Strength Based Wizard-Chapter 33. Yer a Wizard, Joseph! Act Like One, Part III

Chapter 33

Yer a Wizard, Joseph! Act Like One, Part III

The Warlock’s eyes blaze with a fierce energy. Frosty silver swirls coiling tighter around its clawed hands until they snap outward like an over-cranked jack-in-the-box.

A sound—like a high-pitched whistle mixed with the tearing of paper—rings my ears. Wind howls through the clearing, laced with blue and silver light that stings my eyes and boggles my brain. I’m not used to seeing wind. The blast hits an unexpecting Clyde square in the chest as he raised his pistol, leveling to take a shot at one of the yeti goblins surrounding Veronica.

He flips backward, arms flailing. He slams into the snow with a loud thump.

“Clyde!” I shout, already squinting through the whipped up flurry of snow filling the air.

Frost begins creeping up his coat, slithering across his limbs like sentient rime. With a ‘pop!’ a small, red potion vial appears in his free hand—his other hand thankfully still gripped onto his weapon. He downs it in one gulp, gasping as the frost evaporates in a shimmer of steam.

The second gust catches Veronica mid-swing. She grunts, eyes scrunching shut as the cold lashes her face, her breath a white cloud. Still, she holds her ground like a tank with bloodlust. Her hammer cracks into the white-bearded goblin she’s facing, but a second axe-wielding miniature slams its weapon in her back.

Clang!

The axe head bites into her armor, just enough to knock her forward with a stumble.

I brace for impact, but the cold gust of magically reinforced wind still crashes into me. It feels like someone’s slapping my thighs with frozen meat.

God damn these cursed jorts.

My health bar blinks red, pulsing like it’s trying to get my attention. But it barely moves, quickly refilling back to full.

I blink, trying to keep my eyes open through the biting wind. My teeth chatter. Despite the stinging bite of the wind against my exposed legs, I’m surprised the Warlock’s spell didn’t do more harm, especially after seeing what it did to Clyde and Veronica.

There’s a soft, rhythmic vibration at my back.

Jelly Boy. That’s right!

I yank my pack off, hastily unzipping it and pull Jelly Boy out into the open. The blue, gelatinous ball of slime is trembling with excitement. His little jelly body glows faintly, a blue outline pulsing around his edges.

He bounces in place, wobbling aggressively like he’s ready to suplex a mountain.

It had to be his spell absorption ability that lessened the impact of the Warlock’s Spell. Or was it his resistance to cold damage? I dismiss the thought. That wouldn’t explain why the Spell’s effect on me was lessened. I should have spent some time testing the boundaries and applications of Jelly Boy’s ability to know for certain. But that had to be it… There are no other explanations.

“Holy shit,” I whisper. “You’re the reason I didn’t get turned into a Joseph-sicle.”

I give the slime a gentle, appreciative pat on the head. My little buddy isn’t just cute—he tanked that frost spell like it was a snack.

I glance up at the Warlock. It’s focused on Veronica and Clyde, pummeling them with icy blasts of wind. Veronica is getting ganged up on the by the other yeti goblins. An axe slices into her leg and she screams in pain, desperately swinging her hammer to create space before being blasted by another gust of wind that knocks her off balance. Webs of frost crawl up her breastplate and down the arms of her coat.

“Okay, let’s show this asshole we’re the ones he should be worried about!” I say to Jelly Boy.

Jelly Boy lets out a squelchy, enthusiastic bloop!

The Disabled Status Timer in the corner of my HUD continues to tick down.

00:00:48.

Still forty-eight seconds until I get my spectral punchy boys back.

I don’t wait. I can’t wait.

The Warlock’s still weaving those ice spells, his hands dancing with cold, blue and silver light like some demonic figure skater, leaving trails of the magic as they twist and turn. His eyes are still focused on Veronica and Clyde. I bolt forward, boots crunching through the snow, Jelly Boy still squirming under my arm like a jello-based football.

Bzzztttt!... Jelly Boy vibrates loudly with what I’m pretty sure is a war cry.

