The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Larek woke to complete darkness and the heavy feeling of rock dust covering his face, along with the unmistakable exhaustion that came with a lack of food and water for an extended period of time. More than that, his body was worn out, like a dishrag that had been squeezed until all of the water was expelled from it, leaving it dry and brittle. He struggled against the exhaustion and weakness as his mind finally caught up with where he was and how he got there.

My Battle Art activated again? I still want to know how it did that, but at least it saved my life.

Larek thought it was strange to him how he could comfortably move at such extreme speeds caused by his Consuming Speed Battle Art, when trying to utilize his Agility stat in a fight was so difficult.  It was almost as if the Battle Art brought with it an innate knowledge of how to utilize it effectively, which he wished would translate to normal use of his stats, but that didn’t seem to be the case. When it wasn’t active, he could remember himself moving with such grace and accuracy in his movements, but he couldn’t remember how he had done it or extrapolate the processes from his memories.

Regardless, that was neither here nor there at the moment, because there were other issues that Larek needed to address at the moment. Obtaining food to replenish his energy was just one of them, and it might not even be the most pressing. Sitting up was a chore in an of itself, but so was breathing; he coughed a few times as he inhaled the dust-filled air, and while the dust might have been the cause, he thought that the air felt thinner than normal. The memory of the incredible explosions caused by his detonating Fusions filled his mind along with the horrible thought of being buried alive in the underground refuge.

Looking down at himself, the only things he could see were the Fusions on his clothes as they absorbed the ambient Mana in the environment, which seemed to be fluctuating a bit – likely caused by the Mana-fueled explosions, I bet. To his right, he could make out the Fusions on his axe where he had dropped it after passing out some time ago, and he was amazed that he had managed to hold onto it in his flight. He was even more amazed that the shockwaves that had propelled him on said flight hadn’t destabilized the Fusions he was currently looking at, as that would’ve resulted in his death at that point if they were to explode.

Unfortunately, neither the strands of light he saw as ambient Mana nor the Fusions on his possessions actually shed visible light into the environment, so he was essentially blind to his current circumstances. Reaching into his pants pockets, he found that they were empty; he belatedly realized that he had left all his Illuminate stones with his pack all his other possessions, which were most likely buried under literal tons of rock at that point. Regret hammered at his psyche over the loss of his stuff, as much or more than the loss of lives that had occurred down below. He hadn’t intended in hurting anyone when he woke up that morning—is it still the same day?—but things had escalated so quickly that he was left with his head spinning from the sudden brutal fight and subsequent explosions.

His first priority was to determine how much trouble he was in and to extricate himself from his current location. After he was free, he could look for sustenance to replenish his energy, and only then could he figure out what to do in the future now that all of his possessions except the clothes on his back and his axe were gone – including all of his coinage. That also included his transfer letter from Copperleaf to Fort Ironwall, which was important, but that was far down on his list of priorities right now.

Feeling around himself, Larek detected a heavy coating of dust all along the stone floor he found himself sitting up on, which made sense if a portion of the underground area had collapsed.  Not finding anything directly around the area that he might be able to use for a Fusion, he instead grabbed his axe and carved out a small slab of stone from the floor before he got to work.

Thankfully, the Illuminate +1 Fusion only took 20 seconds to complete because it was such an easy, Basic Fusion to create that it was barely any effort. It only took that long because he had trouble concentrating with how hungry and weak he was, but it was slowly getting better the longer he was awake and actively doing something.

“I’m so screwed.”

Instead of echoing through a long stone stairway below him, his voice was deadened by the presence of collapsed stone all around him, leaving the Combat Fusionist in a pocket of space approximately 40 feet long and as wide as the staircase itself. When he turned his attention around toward the exit, using the newly created illuminated slab of stone, he saw that the tunnel that led to the secret doorway in the storage facility had collapsed similarly to the majority of the stairway, leaving him completely trapped with no way out. He thought that he might be able to dig his way out eventually, but was also worried that trying to shift the dirt-and-stone-filled tunnel leading to his escape might cause even more of it to collapse. Looking at the space that contained him and noticing that there were cracks all around its stone shell, he didn’t think it would take much abuse before it collapsed upon him.

What it also showed, and matched what he felt, was that he was slowly running out of air. The shortness of his breath was the first indication, but with both ends sealed up, there was no way to get new air into the space.

So, either he did nothing and suffocated to death, or he attempted to dig himself out and risked the rest of it collapsing down on him. While he would, of course, choose the latter option, even standing up and moving around at that point was as challenge because of how weak he was; he couldn’t fathom digging even a portion of the collapsed tunnel out with his current state of exhaustion.

That was why Larek thought he was screwed, because he couldn’t see a way out of his predicament. He was low on physical energy, and even if he wasn’t, it was almost guaranteed that the rest of the complex would collapse while he was digging himself out. Ready to simply give up in despair, he laid back down on the stone floor, staring at the ceiling in hopelessness. As if to emphasize his fears, a trickle of dirt somehow squeezed itself out of a crack in the stone, nearly landing on his face before he jerked it aside at the last moment.

It was watching the tiny stream of dirt fall inside the cavity that had him sitting up in shock. Hold on – I think I have an idea!

Quickly slicing another slab of stone out of the floor with his axe, he trimmed it down until it was more of a foot-long, rectangular rod that he could easily hold in his hand and point in a direction he desired. Then, setting it in front of him, he devised a hastily put-together Fusion on the fly, based around a spell he had recently – at least relatively recently – learned from Nedira when they were escaping from Copperleaf: Furrow.

