The Fusionist Book 3 -- Chapter 29

Chapter 29

For a moment, Larek thought he was wrong about the danger that was heading toward them from the fields, as a small figure appeared as it ran out of the tall stalks of grain. At approximately 2 feet tall, the front of it appeared to be humanoid in appearance, though it had a bulbous, oversized nose and severe features marked by a mouth filled with pointed, serrated teeth. Its dark brown skin was leathery in appearance, making the monster appear old and worn, which was further influenced by its spindly arms and legs.

Despite the relatively small appendages, the monster’s body was wide; from what he could tell, this was because its back was filled with foot-long quills like a porcupine. The entire package made for a strange sight, but it also made him question why Vivienne was running away in fear from it. It didn’t look too tough, and even if there were hundreds of them, they would still be easy to kill. Other than the quills on its back and vicious looking teeth, he couldn’t see anything concerning about it; even its hands seemed delicate and not tipped with razor-sharp claws or anything like that.

“A Pukwudgie,” Verne whispered shakily nearby. Larek was still confused at why he sounded fearful, but could only assume he was missing something.

Within seconds of the first appearing, another five of these Pukwudgies ran out of the field, stopping at the edge of the tree line alongside the first. As they peered through the sparse trees – looking for Vivienne, he assumed – Larek still didn’t understand what the issue was about these things. He was tempted to attack them from range and even raised his staff up to point toward them, but he held himself back out of respect of the caution the others were exhibiting.

After the first minute of no one moving, the Camouflage Spheres helping to hide them from the Pukwudgies’ sight and Vivienne having faded into the forest who knew where, the monsters began to turn around and head back into the field. Relief surged through Larek as they started to leave, and he shifted slightly where he was crouched and watching them. His movement inadvertently jostled the bag he forgot was attached to his back, and the clink of the coins inside impacting each other rang out in the otherwise silent atmosphere.

Uh, oh.

Upon hearing the sound, each of the half-dozen Pukwudgies turned unerringly toward Larek as if they could see him. A sudden growling coming from the small figures reverberated within his chest, the strength of it surprising him; it was then that the monsters began to change.

Growing from their original 2-foot-tall size to one that towered over 12 feet, the transition took place over no more than 2 seconds; he was left speechless as he watched them grow impossibly large, with their back quills now reaching several feet long by the time they were finished growing.

The *twang* of a bowstring snapping, followed by the impact of an arrow punching through the upper chest of one of the Pukwudgies startled him, but no more than the shout that followed it up. “Fire! It’s too late to hide!”

Spurred on to action, Larek launched a Flying Stone at the closest one to him, noticing at the same time that the one that Vivienne hit with her arrow had shrunk slightly… but otherwise, there was no visible wound left by the projectile. Just as the first barrage of Flying Stones, Flaming Balls, and Icy Spikes sent out by the Mages (and Bartholomew) approached the line of Pukwudgies, they all suddenly disappeared. He could tell immediately that they hadn’t simply turned invisible where they were standing, because their attacks went through the empty space without stopping. Fortunately, they were at the edge of their range so they didn’t travel much further than that, as setting the field of grain behind them on fire would be a disaster.

“Where’d they—?”

“Behind us! They can teleport!” Verne shouted, turning around just in time be smacked by a hand that was half the size of his body. Larek could tell that the Repelling Barrier had activated, but the powerful gust of wind seemed to flow through the appendage as if it wasn’t even there.

The young Mage student went flying backwards, the blow hard enough that Larek could hear a few hollow cracks coming from his chest that indicated a broken bone or two. He didn’t have a chance to see if his roommate was alright after that because there was another of the Pukwudgies behind him, and he was barely able to throw himself forwards out of the way of a similar blow.

Rolling to his feet, he fumbled with his staff so that the Water Stream was pointed toward the teleporting attacker, and activated it with a thought. The powerful stream of water cut into the lower legs of the monster as he moved the attack to hit both, but to his surprise it didn’t seem to damage the Pukwudgie; instead, it simply seemed to shrink its 12-foot-tall frame by approximately a foot, with no lasting damage left behind.

What are these things?!

