Let There Be Life

by Simon Archer

  “We can try it your way for now,” Barnabas replied as he smashed the crab into twain, “but I reserve the right to alter the plan if I see fit.”

  I ignored them as I turned to Jane, who was holding her sword in hand but so far hadn’t entered the fray. “Can you keep an eye on Hudson and make sure he gets whatever needs to be done, done?”

  “I’ll be his shadow,” the slime-girl said before turning her legs into springs and leaping across the room like Elastigirl. She landed atop the crab closest to Hudson with a squelch that extinguished his flames an instant before the crab was absorbed into her slime body. Then she whirled, so her back was to the Priest and dropped into a fighting stance.

  Satisfied she could handle it, I reached out and used Aura Extraction on the fallen crabs to refill my Aura.

  Pattern: Flame Crab has been learned. Would you like to create a Flame Crab?

  “Not really,” I grumbled because they were worth almost no Aura and I didn’t want to waste what little I had on it. So, I just started attacking the closest crab with my sword.

  The Sword of the Destroyer King has encountered a hostile element. Special ability: An Eye for an Eye has been activated. For the duration of this battle, The Sword of the Destroyer King has gained the power of Ice.

  “I wondered if that would happen,” I said, pleasantly surprised as I hacked, slashed, and froze my way through the creatures.

  Jodie had switched to some sort of full-auto firehose attack that was not only keeping the crabs mostly extinguished but also flinging them back into a group. As they collapsed into a pile, Barnabas raised one hand and blasted a bunch of them with a flurry of ice magic, freezing the soaking wet crabs in place. Then the Amorphie King ran in and shattered them into crystalline shards with his new warhammer.

  “Nice combo,” I called as I spun in time to cleave a crab in half that had tried to sneak up behind me. That’s when I heard the cry from Jane’s direction.

  I whirled toward her and saw a massive pile of crabs where she should’ve been. With a cry of desperation, I shoved what little Aura I had into my legs to increase my speed, but I already knew it was pointless. Even if I could have crossed the twenty meters between us in time to help, there were a dozen crabs between her and me, and I knew they wouldn’t just let me pass.

  That’s when I saw a blob of blue protoplasm burst upward through the pile of crabs and slammed down on them like a crashing wave that seemed to envelop them all in a gigantic gelatinous bubble. Then I saw their bodies start to writhe and sizzle.

  A moment later, Jane had not only pulled herself free but had managed to dissolve nearly every crab that had been trying to claw her to death. The rest, she just flung away from herself with a series of undulations.

  “Don’t worry about me, Garrett. These aren’t anything more than appetizers.” She gave me a quick thumbs-up before turning to deal with a new group of crabs.

  “I won’t need much longer either, my liege,” Hudson called from his spot beside the wall. “This one has a code to it. They thought they could trick me by moving the first consonant cluster to the end of the words and adding ‘ay’ to the end, but I saw through it.”

  “Good to know,” I said as I spun around and cleaved apart another pair of crabs. I quickly used Aura Extraction on them before turning my attention back toward the fight.

  Barnabas had just turned a few more crabs into ice cubes, but there were now so many of them that he couldn’t capitalize on it with his warhammer.

  “Move!” Josie said, practically shoving the big Amorphie out of the way before blasting the crabs with the magical equivalent of a shotgun blast.

  “Good job, Jodie,” Barnabas said with a nod. “Were you not already spoken for, I would consider you worthy of carrying my child.”

  “As if I’d let your fish lips anywhere near me,” she growled. “Let’s switch. You freeze ‘em, and I’ll blow ‘em away.”

  Instead of responding to her, he just opened one hand and yelled, “Frost Nova!”

  A bolt of ice exploded from his outstretched palm and slammed into another group of crabs, flash freezing them in an instant.

  Leaving them to that, I turned my attention back toward where Crabface had gone. I wasn’t sure where the guy had disappeared to exactly, but I knew one thing. He was causing these waves of crabs, and while it was possible that we could beat our way through them, it didn’t seem to be happening. In fact, it almost seemed like killing a crab caused two more to spawn.

