Chapter 150: Diptera Fatalis

Chapter 150: Diptera Fatalis

Animate Object

Spiritual

Cost: 20 mana reserved

Cooldown: 1 minute

Requirements: CHA 20, Spiritual Magic 20

You extend your will into an inanimate object, causing it to spring to life and act according to your wishes. Animated Objects gain a flying speed equal to your CHA, and you can communicate with the Object telepathically so long as it is within a number of feet of you equal to your Spiritual Magic level. The Object has normal vision and hearing, even if it wouldn’t have the physiological capacity to do so normally, and can follow verbal or gestural instructions from you in lieu of telepathy if required.

Animated Objects can be directed to perform any task for which they were designed on their own, such as a frying pan cooking eggs or a pen writing on paper. If the Object would have to make an INT, CHA, or WIS check, it uses your scores to do so. Otherwise, it has a score of 0 in all attributes. If the Object would be used in a way it wasn’t intended, you must first teach it to perform that task.

If the Object is a weapon, it can make attacks with itself according to its design by using your CHA score as the governing attack attribute. However, if the weapon has a stat requirement that is higher than your CHA, or a skill requirement that is higher than your Spiritual Magic level, you cannot animate it.

I’d seen Grotto animate tools in the past, but it seemed the Delve Core had upgraded the ability into a full-blown active skill. Whatever had happened in his challenge with Xim, the little octo had come out of the other side with some improvements.

When the scepter struck Fly’s clone, the insect not only bled, but the cracks in its carapace shone with a dull blue light. It recoiled from the strike but didn’t lose focus on whatever spell was charging with its baton.

[Move close to me!] Grotto demanded of us.

I was halfway to following up Grotto’s attack with my own but flew back on my wings with my shield raised. The shadows behind me parted to reveal Nuralie, who was drawing another arrow. I prepared to throw Somncres, but Fly’s skill activated before I had the chance.

The dark energy around each baton collapsed into a tiny point at the end of the weapons, and the weight on our souls disappeared. Then, the specks of foul mana shot toward us.

The moment I got a taste of the skill, I immediately used Dispel. I no longer had a half-dozen enemies to distract me and I had a feeling this was going to be much worse than Raise Dead. The speck disappeared from in front of the original Fly, and her face twisted in fury while my mind recoiled from the cost of the Dispel. Whatever Fly was casting had at least 85 mana wrapped up in it. It was a massive amount for a spell she’d produced and fired off in under a second.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t Dispel again before the clone’s attack was upon us.

You have observed the Ego Splinter spell.

Ego Splinter

Spiritual

Cost: 25 mana plus 5 mana/ second

Requirements: INT 40, Spiritual Magic 40

Reach out and crush the mind of an enemy with your will alone. Make an INT Spiritual attack against an entity you can see, dealing Psychic damage if successful. If this damage exceeds the target’s WIS, they become Stunned for 6 seconds.

For every 6 seconds this spell was charged:

You deal an additional amount of Psychic damage equal to your INT;

You may target 1 additional entity with this spell; and Nnêw n0vel chapters are published at novelhall.com

Affected entities are Stunned for 6 seconds longer.

The bead of psychic energy split in 3, each one streaking toward a member of the party. Based on the spell’s description, it made little sense. Fly hadn’t spent anywhere near an extra 12 seconds channeling the spell. Either the baton or some other ability had significantly empowered the ability, and I was terrified of what might have happened had we been hit by two of them.

Grotto alone had not been targeted, his sucker punch with the scepter apparently insufficient to deem him worthy of having his brain melted. Fly might have changed her mind about Grotto’s level of threat if she’d known how much he was about to royally fuck her over.

Of course, even I hadn’t known how much Grotto was about to royally fuck her over. I didn’t know Grotto could fuck her over as hard as he was about to.

As the foul specks fired toward us like high-caliber rifle rounds, Grotto pulled out another new spell.

I could use the tentacles effectively, but I wasn’t using them to their full potential. I just had too many things to think about. Even with 40 Intelligence and Wisdom, managing 8 limbs in high-level combat while also keeping track of everything both the enemy and my allies were doing pushed me to my limit. I’d considered the potential problem before accepting the evolution and had already formed some ideas on how to deal with the issue before I’d even taken the evo for a test drive.

Grotto flooded me with his psychic presence, then tapped into the soul connection we shared. I used Reveal to deliver my understanding of my physical body to Grotto, and we created a less complex version of the body-mind fusion that had allowed for Arlottog. For this combination, we retained our individual identities, but I was able to hand off control of my feelers to the core. The recently unlocked effect for the Traveler’s Amulet allowed Grotto to share all of my intrinsic skills, making the fusion even deadlier.

Now Grotto could throw hammers just as well as I could.

