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(Vol 5) Chapter 64: Every Drop
🕑 Added 2024-07-12 14:30:01 +0000 UTCAs Dreixia flung herself upward, Puck took advantage of the opening and time to dismiss Foolmaker and resummon it to her left hand. At the same time, she prepped to cast a spell, intent to be defensive under the temporary debuff. She was trying to keep cool and rational.
“Anti-flight, huh?” Puck asked in measured nonchalance, the Sammy within pretending to be calm though she wanted to cry. Or scream. A broken right arm. There is no crying in baseball. Or war. “Very handy.”
“Was waiting for my grand moment to reveal,” Dreixia replied. Then she growled and charged.
Puck’s spell came right before — Armor of Light to refresh her wound negations. Though Sammy tried to hide it behind her phantasms, Dreixia’s face contorted in aggravation as if she knew what it was. Sammy was expecting more ‘one-two’ punch-tries to eat through them again.
A powerful punch came at the end of the charge, but instead of dodging, Sammy utilized her phantasms to form a shield on her arm and block the punch, practically making Dreixia leer in glee.
But it was a mirrored shield.
[Reflect Force] dealt one of those vicious punches of Dreixia right back into her face, a powerful force striking her in the side of her eye with an audible crack of bone and a spew of blood. She almost collapsed, but instead fell to a knee.
Puck was quick to capitalize, raising up Foolmaker and slamming it butt-down into her former, pinned-down shield. A burst of varied, echoing warbling sounds erupted, and the air vibrated as if grasped and shaken. [Echostrike: Red Noise] had been activated.
It was music to her ears, music to her body and soul. Within that radius, she was pulled into her actions, she was engulfed, supported, and amplified. She moved smoother and faster.
Like Lightning, she darted in to swing Foolmaker wide and crack the stunned Dreixia in the head again. The thick neck of the Naugite was swung around again from the splitting force, but she was not done. Puck wasn’t either.
Haste had given her more or less a free shot, but the stun gave her even more. Puck morphed Foolmaker into its mace form and added another vicious underhand strike like an uppercut, battering Dreixia’s oversized, thick head once more. Her jaw took another crack and spewed more blood, but most of the force was channeling into the [Knockout] effect. Not enough, even as Dreixia’s already shredded helmet finally flew free to clang onto the ground. She did not fall.
One more haymaker — gotta make it count!
“Nighty night, Dreixia! Hrrrah!” Puck wound up and slammed the mace hard for the side of an exposed skull — also the side rotted by Entropy damage. Sammy crammed in every boost she could — [Exploit Weakness], [Rogue’s Luck]... even [Alter Fate: Hoping For Daylight], on top of the aggregate bonuses of her boosted Echostrike.
The power of that blow was enough to drive a giant into unconsciousness — enough to drive a giant hero, too. She might not be World Class, but the attack at the end of all those bonuses was.
The sound when the mace head struck was a bizarre, crystalline clang and it spawned an echo that carried and returned multiple times in the valley. Dreixia was slammed hard and thrown into the dirt face-first, her body unmoving.
Puck stared disbelieving for a few moments. The crowd erupted in cheers, which snapped her out of it. She lifted her mace to egg them on.
And then Dreixia’s hand came out and pressed into the ground, straining to push up.
No! No fucking way, it’s impossible!
Ba Ra popped into her mind, frantic and insistent. “Samantha, she cannot be knocked out! She kept awake even against Entropy calling her to the grave. You must kill her. There is no other solution. It’s our reality, here!”
Puck swallowed and hefted her weapon, taking a step forward yet still hesitant, as the ruined face of Dreixia lifted.
With a violent burst of energy, Dreixia screamed ferally and lunged, her powerful arm sweeping out like a weapon unto itself. Puck tried to dodge it, but the hand closed completely around her calf and squeezed with the strength of perhaps dozens of men. The armor bent inwards as a wound negation was expended. Fogginess overtook her.
Not again! She was beaten. I beat her!
You have been stunned through your wound negation via a special ability. No actions for 5 seconds (reactions possible at -2 Effective Levels).
The grab carried through, arcing her upward and then slamming her into the ground, Foolmaker flung from her hand. Still able to react somewhat, Puck at least flipped her body to stay facing upward instead of being buried face-down. She was embedded into the earth, her armor splitting underneath her, and her last wound negation cleared.
She couldn’t move or take action any further as the fogginess held. In the interim, Dreixia flopped atop her with her battered and bloody bulk. A great hand came down. Puck tried uselessly to resist with one arm but was overpowered. The hand closed around her skull.
Panic surged up. No, no, no, no!
“I’ll lick your brains off my fingers!” Dreixia bellowed, her face a gory ruin dripping blood and ichor with every motion. That vice-like hand squeezed.
