James Osiris Baldwin
patreon
I Am Legion - Ch 13
🕑 Added 2024-02-21 16:14:28 +0000 UTCWe arrived back to find Angel pulverizing wild tomatoes, chilies, and wild onions into salsa. Three split fish were grilling on top of a flat stone she’d mounted over a small smokeless fire.
“You know every predator can smell that fish cooking from a mile away, right?” I limped over to her and dropped down, panting like a tired dog. My leg still wasn’t great, but I’d healed up some from the massive amount of food I’d eaten.
“I know, but I really don’t want to eat raw meat after what I saw at the temple,” she paused her work to sign, hands and face moving quickly. “Hang on.”
While she resumed grinding in her mortar and pestle, Lulu peeled herself off my body and hit the ground with a wet splat. She began to creep curiously toward the fire. When Angel glanced up, she nearly threw her bowl of salsa into the air, jumping in shock and letting out a strangled sound of surprise.
“EEEK!” Lulu cringed back from her.
“Woah, woah, woah.” I lifted my chin as the slime bounced back to me and wrapped her pseudopods around my neck. “Don’t worry about her. That’s Lulu.”
“Lulu?” Angel squinted at me in disbelief, then at the slime. Lulu coyly peeked back at her from around my head.
“Correct,” I replied.
“That’s a Limne. Don’t tell me you collared her?”
“Yeah. Though to be fair, she kind of collared herself.”
Angel scowled.
“Seriously, she collared herself. I rescued her out of a trap, and she decided she wanted to run with me. It’s cool. She’s smart, she’s brave, and she can understand telepathic speech. She’s the perfect addition to Team Angel-Noodles.”
Angel’s mouth sloped to one side. Admittedly, Lulu was cooing to herself as she tried to roll into the campfire again. “No, she isn’t. This is a disaster.”
“Why?” I signed, increasingly defensive.
“Limnes are one of the weakest Cutes you can capture. And now that you’ve collared her, she’s yours until she dies,” Angel signed back. “If you ever need to get a more powerful Lesser Legion, you’ll have to kill her.”
I rumbled and reached out to gently grasp and lift Lulu before she burned herself, setting her back down between my paws “Them’s fighting words. Lulu isn’t weak. I just watched her drown a t-rex.”
“What level Rex?”
“Twenty-two. Tougher than me by a mile. The damn thing nearly killed my ass.”
“If a rex nearly killed you, it’s either because you got ambushed while you were at low health, or because you weren’t paying attention.” Angel gave me a peevish look. “Any normal animal is about five times as weak as the weakest Greater Legion of the same level, for reference.”
I narrowed my eyes and pulled the squirming Limne to my chest. “Lulu’s my buddy.”
“You’re new here. You don’t know how this place works,” Angel insisted. “I… jeez. If she’s sentient, like you are, maybe she has an S-grade Prime Ability or something. What does her sheet say?”
I brought up the Legion manager. I was level 15, and Lulu was Level 11. Now that I’d collared her, her Legion sigil was there. It glowed a dark blue color, in contrast to my silver one.
Lulu
Limne: Level 11
Prime Element: Spirit
Mundane Elements: Water/Acid
Class: Common
Vitality: 554/1320 HP
Carry Weight: 28kg
Strength: 99
Speed: 89
Stamina: 690
Damage: F
Defense: A
Instincts: C-
Prime Ability: Absorb
The Limne can engulf and devour a small or medium-sized Legion over the course of 10 minutes, gaining a random special ability from that Legion. The Limne can hold a maximum roster of 10 absorbed abilities, but each of these abilities is permanently available. Their trainer may erase abilities to allow them to learn new ones.
Offensive moves learned from Absorb deal 10% of the base damage. Defensive abilities can be used at 50% strength. This ratio improves at Levels 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100.
Lulu’s magic element triangle looked very different to mine. She was a Spirit/Water/Acid Legion, in that order. She had 6 ability points to spend on goodies. She’d already spent 4 of her 10 total points on one of her abilities, Drown:
Drown
By engulfing the airways of susceptible creatures, the Limne is capable of felling enemies and prey items much larger and more powerful than itself. While potentially deadly, anything with more strength than the Limne and the ability to pull it free can usually dislodge it.
I faithfully repeated all of this to Angel. She groaned.
“Good HP, but her strength is terrible. Speed is about average. Her stamina is okay, but Absorb is both the most common and the worst ability a Limne can have.” She paused to rub her brow. “Drown might be good against animals with tiny arms, but it’s basically worthless against anything that can reach its own face.”
“Oh well. I’m stuck with her now.” I shrugged, and went back to the sheet.
“Noodles, this is your LIFE at stake.” Angel slashed her hands at me. “Do you want to die?”
“No. But I’m also not gonna kill Lulu just so I can win at some bullshit game. She saved my ass from a t-rex.” I had a look over the abilities that were now available to me.
Reaper Nemesis:
Needlegun: Explosively eject spines from your skin to puncture grappling enemies, dealing x2 Body damage and causing living opponents to flinch.
Speed Demon: Boost Speed by x2 for 30 seconds. Stacks with Bullet Time.
