BT II - Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Micah sprinted ahead, breath coming in short even bursts as the Maarikava slithered after him.  In water, she moved with a deadly grace that belied its great size, but on land?  Well, she wasn’t slow.  The Maarikva was far too big to be slow.  Instead she was unwieldy.  Whenever Micah changed course, the huge serpent would have to skid to a halt, volcanic rocks grinding at her scales as she tried to halt her momentum to follow the tiny darting human.

The daskin heaved, tattoos of blue light glowing on her flanks as she tried to gather mana from the surrounding air for another steam based attack.  Micah glanced over his shoulder, almost casually tossing a Pressure Spear at the struggling monster’s face.

Unfortunately, luck was not with him and the spell missed the creature’s mouth as it opened it to expel the gathered steam.  Instead, his spell glanced off the daskin’s snout, removing a scale or two and drawing a trickle of violet blood.

Just as it fired another blast of superheated steam, Micah put on a burst of speed, breaking to the left with all of the speed his Haste enhanced muscles could handle.  The Maarikava’s attack missed, blasting apart the dark volcanic rock and leaving a cloud of ultrahot mist that would cook the lungs of anyone foolish enough to breathe it.

The Maarikava screamed with rage as Micah slowed down to a more normal running pace.  Ahead of him the volcano’s caldera smoldered dangerously, but Micah kept his pace.  He wasn’t sure of it, but he suspected that the closer he got to the dry air around the volcano itself, the less water the sea monster would have to work with when she tried to use her spells on him.

The beast screamed again, looping her coils as she turned and attempted to follow him up the slope.  At least for now, she was moving slowly.  Outside of the ocean it took the Maarikava some time to reach her maximum speed, letting Micah recharge his mana even more as he opened the distance between the two of them

After about thirty seconds it began to catch up.  The runes on its side began to glow a dull blue as it tried to gather its sluggish mana for another attack.  Micah could feel what little moisture there was in the hot, dry air of the volcano flowing past hime, back toward his pursuer.

He glanced over his shoulder.  The Maarikava was breathing heavily, the mist cloud around its bleeding muzzle faint almost to the point that Micah couldn’t make it out.  Her eyes burned with impotent fury as the runes and sigils along her flanks flickered, running low on mana after her wasteful expenditure over the long chase.

Micah muttered the words to flight, feeling his body lighten as the spell took hold.  The Maarikava reared back exhaling the last of the magically powered steam in a trio of globes that soared toward him.

He launched himself into the air, allowing his overpowered body attribute carry him almost to the Maarikava’s head level before letting his spell take over.  The spheres of water magic curved to follow him, but ultimately, Micah’s sudden movement thwarted them.  Even as they tried to redirect, the spells splashed against the rocky island.

The Maarikava abandoned its failing magic, instead hurling its exhausted body at Micah.

He reversed course as it snapped tiredly at him, jaws closing almost twenty paces from Micah’s legs as he cast foresight.  Just as the creature began pulling back for another attack, rainbow images sprang out of her body, highlighting her potential movements over the next handful of seconds.

Micah’s eyes widened and he slipped to the right, just as the Maarikava discarded its worn out facade and lunged forward with a sudden headbutt.  He clutched his spear tight, thrusting it directly into the charging beast’s eye, using her moment to bury the weapon up to Micah’s wrists inside her even as the sonic enchantment buzzed and hummed, pulsing further damage into the soft tissue underneath.

He held on for dear life, frantically mouthing the words to infest as the Maarikava screeched in agony, whipping him back and forth.  Micah torqued his body, holding onto his spear with his right hand while he shoved his left into the goopy remains of the Maarikava’s eye, face flickering with disgust as the seeds crawled out of his skin and into the fertile soil beneath.

Then, he twisted in mid air, planting both of his shoes against the sides of the sea monster’s head before gripping his spear and pushing away with all of his might.  A fraction of a second later, the Maarikava’s tail smashed into its face with bone shattering force, knocking her to the rough rocks of the mountainside.

The air rushed past Micah as he flew higher, well out of the sea monster’s reach.  The Maarikava screamed again, a dissonant bellow of hatred and pain as it lifted its head up, only to bash it into the rocks once more.  Violent blood sprayed across the side of the volcano as the creature, insensible from pain, drove herself again and again into the unyielding stone.

She turned toward Micah as he floated in the sky, single eye spewing venom while the other oozed violet ichor.  She took a deep breath, azure markings on her side glowing dimly for a second before they sputtered out, leaving the Maarikava coughing.

Already, Micah could almost feel the parasitic plant he had created with infest crawling beneath her skin.  In a couple spots, the scales of her head bulged uncomfortably as its roots grew fat on her blood and mana.

He wasn’t sure if the monster knew that the spell was a death sentence.  Not many spellcasters could pull off a sixth tier spell, and fewer could afford to spend all of their mana on something that would only begin to truly harm their foe after a matter of minutes.  Worse, the spell could be treated fairly easily by amputating the afflicted area before the seeds could take root, or applying relatively weak wood magic to pull them out of their host.

Still, for a caster like Micah, the spell was perfect.  His absurd mana reserves let him injure a foe, draw close and implant the cursed seeds when fighting most bosses.  Then it was simply a matter of opening the distance and waiting for the magic to take its course.

