Framework of the Frontier, Sain Artwell [read me a book .TXT] 📗

William’s drenched clothes turned to lead as he jumped over a now flooded alley. His knee sang hallelujah with every step. The h-shaped street was still two-three minutes away.

“May the wild Lords and Ladies of Dreaming allow it to work. My gamble with eyes of the golems could not kill him before the carnage shedding off of his body blinded their aim,” Rulu lamented.

“But, it did damage him?”

“It did, but not enough.”

“Damn. Aww, damn. We had a core left and I could’ve probably taken the ones from the forge too for extra fire-power. Ice it and weld it apart. Yeah, that might’ve been enough.” He focused on following the shortcut. Navigating the flips of gravity between walkways made William feel like a fat meth head on a parkour sprint from the cops.

Rulu went quiet. Self blame was written on her face in big pouty grooves.

William spoke while keeping eyes up front. “Don’t dwell on it. Things wouldn’t have played perfectly even if you stayed. I mean, without you running I wouldn’t have been able to suck him in with the whirlpool.”

“Indeed, and that part of your plan succeeded with brilliance.” Rulu snorted at her sarcasm.

“Hey, if the start fails the finale is gonna play out perfectly.”

“Does such a thing ever happen?”

“It’s gotta be a saying somewhere, I hope.” He chuckled nervously.

The steaming h-alley of ice came into view. Yes, steaming. Seawater had flooded the whole city, including the pit of sub-zero slimey boy the size of a main street.

Isha raised his head amongst the ruined architecture. The wildly writhing tendrils on his head portion resembled the pedals of some oily mutant sunflower sprouting from a toy-town. Only this flower didn’t follow the sun. It looked at them and fell onto the city, worming over it at a speed that was in no way fair for a supposedly aquatic monster without legs.

Rumbling of crushed buildings grew close as William took a leap from the second floor. His sandals skidding on the smooth wet stone until a parapet of faceless humanoids joining hands brought him to a sudden halt by the edge of the ice pit.

Get to the other side to trick him into it. William searched for the fallen pillar bridge, spotted it, and made a sprint for it.

He was nearly there when the adjacent building burst into rubble under the leviathan’s mass. Up close, it was hideously massive. With his mane of weaponized tendrils spread out the leviathan’s ‘head’ was nearly two busses wide from tip of a tentacle to another. They dragged it forward, digging into stone like hundreds of climbing picks, and launched it off the ground. It meant to squish Rulu and William as if they were flies.

“Blessingofstrength!” William kicked ground and avoided being swatted. He kept on running the other way, gathering momentum to jump across. “We need something to not get pulled down ourselves. Can you barrier?”

Rulu seemed to attempt it on the leviathan. She winced in pain, shutting her eyes as her eyes squirted crimson tears. “I am sorry… Telekinesis was never my forte. With a blessing I might be able to summon another one but—”

“It’s alright. I don’t want your brain to turn into soup. I’ve got an idea.” He changed direction, running towards the edge. “I’ll buy you a new one.”

“New one?”

William ripped the dress off of Rulu as he jumped off the parapet, aiming for the other side of the street. He pulled the aboleth into a ball in his arms and held the dress beneath them like a faux flying carpet.

Strands of icy tendrils shot at them, but instead of grabbing their skin, stuck to the white fabric and tore it to frozen shreds.

He let go of it when they landed safely on the other side.

Rulu hopped off his arms and hurried to snatch the dress back up, hugging it to slender nude breasts. “You broke it. Why… You could have used your clothes instead!”

“Honest to God that somehow didn’t occur to me. Come, follow me.”

Ishai’s howls of agony filled the air. The frozen steam spread out as something massive displaced them. Dark tendrils flailed through the thinning vapors of rapidly condensed sea-water. From the looks of it, the icy webbing was sticking to the leviathan, entombing its gigantic body in thin strands of frost burning cold as it writhed to free itself.

“Yes!” William made a fist, drew in a deep lungful and shouted, “Fire at will!”

A beam of water shot into Isha from a shadowed alcove, cutting through his flesh. Arrows flew into his ‘head’ and several large pillars came toppling down like titanic clubs. William himself pushed down one that Trotto had marked with chalk as a ‘loose one’.

Their attack had been more impressive in his mind. Only Duhie’s water beam and the ice dealt any visible damage, and the former dried up after a few seconds.

It could be enough though.

William licked his lips, glancing at Rulu. “Is it gonna work?”

Eyes on the mists, she began to shake her head.

Isha’s head breached above the cloud of steam and dream-vapors. Strands of ice-slime snapped and broke off of his body as the creature’s face turned to them.

“RUN,” Rulu screamed.

William tossed her over his shoulder and blessed himself with strength once more. Three left, practically two. But where to run? Can’t outrun that thing. Oh God, we’re screwed. The fucking thing is near immortal.

Immortal.

That’s it! That’s where I’ll trap it.

Strictly speaking, William wasn’t mortal either, if you counted the twinge of gods’ blood. It might not give him regeneration or anything super useful, but it gave him an edge, however tiny. “From ten to one, how dumb idea is that crack in the Dreaming?” he asked.

“How dumb…” An offended confusion spread across her face, when Rulu realized what he meant. “William don’t! Your body may possess