Chapter 139: Identity Crisis (Patreon)

3…2…1

BOOOOOM!

An explosive blast sent out a wave of compressed air, flattening the jungle around the lake for a hundred paces and disintegrating the top of the ziggurat.

Shrapnel cleaved through the platform of hardened air that they stood on, diverted off course by the angled layers just enough to not cause them any harm. Badur looked distinctly uncomfortable.

There!

Where there had once been an ancient ziggurat was a metallic blob hanging in midair several feet above scorched stone.

Jason’s eyes widened and he immediately began muttering curses under his breath, causing the brilliantly reflective slime to freeze in place as it began taking psychic damage.

Will sent all his Phantom Snakes except for Pinky, the one with the coiled serpent amulet. That one was wrapped around his waist.

No way he was risking that against Silverdeath again.

The four snakes shot down with outrageous speed and caught Silverdeath before it even began falling.

Tangible, intangible, they can still touch you.

Will wrenched upwards with the four snakes, their combined strength enough to send Silverdeath straight up into the air.

“Reapplying.” Jason said, his gaze following Silverdeath as it rose high into the air.

That was the signal to withdraw his snakes.

Will was lifting the monster out of Jason’s AOE. They decided it was worth the risk of interrupting the skill in order to get it in a place where it couldn’t easily return to the earth.

Will let go and Silverdeath continued flying up for a moment, twitching for an instant before erupting in thousands of metal spines.

An instant later, it froze in place as Jason reapplied his Ability.

Will used the snakes to seize the air beneath the slime, creating a shallow bowl of hardened air for it to rest on while they pounded on it.

I wonder if Psychic Venom is doing its job, Will wondered. The thing had a mind, and he had done damage to it with an eidolon when he first escaped from its clutches…hadn’t he?

The cannonballs were able to inflict psychic venom, a fun side-effect of the Phantom Hand’s new manifestation ability combined with his set bonuses.

But it didn’t seem like the thing was withering away like it should’ve been if it had been hit with Psychic venom.

Must be due to it’s body being highly damage resistant.

The only kind of damage one of Will’s eidolons could do was physical damage. Silverdeath laughed at physical damage…

Even surpassing the metal’s resistance and blowing a hole through it’s side hadn’t done enough damage to trigger psychic venom. He had done as much damage as moving someone’s hand off of your plate.

Which was to say: None.

Note to self: Psychic Venom is currently reliant on applying physical damage first. Physical immune creatures are immune to psychic venom. Fix later.

“I think it’s tangible.” Will said, studying the pincushion-looking ball of shiny steel. It wasn’t see-through at the moment. It had shifted to attack and been paralyzed mid-strike.

Mason nodded and assaulted it with their agreed-upon elemental damage:

Cold.

A bead of pitch-black nothing formed on Mason’s finger, and the assembled team shuddered as all the heat in their skin seemed to be sucked away in a fraction of a second.

Mason flicked the ball of nothing forward, where it impacted against one of Silverdeath’s many spines.

A man-sized swath of the metallic slime’s metal spines became sheathed in a fine layer of frost as the jungle’s humid air condensed and froze around it in an instant.

Mason followed up with a small Conflagration, and a large chunk of spines simply shattered, tumbling away to scatter across the platform of hardened air Will was maintaining.

“Watch those spines.” Will said, doing the same himself. If they coalesced and rejoined the main body, they would have a problem.

“Can’t hold this much longer.” Jason said, his face turning red as he struggled to maintain the paralysis effect.

“Why isn’t it dying?” Will asked.

“It feels like shouting at a mob.” Jason whispered, the veins in his forehead throbbing. “Its harder to shame multiple people at once. Especially when they’re already aligned against you. It’s taking damage, but it’s got a huge ego.”

The broken pieces of liquid metal unfroze and began gradually creeping back towards the frozen main body.

Damnit.

“Acid?” Mason asked, a bit of faintly acrid material flickering around his fingertips.

Acid would probably work, but the problem was: how much Silverdeath would be left to Sacrifice if they just corroded it to nothing? Not to mention it might escape the damage through intangibility, making that approach a maybe.

“Nah, I still want to be greedy.” Will said.

“Hurry up, you guys,” Jason hissed between clenched teeth.

I need to find a way to inflict Psychic venom.

Will reviewed the effect and all Abilities related to it, starting with his tomahawk.

