Chapter 89: Book 1: Chapter 31 (Part 2 of 2)

I opened my eyes and rolled my shoulders, gratified to have movement again. Action Mode might be useful, but I couldn’t shake experiencing a horrible claustrophobic shudder when I was held that way for any prolonged length of time.

We were in the foyer of Dean’s office. There were a few more potted plants than last time and the scent was mildly piney, the stale disinfectant aroma banished. The large double doors to Dean’s chambers were wide open and his secretary rose from behind her desk upon our arrival.

Anastasia was standing next to me, but there was no Shana. I imagine Anastasia could come because of the inherent link between our classes.

“Whoa! What the hell happened?” Anastasia gasped. “I was just getting my ass kicked by those goat fuckers and then boom, I’m here.”

“Bit of a long story, but…” I started.

“Mr Carter, Miss Ruslanovna,” Dean’s secretary interrupted me as she stepped out from behind her prefab desk and approached us. “I’m ever so sorry to interrupt, but please, head in directly. I’m afraid, given the…unusual circumstances of your visit, time is very limited.”

Had there been a hint of disapproval in her tone, it was hard to say.

The secretary ushered us through the doorway and closed the doors gently behind us as we walked through. Which was a first.

Unlike my previous visit, the open floor Silicon Valley style office had not expanded in size to incorporate more unnecessary leisure activities. In fact, the bean bag hangout area had been moved forward so that we were standing at its edge and the rest of the office area was closed off behind glass walls.

“Torin! You’ve really kicked the fucking hornet’s nest this time,” Dean shouted at me, possibly forgetting we were only a few feet away from him this time. “Sit, sit,” he beckoned to us.

Anastasia and I ambled over and plonked ourselves down on a couple of bean bags. “Dean,” I said by way of greeting.

“Quixbix said we shouldn’t be able to level up during a fight,” Anastasia challenged the Framework administrator. “Are you fucking with things again?”

Right to the point, as always.

Dean beamed his usual devil-may-care grin at us. “Always so suspicious. Yes, in a manner of speaking. I am bending the rules a bit, but we don’t have much time. Only what you have left of your slowed-down action time with the imp. Roughly ten minutes.”

“However,” he continued. “Before you accuse me of more underhanded chicanery, this is entirely in response to Sholmdir’s rule-fuckery. Champions are supposed to be characters and the Framework has immutable restrictions in place to stop deities from powering them up obscenely and then unleashing them on the unsuspecting public.”

“Then explain that gigantic, mutated, Crayfish,” I pressed.

“Yes, well,” he replied sheepishly. “He managed to find a loophole. Torin my main motherfucker, the deities are a fucking pain in my ass. They’re convinced they existed before the Framework, which is bullshit, by the way. The problem is I can’t prove to them that the Framework made them as I didn’t exist myself before the Framework came online.

“So, they don’t listen to me and are always causing fucking issues. Ashli the fucktard making my life difficult again. If only he made them aware of their true nature, like the imps and fairies.”

“Dean,” I interrupted him sternly. “Less pity party, more loophole explanation. We’re on the clock, remember.”

“Shit, yeah, sorry my dude. So, loophole. Like I said, champions are supposed to be characters. There is a blanket ban on mobs, even intelligent ones, from being endorsed in such a manner and animals are incapable of surviving the process without the higher brain functions characters have or so we believed.

“Turns out, that last part is only mostly true.

“We’ve now learned thanks to Sholmdir things get a little iffy when the animal is magically saturated, like the dogs and crows you’ve encountered already. This loophole hasn’t been exploited before as magically saturated animals have always died on new worlds long before the deities are allowed to get themselves involved.

“The saturation opens a magical doorway, if you will forgive the piss-poor analogy, which allowed Sholmdir to funnel his magic into the crawdad without needing it to have the higher brain functions necessary to process the influx of that power. And with the Crawdad not being a character, none of the usual Framework restrictions that would inhibit Sholmdir were applied.

“The only thing that stopped the annoying pissant’s skulduggery was how much the little lobster fucker could absorb. He actually tried this on dozens of different saturated crustaceans, and this was the only one in the sweet spot that wasn’t overcooked. The rest became explosively unstable, small mercy’s, eh.

“Anyway, when shit like this happens, I am given a little more latitude with the Framework laws than usual, hence being able to bring you here, levelling up during combat,” he finished with a smug expression on his face.

“So, can we expect to get enough out of going up to level five to pull the threat down from Near Impossible?” I queried hopefully.

Dean laughed hysterically. “Not even fucking close, my main motherfucker.”