Furrow

Magnitude: 3 cubic feet of dirt

Base Elemental Damage: 0

Base Elemental Effect (Dirt Manipulation): Gently moves a certain amount of dirt in the desired direction

Restrictions: Rocks greater than 3 cubic inches cannot be shifted

Base Mana Cost: 15

Base Pattern Cohesion: 2

Furrowwas designed for moving quantities of dirt for assistance in farming, or so the Naturalist had explained, but it was also able to shift rocks – though the spell had a limit to the size of the rocks that could be moved. Fortunately, Larek had learned that his Fusions could bypass these kinds of limitations if he ensured the Magnitude was high enough, but there was only one way to find out.

To help with moving the larger stones, he also tapped into the knowledge of how his Flying Stone Fusion worked to propel the stones that were formed. In this case, he didn’t need to create any stones because they were already there; what he needed was the propelling portion of the Fusion, and he quickly created an Effect that would do that with much larger stones.

Once he thought he had something that might work for what he needed, Larek fell into his hyper-focused state without even double or triple-checking his formation, as he had the feeling that he didn’t have time to waste. The formation came together with his Pattern Cohesion quickly, and Larek began to shove all of his Mana into it as soon as possible. He ignored his impatience as his Mana regenerated, slightly faster than normal for some reason, as he kept all of the different components in the Fusion together firmly in his mind.

Larek lost track of the time as he continued to pour Mana into the Fusion, and it never seemed to be enough to fill it up. He belatedly realized that he probably should’ve limited the Magnitude to 10 instead of the 12 he went with for this Fusion, but he wasn’t sure if a +10 Fusion would be enough; he only had one shot at this, and if it didn’t work, he was as good as dead.

Larek acknowledged and then ignored the cracks he could hear popping through the sanctuary where he sat that was rapidly becoming unsafe, even as more trickles of dirt fell inside and piled up all around him. His hyper-focused state was the only thing that saved him from losing control of his Fusion when one of the streams of dirt suddenly fell directly on the back of his neck, falling down his shirt to bunch up a bit before spilling to the floor.

Just when he thought he would never finish the Fusion before everything collapsed around him, Larek felt the formation suck in the last little bit of Mana and *snap* into place on the end of the rectangular stone rod.

Earth Mover +12

Activation Method(s): Activatable

Effect(s): Propels large quantities of dirt in the desired direction

Effect(s): Propels large quantities of stone in the desired direction

Effect(s): Strengthens stone

Input(s): Dirt detection, stone detection

Magnitude(s): Propels up to 12,000 cubic feet of targeted area, 120 feet away from Fusion origin, with 120,000 pounds of force

Magnitude(s): 400% increased durability

Variable(s): Directional orientation, material recognition

Mana Cost: 540,000

Pattern Cohesion: 13,300

Fusion Time: 424 hours

Multi-effect Fusion Focus has reached Level 24!

Pattern Recognition has reached Level 24!

Spellcasting Focus has reached Level 25!

Mana Control has reached Level 41!

Mana Control has reached Level 42!

Fusion has reached Level 43!

Pattern Formation has reached Level 44!

As soon as Larek snapped out of his hyper-focused state, he sucked in a great breath as if coming up for air from diving into a lake, only to find that the air was now so thin that he could barely get any in his lungs. The dust that was inhaled was minimal, as most of it had settled by that point, but that didn’t matter if he couldn’t even catch his breath.

Without a moment to spare for attention to his notifications, he grabbed the stone rod and held it up while pointing at the collapsed exit. With a mental prayer that his formation could handle such an Effect without breaking down while he held it in his hand, he activated his new Earth Mover +12 Fusion…

…and nothing happened.

Worried that he had done something wrong, he shifted his perspective to look at the Fusion closer, only to see that all of the ambient Mana around him was being sucked into the formation at an alarming rate. With the amount of Mana flowing into it, the Fusion practically glowed with intensity, and before he could worry that it was going to explode, the Mana was suddenly converted into the Effect he had designed.

The collapsed exit in front of him shifted slightly at first, before it was blasted straight ahead with an eardrum-shattering screech of ripping rock. In less than two seconds after it finally started the process, there was a perfectly round tunnel bored straight through the debris and out to the storage facility beyond. The Fusion didn’t affect the wood used in its construction, but the stone foundations were ripped apart and joined the rest of the dirt and stone torn from the new tunnel, wrecking whatever was left outside – which didn’t seem to be a lot. A quick glance showed that it wasn’t just the tunnel that had collapsed because of the explosions earlier, because it was more than likely that the entire building had come down at some point.

All of that happened within a few seconds, which was more than enough time for the ceiling above Larek to suddenly give out as the pressure from the exit area weakened whatever was holding it up. Aware that it was already weak and with an infusion of fresh air from the hole he had just bored outside, he rapidly lifted the rod above his head while it continued to work, blasting out a wide trough of earth up and out of his location in an arc, before sending everything above him shooting straight into the air. Saved from his refuge collapsing on him prematurely and the open sky now above him, Larek felt the Earth Mover deactivate as it ran out of easy to absorb ambient Mana.

Uh, oh.

Still looking up, he realized that the propelled stone and dirt that went straight up had reached the apex of its flight and was now descending again. Without the Fusion to propel it away again, most of it was going to land right on top of him.

With a burst of energy borne of fear, Larek snatched up his axe and scrambled toward the exit, falling a few times as he tripped over the uneven foundation, before he found himself inside what was left of the wrecked storage facility. He finally did slip and fall when the ground shook underneath him, timed with the blast of dirt and stone falling back to the ground from its flight.

His panic-borne energy hadn’t run out quite yet, so he picked himself up and out through the hole he had made with his Fusion, climbing over fallen wooden beams from the collapsed building the further he went, before stumbling into the street – and right into the presence of a group of mounted Protectors aiming their spears at him.