I slipped the axe-spear into my inventory, pulled out my Spaceball, and pitched it at the ugly slob as hard as I could.

Then I ran.

Crap, I thought, as I delved into the shadows. The boomerang effect! I might as well post a blazing neon sign with the words, “stupid hiding here,” over my head as—

Sparks interrupted my internal cursing and I looked over at the gorgon, shielding my eyes. For a moment, I didn’t know what I was looking at.

Then I gasped.

The spaceball had stuck to the guy. Or, more accurately, to the shimmering field around him.

Sparks flew everywhere as the ball attempted to burrow through the magical barrier and into his shoulder, to no avail. It seemed to be caught in a kind of limbo, unable to penetrate or retreat. When the gorgon grabbed at it, it slipped from his shielded fingers like a slippery stone and began to spin around his torso, his waist, his neck. It looked like a sputtering bubble floating around on the surface of a man-shaped pond. And the worst part, it didn’t seem to harm the jerk at all.

That was unexpected. And extremely disappointing.

I opened my chat app.

Jack: Sonofabitch took my ball.

Yuri: Looks like some protective magic and spacial energies don’t mix well.

Jack: Where are you?

Yuri: Went to reinitiate a link with my MOD. Are you good?

Jack: Seriously?

Yuri: I’ll be back with help. You got this.

The gorgon let out a few hissy laughs as he stomped around, shooting globs of acid mouth scum randomly at shadows.

From back here I could assess him properly. He was huge, like nine feet tall or something, and super strong. He probably had enough mass on him to equal four or five hog-goblins. That was a lot of gorgon to deal with, but it made him slow. Really slow. Like every step was a chore, slow. As long as I stayed in the dark and kept moving, he’d—

“Where are you, tiny wizard boy?” said the gorgon in his slithery, wet voice. “I have your ball toy. I think it hasss taken a liking to me.” Gurgling laughter came out of his gaping maw just before he started slinging more of that deadly spit.

I opened my Notes app and, with the fury of a hundred Karens, dictated a note to LES.

Note to LES:

Jack: I’d like to file an official complaint with whomever came up with the naming convention and descriptions of Spacialist weapons at LEIE. Nowhere did it mention this bullshit. Also, antimatter and blackholes my ass.

The ball continued to swim around the beast, encasing him in harmless sparks. I also noticed the little lantern he was coddling seemed to be reacting to the ball, it’s tiny flame dancing around in a frenzy as if someone was ramping it’s gas up and down.

And then it dawned on me.

That lantern.

It was somehow important, if not vital, to maintaining that shield. That’s why he was keeping it so close to him. It wasn’t for light. It only emitted as much as a single match.

I received a notification that LES had replied. His note appeared just below mine in the Notes Tab.

LES:

Thank you for your comment. Your complaint has been filed in the appropriate, digital waste basket. How about focusing on not dying instead of being a whiny little bitch? Figure it out. Adapt.

This is why I rarely reached out to the A.I. for help. Have to admit, though, that was good advice.

Note to LES:

Jack: Is that lantern the source of the shield’s power?

LES:

Wow, first you complain about your weapons, which are pretty bad-ass by the way. Now you’re trying to squeeze answers out of me in the middle of a fight? Not gonna happen, slick. You’re on your own.

The gorgon, only about ten feet away now, took a tentative step in my direction. It spit into the dark, spit again, missing me by inches.

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap continued to play, pounding in the back of my mind, as the sound of sizzling rock filled the darkness. I could smell the melting rock too. Smelled like pennies.

Still squatting, I pulled out a crunch grenade. Let’s see if you do any better, little guy, I thought, as I reared back and chucked the marble.

The ball hit the gorgon square in the forehead. But instead of triggering it’s beautiful blue sphere, the ball exploded into a dozen pieces with a heart-thumping POP!

I blinked, stunned. Did that really just happen? Apparently crunch grenades didn’t react very well to magic shields either. Damn that gorgon and his little lantern. He was totally bustin’ my balls. Literally.

The gorgon’s shield protected him but the impact still knocked him backward. Probably gave the guy a solid whiplash, too. The gorgon landed hard on his ass and rolled onto his back with a hissy roar. The little lantern tumbled away, sliding into a rocky crevice about fifteen feet from where he came to lay.

“Nooo,” he shouted, stretching a wobbly arm for it. “My lantern. Aaarg. Curssse you wizard scum!”

And that, ladies and gents, was my cue.

