The previous Sassy Saturday post can be read here:Haggling with elves is easy for Emily
The context for this post: Nunnal Enaz, the mother of Annala, is evaluating the latest specimen in her mana mutation research. She does this by jumping into its cage and fighting it.
I redacted names in three places here because they are spoilers.
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A lightning bolt shot by his head, just
missing his ear, and struck a piece of machinery behind him. It exploded and two
aides doused the ensuing fire. Nunnal and Meza returned their attention to the
pit, where the monster was firing more bolts from its horn. They bypassed the
shield as if it weren’t there.
“Recalibrate the shield now!”
“Working on it!”
Screens of light above the monster
flashed, then it stopped the bolts like everything else the monster threw at
it. Nunnal joined the elf at the terminal for the shield and looked over the
readings for the last five bolts.
“A-Guy, did he do what I think he did?”
“Yes, Director. Instead of electricity
formed from mana, he generated the bolts from earthly electron activity.”
“Monster intelligence is a fascinating
subject. Add this to the database.”
“Yes, Director.”
“B-Guy, begin analysis of the monster’s
insides, but use something that’s least likely to cause damage. That’s still \\\\\\\\ in there, after all.”
“Yes, Director.”
“C-Guy, take samples for later chemical
examination and treatment. I want hair, scales, feathers, blood, and saliva. If
you can get a shaving of the horn, do that too.”
“Yes, Director.”
“D-Guy, prepare fodder so we can see
how he reacts to prey. Unicorns typically aren’t carnivorous, but given that
this is a new breed, I want to know for sure.”
“Yes, Director.”
“E-Guy, start up the durability test
implements.”
“Yes, Director.”
As Nunnal continued giving orders and
rambling theories, her minions sighed and went about their work. The director
was always like this when she got excited. It was best to keep one’s head down
and avoid attracting attention.
“Just once, I’d like her to remember
our names,” Bealir muttered.
“I’m not even a guy,” Caluly moaned.
Such tests and more were performed to
learn about this new monster. As each result came in, Nunnal giggled like a schoolgirl
in anticipation. As she became more involved, she stopped referring to the
monster as “him” and instead as “it.” Then F-guy smacked her and told her of
her slip. She coughed and thanked him and then walked to the pit and apologized
to the monster. It responded by exhaling poison gas. The barrier adapted to the
new material and forced it back to the monster, but before the monster could
breathe it in, its horn neutralized the poison. Nunnal’s face lit up once more
and she rattled another list of orders.
Then she jumped in.
“Hello, ///////////////////.”
The monster jabbed her forehead with
its horn. It pierced her head and her brain, causing a good deal of pain. Her
Seed of Chaos mended the damage. The light of her eyes never dimmed.
“So you don’t respond to your title.”
She dodged three jabs. “How about ///////?” She dodged two more jabs but not the
following energy blast. She let that one hit to determine what it felt like.
“Concentrated. You know your stuff.”
It breathed more poison and she took a
deep whiff of it. She continued dodging and observing it at close range while
waiting for the poison to take effect. Then, all of a sudden, she blacked out
and her body fell limp. The creature bit her stomach and chewed on its muscle.
Then she blew it away with a chant-less wind spell.
“Poison that goes directly to the brain
and shuts it down, thereby killing the target without damaging the internal
organs or muscles. You are a healthy eater, aren’t you?”
She jumped to her feet.
“It also lends support to the theory
that you can’t handle your own poison, but there are monsters like that. Generally, they don’t live long enough to
be studied but—”
Another horn blast cut her off, and to
her surprise, it was neither mana nor the pure electricity but wind. It blew Nunnal
clear off her feet and onto her backside. The monster stomped its front right
hoof onto her stomach and the front left talon onto her left wrist, then it
spat slime onto her right hand. It quickly hardened and Nunnal found herself
unable to remove it.
“Battle tactics? Fantastic! D-Guy, are
you getting this?”
“Yes, Director.”
The monster lowered its head to bite
her chest, forgoing any kind of attack to her head. This fascinated her all the
more; it remembered that attacking her head merited no results. She spirit-flared
the creature off her, broke the slime restraint, and jumped out of the pit.
“It’s possible that the battle instinct
of a mercenary carried over,” she said to herself. “Indeed, muscle memory is a
potent thing and well recognized in monsterology, even among mortals, and the
capacity for killing is a primal one….”
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Mana Mutation Menace, and the rest of the Journey to Chaos series, is available for purchase at Amazon as both an ebook and as a paperback.
To learn more about the heroines of Journey to Chaos, visit the Tvtropes character sheet.
The next Sassy Saturday is Annala tells the God of Order that he's full of crap
In other news, I did a radio interview with The Author's Show last week and it will be broadcast on this coming Tuesday. In it I talked about my writing process both for this book and more generally. If you could help me spread the word about it then that would be great; much appreciated.
Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
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