GSA 5&6

Chapter 5: Necrobarter

Jeb let out a choked cry as Jessica flung him backwards into the tiny dungeon, charging out to meet the creature face-to-face.

Jeb landed on his ass right in the middle of the beam of light, triggering the magical swarm a second time. The Myst shot out of the ceiling, blinking like a strobe light, stirring the dust on the floor a bit, but not doing anything other than that.

Thank god I disarmed this thing, he thought, turning his gaze back to the ongoing fight.

Jessica was doing glorious battle with something that looked like a cross between an oriental dragon and a tapeworm, with huge, gnashing jaws that seemed to be primarily made of bone, or chitin.

Jessica was executing magnificent midair maneuvers that boggled the mind until you recalled her class’s ability for operating at effective low-g.

The fight was swift and brutal, with the snake-like creature being cleaved in two in a mater of seconds, falling to the ground in two massive, bleeding chunks.

The creature’s jaw was still trying to bite down on something , weakly opening and closing, even though the creature’s eyes were already devoid of light.

“The fuck is that?” Jeb asked, getting to his feet and peering out the door. the whole thing must have been thirty feet long, a great white shark/eel on land.

“It’s a wandering monster. We saw some of them hanging around the World Tortoise once,” She said. “This one must have been level fifteen or so.” She said, kicking the creature.

“Parasites,” Jeb said.

“Huh?”

“Parasites. They live on the world tortoise. Going up there and trying to kill the thing is like kicking a wasp’s nest the size of a football field.”

“Ah. How do you know that?”

“Mystical powers,” Jeb said, waggling his fingers. He glanced over his shoulder at the dungeon they had just left.

He absolutely would love to take the rest of the guts of the trap. If he could secure the power source along with the repeater and trigger mechanism, he could probably make some kind of Mystical machine gun.

Alas, Jeb wasn’t capable of cutting through solid rock with his mind – yet – and they only had three days before there would be no safe place to sleep. They needed to spend all of that time achieving a basic level of self-sufficiency, not spend days trying to chisel stone for a maybe.

Still, Jeb glanced at his map, scanning the land to the deep west. In the flaming mountains, the fairies had spotted a fire lens. Magical laser gun would be pretty bitchin’.

It’ll go on the list if we get good enough to go there, otherwise, it’s superfluous. I also need to learn more about Myst and lenses.

Between the boss monster, and exploring the local map, he needed some time to rest and do a little research.

***3 days, 1 hour until Safe Zone Removal***

“You may look at the map,” Jeb said, holding it out for Jessica.

She narrowed her eyes, but the circumstances of their meeting didn’t exactly give Jeb full confidence in her. If she wanted to track down one or two treasures and bring them back while he rested, great! but giving her the map so she could potentially ditch him for a better outfit?

They didn’t know each other that well.

“Okay, it’s memorized,” she said, nodding. “Thanks.”

“Ah crap, Nerve.”

“Nerve,” she said, tapping her skull. “I’ll be back in two hours if I’m still alive. I’ll be looking for the Shielding Bracers, and the Vivicant Cane.” She poked two spots near their safe zone.

She looked him up and down. “You could use a cane.”

“Ay, get outta here,” Jeb said, waving her off. Freakin’ Nerve.

It was somewhat emasculating to be outclassed, mentally.

On the other hand, I can move things with my mind.

There was really no putting a price tag on that.

Once jess was gone, Jeb called Acorn down to haggle. Now that they were in the nesting phase, he was forced to get more creative, eventually selling a bit of silk liner in his Brigandine for the information he was looking for.

“What is a Myst lens, and why do we need them?” he asked Acorn.

“A Myst lens converts one form of Myst to another. They’re integral to wizardry in general. Myst lenses coalesce in areas that are filled with the memory of their focus.

“Sunny places make sunny lenses, watery ones, make watery ones, and so on?” Jeb asked. He was pretty sure that was the case given the positioning of the worm one and the fire one on his map, but confirmation was good.

