CHAPTER 21 PART 1 OF 2
KILL THEM AND STEAL THEIR STUFF
Lucas held Korah’s arm over his shoulder, supporting her as they made their way down to the river. His entourage of spiders followed ‘Broodlord on the Move’ security protocols; scouting ahead and fanning out to secure the area. When they reached the smooth rocks of the river bed, Korah took her arm back and dropped to her knees. Cold sweat was gradually washing the blood off her face and arms. From what she had said, her insides were being constantly shredded and re-healed as she moved. Lucas couldn't even imagine the pain that she would be enduring.
She tried without success to undo the straps of her armour. When Lucas realised what she was doing he knelt and started unclasping the straps, then gently worked it over her head. Congealed blood that had collected under the armour sloughed onto the rocks. With his help, she shuffled into the water until she could sit submerged up to her shoulders in the gentle current.
“Can I borrow your knife?”
Lucas took out his Perfectly Balanced Knife and handed her the hilt. She cut her shirt free rather than struggle to take it off. It drifted downstream, turning the surrounding water red. As the blood washed off her skin, it revealed hundreds, or maybe thousands of small pink scars.
Korah held the blade and breathed deeply until she had stopped shaking, then pressed it into her neck with a grimace. Fresh blood ran down into the water. She then inserted her fingers into the new wound and grunted as she extracted a centimetre long, jagged piece of metal. By the time it was out she had gone very pale and was panting hard, but her panting got cut off by a fresh round of coughing up blood.
Lucas was feeling more nauseous the longer he watched. He wished there was some way he could help, but all he could do is sit and stare. She moved the knife to another pink scar, digging the blade into her flesh again.
Lucas got up.
“Be careful with that Bracer, it will drain all your Mana eventually and then you will pass out in the water.” Korah only nodded, focused on the knife as he left.
Lucas knew that she had chosen this fight, but he could have planned more carefully. He could have kept her safe. He kept gritting his teeth on his way back to the battlefield, as if bracing himself against the shame that kept creeping into his heart. She was his only friend, and had put her life on the line for him several times already. All of the happiness he had felt in this world had come from her. If she died, he wanted to die with her. He would surely die anyway, or worse, having to face this world alone.
The Arachs were keeping a wide perimeter around him as he walked. Not wanting their time used like this, he summoned all of his Arachs. He sent them all hunting, except for his Scouts and Brawler, which he kept for defence.
There had been a popup during the fight, so Lucas summoned it up to read as he walked.
[https://i.imgur.com/Z6hu8Zh.jpg]
‘A real combat power,’ Lucas thought. The tooltip didn't truly do justice to how it felt. Being able to read your opponent’s intentions during a fight was an incredible advantage. Even when Koro had activated a gadget that Lucas had never seen before, his Aura had told Lucas exactly what he was intending to accomplish with it.
When he reached the site of the battle, Lucas went to find Koro’s body. The soft tissue of his face had melted off entirely, leaving the macabre outline of his skull lying in a puddle of organic muck. Much of his equipment had been destroyed also, but Lucas kneeled down and touched his shoulder to activate his looting ability.
[https://i.imgur.com/mNPbgYm.jpg]
‘Wow. You were my kind of guy Koro. I hope my loot looks that good when I die.’
The three Combat Spiders that Caleb had hit with the needles had died, lying on their backs with legs curled up. Three dead slavers he looted, producing two swords, one spear, two daggers, two sets of leather armour, a steel chest plate, 49 silver and 128 copper crowns, and a collection of dirty clothes. All of it went into the inventory, leaving naked dead bodies behind. After a moment's hesitation, Lucas stored the bodies also.
On the way back to the camp Lucas opened his Inventory. He had been worried that he was going to run out of space, but hitting 7 Spirit had drastically increased his storage. He had to zoom in and scroll around to see everything now. Even the Rockbone Bear skull was dwarfed by the immense empty space. At some point he would make an effort to turn it from a grid into a list, or perhaps just add some kind of sorting tools because the junk in there was starting to add up. For now he spent some time idling over the interface, sorting everything useful into rows and sticking all the miscellaneous junk out of the way in the bottom corner. One of the new items he took out to Analyse:
[https://i.imgur.com/qydElVU.jpg]
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‘Sounds like chloroform.’
Putting it back in his inventory, Lucas spent the rest of the walk dreaming up imaginary scenarios for using his new arsenal of equipment.
