Strength Based Wizard (Book 1 COMPLETE)

Echoes of a Dead World, Part V

(In the Shadow of the Serpentine Lord - 3)

My mind is foggy. When I come to, I'm being cradled in the arms of some friendly, green-skinned giant.

No, wait—Grush. It's Grush.

The undead giant is cradling me like I'm a baby bird he found fallen from its nest. His skin is cold and clammy, and smells like cold cuts.

"Urghhhh," I groan. Please tell me that was all a fever dream and I didn't just get my arm gator-chomped into a human gogurt packet.

I survey the information presented in my HUD. System messages sit politely minimized in the corner of my vision, blinking needily. I'll deal with you later, I think. My Stamina bar is empty and my Health has a barely perceptible dot of red, which I imagine is numerically represented by something in the single digits.

I try to sit up, lifting my right hand to grab onto the front of Grush's uniform.

Except… No hand. Definitely turned into a gogurt packet!

"WHAT THE FUCK!" I scream, the words tearing from my throat.

Grush grunts and adjusts his grip. I thrash. I flail. My heart races like it's trying to punch its way out of my chest cavity. Now that the adrenaline rush of battle has fled me, nothing can prepare me for the mental fuckery of seeing a bloody stump and broken bone where a hand should be.

"Calm yourself, Joseph," Preston says.

His diving suit body leans forward with a hiss of hydraulics. One gloved hand extends and presses gently against my bare chest, pushing me back into Grush's arms.

Coolness floods through me, sprouting from the diving suit's hand and washing through me. It feels like someone replaced my blood with chilled peppermint tea. My limbs go slack. My heartbeat slows. My pupils probably dilate like a cartoon animal catching a whiff of pie.

"Ohhhh. That's the stuff," I mumble.

"You were hyperventilating," Preston says. "And honestly, undignified."

"Dude. I got eaten by an albino Godzilla… Let me freak out a little."

Grush groans.

"A Zilla God?" asks Walter.

The skeleton is standing right behind Liv, who is kneeling beside me. Her reddish-brown hair's plastered to her forehead, sweat dripping down her cheeks which have lost a lot of their typical color. She looks like someone who just ran a marathon through a horror movie. I imagine how I must look by comparison.

"Joe," she says softly, her hands fluttering over my stump like she's unsure of what to do. "You're okay. You're alive. But… yeah."

"You say that like it's a surprise," I rasp.

She bites her lip. "It is. I've never tried to heal something this bad before. But I think I can do it. I have to try."

"You think—?"

"Shhh."

Walter leans over Liv's shoulder, casual as ever. He looks immaculate, considering we were just in a death match with a reptilian kaiju. His top hat is slightly crooked, but that somehow makes him look cooler. The words [Tax Exemption] still float over his head.

With a flick of his bony wrist, he pulls a small potion vial out of mid-air like a magician with a dove. The vial is about the size of a tall shot glass, and filled with a thin brown liquid that reminds me of whisky.

"This should help," he says, handing it to Liv. "Give it to him first. That'll make it easier—replenish Health, boost Stamina, kick-start the System's own regeneration processes. It' one of Preston's, so pretty good stuff."

The goldfish blows a couple of proud bubbles.

Liv uncorks the potion. The scent hits my nose: something like over-sugared cough syrup spiked with gasoline.

"Bottoms up," she says.

I tilt my head back. She pours it into my mouth, and it burns all the way down like swallowing lemongrass-and-ginger flavored magma. My stomach flips.

I watch as a good chunk of both my Health and Stamina bars are instantly restored. As soon as they are, I feel the tingling pulse in my brain.

Ding!

System notifications flare to life in my visions:

Health Regeneration Temporarily Enhanced by 50%!

Stamina Recovery Temporarily Increased by 50%!

Pain Tolerance Temporarily Decreased by 20%!

"Ughhh," I groan, pressing my good hand to my forehead. "Why does everything the System does feel like it was programmed by a Dungeon Sadist? Pain Tolerance temporarily decreased?!"

Walter shrugs. "A tradeoff for such powerful benefits… I imagine this next part won't be fun." He looks down at Liv.

Liv's eyes are locked on my stump. The wound at the end of my artificially shortened forearm burns, something between an itching and a stabbing sensation. Like someone crammed fire ants under my skin and told them I was a human buffet line. That means that at least the System's natural regeneration is working.

"Can the System's regeneration re-grow limbs?" I ask.

"With enough Health, sure… But at your level?" Walter says. He gives me a subtle shake of his skull.

"That's where I come in," says Liv.

She closes her eyes, and I see as she summons her aura. Soft, golden light starts to radiate from her palms—pure, soft, and warm like golden sunlight passed through clean water.

She takes a deep breath and places her hands gently on my wrist.

"I'm gonna need you to be still, okay?"

"Sure," I whisper. "But just a heads up—if something happens to me and I don't make it out of this, I leave my entire estate to Jelly Boy."

She smiles, and then the real healing begins.

