3.07

“Even if it sometimes feels like you’re repeatedly hitting a brick wall, don’t underestimate the hardness of the human skull.” - Madelyn the Skull Rain giving an inspirational speech before breaking through the walls of Helmsdeep, earning her namesake and beginning Conquest.

 

Noam began the fight with a wide upward arc swing.

 

The store he was currently in was formerly a convenience store. There were a total of eight aisles and he was located in the fourth aisle, his back facing the store refrigerators where they would’ve placed perishables like yoghurt and milk.

 

The decision to attack vertically was not a random one. In a cramped environment, Noam knew he was at a disadvantage with his halberd, any wide horizontal attacks would get caught by the shelves and be stopped. A wide vertical strike also left him open to counterattacks as he brought down his weapon. Thus, the moment where both of them were running at each other, may have been the only time where Noam could’ve charged up a heavy attack.

 

His opponent wasn’t as restricted by the same problems, however, her metal bat was at least eighty centimetres long. As she brought her bat behind her, preparing for a powerful swing from her right side.

 

Both of them saw the other’s movement.

 

Both of them reached the same conclusion.

 

‘Whoever backs down first loses!’

 

The distance between them quickly shortened.

 

Ten meters.

 

Five meters.

 

At two meters apart, Noam was the first to stop. His foot-stomping into the ground, he brought the halberd down at half strength, too soon, but his intention was a feint to scare her back, then utilise his weapon’s spear-like tip for its intended purpose. 

 

However, his opponent kept running, the axehead barely missing her, only the spear tip sliced into her thigh.

 

Instinct took over for Noam, as he quickly dropped his polearm, raising his arms and stepping forward to protect his head. Just in time for the bat to smash into his left forearm.

 

The force of the blow threw Noam into the shelf to his side. Age-old metal groaned in protest before collapsing, leaving Noam slumped over the metal shelving in the next aisle.

 

Noam rolled backwards to avoid the follow-up strike. His arm shooting out to pull himself up from an unfallen shelf.

 

His opponent was already on him. Noam saw her bat swinging from his right. Noam dodged down, the bat swinging mere centimetres above his head.

 

Aura flowed into his right arm as he Swift Striked her stomach, sending her staggering back. He didn’t relent, aura flowed into his left for another hit, but suddenly he felt an intense spasm of pain.

 

The bat had left an ugly bruise. One Noam hadn’t consciously registered until he tried to make a fist. His body reflexively recoiled as his opponent fell out of range.

 

She staggered back and made a half-hearted swing, he dodged back, unsheathing a knife in a downward hold before stepping forward and slashing at her, but she lowered her head and parried the blade with her horns.

 

A devilish grin on her face, Noam’s opponent threw her head to the side, forcing his knife arm to go wide, before ramming herself into him. Knocking him back and disrupting his balance.

 

Noam fell back, but he quickly found his balance, as his opponent rushed in for another attack, Noam moved. His foot a central pivot, Noam twisted around and behind his opponent and knocked her forward-facing frame toward the ground.

 

As she fell, Noam grabbed her shoulder with his left, wincing as he did so and brought his knife to her neck.

 

The fight stilled, as Noam became the victor.

---

“What do we do now?” Peps frantically asked.

 

I raised an eyebrow, “This isn’t that much of a problem,” I told him as I glared at the other seller, “it’s not like we’re suddenly unable to use all of this.”

 

The dude snorted, then wrapped his cloak tighter around him. Apparently more interested in becoming a blanket burrito than talking anymore. In hindsight, the guy was right, though his attitude about it was annoying.

 

“We just need to make it all worth it,” the potato said.

 

I nodded, “Which reminds me,” I began, turning towards one of the rainbow geckos, “you guys are NPC’s right?”

 

If it were only just one I might’ve thought it was a weirdo with a gecko fetish, but there were around seven hundred just decorating the walls. Unless there was a darknet gecko chat server that got invited in its entirety, these numbers weren’t likely to be players.

 

The gecko chirped something and Greenie translated a confirmation.

 

“I’ll get straight to the point then, what are the quest conditions to get more of you to help?”

 

As Yellow kicked Greenie off my shoulder and began its translation, several of the geckos began rapidly blinking in colour. Dozens of chirps echoed in the room before the geckos left their positions and congregated into a single picture.

 

The potato belched in disgust, while Peps leaned in for a closer look. Of course, they were still geckos so they wanted food. The picture they made was two-part, on one side the sun shining through a broken hole and the other side showed an overturned log, placed a good distance from the light. Underneath the log clumps of disgusting larvae writhed over wet soil.

 

Holding back a slight grimace, I said, “Got it, dark place, underneath debris and with good moisture, anything else?”

 

There was a chirp and Greenie who I caught earlier, yelled out: “No!” before Yellow had a chance to speak.

 

“On it then,” I glanced at the potato, who was dry heaving in the corner, “make sure to increase my shares or something.”

 

“Isn’t this enough?” Peps asked, gesturing at the currently present geckos.

