The Fusionist Book 3 -- Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Despite spending most of his life in a forest, Larek wasn’t exactly what anyone would call stealthy. His movements through the trees were loud as he crunched the dried pine needles underneath his large work boots, which seemed to set Vivienne on edge as she kept glancing back at him in irritation. When he stopped for a second to listen to the others, he discovered that all of them – even Verne and Norde – were moving through this forest with a lot less noise than he was, and even Bartholomew with his armor and Noble upbringing only made a little more sound than the others. Compared to them, Larek was practically stomping through everything without any regard to being quiet.

“It’s a good thing we weren’t trying to sneak by the Squirrels, because they could hear you coming a mile away, Larek,” Penelope muttered, just loud enough to be heard over his steps.

“Sorry,” he whispered back.

She waved it off. “Not your fault if you haven’t learned how to move appropriately through different environments.”

“Is this something they taught you at the Fort?”

The blue-haired Martial nodded. “Yes, though it’s more about how to move in combat regardless of your environment, because changing situations during the defense of a town or city can lead to needing that kind of knowledge to survive and protect those who can’t protect themselves.”

That made sense to Larek, giving him yet another reason why attending Fort Ironwall was a good idea, but he still hadn’t decided one way or the other.

Vivienne suddenly appeared near them, her face stern as she shook her head. Larek started to apologize for talking, but the Ranger put her finger to her lips in a universal signal to be quiet. “Their territory starts around 200 feet from here,” Vivienne whispered as they came to a stop.

“Thanks, Viv,” Penelope whispered back, before turning to the others who had come up around them when they came to a halt. “Alright, standard formation; Martials up front with Mages in the back. Larek, you stay in the back, as we can’t lose you.”

“We can’t lose anyone, Penelope,” he asserted.

“That’s not my point, and you know it.” She appeared exasperated as she sighed, but she unslung her massive sword that had miraculously made it all the way out from the tunnels underneath the Academy despite its size. The woman didn’t seem to notice its weight, and she moved with it as if it was an extension of her body. “Everyone ready?” she asked.

At their indications of assent, Bartholomew and Penelope led the way, with Vivienne just behind with her bow at the ready, followed by everyone else another dozen feet behind creating a separation between the two groups. The others were all looking up into the lowest branches of the trees, so Larek did the same, trusting that he wouldn’t trip over anything.

It didn’t take long to find the Jumping Squirrels, as they were busy scurrying through the boughs of the trees, causing the branches to bounce up and down as they moved. While Larek had learned about these particular monsters in his Monster Knowledge class, it wasn’t the same as seeing them in person.

Standing nearly 3 feet tall when on their hind legs, the Jumping Squirrels were definitely not the cute woodland creatures he remembered back in the Rushwood Forest. Instead, these Scission monsters had black and dark grey striped fur, a bushy tail that had stiff bristles that could pierce normal skin like little needles when they brushed up against it, and also possessed 4-inch-long claws on its forepaws that were capable of cutting through basic leather. But what made them more intimidating were their powerful hind legs, which comprised nearly a third of their entire bulk; these legs and their ability to jump up to 20 feet vertically and 40 feet horizontally was what made them dangerous. This danger was only heightened when the Squirrels were in a tree, as it allowed them to jump even further to attack those down below.

“Mages, knock them out of the trees! Bartholomew, hold and prepare to defend!”

At her shout, chaos ensued. The nearest Squirrels, over 60 feet away and just barely visible to Larek, heard her and immediately turned toward the group on their tree branches. The Fusionist heard the *twang* of a bow string and he saw one of the furry monsters fall out of the tree ahead of them, skewered by an arrow that he barely even saw fired by Vivienne.

The moment he saw a trio of familiar ice spikes shot out courtesy of the sharp sticks Larek had created Fusions on earlier, he raised his own with his left hand and aimed it at yet another Squirrel in the trees. With a quick mental activation, he sent his own projectile shooting toward the monster, but it jumped a split-second before impact. Instead of hitting it square in the chest like he had been hoping, the spike made of ice clipped its left leg as it was in the air, ripping it entirely off. The impact also had the effect of causing the Squirrel to rotate vertically in the air, and it was soon flipping uncontrollably as it was knocked off whatever course it was heading for, blood flinging out in an arc as it spun in the air on its way down to the ground.