The smile melts away and Liv's face goes full focus mode: eyebrows low and lips pressed tight. Her eyes darken, pupils focused pinpricks.

I hear Jelly Boy buzzing in the background—somewhere between anxious blender and whining hound. I want to tell him it's okay. That I'm okay. But I'm not. I'm mostly... terrified, if I'm being honest. And in pain… A lot of pain.

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A bead of sweat trickles down Liv's forehead, follows the line of her nose, and drops onto my chest. She doesn't blink. Doesn't flinch. I extend my own [Aura Sense] towards her and can feel the workings of her magic being forged in the space between us.

She extends her hand and light pours out of her. Literal threads of golden light—glowing strands like angelic hair, unraveling from her fingertips and slithering through the air like curious snakes. They wrap around my forearm. I can feel them. Their touch is warm.

The threads crawl, shimmering over my skin, feeling their way across every hair, every pore. Their searching, trying to find purchase in my pain. When they find the end of my forearm—what used to be my wrist—they dig in, burrowing themselves into the open wound at the end of my arm.

I scream.

I don't even try to stop myself. I pour everything I have into trying to remain still and conscious. I focus on the horrific sight unfolding right in front of me.

The threads wrap around the jagged bone like they're hugging it in a tight embrace. First, it's only three threads. Then ten. Then thirty. Eventually, the entire stump of bone is wrapped in overlapping layers of the light-wrought threads. A shape then begins to form.

A glowing, golden skeletal hand starts to take shape from the piece of bone still attached to the rest of my arm. The golden light elongates, forming phalanges and metacarpals and some other biology words I forgot after sophomore year of high school.

It hurts. It's not unlike what I imagine sticking my arm in a blender full of hot glass might feel like.

And that's not even the worst part. Because after the golden skeleton finishes forming, I watch—wide-eyed, horrified, completely transfixed—as meat and sinew and muscle grow over it. Tendons twist and snap into place. Veins bloom like spiderwebs. Skin wraps over it all like fresh clay over steel wiring. My fingernails sprout with a wet pop.

I breathe.

I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath the entire time my body stitched itself together with the help and guidance of Liv's magic.

I blink and find myself looking at my hand.

My hand.

My hand.

It's glowing faintly from within. My entire palm is extremely itchy.

And then the light fades. Liv's magic retreats like the tide rolling back to sea.

I stare at the new hand that's left behind. The skin has a soft, healthy glow. It looks good as new, except for a thin, pale ring of scar tissue that wraps around my forearm where the stump had ended. A magical bracelet of practically white skin made of second chances. A reminder that magic may heal, but there will always be consequences of my actions. I think of the scars Veronica sports on her chest and neck from our fight with a Storm Dragon. I got off the hook, all things considered.

I flex my fingers. I wiggle them. I flip the bird at the gator corpse in the distance.

Everything works just as I'd expect.

I turn to Liv.

She's laughing. A quiet, nervous sound. Her hands are shaking, her shoulders twitching like she might collapse from adrenaline or start breakdancing. It could go either way.

"I'm so glad that worked," she says, voice high and breathy, like someone who just disarmed a bomb with tweezers and prayer.

"Me too!" I say, laughing with her.

Then she glares at me.

"You need to be more careful," she snaps, poking my chest with a still faintly-glowing finger. "I can't heal everything!"

"I'll remember that the next time I'm swallowed by a giant alligator," I say with a grin. "Thank you!"

She glares harder.

Jelly Boy lets out a high-pitched celebratory BLORP that echoes across the swamp.

I push myself to my feet, still a little woozy from the whole experience.

Grush's giant hand lingers beneath me for a second, making sure I'm steady before the big lug grunts and lumbers off. I appreciate the support. I also appreciate the not-being-dead. How much blood did I lose?

I quickly inventory the rest of my body, making sure there's nothing else missing.

"My staff!"

I was holding it when the gator attacked us. I know I was. I better not have lost that thing. I splash over to the albino alligator corpse, which is still steaming as the flesh and scales melt away.

As I approach, my HUD blips and a familiar floating blue box pops up in front of me:

[Loot corpse of Alabaster Claude?]

I mentally affirm and am met with a haptic tingling as another System Message appears. It's a menu of lootable items:

Full Metal Staff

Jagged Tooth (x6)

Scaled Hide (Gleaming) (x2)

Alabaster Meat (x1)

Poison Shards (x10)

Water Shards (x20)

"Oh, thank the sweet System," I whisper when I see my Staff on the list. I mentally sweep all of the items into my Inventory. Then, I withdraw my Staff. It appears in my hand, and—to my immense relief—still has the glowing plates of accumulated energy at each end. My sweet, hard-earned progress! I laugh, cradling my staff like a newborn baby made of wrought metal.

"Should we, uh…" I glance toward the glistening stomach folds of the monster, ravaged by the blades of Walter's skeleton crew. "Loot its Core?"

Preston, bobbing gently in his green-lit fishbowl helmet, tilts his undead goldfish head thoughtfully.

