“And they will cost real world money, correct?” Kodai asks, the silver magic pooling in his sclerae.
“Yes, but I thought this may be something you can arrange.”
“It is most definitely something I can arrange.”
“Good,” she says, “then it is settled. We’ll work on recruiting the Killers, and in the meantime, you’ll get the goblin.”
.22. Samsquanch
Zaena lowers her hand. Hiccup’s eyes still squeezed shut, the goblin asks Ryuk to come take a look at his chest to see if the pyro affliction has spread to him.
“I told you it didn’t, goblin.”
“Fick, Liz, I’m getting a second opinion here. Everyone should get a second opinion, especially if they have healthcare provided by their employer, ahem. Marbles.”
“Whatever.” Ryuk steps forward and examines Hiccup’s chest. Other than a few curled hairs, he seems fine. “The infection didn’t spread.”
“Whoo!” Hiccup does his best Ric Flair impression. “Uncle Goblin lives to see another fickin’ day. Good thing too, I enjoy barbeque, but would prefer not to become it.”
“There has to be something we can do,” FeeTwix says as he scans messages from his fans. He nods, bites his lip, and hunches over, his shotgun nearly touching the ground. “Fuck.”
“Nothing?” Oric asks.
“Nearly four million people and none of them have heard of a cure for this.” FeeTwix’s mirror appears in his hand and he looks down at it. “Everyone, I’m signing off for a moment while I deal with this. Please understand.”
“Take her to Lothar, he’ll know what to do,” Oric says.
FeeTwix approaches Zaena and takes her infection-free hand.
“You don’t have to come with me,” she says, “I can go back to the airships alone.”
“No way,” he tells her. “The rest of you can continue on.” The Swede turns to Ryuk. “I’ll join the party as soon as I can.” The look on his face is something Ryuk has never seen before, and he truly feels for him.
“I understand.” Ryuk steps in front of Zaena and bows to her. “Good luck.”
“She’ll get through this,” Hiccup mumbles, “we’ll get through this too. Twixy, Liz, good fickin’ luck, and put a fickin’ glove on that hand or something. Fick, I think I may have an oven mitt in my list here.”
Hiccup’s mechanical hand comes up as an oven mitt takes shape.
“Where did you get that?” she asks.
“Og’s kitchen. What? You think I’d get all lubed up to go down a ventilation shaft and not steal something?”
The oven mitt lifts into the air and Zaena quickly places it on her afflicted hand.
“It may catch fire,” she says.
“Well, that’s just something you’ll have to deal with later. Fick, this is a tragedy. Don’t worry, Hiccup, you’ll get through this.” The goblin looks at Ryuk. “What? My therapist told me speaking to myself in third person is the best way to deal with situations like this.”
“I can try my Speed Heal spell,” Enway says.
“It won’t work,” says Oric, who stands a few feet away from them next to Wolf. There are still bodies burning all around the Mitherfickers, and it is an odd place to be having a conversation.
“Let’s freeze your hand for now,” Ryuk suggests. “And then put it in the oven mitt.”
“Freeze it?”
“Not fully, just to cool it down. Yangu can do it.” He places his hand on the snow dragon’s neck.
“That sounds like a great fickin’ way to lose a limb.”
“I may already lose a limb,” Zaena reminds him.
“Hey, it ain’t so bad.” The goblin knocks on his mechanical arm. “Fick me! Twix, you got another arm in that list of yours?”
“No, I don’t,” he says his eyes filling with hope. “But that could work.”
“A mechanical arm?” Zaena takes a deep breath.
“Trust me, Liz, it ain’t so bad. Shit gets cold at night though if you don’t sleep on it. Also, if you’ve forgotten you have it, and you go to wipe your starfish, that can be a liddle ficked.”
“Starfish? What the hell is this starfish you always talk about?” Ryuk asks.
“Fick me, Marbles, you don’t know what a starfish is? It’s goblin slang for asshole.”
Ryuk drops his head into his hands. “So every time you’ve mentioned starfish, you’re talking about an asshole?
