Ignis swung down, down towards the Chailong Warrior. For a moment, Isabelle wondered to herself if Ignis was really aware of how wild it was that she had literally changed her mind with a speech check. Then again, that was just the day to day of life in Beaubinte, at least as Isabelle knew it. But still, Ignis was a dragon. It was kind of a mind fuck.
As they passed, the warrior's crystalline body shot past, inches from Isabelle's face. She slammed the flat of the frying pan against it.
[Critical hit]
[Chailong Warrior -1 hp]
[No spells stolen]
"NOW!" said Isabelle dramatically as she sigh and rolled her eyes. Why did she even need to tell Ignis? Ignis should just know. What a silly dragon.
Ignis opened her maw and a torrent of fire, pure and concentrated, erupted forth. It didn't hit the Chailong Warrior. It hit the frying pan.
For a split second, nothing happened. The fire washed over the metal, which glowed cherry red, then white hot.
[Shadow event: Energy Channel]
[Mana 420%]
And then, the magic happened.
Isabelle's shadow magic, imbued in the pan, met Ignis's fire breath, and in a moment the shadows were surrounding them both.
Isabelle knew, intrinsically and thanks to her high wis and int scores, that this would only last as long as Ignis was breathing fire. And Isabelle wasn't certain of her party member's breath weapon's casting duration, so it could functionally end at any second.
With that in mind, she thought 'Cast Quantum Disentanglement Beam.' And she did. The energy she'd channeled from Ignis's fire, amplified by her own magic, surged into the spell. There was no beam, no grand display. The frying pan simply began to hum, a low, thrumming vibration that resonated in her very bones. The handle grew hot, dangerously so, but she held on.
[Mana 209%]
The beam that shot out of the frying pan was not red like the Chailong Warrior's. It was a swirling vortex of black and crimson, a miniature singularity of pure destructive energy. And it was aimed directly at the spot on the Chailong Warrior's body where her frying pan had made contact.
The beam hit. There was no explosion. There was only the absence of things. The spot where the beam hit simply ceased to be. A perfect, clean hole appeared in the Chailong Warrior's torso. The crystalline structure around the hole fractured, cracks of black light spreading like a disease.
Inside the creature, something small and bright flickered.
Its core.
[Critical hit]
[Chailong Warrior -10000 hp]
['Chailong Warrior' is dead]
[Obtained 'Raw Essence' x5000]
"FUCK YEA MOTHERFUCKER!" said Isabelle.
"Oh my gods," said Ignis with a sigh. "We'll never hear the end of this, will we?"
"Fuck no you won't," said Isabelle. Then, she rethought it. Did she go around telling everyone she'd slain dragons and giants and beaten the Overlord and such? Then, Isabelle rethought her own rethinking of things. She definitely told everyone all of those things. She relished it.
Isabelle focused on the dead warrior as they soared through the air, circling around it like a dragon-shaped vulture.
[Loot 'Chailong Warrior'?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought yes.
Inventory: Chailong Warrior
Chailong Core
+5 carry weight
Chailong Warrior Shard x5
+40 str, +40 wis, +10 carry weight
Gold (50000)
Well, that wasn't too bad. Isabelle took everything.
Inventory: Chailong Warrior
n/a
With that, Isabelle and Ignis noticed that the other Chailong Warriors, of which there were quite a few, were all focusing on them. It seemed that Tahsi Senior and Tahsi Junior were having trouble continuing to distract them after a flaming donut of Tahsi's got a bit too close to one of them, and that warrior had responded with a powerful red beam that had vaporized the kobold's entire pastry-based fortress.
"My son! My donut!" said Tahsi Senior.
"Dad, I'm fine!" said Tahsi Junior, who was now clinging to his father's leg.
"They're all looking at us," said Ignis with a huff.
"I can see that," said Isabelle. "Now, get ready to do that again, you scaly cunt."
"I'm not a-"
"Shut the fuck up," said Isabelle.
Isabelle's inventory had increased to 5000 units of Raw Essence. And then, she remembered she was also still in the midst of an active quest.
