Textbook

As a matter of fact, I had no clue where to get 120 kilograms of crystallized mana. Furthermore, as an American, I felt the patriotic duty to shout 'what the fuck is a kilogram', while blasting explosions into the air.

"I am not expecting you to, of course. That does seem to be an absurd amount of the substance," Adam said. "I have a few crystals from a test room in day three. Maybe a pound of the stuff?" I said. "I grabbed about as much. What is the plan anyways, Adam?" Anna said. "I am still working on the form. The power required to move hundreds of people would be in that range of magical power required," Adam said. "What about blood magic?" I said. "We'd have to be able to transfer the life-force of other sapient creatures for that to work. Which, as I believe I've learned, would furthermore be evil," Adam said. "Can't use pigs or rats or something?" Anna said. "Marginal benefits. I don't expect finding ten thousand horses will be significantly easier than the crystals. And I still find it distasteful," Adam said. "I see two options- first, we can look for encampments of our interplanar visitors. The proprietor of this inn is not from this world, and he was willing to take gold for food. If anybody's brought along mana in bulk, we might be able to buy it," I said. "What about Will? I mean, I see how this is more important, but, do we just leave him hanging?" Anna said. "That's the second option. It sort of relies on the idea that the Tower itself is pushing a narrative. If we need crystals, and go into dangerous dungeons which promise serious rewards…" I said. "We get melted in a vat of acid? I don't know if you've been paying attention, Alex, but the Tower doesn't seem to exactly want us to have a nice time," Anna said. "I believe that while the Tower is quite the shock for you who have been living on the relatively peaceful Earth you come from, it is not quite intentionally cruel," Adam said. At this point, Chum finally floated over. He'd been doing a lot of scouting and flying around ever since he'd got his wings. I think he just enjoyed flying. "Buddy, I've been in- well, my NDA stops me telling you how many demiplanes of heroism I have been in, but I can tell you right now that this Tower here is built so far beyond acceptable levels of challenge that it is a crime in over half the universes, and I'm including fucking Hell here!" Chum said, really getting into Adam's face. "And I have only ever been in one. Indeed, I do not know life anywhere else. To me this is what the world is. And I have found that some of its rules do follow a logic more akin to stories than physics," Adam said.

I paced around the tree a few times. But I knew what I wanted to do right now, and it was not like we had an option to go to the Lounge in Nowhere right at this moment.

"We go to Will. We'll be exploring on the way, and the Guilds will be exploring around here. We can tell Artemis to buy up as much mana as possible if someone comes to trade, or they find some other people. Will looks like he's done well, and he always had a good head on his shoulders, so linking up with him is going to be a benefit in any case. We level up and look for any abilities that allow us to crystallize mana, or, yes, transfer blood magic from other creatures. I don't want to kill living creatures for mana either, but if it comes to it, it's better than leaving our people to die. How does that sound?" I said. "Pretty sure you started at the conclusion and worked your way backwards. But I want to do the same, so what the hell can I say?" Anna said. "I'm with ya, boss," Chum said. "Would you prefer if I went with you, or stayed behind in safety, where my knowledge couldn't be lost at a bad battle?" Adam said. "Come with us. I want to get to work as soon as we have the mana. Whenever that happens, you should be nearby," I said. "I agree. For friendship," Adam said.

After that our departure went surprisingly like planned the night before. Anna and I both had large backpacks, while Chum and Adam both seemed to just have clothes on their back. The two Guilds were getting along well enough- Artemis was coming to arrangements with Louis, and they found enough in common due to their head for details. As we turned the first bend in the road leaving the Swinging Donkey behind, there was a great shaking of the earth and a loud sound of rock moving against dirt and wood, as a building somewhere between block housing and Victorian tenement rose up from nowhere next to the inn, presumably summoned by one of the tokens.

Anna and I were on paranoid lookout all the way, eyes peeled to the low bushes by the road, darting into the roiling moss hills among the trees whenever we thought we saw movement. Adam was walking between us, seemingly relaxed, with eyes straight ahead, while Chum was using his wings to scout ahead from above. As the walking stretched into hours, we got both more tired and relaxed. We remained cautious, but there is only so much caution the human mind can express after focusing hard for four or five hours. Finally, as sun had risen almost directly overhead and the walking got hot and our skins burned, I decided it was time for a break.

"That clearing looks safe enough. No point in exhausting ourselves, we're not in a rush," I said.

We hadn't spoken much that day, and didn't really start until we'd taken a few bites of the food from the inn and shared a swig of the wine gifted to us by Gromshnag.

"Feels odd that we haven't seen anything," Anna said, "There should have been a crisis by now."

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. "I know. Maybe we just got unlucky with the hag. The scale both in space and time for this challenge is much larger. Maybe the dangers are more spread out," I said.

Adam was rising a piece of bread to his mouth. On occasion I caught a glimpse of him eating and could not look away. It was morbidly fascinating. But he stopped with it mid-way to his mouth and turned to us.

