But Death is Not Forbidden

by Kip Terrington

  The rock monster fell, but the rope broke. That trick would not be working again. Hoping to gain the advantage, Joe jumped on the back of the fallen rock monster. Despite his already bloody knuckles, Joe began to pummel the back of the rock monster’s head. With each impact, the whole body of the elemental shuttered. His punches dealt some damage and he watched as the hitpoints decreased.

  Rock Elemental-

  HP: 1,705 / 1,847

  Rock Elemental-

  HP: 1,645 / 1,847

  Rock Elemental-

  HP: 1,579 / 1,847

  Joe began to feel a glimmer of hope; he might actually win this. Rising up from behind him, unnoticed, a second and more massive Rock Elemental appeared, to disabuse him of that notion.

  Hope is only for beauty queens and the actor Ben Vereen. The seemingly elder of the Rock Elementals picked up what could only be described as a stone column, as its diameter was a foot-and-a-half. Unbeknownst to Joe, the creature approached from behind. Swinging the column like a baseball bat, the rock monster hit the side of Joe’s ribs and threw him off the smaller elemental he had been pummeling. Joe flew ten feet in the air and then rolled another fifteen. Blood stained and seeped out the left side of his uniform.

  Joe lay still and silent. His eyes were closed, but he wasn't asleep. Though there was no time to spare, he began to meditate. If he had had normal human bones, he would have been killed by the crushing blow. As it was, he was still close to death because there was only so much blood a person could lose. Recognizing his vulnerable condition, Joe held onto his meditative state and used his Efficient Brain Crown to seal closed burst veins and ruptured arteries. He didn’t understand how he had survived. He felt incredibly fortunate, but lacked the time to investigate. What Joe and, until this moment, the UI had not understood was that his metamorphosis had produced much more robust bones than either had anticipated. The pure materials he had ingested during his transformation, along with his complex understanding of geological materials and how composites were formed, lead to a far superior composition. Joe’s bones were formed from a composite of graphene, iron, and carbon nanotubes; they were space-age strong. It was the reason his punches had caused the rock monster to stumble.

  The elder Rock Elemental ignored the prone Joe and began gathering stones to replace the ones Joe had broken off the smaller monster. The injured elemental attempted to hold its head together with its iron hands. Joe's pummeling had been somewhat effective. While the elementals tended to one another, Joe tended to himself.

  Time slowed for Joe as he focused on the inside of his rib cage. Annoyingly, he was once again brought back to memories of Ms. Frizzle and the Magic School Bus. He had watched too much television as a child. His point of view shifted; he was inside his rib cage again. His ribs had a different look about them then they had the day before and, oddly, none of them were broken. He knew he had alloy bones, but these appeared stronger than anticipated. Needing to attend to his stressed and injured internal organs, Joe didn't take the time to explore the mystery of his bones. The hepatic arteries connecting to his liver were torn. Blood was spurting out and beginning to pool around his intestines. Joe had to close the tear, or he would bleed to death soon. He imagined clotting factors creating a small dome around the tear, and then he saw it form before his eyes. For good measure, he imagined gossamer strands of cartilage forming around the dome and injured area. There were other similar tears in the kidneys and gallbladder. Methodically, he repaired the holes.

  As he meditatively assessed his internal state, he could tell he had already lost too much blood to be able to survive for long. If he didn’t receive a transfusion quickly, he would die within minutes. Then a thought occurred to him, I know where the blood is. Why not just put it back in? His liver would have to work overtime to clean out his now-contaminated blood, but it was a shot. The blood had pooled down in the area of his intestines. Using a counterintuitive strategy, Joe opened select veins. At the same time, he used all of his concentration and bodily control to squeeze his gut and force the blood back into the veins. It only halfway worked. Enough blood made it back into his circulatory system to prevent death through blood loss, but he had forgotten to repair the minor cuts and scrapes in his skin to stop the blood from leaking out. It was enough leakage that his uniform was now soaked red. Mentally kicking himself, Joe imagined rock filling in the cracks of his skin and used what clotting factors he had left to stem the flow. If he had remembered to do that first, he would have kept more blood in his system and not felt so weak.

  Having accomplished what he could to begin the healing process, he cautiously opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was part of the broken column he had been hit with. Instead of his ribs cracking, apparently the column had cracked. Joe slowly turned his head, and saw the two Rock Elementals near each other, seemingly exchanging rocks. Maybe if he was quiet he could sneak away.

  Slowly and silently, he began moving his hands into place to lift himself up. He mentally prepared to sprint. He knew the better part of valor and all that. As he prepared, he looked down and discovered that even in the tundra there were bugs, and not in the computer code, but actual insects. This reality had its own version of a spider. It was a tiny, yellow nine-legged creature that had just crawled right up Joe's nose. He had a natural response. Immediately, he blew his nose and hit himself repeatedly in the face. Realizing he had rid himself of the yellow spider, Joe looked at the two Rock Elementals staring in his direction.