[Updated: Go To The Horns]
The quest had been a simple one, from what she remembered. All she had to do was head to 'The Horns,' which was a region outside of Thres, from what she remembered. It was a strange place, she'd heard, full of giants and strange beasts. But at the moment, there was nothing that could be more interesting than what was going on right here.
And then, an idea struck her. Maybe she didn't need to keep fighting. Maybe she could just use her newly acquired Raw Essence to level up to the point where she could cast the Quantum Disentanglement Beam without needing to channel it through her frying pan? Was 5000 Raw Essence enough to achieve that ultimate goal?
[Clarification: Probably not. You currently have 723 mana. You got 420 percent of that with your channeling technique, which would equal a little over 3,000 mana. You used about 1500 or so mana to cast the spell. Do you genuinely think 5000 Raw Essence is enough to level up to the point that you could manage to amass 1500+ mana?]
Isabelle sighed and rolled her eyes.
"Okay, Ignis. Either we pivot and try and take em all on, or we get the fuckedy fuck out of dodge," said Isabelle. "What do you think?"
"I think you should have listened to me in the first place," said Ignis with a huff.
"Right, well, that's not an option, is it?" said Isabelle.
"No," said Ignis with a sigh. "But we can't fight them all. We'll get swarmed. Even if we take down one or two more, it's not a sustainable strategy."
"Okay," said Isabelle. "Then we get the fuck out of dodge."
"I thought you'd never see reason," said Ignis with a huff.
"We're not leaving," said Isabelle. "I'm just saying we get out of their immediate line of sight, come up with a better plan."
Ignis growled, a low, frustrated sound. "What better plan could there possibly be? We have one weapon that works, and it uses my fire breath as a battery! I can't breathe fire forever, you know!"
"Then we just have to be more efficient," said Isabelle. "We won't fight them all at once. We'll pick them off, one by one. We'll use the terrain to our advantage."
"The terrain is a flat, grey, lifeless hellscape," said Ignis.
"Exactly," said Isabelle. "No cover. No distractions. Just us and them. And we have something they don't."
"What's that?" said Ignis.
"A brain," said Isabelle. "And a frying pan."
[Ignis is not impressed]
[Speech attempt: persuade]
"Come on, Ignis, don't be such a killjoy," said Isabelle. "Think of the Raw Essence. Think of the numbers going up. Think of the look on Stelas Stelford's face when I show up with enough power to turn his severed head into a fine red mist."
[Speech succeeded]
"Fine," said Ignis with a huff. "But if I die, I'm taking your frying pan with me."
"It's a deal," said Isabelle.
"Alright, what's the plan, then?" said Ignis.
"We need a distraction," said Isabelle. "Something big. Something that will draw their attention away from us." She wanted to get the attention of the Tahsis, but they seemed completely wound up over the fact that, apparently, one of the Chailong Warriors had taken to eating their makeshift bread weapons. It was disturbing to watch the warrior's long, impossibly geometric arms absorb the bread and dissolve it like an amoeba, but Isabelle couldn't help but laugh at how confused the Tahsis were over whether they ought to be happy or upset over this development. On one hand, there was pride, and on the other was the fear for their lives.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Isabelle suddenly remembered something in her inventory that might help the cause. She knew that she could probably just quickly switch it on, but she missed looking at her inventory, so she opened it up instead of cutting it short. After all, Isabelle hadn't used this item or even thought about it in a long time. Some context would be nice, she figured.
Inventory: Isabelle
Carrying capacity: 448.4/525
Overlord’s Sending Stone
+1 carry weight
Focus to see more items...
Ah yes, there it was. Isabelle would have to rename it to 'Isabelle's Sending Stone' when she got the chance. If that was possible.
[Clarification: That is possible, but only outside of combat mode, and is usually done when your shadow magic corrupts something due to your usage.]
Interesting. So Isabelle's shadow magic would corrupt her items? But her katana hadn't been corrupted, it was still useable. In fact, her katana was more powerful than ever.
