NOVEL FROG Chapter 334 - Bunny Time!
The first thing BunBun felt was heat. Irreconcilable, monstrous heat saturating the air like an oppressive blanket. It was a struggle to gaze past the brilliant red glow killing her vision. Yet squint past it and the black iron bars encasing her and several thousand revenants now under her command, she did.
Her heart began to pound as anxiety flooded her tiny veins. And the fact that she had a beating heart at all and could think as well as she ever had as a living girl just a year ago was something she pushed firmly out of her head. Worries for another time as she took faint solace from her sudden sense and connection to the revenants gazing at her with utter devotion in this massive steel cage, and the five cages adjoining this one as well. Because no matter how awesome it was to suddenly find herself completely autonomous and independent from the boy she had been crushing on in secret for years, but didn’t think she’d have to die to find herself happily perched on his shoulder… absolutely none of that mattered if she and her sarissophoroi and all her dino buddies were just seconds away from being spilled into the massive steel crucible waiting for them in the crater of an actual volcano. Which is exactly what would happen, if she couldn’t somehow pull off a miracle in time.
What she desperately needed was intel regarding her environment, but was fruitless trying to get a tactical sense of her surroundings when she couldn’t see past the massive pool of liquid iron that she and her legions hovered so precariously several hundred feet over. All she could do now was get a basic sense of her immediate surroundings and do whatever the hell she could to survive for the next handful of minutes… and take it from there.
Her eyes desperately scanned all around the giant rectangular cage that was dozens of feet wide and over a hundred feet long. For a dizzying heartbeat, she wondered how it even managed to hover over the massive cauldron of boiling iron. Yet her moment of pristine panic, terrified by the possibility that they were being levitated by some uber-powerful Bronze-tier wizard, in which case they were well and truly fucked, turned to a shuddering sigh of relief when she saw the massive steel cable wide enough to walk on secured above the cage, realizing in that moment that they were basically trapped in massive steel cable cars, which meant that mundane steampunk paradigm, not uber high-level magic, was the order of the day.
Or so she desperately hoped, because if mechanisms more than magic would seal their doom, that meant that the entire cage wouldn’t be callously plunged into the vault of boiling bubbling magma or iron, as that would ruin a perfectly good cage. Instead it was far more likely that…
Her eyes widened, somehow not drying out, thanks to her sharing so much of her master’s affinities and resistances, whether or not the silly, adorable, and completely crazy goofball realized it or not. Then all thoughts of her elven prince flew out of her mind as she beheld death leering back at her from a pair of massive trap doors at the bottom of her metal cage, sealed shut only by a dozen pairs off steel rods. Rods she sensed being pulled free at that very moment from her cage as gears ground, steam blew, and desperate eyes finally registered the hydraulic press fastened to the side of her cage.
Knowing she had just seconds before she died for the second and final time, a death that would prove to be nothing but endless agony, her soul eternally encased in goblin steel so strong they could use it on their space-faring battleships, she had to act and do it NOW!
“Dinos! Scoot up! Grip bars with paws, claws, and teeth! Revenant Company Alpha, drop spears! Hook arms and legs to both sides of the trap door! Revenant company Delta! Thrust spears into the hydraulic pump! Get that sucker to burst! - All other companies! Climb up bars and hook spears between them! Secure your fellow revenants! Under no circumstances are you to fall into the lava without my permission!”
Even as she shouted the words she found herself in an odd fugue, somehow controlling the revenant companies both directly and autonomously. It was as if she was the limbs directing them, and they the fingers doing the fine work. In truth, she didn’t have to say a word, but doing so helped her crystallize both her visualization and intent, so tied words were to conceptualization in human brains. And apparently resurrected former humans somehow fitting all of their now boosted intellect inside a tiny rabbit that fortunately had the sense to hop up and rest herself on the belly of one of the shadow pumas that had wedged itself in an upper corner of the massive cable car death trap.
Which was a very good thing as the hydraulic pump continued to squeal despite the hisses from what were now two successful punctures out of dozens of desperate thrusts from what were now 50th level sarissophoroi, thanks to the Level 30 Master Necromancer level she now enjoyed, along with all her master’s perks, after he had sacrificed a full level for her benefit. And damn if she wouldn’t prove worthy of his gift, she thought, for all that her heart was in her throat when the screech of steel pins forced out of their metal sheaths meant that the trap door was about to spring open, BunBun or Lilly to her streamer friends cursing herself for a fool as she quickly screamed orders to all her revenants in all their cages to climb up and secure themselves to those bars, in case her cage wasn’t the only one being enticed to drop its cargo.
