Chapter 17 - Colour Coded

Before a second had passed after opening the doors, Nate was already running to the side. He was pretty sure he was going to get shot with projectiles but that didn’t mean he needed to stand still and be a sitting duck.

Frick, who seemed to be having the time of his life, was floating over the top of the Constructs screaming obscenities at them and he thought he might have heard something about preparing for goblin induced destruction. Nate had no idea where that was coming from as he hadn’t prepared any new runes for Frick to use. Though he supposed even in the heat of battle Frick could use Runic Replication to set up trap zones or the like.

As Nate ran he took in the room. Just beyond the door he’d come through, there was a set of ten stairs leading down onto a floor that spanned most of the room. Around the edge of the room there was an elevated walkway that could have fit four people abreast. On the opposite side of the room were a few steps leading up to what looked like four stone seats. Upon each seat sat a Construct in a different colour. Blue, red, yellow and green. Nate could tell they were tracking him, their heads swivelling slowly to follow his mad dash, but they remained in their seats.

Unlike the constructs filling the floor, the shapes of the four coloured ones were distinct, moving away from the bulbous production line appearance of all the constructs he had faced up until now. Green looked sleeker than the other three. Red looked thinner but not sleek and seemed to pulse slower moving from dark red to light and back again. Blue seemed bulbous and he wasn’t sure, but it looked like it might have overly large hands. Finally Yellow was the largest of all four, a veritable tank.

Down on the floor was a small army of Constructs and utilising his enhanced Intellect and Perception, he quickly counted. Forty. That was a lot. These Constructs didn’t have fingers either and instead had indents at the end of their yellow stone arms. That made him suspect there were projectile runes placed in those indents. Not wasting any more time Nate got to work. He could utilise his Earthen Projectile rune now almost once every second.

Activating his Runic Intent he focused his first Intent on his Earthen Projectile manifesting beyond his Barriers, the second went to shape, turning it into a sharpened cone. The final two went to density and speed. As he finished he started launching the blasts of earth into the army arrayed before him.

As the room started to fill with the sound of stone impacting against stone, Nate took a second to activate Identification. The Skill returned five distinct results after Nate had used it on four of the Constructs on the floor and all four of the oddly coloured Constructs returned a unique result.

Earthen Mana Construct: Level 15
Earthen Mana Construct (Elder) Radron: Level 18
Earthen Mana Construct (Elder) Quiko: Level 18
Earthen Mana Construct (Elder) L’ezar: Level 18
Earthen Mana Construct (Elder) Minuola: Level 18

Identification – Runic Level 6 > 8

Walk your Path. Reach your Goal. Become One with Mana.

The Elders were the coloured ones at the back. He was surprised to see they were given names. It was the first time he had seen a named enemy through Identification. The Elders sat still, placidly watching as Nate obliterated the regular Constructs. He’d kept running while firing and he could get off six shots for every one the Constructs could return. His Barrier had deflected the few that were on target and Nate had only felt slightly jostled by the impacts.

Conversely, after the first few shots had completely annihilated the limbs of the Constructs Nate had started aiming for centre mass. The sharpened cone structure was penetrating deeply into the abdomens of the Constructs and Nate was dropping almost half of the Constructs with a single shot.

It was easy to tell when one was destroyed as the different parts of the Construct simply fell apart, the mana holding them together dissipating. Nate knew this meant he was probably destroying some of the mana gems inside of the Constructs but he was far more concerned with reducing their numbers than he was with the possible wealth he was destroying.

All the while Frick floated over the top of the battlefield, yelling slurs at the Constructs like they’d offended his mother.

“Take that you big stoney piece of crap.”

“You call that an Earthen Projectile?! I’ve seen better shots fired in a brothel!”

“Look out! Here comes goblin death!”

“Frick frack fuck. You’re a sitting duck! POW!”

Nate was trying to focus but couldn’t help a smile creeping onto his face at Fricks antics. The Familiar was actually drawing some fire by swooping at the Constructs but when they fired back at the flying blue goblin they invariably missed. Apparently ignoring the laws of physics meant it was pretty easy to zoom around the room at breakneck speeds. Who knew?

Less than a minute later and there were only a few Constructs left, half limping around the floor, and his Mana Reserve was running on fumes. The four Construct Elders were still sitting, waiting for something. He extracted a mana gem from his storage and took a few minutes to refill his Mana Reserve, filling it till it was almost bursting, before tucking the gem back into storage. With a few stray shots he picked off the remaining few Constructs, leaving the floor covered in broken bits of yellow stone and dust.

