Attempt 8… Unsuccessful.
Tailyn didn’t stop, time and again trying to hack the advisor. But nothing worked. The ten percent Raptor gave him refused to come through for him. Valkyrie cut loose another bolt, that time nearly at point blank range, only to have the sparks burst brightly once again. The boy’s cards were useless, too. Fireball, dark strike, icicle — Tailyn tried every kind of attack, though they all failed.
Dur-Sha-Gun looked over at the little mage. Finally, he realized why his master had selected Tailyn as his personal enemy — the small human really was an interesting character. He fought back, counterattacked, even thought he could win. The idiot. Sticky, the lix’s second-favorite card, appeared in front of him. And after he blew on it, a thick, gelatinous substance two meters thick appeared around Tailyn to keep him from moving a muscle. It wasn’t the easiest way to block a mage, especially when it came time to transport him, but it was effective. There was no way to use cards inside it.
But what the lix didn’t know was that hacking had nothing to do with cards. He hadn’t heard about Raptor — with named armor, weapons, and protection for his companion, he’d assumed he had everything there was to be had. There were only three lixes with more named equipment than he had: Halas and his two personal bodyguards. And that was why the little human couldn’t have had anything that let him hack other creatures. Only cards. He was a mage, after all. Cards were all mages knew.
And that turned out to be the last time it occurred to the advisor to underestimate his opponent. He was too busy trying to find a way out of armor that no longer answered to him.
Attempt 13… Successful.
Tailyn Vlashich blocked your armor.
Tailyn glanced over at the red combat status as it flashed. There were five lix shamans alive to go along with the advisor and thirteen humans. A timer showed the boy he had twelve hours until the gelatin around his body disappeared, and that was perfect. If anyone tried to get close, he could block them. And if the shamans risked an attack, they would just be breaking him out. The first round of the battle was an unequivocal victory for Tailyn. But he knew it wasn’t going to be the last one — crystal fences didn’t give up that easily.
Chapter 21
Hacking +25 (45).
Your Hacking level: 65.
Access received to Dur-Sha-Gun’s personal inventory.
TAILYN DIDN’T FIND anything interesting in his opponent’s logs. Over the previous twenty hours, the advisor had been either on his way to the hole, as he called it, or hunting Tailyn. Only a conversation he had with Halas was interesting. The lix leader warned Dur-Sha-Gun that the only way he was getting back into the camp was with Tailyn as his prisoner. As far as Berad and his fighters were concerned, they were marked for death — Halas didn’t forgive mistakes, and he’d given orders to finish them off as soon as the young mage was caught. That cheered Tailyn up. His personal enemy was at the other end of the Gray Lands with no chance to leave his forces, the war two months away from beginning.
An hour later, Tailyn realized that nobody was planning on getting any closer to the pile of gelatin he was enclosed in. That freed him up to go ahead and use twenty-five crystals. Luckily, the System just pulled them right out of his inventory, not making him get them himself. While the boy wasn’t sure if he’d be able to take out the advisor, he definitely wanted to see what was in his inventory.
A field of cells, only half of them filled, popped up in front of Tailyn. His perception immediately calculated how many slots there were — thirty-two. The advisor didn’t have the biggest inventory.
Would you like to confiscate a Virtual inventory expansion with 20 slots?
The boy’s eyes shone. Of course, he did. Valia was going to be overjoyed to get it — she was always whining about how she didn’t have room in her thirty-six slots for everything she needed. But before agreeing, Tailyn decided to empty his opponent’s inventory. He didn’t know what would happen to everything in it if it suddenly didn’t have enough room. Robbing Dur-Sha-Gun turned out to be a piece of cake, with Tailyn’s inventory popping up next to the lix’s and letting him drag over everything he wanted. Finally, he could see what everything was. He’d never been able to see any descriptions when checking out the different cells.
Coins 3663.
Gold 12228.
Alron Potion (5).
Tears of Alron potion (4).
Experiment 443 figurine.
Experiment 56 figurine.
Experiments and Their Descriptions.
Dur-Sha-Gun’s journal of research into Tartila Mine.
Crystal (32).
Intercom-II.
Aristocrat’s travel tent-III.
Orthopedic mattress-III.
Set of silk underwear for lixes (5).
Jewelry box with ancient valuables.
Collection of magic cards.
Active deck with 15 cards.
***
New mission: Book Study. Description: you received a book from the ancients. Study it and hand it over to the academy library if it turns out to be unique. Mission cannot be declined. Deadline: 90 days. Punishment for failing to complete it: death. The reward for completing it will be substantial.
Tailyn was even taken aback when he saw the new mission. Taking a trip back to the academy in the near future hadn’t been in his plans, and showing up where Sadil held sway after what had happened in the basements was suicide. As they looked for any kind of deviation from the norm, the investigators would have cut him open and studied each organ individually. But the System didn’t give him a choice — if Tailyn wanted to stay alive, he was going to have to make it back to the mage lair at some point over the coming three months.
