Chapter 130: Dragor’s Kinesis

“I had a dream where psychic spiders caused us to hallucinate the whole camping trip, and they’ve been eating us this entire time.” Perry said, poking the fire with a stick. He and Nat paused for a moment, waiting for the hand of fate to visit some delicious irony upon them.

When nothing happened, Perry reached out and knocked on a nearby spruce before returning to cooking up last night’s ambush.

POP!

The meat popped and sizzled as superheated water attempted to escape as steam, dribbling juices onto the fire. The morning light was beaming through the trees to illuminate their campsite.

“Okay,” Perry said, turning the giant spider legs roasting above the fire with a stick. “I’ll admit, camping is pretty fun.”

“Really?” Nat asked.

“Yep.” Giant spiders were a lot less scary than he had expected. Or maybe Perry was a lot more scary than he thought.

“And I’m good at it?” Nat asked. She’d shredded the arachnids with some detachable metal discs on her gloves.

“Yep.” Perry said, keeping a close eye on the state of the meat. There was an art to getting spider meat at the most ideal temperature. Mmm, land lobster.

“Then does that mean you’re going to bring me along to Chicago?”

Perry froze, glancing up at the tiny Tinker, looking up at him innocently.

“Did someone say I wouldn’t?” Perry asked.

“Sophie said you might.”

Perry took a deep breath and scratched his head. “Nat, it’s not about whether or not I think you can handle it. If anything, it’s about bringing people I’m comfortable leaving to die, like Mass Driver and Chemestro. Replicators don’t mess around, and will absolutely ambush us with overwhelming force. They’ll shoot us, or poison us, hit us with an EMP, split us up, strand us and let us get tired and strung out before attacking with everything they have. They have tactics. They’re worse than people in that they follow those tactics without emotion. If one of us can be killed by a sniper’s bullet, they absolutely will do that.”

Nat stared at the fire for a while, letting Perry’s rant wash over her.

“You know, after you got kidnapped by Neuron, I regretted not being able to find you,” Nat said, staring into the fire. “I couldn’t sleep for two days. If you were missing in Chicago any longer than a day…I’d probably go look for you this time. By myself.”

“Oof, you’re holding yourself hostage.”

“Yep.” Nat said with a shrug and a hint of a smile.

“I’m not supposed to negotiate with terrorists…but…Promise me you won’t die under any circumstances.”

“I won’t die. Under any circumstances,” Nat said, offering her pinky.

“What if they break your mechsuit?” Perry asked.

“Then I’ll hollow out a Replicator and ride them back home.” She said with a shrug.

“Alright,” Perry said, taking her pinky with his own. “When I’m ready to go, I want you to have a full suite of tech that makes the mark five look like a little bitch. If you do, you can come.”

“Deal.” Natalie said.

The two shook pinkies on it.

“You guys want brainworms?” Heather asked, drying her hair as she returned from the creek. “Because that’s how you get brainworms.”

“That’s because those people were improperly jerking their food,” Perry said. “I am cooking the spider legs to an even one hundred and sixty degrees. It’s not going to give us brainworms.”

“Better not.” Heather grumbled, sitting down beside Nat.

She hugged Nat for a moment before regarding Perry suspiciously. “So why’d you decide to go to your grampa’s and agree to go camping so easy?”

“I need a reason?” Perry asked.

“If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you never do things for just one reason.”

Perry glanced at Heather, raising a brow. Heather knew him better than Nat.

“You know how after plastic surgery, you’ve gotta heal for a couple weeks before you can show off your pretty new face?” Perry asked.

“I guess?”

“Well, those new spells I told you about, they do a little bit of damage to my soul on the way in, so I gotta do something good for the soul, like camping trips and visiting the grandparents. Give it some time to heal.”

“Your freakin’ soul?” Heather demanded.

“It’s not that bad,” Perry said. “It’s just a part of you like any other body part, and if you’re careful enough you can work with it.”

“That sounds…incredibly dumb,” Heather said. “You do realize that people with too much plastic surgery start looking hideous?”

“I’m aware,” Perry said. He was walking the same path as someone who’d rendered himself a vegetable. Perry was highly aware.

“The other reason to come out here was because I wanted to get some practice with my new spells without hurting anyone or tipping my hand to the general public.” Perry said, pushing himself to his feet.