Puck’s helmet folded inward like paper, and a tremendous pressure built up in Sammy’s head, further than she could fathom, all crammed into a moment, her eyes threatening to pop out of their sockets. But the pressure released somewhat — as her skull cracked and split. Dull pain began, and something sharper deeper within, like a funny bone tweaked at the top of her spine.
A much deeper fogginess threatened her, something all-consuming of consciousness as confusion spread like wildfire.
You have been dealt a Major Wound to the Skull. You are at -1 Effective Levels to all actions, and an additional -1 for matters of perception or cognition.
You have resisted a will/cognition-based stunning effect. Further stunning effects from injury to the brain will not be resistable.
Sammy fought through the haze desperately to stay cognizant. She’d been in that place before. She had already faced as high a mountain of pain as was feasible for injury. It was horrible, it was terror-inducing, but…
Soaking! Concussions! Is! My! Wheelhouse!
Just over the divide between thumb and finger Puck stared into the last, barely functioning eye of Dreixia. Underneath, Puck’s hand found freedom and reached into her dimensional sack to pull out one of the conjured blades she’d kept.
The edge of speed from the Haste effect was perhaps the difference in her bringing it to bear in time before her skull was crushed.
Dreixia, grimacing, sadistic, focused on her grim task, and her eyesight next to useless as it was, could not even see the blade — it was effectively in stealth. Screaming in defiance and fury, Puck snaked the blade up and sliced Dreixia’s exposed throat without resistance, [Exploit Weakness] guiding Sammy just where to rip the flesh.
Blood immediately fountained from a severed jugular, spraying down onto Puck like a river. What was left of Dreixia’s eye widened as she seized. The hand could be felt to try following through on its pressure despite it all… but it locked up. The great bulk of the Naugite began to sag.
Puck flung her off with all of her might, which at least was enough to flip the giant over onto her back with a crash. The grip of the hand held for another few moments, pulling Puck along, which she used the momentum of to stand and finally, with a guttural last howl, rip the hand off of her skull to flop limply onto the ground beside its massive owner.
Blood-soaked, panting, swaying on her feet, Puck stared down at the dying Dreixia, finally, finally, spent of her dogged effort to fight on. Puck’s head turned to seek the crowd of Naugites cheering once more at the spine-tingling finish of their precious bloodsport. She couldn’t bring herself to show off right then, feeling too disgusted. She glanced at her blood-stained blade and just tossed it on the ground.
Puck stumbled over to Dreixia. “You fought well. I almost ran out of tricks. Any last requests?”
Dreixia, already growing pale and weak, tried to say something. Puck hesitantly drew closer and leaned down.
“Fuck… you…” Dreixia offered.
Puck barked a laugh and stood back up. “Appropriate, I guess.” She began to turn away.
Dreixia shifted and managed to move one bloody finger to touch Puck’s boot, causing her to pause. Dreixia spoke in a whisper, “Ogdellos… can’t lead…”
Puck opened her mouth to respond, but Dreixia had one last shudder, and her last eye went still, her body unmoving. She was dead, and her soul fled.
She thought of her clan in her last moments. Admirable. Alright, Dreixia. They won’t — whoever they are.
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The quest “A Hillcrusher to Die On?” is complete. 180 FE gained. 13(11) exp gained in [Goddess], 17(11) gained in [Magineer] for clever supernatural ability use and general outwitting of the opponent. (6) exp gained in… please select another sub-class within 4 hours. Other rewards pending.
90% reward grade achieved. Avatar Upgrade: Favored Weapon (Staff) +1 rewarded for Core Avatar. [Slayer] status added. [Spirit Terror] subsumed into [Slayer].
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Conjecture about it came, hollow and automatic. Distraction she quickly seized on. Yeah, I did use the staff a lot, after all. I wonder if I should invest more in that? It didn’t change from Expert to Master. It stacks a flat bonus. And, and...
I just killed someone again. I slit her throat and warm blood bathed me-
Shoving the thought away, Puck caught sight of Dreixia’s weapon and tried a telekinetic pull to her hand. It worked, the suppressive spell effect apparently dying with the user. Though the bell was cracked, Sammy could feel significant power still residing within it. Moreover, it felt… synergistic with what Foolmaker had turned into.
Hmm. Tashome, I keep finding things for you to do…
It did not take long for the crowd of Naugites to move in. They surrounded Puck and the body. “Puck the Magnificent!” was called from many mouths, as well as, “Hillraiser!”
Hillraiser?! A pun?! Bwahahaha! These are totally my people.
She allowed herself to be lifted up on some huge, burly Naugite’s shoulders, suddenly caught up in the excitement of it all. Yelling, banging shields, hooting… absurdity. It was perhaps a little much, but after all, there was the undercurrent that a suicidal leader had fallen. They’d gone from the prospect of going down with her, getting captured, or desperately fleeing in less favorable circumstances, to probably actually getting away and living.
