Of the Best Laid Plans

Cautiously, John removed the top from the last of his water bottles before drawing his focus back out. His first loadout was set with his focus and the water; the second had a scrap sword and his crowbar. He’d stuffed as many bottles as he could into his bag and pockets, all their caps loosened. The whole thing was slung over his left arm for access.

Then, John cringed as he removed [Observe] from its slot, placing its gem gingerly into his inventory and replacing it with [Lesser Earth Spike], having decided that it was going to be the more important skill for the time being. Observe had dropped a full level, back to its previous state where it cost mana again. He hated to potentially waste its experience if he had to reset multiple skills, but he wasn’t going to take any chances in the present.

’Dang… no more damage. I had to check though. That sucks. At least I’ll get some extra mana,’ John thought, double checking the optimization of his inventory.

He’d taken some time to rearrange his inventory, making it easier for him to reach his spare weapons and supplies in case he needed to access something extra.

John peeked around the corner and verified the room layout for his plan one more time. Bookshelves lined the walls. Rain pattered on a small line of windows along the top. The center of the room was dominated by tables and a couple palettes that had been knocked aside, above which hung a massive, rusting chandelier.

The Gamer shook his head and steeled his nerves. The feeling of adrenaline in his limbs was already becoming somewhat familiar, he realized. His breathing tensed, then slowed. A chill ran down his spine.

’OK, John, let’s do this!’

Turning the corner into the doorway, The Gamer broke into a dead sprint down the left curve of the room. His footfalls were heavy on the ruined carpet floor; a fuzzy sort of squish accompanied every step.

The Lighthouse Keeper’s eyes began to glow a deep purple beneath the helmet it wore. An ominous pressure filled the room, and goosebumps ran down John’s arms. He began phase one of his plan as the boss started trying to get to its feet.

Drawing bottle after bottle of water from his bag, The Gamer chucked them at the boss’ feet, soaking the floor. His throws weren’t perfect, but he didn’t need perfection. He briefly recalled the end of the last fight he’d been through, but shook it off as he cast [Reshape Matter] on the water surrounding the boss, freezing it into a carpet of ice and sticking its feet to the floor. Beautiful crystals of frost began their climb atop his foe, holding its knees to the ground.

The mold that had overgrown the creature’s hideous malformation of an arm began to crackle and break. It flexed and the ice around its hideous hand shattered.

The boss was slowed somewhat, but John knew it wouldn’t hold for long. The other bloated fisherman around the room had noticed him by now, but their reaction time was far worse than the boss’. He cast [Geo Alchemy: Lesser Earth Spike] targeting the back of The Lighthouse Keeper’s right knee.

It was more difficult than normal to cast, as he had to overcome the unwillingness of concrete to move. During his testing in the stairway, the amateur alchemist had figured out that the key point of difficulty was the cement that held the concrete together. While all the right minerals were present for him to cast, they were held into even more dense a structure than the normal ground.

With hefty and deliberate application of mana, he drew forth a [Lesser Earth Spike], erupting from the ground behind the boss into the back of its knee. The spike didn’t penetrate the boss’ dense hide, but it did cause it to stagger slightly, and the monster’s knee was **** to remain bent.

John checked his angles as his sprint continued, turning more toward the center of the room.

’Just a few more feet. Don’t let him draw it!’

Another two bottles were thrown as the monster hefted its massive limb to reach for the blade and steady itself. John froze the new water around both the boss and the sword, following up with a cast of [Aero Alchemy: Lesser Air Burst]. Unable to dodge from its awkward position, the burst exploded on the boss’s chest, forcing it off balance.

John gasped, reaching his hand out as he brought forth even more mana.

A second [Lesser Earth Spike] slid above the boss’ left leg, still bent from its kneeling start, locking its leg between The Gamer’s two earth constructs. As John finally reached his goal, The Lighthouse Keeper seized the blade. The twisted, throbbing fingers of its single arm engulfed the entire handle and crossguard. Black ooze ran down the blade as it was yanked free from the ground.

A single swipe downward annihilated one of John’s spikes.