"Creature incoming. One, large, flying," he said. Which was rapidly followed by Chum screaming: "A fucking birdworm incoming!"

We stood and picked up our weapons immediately. The silly name was far overshadowed by the stress in our companions. I shouted Fus and my spellbook flew in front of me, opening up to the icicle spell, which was still my most versatile. On my right, Anna was activating some new ability, by which her fists and eyes burst into flame, clearly not hurting her or the items she was wearing, but radiating heat nonetheless.

I looked in the direction that Chum was screaming from, and soon saw him. Then, I heard a strange, meaty trumpeting sound and soon saw the creature following him emerge from the treeline, bursting out above it. It was easily the size of a horse, and one of those really tough draft ones, not a sleek racer. It resembled a horse in exactly no other way. Its body was elongated, bulbous to bursting, and undulated as it flew. Its gray skin was unmarred by fur, except where it turned to two pairs of massive brown-feathered wings. And its face was almost entirely a round, toothy lamprey maw, with rows and rows of sharp teeth. The pair of eyes above it was little more than two black marbles seemingly attached directly to the top of its mouth.

"Chum, what is it?" I yelled. "Kill it, kill it, kill it FAST!" Chum screamed.

Anna listened first, running diagonally away from me and towards it, and throwing fistfuls of sorcerous flame at it. Her aim was good and whatever spell or ability she was using, she didn't have to use incantations after the original casting, but the creature was deceptively fast and maneuverable. Of her barrage of six shots two hit the tough underside of the creature, injuring it apparently not at all. I took the time before it arrived to throw up the HUD spell.

Featherworm Level 15 Health 148/150

Was the information I could get from it, basically confirming what I already knew. My own conjuration had the advantage that I didn't need to aim from nearly as far. I cast Conjure Icicle directly in front of its face, aiming to hit it in the mouth with my spell. I'd cast it so many times, and it was a rank 2 spell, so I could conjure icicles the size of watermelons, shaped like wedges ending in a razor-sharp blade. I'd come to expect them to deal a great deal of damage. It hit it head-on, exactly where I'd aimed it, but aside from knocking out a few teeth and disrupting its flight trajectory for an instant, it barely broke the skin. I'd taken off only 2 more hitpoints of the creature.

"We're gonna need a plan!" I shouted, as I started running. The featherworm was now less than fifty feet away, tromping and undulating in my direction. "Might you be bait, friend Alex?" Adam said. "What?" I said. "Bait. I need it to crash into the ground right next to me," Adam said. "Sure, what the hell," I said. I kept running, and throwing icicles at it, not even dealing as much damage as before, as I missed the mouth and hit the tough hide over and over again. If we had the time, between Anna and myself, our ping damage would eventually wear the thing out. It was quickly catching up to me, soon enough I could smell the rot from its mouth as it trumpeted out its strange cry. I turned to face it.

It dove. I wouldn't have had a chance to dodge, as its huge mass seemed to suddenly lose all buoyancy and dropped like a brick at me from just above my head. But I'd stored a self-time stop in my staff and released it when it was five feet away from me, clearly too late to change its path. The meaty, grinder maw of the beast looked no better from up close. It was even larger than I thought from a distance, and each tooth was the size of a chef's knife. I focused every impulse of my thoughts to each of the muscles in my body to jump left as hard as I could, as soon as the spell ran out. When time resumed, I jumped away harder than I ever had.

The sound of it hitting the ground teeth-first was immense. The whole world shook and exploded, as I leaped away from the point of impact. For a second I thought I'd got away clean, but as I looked down I saw the bloodied and mangled state of my right leg knee-down, and the pain was suddenly all there. I saw the body of the monster wiggle into the dirt under our feet, and saw Adam come up to it, holding his palms against the rapidly disappearing monster.

"Apologies, not fast enough," Adam said, as the worm disappeared into the ground. "This is bad," Anna said. And it was. This time I couldn't even see it. I pushed myself up. It was painful, and limping, but the leg wasn't useless. I looked around for just a second, about to ask for any ideas as to what to do next, when world went upside-down.

The pain was crushing all around my right shoulder and waist, and it took seconds for me to realize that I was in the monster's jaws, going upwards at a speed. My spellbook was desperately trying to keep up, moving in front of my face as it was tossed and turned around. The mouth tried to push inwards, crushing and grinding me to meat. Fuck, this wasn't going to go well in any case. The creature still hadn't regained its flying speed, moving perhaps a bit faster than a jogger, and I was absolutely dead if I didn't try something and so I cast the invisible barrier directly in front of our path. The creature smashed into it, me first, but at least I wasn't being swallowed and digested, though the trauma and pain was leaving me dizzy and barely holding on to consciousness. That was it. That was all I could do. With fading hearing I heard: "I am in," in Adam's voice.

Nothing happened for a little while. Then the jaws relaxed. Then they split. There was the sound of breaking teeth, organs and bones all around me. Finally, from behind, from inside the monster I felt two hands grasp me firmly.

"Hold on, Alex. It will be dead soon," Adam said. Then we both fell, and I lost consciousness.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.