I jumped up and ran towards the lantern, slipping only once in a pile of gravel before approaching the crevice. The crack in the wall was just wide enough for me to slip in sideways.

I glanced back at the gorgon, who was slowly getting up, yelling and spitting in that foreign snake language, before I turned my full attention to the lantern. The glass in it was already cracked from the fall, but the flame still flickered. I pulled out a crunch grenade, slammed it down. The ball whomped into a blue sphere then imploded, taking a good chunk of rock as it came back into marble form. But to my surprise, the lantern still lay there, now in a small, rocky crater.

Note to LES:

Seriously? This is cheating!

LES:

...

I stomped on it, shattering the rest of the glass. Stomped on it again, and again, but it did nothing to extinguish that pesky little flame.

“Ah, come on,” I said as my boot caught on fire. I hissed a curse and patted it out.

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap …

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap …

The gorgon hissed as he found his footing. The flame, as small as it was, somehow illuminated the entire crevice. He looked right at me and screamed.

A deadly, black glob splattered on the rocks over my head as I tried to blow the flame out. I ducked down covering myself. A drop fell on my cheek and I yelped, trying to wipe it off. A few curses later, I grabbed the lantern and stood up to run, when an idea hit me.

Another glob of spit smacked the rocks over my head. I covered my face to avoid the splatter, then moved under a prominent glob hanging from the edge of the crevice.

I held the lantern up just as the slimy liquid dripped. It landed directly onto the flame. The fire went out with a fwip, and the lantern crumbled into dust in my hands.

I looked back at the gorgon. The shimmering shield around him had vanished. My spaceball zoomed back, slapping my palm like a brick and nearly spinning me around.

The crevice wasn’t wide enough for me to escape around the gorgon. I’d let him get too close. A couple more steps and he’d have me.

I cocked my arm back, ready to pop the guy with the spaceball when something hit the gorgon from the side, knocking him over.

I stepped out of the crevice to see the silhouette of Yuri’s MOD on top of the gorgon’s belly, straddling him, and pummeling him in the face.

Whack, whack, whack.

I tip-toed out of the crevice. It was too dark to see much, having lost the sparks and lantern, but the party from the other side of the cavern shed a little light on the dueling pair.

As I approached, the gorgon got a grip of the MOD’s throat. The snake-man let out a screaming hiss, then crushed the MOD’s airway with a single squeeze. Then, for good measure, the gorgon spit a glob up into the MOD’s face.

The MOD, valiant as he was, kept swinging as his face slowly melted, dripping onto the gorgon, never wavering or showing any sign of pain.

We really were blowing through these MODs super fast, I thought, as the gorgon tossed the dead body to the side.

I pulled out my spaceball and stepped up to the gorgon, nudging the top of his head with my boot.

“Hey there,” I said.

He looked up at me and let out a raw gurgling scream as I slammed the ball with two hands down into his face.

He withered and screamed and grabbed onto my clothes, yanking me this way and that. But I held true. His skin wobbled around like a tub of Jello having a seizure in an earthquake.

The gorgon only gave up after I’d pushed the ball through to the center of his brain. After that, both his arms fell limp with two loud, thump, thumps.

Notification

Congratulations!

You just killed a Gorgon Mage, Master of Finance.

Ooooweee! That was a fun ride, wasn’t it? They don’t move very fast, but, man, these bubble butts can sure dish it out. Am I right?

This particular Gorgon had a special job. He was responsible for the Church’s financial ledgers in the Rockwallow Hollow region. Someone’s going to be really pissed about losing their Master of Finance.

You’ve earned 30 experience points. These points will expire within 48 hours if not allocated to a locked ability.

You’ve earned an I HATE SNAKES reward chest.

Our estimated survival rate for you has increased by 2%.

Your Spaceball has reached level 2. The speed of the boomerang effect has doubled.

I slipped my spaceball into my inventory then sat back on a rock, breathing hard. I could feel my heart pounding in my arms and stomach. I also obtained some nasty scratch marks on my neck and face, all of which only now started to sting.

Then I got a chat notification.

Notification

Chat Alert

Yuri: Jack, behind you!

Jack: What?

I turned to find seven hog-goblins standing there, mostly shrouded in shadow, just watching me.

“Oh,” I said.

One of them started to slow-clap as I stood up.

“We came to see what the light show was all about,” said the clapping hog.

“Looks like you was having a party without us,” said another.

Another hog tisked, tisked a few times, shaking his head.

I sighed, and pulled my spaceball back out as the fading AC/DC song was replaced with snorting laughter.