He didn’t watch it after that, because he was distracted by the sight of three other furry monsters dropping from the trees, the ice spikes that Verne, Norde, and Kimble sent out hitting their targets well enough that the Squirrels didn’t survive the attack. Yet another of the bushy-tailed monsters jumped and was figuratively slapped out of the air by a powerful gust of wind; looking over, he noticed Nedira had her hands out in front of her, and the lingering Mana used in a Repelling Gust spell dissipated around her. Larek only recognized it because he had learned the spell from her, after seeing her cast it multiple times on the roof of Crystalview, though this one seemed to have a little more Mana infused into it to give it some extra “oomph”.

Those Squirrels, unfortunately, weren’t the only ones nearby. Another dozen of them jumped toward the group from the surrounding trees, with one of them actually launching themselves far enough to slam into Bartholomew’s shield that he had upraised – before being slammed into the ground when the Martial trainee’s Repelling Barrier activated.

Compared to the other Martials he saw in the Skirmish being flung around by the protective Fusion, the furry monster was much lighter – and therefore was affected all the more by the powerful gusts that sent it crashing into the dirt and pine needles on the forest’s floor. The bone-crunching force of the impact was so loud and so quick, in fact, that it was just one big *snap* that startled some of the others from the sheer violence committed upon the monster.

The other Squirrels landed ahead of Bartholomew and Penelope, but half of them didn’t get a chance to go far as a half-dozen brown roots emerged from the ground and wrapped themselves around their bodies, holding them in place. Nedira’s Binding Roots effectively kept them out of the fight, at least temporarily despite their attempts to cut through the tough roots with their sharp claws.

The last five hit the ground and jumped again, heading straight toward the awaiting Martials. One was skewered in the air with an arrow that sent it flying backwards from the force of the impact. Two more were bisected by Penelope’s sword as she swung at an angle that cut through both of them with one slice; another was impaled by Bartholomew’s spear mid-jump, with the last being violently repelled by the Martial trainee’s shield, similar to the one before. Once they were dead, Penelope and Vivienne raced toward the bound monsters and finished them off, one using her sword and the other a pair of knives that had been strapped to her waist.

Looking over the heads of Penelope and Bartholomew, Larek saw that the one he had partially hit with his icy projectile was still alive somehow, though it was heavily injured. Before he could even aim his sharpened stick, yet another arrow released by Vivienne pierced it through the heart as it struggled to move with only one hind leg, and the final Squirrel was finished off. In a matter of seconds, they managed to kill 18 of the monsters without any problems at all.

“That wasn’t so bad—” Larek began to say, but movement out of the corner of his eye made him snap his mouth closed. “I guess I spoke too soon.”

Gathering in the surrounding trees just outside of the range of their Icy Spike Fusions were hundreds of the monsters, all staring at the group and weighing the branches down to the point where Larek thought they might snap at any point. They kept coming, eventually attaching themselves to the trunks of the trees using their sharp claws, and it soon became obvious that hundreds more had circled around them, penning them in from all sides.

“Uh, is this normal?” Norde asked nervously as he moved closer to Larek and the Martials, Verne joining right behind him.

“No, definitely not,” Nedira answered.

The more Larek looked at them all gathering as they did, he couldn’t help but agree. More than that, he had the distinct feeling that they were all staring at him as they congregated in the trees; it might have just been that he was starting to feel the weight of so many monsters gathered around that it might have seemed as though all their attention was on him, but for some reason he didn’t think so. There was a malevolence in their gaze that he’d never experienced before, and it was a bit unnerving.

“Uh, guys? What’s the plan here?” he asked.

Penelope was visibly shaken. “This… this shouldn’t be happening. Those close enough should’ve simply attacked us, leaving us a hole through their territory that we could slip through,” she said, her previous bravado and confidence absent in her tone. “I don’t think we can escape this.”

Larek knew that was the original plan: Kill a few dozen and then run through the Squirrel’s seeming territory before the rest could attack them. That was a tactic that had been discussed in the few new Scissions classes he’d attended, as the behavior of the monsters was something that could be predicted – at least for most of the weaker ones. But something like this was definitely not covered in the curriculum, or at least hadn’t been yet.

“Larek? Why are they staring at you?” Nedira suddenly asked.

He looked at her in surprise. “You think so, too? I had wondered…”

“Yeah, it’s fairly obvious,” Kimble abruptly confirmed her observation. “Their unblinking eyes are staring right at you and are following your movements. It’s as if they aren’t even paying attention to us.”

That’s not good… but why?