The Warlock turns its head towards me. Its mouth twists into a cocky snarl. It its arm toward me and suddenly the air is full of spinning snowflakes. But not cute, holiday-card snowflakes. No, these are each the width of my hand, serrated like shurikens of ice, crackling with pale blue energy.

Shit!

No time to dodge as my momentum continues to propel me forward. I skid to a halt, pivot, and throw my arms up just as I drop Jelly Boy to the snow.

Schwip! Schwip! Schwip!

Wham! Wham! Wham!

“Oomph!...”

The snowflake projectiles slam into me, and detonate like exploding snowballs. Cold stabs deep into my chest and forearms. My HUD flashes an angry red. A decent chunk of my Health bar disappears in three angry gulps.

Pain flares. Muscles clench. Teeth grind. The pain is gone just as quickly as it came, replaced by the new, itching pain of my body knitting itself back together, though a lot slower with a chunk of my HP now gone.

I pick Jelly Boy back up.

“Keep your eyes on me, asshole!” I snarl.

I mentally activate Speed Boost.

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And holy hell.

It’s like getting dropkicked by a thousand espressos.

Warm energy floods my body, seeping into every cell, setting my nerves alight with a go-go-GO urgency. My legs feel like they’ve grown engines. The cold fades into background noise. I dash forward, practically gliding over the snowy ground like a caffeinated figure skater from hell.

The Warlock’s smug face twists into something better. Much better: shock. Its bushy white eyebrows shoot hallway up its head as its eyes widen. It barely raises its hands before I’m directly in its face. Inches away. I cock one arm back like I’m about to lay him the hell out.

No, I think. Not like this. I’m a wizard, damn it. A wizard with muscles and the Strength score any Barbarian would be happy with, but a fucking wizard damn it! Even if Lefty and Righty are currently sipping mai tais in magical time-out.

I bring my first forward, stopping an inch from the Warlock’s ugly mug. I open my hand.

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And I cast Light.

A brilliant orb of searing, golden-white magic explodes into being, hovering directly in front of the Warlock’s eyeballs. I turn my face away to avoid being blinded myself.

The yeti creature screeches in pain, reeling backward as it clutches at its face, blinded and stumbling like it just got flashbanged. Well… it did kind of just got flashbanged.

“Take that, you frosty little bastard,” I mutter, fire blooming in my chest as the last remnants of my Speed Boost Skill leak out of my limbs.

Jelly Boy lets out a wet, triumphant bloop, like he agrees.

The Warlock’s still flailing like a drunken snow-cone vendor on fire when Jelly Boy launches himself out of my arms like a sentient scoop of vengeance.

Plorp.

He lands right onto the Warlock’s head, slowly sinking to cover the monster’s face entirely with his blue ooze.

The goblin lets out a strangled scream, muffled by the gooey blue dome now wrapped around its face like a living jello death mask. It claws at Jelly Boy, fingers scraping uselessly at the shimmering slime surface. The Warlock stumbles and flails, staggering through the snow like he’s trying to headbang his way out of a swimming pool full of glue. Its screams are distant sounding… muffled.

Jelly Boy starts undulating, rippling with sudden spasms.

‘What the fuck,’ I silently mouth.

Is he… is he eating the damn Warlock? Or, at least trying to?

The yeti goblin’s screams turn gurgled, echoing wetly from inside the translucent slime. Black smoke begins to leak from its eyes, curling in slow, oily tendrils through Jelly Boy’s semi-solid mass. The smoke rises out of the top of the slime in thin, sinuous wisps like burning incense made out of evil.

“Oh man… That’s so gross,” I whisper.

Also…kind of badass?

Jelly Boy is vibrating violently now, like he just downed five Red Bulls and is processing the soul of a warlock like it’s high-fructose corn syrup.

But there’s no time to gawk at my murder-slime. I spin around to check on the others.

Clyde’s back on his feet and aiming his pistol with both hands. His coat is frosted, ice glinting on the shoulders like silver epaulets. The last of the axe-wielding yeti goblins is grappling with Veronica, trying to pry her hammer from her grip.

She looks like hell.

