Museum Core Chapter 129: Murderous Desert

The humanoid figure standing amidst the chaos of a rapidly disintegrating city only vaguely resembled a human being, angry red skin as though it had once been flayed alive stretched across a body that was just skin and bones, with topped with flaming red hair and actually flaming eyeballs that were nothing but orbs of roiling flame, deeply set into its skull like the magma at the bottom of a volcano.

Though the creature was obviously merely playing at being human, its nakedness revealing that it had more in common with a clothing store mannequin than a living being, red and orange waxy skin making her think of an oozing sore in a way that might have made her nauseous … if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was in the middle of a fight.

Nothing mattered when she was in a fight.

As Jaclyn threw herself forward to throw her first punch, the world itself seemed to bend around her, twisting and warping to collapse down into just a single line, a path between her and her opponent, as though reality itself were working to guarantee that her fist would meet that thing’s chin.

More and more sand burst out from the ground, forming a massive sandstorm that blanketed the world, huge walls of angry winds and gritty particles locking the two of them together.

Around the monster, however, the ground began to swirl in a decidedly different way, less “sandstorm,” more ... well, more “direct elemental attack.”

And then she realized the grains began to glow cherry-red and melt together, an arsenal made from molten glass ready to impale her. Once it was done, at least, which would happen, oh, about five seconds after she fed this thing its teeth!

The impact came and went so quickly that Jaclyn barely even realized it had happened. One moment, she was going straight at the monster; the next, she was sliding across the desert sands, right fist aching and covered in her opponent’s blood … which was apparently on fire.

Cursing, Jaclyn threw herself onto the ground, smothering the flames between herself and the sand as quickly as possible while rolling back to her feet to glare back at the monster.

The heat in her gaze died almost immediately when she saw that, as annoying as being lit on fire had been, the burns on her arm paled in comparison to the state her foe was in.

Granted, between her strength, her skills, and the bracelet massively boosting the weight of her fist, significant damage was to be expected … but this had been well beyond what she’d expected.

Her opponent had had its entire left side caved in, coal-back bones punching through the skin to create wounds that looked like they were dripping lava as it glared after her, having rolled onto its stomach to face her.

Jaclyn’s instincts as a police officer told her the thing was already dead. Her experience as someone who’d spent over a year dealing with supernatural crap that this was likely only the start of the fight.

Five hissing serpent heads rose over her shoulders to glare right back at her foe as her wings snapped open to carry her skywards. Shooting at it like a bullet and flinging it away as she hit it had clearly done something, but that approach had its downsides. Namely, a lot of the force was wasted throwing her enemy away.

So why not hit it like a meteor the next time?

But by the time she’d positioned herself overhead, the anchor beast had already surrounded itself with a forest of glass spears like an ancient pike formation aimed at skewering incoming cavalry.

Now, Jaclyn didn’t know how sharp those were … but she could feel the heat wafting off them even from her current position. If they managed to cut her, they’d sear the wounds shut and prevent her from regenerating.

She gave the monster an annoyed look as it glared up at her.

Mexican standoff until it bled out … really?

And then she saw the sand around it shift in yet another new way, this time forming into, uh, something. It had legs, way too many of them, and could apparently move, but beyond that, Jaclyn had no idea what that thing was supposed to be, let alone what it would do.

Even so, that changed things. Summoning minions would drain the monster’s energy reserves, yes, but surviving long enough for that to matter wasn’t necessarily a given.

But the monstrous spider-octopus-things were only the start of things. A massive jackal the size of an APC rose behind the monster, and from beneath the sands, a hand erupted.

A decidedly human hand, but not one that had belonged to a living human for a very long time. Dry and dessicated, flesh cracking in places to reveal bone, eyesockets empty, clothing hanging down in tatters.

Necromancy? On top of everything else?

Jaclyn groaned.

How many powers did that make it, now?

Sandstorm creation, sand control which was the probable source of the levitated glass and animated monsters, necromancy, the ability to melt the sand into the glass, the ability that had raised the pillar might also be a separate ability seeing as the pillar was made from solid stone, rather than sand, and there was most likely one of those “physique” powers in play to allow it to live even with all that internal fire, which may also be the source of the heat that had create the glass …

She grimaced. Her inspect was telling her that her opponent was close to her own level, but that could mean it was either at the very peak of C or very bottom of B-Rank, which was a very important difference since whether it held four powers or five could change the entire flow of battle.

