Never Be Game Over

Talon pulled the trigger with his artificial muscle memory... just as he noticed the tiny portal floating before the nozzle tip. The flame poured into it... and exploded out from John's free hand as it faced the space behind him, blasting a cone of liquid fire over the horde of chewing scarabs ready to march into the edges of the portal, through which Talon's own back was exposed... a fact he realized just as his own flames began to eat through his chemical-soaked cloak. The mage screeched as he floated helplessly in the air, crying out in an agony mimicked by hundreds of his scarab drones as the magical flames stuck to their tiny bodies and melted them cog-by-cog. John had realized it when the scarabs left Doctor Talon's body, combined with the description of the static field: things that started on Talon when he used the shield were unaffected by the shield. The flames that left his weapon, then, carried the mage's charge... and would pass right through that barrier and onto the mage himself. John shut off the larger tunnel, keeping the smaller one floating before his palm pointed at the mage. "The moment you showed me how your flamethrower worked, you gave up the only advantage you had," John muttered, looking on as Talon writhed in the air, desperately trying to drop and roll while floating, too panicked by the burning on his back to realize how futile the effort was. John readied to jump behind the far shield once again, if need be.

Desperately, Talon worked his belt's mechanism to try and get grounded, and unconsciously his hands drifted to the canisters still on his belt... and getting heated by the fire on the back. "FUCK, FUCK, FFFF-!" With a deftness that defied the dereliction of his dexterity until now, his fingers snapped, click click click, and dropped the spare canisters until they rolled away safely. "-fuuuck, aaaah!" The liquid fire began to dig into his flesh, and his fat fingers smashed down on the gravity belt until at last it surrendered.

Surrounding them, the scarabs began to rally their numbers for ****, mindlessly rushing towards the hated enemy of their master, the latter of which now rolled onto and off of his back. John followed the man as he struggled to put the fires out, eyeing the flailing gun-arm and its sloshing canister of fuel. With just enough of the new potency of move, he twisted it until it screwed off the way he watched Rurik do a moment ago. It rolled away from the smoking madman... and so no longer counted as being in his possession, allowing John to safely vanish it.

Move is now lvl6!

Acquisition successful.

Special item: bio-napalm canister. 66% full. A volatile fluid brewed and sealed with alchemy. Converts into a slightly explosive liquid-energy of extremely high-temperature when heated up. Burns out and converts to simple fire after one round. Do not store in high temperatures. (Static field charge: Rurik Talon.) (Static field charge changed to John Newman.)

The scarabs, still at least numbering over a hundred, were almost upon John. He dared equilibrium now that he knew the canisters on the ground wouldn't detonate... not without help. An expensive blink later, he was upon the cabinet, one of the last untouched pieces of furniture, and perched there while looking over the blackened, mutilated back of his opponent. Gashes and tears appeared wherever the bizarre attack had pooled and cooked through, searing and re-opening and re-searing the vicious gouges until it reached and started to eat bone. This was a hideous ****... and it was an **** meant for John, he reminded himself. After some quick work within his inventory, he steeled his nerve and pulled out the finishing touch for his plot, his eyes narrowing down at his first real enemy in some time.

Rurik Talon
Level 14 Artificer
<Zenith Smugglers>
70/301hp
189/401mp
Status Effects: Shielded (???), Blood Oil (40 rounds), Burning 25hp/round (0 rounds remaining)

The panting mage looked up as he finally felt the flames go out, his eyes tearing up from the agony... and then widening when he saw the canister in the runt's hands. Looking around, he saw the three canisters, each rolling out of his grasp, just barely a few feet from him. The cabinet the boy squatted on started to buck and lower as the scarabs tended to its base, preferring to consume it on one side to fell it like a tree rather than waste time marching up its glass and steel surfaces. In moments, John would be among them, torn apart for their master's ****. But Talon remained cold before the boy's chilling smile. "Hey Artificer, you know what this means, right? This canister has my charge now... so when it touches your barrier, and gets heated up, well..."

"Y-You idiot! You'll be killed too! The blast will take out this whole roo-" John wound up his arm. "Don't be stupid, boy-!"

"Catch!" The canister beamed down at John's enemy, and Doctor Talon's words heightened into terrified squealing. John leapt up towards the upper corner of the room, his new agility just barely managing the feat as the cabinet fell over and atop the merciless swarm. One last tunnel, now a triangle, tucked John into the upper corner, still unmarred, with even less breathable air than the other... but that didn't matter for his new plot. The other end opened at an opposing corner, but it was a minute detail, something Rurik couldn't even contemplate as the canister came rocketing at his gut. Talon accepted, wholeheartedly, that the boy was merciless, bloodthirsty even... and that he was going to die if he didn't turn his static field off in time.