  “Hey guys. Don't worry, I think I killed the spider. Did you know they're yellow here? Isn't that just the worst?! Like they took a brown spider and peed on it. That's what they have here! Pee spiders! Soooo, yeah… I got stuff to do…”

  The Rock Elementals didn't growl. They just turned and began walking into each other. Literally into each other. They were Voltroning it. As the rocks came together, they formed a twelve-foot tall, eight-foot wide humanoid rock monster. Joe mind-clicked them and again his HUD came up red. Joe was surprised to see that the huge monster registered as two Rock Elementals and a Rock Elemental Combiner.

  Level- ???

  Monster Type- Rock Elemental Combiner

  Mana- ???

  Hitpoints- 1,327

  Level- ???

  Monster Type- Rock Elemental

  Mana- ???

  Hitpoints- 1,778

  Level- ???

  Monster Type- Rock Elemental

  Mana- ???

  Hitpoints- 1,847

  The combined rock monster stood tall and wide. Joe was just trying to figure out which way would be the best to run when he caught glimpse of an orange glow from above. For a split second, he thought it was some type of new system message. That is, until the burning ivory angel smashed into the combined Rock Elemental. The force and heat knocked the elemental onto its back and completely took off its right arm.

  ***

  Spooky was maxing out her processor in an attempt to solve her latest query. How was she supposed to gain more building points? Within the castle, she had the ability to use energy to create mass, but that magic had strict limits concerning how much could be accomplished each day. No matter how many calculations she ran, it all came down to the same conclusion. With every level she gained, her building points would grow. Moving on to her next problem, she worked to discover the most efficient way to use these limited points.

  Moes was in the process of building a secure nursery. She hoped this permanent and strong magical construct within the castle, might raise the castle's level. Her belief was that a level upgrade would give her more access to the most powerful building points available. In continuing to use her magic, she had gained a few new spells. In some cases, these spells made her ivory angel statues better, but they were still fatally vulnerable to any Spirit Mage. This flaw had been revealed the day before when one of her angels got cut off from her control. It had become nothing more than a fallen statue, just another Lenin-like figure lying beside the fallen Iron Curtain. The building
points were important, but she also wanted to find a way to create a soldier that could function when cut off from her influence. Again, she went through her resources, but was unable to find a way to make a truly functional autonomous soldier.

  Having completed her current calculations, she reallocated her processor to focus on the ivory automaton shadowing her patron. Looking through the eyes of her statue, she saw Joe sitting on a pile of rocks and punching them. Slowly, she zoomed out to better assess the situation and, in doing so, she noticed a large stone humanoid figure approaching toward Joe from behind while carrying a massive stick made out of rocks. Her stone angel was too far away to stop the initial attack. Spooky quickly flew out of the castle and headed directly toward Joe's position. The other three ivory automaton angels flew out of the trench they were digging around the castle and followed behind. She could only use the six-foot angels as soldiers, as her six-inch golems could not leave the castle walls, nor fight. The three angels would not be able to keep up with her, but hopefully they would arrive in time to be useful. In her mind's eye, Spooky saw through the statue as Joe was struck by the stone weapon. Worried that he might not survive the hit, she continued to speed ahead.

  The angel watching Joe's position maintained its current altitude. Spooky couldn't help but wonder, if Joe really did die, whether he would be reborn at their place of power, like the system message they had received said. No longer in control of the gaming reality, she felt forced to question the validity of the gaming messages. As she continued to fly, she could see in her mind's eye that Joe had not moved since he had been hit. The automaton did not have the sensors that her avatar did; otherwise, she would have been able to confirm whether Joe was alive or dead. She noticed that the rock monsters were not paying him any attention either, and that worried her further.

  Suddenly, Joe moved. He was aggressively shaking his head and hitting his face. What is this new strategy? she wondered. Joe ended in a seated position, facing the rock monsters. Regardless of the tactic Joe was employing, Spooky feared the stone creatures would immediately charge Joe. If they did, she could knock one of them down with the stone angel she had flying above, but she could not hit both. She watched, surprised, as the monsters began forming into a larger whole. Apparently, their instinct was not strength in numbers, but rather strength in mass. Quickly confirming the trajectory, Spooky fired the hovering angel toward the newly-formed massive creature.

  Rapidly flying through the air, Spooky came close enough to view the attack with her own eyes. Swiftly assessing the situation, she observed how her ivory angel caught fire before hitting its target. The math confirmed that this angel, and the one she had used prior, ignited at the exact same velocity. Allocating more resources to her sensors, she confirmed a small amount of the stone angel’s mass had dissipated before contact. Carrying forward the calculations indicated that something in this moon’s atmosphere caused enough friction to severely limit the speed of projectiles. If she couldn’t figure out how to nullify the heat build-up, it would sorely limit Joe’s plans for rifles and artillery. As she finished this thought, she reached Joe.

  Joe stood with his hands pointed toward the now fallen Combined Rock Elemental. Since running no longer appeared to be a viable option, he had placed the MIL Bar behind his back and made it immovable. He was going to attack the monster with a Kinetic Missile spell, and he hoped the stabilization provided by the bar would increase the amount of force he could bring to bear. Letting the purple spell fly, Joe hit the elemental’s undamaged arm, intending to knock the monster’s balance off course. The force hit its target and the monster swayed back and forth slightly, but was largely unaffected by the attack. The problem was the same as the one Joe had dealt with earlier; there were too many holes in the creature’s body. The force simply flowed through all the gaps and holes of the monster.

