Chương 31: 31 loop 1, part 11

I cast [Bang] in the air, a foot from the Froll's ear. 7 mana bought a burst of light and a crack of sound that rolled through the cavern. The Froll flinched mid-swing, missing my uncle and battering the ground. Chips of rock skittered across the floor, and the Froll snapped its head toward the sound. The tether pulsed once, then guttered like a candle fighting wind. I stared ahead. The difference between rescue and being too late again was one arm's length. I bought myself seconds. I planned to use them."

[Ex Nihilo Caseum]." The wheel condensed into my hand—warm, perfect, about to be wasted. And I rolled it across the floor, away from my uncle, toward the far stacks. The Froll's head turned, tracking the wheel the entire way. Then, it dropped onto its knuckles and went after it. It picked up the wheel between two fingers, delicate as a grape, and ate it all in one bite, chomping on its own fingers in the process. It didn't react to that at all. I was already moving, cutting across the clearing toward my uncle.

I made it maybe halfway before the Froll turned around and started walking back toward him, blue blood staining its teeth. The cheese worked. It just didn't hold its attention long enough for me to cross a clearing. I needed distance, not seconds. I cast the spell again and threw this one farther, deeper into the room. And the Froll followed it all the way out of sight. The knocking, the knuckles, and its horrible bulk were completely hidden behind a section of shelves.

I exhaled and finished crossing to my uncle, putting myself between him and the direction the Froll would be return from. It came back sucking on its fingers, already having swallowed the cheese wheel. It turned its head toward me. It looked in the air where the cheese wheels had magically appeared, and then settled on me and the wand in my hand. It grinned. I wasn't aware Frollarts—and by extension Frolls—were smart enough to make that connection. The Froll forgot about my uncle completely. It charged.

And I learned that something three times my height covers a space very, very fast. I went up and sideways, kicking off a shelf, and its fist tore through the space I'd just left. Books I had no time to mourn went everywhere. I was three feet off the ground and climbing, but it didn't matter, because the thing was three times my height. Altitude wasn't going to save me. It was just a slightly better seat to my own slaughter. I threw [Trip] at its bandages mid-stride.

The wrappings on its leading arm seized and knotted, and it stumbled half a step before the gauze tore again. Its charge didn't even slow. It stepped over the old [Slick] puddle without slipping. That trick had already been spent. It tried to cut me off and shoulder checked an entire stack. Books burst outward in a dusty wave, and one clipped the book under my arm. I twisted wrong to protect it mid-dodge, and the Froll's backhand caught me across the shoulder.

Glancing, but glancing from something that size still sent me spinning through the air like a thrown toy. Because apparently, I valued literature more than my own life. In my defense, the book had been helpful, and my life had been mostly inconvenient as of late. It wasn't a clean comparison. I spun twice before I caught myself. I patted my chest and confirmed everything important was still attached. That was the price of the book. Paid once. I didn't intend to pay it again.

Showing that both the books and I had severely underestimated the potential intelligence of these monsters, it stopped chasing me and started throwing things. A fistful of rubble came rattling through the stacks like hail. [Wideview] handed me every piece the moment it left the fist, arcs and all. I drifted between them with small, bored corrections, the way you'd step around puddles. Dodging was the one physical discipline I had ever respected, because done correctly, it was barely physical at all.

The follow-up was a section of shelf—it wrenched the thing off its base, stone and all, and threw the whole assembly end over end. Too big to lean past. I kicked off the nearest stack. The spin carried me over the top, and I felt the wind of it pass under my boots. The shelf missed me by an inch, and took out the row behind me in an explosion of paper and gravel. This gave me a fresh respect for people who chose Dungeon Track—who did this on purpose, for fun, with their actual legs.

And multiple questions about their sanity. I put another row of stacks between us and hovered there, breathing, while it tore through the row in front of me like paper. The problem I was having was scale. Almost every spell I owned cost ten mana or less and usually worked on enchanting objects. However, the only parts of this creature worth interfering with were tiny scraps of fabric that did little to halt its advance.

I needed something that would hold it long enough for [Constrict] or [Trip] to actually do real damage. And while I preferred not to spend a ton of mana, most of the night, more expensive spells had been saving my ass. So it was time to try something different. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author." [Third Arm]." [Third Arm - Manifestation] Cost: 40 mana. Manifests an arm and hand made of directed force under the caster's control.