’Crap… a single hit for the whole spike… Half mana, make it count.’

The creature swung again to free itself, unaware of John’s next move. The Gamer reached out with his mana. He was within a few feet of the room’s center, directly across the room from the boss. The amateur alchemist was now close enough where his [Reshape Matter] and [Lesser Earth Spike] spells could be cast on the ceiling.

The Gamer exhaled and time seemed to slow as he drank in the world around him. The temperature in the room seemed to drop. Two bloated fisherman were making their way towards him from the left, but were delayed going around a palette. Another was closing in on his right, but he estimated that he had enough time to complete his plan before it arrived. He shivered slightly.

The boss charged, sword drawn.

All of John’s focus returned to the monster in front of him.

It was faster than John had guessed, forcing him to redo his timing. Doubt crept into John’s thoughts as he stared down a strike that would surely kill him, but he had a plan. The muscles in his legs screamed to run, but adrenaline had long since seized his mind. He was more focused than he’d ever been before.

The Gamer cast [Reshape Matter] and froze the water dripping from above.

As The Lighthouse Keeper approached the center of the room, John found his opening and took it. Once more he cast [Lesser Earth Spike], but his target was no longer the boss; the spike struck out from the roof, severing the frozen chain holding up the chandelier.

With gravity as his ally, John’s big plan hit its finale. The chandelier, a huge mass of steel and wiring, crashed down on the unsuspecting boss. The sickening sound of the crunch of bone and steel was all The Gamer could hear as dust covered his vision. He was vaguely aware of the resounding clang of the Keeper’s sword clattering to the ground.

John’s stomach churned and a small smile wormed its way onto his face. His moment of triumph was cut short, however; a Bloated Fisherman rushed him from the right, leaving no time to clear the dust and check the wreck.

’Don’t stop moving.’

The Gamer turned to face the adds; the first of the zombies approached too rapidly for him to concentrate on swapping weapons. Hoping to catch the slow monster off guard, John leapt forward aggressively, channeling air into the palm of his free hand and clotheslining the fisherman with it. Flashing green air smashed into the creature’s face with a sickening squish as it was knocked back, chunks of rotting flesh scattering across the room.

John took the free moment to swap his weapons before laying into the monster again. He brought his crowbar up into the zombie’s jaw with a mighty THWACK, then back down atop its skull to a matching CRACK before trying to drive his scrap sword into its soft belly. The blade had little issue driving itself in, but its rough edge got stuck on something within, and The Gamer abandoned it within the monster’s slowly dissolving corpse as more enemies approached from behind.

John’s right arm ached from the swings he’d made with the crowbar, and he was worried he’d twisted or pulled something as he’d battered the creature.

Turning, John was beset by a pair of zombies The first was dispatched with ease by a [Lesser Earth Spike], a gnarled point of concrete shooting from the floor, but the second closed the distance before John could reposition. A swing of its meaty arm battered his side, and he staggered backwards, catching himself on a table.

Diving out of the way of a second swipe, John turned and cast another [Earth Spike], though he was only rewarded with a glancing blow, having thrown the spell too quickly in his hurry. Gasping for air, The Gamer backed up around the table, taking a moment to replace his crowbar with the next in line of the weapons he’d pilfered below, the scrap spear.

’Come on, John, you’ve seen 300 a few times, just keep them away from you,’ he thought, backing around a palette to keep space between himself and the monster. ’Slow and steady, you’re making mistakes.’

The nervous nerd found himself beginning to struggle to breath. His mouth was dry and his side and arm ached. The Gamer cautiously began testing his strength, gauging where best he could strike the creature. His first hits were little more than scratches, the creature’s leathery flesh proving more durable than he’d expected.

A cold, dry sweat began to form on John’s forehead.

After a couple safe, experimental jabs, John found a grip that seemed to work, pinching the base of the spear under his armpit and driving the spear into the soft of the creature’s neck with all his might. This time, the tip found enough purchase to bite in, piercing the rotting flesh. John spun sideways, ripping the tip of the spear from the creature’s broken neck and finishing off his wounded foe.