  Joe noticed that Spooky had flown up beside him. The expression on her face was not an I'm so glad to see you look. Joe smiled wide.

  “How you doin,’ Spook?” Joe asked in his best Italian accent.

  New fact:

  168- The cuteness of a Joey Tribbiani impression is dramatically lowered when impersonator is covered in blood.

  She didn't respond to Joe's line. She was busy processing the new information her sensors were giving her. Joe was not going to beat this enemy with normal physical attacks, and she was reasonably sure he did not have any combat magic capable of causing the massive creature significant harm. Having gathered and processed all the information she had available, Spooky attempted to gain more from Joe.

  “When you were punching the first Rock Elemental, was it effective? And, where were you hitting it?” Spooky asked. Realizing she was in business mode, Joe grinned and quickly gave her an answer.

  “I struck it on the back of its head, and each hit made the rest of the elemental shutter and lose some HP… at least until I was so unceremoniously knocked off of it,” Joe said.

  “We can talk about that last part later. For now, the head is where we need to concentrate our attack,” Spooky said. Joe was holding his MIL Bar, with the frayed rope attached to one end.

  Spooky noticed this and made a note to look for better material to make ropes in the future and to always store extra in Joe's Holdall.

  “The rest of the ivory statues are headed this way. Three of them will be close enough to be useful in four minutes. The last one is nine minutes out,” Spooky said.

  “I thought you only had four? I just saw one die,” Joe said.

  “No, I can only use four at one time. Prepare yourself, Joe, that Rock Elemental is almost reset,” Spooky said. As she said this, all of the rocks that had been knocked off of the monster's arm from her blast reassembled. This brought the monster back to full strength. Joe shook his head. If this thing kept reassembling, he didn't know how he was going to beat it. Joe was hoping it was like the Immortals in Highlander. Remove the head and it dies.

  Turning its now larger red rock eyes down toward Joe, it opened its maw and growled. The disconcerting crunching and screeching sound of grinding rock came forth. Joe needed to keep it busy until their aerial bombardment was in place. It began to charge him. This time, Joe immediately began sprinting to the right. This forced the combined Rock Elemental to change its trajectory to follow Joe. When their course brought them close together, Joe tried out his first gymnastics-style martial arts move. Holding his bar to the side, Joe clicked it in place and spun 180 degrees, swinging his momentum around the bar and pointing himself in the opposite direction before continuing his sprint. The rock monster reached out with a giant hand to catch Joe, but just missed him. Having nothing to stop its momentum, the creature ran past the original point of contact. It turned and faced Joe, now much further away. It held its hands up in clinched iron fists and screamed in fury. Joe’s eyes lit up.

  The rock monster pointed at a rock lying on the ground. Joe paused, raising an eyebrow, unsure of what was happening. The stray rock flew into the hand of the Rock Elemental. Then, with surprising accuracy, the monster threw the stone at Joe. Erroneously believing distance would keep him safe, Joe attempted to dodge the attack, but was hit in the right shoulder. His uniform and the flesh underneath both tore open. With severed muscles in his shoulder, his right arm was now useless. This time, Joe would not be able to enter a meditative state. Even if he was, he wasn't sure he knew how to reattach muscles. His hitpoints were getting low and he was feeling light-headed from the blood loss.

  Seeing how effective its throw had been, the combined Rock Elemental took on a new strategy. It began picking up more rocks, taking aim and throwing them at Joe. Joe was forced to keep moving, often changing direction with the assistance of his MIL Bar. It felt unbalanced and awkward, running around with one arm limp and flapping.

  The angels came into position and Spooky signaled Joe to get ready. One of the statues began racing downward, on fire once again. This time, it hit the elemental in the back, near the head. The monster went
down and Joe ran up to it, hoping he could punch it in the back of the head and finish it. When he got there, he took a swing and knocked one of the small rocks off its crown. The rock monster recovered quickly and swung an arm, knocking Joe to the side. The creature reached for the small piece of its head that had been knocked off. It put it back in place and was visibly soothed. The rock monster was on its hands and knees, beginning to stand, when the second angel came crashing down, knocking the head completely off of the elemental. As the head detached, the rest of the rocks fell to the ground, losing their cohesion.

  Joe began pumping his one good arm up and down. “That's how we do it! Boom. Down for the count,” Joe rallied. Spooky stared at Joe, tilting her head to the side and placing her tiny hands on her hips.

  “You’re losing focus again,” Spooky said.

  “Its head is off. Stick a fork in it, it's done,” Joe said.

  “First of all, too many idioms. We need to clear your head; you’ve obviously lost too much blood. Second, have you received a system message? I haven't,” Spooky said, sounding concerned.

  Joe realized she was right, as the rocks he thought were dead began moving and slowly rolling toward the, very much alive, severed head. Running over to the head, Joe began to jump on top of it and break up as much of it as he could. He scattered the rocks that had once been the head and kicked many of them several meters away. Despite this disbursement, they all began rolling toward each other again.