“Yes! Exactly!” Acorn shouted pointing at him. “The variety of lenses in the world is practically infinite. There are so many that haven’t been discovered yet, and even between similar lenses, there are variations. The sunny lens you spoke of, there are dappled ones and ones that carry the scent of freshly mown grass. At public servant exams, you can find studying lenses and ulcer lenses taking the form of erasers. There’s practically no limit. The only issue is that the rarer Lenses take a higher Myst to identify as magical.”

“So is it possible to cast a spell without using one of these?”

Acorn stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack. “Your core is set. Of course it’s not possible.”

“Explain.”

Acorn heaved a huge sigh and rolled his eyes, as if Jeb was the slowest kid in the race.

“When you develop a Myst Core,” he said, flying down to tap on Jeb’s sternum. “The Myst you process settles into the form of your most ideal magic. After it is set, you cannot change it.”

“So, since I thought telekinesis was cool, that’s what it settled on?”

“Pretty much.”

Disappointing, but not the worst power to be stuck with. After all, telekinesis was pretty fucking cool.

There were also interesting connotations behind the fact that these lenses could effectively change Myst from one…wavelength…to another…

Does the Myst actually behave like light when interacting with a lens? Jeb thought, his mind buzzing. The idea had been tickling the back of his mind for a while, but after talking with Acorn, he was nearly positive.

If Myst behaves like light, then if I were to carve the worm stick into the shape of a lens, I could make it summon a giant freaking worm! Or put two indents on it to split the light and make two giant worms.

He pulled the square piece of bone out of his pocket and inspected it, still crawling with phantom scarabs.

Or carve thirty-two by thirty-two dots to summon one thousand twenty four identical worms.

“EEK!” Acorn screeched, backing away from the bone lens like it was radioactive.

“Do you have any idea what that could do to us!?” he said, pointing at the lens with a shaking hand.

“Nothing good, I imagine,” Jeb said. “I was planning on saving it for rations.” He slipped it back in his pocket.

“Just to confirm, if the lens concentrates the Myst into a single point, It’s a more pronounced effect than if it’s scattered all over the place, correct?”

“Of course,” Acorn said, still eyeing Jeb’s pocket nervously.

“If I break a lens apart, will all the pieces of it retain their ability to alter Myst?”

“Yeah, are you really going to keep that?” 

“Yes. Are creatures that I create with these lenses under my control?”

Acorn shook his head. “Not without some kind of control lens or taming lens, or your Myst Core is a Summoning one. That’s why that lens is so dangerous. If you used that in here, and missed killing even a single breeding pair… they might eat all of us.”

“I promise not to use this lens anywhere near your tree,” Jeb said.

“Not in the forest at all, would be better.” Acorn said.

“I don’t know yet if I’ll need it, so I can’t promise that.” Acorn looked miffed.

“Well, that was all the burning questions I had for you – ah, wait – how much would you charge to actually collect these lenses for me?”

“We physically can’t move treasure placed by the System for the Tutorial.” Acorn said, shaking his head. “Otherwise the fairies of the woods would have already looted everything.”

“Suppose you’re right about that,” Jeb said, nodding.

Alright, now we need to expand our repertoire. Can’t expect everything to just run into a spear on its own.

Now testing: Floppy objects, and multiple objects at once.

For his first test, Jeb grabbed the garrote wire and set it down in front of him, injecting it with Myst and lifting it up.

The wire stayed looped up like it had been when he first set it down.

He turned it upside down and tried to stretch it out, but his Myst felt like it was locked in position. The garrote stayed pooled up in a loop, unmoving in his mental grasp.

He worked on it for half an hour without any discernable progress, then switched tactics, aiming at learning how to move two things at once.

There was more progress on this front. Rather than feeling like an unyielding wall, this simply felt like really difficult juggling.

If someone had a gun to your head and told you to learn how to juggle, you’d probably learn pretty fuckin’ quick.

Jeb was in the same situation, and he poured all his concentration and focus into mastering the skill. Eventually he was rewarded with two spears, floating independently of each other.

