Jjhutto_Son of Flame
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B3. Ch. 15 Cut Me, Mick
🕑 Added 2024-06-27 16:14:39 +0000 UTCIt had only just left his hand when the resulting flame washed over him, along with a peppering of glass. He instinctively pushed down a shout of surprise, as the realization hit him that he had not been injured at all by the blase.
The fire had been aspected to him, and thus unable to harm his physical body. The Common quality glass, even in broken shards, bounced harmlessly off his skin. His effective Endurance of 185.9 made him more or less immune to stuff like this now. But he had no clue how far that immunity went. That's why he needed to get a feel for what his limits were before he returned to any sort of real fight.
“Holy shit, that worked!” He laughed turning toward the other two in amazement, not at all minding Marqs look of baffled amazement at his unharmed state, “I mean, the container needs some work, but without that cork failure, I think it has some real potential!” he continued.
Julius, for his part, showed his first expression of the day, a look of begrudging appreciation slowly dawned into pure enthusiasm as the implications of such an item unraveled themselves in his mind. “Where did you say these came from?” He asked, only slightly breathless.
“Gotta be Cog,” Marq answered warily from behind him, “He was always brewing up little poppers and things before he got that weird Class… Now? I guess this is his new specialty.” He answered distractedly, his eyes still glued to the patch of scorched grass just ahead of Tilly.
“You know this crafter personally?” Julius asked aghast, turning to address the Acolyte for the first time.
“Well, yeah. He was elevated two days ago, just like me.”
At that, the grizzled war veteran’s eyes widened further, “After our shift, you are taking me to find him! Only two days a crafter, and he is producing masterpieces already! Talent like this cannot afford to be throttled by the idiots in char-…” Then with a sidelong glance at Tilly, he swallowed and continued in an ill-fitting professional tone, “I mean, the brass doesn’t need to be involved in the early stages of testing, wouldn’t you agree?”
Tilly smirked, eyes glinting with that same slight mania at the possibilities of readily available munitions for the frontline soldiers. If there was one thing that united all firefighters and the military, it was a love of anything that goes boom…
“Don’t worry about me Julius, no one but Cog even knows I am doing this. As far as I’m concerned, you can head straight there after we are done and give him the results of our tests. In fact, I'll make it a part of my requisition orders. Marq, take some notes and go with him to deliver the report and introduce the two of them.” Tilly announced, his official orders somewhat juxtaposed by the eager light in his eyes.
Whatever happened over the next few weeks would not be safe… but it would definitely be awesome.
Marq fished out a notebook from his robes and took a step back, jotting down a few lines. “Alright, I’m ready for the next one.”
All three of them turned and looked down at the dirty cloth sack and the three small vials that rested there.
…
Fifteen minutes later, Tilly and Julius found themselves breathless with excitement as Marq healed a third-degree burn running down the Bastion’s arm.
“Yes… This will do very nicely.” Julius growled enthusiastically, seemingly unaffected by the waxy flesh converting to pink, hairless skin. His enthusiasm dampened markedly as he looked back up at Tilly, remembering they were officially here for an entirely different reason.
“What else did you say you needed?” He asked hollowly, failing to keep his impatience from his tone.
“I'll keep it brief… I promise.” Till answered with a rueful smile, “Marq, did you get everything you needed?”
The Acolyte flipped open his book and read off his report quickly, “ Accelerant produced five paces explosive flame. Cork failed, resulting in an early break in the container after only one breath. The smoke mixture pushed out a heavy stream of dark noxious cloud for twenty breaths, but the opening was too narrow. Flame dust spread immediately upon opening the container, difficult to direct particles, but anything it coated became extremely flammable. Finally, Blade oil ignited on the blade once lit for approximately fifty breaths. Oil was slightly too runny, and flaming droplets landed on the wielder.” He said that last point without looking at the now openly grinning veteran.
“You did say he was only level seven, right?” The man asked again.
“Last I saw, yes.”
“Plenty of room for improvement then…” He trailed off, starting to mutter to himself as he looked off into the distance.
“Julius, eyes with me, please,” Tilly called, pulling the Bastion's attention back to the task at hand. “I need some real data on what I can and can’t do with my new stats. Before we start, do you mind sharing your Strength Stat?”
The Bastion eyed him for a moment, before answering, “It’s at 113. Got a ring a few years back that boosts it by 20% and ever since then, I have been dumping in the stat to capitalize on the bonus... I am gonna clobber whoever’s been blabbing in the unit though. It’s not like it’s everyone's business what I do with my stats.”
“Totally fair,” Tilly nodded, “In the interest of trust, my Endurance is at 185.9. That is what we are going to try and test today.”
Marq gasped quietly in the background at the numbers as Julius nodded in respect.
Tilly continued, “Correct me if I am wrong, but any enemy that is not dumping in Strength will probably not have a stat as high as yours if they are under level 75, is that right?
Julius winced at the simplification, “I guess you could say that. If you are trying to estimate how much damage you can expect to take from second-tier enemy blows. Be wary of any of the races that have a racial bonus in the stat though, they will defy these predictions.”
‘Second tier… oh right, anyone between level 50-100.’