 

I shook my head as I left, “Oh no, I am a firm believer in the sunk cost fallacy,” I turned around and waved, “I’ll make sure we make lots of money,” I said, my gaze fixed on the other merchant the entire time.

 

He snorted, though he didn’t move, apparently content as he was.

 

Finding a good looking spot didn’t take too long. Most of the mall was already pretty dark and humid. All it took was leaving the more lit up paths.

 

I was at the entrance of one of the underground parking lots. The place looked similarly overgrown as the rest of the mall, though completely dark. I couldn’t make out anything if it weren’t for my dark vision.

 

There were a bunch of small rotting wood logs lying around. Greenie and Yellow jumped off my shoulder, curiously moving up towards the closest log.

 

“Be careful,” I called, quickly moving after them, “those disgusting bugs could be everywhere.”

 

I shooed them away from the rotting log, then very carefully raised my staff to poke-

 

Wait a second.

 

I took another glance around, dark underground carpark, covered in moss and a few of the glowing mushrooms.

 

The thing in front of me was wood, right?

 

I quickly cast a Light Spores, the soft glow illuminating the log as I kneeled to examine it.

 

There was no mistaking it, the texture and colour were all identical to the Bark Skin I had active.

 

It was undeniably tree wood and it was located underground, rotting in a location with no light.

 

How the hell did it get here?

 

I stood and took a step back, then brought my staff out to poke the log. The end of my staff pushing the log over to reveal some kind of white shell.

 

Looks insectoid, the shell was thin and segmented, resembled a carapace, but it was clearly dead. As if it died a long time ago.

 

There were legs which had fallen off when I pushed it, I knelt again, picking one up.

 

The leg was segmented as well, but most importantly, it was clawed, almost hook-like. These were graspers, not meant to move on a flat surface.

 

This was an arboreal creature, probably clung to trees and relied on its bark-like back as camouflage.

 

I pointed one end of the leg towards me, the end that was attached to the main body.

 

It was empty, like a crab leg which my gramps had completely sucked dry during New Years celebrations.

 

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” more creative words than shit, which weren’t coming at the moment because ‘oh fuck what did I walk into?’

 

“You two, back away slowly towards-”

 

As I said that, there was a sound like wet sand being mushed, followed closely by the sound of skittering as the dozens of other things which I thought were just dead logs began moving.

 

Their bodies raised themselves and I saw my objective. Dozens of maggots, pulsing just beneath thin white carapace. I saw the maggots dig through flesh, causing wet squelching sounds as the corpse jerked awkwardly towards me.

 

“Goddamnit,” I swore as I rose, ‘Or should it be Evedamnit?’ I pointlessly thought as I grabbed Yellow and Greenie.

 

“Why can’t anything be easy?”

 

I slowly began edging back. Approximately forty of those disgusting things were shambling towards me. Widely varying speeds though, many had legs dragging, the more empty corpses were barely moving at all.

 

They were slow, only a few centimetres per second so I had time to think. What suddenly caused them to move? These were parasitic creatures, the modus operandi for those were to remain dormant in a host. I must’ve triggered some kind of self-defence or feeding mechanism. But how did I wake so many? It couldn’t be some kind of proximity sensor, when I noticed something strange I made sure to examine the one farthest from the rest. There were at least several meters between this body and the rest. How did I trigger an attack?

 

What did I do wrong?

 

These were parasitic creatures, assuming these were anything like certain wasps, then once the maggots were fed enough, they ‘hatched’ out of the host. The shell of the bark bug I examined looked very whole, that must mean…

 

I raised my staff, then slammed the shell golf style. As expected, the shell burst easily like it was made of chips. A squelching noise could be heard as my staff displaced a giant maggot from the shell as it went flying towards the other parasites, hitting the floor and wetly sliding across for another few meters. As it made landfall, the nearest parasites paused and began moving towards it. I see. That thing must’ve signalled the others somehow.

 

I crouched to examine the pieces of the shell. The interior of it was wet with some kind of slimy liquid. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself and picked up a piece, bringing it closer. There was a pungent smell to it, one that didn’t become obvious until I brought it close.

 

Pheromones. I dropped to the floor- Oops, both Greenie and Yellow fell from my shoulder, softly hitting the ground, “Sorry about that,” I muttered as Greenie began chirping profanities. Where the hell did it learn those?

 

Doing a quick sniff of the floor, I confirmed traces of the smell. However, it seemed to disappear approximately ten centimetres from the surface of the floor. The pheromone must be heavier than air, so it stayed low to the ground as it spread out. That’s how I didn’t detect it earlier, I kept too far a distance when examining it. The maggot must’ve released it when I first flipped it over, it took some time to spread to the other ones-

 

I felt an urgent tugging at my leg, “What is it Yellow?” I asked as I glanced at it. One hand was pulling my leg, the other pointing in front of me- I quickly twisted my vision forward, where dozens of the parasite things had gotten surprisingly close. Two to three meters now. Did I misjudge their movement capacity?

 

Looking back, the few that got attracted to the golfed maggot seemed to be ‘eating’ it. The host bodies scrawled on top as their maggots burst out and began digging into it, even though it seemed to be still alive.