“Yes, as in ‘your brother is a dirty starfish banger.’ But let’s not open the urban goblin dictionary at the moment. Point is, Lizzy, having a mechanical arm ain’t too shabby.”
“I can go to Steam now,” FeeTwix says, his finger lifting to log out.
“But,” Zaena gulps, “I don’t want a mechanical arm.”
“Selfish much, Liz? Do you think I wanted this goddamn contraption? You don’t hear me bitching.”
“You always bitch,” Oric says.
“He-Man again? Fick, I knew we should have left you back in Kayi.”
“We need to keep moving forward,” Oric says, “and I’d suggest you see Lothar before you get a mechanical arm. Also, we don’t know if pyro affliction is a blood based disease or not. You may take her arm only to realize it has already spread to other parts of her body. I’m sorry to sound harsh here, but the more we stand around and argue about this, the less time we have.”
“He’s right,” Ryuk says. “You two get to Waringtla and see Lothar. We’ll join you as soon as we’re done here.”
“And I’ll rejoin you guys if I’m able,” FeeTwix says.
“I want to fight too.” Her voice quivering, Zaena turns away from her guildmates. “I’m sorry for this.”
“It’s not your fault,” Enway says. “If anyone will know what to do, it’s Lothar. You saw all his books. Just don’t lose hope.”
After another round of goodbyes, FeeTwix and Zaena turn back to the entrance of the Sabors, still holding hands.
(0)__(0)
Our dynamics are definitely different, Ryuk thinks about an hour later, after they’ve had a few more fights. He’s leveled again – the enemies here are really hooking it up with EXP – as have Enway, Hiccup and Yangu.
Wolf and Oric have fallen into their own groove, providing some pretty incredible offense. Years of digital combat under their belts, the two cut through most of the enemies they’ve come into contact with, leaving the scraps for the rest of the Mitherfickers.
But the others have their specialties as well. Enway provides backup support, her delayed strike ability continuing to take enemies off guard. Unlike the army of flaming dwarves at the beginning of the Sabors, the enemies deeper in have been rather weak, mostly ice-based or some type of abominable animal.
They even fought a polar bear, which was an easy kill for Oric and Wolf.
Ryuk has mostly provided backup support, but hasn’t used his bond with Yangu as much as he would have liked. This is due to Hiccup, who again has taken to riding the growing young dragon so he doesn’t have to walk.
“Up ahead,” Oric says, his face red from the cold.
Ryuk follows his finger to a castle cut into the ice.
A flurry of snow blows past the group, whipping at Ryuk’s hood and blurring his view. Enway steps forward and equips a mana potion.
“Gimme, gimme, gimme,” Hiccup says from his perch on the snow dragon’s back. “I need a boost now that I’ve seen a castle made of ice. Getting jelly over here.”
“You don’t even use magic,” Ryuk reminds him.
“Mana potions are an acquired taste, Marbles.”
“And you’ve somehow acquired it?”
“Fick yes, I have.”
“Sorry, all gone,” Enway says, finishing the bottle.
“I see how it is,” Hiccup says, equipping his own bottle.
“How many of those have you drunk in the last hour?” asks Oric.
“I have a problem, okay? And no, I’m not ashamed to admit it. I have a fickin’ problem and that’
s that. With Liz gone, Conan over here has taken it upon himself to press my buttons. Look, pal, we got bigger problems, such as the fact that the tower you’re going on about sits on top of a freaking wall of ice blocking our path.”
A wall of ice? Ryuk was so busy using his Extreme Focus to cover their three and nine that he has failed miserably to look at their twelve.
Sure enough, the ice is solid, with no real option that he can sense to enter the tower. Even Zaena with her ghost limbs would have a problem scaling that wall.
The thought of the Thulean and her infection hits Ryuk hard.
“She won’t die,” he reminds himself as he looks up at the wall of ice. “She’ll make it through this.”
The message he just received from FeeTwix flashes again, awaiting his response.
FeeTwix: We’re close to Waringtla. It was the last airship of the day, faster than the morning one. I’ll be in touch as soon as I know what happens next.
Ryuk quickly fires off a message.