Dropping his staff, he gripped the shaft of his axe with both hands just in time to try and deflect another blow coming straight at him, but despite his strength and toughness of his body, he was knocked flat on his back when the fist slammed into his raised tool. Hitting his head on the ground, he was momentarily stunned as his vision swam, but a quick application of his Healing Surge Fusion helped to clear it up. He got to his feet in a flash, poignantly aware that he was in real danger here, and he swung his axe reflexively at another attack. The blade of his best friend cut through the fist coming for him splitting it in half, but no blood spilled out and the appendage didn’t detach in any way. Instead, he saw in real-time how the bisected fist seemed to stitch itself together while also visibly shrinking the Pukwudgie by another 2 feet, meaning that it only towered over Larek by a slightly smaller height of 9 feet by that point.

A feminine scream of pain off to his left caused him to miss another attack aimed at him, and he took it on the shoulder as he attempted to dodge at the last second. The blow we sightly weaker than before, which meant it only sent him flying rather than breaking his collarbone and shoulder, and he was already healing himself before he hit the ground. As soon as he landed, he looked around to see Nedira had fallen victim to yet another Pukwudgie, as she was lying on the ground with her left leg bent in a direction it really shouldn’t be. Both Verne and Norde had come to her defense and were launching attacks on the monster to try and distract it, joined by the Naturalist as she fought through the pain and used her own staff offensively.

The Pukwudgie they were fighting shrunk to approximately half of its original transformed size, meaning that it was still 6 feet tall. As soon as it hit that threshold, it disappeared once again, but this time it didn’t reappear behind them. Instead, the monster reappeared in the nearby tree, its weight nearly snapping one of the branches, and it was facing the other direction. It wasn’t long before they realized what that meant, as a ripple went through its porcupine-like back and a barrage of quills shot out toward the struggling Mages down below. Thankfully, whatever had seemed to negate the Repelling Barrier earlier didn’t apply to its quills, as they were deflected into the ground as soon as they were near enough, though one nearly impaled Nedira’s leg as it slammed into the ground.

Meanwhile, Kimble cast a Flame Wall in front of the Pukwudgie that appeared behind him, and the monster was visibly shrinking as it burned inside of his spell, even as he launched other spells that hastened the process. It, too, disappeared and reappeared with the intent to impale him with quills, but they had just as much luck as the ones trying to hit Nedira and the boys.

Out of them all, though, it was the Martials that were the most effective against the monsters. Penelope was a whirlwind of death as she sliced up and even chased after her victim when it escaped into a nearby tree, though she had difficulty reaching it when it was there. Her arms and sword glowed a few times to Larek’s viewpoint, which meant she was using a Battle Art, and it seemed to make a difference in the “damage” she was inflicting in regards to how much it was shrinking.

Bartholomew was able to block most of the blows sent his way by his own opponent with his shield, before stabbing multiple times with his spear. Just like Penelope, he also had a glow around him, though it was focused on his shield and shield arm, which apparently allowed him to withstand the attacks coming his way without being knocked over.

Vivienne had abandoned her bow for her knives, and she was quick enough – especially with her new boosts – that she was able to circle around and slice, stab, and nick the exterior of the Pukwudgie with impunity. Each of her attacks didn’t do a whole lot to make it shrink by themselves, but there were a lot of them, especially when a glow lit up her left hand and the knife it held, and the strike she performed seemed to do at least 3 or 4 times as much damage.

Distracted by looking at everyone, Larek fell victim to another attack that came his way, but he reacted in time to dodge the attack completely, before deciding he’d had enough of this bizarre monster. Jumping forward, he raised the axe above his head and chopped down with all his strength like he was intending to split a log in half; the Pukwudgie attempted to move out of the way, but was only able to avoid having its head split in twain as the axe blade struck its upper shoulder. Larek’s strike cut all the way through its entire body, inflicting incredible amounts of damage… only for it reform before his eyes, though it was much smaller by that point, having lost at least 4 feet off its frame. As he recovered from his own attack and lifted it to strike again, the monster disappeared before his eyes; it didn’t take him long to find that it had teleported on top of a nearby tree branch, where it began to launch quills at him – which he ignored entirely.

