Chapter 6: the journey resumes
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Turning around to face the voice, I find Danievil standing with slightly bent knees, so as to not scrape the ceiling with her horns. 

So I respond “No, I am simply fixing your mistake. Though From my understanding it was actually sabotage.”

“I can see that. Pretty sure it was Lara that did it when accepting your submission. I mean, most of us laughed at it for a while afterwards, so it’s not like we are without blame.” she says with that unnervingly royal voice.

“Aside from that, I made a figurine!” I say, excited at having someone to show my work to. Usually I would go to various forums to do that, but now I have a person to share it with.

She walks over and picks up the figurine. “This is pretty good. Abominite is quite the resource to spend on an unenchanted trinket, but you did a good job.”

I smile at her compliment, before she suddenly pats my head between my ears. It feels pretty nice, so I lean into it. I may have started purring.

“You really are cute, even though you are quite deadly.” She says with a voice that is a lot softer than previously, before grabbing me with two hands and lifting me up in a hug, while stroking my hair. Feels really good, and after a bit she puts me back down.

“Good to see that you are doing fine.” she says before disappearing in more fire.

I just stand there in a daze for a bit, before the sparkles around me starts up again. I did use a fair bit of mana on the crafting. Not a huge amount on the copper, but he abominite took a good chunk.

After shaking my head, I set about crafting some more. Took a bit to decide on what to craft, but after a bit of deliberation, I settled on trying to make a copper figurine of Danievil, with the correct scale relative to the figurine of me.

That combined with enchanting the figurine of me to sparkle, which I didn’t manage to do right, took the rest of the day.

It’s kinda odd, as I didn’t get hungry after eating in the morning. Maybe I just need less food now. I did drink a bit during the day, but before coming here, I would eat three to four meals a day, each a fair bit larger than the slab of meat I had for breakfast. Not needing to eat a lot is a good thing, especially when I don’t have a supply of food.

As the light coming from outside reduces, I jump back onto the couch, and It only takes a moment to find a comfortable position.

 


 

The next day I wake up having slept just as well as yesterday. I am really starting to like this couch. I’ll start heading towards civilization today. I thought about it for a bit yesterday and came to the conclusion that I needed to start traveling since my food supply is limited.

I start off by eating, since I’m just as hungry this morning as I was yesterday, though today I don’t bother cooking the slab of meat. After breakfast, I start off by putting anything I can find in here into my inventory. Turns out to be quite a lot. Dozen or so different knives, some for food, others for other things. A couple of tables, some metal, others not. Of course I bring the couch. What else am I going to sleep on? I even took the stove, if nothing else it’s a lump of metal.

After I am done, the underground facility is even more barren than when I found it. Though to be fair, with the amount of stuff still inside, I wasn’t really barren, just abandoned.

Leaving the temporary housing doesn’t incite any significant feelings, so I just start heading north. Luckily there are no abominations in the vicinity.

I keep walking at a reasonable pace, humming along to my favorite tune. I even resume my practice with the singing sparkles. I know I have seen people play music with lightning, so why shouldn’t I be able to?

As evening approaches, I have only needed to walk around a couple abominations. I even spotted one that was even larger than the first one I saw.

One problem becomes clear however. Where am I going to sleep? There is no convenient underground facility here. Maybe I should climb to the top of one of the hills? I’ll probably get to be alone there.

After climbing to the top of a rocky hill, I place the couch down. It’s a bit wobbly, but fine. I then place a table on top of it, just in case it starts to rain. It’s not any less comfortable to sleep in it now than when I did it underground, so I fall asleep fast.

 


 

BANG

I find myself flying through the air. What happened? As I tumble down the hill next to the splinters of my couch, I find that crashing into the ground isn’t all that painful. Sure it hurts a bit, but only as much as bumping into things by accident.

Eventually I stop, and when I look back up the hill, I see the bent metal table I used as a ceiling, and the splinters of my sofa. At least the cushions survived. Soon afterwards, while looking up the hill, the sinner becomes apparent. An abomination steps over the top of the hill. That thing interrupted my sleep, and broke MY couch! It has to suffer. I mean, I could just step out of its way to avoid the fight, but it has to suffer.

The only problem is that it’s a lot bigger than the one that fought the golem. If I am to win, I have to do it properly, and not just dump all my mana into a single attack. 

I take out my staff and get ready as the offender starts its march down the hill. It has a maw filled with a mixture of sharp and blunt teeth. Let’s hope it doesn’t scream. That would probably be quite unpleasant. 

In addition to its maw, it has a lot of large arms and feet of various designs, only one tentacle, but it’s even larger. More eyes than the ones I have seen so far, and as I think that, it flails its tentacle and a nearby rock flies at me. I have just enough time to dodge, but it was very close to hitting me.

I guess I’ll start by electrocuting that tentacle. My first strike hits the tentacle and it spasms for a bit, before retaliating with a couple more rocks. Easier to dodge this time since I am prepared. What I didn’t expect was one of the arms firing a lightning bolt at me. That I didn’t have time to dodge. I prepare myself for pain, only to get the same exciting feeling I get when using electricity on myself.

That’s awesome! I’ll save that arm for last! I once again fire into the tentacle, and it squirms a little longer this time. Its retaliatory attack is a bit slower, but is in turn joined by more of the ranged limbs. Most of the smaller arms fire some kind of mana bullet, but as I found out the hard way, they aren’t much of a threat.

I might only need to worry about the larger attacks. A third, fourth and fifth attack at the tentacle, and it starts to smoke and lay limp at the top of the abomination. 

Now, when fighting abominations, it usually pays off to disable their movement as soon as possible. Preferably before they start to follow you. I didn’t think about that and just randomly attacked limbs. 

A single of my lightning strikes are enough to take out the smaller limbs, but the larger ones can sustain a few. None have lasted longer than the tentacle, though a few of the larger arms matched it.

This is starting to become fun. Dancing around it, dodging its poorly aimed projectiles. Occasionally getting a boost from its lightning, and tanking the smallest of the projectiles.

I would love to say that I’m winning, but the thing has hundreds of various limbs, maybe even thousands if you count the smaller ones. I might run out of mana before the thing even cares enough to attack me properly. 

As I have been at it for a while, we have gotten a fair bit away from the hill. Maybe I should just leave it be? I stop attacking it and step a bit away, towards the hill. Of course it doesn’t follow. Why would it? I’m just a gnat fighting an elephant. Maybe a lightning gnat and a stupid elephant, but still. It just continues onwards in the same direction. Doesn’t even shake the ground because it has so many legs.

SIGH

At least I broke a few dozen of its limbs. Dejected, I start picking up the pieces of the couch. The cushions are a bit dusty, but a bit of shaking fixes it. The metal table is bent enough to not really be usable, though I might be able to fix it later. I just stow everything away for now.

I sigh once again, before continuing northwards. I guess I got really lucky with that basement. Might not be able to sleep properly until I leave the endlands. At least I got a bit of sleep before it, oh so rudely, smashed my sofa!

 

notes galore.

Abominations are pretty mindless, and most of the threat comes from the sheer bulk of them, and the fact that they can theoretically use any and all abinities from the game, not that they necesarrily will do that.

I always struggle to think about what to write here when I publish the chapter, but I can think of all kinds of things afterwards.

If you are one of the five people reading this story, please leave a comment.

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