[Clarification: You are conflating two different mechanisms that are on a spectrum yet are often viewed in Beaubinte as a dichotomy. The corruption that seemingly destroyed your inventory in the past was an extreme form of systemic data damage. The corruption from your shadow magic is more akin to traces of your power seeping into items you use heavily while also using shadow magic. It's a lesser-known property of your unique class and, proportionally speaking, is a more than safe amount of 'corruption.']
Isabelle thought that was interesting, and she definitely wanted to learn more later. But now wasn't later, now was the time for action, damn it!
[Equipped Overlord’s Sending Stone]
Isabelle held the stone to her mouth like a microphone and focused her energy on talking to the Tahsis.
"Tahsi! Tahsi Junior! Hey, you bread obsessed freaks, it's me, Isabelle!" said Isabelle.
"Oh, hi Isabelle," said Tahsi Senior through chomps of a donut. "Surely you see what we're dealing with here."
"Yea, yea, whatever," said Isabelle.
"Is there anything we can do for you? Because, well, we're in a bit of a jam," said Tahsi Senior.
"Yea, I can see that," said Isabelle. "So look, I need a huge distraction, you two. The biggest you can make."
"Oh," said Tahsi Senior. "Well, I suppose we could use the emergency baguette. But it's a very, very last resort."
"What's the emergency baguette?" said Isabelle. "What does it do?"
"It's a very, very big baguette," said Tahsi Senior. "It's a family heirloom. Baked by my great-great-great-great-great-grandkobold. It's meant for the apocalypse. It’s got a really good crust."
"And you think it'll distract a bunch of geometric death machines?" said Isabelle.
"Well, its existence is a paradox," said Tahsi Senior. "A loaf of bread that is simultaneously perfectly crusty and impossibly fluffy on the inside. It violates the laws of baking. Maybe it'll violate the laws of their weird geometry, too."
"It's worth a shot," said Tahsi Junior. "Throw the emergency baguette, Dad!"
Tahsi Senior hesitated, looking at the enormous loaf he pulled from his inventory. It was the size of a small cannon and shimmered with a golden-brown light that seemed to defy the grey emptiness around it.
"Alright," he said, his voice trembling with reverence and fear. "For the love of carbs and all that is holy... for the love of all that is flaky and delicious... BREADUCCI!"
He hoisted the emergency baguette onto his shoulder and, with a mighty grunt that strained every muscle in his small kobold body, he hurled it towards the center of the Chailong Warrior formation.
The loaf sailed through the air in a perfect, majestic arc. For a moment, the world held its breath. Then, it hit the ground.
There was no explosion. No shockwave. There was only a silent, expanding ripple of pure, unadulterated breadness. The air filled with the scent of warm yeast and butter. The grey ground shimmered, turning a temporary, impossible shade of golden-brown.
The Chailong Warriors froze. Every single one of them, including the ones firing at Ignis and Isabelle, stopped mid-action. Their faceted heads turned, not towards the Tahsis, but towards the epicenter of the baguette's impact. They were... intrigued. Their perfect, logical minds could not process the sheer culinary audacity of what they had just witnessed.
"By the gods," Ignis whispered. "It worked."
"These unspeakable, geometrical horrors better not eat that bread," said Tahsi Senior as he equipped a loaf of rye and took a hearty chomp. "I want it back when this battle is over."
"Dad!" said Tahsi Junior as he groaned.
The Chailong Warriors, however, were still transfixed. The bread seemed to be establishing within them almost a strange sort of... reverence.
"Now!" Isabelle yelled. "While they're mesmerized by the holy bread! Let's go!"
Ignis didn't need to be told twice. She folded her wings and dove, a shadowy arrow aimed at the perimeter of the mesmerized geometric army. The wind whistled past them, a frantic, high-pitched scream. They were going for the outlier, the one furthest from the bread-zone.
"It's still paying attention to the bread!" Ignis said.
"Great, but I don't care!" Isabelle said. "Just get me close!"
