April, my newly-named, six-tailed and many-flowered new friend, stuck with me all through the rest of the day. She wound through my legs when I went into the Verdant Rejuvenation garden, to tend to my plants. Poppy had left to report current events to my mother, touch base, get information, and make sure we knew their present location and vice versa. Vellenia also had a Verdant Rejuvenation power, but her cure for the Geodile was in the works and she couldn’t spare the time. She and Celine were close, but we were also close to the our time being up.

I’d leveled up in Healer yet again, and was happy to be able to divide my attention between April, gardening, and the system UI stuff using my new Myriad Mind.

Level 31: +12 skill points

These ones, in between soft strokes of silky April fur and watering various plants, went to the amended point pool. I put points into Huge cure development, Instinctual Casting, Diagnostics, Treatments, Mana Affinity and Mana Shaping, along with the new priority: Develop Cure (Human), specifically for my mom.

If anything, this diversion with Jacoby’s team was allowing me to increase my chances of healing her up, and that was nice.

It was clear to me now that covering all the Nakamamon aspects was the new best practice. Having a level in all of them would lower difficulties for developing future cures. I wish I’d been able to use it for the Hellephant, and I’d been forced to spend Tokens I really hadn’t wanted to. I was now low on Tokens.

Therefore, for the Geodile, a point went into Develop Cure (Earth) followed by Water, Fairy, Psychic and Draconic. I felt the sudden impulse to be able to work up cures for my girls easier.

All the while, I tended to the garden and gave affectionate strokes to April’s ears, flanks, and that spot between the shoulder blades that always use to drive me crazy. She continued to head butt me and look up at me with those clever fox’s eyes again and again.

“You’re amazing,” I told her.

Then, on an impulse, I spliced my banana plant with my strawberry bushes, because I wanted strawbanas. I then spliced my mangoes with my passion fruits, so I could have mansion fruits. Or Pangoes. Whatever.

Yes it sounded silly and stupid, but I was riding high on the success with the Hellephant. It seemed like there was entirely too much serious shirt going on; I needed more silly in my life.

After I was done with leveling and gardening, and silly splices, I returned back to the lab and oversaw the remainder of the cure. The final Develop Cure check was mine to make, because I now had the Earth skill at level 1, Beast at level 1, and the Large cure development at level 7. It was hard, but Vellenia and Celine supplied me with several Tokens to lower the difficulty to a more reasonable level. 

Celine was especially excited to see a cure come to fruition, since she’d been feeding mana into it all day. She stared at the softly glowing purple goo that occasionally had the sounds of harps or angelic choirs emanating from within. She turned to me, astonished.

“Holy shirt, daddy, that’s amazing!”

I glanced to Vellenia, which made Celine remember she was there, and that made her blush real hard, and rush out of the lab. She had just called me daddy, loudly and with relish. She disappeared outside, going ‘ooooohhhhhhh’ and holding her cheeks in her hands.

Today was the last day we could do the curing, before the fighting aspect stuck for good. This fact alone was going to make the Administer checks harder. After smearing goop on a gem-filled croc’s anus, I’d need to cure Jacoby of the Heartstopper poison.

Then, rest for a minute.

Now I straightened my shoulders and looked over the Token situation. I had shifted around Tokens using Arcane Alchemy once I made checks, and I’d gotten a Token back from having sex with Celine yesterday, but I was still missing a number. There were the Agility Tokens I’d spent ducking and dodging around the Hellephant’s body, but I also lacked a number of Ingenuity, Affinity and Durability Tokens. Only 5 Durability Tokens remained, 4 Ingenuity, and 3 Affinity. Since splitting Physicality into Agility and Muscularity, I only had 4 of each, so I was down to only 1 Agility Token. It wasn’t a great place to be, and there wasn’t time to use Meditation to try to reclaim some. Even if I could get one back in four hours, it wouldn’t be nearly enough.

The saving grace was my 7 Free Tokens, which I hoped to keep until circumstances forced my hand.

I could grab up full immunity using Healer’s Resistance at the staggering cost of 5 Durability Tokens, and I was tempted to use it. I wasn’t going to tell the Guardians to open the cage and free the Geodile so I could know whether the shards of crystal were considered physical damage, or earth. Even going back to the early records of the first Geodile encounters didn’t yield anything; my own Guardians had done a great job protecting me from damage, and I hadn’t taken any.

