Capítulo 18: Chapter 18: An angry (Immortal!?) test dummy (Part 3)
[Clock - 10:00 | 10:00 AM]
[Calendar - 23/01/2003]
[Location - Slaughter Swamp - Old Gotham, Gotham City, New Jersey]
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"Listen up, men!" Like a sargent speaking to his soldiers, like a centurion speaking to his legionaries, like a chief speaking to his people, Atlas proudly looked out at the wet muddy lands of the swamp before them... The difference between a Marsh and a Swamp is that a swamp is an area of land permanently saturated, or filled, with water- which is why Atlas has equipped everyone with boots, while a marsh is a drier land. Many swamps are even covered by water to the waist! There are two main types of swamps: freshwater swamps and saltwater swamps, and Slaughter Swamp is a freshwater swamp. From what he could see around, there were many cypress and tupelo trees to gather! He floated magically (since his wheelchair doesn't exactly float) a few feet above the ankle deep waters while the others stayed still before him- Four of the six brothers, Brandon (the 6 year old) was obviously left behind alongside the second youngest one called Ian, the 13 year old one. From the oldest to the youngest of the six brothers that came with him were Vin who was 18, Jamon who was 16, Kai who was 15, and Kevin who was 14. Alongside the four brothers, Jax was dragged along too, as were his two friends Andrei and Boris, the two brothers who invited him alongside them when they were told by Waylon the directions for his upcoming kingdom.
Apparently these two were friends with Waylon, or rather, acquainted with him... Atlas was keeping an eye on them, just in case.
Looking at Enne who also tagged along, Atlas sighed softly as he used [Transmute Earth] to make the wet earth into solid rocks, where Jax stepped up on to stay above the wet land beneath their feet: "Today's quest is rather simple." He pointed to the four brothers, all who saluted- it seems everyone has gotten the habit of saluting him for some reason -as he told them what to do: "Two of you will be using your shovels to collect dirt from the surrounding areas and depositing it for me here. The other two will be helping Jax with the stone bricks that will be given to you by me as I Transmute the collected earth into rocks and then Transmute them into bricks. The other three-" He looked at Enne, Andrei, and Boris: "-will have different tasks... You see, this whole swamp is a rare place. A magical place-" He raised his hand and casted [Shape Water] to push away the water around them in a circular wave at the level of their ankles, to reveal the still slightly muddy ground beneath. Before the water could rush back, Atlas threw out a few pieces of glass and easily casted [Glass Form] spell and took control of the glass as it melted mid air before forming this 5 feet circle around them and raising a small 5 feet tall wall of glass that kept the water away (you never wondered how he had perfect glass spheres?) Right before their eyes, the muddy ground started to harden as if the sun had dried it out as he used [Transmute Earth] to make the ground turn into solid earth. "-and because this is a magical place, everything here has a touch of magic. The animals, the plants, and even the earth itself. And as you clearly saw, I am a magic caster, and I have use for everything here. Our future kingdom will be built from magic and by magic, which is why we need to collect the materials necessary for such an endeavor."
Poiting around, Atlas softly landed on the ground as it rose to meet him, making a small earth chair for him to sit on: "You three-" He pointed to Andrei, Boris, and Enne: "-have two different tasks. You, Enne, will observe. There are many animals in this swamp, and many of them aren't aggressive but some are... I expect you to keep an eye out for Snapping Turtles, normal turtles, frogs, crocodiles, snakes, and suspicious undead humanoid figures that seek to kill the living. Especially the crocodiles, those are really important because we have uses for them." Shrugging, Atlas turned to look at Jax and missed the look of confusion and slight horror in the faces of the others: "Jax, you'll also keep an eye out- if anyone sees our little friend Solomon Grundy, please do say, I'll deal with him." Ignoring the fear he inevitably put in their hearts (who, in Gotham, doesn't know about Solomon Grundy?!), he nonchalantly started to work on setting up camp by raising the ground before him a little bit to make a flat table of stone with both [Transmute Earth] and [Mold Earth] working in tandem. "Also, whoever finds clay, I wamma make ceramic too." He began to work and so did the others, although with some apprehension. They were all guaranteed a place to stay by King Croc, and now they had to work to keep their place and make a bigger one for others like them too.
The first hour of work was very peaceful. The four brothers worked in tandem to gather dirt and mud from outside the circle of glass that surrounded Atlas, he took the mud and dirt offered and began working. He first separated water from the mud (He was able to easily find traces of magic within the earth, and he could tell these stone bricks? They were going to be good ones!) with the [Shape Water] cantrip before using [Transmute Earth] to make them into stone bricks with the help of [Mold Earth]. He was having some fun, no insects were attacking him because of his repellent: Fire! [Control Flames] was a very useful spell to vanish annoying insects, even more now that he had a lot more magic within him that he could keep a constant flame right above his head. Jax was kinda thankful for not having to deal with insects either...