The hand can act on the world, but the world cannot act on the hand. Duration: 5 minutes or until dispelled. The spell was intended for use in kitchens, and magical labs to make work loads easier, but most people dismissed its usefulness outside of those situations, myself included. But the fact that the world couldn't interact with it, made all of the difference here. Honestly, sounded like a better life than mine. A hand condensed out of the air between us—translucent, faintly blue, exactly the size of mine.

I'd watched Sara use it in a match. And I kind of learned it last year, but had never bothered to use it. Because it cost a fortune and quit on me after five minutes. As beautiful as the spell was, that time limit really fucked with its usefulness. But tonight, it was going to be one of the most useful spells ever.. Well, besides summoning cheese. I just needed to make it better first." [Enlarge]." The fingers swelled, the palm spread.

In two seconds, I was staring at a hand the size of a door, each finger as long as my arm. Four mana trickled back into my pool, which was [Feedback Loop] at work. I'd picked the passive over [Spell Stretch] on the theory that it would one day save my life. And its contribution to survival, so far, was four mana. I'd have time to scold myself over a bad decision later. My mana pool was blinking red at the edge of my vision. The spell had used most of what was left. I had barely above 20 remaining.

There wasn't a second plan after this one. I clenched my fist, and the big one clenched with it. Then, I swung it into the side of the creature's head. The impact sounded like a tree falling on a Frollart, which it may as well have been. The Froll staggered sideways, caught itself on one arm, and forgot everything else in the world. It came around with a backhand that should have splattered my construct against the nearest shelf.

Its arm sailed through nothing, and the momentum dragged the whole stitched mass of it stumbling. It caught its balance, and I hit it again. We developed a kind of rhythm, the creature and I. I hit it, it swung at the hand, missed through, overbalanced. Every miss made it angrier, which made it stupider. And stupid was already its best feature. It roared and swatted, ichor running freely down its arms, its seams straining at every joint. But it wasn't enough. The damage wasn't adding up fast enough.

At this rate, it would reach my uncle before it fell apart. I floated away from my uncle, as far as the clearing allowed, and waited for it to lunge, mouth first. It was the species' special move, the same one its smaller relatives had pulled on me at ankle height all night. I didn't have to wait long. It lunged, scaled up, teeth first, jaw wide, and I took advantage. I drove the spectral hand into its open face. But instead of punching, I grabbed. The fingers closed around its skull, the thumb found an eye socket.

I pushed until the first eye gave way, then the second. But instead of folding, the Froll went berserk. The scream that came out of it shook dust off shelves. It stopped swinging at the spectral hand and started swinging at everything. Which was, in fairness, a strategy. Not a good one. But it had commitment, and commitment was usually what killed people. Ask me how I knew. It swung both fists at full extension with no target.

It hammered the floor, pounded a stack of shelves into gravel, struck itself, undid more of its bindings, blind, raging, spinning toward every sound it made. And its rampage wandered with it. One wild, crashing arc at a time, drifting back across the cavern, toward my uncle. It was more dangerous now than it had ever been with eyes. I could still hit it, but every hit just fed the rampage instead of steering it. And waiting it out would probably not go well.

In about a dozen more swings, it was going to land one on my uncle. Fuck. How did I get myself into this mess? I just wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep until my mana was full. Twice in one week, I had gotten close to mana exhaustion. Why? Why was everything so...? I stopped my rant and dove out of the way of thrown rubble. I could end this. I just needed it to come apart, and it had already done most of the work for me.

The thing was not built so much as stitched together badly, and badly stitched things have one wonderful flaw. They come apart. I thought about casting [Constrict], but that seemed like it might thread some of it back together. No, I needed to do the opposite. After all, a stitch is just a knot pulled tight in a line. The coarse black seams running down its shoulder and spine were already coming loose, and as soon as they fully gave out, I hoped the monster would fall apart with them.

I pointed my wand at the burst seam on its shoulder, the one the rage had torn half-open first. It was easier than I thought. I barely had to ask the seams to fall apart. The second I cast [Undress], the monster unraveled. The seam unzipped down its back with a sound I was never going to forget. Like a zipper made of flesh. The creature arched, every mismatched muscle pulling in different directions at once. It came down mid-swing, all of it, folding sideways into the wreckage of the shelves.

I waited a few seconds. But nothing moved except dust. It didn't get up. I let go of my spell, and the big hand drifted open beside me. Still mine for almost another minute. But 40 mana was 40 mana, and I wasn't about to waste time I'd already paid for. My hands were shaking. I tried not to stare at my mana pool and the blinking red color of what was left of it. I floated across the clearing to my uncle.