Ignis skimmed the ground, her claws kicking up plumes of grey dust. Isabelle held her breath, the frying pan clutched tight. The Chailong Warrior was a towering monolith of crystalline absurdity, its facets shimmering with a light that was both beautiful and terrifying.
"Get ready for the fire!" Ignis said with a roar.
She didn't slow down. Instead, she let out a controlled burst of fire, a stream of liquid flame that washed over Isabelle's frying pan. The shadow magic flared, a temporary, volatile alliance of fire and darkness.
[Shadow event: Energy Channel]
[Mana 420%]
"Time for round two, you geometric son of a bitch!" said Isabelle.
She swung the frying pan, not as a weapon, but as a focus. She channeled the stolen spell, the Quantum Disentanglement Beam, through the conduit of fire-infused shadow magic.
[Mana 209%]
The beam of black and crimson energy shot out, a silent scream of un-making. It struck the Chailong Warrior, and again, there was no explosion, only the erasure of existence. A perfect, clean hole appeared in its crystalline chest, and from within, its core flickered and died.
[Critical hit]
[Chailong Warrior -10000 hp]
['Chailong Warrior' is dead]
[Obtained 'Raw Essence' x5000]
[Raw Essence total: 10000]
The Chailong Warrior's form dissolved, not into dust, but into a shower of glittering, geometric particles that were immediately swept away by the wind.
"Two for two!" said Isabelle with a laugh. "This is fucking awesome, I am such a fucking badass."
"I think you mean WE," said Ignis with a huff.
"Oh, boo hoo. You didn't even want to do this," said Isabelle, sighing and rolling her eyes. Then, she stopped. "Let's save the bickering for when all these fucking warriors are dead."
Below them, the Tahsis were still watching, their mouths agape.
"I don't believe it," said Tahsi Senior. "They're... they're doing it."
"They're unstoppable," said Tahsi Junior. "And so is the emergency baguette."
The Chailong Warriors were still transfixed by the bread, but some of them were starting to stir. Their heads were tilting, their limbs twitching. The bread's hold on them was weakening.
"Okay, we need to pick up the pace," said Ignis.
"I know," said Isabelle. "But I have a question. You think it would have been possible for me to do what I'm doing with my frying pan using my katana instead?"
"I don't know," said Ignis with a huff. "Maybe. But your katana is a sword, not a pan. It's designed for cutting, not for channeling fire and shadow magic to create a death ray."
"Fair point," said Isabelle. "Now, let's go for another one."
They soared through the air, a deadly duo of dragon and shadow mage. The next Chailong Warrior was still mesmerized, its form frozen in a state of bread-induced reverence.
"This is almost too easy," said Isabelle.
"Don't jinx it," said Ignis.
Ignis dove again, a blur of crimson and shadow. She breathed fire, and Isabelle channeled her magic. The Quantum Disentanglement Beam shot out, and another Chailong Warrior was erased from existence.
[Critical hit]
[Chailong Warrior -10000 hp]
['Chailong Warrior' is dead]
[Obtained 'Raw Essence' x5000]
[Raw Essence total: 15000]
Isabelle laughed, a wild, unhinged sound. "Three for three! The numbers are going up, Ignis! The numbers are going up!"
"You're going to get us deleted from existence," said Ignis with a groan, but there was a hint of admiration in her voice.
"Hey, don't look at me," said Isabelle. "Blame the Chailong Warriors for being so goddamn lootable."
And with that, the remaining Chailong Warriors seemed to finally break free from their trance. Their heads snapped towards them, their limbs raising to fire their beams.
"Oh, shit," said Ignis.
"It's fine," said Isabelle. "We've still got the element of surprise. They don't know we've been picking them off."
"I think they do now," said Ignis with a huff.
The Chailong Warriors opened fire, a barrage of red and blue beams that filled the air.
"Dodge!" said Isabelle.
Ignis banked hard, her wings beating frantically. The beams shot past them, missing by inches.
"This is bad," said Ignis. "We're out in the open. We can't keep this up."
"We don't have to keep this up for long," said Isabelle. "I just need a little more Raw Essence."
