Chapter 120 - The Cold Solution

  I needed a plan, and quickly. We were supposed to be speed-running this dungeon. Every minute that went by increased the odds that either Maggie or myself would transform, not to mention all the people back at Harvard Yard, counting on us coming back with a Cleanse spell strong enough to cure them of their curses.

  The creature oozed toward me, leaving a trail of slime and decay in its wake. Since I already had it set up, I fell back on what had worked before. I wasn’t as confident that gasoline and fire would save the day here, but it was still worth a shot.

  I activated Flight, then flew toward the truck I'd positioned earlier. Using my Strength, I grabbed it by the undercarriage and lifted. The truck groaned as I lifted it free from the ground. I rose higher into the air, the vehicle dangling beneath me like a toy.

  The sludge monster continued its advance, seemingly oblivious to what I was planning. I was fine with that. Dumb enemies were always going to be simpler to tackle than smart ones. That was part of the trouble with Cerberus, after all. The werewolf leader was uncannily intelligent, and he’d used that cunning to great effect during the fighting.

  I positioned myself directly above the slime monster, then grabbed the truck's gas tank with both hands and ripped. Metal tore like paper. Gasoline poured out in a stream, splashing across the creature's surface, and I had to twist my body sideways to avoid getting doused. The smell of fuel mixed with rot, creating an odor so foul I gagged.

  I tossed the truck aside. It crashed into the pavement with a satisfying crunch. Then, I raised a hand. Lightning crackled between my fingers.

  "Let's see how you like this," I muttered, and cast Lightning Bolt.

  The purple energy struck the gasoline-soaked surface. Fire erupted instantly, flames spreading across the top of the creature in a wave of orange and yellow. The heat was intense even from twenty feet up. Smoke billowed into the night sky.

  For a moment, I thought I had it. But as the flames burned, I realized with sinking dread that it wasn't working. The fire was consuming the gasoline, sure. It was even singeing the fungi and slime at the surface. But the creature underneath just kept moving. The flames rolled across its surface like water off a duck's back, barely slowing its forward progress.

  The thing didn't even seem to feel pain. It just oozed forward, seemingly unbothered by being on fire.

  "Damn it," I swore, flying back toward where Maggie was hiding.

  She emerged from cover as I landed. "Did it work?"

  "No. The fire's burning on top of it, but it's not killing the thing. It's still coming." I looked back at the creature, which had advanced another ten feet. "I have no idea how to fight this. It's like trying to kill a puddle. How do you kill something that doesn't have organs or a brain?"

  Maggie stared at the creature, her brow furrowed in concentration. The flames were starting to die down, the gasoline mostly consumed. The monster just kept oozing forward, leaving that disgusting trail behind it.

  "Wait," Maggie said slowly. "I might have an idea."

  "I'm all ears."

  "When I was in college, I did an internship at a biotech company in the Seaport district. They had this huge liquid nitrogen tank for cryogenic storage." She turned to me, excitement building in her voice. "What if we freeze it? Liquid nitrogen is cold enough to freeze almost anything solid. Drop that tank on this thing, and—"

  "And we might be able to shatter it," I finished. "Maggie, that's brilliant. But there's a problem. Most people evacuated, but this thing is still loose in downtown Boston. I don't want to leave it here to cause havoc while we go shopping for liquid nitrogen.”

  "Look at it," Maggie said, pointing. "It's barely moving faster than a walking pace. And you said yourself most people have evacuated this area already. It won't get far before we get back."

  She had a point. The creature was slow. I was working under the assumption that if it caught up with someone, they were going to have a very bad day. But it wasn’t quick, so most people would be able to evade it for a while.

  "Okay," I said. "Let's try your plan. Where's this biotech company?"

  "Seaport district, about two miles south. I can show you."

  I scooped her up and launched into the air again. Below us, the creature continued its slow advance, leaving destruction in its wake. We'd have to move fast.

  Maggie directed me through the darkened city, over the empty streets and abandoned buildings. The Seaport district came into view, a modern area full of glass and steel buildings. Many of them looked to have been damaged by the Event, but most were still standing.

  "There!" Maggie pointed to a big, brick building with a logo I didn't recognize. "That's the place. The nitrogen tank should be on the side of the building. Exterior storage."

  I descended, circling the building until I spotted the massive cylindrical tank, maybe fifteen feet tall and five feet in diameter, mounted on a steel framework. I landed beside it and put my hand against the metal. It was still cold. Very cold, in fact. And about halfway down, it was even colder.

  "The insulation held," I said, surprised. I’d been worried how long it would keep, without refrigeration. "The liquid nitrogen is still in there."

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  "Cameron, be super careful with this stuff." Maggie said. "Nitrogen turns into a gas at negative three hundred twenty degrees Fahrenheit, so the stuff in that tank is colder than that. If you get it on yourself, I'm not sure even your Natural Armor will protect you. You could lose fingers. Or worse."

  I looked at her. "You're not protected at all. I'm taking you back to a safe distance first."

  "Cameron—"

  "Non-negotiable," I said, voice firm. "I'm not risking you getting hurt by this. I’ll set you up someplace near the dungeon where you can watch safely from a distance.”

  I flew her back north, setting her down in a sheltered spot with a good view of the dungeon entrance. The sludge monster had advanced maybe fifty feet. Still slow. Still deadly.

  "Stay here," I told her. "If something goes wrong, run. Don't try to help me. Just run."

  "Be careful," she said.

  I flew back to the biotech building, my mind already working through the logistics. The tank was heavy, probably a few tons, but my Strength could handle that. The trick would be getting it to the monster intact, then breaking it open at the right moment.

