So, the plan was to head to the commandant’s plot, see if they were still in their watch room, and then escape the building along his normal route. With a nod of his head, he stood up again, his next few actions determined.
Chapter Four — Logistics
Stepping out into the hallway again, he had mana guard back up and the faint red light of the dancing blade was illuminating the hallway for a few feet either side of the door. The glow wasn’t even enough to penetrate to the far side of the hallway. “Frak, this isn’t going to work.”
He needed more light. He’d acquired a few flammables from his raid on the locker room, but he needed a better option than dancing blade. He turned left into the large open space that was the cube farm. He stepped as quietly as his boots would allow. The sound of the cloth duffles rubbing against his uniform jacket reverberated loudly in his ears as he strained to hear anything.
With a grunt, he swung the duffles down onto the floor, his fingers gripping the axe handle as the dancing sword blinked out of existence. He stood there on the threshold of the cube farm, his eyes peering into the darkness and his ears straining to hear the skitter of another spider.
He waited a minute and then, on a hunch, he pointed his finger to the leftmost corner of the room and launched a fireball in that direction. The bright ball of flame moved quickly but still lit up the room better than the blade had. It revealed the dark shapes of massive spiders before exploding with another loud scream as two of the beasts were caught in its area of effect.
Drew’s free hand was already moving in the pattern that would allow him to resummon the dancing blade. Meanwhile, he clumsily swung the axe one handed in a circle around him, as a deterrent against the now swiftly approaching forms.
He hadn’t seen any of them that were any larger than the one he had already fought, so hopefully, that meant there wasn’t a boss type monster here. As soon as the axe had finished its arc without meeting any resistance, he dropped it. The hand that was previously holding it began casting cone of frost. The spider screams that followed told him that he’d scored at least a partial hit. His other hand beginning to cast major spark already.
The flash of electrical power that surged from his left hand arced to a nearby spider that curled up on itself with a twitching motion. His right hand was already throwing a minor acid dart at the same location. His left hand moved to form another fireball. The pattern repeated, lighting the room in weird flashes of burning flame, arcing electricity, and red shadows as the sword attacked any spiders that came close enough to him.
When it was over, there were a couple of small fires throughout the room as paper and fabric burned. Using the firelight, he could see half a dozen spider bodies; some were half melted, others still twitching as electricity arced around holes eaten away by acid darts. The carpet around him had clumped bits of frozen blue ichor and sliced off spider legs.
The adrenaline that had caused the full fury of his spells to erupt in bright flashes faded again, and he felt a weakness in his knees. The curious thickness in the air around him proved that the few spiders that had gotten close enough to be killed by the sword hadn’t even managed to deal enough damage to break his mana guard spell. The air smelled thickly of ozone, smoke, and burning spider flesh. “That…that wasn’t even that bad,” Drew said to himself, looking around the room. Open spaces were much easier for him to lay out the hurt. He leaned down to pick up the axe from where it had landed a few feet away from him.
Congratulations citizen, you have attuned your first xatherite. Minor Acid Dart will now begin to level up.
Congratulations citizen, your Minor Acid Dart has reached level 1. Damage has increased.
Congratulations citizen, your Minor Acid Dart has reached level 2. Damage has increased.
Congratulations citizen, your Minor Acid Dart has reached level 3. Damage has increased.
Congratulations citizen, Major Mana Guard has been attuned.
Congratulations citizen, Major Refresh has been attuned.
The blue screen appeared in Drew’s eyes as he finally calmed down after the fight. He willed the blue message away, and taking advantage of the newly lit room, he left the duffles near the entrance as he advanced on the two side doors along the right side of the room. He was really hoping that there was a janitor’s closet in the storeroom area. He had some ideas for a more permanent light source. Or at least one that worked more than a third of the time.
As he waited for the cooldown on dancing blade to end, he put his ear to the crack between the doors and listened. Hearing nothing, he tried the doorknob. Upon finding it locked, he threw a quick acid dart at the lock. The pop fizz of dissolving metal echoed through the room and then the door lurched slightly, the latch no longer keeping it closed. Pushing it open all the way allowed some of the light from the still burning fires to illuminate the room. Drew couldn’t help but laugh. The adrenaline of the fight coupled with the absurdity of his situation suddenly hitting him. He grabbed the mop and a couple of spare heads from the corner and then looked around for any other supplies that might come in handy.
The problem was carrying capacity. He could only carry so many things, and he had to keep his hands clear and be relatively unburdened to fight. In video games, this would have been solved for him by a magic backpack or a bag of holding. Or the GM would just waive the weight restrictions as being too much paperwork. The reality of the situation was significantly different from those idealized versions he had spent so much time in before. He already had his hands full with the axe and the duffles. Adding a torch on top of it all meant he was going to have to give something up.
He was reluctant to discard the axe. While he hadn’t used it during the second fight, if anything got in close, it was imperative that he be able to use its weight and reach to keep his opponent away from him. His defensive and healing spells didn’t seem like they would hold up to a major barrage, especially if he came up against something that had anywhere near the firepower he did.
He looked around. The room was moderately large, containing several shelves with cabling and other electronics. All of which were now useless since nothing with electronics worked. But standing in a corner was a two-tier AV cart. Walking over to it, he pushed it a few times to determine how sturdy it was. Made of thick plastic, it couldn’t hold a ton of weight, but it was probably enough for the duffles. And as the round posts in each corner were hollow, he could put the mop turned torch in one of those and have light without sacrificing his casting and the axe.
Sliding the once expensive laptops off the cart, he cleared the cart of everything but the wire and the toolkit. He looked around and grabbed two more unopened boxes of cabling, then some other cleaning supplies that looked flammable.
The squeaky wheels of the cart wouldn’t help much for his stealth, but by the time he was back at the duffles, he had something of a plan. First, he set to coating the mop head in the shoe polish that he’d found in the locker room. He then soaked it in some of the cleaning chemicals that were labeled as flammable. While he waited for the mop to soak them up completely, he cut off several lengths of cabling and braided them together, giving him 8 feet or so of stronger ‘rope’ he could use to pull the cart.
Tying the cabling to the cart and then putting everything on it only took a few more minutes, but it was enough for the scattered fires to begin to die down, their fuel consumed. Looking around quickly, he thrust the mop through several of the spider webs for good measure, coating it in the thick webbing. He lit the whole thing on fire with a quick spark into some steel wool. Mana guard prevented the resulting cascade of sparks from hurting his hands too much. He waited a few seconds to see how his new torch would work, then slipped it into the hole at the front of the cart, pleased with the height of the torch and how much light it gave off.