The Puddle Punches Back

White flames flicker over the black liquid flesh as the beast slides along the ground outside. The light it brings to the room shining in through holes it’s made in the walls of the building. A few reaching tendrils of its liquid body explore through the gaps, but never travelling far from the main body.

The black tendrils flicker with white flames for a few moments before pulling chunks of stone from the wall to melt into the main flesh of the larger beast. Though the term flesh might not be entirely correct, the liquid body something unlike the slimes and other beasts I’ve encountered before.

An itching in my heart pushes me to rush at the beast, using my magic to reduce it to nothingness.

I slowly close the door most of the way as the creature approaches, quieting my unsettled heart while conferring with the others in chat.

“It doesn’t seem to have noticed us, but I’m not sure we can hide forever.” I say, watching as the demonic flaming puddle of oil reaches a few tendrils towards the corpses of the rebels. Rather than consuming their bodies the creature throws them aside to get at the stone beneath them.

“We need to find an escape route.” Adler says, kneeling down beside me. “Then we can discuss possibly engaging in a fight after we’ve got a way out.”

“I don’t see any escape without going through.” Eshya says, a new sharpened sword in hand. The bone sword she’d brought along as a temporary replacement has been placed back into the weapon rack in the place of her new blade.

“Which is why we need to look for other options.” Adler says.

“I’m not sure there is anything, we can just make a run for the exit.” I suggest. “It doesn’t seem all that fast.”

“I think it’ll attack really fast when it sees us.” Vii says. “The holes in the walls and the way the rebels were torn apart, I think it’s faster than it looks. We have to be careful.”

“We could try sneaking out.” I suggest, seeing that the demonic puddle is wandering out of sight, “I’d prefer fighting it.”

The dead rebels, the darkness, the cold, and the silence. A place of civilisation, a place not unlike my own base, reduced to the nest of some alien being. Is this what my home will look like by the time I return?

Will my soldiers lie dead in puddles of their own blood, just the same as this?

My entire body overflows with energy, mana and adrenaline mixing, pushing me to go out there and slaughter this creature. I restrain myself, letting the cold rage consume the more energetic energies, as I slowly take in the moment and try to find a better solution.

“There might be a cellar door in here.” Vii says, looking down at the ground. “I can’t tell for sure without some light.”

I listen closely to the furiously bubbling monster out the door, letting Chip interpret its ‘words’ for me.

“Darkness, why is everything so bright? The shadows run from me. I need to kill all of the light.” The beasts strange ranting pushes me away from the idea of turning the lights back on.

If I’d magically changed my eyes, I’d be able to see in the dark but I didn’t have the mana to spare, and I still don’t.

The beast flows into the main building where we’re hiding, still eating the softened stone that it pulls from the walls and ceiling. It doesn’t seem like it’s seen us yet, but I can’t be sure.

Slowly closing the door, we’re quickly immersed in complete darkness, but for the soft flickering light beneath the doorway.

“I propose we use a light wand briefly to check for that door Vii saw.” I say. “If it comes for us, we blast it with everything we have and either kill it or get past it. If all of that fails, hopefully the door Vii saw is real and an escape we can use.”

“I’m not sure that’s a very good plan.” Adler says.

“Does anyone have any better ideas?” I ask the group.

“I do.” Eshya says, stepping close enough that I can feel the warmth from her skin. “It took out the lights outside. It will notice ours. Either we crawl around hoping it doesn’t notice us while we look for this hidden door, or we take the advantage and attack it before it even knows we’re here.

“We should still have someone looking around for an escape while we fight. Rudolf would be good since he’s not really trained for something like this. He’ll look for our escape while we kill that thing outside.”

Her explanation is making good sense, even if it seems a little too good of an excuse to get us into the fight.

“Or we could wait for it to pass.” Adler suggests. “It didn’t seem to bother searching through any of the other rooms around the place. If we just keep our heads down, and lights turned off, we can wait for it to leave.”

“That could take days, and we have class to get to tomorrow.” I say. “Not to mention, I’d like to finish this quick so I can be close by in case Red needs me to show up for the war. She’s convinced that Loekan is going to stay quiet for a few weeks, but she’s not certain of it.”

“We fight then.” Eshya says with a measure of finality. “Rudolf will look for some escape while we deal with the beast.”