I have to remember that. This really was their freedom. Their life. I paid the price for it.
Their rowdiness in celebration was infectious, in any case. Azure and her Servitors didn’t help the matter, by flying over and egging them on with more. Azure even made some music play, causing the Naugites to begin hopping in a crude dance. Puck/Sammy gave her a playful glare at that, half-smiling.
You’re trying to cheer me up.
Puck finally egged it on herself. She was Puck. She was Puck. She gestured with the weapon of Dreixia high and gave a loud, wordless cry of victory. A cry of victory answered her, with thousands of thrust-up fists.
Puck then gestured for quiet. Azure changed the music to something ominous.
Time to capitalize. Time to perform.
With a supernaturally-boosted voice, Puck spoke to the gathered horde soberly. “Hillcrusher fought well. The evidence I carry with me in a near-broken body. There was no quarter given; we took the blood from each other. Every drop. But let it be a price paid not for my singular victory. No. Let it be a price as a forward advance for a war that is not over!”
Puck took flight above them, spinning into a central position to look down. The polearm floated away as she clenched a fist out in front of her. “Zadkiel shall return at the fateful hour, my brothers and sisters, and I will be there with him. Hold fast within yourselves and prepare to fight like we did!” She pointed emphatically down at the corpse of Dreixia. “To fight to the last for Tomorrow. We deserve better, Naugites. Better than two cousins fighting for each other’s moldy rocks in our ancient homeland. Or twenty cousins. A hundred! Neverending feuds with our own!”
Puck’s eyes shifted over thoughtful faces cast up to her. Some were nodding, some frowning. “Unity. I speak of unity stolen from us by the ultimate tyrants. An enemy that will come for our shores one day. An enemy that can only destroy and corrupt, as you’ve seen. The same enemy that has stolen our history from us! Yes, Naugites, he did. By heinous spellcraft, he drove the world to forgetfulness. By his heinous spellcraft, we are kept oppressed, even losing the very memory of the deed. Of him. Of our ancestry. We were stunted. Lost.”
She saw eyes of shocked realization. A lot of things were clicking in heads their leaders had underestimated in deduction. Sammy was providing a rare gift to their like. Context. “No longer. No longer will we languish in ignorance for their ill-gotten wisdoms. We will unify with all like-minded rebels! We will unify with those who were always our brothers-in-arms! Unify… to make our oppressor into a memory! Memory and dust.”
Calls began to ring out in support, and clapping, but Puck carried on with the momentum. “I invite you all to Merrington, Naugites. To muster there as our land’s defense. This speech isn’t done. It’s hardly begun! There, the Dominion will crash itself onto what they think is an egg — what they think is mere giving substance to break like everything else presents itself to them. But it will not be made of walls or stone, no. No, no, no. It’ll be made of our collective will. It will be they who break themselves upon us!”
She swept her hand emphatically. “Who among you have the mettle?! Which of you are the vicious dogs of war to tear into the asses of the Great Pompous Bastards?”
The crowd didn’t hesitate. A slurry of erratic calls rang, and the beginning of synchronized clacked shields with the warcall, “Hurrah!”
One Naugite called, “Marry me!”
Puck laughed, and the great lot of the crowd did with her. “I’m spoken for, I’m afraid. My dear boy. But I’m sure there are a few ladies here who could show you the ropes of things, hmm?”
A bunch of lady Naugites hooted and jeered in support of this.
“Regardless! Who’s with me?!”
The chorus of clanks and calls was solid. “Hurrah!”
“Who’s with me…?”
Thousands of clacked shields and voices answered, “Hurrah!”
Puck did a somewhat comical hand to her ear. “And who am I?”
“Puck Hillraiser!”
She cast her hand out wide as her body shone with a nimbus of power. “Whom do you praise as the goddess to lead you to luck, to inspire and guide?”
“Puck Hillraiser!”
2341 FE gained due to user beliefs/acknowledgments. Note: not yet Followers (289 are Followers of another deity).
A call of ‘Puck, Puck, Puck, Puck!’ began, and the new Naugite deity smiled down in pleasure to hear it. A name to her that spelled out, ‘Victory.’
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END OF VOLUME 5
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Thank you for your cooperation and observation, User. Your thoughts have been integrated into the System. Please proceed to the next volume (or wait, depending on the timeline).
Have a pleasant lifetime.
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« (Vol 5) Chapter 63 | Table of Contents | (Vol 6) Chapter 1: Balance »
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Note: Here we are! Not a bad cap, a little earlier in chapters, which would be better for releases but we'll see how it goes in the future.
Here's the Abilities thingie for Book 5 end/Book 6 beginning: Abilities in Alphabetical Order Book 6
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