Ryuk: Tell Zaena good luck. Don’t let her beat herself up over this.
“Talking to yourself again, Marbles, or are you trying to figure out a way for us to get to the top of that wall of ice? Fick, you know I’m not one for climbing.”
“See any other way?” Oric asks Enway. Their breaths visible, the Hourglass Mage and the Unigaean warrior take another look around.
“Not currently,” the Hourglass Mage says as she knocks on the wall of ice.
“Fick me, what good is that going to do?”
“Testing its thickness, Hiccup.”
“Nope,” the goblin snorts. “Not going to make a thickness joke. I’m above that type of toilet humor. Marbles, you’re in charge here, right?”
“Um, sure?” Ryuk looks to Oric and Oric shrugs.
While the Unigaean warrior took charge earlier when FeeTwix tried to run to Zaena, he’s since relaxed a bit. The more Ryuk watches him fight, the more he realizes that this odd combination of control and free-for-all is not only ingrained in his psyche, it’s also ingrained in his fighting style.
“Well, fick, tell us what to do then!”
“We need to get to the top of that wall of ice.”
“Gee, you think, Marbles?”
“And I need Yangu to do it.”
Hiccup considers this. “He is my ride, you know.”
“Hiccup.”
“Marbles.”
The two lock eyes and for the first time in their guild’s history, Hiccup is the first to look away.
Skill level up!
Skill: Inspire Others
Level Four: By inspiring others, you induce them to follow your orders. Higher levels allow for manipulation of enemies and random strangers.
Requirements: LUCK > 20
“Great, you win, Marbles,” Hiccup says as he gets down from Yangu. “But this better be fickin’ good.”
Ryuk places his hand on Yangu’s neck and bends so they are now face to face. He stares deeply into the ice dragon’s red eyes as he thinks the phrase: make some stairs.
The dragon’s left eyebrow rises.
“Make some stairs,” Ryuk whispers.
Wolf barks and he ignores him.
“I can help.” Ryuk shows Yangu his Marble Shotgun.
He pops the canister open and quickly gets to replacing the explosive marbles with aqua marbles. Once he’s loaded all twenty-four available slots, he aims his weapon at a natural starting point and fires his aqua marble at the wall.
Yangu freezes it upon impact and as Ryuk predicted, it makes a single stair, thinner on one side than the other, but a stair nonetheless.
“Brilliant,” Oric says. “That will totally work.”
Ryuk nods to Yangu and they begin.
After another canister, the two have made a set of stairs all the way to the top. They then focus on improving the stairs, making them wide so Wolf and Yangu can use them.
“And to think that soon, you’ll be able to fly, eliminating the need for these stairs all together,” Ryuk says as they start a fourth round of solidifying the platforms.
Once they’re done, Enway is the first to test them out. She starts up the ice wall, going from step to step with little effort, stopping in the middle. “You guys coming?” she calls down to them.
“It’s inventive, I’ll give you that,” Hiccup sighs. “But now I have to walk up a flight of stairs, which is a great way to give a 154-year-old goblin a heart attack.”
“It will be good for you,” Ryuk says.
“You sure you can’t give me a piggyback ride?”
“No.”
“Fick, fine.” The goblin adjusts his considerable girth, burps, and snorts. “Stairs it is.”
(0)__(0)
After some clever footwork, and a lot of grumbling from the goblin, the Mitherfickers reach the top of the ice wall. They now stand about ten meters away from a gate made of ice. The gate is closed, frozen over, and it is times like this that FeeTwix’s near limitless inventory list would come in handy.
But he’s not the only one with quick access to fire.
Ryuk grabs his Magic Slingshot and puts a pair of molten marbles in.
“Everyone stand back.”
“Fick, I’m just trying to stand,” Hiccup says, out of breath. “That was quite the fickin’ climb. Boy fick, I don’t think a goblin half my age could get their tosh up that wall. It was clearly not designed for the distinguished members of our guild.” A healing potion appears in his hand. “Fick, don’t say anything, Tarzan. Just let me warm my belly.”
He drinks the potion and tosses it over his shoulder, where it plinks off one of the ice steps and falls into the valley below.