Perry walked away from Nat and Heather until he was standing in the middle of the stream, cold water rushing around his ankles.

Dragor’s Kinesis (expert Difficulty)

Slip-beast Ichor, Mind-taker ichor, cloud giant lens.

Cut the cloud giant lens into a perfects sphere, coat the sphere in slip-beast ichor and allow to dry. Print the tale of Johanas The Voyager in mind-taker ichor on the user’s body, then upon the coated sphere. Upon finishing the inscription, everything within a twenty brindle range will be under the user’s mental control.

Perry triggered the spell.

Dragor’s Kinesis.EXE

(2/3) Slots Remaining

“Do you guys have any idea how far twenty brindles is?” Perry asked as the water of the stream began to churn around his ankles. Small river rocks on the bank began to float lazily away from their brethren.

Nat shook her head. Perry took a few steps further back as he noticed the dirt beside them begin to float, and the effect receded.

“I figured it was worth the risk to put a few of the spells that can’t be automated inside me as a trump card,” Perry said, focusing his attention on the water around him, convincing the stream itself to flow up and over his head.

The stream did as it was told, lifting away from the ground and forming a massive shimmering curtain above his head, allowing the light of the sun to filter through.

Perry chuckled as he spotted a fish lazily swimming through the water flowing above his head.

“This is one of the most powerful localized telekinesis spells. It has a shorter range than other spells, but no weight limit in what it can move, because it modifies gravity directly instead of exerting force against an object’s mass. You could say the heavier an object is, the easier it would be for the spell to move it.”

“That’s so cool!” Nat said, standing up. “Can you fly?”

Perry’s feet lifted on the ground.

“Apparently,” He muttered, glancing down at the flight that had initiated nearly without his conscious decision.

Uh oh.

“So why’s it dangerous?” Heather asked, standing beside Nat.

Perry thought of why it was so dangerous.

SHHHHH

At the mere thought of the worst-case scenario, it began to unfold in front of him.

A rock the size of his fist lunged off the ground and flickered towards Natalie at bullet speeds, catching the tiny Tinker in the face, sending her ragdolling backwards through the tent.

“NAT!” Heather’s panicked voice tore through the air, but Perry was too busy. Upon considering how out of control it was, the spell obliged and began slamming him violently into the ground and trying to pluck his limbs from his body, wildly spinning him in place and scraping his body against the stones of the creek bed.

HP: 7

HP: 6

HP: 5

HP: 4

HP: 3

CANCEL Dragor’s Kinesis.EXE

Perry fell back into the stream, the muddy water collapsing in around him and chilling him to his core. But that wasn’t what prompted him to drag himself out of the creek like a madman.

“Nat, are you okay!?” Perry asked as he hauled himself out of the water, seeing Heather leaning over the collapsed tent.

“I’m fine,” A tiny hand emerged from the wreckage of the tent, waving to him, followed shortly by the raven-haired Tinker.

She seemed…fine.

Perry frowned.

“I mean, they were appraised at several million dollars apiece,” Nat said, brandishing a heavily corroded ring on her right hand. “Why wouldn’t I want one for myself?” The thick layer of tarnish on the ring was slowly fading.

“Oh, thank god,” Perry collapsed and let go of a huge breath as his heartrate began to come back down to normal levels.

“The fuck was that!?” Heather demanded, pulling Perry to his feet by his ear. Perry wanted to yell back at her, but there was really no purpose to getting in a fight.

Perry took a deep breath and spoke as evenly as he could. “The spell is one of the harder ones to control because it’s so open-ended. Anything you think of, it’ll do. When you asked why it was dangerous, I thought of why it was dangerous, and it became a self-fulfilling loop.”

“And you didn’t warn us about that!?” Heather demanded.

“Because I was trying not to think of what could go wrong,” Perry said with a shrug. “Obviously I need to train my mental discipline.”

“It’s fine,” Nat said, pulling Heather’s fist out from under Perry’s nose.

“It really doesn’t seem fine.” Heather said.

“He said he wanted to practice out here because it could be dangerous,” Natalie said. “We knew that. No one got hurt.”

Heather considered that for a moment.

“Obviously you owe us more of those Mox-feather clothes.” She said, visibly calming down.

“Obviously.” Perry said.

“And a bunch of ice cream.”

“Of course.” Perry agreed.