"Oh, quite," he says, in that tea-sipping, tweed-coat voice of his. "A Core of this magnitude would be a divine addition to our crafting reserves. I could fashion something appropriately powerful using its Core as a component."

Walter sighs, already rolling his skeletal shoulders and cracking his knuckles. "Grush."

The big guy doesn't need more than the name. With a delighted grunt, Grush stomps over to the corpse and starts ripping into it his bare, enormous hands. Dark blood and scales are scattered through the air and I jump back to avoid getting splashed.

I check my HUD again, mostly to avoid watching the carnage, and decide to check out the minimized System Messages.

You have defeated Alabaster Claude!

Partial credit awarded to…Olivia Sullivan!

Partial credit awarded to… Walter!

Partial credit awarded to… Preston!

Partial credit awarded to… Grush!

Partial credit awarded to… Jelly Boy!

Level 19 increased to Level 20!

NEW SKILL: [Piercing Resistance] (Passive)

Description: You have resistance to piercing damage. This Skill is currently at Beginner Level.

NEW SKILL: [Slashing Resistance] (Passive)

Description: You have resistance to slashing damage. This Skill is currently at Beginner Level.

Your Flexible Casting Trait has been triggered by this Level Up!

FLEXIBLE CASTING: You have 1 Modified Spellcasting available. Please select one Spell to see available options.

I minimize the Flexible Casting window. That's a huge upgrade, but I'm going to need to consider my options. I've been waiting to hit Level 20 for this very reason, and I have a few ideas. I turn my attention back to the previous notifications.

"Piercing and Slashing Resistances," I mutter aloud, frowning. "Huh."

Walter's skull turns toward me like a concerned school principal. "What's this, now?"

"Oh," I say. "I gained resistance to piercing and slashing damage!"

"That's not a great sign," says the skeleton.

"What?"

"Those are physical resistances," Walter says, crossing his bone arms over his practically concave chest. "You know. The kind you usually get when you've been repeatedly stabbed. A lot."

"What Walter is trying to say," Preston offers diplomatically. "Is that those are resistances that one would expect to see in a frontline fighter, and not a spellcaster."

Walter points a bony finger at me. "Those just aren't efficient Skills to have. Despite your size, you're a spellcaster, right?"

I nod.

"Well, no need to worry about getting stabbed if your magical ghost hands are the ones directly in the fray. You'd be better off with resistances that protect you from other spellcasters."

Preston chimes in again: "For example, while I also have physical resistances, my strongest resistances are my cold and psionic resistances."

Liv perks up at Preston's words just as she was brushing swamp gunk off her jacket. "Psionic Resistance? I have that! I actually received it when I got my Class."

"Really?" I ask, eyebrow cocked.

She nods. "Psionic Resistance. It's still my only one, though."

Preston's glass dome flashes faintly. "That's a rarer one. Quite useful. Especially against mental incursions and anti-magical effects."

Jealousy oozes through me like a leaky soda. "That… yeah. That does sounds nice." What I would give for some natural protection against effects disabling my spellcasting.

Walter snorts, despite the lack of nose. "Too bad you've been playing chew toy instead of building a real combat resume. A spellcaster's resume. You've been leveling like a tourist, kid."

"Wow," I say. "Thanks. Really feeling the love, Walter. What does that even mean? Leveling like a tourist."

"No offense meant," Walter says, waving a hand. "Just facts. We're heading into the Inner Rings of the Miredrake Marshes. We can't access the Inner Rings without defeating one of the Guardians. You want to survive the Guardian encounter? You'll need to train. Hard. Both of you."

He points at Liv, who nods solemnly.

"Train what, exactly?"

"Your Skills. Your Resistances." Walter summons a scroll and a quill already dripping with black ink. The scroll unfurls, floating in front of him. He jots down a few notes. "Each of us—Preston, Grush, and I—we've got Resistances at higher levels. When it comes to magnitude of power, it's clear you aren't that far behind us. But raw power, and skill are two different things."

I frown, summoning my Stats. I flip through the windows, from my Physical and Magical attributes, to my Traits, and my Skills. Admittedly, I only have a handful of Skills and only a couple of them have evolved. One of those is [Perception], and I did so without gaining a single Level.

There's more to power than raw numbers. I know that now. "Okay," I say, giving Walter a nod.

Walter snaps the scroll shut and it vanishes in a small flash of pixelated light. "Let's move. We need to reach the moraines near the Center Ring."

I blink. "The what now? Moraines?"

"Moraine," Walter says. "Raised ground. Dryer terrain."

"Yes, please," Liv says, already stepping away from the corpse and trying to scrape marsh-muck off her boot with a stick.

Jelly Boy gives a delighted blooorp, bouncing beside her like a gelatinous cheerleader.

I shoulder my staff, stare into the shadows of the deeper Marsh, and take a deep breath.

One step closer to Hollowroot Bastion.

One step closer to finding out what the hell is going on in this undead theme park of a Realm.

And hopefully, no more giant gators!