“I’ll do what I can too.” Vii adds. “Are we starting by testing the beast’s abilities? Or are we just blasting it with everything we have?”

“No point to a surprise attack if we don’t use it to hit hard.” Eshya says.

“We’ll hit hard, then retreat and see how it responds.” I say, eager to get to the killing, but much less willing to put my lovers at risk. “Ready?”

“Ready.” Eshya says, pulling the door to the room open and leading us out towards the puddle of living oil. Her new sword shines bright with the flickering white flames that cover the oily mass.

“Rudolf, close the door before you use your torch.” I order as I step outside into the light of the white flames on the beast.

“I’ll do that.” Rudolf replies to me, slowly easing the door shut as he watches our backs.

If he chooses this moment to betray us…

No, it’ll be fine. Focus on killing this thing.

The mana that I’ve been stirring in my heart rapidly takes on the colour of annihilation, stealing power from the void beyond reality. As the mana stirs, I more deeply desire domination over my foes and the power to reshape this world as I please, which in turn inspires my talent to draw more mana from beyond reality.

As we race into position around the wide puddle of oil, I keep the magic building inside me, feeding it up to a quarter of my total mana. I only have a single battery with me, and I’d rather not risk being empty on mana again unless I’m sure the attack will kill this thing.

White flames flicker along the thick oil of the strange creature, as it takes in more of the stone around us. A few quivering liquid limbs pause, and start moving about, as if it can tell that something is off.

Eshya doesn’t wait for it to figure out what is wrong, using her new sword she slashes downwards on one of the overextended limbs, separating it from the main body and causing the bubbling to grow much more intense. She doesn’t stop after the first.

Vii lashes out at it from a distance, her wind blades criss-crossing all over the beast’s body, separating it into smaller and smaller parts. The wind can’t cut all the way through, but the wounds are building more and more numerous to make up for the lacking power.

Adler’s high pressure hose cuts paths through the mass, causing the most damage to the beast, putting out the white flames while blasting away chunks of blackened liquid to splatter onto the far wall.

My own magic bursts out from my chest, landing on the main body of the creature while it’s still in shock from our surprise attack. The threads of annihilation spread through the oil, reducing it to base particles, the energy stripped from every atom making up its body.

The liquid mass is separated into a dozen parts, then a hundred, the flames still flickering on the back of each individual shifting lump. If this doesn’t kill it…

“Back up!” Adler shouts, lifting a shield of water as she crouches down low to duck.

I ready my own defence magic as I look for the threat.

The black, oily mass moves all at once, threads reaching out from each chunk and weaving themselves together into long spears. The first fires at me, punching into my chest.

My annihilation defences activate, consuming the mass of liquid and magic pushing into me, but I can already feel that it’s barely going to be enough. Where my annihilation cuts into the black liquid spear, carving paths through it, the mass reconnects itself continuing to stab into my chest piece.

The spear continues to press into my chest until the last of my mana is sucked into my defence spell, and the last of the dark liquid is made ash.

Mana critically low, I look over at the others.

One black spear is struck through Vii’s wing.

One through Eshya’s leg, and another in her elbow forcing the sword to drop from her hand.

Mana stirs itself into magic, the black spears changing form.

“Vii! Eshya!” I scream, running for them. The last of my mana burns in my mind as I watch, trying to look for a solution. When one comes to mind, I don’t have time to second guess myself.

I throw all of my remaining mana into three annihilation spells, one for each spear and injury. It can’t stop the black liquid, but it can probably break their magic.

It has to.

Time flows fast as my spells race out towards the foreign magic. The black spears take on the white flames of the main body of the beast, spinning around themselves melting everything they touch, and splitting the flesh apart.

Vii screams.

Eshya roars in guttural pain.

Annihilation reaches them a moment late, cutting through their bodies, and destabilising the spells energising the fiery pinwheels.

Vii’s wing falls off from the shoulder cut by both magics; she falls unconscious, lying dangerously close to the still spinning spear covered in white flames. Eshya loses one leg from the hip, the other severely burnt by the white flames, while her sword arm is left on the ground at her feet, she falls over backwards to get some distance from the flames.

I rush across the room, snatching Vii off of the ground, and struggling through the mana friction and increased weight that comes from the difference in our mana.

More spears fly, but shields of water form behind me, covering my back as I get to Eshya. She’s somehow still conscious, taking up her new sword with her remaining hand.