Yet despite the horrifying sight of seeing the steel cage beside her own spring open, spilling at least a hundred revenants hurtling down into the brilliant orange cauldron of bubbling hell, the other several thousand inhabitants of that car firmly held on to the bars, like ants, refusing to let go. And when her own cage’s trap door freed itself of the final pin some seconds later, the floor bowed a single inch but did not burst open, her hundred revenants, inhumanly strong limbs locked together, again like ants securing a prize far too big for them, managing to keep the trap doors shut.
Lilly glared at the hissing squealing hydraulic pump only now dying out, knowing that there was no point to thrusting spears in it any longer. “Delta company! Cease your assault and secure yourselves to the bars! Try to retain your spears, or hook them over the ceiling bars and secure them that way!” Struck by sudden inspiration upon seeing how crowded the bars already were… she modified her order. “Dangle from the shafts of your sarissa! That essence-infused Cornel wood isn’t breaking for shit! Secure yourselves and I’ll see if I can find us a way out!”
This command she also conveyed to all her troops. Even if only the first two cages had had their steel pins removed forcing the trap doors open. “To all of you with trap doors still sealed shut, continue attacking the hydraulic pumps! Burst them, and the pins stay in place!”
She frowned as much as her anatomy allowed, and ignoring the distant goblinoid screams of displeasure she could just make out with her exquisite hearing and Perception now the equal of her master’s as she took a careful inventory of her cage, desperate to find any way out besides the obvious one below her feet.
Her eyes widened with vindication when she spotted a rooftop hatch. She immediately scooted over the belly of a patient Shadow Puma before slipping past bars that certainly hadn’t been made with holding bunnies in mind. She then hopped up the bars on top, checking the hatch for herself.
Sure enough, it was locked. And how she glared at that lock with a hate that defied words.
Before shivering with sudden double vision, feeling an unexpected enhancement of her focus, gazing down at paws she somehow thought should be fingers even as she summoned drops of her own blood forth. Blood that immediately flowed across the lock… before the whole thing ignited with the white-hot flame she knew so well.
Her breath hitched. “Master?”
There was no answer of course, just the bemused smile of a man she adored. Then she felt it. The white hot, indescribable agony of a pain collar forced around her master’s neck.
“Oh shit… Eric, you’re in pain! So much pain… how are you even doing this?” And she instantly understood. He was dissociating from torment, probably thought this was a daydream, yet still found the focus and love to transfer just the tiniest iota of his pain, his fury, into a near indestructible steel lock that didn’t have a chance as it popped open.
“Remember.”
She howled as she felt a spiritual finger caress her brow, squealing with agony near the equal of the boy she had bound her soul to. For just a heartbeat, her world was nothing but pain. Before being replaced with a relief and a sense of self so profound, so complete and utter, that it was almost rapture.
Congratulations! You have received your sire’s blessing!
All physical stats are a minimum of 1/5th of your sire’s stats!
Your Perception equals your sire’s!
Your Soul Reserves equals your sire’s!
Your mental stats are your own!
You now have Spiritual Energy Reserves! (10 Points)
You now have Arcane Reserves! (10 Points)
You now have Psion Potential! (19.8 Points)
Note! You were forged into being within a Territory created by: Eric Silver. All sapient life forms sired or birthed within said territories enjoy the Gifted Trait Boon. You were forged into being by: Eric Silver, Contender, possessing a Pristine 12 Trait Configuration.
You, Bunbun, now possess a Contender’s potential and a Pristine 12 Trait Configuration!
10 Spiritual Energy Reserves = 120 Point Qi Pool. (You may borrow additional Qi from your sire at will.
10 Arcane Reserves = 120 Point Mana Pool (You may borrow additional mana from your sire at will.)
19.8 Psion Potential = 237 Psion Pool! (You were there right alongside your sire when you were both infused with all the potency you could imagine in a Psion Colony Ship! Your completely restored and once more human psyche is FAR better suited to Psionics than your half-blood sire! You have his pool as your baseline and can freely enhance it with level-up points as you choose! - You may NOT borrow additional psions from your sire’s fragile Elven brain. The fact that he has access to a power that normally kills his kind so easily is an anomaly in and of itself!
Soul Reserves = Your Sire’s Soul Reserves (113) You may NOT borrow additional soul reserves from your Sire.)