Wait a second.
Four Tears of Alron?
Tailyn checked his own inventory once again to find that he’d managed to steal four flasks filled with a blue liquid in addition to the bombs. Sadly, he wasn’t able to see the description, as he would have had to materialize one of the flasks. The gelatin holding him in place made that out of the question. But where did the lix get the tears? And how? Tailyn refreshed the logs he’d downloaded, but there was nothing to find there, either — the lix hadn’t done anything interesting over the previous forty-five seconds. In a fit of rage, the boy freed Dur-Sha-Gun of all he had left, leaving the lix with nothing.
Inventory expansion with 20 slots received.
Virtual inventory with 12 slots received.
What shocked Tailyn was how little the lix carried with him. A creature at his rank should have had with him secret orders, information, and unique items, but none of that was there. Perhaps, the true value was in the deck of cards, but it was going to have to wait for later. Still angry, Tailyn decided to keep going with his experiments. He pulled up the advisor’s weapons, scanned the properties, and found the destroy button.
Verifying access level...
Your Hacking level: 65.
Level of protection from diversions: 210 (standard х 3).
Verification failed. You cannot destroy Cupidon.
That wasn’t the best news. Tailyn wasn’t going to get that high even if he used all the crystals he had in his arsenal, and that meant he was going to have to find another way to break through Vargot. The level seven armor could fight off any attack.
If Tailyn could have, he would have clapped himself on the forehead. For whatever reason, he was only including Valkyrie and Matilda in the list of attacks the lix’s armor could fight off. That was how fast he’d gotten used to his new toys, forgetting his tried and true friends in the process. His cards hadn’t gone anywhere. Even if a hundred fireballs hitting the frozen lix’s chest couldn’t break through his protection, they would cook the bastard better than a meat pie. No matter how fire-resistant Vargot was, it couldn’t withstand those temperatures.
The most important thing was to get out of the trap he was in.
Tailyn ended up having to just sit there for all twelve hours. Nobody came close;
nobody tried to destroy the gelatin or the human inside it. Somehow, and Tailyn had no idea how, Berad had convinced the shamans to leave the advisor be. But he’d pulled it off — not a single lix ventured within Raptor’s range. Berad and the rest of his troops stayed well enough away, too. And that meant the only thing the boy could do the whole time was pound away at the invisible barrier separating the virtual him from the virtual Valia. Judging by Cupidon’s description and the lix’s logs, the poison was scheduled to wear off a couple hours after Tailyn was free of the gelatin.
A revolting squelch announced his freedom. But despite the fact that Tailyn had long since prepared himself for that moment, planning on diving to the side in order to avoid a potential attack, he couldn’t overcome his reflexes. His body stretched on its own to release the strain on his muscles. While he’d been able to move slightly inside Vargot, the general immobility had worn on him.
And those reflexes saved Tailyn’s life. While his body was stretching, four enormous boulders came hurtling down to land, one on each side. A shiver ran down the boy’s spine — if he’d leaped away the way he’d been planning, he would have ended up underneath one of them, and it was entirely possible that Vargot wouldn’t have been able to save him. Raptor alerted him to red dots as the shamans hurried over to finish what they’d started.
“He’s still alive!” Berad yelled. “Careful!”
But being careful wasn’t going to help them.
Tailyn activated device control to hack into the daring shamans and turn them into statues right next to their master, only he had another thing coming — hacking into them gave him nothing. While he gained access to their logs, parameters, and even inventory, there was no armor available for him to block. The lixes had charged into battle naked.
The second he spent confused very nearly cost him his life as a fiery rain began falling all around him. Drinking a salamander potion to protect himself and his personal shield, Tailyn flew up into the air and peeked out gingerly from behind the rocks. A crossbow bolt immediately slammed into his head — Berad’s mercenary was sitting fifty meters away, outside the boy’s scanning radius.
Berad Gor is hacking your equipment.
Probability of successful hack: 0%.
What? Where was the bastard? And how was he not showing up on Raptor?
Tailyn pulled his attention away from the shamans and fighters, trying to find the bandit leader. He had hacking, too, apparently. And his hacking worked at a much greater range than Tailyn’s — he was nowhere to be seen within thirty-five meters. A second bolt came flying, followed soon thereafter by an icicle. Realizing fire wasn’t doing the trick, the shamans had changed tactics. Tailyn pulled Valkyrie out to make sure he wasn’t going to be taking return crossbow fire. Judging by the damage percentages, the advisor hadn’t brought his strongest shamans with him.
A shadow flashed by, and something with lots of fur and fangs hit Tailyn. There was an enraged roar, and sharp claws began raking at the boy’s chest. But it was useless — the summoned beasts didn’t have a shot at getting through his level seven armor. Still, that threw Tailyn for a loop. He hadn’t been prepared for an attack with those kinds of numbers, and while it wasn’t the most powerful, the fact that they kept coming, coupled with the knowledge that the shamans had just about gotten him with the boulders, did a number on him. The shamans used the time that bought them to add a few more beasts to the mix.
