DAY 121
MORNING
Breathing techniques are crucial in battle, but don’t breathe a word of this to the girls!
A FRONTIER DUNGEON
MY WEIGHT KER-VANISHED, and the earth’s gravitational pull on me ka-poofed, which made walking supremely ea—nope, it was quite difficult, actually. It might come as a surprise to some, but as it turned out, being able to put one’s weight down and push off on the ground was kinda essential to locomotion. I touched down as light as a feather and drifted forward only a feather’s worth. And, still like the similical feather, I would inevitably be blown entirely off course.
“How’d you get your hands on one of the beastfolk merch fans? You bought it yourself?! Well, hey, thanks for filling my coffers—I mean, stop fanning me with the damn thing! As a wise man once said, ‘I am not a fan!’ I would not like it with green eggs. I would not like it with hot legs. I would, however, like thick thighs; I do not care about their size. I would like legs that are quite long; I would like legs that are quite strong. I would like legs in twos or fours; I would like legs in scores and scores. I would like legs of every type, every color, and every stripe. That is, of course, except for pine, olive, moss, and garish lime. So drop the weapon in your hands—I do not like green legs and fans!”
Jiggle jiggle.
The corridors in this dungeon were pretty cramped, and that got me thinking. Mazes were impractical, and open spaces were open invitations to bumping my head on the ceiling, but maybe, just maybe, I could use Qing Qigong to Airwalk in this section of the dungeon.
“Ow! Okay, never mind. My HP took a huge hit from that.”
As it turned out, feathering the Qing Qigong off/on switch wasn’t the only trick I had to learn. I needed to be able to moderate the intensity of the move. Skills meant nothing unless I had them down pat. So, in the meantime, I shuffled down the hallway until I started sliding. Then I put the pedal to the metal, jumped and pirouetted twice in the air, and let my crowbarlike implement travel a triple loop around me. Weightlessly, I danced. With the Equilibrium Ear Cuff’s Sense of Equilibrium Stabilization (major) Trait, I intuitively sensed my various bits and bobs balancing themselves. I could sense how fast I was going! And boy, did the number on my internal speedometer make me dizzy!
“Yeah, I keep crashing ’cause I lose track of which way is up? Remember that time I Airwalked so hard I bonked my head on the ground? And then when I came to, I was lying upside down with my legs sticking straight up?”
Wriggle wriggle.
The key was to not make myself entirely weightless…which was the tricky part. The flittering and flickering feather imagery was necessary for dodging enemy attacks, but it was nigh impossible to walk in feather mode. Driven on by the need for a martial arts move that would enable me to walk weightlessly, to steer myself in buffeting gales, I twisted, I turned, and I flailed about in a frenzied forest of bristling spear stabs and sweeping crowbarlike cudgeling… Oof! I needed a break. Back came my weight, and back I went to bashing.
I used my Jupiter Eye to track gusts of moving air, thus allowing me to predict where they might toss me. What if I could be blown around by more than just wind? Magic had a kind of pressure too. If I used Entanglement and my various magical Skills, maybe I could prevent these unwanted elements from pushing me off-kilter.
I put my senses to work. I let them pick up on incoming stimuli and directed my reflexes to respond. I made magic push me around until I was dodging and dancing with the best of them. All I had to do was step right, and my magic pushed me right through my enemies without them ever landing a scratch on me. I wormed my way through gaps in the thicket of spears coming after me. I soared overhead and mowed down a line of foes in a single strike. The level 38 skeleton lancers all craned their bony necks to watch me pass. Craning craniums stretched out below me as far as the eye could see. And yet, even as I spoke, another force came crashing through the crowd, splintering skeletons into bits of bone and fragments of femur.
“That’s why you gotta keep your eyes on the battle. You never know when a scary saint will come along and polish you all off. Trust me—she was giving me a real scary death glare last night, and when I got my revenge, she, ah, came along all right…before eventually polishing my r—what I’m saying is, she’s trouble. You’re basically dead meat. Or not even that? ’Cause you’re skeletons? All righty now, going in for a landing.”
Aaaaand, touchdown. Perfect! I had my highspeed, complex maneuvering, corkscrew barrel-rolling into a landing down pat. I was a regular aerial ace! How come there wasn’t a ground crew on hand to cheer for my flawless landing?
Bobble bobble.
Ah, how could I forget Sir Slimey? Thank you, my good sir. You’re a gentleman of taste, as ever. And might I ask why Lady Saint wasn’t watching? I would’ve thought she’d appreciate observing my strikingly elegant and ephemeral figure, but evidently, Madam was otherwise occupied bludgeoning skeletons into bone meal!