You now have access to the perk: Runic Spell Forger (Rank 1)
You may now cast (and skill up) any spell you have ver felt thrumming through your master’s soul!
You are now a Rank 1 Primal Adventurer. You are permitted to switch classes as Level 10 or Level 50 if you so choose. (Good luck finding any other class that allows for your eclectic existence!)
Note. You may NOT use Essences. Your are unable to forge new spells along Peril’s Path by inspiration alone. You CAN invest level-up points to learn or evolve new spells! (It’s either that or Arcane College and years of study, perhaps disguised as someone’s familiar, if you choose to pursue the mage’s path!)
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BunBun – Lillian Hendrix (Pristine Revenant Bunny Girl (Basically, I’m alive! I can even eat, sleep, and make fertilizer!) - Has secret (not so secret?) crush on her master! (Like all the best animes and isekai adventures! - Now if only I could get a human shape and keep the cute ears? That would be sweet!)
Level 1 Primal Adventurer
Level 31 Master Necromancer (Abilities are identical to your master’s own!)
Physical Characteristics (One fifth of my sire’s, for free!)
Strength – 65
Vitality – 67
Finesse – 52
Quickness – 90
Appearance – 15 (A lot better than 1/5th of my sires, so I’m keeping my own cute whiskers!)
Mental Characteristics (Mine! But my senses are ‘leet!)
Scholarship – 17
Perception – 250
Willpower – 19
Charisma – 15
Potency Pools
Arcane Potential – 10
(Mana Pool = 120)
Spiritual Energy – 10
(Qi Pool = 120 )
Psionic Potency – 19 (I’d make a far better Mindlord than my master!)
(Psion Pool = 237)
Soul Reserves – 113
Stamina – 651 Points
Health – 736 Points
Resistances & Recovery
Physical Resistance – 10
Physical Regeneration – 6.7 health per second
Elemental Resistance – 0
Qi Resistance – 0
Mental Resistance – 20
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Primal Adventurer Powers
1. Runic Spell Forger – Rank 1
Spells Known
- Inevitable Doom (105 Mana & Qi) – Rank 1
- Hell Vines (140 Mana & Qi) – Rank 1
- Lightning Bolt - Fulmen- (30 Mana & Qi) – Rank 1
- Fire Bolt -Ignes Pilum - (15 Mana & Qi) – Rank 1
- Psionic Rupture – Fragor (30 Mana & Qi & 4 Psion) – Rank 1
Skills
(No skills have been successfully quantized at this time!)
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For just a heartbeat, BunBun’s excitement faded back into the terror of the moment, realizing that her explosive evolution had taken only an eye-blink of actual time. Yet as much as she loved having access to magic once more, she couldn’t help but note that everything was Rank 1. Worst of all, her favorite and only evolved spell that she could recall channeling so viscerally through her connection to her former master wasn’t even available to cast.
Then she blinked, as a new message flashed before her mind’s eye.
Congratulations! You have achieved Level 1 as a Primal Adventurer!
You now have 9 points to spend as you so choose!
Each point will boost 1 primary stat by 1 point! Each point will boost any spell or skill rank by 1 rank per point (Pristine S-tier configuration detected. 1 per 1 ratio point investiture is permitted in all skills, spells, abilities, and powers, until the first Tier of mastery (Rank 40) is achieved!).
Stats may enhanced without penalty or limitation.
NOTE! You have been personally forged into being by your Sire, whose memories still resonate with your own! Any Spell or skill that you put 1 point into during this, the reforging of your soul, will grant you your Sire’s current spell, ability, or skill level!
Lilly’s eyes widened with awe and dismay. Awe, because that singular boon might make the difference between life and death for her and her revenants, and dismay, because she sensed in the back of her mind that this was a one time, once in a lifetime opportunity, and if she couldn’t recall her master using the skill during their communion, she had no chance in hell of claiming it for herself.
But there was so much she did recall.
All the times she had channeled lightning’s bitter sharp caress between her ears. First as brilliant flashes of arcane destruction, then as crimson variants that could destroy even the most bitter spirits.
Congratulations! You have learned Lightning Bolt at Rank 12!
You have automatically unlocked the Lightning Bolt Variant – Blood Lightning!
You have learned Blood Lightning at Rank 14!
1 out of 9 points spent.