  I gripped the tank at its base and pulled. The steel framework groaned, bolts shearing as I ripped the whole assembly free. As I’d expected, the tank was heavy, but manageable. I rose into the air, the massive cylinder dangling beneath me.

  The flight back north was slower. The added weight made Flight more difficult, burning through my mana faster. But I managed it, clearing rooftops and power lines until the dungeon came back into view.

  The sludge monster was maybe a hundred feet from the entrance now. Maggie had been right about us having time, because it moved so slowly. Hopefully she was right about this plan, too.

  I climbed higher, figuring it would be easier to just drop the thing and let it split wide open. I needed enough altitude for gravity to do most of the work, though. If I dropped it from high enough up, the tank would crack open like an egg.

  Finally high enough, I stopped and positioned myself directly above the creature. Below, the monster oozed along, completely unaware of what was about to happen.

  "Here goes nothing," I muttered, and released the tank.

  It fell like a bomb.

  The impact was spectacular. The tank hit the monster dead center and burst open like a dropped watermelon, liquid nitrogen exploding outward in a massive cloud of vapor. The temperature dropped so fast that moisture in the air condensed instantly, creating a fog bank that obscured everything.

  When I was younger, I’d been out on a lake in winter. You could hear the water freezing, that slow crackling and popping sound unmistakable. This was similar, but the sound I heard was more like breaking glass, amplified a thousand times and mixed with the hiss of evaporating nitrogen. I descended through the vapor cloud, waving my hand to clear the mist. What I saw made me grin.

  The monster was completely, totally frozen. Where before it had been a flowing mass of rot and decay, now it was a solid sculpture of ice and frost. The fungi on its surface were crystallized, covered in rime. Even the slime trail behind it had frozen solid.

  I didn't give it time to thaw. I tucked my arms against my sides and dove, accelerating as fast as Flight would carry me. I slammed into the frozen creature like a meteor.

  It shattered.

  The impact sent frozen chunks flying in all directions. Pieces of frozen fungus, crystallized slime, shards of what might have been the creature's core—all of it exploded outward in a spray of debris. I crashed through to the ground, rolled, and came up in a crouch.

  The monster was gone. All that remained were scattered pieces of frozen biological matter, already starting to thaw and dissolve into puddles. I still didn’t trust it, though. I had visions of all those puddles thawing out and merging into one monster again. Or maybe worse yet, each little puddle becoming an independent monster.

  Yeah, I’d watched a lot of monster movies as a kid. But after listening to Alex talk about how our modern thoughts on monsters and magic were somehow shaping the way magic worked, any of that might be pertinent. If magic was somehow taking its shape and form from the collected unconscious ideas of humanity, then anything in those old movies might turn out to be real. Just like those werewolves had been pulled almost directly from old horror films, this ‘blob’ might be, too.

  I approached one of the larger frozen chunks carefully. There was one way to tell for sure. If the creature was truly dead, touching it should produce a crystal. I reached out and tapped the frozen mass with one finger and heaved a sigh of relief when not one but two crystals materialized in my hand.

  The first was white, glowing with that same pure light that Marion's Heal spell had produced. It was another crystal for a tier eight Heal, the same as the guardian from our first run.

  The second was green. As I examined it, information flooded my mind. It cast an Entangle spell at tier five. That could be useful. It would immobilize targets with magical vines.

  I pocketed both crystals and flew back to where I'd left Maggie. She was exactly where I'd told her to stay, her face lighting up with relief when she saw me.

  "You did it! I saw the explosion of vapor—I wasn't sure if it worked!"

  "It worked," I said, holding out both crystals. "And look what we got."

  Her eyes widened. "Is that—"

  “It’s not a Cleanse, no. We’re still going to have to go into the dungeon for that,” I said. “But we got a tier eight Heal and a tier five Entangle. Both yours."

  "Cameron, I can't take—"

  "Yes, you can," I interrupted. “Yeah, you already have a tier three Heal, but the stronger spell will help you keep me fighting longer, which will make us better able to speed-run this place. The Entangle might come in handy too. I can’t use them. My slots are filled with other colors. Take them."

  She hesitated, then accepted the crystals. Almost immediately, they began to sink into her palms, her body absorbing them. She gasped, her eyes going distant as the knowledge of the spells flooded her mind.

  "That's...wow," she breathed. "I can feel it. The Heal spell is so much stronger than my tier three. And Entangle—I know exactly how to cast it now."

  "Good," I said. "Because we're going to need every advantage we can get in there."

  We turned to face the dungeon entrance. The massive doors stood open, revealing darkness beyond. Somewhere in that darkness was a portal that would take us into the dungeon proper. And somewhere beyond that portal were the Cleanse spells we desperately needed.

  "Ready?" I asked.

  Maggie took a deep breath, then nodded. "As ready as I'll ever be."

  We walked through the doors together, our footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. The interior was exactly as I remembered, a vast stone chamber with the swirling green portal at the far end. It pulsed with sickly light, casting weird shadows on the walls.

  "Once we go through that," I said, pointing at the portal, "we're committed. We can't leave until we beat the final boss. We'll be stuck in there, fighting through room after room of fungus monsters. There's no backing out."

  Maggie looked at the portal, then at me. A small smile played at her lips. "Cameron, we're already going to turn into werewolves if we don't do this. So really, what choice do we have?"

  "Good point."

  "Besides," she said, squaring her shoulders, "I'd rather go down fighting than turn into a monster without even trying to stop it. Let's do this."

  I couldn't argue with that logic.

  Together, we approached the portal. The green light washed over us, making my skin tingle. Up close, I saw swirls of energy moving within it, like a slow-motion whirlpool.

  "Stay close to me in there," I said.

  "I will. I promise."

  I took her hand in mine, squeezed once, and then we stepped through the portal together. The world dissolved into green light as the dungeon claimed us.