One of her eyes is swollen shut, purple-black and angry. Blood streaks down her cheek from a wound on her head, and her legs are slashed and bleeding, staining the snow red. But her grip on that hammer? Still iron.

Clyde fires.

Crack!

The goblin’s head detonates like a cursed melon, splattering white fur, brain matter, and icicle fragments across the snow. I assume he used his Skill and scored a critical hit.

The thing drops. Veronica yanks her hammer free from its dead fingers with a snarl, then looks over at me.

“What the hell are you doing? Don’t worry about us!” she shouts, voice raw. “Deal with the spellcaster and don’t let it get away! You need its core, idiot!”

Shit. She’s right.

I whirl back around.

The Warlock, blinded and half-suffocated, is staggering through the clearing, Jelly Boy still suctioned to its face.

That’s when the notification pops into view:

Disable effect has expired. You are no longer under the Disable effect.

You have regained access to [Wizard’s Hand].

Oh, hell yes.

“LEFTY, RIGHTY—GO!”

I whip out my wand, the tip glowing like a neon baton, and slam on the cantrip twice from my interface’s hotlist.

Two familiar flashes of silvery-blue shimmer into existence midair. The fists emerge from puffs of mist.

Lefty and Righty rocket forward, streaks of light and vengeance.

Lefty swoops in and grabs Jelly Boy, tugging the happily feasting slime off the Warlock’s head, snatching ooze between its fingers like grabbing the scruff on the back of a troublesome pup.

The Warlock gasps, mouth open wide, eyes—now dark, empty pits—streaming black tears.

Righty doesn’t wait. It bitch slaps the Warlock right across the face. The slap is quickly followed by a nasty uppercut that smashes into the Warlock’s chin. The Warlock flies backward, limbs twitching, and collapses into the snow with a thud.

You have defeated Yeti Goblin Warlock, Level 7.

You have received partial credit for the defeat of Yeti Goblin Warlock.

Partial credit awarded to . . . Jelly Boy, Slime.

Jelly Boy lets out a victorious bloop, wiggling in Lefty’s spectral grasp like a champion returning home from glorious slime-combat. The spectral hand glides over and gently places the slime onto the ground near my feet.

I jog back toward Clyde and Veronica, breathing hard and clutching Jelly Boy to my chest like a wobbly, semi-sentient football. He’s warm and jiggly, and still humming with some kind of magical afterglow that makes my fingers tingle. He lets out a happy blorp as I cradle him like a battle-hardened baby.

Veronica’s leaned against a tree, uncorking a healing potion with her teeth. She throws the whole thing back in one go, chugging it like a college sophomore who doesn’t understand how tequila works. The gash on her forehead near her hairline stitches together like time-lapse footage in reverse. The swelling around her eye fades so fast it’s almost creepy.

“You guys okay?” I ask, chest heaving, eyes darting between them.

“I’m fine,” Clyde says, brushing snow off his coat and depositing his pistol in a shall of pixelated light. “Just a little shaken. I’ll probably cry about it later when no one’s looking.” He gives me a weak grin and then winces as he rolls his shoulder.

Veronica wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Still standing,” she says. “Still hammering.” Then she blinks and adds with mock pride, “And I held my own against pretty much all those mobs on my own… So not too roughed up, all things considered.”

Clyde gives her a sidelong glance. “Yeah, but if we’re gonna make this whole party thing official, we’re gonna need a healer. Like, a real one. No offense to our slimey blue MVP over there, who keeps coming up with these kills.” He nods toward Jelly Boy, who emits a bubbly gloop and twitches like he’s flexing. Adorable.

“Seriously,” Clyde continues, tapping his tablet. “If Veronica keeps soaking damage like this, she’s gonna end up tanking herself to a quick funeral.”

I grimace. “You’re not wrong.” I glance at Veronica, who gives me a ‘don’t even’ look as she stretches her neck. “Sorry for not taking that Warlock out faster.”

“Worked in the end,” she says, shrugging. “We all walked away. Mostly upright.”

