Chapter 08: Saving a Croc (Part 2)
[Clock - 11:30 | 11:30 AM]
[Calendar - 12/01/2003]
[Location - Arkham Asylum - Gotham City, New Jersey]
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Atlas returned to his own mind in a snapping motion.
Taking a deep breath, Atlas gathered his thoughts. What does he know? Waylon is on the 4th floor, about- he looked at the building in the distance up and down, he used a few things that he knew the exact size of as reference -...90 feet? 'He's on the fourth floor, meaning...' Looking at the building and running some math inside his head, Waylon is about... 60 to 70 feet up. 'Well, getting up is easy, getting down is even easier. Infiltrating the place and leaving might be harder than I thought, considering the walls might be reinforced with some sort of alloy to make them more resilient... But who is he kidding? This is Arkham Asylum that he's thinking of, they're corrupt as 90% of Gotham is, and he is pretty sure that whoever is in charge of this reconstruction has cut corners to keep money.
'Ah, I believed I can take advantage of that in the future...' But that would be for future Atlas. "Baytor." Calling out the name of the demon, Atlas opened his eyes to the alleyway and found himself... alone? 'Something must've happened.' In his wheelchair, he was vulnerable- well, not really, seeing as he can literally melt someone down with magic acid, but people will think he is vulnerable! "Fuck..." Thankfully, the alleyway was empty, so he just pushed his way through the illusory semi translucent boxes stacked on top of each other, rolling into the alleyway that was right into the few buildings behind Arkham Asylum.
Arkham Asylum sat right into the middle of Arkham Island, with two brigdes connecting from the east and west side of the island. There is almost nothing on this island besides the D'iangelo Sewage Treatment Plant, this very alleyway was between broken down abandoned homes (because who the fuck would live near the nut house? They'd go for you as soon as they escape their nut home) that he managed to scoop right in between before hiding himself in there. Now, Baytor is missing! 'Shit...' Pulling out a copper wire and bending it softly, Atlas cast [Message], pointing his finger forward and slowly spinning around, searching for Baytor. The spell literally says "you point your finger toward a creature within range and whisper a message", so he is trying to find Baytor like that. His hope was that Baytor would receive the message and speak to him, but to his disappointment, he didn't. 'Okay, something happened.' That much was obvious to him, something must've happened for Baytor to leave him here alone in the alleyway behind the abandoned and destroyed buildings that they were hiding in.
"Baytor, hey!" He tried whispering-shouting, but there was no answer- okay, he can save Waylon alone. "Okay... I can do this..." He rolled back into the hiding spot that he originally was hiding in, the illusion of boxes were still up, so he went through them and stayed still. 'Well, I might as well use this time to learn more.' He spent the entire week planning and reading magic books from Dungeons and Dragons to learn the magic spells that would help him save Waylon- now, you might be asking, why Dungeons and Dragons? Because on his personal quest to master Transmutation Magic, he found out that magic from the Dungeons and Dragons multiverse was weirdly easy to cast and that he had a very easy time using it. He was also more familiar with magic from Dungeons and Dragons, although he couldn't fully remember why. 'Ah, here we go.' He mentally browsed his system and found a book that he wanted to read but had no time as he was stressing over finding Waylon (which was easy enough to do) and stressing over saving Waylon (which might not be as easy).
The book had a red leathery cover with golden softly written cursive letters that read [A Thousand Ways to Destroy your Enemies with Evocation Magic, by Archwizard Archi Evar]. This book had, as the name suggested, various explained ways on how to use even the most basic Evocation cantrips to fuck up your enemies! In the question of spells, it taught a few of them, but the majority of the book was explaining the effects of different spells and how they could be easily controlled to not harm allies while also increasing the damage done against enemies. Thanks to his [Fast Reading] perk, he would certainly be able to read this entire book before it is time to rescue Waylon- He was especially interested in the section called [Acid: How to Melt, Belt, and make it be Felt] wrtten in whimsically curly red-golden letters: "Oh, this will be interesting."
And indeed it was, he learned how to use Evocation magic in a new way. Did you know you can use Acid cantrips to set up for even more powerful Acid spells? If he used [Acid Splash] before using [Acid Stream], he wouldn't use as much energy to bring forth acid from the Elemental Plane of Ooze, allowing him to increase the power of the spell instead of using the energy to summon acid- now, mind you, the amount of times he'd need to use [Acid Splash] for a significant increase in [Acid Stream] is almost ridiculous, but can be done if he is in a pitch.
It's a wonderful sensation to learn more about magic, a mixture of the mystical happiness and giddiness of learning magic (like, he was still not over the fact that he can use magic, real magic!) and the intoxicating sensation of growing stronger, even if by a tiny bit.
When he finished reading the book, a new screen opened in front of his eyes-
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New Perk Unlocked
10 Books Read
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"Huh?"
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World Book - Encyclopedia
Open a special book. This book contains information about every single object within your world, their location, abilities, owners, creators, and any other information available about them.
This ability can be upgraded by hitting a reading milestone.
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"This..."