  If that was true, it meant we would just beat our head into this wall of crabs until we got too tired to fight, and then that fucking crab man would kill us. That was unacceptable. So, I did the only thing I could do. I used what little Aura I’d regenerated to kick my Auric Sense ability into Overdrive.

  Thankfully, it didn’t take long for me to spot Crabface high above with his eyes closed, and that’s when I realized he was summoning and controlling the crabs in a similar way to how I’d seen Queenie do it. That was probably also why they had very little Aura.

  “Guys, I have a really bad plan,” I said as I sheathed my sword and pulled my fishing pole from my inventory. “Either way, I’ll need you to cover me.”

  My words must have gotten the beast’s attention because as I readied my fishing pole, Crabface let out a haughty cackle.

  “What do you plan on doing with that?” He clacked his crab claws together in my general direction, and fire erupted from the ground beneath me.

  I leapt to the side, rolled across the stone, and came to my feet while using the momentum of the whole thing to cast my line just like Ishmael had shown me. The cast was true, and a moment later, the hook smacked into Crabface with a thunk. Then, like an idiot, he grabbed the line and held it.

  “Is that it?” he asked, almost confused. “Do you mean to pull me down with such a feeble line?”

  “Sort of,” I said an instant before I used Auric Fishing on him. Like I’d expected, the stun didn’t do any actual damage to the creature, but it was more than enough to, well, stun his ass. And a stunned Crabface couldn’t exactly keep clinging to the wall like a fucking spider.

  There was a rather satisfying crash as he slammed into the floor of the dungeon.

  “Get him!” I cried as I inventoried my fishing pole and pulled out my sword. Then I leapt toward the he-crab as he struggled to throw off the effects of the stun and slashed at him with all the strength I could muster.

  Somehow, someway, the giant centaur-crab managed to throw up one of his claws to block. My sword struck the chitin with a resounding crack that rang down my arms with nearly explosive force. Warm green blood sprayed across my face and upper body from what remained of Crabface’s limb as the neatly severed claw went flying across the room.

  A terrible scream of pain erupted from Crabface a moment before he was blasted full in the face by a firehose of water. He stumbled sideways and collapsed to the ground an instant before Barnabas snarled, “Frost Nova!”

  A blast of pure cold exploded against the creature, freezing the water soaking his body into an icy prison that bound him to the floor. Since I was definitely someone who would capitalize on my enemy’s misfortune, I attacked.

  My next blow shattered one of Crabface’s left legs, and the one after that caved in the chitin on his back to reveal the greenish flesh beneath. Unfortunately, that was about all the capitalizing I managed because as I reared back for a third attack, the crab broke free.

  “How dare you!” he snarled as he took off toward Barnabas and Jodie with astonishing speed.

  “Bring it, crab boy,” Jodie called and put a shotgun blast into his chest that barely even wobbled him.

  “Hey, I’m not done with you!” I snarled as I sprinted after him.

  Either he didn’t hear me or he was too focused on the catgirl to care, but as he reached them, he didn’t even look in my direction. That was a mistake because as he dodged Barnabas’s warhammer, I pushed every last ounce of Aura into my sword and leapt into the
air.

  Then as I came down on top of him, I plunged my sword through the break in his torso with all my weight behind it. The whole thing was a bit surreal because I actually felt the resistance of my sword cutting through his flesh, hitting the chitin on his chest, and bursting through an instant before my Auric Smash went off like a firecracker in a watermelon.

  You have leveled up. You gain three stat points and one skill point to distribute.

  You have killed a Boss and cleared the first room of the Amorphie Underwater Dungeon. The next door has now been revealed.

  “I got it!” Hudson cried as I jerked my sword free of what remained of Crabface and looked at him. “You need to defeat the guardian to advance, then say the magic words.” He gave me a pleased look. “You already did the easy part, so I can say the magic words I translated when you’re ready, and that new door should open.” He pointed at a spot to the left of where he’d been standing, and sure enough, there was, in fact, a door there.

  “Cool,” I said as I sucked in a breath and looked around at my companions. “Is everyone okay?”