“Move!” I shout, pulling her along by her remaining arm, nearly getting impaled on her sword. She kicks at the ground with her remaining leg, trying to help me move.

“Rudolf!”

“There’s a hatch in the ground, but it’s locked, and I can’t get through!” He replies, as I pull Eshya and Vii down the hall, their blood staining the path behind me. Adler maintains her water shield as the screeching bubbling mass reforms behind us.

We get through the door and Adler slams it shut behind us. A few spears cut right through it slamming into the far wall before igniting and slicing through it too.

“Mana potions!” She shouts at me. “Mana potions for the both of them, right now!”

“Got it!” I reply, ignoring the bubbling for a moment while I fumble with my potion, popping the lid and forcing it on Eshya before looking for another. Adler is fast, forcing hers onto Vii.

“Now healing potions!” She says, covering Vii’s ruined shoulder with the liquid, stopping the bleeding. I do the same with Eshya’s two missing limbs. She passed out while I was dragging her away and now, even unconscious, she’s pale and shivering.

Adler gives her another mana potion as I toss healing potions on her limbs, the magic unravelling and covering the injuries with fresh skin, stopping the bleeding.

More black spears pierce the walls behind us, a few flying dangerously close to us.

“Adler get that door open!” I order her, looking over my two injured lovers.

Eshya’s stopped shaking, and Vii is still breathing.

It’s enough for right now.

I grab them by their remaining limbs and pull them towards the door that Adler is cracking open, using a powerful stream of pressurised water to cut apart the internal functions of the strange lock.

Rudolf tears the door open the moment the lock is broken, the heavy metal slamming up onto its hinges. He rushes over the moment it’s open, helping me with Eshya and Vii.

Adler hurriedly raises another water shield in time to save my life, the spear cutting through it, but deflected away from my body.

Without hesitation, I dive down the open shaft with Vii and Eshya in my arms falling past the ladder.

The fall lasts one second, then two, my stomach turns as I realize that this next part is going to hurt.

The ground only separates from the darkness below in order to crush my legs with an overeager welcome. My legs fail me, crumpling under the combined weight of three bodies, two of them filled with mana, the other covered in thick metal plating.

Thanks to adrenaline, I don’t have to feel the pain in my lower body, but I already know that it’s bad. Shattered bones bad.

“Kyra!” Adler shouts.

“I’m alive!” I shout back up at her, breathing heavily. “Close the hatch!”

While Rudolf and Adler deal with the large metal door, I force myself to take in the situation.

Eshya and Vii are still breathing, and don’t seem to need more potions, so I move on to looking for threats.

The room shines with a dull light coming from a few dozen crystal shards left around the room, likely magical. All sorts of strange things are gathered onto the shelves around us, but I don’t have the time to try looting the place.

Something that looks like an oversized rat stares at us in shock, a large shiny rock in its front paws. There are chew marks on the stone from where the beast has been working at it.

Squealing in panic, it turns around and whips its tail at us. I lift an arm to block the attack.

It’s such a weak creature that even I can manage this. It’s nothing like the thing following us.

The tail glows bright as the beast focuses it’s mana, but my body and armour has none of the same benefit. The glowing tail cuts through my armour and then my flesh, most of the way through my arm.

The rat doesn’t even think of trying to finish me off, rushing away from us, as Adler and Rudolf land behind me.

Above us I can almost hear the bubbling of the beast as it flows into the room we just left, searching for us. I pray that the door holds, that the damage we’ve done in breaking the lock doesn’t let the beast make it through.

The pain hits me all at once, and I can only wipe away my frustrated tears as I glare up at the ceiling. At the beast beyond it that could kill us at any moment, should it know how to open doors.

My shattered pride cuts at my heart. I want to see my lovers safe and protected. I want to see this horrible beast dead.

I need to be stronger.

Even as I convert the mana from my battery, making it completely my own I glare at the ceiling, waiting for death to come for us, my pride and my rage worthless in the face of such simple raw power.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 3999 units

~Mana distribution:

Defence: 40/99%

Offense: 20/94%

Mana sense: 40/100%

Recovery: 0/75%

Gluttony: 0/79%

Misc.: 0/93%

Efficiency: 100/100%

~Favourited Skills:

-Tag and Film

-Mana surge movement

-Annihilation defence

-Annihilation flame burst

-Annihilation net