JaceVAmor
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Chapter 214: Bamboo Chickens
🕑 Added 2024-03-25 15:11:00 +0000 UTCCoop had been treading water for the better part of two entire days. The sea was an unforgiving opponent that Coop would never defeat in a test of endurance. The continual procession of waves firmly established the constant struggle of remaining above the surface. There was no end in sight. Fighting to keep his head above water was an extreme challenge that intensified when the largest swells rolled through, forcing him to dig in and exert himself unceasingly lest he be dragged down.
The sun didn’t provide any solace. Its burning presence was just as uncompromising. The heat on his exposed skin threatened to sap his strength, teaming up with the ocean as if the two forces of nature were in collaboration to deliver him back to the depths. Coop powered on, kicking his feet with an unending rhythm to avoid slipping into the dark deep ocean. Every third swelling wave required another burst of energy, yet there was no chance to relax in between.
Paradoxically, he was freezing cold. The shivering began after only a few hours in the tropical ocean. Coop clenched his jaw to stop his teeth chattering, but the cold seeped into his bones. He was thirsty, tired, and growing increasingly stressed as time slipped by, but he had grown stubborn during the assimilation. He wouldn’t quit. He wanted nothing more than to mistjump his way back to land and resume his dutiful grinding after a long nap, but the mission hadn’t had a satisfactory ending.
When he was engaged with the High Priestess, Ak-Hau, inside of her submerged cathedral, he assumed they had been dragged into the deep ocean by mana-manipulated underwater currents. Chetumal Bay was simply not deep enough to provide the depths he had experienced when he was first dragged down.
His suspicions were confirmed when he emerged from the wrecked enclave amidst a large debris field in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. He wasn’t sure if they were 50 miles, 500 miles, or 5,000 miles off shore. The horizon provided no clues. Just an endless ocean full of tormenting waves.
After the Priestess’s death, the solid structure had broken apart, collapsing like the glue that held it together had disappeared, letting the water rush into the empty space. Coop hadn’t been very careful with the integrity of the sunken fortress in the first place. He had been relying on Sierra’s ability to create another pocket of air around them if he completely destroyed the structure, but she hadn’t been capable of helping when the time came.
Luckily, the cathedral had risen from the terrible depths as they fought with the owner. When the structure shattered into pieces, Coop was able to swim to the surface before his burning lungs compelled him to test just how much his body needed oxygen and how much breathing was a force of habit remembered from the pre-mana days. Still, he was pretty confident that he had set some records for the deepest free dive, though his extra Strength and general physical resistance probably disqualified him from fair competition.
In any case, it would have to be a joint record since he had dragged Sierra on the trip to the surface. Ever since, he had been keeping his head above the water while making sure she was able to rest as much as possible. The environment wasn’t exactly conducive to healthy recovery, but he did his best lifeguard imitation, preventing her from drowning, at the very least. He couldn’t take her with him when he mistjumped, so he tried to nurse her back to a state where she could travel with her own strength.
Coop expected Primal Constructs or aggressive animals to attack them. He did his best to stay vigilant, but kicking his legs beneath the surface with his arms occupied with holding the Cloud Dancer left him feeling extremely exposed to anything that lurked below. If there was anything, it never made its presence known.
Coop supposed the particular section of ocean was similar to the area around the Avatar of Huracan’s domain, the Mushroom King’s Cavern, and to a lesser extent the Voice of Kukulkan’s Thunderstruck Tree. Once the Cultists established their domains, everything else was excluded, perhaps because they were deliberately trying to establish what the system designated as Infestations, or maybe it was simply the default result of a powerful entity occupying a specific area. Either way, it meant that the ocean was as empty as it seemed from his perspective bobbing upon the waves. If not, Coop’s aura appeared to be enough to scare away the curious predators that investigated their presence. Naturally, some caution was necessary for animals to survive in the wild, and Coop would represent an unknown quantity that might not be worth the effort.
Most of the time, Sierra was barely skimming the edge of consciousness. Coop had been feeding her Elder Olani’s latest iteration of the healing tinctures. Every hour, he gave her another until she had consumed the entire batch by herself. While they were definitely effective, they appeared to taste much closer to a proper medicine with the way Sierra scrunched her face up with displeasure each time he gave her one. They smelled nice to him, but he didn’t waste any on taste testing.