The second hour of work was when the brothers Andrei and Boris started to bring the wood. They found a lot of fallen logs and other fallen pieces of wood that they could, gathering it up neatly in the sacks Atlas gave them, having used all the charges in the wands he had given them- These were wands he specifically enchanted with the [Air Slash] cantrip in them, perfect to cut through wood like an ax, and because the wood he asked for was "fallen wood", they most likely were easy to cut with the cantrips too. They went back, going around the clogged muddy area around in search of wood. It was within 2 hours and 45 minutes of work that one of the brothers shouted: "Found a corpse!" Much to Atlas' curiosity. He casted [Fly] into himself and went to investigate- and what he saw was a rotting corpse missing pieces of its body. All Atlas said was an ominous "So he is feeding, huh?" before he floated back to his place, refusing to elaborate further.
The third hour of work was equally as peaceful as the other two (casually ignores the half eaten corpse that was found), with Atlas being able to make about 1200 stone bricks! That was enough for the day, mostly because he knew they wouldn't be able to bring back more without extra equipment. He would be able to bring back these 1200 bricks because he can use magic to pick up the sack and pull it along, so he told the boys to stop bringing mud and start helping him place the stone bricks into sacks. Jax also helped with that too, and watched the surroundings... After 21 minutes of it, Enne called out: "I see a crocodile!" And Atlas immediately floated towards her- he wanted the Croc Kingdom to be blessed by Sobek, the Egyptian God of Crocodiles, Fertility, Rivers, and Military Power (He is also considered a Pharaoh God) so that their kingdom may flourish and grow, and what better way than to make his sacred animal Croc Kingdom's sacred animal!? Not only would there be a big Crocodile man on the throne as king (kinda like a Pharaoh) but Atlas has plans for various waterways through the entire city where fresh clean water would flow through and imitate rivers, where domesticated and docile crocodiles would roam (Don't worry, they were get purified by the spell [Purify Food and Drink], so no infections would happen). They would be the equivalent of dogs, but for everyone on the Croc Kingdom!
"Oh, they're big!" There were about 7 crocodiles, all of them basking in the glorious sunlight. There were really big ones, and some that were not as big, so 4 males and 3 females? This certainly was not mating season then! "Awn, I wanted to get some eggs to raise..." Raising them from hatching would make everything much easier! Instead, Atlas floated above them all and looked down at them before he casted [Speak with Animals] on himself, coughing on his fist and speaking: "Hey, fellas, do any of you seven know when ya'll mating season start?" The crocodiles just looked up at him as the spell took effect- he felt an almost understanding of the animals before him as a Red light flashed through their eyes.
"...why does this weird wanna know about our mating season?"
"Oof, weird guy."
"He is clearly weird- he floats!"
"Floaty weirdo."
"It's like I always say, never trust floaty hot boys. They're weird."
"You guys think he wants to participate?"
"Who would choose him?"
"I wouldn't. He looks weird."
"Yeah, too weird."
...Atlas felt a few knives stab his heart before he looked at the crocodiles and said: "...I'm going to have fun stealing your children when it's time." With that, knowing the crocodiles had understood what he told them, he dismissed the [Speak with Animals] spell and floated away. Who cares, at least a crocodile would choose him... right? I mean, maybe? 'Now that I think about it, no. He wouldn't.' Sighing, Atlas decided to focus back on work instead of worrying about other useless thoughts.
By the fourth and last work hour (they had gathered all they could carry) was when something happened. They were on the outskirts of Slaughter Swamp, not even 100 feet into the swamp, they could get back to the mainland easily by the same method they got here in the first place... but the fact that they were not very close to the center of the swamp was not enough, and soon enough, Atlas met his first official undead enemy. Solomon Grundy, previously known as Cyrus Gold, and this universe's Avatar of the Black. Atlas felt him when he approached- it was like a thousand ants were crawling all over his skin, he felt maggots moving within his body before he felt them bursting out of his eyeballs and mouth- he coughed and coughed, but nothing came out. This? That was a side effect of him enchanting his soul... It made his magic sensitivity greater than it was before, and now he could truly feel what the forces of the Black feel like. They feel like decay and death, but Solomon Grundy in particular feels malevolent and corrupting in nature: "...you." His voice was low and guttural, like he had been screaming for hours and somehow his vocal cords hadn't given up on him yet and he could still speak: "Magician!"
With an angry roar, he ran forward-
But Atlas was more than ready: "FUS RO DAH!" The moment he shouted those words, a wave of unrelenting force slammed against Solomon and sent him flying 50 feet away or more. 'Oh, I always wanted to do this!' Sadly, that wasn't a Dragon Shout- it was, instead, the spell [Pulse Wave]. "Now, everyone, please return to the boat-" With another roar, the undead came running at them again, making Atlas roll his eyes: "-I'll be there shortly, don't worry." Now... time to release this poor guy from undeath by blasting him with- wait, if he can't die, why not use him as a test dummy!? "...sometimes, I'm frightened by my genius."
Well, he has a willing punching dummy, why not test out his magic against him?
He lifted his hand, and casted a spell he always wanted to: "...[Fireball]."
And there was only fire for a few instants.
Estado de energía semanal
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