SOM - Chapter 41 - Rock Lobster

In the near distance, a couple of shelves over, a [Rock Crab] the size of a house hung off the cliff. It looked more like a lobster than a crab in truth, with a long body and segmented tail. The system didn’t seem to care about biologically accurate naming conventions, and the giant rock lobster wasn’t technically an organic biological entity.

Though the aetherling was only level eighteen, its sheer size was enough for Luke to treat it seriously. 

Levels were relative and a level one dragon would beat a high level ant. However, Luke was curious at what point the tables would turn in such a hypothetical match up. 

Maybe Nate could work it out, he seems to have a handle on all this [System] stuff, Luke thought.

Luke wasn't yet the dragon in this analogy, but neither was he the ant. With his class, it was only a matter of time before he was fighting in the big leagues. 

To Luke’s surprise, when Nate suggested partying up he wasn’t just speaking colloquially. There was a literal party mechanic hidden in the [System] seed. The mechanic allowed a degree of experience sharing by redistributing the aether gained from death echoes. 

It was a nifty trick.

Another perk of partying up was that Luke could feel Surya and Nate through their connection. The sensation was similar to reaching out with his aura sense, but without any conscious effort. 

Nate’s original plan for dealing with the [Rock Crab] had been to lure it away long enough for Surya to go into the cave and get the loot. The reason they had been trying to capture the starfish was for Nate to study its ability to fly. His [Storm] domain had manifested as [Mortal Stormcaster]. The ability traded power and ease of use for a more flexible method of shaping the aether.

Luke had scared off the starfish, and so took Nate’s position as crab bait. 

Where is Frank when I need him, Luke thought. He wondered if partying up with the rogue aetherling would be possible; it would make keeping track of the ratling much easier.

“Are you about this Luke?” Surya said with concern.

“Don’t worry about me, I’m humanity’s saviour,” Luke said with a grin. 

“Ok, if you insist,” Surya said, before laying into Luke with a series of hard blows with the butt of her spear. 

The quiet woman was on the larger side, though not as lean as Luke. She could pack a punch. Once he held all the momentum he could reasonably hold from the flurry of blows he asked her to stop. It would be more efficient to absorb one or two big attacks, but that would put a lot more strain on his already depleted armour.

Luke also took out the last of his [Firewhiskey], and slowly poured it over [Lundheim’s Legacy], which drank greedily.

Maybe Rurik lives on, Luke thought, watching the alcohol absorb into the armour. The idea gave him comfort. Even if the expensive booze wasn’t the most cost effective source of aspected aether, he resolved to keep a supply for any future top ups. 

With this in mind he bought another bottle for emergencies with the trickle of credits coming in from his listed dungeon loot. After taking a sip of the whiskey he offered some to Nate and Surya. Nate refused, but watched curiously as Surya took a swig.

“Oh my god, that is awful,” she said, spitting it out on the floor. It was a waste of an expensive resource, but her reaction was undeniably funny.

Luke thought it strange, to him the drink had a pleasant warmth, rich and smooth like spiced oak. “Really?”

“Yes! Way too spicy, like drinking battery acid mixed with tabasco sauce.”

Curious, Luke had another sip. It tasted just as nice as he remembered. He found it amusing that the woman who had shamed him for ordering the mildest curry on the menu couldn’t take the heat.

Nate laughed. “It’s because of the whiskey’s aspect. We both cultivate [Sea], you have [Fire]; the two don’t typically get on, so it’s bound to cause a negative reaction.”

“My dear,” Surya said with a dangerous glint in her eyes. “When exactly did you realise this?” 

“Oh, umm… it was just a theory,” Nate stumbled over his words as his fiance glared at him. 

After thoroughly digging himself a hole, Nate deflected Surya’s ire by establishing the group’s plan of attack. Luke would run in and smack it about, then use his [Null] with the stored momentum to kite the big crab up the cliff and away. 

If he could, Luke was going to kill the beast, but his primary job was just to move it away from the cave entrance. Once the [Storm] crystals were secure, Surya and Nate would give him what support they could, but would be ready to retreat at a moment’s notice. They didn’t have Luke’s level of survivability, or his mobility.

With his pulse picking up, Luke set off ahead of the pair. His armour didn’t like the rain, but had enough aether now to use some of its more advanced features, and Luke was excited to see how many gold coins he could knock out of the crab. 

It was like a giant piggy bank waiting to be smashed. 

Fenn formed in Luke’s hand, the red mist coalescing into a giant hammer. It bore little resemblance to a humble carpenter’s tool anymore, and was so large that it would probably serve better as a two handed weapon. Still, Luke was plenty strong enough to use hammer and shield, and his soul space gave him the ability to switch out his shield at will. Repeated use had made him somewhat of a quickdraw.

