Chương 192: Chapter 427: Gargantua

Gargantua, The Great Devourer of Mulch Level 20 Monstrous Snail Boss Massively Thick Armor, Multiple Heads, Very Slow, Flame Breath, Acid Spurting, Prolific Egglayer, Monstrous Regeneration, Tough. Most of the information that he gleaned from using his goggles was obvious. It was a big snail, and it had bounced cannonballs. However, the last piece of information was a key reason the snail should be dealt with now, rather than allowing it to retreat.

The Collective might see it differently, but Milo had concluded that they were poor at both threat assessment and strategy. They had baited the snails here, but had done little preparation until they began to arrive. And they seemed to be unaware that they were losing the battle of evolution. If their Warforms had been able to handle the last snail invasion, they certainly hadn't this time around.

From his point of view, the Collective had created an ecological disaster by breeding the larger and more dangerous snail varieties using whatever strange nutrients they were bringing in from somewhere else. And while the next snail invasion would be the Collective's problem, what would happen over time? The Deepdown was all connected. They were below the dwarven city, but there might be tunnels leading up to it, or Limburger Hollow. If he ignored this problem, would it come back to haunt him a year from now?

Ten years? That seemed like poor planning to him. Plus, it had hurt his new friend, Ursula, a brave bear who had charged into battle against Gargantua. He hoped that she was still alive, but he didn't dare check with Gargantua so near and able to spew both acid and fire. Having decided that the monstrous mollusk needed to die, he began working on ways to accomplish the task. First, he needed to deal with the heads. The snail might be slow, but it could spread its attacks over a large area.

That made dodging harder, and it was impossible to protect Ursa from a spray of acid or fire. He needed to focus the snail's attention and have it attack him, away from the bear. And he needed to try and eliminate those attacks. Luckily, he had a solution to doing both at the same time. When he got into extreme casting range, he began working on formations for Runic Force blasts. The ancient runes were becoming second nature now, his fingers inscribing the circles of runes, aided by his tail.

Rather than using double casting, which ate away his mana faster, he elected to use two arrays, one centered on each hand, with his tail moving between them as needed. He focused on the green head first. Pure force lanced out in a white beam of light, striking the snail's head and shattering the calcified armored shell that protected it. The second blast came two seconds later, punching into the soft tissues. Both heads screamed, but not with the force of the main head.

The green head shook back and forth, but the red head knew where the blasts had come from. It spewed liquid napalm at him, to no effect, other than burning up a mulch pile. Milo noted the exact range as he targeted two more shots at the green head. This time, the effect was much greater. Green snail blood exploded as two more holes were punched in the head, and it collapsed on itself and hung loosely from the long neck. Knowing it was out of range, Gargantua surged toward Milo at top speed.

Milo took two steps back, which was double the snail's speed of a slow walk, and blasted the red head. He was using a lot of mana on the blasts, charging them as much as he dared with a thousand mana each. Ancient Runic Lore brought down the cost by 60%, but between the mana needed to create the runic arrays and charge them, each double blast was using over a thousand mana. Nothing else was going to break through the snail's armor and tough tissues.

With the +10 CHA and +10 INT from his new staff, he had over 15000 mana. He hoped it would be enough to do the job. The red head was tougher, taking six blasts. The last one hit something important, and red liquid began draining from the head and forming a pool in front of it. Not wanting to waste a good source of flaming damage, Milo ran forward to put his staff in range and let loose with another fireball. The pool erupted in flames, and the green head began to burn.

Both heads pulled back into the shell, and a new shell portion slid down, sealing off the opening. Only the 'foot' of the snail was visible now, and the snail began to retreat toward the largest tunnel in the cavern. Milo had simply hoped to destroy the two heads and force the last one to come out. Instead, the snail had gone defensive and was leaving. He didn't know how fast it could regenerate all the heads, and would rather not find out.

With no visible targets, other than the muscular foot, he took the opportunity to run forward and leap onto the shell and begin looking for weak spots. The foot was all tough muscle and would be resistant to damage. And destroying it wouldn't kill the snail. But maybe, given time, he could burn through it? Targeting the part he could see, he hit it with a fireball from the staff. The snail didn't even flinch. The tough skin was burned with a small charred spot in the center. He began to examine the shell.

Inside the upper part of the shell would be all of the vital organs, maybe even the brain. He was unsure how a multiheaded creature would handle that, but the destroyed heads hadn't revealed anything that would indicate that was what the snail thought with. The only spot on the shell that looked different was the crushed area where the cannonball had hit. He could see that several layers of shell were pulverized and broken. He could also see that the snail was quickly regenerating.

Up on the hill, three powerful elvish wizards pondered their next actions.

"Destroying such a huge threat to the Myconians would surely bring us fame."

"Also, negate our rent for the next twenty years. And while fame is forever, and money fleeting, it's been damned hard to make a profit selling potions when most of our customers are made out of fungus." This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"We could go to Bloth. I mean, after we triumphantly kill Gargantua. The whole city is fixated on sales and business."

"And we'd be in competition with the entire city! Who are probably much more accomplished in alchemy than us."