Coop didn’t let Sierra’s obvious aversion to the tinctures discourage him from providing them every time the cooldown reset. Knowing that it was only a matter of time before mana’s natural recovery would improve the Jaguar Warrior’s health, he did his best to make sure that she didn’t succumb to any lingering consequences of taking damage. However, even as her health improved, it grew more obvious that the injuries were the kind that lingered through debuffs that would take much longer to dissipate.
Sierra had been amazing when she had the opportunity to engage the High Priestess, but she had fallen to the natural disadvantage of an evasion focused build. A single undodged attack could be devastating. She had taken critical damage from the much higher leveled Priestess, nearly being killed in a single direct attack, the same tidal punches that the Priestess implemented in countering his phantasms. As it stood, the Cloud Dancer’s recovery would be a long time coming.
Coop was no doctor, but the horrible bruising across her midriff made him assume she had internal injuries, and the way she could barely move her legs or even breath properly without excruciating pain had him worried about her spine and ribs. He didn’t let his concern show, staying positive the entire time they were in the vast sea.
The positivity wasn’t something he needed to entirely fake. They were creatures of magic now; there was no doubt in his mind that she would recover, but he had no idea how long injury debuffs could last. Her health should have already been full for quite some time.
In spite of his concerns, by the morning after the first night, she was conscious enough for them to attempt to find their way back to the coast. She transformed into her bird form and flew for about a hundred yards before drifting to one side and crashing back into the ocean. Coop had to fish her back out of the water and give her the last of the healing tinctures to get her stable enough to communicate. Thankfully, she floated while in her travel form, and her emerald feathers were bright enough for him to track her down. It would be easy to get lost among the waves of the sprawling ocean, never to be seen again.
After that, he abandoned the idea of them escaping the situation by their own volition. While he treaded water and she drifted in and out of consciousness, splitting her time between unintelligible pained mumbling and desperate pleas for him to leave her behind for the sake of the Jaguar Sun, he experimented with his merged summoning skill, Invocation.
His preliminary efforts to find a way to force Salvation to create a second set of armor, preferably a life vest, went nowhere. Trying to force the evolved skill to summon them a boat predictably failed, as he continued to be limited to weapons and armor of solidified mists, regardless of the phantasms and apparitions that came with them. He confirmed that he was still restricted to suitably ancient designs, though he would need Jones to gauge whether the needle had moved a thousand years closer to the present or not. He doubted that particular limitation would change. Mana was unbending in its imposition compared to the pliability of the system.
The weapons he summoned were capable of being much larger. He summoned a comically large greatsword, but that didn’t particularly help at the moment. The phantasm that he had swimming next to them for some time, didn’t complain either, but his expression was enough. They were for fighting things, and the ocean wasn’t something they could engage with.
Eventually, Coop’s repeated efforts yielded actual salvation. His previously failed brittle shield was the answer. He could keep the density of the misty conjuration low enough that the round shield was passably buoyant. With Sierra nestled in the concave inner portion of the shield, as long as he helped, the pseudo raft could keep her afloat.
The inadequate experimental shield had come through twice in surprising ways, first by providing shrapnel to bait the Shrimp monsters into wasting their attacks in the Coral Forest Mana Well, and now by acting like a small pool floatation device with just enough buoyancy to do the job. It turned out that all of the experimentation during the siege hadn’t been a waste of time.
Coop finally stopped simply treading water, instead leaning his body forward and kicking, while he made sure the shield stayed on the surface with both arms. They were making small gains, but that’s how progress always started, in his opinion. He headed west, unsure of where land even was, but committing to a straight line in a single direction. The last situation he wanted to put them in was one where he swam in circles.
Sierra’s legs dragged in the water, but Coop compensated, making sure they didn’t drift off track. Her hair escaped the rim of the shield, splaying out and revealing the decorative feathers she had braided into the locks whenever the waves carried them upward, but for the most part, she fit inside. The shield was large enough to cover his entire torso, from his waist to his head when he held it in front, but it really wasn’t large enough to be considered a proper raft. If she curled up, she could fit, more or less, but it wouldn’t be comfortable. Unfortunately, his testing with a larger tower shield resulted in a shield that wasn't sufficiently buoyant.