  “I am,” Barnabas said with a nod. “Though I still don’t have any idea who that was.” He shrugged.

  “I’m okay too,” Jane said as she rubbed her belly. “Kinda full too.”

  “I can’t believe you ate them,” Jodie said as she looked at the corpse of Crabface. “How did they taste?”

  “Like it needed butter,” Jane said with a laugh as I used Aura Extraction on Crabface.

  Pattern: The Crab Lord has been learned. Would you like to create a Crab Lord? Please note, this is a special monster, and only one can be summoned at any given time. If you would like to summon more, you must defeat more.

  “Okay, let’s rest up for a minute,” I said as I distributed my three points to Intelligence and my new Skill Point to Aura Extraction because not having Aura sucked. “At the very least, I want to summon Queenie and Gobta before we move on.”

  “That is a great plan, my liege,” Hudson said as he bounded over to me, “but then again, all your plans are pretty amazing.”

  “Man,” Jodie said as she elbowed Jane in the side. “I can’t wait to see how he and Queenie get along.”

  Jane smirked. “Something tells me the two of them are going to be super good friends.”

  37

  “You two feeling okay?” I asked Queenie and Gobta once they’d both materialized next to me.

  “I am fine, my liege,” Gobta said as a strange look crossed his face. “But while I was in the Auric Pocket, my Hudson became lifeless. It’s fine now because they just think he rose from the dead or whatever, but I guess I’ll have to invest some skill points in giving him life even when I’m not around.” His eyes glazed for a moment, making me think he was checking his stats. “It will only take a few levels, so hopefully by the time we finish here, I can fix it.”

  “Okay, good,” I said as a wave of relief washed over me. “I did wonder what had happened to him while you were in the pocket.”

  “Nothing a few threats won’t finish.” Gobta shrugged as he looked around. “Seems I missed a good fight.” He gave a dead Flame Crab a contemptuous kick.

  “It wasn’t too bad,” I said as I turned to Queenie. “How about you? Everything okay?”

  “I am glad to be back by your side, master,” Queenie said with a delightful bounce.

  “I know, right?” Hudson said with a huge grin while practically vibrating with excitement. “Isn’t it so great to just be next to him?” He held his hands out toward me like I was a fire. “You can literally feel the badassitude radiating off of him.”

  “It is really great,” Queenie replied as she eyed Hudson carefully. Then, very slowly, she held her hands out toward me like he was doing. Her eyes widened in shock. “Oh, my master, You can feel it!” She took a step closer. “And it’s stronger the closer you get! Thank you so much for sharing this with me, Hudson!”

  “You’re most welcome, Queenie.” The Amorphie grinned. “I wonder what happens if we get closer.”

  “Do we dare?” Queenie asked as she looked at Hudson seriously. “Perhaps getting closer would be too much. What if his aura of badassitude consumes us completely?”

  “If it kills me being closer to our liege, then I don’t want to be alive,” Hudson said a moment before he took a huge step toward me. “Oh, yes! That’s the stuff.”

  “Indeed!” Queenie cooed, and I realized she was very nearly pressed against me. “Come, everyone, bask with us.”

  “Yes!” Hudson said as I felt him get within a hair’s breadth of me.

  “So, this is happening then,” Jodie said as she watched them slowly envelop me in a hug. Then, before I realized what was happening, she’d crossed the room and wrapped her arms around me. “What can I say? I’m always down for a good time.”

  “So, how is it?” Gobta asked, and I noticed he too had moved closer.

  “Better than you’d expect,” Jodie replied, and with a nod, the Hobgoblin King came over and very lightly touched me with his index finger.

  “This is pleasing, I agree.” The Hobgoblin King slowly touched me with another finger. “No Homo.”

  “Well,” Barnabas broke in, “I’m not one to miss out on anything. Ever.” Then his huge arms wrapped around us. “This is nice. I am glad we could share this moment.”

  “Jane, come on,” Jodie called over her shoulder. “You’re missing out.”

  “I worry that if I try, I’ll kill you all.” Jane gestured down at herself. “Slime girl.”

