NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 26.1 Git Good
To call it a sticky situation would be an understatement.
“I don’t suppose you could just let us go so we can grab our friend and leave?” Rick asked hopefully.
The high elf in the sandy robes remained stoic as she gave her answer. “No.”
With a raise of her hand, two boulder-like objects just as large as the ice construct rose out of the ground in front of the group of elves. Loud cracks could be heard from the two objects as the rock composing their sides crunched and split. Within the span of a few heartbeats, each boulder sported several limbs composed of floating chunks of rock broken off from their main bodies.
“Rock golems!” Ariwyn shouted while trying to scramble back to her feet. “They can be taken out either if you manage to hit them so hard they shatter into gravel or you take out the mage controlling them.”
“Wait, is that-”
Before the golemancer could finish her thought, the young magus unleashed a massive blast of her signature multicolored magic that blasted through the air like an artillery shell. A thunderous explosion of air hit everyone on the platform as one of the stone golems was reduced to little more than scattered dust and rubble.
“Heloth! Gonn! Use your magic to subdue the young miss, but do not harm her! I will take care of the rest of these pests.” The man and woman both nodded their heads and dashed to either side of the room.
“Lilie!” Rick shouted.
“Way ahead of you. Those motherfuckers won’t get past me!” The raven haired woman called back, stepping boldly out in front of their new spellcaster.
Rick himself jumped to his feet and started sprinting after the woman in blue robes, since she was the closest. Immediately after he took off, the ice golem launched itself on an intercept course. Rick let loose a stream of fire towards the animated ice boulder with ‘flamethrower’. He felt proud of himself for keeping that spell in his pocket, but pride quickly morphed to terror as the golem tore through the wall of flames seemingly unharmed.
He ducked under a clawed swipe and tried to resume running but slipped and fell down hard. Shaking his head to clear it out, he saw the sections of the floor were covered in a thick sheet of ice from where the golem touched.
“Foolish human.” The elven woman sneered from the middle of a huge frozen puddle. She raised her hands into the air and several jagged spears of ice ripped up off the ground. With a flick of her dainty wrist, the deadly icicles all rotated as one in his direction.
Rick scrambled to get out of the way from the deadly projectiles. While he would normally be able to get his feet underneath him no problem, the ice below his boots proved to be extraordinarily slippery, so he had to settle instead with using his spear as a makeshift paddle to slide him out of the firing line.
The jagged shards of ice clattered just below his feet as he tumbled away from the ice and back towards the more stable ground. Back on his feet, Rick quickly surveyed the battlefield. Ariwyn was channeling a spell directly behind Lilie, who in turn was having her shield repeatedly pummeled by strong arms of the rock golem. The elven man, who seemed to be an earth mage of some kind, was hurling great slabs of stone towards Tyr as she bobbed and weaved between the chaos around her while letting off a few projectiles of her own to keep any one opponent from catching their breath.
The golem summoner was still standing as far back from the rest of the fight as she could. Despite her occasionally sidestepping a few arrows, Rick could feel more and more magic condensing around her. The woman was about to bring in reinforcements and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Gritting his teeth in frustration, he turned his focus towards the more immediate problem at hand. The animated slab of ice barrelling towards him at breakneck speeds.
Rick once more dove to the side. Quickly crouching on his feet, he brought up the haft of his spear just in time to block the hardened edge of a glaive composed purely of ice. Even with his fairly decent strength, the blow felt extremely heavy. If he had to take another blow like that, Rick’s arms may just be popped out of their sockets.
Groaning through the pain, he glanced around to see the ice golem circling for another pass, the higher leveled mage trailing just behind with what appeared to be conjured ice skates.
“Roll, roll, roll around like a little pill bug. Is that all you can do?” The woman in blue sneered as Rick avoided another pass from her and the golem.
Rick could feel his eye twitch in annoyance. He had it with these motherfucking elves in this motherfucking dungeon. It was time he went on the offensive.