When the third body hit Tailyn, Vargot shuddered and began dropping — it couldn’t hold them all up in the air. The boy worked his arms to knock the creatures off, but they were in no hurry to let go of their victim. Tearing, biting, and scratching, they didn’t just shred his personal shield; they started knocking off the number of impulses Vargot could absorb. And it was only when yet another animal joined the pack pinning Tailyn to the rocks that he began to fight back. His salamander potion was still active, so ten waves of fire made up his counter.
The summoned creatures didn’t have an answer for that kind of damage, turning to ash in a matter of moments. Tailyn leaped into the air once more. That time, he focused on the shamans. Vargot could still absorb fourteen more impacts, so the archers could wait.
Only there were no new archers. Instead, there were three hydras in front of the shamans ready to absorb magic coming at them no matter the direction. But who said they were going to have magic fired at them? Valkyrie sent one of the shamans off into nothingness, and that was when a red circle immediately popped up at the feet of the others. Tailyn didn’t hesitate. After his encounter with the advisor, his stash of grenades had been replenished, so he didn’t mind spending one.
The hydras disappeared right along with the shamans who had summoned them. Still, one of the lixes managed to survive the blast, forcing Tailyn to finish him off with a shot from his crossbow. The boy had no desire to get any closer to him or his raging hydra. And with that, a silence fell. Raptor only showed one red dot, that being the advisor, while the combat status was clear about twelve more people hiding somewhere.
While he very much wanted to rustle through the shamans’ inventories, Tailyn decided to put that off for later. The crystal fences lying low had him on edge. Berad was dangerous, and the fact that he wasn’t attacking spoke volumes. With something clearly cooking in the bandit leader’s mind, Tailyn needed to be focused on reacting rather than enriching himself. It was possible the mercenaries had sent the shamans in to distract him.
Letting himself down onto the ground, Tailyn went over to the advisor. There was no time to putter around with him for the same reason he’d had to leave the shamans alone. But the boy couldn’t just leave him there. He didn’t know what would happen — what if Dur-Sha-Gun was released as soon as Tailyn got more than thirty-five meters away? What if he made a break for it? Tailyn couldn’t let that happen. And that meant he had to take the body with him. Grabbing hold of the advisor, Tailyn headed over to the edge of the cliff with him. The enemy camp was right where he’d left it, still three hundred meters away from the foot of the mountains. Taking a confident step into nothingness, Tailyn eased his way down to the ground from his height of thirty meters. Talarii really were a great acquisition.
The fences made their move when Tailyn was just a hundred meters from the camp. A group of them stepped out from behind a tent, holding Valia’s lifeless body in their arms. Berad yelled over, his voice enhanced with magic.
“Easy, boy! Another step, and it won’t matter how many regeneration potions you give your girl!”
Just to bring the point home, one of the mercenaries pulled out a powerful cleaver, grabbed the girl’s leg, and landed a crushing blow. Tailyn had already watched the blade glance off in his mind’s eye, so he couldn’t have been more shocked to see the blade have no problem cutting through Valia’s level two named armor. Her foot summersaulted off to the side. Tailyn’s vision darkened. Sending the statue of the advisor flying, the boy pulled out Valkyrie, and the mercenary who had cut off the girl’s foot was dispatched to see his ancestors. Named crossbows didn’t miss from a hundred meters.
“One more shot, and she dies! Kill me, and you kill her!” Berad yelled as he finally appeared in person. The mercenary leader was holding the same exact cleaver his dead fighter had used. Trying not to think about how many crystals he’d had to part with to get his hands on the named weapon, Berad knew it was worth it. The cleaver made him stronger.
Tailyn froze, his breathing heavy. Berad’s cleaver stopped just short of Valia’s neck. If the boy fired, the crystal fence would kill Valia as he flew backward, and that was the only thing that stopped Tailyn. Even the girls’ death wouldn’t have been a problem if he’d been able to resurrect people, but those crystals were in no hurry to fuse with each other. And that made every life precious.
“That’s better. You hold it right there,” Berad yelled even as he let out a sigh of relief. If the little bastard had taken the shot, none of his troops would have been able to lift a finger to take revenge on the girl
. They were out of named equipment.
“Toss the crossbow away, take your armor off, and come here,” Berad continued. “You’re going to go see Halas and die there, but Valia will live.”
“I’m not going anywhere. And let me be clear — if she dies, you die.” Tailyn activated his loudspeaker, and his voice boomed across the area. “I’ll even make sure you suffer so much you’ll wish you’d given me Valia. You’ll find out why the lixes need mages and what they do with them.”
Tears of Alron (The Alchemist Book #3): LitRPG Series Page 30