 

Yellow kept tugging at my leg and urgently chirped, “They’re getting closer!” 

 

Greenie took a defensive stance.

 

I raised an eyebrow, “I can see that.”

 

Yellow stared at me for a moment, then asked, “Why are you so calm suddenly?”

 

“Because,” I began, “I wasn’t afraid of the fight, I was afraid of the unknown variable,” I simply answered.

 

“And this isn’t much of a fight,” I further elaborated. “They're disgusting, but just by looking at them you can tell that they rely on swarm tactics. Which we have no problem with. Poison Spores.”

 

The greenish mist floated forward. It was hard to not equate it to a gas, even when I knew the damage dealt by this was caused by small green spores, the visual effect was extremely similar to gas-based weaponry. Though I’m pretty sure these spores would still count as a war crime.

 

The bug hosts managed a few centimetres before dropping as if their strings had been cut. Looking closer, I could see the parasite maggots writhing within.

 

Seven.

 

Not counting my mana regen and accounting for my Bark Skin mana drain, I could probably cast eight plus or minus one before I think my Mana Sickness starts to kick in. So long as I didn’t miss, I should be fine.

 

“Was it the CCW or Gibraltar Accords that banned biological weaponry?” I wondered aloud. “Oh well, these things have signed neither,” I said as I recast Poison Spores onto the next wave.

 

Fifteen.

 

The description for the spell was horribly undescriptive, but as I understood it, Poison Spores worked by infecting a certain area with spores, denoted by the greenish mist. Once something passes through or touches the spores, the spores will latch on and begin dealing damage based on how much surface area was exposed. But only a specific amount of spores are released on each cast, so effectively I’m creating damage zones that had a max limit of how much damage can be dealt, but with no theoretical limit to how many enemies could be damaged. Well, other than the practical limitation of how many you could stuff in the approximately two-meter radius of the spores.

 

Simply put, “Dealing with hordes of mindless trash mobs happens to be what we’re good at,” I calmly told Greenie and Yellow. “AOE, or Area of Effect damage, are best for dealing with multiple and normally untargetable enemies.”

 

“The multiple should be obvious,” I gestured to the waves of bug hosts mindlessly rushing towards me, casually casting another Poison Spores.

 

Twenty-three.

 

Continuing, I said, “If you can hit multiple enemies at once, then it's usually best to do so.”

 

“The second is a bit more difficult,” I said, raising two fingers, “untargetable enemies generally fall into two categories, based on how they are untargetable. Which, unfortunately, I can’t demonstrate here. So I’ll just have to tell you.”

 

“The first kind is untargetability through mobility. Where an enemy is simply faster than your ability to hit them accurately-”

 

“Ooh! I know this,” Yellow enthusiastically raised its hand, “It’s really hard when they’re fast, they keep dodging!”

 

“Yes,” I agreed, “pinpoint attacks are good for accuracy but when you are simply outmatched in terms of dexterity or mobility then you shouldn’t rely on it.”

 

“Now, can either of you tell me why AOE is good here?” I asked, recasting poison spores.

 

Greenie raised its hand, “Because if you can’t hit them normally, then you just hit everywhere?”

 

“Exactly,” I answered, “if you can’t hit them where they are, hit where they could be. If they could be everywhere, then just hit everywhere. An inversion of this is using lingering damage,” I gestured to the bug hosts trying to slog through the green mist, “in situations where you can’t reliably predict where the enemy might be, instead create danger zones where the enemy feels less inclined to go near. The objective would be limiting the movement options of a highly mobile enemy by limiting their options and/or protecting a certain area.”

 

“The second scenario follows similar principles, it is when an enemy can’t be targeted because you simply don’t know where they are. Either they have a stealth ability or you lack the information of their exact locations,” I explained, quickly checking on the zombugs.

 

Thirty-two.

 

“In such scenarios, a person would choose some form of AOE for the same reasons as against mobility targets-”

 

Yellow, who was practically skipping on the spot, raised a hand, “Ooh! Hit everywhere!”

 

“Hit everywhere they could be,” I corrected, “it’s an important distinction because hitting everywhere causes collateral damage and that’s generally frowned upon.”

 

“Hell, even during wartimes they wouldn’t just bombard a place they suspected guerrillas were in-” I froze as something fell on my back.

 

The thing was light, it had landed right below the small of my back. Judging from the pressure the thing was football-sized. There was a feeling like two pairs of small fingers pinching my back.

 

A new sensation quickly followed.

 

Digging.

 

‘You utter, fucking idiot.’ Panic quickly rose in me. I reached behind me to throw it off, only to find that my hands were too short to reach it. So I leapt for my staff, just as dozens of football-sized things began falling from the ceiling.

 

The hosts those parasite things inhabited were arboreal insects, shit that stuck on vertical surfaces for a goddamn living.

 

Above me, was a waking swarm. Like a second skin, the ceiling had begun shedding an entire layer of the fucking bugs. The ones on the floor were the most mature ones, but likely also the weakest. The ones that had already been eaten so thoroughly that the host insect couldn’t grasp on anymore.

 

I should’ve looked up earlier.