I pull up my Party Menu, head still swimming with the after battle jitters. “Speaking of which—how’d you two do, XP-wise? I didn’t get jack from the goblin minions. So, I assume you two split all of that yourselves.”

Veronica wipes her now-healed cheek and grins. “Leveled.”

Clyde smirks. “Yup. Same here.”

I blink. “Hell yeah.”

Then something catches my eye at the bottom of the Party Menu. A little pulsing notification.

My chest swells with pride. “No way. Jelly Boy leveled up too.”

Jelly Boy vibrates violently in my arms, doing what I can only describe as the slime equivalent of a touchdown dance. He emits a deep, contented blorrrrrrrrp and I swear the little bastard’s glowing faintly.

I grin. “Atta boy.” Then I remember the monster core. I stick a thumb over my shoulder. Clyde nods.

I stroll over to the Warlock’s corpse, brushing snow off my jorts and whistling like I didn’t just watch a blue slime attempt to eat a living creature's soul through its eyeballs. I wonder what sort of effects consuming other monsters would eventually have on my gelatinous good boy.

God, my legs are numb, I silently curse.

The yeti goblin’s body is crumpled like a dropped puppet, steam still curling up from the gaping cavities in its skull.

I crouch over the corpse and examine it more closely, summoning the interactive menu hovering over the body. Classic looting options pop into my HUD. The Warlock has ten gold pieces, and a variety of strange crafting materials.

Standard junk really, but I’ll take whatever I can get my hands on. I mentally scan over the items once more preparing to loot the corpse, but then hesitate…

Ugh. Right. I can’t pocket anything from this Realm that’ll trip the exit scans. Freaking dungeon lawyers. I sigh.

“No core,” I mutter.

Of course not. Monster cores don’t just appear in the Inventory menu like most other goods. That much was easy to gather browsing the Discussion Channels. No, they have to be harvested. Manually. Organically.

Which brings me to the next problem.

I stand there scratching my head, staring at the yeti goblin’s fuzzy ribcage like I’m supposed to take a biology final. “How the hell do I get this thing open?” I mumble. Asking the question aloud makes my stomach turn. Even knowing this would be a possibility didn’t help—how am I supposed to carve up something so… human?

That’s when I feel a curious blorp at my feet. Jelly Boy’s watching me intently, his gelatinous body subtly vibrating like a tuning fork full of questionable ideas. I’m sure he’s asking, “You going to finish that?”

I shiver. I’m pretty sure it’s from the cold.

I glance up at Lefty, my spectral Wizard’s Hand, who’s just been floating there like a loyal balloon at a murder party. I mentally command it: Hey, Lefty… break it open. Get me that core.

It floats down toward the corpse, fingers flexing experimentally, and hovers over the Warlock’s chest. For a second, I think I overloaded the poor magical appendage with instructions far too complicated. Maybe it’s not smart enough. Maybe I need to—

WHAM!

Lefty punches straight through the chest cavity like it’s tenderized brisket. Wet crunch. Nasty squelch. Something cracks. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Then it rips. Not delicately. Not surgically. Lefty rips upward with a wet, meaty shhhhhlurp, and emerges with an apple-sized gem pulsing with violet light. Purple-black mist leaks from it like a soul’s last exhale.

“Oh my god,” I say, blinking. He just Mortal Kombat’d that poor bastard.

Lefty hovers there like a proud serial killer holding a trophy.

The core is disturbingly beautiful. Smooth, glassy, with arcane fractals dancing in its center like lightning bugs on acid.

Veronica walks over, wiping her now-barely-injured hands on her armor. “Is that the monster core?”

I pluck it from Lefty’s grip—it’s warm, pulsing—and examine it. When I do, a tooltip flashes in my vision:

[Monster Core]

[Quality: Weak]

“Sure is,” I say, tossing it once and catching it with a grin thinking of that Warlock’s stupid snarling grin.

Veronica crosses her arms. “So… now what?”

I grin wider, the possibilities spinning through my brain. “Now…”

I raise the core toward the sky, letting sunlight capture the violet facets of the gem.

“Now… I need to do the ritual to turn this bad boy into a Spell.”