There were some caveats, though.

Jeb had to target both of them with a fresh batch of myst drawn from his core. Something about splitting the myst into two identical portions was easier than lifting one object then another.

He was sure he’d get the hang of it eventually, but for now he needed to target both objects at the same time.

Still, it gave him a lot more options than he’d had before.

Stab, stab, He thought, the two spears lunging forward at his mental urging. His speed had improved.

Jeb had the feeling his Core was nowhere near done growing. His magic, and the little burning star inside him, would continue growing stronger until he stumbled across whatever his limit was, most likely defined by his Myst.

The setting sun suddenly darkened, and Jeb glanced up, spotting the World Tortoise in the distance, having just walked in front of the sun, casting a shadow over the entire forest. The sunlight cast a red glow around the creature’s shell, which played host to its own forest, where the parasites lived.

Stab, stab, Jeb thought, closing one eye to remove his depth perception and pretending to stab the boss monster.

***2 days 23 hours remaining***

Jessica got back with the items that night, tossing him the cane that was seemingly made of one solid piece of ivory.

Vivicant Cane, Consumable item.

Carried as a supplementary item by the vaunted healers of Mestikos, These Canes allow the master healers to handle emergencies when circumstances would otherwise prevent them from being able to help, maintaining their vaunted success rate even in the most adverse conditions, along with their priceless prestige.

Channel Myst through this valuable cane to heal wounds and remove fatigue in an area of effect.

Effect is proportional Myst spent.

4/4 Uses remaining

Nice, Jeb thought, setting it down beside him, his mental evaluation of Jessica going up a notch. She came back despite having a map in her head, rather than leaving him to his own devices, or selling the information to another group and disappearing entirely.

They set up a warning system around the edge of the safe zone and went to sleep.

***2 days 16 hours remaining***

Right around dawn, the alarm went off.

It was just a simple wind chime of throwing knives connected to a string, but it did the job.

Tinkle tinkle, CLANG!

The string broke, dropping the wind chime to the ground, accompanied by cursing.

Jeb leapt out of his bedroll, put his back against the tree, and had a spear raised before his eyes could even focus on what he was seeing.

“Good morning!” A man’s voice came from the woods. It wasn’t booming and growly like redbeards, rather it was reedy and a bit nasal.

Jeb blinked again and spotted five humans dressed for battle standing just at the edge of the safe zone.

“Careful of the,” Jeb cleared the sleep out of his throat and spoke up. “Careful of the pit traps!”

“Yeah, we spotted those on the way in.” The leader said, taking the sword off his belt and dropping it by the edge before approaching. “It’s a good idea but a little work intensive, don’t you think?”

“Pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood,” Jeb muttered, glancing around to take in his situation. The first thing he noticed: the four teammates of the fellow were Obvious Zombies.

They walked with lurching steps, clutching swords and axes in each hand and covered in battle damage and grievous wounds. Three men, and one woman.

“Hi,” The man said, pointing to himself. “I’m Ron.” Ron was a ginger maybe ten years younger than Jeb, wearing a skull as a codpiece. He was wearing normal armor underneath, his face was somewhat emaciated from lack of food, but he seemed pretty chipper, all things considered.

“This is Suzie, she tried to kill me,” He pointed at the lady zombie, a blonde haired woman in her forties. Half of her skull seemed to have been bashed in with a rock. “This is Buck, he was the leader of the group. He tried to stop Suzie, but she stabbed him.”

Buck appeared to be the best kept out of the four of them, save a big bloody spot right around his liver.

“And this is Phil and Eric.” He said, pointing to the last two. “They tried to rob me.”

“What about that guy?” Jeb asked, pointing his spear at the necromancer’s crotch.

“This guy?” he asked, pointing at the skull over his junk. “I found this guy.”

“I’m assuming you’re telling me all this to prove you won’t attack me without provocation.”

Ron snapped his fingers. “This guy gets it. I’m actually pretty freaking hungry, and I was hoping….holy…shiiiit.”