His mind drifted while he pressed forward, pumping his legs with enhanced Strength, and not quite limitless stamina, but close enough by human standards. They were cruising with Coop’s engine propelling them across waves large enough to seem like solid walls. In the back of his mind, he wondered if they were actually in the Pacific.
Coop concluded that they would be swimming for a long time if they were in the wrong ocean. He wouldn’t stop until they hit land, then they’d figure it out from there. Add the swim to the record books, he decided. First person to swim all the way from North America to Japan. Or maybe New Zealand. His navigation skills didn’t quite match up with his endurance, but surely he would hit land eventually.
They spent another day on the ocean and from the towering crest of a particularly large wave, Sierra thought she spotted land. After several more hours of swimming, it turned out to be a shallow reef, but land wasn’t too much further. Coop skipped the smallest mangrove islands and pushed them across sandbars, wading when he could, unwilling to stop until they were back on the mainland. Wherever they ended up, it was certainly tropical.
When he finally dragged Sierra and the shield up onto a nearly pristine sandy beach, he collapsed onto his hands and knees, fighting back exhausted dry heaves while the world swayed back and forth. The beach was lined with stubby palm trees that leaned into the wind, dozens of turquoise lounge chairs, and white painted beachfront cabanas that had been neglected since the assimilation began, but would have made for a nice vacation rental before.
He squinted at the lounge chairs, realizing that some of them were occupied by sunbathing green iguanas. None of them weighed on his Presence of Mind, as none of them had any levels.
“Where are we?” He finally managed as he caught his breath, but he answered his own question by reading a sign at the edge of a cracked concrete trail. It read Placencia Municipal Pier and had an arrow pointing south.
“Where’s Placencia?” He asked again.
“Belize.” Sierra responded before hissing with pain.
“Oh, thank god.” Coop managed before letting himself fall into the warm sand. He told himself he only needed to catch his breath.
“What’s with all the iguanas?” He muttered to himself with the side of his face pressed into the sand, not expecting an answer. The reptiles barely reacted to his presence, almost seeming like statues if not for the abrupt adjustments they made with their heads.
“Bamboo chickens.” Sierra stated cryptically.
Coop stayed in the sand for two minutes before he forced himself back up. He took another minute to shake the feeling back into his legs, then yet another few minutes to walk around to recover his balance, all under the gaze of the calm lizards.
Once he felt he was sufficiently stable, he swapped the smaller round shield for a much larger solid tower shield, not worried about buoyancy any longer. He felt inspired by the lounge chairs. Carefully placing Sierra more comfortably into the interior of the new larger shield, as if it was a stretcher, then he lifted it off the ground. He took the shield and balanced it onto his left shoulder, arm stretched so that his left hand gripped the outer edge, with Sierra still inside it. She was laying on her back with a slightly pained expression, and her feet dangled in front, but it was workable. If the shield hadn’t worked, he could have borrowed one of the actual beach chairs instead. It didn’t seem like the iguanas would mind.
“Which way to Corozal?” He asked while summoning his ethereal spear and letting Fog of War seep into existence on the beach around his feet. He told himself he was tireless even as the exhaustion set in.
“North.” She answered tersely. “Just leave me already.” She added in what had become a repeated phrase.
“Nah, we’re almost there.” Coop declined, feeling a bit like one of Cleopatra’s litter-bearers. “This is fine actually, you just rest up.”
“It’s more than a hundred more miles.” She groaned, exasperated.
“That’s nothing! We just swam at least a thousand.” Coop cheerily responded, keeping his own spirit up as much as hers. Though it was an exaggeration, the swim had felt like far more.
“You’re full of it.” She complained. “That was fifty at most.”
Coop chuckled as he strolled forward. “Wanna bet? I think it was way more. I’m super strong, so we were going at least as fast as a real boat.”
“No way.” She sighed. “I ran into the Priestess when I cut across the ocean from Honduras. Her base wasn’t that far out.”
“Maybe it moved.” Coop suggested, glad that she was responding as much as she was. When she was really out of it, he barely got more than one word from her. She was definitely feeling better.
“Maybe.” She conceded, voice already weakening. He let the argument fade so that she could rest.
Coop marched North and the mists spread in front and around him. It turned out they were on a narrow barrier island, but this one actually seemed connected to the mainland. It was full of Ruin Nebulas, and there were no signs of any people.
