26 Loop 1, Part 6

The Frollarts came out of the walls. Organization was apparently too much to ask of them as they appeared from everywhere, but not all at once. Instead, it was like they were being produced on a timer. Two would appear, then a pause. Three would appear, then a pause. Then one.

The first two squeezed out from beneath a shelf to my right, shoulder to shoulder, They wedged their fat, pale blue bodies through a gap that shouldn’t have been able to fit one of them, let alone two. They popped free with a sound like a cork leaving a bottle and stumbled over each other’s knuckles. They immediately began waddling toward me with a focused determination.

Three more came from behind a statue I hadn’t noticed. It was like it had just appeared magically. The statue was of a robed woman holding a book. The Frollarts emerged from behind her feet like the worst honor guard in recorded history.

One dropped from above and landed on my head. I flung it off in a panic. I don’t know how it happened. The ceiling here was vaulted stone with no visible gaps, but it fell out of it anyway. It bounced off my head and got up with an expression that suggested it had meant to do that.

Another one crawled out of what appeared to be a book return slot. An actual book return slot, built into the wall, sized for folios. God, this place was weird. The Frollart was wider than the slot by a meaningful margin, and the stone around the opening cracked as it forced itself through. Debris fell off the wall, and the Frollart climbed over before joining the growing crowd.

There were ten, maybe eleven. I lost count because they were all climbing on top of each other. They filled the corridor ahead of me, and they moved over each other without any interest in stopping. They bumped into the shelves, knocking off books. They tripped over each other. They moved very slow, but they kept coming, ugly and unhurried about it. They didn’t need to be fast because they had absolutely nowhere else to be. And I had to find a way around.

The first Frollart, the one still pinwheeling on my [Slick] patch, had finally rolled itself off the frictionless stone. It was getting upright with the triumphant energy of something that had just conquered its greatest challenge. It waddled toward me, dragging those filthy bandages across the stone.

The tether pulled me left, right through the middle of the horde. I went left anyway, because the alternative was wandering around in a loop for hours. And God, if that wasn’t a waste of effort.

I cast [Slick]. Another 10 mana. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to run out before I managed to get myself free. The stone in front of the group went frictionless, and the lead Frollart’s knuckles skidded sideways on the stone. Its arms splayed like it was doing the splits. It hit the ground chin-first and slid into the two behind it. All three went down in a jumble of pale blue limbs and flailing hands. The ones behind them tried to walk over the pile and immediately regretted it.

Good. Bought me some time. Unfortunately, [Slick] managed to fill the entire corridor. So it was unlikely I’d be able to get through without sliding myself. Thankfully, there was an easy solution to this.

I cast [Stride]. My shoes hummed, and I lifted three inches off the floor and glided forward. Silently, smoothly, and faster than anything with knuckle-based locomotion could match. I moved through the gap and kept following the tether.

I made it past the first horde, only to be stopped by another six. Even on [Stride], I didn’t think I’d be able to glide through them. I couldn’t keep doing this. Every [Slick] was 10 mana, and [Slick] didn’t permanently stop the Frollarts. It just delayed them. I needed something louder than me.

The shelves gave me an idea. They lined both walls here, packed three deep with books that nobody had touched in decades. Caked with dust. Frollarts, as a species, had demonstrated exactly one consistent behavior throughout all of mankind’s interactions with them. They went toward noise.

I pointed my wand at the nearest shelf and cast [Topple].

[Topple — Enchantment]

Cost: Variable.

Spent: 12

Displaces all unsecured objects from a targeted surface. Area scales with mana investment.

Every book on the shelf launched itself into the corridor behind me. Not gently. I had barely had to ask the books to leave, and they launched. They hit the floor, the walls, and each other in a cascading avalanche of dust and pages.. The noise was tremendous. It sounded like a bomb going off.

Every pale blue head in the corridor pointed away from me, toward the noise. Every knuckle pivoted to the chaos of a hundred books settling into a pile on the stone.

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I finished gliding over the [Slick] and continued following the tether. The pulse was faster now than it had been five minutes ago, and I didn’t want to think about what that meant for my uncle. So I thought about mana instead.

I was spending too much. Too much mana, too much effort. I had spent 41 mana on dungeon pests. 41 mana I couldn’t get back without sitting still for an hour or two or three. And sitting still was not going to be an option anytime soon. The Frollarts had inspected the pile of books, found it inedible, and were turning back in my direction. The sound of knuckles resumed behind me.

The tether curved left through the wall, and I took the nearest doorway that pointed roughly in the same direction. Behind me, the Frollarts regrouped. There was no coordination behind it. They just kept showing up in the same direction I was trying to go.