Chương 9: AF Chapter 8 – Bugs and Shrooms and Stuff, Oh My!

That worked just fine for me. Iron, Orange taper, Hawthorn, Onyx, Vitriol, Birch!

"Zojak Quareth!" All eight Shards rotated sideways into flat circles, and then the flat circles spun sideways themselves, instantly forming whirling, spinning spheres of pure force as the Shockwave's effect poured through them, the basic Force damage (which was more cellular disruption than anything) aligning itself with more emphatic bludgeon damage.

I stepped fully around the side of the column, the bug's head jerked sideways at the glowing light of the Shards, and I let fly, specifically targeting its two ridiculously small legs with two shots each, while clustering the other half of the eight in a centered triangle focused on its wedge of a head. The Shards zipped out like arrows, smashing into those small legs and crushing them sideways.

What passed for knees shattered as the chitin broke, and then the blasts smashed into its face, hitting like hammerblows that bashed it over sideways as the crunching grind of the spell hit its chitin, and something cracked and snapped as it screeched in dying agony. The blood was a brighter green-yellow than whatever shot out of its mouth, and I watched the latter hit the ground and hiss loudly as it ate at the stone.

The walking bug pitched over sideways helplessly, its little legs shattered underneath it, and brightly glowing blood that bubbled as it touched the dust and the remains of the mushroom things also hissed and smelled acrid and vile to me. Okay, maybe I should have saved the head for a Baneskull against these things, not that I had the power or resources to make one of the things. It was plenty dead, but that didn't mean I moved from where I was.

As a matter of fact, I just stood there, because that death shriek had been pretty loud, and bugs often emitted a whole bunch of death pheromones when they died, too, which could bring a lot of attention. Something else I could do if I needed to, but for now, I just sat there and waited as my mana and my Slot slowly filled back up. The one thing I did do is shoot out two sets of Vivic Darts. The unwhite flames splattered across the bug's carcass and the main bodies of the thrungus, setting them all alight.

By the speed at which the flames spread in a misty hunger, they were definitely magical beings, and the Land was happy to take them. They freshened up the air nicely as the vivic mists falling off them ignited on the scattered gore and mucus, cleaning up the area... and also digging at old blood or something staining the ground beneath, making me wince. They would make a fine distraction for anything else coming in here, focusing their attention on the misting, flaking corpses being disposed of.

I was not in a hurry. If there was more than one of these things, then I was going to be running a race against it, and I had absolutely no incentive to do that at this point. It looked to be scampering faster than I could move right now, even on those spindly legs... and I didn't know what kind of friends it was going to have with it. I had felt the thing's resistance to magic through the attack, and it was a damn good thing I'd gone for Spell Penetration, or the attack would have bounced completely.

It was also a damn good thing that Shards were MY spell, I had boosted them to the nines, and a +19 Spell Penetration was enough to do the job. Enough to do it every time? This thing hadn't struck me as particularly powerful for its kind, but none of what I had smashed into it had been wasted. Indeed, without the Shockwave juicing it, I had the impression that it would have tanked my attack and lived without much problem.

That was not a particularly upbeat thought for me, as I sat there and got my 6 mana a minute back patiently. Ah, would have killed to have Ael's Perpetual Shards right now. Zip through this place trashing everything, no need to worry about defenses when you could wipe everything out that quickly. I was going to have to tap into the magic of this place, particularly for Assessing Stuff. No-cost full-power Deep Assays would be incredible for reading whatever needed to be scanned.

After all, while Ael had fought bugs and mushroom things before, these Thrungus were something different... and I hadn't even scanned the bug properly, not wanting to alarm it before it got into range, in case it detected the divination magic.

My juice was not all back as three minutes later, more patter-patter steps sounded in that narrow tunnel, and I just sort of sighed. Scattered bones and body parts were burning in multiple places now, little unwhite torches heavily ablaze on the ground, flesh Burning away like wood normally liked to do, only cool and misting, not hot and smoking. I saw the first Thrungus come in, pausing to survey the situation with its vestigial eyes.

The air was fresher as the vivic mist invigorated it, although I had the impression the fact it was consuming the dead was not what the mushroom folk wanted to happen, judging by the way they ran up to the olthoi greedily and surrounded it, wondering what to do as its carapace fractured and fell apart. Its insides were going at it like a small vivic furnace as the magical blood and organs behind Burned cheerfully, gouts of vivic mist filling it and pouring out the rent skull and legs of the thing.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. There were four of them this time. That was nice, they got two Shards each, spinning like shurikens ablaze with cold, fire, and Holy energies this time, taking them all by surprise and shredding them as explosively as it had the three before them. Very quickly, four more large vivic fires were Burning about the place, and, I noted, my mana draw had ticked up a notch.

