Ch 206 – Out of Breath
Along with the discovery of water far below them, the group suddenly noticed that dozens of cocoons that had been clinging to the cavern walls all around their descent path were beginning to split open and tear apart at their seams.
[Bloatfly Lv 24]
***
[Bloatfly Lv 26]
The walls themselves seemed to twitch and writhe as Bloatflies tore themselves free from their protective casings one after another, the glow from the descending Mana Lanterns catching the wet glisten of their newly exposed chitinous frames.
The creatures were tall and spindly with tiny heads perched atop stick-thin chitin-covered bodies that supported two long and wickedly sharp arm claws, their overall appearance resembling some kind of nightmarish hybrid between oversized mosquitoes and praying mantises, and their four large angular wings were still coated in a gel-like substance that didn't appear particularly thick as the membranes unfolded and spread wide while the Bloatflies shook off the remnants of the translucent liquid still clinging to the wing surfaces.
The emerging mutants began detaching their legs from where they'd been anchored inside their cocoons, and the moment their heads swung toward the falling group and their compound eyes locked onto the movement, they shot forward with a speed that was completely at odds with how ungainly they looked, beelining straight for the descending climbers with their spindly limbs trailing behind them like streamers.
Though a handful of the Bloatflies never made it that far, either in emerging from their cocoons or reaching the group, chunks of rock and debris still raining down from where Leon had destroyed the tunnel floor above caught them mid-emergence or crushed those that had just poked their heads out to investigate the commotion.
The falling stone either smashed them back into their split cocoons, splattering reddish-green blood across the cavern walls, or sent others tumbling into the darkness below, either with wet thuds or splashes.
Shifting Bonehead's position from where he'd been dangling in Deacon's grip toward his back instead.
"Rearrange and strengthen your bones to hang onto me properly," Deacon called out to Bonehead.
Bonehead immediately responded by shouting "Backpack form, go!" and as the words left his skeletal jaw his entire body began to contort and reshape itself using his Bone Manipulation Racial Trait to transform into what resembled a camper's backpack, his arms becoming the shoulder straps that wrapped around Deacon's shoulders while his legs became the strap that secured around Deacon's midsection, and his skull twisted around to face the opposite direction from Deacon in order to watch his back and call out warnings, all while his alchemist robes reshaped themselves to fit his new form.
Throughout the entire transformation process, Bonehead simultaneously toughened and reinforced all of his bones to ensure they wouldn't break, crack, or snap from the forces they were about to be subjected to during the aerial combat.
The moment Deacon stopped feeling Bonehead's bones shifting and clicking into their new configuration, Echoform Reliquary shifted from its Double-Handed Axe form back into its dual short sword form, both blades immediately catching fire as Deacon cast Flame Armament across them.
Kicking off against the air itself and leaving a trail of flickering orange flames behind him, Deacon shot toward the nearest Bloatfly and sliced through its right claw and both of its right wings in a single diagonal slash before immediately darting toward the next closest Bloatfly and cutting it cleanly in half at its midsection.
"Dodge left!" Bonehead suddenly shouted from his position on Deacon's back, making Deacon immediately throw himself hard to the left without question, narrowly avoiding a basketball-sized glob of reddish-green liquid that shot past where his head had been moments before and struck a falling chunk of rock, immediately beginning to melt through the stone with an audible hissing sound.
Great, Deacon thought to himself with annoyance. Acid projectiles to deal with on top of everything else.
Kicking off the air to dart directly toward the Bloatfly that had just attacked him, Deacon jerked his head sharply to the side to dodge another acid ball that was spat at him from a different Bloatfly that had positioned itself beside the first attacker, and in the same fluid motion he threw his left short sword like a javelin directly at the second Bloatfly's head.
As the flaming blade sank deep into the creature’s skull, right between its compound eyes, with enough force that the tip punched out through the back of its head, the Bloatfly remained hovering in the air for a few seconds as though it were still processing what had happened.
By then, Deacon had already kicked forward through the air, driving his remaining right short sword deep into the throat of the Bloatfly in front of him, while his now-free left hand reached out to grab the hilt of his thrown sword just as the impaled Bloatfly’s wings began to falter and it started dropping from the sky.
Valorie, seeing that Deacon was dealing with the Bloatflies she had all but summoned with her exclamation, began to lessen the effects of her Wind Magic spell that had been slowing her and Leon’s descent.
This increased the speed at which they fell, as she trusted her twin brother to block any acid projectiles flung their way with his massive tower shield, while also trusting Deacon to keep drawing the Bloatflies’ attention and thinning their numbers before the twins reached the ground.
Landing heavily on solid stone just a few meters from the edge of a large body of water; now well lit enough to reveal that it was far larger than they had initially assumed when they first spotted the glow from above, which made sense given the height of their fall into near-pitch darkness, with only four Mana Lanterns barely penetrating the cavern, Leon and Valorie took a moment to assess their surroundings.
Meanwhile, Bloatfly corpses continued to rain down around the water’s perimeter, some still burning with orange flames from Deacon’s attacks.