Stealth wasn’t Luke’s forte, and the giant rock lobster saw him coming. It turned to face him, its tail curling up like a scorpion’s. Guessing he was about to get blasted, Luke raised his shield and used [Brace]. When he saw the monster’s tail whip back, and tear a chunk of cliff the size of a car off the cliff, he made the split second decision that it was better to move out the way, than tank the boulder. 

With [Null], Luke jumped up high. He was up in the air once again, the gale picked up, and blew him about like a kite without a string, but he had had plenty of momentum stored to control his flight. 

A mental nudge was all that was needed to send him falling towards the crab’s face. Bringing his full strength to the fore, Luke swung down and smashed Fenn right into the monster’s onyx eye. It was less effective than Luke hoped. 

The stone cracked, and a few gold coins splintered off, but the eye was a giant gemstone the size of a yoga ball; it would take more than a single attack to break.

Down came the hammer, three times in quick succession as Luke tried his best to blind the crab in one eye. He was making good progress when a giant claw rose up to swat him away. 

Fortunately, the monster moved slowly, and Luke’s [Singularity] was clearly giving it trouble.

A giant claw swatted Luke away like a fly, and even with [Brace] he wasn’t particularly keen to stay in its path. 

Luke used [Null] to jump out of the way.

The rock lobster twisted on the cliff face, until its multifaceted eyes faced Luke in the sky. For his part Luke was letting the wind blow him further away from the cave entrance, without drifting too face off course. 

Just when Luke thought that the beast was just going to stare him to death, he saw the giant tail tense. His intuition told him now was a good time to dump aether into [Brace]. 

Like a catapult, the aetherling threw another boulder at him with its tail, then another, and another. This time he tanked the hits, refilling his momentum so that he could go back on the offensive. After the third chair sized boulder, the [Rock Crab] grabbed a particularly large chunk of rock off the cliff. Luke had to use a spurt of momentum just to move out of the way. 

A flash of thunder ripped through the skies, and Luke felt the thrill of the fight pumping through his veins. There was nothing quite like it. 

Though he would like to just throw down, Luke had a schedule to keep, and every time he threw himself against a particularly difficult opponent he always seemed to spend the next few hours or even days recovering. 

His job was just to be annoying enough to lure it away. That was good; Luke was quite talented when it came to making an annoyance of himself. 

As Luke fell down towards the crab he fed both his [Singularity] and [Brace] abilities with his aether. He timed a [Kinetic Strike] for the moment of impact, and this time Fenn sent large cracks snaking across the polished gemstone eye. 

Whether or not a seventy foot long crustacean with a rock exoskeleton could feel pain was unclear, but it definitely didn’t like what Luke was doing to its face. Like a thousand kettles boiling over simultaneously, dozens of water jets pumped out of the beast, catching Luke as he tried to escape with [Null] again.

Knocked out to sea, Luke steadied himself before taking a plunge. Fortunately, the barrage of boulders from earlier gave him enough momentum to push himself back to the cliff, though only barely. Momentum was good for short distances, but if he ever wanted to fly long distances he would need a better method. Perhaps a future path step would offer a solution.

Luke landed a few dozen feet above the aetherling and used Fenn’s claw as a climbing pick. 

The crab watched him, but made no move to come after him. Luke keely felt his lack of any ranged attacks, however he realised he could take a leaf out of the aetherling’s book. 

For the next couple of minutes Luke used Fenn to gouge out chunks of stone from the cliff, accelerated them with his [Singularity] and dropped them on the [Rock Crab] head.

An almost comical scene followed where the six foot five Luke and the seventy feet long aetherling threw rocks at each other. Luke’s rocks were generally smaller, but with his [Gravity] based abilities he could do more with less.

Eventually, after a landslide of rumble landed on the lobster shaped crab, it finally started to move. 

The whole cliff rumbled as a dozen tree sized legs climbed the cliff. That such a large creature could climb an almost sheer surface defied all sense of logic, but so did pretty much everything else these days.

Through their party bond, Luke could feel Nate and Surya start to move. While he had been playing dodge the rock the pair had been hiding in the rock pools one shelf over. He wasn’t sure but Luke was pretty sure he had felt Nate pacing back and forth while he waited. 

Having a party chat would be a nice addition, but the experience sharing was the key feature; it would have been way easier to power level Frank that way.

Luke was so focused on following the auras of his party members that he almost forgot that the giant crab was coming for him. The cliff rumbled as it approached, drawing Luke’s attention back to his immediate surroundings. 

Looking at the numerous cracks his attacks had caused on the carapace, Luke was tempted to go for the kill all by himself, but that wasn’t the plan. 

He had to be a team player for once.

Nate wanted to break through to platinum with his [Storm] domain by using the [Storm] crystals to power some of the more ambitious spells his casting ability gave him access to, and Surya was hoping that she could gain some insight into her own [Earth] domain by fighting the crab. 

It was time to cook up a storm.