When he reached the camp, Korah was there. She was resting against a tree, pale hair hung wet over her pallid face. She stood when Lucas approached, and handed him the Regeneration Bracer with a smile. She was obviously still in pain.
“Did you get the metal out?” Lucas asked.
She shook her head.
“Some of it, but there is too much to get it all, and many of the pieces are too small or too deep. Even if I did get it all out, the magical healing I would need would leave so much internal scarring, I would not live long either way.”
“So that's it!? You're just going to die!?” Lucas said, outrage building in his voice.
“I was always going to die, Lucas.” She replied matter of factly.
“Well there has got to be something we can do!”
She shrugged.
“Not anything in our reach. There are healers who can remove internal scarring, but the cost is more than normal folk would see in a lifetime.”
The look on Lucas’s face must have made it clear he was about to dig his heels in, because she continued before he could say anything.
“I am not dead yet. Caleb got away from us, but next time…” She clapped one fist and grinned. The beads of sweat on her forehead and the strain in her Aura made her bravado seem shallow.
“Korah, I…”
“Lucas. I am not going to leave you yet,” she said, her Aura taking on a warm glow as she realised how afraid he was of losing her.
“There is nothing that you or I can do about it right now, so let's look at what we can do, and see where the future takes us.”
Lucas relented with a sigh.
“Fine. But we will find a way to save you. Keep that Regeneration Bracer. We are going to kill Caleb and the Slavers, steal all their stuff, and then sell it to pay for a healer.”
Korah smiled, and the warmth in her Aura grew stronger, banishing the hints of fear and doubt that he had not noticed until they faded. He suddenly realised that she was alone in this world too. Seeing that he had made her feel a little better did a lot to make him feel better.
“Good plan.” She said, “So what do we do next?”
“I need to know more about their camp and the defences. You mentioned a Relic that creates some kind of field that we can't enter?”
Korah nodded.
“It will make us so weak that we can not fight. His slaves are working under that field all day. I think maybe he is using them to create charged power crystals.”
“Right, ok, um… Can we shut it off?”
“Maybe.” She said, tapping her chin. “If we could find how he started it in the first place. There will be a central place where the thing is controlled, probably far underground. The main problem is that nobody except Druids and Relic Priests know how to make them work.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“You will… figure it out?” She replied, slightly dubious.
“Yea, for sure. But how do we get to it? I get the impression that there are Relics all over this area. Are they connected underground? If I dug into one nearby, do you think I could find a connection to Caleb's?”
Korah seemed a bit nervous at that suggestion.
“They probably are connected, but they are dangerous. It’s pitch black... and the Soulless lurk in the darkness of ancient Ruins.”
“What are the Soulless?”
“Creatures made of metal and stone, they have no soul, no Aura. The druids say they were once the servants of the Ancients, but when the Ancients disappeared they went mad.” Her Aura took on a jittery edge as she spoke.
"Oh yea, the robots. You mentioned them before. Look, I’m going to try. It might not work but I can get in and out safely and the dark doesn't worry me at all. Neither do the Soulless. We can build up our forces while I scout around."
Korah looked spooked by the idea, but didn’t object. Lucas found it quite ridiculous that she would be so scared of some dark tunnels with robots, considering how happy she had been to stand in the way of a four ton bear.
“Let's find a Relic close to the Slavers and set up a camp. I’ll venture down during the day while the spiders hunt. Whatever they catch, I'll turn it into more spiders when I get back. We can build up a force while I search for a weakness.” he said.
“It’s too dangerous Lucas. If someone needs to go down there it should be me. I am already wounded beyond healing. If I die, it’s not such a big loss. Even if I have my soul sucked out and can not join my sisters…”
Lucas almost lost his temper at that.
“No! You are the only reason I'm alive. I wish you would stop talking about dying all the time. Besides, I can see in the dark, I can use my scouts to explore the tunnels without putting myself at risk, and I'm not as good at hunting as you anyway. Just ride Brawler around and look for something huge for the spiders to fight.”
Korah looked over to Brawler with a tentative smile. It was sitting nearby watching their conversation.
“You can give Korah a ride right Brawler? I’ve seen you two playing, don't act coy now.”
Brawler hopped over with two thunderous bounds, and crouched his front section down for her to climb on. Korah’s Aura lit up with such child-like joy that Lucas laughed.