and how tired she got after casting it, but there was no hard limit to the amount of essence she could draw. There was no well to fill, and there were no potions to fill it.
But if not a potion, what was this thing?
Saskia reached out with a mental finger and tapped the vial-shaped object.
Nothing happened.
“So much for that idea,” she muttered. Then she saw that Garrain was staring at her with wide eyes. “What? Is there something on my face? Of course there’s something on my face. I’m so filthy right now, there’s something on my everything.”
“There’s nothing on your face ’cept a fair big nose, Sashki,” said Ruhildi.
“I hope there’s eyes and a mouth too.” Wiping her sticky, matted hair out of her eyes, Saskia dabbed at her forehead. Sweat was pooling across her body at an alarming rate. “Is it just me, or is it getting even warmer in here?”
A gust of hot wind swept over her. There came a faint whisper on the air, becoming louder with each passing moment. Was Ruhildi casting a spell, or…?
Crouched with his palm brushing across a patch of phosphorescent lichen, Garrain had an exultant expression on his face. The brittle fronds seemed to writhe and stretch under his loving caress. He swept his hand around in a wide arc, and what had once been lichen billowed upward, engulfing the druid in a whirling vortex of shimmering fungal blades.
Book 2, Chapter 7: Focus
The druid stood before them, surrounded in a column of glowing knives that spun and snapped and tore greedily at the mossy rocks beside him. Bristling barrier, this spell was called. It seemed to be a variation of the thorny vines he’d used to shield himself the first time they’d fought each other. Saskia knew from first-hand experience that the spell would try to strip flesh from the bones of anyone stupid enough to try to push through it.
Her new skin was mighty tough though. She wondered how she might fare against those fungal blades today. Not that she had any intention of putting it to the test just yet.
“I feel…whole again,” said Garrain in a ragged voice. A tear glistened in his eye. “How is this possible? I hold no focus in my hand, and yet…”
A very good question. One whose answer Saskia only vaguely understood. Somehow, she was feeding essence to him at a distance. Perhaps via the same link that had allowed her to see through his eyes.
Witnessing his reaction, Saskia felt a tiny pang of guilt steal into her heart. Had she done the right thing, depriving him of this piece of himself for this long? She could’ve just handed over his staff when she had the chance.
Then she remembered that until a few days ago, he’d been dead-set on murdering her and Ruhildi. She’d had every reason not to trust him. She still couldn’t trust him. Not completely. Not even when her oracle interface showed him as no longer an enemy. Not even when it could catch him in any lie—yet had detected none.
Ruhildi scowled at the druid. “’Tis a pretty little spell you have there, Garri, but if you don’t banish it fair quick, it will be your last.”
His face darkened. “I’ll do no such thing. Would you care to test your magic against mine, necrourgist?”
Ollagor stepped close to Garrain’s side—but not too close—growling softly at Ruhildi’s zombie minions, who were slowly encircling the pair.
Ruhildi raised her hand, and a swarm of small pebbles hung in the air at her fingertip. “Och aye, methinks I’ll enjoy this.”
Drawing something from his belt pouch, Garrain crushed it in his fist. His hand quickly took on the colour and apparent hardness of wood, and within moments the change had spread across the rest of his body. A bark sheathe spell.
Next, he threw something in the air above his bristling barrier, where it hovered and began to form into a roiling globe of amber-coloured liquid that her interface called scorching sap. His outstretched hand pointed not at Ruhildi, but at the largest of her undead pets. A glowing trajectory in the air confirmed that her friend wasn’t its intended target.
It seemed he wasn’t trying to kill Ruhildi just yet. That came as somewhat of a relief. But Saskia had been on the receiving end of the scorching sap spell before, cast by this very same druid, and she knew how much burnination it could inflict on anything or anyone in the vicinity. Even if he wasn’t aiming directly at her friend, there was no guarantee someone wouldn’t get caught in its area of effect.
Time to nip this in the bud before it escalated further. With a focussed thought, Saskia stabbed at the little potion icon in her interface.
And just like that, all three of Garrain’s spells snapped out of existence in a puff of stolen magic. Almost immediately, the heat that had been spreading through her veins subsided.
“I have a better idea,” she said, arching her eyebrow. “Let’s discuss this like adults before we try to blow each other up.”
Garrain gawked at her. “What did you…?” He frowned, and she could feel him reaching for the flow of essence she’d just severed.
“Yeah, good luck with that,” she informed him. “I giveth, and I taketh away.”
Ruhildi snorted, banishing her own spell. “You should’ve waited a bit, Sashki. I were hoping to give him a fair magical walloping first, afore you crushed his spirit.”
“How are you doing this, Saskia?” Garrain sounded more perplexed than angry.
“That’s for me not to know, and you not to find out,” said Saskia.
As they made their way down into the jungles of Wilbergond, her first task was to fix up the druid’s broken wrist, and more importantly, the wound her feral self had inflicted earlier on her friend. She still felt guilty about that.
