Book 2, Chapter 6: Taunting Death

[Alen]

“Shit!” Alen shouted, feeling the all too familiar ache of mana exhaustion slowly starting to set in as his reserves dropped below forty percent. He hurriedly brought up his AutoBone once again, the Galeboat they were riding shuddering and groaning as explosions and crossbow bolts pelted the area around them. The boat swerved, and Alen gritted his teeth as the seatbelt dug into his skin to keep him on, the earth to the left bursting in a geyser of sand meant to turn their boat over and stop their retreat.

Lights flashed all around him, while the sky felt as if it held five suns as the powerful lights the Cava’tal had launched just a few minutes ago gave them day-like vision in a massive radius. It stretched as far as two kilometers, but Alen had found out all too badly that the scaly motherfuckers had more than a single volley of those lights in stock.

The design within his system application finished, and Alen felt more of his mana drain from him as he poured it into six separate shards of bone in order to fuel the growth-process of the purple strands. Lynn was standing beside him, sweat running down her face as she fired arrow after arrow, targeting the pilots of the ships instead of using her powerful elemental shots in order to preserve mana. It was no use destroying a single boat for that cost with a fleet this massive. Roland was desperately carving runes into a handful of objects as he piloted the boat, glancing behind them every few seconds in order to pull the boat out of the way of the Cava’tal’s endless attacks.

Alen ground his teeth and felt a crunch. There was even sand in his mouth. This only served to fuel his anger as he took the bone shards and slipped them into the sand below, peeking his head out from the rim of the boat to monitor the chase behind them.

Suddenly, as a boat passed, the sand below it erupted as spikes of bone as thick as a man’s arm tore holes into its hull.

The boat grinded to a halt, and another Galeboat crashed into it, sending the area of the fleet into a momentary fluster as boat after boat swerved to the side and inadvertently collided with other Galeboats, giving Roland some breathing room to open the side sails in order to increase their speed while their foes took the time to readjust. They were given only a few seconds though. Alen threw out teeth from his pouch, bone wolves forming mid-air and leaping into the boats of the Cava’tal fleet and wreaking havoc.

An arrow was loosed and planted itself into the long neck of one of the lizardmen. The scaly pilot gurgled out blood from his mouth and fell, dead as the Galeboat fell out of control and smashed against the one to its right.

Roland threw a disk to the ground and caused a large cloud of dust to rise up and obscure them from view as he swerved the boat behind a large spire of rock and continued onwards. The spire blocked the light and sent the fleet into a momentary confusion, but Alexandrius merely snorted and directed the fleet into their direction. If the Cava’tal didn’t know how this trick worked, how could they carry themselves so proudly in the Sandsea? They would be safe for a few more minutes. Afterwards, his fleet would stop them and take what was rightfully his.

Roland cursed. “We need another way! Going into that village isn’t going to help us with anything! At most, we’ll only be endangering the residents. Lynn, check the map for another way!”

The elf tossed her bow down and rummaged through her pack to bring out a map. She spread it across the seat and identified where they were currently at. Yellowrock, Grainstead, Yarrowstone… Nothing. Their best hope would be to make for the Maelstrom of Dust, but that would take them two days to even reach the outer perimeter. Her shoulders sagged, her lips trembling as she looked back at Roland.

“Unless we use the villages to stall them… there’s nothing we can do.”

The warrior had a grim look on his face, blood running down his cheek from where a stray crossbow bolt had cut him. “This is my fault,” He said.

Alen frowned at him. “Don’t be a dumbass. This fuckup had nothing to do with you.”

“Those alarm runes,” Roland sighed. “They weren’t there to just alarm the camp like most. Those were probably carved by a skilled engraver. When we crossed them, it alerted the entire fleet. I didn’t imagine that they would have something like that. This is on me.”

“Que sera sera,” Alen said, wincing as he dabbed healing salve onto a wound on his forearm, the situation prompting a change in his usually joking way of speech. “Doesn’t matter. Stop blaming yourself like an insecure teenager and focus on reliably saving our asses like you always have.”

Roland gave him a long look. “Okay,” He said, then sucked in a breath.

“I have a plan.”

“I can’t fucking believe your plan is ‘threaten and piss off the murder-hobo lizard and hope for the best’. We are unbelievably fucked. Lynn, just shoot me with an arrow right now and get this over with,” Alen said as he stood still in the middle of a desert canyon, the new Galeboat anchored to the sand behind them as he stared at the slowly rising sun. Just a few hundred meters away from their location, a large cloud of dust was kicked up as Alexandrius’s fleet blocked the entrance to the canyon and steadily approached them.

“I’d rather not waste an arrow on you,” Lynn said, a nervous look shrouding her face.