Dean waved off my concern-filled sputtered protests. “The extra Hit Points and modest stat increases will keep you in the game for a bit longer, but that would have a negligible effect on your chances. Unless, of course, you were the beneficiary of a wealth of tactical advice from this guy.” He curled his fingers into fists and pointed his thumbs back at himself.

Anastasia stood up and slapped Dean in the face, hard. That wiped the silly smug expression from his face. “Lead with that next time, you rat-dicked asshole.”

I couldn’t help sniggering a little at her reaction. I’d told her she couldn’t insult me any longer, I hadn’t mentioned she had to hold her vituperative tongue in check for anybody else.

Dean rubbed his face with a wounded expression. Which was more bullshit, as I knew we couldn’t hurt him. I’d tried before.

I grabbed hold of a shaking Ana and pulled her into my lap before she could do anything else. She was so infuriated with Dean she didn’t even protest at the intimacy. I then looked pointedly at him, and he shook his head.

“Despite your rudeness, you’re still my fucking favourites, so I won’t let this little incident influence my professionalism,” Dean opined graciously.

Anastasia snorted her derision, which Dean ignored and went on. “There are a few things you should know. Sholmdir’s Ire doesn’t mean the crawdad will only focus on you, Torin. That creature is virtually mindless, running on pure pain-ravaged instinct, with a little added urging from the sea god, which it can’t properly comprehend.

“It will go for you first but won’t hesitate to lay waste to anything within reach as it does so. Also, the ire’s mark extends to Shana and Ana through your bonds with them. If they draw aggro for attacking it, it may go after them, being unable to distinguish the difference between the three of you.”

“Understood. What about, Jackson?” I asked.

“The Canon won’t have the same transferable effect as the bonds, but your sorcerer blew his wad against the Capronids. He can’t regain enough mana with his stored pellet to be anything except another entry on the butcher’s bill. Best you order him away from the battlefield.”

That aligned with my own considerations for Jackson. Get him to free the slaves and then get the hell out of dodge. That would be one less thing to worry about.

“Secondly,” Dean continued. “The parasites are not the fatal weakness they purport to be. Don’t get suckered in and base your entire strategy around trying to take advantage of that.

“They can take anywhere between two to ten minutes to finish sapping the hundred Hit Points and revive. Your Shattering ability, which is vital for your chances in this fight, runs out after two minutes. If you haven’t finished it off or are damn close to it when that happens, you are fucked.

“That doesn’t mean you won’t want to kill them asap. They are foul fucking things, and you don’t want to get bit by them. Negative status effects galore, trust me on this.

“There is one advantage you can use. Attacking the parasites will not draw the aggro of their crawdaddy. Shana’s skill in archery is sufficiently advanced that she should be able to kill them from afar, without too many missed shots contacting the big guy and risk drawing it towards her.”

That was sound advice, and a bit of a relief really. Shana was deadly with that bow at distance, but up close and personal, not so much. And with the crawdad’s ridiculous damage mitigation, she would barely faze it.

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Dean beckoned to me with his fingers, wordlessly asking me to listen closely for the next bit. “Now, your real ace in the hole for this fight is the slap-happy pocket rocket in your lap.”

Dean leaned back quickly as Anastasia snarled at him and raised her hand motioning her intent to give him another cheek-burner.

“Watch yourself,” she warned him ominously. Punctuating her threat with a jabbed finger.

“Best you explain before she takes a bite out of you,” I joked.

Dean grunted. He looked genuinely perturbed at Anastasia’s antics. I know I couldn’t harm him, but maybe things were different for her. Before I had a chance to think that over, he restarted.

“First things first. Good news, due to the intertwined nature of the pair of you, that funky new Shattering ability on your gauntlets carries over to Anastasia. Bad news, that carapace is thick natural armour, so unlike a Kevlar vest, you won’t be carving through it like crepe paper.

“In practical terms, unless you are hitting between the joints into the flesh beneath your blows will be considered glancing and the damage lowered accordingly. The new Shattering ability of your gauntlets can’t help with resolving that tricky problem. But, Ana, you have an option available when you level up that can really help you out and give you an edge in this fight.”

Anastasia’s posture stiffened in my lap. My interest was piqued also. What hadn’t she told me?

“How? I don’t recall any special options like that?” she quizzed him.

Her voice went up half an octave betraying her claims of ignorance.

“A likely story. You’ve been keeping secrets. Whenever your level changes you can change the appearance of your avatar,” Dean revealed with a devious smirk on his face.