Tomahawk of the Underworld Guide

+8 Strength

+8 Kinesthetics

+8 Resistance

+8 Focus

+8 Acuity

Passive: Damage from the Tomahawk or Eidolons created by the user gain Psychic Venom, which applies psychic damage over time and incremental stat penalties until the target is dead or the effect is overcome or cured. Scales with Acuity.

Damage from the tomahawk or eidolons created by me.

Will had three ways of creating Eidolons: His Phantom Snakes, His manifested weapons, and his ghost butlers.

None of them had any kind of non-physical attack, so he wouldn’t find his answer there…

Will rapidly inspected each piece of his kit, looking for a solution until he stumbled across his boots:

Electric Serpentine Stompers*

+6 Strength

+11 Kinesthetics

+13 resistance

+6 Focus

+6 Acuity

Increased movement speed, increased footing on all terrain. Scales with Resistance.

+20% Ranger Archetype Ability potency

Coiled Lightning:

5 Charges: Eidolons controlled by the User gain a short-range electric aura which may paralyze enemies. Duration and potency scale with Resistance.

Electric aura?

Will frowned and checked the Stormfist Gauntlets in the Phantom Hand.

Stormfists

+10 kinesthetics

+10 Resistance

+10 strength

+30% movement and attack speed.

Each blow struck has a 40% chance to add a low amount of lightning damage. May paralyze.

I’m so glad I haven’t replaced this yet.

Make sure to get another elemental weapon when I do replace it.

Will knew from experience that the Stormfist Gauntlets worked well with other Abilities. When he had his old tomahawk it used to add lightning damage to the Psychic AOE. Now he was going to see if he could add Psychic Venom to lightning.

Why not? Will cocked his head to the side.

“…Does lightning work on metal creatures?” Will asked, glancing at Mason.

The Nuker raised a brow. “Generally not, no, I didn’t even entertain the prospect, given how low the success rate is for that sort of thing. You might as well spit at it.

“Well, shit.”

“And that’s…all…I…got.” Jason muttered, collapsing to his knees, clutching his forehead.

A strange groaning filled the air, like an old man waking up after an evening knocking back moonshine.

“I…I…Impudence!” A voice like tearing steel rolled off of Silverdeath, filling the air around them with ear-piercing vibrations.

“Well, lightning’s all I got,” Will said, switching to the Stormfist Gauntlets, his stats lowering precipitously in exchange for the ability to create shocks. “You guys get some distance. I’m gonna peck it to death.”

“What is the meaning of this cadre of fools arrayed against me? I am the pinnacle of civilization, the master of The Tower! Lord of all I survey! I am Tek’tut’kanlay!”

As Silverdeath spoke in that strange metallic voice, it seemed to expand, forming an enormous scowling face wearing an elaborate headdress on its brow.

“OOH! I get it now!” Will shouted as Silverdeath continued to expand, becoming the size of a house, then a warehouse, looming over them like an ominous cloud. The rest of the party ran away, Will’s Pinky snake following along to ensure they had footing in the sky.

“You’re confused!” Will shouted, pointing up at the building sized monstrosity scowling down at him. He recognized the headdress as something one of the mummies had been wearing.

“You ate so much of that old dead guy’s stuff that you mistook yourself for him!” There was probably some kind of ego-preserving Relic in that ziggurat that the mindless Slime had unknowingly ingested…or something of that nature. Probably that ominous sphere of Blessed Steel in the center of the crypt.

Some sort of trap meant to steal bodies that got stumbled upon by a Slime? There was no way of knowing right this moment, and it changed nothing about what Will had to do.

But it made sense why Jason said this thing had a huge ego. And that meant it had a huge weakness.

“It’s a common mistake! You’re actually a dumbass slime that I am going to kill and sacrifice to the tower!” Will enunciated slowly so the dumbass slime could follow along.

“I AM TEK’TUT’KANLAY!” the voice shrieked, the slime vibrating so hard that it had become visible. The expression on the face was…unfriendly as it seemed to regain a measure of control. “God-king of Ketulkitnah and ruler of both this life and the next. You will be the first sacrifice to usher in the revival of Ketulkitnah.”

“Nuh-uh!” Will shouted, running to the side. “Dumbass slim-“

Oh shit, it can fly!

The face dissolved as Silverdeath elongated, still outrageously large, growing winglike protrusions along its sides and squirming through the air towards him, moving deceptively fast.