Before he could even ask that question, the number of Jumping Squirrels must have reached some sort of critical threshold, because it was at that point that they attacked. If it hadn’t been obvious by their stares, the trajectory of hundreds of furry monsters as they launched themselves off of their perches made it obvious that Larek was their target.

Even as the others braced themselves for the attack, Larek told the others with the Icy Spike Fusions to fire. “Don’t stop; the Fusions can handle a few minutes of constant firing, and we’re going to need it.” As the wave of Squirrels propelled toward them, Larek and the others let loose a barrage of sharp ice spikes toward the furry rain of death coming their way. Kimble also transferred the stick to his left hand and started flinging out Fireballs with his right; thankfully, the mass of Squirrels was so thick that he didn’t miss with his spells, meaning that he wasn’t about to set the entire forest on fire with any stray flaming projectiles.

Nedira, on the other hand, was frantically casting Nature-based spells, as one Wall of Thorns after another appeared to help surround the group, though they didn’t reach far enough up to stop the majority of the Squirrels if they were determined to jump over. At best, they would help to funnel the furry monsters toward certain spaces where it would be easier to defend against them; at worst, they were obstacles that would actually impair their own sight of the attackers as they made their way toward them.

The group soon found that, even though the deadly Squirrels had their sights set on Larek, that didn’t mean they ignored the others. As most of them landed not more than 10 to 15 feet away from the group, they targeted the nearest obstacle in their way – otherwise known as the other people with him – and sprang toward it without missing a beat. Nedira’s thorn walls turned out to help more than he expected, as instead of jumping vertically over them, the furry monsters instead changed their direction to leap in between the barriers, which helped… sort of. The ones that jumped straight at Penelope and Bartholomew, for instance, were immediately cut down or slammed into the ground when their Repelling Barriers were activated, and the same went – for the most part – for Vivienne, who quickly pulled out her knives when the enemy was too close to use her bow.

As for the others, including Larek, they were barely able to stem the flow of Squirrels jumping through the gaps in the wall with a barrage of ice spikes killing a few of them every second or so, but there were just too many. Before long, even that wasn’t enough as they arrived en masse, the first few dozen slamming into the ground as they ran into the protective wind barriers of the defenders. Before long, though, the press of furry bodies was too great and Larek watched Kimble knocked over as two Squirrels managed to push through the Repelling Barrier while it was engaged in protecting against other threats. As he fell onto his back with a cry, that left his feet unprotected, as there was no barrier below him; as a result, another three monsters scurried up his legs, tearing into him with their claws even as the two that had knocked them down went to work on his upper body.

“No! Get off of him!” Larek cried, moving toward the downed Pyromancer, but before he could reach him, an inferno arose around the Mage, burning everything around him in a matter of seconds. The fire was so hot that it made Larek take a step back, but it was also deactivated shortly after that, leaving little but the charred bodies of Squirrels behind as a result. As for Kimble, Larek could see that he was unhurt by his own spell, but he was injured enough from the claws that had torn great rents in his body chest and legs; the shock was too much for the man as he closed his eyes and was rendered unconscious. Worried that he had died, Larek was relieved that he could still see him breathing shallowly – but his relief was short-lived as the tide of Squirrels kept coming.

Ignoring the unconscious form of Kimble on the ground, now that he was no longer an obstacle, there was now an avenue of attack for the Jumping Squirrels to reach Larek. Even as Verne and Norde launched ice spikes at them, Nedira cast Binding Roots on a few, though the number of those caught by the spell was but a drop in the bucket. Changing tactics, the Naturalist instead cast a spell that she had mentioned was called Poison Fog – which was too complicated for him to learn, unfortunately – that summoned a greenish-brown cloud of poisonous fog that covered the opening between two of the walls she had created earlier.

The Squirrels jumping through the fog were immediately affected by it, as their jumps fell short and they appeared sickly, but that didn’t stop them from continuing to attack. If anything, the fog led to them bunching up together to attack as a larger group.

Seeing the wave of Squirrels coming for him, Larek dropped his pointy stick and grabbed his axe with both hands, setting his feet as if he was just about to start chopping into a tree.  Me and you, bestie. Let’s do this.

While Larek certainly knew how to swing an axe, his combat awareness left much to be desired. As soon as he swept into the first of the furry monsters coming his way, killing five of them with the tool in no more than a second, he was quickly pushed around as dozens of Squirrels slammed into him from behind and the sides. As many more were smashed into he ground by his protective Fusion, but there were too many of them for his Barrier to compensate, which led to being hit multiple times. The worst part was that, even though the monsters jumping into him didn’t knock him down, they were close enough that they were able to attack him once again, tearing through his overalls like they were paper before slicing into his skin. Thankfully, with his Body stat so high, the slices were no worse than cuts on his skin, which would heal in short order with his Body Regeneration, but within seconds he was surrounded and was practically covered in small wounds.

