The Gamer Chapter 1472 – 27 Days of Preparation 25 – What were the odds? [Salamander POV] (Patreon)

‘Fuck, why are girls so sexy?’ Salamander thought, hovering right behind Rave’s delicious ass. That it was delicious, the apocalypse elemental had verified many times in the past and was likely to verify the moment they got out of there.

“Ya can fantasize about what we do after we get outta here after we clear this room.” Rave ran a finger up the curvaceous side of the taller, hovering woman.

Salamander felt the goosebumps spread all over her red skin. “You’re one fucking tease,” the fire spirit stated with a wide grin. “You ready, cuddle chief?”

“Yes,” Gnome responded with that rare certainty that Salamander so loved. Assertiveness was not just hot, it was necessary. Someone had to keep the many stubborn and aggressive asses in the combatants in line, and it certainly wouldn’t be her pyromaniac tits.

The leader of the elementals took a confident step forward. Passing the threshold into the room activated the predicted trap. Hundreds of small creatures fell from the ceiling, stopping mid descent to turn into a gnawing swarm of wings. They were something between a cherub and a heavenly nightmare of teeth and wide open, clear eyes.

Just like the trap itself, this form of it had been anticipated. Behind Salamander, the Creator Puppet was fending off some kind of singular elite enemy. “Just our luck,” she heard John say.

She would find out what that was about in just a moment. For right that second, her job was to concentrate her power and shoot out a cascade of menacing black fire, its core burning infernally with prismatic colour. Glorious was the fact that she could send out the cones of fire from her palms with no worries for the sister caught up within it. Friendly Fire being disabled was such a wondrous thing.

‘Scorching the brood of heaven with the flames of the apocalypse, fuck yeah, that’s metal!’ Salamander thought and laughed loudly. The fire surged to an even greater power, her Unleash getting poured into the attack. The swooshing sound of dungeon monsters getting turned into ashen winds was so grimly satisfying that Salamander forgot to stop.

‘Make room!’ the voice of her contractor cut through the satisfaction of the moment. She grabbed that thought, traced it back to his mind, and rapidly took in the situation from his perspective.

Even if she wasn’t the wisest among her brethren, Salamander could fashion herself one of the smartest. Realizing the situation, she made a quick break for it, flying through the gap between Gnome’s head and the ceiling to enter the main room. Corkscrewing upwards in the centre of the room, she filled it all with one last wave of fire, before letting her power ebb away. The black marks all over her body, scarred magical circuits visible on her skin, calmed from gold to black. The flow of magic through them stopped.

Down below, the Creator Puppet was flung into the room by a blast of energy. Gnome caught the flying golem, both of them getting pushed back by the continuous laser. Growling with sexy aggression, John brought Inkaryl between his chest and the beam.

The result was unfavourable to Salamander. The cascading, unnecessarily bright light broke into numerous smaller rays, one of which struck her right in the crotch. “Cocksucker! That’s not what goes into that hole!” she cursed, while getting out of the way. “That actually hurt, what are we dealing with?”

“The damn Trap mini-boss spawned in as a Horror!” John shouted up, just as the enemy stepped into the room.

All that kept the creature from looking nightmarish was that it had a good sense of balance and a pleasing colouration. On four stilted legs, it walked forwards at a steady pace. An octagonal frame held a gemstone the size of a boulder. Its facets were occupied by black eyes. Under the silver surface of its gleaming centre, a person was encased in the crystal, tilted just enough for the bald, androgynous head to emerge from the John-facing side. Mouth wide open, that head was the source of the continuous laser beam. Lesser attacks were shooting in bursts from the two dozen eyes, keeping Aclysia and Rave at bay.

Thin, almost too thin to see, the black aura of a Horror hung around the monster. The randomly distributed status effect boosted the monster’s power by 50%, which, on top of the mini-boss status, made it a formidable opponent for any one of them.

Altogether, however, Salamander didn’t expect this to take too long. Like an elite enemy in a Hack’n’Slash, they were just minor obstacles that required to be acknowledged.

Hovering away from the gradually shifting fragments of the laser beam. Salamander first brought her hands together, then slowly pulled them apart. Between them grew a sphere of fire. First it was a black spark. Then it was black flickering around the prismatic mixture of the other elements. Then the stone grew under the mantle of flame. The meteorite took shape and with its consolidated power grew the cackling in her throat. The sweetness of raw destruction between her palms.