“Well, I’m sure Alexandrius’s men are all too eager to try and do just that. I’d rather you give me my first penetration, yeah? I’m not a fan of group impalement.”

Despite the situation, she smiled weakly. “Those bolts do hurt, don’t they?”

“Right? Be gentle when you do it please,” Alen joked, nervously touching the scar on his palm.

Roland in front of them stood calmly, a grim look on his face as he stared at the approaching fleet. “They’re coming. Alen, get ready.”

Lynn nodded and walked back to the boat, readying her bow. Alen wiped a drop of cold sweat from his brow and stepped forward to stand beside Roland as the fleet approached. Finally, seeing that they had stopped, Alexandrius’s main ship stopped just a few meters ahead. The bloody-scaled lizardman jumped down from the boat and began to stride towards them, every step seeming to radiate a suffocating pressure that was so heavy it almost caused Alen to bend his back.

Was this… was this how much stronger the mana in Alexandrius’s body was compared to his?

The necromancer shakily brought out a folded piece of paper and held it in one hand. He raised the arm and pointed it towards Alexandrius, the piece of paper dangling from his fingers. He opened his other hand and had it hover just below the parchment. Immediately, with the sound of air being sucked in, a large amount of mana surged into Alen’s hands as Rotflame covered the entirety of his forearm and roared, singing the very tip of the paper.

“…We’re here to make a deal,” Alen swallowed down the stutter creeping up his throat. His back was drenched with sweat. The person in front of him was exuding such a powerful aura of impending death that the pressure the Ghoulbear had given him his first time fighting one was a trifling breeze compared to the raging maelstrom standing before him.

Alexandrius came to a stop in front of him, before he opened his mouth and slowly spoke. “And what makes you think I’ll agree?”

In response, the Rotfire surged, burning away at an even larger piece of the paper. The crimson-scaled lizardman gazed calmly at him, as if he cared not whether the parchment in the necromancer’s hands burned to ashes right in front of him.

Roland’s eyes sharpened as Alexandrius’s hand moved, and Alen flinched as the lizardman calmly grabbed his arm, the Rotfire doing nothing to his seemingly blood-drenched scales. “I can cut off this arm and take back that paper in your hands before you can even blink once. Let me ask you again. What makes you think I’ll negotiate with a weakling like you?”

In response, Alen’s emerald eyes glowed brightly, almost all of his mana surging out of his body into the dozens of strings of mana connected to him. Numerous spikes of bone exploded out from the cliffside, turning a terrifying black-green mid-flight as the searing decay of Rotflame covered the spears of enamel. They stopped just a few inches away from Alexandrius, the flames absorbing the light of the sunrise and seeming to bathe the area in a deathly darkness.

“Because I’ll make sure I blink at least twice before you can fucking kill me,” Alen glared at the lizardman, his emerald eyes staring straight into the golden pupils of the mighty foe before him.

The two stared at the other for a long time. Seeing that Alexandrius wasn’t going to make a move, and even looked like he was willing to listen, Roland stepped forward. “I can promise you that piece of paper will not survive a clash between our two parties, no matter how large the gap between us is.”

“You’re severely overestimating yourself,” Alexandrius scoffed, but the hint of praise was in his golden pupils as he assessed them carefully, taking the orange-haired warrior’s words into careful consideration. After a moment, he spoke once again. “You seem familiar,” He told Roland, casually gesturing to him; his other hand still firmly grasping Alen’s forearm. “I’m curious, have we met?”

“No,” Roland shook his head. “But you must know of my father, Izan.”

A flash of recognition entered the lizard’s eyes. “What’s one of the sons of that person doing in a place like the Sandsea? Furthermore, stealing from me? If that Izan knew you’d resorted to something so dishonorable, he’d be the first to cut you down in my place,” Alexandrius smirked, grasping Alen’s arm even tighter. The necromancer’s face turned red, his eyes bloodshot as he felt the bones in his arms creak. Alen just barely stopped himself from fully incinerating the paper right there.

“We did not steal from you,” Roland plainly said.

“Hoh,” The lizardman raised an eyebrow. “You have the audacity to say that after displaying this piece of paper and running from me for five days?”

“Threatening to cut four of my fingers off two seconds after meeting is a pretty shit line for insinuating that a situation can be resolved peacefully,” Alen squeezed out, his voice nearly cracking as sweat rolled down his face. “Plus, we didn’t steal your fucking paper. We don’t even want it. Your crappy informant bumped into me in the library and dropped it before scurrying away.”

“Many people have died from being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Alexandrius calmly retorted.

“That doesn’t make it any less retarded,” Alen shot back. “Are you retarded?”

