Chapter 195: No Pot of Gold

The people of Old City were reacting in one of two ways to the rainbow light shining in the air. Many were fleeing as fast as they could, rushing past Jason and his team as they rode toward the source of the commotion. Other members of the populace were trying to find a spot to watch from a safe distance. At worst, they would get to see some adventurers in action. Even better would be if it turned out to be an essence. Maybe they would even have a chance at grabbing it for themselves.

Jason and his team were not the only adventurers in the area to come running. There was another team of iron-rankers in full gear, plus a handful of people with iron and bronze-rank auras that, from their casual clothes, were just in the area on civilian business. Jason and his team dismounted their various means of transport.

“Once the monster manifests,” Henrietta said, “everyone follow my direction. If there are lower-rank secondary monsters I’ll have at least some of you on them. Otherwise I’ll put you on crowd-wrangling. The onlookers won’t be willing to go until things get dangerous, so we’ll need to keep them from panicking and trampling one another.”

The rainbow light turned out to be emerging from the ground. Chunks of street had broken apart and were floating in the air like dandelions on a breeze as the light rose up from the holes left behind. The assembled adventurers moved up to peer into the holes, seeing through the light that there was a good-sized space below.

“Some kind of hub for the water utility tunnels,” Clive said, taking a stone tablet out of his personal storage space. The magical map etched into it shifted as he pushed his fingers across the surface of the tablet.

“That’s troubling,” Clive said after finding what he was looking for. “There’s a wastewater treatment hub right underneath here. It’s probably been damaged by a manifestation his strong.”

“You think that’s troubling?” Jason asked. “I think you’re missing the main point.”

“What do you mean?” Clive asked.

“Monsters take forms according to their environment, right?”

“Oh,” Clive said, realisation dawning.

“What is it?” Henrietta asked.

“There’s no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow,” Jason said, “I think we’re about to fight a poo monster.”

Even as he said it, filthy water started geysering up from the holes in the ground. The gathered crowd started recoiling loudly as gobbets of viscous water rained from the sky, bringing with it a terrible stench. Jason quickly pulled out his magic umbrella and the wastewater rain avoided the bubble that formed around him. Belinda and Sophie immediately ducked into the bubble with him as the others looked on in envy as they were rapidly drenched in filth.

“I think we might need another keg of crystal wash,” Jason said.

The splashing water did not lay inert after landing. Like a living creature it crawled over the ground, buildings and even people it landed on, seeking to congeal into pools.

“The rain is the monster,” Henrietta called out. “Some kind of elemental.”

As the rain congealed into pools, the pools started radiating auras. The biggest pool was condensing a silver-rank aura, the smaller ones either bronze or iron.

“Start attacking if you have anything that will be effective,” Henrietta called out, not just for Jason’s team but all the assembled adventurers. “Anything explosive or any resonating-force powers will be most effective against a water-type elemental. Avoid ice or anything else water-based it can absorb unless you can freeze and shatter all at once.”

Elementals were forming anywhere that the water was pooling, from the middle of the street to the flat rooftops and even on shopfront awnings. Globulous masses of thick, rancid liquid congealed into gelatinous chunks, until an accumulated pile started undulating in the direction the closest living thing. They oozed across the ground, spilled over walls and tipped out of whatever the wastewater had been accumulating in, splattering to the ground. Jason spotted one elemental secrete its way out of a fruit cart, flowing between the fruit like some unholy juice.

“Like a less-awful kale smoothie,” he muttered to himself.

Gordon, who inhabited Jason’s aura, was much easier to draw out than Colin, who lived his bloodstream. All Jason had to do was project his aura the right way for Gordon to appear at his side and soon blue and orange beams of force were gouging their way through elementals.

Jason’s afflictions would be worthless against the elementals own powers so he drew his sword, although he knew he would be more use directed elsewhere.

“I’ll be better off on crowd control,” he told Henrietta. “This is a bad match-up for me.”

Henrietta nodded.

“You know your team better than me,” she told him. “Set the roles.”

Jason had Sophie join him on crowd wrangling as her speed was more useful than her fists against the ambulatory sewerage monsters. The others he assigned to a elemental hunting. Humphrey’s powerful attacks could smash an elemental apart, rendering the magically-infused water inert once more. Clive had his legendary staff tucked under one arm and his legendary wand in the other hand, blasting out force energy from both. Neil kept an eye on the whole field, shielding and healing anyone who needed it, from their own team to other adventurers and civilians. Belinda chained her force tether to collect elementals together where all the adventurers could lay on area attacks.

The other adventurers had also leapt into action as elementals emerged across the sprawling area of streets, alleys and rooftops where the wastewater rain had fallen. That included Henrietta, who called her familiars into play. She let out a breath that became a dervish of ash and cinders that charged into the liquid elementals, evaporating them into clouds of foul, choking steam.

Purple light poured out of Henrietta’s eyes, from which manifested a huge, bizarre floating eye, held aloft by leathery wings on each side of the orb. It flew around projecting a beam of purple energy that blasted apart the elementals. The last familiar was a lantern emitting soft green light that healed any living thing it encountered. She sent it floating off in search of civilians caught up and isolated by elementals.

Even Henrietta’s previously absent phoenix appeared, diving out of the sky like a burning spear. In a series of swooping strikes it punched through elementals, their watery bodies exploding with sprays of filth and steam.