But this thing’s powers overlapped in so many ways that she could easily come up with a way to logically separate what she’d already seen out into five powers, or more, or even condensed into as few as three, which would leave her with potentially two nasty surprises in its back pocket.

Bollocks.

The standoff continued for several more seconds, then she noticed something. As imposing as the phalanx of glass spears was still looking, it was also no longer glowing; in fact it was looking almost normal, its temperature having dropped below the point where it would glow.

Well, it wasn’t “proper” glass, having been made from simply melting random sand; it was a dark, dirty brown, opaque color that reminded her that one time she’d accidentally poured expired, chunky milk into her coffee.

But most importantly, if it wasn’t burning hot, she could heal the wounds it caused.

Another beat of her wings launched her downwards, straight at the anchor beast, forcing the sand spider to interpose itself so quickly that she would barely have had enough time to realize what was happening, let alone react.

What had happened had been oh so obvious, however, and Jaclyn’s wings snapped open before she could plunge through its body, instead using the wings as a pivot point, bringing her feet swinging underneath her and straight through the spider monster. Kicking out full-force and turning its torso into a shotgun blast of sand.

And then the hydras on her back lashed out, lunging downwards, sinking their fangs into the flesh of the anchor beast in the split-second before she started to retain her altitude.

One moment, her foe was safely tucked away amid its minions and glass spears; the next, it was flying through the air beneath her, dangling from the mouths of several serpents.

And below that were several long glass spears that had been torn out of the ground before she’d yanked her foe beyond what was, apparently, its effective range.

Ideally, she’d have taken this thing up as high as she could go, until her wings no longer found enough air to function, and systematically torn this thing to shreds without even the faintest risk of it getting low enough to gain access to the ground, even if she screwed up massively and dropped it.

But she couldn’t, because while the sandstorm might have been keeping its distance, it was now acting as an artificial ceiling, a writhing mass of tiny particles shooting through the sky like a living sandblaster.

Instead she came to a dead stop, having the snakes yank her opponent upwards, then dialed up the weight of her right fist all the way up as she poured mana into the bracelet, then lashed out at the monster as it flew at her, the combination of momentum and the pulling of the hydra heads making it rocket up while her fist plunged downwards like an incoming meteor.

They met in a cataclysmic detonation of fire and force, the monster flying back with a massive crater in its torso while Jaclyn yerked to the side to avoid the majority of the burning blood that sprayed from the wounds.

Then it hit the full extent of the hydra’s length… and broke free. The massive fangs that would have held venom in the real beast cut through flesh until they hit bone, then… then they broke. Along with the entire projection, leaving the monster to fall through the sky, tumbling and bleeding, but free, closing in on the ground that would grant it full access to the element it needed to fight back.

Glass spears flashed towards Jaclyn as she launched herself after it, but they didn’t worry her nearly as much as they had back when they’d been forged.

A spectral badger’s torso flashed into existence before her, catching the first several and having them shatter, but when the final one hit, her defense broke instead and the projectile slammed into her gut … and stopped after penetrating for barely a centimeter, then it shattered completely and bounced off her torso as tiny slivers that further crumbled into dust as she chased the monster.

Unfortunately, after taking that punch from her, it was falling at significant speeds, almost reaching the ground before she reached it, snagging its leg with a hydra head and janking it upwards, only for the fangs to simply shred the flesh they’d bitten into on the way out, barely slowing the beast.

The second serpent was able to bite down on the monster’s foot instead and began to pull back. This time, the construct shattered, the sudden force too great for it, but the third one was able to both get a solid grip, and due to slowing it down at a more “gentle” pace, the construct remained intact. And when the other five bit down, Jaclyn managed to ascend again at maximum acceleration, cutting through the air like a bullet and finding herself just below the “ceiling” mere moments later.

She let the monster flash past her, then kicked it squarely in the side, straight into the crater she’d left with her previous punch.

Launching the monster parallel to the ground, rather than straight back down, seemed like a good idea.

… Then the first glob of molten glass fell onto her shoulder like the world’s evilest raindrop.

It could use the sandstorm as a weapon. At least it was already too far to control the sand, which meant Jaclyn was only in danger from the glass that had already melted and was now “dripping” down, but only so long as she remained underneath a place the anchor beast had been able to manipulate, an area that she left post-haste.