“Nedira! Are you alright?” he shouted, moving next to her and lifting her up off the ground; she cried out in pain at the movement, but didn’t protest as he moved her broken leg back in place so that it could heal properly as she activated her healing Fusion.  Once it was straightened as well as he could, he set her back down.

“Thanks,” she said with a strain evident in her voice. She flinched when some more quills slammed into her Repelling Barrier, before being shunted off to the ground. “Go. We need to finish them off before they do anything worse.”

“Right. On it.” With a nod at Verne and Norde, the three of them turned to the others, only to find that every single Pukwudgie was up in the trees, each of them at different sizes, and were bombarding the group with quills to very little effect. Worse than that, unless his eyes were deceiving him, the monsters were starting to grow larger as he watched.

Vivienne took over at that point, as she was their resident expert on long-range attacks. “Focus fire on one at a time!” she shouted, pulling her bow off her shoulder and releasing an arrow in no more than a second. The one she targeted was the largest of the Pukwudgies on the tree branches and nearly looked like it was about to break the tree limb; when the arrow sunk into its body and passed through it completely, the monster shrunk by about 6 inches.

Seeing the logic in her attack, Larek stepped back to where he had been fighting before and grabbed his staff while Kimble, Verne, Norde, and even the injured Nedira launched their staff projectiles at the same monster, reducing its size even further. Larek let his own stone projectile target the same one… only for the now 4-foot-tall Pukwudgie to disappear yet again, reappearing on a different branch in the same tree.

Vivienne targeted the next-largest after the first one fled so easily, and the group was able to whittle it down – only for it to disappear right before the next round of projectiles hit it. Vivienne was fast enough with her bow to hit the teleporting Pukwudgies, but the other projectiles took longer to aim and travel the same distance, which meant hitting the little buggers was extremely difficult.

This is annoying. Enough of this.

Unfortunately for the Pukwudgies, their potential victim was a Logger. A former Logger, at least, but he hadn’t lost his touch; more than that, Larek now had the speed, strength, and superior tool to get the job done in a small fraction of the time. Rushing toward the nearest tree with a monster hanging out on the branches, he angled his axe to cut a deep diagonal cut into its trunk, the blade slipping through the wood with ease. Ripping it out and chopping again with incredible speed, his Axe Handling Skill allowing him to place it exactly where wanted it, the top diagonal cut was done.

Quills rained down on Larek as he worked, the barrage so thick that his Repelling Barrier couldn’t handle them all; he felt a few impact his back and throw him slightly off balance, but he was in his element right now and nothing would deter him. Activating his Healing Surge Fusion temporarily to ease the large bruises that would likely be dotting his back in a minute or so, he ignored the injuries as he deftly turned his axe so that he would be chopping a straight cut into the tree trunk. One chop followed after another as he finished carving a large wedge out of the trunk, hearing the tell-tale splintering that let him know that he had accomplished what he set out to do, before he planted his left foot and kicked the wedge he had cut out of the tree with his right. The large hunk of wood shot out with ease because of his great Strength stat, his kick working even better than expected, and the tree began to fall as its weight couldn’t handle having a chunk of its base missing.

All told, it had taken him a total of 5 seconds from start to finish – a record to be sure, especially up in the Rushwood Forest. Even as it fell in the exact place he was aiming for, Larek was already on the move, angling his way to the next tree. He was just finishing up his second when the first finally hit the ground, and a quick look at it showed that the Pukwudgie had teleported out of the falling arborial behemoth into a nearby tree. Unfortunately for it, that tree was the one he was currently finishing up.

The process repeated itself as the monsters continued to teleport from one tree to another as he chopped them down, but they all stayed close by rather than retreating further into the forest. As a result, when Larek finished chopping his twentieth tree in a circle around the group in just a few minutes, the Pukwudgies teleported out of the trees and attempted to attack the group once again, with 3 of them targeting Larek specifically. As his companions hadn’t been idle during his deforestation spree, most of them were relatively small after suffering the attacks by those with ranged ability, so when they finally engaged in close-combat, they were weak and easy prey for the Martials who quickly engaged and slaughtered them.

