Rebirth
Page 24
The latest wound was too much for the young adventurer. He dropped his blades, and they shattered into harmless chunks of ice. His hands went to his wound, uselessly trying to hold his flesh together. Sting came close and hovered menacingly over Zach, ready to deliver the final blow.
“Here comes my next snack, Jeeves,” Breck chuckled. “Told you I could fight as effectively as Sting.”
“I stand corrected, Sir. You did a fantastic job. But… what is the human saying?”
“Saying? Oh, he is mumbling something.” Breck focused his attention back on the fight.
Zach was indeed mumbling something, but his head was down to the ground. Sting continued inching forward, attempting to hear what Zach was saying. He got so close that Zach could feel his breath on him, but when Sting didn’t end his life, Zach lifted his head and shouted out.
“I will not die before I return to EARTH!”
A blade of ice formed in his left hand as he extended it outward. It came into existence just in time to make contact with Sting’s forehead. The blade pierced through the center of Sting’s head, exiting the other side, dripping in blood. A moment later, when Zach’s essence was fully depleted, the ice sword harmlessly turned to water and fell into a puddle.
“Did he just say what I think he said!?” Breck’s consciousness returned to his opal shouting in confusion. “This guy’s from Earth! I need to speak with him. NOW! How did he get here? Does he know how to get home?”
“Sir, Sir.”
“WHAT!?”
“He’s leaving.” Jeeves pointed Breck’s attention toward the dungeon exit.
Zach dragged himself to the staircase, leaving a trail of blood and gore behind him. Leaning heavily on the wall, he was limping up the stairs.
“Jeeves. We just found another person from Earth. This… changes… everything…”
The End of Book I
EPILOGUE
“Kezdet, is it done?” Breck impatiently asked for the third or fourth time.
“No massster. I need more time to prepare the ssspell. The modificationsss you asssked for are more complicated than I expected,” Kezdet responded as he scratched ritualistic symbols into the rocky ground.
“Sir, you need to be patient. These things take time. You don’t want him to ruin the spell, do you?” Jeeves added.
Breck mentally sighed. Fine. I’ll go back to working on my side project then. He remembered the first time he tried creating his wasps and the mushy venomous ooze that was generated instead of the flying insectoid. He focused on replicating that.
He started with the pattern for a wasp, breaking it down to its basic elements and singling out the venom and life essence. Feeding the pattern with essence, he placed it on the ground near his core. A bubbling, popping, oozy slime, roughly five inches in diameter, generated from the glowing pattern.
It flopped on the ground with a splat, but Breck wasn’t done. Now for a little razzle dazzle. He pulled up the pattern he created for his beetles and spiders, the intelligence pattern. Focusing hard, he split the intelligence pattern up into a few dozen pieces and placed them throughout the ooze. Lastly, he fed it all with essence until the overall creature was beginner six. When he cut the essence flow, he sat back and watched.
“What is that, Sir?”
“Shh, just look. I call it a venom slime.” Breck watched in anticipation.
The slime stretched in all directions before collapsing in on itself. When it was nothing more than a puddle, it grouped up and formed into a large oval about the size of a basketball. It took a hesitant roll forward, unsure of its body and existence. It didn’t take more than a couple of minutes before it was hopping around the room.
“That’s brilliant, Sir. A being made of pure essence,” Jeeves complimented.
“No. A being made of pure venom essence. Any wound it inflicts will be full of venom! Not only that, check this out.” Breck took control of Sting and flew him close.
With a quick slash of Sting’s bladed arm, he cut the venom slime in two. Instead of dying, the two halves shook. It was only a few seconds before each half started jumping around the room, independent of one another.
Jeeves examined the new slimes. “They’re both beginner rank three. They literally split their essence. But… why didn’t it die? Shouldn’t it have fallen apart when it was sliced in half?”
“Normally, yes but I found a way around it. I took the intelligence pattern and dispersed it throughout its body. Every piece of the venom slime is technically its own creature. Since it has no appendages, organs, or much of anything, every secondary piece can move and live on its own. As long as there’s enough essence for it to hold itself together, it will survive and split. Pretty good, right?” Breck praised himself.
“Good? It’s genius! I can see it now. A group of adventurers slicing them up, thinking they’re winning when all the small pieces attack them. The venom slime is going to get you a lot of essence, Sir. A lot.”
“That’s the plan, Jeeves.” Breck commanded Sting to finish his recent creation off. After several additional slices, he finally defeated the venom slime. “More importantly, KEZDET! Are you done!?”
Startled, Kezdet dropped the vial he was holding. It shattered and kobold blood covered the ground.
“Sorry…” Breck added sheepishly.
“It’sss ok, massster. I have finissshed the preparationsss. We can begin the ssspell now. On your command of courssse.” Kezdet bowed.
“Yes! If you’re ready, let’s get going!”
Kezdet stepped to one edge of a large runic circle carved on the ground. Four additional kobold mages joined him, equally placed around the outside of the runes. Each of them took a single claw and cut a long, but shallow, cut across their chests. They placed a hand against the bleeding wound and smeared the blood until it covered their palms.
While cutting and covering their palms in blood, they chanted. Breck’s tongues ability translated the words. They were chanting about connection, spiritual energy and the power of the mind. The phrase “Great Spirit, hear our plea” was repeated over and over while the runes emitted a purple light.
Kezdet walked forward and the other kobold mages followed him toward the inside of the circle. Floating a few feet above the ground, at the very center of runes, was a small wasp. The wasp’s stinger had runes of similar appearance carved into it.
When the kobolds reached it, they outstretched their palms. The blood covering them was glowing and, defying gravity and physics, it floated over to enter the wasp. One at a time, the kobolds collapsed. Kezdet was the last to collapse, blood running from his nose, ears and eyes.
“Kezdet! Kezdet! Say something!” Breck called out.
Without opening his eyes, Kezdet’s response was weak. “It… it worked…”
Examining the wasp, Breck smiled. The pattern read, “runic enhanced wasp.”
“Tell me again why we killed two of the boneless tribe for this?” Jeeves questioned.
Looking at the unconscious kobolds, Breck confirmed that two of them were indeed dead. That’s unfortunate, but I got what I needed. “Jeeves, it’s unfortunate, but it was all worth it. That wasp is the key to communicating with that adventurer from Earth. I had Kezdet modify his original ritual that connected him with me in order to enchant a monster with it. It’s a one time use, but when this wasp stings that kid, he’ll be mentally linked with me. It’s time I spoke with this… Zach.”
Breck, Zach and the rest of the gang will return in Book II.
AFTERWORD
Thank you for reading The Boneless Dungeon: Rebirth! I really hope you enjoyed reading it.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Devin Auspland
I live outside of Buffalo NY with my wife, 2 dogs and 2 cats. By day I work in an office, but at night I become a writer!
After enjoying countless Fantasy and LitRPG books, I decided it was time to create my own cast of characters and world to put them in. It has been a huge investment of time and a lot of late nights, but I’m incredibly humbled to share my story with the world and with you, the readers.
I hope that you get as much enjoyment out of it as I have had writing it. Minus the late nights of course.
If you want to know more about the Endless Fantasy Online series, The Boneless Dungeon, or other books I’m working on, please visit my website here: http://devinauspland.com
I love to hear from my readers and engage with them, so please reach out to me at devinausplandbooks@gmail.com