His eyes wandered over to the mass grave of kruskers.

“It’s a bit gamy, but as long as you keep your ‘friends’ parked just inside the safe zone, I don’t see why you can’t help yourself.” Jeb said, levering himself to his feet – foot – with his spear.

Ron hadn’t shown any hostility yet, so there was no reason to be standoffish and turn a potential friend into an enemy. Jeb wasn’t inviting him home for dinner, he was extending a tiny bit of trust.

“fair ‘nough,” Ron said, motioning with his hand. Jeb saw a line of neon purple power flare into existence between Ron and his zombies for an instant before it faded away again. In addition to hundreds of other lines extending in every direction, totally surrounding the Safe Zone.

Jeb’s eye twitched.

Did he slaughter humans or did he zombify monsters and hold them back so as not to alarm me? Well, consider me alarmed.

Jessica was nowhere to be seen, so Jeb could only assume she’d woken up faster than him and had immediately gotten out of sight.

The four shamblers plopped onto their butts just inside the safety of the circle, but still far away from Jeb, while Ron walked forward, aiming for the topmost krusker on the pile.

Ron pulled out a knife and tried to jam it through the creature’s thick hide, obviously having extreme difficulty due to his thin arms.

“Couldn’t you just zombify the thing and make it carry its meat over here?” Jeb asked, pointing at the Krusker.

“Huh? Oh, nah, as soon as I bring something back form the dead, its flesh becomes poisonous. Learned that the hard way,” Ron said, chuckling between grunts as he tried and failed to saw off a rib.

“Here, stand back. I’ll help,” Jeb said, stabilizing himself with his spear as he held a hand out.

I’m pretty sure I can target part of an object, He thought. He’d made a wall out of air. He wasn’t forced to target all the air in the atmosphere. Where did one object end and another begin? Density? Structural integrity? Or perhaps it was just intent.

Orange Myst shot out of Jeb’s hand and caught the creature’s middle rib.

With a mental yank, the popping of bone, and a meaty tearing sound, the rib and surrounding tissue tore itself free before floating over to the fire.

“Oh...T-thanks.” Ron said, suddenly looking a little more nervous than before. He probably thought he could outrun the cripple or swarm him if necessary. Now that he knew Jeb could potentially tear his head off from a hundred feet away, he realized that Mutally Assured Destruction was possible.

“Wizard master race, am I right?” Ron said with a halfhearted fist pump.

“It seemed like the best choice given the circumstances,” Jeb said. “Now come on, sit down and eat some krusker with me. I didn’t tear your head off when you first showed up, you didn’t sik your hundreds of zombies on me at first sight. I think we’ve established a certain basic level of trust.”

Ron chuckled.

“You saw the strings.”

“I saw the strings.”

“Man, I kinda got used to people not seeing shit.” Ron said, shaking his head and sitting down across the fire from Jeb, mouth watering as he watched the fat begin to sizzle off the rib meat.

“I didn’t get your name,” Ron said.

“Jebediah, but I prefer Jeb. I don’t like sounding biblical.”

“So, what’s your story, Jeb?”

***2 days, 15 hours remaining***

“So, where you headed?” Jeb asked, carving off slices of Krusker for both of them.

“Oh, I’m headed west, I suppose. Towards the mountains. I was wondering why there was a stretch of empty land, but it must have been these guys.” He said, lifting the rib he was gnawing on to emphasize.

“Careful of the raptors there. They took out a group of seven that passed by here a little over a week ago. They’re supposed to be stealthy.”

“Thanks, man. it shouldn’t be a problem, though.” Ron said, before eyeing Jebediah quizzically. “Got anything to barter?”

“I’ve got a couple lenses I might be willing to trade parts of.” Jeb said. “These, though,” he said, patting his cane and magical girl wand. “These I want to keep.”

“I’m gonna bring in my gear. Don’t freak out.”

“Kay.”

Ron’s gear came in packs draped across zombified walkers that looked something like daddy long legs.