Larek, with the joy of once again employing his axe in its original purpose, threw himself into the Pukwudgies who surrounded him, slicing them apart with great swings of his best friend. At first, they continued to shrink until they were reduced to the size they were when he first saw them running out of the field; after they hit a point where they couldn’t shrink anymore, they began teleporting around him constantly, making them hard to hit, but Larek was much faster than he used to be. All it took was one point of contact with his axe to finish them off, the blood that spilled from them finally demonstrating that they could be killed.

When all was said and done, all 6 of the Pukwudgies were lying on the ground, any sense of their gigantic size absent in death. Getting his breathing under control, he looked around at the others and saw their wide eyes as the observed the destruction around them.

“Wow, you really were a Logger, weren’t you?” Bartholomew mused, seeing the fallen trees laid out in a precise circle rather than falling haphazardly around them.

“Yes; yes, I was.” He was proud of his upbringing and his former profession, even if it wasn’t as glamorous as some.

“Gather up some of the quills, if you can,” Verne said, already bending down to pick some of them up near his feet. “I believe that they are very valuable.”

Vivienne nodded, even as she ventured around the battlefield picking up the arrows she had expended during the fight. “They are filled with an essence of… spatial illusion? Or something like that. It’s what gave them their ability to shapeshift and teleport.”

“Spatial illusion?” Larek asked, curious. “Is that why we couldn’t hurt them?”

Verne took over the explanation. “It is. While most illusions are insubstantial, Pukwudgies have the ability to give it physicality through an application of their spatial affinity.”

That didn’t mean a whole lot to Larek, but he took the boy’s word for it.  Especially whatever “spatial affinity” was, because it didn’t really mean much to the Fusionist.

“You know, we should’ve died there,” Penelope said, looking at Larek even as he felt the Corrupted Aetheric Force enter his body from the corpses of the monsters he had personally slain. From what he could tell as it moved through his body, it was a lot; more than he had earned from the Squirrels and the Golems combined. Given what the blue-haired Martial had just said, though, he could only assume it was because these Pukwudgies were much more powerful.

He nodded in agreement as his body went to work purifying the Corrupted Force he absorbed. “I… can well imagine. It was a close one.”

“Closer than you think,” Kimble interjected. “Pukwudgies are dangerous because they are highly resistant to magic, though not invulnerable; when you tack on the fact that they can teleport, including to the top of a town or cities walls from below, their incredible strength, ranged attacks, and regenerative capabilities, they are very difficult to kill without suffering casualties, even with an experienced group of SIC members.”  He looked around at the corpses again, waving at them all. “And we just killed six of them without anyone dying. Incredible,” he added, shaking his head in apparent disbelief.

“It’s these Fusions that Larek created,” Nedira pointed out. “If not for them, I don’t think we would’ve survived.”

“Don’t forget that our resident Fusionist also chopped down half the forest,” Verne added cheekily.

There was a small chuckle at that. “But there are obviously some flaws to your Fusions, Larek,” Penelope cautioned. “You already know what they are, of course, but now you’re able to see them even clearer. The Barriers didn’t stop the melee attacks by the Pukwudgies because they were mostly illusion, for example, even if they had a physical form; thankfully, it appeared as though the quills were something different, otherwise most of us would’ve been skewered by their long-range attacks.

Larek could only agree, and he resolved to look into another protective solution in the future. For now, though, exhaustion weighed him down from the middle of the night wakeup, difficult fight, and healing he’d had to do as a result of getting hurt. Moving away from the site of the battle after gathering up some of the quills, as they had likely alerted anything within a mile of their location with the falling of the trees, the group settled once again to sleep after eating a quick meal of their dwindling supply of Squirrel meat.

Before he fell asleep, he looked at his Status to see how much Aetheric Force he had accumulated from the Pukwudgies – and was astonished to see that he had absorbed 600 AF! Since he had personal killed 3 of them, and was fairly certain he didn’t receive any from the others, that meant each of the monsters had been worth 200 AF – a 10,000% increase over what he received from Dirt Golems, which was just astonishing. Given how tough they were, and the fact that they only survived because of the overpowered nature of Larek’s Fusions, he thought that it was probably justified.

Resolving to look at his Skills in the morning to see where he wanted to apply his new bounty of Aetheric Force, the Logger-turned-Fusionist collapsed into sleep with ease, his exhaustion finally catching up with him.