“FUCK, I LOVE WAR!” she screamed as she drew her arm back. One forward tilt of her entire torso later, the created meteorite whistled on its short path through the air. The sound of cracking crystal underscored the explosion of fire and rock chunks.

The monster was thrown off balance. Using first her sword, then her dagger to turn intangible, rushing across the divide, Aclysia returned to a material state when she rammed Salver through the top of the monster’s skull.

It wasn’t enough to kill the entity, but it was enough to split the main beam two ways, parted by the dagger just barely emerging from the jaw. Black Ice began to spread, especially once Aclysia sunk her claws into the top of the open mouth of the creature. Revealing sharp teeth behind stretched, pink lips, the dragoness pulled back the pale head, while ignoring the various laser attacks blasting her body, draped over the crystal core and its eyes.

“You brutal whore, I love you!” Salamander shouted in support. It didn’t stay at a shout; the apocalypse elemental descended in a flying dropkick, her armoured foot glowing with the same power as the earlier meteorite. While Aclysia held the skull, Salamander and Rave simultaneously slammed foot and fist into the sides of the crystal.

Further cracks spread over the surface of the creature, but the crystal held. Salamander and Rave backed off, before the bursting, lesser lasers could do serious harm to them. With one final growl, Aclysia pushed herself off as well, taking Salver with her.

Gnome and the Creator Puppet were quick to charge in as a renewed offense. The mini boss attempted to fire its laser at them, but its jaw was entirely covered by a clump of Black Ice. Then Inkaryl slammed with gravitational force into the forehead, just as Gnome hurled her small, absurdly powerful fist into the core of the enemy.

With a satisfying shatter, it burst apart like a fishbowl that hit the floor. Everyone scattered, ready for a Phase 2. “Bah!” Salamander made her disappointment audible when the shattered skull of the monster turned into dust, rather than reassembling itself. She had looked forward to the androgynous human in the crystal starting to move and do… something.

With the mini boss vanquished, Salamander landed next to Gnome. “Ya always have the most colourful battle commentary… eh, okay, close second,” Rave said as she got closer.

“Who’s the winner?” Salamander asked.

“Eliana.”

Salamander clicked her tongue, she had to surrender that title it seemed. “I’m still the prime evil overlady around here.”

“Ya can keep that LARP,” Rave joked.

“I will, thank you.” Salamander cackled. She knew what she was about and actually being evil was not it. Even if she sometimes wondered how awesome her fortress would look with rows of heads on pikes, she wouldn’t go out there and actually do it. The Death Metal would have to be enough to make her fortress appropriately brutal. ‘I should rewatch Metalocalypse to get some more ideas.’

“S-so…” Gnome stammered.

“Come on, lead-rock, you can get the sentence out without stammering!” Salamander punched the brunette’s shoulder.

Gnome rubbed the impact site for a moment and gave Salamander a long, uncertain glance. Grinning encouragingly, Salamander shook her fist. In return, Gnome pumped both of hers. “Umu!” Fuck, that sound was adorable. “So, are we opening the chest?”

“Yep,” John assured and knelt down in front of the long box. He lifted the lid and immediately said what everyone else was thinking. “I was joking, Gaia.”

Salamander peeked over his shoulder and immediately started cackling. Inside the chest, on a firm cushion, lay a woman. Her golden body was entirely exposed but lacked the necessary markers to be truly indecent. Her moderately sized breasts had no nipples, the place between her legs was entirely smooth, and the gloss of her skin gave her a metallic or plastic feel. As attractive as her bottom-heavy curves were, she felt more like a mannequin than a person.

The golden colour of her body darkened halfway down her thighs and upper arms, invoking the appearance of gloves and thigh highs painted onto her body. The rims swirled out in gentle lines, adding a bit more colour to her.

Beside her limbs, only her white hair added any difference. It surrounded her resting head as a halo of short and wild stands. Her face was, for the first time, in possession of all its features. Closed eyes, a nose, and a mouth, with the latter two remaining flatter than would have been appropriate for a human. Brows without hairs quivered.

Salamander could feel the mild stress from John at the uncanny sight. As a human, watching things that weren’t quite human still unnerved him. As an elemental, she was instinctively used to a plethora of appearances.

