Chapter 297: Vacation

Chapter 297: Vacation

Silver moonlight shone down on the mountainside, illuminating the forest. Noah and Moxie crept behind Lee as she led them through the foliage and toward their target. They’d spent more than enough time figuring out their plan – now it was time to act.

Noah held his violin and bow, prepared to start playing as soon as they came in contact with the Great Monster. One of the most glaring drawbacks of casting Formations with music was quickly becoming evident.

He couldn’t prepare them beforehand. It was one thing to know what song he was going to play, and he was fairly certain it would work, but he’d still have to actually play it. That meant Moxie and Lee would have to hold the snake off until he finished.

“We’re close,” Lee whispered. “I smell it next to us.”

They all came to a stop. Wind whistled through the trees around them, rustling the branches and nipping at their exposed skin. Noah strained his ears, trying to see if he could pick up any traces of the Great Monster.

He couldn’t. It just felt like they were standing in the middle of a sparse forest on a mountainside. The only things he could hear other than the wind and plants were the faint noises of insects hiding in the darkness.

“Is it sleeping?” Moxie’s voice was a hushed whisper. “How close are we?”

“Close enough that we shouldn’t get closer,” Lee replied. “If it’s changing its shape, then we could get too close and get squished when it transforms. It’s here somewhere.”

She sniffed at the air again, then turned slightly to her left and squinted into the trees. Noah followed Lee’s gaze, calling on his tremorsense to see if he could pick up anything out of the ordinary.

There was a good amount of motion in the forest around them, but largely by small, inconsequential creatures. The environment was definitely a lot more diverse than the Scorched Acres had been, probably because it wasn’t artificially created, but there was still no sign of anything that could have resembled a Great Monster.

“It’s probably more than twenty feet away,” Noah said. “I don’t feel–”

A crunch echoed through the forest. A tree pitched forward and crashed to the ground like an executioner’s axe, sending up a cloud of fragmented wood and dirt. Several more trees followed it as a roaring hiss echoed through the dark forest.

The head of a massive snake burst out above the treeline, its fangs flashing silver in the moonlight.

“Found it,” Lee said.

“Thank you,” Noah said dryly. “So did I. Let’s go with the plan.”

Lee blurred into motion, bounding across the ground. The ground around Moxie came alive with vines that burst from within it, rapidly growing in size. A shadow passed over all of them as the Great Monster brought its considerable bulk crashing down.

“I got it!” Lee yelled. She launched herself into the air, rearing back and swinging her axe as she blurred. She slammed into the Great Monster like a bolt of lightning. A reverberating crash shook the forest as the force of her strike knocked the snake’s head to the side – not stopping the attack, but redirecting it.

It slammed down through the trees, crushing them with a splintering crash. Moxie raised her hands into the air and the vines beside her erupted forth, winding up beneath her feet to carry her like a wave.

Noah tore his attention away from the fight and laid his bow against the strings of his violin. The forest ground shuddered as the fight intensified, and the first note hummed out from the violin.

His hand started to move faster, the lone note slipping into a song. His eyes closed in concentration as he sank completely into his work. Power coursed through the music and swirled around his body, flooding into the Formation. Another crash shook the forest and a cloud of dust rolled past Noah, pelting him with small fragments of sharp wood, but he didn’t stop playing.

“I think it’s got something to do with pushing the dirt away from me instead of calling it over,” Moxie said after a moment of thought. “I’m not completely sure yet. I’ll need to test it a bit more, but I believe that’s how the snake was controlling its body to make those spikes. We’ll see after I can mess with it a bit more.”

“Huh. Cool,” Lee said. “I’m glad I didn’t get it, then. Running around with a bunch of armor would just slow me down.”

“I’m not so sure it’ll be all that useful for me either,” Moxie admitted. “You sure you don’t want this, Noah?”

“Nah. Not my style.”

“Then we honestly might be best off trying to auction it off at some point. We’d probably be able to get a pretty nice amount of money for a Master Rune – enough to buy some other ones that are a lot more useful.”

“Sounds good to me,” Noah said. He nudged the dead Great Monster at their feet. “We should skin this thing. I’d imagine its fangs and scales will earn us some good coin as well.”

Lee raised her axe and sent a pointed look at the snake. “I can do it.”

***

She did it.

Noah was actually rather impressed – he’d fully expected Lee to just hack the monster apart and pick up the broken pieces, but after one nasty chop to the head, she peeled its skin quite effectively. She then proceeded to rip its fangs out one by one before stuffing everything into Noah’s bag and sending him a smug look.

“That’s what it gets.”

I’m not sure if I should be impressed or terrified.

“Good job,” Noah said, settling for the former. “I’d say this was a pretty worthwhile venture. I only died once.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Moxie said. “That was really quite effective, though. Formations are terrifying. I’m honestly a little anxious to see what you’ll be able to do once you start making them with more than just one Rune. That’s where they really shine.”

“Me too,” Noah admitted. “Though I’d need to find a way to balance them. Since I’m only drawing on the power of one Rune at the moment and using the others just to support it, the only Runes that could balance each other out in power are Sunder and the Fragment of Renewal – and I don’t think combining their powers is going to do much for me.”

“They’re kind of opposites,” Lee mused. “One is for killing things with a passive that saves them, and the other is for saving things with a passive that kills them.”

“Tell me about it. I’m irony incarnate,” Noah grumbled. “I really want to get around to fixing my Rank 3 Runes. How do we feel about hunting a few more Wylves so I can get the rest of the Sand Runes I need before heading out to find or buy some more Runes?”

“We’ve got some time left in our vacation, so I’ve got no objections.” Moxie shrugged. “Besides, I still need to figure out exactly what I’m going to be teaching when we get back. Maybe I’ll get inspired.”

“Killing things is fun,” Lee said. “And I need to get some more Runes myself, so that works for me.”

Noah drew his flying sword and tossed it to the ground. Lee’s body rippled as she turned to her crow form. She flew out from her clothes as they flopped to the ground where she’d been standing. He put them into his travel bag and Lee settled in on top as he stepped onto the flying sword.

Moxie got on in front of him and he sent a pulse of energy into the blade, activating it. Then they were off. As Moxie had said, there was still some time left before the school year started once more. They weren’t going to waste a second of it.