Bullet Time? I didn’t have that ability available or visible yet. The name was a clue, though. I was guessing it was some hyper-speed dodge ability.
White Noise: Emit a disorienting blast of Psionic force that savages Gladiator concentration-based abilities and deals +200% damage against Earth, Blood, and Air-type elementals.
Poison Cloud: Release a toxic cloud that deals damage over time and inflicts the Poison status on susceptible enemies.
Limne:
Analyze: Analyzes Legions consumed with Absorb. This provides the Limne’s trainer with detailed information about the consumed Legion, its abilities, and its strengths and weaknesses.
Liquid Armor: The Limne surrounds its Greater Legion partner with its matter. The Limne soaks 25% of incoming Piercing and Impact damage.
Water Saber: The Limne fires a highly pressurized blade of water, capable of dealing Body (slashing) damage as well as Water damage.
I twitched my tail as I considered my options. I had enough points for three abilities. Lulu had enough points for one.
“You know a lot about the game, right?” I asked Angel, who was now busy cramming fish and salsa into her face.
“Only what I’ve observed.” She signed once her fingers were free. “I try to pay attention and learn everything I can, but I’ve only been here a couple of months.”
“Okay. Well, I’m about to pick some abilities. What do you recommend?”
She frowned in thought. “The instructors at the Centurions boot camp told us we should pick Brute abilities that play to our Legion’s strengths, and Cute abilities that either enhance those strengths or cover the Brute’s weaknesses.”
“Cute abilities?”
“Yeah. Greater Legions are Brutes. Lesser Legions are Cutes.”
Brutes and Cutes. Right. “Got it.”
“I think the instructor was wrong,” Angel continued. “Actually… I was disappointed by the training overall. A bit suspicious, too.”
“Why?”
“Because I once watched a fight in the wild between two high-level Sponsored, and they weren’t relying just on type-matching,” she signed. “They were leaning more heavily on sync moves. Their Legions worked together really well.”
“What’s a sync move?” My tail was lashing now. It had a life of its own, even more than the tentacles did.
“Abilities a Brute and Cute pair can use together that syncs their powers and generates new move effects. They’re a better strategy than plain old type-matching. That’s my opinion.”
I considered the small roster of abilities available to us. “So like… what happens if we combine Liquid Armor and Poison Cloud? Or Toad Skin? Will I poison Lulu as well?”
“Maybe. But honestly? I wouldn’t worry about abilities too much until you’re at least Level 20,” Angel replied. “Each Realm has a level cap. You can’t get higher than Level 50 in the Jungle. Personally, if I had Legions, I’d take them out into the wilds and train them until they max out from PvE at around Level 25, THEN assign abilities and start PvP.”
“Hmm.” It was a good strategy. With a pool of points, you could build a better deck, so to speak. Because the higher tier abilities were hidden until you reached the appropriate level, you didn’t really have a way to plan for the future.
“I have a notion that Lulu and I will have some sync moves we can use, so I’ll assign a few points for her now to lay some groundwork, and save all of mine and the rest of hers until we hit Level 20.”I nodded, satisfied.
“Ooooh!” Lulu chirped in agreement.
I picked Needlegun for myself. I chose Dermal Armor for Lulu. When I chose the abilities, the spheres flared with bright light before the powers locked in.
“Hell yes.” I shook out my spines and licked my muzzle. “Good choice, Lulu. Should I say so myself.”
“Guuu.” The slime blew some frothy bubbles from her surface.
[Do you wish to confirm your selection?]
“Yeah, confirm.”
A wave of energy rippled through my body. The skin of my back began to itch, and I growled, trying to bring a foot up and back to kick at it. Lulu began to quiver. Her blueish slimy mass gained a metallic tint.
“Guess that means you can make armor for me now, huh?”I patted her on the ‘head’. “So, now what?”
“Oo!” Before I could stop her, Lulu suddenly bounced out of my paws and landed right inside the mortar and pestle. Angel yelped as salsa went everywhere.
“God dammit, Noodles!” Angel chopped her hands at me viciously as Lulu ingested the entire dish and began to slowly bob up and down, just like she had with the t-rex tongue.
“She likes spicy food, okay?” I yawned, and lay my head down on my paws.
The slime gurgled, slowly turning from blue, to purple, to red.
“Or maybe not. You alright there, Lulu?” I squinted at her.
There was a pregnant pause as Lulu quivered like a blob of violently red raspberry jello. Suddenly, she spat the mortar and pestle from her body, sending them flying, and rushed for the cold water. “EEEE!”
“Maybe not as spicy as I like it.” Angel watched, amused, as the Limne jumped into the pool and began to frantically jet around like a jellyfish. “Anyway. If we’re going to get to Hope tomorrow, we need to get some rest, my friend.”
I grumbled, sighed, and lay my head down.
“You know… I was wondering…” Angel fidgeted for a moment, struggling for her words.
“Huh?” I tilted my head, like a curious dog.
“Actually, don’t worry about it.” She glanced at my collar, and sighed. “Get some sleep. We have a long way to go.”
