Strangeness

John kept an eye on his Mana Protection; it would reach maximum capacity any moment now, and then they would enter the battlefield once more. “I want more of these,” Sylph whined, eating what John had told her to be the last gummy bear. John felt like this day was the opening of Pandora’s cookie jar for a future sweets addiction for Sylph.

“What’s so great about this stuff anyway?” Salamander asked. She had tried a gummy bear herself but hadn’t found it particularly to her liking. From the slime lady at John’s side (actually more ON John’s side, she was feeling lazy, and had attached herself to him for the time being) came support for that question. “They are sweet and sugary and woah!” Sylph said, “Gnome, you explain!”

The Earth Elemental, hand in the bowl, was startled as everyone’s attention shifted to her. “I, uhm, they are, like, tasty?” she stammered. “Gnome doesn’t count, she is heavy,” Salamander waved it off. “Wha- NO I AM NOT!” the stone elemental shouted in response. “Yes, yes, you are, you are made from rock,” her burning sister stated drily. “I am unsure how Gnome being made of a heavy material relates to her liking gummy bears,” Aclysia chimed in. “It is a joke about her being fat,” John explained, “which you are not, Gnome, so no cause for concern. Salamander is just out to tease you.” “Party pooper,” the blaze elemental complained, “could have annoyed her for at least another five minutes.”

John’s Mana Protection hit max, “there is no time for that, let’s go, everybody remembers the strategy?” Affirmations all around. John reached for the doorknob. The entrance flew open, almost into John’s face, who stumbled backward. Undine on his side made a disgruntled sound, complaining about the shaking. Outside of the door was a seizure-inducing fuckfest of colors and images flying around. In the door itself stood a remarkably unmemorable man. He could have been literally anybody else, the kind of person you don’t even notice while walking through the streets. “Whoops, not at all where I wanted to come out, oh and hi John, I am in a hurry so we can talk next time,” the man said and quickly closed the door. John didn’t even have the chance to use Observe.

“What was that?” he wanted to know from Hermes. “Probably somebody who met another version of you,” The god of messages shrugged, “I told you that door is enchanted to invite people wherever, not the first time it brought in some dimension traveller who got tangled up in the spell.” “Hold the phone, dimension traveler? As in, there is more than one?” “Yup, have fun with that bit of trivia,” Hermes answered, “not like it will help you with anything, dimension traveling is a skill so exceedingly rare I doubt that you will get any use of it.”

‘Okay, so the existence of parallel dimensions and other versions of me confirmed,’ John thought, ‘wonder how they are all doing?’ Looking at his own luck in life, he was sure that the answer was ‘not so hot.' John carefully reached for the door a second time. No surprise this time. They found the alleyway. John spied the shimmering directly in front of the door. The Heat Strikers were ready to attack them the moment they stepped outside.

There was only one answer to this problem. “Aclysia, if you may,” John said and allowed her to take the lead. “As you command, master,” Aclysia said and readied Ashkandi. “Please visit me again!” Hermes shouted after them when the Artificial Guardian tackled the mass of nigh-invisible enemies, the rest of the group breaking out after her.

In the alleyway, they found the wall Gnome had erected torn down, cut into small pieces. ‘So it was at least a bit of an obstacle,’ John thought, ‘but we don’t need it for the plan, so whatever.’ They formed a circle formation with Undine at the center, and then the plan went into effect.

It had two steps and was surprisingly simple. John gave Gnome some of his mana and the stone elemental burst open the floor around them, the dirt below that came into view looked freshly plowed. Next, he gave mana to both Undine and Sylph. Although she was now a mending elemental Undine still had her basic water skills and so, out of her liquid feet, she spread a constant flow of water that ran on the solid platform they were standing on. “Who is in the mood for rain?! NOBODY, but Johnnie says that’s the plan so, I guess, here is rain!” Sylph blabbered and did her part by conjuring a low hanging cloud that filled the alleyway with a sudden rainfall.

John was very happy with how that cooled down the oppressive heat of the level, but that wasn’t the intended effect. The earth got turned into a soggy mud field, on which the footsteps of the Heat Strikers were easily visible, the splattering mud also got stuck on their bodies, making it that bit easier to spy them, especially after Sylph turned down the rain a bit. Now that they could make out their adversaries the rest of the encounter was quite easy in nature: They would only have to stand their ground.