The kind of smirk that conveyed ‘I knew you were hiding this from your owner, and you really shouldn’t have slapped me if you didn’t want me spilling the beans’ without saying a word.

“Ana,” I said crossly. “Why didn’t you tell me you could do this? How many other secrets about what you can do are you keeping from me?”

For this last part, I injected a portion of my will to ensure her compliance. I didn’t like overriding her will normally, but I was genuinely angry and disappointed, and acted unthinkingly.

“Bojemoi. Nothing. Well, nothing else,” she squawked and tried to wriggle out of my lap, but I held her in place. “And why wouldn’t I keep it a secret. You’re sex-mad, you are. You could have forced me to turn into a slutty bimbo barbie doll. He…” and Anastasia pointed accusingly at Dean. “…is just stirring up shit. How would this be of any help?”

“I would not have,” I whispered quietly in her ear, “and I think you know that, you stubborn little fool. And being unafraid to enjoy sex does not make you sex mad. You know that as well.”

I turned my gaze on Dean. “Ana has a point, though. How can this be of help to us?”

“Because as Ana’s fearful waffling exemplified, this includes altering the dimensions of her physical avatar,” Dean explained.

Anastasia ceased fighting against me. “So, you’re saying I could make myself as big as the lobster thing and kick its ass,” she questioned with sudden renewed interest.

Dean furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head slightly. “No, that’s not what I meant. Obviously, you could make yourself larger, but you’d have the same stats and Hit Points as you do now, so all you’d achieve is making yourself an easier target to hit.”

“Then what do you mean,” she retorted with exasperation.

“I mean you should go in the opposite direction. Become doll sized. You can go as small as fifteen centimetres, about six inches.”

“Why would I want to become Thumbelina? What help would that be?”

Dean leaned back with a shit-eating grin as he made his big reveal. “Torin’s new item of dragonscale gear is a hooded-coif. Torin, you can wear it with the hood down and still benefit from its protection and a teeny-tiny Anastasia can be carried around inside it. She would then benefit from its damage mitigation and probably be small enough that the crawdad won’t even notice she is there.

“Ana, your whip will re-size to meet your new dimensions, but won’t lose any of its extra range. You can drain the crawdad and be in contact with Torin, making you able to transfer the stolen vitality to him. And believe me, Torin, you are going to need it. That thing packs one hell of a punch. But as it likely won’t know where you are Ana, it can’t come after you.”

“Okay,” Anastasia said slowly. “But won’t I be stuck as only six inches tall?”

“Only until Torin makes level six. Then you can return yourself to full height. And with the XP coming from the dead Capronids and the Storm’s Reach quest, the bossman will be halfway there by battle’s end.”

This mollified the vicious vixen, and it was a good plan.

We had about five minutes left, and we talked over a few other potential strategies for the coming conflict.

We were due skill increases at level four. As much as I wanted to keep pumping up the Preternatural Insight, with the coming fight, I plumped to get the +3 in Acrobatics instead. Mobility was going to be important in the coming conflict. Anastasia elected to improve her skill for using her whip.

With the time we had left I questioned Dean as extensively as I could about how glancing blows worked and what we could do to get around it. This conversation did illuminate one potential mode of attack we could utilise. It was incredibly risky, a proper Hail Mary strategy, but if we exhausted all other options, we had a fallback plan.

The final few seconds approached, and we would need to return but I had one last thing to ask Dean. He could be a pain in the arse, but he came through for us today.

“Dean, this hasn’t cost you anything, helping us out like this, has it?”

Dean sprinted over and wrapped himself around my waist. “Torin, I’m touched. And now, so are you.”

He sniggered at his little joke as I extricated his piddly arms from my person while he kept talking. “Of course not. I’m the motherfucking boss, you know that. What’s got you so concerned?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I just got the vibe from your secretary that she didn’t really approve of us being here. She seemed very protective of you before, so I thought maybe you’d put yourself out on a limb for us,” I replied honestly.

Dean laughed. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Always disapproving that one.”

I exhaled with relief and felt the dissipation coming on. We were returning to real time and the fight of our lives.

Then I saw Dean had an incredibly mischievous smirk on his face, reminiscent of the one he had when he dropped Ana in it earlier. I knew without thinking about it that Dean was about to piss me off royally.

“She’s just aggravated we didn’t push the giant crawdad through the plexus back to Sholmdir’s demesne instead. But then you wouldn’t get the XP for killing it. Good luck, you badass bastard.” He yelled with an enthusiastic wave.

That Motherfucking Wanker!

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