F&L: Chapter 52

Time slowed down as I engaged the Dead Moment in order to dodge the massive pounce that the Beast attacked me with, rushing off to the side to avoid its fanged maw. As I did so, I cast back at it, firing Arrow Shooting Spells that mostly bounced off its toughened crimson hide. One of my conjured arrows, however, managed to hit a weak spot in the serpentine bulk of The Beast between two of the scales and do some minor damage, but of the four spells I cast at it in the time granted to me, it was the only one to find purchase on the beast. Still, it was something, and as time sped back up for me, I began flicking my wand in a circular motion and incanted the words Globus Flammae. The Fireball Spell smashed into the side of the Beast's Head, doing superficial damage as it whipped its head around to face me.

It let out a massive, croaking bellow at me in response that rattled my bones, picking me up with the force of its sonic energy and flinging me back into a pile of tumbled masonry. If not for my armored duster and potions, that would have been that. My spine would have cracked from the impact. As it was, I was going to have a massive bruise across my back and shoulders tomorrow, and I felt my left arm go numb as the force of the landing dislocated my left shoulder. I was able to push through the pain, though, getting to my feet and lurching away in time to avoid the Beast's Massive tongue, which launched out of its mouth at the spot where I had fallen. Instead of reeling me into its maw to be swallowed, whole, though, the tongue found nothing but tumbled stones.

I gritted my teeth and began casting once again. This time, going for the Incendiary Bolt spell. As I launched my flaming Javelin at the Beast, it slithered toward me with a speed that belied its great bulk. I let fly at it and then had to dart to the side to avoid its rush. My flaming javelin struck it in the left eye in a lucky shot that punctured the bulbous orb, bursting it in a spray of steaming blood and smoking viscera. The Beast bellowed in pain and struck out with one of its two, vestigial, clawed limbs. Greater Water Leapers were sort of like Linnorms in that respect, they bore two forelimbs that ended in razor-sharp claws, while their lesser cousins had none. Unfortunately, my dodge was just a touch too slow, and the claw swipe grazed my left leg along my calf, taking a chunk out of my leg and causing me to stumble.

I staggered, leg wounded and hobbling, just barely managing to duck behind a pile of tumbled stones from one of the castle walls before another, massive, sonic bellow was unleashed. The tumbled pile of cut stone shook, and several of the large, cinder block-sized pieces of wall tumbled down from the pile or cracked apart with sonic force, but my cover did its job. I wasn't sure how much longer it would last, however. I frowned at my predicament, reaching into my Mokeskin Pouch and pulling out a normal healing potion before downing it. That fixed my leg, of course, but not my back or shoulder. Instead, I braced myself against the pile of tumbled stones and forcibly shoved my dislocated shoulder back into the socket, managing to bite back a scream of pain as I did so. That was going to hurt tomorrow, but it would be functional now, and that was all I needed.

Unfortunately, no sooner had I done that than a second, larger, croaking bellow rang out from the Beast, blasting my cover apart and pelting me with rock fragments as I got to my feet and started running. Cuts opened up on my cheek, thigh, and the meat of my left arm as jagged rock fragments sliced into me. Occlumency once more allowed me to push through the pain as it had for this entire fight. Those cuts were small, but they would add up, and I would need to finish this fight because I couldn't keep taking wounds like this. I didn't have enough healing potions of various sorts in my Mokeskin Pouch. I fired back at the beast, using the seize and pull charm to pelt it with jagged stone fragments. One such fragment managed to punch into its side like a spike, causing a roar of pain.

As I used the power of the Strength Potion I had downed to jump over the tail strike it sent my way, I reflected that at least I was hurting the beast even as it hurt me. It could do a lot more damage than I could, though. I needed an equalizer. I landed on my feet, wincing slightly as my ankle seemed to roll a bit on landing, drawing a shooting pain up my leg as it was sprained. The beast turned to face me, but I conjured a smokescreen with Fumos Maxima to gain time to pull from my Mokeskin Pouch. When I did, I pulled out two things, a healing potion that fixed my sprained ankle and my broom. Mounting my broom, I kicked up into the air just in time to avoid another massive croaking bellow that blasted my smokescreen apart, scattering it to the four winds.

Soaring into the air, I grinned, realizing that I now had height on the Beast. I began firing arrow-shooting spells and incendiary bolts down on the Beast from above, swerving around sonic bellows or tongue strikes as I did so. Most of my conjured attacks bounced off the armor-like hide of the Greater Water Leaper, but some gained purchase, inflicting a death of a thousand cuts on the Beast. Unfortunately, this string of good fortune wouldn't last forever, and the beast snarled, flapping its batlike wings and pouncing at me.

Water leapers, even Greater ones, couldn't fly per se. Honestly, they couldn't even glide, really. What they could do was jump really well. They were like Golden Age Superman in that way. The Beast used that to its advantage as it leaped up at me, forcing me to jank to the side suddenly to avoid it. As it sailed past me, I flung one final Incendiary Bolt spell into it, the flaming javelin finding purchase on the thing's chest. Then it clipped me with its tail, knocking me off my broom. I went plunging down to the floor of the Marsh, getting cut up by the branches of various trees and shrubs as I did so, and landing in a patch of peat. Fortunately, that was a lot softer of a landing than I was expecting, though I still felt my leg give way in the fall. I let out a sharp bark of pain, the constant damage I had been taking finally overwhelming my Occlumency for a moment as my femur broke. At the same time, my scalp was bleeding profusely from a cut I had taken in the fall.

