He howled in pain and tried to slash at me but couldn’t angle his claws—which were inches from my face—past the invisible shell. I punched again and again. I felt something give. My next punch went deeper than I expected.
Mongo screamed and flew through the air, attaching himself to the lion’s unprotected belly, ripping at it as I pulled my dripping gauntlet and punched again. My hand entered the chest cavity, and I opened my fist, grasped and pulled.
I fell back onto my ass as the entire lion plummeted to the ground and rolled toward me. Surely it hadn’t been twenty seconds yet? The green mold turned black before my eyes, and the worm tentacles all dropped, mixing in with the matted and dirty hair of the mold lion.
It was dead.
Mongo shrieked with glee. The dinosaur grew before my eyes. I wasted a precious second staring stupidly at the mold-covered lion heart in my hand. Holy shit. I pulled his fucking heart out. I pulled out the heart of a fucking lion.
“Second Chance!” I cried, scrambling to my feet as I put the heart into my inventory.
Donut’s spell only cost ten of her 29 magic points.
The protective shell fizzled out just as the reanimated lion rose to its feet. It stood, both eyes dead, guts trailing from where Mongo had eviscerated it. Signet still hadn’t moved or changed.
Undead Minion of Crawler Princess Donut – Mold Lion – Level 5
The zombies were a third as powerful as their former selves, but they weren’t blind.
“Kill!” Donut yelled, pointing at the closest lion. The zombie growled and pounced, landing on the back of a lion whose health was already cut in half. It was over in a second, the zombie having ripped open the throat of his confused friend.
I shouted instructions at Donut as I formed a fist. At any moment the four remaining lions would realize we were unprotected.
Donut rose the second lion from the dead and downed a mana potion. She then spent 26 points to cast Clockwork Triplicate on the new zombie with the ripped-out throat.
“Kill the others!” Donut cried. Two of the lions jumped forward to attack. A moment later, the other two followed, wading into the fray. The two automatons fell into pieces before the final lion was dead. The two zombies also fell to the last lion, whose health was down to nothing. It growled, looking about just as the fog started to clear.
Mongo squealed and charged.
Donut hit the lion with a magic missile just as it swiped at the dinosaur. It dropped dead. Mongo, oblivious that Donut had just saved the idiot’s life, pounced, landing on the lion’s back, and started ripping. He’d gone up to level six. He was now a hand taller than Donut, about the size of an actual turkey. His tail was longer, too. A set of long feathers sprouted from the back of the tail.
Donut and I were both now level 14. A notification popped up telling me I couldn’t assign my points until I reached a saferoom.
“Well, that was unexpected,” Signet said.
I turned to look at the woman. Nothing had happened. Her tattoos stopped swirling around her body, though they continued to move as they had before. Her eyes no longer glowed. I’d been expecting her tattoos to turn into the monsters. Her description had stated she was a summoner, and she’d said she was summoning her “battle squad.”
“What’s going on?” I said. “Did your spell not work?”
“No, it didn’t,” she said. She had a sour look on her face. “My spells are Blood Magic. They require a proper sacrifice to work. I choose the sacrifice and cast the spell, and my lovelies take the blood and form.”
I indicated the six dead lions. “You have blood right here.” Down the street, the group of circus creatures cried in outrage once they realized the lions were all dead. We needed to get out of here. The mortars were going to start firing again at any moment.
“I can’t use them,” she said. As I watched, one of the lions twitched. I jumped back and formed a fist. Donut screeched and leaped onto my shoulder. A green line of mold oozed off the lion and hit the ground. It started creeping back toward the circus.
Donut fired a magic missile at the ground. The mold shriveled and died.
“Don’t bother,” Signet said. “The mold isn’t dangerous. Not directly, and you won’t get it all no matter how hard you try. Believe me. You can incinerate the bodies, and you’ll still miss some. All it takes is a single, microscopic spore to get back to the vine, and tomorrow this lion will be regrown and ready to attack again.” She sighed. “Let’s back up a block before those acrobats start shooting at us. This night’s attack is canceled. What a disappointment. My boys were really looking forward to it.”
We walked away from the circus to the jeers of the clowns. A few mortars did fire, though we were clearly out of range.
“You can only cast that summoning once a night?” I asked.
Signet gave me a half smile. Her ghoulish face looked downright sinister. “That is correct, Carl.”
Donut: CARL I DO NOT LIKE THIS LADY EVEN IF HER DOT IS WHITE. WE NEED TO DITCH HER.
Carclass="underline" We will. She’s even crazier than you think. Let me do the talking. Get ready to run just in case, but I don’t think we’ll have to. I want to get some info from her first. I don’t think she’s dangerous, not anymore, not as long as we don’t provoke her.
“So,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Which one of us was supposed to be the sacrifice? Me or the cat?”
“You, of course,” Signet said, seeming not a bit surprised I’d figured it out. “The moment one of those lions cut you open, all of your blood would’ve flown into me and animated my squad. We’ve never used primal blood before, but I can sense how powerful it is. But you received nary a scratch.”
“Wait,” I said. “All my blood would’ve flowed out of me even if I’d just received a single cut?”
I’d already deduced the real reason why her spell hadn’t worked. She didn’t really want us to protect her. She’d wanted to charm me and then have me die while defending her. She hadn’t been casting her spell while all those tattoos were swirling about. She’d already cast it, and they were just waiting for my blood. This NPC was crazy and dangerous, but she was also clearly part of the quest, and I intended on getting the full story.
“Just a single cut wouldn’t do it. It has to be a life-ending cut. I must say, it can be a hassle.”
“What sort of creature do you usually use?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I usually catch something, the bigger the better. I’m not allowed to bleed the sacrifice myself. Otherwise I would’ve just killed you. I have to capture something and then capture a second, different something, put them together so they fight, guess which one is going to lose, and then cast my spell on the loser before they receive their first injury. The moment they’re dead, my battle squad arises. How powerful they are depends wholly on the quality of the blood.”
Donut: SHE IS GOING TO TRY TO CAPTURE US, CARL. WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE.
Donut was right. It was stupid to keep following her. I paused in the street. We were only two blocks over now from the saferoom. But before we left, I had to ask one last question. The all-important question.
“Why are you attacking them?” I asked.
She indicated a tall, white building. “My home is over there. I moved in because it is close to the vine, and the circus can no longer move from their spot. I have refreshments. If you’d like to join me for an evening drink, I will regale you with the sad tale of Signet the Bastard and Grimaldi, the man she loved.”
“Bastards can be girls?” Donut asked, speaking for the first time.
“Yes,” Signet said. “I learned quite early the term does not discriminate between male or female.”
“We have to get going,” I said. “But I would love to talk more about this with you later. But only if you promise not to try to sacrifice us.”