John’s emotions settled by the time the angel opened her eyes. Entirely human eyes, green on white, the round pupil at the centre dilating and shrinking as she blinked repeatedly, getting used to the light. She looked at Salamander’s contractor and sat up. The short hair began to rise, as if caught in an upstream underwater, waving softly like a candle flame. Only a couple of strands, framing her face, remained halfway in accordance with the suggestion of gravity.

“Lucifrena?” the Gamer asked, simultaneously shifting to the Socialite Mode.

The angel was neither taken aback by the change nor surprised. ‘At least she remembers more than him,’ Salamander thought. ‘Or she just doesn’t give a fuck in general.’

Lucifrena stepped out of the chest and stretched. Looking down at herself, she let out a silent sigh. She raised an arm in a half-hearted attempt to cover her breasts. For several seconds, she stared at the party, before opening her mouth again. “Yes?” The single word was accompanied by an unpleasant scratching in the background, as if a badly lodged audio connection was sending faulty signals straight into Salamander’s brain. It made it difficult to ascertain whether Lucifrena’s actual voice was pleasant, or what tinge it had in general. “Is this bearable?”

“Very much so,” John assured her, smiling that cocky smile of his. It was equal parts suave, self-assured, and borderline arrogant. Salamander loved that smile. In it she found the charisma, the confidence, and the dash of roguishness that made her contractor so much more than that. Even without leveraging her mental connection, she knew how pleased he was that they were now capable of listening to her without bleeding from their ears.

Although they didn’t know how much of that was them getting stronger or her getting more solid.

“Good… good…” Lucifrena responded with mild hesitation. She shifted her weight from one leg to another.

Salamander raised an eyebrow. “The fuck? Do you seriously not know what to say?”

“Should I?” Lucifrena returned, mildly confused, and looked around. “I don’t know where I am. Seems to be one of your Instant Dungeons?” She returned her attention to John. “I… recall you… the Goddess keeps putting me in your path as I return.”

“And using my mana to help the process along, yes,” John told her.

“I, uhm, see,” Lucifrena shifted back and forth again.

“What the fuck?” Salamander muttered under her breath.

“You are disappointed?” the angel asked, still confused.

“Yeah, I don’t know, I didn’t expect the level 1000 angel we keep bumbling into to be almost as socially awkward as this rock here.” Salamander pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. The mentioned earth spirit squirmed on the spot.

“I-it’s not easy to just partake in social situations, y-you know?” Gnome stammered.

Taking large steps on naked feet, the wingless angel approached the brunette and took her hands in her own. “Do you too abhor senseless violence?” Lucifrena asked.

“Yes! Oh, by Mother Stone, it’s so weird when people want to… want to solve things by punching! I- I mean, I don’t mind a spar or, uhm, anything l-like that but…” She trailed off, the golden woman squeezing her hands a little tighter.

“Mood kindred.” Two words and suddenly the two of them were hugging. Salamander wasn’t sure what she was watching, even if she had to admire how quickly Gnome had won over the angel. The two found solace in each other’s arms that the pyromaniac failed to fully track. Violence was fantastic.

“Now hold up, I vividly remember ya chucking crystal swords and feathers at us!” Rave spoke up. “Ya know, in Florida?”

Lucifrena separated from Gnome to turn to the feline Lightbearer. Without hesitation, she bowed her head. “I do, at all times, serve the Goddess. I reluctantly followed an order given. I apologize for any pain I may have caused.” Her features distorted minimally, showing… regret, perhaps? “I am most useful as a fighter, to my dismay.”

“Speaking of fighting… any idea why you are here?” John asked.

“The Goddess is bored, would be my guess.” Lucifrena let out a long sigh. “Serving my Lord was never this whimsical.” Her body began to turn translucent, bits of golden light drifting away from her skin. “Still, I remain unstable… Hopefully, we will be able to talk face to face soon.”

“One question, please: who do you mean by your Lord?” John asked, the dissolution of the angel rapidly progressing.

“The one true Lord and King – Jesus Christ,” the angel responded simply, before the last of her disappeared in a tumble of golden energy.

“…The fuck was all of that?” Salamander asked the ceiling, hoping Gaia would understand the question was for her. No answer, not out loud and not as a window that popped up in front of John.

“Enlightening, in small ways,” her contractor said, shifting back to the Ascendant Mode. “It’s good to know she’s friendly, at least… not sure if I’m entirely unsurprised or very surprised the angel is a Christian.”

Salamander had no opinion on that at all.