“Aren’t saints supposed to purify undead monsters with Holy magic? Are you sure the church is cool with sadistic skeleton smashing?”
Mm-hmm!
She didn’t look like a saint to me, but rather just a bog-standard bone basher! To her credit, though, she may not have been radiating feminine charm right now, but she was undeniably of the womanly persuasion come nightfall. She was saintly innocence defined right up until she took her clothes off. Then she made me see angels in a whole other way!
“Ah yes, a saint gripping a long, thick pole… Déjà vu… Okay, but for real—why are you holding your weapon like you’re jerking it off?”
Her weapon, by the way, was a “Saint’s Sacred Staff: All stats +50%. Mana Control (major). Sacred Blade. Sacred Spear. Sacred Hammer. Sacred Axe. Sacred Spike. Sacred Knife. Sacred Club. Divine Magic. +ATT.” “Sacred staff” indeed. It was, for all intents and purposes, a halberd. It was a polearm with a magic blade on both ends that could double as a spearpoint, a bludgeoning weapon, or an axe head. It was like something out of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms whenever she brandished it overhead before charging into a fresh group of foes, leaving nothing but a little pile of bone fragments left in her wake.
“Got to, exterminate, undead! That’s the rules!”
“Yeah, so about that? The skeletons came back as level 38 calcium clusters. Not the most threatening, but hey—gotta get your vitamins somehow.”
Jiggle jiggle.
By the way, a halberd was a complex polearm that you could think of like a spear, axe, and hook all rolled into one. A single halberd could cut, stab, bash, and grab onto enemies. What can’t they do, am I right? Which raises the question…why does she need a blade at both ends?
“And who’s ever heard of a saint using a bludgeoning weapon? Much less a stabbing or hooking weapon! Here you are, prancing around and beating baddies however you please. What are you thinking?”
“All evil must, be destroyed. Right?”
Her halberd was heavy, too. Its long shaft gave every swing enormous centripetal force, but she never let that stop her. She wielded that thing like it weighed nothing, dancing with it with otherworldly grace. Her incredible magic and even more impressive control over it stacked enormous buffs on her. She had an innate sense of good balance between offense and defense, as well as an inherent need to kick ass.
Also an innate sense of horniness! Last night, my god, she’d even used Sex magic. I hadn’t noticed at first, being as I’d been able to nullify it, but I realized later when Jupiter Eye copied “Pleasuring” that it was a Sex magic technique. Naturally, that meant I had to try it for myself. The results were stupendous. I magnified the chain reaction of endless pleasure and brought all three girls to the point of collapse with that fearsome spell. The ahegaos, my lord… They were the lewdest I’d seen yet!
“These monsters, weak. Let’s go further. I’m strong! Let me do, the fighting!”
The skeletons were no match for Sleeping Beauty, clearly. I mean, it wasn’t rocket science—living suits of bone tended to shatter into a thousand pieces when a double-headed halberd came smashing into them at a trillion kilometers per hour. Still, I would’ve thought an army of the undead would’ve been the perfect opportunity to use Purification magic… That’s why I leaped into the fray and distracted all the skeletons by flying above them. That would’ve been the best opportunity to whip out a Purification spell and clean ’em up, right?
“But the only -cation you’re interested in is eradication.”
Between the resident assault-ready archmage and our smash-happy saint, I didn’t know which was worse. Goodbye, swords and sorcery! Hello, halberds and hammers! Elf Girl inclined toward swords and sensory-skilled precision strikes, Sleeping Beauty was a master of the harrowing halberd, and Vice Rep B hammered anything that stood still long enough. What happened to all the magic users?!
“I think I’m the only one who still uses magic… I don’t even have a magic-using job! Or any job! And I spend most of my time putting the trip in cantrip!”
Man, proper footwork was really the basis of everything, huh? All martial arts stemmed from some form of footwork. Without the right footwork, the frontier wouldn’t be standing, and we couldn’t walk the peaceful streets of that city with no name, dodging packs of caroming children as we went… Once again, forecasts called for heavy showers of orphans, with an orphan landslide warning not far behind.
Anyway! Off to the 39th floor! Here, I switched my focus from speed to footwork and watching my center of balance. Think, Haruka, think. Remember your nigh miraculous feetwork feat in dodging a hail of descending morning stars!
✦ ✦ ✦
