Strength Based Wizard-Chapter 44. The Farm, Part III

The door groans in its frame. Farmer Baptiste is gone.

Vultog barrels in from the kitchen, looking like he just headbutted a wall on his way over. Shirtless, tusks bared, eyes burning from behind his spectacles.

“What in all the heavens’ fury is going on?” he growls, the low rumble of a storm just barely held in check.

Missus Baptiste’s voice is cracked glass and disbelief. “A—A Giant Bat done swoop down, knock on the door askin’ to be invited in—then snatched up Tasar like a sack’a turnips!”

Another gunshot—BANG!—somewhere out there in the dark.

“Shit,” I breathe.

Clyde’s right over my shoulder. “Outside,” he says.

Vultog snarls and marches through the living room like a tank with a mission. I don’t even think. I follow. Clyde is right behind me, pistol raised and ready. The orc’s silhouette in the flickering light looks like the beginning of a horror movie.

“Don’t get yourselves killed! Not without us, at least!” Veronica’s voice rings out behind us as she stomps down the stairs, armor on, hammer in hand. Jelly Boy buzzes angrily from her shoulder like a pissed-off bee with opinions.

Outside, the night opens up like a throat. And we plunge straight in.

The night outside vomits chaos.

I step outside and it immediately hits me. Jesus, that smell. Like hot copper and mildewed fur. Something primal and predatory rides the breeze. I squint into the dark and—

“Holy shit!”

A scene of horror is displayed in shades of night before us. A monster stands twelve feet tall, give or take a few what-the-fucks. Its wings stretch impossibly wide, thin and leathery like sun-dried organ meat, curled around a terrified and thrashing Tasar. The kid’s screaming like a siren. Snot and tears cover his face.

The monster… it’s some sort of furry Nosferatu freakazoid, with too-long limbs, jointed all wrong, and a face like someone stapled an old man mask to a diseased goat. Its eyes shine white and hungry. Two headlights on high beam.

New Monster Identified: Giant Bat, Level 23.

Classification: Large Night Horror.

Farmer Baptiste is nearby, rifle to shoulder, finger twitching like it wants to fire on its own. “I ain’t got a clean shot with it holdin’ my boy!” he shouts. “Get ‘im outta its damn claws!... Urgh, no my boy!”

The Giant Bat beats its wings once, twice. Slowly, it lifts off the ground, the fighting and screaming boy still in its hands.

“I got this!” I bellow, heart punching my ribs.

I mentally command my Wizard’s Fists: Don’t let it get away!

The fists surge forward like two freight trains of pure magical energy. They slam into the bat with an audible crunch, gripping its limbs and yanking downward. The bat shrieks, still trying to take off, wings flapping in slow, chaotic beats, each one stronger than the last.

But my boys hold firm.

Lefty wraps around its neck. Righty pins one of its legs. The beast grunts and tries again—but it’s grounded. For now.

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Lefty, ever the showboat, cocks back and clocks the thing right in its left eye. The orb goes dim like someone just unplugged a halogen lamp. The bat howls and thrashes. Tasar slips a few inches, dangling by one arm. Despite the best efforts of my cantrip, the Giant Bat slowly begins to ascend.

“Clyde!” I yell. “It’s getting loose!”

Vultog’s roar shatters the night.

The orc is already moving, calm and brutal like a man born in war.

A thick-bound spellbook snaps into his open palm in a flash of light. The thing opens itself—pages fluttering so fast they hum. The light that spills out is a sickly green.

The pages stop. The light coming off the surface of the book burns even brighter.

Ribbons of light shoot off of the pages, tangling in front of us until a perfect clone of Vultog rips free of the book, formed entirely from shimmering emerald ink. It’s two-dimensional but somehow not. Like if a comic book panel came to life. The effect reminded me of looking at a still picture of someone forming images using light.

I receive a notification when I examine the moving, glowing ink creature.

[Illustration: Vultog, Ink Warden, Level 10]

The illustrated Vultog snarls and lunges forward, ethereal arms outstretched. Ink-Vultog clears the distance between us and the Giant Bat in a blink, wrapping its arms around Tasar and pulling.

The bat shrieks again, spinning, thrashing, but my oddly human-like fists grip tighter. Lefty starts punching like a lunatic again, Righty joins in, turning it into a glowing ghost brawl.

Tasar’s eyes meet mine. I can see the tears, the absolute terror.

We’re not letting this thing go anywhere. Not tonight.

I charge forward. Boots slam the dirt, adrenaline boiling over into white-hot instinct. The Giant Bat lifts off again, wings carving the air into chaos, and Tasar’s still caught in its claws. Nope. Not today, Dracula.

I plant myself right in front of it, heels digging into soil, and hit the pose.

Front. Lat. Spread.

I cast Light.

Fwoom!...

Radiance erupts from my chest—an arc of divine spotlight bursting from my soul like I’m a superpowered fog lamp at a rave. The beam slams straight into the Giant Bat’s face, bathing the bastard in holy ultraviolet hellfire. It screeches, its entire body violently shaking as it squeezes its eyes shut and shakes its head from side to side.

It lets go of Tasar, the boy dropping from its grip. He falls—flailing, flailing—and then fwump, lands hard into the soft dirt below. The air is knocked straight from his lungs and he deflates. Not moving.