Will looped Middle around his waist and zoomed out of Silverdeath’s range an instant before the air around him filled with liquid steel

Coiled Lightning.

67->62 Charges remaining.

Will’s Phantom Snakes each began crackling with lightning, waiting to unleash on some hapless enemy that got too close.

That was all well and good, but not the Eidolons he had in mind.

Focus 102->60

Will created a neverending stream of cannonballs from three of his Phantom Snakes, while his middle finger went into the empty hole that used to be the entrance of the ziggurat, on a mission to provide just a bit of extra psychic damage.

Each cannonball popped into existence with a lightning aura that played across the metallic slime, then upon striking the creature’s surface, had a 40% change to jolt it with a blast of lightning the width of Will’s arm.

“The mighty Tek’tut’kanlay does not even feel your pathetic attacks. Have Climbers truly fallen so far in a thousand years?” Silverdeath spoke, its shiny surface vibrating in the afternoon light as it swam through the air after him.

I wonder if it has to stay tangible to fly…Abyss…HOW is it even flying? Will wondered as he kept sprinting across the sky, staying one step ahead of the enormous metal slime, wobbling as it approached like an enormous soap bubble.

…maybe it IS an enormous soap bubble? Will thought, maybe it had made itself thin enough to…become light?

How would that work?

Will wasn’t sure, but he had figured out one thing: It wasn’t actually that big…it was just a bubble. It couldn’t possibly have a lot of material on hand to make endless attacks like it had before. Just a handful at a time.

Plus…

Will glanced down at where the rest of the Party was watching Will lead Silverdeath on a merry chase.

“More like eight thousand, Dumbass Slime! You’ve been Frozen a long time!”

Will tapped Mason on the shoulder with Pinkie as he said ‘frozen’.

Mason began to wind up a freezing attack behind his back, the ball of cold slowly growing as he fed Charges into it.

“LIES!”

Will’s middle finger returned with Tek’tut’kanlay’s mummified corpse, the snake wrapped around the emaciated neck, bony limbs dangling.

“Ooh, look at me, I’m a dumbass slime that thinks he’s a real boy!” Will said, puppeting the ancient god-king’s arms and legs in a silly dance with two serpents while the rest focused cannon fire on the slime’s right side.

Despite the metallic slime not taking any direct damage from lightning, the repeated bolts were causing the metal there to glow cherry red. That couldn’t be good for it.

Not that Silverdeath noticed.

An inhuman cry of rage split the air as the slime slithered through the air at air-tearing speed.

Will sprinted to the right, causing it to turn its glowing hot side towards Mason.

Mason knew his job.

A soccer-ball sized black bead of void impacted against the heated portion of Silverdeath.

Will juked back and to the left as Silverdeath’s sinuous motion froze in midair, sailing past him.

Will threw his Tomahawk, wrapping all of his Phantom Snakes around the handle and delivering it into Silverdeath’s side with all the force they could muster.

The Tomahawk of the Underworld Guide went through Silverdeath, entering one side and exiting the other, shattering Silverdeath into a thousand pieces of thin metal warped by opposing heat and cold.

Now let’s see if THAT applied Psychic Venom. Will thought, creating a platform underneath Silverdeath as the shards of frozen mimic tinkled musically downward.

…Because if it didn’t, I’m going to put everyone on the sled and run away.

Will carefully watched the liquid metal pieces as they thawed.

Some of them…did not move. They had been damaged to the point that they were no longer connected to the main body.

Damage was dealt. Now let’s see if it applied the debuff.

“You…you cannot…defeat me. I am…I…” Silverdeath’s voice began to slur and become indistinct as Psychic Venom went to work on it, dealing constant Psychic damage and debuffing it’s stats.

It was withering away and losing the ability to think. Even then it was still trying to attack Will as it reformed. Slowly. Clumsily.

…Looks like the hard part is over. Will thought, straightening. Now it was just a matter of wearing it down over time.

“Alright Jason, try Withering Repudiation again.” Will called back to the Party.

“NO!” Silverdeath shrieked, turning intangible, slipping through the platform of hardened air and diving towards the ground.

Where the Abyss do you think you’re going? Will thought, his Phantom Snakes biting into the creature’s metallic flesh and hauling up on it, like a fisherman with a struggling fish.

An instant later, Silverdeath froze in place as Withering Repudiation paralyzed it.