Pouring far more mana than what anyone would consider sane into his spell, Rick held back the overcharged spell and ran after the golem that had been coating the whole battlefield in ice. The animated ice boulder shoved one of its arms to the ground and used its anchored limb to swing itself around in a near full one hundred and eighty degree turn. While somewhat shocked at its sudden display of maneuverability, the golem inadvertently set itself up in the perfect position.
Crouching down, Rick took aim and unleashed hell.
An absolute inferno erupted out from his outstretched hand, bathing the golem completely in a white hot blaze of overcharged magic. Rick could see the force of his enhanced ‘flamethrower’ spell was so strong that it even halted the speeding golem in its tracks. He screamed in fury and desperation as he felt his mana reserves dropping rapidly, yet still the damn thing refused to die.
Rick’s heart sank as he saw the golem’s claw shoot out of the blaze and grab hold of the ground in front of it, followed closely by the other one. With the screech of ice on stone, the golem slowly pulled itself forward, one monstrous arm length at a time.
He poured even more of his dwindling mana into the spell. Steam erupted from the icy surface of the created monster, yet still it pressed on. It was getting close. The thing was nearly within striking distance. Rick could feel himself running close to empty.
The golem dragged itself through the fire and the flames until there was little more than a meter between them. Cracks started to form in its shell, the sound of ice breaking apart nearly overpowering the roar of the flames. Rick’s eyes grew wide as the golem raised one of its claws high into the air, ready to drop like an executioner's axe.
And then the whole thing shattered.
Chunks of ice rained down all around where the golem previously stood. Rick’s spell petered out as the last of his mana drained away. He fell to the ground and gasped out for air like he had just sprinted an entire marathon. But he had done it, he killed the blasted thing.
While he would have loved to celebrate the small victory, the rest of his opponents had other ideas.
The ice mage leapt up into the air using the shattered chunks of the golem as a springboard. Floating beside her were several more razor sharp icicles, each of them aimed right for him. Rick dodged out of the way, a steady stream of curses escaping out of his lips as the deadly ice impacted all around him.
“I am truly impressed that a little insect like you managed to survive this long.” The ice mage taunted as she strode forward. Her posture was just as filled with arrogance as her words, her ice glaive held loosely in her grip at her side.
Her eyes shone with sadistic glee. “You think destroying one of those constructs was an achievement? Naham can create a dozen more just like it in just a few minutes. I bet that spell took everything you had, leaving you with just that pathetic little shaft to defend yourself with.”
“For the love of- we get it!” Rick cried out. “You high elves are the best, everyone else is just garbage. The last guy wouldn’t shut up about that either! Why not get some new material?”
The elf’s face scrunched up like she had just swallowed a lemon. “You will regret those words.” She spat.
With a scream, she charged towards Rick. He ducked under the wild swing and then sidestepped the follow up attack immediately after. Just based off his earlier block and the huge gouges the ice weapon was leaving in the ground with each attack, Rick knew she was considerably stronger than him. He estimated that if any of the blows landed, he would probably die in just a single hit. Two if he was lucky.
The one silver lining to everything was that although she was stronger than him, her attacks were incredibly predictable. It was though she was unused to fighting up close and was just relying on her level to win the fight. With each dodged attack, Rick felt his confidence grow. He slowly felt a smile creep onto his face.
He battered aside a couple wild swings with his spear. “Parry, parry, thrust, thrust. Good!” He cried out as he landed a kick to the mages gut.
“Is this all a joke to you?” She screeched. “You think this is all some sort of game?!”
With one last bellow of rage, she swung her weapon as hard as she could in an overhead slash. This was just the moment Rick was waiting for. Angling himself to the side, the ice glaive harmlessly passed by his grinning face before digging itself deep into the ground by his feet. With a stomp, Rick kicked the shaft of the weapon out of the mage’s hands and swung the shaft of his spear right into the side of her skull.
She crashed down into the dirt hard and Rick stopped his spear just a hair's breadth away from her throat. Placing a boot on her chest, he leaned down so he could pass on some words of wisdom.
“Welcome to Dark Souls bitch.”