Mana Conversion meant I wasn't spending the full 20 a shot for the Iron spells, which was good, as watching it go down was a dangerous situation for me to be in. I was pretty sure the mushroom guys had seen the bug and held back after their own had died, coming in when they sensed the thing die. Were they expecting more bugs to come? It didn't seem they were afraid to drag the dead bug away... somewhere. Somewhere a lot of others had been dragged away to, as well.

I winced as I realized that clearing this place out so at least those who came behind me had a chance was a really Good thing to do. And this, this was where clueless people from Ispar were dropped. Who knew how many had been slaughtered after being dumped into this situation? The creatures here probably considered the humans popping in to be free meal tickets! Okay, the more I thought about it, the angrier I grew. As a Ten, I would have had no problems in this place.

As a Three, this place was probably suicide without a group helping everyone out, depending on how many of these creatures there were. Mira would've been slaughtered pretty quickly, I was sure. Without the Transfer-type spells enabling her to get mana back quickly, she probably would have been wiped after a single Buff cycle of protective spells I had completely forgone at this point, and she'd had no Valenced spells to begin with. I had three of my five II Slots and seven I Slots to work with right now.

The high-pitched chitter call resounded down the tunnel again, but this time was followed up with a different one echoing the first. There were two of them coming! I considered my alternatives. I could still take a Paid Feat today, and a Mastery advance for Arcane Pool Theurge. Since I could only take one a day of each, not taking them would be wasting a chance, so I had to take something. Better now than never.

"Metamagic Feat, Toppling Spell!" I hissed under my breath.

"Meditation Mastery/1, Skill Focus!" Because I needed that skill as high as possible. I peeked around the side of the support column blocking the view as the bugs came into the room, and this time I just sighed and crossed my fingers, Assaying them. Olthoi Workers. Said they were Level 50, although who knew what that meant in relative power. The 150 health was a grimacer, however. Whatever was feeding the creatures here was giving them monstrous amounts of Soak.

There was no way I could split my magic to kill them both... but, you know what? I didn't care. I lost a Shard, but I gave up Delimit Spell for Toppling Spell. As the olthoi cautiously advanced through the mist all over the floor, the unwhite fires Burning stuff up heavily, they naturally couldn't see me right over there, and so my surprise was pretty absolute. One Shard to the further one, six to the nearer.

They whipped around at the rumbling sound the spell made, but it was too late, and Mira assured me that my Shards moved way, way faster than the Bolts she normally threw. There was no dodging them as the olthoi got to deal with the equivalent of fist-sized sling bullets moving very quickly! The closer one's legs were smashed out, but I didn't breach the chitin anywhere, even with six Shards. It didn't matter, as the seventh Shard also smashed the second's leg.

The relative check against getting thrown off their feet was +15 on my side vs. whatever on theirs, and applied multiple times on the first one. The nearer olthoi actually went slamming back into the second, whose tiny leg kicked out and lost its balance instantly. Both went tumbling down and hit the stone floor out of control, screeching as they did in identical shrill notes, while I brought up another salvo of Shards hastily.

Their stiff, round bodies weren't made for regaining footing, but I got a very good idea of how powerful the pedipalps were as they splayed out, stopping the bugs from rolling, then shoved them over into a face-down position and started levering them back to their narrow and undersized legs. The second round of Shards blasted into them, staying on theme, losing the Sneak Attack damage. Four for the wounded one, three for other.

This attack breached the black carapace of the second, spraying the glowing yellow-green acidic blood everywhere as the olthoi gave another death-scream of pain. From the looks of things, once the carapace was ruptured, the blood coming out of its veins did something in contact with the air, and started reacting with its internal organs, dissolving it from the inside-out. Well, that would suck... for it.

The surviving one was braced by its oversized pedipalps, but it still went skidding and lost its footing at the multiple hits hammering into it.

It did turn around to look at me with its sharply beaked face and glowing eyes, unable to see me, only the sight of my Shards, one of each hue red through violet, spinning up into existence as vaguely crystalline wedges of scintillating force, which spun into disks, which spun into spheres as the Shockwave was downloaded into them, and a rumbling flight of rainbow spheres trailing ripples, cold sparkles, and radiating hostile Holy light swept down into it.

Its whole side blew apart in a spray of glowing ugh-blood and shattered chitin, and its pedipalps convulsed and folded in as they lost pressure. It slumped to the ground, and vivus ignited on it like it had on its companion. Three spells, two bugs... but they hadn't gotten the chance to charge me because they were both smashed off their feet repeatedly. I had a technical stunlock on them. That... was worth the extra mana-cost of the spells!