“Huddle up,” I called, and Wayne confirmed the move. “Okay, listen… this thing is far bigger than the last one, and it’s an earth aspect. It’s tanky. I wouldn’t doubt it’s a ton, and it’s got natural armor to keep my cure from getting where it needs to go.”

“How do you want to play this?” Ribbit asked. She was the acting Guardian leader, since the other fellow was sitting this one out. Being crushed half to death by a flaming elephant can do that to a person.

“We want to get the purple one to paralyze them both,” one of the other Guardians said. “Where’s she?”

“Hiding,” I said. I’d been unable to find her.

I considered, thinking back to the different cures so far. April came over to butt her head against my shins like an affectionate cat, and sprinkle pollen on my pants. April…

“Actually, I have an idea,” I said.

***

A check using Mana Affinity showed me that the scarlet energy coursing through the Geodile and the Shrubbit’s mana channels had nearly filled up those mana channels, pushing out the white of the beast aspect. We had to act fast.

“You’re sure about this,” Ribbit said, clearly skeptical.

“Obviously not, but I don’t see how we can go wrong trying.”

“There will be two of them to contend with, is what can go wrong  first and foremost.”

I regarded her with a flat gaze and she held up hands in surrender. We all knew that time was of the essence and that nobody else knew what to do.

Arrayed before us now were two cages, one for the Geodile and the other for the Shrubbit. Guardians and Wizards stood in pairs not far off, along with Oz near me, and Savannah near the center of the makeshift stadium.

Everyone held their breath as the cage doors were opened and the creatures emerged. They needn’t have; the motion was explosive and spectacular. Disappearing in a blur of motion, the Shrubbit aimed a rapid kick between the Geodile’s eyes. It used its long, shrubby ears like the Injecticle used its tentacles, as large and powerful limbs.

The Geodile received maybe ten or twenty kicks in rapid order, but didn’t seem bothered. Instead it blasted out a series of crystalline spines that thunked into its opponent’s face, ears, and body. Those ears came up and acted as a shield for the next series of spines.

And just like when April was still turning into a fighting aspect, these two were only focused on doing a one on one battle. April had batted around and entwined Ribbit, ignoring all others.

“Let’s move in,” I said, hand on Ribbit’s shoulder.

She manifested her shield, ducked low, and went in like a special forces operative.

The two were still battling it out when we reached them and I dove forward to apply the cure between the creature’s eyes.

Administer Cure: You have chosen to make this an Agility check. Your Administer Cure skill is at level 10, while Agility stands at level 4. The check is Very Difficult, requiring 6 successes. Would you like to spend 6 Tokens to succeed automatically?

Total Tokens: 1 Agility and 7 Free Tokens.

Chancing it gave me 7 successes, an even 50% split. The goop sank in between the Geodile’s scales and glowed with tiny arcs of purple lightning. Both the tiny lightning bolts and the harp music disappeared as the medicine was absorbed.

“Get him back!” Another of the Guardians shouted. I turned just in time to see two bushy ears some three feet long grab onto me and hurl me bodily. There were a few curious moments of weightlessness  before I slammed into something soft. It was one of the Guardians, swollen to over ten feet high, and I felt like I was the size of a football in those hands. They quickly set me down and swatted aside the marauding Shrubbit.

The plant rabbit launched itself upwards, over the Geodile, and delivered another series of rapid kicks to the base of its tail. In response the Geodile reared up, hissing, and blasted forth another barrage of crystal spines. Its enemy was already spinning away.

Ribbit and the other Guardian seized the chance and darted forward, one on the earth croc’s back and Ribbit bracing with hands and feet beneath. Next came the grappling hooks launched by Wayne and Oz, pulled by the other two Guardians.

“Fletcher, get…” Ribbit managed, but couldn’t say more. The gigantic creature rose up even further and tried to slam down, only to find a huge Guardian gripping the underside of its jaw.

I sprinted across the space and slid like I was heading into second. The cure was already on my spoon, and I slathered it across the underside of its mouth. The second check, this one with a difficulty of 7, succeeded with 7 successes also.

Then the Geodile commenced a death roll.

One moment it was being pulled onto its side, and the next it heaved the other way. The two Guardians holding to the ropes were flung over it and onto their backs. Ribbit ended up hanging on for dear life, while her compatriot was crushed beneath the weight of a multiple ton creature with shards of crystal sticking out from everywhere on its back. A yelp was snatched away as the Geodile put its full weight on the guy.

