Chapter 4: Tentacle vs Tower

Rather than simply blowing away its surroundings in a wave of red-yellow fire, this supposed Explosive Potion splintered into hundreds of crystalline fragments.

A wave of bluish fire expanded from its center, striking Durri in the chest, but the accompanying air pressure was hardly worth mentioning.

"Ouch!" yelped Durri. The crossbow bolts protruding from his chest burned like candles.

Then, after a slight delay, came the second explosion.

The potion's fragments suddenly burst outward in fleshy tentacles!

"Oh!" said Durri. "That's from the sea serpent eggs, I see!"

He ducked as a tentacle whipped over his head. As he watched, toothy spines grew on suction cups lining the appendage.

The tentacle latched onto the nearby wall and tore its bricks apart in a frenzy!

"No, don't like that!" said Durri. "Look how fast those tentacles are growing! There's only so much room in this lab. I'd better get out before it's too late!"

He took a running slide through a nearby loop of tentacle, his clay flesh squeaking on the appendage's slimy skin. The loop closed with a squelch just as Durri leaped free!

"I did it! No sign of the wizard... I wonder where he ran off to."

As Durri had predicted, the tentacle mass was still expanding from its point in midair, as though a dozen sea monsters were all trying to squeeze through the same tiny crack in the air. They latched onto everything around them, shattering hardwood and turning stone to rubble.

"What a potion!" Durri laughed. "It's going to bring this whole tower down!"

There was only one exit out of the lab, the same one which led to Durri's cell. He ran down this corridor, peering down the few doorways in his search for the actual stairs downward.

He leaped over Colfax's flattened body. "Sorry again! Oh look, a spiral staircase at the very end. If only I'd just kept going instead of being an idiot and listening to the wizard..."

The ground beneath Durri's feet began to shake.

"This section of the tower's falling down! I wonder what happens if I get squished as flat as Colfax. Do I die and go back to the witch's curse, or am I trapped alive forever under a pile of rock? Well, that's too horrible to think about."

Durri practically skidded down the spiral staircase. The air below was slightly cooler, and the stairs passed through what appeared to be an elegant living room. Every piece of furniture looked like it cost more money than Durri had ever seen in his life.

Risking his life to gain a little satisfaction, Durri stepped off the stairs just long enough to stomp muddy clay all over the luxurious carpet.

"I wouldn't have done this if you'd just let me leave! This is what comes of—"

A huge chunk of ceiling slammed into the ground only two feet away, and tentacles writhed downward through the hole!

Durri yelped and jumped back onto the staircase, which looked like it passed all the way to the bottom of the tower. "All right! I guess it really 'is' bringing the whole tower down. I really hope it doesn't expand too far."

A tentacle crashed through the stairwell beneath him. Thinking fast, Durri leaped onto it and slid down for nearly ten feet before stumbling into a crumbling kitchen. In his mind, he opened the Codex and cross-referenced the ingredients he'd used for the potion.

"Let's see... Oh, a Seagrave Potion! The ultimate weapon against seafaring ships. Catches things on fire, then summons tentacles which pulverize any man-made object for two minutes. It's a modified form of the basic Explosive Potion, because of the added eggs."

Durri gave a nervous chuckle. "I wonder if 'I' count as a man-made object!"

Suddenly, the floor caved in and Durri tumbled down amid pasta, mixing bowls, and what was either a burned cake or an undercooked meatloaf.

Durri had been in job site accidents before in his original life. He had tumbled off his fair share of scaffolding. "Have to stay limp. Don't clench up! That's how you pull muscles and break bones! Wait, does this body even have—"

He flew fifteen feet through the air, sailing clear of the debris, and landed with a meaty 'smack!' on his back.

"Ouch!" Durri groaned.

He picked himself up, rubbed his head, and stared in awe at the sight of the tower demolishing itself.

The first floor's walls were still upright, and all the tentacles had fallen onto that floor. It gave the effect of a giant, slimy potted plant blowing in the wind.

Something caught Durri's eye, and he laughed. "So he got free after all! What does he think he's doing?"

The wizard, still naked except for his astounding beard, stood on a pile of rubble near the tower and hurled one lightning bolt after another at the looming, writhing tentacles. "D*mn you all!" he kept screaming. "You took everything from me! I should've known better than to trust sea serpents! Mama always told me they were trouble!"

The bolts from his wand seemed to do nothing at all, but the fellow just kept screaming and firing.

The wizard's words brought an image to Durri's mind.

A sweet little lady with a ridiculously enormous hat on her head, thanking him for bringing her cheese, even if they didn't have her favorite. The woman who'd raised him to be the man he was today.

Durri gritted his teeth and stood up. His body made a gross sucking noise as it released from the ground. "Mama, you deserve better than that little retirement village. I told you I'd earn enough money to buy you the mansion you deserve, and I swear I'm still going to do it. Even if I'm stuck in this body for now."