And how many times had she felt the fierce surge of power and potency when her beloved Eric pushed himself beyond all mortal limits, beyond what any elf’s psyche or soul should be able to handle, only to emerge all the stronger for it as the skulls of flying pterodactyls or overconfident mercenaries exploded in sprays of crimson gore? Of course she took Psionic Rupture, even if it was just at Rank 7. She had played too much Skydragon and had too much love of any army of sandworms blasting their foes apart with psionic shouts not to claim that glorious attack for herself. Though she was surprised to find herself suddenly gifted with a unique appreciation of just how devastating it could be to assholes of a lifetime ago, like her too pushy ex boyfriend.
- Psionic Rupture – Fragor (30 Mana / 30 Qi / 4 Psion) – is now Rank 7!
- You have earned the free perk: Hit Them Where It Hurts! You have a sharply increased chance to score a Critical Success with Find Weakness skill checks when using Psionic Rupture… if you’re willing to hit them where it hurts! (Note. This perk effects biological males only (for obvious reasons!)
And that final message gave her a flash of roaring insights that immediately evolved into a skill that of course she understood just as intuitively and succinctly as her master! How often had she and Eric been of one gestalt mind? Bunbun spotting trouble from all angles and unleashing lightning that managed to strike just where it would do the most damage? Sensing her foe’s weaknesses with their every movement, the shifts in their heat signatures, the ebb and flow of all their internal energies. She had studied all of that while keeping her lightning at the ready as Eric weaved and dodged past their foes, he striking with blades of flame as she lashed out with crackling bolts of lightning. Together they were definitely more than the sum of their parts.
And with Find Weakness now blazing so brightly in her mind, she’d make sure her enemies were broken up into all sorts of helpless parts.
You have learned Find Weakness at Rank 26! Your Master’s insights and perks with this ability are now your own! (Spell Cleave, Qi Perception, Additional Magus/Cultivator Bonus, +5 Vs Dragons)
3 out of 9 points spent!
You have gained the Essence Related Skill: Unified Perception at Rank 24! (Sense Heat, Spiritual Energy, Magic, & Qi Flow.) - NOTE! As you are your Sire’s Revenant Familiar given the gift of True Life you may echo his power but essence will forever be beyond your purview! Yet your connection to your master and Find Weakness skill DOES allow you to sense and perceive essence along with heat, energy, magic, and Qi Flow!)
4 out of 9 point spent!
Lilly felt a curious mixture of exultation and melancholy. To have been granted such gifts by a man she adored with every fiber of her being, yet simultaneously knowing there would be some gifts she could never hope to earn, being but a copy of pristine creation, and not the Essential thing itself.
But that was okay. She was still so much better off than any mortal, most Classers, and the poor sad dead thing she had been just months ago… and she owed it all to the hero who had taught her so much. And even if the path of Essence would forever be beyond her, she would take fierce pleasure in claiming the skills that called out to her most of all. The skills that of course she could and should learn to master, for they were the heart of what it meant to be a necromancer, and that was a path she understood even better than her gloriously daring and wonderfully sweet creator who might have a greater-lich’s affinity for the True Arts, but Bun Bun knew what it actually meant to be brought back from the dead.
You have successfully claimed the skills Blood Mastery / Spirit Mastery / Rituals of Summoning and Binding at Elite rank or better! You have successfully claimed the skill Flesh Sculptor at Rank 26!
8 out of 9 points spent!
1 Point remaining!
Final point spent achieving Rank 9 as a Runic Spell-forger! Because what reborn revenant with cute bunny ears wouldn’t rank up a Node skill that will enhance all her spells? Of course you would!
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Primal Adventurer Powers
1. Runic Spell Forger – Rank 9
Spells Known
- Inevitable Doom (105 Mana & Qi) - Rank 1
- Hell Vines (140 Mana & Qi) (You can direct this spell!) – Rank 1
- Lightning Bolt – Fulmen - (30 Mana & Qi) – Rank 12
- Blood Lightning – Sanguis Fulmen - (15 Mana & Qi, 1.5 (.50%) SR) – Rank 14! (Efficiency Perk)
(This spell dispels/abjures & can cut through soul wards & partially heal.(X2 heal baseline Bloodmastery Synergism!)
- Fire Bolt - Ignes Pilum - (15 Mana & Qi) – Rank 1
- Psionic Rupture – Fragor - (30 Mana & Qi & 4 Psion) – Rank 7
- You have earned the free perk: Hit Them Where It Hurts! You have a sharply increased chance to score a Critical Success with Find Weakness skill checks when using Psionic Rupture… if you’re willing to hit them where it hurts! (Note. This perk effects biological males only (for obvious reasons!)