“Got it. But for simplicity's sake, if I were to fight a Consumer right now. How would I hold up against their average strikes? A few days ago, I would have been in serious trouble after a couple of blows… but that was almost forty points back. How can I expect to hold up now.”
“Hmmm.” The Bastion hummed in thought, “I see where you are going with this… You want to gauge just how reckless you can be with certain enemies, and while I would caution you from wagering too much on this kind of thinking, I also see how it could be useful considering your fighting style.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” Tilly replied with a snap and a point, “I also need to take into consideration a few new ultimates I will now have at my disposal. Making the right decision before the battle begins will have a huge outcome for me going forward.”
As Tilly was talking, he pulled his right arm out of his sleeve. “Now, I need you to strike me here on my forearm, using only your normal Strength,” Tilly said, wincing as he tried not to think too hard about what he was asking. He needed to establish a baseline that would hold more or less true for any enemy below the third tier.
The veteran just shrugged nonchalantly, taking a few purposeful steps forward and drawing his short sword, “Ready?” He asked, focusing on the arm, his tone suddenly serious.
“Yeah, do it,” Tilly answered, biting off the last word between gritted teeth.
In a flash of dull sharpened metal, a meaty impact reverberated from the site of the swing, and a deep ache blossomed from his forearm as he watched in morbid curiosity, stifling a groan. The Bastion pulled back his weapon to reveal a cut running perpendicular to the length of his forearm. It had split the muscle on the arm’s top down to the bone.
Tilly experimentally moved his wrist and then his whole arm, finding no loss in his range of motion. The injury hurt, but more like taking a fastball to your batting arm than being sliced open by a weapon of war.
“Hmm… that is interesting. Never cut something made of flesh that reacted like that.” Julius added clinically.
“Want me to heal you, sir?” Marq called out.
“No, not yet. I’ve had plenty worse than this…” Tilly called back, lifting his jacket against his better instincts and looking the bastion back in the eye.
“Alright, let's try a horizontal chop to the torso, under the ribs, I already know my bones can stand up to an average blow.”
The Bastion’s face tightened, but he didn’t complain or hesitate, pulling back his weapon and swinging it with fluid strength into Tilly's side, right below his floating rib.
“Gah!” Tilly gasped, feeling like he had just taken a body shot to the kidney. Julius pulled his weapon free with a wet, sucking whisper of stea and eyed Tilly’s reaction.
His steady gaze helped Tilly to compartmentalize the pain, and Tilly slowly straightened, looking down at the wound. It was a few inches deep and about six inches long. Tilly also noted that while both wounds were bleeding freely, the flow was much less than he would expect in similarly traumatic injuries. He slowly tried to rotate his torso and found that his movement was once again unimpeded by the injury.
“Seems like you have yourself a bit of a Barbarian build here,” Julius noted, eyeing the wound critically. “But without the beserking requirement… What’s your Health at now?”
“92%” Tilly muttered, as he noted the pain slowly starting to numb. His Constitution wasn’t incredible, at a little over 2% per minute. But even with that, he would be totally healed from what should have been debilitating wounds in a few minutes.
Julius whistled in appreciation, “The only one I know who can tank hits like this is Gorrock, and he dumps in Constitution. You remind me of a really weak troll, now that I think about it.” He added unhelpfully.
“Alright… let's keep going. This time I want you to go for the neck. Marq, be ready please.”
…
A clean gash across the neck, pictured lung, and bashed skull later, Tilly was down to 52% Health.
After reeling from the final blow, he was struggling to catch his breath, his injured lungs sucking in ragged inhalations. More than the expected pain, and the Debuffs that came with the injury, Tilly was weighed down by the psychological trauma of shoving down his survival instincts and allowing Julius to strike him again and again in vital areas.
Yet, even after the consecutive blows, he moved more or less freely, and the only Debuffs he had picked up were: Minor Bleeding, Addled, and Short of Breath. Julius was very familiar with all three and explained that they were all the lowest-impact versions one could expect from any wounds of the kind Tilly had received.
After the initial injuries, each of the wounds had slowly numbed and reverted to a sensation of a sharp tightness. Tilly could still move regularly, but he was sure some of them would be exasperated if he tried to fight at full speed… Still, he had taken several debilitating blows from someone with strength in the third tier and his ability to fight was still intact. It was exactly the information he would need when gauging an enemy's strength and judging which of his Stats to swap and when.
“Ok… That's enough of that… Julius, do you have an empowered strike of some kind?” Tilly gasped, still trying to school his breathing.
The Bastion raised his eyebrows but nodded.
“This is where things are going to get… a little crazy,” Tilly continued, as he pulled back his sleeve to reveal the almost healed wound on his forearm.
“Think you can take my arm… in one blow?” Tilly grimaced.
“Probably, you sure?”
“Yeah, I have something that will boost my Constitution… to an insane degree… but I also have a theory that if I use it… I'll get a Title that I need to test. So if I call for it, I need you to take the arm…”
Comments
Joshua Hutto
oh yeah
Wyatt Hilbert
"You remind me of a really weak troll, now that I think about it." Now all I can think about is Tilly Rick rolling people.