Micah nodded in satisfaction as he watched the Maarikava convulse in agony, green chutes of vegetation bursting out of her ruined eye and snaking across the monster’s muzzle.  The spell was more than worth its cost, a protracted quest for the government of Red Sands to track down and defeat a hive of amphibious monsters that were infesting the local reservoir and inflicting a crippling drought on the local olive and date crops.

Below him, the Maarikava’s wild thrashing had stopped.  Instead, she simply lay on the side of the volcano, splayed out like a long piece of wet rope.  Her sides heaved weakly, the damage caused by Micah’s magical onslaught having completely overwhelmed her.

From her head, a beautiful flower was blooming, red violet petals opening with slow majesty as it drank in the moonlight.  Micah couldn’t see her hit points, but there was no question that the end was drawing near.  Between his initial attacks that drew the Maarikava’s attention, and the long chase both on land and sea, she had clearly suffered enough damage to wound her gravely before the final spear thrust had opened the way for infest to finish the job.

He sighed.  An ignoble end for such a majestic creature.  It really was a shame that she had attacked the Amelia.  He couldn’t confirm anything, but it seemed very likely that the third prince was involved, either controlling her directly, or setting up circumstances so that they would meet while obscuring his ability to read the future.

Now, despite his victory, Micah was marooned on this godsforsaken island as the sand trickled down the hour glass.  He didn’t have time to waste finding Dakkora’s tower, but more than that, the entire island chain was set to erupt any day now.  Even with his current level, Micah could only spend so long being buffeted by lava and falling chunks of volcanic rock.  Eventually he would run out of mana, and after that it was only a matter of time before he ran out of hit points.

The water beat against the distant shore, silver blue in the moonlight as Micah surveyed his surroundings.  The island itself was small.  He could probably walk its circumference in about eight hours.  Although there were some plants, the harsh rocky makeup of the terrain didn’t leave him with much to work with.  Maybe if he patrolled the entire island he’d be able to find enough palm trees to lash together a crude raft, but even then he wouldn’t have anything to make a sail with.

Even if he made a boat and pushed it out onto the water, there was no way he’d be able to paddle it all the way to the fair shore.  Technically, his body attribute was high enough that any oar he used could provide a serious amount of thrust, but at the same time, using his full strength would flip over a hand made wooden raft in a second.

Micah frowned, glancing at the soot pouring from the volcano’s caldera.  He floated a little higher, pulling out the Ageless Folio and paging through it until he found the entry on the eruptions.  The information was nowhere near exact.  In the previous timeline he’d been more focused on fighting monsters and expanding his mercenary company to care much about the distant disruptions in maritime trade.

He found the pages he was looking for, little more than short diary entries listing complaints from his father about sourcing various fabrics and dyes.  He flipped a page, trying to use the notes to refresh his memory, but only finding more notes estimating when the eruption ‘must’ have happened based upon the date of the last ship to enter port.

On the mountainside below him, the Maarikava groaned, muscles heaving as it tried and failed to shift its body.  Already, roots and vines were growing from its wounds, questing into the rocks around it and tying the injured monster to the ground.

“Oh shush you,” Micah muttered at the monster, snapping the Folio shut and willing it to disappear.  “This is all your fault after all.  If you would have just left us alone you could have lived out your days menacing the waves, and feasting on shipwrecks.”

“But no.”  He willed himself to fly lower, toward the floundering creature.  “You picked a fight and now I’m stuck on this island with somewhere between three and fourteen days to escape, and you’re about to die.”

“Honestly,” Micach shook his head as he landed next to the Maarikava.  “If the entire world ends because I’m stuck on this island due to your shenanigans...”

The Maarikava moaned, barely able to even rustle the plants that were steadily draining it of life.  Her one good eye stared blankly through Micah, unable to focus as it unconsciously took in short, shallow breaths.

He trailed off, picking up one of the serpent’s scales that dotted the mountainside.  Despite the heat from the barely dormant volcano, the plate was cool to the touch.  Micah tossed it into the air appraisingly before running a finger along its length.

It was lighter than he expected and significantly harder.  Now that he finally had a chunk of the creature’s armor in his hands, Micah could see how it had managed to resist so many of his attacks.  He held it up to the moonlight, nodding approvingly as his sharp eyes traced the almost crystalline runework etched deep into the scale.

Almost absentmindedly, he floated to the Maarikava’s side, touching a hand to its blood soaked flank and casting coma.  Her breathing slowed, remaining eye flickering shut as the spell disabled most of her bodily functions. The spell only worked on higher level opponents when they were truly at death’s door, but given the state of the oversized daskin, that wasn’t really a concern.

Micah closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind to trace over the hungry devouring tendrils of the parasitic plant he’d buried in the Maarikava as he mouthed the words to panacea.  Ordinarily, it wouldn’t have been that hard to remove the spell, but he’d let infest run its course for some time.

He released the spell, gently guiding it through the monster’s damaged body as he targeted the clusters of plant-life that were slowly sapping its life.  Finally, almost two to three minutes later he let out a sigh of relief and patted the now stable monster’s flank.

“I can’t have you dying on me,” he said with a smile.  “These scales of yours are the best enchanting material I’ve been able to find, borrow, buy, or steal in a half dozen lifetimes.  It would be a shame to waste a medium like that with anything less than the most powerful of ritual sacrifices to power it.”

“Then I thought,” Micah continued cheerfully, picking up another scale from the hillside.  “I have a beast of legends sitting right here, unconscious and at my mercy.  You might have trapped me on this island, but by the Sixteen, you’ll be the one to get me off of it too.”