Chapter 9: The road not taken.

  Cam’s heart was pounding in his chest. He couldn’t hear Penelope talking at all. She was frantically waving her hands in his face. Cam looked at her lips moving, but he could only hear a high pitched sound. At first, it was feint, like it was coming from far away. Soon it became an over whelming sound. He could still feel his heart beating in his chest. Flashes of the pain he felt on the moon of that unknown planet began to creep into his veins. “No.”

  ---

  “Fuck this!” Penelope took aim and shot straight for the mad scientist. Her arrow bounced off of an invisible force field. “Cam? Cam, snap out of it! That son of a bitch has a barrier up, we have to think of something.” She waved in his face, ‘what is he thinking?’ “Cam, I could use come support about now. Wake up!”

  “No.”

  Penelope took a step back. Her eyes went wide. Cams veins began to glow a bright orange. His eyes, as piercing as they were staring daggers into the white coat, took on a purple hue. Cam didn’t take the stairs as much as jump over them. He touched down half way between the stairs and his prey just long enough to launch himself forward. By this time his body was producing an after image, Penelope couldn’t tell where Cam actually was. Until she heard the barrier shatter. He was already holding the mad scientist by the throat.

  Penelope notice the mad scientist was holding a device in his hand, he was about to push a button on it. She reacted faster than she could think and shot the man in the hand. Before the device could hit the ground she shot that too, a small explosion went off on the back wall, where the device was pinned.

  “You fools! You have no idea what you have done. He wasn’t ready to be controlled yet! You have killed us all!” The mad scientist flailed in Cams hand. Penelope made her way down the stairs looking from cell to cell. She knew some of these people, They were from the town north of here. She looked around for the keys to the cells. She found them hanging from the waist of the mad scientist.

  “I’ll take these.” She smirked as she turned away. Only then did she notice the man on the table. He was no longer fighting against the restraints, instead he was foaming at the mouth. His skin began to pulse out turning hard… and gray. She backed up slowly at first. “Cam, we gotta go.” She heard the screaming from the cages.

  “Don’t leave us!”

  “Get us out of here!”

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  “Hurry! before he wakes up.”

  Penelope ran to the first cage, and then to the next. Cam just stood there holding the white coat like a statue. Penelope couldn’t tell if Cam got taller, but he was clearly a different person than he was when he walked up to her. With his hands tucked into his pockets and that slight hunch he had. Now he was standing tall, holding a man two feet off the ground. His arms didn’t look like they were getting the least bit tired either.

  “Come on” She heard from the top of the stairs. It was the little girl she freed from cell three.

  She ran up the stairs, pausing briefly every time the spiral stairs had her face Cam. He wasn’t going anywhere. The newly formed rock troll broke the restraints and stood. It slapped the hospital bed into the far wall and roared. It pounded the ground a few times with it’s fist and turned to face Cam and it’s maker.

  ‘My team isn’t here anymore, I can’t cast curse. We are so screwed. This thing will keep healing and fighting until we are all dead. Even if we make a run for it there is no way we can out run this thing.’

  The rock troll back handed the scientist out of Cams hand causing him to fly towards the stairs bouncing and skidding along the way.

  ---

  Cam stood there, holding the man in the lab coat. Over his head appeared, “Level 47 Alchemist” He focused harder.

  Name: Argus J. Samson

  Level: 47

  Craft: Alchemist

  Titles: Diabolical Researcher, Atheist at heart, Bent or Broken.

  Diabolical Researcher: Given to those who choose morally obtuse research to better understand the truth of the world they live in.

  Atheist at heart: Doesn’t acknowledge Divinity as an answer to any problem the world is facing, instead focused on finding the answers out alone.

  Bent or Broken: Given to those who have face excessive hardship and have changed their outlook on life because of it.

  ‘Argus J. Samson’

  ‘That’s the author of the book I read on alchemy the other day. What could have happened to him so bad that he is turning people into monsters?’ It looked like he would have time to get his answers, as much pressure he was adding to his neck, Argus wasn’t taking any damage at all. He was way stronger than he looked. That is until he got slapped out of Cams hand and skipped like a rock over a pond. Cam could see red numbers popping up around Argus. His health bar finally began to tick down. Cam looked over to the cause of that scene.

  “Level 28 Rock Troll”

  Cam jumped back and dropped a creeping vine, one of his fire balls lighting up the room flew over to it. The rock troll lunged at Cam, the creeping vine grabbed him just in time, growing as they went. Sadly, they didn’t have the same affect. An arrow went into one eye only to pop back out moments later. Over it’s head a symbol appeared. Cam focused on it. “Berserked” The Rock troll seemed to increase in size as it fought off the creeping vine.

  Argus got up on one knee and looked over to the spectacle. Cam focused on the flame he tossed at the creeping vine. He had kept it going up to this point, but now he intensified the flames. The vines began changing color from green to orange. They got harder and thicker, the center mass began forming a mouth and eyes. Sharp thin needle like teeth began to grow. As it pulled at the rock troll, it would bite off limbs as it went. Cam focused on the new forming creature, “Devouring Vine Level 1, level 3, level 5, level 9.” It was getting stronger the more it ate. It would be an endless feast, as it bit off an arm or leg it would grow back immediately.

  The flame shifted from the plant to the troll and the regeneration slowed down. Soon arms stopped growing back and the skin stayed burnt, then the head went and what was left turned to ash. The Flame in the center not only faded away but seemed to take all the warmth with it. Causing the air to chill, the Devouring vine now level 20 began to whither and die. Sections began to fall away and turn into motionless creeping vines, which Cam wasted no time picking up. While he was at it, Cam filled a vile with the ashes of the rock troll. ‘You never know.’

  Cam walked back to an honestly shocked alchemist, who hadn’t so much as stood up from his knee position. “Argus, you have a lot to answer for.” Cam said calmly. “Would you care to start now, or

  after Penelope puts a few arrows into you?”