"That damned snail is worth a lot of experience and Enhancement Points."

"For Shame! To speak the forbidden words that reveal our shameful origins... but yeah... I see your point."

"Then we must aid our fellow wizard in conquering this fearsome foe."

"Snail first, consider moving later." Milo saw the three wizards sauntering down the hill towards him.

"Fellow follower of the foreboding pathway of the mystical arts, we offer our services."

"We will aid you in your righteous quest to save the Myconian Empire from the most malevolent mollusk." Milo sighed, but wasn't adverse to being offered help. He looked at them with his goggles and saw that all of them had a small bit of information attached to their names that indicated they were all in a guild named < Sorcerers of Sigil>. He found meeting other players this deep very interesting.

"Greetings, esteemed spellcasters from the City of Doors. I am Professor Tallsqueak, a wandering sage. I welcome your aid. Please destroy the creature's foot while I search for a weak point in its shell." They looked at each other, shrugged, and moved to where they could begin attacking the snail's foot, and stay far enough away that it couldn't attack them. They kept their voices low as they began with smaller spells and cantrips to discern what might be most effective.

"I'm a little worried, is this guy a player, or is there actually a Sigil in this world?"

"Whew, that would be crazy. But I can't get a read on him, and he's not showing a guild tag."

"He has attained a better understanding of the mystical arts than we have attained."

"No shit! He was tossing out multiple rune spells. We haven't even learned how to incorporate runes yet! That was insane. But is he a player?"

"Well, if he isn't, that means more experience and points for us, right?"

"Only if we kill it, cantrips doing crap here."

"I desire the secrets of his fantastical armor of bone. Perhaps he'll be unadverse to sharing knowledge of the spell?"

"Only in your best dreams."

"Focus on the snail! It resists fire and acid, and has a lot of mitigation."

"Ok, multiple spell time. Let's go with Ice Spikes, Multiple Mystical Arrow, and Doom of Darkness in a simulcast." Casting three spells at once with different resistances worked well. The snail began to take damage, and parts of the foot were blown away. After casting four rounds, they were panting hard, and their mana pools were nearly drained. Milo had completed his examination of the shell.

A small force beam could chip away at the damaged shell, but a larger beam aimed at the same spot was less effective than he'd hoped. The shell flexed and distributed the force. He had more cataclysmite, but not a good way to deliver the force of the blast. The snail rocked back and forth as his allies blasted away at the foot, odd moans and screams coming from the snail. Seeing they were accomplishing something, he leaped up in the air, did a double flip, and landed behind them.

"May I join you in casting? Your strategy is working." Looking slightly embarrassed, one of them said, "Gladly, but we must regenerate our mystical resources." Milo shrugged. That's what Hefty Potions of Mana Restorations were for.

"I can help with that. I usually have a dozen on me. Three each should give us more mana. They come in handy." He held out his hand, his Scout Master's Ring glowed slightly to the player's sight, and a dozen sparkling blue potion bottles appeared on the ground. The players grabbed for them like drowning men gasping for air. Milo topped off his mana with his three, feeling a little burn on the third. Drinking too many potions at once was difficult.

The players downed their first potion with difficulty, each bottle being a half quart in size. All of them noted that the Professor had no trouble with his three.

"You must have a large mana pool to be able to handle that much at once, brother wizard."

"Oh, I suppose I do. But Toughness helps as well. I've picked up a bit in my journeys. Ready? Cast your spells, and I'll follow up with a Runic Force Blast and Harpoon of the Winds, to see which works better." They did as he said, exceedingly curious as to what the hell those spells did. The snail's foot was frozen in ice, then weakened by darkness, and finally pierced by mystical bolts. Milo started with Harpoon of the Winds, which drove through the tough muscle and out the other side.

The Runic Force Blast from his other hand exploded the frozen section of the foot. The snail rocked back and forth, moaning, the shell vibrating as something inside screamed.

"I think pure force is best. The harpoon has too small a cross-section and penetrates too easily. We need to blow it apart. I'd say its Regeneration is almost at the fiendish level, and it doesn't have to worry about bones and other complexities. We need to hit it as fast as we can."

"Ah, yes, we agree, completely." The wizards grabbed for another potion, not wanting to look feeble in front of a mage who could cast spells like that from either hand. Four more times, they focused as a group, doing terrible damage to the only part of the snail they could affect. The snail had stopped moving and was leaking fluid everywhere. It began shaking, and Milo could see that the shell was segmenting and moving. Within a few seconds, the snail rolled up like a pillbug, showing nothing but its shell.

The players looked at each other.

"This doesn't feel like a win." Milo shook his head.

"It's not. It will stay inside until it completely regenerates, and then we'll be dealing with those heads again. Or something worse."

"Worse." The Professor nodded.

"It's intelligent, adaptable, and filled with mutation-causing chemicals. What do you think will happen?" Two of them shrugged, and the other one smiled slightly, "We get a bigger loot box?" Milo stared at him, then grinned.

"Well, there is that. But how about we kill it before we find out? Kill the snails that are left, and guard my bear. I'm going to get creative about cracking open that shell."