Anything ~ 55!

- Luke -

“You get in front and scatter them!” Andre shouted at Luke. The Murderhobo didn’t need to be told twice. He whooped for joy and whipped his hand at a Tooth that was slowly floating closer, sending out his bottle and drilling the beast in its head. The bottle vanished at the same time as the monster flew into the air toward the sludge creeping up toward them, but the Murderhobo had already forgotten all about that attack. He followed up by using Bum Flash to close on the acid-green twelve-legged Tooth leading the charge at his team.

In the next instant, Cookie turned the Tooth into toothpaste, and Luke swirled in place to scatter the remains into the group that was still charging. He ignored the Potentia gains, as he knew he was far from a viable amount needed to upgrade anything. He shouldn’t have wasted his time: the Teeth were closing around him, and they were fast. He lashed out with his Rope after launching Cookie dead center into the thickest group, but the Chain-Blade Rope simply didn’t have the needed momentum to do more than give the closest monster a minor Toothache.

Cookie came sailing back, ringing the bell of a Tooth as she tumbled through the air. Luke punched a Tooth in the jaw, using the blades inside its own mandible to slice the upper part of its head off. The body fell, but he knew it wasn’t dead. Chancing a look back, he found that the others were starting to gain on him, and Andre was tossing confetti to the sides as he ran. The image of the bulky Druid as a flower girl at a wedding was somewhat ruined by Zed screaming and frantically strumming his instrument from Andre’s back while being tossed around, but even so, the Murderhobo instinctively knew that the battle ahead was his responsibility.

“He did say scatter them. I can do that.” Luke looked at Cookie as she leapt into his hand, then at the creatures that were converging on him from all sides. He heard his team crying out a warning but ignored it as he swung his Rope down at Cookie.

The weapon wrapped around Cookie’s handle and tried to dig in. Even though the extended blades failed to find purchase, they did provide a tight grip; and he once more threw Cookie at the Teeth. Grinning, he hauled back on his Rope and twisted. His angular momentum pulled Cookie to the side, and soon he was whirling around as fast as he could move.

Pristine Balance ensured he didn’t get dizzy or lose his footing, and he began using the Source-cerer’s Armory ability to increase the weapon size of his Rope. The oversized Greatclub granted the weight and density needed to smack the Teeth hard enough to send them flying away, so he continued for a few dozen steps before coming to a halt. “What’s blue, white, and bad for your Teeth? Cookie.”

“That was amazing!” Zed called as they ran toward him. “We’re behind you! Please don’t attack us as we get closer to you, m’kay pumpkin?”

Luke grunted. He appreciated the fact that Zed was learning to help him be aware of his surroundings, but he wasn’t going to give the smug Bard the satisfaction when he was showing his knowledge as little jabs like that. Taylor sidled up to him and inspected Cookie, who still had a humming blue cord wrapped around her handle. “Did you learn a new Skill?”

He shook his head, deciding that the Mage didn’t need to know every little thing that he could do. The Teeth weren’t exactly giving them time to chat anyway, their dozen legs sending them across the ceiling at high speed. It appeared that the Druid had caught on to Luke’s plans, and was now combining his seed ability with controlling the earth around them, simply smacking upward to send the Teeth up… down? Into the open air above them. Luke thought it was an excellent way to hurry themselves along, so he tossed out Cookie and switched to his Battering Ram Knuckles.

“Wanna see how many uppercuts I can manage in ten seconds? Me too.” The Murderhobo dashed forward and ducked, lashing upward and sending the howling Tooth flying away. “One!”

What followed was Luke doing a series of rapid-fire squats, sometimes sending two or more Teeth out into the open air as they piled on him. It wasn’t long before he needed to cut down on the whole-body movement, instead using both hands independently as if he were curling dumbbells as fast as he could. “Cookie! Ah-ow!”

Damage taken: 38 shredding.

He had stopped moving forward, and one of the lamprey-like mouths had closed on his side before he’d managed to punch the Tooth away. It started disintegrating as it whistled away, his potently poisonous body too much for its regenerative properties. While effective, there was unfortunately not enough of him to go around. Even with all his strategies, he was getting overwhelmed. Countless more Teeth had swarmed their area, and his team was too close in proximity for him to manage another whirling attack. Not without killing the entirety of his team. He could hear a series of *thuds* as Cookie barged through the line toward him, but he wasn’t going to-

*Z-zap!* A bolt of lightning the thickness of his arm melted a hole through the left-hand line of Teeth, and he took the reprieve to Flash out of combat and reorient himself. Zed was calling instructions, and finally, he got to Luke. “Listen! Andre’s going to distract the creatures; we need you up front to-”

“Flame Lance!” A swirl of flame erupted from Taylor, blasting a solid dozen of the Teeth away.

“-never mind, Taylor just killed us all.” Zed moaned, paused, then continued directing Luke. “Somehow we’re not all dead, so we need you to get ahead of us and scatter them again. Andre’s gonna make a bunch of waving plants, and we’re gonna use that as a distraction to run for the Earthen Node.”