Jaclyn angrily swiped at her shoulder several times, burning her fingers but flinging off most of the liquid glass before it could hurt her too badly, leaving her with a blackened shoulder and angry, red and aching fingers on her other hand.

Well, at least now she knew for a fact that the sandstorm and glass control were separate powers …

She tracked the monster with her eyes while withdrawing and drinking a potion to fix the burns. And then she realized something.

These potions weren’t good. Previously, when she’d been well below its level, its B-Rank status had made it entirely overpowered for just about any wound she could have possibly sustained … except now she was B-Rank as well. It still worked, but compared to the instantaneous restoration she was used to, “only” having her wounds close twice as quickly as they would have from her native regeneration was painfully slow.

But they could fix burns, and when she flexed her fingers to shatter off the thin coating of glass that had solidified around her skin, the skin that had burned/torn off regrew rather quickly.

Come on, you little wanker, fall a little bit lower … she thought. She needed the monster to be high enough for her to still stand a chance at catching it, but too low to pull down a rain of molten glass on top of her.

Wait for it, wait for it … and then she had it, launching herself straight at the location where her foe would be in just the right position …

Jacyln dove like a falcon, body streamlined as she fell at speeds that would have torn the skin off the face of a regular person, snapping open her wings an instant before she’d have left a crater in the ground and transforming her downward momentum into horizontal movement, skimming over the tops of the sand and splattering a summoned monster in passing, until she found herself right in the path of the falling anchor beast and began climbing again, fist cocked back and ready to receive her enemy, ready to wring out that last little bit of force by stacking the strength of her arm on top of her pure momentum.

A hail of molten glass that the monster had managed to capture greeted her, but Jaclyn turned her face away and tried to tuck it into her chest while a spectral badger manifested around her and the hydra lunged upwards, slamming into any globs that looked to be on track to leave her injured or dead.

Both defenses shattered almost immediately, and she could feel her flesh beginning to burn as she smashed through whatever glass remained in her path.

But then she was through, and threw her fist forward like a wrecking ball, straight into the center of her opponent’s chest.

And this time, she wasn’t rewarded with the crunch of bones or the squish of organs bursting, but a loud and nauseating tearing sound, followed by a squelch and a sensation of searing heat across her entire right arm and side of her body.

It actually took her a couple of seconds to realize she’d punched clean through her opponent’s torso, her fist coming out the other side, and she’d just successfully covered herself in the beast’s flaming bodily fluids.

Shit!

Jaclyn flung the body off her arm while she began frantically wiping at herself, tearing off burning pieces of uniform along with the flames they carried, until she landed in the dunes, heavily, and began to roll to smother what remained.

After barely thirty seconds, she lay there in the sand, staring up at the sky, breathing heavily, while her uniform restored itself back to a pristine state under the force of her mending spell.

Only for her to remove her entire right sleeve a couple of seconds later, the fabric painful against the raw, painful, burned skin.

And there was that.

Congratulations, soldier! War’s over, go home.

Really? That was all this … this … whiny little bastard of a system had to say about this? And a brief check of her status revealed that she’d only gotten a single level for all that!

Jaclyn slowly stood back up and walked over to where the monster’s body had landed. Perhaps she could trade that in for something good.

***

Thomas was in the middle of training a raptor to play football (or at least trying to, he was still stuck on the problem of them popping on the regular when they got caught on the claws, since he’d stubbornly decided to make it work without too much magic) when Abrams walked in through the front door of his museum, carefully balancing a massive crate on one shoulder.

Though the first thing he noticed was that she’d cut all the hair on the right side of her face … although, now that he paid attention to it, she also lacked the eyebrow there. Probably more of a healed injury than a fashion choice, then.

He began to lead her into his office without needing any prompting.

“Are you still buying anchor beast bodies, considering …” she trailed off suggestively, clearly trying to avoid talking about the vortex manipulator where others might overhear.

“I’ll keep buying cool stuff until the heat death of the universe,” Thomas replied. “And an anchor beast is ‘cool’ regardless of which definition you use. So, what are you interested in?”

“Information, a magical item to protect me from fire, acid, and radiation, and power leveling for the new guys,” she laid out.

“Depends, yes, depends on the number,” Thomas replied. “So, what do you want to know?”