The Beast, however, had a much harder landing than I did. It barreled into one of the still-standing sections of wall, smashing its skull in the process. It thrashed around in its death throes as it smashed through the remaining wall section, its brain having been crushed by the fall. Then it went very still, dead. I did nothing for a few moments, breathing in and out while assessing my wounds. The leg was bad, bad enough that it would normally need to be vanished and replaced with Skele-Gro, with at least two weeks in the Hospital Wing to recover. I couldn't vanish my leg bone, nor did I have Skele-Gro. I was forced to dip into my extremely limited remaining doses of Elixir of Life to heal up. After this and the Greengrasses, I only had three doses remaining from the amount I had made before giving back the Stone.

Dragging myself to my feet, I noticed my broom had fallen near the destroyed Keep of Toadstone Castle. I made my way into the courtyard through one of the holes in the wall and went to grab my fallen broom. As I did, I noticed a glint of something inside the wreck of the Keep. Going over to it, I entered the ruined Keep to find that there was a hole in the floor leading down into the cellar, the side of which had been dug out into a lair for the Beast, as a long cave seemed to bore through the ground. I suppose if the ground was solid enough to build a castle on, it was solid enough to tunnel through. However, that wasn't what struck my interest. No, what struck my interest was the glint of gold.

Nearby, in the tunneled cellar, was a small trove of treasure. Gold plate, ingots, and coins, along with semi-precious stones like Turquoise, Jet, and Jade. I was no appraiser, but there had to be at least fifty thousand galleons worth of gold and semi-precious stones here. I swept it all into my Mokeskin Pouch and in the process, found something else. A celtic-style cloak pin with an enchantment on it that, if the Ogham Runes worked into the back of it were accurate, would protect the wearer from flames. It wasn't useful in the wet confines of the Marsh, which was probably why whatever Wizard who had used it previously had wound up as lunch for the Beast, but it would be useful to me later.

Regardless, it all went into my Mokeskin Pouch before I turned my attention to the reason I was here. The Greater Toadestone that the Beast had. Mind you, that wasn't the only useful part of a Greater Water Leaper. Their Blood could be used in Potions of Water Breathing, according to the Craftsman's Tradition, while their bones could be used to fashion items that could fire sonic pulses at whatever they were pointed at, similar to their bellows, and their scales could be used to craft Boots of Leaping. I reached into my Mokeskin Pouch and pulled out the various knives and saws that I had purchased and learned how to use to render down magical creatures for components, then I got to work.

It took me most of the night to render the Beast down for components, and I had to leave a lot of the corpse to rot, simply because I didn't have enough component containers to preserve parts from the whole corpse. In the process, I found myself having to down a dose of Wideye Potion to stay awake, for which I thanked Potions Club, since that was where I learned to brew the mystical stimulant. In the end, I would grab enough hide for ten pairs of Boots of Leaping, enough bone for ten Rings of Sonic Pulse, and enough Blood for ten Potions of Water Breathing. That wasn't the ultimate prize, though.

No, that went to the basketball-sized, round, smooth, brownish green stone that I carved out of the Beast's Gullet. The Greater Toadstone had been coated in bloody saliva, and I would have to wash it off when I got back home before I could even think about using it, but there would be enough toadstone here for a dozen uses of the Enchantment I needed it for. It was truly the best size and quality I could have hoped for.

By the time I was ready to leave the Marsh, it was almost sunrise. I headed out of the ruins of Toadstone Castle, now even more wrecked up than when I found it, taking one last, wistful look at the half-butchered corpse of the Beast before I headed out. It took me another hour to make my way through the Deep Marsh again, and by the time the Outer Marsh was in sight, the sun was beginning to creep up over the horizon. Unfortunately, before I managed to leave the area, I found my path blocked once again.

The Marsh Troll Chieftain had, it seemed, taken a position as sentry in light of the ruckus I had caused by entering his territory yesterday. His eyes locked onto me as I found myself right on the border of the Deep Marsh and the Outer Marsh as he banged his stone and wood club against a tree trunk in challenge. I could only down more Potions of Gytrash Speed, Strength, and Girding in response, before he let out a bellow and charged me. It seemed I would have to fight him to leave here. So be it.

As I dodged the swing of the Chief's Stone and Wood Club, I tumbled into a shoulder roll, coming up to one knee. A flick of my wrist had my wand in my hand, thanks to the spring-loaded holster, even as the Chief's Club smashed a tree to flinders as it missed staving in my skull. I took aim at the Chief, ready to cast as he whirled about and bellowed another challenge.

And the fight to leave the Malltraeth Marsh began in earnest. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here's the next chapter. Fighting the Beast hurt Blaise badly enough to make him dip into his extremely limited stocks of Elixir of Life in order not to die out here in the Malltraeth Marsh. In the end, though, he managed to kill the Beast, harvest its corpse for components, and take its modest treasure hoard for himself. All in all, this was a successful adventure. Now, though, he has to face off against the Marsh Troll Chief if he wants to leave the Marsh, something that he really didn't want to have to do, since it's been a long day for him already.

At any rate, the next chapter will include the fight with the Marsh Troll Chief and this little adventure's wrap-up. I'll have one last bunch of images out before then as well, then we'll have one more time-skippy chapter before the end of Summer and the Diagon Alley Trip to get supplies at the start of Year Two.

Stay tuned. . .