Last but not least, Safety Phrases.
Or as I like to call them, Insurance policies.
Tied up? Wink three times with your right eye, and a blade of telekinetic force will start sawing 2 inches away from your arm, ending flush with the skin. As long as you don’t move.
Bad guys stole your stuff, have you under guard and you need a distraction? Say ‘Scarabs are Scary’ and spawn a swarm of flesh eating scarabs.
“Oh, my god,” Jeb said, resting his forehead in his hand.
“What is it?” Jessica asked, glancing at him.
“I just realized. This is the magical Batman class. I have to prepare for every eventuality.”
“How about the eventuality that I’ve hidden the last bag of M&Ms?” Jess asked.
Jeb deepened his voice to a raspy growl, his face crumpling into a rictus of rage.
“Where are they!?”
Chapter 8: Proof of concept
***2 days 4 hours remaining***
“Okay, let’s double check my list.” Jeb said, ticking off his ‘traps’.
Finger-gun clips: ‘ack’ X10 ☑ ‘pip’x10 ☑ ‘kip’ X10 ☑ ‘Alpha Strike’ ☠
Cane Auto: x4 BP ☑ HR ☑ BD ☑ OD ☑
Cane Manual: x2 ‘just getting started’☑ ‘alt blinks’☑
Shield: x4 ☑
Armor: head ☑ torso ☑ legs ☑ upper arms ☑ lower arms ☑
Projectile reflection x50 ☑
Safety Phrases: restraints ‘3W’ ☑ ‘Scarabs’ ☑ ‘Plitskin’ ☑ ‘no homo’ ☑ ‘Room full of Charlies’☠
Grenades ‘go boom’: ‘nut’ ☑ ‘rock’ ☑ ‘knife’ ☑ ‘authorize magical girl transformation’☠
Jeb….couldn’t think of anything more. He was absolutely sure there were more useful things he could add, but he simply…wasn’t aware of them yet.
He leaned forward, staring into the sheet, trying to squeeze out more ideas out of his brain. Anything more…
“Come on, you’ve been dicking around for hours! Let’s go!” Jessica cajoled. “Those frog-people aren’t gonna slaughter themselves!”
He considered offering a spar just to see how his ideas worked in reality, but the majority of them were designed to be lethal, the rest were single-use defensive, and resetting them would cost him even more time.
I’m just gonna have to figure out how they handle in the crucible of combat.
He grabbed the pegleg Jessica had carved while she was waiting and slipped it over his stump, the wood fitting snug all the way up to his knee. Once it was on, he pushed himself to his feet – foot – . It hadn’t actually taken her that long to carve, a person with close to thirty Body can basically treat hardwood like a soft cheese.
Jeb rolled up his list – written on a mac and cheese package – and tucked it in his pocket before he started clomping after her, using the Vivicant cane to help keep his balance.
Jeb would for all the world look like your average one-legged LARPer, were it not for the broken spearhead and stiletto orbiting him like satellites.
Stab stab.
***Bubli, Krokker scout***
Ah, another human, Bubli thought, thought, his animalistic senses picking up two humans trekking through their lands. Humans were remarkably tasty. Each of the ones they’d caught thus far had been deliciously fatty.
Drool threatened to leak out of Bubli’s mouth imagining another feast like the one a few nights ago.
No, stay focused, he thought, swallowing. Humans were getting scarcer, and the ones who remained were by necessity more dangerous than the first ones. He couldn’t afford to get complacent.
We’ll wait until they get close to a sticky-tree, then ambush them.
So it went for a good half hour, Bubli silently following the blundering through the woods. As he crept along, he gradually picked up more and more krokker scouts as he went, the frog people silently sharing looks of knowing anticipation as they shadowed the loud humans.
Their skin changed colors to match their hiding spots, waiting patiently for the humans to make a mistake.
Finally it happened. The humans were walking along, when a root-runner from a sticky-tree caught the smaller human on the arm.
“Oh no, I got caught on this sticky piece of wood…”
Unfortunately, the Krokkers weren’t familiar enough with humans to recognize bad acting.
Now! Shoot the unhindered one then we’ll swoop in and take them both!
Bubli drew in a silent breath and raised his blowpipe to his lips, six other krokker following suit.
Phew! With a quiet puff of air, the deadly poisonous darts trailing bright white feathers streaked through the air, aiming for the bigger human’s face and neck.
Bubli thought he saw a flicker in the air, then all the white streaks in the air reversed course. In the blink of an eye, Bubli was staring at a puff of feather hanging below his right cheek.
What!? NO!
Bubli ripped the dart out of his face as quickly as he could, but the rigid paralysis was already setting in.
***Jeb***
You have gained a level!
You are now level 21!
“That works a lot better than I thought,” Jeb said, dropping the point in Myst as Jessica chopped the sticky tree tendril off her arm with a few casual slices of Razorback. The frog-people were too busy trying and failing to run away to launch another attack, their limbs stiffening into horrifying contortions.
The first ‘bubble’ had triggered and caught three of the projectiles and reversed their course, and the second ‘bubble’ had caught the remaining four.
Jeb had expected to have to spend one use on each projectile, but he was happy to learn that tightly packed projectiles that caught the bubble at the same time would all be returned on the same charge. Meaning he had slightly better fuel efficiency than he thought, especially against ambushes. He still had forty-eight layers left.
Make a note to replace those.
Man, those frogs dropped quick. I wonder what would’ve happened if they’d decided to attack Jessica too?
Sudden realization.
“That’s what I was forgetting!”