She checked her Raw Essence count. 15000. Was it enough?
[Clarification: Are you serious?]
"Okay, fine," said Isabelle. "Maybe a little more."
They dodged and weaved, a dance of death and destruction. The Chailong Warriors were relentless, their beams a constant threat. But for every near-miss, there was a counter-attack. And for every counter-attack, there was a Chailong Warrior that was erased from existence.
[Critical hit]
[Chailong Warrior -10000 hp]
['Chailong Warrior' is dead]
[Obtained 'Raw Essence' x5000]
[Raw Essence total: 20000]
[Critical hit]
[Chailong Warrior -10000 hp]
['Chailong Warrior' is dead]
[Obtained 'Raw Essence' x5000]
[Raw Essence total: 25000]
[Critical hit]
[Chailong Warrior -10000 hp]
['Chailong Warrior' is dead]
[Obtained 'Raw Essence' x5000]
[Raw Essence total: 30000]
The air was a chaotic mess of beams and fire and shadow. The ground was a cratered wasteland. The sky was a swirling vortex of death and destruction. And through it all, there was the emergency baguette, a beacon of hope and carbs in a world gone mad.
Isabelle was laughing, a crazed, joyous sound. She was in her element. She was a predator, and the Chailong Warriors were her prey. They were just numbers on a screen, just loot to be collected. And she was going to collect them all.
"We're almost there!" said Ignis.
"Just a few more!" said Isabelle.
[Critical hit]
[Chailong Warrior -10000 hp]
['Chailong Warrior' is dead]
[Obtained 'Raw Essence' x5000]
[Raw Essence total: 35000]
There were only a handful of Chailong Warriors left. They were a desperate, cornered enemy. They fought with a renewed fury, their beams a constant, oppressive presence.
But it was too late. They had already lost. They just didn't know it yet.
[Critical hit]
[Chailong Warrior -10000 hp]
['Chailong Warrior' is dead]
[Obtained 'Raw Essence' x5000]
[Raw Essence total: 40000]
One by one, they fell. Each one a victory, each one a step closer to Isabelle's goal. The numbers were going up. The world was her oyster.
[Critical hit]
[Chailong Warrior -10000 hp]
['Chailong Warrior' is dead]
[Obtained 'Raw Essence' x5000]
[Raw Essence total: 45000]
[Critical hit]
[Chailong Warrior -10000 hp]
['Chailong Warrior' is dead]
[Obtained 'Raw Essence' x5000]
[Raw Essence total: 50000]
And then, there was only one left.
It stood alone, a solitary figure in a sea of geometric particles. It was the last of its kind, the final boss of this ridiculous, unexpected side quest. It turned its faceted head towards them, its form shimmering with a defiant light.
"This is it," said Ignis.
"This is it," said Isabelle.
"This is it," said Tahsi Senior as he equipped a loaf of challah bread. "My freshest challah bread. Eat of this, my son, and fortify yourself with an hp and stm boost."
"Ok, thanks dad," said Tahsi Junior.
"Can I get some of that?" said Isabelle as she called from above.
"Sure," said Tahsi Senior. "Only, well... Why don't you finish off the last Warrior first?"
She felt a surge of power, a wave of pure, unadulterated energy. The Raw Essence was coursing through her, a river of power waiting to be unleashed. She had more than enough. She could cast the spell on her own, without Ignis's help. She could end this, right here, right now.
And then, the warrior made a horrible gurgling sound. It was dreadful. It made Isabelle's ears pop.
"Ew, what the fuck," said Isabelle.
"I don't like the sound of this," said Ignis with a huff.
In a flash, the warrior morphed and grew twenty times larger, and with four times as many deadly looking arms!
Isabelle focused on the foe.
['Chailong Berserker']
"Oh, what the fuckedy fuck is this?" said Isabelle with a sigh.
And worse still, this Chailong Berserker seemed completely uninterested in the Tahsis' bread-based distraction. It was focused solely on Isabelle and Ignis, and it rumbled with a rage that made one thing clear: it was out for blood.