I cast the cantrip again, this time gripping it tighter in my mind, shaping the spell. I mentally activate the sphere variation. My will commands it. A ball of condensed light forms in my hand, glowing, throbbing, like an angry miniature sun.

“Had enough, asshole?” I mutter, then shove the orb toward the Giant Bat.

It’s not fast, but flies true, sticks to the monster’s chest, though I know it won’t hold. The spell’s description was clear that it would only truly stick to inorganic surfaces. Still, it will hold long enough for my purpose. The Bat is fully exposed—every hairy vein and rotten fang on display. An easy target…

“NOW! HIT IT!” I scream.

Clyde’s already mid-motion.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

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Gunfire tears through the night. Clyde’s pistol barks thunder, muzzle flashes painting his face like a horror movie strobe. A few shots slam into the Bat’s wing, others into its torso. Blood spatters in arcs across the dirt ground.

BOOM!

Baptiste fires his blunderbuss.

Instead of buckshot or smoke, the man’s blunderbuss belches magic. A green glob launches out like ectoplasmic snot, midair morphing into… dentures?

Yeah. A glowing, chattering, phantom pair of teeth.

They clamp down on the Bat’s shoulder with a wet crunch, gnawing and ripping like they’ve been starving for centuries. Blood sprays through the air. The teeth laugh, and then combust, green fire licking across the Bat’s wings, searing through membrane and muscle before fizzling into sparks.

It shrieks again, half-charred and twitching, flapping madly toward the sky.

But it’s too late.

I hear Vultog’s growl behind me.

He’s muttering words that hurt to hear in a strange tongue the System fails to translate for me, and his spellbook is glowing like a mini-supernova. Pages flip again, faster this time, and a ring of yellow runes spirals out into the air, encircling the injured Giant Bat. They spread, shift, then snap together like trap jaws around the Giant Bat.

The monster freezes mid-flap. It doesn’t fight against its new magical binding. I’m actually not sure if it even can.

Crack. Snap!

The Bat dissolves into light, and then line by line, sketch-like and sizzling, yellow threads of its form pull inward toward the orc, like ink being sucked into a drain. The lines funnel into Vultog’s book.

When the final thread vanishes, the book slams shut with a clap.

Then, silence.

The System chimes, accompanied by a soft pulsing sensation in my mind.

You have defeated Giant Bat, Level 23!

Partial credit awarded to… Clyde Richmond, Big Game Hunter.

Partial credit awarded to… Baptiste, Elf Farmer.

Partial credit awarded to… Vultog, Orc Scholar.

Level 11 increased to Level 12!

“Holy shit,” I breathe, hands on my knees, heart pounding like it wants out of my chest.

The Illustration Vultog, green and glowing like a highlighter scribble that got struck by lightning, moves with surprising gentleness. It carries Tasar like a fragile package, cradling him in sketchy arms of shifting lines and flickering ink.

It steps forward, its glowing feet not quite touching the earth, and deposits the boy into the arms of Farmer Baptiste.

“Oh, my boy, my sweet boy! Are you alright?” Baptiste’s voice cracks, rough as gravel dragged across a church pew. He drops to his knees in the dirt, clutching Tasar like he’s trying to rewind time and protect him from any harm the world had to offer.

Tasar nods, once. Still shaking, but alive. Thank God.

Baptiste breaks. No crying, but a couple of choking sobs. Then, voice caught in his throat as he says, “Thank ye… thank ye… Oh, my boy!”

He keeps saying it. Like he can’t stop. Like if he stops, something worse might creep out of the darkness and take Tasar, for good this time.

We head back inside together, Vultog trailing behind like a funeral shadow, spellbook still glowing faintly against his side. The night hums with tension and cooling blood, the smell of fire and fur and sweat thick in the air.

The porch creaks beneath our weight as we step up. Veronica’s there, hammer in hand, panting like she just finished sprinting laps. Jelly Boy sits on her shoulder, wobbling with frustration, his normally playful jiggle all sharp angles and sour vibes.

“Too slow,” Veronica mutters. “Darn.”

I wave a hand and dismiss Wizard’s Fist. Poof—Lefty and Righty vanish into harmless swirls of mist.

Then, I scoop up Jelly Boy. He buzzes angrily, a vibration I can feel in my arms like I’m holding a pissed-off subwoofer.

“I know, bud. I’m sorry,” I say, cradling him like a goopy football. “We’ll get you in there next time. Promise.”

The battle had started and ended so quickly. A firecracker of violence, followed by silence.

The slime emits a low gurgle, somewhere between a whimper and a curse. I give him a gentle squeeze and his gelatinous surface squishes with a wet blorp.

The Illustration Vultog stands on the porch beside us for just a moment longer, as thought making sure everyone made it inside safely, lines of green ink already unraveling like a string caught on a nail. It looks down at Tasar with glowing, expressionless eyes, then begins to fade. One line at a time. Vanishing back into whatever eldritch coloring book it crawled out of.

By the time I turn my head to check on the real Vultog, the spellbook at his side dims. The glow softens to a faint ember and then snuffs out completely.

He looks tired. Not physically. I mean in the depths of his goddamn soul. Like he’s been dragging something heavy that no one else can see.

I make a mental note. I definitely owe Vultog a conversation.