Fortunately for me, I was quick enough to splat yet another dose of the cure onto its heart chakra, high up between its forelimbs. The difficulty of this check fell back to 6, and I handled it with 8 successes. The glowing, mana-infused and faintly angelic sounding liquid seeped into its body.

Three of five. The Geodile didn’t care, and kept rolling.

The two who’d been put on their backs were shoved backwards by Wizard telekinesis a moment before the Geodile would’ve crushed them.

I gave chase, only to find myself face to face with an angry gigantic crocodile with razor sharp crystals for teeth and scales.

“Easy now,” I told it, and engaged Dazzle.

This was a gift from Vellenia and now a prized possession. It now had a slight stun effect, which I used to duck aside and around the beast, to where I might get at another of its chakras. Alas, there was a literal ton of Nakamamon in the way.

“Two more!” I shouted.

The other Guardian opposite Ribbit was out of the fight. He’d sustained a whole ton of cuts from the crystals, and was now getting a pre-made health potion into him.

A blur of furry, leafy stuff slammed into me, but when I got my bearings, I found one of the Injecticle’s spines sticking out of it. It stared at me with fully enraged eyes, but only leaked a bit of blood from the corner of its mouth. Its fur was also matted with blood from where crystal spines had become embedded.

“Healing potion for the Shrubbit!” I called.

It was then that the earth beneath my feet went all soupy. In an instant, I was up to my knees in quicksand, and the Geodile was lumbering toward me on its stubby, but powerful legs.

Those were some huge jaws.

I burned 5 Durability Tokens, hoping against hope, and curled into a ball. All of them went cla-cling! into being around my head and promptly disappeared.

I don’t know how many of the creature’s teeth shattered against the impenetrable sheath of energy surrounding me, but I only became aware of what was going on when Ribbit said, “Hooooo-leeeee shirt balls.”

The Geodile had also been Injecticled. Three spines were embedded in the soft flesh of its mouth and it lay there unmoving.

It took another few minutes to get the Guardians to flip the croc onto its back again, and for me to slop more of the cure onto the space at the base of its tail, and at its guts, before the message finally appeared.

Congratulations! You have successfully administered a magical and divine cure to a creature.

Right on the heels of this was the second achievement in the series.

Achievement! Alter the fundamental aspect of five Nakamamon.

You have taken the power of gods into your hands and made a shift in the foundation of what makes a Nakamamon… five times! What immense power you wield, Healer.

Reward: +2 attribute points

Sighing, I sank one level into Agility and one into Muscularity. My level 8 Physicality had been so great until I’d left for earth. I had to work back up to that.

All around me, Jacoby’s people were going wild. They were slapping me, and each other, on the backs. I tried to catch sight of the Injecticle once more, but only caught a glimpse of her naked backside flitting around the corner.

The Shrubbit was next. I knelt next to the creature, and was quick to ascertain that no one had given it a healing potion as I’d directed. I poured the liquid into the creature’s mouth after plucking out the crystal shards. Those puffed into acrid magical smoke seconds after removal, but didn’t matter. I was gratified to see the creature alive, and healing.

It also looked very different than it had previously. The new Nakamamon was more humanoid and far more muscular, with the enormous ears now widened out to act as shields.

Bushwhack has been knocked out, the UI told me.

Which prompted me to use Identify yet again on the permanently shifted Nakamamon.

Bushwhack

Basic Nakamamon

Bushwhacks are excellent at camouflage and ambush tactics, preferring to disguise themselves as tufts of grass or bushes before attacking with feet and entangling vines. These creatures divide their time between sitting perfectly still for hours, and training with ruthless determination, kicking the bark off nearby trees.

Typical length: 1-1.5 feet (small)

Typical weight: 3-8 pounds

Gender: unknown

Aspect: plant/fighting

Transformations: Bushwhack - unknown

Bushwhack has been added to your Nakamadex.

It was with some sadness that I received another notification, yet another achievement.

Achievement: new Nakamamon species discovered

Before now, only a single fighting aspect Nakamamon existed. Now two? Astonishing! Interesting! In what other ways will you bear witness to extraordinary changes to the world?

Reward: +1 Free Token

Five out of six was a pretty laudable 83% success rate. The problem was, I had this crazy feeling that the fighting aspect wasn’t done spreading. Something deep in my guts warned me that what I’d just done was slap a bandage on a completely mangled limb, or close Pandora’s box almost all the way. Things were still wrong and escaping. I felt now more than ever that Blake had unlocked something unwelcome in this world, and there was nothing I could do to stop it entirely.

This is Christopher sighing in resignation.