"No!" Rurik mentally commanded his static field to drop, the canister neared, his scarabs turned towards him to try and aid him, somehow, some way, but wasted their last moments. The field began to collapse, it was nearly shorted out, but too much power coursed through it, too many components empowered it, and the field still held a charge as the canister slammed into it-! "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

220 electric/fire damage dealt to bio-napalm canister!

Rurik squeezed his eyes shut as he cried his last, bitter tears, screaming his **** with a high-pitched wail, watching his petty life of ****, theft, and occasionally **** flash before his artificial eyes... and continued to wail as his field finally came down, leaving the sparking canister to fall in his hands. "- AAAAAAAAAH-! ... Aah...?" He dared one eye to open... and glanced down at the canister, sloshing with the glowing-

Wait... sparkling? "... Fairy dust-?"

176 subdual damage! Rurik Talon has been knocked out!

The scarabs spasmed as their master fell asleep... and followed suit, each one taking a similar pose as the dust settled over them: on their sides or bellies, legs sprawled, some with two legs tucked against their faces, each with their gem-like eyes closed by golden lids. The swarm was pacified... and their Artificer could command them no longer.

Artificer defeated!
Earned 7,800XP.
Obtained $15,000.
Obtained ten pounds of alchemical silver.
Obtained a large sack of soul gems.
Obtained five storm essences.
Obtained a gravity belt.
Obtained a gravity thong.
Obtained a collar of domination [empowered, soul-crushing].
Obtained [...]

The loot list spiraled out of control as weapons and tools scrolled by on John's newest pop-up. The bastard's prosthetic flamethrower arm passed by... followed shortly by his prosthetic flamethrower penis. Jesus, he really did have a spare for everything! Everything vanished from his person and into John's inventory, filling his containers to capacity and then nearly filling his inventory proper. The moment he got the flamethrower tank back, he swapped back the fairy dust with the caustic fuel within the stasis of his inventory, thankful as he ever was for that feature. John shut down every effect he had going, and stared down at the heavy-breathing lump on the floor. "I spared you," John declared to the **** foe, "and that's more than you deserved if you really meant what-"

Tricia. John didn't have time for this. The barrier began to crack at the seams and crumble, with chunks of the false, burnt and chewed-up ceiling falling to reveal that of the actual infirmary.

Trap barrier has begun to collapse, and will complete collapsing in one minute. On collapsing, all contents shall be shunted to the Dream and obliterated.

John decided to minimize the message to contemplate it later; for now, he had to get out of here. Like shards of glass, the image of the impromptu brick wall fell away to reveal the real hallway behind it. John filled the rest of his inventory with Rurik's inactive drones and jumped with the man in tow, landing in the real hallway with only a dozen seconds to spare. Looking back, he only saw the infirmary proper: the cracking trap barrier wasn't reflected in the real world, making it that much more apparent how easy it would have been to disappear evidence of a battle... or, if he hadn't survived the smuggler's acquisition, one dead John Newman. Looking at his prisoner, John knew he needed the man to find out where they had taken Tricia or, if he was fast enough, where he could find them to stop them from stealing her. There's no way he'd play along... and he's still a mage, even if I stole his toys, right...? He contemplated the control collar in his inventory.

Magical item: Collar of domination [empowered, soul-crushing]
Control collar makes the target more susceptible to suggestion by whoever closed the collar around their neck. This unit has been modified to be [soul-crushing], which makes the wearer a will-less **** (-100 WIS, -100 CHA, -100 LIB) to the one who put it on them for [28 - target's level] days; target loses the ability to regenerate mana naturally, and while retaining their knowledge does lose their personality, desires, and motives. Other effects from stat loss apply as well; no stat can be reduced below 1 in this way. This collar has been [empowered], which means it will overcome some forms of spell resistance. This unit bears the icon/trademark of the Wilson Mana Trust: a padlock of human teeth.

Turning it about in his hands, he found the icon in question: the loop of the lock was indeed a half-circle of the bottoms of molars and the rest of the teeth of a human maxilla. It's like this is going to keep coming up... but I can't let him go, and Tricia's life is in danger! I need to do this... John swallowed his loathing of the idea, of utilizing so ugly a device, somehow crueler than his contract, even if less permanent. John checked his phone. The first lunch bell hadn't even rung ten minutes ago, but how many real-life seconds or minutes were spent in that barrier? How long did the other Zenith Smugglers have to try and-

"Is someone there?" The voice was feminine, and came from one of the beds...