  “Oh, that’s no problem,” Jodie said as she broke away and sauntered over to the slime girl. Then she popped off one of her baubles, fiddled with it a second, and pinned it to Jane’s cape. “There, now you have a tiny personal shield you can switch on by giving it a quick tap. It will make it so you can feel whatever but won’t dissolve anyone.” Jodie pushed the button on the bauble, causing it to give off a sapphire glow that quickly enveloped the slime girl. Then, as if to emphasize her point, the catgirl took Jane by the hand and led her over to me. “See?”

  “Yes.” The normally stoic slime girl seemed like she might cry. “This is amazing.” Then she and Jodie hugged me. “And it just got way, way better.”

  “So, now that everyone has given me hugs,” I said once they had finished their group hug a few moments later, “how about we get a move on?”

  “I think that’s a great idea, my liege,” Hudson said with a nod. “I can speak the words to open the door whenever we are ready to go.”

  “Cool, just let me summon a few more monsters,” I said as I turned toward Queenie. “And can you process all the corpses?”

  “I’ll get on it right now, master,” Queenie said as she summoned several ants to do just that.

  “Perfect,” I said as I finished summoning a variety of minions before finally bringing out my version of Crabface out of my Auric Pocket. “What’s in the next room?”

  “RISE!” Gobta cried as he held his hand out toward the partially exploded corpse of Crabface. Only, this time, nothing happened. “Curse the dark gods’ black hairy asses. It won’t let me resurrect the corpse because I wasn’t there when it died.” He sighed. “Apparently, that is a whole separate skill.” He made a fist. “But do not worry, for I will acquire it soon.”

  “So, as I was saying,” I said as I looked back at Crabface, “what’s in the next room?”

  “I have no idea,” he said as he glanced over at the door. “Maybe it’s a puzzle? Or a boss fight?” He looked at me. “Why do you think I’d know? I was merely resurrected by the Sea King to serve as the dungeon entrance after Barnabas flung my corpse into the waters.”

  “Is the Sea King here?” I asked as I looked at Hudson, who just looked at me with a dopey smile.

  “No.” Crabface shook his head. “He merely put my soul in this body and departed into the great void.” He shrugged. “He told me that I’d have a chance for revenge if I stayed, but it seems even in that, I have failed.�
� Then he glared at Barnabas. “How do you not remember me?”

  “In my defense, I don’t really look at people.” The Ice Amorphie shrugged.

  “That’s really not a good defense,” Jane said as she looked sidelong at the Ice King. “Like, you’re basically saying you’re too big of a douche to get to know anyone.”

  “That is correct.” Barnabas nodded. “Now then, are we going through the door or not?”

  “I suppose so.” I nodded to Hudson. “Do your thing.”

  “Right-o, bossman,” Hudson said before he began to chant in a language I couldn’t understand.

  Admittedly, I sort of expected sparks or flashes or hell, a wicked bass solo. Something. None of that happened. Instead, the door just disappeared to reveal a set of stairs leading down.

  “So… is this like supposed to be a trap or something?” Jane asked as she headed toward the stairs and peered down them. “Like, is a giant rock going to fall on me the moment I step on them?”

  “Let’s find out,” I said as I nodded to Crabface. “Go down the stairs.”

  “Your will be done,” the giant crab monster said before skittering over to the stairs and heading down them while I watched through his eyes. When he reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped off onto the landing without dying, I felt reasonably sure it was safe.

  Even still, I sent multiple summons down after him, and when nothing happened to them either, the rest of us decided to go down.

  And we all died.

  38

  Just kidding.

  “Well, I’m glad nothing killed us,” I said as I stepped off the final step to meet everyone else on the bottom, but the moment my foot touched the platform, the stairs I’d come down dissolved into smoke that tasted of sassafras and blueberry jam.

  Crazier still, I suddenly found myself standing atop a giant platform overlooking a massive crystalline pool with a small platform in the middle.

  “Am I the only one who thinks this water smells like acid?” Jodie said as she sniffed the air. She pointed at it. “It even bubbles like acid.”