WilburWoods
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Chapter 24 - Deathmatch
🕑 Added 2023-09-10 21:50:02 +0000 UTCLogan made Tumor draw a red circle in the ground for him. It was maybe four yards in diameter. That covered the doorway fully and them some. The swarm of beetle-fiends was seconds away. This needed to work or running away would be hard.
“Make this ground like quicksand. Soft, hard to tread and sinking. Make it also adhesive and sticky. Make it extremely hard to move in. Once it sticks on you, it becomes very heavy. Make it paralyze anything that touches it. Make touching it make you go blind. Make it dissolve tissue into more sticky trap stuff! Use all the tricks. [Enchantment] and [Transmutation]. I don't care if it sucks all my Numa dry!”
[Transmutation level requirement not met]
[Enchantment level requirement not met]
[Sub-class Level Up!]
[Enchantment level 15]
[Transmutation level 11]
[Attribute Level Up!]
[Potency: 10]
[Focus: 9]
[Efficiency: 10]
[Class Level Up!]
[Artificer Level 5]
[Class Passive Skill Choice Available]
At the same time as a massive minty fresh feeling gusted through Logan, he watched the ground inside the circle turn into glossy, bubbling mud. Slowly the circle of sticky death started even widening, as it ate away at the grass and ground around it.
The beetle-fiends rushed at them with no heed. The fell knee-deep into the sticky trap. Hissing and acid spitting ensued. More beetle-fiends rushed over their comrades, only to tumble into the trap themselves. A score of them was soon trapped in the trap. Some only dipped a leg in there, but it was enough to weaken and slow them down substantially.
And as The trap’s radius widened and as the beetles struggled and splashed the heavy, oily substance around, it got stuck onto beetles who were weakened by blindness and paralysis to some degree.
It was clear the monsters still had motor-function and some degree of sight, but they had been severely weakened.
“Don’t touch the sludge!” Logan shouted. “Balmer, throw me the crystal! Kat keep them busy!”
“On it!” Kat said as she kicked a straggling beetle with a limp.
Balmer threw the Numa crystal to Logan who caught it and immediately ran to the closest tree. Using [Transmutation] he removed a fat branch from the tree and started extracting javelins from it. He asked for something crude and effective from Tumor and got just that. He was going for mass production.
[Attribute Level Up!]
[Efficiency: 11]
“Balmer!” Logan shouted. “Here!”
Kat roared as she punched one of the beetle-fiends with her gloved fist. It was sent tumbling on its back into the now full pool of deadly sticky stuff. Balmer was distracting three beetles, keeping himself away from their spikes and acid. He had clearly acquired speed and grace he had not had before from his new class.
It’s actually not too bad that he’s on distraction duty.
Logan threw a javelin at one of the monsters that was trying to climb out of the pit. He struck true, but the carapace was hard. However the projectile had enough momentum to tip the monster on its back in the sticky sludge, which is where it would stay.
Logan didn’t waste time, he kept lobbing the javelins. When he ran out, he created more.
[Skill Level Up!]
[Marksmanship level 6]
[Skill Level Up!]
[Marksmanship level 7]
Kat was slowing down. She had a pained expression on her face and her other leg buckled under the weight of her movement. Balmer was dancing around the insect monsters with more confidence, and had by now collected the attention of most of the surviving beetles who had avoided the sludge.
The young goon was fine. He was dancing around the beetles and slicing them up with the scythe-rang. He was surprisingly adept at using it. It was Kat that looked like she needed help. Logan needed to give their resident [Brawler] a breather right this instant.
“Hey! Logan yelled as he ran to where Kat was fighting near the pit of sludge. “On me, bastards!
He threw another javelin as he ran and then took a better grip of a club he had transmuted just now. Logan’s heart was pounding, but this was the right thing to do. He took a baseball swing at the beetle-fiends skull closest to Kat. It cracked and the monster fell inches before impaling the thigh of the exhausted Kat.
“Catch your breath!” Logan barked over his shoulder as he took another swing.
It didn’t take long for Logan to run out of breath. He wasn’t exactly trained in fighting and his energy was sapped within a minute of swinging and bashing. Just as he was about to take a fatal stumble, Kat came up, kicked the beetle about to assault him and grabbed the makeshift club from him.
“Go back to…” Kat said between labored breaths. “Tossing sticks…. You wimp…”
*
When the last of the beetle-fiends who were not trapped in the sludge was dead, all three of them fell on the grass.
Logan’s lungs didn’t hurt. Nor did his muscles. Specifically. Everything hurt. He knew some of the beetle-fiends were still alive. He knew the [Enchantments] in his trap would run out sooner or later. But right now he just couldn’t. He had no fight left in him. He had given it his all. Over a score of beetles lay dead around them. Most of them had their legs and chunks of their carapaces melted off by the death trap. Logan was gripping a half snapped javelin against his chest. He’d shove that thing in anyone’s eye who’d come bother him at his moment of trying to wheeze a breath in.
“You okay, Kat?” Balmer said weakly.
Kat let out a pained grunt. It had all been a blur. Logan wasn’t sure, but he thought Kat was wounded. No small wonder. Logan felt a little guilty. He could hear his father’s voice ringing in his head.
IRRESPONSIBLE!
“Shut up,” he muttered to himself. With great labor, Logan struggled to his hands and knees. Every fiber of his existence was miserable and hurting. He had never exerted himself in such a way. It had been a true battlefield of chaos and death. Fortunately not theirs. He noticed Balmer was already on his feet, as shaky as he looked.
Logan had a few burns here and there from the acid, as well as a scrape on his arm from a charge attack. Mostly he was afflicted with exhaustion. Despite that he forced himself to get up and stand.
With some wobble and panting he managed to remember how to human again. But in the end he did manage. Logan dragged his feet to Balmer and grabbed the scythe-rang from him. After that Logan rummaged through his pouch and gave the young goon a bundle of bandage cloth.
“Fix her up. I’ll practice my aim on these bastards.”
With a serious nod, Balmer took the cloth and went to tend Kat. There wasn’t blame or anger in that gaze. More like comradeship. Logan wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about that. Gratitude towards this person was hard. But he wasn’t as bad as Logan had initially thought. Somehow he felt that was exactly what Balmer was thinking. Logan reciprocated the nod.
With a flourish he took aim at one of the beetle-fiends. As he threw, his fathers words thundered in his ears.
IRRESPONSIBLE!
Logan threw javelin after javelin, until he ran out. Then he grabbed the Scythe-rang and smashed the rest of moving beetles into bits. His lungs burned and his muscles ached, but he kept hacking. When there was only death and stillness around him, Logan fell to his knees.
Balmer turned to him in horror.
“Logan,” he said. “She’s not breathing!”