“No oxygen here! The methane is pressurized; it’s flowing upward! Fresh air can’t get past that!” Taylor laughed wildly as a whole new range of options opened up for her. “It can’t burn without air! This place won’t explode!”

“Until the Dragon hits the surface and oxygen starts flowing down, anyway!” Andre bellowed back over the blender-howling of the Teeth chomping down on them. “Or until he hits feeder caverns, and a huge inrush of wind pours down that tunnel it’s carving! Don’t use fire!”

“Abyss.” Taylor’s mutter was only heard by Luke, and only because his senses were attuned to the maximum. “I really wanted to kill these things with fire.”

“I bet flames would make them dead-dead!” Zed shouted in realization. “If Teeth are dissolved upon mastication, fire is the answer to the last equation!”

“He hit his head; watch for a concussion!” Luke called as he started swinging Cookie in a series of arcs. “Here I go!”

The Murderhobo heard a scream as he began whirling, but he ignored it in favor of putting maximum effort into his attack. Ten steps, hundreds of Teeth flying. Twenty steps, over a thousand sent up, and Cookie was buzzing through the air like an angry hornet. At thirty, a massive swath of ceiling was clear, and he turned his attention back to the situation unfolding with his team.

All he could see was blood.

Taylor bore a gaping wound on her side where a Tooth had chomped down and torn out a chunk of flesh before being blasted away. Andre kneeled next to her, attempting to fend off the trailing Teeth while working to patch her up, and Zed slammed his Ukulele into one that lunged for them, destroying the instrument but giving the Druid enough time to send the beast flying. The Lightning Beast’s Eye had zipped over when Taylor became embroiled in combat, her attention too divided to keep it away. It had helped Luke, but in doing so had left Taylor with one less blast that she could use to protect herself.

The Murderhobo rushed over and grabbed her just as Andre finished his ministrations. They turned and charged together at the Earthen Node, Luke carrying the Mage and Andre hauling the Bard. The Druid looked into the distance and screamed, “Full avoidance! Get to the Node!”

“Got it. Good luck to you.” Luke slammed his right foot down and soared into the air, causing Taylor to screech and pound weakly on his armor. He shook her gently, and she went green as the pain from her wound flared up. “I’ve got experience with this. Trust me.”

“I don’t trust any-” Taylor bit her lip and forced herself to stop talking as the ceiling receded, then paled as Luke whirled them around and kicked off one of the Teeth that was spiraling away. The Murderhobo made sure to overcompensate, kicking way harder than needed.

Luke had sent so many Teeth into the air, and at such high speed, that he never lacked for a platform to kick off. That wasn’t even counting all the other Teeth that had yet to reach the ceiling. He was keeping a close eye on the muck that was still rising upward, slowly closing in on the area where the spell had originally been cast: right next to the Earthen Node. “We need to get there now, or we’re gonna be swimming to get at the Node. I’m not opening my eyes under that stuff.”

“Hey, Luke!” Zed’s voice spoke into Luke’s ear, almost making him mistime his next kick. “Andre really likes what you’re doing, so we copied it! Now we’re swinging through the area like monkeys in a jungle! While I have you here, any ideas on how to fix this thing so that the world doesn’t… wither?”

“No,” the Murderhobo replied instantly. Zed waited for more, but it was Taylor that continued.

“Are we even sure that fixing it would stop the dragon?” Her voice was breathy and pained, but it got the point across.

“Andre says ‘no’, but since the dragon is linked to it, removing the corruption should remove the influence on the creature’s mind. If nothing else, it will lose all the magical protections it has until it reconnects to a Node again. It'll just be a really big plant coated in metal.” Zed let them think, then badgered them after a long moment of silence. “We’re running out of time; we need to make a choice.”

Luke landed on the ceiling in a squat, absorbing the force by bending so that Taylor wouldn’t get jostled. The act caused him to sink slightly into the ground… and power surged into him. It felt like it should have been painful, but it only made the Murderhobo’s bones itch. “What did I just-”

Current Mana regeneration: 80 per second.

Luke looked down and saw a deep brown energy sparking into him a few times per second, as if he were being hit by low-level lightning. “Andre. The ground is attacking me. Do I fight back, or is this something you’re doing?”

“He says you’re standing on an exposed ley line, and to pretty please not attack it.” Zed passed back a moment later. “He also wants to know if it’s hurting you? Apparently, you should be popping into tiny bits like a spore-mushroom that someone stomped on.”

“It’s just mana,” Luke scoffed, gently kicking a rock over the spot where the lightning was emanating. It glowed brown for a moment, then melted and merged with the stone.

“Well… yeah,” Zed answered him, “Andre is saying that ley lines are just like Mana Channels, but for the world.”

That sparked an idea, and Luke checked carefully to make sure it wasn't actually just more lightning hitting him. “Zed… if ley lines are just Mana Channels, then this Earthen Node is just a damaged Mana Channel. Why not just fix it the same way we would fix the issue in a person?”

He hefted his satchel of powdered unicorn horn and patted it twice.