The sludge spit him out, and wet oil pressed against Ruwen. All five of his Coiled Lightning Rings sent painful shocks into his arms, but they couldn’t damage his Fortified body, and Last Breath kept the pain away. He’d felt movement, but now he knew the sludge had taken him into the lake. And by the pressure against his ears, he had already dropped significantly under the surface. He rotated the map, Survey giving him a side view of his location.
Stone Echo remained on, and it displayed more than just the surrounding resources. Now that the Enormous Tar Sludge had moved, the ability showed the creature on his map. It lurked fifteen feet above him.
Ruwen’s map also showed him dropping steadily, with the sludge staying near. It was probably waiting for him to either pass out or get crushed by the pressure as he sank into the depths of the lake. The oil would make it hard to swim to the surface, and he figured the sludge would interfere with that anyway.
Oil didn’t weigh as much as water, but Ruwen had no intention of seeing if he’d survive the pressure at the bottom of this lake. He’d come here for oil, and he planned on getting it. Opening his Void Band, he used his wrist and fingers to shape it into a ten-foot circle, which he angled upward.
While the first foot of Void Band diameter only cost one Energy per second, every foot after that cost six. So Ruwen’s ten-foot opening drained fifty-five energy per second, still safely under his current sixty-six per second Regeneration rate.
When Ruwen had been in the lake with the Shocking Pony of Terrors in Blapy, he’d used two Energy per second to propel himself at a fast swim. But his Void Band opening had only been one foot, not ten. It only took him a few tries to figure out each extra foot of diameter cost an additional two Energy per second to get the same result. So moving at a fast swim with his ten-foot opening, he needed to channel another twenty Energy per second.
That consumed seventy-five Energy, nine over Ruwen’s Regen rate, which he wanted to avoid. A nine-foot opening did as well, so he settled on an eight-foot opening costing forty-three Energy and his propulsion adding another sixteen.
Ruwen shot upward, pulling in over two thousand gallons of oil a second. He lost a little of that oil as he expelled it to push himself forward, and with this smaller opening, he calculated it would take eight minutes to reach one million gallons.
The Enormous Tar Sludge followed, and while Ruwen had hoped the creature couldn’t match his fast swim pace, it easily did. His map displayed the walls and creature’s location, but Ruwen wished he could see in this inky blackness.
As soon as the thought finished, distant yellow areas appeared. Ruwen looked over his shoulder and the sludge, ten feet behind him, appeared as a mass of short yellow lines. He realized Survey had overlaid map details gained from Stone Echo in his vision, and the distant yellow areas were the walls.
The sludge moved alongside Ruwen, easily keeping pace as its body rippled through the oil. The creature looked massive on his overlay, like a hundred-foot blanket. He would have to fight or chase it away. The surface was fifty feet above him, and he wanted to be near the surface when he fought. As he moved upward, he cycled through his abilities, spells, and inventory.
Harden wouldn’t work on organic things. Ruwen had twenty cubic feet of Minor Acid left, but from Alchemy class he knew it wouldn’t really affect an oil-based creature. He had some rusty spears and swords left over from his fight with the Hill Goblins that had protected the Mist Wraith Talker, but anything shot from his Void Band would almost immediately lose all its momentum.
The Analyze ability had mentioned fire and cold as weaknesses, but Ruwen didn’t want to start a fire down here, and his level one Greenhouse ability would only affect the temperature by ten degrees.
The sludge, seeing Ruwen near the surface, turned and with a burst of speed, slammed into him. The blow didn’t do any damage, but it knocked his left arm to the side away from his center, and his Void Band jerked him to the side.
Ruwen stopped propelling himself as the sludge struck again. Spinning through the darkness, he felt a little dizzy. No debuff appeared, probably because of his high Mental Resistance, but he still thought he might puke. Would that stay in his Fresh Air pocket, stuck there until he stopped and recast the spell? He swallowed hard, determined not to find out.
Immense pressure surrounded Ruwen again, and his stomach grew light. From Survey’s overlay, he could see the sludge rapidly pulling him deeper into the lake. The creature probably thought it had stunned him.
Scrub really was his best option. He just needed to compensate for its tiny effective area by increasing how quickly he moved to new locations. And he had an idea for that.
Using the Void Band as a weapon launcher wouldn’t work in this fluid, but Ruwen could turn himself into a human spear. The sludge hadn’t been able to compress the Void Band opening, which gave his left arm some mobility. With a thought he decreased his Void Band opening to just a foot, angled it toward his feet, and channeled ten Energy to Scrub while propelling himself forward with twenty Energy.
Ruwen held his right hand out in front of him, and the sludge dissolved. It only took a moment to break through the thin creature and, using Survey and Stone Echo to track it, he angled his Void Band to navigate through the oil and bring him back to attack.
When fighting the Octorse in Blapy’s lake, Ruwen’s goggles had been ripped from his face