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POV Change
3rd View, Omniscient
Nix soon flew across the sky, stretching her veil and pulling in the night. She raced alongside Nótt as they gossip about the life of the many gods that lived on Gaia's, Hrímfaxi pulled the moon's chariot as Mani rested his chin on his hands and watched the two goddesses.
It was nighttime.
In Gotham, that normally meant danger for the majority of people within it. Crime was rampant, and thus, it was very dangerous for people to be out- even more so now that the Joker was out of Arkham for the... ah, who is even keeping count anyway? All that the people of Gotham know is that once you enter it, you cannot leave. Why would you enter in the first place? Well, the majority of Gotham's population are low income families, families that cannot sustain themselves with normal jobs because of the shitty economy, families that rely on the extremely small renting that Gotham has- seriously, a whole ass apartment in the shady parts of town for 900 dollars a month!? In this day and age? Even I would fucking live there! The risks are just part of the deal, and hey, if you join a gang you might be able to get enough money for healthcare.
And, well, the US of A is already (kinda?) a dystopia. Why not live in the darkest part of that dystopia? Sometimes, that's the only option for the poor families.
However, we drag our attention to Arkham Asylum, by Arkham Island- You know what, why don't I give you the map?
[Image]
Now that you can see what I'm seeing, let me guide down to our destination. Lowering and rushing through various buildings of the various districts of Gotham, we approach the isolated island, with only two intact buildings, one of them being the Arkham Asylum. Surrounded by 10 feet high fences of reinforced steel and concrete, and with guards patrolling the surrounding area it seemed like a very secure place, right? Alongside the fact that there were hidden cameras pointed towards the hidden corners and blind spots, it was very hard to infiltrate this place- but who in their right minds would do that? Exactly! Someone who should he inside the Arkham Asylum in the first place.
Ironic.
With a flicker of a pale blue spark, one of the hidden cameras pointing to the left corner of the building went down, turning off. After that, a flicker of shadows moved towards the wall surrounding the building and touched it, a low and almost inaudible fizzling sound echoed in the dark night as the concrete and metal melted away in a perfect five by five "door". Rolling in, the perpetrator and idiot known as Atlas was entering the territory of the nuttiest nuts of this nut-verse. He rolled in pretty quickly, as quickly as he could in fact, because he needed to turn on the camera that was watching the portion of the wall he entered through- of course he had placed an a mound of earth there to hide the hole he had made and used [Color] to change the color of the earth to imitate the color of concrete with [Chloromorpho] to add the texture of concrete (or at least to look like it), so as to not disturb the footage.
Ah, Illusion magic... so useful!
"Okay..." Looking up at the building, Atlas felt a bit intimidated. It was a very tall building, and he couldn't break his concentration- to keep some spells up in the Dungeons and Dragons multiverse, you had to concentrate on them. Such a thing does not happen here, as both Atlas is a special little boy and the universe has no rules like that. "[Levitate]." Slowly, his body began to float upwards- 10 feet, 20 feet, 30 feet, 30 feet... As he rose, he had his finger pointed forward and a copper wire on the other hand, casting [Message] over and over again as he tried to contact Waylon by whispering "Waylon, you in there?" over and over- just in case he magically wasn't on the 4th floor anymore. As he reached about 67 feet high, he stopped because he received a response.
And surprise, it seems like his [Subtitles] work even through magical messages.
"[Waylon Jones (Tired, Sad, Surprised): ...Kid?]"
He placed his hands right on the wall where he believed Waylon's room to be, casting [Message] once more as he whispered- He looked up and saw the thin opening where air could easily enter through: "Hey Waylon- don't worry, I'm here to get you out. It'll take a minute or so." He slowly pushed his hand on the wall and used [Destroy Wall] and the same fizzling sound happened, and as he got to the metal sheet that reinforced the wall, he began to simultaneously use [Acid Splash], [Acid Blast], and [Acid Bolt]. You can't really cast the same cantrip simultaneously, but you can cast three different cantrips that do basically the same thing! Well, the difference is that one splashes acid and covers a large area, one wets an area with acid that continously melts down that area, and the other sends a bolt of crystallized acid that pierces through something before melting the insides. He was basically casting four cantrips at the same time, because [Destroy Wall] was also working its way through the metal sheel thanks to the acid.
This whole thing was not silent. The piercing of the acid projectile into the metal sheet was like a bullet, so it caught the attention of security.
With a final blast of acid, a 5 by 5 circular hole was opened, and Atlas could see Waylon's back. The cold air rushed in and Atlas remembered what he had read and used [On/Off] to turn all the cameras inside the room off simultaneously as the cloud of dust rushed in, thankfully hiding his appearance. 'Goodbye, my wheelchair.' Looking down at the (crappy) wheelchair he had been using, Atlas shot down a few [Acid Splash] cantrips and melted it down completely, so as to not leave any evidence of his involvement. He pulled himself inside the room and smiled up at the big crocodile man who hand his two hands held up by chains attached to the walls.
Waylon was trying to look behind him, but was having a hard time, but would recognize that voice anywhere.
"Hi Waylon."