Skills
Find Weakness – Rank 26 – (Spell Cleave, Qi Perception, Additional Magus/Cultivator Bonus, +5 Vs Dragons)
Necromancer Affinities & Skills
Blood Mastery – Rank 30 (Blood Claimance, Lesser Healing, Essence Infusion, Vampiric Drain)
Spirit Mastery – Rank 31 (Tier II Path of Dominion, Forced Obeisance)
Rituals of Summoning and Binding – Rank 31 (Tier III Path of Dominion, Ritual of Greater Spirit Summoning, *Instant Transcription)
Flesh Sculptor – Rank 26 (Tier II Path of Dominion, Basic Revenant Preparation)
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BunBun snapped out of her daze to glare at the cage lock that had seemed so overwhelming to her, just seconds ago. Yet a lot could change in just a handful of moments. And though she had seen so viscerally in her mind’s eye how her master might have opened it, she had no Essence of Flame to access. Fortunately, there were other paths to power she could now access just as well her master. And at least one path she was capable of enhancing even faster than he.
With a fierce projection of her will and intent, her voice echoed with power never before seen in this realm of torment and despair that had tied it’s fate to Earth’s own.
Even if they couldn’t understand it, the handful of goblins in a distant tower of obsidian and steel knew something was wrong when the dirt covered crystal viewing window abruptly shattered, earning half a dozen furious curses as billowing heat washed over the frantic goblins who might not have been able to hear much of anything beyond the boiling cauldrons of liquid iron death in the pit of the cauldron far below, but they could certainly see that something was wrong when a flood of dark figures against the heat haze backdrop could be seen crawling over the metal bars of first one, then a second, and then half a dozen other steel cages. Cages that had been tightly filled with either human children or their enemy’s revenants, just seconds ago.
“Sound the alarm, Grock! Sound the alarm!”
“Fragor!”
“What was that?”
“Who cares! If those shits don’t drop into the iron vats in time, the ship panels will be worthless and we’ll be the fools locked into the next set of steel cages. So sound the fucking alarm!”
Finesse check made! You have successfully avoided falling into soul-steel crucible!
BunBun ignored the hammering of her heart when a single frantic hop nearly spelled her end, having forgetten for just a split second after unleashing glorious destruction upon a certain stubborn lock that she was not a 5’11 contender striding upon the world, even if so many of her master’s spell memories were now her own. Fortunately, 52 in Finesse, which made her objectively 2 and a half times more graceful than a gold-medal ballerina, meant that she didn’t slip on the massive steel cable upon which her life and 16,000 of her closest revenants and friends depended upon.
“Faster! All revenants and puma, slip through the roof hatch in disciplined formation! Alpha company, form a body ramp so the pumas can get out!”
Even as she said the words, she raced to the second massive steel cage, struck with the sudden certainty that the revenants gazing up at her were as eager to be free of certain doom as she was to free them. Perhaps some were even aware that the Nirvana that Eric and now she could grant them between assignments would be replaced by eternal pain as bad as it was for any still living soul that might all into that cauldron of bubbling soul-steel, if BunBun couldn’t free them in time, and a full hundred hapless revenant’s torments was already her burden to bear.
“Backoff, Guilt. I’m doing the best I can, a fuck ton better than letting sixty thousand children roast!” Her fierce rebuttal pushed back so many lingering regrets for what she couldn’t control, instead choosing to find fierce satisfaction in what she could. Not the least of which was being a bunny who could now actually make a difference, instead of just another notch in some vile goblin’s belt.
She had already suffered that fate at the hands of the orcs once before.
Never again.
And no one else either, if she could possibly help it.
BunBun’s eyes glittered with fierce resolve as she glared at yet another reinforced lock.
“Fragor!” She screamed as steel exploded like a grenade, though no fragment dared strike its master, the result was good enough as a shadow puma politely took the lead and batted away the rest of the lock before the revenants trapped within, all of them hanging for dear unlife… began very slowly, very carefully emerging from what could so easily have been their doom.
The young rabbit felt her heart swell with compassion for the massive Utah Raptors and most especially the spinosaurus wedged within the cage, completely unable to use the top hatch and only able to hang on due to revenant strength and endurance, even if by rights she knew her primal instincts would have her scared out of her mind. Nonetheless, these were her dinos now, and damn if she wouldn’t find a way to free them all.