He grabbed the packs off of them and spread the items out on the ground in front of Jeb. Most of it was quality of life stuff. It was fairly objvious that ron would hold onto the truly powerful stuff for himself, but Jeb spotted another cleaning wand, along with a couple water spigots. There were a few rings with decent stat boosts.

“Is there a limit to the number of rings you can wear?”

“Two,” Ron said, waggling his fingers. There was a shining ivory and silver ring on his left and right hands. “So these are kind of superfluous for me.”

Hmmm…

Jeb pointed out the ivory ring of Myst +2, the magical girl cleaning wand, a water producing lens, and a peculiar looking stiletto knife without any kind of crossguard.

Stilleto of Piercing.

Crafted by a master smith, this Udium tipped blade rotates violently when pressed down hard, penetrating all but the hardest armor.

“All this is on my wishlist.”

“What’ve you got?” Ron asked, leaning forward expectantly.

Jeb pulled out the scarab lens and the worm lens, laying them down in front of the necromancer.

“Neat,” Ron said, looking at the scarab lens. “I hadn’t found any of these yet. Can I test it?”

“NO!” Acorn shouted, attracting their attention.

“I gave my word not to use it near their home,” Jeb said with a shrug. He reached out with Myst and pulled one of the discarded scarabs nearby.

“They’re about this big, I figure you could use them to clean the flesh off your zombies, or, if you sanded the dots off the face of the front, you could probably summon one huge beetle, kill it, and add it to your group. You can use them for food, too.”

“Oh, so it’s genesis and not a temporary summon?” Ron asked, looking intrigued.

“far as I can tell. I ate some, and it didn’t vanish or anything.”

“Neato.”

Ron eyed the rotted stick, immediately noticing the worms crawling on it.

“This one you can test,” Jeb said, handing it to him.

Jeb got to watch the neon purple power funnel through the necromancer’s palm into the stick before beams of white Myst shone out of the raw lens in every direction.

A fraction of a second later, everyone and everything was covered in worms.

“Ack, pbbblt, I got one in my mouth!’” Ron said, spitting.

The surrounding fairies squealed with joy and began hunting the wiggling arms with enthusiasm, launching a worm-y massacre as they dragged them back to their ravenous grubs.

“And that’s how the worm lens works,” Jeb said, chuckling. He’d hidden his face behind his sleeve and come out relatively unscathed, worm-wise.

“Thanks, but no thanks on the worms,” Ron said, eyeing the stick where he’d dropped it. “I don’t really have any use for them.”

“This though,” Ron said, holding up the scarab bone. “I could trade you the ring or the knife, or the wand and water lens together.

“You can’t even use that ring.” Jeb protested.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not valuable to somebody.” Ron said with a grin.

“Some…body?” Jeb asked, his mind making a sudden connection. “What’s the going rate on the corpse of a level thirty-five warrior?”

“Level thirty five!? I could make a death-knight with that!”

Ron cleared his throat. “I mean…I could take it or leave it. No big deal.”

Ron knew he’d goofed.

Jeb didn’t even bother concealing his wicked smile.

“Tell you what. You seem to be very interested in this Death Knight of yours. How about I give you the body for these items instead?” he said, pulling his scarab lens out of the pile.

Ron clicked his tongue, scowling. 

“I wanna barter too.” Jessica said, landing two feet away from them, descending straight out of the blue sky to slam down beside the two Myst-users.

Ron gave a strangled squawk and tumbled over backwards. His zombies flinched, leaping to their feet and raising their weapons for a moment before sitting back down, their owner processing the assassin’s words.

“…sure.”

Jebediah Trapper

Unclassed, Level 14

Body 10

Myst 29 +2 

Nerve 8 +3

Chapter 6: mermaids in lakes are larger than they appear, A.K.A. Line of Sight is for suckers

***2 days, 13 hours remaining***

“Muahaha!” Jeb cackled, admiring his new ring and especially the stiletto orbiting his head as he practiced his fine control. He wanted to be good enough to perform surgery with his telekinesis before he cut open his cleaning wand, searching for the death and dismemberment they’d promised.