Having put her familiars to work, Henrietta employed a power not unlike Clive’s ability to draw ritual circles. Hers, however was specifically for summoning creatures. Where most people would have to lay out a circle of salt or other appropriate substance, she drew a simple magic circle in the air with her finger, which was traced out in silver-blue light. She was done in moments and the circle transmuted into a shimmering portal, through which came one summon after another.

The first was a crow made of golden fire, superficially similar to the phoenix but formed entirely from golden flames with burning red eyes. It soared out of the portal and joined the phoenix in its swooping strikes. Next through the portal was a winged centaur, clad in armour and carrying a shield and lance. It galloped into the fray, smashing apart elementals with sweeping shield bashed and crashing blows from its own wings, used as bludgeons.

The third entity to come out looked like a strange, dark angel. It had no arms but four wings, two black and two white. Around it floated four disembodied hands. It flew into the air, looming over the chaos and started sending out the floating hands. Where they touched an ally, the ally was healed. Where they touched an elemental, the elemental was desiccated. The hand would push into the elemental as it reduced down to a dry, hard nugget of waste before floating off again.

The final one was a golem made of crude iron, glowing with internal heat. Similar to the forge golem Jason had seen Gary summon in the past, this furnace golem had flames behind the metal grill in its torso, rather than molten metal.

There was no shortage of elementals to go after as more and more kept forming. The geysering wastewater continued unabated and the filth rain kept coming down. As some focused on eliminating the elementals as quickly as possible, Jason, Sophie and some of the other adventurers spread out to help people. The rain had come down further afield than anyone had anticipated, seeping under doors and into the buildings around them.

After designating roles, Jason couldn’t spare any more attention to what the rest of the team was doing. He used the voice chat to keep in touch, but mostly it was left clear for Humphrey, Clive, Belinda and Neil to coordinate.

It was the his evolved map ability that he relied on the most, which now had the ability to pick out friends, enemies and neutrals. Jason ran around, Gordon trailing behind. Jason kept one of Shade’s bodies with him to communicate with the two he sent scouting. The mana draining power of Shade’s even turned out to effective against the elementals, which were basically magically-infused physical matter. Draining the magic out of them had a strongly deleterious impact on their integrity.

He fought elementals as he had to, his sword and proving sufficiently effective. It was sufficient to at least extricate people from where they had been boxed up so he could finding them a path out of the rain. He relied mostly on his familiars to begin with as he accumulated power on his sword until it was slicing through elementals at a blow.

People were scattered, panicking and making all the wrong decisions. Elementals were coming into their homes and business, they were running exactly the wrong way and it was generally like herding cats in a thunderstorm.

With the spread of people and the rain coming down a whole range of streets, alleys and buildings, he didn’t always reach people in time. Some he found dead, drowned in viscous filth. He didn’t have time to reflect on how inured he had become to death, already looking for the next person he could save.

It seemed like the geysering wastewater would never come to an end. More and more of the foul fluid poured into the sky, raining down to form yet-more elementals. The smaller, iron rank ones coalesced first, followed by the larger bronze-rank ones. The adventurers had mostly cleared out the panicking innocents by the time the largest pool congealed into a towering silver-rank elemental. At the height of a two storey building, it loomed over the adventurers battling its lesser kin. Fortunately its formation finally saw the geyser of filth peter out.

More adventurers had arrived as the battle continued. Henrietta and the other bronze-rankers were gearing up to confront the giant elemental when the first silver-ranker arrived. With dark, waving hair, broad shoulders and huge hammer, he leapt from the roof of a nearby building. He had arrived after the filth rain stopped but was quickly coated in muck as great chunks exploded off the elemental with each swing of his giant hammer. It was a huge lump of metal, even the handle, but he waved it about as if it weighed no more than a stick.

The arrival of the silver ranker and the end of the rain forming new elementals signalled the turning point of the fight. Each rank of adventurer turned to the matching rank of elementals, which were cleaned up in short order. In the wake of the battle, the adventurers gathered up, mostly covered in filth. A few had shielding abilities that protected them, while others were already using crystal wash or similar items to clean themselves. Jason tossed a bottle of crystal wash to the silver ranker who was now covered in muck.

“Thanks,” the adventurer said as he tipped the bottle over his head, which restored his square-jawed handsomeness and lustrous, wavy hair. “From that cloak you’re wearing, I’m guessing you’re the Jason Asano people have been talking about.”

“That’s me,” Jason said as the adventurer looked over the team forming around Jason. His eyes fell on Sophie and Belinda.

“That would make one of you two Sophie Wexler?”

“Why would you have heard of me?” Sophie asked as she took one of the crystal wash bottles Jason was handing out.

“The Adventure Society director had a friend of mine following you around in secret for months. He was the one quietly intervening to help you avoid being caught. He wasn’t allowed to talk about it at the time, of course. A bit ethically shaky, but there you go.”

“I met him briefly,” Jason said.

“Oh, I know,” the adventurer said with a laugh. “You got him told off, so he hates you.”

Henrietta approached the group, nodding to the silver-rank adventurer.

“That was good timing, Bert.”

“Henry, It’s been a while,” the adventurer greeted back.

“Wait,” Jason said. “You’re Betrand Bertinelli?”

“You can call me Bert,” Bertrand said.

“Wow,” Jason said. “You really are the handsome one.”