Unfortunately, the monsters were of the elite variety, so he wasn’t making Slayer quest progress. Coop defeated them all the same. A small squad of phantasms cleared the way and he hummed to himself as he progressed up the coast.
His quiet song was interrupted when he yelped after receiving a level. The Primal Constructs actually came through while defeating Elite monsters. Coop quietly celebrated what he saw as a freebie. He hadn’t been paying close attention, abandoning the idea that non-bosses would continue to give him levels, but he was still sure he had only defeated around 200 Elites. The level came fast.
Coop happily followed the coast. His logic was as simple as usual; Corozal was on the coast to the north, so if he kept the water at his side, he couldn’t miss it. Hours went by and the sun was a little lower in the sky when he noticed his notifications had changed. One of his phantasms defeated a regular Ruin Nebula and his quest tracked the kill.
“Almost there.” He confirmed to himself.
He hadn’t reset the entire Yucatan Peninsula, concentrating instead on the region around Corozal, specifically for the benefit of the Outpost. While he made gains from eliminating enough elites to allow regular monsters to respawn, he was also doing it so that the residents of the town wouldn’t be as pressured by the progressing challenges wrought by the Constructs. If he was finding regular versions of the monsters, that meant they were reasonably close: a handful of mistjumps at the most.
Coop took his time, letting the combination of diligent phantasms and Sierra’s vigorous snoring keep the monsters away. It was the second time he found himself escorting people to Corozal after defeating a High Priest, and both times had become opportunities to grind out what seemed to be the regional Slayer title.
This time, he focused a bit harder on finding perfect equilibrium between a growing Fog of War, an increasing number of phantasms, and the mana recovery provided by additional monsters being caught in the domain by the extra ghosts. There was probably an exact formula where each phantasm represented a specific number of kills, which after recovering their mana cost, could then be converted into additional cubic meters of fog based on the monsters, but Coop wasn’t someone that would make such calculations. He just played it by ear.
His Fog of War expanded its misty domain across several miles of forested jungle when he started lingering on each kill, watching the numbers go up.
[You defeated Ruin Nebula (Level 122)]
[+291 Basic Credits]
[+1 Fragmented Void Sphere]
[Defeat Ruin Nebulas V (10015/11111)]
[Congratulations! Your profession has leveled up!]
Coop’s Scavenging had benefited the most from the extra time allotted to grinding. When he was defeating individual humans, they lacked the loot rewards that monsters provided. Boss monsters alone weren’t enough to completely make up for neglecting the mass repetitive killing that the Slayer titles demanded. Each kill was an opportunity for his profession to be active, and eventually level up. Ultimately, grinding was a way for him to keep his profession and class levels more balanced.
[You defeated Ruin Nebula (Level 136)]
[+288 Basic Credits]
[Defeat Ruin Nebulas V (10515/11111)]
At some point he had crossed a threshold unknown even to himself, where the Slayer title was close enough that he would refuse to cease his grind. He was drawn to the finish line such that nothing would interrupt him. He would walk right through Corozal to get to the monsters on the other side if they arrived at their destination before his grind was finished.
[You defeated Ruin Nebula (Level 152)]
[+320 Basic Credits]
[Quest Complete! Defeat Ruin Nebulas V]
[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]
[Slayer title upgraded!]
When the white spotlight emanated around his form, declaring to the world that he had received another level in the day, he paused to bask in the relief brought by progress. Before he was conscious of the well-practiced routine, he had already assigned the five unallocated attribute points into Mind, adding to the 100 stats automatically allocated by the Slayer title upgrade.
The bonuses generated by his passive skills were spread throughout his other stats and he took a deep breath. While he could use a nap, the best salve to any of his trials was always adding more attributes. If there was another monster variant nearby, he’d be ready to start another grind with the morale boost granted by his growth.
Coop shook his head at himself as he continued to pick his way North. Next stop: Corozal.
Comments
JaceVAmor
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Edit suggestion: Defeat Ancient Prowlers V -> Defeat Ruin Nebulas V
bcd051
Agreed, he's consistent and knows who he is. "Hey new constructs? Sweet, time to grind"
Nyroe
I've said it before, but I love Coop's character. He isn't dumb or cocky, he's just straightforward and pretty relaxed, even when he isn't confident. Stuck in the middle of the ocean and exhausted? "Guess I'll swim west. If I hit Japan, at least I'll set a record."