A valley. Ryuk can see now, from their vantage point, that the ice wall and its castle have been built into the wedge of a narrow valley.
Looking at the ice below, and the way it has been smoothed over again and again, it’s hard to tell that there was ever anything but a wall in the space.
“Everyone ready?” Ryuk asks, returning to the task at hand.
His hand warmed by the molten marbles, he waits to get the confirmation from Enway and Oric. Once they give him the nod, he fires off the molten marbles at the gate of ice.
A terrible scream rocks the valley as the ground shakes. Snow from the surrounding cliffs begins to fall.
“Fick, Marbles, you caused a damn avalanche!”
“No, it’s not that,” Oric says, his splintered sword in one hand and his electric shield in the other. “He’s awoken something.”
“Fick!” Hiccup quickly gets as close to Oric as he can.
“What are you gathering around me for?” the Unigaean warrior asks, his shoulders bristling.
“Fick, I’m not. Just, fick, did you hear that scream? It couldn’t be. It couldn’t fickin’ be.”
“Couldn’t be what?” Enway asks. Wolf barks himself into a frenzy as the gate begins to melt away.
“Not gonna say it because fick those things.”
“Dammit, Hiccup, give us some insight here!”
“Sheesh, Marbles, you sure know how to talk to an elder. Fick. You want insight? I’ll tell you what my superstitious ass thinks it is.” He gulps, fear in his eyes. “I think it’s a…”
The gates crumble forward and a towering creature, just a few heads shorter than Lothar, breaks through the wall. The creature has the face of an older bodybuilder, his head puny atop his muscled body.
“Jesus Murphy, it’s a samsquanch!” Hiccup hauls ass over to the edge of the ice wall. He hops down to the first stair he can reach and hides.
Samsquanch Level 39
HP: 2399/2399
ATK: 287
MATK: 0
DEF: 341
MDF: 382
LUCK: 6
The beast drops to his two front arms like a gorilla. His head rears back and he roars, spit hurtling from his open mouth.
“Got it!” Ryuk zips an aqua marble into the samsquanch’s mouth and the beast starts chok
ing.
New skill learned!
Skill: Waterboard
Level One: Fire an aqua marble into an enemy's mouth and simulate drowning, causing a momentary stunning effect
Requirements: LUCK > 21
While no damage is taken, the samsquanch can’t seem to get a grip on his choking. So distracted is he by the water caught in his throat, the beast hardly sees Oric run towards him, broken buster sword in hand.
The Unigaean warrior drives his three-pronged sword into the back of the creature’s leg, ripping through its calf muscle.
-181 HP! Critical hit!
The samsquanch roars in pain and swipes at Oric. He misses, but is able to get the warrior on his second swing.
Oric flies right, but recovers with a roll. Meanwhile, Wolf advances towards the beast, raring to go. He jumps, latches onto the samsquanch’s wrist, and is also tossed aside.
-89 HP!
A pink blast of delayed magic hits the samsquanch in the back of the head, courtesy of Enway.
Ryuk follows up her attack by firing a mag of sword and black marbles, which the creature tries to block with its bony forearm.
The monster cries out as the marbles explode and the blades pierce its flesh. One of Ryuk’s blades, propelled by a marble explosion, is flung into the creature’s eye, popping it like a zit.
-199 HP!
He quickly glances to see where Hiccup has run off to. Damn goblin, he thinks when he can’t locate him.
Yangu, still on the outskirts of the battle, waits for Ryuk’s instruction to attack. An aqua marble now in the pocket of his slingshot, he whistles for Yangu to get ready.
Ryuk pulls back and looses the marble; Yangu blasts it and it forms a giant ice pick, which pierces the samsquanch’s chest.
-178 HP!
“We’ve got this!” Oric calls out as he gets back to his feet.
He doesn’t see the woman now sitting in one of the windows, her legs hanging out as she watches the battle with a disgusted look on her face.
As Oric approaches the snow monster, his blade at the ready and his electric shield in his free hand, a great blast of blackened lightning tears through his body.
Fantasy Online_The Runestones of Tritinakh Page 23