“And you’re not going to use that spell anywhere near us or any civilians until you’ve worked out all the kinks.”

“Definitely.”

That went without saying. Perry’s adrenaline at the sudden violence was still being flushed out of his system, leaving him with trembling limbs. If he’d hurt Nat…

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Natalie said, wrapping her arms around Perry’s shivering body.

“You’re glad he’s okay?” Heather demanded, before her gaze travelled up and down Perry’s shredded clothing, lingering on where he was bleeding from minor scrapes and bruises, soaked to the bone and shivering.

“Fine. I’m glad you’re okay, Perry,” Heather said, wrapping her arms around both of them. “Now let’s dry you both off before you decide to start peacocking again.”

“It was just a demonstration.” Perry muttered into Heather’s neck.

“Shhh…sure it was,” Heather murmured, patting his back. “You definitely weren’t trying to impress Nat with magic.”

“…Okay, maybe a little,” Perry admitted.

They sat down and dried off, eating overcooked spider-meat. It would’ve been a little better if it hadn’t had all the juices cooked out of it, but none of them wanted to risk brain-worms for a better meal.

Besides, the stuff was good even overcooked.

“Domesticated giant spiders. That’s what Franklin City needs,” Perry said, waving a hollowed out chitin leg as they hiked back to the farm.

“Not just no. Hell no,” Heather said, shaking her head.

“You sure? They taste amazing!”

Heather shoved him and the offending spider leg away, Prompting Perry to swing around a nearby trunk to stabilize himself before carrying on, Natalie in the center of their group.

Before arriving at the killzone, Perry called Grampa and got him to shut off the turrets before the three of them walked back up to the farmhouse.

“Have a good time?” Grampa asked, glancing Perry up and down, his gaze lingering on the shredded clothes and the massive spider leg he’d turned into a walking stick.

“What?” Perry asked, then glanced down at himself, then the leg. “Oh, no, I did this to myself. The giant, man-eating spiders were harmless.” Perry said.

“Unless they were psychic and we’re currently being slowly digested, trapped in a web of fantasy.” Natalie supplied.

“Unless that,” Perry said, pointing at Nat.

If I wake up tomorrow morning totally lucid, then we’ll write that possibility off.

“I don’t think you would’ve failed quite so hard at that spell if we were mind-controlled.” Heather said with a shrug.

“True,” Perry said with a shrug. Things going perfectly were hallmark signs of mental influence, and the morning had been…mixed.

“You guys look real enough to me,” Grampa said with a shrug.

“You would say that, possible figment of my imagination.” Perry said, handing Grampa his chitin walking stick as he passed by. “There’s still some meat at the bottom if you want it, Grampa.”

“That’s how you get brain worms,” Grampa said, holding the giant spider leg at arm’s length.

“I cooked it!” Perry protested as they headed for the showers.

“I trust your cooking about as far as I can throw my tractor.” Grampa said, rubbing his chin. “Although, remove the flesh and bake this in some epoxy for a while, and it’d make a damn good story slash walking stick.”

“There’s twenty-three more of them back at Bernie’s place, if you want ‘em!” Perry called over his shoulder.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Nah, I’m good,” Grampa said, flipping the massive switch to turn the autoturrets back on before following them back to the house.

After they were all clean, Perry went back to his field while Nat and Heather learned how to maintain and repair farm equipment.

Perry sat down in the middle of the soft dirt and closed his eyes. He sat there for half an hour, clearing his mind and finalizing the design of his industrial multi-story farm.

Let’s try this again, Perry thought, holding his hands apart, fingers gently curved inward.

Attunement 42 -> 38

Nerve 12 -> 16

Gretchen’s idyllic Manifestation.EXE

With the training wheels on, Perry was pleased to note the difference in speed between the flickering vistas displayed on the orb between his hands.

This could work, Perry thought as he narrowed in on a vision of the steel skeleton of his building. No fancy accessories, walls, heating or cooling units. Just the framework.

When Perry’s concentration was beginning to falter between two nearly identical images, he released the spell. He could feel the tension in the world snap like a loosed bow, and Perry winced for a moment, half expecting the thing to fall on top of him again.

When he opened his eyes… a black steel framework loomed over him, jutting up into the sky and buried deep into the earth.

Making progress.

Is that black steel…kinda ominous?