With the main floor clear of Constructs, Nate made his way down the steps. Taking the steps slowly he noticed a Level Up notification flashing but left it for now. He had expected more than one level from so many Constructs but if he was being honest it hadn’t felt like a challenging fight at all. It had only cost him mana after all and he had barely needed to move or multitask to manage the Mana Constructs. The moment his shoes touched the main floor the four Construct Elders stood and began to march down onto the floor with him. As they made their way down Frick floated down next to him.

“Give em goblin hell boss man. You may look like a meat sack but with destruction like this I don’t mind if you call yourself a goblin when it’s just the two of us.”

Nate glanced at the smirking Familiar before shaking his head.

“You could’ve been anything. You could’ve been a dragon. And you chose a goblin. I can’t decide if you're brilliant or insane Frick. But no more time for messing about. I suspect these four might have a little more going for them. Keep an eye out, yeah?” Nate responded.

“Sure thing boss,” Frick said as he floated higher into the air.

The Construct Elders finally reaching the floor began to spread out slightly and began to speak.

“He comes for her Kingdom,” said Radron, the Red Elder.

“The System finally shows mercy,” said Quiko, the Green Elder.

“Will he be enough?” asked L’ezar, the Blue Elder.

“We can only hope my brethren, for we remain bound,” said Minuola, the Yellow Elder.

He was too busy listening to them speak that he was caught unaware as the constructs began their attack. The Red Construct unleashed a beam of fire, much like the first boss he had faced. Nate tanked it on his outer Barrier but could feel it eating into his Mana Reserve. It wasn’t going to collapse soon, but it was definitely going to collapse if this kept up long enough. More than that, the heated air was washing over him, sapping his strength. With sweat already beading on his forehead he started running, trying to force its aim off and give his Barrier a rest. That was when he was introduced to the second Construct, as the Green one lifted off the floor and veritably flew at him. As it bore down on him it drew a stone sword from its back that had been hidden by its head.

The fire beam finally stopped and if it was anything like the first boss, Nate knew he had about ten seconds before it would be ready to blast him again. For now he was more focused on dealing with the Construct closing with him. The Green Construct stepped up and brought its sword down on his Barrier. The drain was less than he had expected, far less than the fire beam. However, the Green Construct wasn’t satisfied and tried to move around his shield and come at him from the side, continuing to attack his barrier the entire time. This close Nate could finally see what was going on as the Green Construct floated across the floor, gusts of air stirring up the dust.

Nate was new to this but he was pretty confident that it was Air Magic. Green for Air. Red for Fire. That meant the final two were probably Blue for Water and Yellow for Earth. As he repositioned his secondary barrier to tank the flanking attack from Green, he took in the remaining two Constructs. Yellow hadn’t moved for some reason, probably due to its sheer bulk which he suspected made it quite slow, though its arms were outstretched, but not towards Nate. Instead it seemed to be tracking Green. Blue on the other hand was clearly preparing a large water spell, as an orb of crashing water the size of a beach ball was gathering over its head.

Blue looked about ready to unleash the spell it was gathering and so Nate repositioned himself, jumping backwards he moved to get Green away from his back. Waiting for his moment, the Blue Construct brought its arms down and Nate stepped to the side, putting Green between himself and the flying ball of water. A moment later the ball impacted Green, expanding to two metres in diameter. The sphere of water seemed to move to keep Green at its centre as the Construct tried to escape and Nate realised he’d very quickly drown if that spell caught him. He didn’t think his Barrier would prevent the water enveloping him. Though if he was fast enough he could potentially envelope himself in his own Barrier. Still that would leave him as a stationary target for whatever follow up these Constructs had.

He was just thinking that at least Green was out of the fight when Blue’s arms dropped and the water washed down in a wave, freeing the Construct. With a grunt of annoyance he made a quick assessment of the Constructs. So far each construct had only shown one Skill. There were four of them and he was surprised that Yellow hadn’t peppered him with Earthen Projectiles. With his momentary break from being attacked he went on the offensive, unleashing an Earthen Projectile at Blue’s centre mass. Before it could impact, a shield of stone manifested in front of it and Nate saw out of the corner of his eyes that Yellow had swung its arms around towards Blue.

Frick flew down next to him quickly as Green came at him again. He was forced to constantly move his secondary barrier to keep it between himself and Green’s stone sword. The Construct continued to batter away at his barrier, slowly draining him. It was death by a thousand cuts.

Frick hovered next to him and asked, “What do ya think boss man?”

“Need to go after… one at a time… starting with Blue… ” Nate responded breathlessly, taking the reprieve offered by the gap in the spells targeting him, to refill his Mana Reserve from a mana gem. He was already tiring and his mana kept dropping with Green being unrelenting in its assault on his secondary barrier.

“You got it boss man. Going to see if I can distract Blue for ya. No promises though.”