Durri left the wizard to attack the tentacles which would fade in only moments. Whatever the madman did after that was his own business, and Durri wanted no part in it.

Instead, Durri trudged through the forest which had surrounded the tower until he came to a high ridge. He climbed the tallest tree upon this ridge and squinted until he could make out civilization in the far distance.

"Ah, there we go! Considering the shape of the roofs... I'm still in the same part of the country as my first life as a human! I wonder exactly how much time has passed since that witch cursed me. Surely not more than... not even so much as a year, right? But this is good. I was afraid I'd been thrown onto another continent altogether!"

Durri slid happily down the tree and headed in the town's direction. "Thankfully, I won't have to worry about learning a new language or getting used to new food. Won't have to worry about being a foreigner. I'll look just the same as..."

He suddenly stopped in place.

He had forgotten for a moment that he was no longer human, but a monstrous clay golem.

Golems simply were not around any more, not since that war Grandpa fought, in which the spell to make golems was broken.

Even back then, golems were churned out as soldiers for the military. If someone saw Durri walking around in the present day, the military might end up capturing him and dissecting him to learn how he ticked.

"No sense thinking too much about it," Durri growled. "This is a big, strong body. It'll be even better at construction work than my original human body was! All those garrisons the king ordered across the country should still be in progress. I'll be making good money for Mama in no time. I've just got to hide my identity while I do that."

Of course, ideas related to his new mastery of alchemy passed through Durri's head. Unfortunately, alchemy required ingredients, and the ingredients for valuable potions would cost money. Every way Durri thought about it, he needed to start by earning some good money.

Durri approached the town wall from its back, a high construction of sharpened logs. "That wall might keep out wild animals," said Durri to himself, "but not me!"

He slipped his clay fingers between the cracks of two logs in the wall, then scurried up like a statuesque mud crab and flopped down on the other side of the wall without anyone noticing.

This early in the morning, there didn't seem to be anyone up and about. Durri crept from house to house until he found a ragged cloak hung on a line to dry. "I'll pay you back someday!" he promised the house's owner, then 'borrowed' the cloak.

Durri hid in an alley for another hour. Once he heard the sounds of distant conversation and rolling carts, he rose and meandered through the waking town until he found some disgruntled-looking men carrying tools and meandering in the same general direction.

The closest man to the back of the procession turned his head and gave Durri a sidelong glance.

Durri's cloak covered most of his body, even hiding his face deep in the recesses of the hood. His forearms and hands were still visible, as were his legs from the knees downward.

That is, Durri knew very well he could not pass for human. These days, that wasn't too much of an issue in most civilized towns and cities. Yet, golems in particular were not exactly commonplace.

'I suppose it's been, what, forty years since the big war?' Durri thought to himself. 'What was it that Grandpa said about the golems... after the enemy sorcerer-king cast his army-breaking spell, all the golems died and the animation spell stopped working. I wonder if that wizard would have gotten this body working no matter what, or if it only worked because the god-clerk stuck me here?'

Apparently, golems had once been expensive, immortal servants for people who could afford them. Somewhat intelligent creatures, though slow-witted. The army had made good use of their incredible strength and toughness, until the sorcerer-king put a stop to all that. Granted, even that spell had not been enough to keep him from losing the war!

The man who had been looking at Durri spat onto the ground. "So, you some kind of a lizard man? You got that gray skin. I heard that's what lizard men got."

The surface of Durri's skin had dried out, leaving it covered in cracks that indeed gave the effect of gray scales. It didn't seem to hurt, at least.

"Something like that!" said Durri. He didn't want to blatantly lie in a stupid way that could be easily found out later, but neither did he want to give up his true identity for fear he'd get hauled off for the military to experiment on.

The man nodded. "I heard lizard men are real tiny, though. You're even taller than me."

Durri shrugged. "What I am isn't important. What matters is that I'm strong and have been laying bricks for fifteen years. I'm looking for work, if you can use more hands."

"You ain't got no tools?"

"Afraid not." Durri rubbed his chin, hidden within the hood of his cloak. "I suppose they're at the last job site I was working. I'm, er, traveling. Wanted to make some coin while I'm in town. By the way, just arrived through the forest last night. What's this place's name, anyway?"

The man nodded. "Burnabad. You know, Soily Jim fell down a well two days back. You can use his tools. Might be haunted, I suppose. Name's Bombo, by the way."

Durri bobbed his head in appreciation. 'I suppose I can't get much more cursed than I am at the moment,' he thought.

The Burnabad construction crew made their way to the northern edge of town, which was considerably cleaner than the rest Durri had seen. Many buildings seemed to have been recently demolished, and two small houses built in a modern style looked brand new.

They eventually reached the job site.