With fortune on his side this time, John retracted his spear and backed up, taking a second to reset. His head throbbed, his wrist now had a searing pain, and the cold of the room began to creep in again as his adrenaline rush began to taper off. Leaning on his spear, The Gamer wished he’d saved some water to drink.

’These things hit ridiculously hard,’ John thought, bringing a hand up to his tender ribs. ’I really need armor or something.’

He heard movement from across the room and guessed that yet more zombies were approaching. To his dismay, a pair of them had been sitting still among the boxes, and he’d overlooked them while setting up. Now, they stood with renewed vigor and formed a third wave. As he prepared himself, the mass of steel in the middle of the room began moving.

Broken, but not dead, The Lighthouse Keeper was trying to lift and cut the steel pinning him to the ground. Its head was caved in and its body was gnarled and destroyed, the helmet it had worn almost entirely flattened, yet it was alive despite the damage. It was trapped, but not defenseless. The sinews of its arm unwound and slithered among the metal that had crushed the rest of its body and reached toward where the sword had fallen.

’That’s nasty.’

The Boss’ free muscles managed an uncertain grip on the weapon as John turned, stunned that the monster had survived. He only had enough time to register that the squirming muscles were wielding the sword on their own before he was hit. Despite only barely reaching him, the Keeper’s sword struck a blow with enough **** to snap the scrap spear in half and follow through into John’s arm - now crushed and bleeding.

John screamed as he was thrown backwards from the **** of the impact, rolling into a crate. A fresh splatter of red blood coated the carpet and flowed freely from the wound as John tried to right himself, desperately scrambling backwards out of range of the arm. A fresh wave of adrenaline washed over him, and painful clarity returned, if only momentarily.

His HP bar had dropped by almost half from the single hit.

’It’s still alive?’ John thought, biting his cheek as [Gamer’s Body] reassembled his broken arm. ’What the hell is this thing?’

The blade itself sounded almost like a car whizzing by as John rolled out of the way of a second deadly strike. As fast as he could, he jumped to his feet and backed up until he was pressed against a shelf.

Luckily for The Gamer, the boss’ movement and range were limited to the length of the strange, wiggly parts of its arm, and it could not follow him. With his remaining energy, John stuck his good arm out towards the Lighthouse Keeper and cast again using the metal of the chandelier.

He sent one [Lesser Earth Spike] through the Keeper’s neck, steel crunching bone, severing its head. The muscles and sinews tangled around the blade seemed to spasm and convulse, then slacken.

John allowed satisfaction with his plan to set it. He granted himself a single moment to relax before he realized that he still hadn’t gotten an experience drop.

’Wait a se-’

One moment was long enough for the boss to unleash one final trick.

With the last of the strength in its grotesque arm, the muscle fibers gripped the sword, throbbing with sickly violet energy, and whirled it downwards, slamming it point-first into the ground. The windows along the roof shattered, spraying glass into the room and the whole building seemed to quake beneath John’s feet. The gem embedded in the sword’s hilt crackled and sparked. The room lit up blue for the briefest moment before a section was suddenly bathed in red. A huge rectangular area was set awash with danger, tracing straight from the boss to where John stood.

From the point of impact sprang a wave of ice, a river of cold and spikes and ****, all rushing at John in his instant of hesitation.

In shock, John dove desperately to his right, barely escaping his own mortality. He rolled and kept going as another swathe of red covered where he now stood. Thinking quickly, he dove over a bookshelf that had collapsed forward and took shelter behind the one next to it. The next wave of ice crashed into the shelf and threatened to topple it, deadly points of ice piercing through the wood.

The Gamer reacted by drawing another one of the scrap spears from his inventory and stabbing it into the carpet, wedging its handle into the shelf in a **** attempt to stop it from collapsing. Mana dwindling, John used an [Earth Spike] to match on the other side. The wood of the shelf began to splinter and crack from opposing forces.

’Come on, how hard can it be to kill something that’s already this dead??’

I mean, it’s not dead; isn’t that kinda the point? They’re UNdead.

“Raaaaah,” came a faint groan from next to John.