“I hate this,” Salamander gave the protocol as the Heat Strikers trampled through the mud towards them. John let loose a Mana Ray on one of the monsters. Aclysia cut them down whenever they entered the extra marshy area around their position, where Undine’s water had done its job. Sylph did very little in this fight, only occasionally annoying enemies with weak attacks as most of her mana was sacrificed keeping the soft rain going. Gnome stomped once and a wave of mud formed as the stone underneath upheaved violently. Multiple Heat Strikers were hit and completely revealed to the party. Gnome punched and missed, she punched and missed, she… “For fuck's sake, Sis, get it together!” Salamander screamed, aimed at the being’s head and blinded it with a fly-by fire wave that allowed Gnome to get a punch in that broke right through the beings chest. John forgot sometimes, but Gnome was the party member with the second highest strength Stat. If only her Agility had caught up, “S-sorry,” Gnome apologized to Salamander. “Shut up and PUNCH STUFF!” the blaze elemental shouted, clearly in a sore mood from all the rain and general water around.

“Y-you know you shouldn’t talk to me that way!” Gnome stood her ground, “I-I-I-I am still older than you!” “Huuuuuh?!” Salamander turned with a twitchy eye and flew over to the stone elemental. She grabbed one of Gnome’s twin tails and started pulling, “Yeah and, you think that makes you better, huh? I am seriously annoyed right now and…!” Salamanders annoyed tirade was suddenly interrupted by a swat that saw the blaze elemental flying into a puddle a few meters away. “Bad Salamander!” Gnome shouted and then stomped, saving her sister from the watery grave. The fire spirit coughed two times, dried the mud off herself and then mumbled, “okay, okay, sorry, you are the chief, Gnome,” before returning to the fight.

John would have applauded Gnome’s ability to act against her bully, but he was currently occupied with slicing apart one of the Heat Strikers with a Mana Blade. He would have acted against them talking in the first place if the Heat Strikers weren’t such absolute glass cannons. Without their invisibility, they were no threat at all, and because they were mindless monsters, they ran at them without a care in the world until the wave was finally over.

‘That sounds not that bad actually,’ John thought while looking at the name. He had been fooled before however, so he remained on guard.

A sudden shockwave rippled through the city, blowing away Sylph’s cloud. The noises of crashing cars and explosion echoed throughout the streets. John, curious, got moving, surrounded by his summons and Aclysia.

The streets were a mess, burning car hulls everywhere, pressed together like accordions. To John’s left a house seemingly randomly lit on fire, elsewhere a window exploded into fine shards. Streetlights sprang to life, wildly changing between colors. As the name of the boss indicated, the city was pure chaos. They only had to spy the thing.

John noticed something running out of the burning building. A human wearing black clothes that hid the whole body from view, wearing a scarf and glasses that also made his face unrecognizable. The green glow behind the glasses made it pretty clear that this was not a human, however.

“Why does he have to look like a member of Antifa?” John sighed, “political commentary? Really, Gaia? Also, he drops NO money, but his legendary drop is the Communist Manifesto! How am I supposed to take this seriously?” The answer to that question came flying in the shape of a Molotov cocktail. “I got this, see, see?” Sylph chirped and sent the projectile flying back in a gust of wind.

An explosion big enough to still damage John’s shield by 160 points exploded in the Elementals face. John did not expect that actually to hurt the boss but as the cloud of ash and dust slowly cleared the revealed boss did look like he was at the very least bothered by the attack. “Good job, Sylph,” John complimented, very happy to not have been hit by that attack, “You keep reflecting that.” “Aye, Johnnie, can do that, caaaaaan dooo, can I? Yes, I can!” “Shut up, Sylph,” Salamander said and engaged the enemy. Aclysia did the same, so did Gnome and they were facing an absolute…

Weakling of a boss.

“I don’t get it,” John scratched his head as he watched the boss get the shit kicked out of him and eventually disappear. He almost expected to be surprised with this one guy not being the whole boss, instead of several hundred of fuckers like that running around the place, but it really was just that one guy. One guy with no abilities outside of throwing an easily countered Molotov cocktail.

‘So, the core floor boss of this one is super easy and the other one I haven’t even faced, weird,’ John shrugged it off and left the barrier as soon as the timer showed. Once back in the main barrier he pulled out Mono, despite Magoi being as present as always.

“Sorry, I need whatever power can be offered to me, right now,” John defended himself as the Fateweaver stared at him judgmentally. Magoi eventually just let out a long sigh, “I have no idea how strong this Thana girl thing you are about to face is, so maybe you do? Let me warn you however that she will be very interesting to whoever runs a mana factory, even more than you are,” he told John.

“How come?” John wanted to know. “Because it is harder to sedate a human than a golem. You call her an Artificial Spirit, but that really is nothing but golem with a will. Not to mention that she is living material, so they can feed her whatever they need to get mana out of her,” Magoi explained. “Well, she is bound to me, so it should work out fine,” John said with conviction. “There are ways to break every spell, John.”

With these words, the disappointed Fateweaver left. “Should you maybe not have revealed me?” Mono asked in an apologetic tone. “No, he would have found out anyway eventually. I try to be honest,” John answered with a smile, “Now come, we have stuff to feed you and then we need to resume grinding.”