I activated my new and hitherto unused skill Aura of Perseverance, granting my allies 32 Shielding that regenerated over time. Grotto still had his Shielding granted from Rebuke and Shielding did not stack, sadly, but it would help ensure that Nuralie stayed safe while she was Stunned. Xim was moving to cover the loson, raising her Clockwork Gear shield and placing herself between Fly and our vulnerable ally while she channeled the Icon. Aura of Perseverance would also immediately pick up the slack if Grotto’s own Shielding failed. The little octo needed to stay close to me while we shared body parts, and he wasn’t nearly as bulletproof as I was. The extra layer of defense was a necessary part of the combo.

I also detached Gracorvus from my armguard, then handed control off to Grotto. Again, the core gained the benefit of my Shields skill, so he was just as effective at using the shield as I was. Surrendering control to the core allowed him to use Gracorvus in flight mode to protect himself if he were targeted. He could whip the shield around telepathically and draw upon his own mana pool to do so.

Another advantage of melding together this way was that Grotto traveled with me when I used Shortcut. Our soul bond extended the spell to include the core, and it also gave me some idea of how to mana-shape the spell to target more allies.

I teleported behind Fly and Grotto threw two hammers into her back. At the same time, the scepter he’d animated gave Fly a taste of what it had given her clone and smacked her in the face.

Grotto couldn’t use my active skills or stat evolutions–yet–so the hammers didn’t have Homing Weapon or Oblivion Orb attached. They still hurt. The hammers drilled into Fly’s kidneys and a sickening crunch could be heard as her carapace shattered beneath her wispy robes. The hammers clattered to the ground, but Grotto was already pulling two more from my inventory. I licked my lips as I considered the Giant Spiked Mace of the Bloody Jubilee we’d found earlier and the quickest way to get it into Grotto’s maniacal feelers.

Fly’s dashed away on her mount and spun, pointing the baton toward us and preparing a new spell. I steeled myself for something as broken as everything else she’d pulled out so far, ready for the tables to get flipped yet again.

It was a basic Psychic Bolt.

After Gracorvus, my bascinet, and my natural resistance, it didn’t even deal damage. In fact, I was pretty sure it was a wand charge. Summons weren’t cheap, and neither was that Ego Splinter spell. I kept an eye out for tricks, but Fly seemed to be well and truly juiced. Without the creatures she’d spent so much mana to summon backing her up, she was much easier to deal with.

She still lived up to the insect of her namesake, proving obnoxiously difficult to pin down even after her mana was dry. Half of all the damage we dealt was shunted to her Arcane Goliath, which was tanky as hell. She also turned herself and her steed incorporeal for an entire minute. That meant that all Physical damage didn’t do shit to her. Well, for the most part. We’d gotten an achievement after killing the specter of Orexis that allowed us to ignore 25% of incorporeal DR against Physical, but still! It was annoying.

Then... THEN! Once we’d actually managed to kill Fly, she came BACK to life with full health after 6 seconds! Seriously! She was harder to put down for good than I was! Fortunately, her Jesus ticket didn’t restore her mana and was only valid for one use. When Fly finally passed on, all of her summons went with her.

While Grotto and I took our new fusion skills for a test drive by beating Fly senseless over a very painful minute, Xim had eventually been forced to drop her Icon for mana reasons. Nuralie had recovered from being Stunned and Xim made sure to toss the loson a Heal. Our two teams juggled Fly’s minions between us, rotating aggro and control effects while we dealt with the real threats, but the pair mostly went to town on Roach.

While Roach was quick and deadly, her mental and magical defenses were pretty bad. Xim was able to Ignite and Fear the insectoid woman into oblivion while Nuralie landed arrows at weak points across the warrior’s body and poisoned the crap out of her.

Roach was nearly as difficult to kill for good as Fly, but in the end, only one true cockroach build was left standing.

And that was me, baby!

By the end of the fight, the room was a scorched and broken battlefield of shattered walls, exploded barriers, and mangled insect corpses. Xim and I looked over the bodies while mentally recovering. Eventually, Xim put a hand on her hip and frowned.

“We should probably have interrogated one of them.”

“None of them felt like talking earlier,” I said. “This was the fourth round of this shit, by the way.”

“Grotto could have probably gotten Roach to talk.”

I glanced back at my familiar, who gave me the octo equivalent of a shrug.

“Ah, I see,” I said. “You could have suggested it.”

“Eh, I was pissed.” She brushed some hair from her face and looked me over, her eyes lingering on my abdomen. “You know, some of your intestines are–”

“I don’t wanna hear about it,” I said, holding up a hand to stop her. I was still floating on my wings, unable to use the lower half of my body and steadfastly refusing to look down. “Just, please give me another Heal or two. You have no idea how much this hurts.”

“No problem,” she said. “But we should take off your armor first. I need to stuff them back in before I cast.” She moved to start undoing the straps on my cuirass. “Wouldn’t want them to get stuck on the outside.”

“Right,” I said with a groan.

I really hoped the others showed up before the next wave.