Bang! Without as much as a warning, Alexandrius’s fist connected with Alen’s face and sent him flying back an instant after the necromancer finished speaking. He sailed over the Galeboat and flipped over, unconscious; blood dribbling down from his nose. Alexandrius had an almost amused look on his face as he turned to Roland, the piece of paper now in his hands as Alen’s bone spikes slowly receded and crumbled to bone dust.

“I must say, I’m impressed. Your friend has quite the talent for courting death.”

Roland spared nary a glance at Lynn who dragged an unconscious Alen back into the boat and glanced at her orange-haired companion worriedly. He looked straight at the crimson-scaled lizardman and felt a familiar cold look make its way into his face. “This is settled,” He flatly said.

“And what makes you think that?” Alexandrius gave him a look, nonchalantly tossing the partly scorched piece of paper in his hands to the side.

“I imagine you don’t want to bring any more trouble to yourself by killing me or any of my party members,” Roland said. “My father would be quite angry to hear about the death of his eldest son.”

“Eldest? Roland Wolfram, is it?” The lizardman guessed. “You have quite a few achievements under your belt. Tell me, why is the mana in your body so weak? If you really are who you say you are, you should be at my level of strength by now.”

“I’m on a journey to refine my techniques from the ground up. A little threshold regression is merely a step in it,” He said, locking eyes with the lizardman. “You’re awfully chatty for the leader of the Cava’tal.”

Alexandrius smiled. It looked savage—a terrifying grin that spread across his face to reveal his sharp teeth. “Let us conclude this… chat, then.”

The invisible pressure in the air caused by Alexandrius’s mana intensified, and Roland nodded, cold sweat on his back despite his calm demeanor. “I’m sure you’ve guessed early on that that piece of paper was fake,” He calmly spoke. “There’s an unstable rune written on the real piece that you value so much, and it will tear the paper apart as soon as I release or lose control of the mana suppressing it. Do anything other than let us go, and both of us will be on the losing end. It’s not worth a simple misunderstanding, Alexandrius. Let my party leave, and let us depart as friends instead of foes.”

As Roland finished, he brought out a piece of paper. One that was evidently more ancient than the last—the true copy. On it, a rune surged and flickered madly, obviously overcharged with mana and looking as if it was about to burst. A thin layer of Roland’s own magic kept it in check.

Alexandrius took the piece of paper and gave Roland a long look. “I could not care less about what your father would think about you being killed by my hand, but you’ve proven yourself just as capable. You have my respect,” He said, eyeing the pulsing rune on the parchment as he turned his back and walked back towards his fleet.

“I will use that portion of mana to wipe away the rune an hour after we leave,” Roland said, turning around before he walked towards their Galeboat.

As the orange-haired warrior neared the boat, Alexandrius’s voice rang out once again. “I will begin my search for my uncle’s legacy in two months. If you pass the tenth threshold during this time, find me in the Sandsea’s capital and I will hire you as mercenaries.”

Roland said nothing in return, only looking at the bloody-scaled lizard as he boarded the large Galeboat and had his pilots unfurl the sails and start the engines. Roland did the same, pulling the lever and turning the boat around as they left the other way.

Lynn who was sitting on the edge of the Galeboat poked at the unconscious Alen who was sprawled across the seats with the tip of her bow.

She looked up at Roland and grinned.

“That went well.”

Alen groaned and sat up, the constant ache in his head an annoyance he wished he didn’t need to feel. Looking around with his squinted eyes, he touched his face and almost winced, but let out a sigh of relief as he realized a potion had fixed his nose before it ended up permanent like the scar on his palm. He looked up and found that the sky was already dark. He’d been unconscious for a day, it looked like. He glanced around, and judging by the boat, the wind, the sand going into his mouth like always, and the general lack of torture tools and chains, he figured that the negotiation had gone as planned.

He stood up, careful to not wake Lynn who still had a few elemental stones on her lap. Those things cost as much as the amount I spent buying my equipment. At least put them away before you go to sleep, Alen thought, putting them into her bag as he walked up and sat on the edge of the boat, beside the pilot’s seat where Roland was reading a map.

“We aren’t dead,” Alen said. “Yay.”

Roland set down the map and sighed. “We’re lucky he didn’t attack as soon as he saw us. I would’ve lost control of the rune and destroyed the paper, but we’d be too dead to negotiate then.”

“Hey man, I got punched in the face because your instructions were to taunt him. What if my nose got wrecked? I’d cry.”

“Alexandrius is the type of person to value courage in the time for cowardice. The whole act with those bone spears was meant to change his evaluation of us, and it worked. If he really took offense over what you said, you wouldn’t have a head on your shoulders.”

“Hold on, weren’t those just conjectures before?”

“…Yes.”

“I could’ve died, then! What the hell!”