“Can you make a better healing potion?” she asked, continuing before he could burst out with a stupid statement about their efficacy. “They’re great at the lower ranks, but since I’m at the same Rank as them, now …”

“Yeah, I can see how that would be a problem,” Thomas nodded, thinking back on the fact that that particular tonic was actually of uncommon quality. “Unfortunately, everything I have is from Alaxia’s stock, and that one was the best she had.”

Abrams grimaced.

“If you find something better and give it to me, I’ll gladly make you several shipping containers’ worth, or spend an entire month’s worth of mana to replicate the potion, whichever’s less,” he promised, also starting the process of writing up that same offer and posting it on the noticeboard outside.

“But you know what? Send me your healers and alchemists, I’ll give them access to enough potion to properly experiment with, all the herbs I have, and so on. Maybe they’ll figure something out.”

“What will happen to the recipe?” Abrams asked.

“That’ll be up to them,” Thomas replied. “But I’ll also add the improved version to the loot pool.”

End of the day, any improvement would be made using ingredients for which he was likely the only reliable source. No matter what, he’d be walking away from that particular deal “richer” than he’d been previously.

Then, they hammered out the specifics of the power leveling deal while he also created the item she’d requested and handed it over.

Ring of Kryptonite Immunity (B-Rank, rare)

A ring made from the bones of a dragon, enchanted by a dungeon core in exchange for services rendered.

It has been enchanted to block out anything that may prevent a hydra’s regeneration, or that of a being whose healing ability shares the same weaknesses. Therefore, at the cost of mana, it will protect the user from acid’s corrosive effects, repair genetic damage caused by radiation, and dissolve the scar tissue caused by cauterization.

Furthermore, the first person to have ever put on this ring will be able to track it down anywhere in the world.

Energy draw: infinitesimal to low, depending on strain

Restrictions: only equippable by Jaclyn Abrams

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t make the defenses absolute, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t have had the mana to completely nullify the kinds of fire attacks you’re liable to be facing,” Thomas explained.

But Abrams grinned wolfishly. “It’s perfect.”

Then she handed over the box, they exchanged a few pleasantries, and she walked back out.

While she left to play with her new toy, returning to the entrance so she could fight her way through the dungeon properly, he absorbed the anchor beast’s body.

It was called a Sandstorm Afarit, with an Elementalist Physique to contain the fire in its veins, which was quite intriguing.

But it was the next power that was quite nasty.

Glassrazor Forge allowed it to control sand, which would automatically heat up and melt into glass, which would, in turn, automatically turn into razor-sharp weapons that would remain under its telekinetic control. A whole lot of power and utility for a single power, albeit one dependent on its surroundings.

Much the same went for the second one, Desert Army, which allowed it to call minions from the desert, both by animating dead bodies or by forming golems from the sand itself.

And then there was the power called Unnatural Disaster, which, as the name implied, created natural disasters via unnatural means, with the exact nature depending on the environment.

Not too useful inside the dungeon, but throw a monster with that power on the Belfast … hell, just enchanting an item with the power and giving it to the British would probably make them love him forever. An incredible power, in multiple interpretations of the word.

Meanwhile, the last one was just plain … well, boring. The ability to create buildings by fusing together sand, and only sand. Weak, even if it hadn’t been environment-dependent. Dexter could achieve the exact same thing with a reasonably creative application of his column creation ability.

All in all, an excellent find, but not one which would change his next steps.

Then, he focused on Cheshire to upgrade her, now certain there wasn’t a better power coming.

He’d been thinking about what powers she already had, and what could complement that optimally.

She was fast as hell, agile as fuck, and had the reflexes to use both to their fullest extent, on top of claws that were beyond lethal. He could further stack onto those capabilities, but he felt like some breadth was needed. Breadth in the form of magic.

After looking through his various magical critters for a few minutes, he eventually found something he liked, the Dust Control belonging to his new canary.

Which was good … but not perfect. Also, it risked someone blowing his cat sky-high in a dust explosion with a single spark.

So he modified the power, shifting it from Dust Control to Smoke Control, then merging it with a tiger’s camouflage to take full advantage of the fact that this was a B-Rank power and could therefore be made powerful. And he made the smoke an irritant that would only affect enemies. But more important was the fact that no one could simply burn away the screen.

Sure, the smoke’s presence would allow anyone who saw it that Cheshire was near, but also prevent anyone from locating her precise location, which could change at the drop of a hat because, well, she was really frikin’ fast.