Wisely holding her tongue to avoid jinxing the group by repeating the same words she had shouted just minutes earlier, before the Bloatflies had woken or in her mind spawned into existence, Valorie quickly unhooked her bow from where it had been secured around her neck and aimed upward into the darkness. Squinting, she picked out the faint silhouettes of the remaining Bloatflies still alive, tracking the trajectories of the acid globules they were spitting toward Deacon’s position, and began firing arrows to provide covering support.
After beheading the last Bloatfly that had been threatening the group and watching its body tumble down into the water below with a splash, Deacon angled his descent and landed just beside where Leon and Valorie were standing near the water's edge, immediately deactivating both Power Boost and his casting of Flame Art: Flame Steps as he couldn't detect anything else moving nearby with Blood Sense still active and scanning the area.
Seeing that his time serving as a backpack was apparently over, Bonehead began rearranging himself, reverting to his standard humanoid skeletal form. The moment his boots touched the ground, he immediately made a beeline for the greyish-green pond, a large empty barrel pulled from his Spatial Satchel clutched and held high above his head, not even bothering with small talk with anyone.
While Bonehead was busy collecting samples from various points along the pool’s edge for his own alchemical research, Deacon shook his head, then knelt at the water’s edge. With one hand, he began filling the Azure Water Reservoir, while with the other, he knocked back Stamina and Mana Potions in quick succession to replenish his depleted reserves.
Valorie, much like Deacon, was knocking back potions to replenish her reserves while refilling her quiver with arrows. Similarly, Leon had moved slightly away from the group and was channeling mana into his armor and shield to activate their self-repair enchantments, fixing the damage caused by falling rocks and the acid balls that had struck him while he protected his twin sister during their descent.
While filling his third barrel with the greyish-green water, standing in thigh-high levels, Bonehead suddenly felt something wrap around his left leg beneath the surface with immense strength. Before he could even yelp, he was violently yanked forward and dragged deeper into the dark and murky water.
As the aquatic mutant dragged Bonehead deeper into the pond with alarming speed and strength, he struggled to reach forward and free his left leg, but the force was too great. Thinking quickly, he used Bone Manipulation, restructuring the bones in the grabbed leg so that multiple sharp spikes erupted from the lower halves of his tibia and fibula like a spiked mace, puncturing straight through the webbed hands of whatever held him.
The mutant let out a gargled howl of pain, loosening its grip as the spiked bones piercing its hands continued to grow. Bonehead seized the momentary weakness, lunging forward through the water and wrapping both skeletal hands around what felt like the creature’s thick neck. He strangled it while simultaneously injecting the poisons he had been cultivating within Mycelial Grasp directly into its scaled skin.
Bonehead maintained his chokehold on the aquatic mutant’s neck as it thrashed violently in the water, trying to dislodge him, when suddenly a Damascus steel blade whistled past his face, missing his skull by mere centimeters, and pierced cleanly through the front of the mutant’s skull and out the back, killing it instantly.
Its grip on Bonehead’s leg went limp just as quickly as a squid’s would when struck at the base of its head.
Turning his skull around in the murky water to see who had delivered the killing blow, Bonehead found Deacon floating in the water just behind him with Echoform Reliquary in its Ulfberht form.
He also noticed that Deacon's eyes were visibly struggling to maintain the illusion his uncle had placed over Deacon’s eyes, the enchantment or spell flickering and revealing glimpses of the crimson slitted eyes beneath as Deacon fought to control a concoction of volatile emotions that were threatening to break the illusion.
Waving one hand in front of Deacon’s face to grab his attention and pull him out of whatever spiral he was falling into, Bonehead waited until Deacon’s eyes focused on him. He then gestured pointedly at Deacon’s face—and specifically his eyes—to indicate the problem and silently tell him to calm down.
The gesture after giving a once-over to see that Bonehead was unharmed caused Deacon to release a steady stream of twin bubble trails from his nose as he forced himself to calm down and allow the illusion over his eyes to stabilize.
Just as Bonehead was about to gesture upward to indicate they should head back to the surface, something in his peripheral vision caught his attention in the glow being cast by Deacon's Mana Lantern, still attached to his hip, and the faint luminescence from Esmerelda's Soul Bottle.
Almost entirely hidden behind thick curtains of swaying kelp was what appeared to be a statue of a bearded man clad in fur armor standing atop a chunk of worked stone that had been carved to mimic a cliff edge, the figure holding a bearded axe in one hand and a round shield in the other in what looked like a heroic pose.
Casting Identify on the statue out of idle curiosity caused Bonehead to immediately freeze for a second or two before he began frantically shaking Deacon's arm and pointing with his other hand in the direction of the hidden statue.
Confused by Bonehead's sudden, frantic reaction and becoming concerned and wary about what could have possibly caused such a response, Deacon followed the direction of Bonehead's frantically pointing index finger toward the curtains of kelp below them, staring at the dark vegetation confusedly for what felt like an eternity before his eyes finally picked out the statue partially obscured behind the swaying plants.
The moment Deacon's brain processed what he was actually looking at, his eyes immediately shot wide open along with his mouth, releasing a massive torrent of bubbles as air rushed out of his mouth.