He turned to find one of the last two bloated fisherman desperately reaching behind the bookshelf to grab him. The monster was slowly shuffling towards him, forcing its body into the tiny gap that John hid in.

“CAN YOU NOT RIGHT NOW?” The Gamer yelled, casting [Lesser Earth Spike]. The spell emerged as a mighty point of concrete from the wall, ripping the creature asunder and splattering ooze and drying blood across the room.

He turned from side to side. If he backed up, there was a gap before the next piece of shelving he could hide behind. Soggy, moldy books bagan to plop on the ground as the improvised cover John hid behind began to fold inwards perilously.

Mind racing, he searched what he’d seen in the brief glance he’d gotten before the ice wave. The Gamer knew that the strange muscles of the boss appeared to still have some amount of energy in them, mana or otherwise, and that they were still trying to kill him.

Drawing on his experience killing bosses in games, John scoured his memory for a weak spot and settled on the simplest idea. He needed to get the remains of the boss off the sword; hopefully that would stop the waves of ice.

You’re less killing it and more like re-deadening it.

The Gamer ignored the musing of the voice in his head. ’The wave has a cast timer. If I can go wide, I might be able to get a spell or two off before it can.’

This is why I didn’t talk to you last time.

With other options fading away, John decided to take a chance on his decent agility. He dove out from behind his cover, air magic channeling. Glancing around as quickly as he could, The Gamer took stock of the situation. Much of the strange sinews that had composed the Keeper’s arm had faded to gray and lay slack on the ground, but a few remained, throbbing with purple energy as they wrapped around the sword. He offhandedly noted the final lesser zombie slowly limping towards him on a twisted leg.

John didn’t need sophisticated combat analysis to pick a target.

The Gamer dashed as fast as he could, circling the edge of the room, eyes locked on the sword.

He drew his arms back as he gathered mana, cupping his palms near each other like he’d seen in Dragon Ball. Swathes of green bathed his arms as he prepared a [Lesser Air Burst]. He exhaled and the wind around him began to pick up. John hoped he looked cool as he finished his spell, red engulfing him once more.

The Gamer stopped to aim before throwing his arms forward, loosing an [Air Burst], a mighty swirl of compressed wind, spilling contrasting green across the room. It carried all of his fury, all of his anger at the dungeon, and all the hopes he had for completing it. Waves of verdant mana shone from the orb, piercing the veil of icy blue, as it smashed into the sword, and a shrill screech echoed through the room.

In retort, ice erupted from the impact point, a final act of **** spite. John kept as much forward momentum as he could, trying to spring out the far side of the spell’s deadly path. Bracing himself for pain, he jumped and spun, casting a second [Lesser Air Burst] in between his own hands, detonating it immediately on his own center of mass and throwing himself sideways. Once more **** narrowly sailed past The Gamer, barely catching his leg as it passed.

Pain shot through John’s limb as the ice just narrowly caught it.

The weary nerd was ripped downward from his leap to safety, but he landed, prepared to fight, with another spell already forming in his hands. Ready to fire, he looked up only to find the blue haze of the gem fading away. The final strands of the Keeper’s body had been shredded by his previous spell, and they slowly slid off the sword’s handle, their mana fading away.

The Gamer allowed his mana to disperse, his air spell fading.

John’s heart echoed in his head. He was panting, flushed with adrenaline, and was all but numb even to the wounds he’d sustained at the end. His happy purple XP bar crawled across the bottom of the screen, the ice all across the room began dissolving into water, and John shouted with joy and pain and relief.

The boss was beaten.

LEVEL UP

His HP bar snapping to full, John let his scream echo into the void and went slack, resting his eyes.

Even this brief respite was cut short for The Gamer, as, with a thud, the final Bloated Fisherman stumbled over the melting ice and faceplanted at his feet. Its body was caught and its arms were pinned underneath itself, leaving it to ineffectually flail its legs in the air in a vain attempt to get to its target.

John laughed - a hearty laugh entirely out of place for the bleak, bloody mess he found himself in.

He cast a single [Lesser Earth Spike] and closed his eyes again.

’Honestly, re-deadening just sounds like killing with extra paperwork.’