Lamenting his low Mana Absorption Stat, he had barely regained ten percent of his lost mana when Red raised its arm and the fire beam began draining his mana again as his primary barrier tanked the blast. Green continued floating around him trying to get a flanking position, swinging its sword into his secondary Barrier every time it moved. He was below half mana now and dropping fast. He realised if his initial plan didn’t work his best option was to run. Green could likely keep up but he suspected the others couldn’t. Even knowing that, he didn’t want to run. He wanted to prove to himself that he could fight against these Constructs without fleeing. He wasn’t sure if it was pride or just stubbornness but he needed that win. A win he could say he earned by fighting in the heat of the moment.

The fire beam finally dissipated and Nate could feel he was down to less than twenty percent of his remaining mana, with Green chipping away at the remaining mana with every sword strike. Nate repositioned the secondary Barrier quickly, using it to shove the floating Green construct away from him. The move bought him enough room to swing around and aim his Earthen Projectile rune at Red.

A moment later a cone of stone launched across the room at Red. As with the first time he had attacked, a yellow stone barrier interposed itself between Red and the blast. But Nate wasn’t finished. Swinging his arm behind him he shot a second shot at Green as it recovered from being shoved. Again a yellow shield of stone interposed itself and Nate grinned. He’d wondered if Yellow could shield with each arm and he’d been right. The Construct stood, one arm pointed toward Red, the other toward Green. That left Blue open.

Blue brought its arms down, the ball of water it had gathered flying across the room towards Nate. Nate dropped both barriers, recreating his primary Barrier with a new Intent. Instead he focused on a shape that surrounded him in a perfect sphere which cost him three of his four Intents. With the final Intent he focused on its central position being his stomach. Enveloped in his Barrier, the orb of water hit the outer edge of his barrier and expanded to encapsulate him in a sphere of water.

In response, Nate started unleashing Earthen Projectiles every second, manifesting them beyond the water, which forced him to drop the Intent focused on shape, making the projectiles once more look like large oval pieces of stone. With the blunt stone it took three shots to crack open Blues abdomen. The fourth broke whatever rune or gem that it needed to sustain itself and it collapsed onto the floor, the water sphere sloughing off Nate at the same time.

Nate hit the floor and started running, panting as he tried to catch his breath. He had maybe ten percent of his mana left and he knew that wasn’t enough to tank another fire beam. Rather than running out of the room though he ran towards Yellow. Green was too quick at moving and couldn’t be used as a shield but Yellow had barely moved and Nate was hoping it was as slow as the element it wielded.

Dropping his Barrier he manifested it again a second later, returning it to its original shape. His Intellect in overdrive he assessed his remaining mana. Eight percent mana left he skidded behind Yellow as Red raised its arm. Green was hot on his heels but he had the position he needed now. Yellow tried to move out of the way but it was too slow, its bulk working against it, and Nate easily kept pace with it. Keeping it between himself and Red he could see the moment that Red decided to fire anyway. It had waited a moment but either their directions were to destroy him at any cost, or perhaps it had found a loophole. The constructs had seemed to desire freedom, based on their earlier words. What was it the Yellow one had said? That they were bound?

The fire beam shot towards them and Yellow raised a shield of stone to protect itself as it continued to try and manoeuvre out of the way. Nate kept stepping in time with the Construct as he moved his barrier behind him to catch Green’s sword strikes. Counting in his head he had the timing down for how long Red could maintain its beam now and as it was a second from finishing, Nate turned and shot a blast of stone at Green.

Again Yellow raised its second arm, shielding Green from the blast. Which was exactly what Nate had planned as he turned back on Yellow and unleashed a shot into its abdomen at point blank range. With no need to control the manifestation location this close, and with no barrier in the way, he’d put twice the Intent into speed and it showed. The dense conical piece of stone blew a hole clean through the centre of Yellow and the Construct crumbled to the ground a moment later.

A few words escaping what passed for a mouth as it fell, “Freedom at last.”

The remaining two constructs echoed his words, “Freedom at last.”

Four percent mana left, Nate unleashed two earthen projectiles into Red before it crumbled. Turning to Green as it came at him again, sword upraised, Nate dropped his Barrier like he had done against Yellow, and without controlling manifestation location, unleashed a projectile with twice the Intent in speed.

One percent of his mana remaining Nate sat down on the floor and panted, a laugh bubbling up inside of him as Notifications flickered in the corner of his vision. He was dead tired and the place where his mana normally sat ached. A smile bloomed on his face, ignoring the pain. He had done it. Barely. But he had done it. He had faced these Constructs in open battle and using tactics and strategy, beaten them. His face glowed with pride as Frick floated down in front of him and looked his dusty and tired appearance over.

“Not bad for a meat sack, boss man.”