A quick activation of his Healing Surge anklet was enough to heal his injuries without trouble, but he was beginning to have trouble moving as the onslaught of Squirrels piled up against him; now that they weren’t moving more than 10 miles per hour being so close to him, his protective Fusion did very little good, and he was instead forced to frantically chop at them with his axe and even smash their heads in with his fist. His Strength stat was high enough that their skulls were no match for his fists, and they crumpled under his strikes, but there were just too many of them.

As their corpses piled up around him, he continued to hear the others fighting but could spare not much more than a glance to check on their condition. Other than Kimble, who was still down on the ground, the others seemed to be fine, as the concentration of furry bodies around them was much less than they were around Larek, and most everything that got through their attacks were killed by their Repelling Barriers. He saw that Verne had a bloodstain on his right shin where some sharp claws had somehow made it through his protection, but he was still upright and attacking with the makeshift weapon that Larek had created for him to use.

Even if he had wanted to go to their aid, there was no way that the former Logger could move from his defensive position. After nearly a minute of constantly fending off attacks, he estimated that he had killed nearly 100 of them based on the corpses piling up around him; the benefit of that was that the bodies were covering up his lower half, preventing most of the Squirrels from attacking from below, but it was also giving them a ramp to reach his body and face better.

Larek attempted to activate his one and only Battle Art, Furious Rampage, but nothing he tried seemed to work. He needed to break out of his current predicament, because before too long he would be inundated by so many corpses that he couldn’t move, and he thought he might be able to push through the bodies with some extra Strength – but that thought was put on hold when he couldn’t activate the Ability.

Thankfully, after another minute and a further 100 or so dead Squirrels created by his handiwork, the onslaught lessened considerably. At that point, Larek was in a highly focused state of defending himself and healing the constant wounds he was accumulating, and it took him a few seconds to realize someone was shouting at him.

“We’re coming, Larek! Hold on a little longer!” Penelope screamed at him when he didn’t respond, and he snapped out of his focus long enough to nod in her direction.

Over the next few minutes, as the corpses piled up higher and higher around him, nearly reaching to his upper chest and with his arms just barely free enough to swing around, he began to feel extremely tired and nearly ravenous. Realizing that he’d been healing himself on and off for the last few minutes, this didn’t surprise him, but he barely had the strength to swing his axe one more time to easily slice yet another Squirrel in half.

Thankfully, that was the last one, as no more assaulted him; after a few seconds of tensely awaiting another attack, and he slumped where he stood, finding that he could barely shift around with the furry and bloody corpses pressed up against him.

“Larek? Are you alright?”

Wearily, he struggled to focus his gaze outside of his little sphere of death, seeing Penelope climbing up the virtual mountain of dead Squirrels to reach him. He belatedly recognized that he hadn’t killed all of them, as there were more than he remembered killing himself; based on their wounds, he could only assume that the others were killed trying to get to him. Further out, he saw hundreds more furry corpses scattered around where his other group members had fought their own battles, and while his bleary eyes were still a little unfocused, other than a few bloody scratches that showed on everyone else, none of them appeared to be seriously hurt. Even Kimble was up on his knees, clearly having woken up and was trying to get to his feet, his wounds still bleeding slightly, but he appeared as though he’d live.

The strange thing about gazing around him, however, was the fact that everything looked a little hazy for some reason. It was almost as if there was a cloud of something dark with streaks of grey in it hanging about; though it was largely transparent, he wondered if it was some other version of the Poison Cloud that Nedira had cast earlier.

“Um, yes?” he finally answered after a few seconds. “But I’m exhausted and starving—”

He was forcibly cut off as the dark cloud around him suddenly moved and began streaming toward his body. A sharp pain struck him in the stomach and at first he thought it was hunger pains, but it was an altogether different feeling. The pain rapidly faded as it spread throughout his entire body, though he didn’t think it was because of his Pain Immunity Skill. Instead, it was almost as if his body was reacting to whatever was invading it and somehow spreading it out in an attempt to… tame it, perhaps.

Whatever it was doing, his exhausted state couldn’t handle it for more than a few seconds, and the next thing he saw was the back of his eyelids as he lost consciousness.

Book 3 Chapter 24