He even had a spare in case he messed up the first one. And a supply of infinite water.

All for redbeard’s corpse.

A damn good deal.

“You went garage-sale-ing a lot before the end of the world, didn’t you?” Jessica asked as they walked through the forest, aiming for the sirens to the south.

“My parents used to have moneymaking competitions during the summer. They used to hand me the stuff they wanted to buy and tell me to make a lowball offer, because I was cute. It usually worked. Before I knew it I got pretty good at haggling.”

“Yeah, well, I think George’s body should belong to me, given that I had to put up with him.”

“I don’t know, he tried to kill me.”

Jessica scowled at him silently.

“You really wanted that necklace of adaptation, didn’t you?”

“Did you see the size of those opals!?” Jessica demanded.

She’d done pretty well for herself at Ron’s Post-Life Goods Emporium, trading George’s magical boss-axe and a few minor items for some rings, enchanted armor and a pair of boots with stylized wings that essentially gave her a double jump, improving her midair performance even more.

I need better protection myself, Jeb thought, tapping his beaten brigandine. They were finally equal in terms of treasure, but Jessica could take a hit, and he could not, so he felt a little exposed.

The goal was for him to solo the boss while Jessica ran crowd control again, and hopefully the Accolade would give him a fighting chance of surviving once the Safe zones went down.

He glanced over at Jessica, bedecked in silent blackened mail armor, wearing shielding bracers, along with the Razorback sword, the wing boots and the rings…

Yeah, she’ll probably survive it.

“Hold on,” Jessica said, squinting. “I hear singing. Put in your earplugs.”

Rather than listen to see if he could hear it too like an idiot, Jeb rolled up the stiff pine wax and shoved it in his ears, praying it would come back out.

That was a problem for after they survived this, though.

“~?” She asked.

Jeb gave her a thumbs up, and they crept forward. After what felt like half an hour of creeping, but was more likely five minutes, the came within sight of the lake.

Sirens were, for all intents and purposes, tiny little mermaid looking girls about four feet long, singing and playing with each other in groups of three, their torsos just above the water. On the miniature island in the center, were three more human-sized women, seemingly lounging around and tanning, their bare breasts pooling up on their chests.

I’m not sure I wanna kill these women, Jeb thought, a lifetime of ‘don’t hit girls’ drilled into him since pre-school suddenly flaring up. It might have had something to do with the boobs, or the muffled harmonizing he could faintly hear, as well.

Jessica must have read the reticence on his face, because she unslung her bow from her shoulder, took out an arrow and fired a shot through the chest of one of the smaller girls.

Jeb opened his mouth to protest, when the ground shuddered underneath him. A huge creature, twice the size of a horse, reared out of the water, with stumpy finned legs and a gaping maw. He could hear its pained roar even through the earplugs.

The three little midget mermaids were attached to the thing via a long and partially clear tube with a single thick blood vein this size of his wrist traversing it.

Okay, never mind. My concern about their humanity was not necessary. I think I’ve seen art like that before.

Jessica wagged her hand, catching his attention before pointing at the monsters and preforming a sweeping motion, as if to say, ‘after you’

Jeb aimed his stiletto at the infuriated creature, and sent it shooting out into the lake.

The stiletto sank half an inch into the creature’s soft skin, then, when it met bone, the blade collapsed back into the handle, spinning inside an internal groove as it did so, boring a hole like a hand-drill.

The result was the knife went in one side of the monster and effortlessly out the other, spilling the creature’s lifeblood into the lake as it collapsed.

And then the fight was on.

The sirens seemed to display rudimentary intelligence as they sank under the water, hiding behind flotsam or fallen logs to make themselves hard to hit.

In addition to that, their mermaid tops made squeezing motions with their arms, creating little spheres of water floating in front of their chests before they started shooting water at the two of them.

And not friendly squirt-gun battle levels of water, either.