“But you didn’t,” Roland smiled. “Aren’t you the one always going on about not crying over spilled milk? What was that you said before? Kay serah?”

Alen sighed. “Que sera sera; whatever will be, will be. Touché.”

“Exactly,” Roland said. “I got us out, didn’t I? Go and experiment with your magic or something while I plan our route. We’re heading deeper into the Sandsea, so our enemies are only going to get tougher. Probably none at Alexandrius’s level, but it never hurts to get stronger.”

Alen stood up and dusted himself off. “How strong was he anyways?”

“From the mana I felt from his presence?” Roland considered it for a moment. “Twentieth threshold at the very least. Emphasis on very.”

“Damn, well, better off avoiding him in the future.”

“He’s taken quite the liking to us, actually.”

“Tell him I prefer people with vaginas. I don’t like gay threesomes either.”

"Tell him yourself.”

Alen plunked down from the upper side of the boat and sat back down on his seat. Their plan regarding that negotiation was good. They essentially didn't give Alexandrius any other option than to let them go. Engaging them would be too much of a risk to that piece of paper otherwise. It would be destroyed as soon as Roland either let go of his control, lost consciousness, or died. There was no way Alexandrius could stop all three from happening if he attacked. It was a new kind of battle, and they had won. Alen sure hoped that would be the last he saw of that lizard though. The guy was terrifying. Alen seriously nodded to himself and considered his options. It was either going to be: talking to his friends, going to sleep, or mana programming.

He’d been asleep for most of the day, so no to taking a rest again. His friends were probably asleep at this time too, but Alen wouldn’t know. His watch broke from a fight a few days ago, so he had no way of telling the time besides looking up. Doing that usually just gave him exceedingly useful observations like: ‘It’s the sun. Hi.’ and ‘Oh look, the moon. It must be night.’. Not very helpful beyond that. Oh well, if the sun didn’t rise in a couple hours, he’d message his friends. For now, mana programming it was.

He looked up at the sky, thinking. First, he had to summarize. A day ago, he finished AutoBone. Not many improvements to the app since then. Next, he’d configured Necrotic Blessing to also be able to give his undead Rotfire instead of Deathchill ice, which he essentially did by swapping the spell variable of D-touch with a version of Rotfire Bolt he’d edited just for that occasion. By taking out the lines of code that made that spell a projectile, he made it so that it was like DT in a way that it acted as an offensive coating of sorts. A melee attack buff, essentially.

Deathchill Touch was his strongest offensive spell at the moment, and the range was the only thing limiting his use of it, so while applying a Rotfire buff looked cooler, he’d observed it to be weaker than the DT alternative. It sure was good for posturing though.

Alen shook his head. No. No posturing. He wasn’t going to be that guy. He’d be badass unconsciously. Unconsciously. No effort.

He coughed and continued his mental summary. Next, he finally stopped being an idiot and figured out a way to recycle his summons. It was kind of embarrassing he only found out a few days ago, actually. Anyways, Alen recalled his recycling process. Summon a skeleton, after use, have the skeleton break off another tooth or piece of chitin, then transfer the strands of light that controlled the skeleton into said tooth/chitin. After that, the summon would just collapse into a pile of bones, and he’d just have to put a large amount of mana into the brand new tooth in order to fuel the growth process again.

It was a hell of a lot more efficient than just discarding the summon after use. Alen had slapped his head after he found out he could do that a few days ago. He was usually pretty smart about stuff like mana programming and spell creation, but he was surprisingly dumb when it came to other areas. Alen sighed and concluded it there. Aside from managing to compress most of his spell programs a bit more to decrease mana cost, he didn’t have anything else to recall.

Now, there was a new question to face. Create a new spell, or improve the existing ones? Alen didn’t want a cluttered spell list full of things he’d never use, but at the same time, he didn’t really have much of an idea on how to improve his current spells aside from compressing and increasing the amount of mana he poured into it. Then again, what would he write as a program anyways? He needed a debuff, maybe more buffs, and some utility, along with some minion-related offensive spells.

The first two was pretty hard to accomplish right now. He didn’t have any concepts in his head. As for the last two…

Alen grinned and opened up the AutoBone app as an idea presented itself to him.

He could create a purple strand through this app, or edit existing ones. Now, he didn’t have a way to create the utility spells he had in mind with normal programming, but what if he designed something like, say, bone armor in the AutoBone app, and assigned it to act like a mana program—as a skill, instead of an add-on to one that already existed?

Solving those last two problems would be easy if he could figure that out. New debuffs and buffs had to wait, but this would be extremely beneficial when finished. Alen selected a shaping tool and got to work.

Alen rubbed his hands together. Here comes another all-nighter.