There was a hiss, and a spray of water as a fine line of H2O tore a chunk of wood out of the tree six inches away from his face.

Jeb dropped to the ground on reflex, treating it like small arms fire and getting behind something big and thick. In this case, one of the oversize trees surrounding the lake.

Ranged attacks, huh? Two can play at that game.

He pulled out his little mirror from the crate and held it around the edge of the tree.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to attack things using a mirror while facing backwards? He thought to himself, directing his floating knife to attack a smaller siren and missing horribly, plunging the blade into the water.

Damnit. He pulled it back out and mentally adjusted before attacking again. The extra three points of Nerve must have helped, because he only missed one more time before he adjusted to using the mirror.

He began racking in the kills, perched safely behind his tree, while Jessica leapt from trunk to trunk, drawing fire away from him and forcing the creature’s to turn to pay attention to her ranged attacks.

They didn’t seem like they knew where his attacks were coming from, so he kept zooming the stiletto around, boring holes through anglerfish-looking bastard after bastard.

You have gained a level!

You have gained a level!

You are now level 16!

The good times didn’t last forever, though, as a thick beam of water knocked his Darting Dagger of Death out of his mental grasp, sending it whizzing through the air into the deep forest.

Jeb made a mental note of the direction before refocusing on the one who’d shot it.

Momma siren was awake, and she was pissed as hell. Her mermaid hair was writhing over each other in fury, creating frothing water above her main body, which was rumbling under the surface of the water, and yet, the lure’s faces still looked serene and beckoning, plump lips half-parted, practically aroused.

The strange dissonance made Jeb’s hair stand on end.

If the midget mermaids were attached to things roughly the size of a bull buffalo, how big was the big one? Elephantine?

Those thoughts nearly made him miss the creature’s next move.

A nova of water erupted from the creature, and Jeb flinched his hand back to his chest just in time to avoid losing it.

Everything in a hundred feet around the lake was lopped off at the three-foot line. His mirror got a bit taken off the corner, his tree was beginning to creak ominously, along with thousands of others, and his hair had gotten a much-needed trim.

Crap.

Jeb was tempted to roll out of the way of the falling tree, but all the trees were falling, and that meant that:

1: He would simply be trading one falling tree for another, and;

2: If he leapt out now, he would attract the direct attention of Momma Siren.

God I hope I don’t get crushed.

Jeb burned Myst and reached out, grabbing the tree falling above him and guiding it to the best of his ability, so it would fall onto some of its thicker branches further up the tree, leaving him safely ensconced in a pocket of wood. This would do double duty and shelter him from all the other trees falling to the ground.

With a cacophonous thunder, all the trees hit the, each other and the ground, filling the air with the sound of exploding wood as arm-thick braches were sheared away and splinter-shrapnel went flying everywhere.

This went on for a good twenty seconds, as Jeb just tried to cover his face and neck.

Once the sound died down, he did a mental spot-check.

Okay, nothing crushed, broken or stabbed, lucky me. There was a jagged branch pressed against his brigandine, but the inner plates had caught the wood and stopped it from becoming a problem.

The only problem was…

I can’t move!

Despite his near superhuman strength, there was no chance of him getting out of the pile of trees surrounding him without help, or a lot of time.

Shit, how’s Jessica doing?

He siphoned off a tiny bit of Myst and put it into his mirror, lifting it up above the pile of trees he was buried in, then panned it around slowly, until his partner came into view.

Jessica was not doing so great. Without vertical trees to hop to and from as well as hide behind, she was left in something of a tight spot. All of the Momma siren’s attention was on the assassin, who was doing her best to dodge the creature’s wrist thick beams of water.

There was a trickle of blood from a gash on her scalp, likely from falling trees. Her fancy new armor seemed to be none the worse for wear. The double jump boots were definitely helping, as the embroidered wings came to life every now and then, flapping powerfully and allowing her to reverse course in midair to dodge water beams.

It was times like this Jeb almost wished he’d gone Nerve/Body.

Still, nothing to it but to soldier on. He brought the mirror back to his hand, then grabbed one of his broken spearheads, splitting his Myst in two and controlling both of them.

He guided the spearhead way off to the side, opposite Jessica, then took one of the mermaid-tentacles in the back, bringing its water-slinging to a halt.

The mermaid began gushing crimson into the already bloody lake, as Jeb had nicked the main artery.

He reversed direction and slammed through another lure before the third one shot the spearhead out of the air, sending it whirling off into the distance. The remaining mermaid looked cautious now, scanning the coastline with sharp eyes.

Don’t spot me, don’t spot me…

With a blast of water, his mirror was torn out of his grip and shattered.

Damn. I hope she’d not smart enough to calculate the angle.

A moment later beams of water started perforating Jeb’s pile of wood. A few of them came dangerously close to tearing pieces of him off, and he tucked every limb in as close as he could.

Water started dripping down from every branch above him, soaking his clothes uncomfortably, trickling down to his back.

But if discomfort was the worst this thing could do, he’d be happy to…

Wait a minute, is the water level rising!? He turned his head slightly and spotted the water slowly cresting above the grass he laid on.

Rather than deal with the hiding creature she couldn’t see, the boss was simply flooding the entire shoreline, with the intention of literally flushing him out.

Except…Jeb was still pinned by the humungous tree over top of him, so he was more likely to drown than get flushed out.

That probably works for her too, he thought grimly as he tugged his cleaning wand out.

He pulled out his pocket knife and put the blade into the seam of the magical girl wand, slightly clumsy because of the confined space.

This is not how I wanted to do this! he thought, popping the two sides of the cleaning wand apart, holding them above the water.

Honestly…it looked a lot like the guts of a modern spyglass. It was hollow in the center, with a lens at the base that seemed to be made of fantastically rusty iron, while at the far end was a tiny marble the size of Jeb’s pinkie. It was a little difficult to see what it was made of, because it was surrounded by an aura of pure black.

Myst Filter: Grime – small 

A Myst filter that allows the Myst that passes through to only affect objects the user perceives as filth or grime

And the other…

Annihilation Myst Lens – very tiny

Myst that passes through an annihilation lens removes the first thing it touches from existence, making these both useful for industrial and military applications, but also quite dangerous.

These rare lenses are found in the Mines of Seeping Death before being sold to businesses and governments to be broken down into safer sizes. It is illegal for a private entity to own an Annihilation Myst Lens larger than tiny.

That’s what I’m looking for.

Ah crap, the water’s up to my ears.

Rather than touch the thing, Jeb simply removed the rime filter from the casing, then pressed the two halves of the wand back together before he carefully siphoned out as much Myst as he could, splitting it into two.

“Hope this works,” Jeb muttered, carefully seizing one half of the wand with his Myst, while hovering slightly away from the annihilation lens with the other ball of Myst.

With a mental flick, he sent the wand and ball of Myst up, out of the snarl of trees and hurtling toward the boss siren’s last known location.

He couldn’t see the monster, but he’d been harassing these creatures without direct line of sight for a while, so when Jeb felt like the lens was in place above the siren, he took the unspent Myst that was hovering close to the lens, and shoved it through.

He felt the lens shatter as a kind of crackling sensation in his mind.

Bang!

There was the harsh crack of an implosion, followed by…

You have gained a level!

You have gained a level!

You have gained a level!

You have gained a level!

You are now level 20! 

Congratulations! You have beaten the Siren Mother in a one-on-one duel. Your cunning is beyond reproach!

Siren’s Cunning Accolade Granted!

+5 Nerve

Yes!

Wait…

Why isn’t the water stopping!? I killed the damn thing, it was supposed to stop! Goddamnit, I should have gotten that necklace of adaptation, Jeb thought as he took a deep breath, the water reaching up towards his lips.

Congratulations! You have reached level 20! Please choose a Class!

Kinda busy here! Jeb thought as the water rose above his face, sealing him in a silent tomb.