Solitaire POV: Day 52

Current Wealth: 1 silver 47 copper

The black powder explosion was not unanticipated. Even as it rocked my teeth, I mused on how we’d all known it would come. Even as I heard the overpressure strike our outer wall, and felt the tremble run through the building, I considered how simple a person it would’ve taken not to foresee it. Its detonation left a single sensation running through my core, more intense than perhaps any emotion I’d ever felt before or since.

Irritation.

What kind of imbecile tried to use my own weapon against me in so obvious a way? Evidently, the kind we were fighting now. And what kind of genius would fail to safeguard against such a tactic?

Not this one, obviously.

We’d been well prepared. A barrel of our own, stationed right beside a high window on the top floor of the building, directly above the centre of its lower wall. Directly above the thinnest, most destructible part of the place. The moment the man we had assigned to it saw a fuse light, he gave the word, and we sent two more bastards over to heave the barrel up and send it careening down below.

It was filled with nails, as many as we could find and spare. Landing just behind the enemy’s hastily-piled stolen gunpowder, spilling its contents out. Then the explosion came.

Black powder was a low explosive, though, not a high explosive. That meant that its shockwave didn’t propagate the material’s atomic structure, only jumping from one, micro-scale molecule to another. These molecules were still small of course- small enough that anything spreading that fast between them was still an explosion- but it meant that the blast power was inherently tied to pressure. To maximise it, you had to compress the explosion in a tight area with just enough space inside to let it build itself up before release.

Our vampire enemy hadn’t known much about black powder, though. Which was why he’d been so impressed with me, and why I’d been confident the moron would just have his little minions dump the barrels against our weakest wall and light them up. The resulting blast was too weak by far to make a breach.

…But it was more than strong enough to launch the nails we’d dropped right behind the explosion.

A minute later the clawing was back at the front of our little fortress, sneering, snarling undead trying to hammer through wood using their own limbs and skulls as bludgeons.

It must be said, without pesky pain receptors to get in their way, their odds were looking better than fair. The material started yielding within two thousand seconds.

This time, there was an altogether different reaction to it. A steely, grim preparedness, and all eyes fell on the surface as it slowly continued getting whittled away. All except mine. I kept my focus on the windows, waiting for the subversion I knew was coming. In the end, I was half right. The vampire smashed himself inside through one of them, but not in the mayor’s office. He emerged into the main area from one of the side rooms, announcing himself by flicking that jewelled rapier into a nearby villager and taking the man’s head off as if his neck were tissue.

He’d healed from yesterday, I saw, now looking as fit as an exsanguinated fiddle. The cunt. He came flying at me without an instant’s hesitation, snarling as he closed in, then pausing as Beam lunged out in front of him, jumping off a bannister to land within a metre of the enemy.

A spear came around hard, and the vampire’s sword met it mid-swing. Wood gave in to steel, splitting open with a spray of splinters and pulp, sending my friend back a step. I was already in the fight by then, though, and already hacking low and wild with my hatchet. The vampire dodged, but barely.

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Beam did the exact perfect thing, following me up with the bladed end of his spear and using it like a dagger to stab and whip, doubling the momentum and forcing the vampire farther back. I kept on swinging, aiming for the limbs I saw dragging behind our enemy as it stumbled away, and soon I even caught its hand.

It wasn’t a deep cut, just a graze really. A tiny little tickle, a poke of the finger, a love tap. The vampire’s severed finger fell to the floor, and it snarled in agony like the wimpy bitch it was, clutching the wound for all of a second as its eyes practically glowed with fury.

Around that time, I sensed that continuing to fight this creature may not have been in my best interests. As always, I did some thinking, and I did it all within the span of a half-second.

We knew it had some game-changer, the same thing it’d used on Beam last time, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out it was coming. I had about an instant to act on that knowledge, and I did so by violently shouldering my friend just as the vampire’s arm blurred upwards amid a flash of crimson light.

The olympian wasn’t expecting the bash, and it sent him off-kilter just as I’d hoped, leaving me alone in the attack’s path. It washed over me, red light hitting like the dying glow of a sunset, and then I felt exactly what Beam had described.

It was crushing. A knowledge- a certainty- that I was worthless, stupid, insignificant. It crawled into my mind as a thousand grasping roots, trying desperately to choke the life away from me, digging itself into my cerebrum and crushing every scrap of hope it found.

Worthless.

Stupid.

Insignificant.

Except…I wasn’t, obviously. I was Solitaire, Bernard, I was the smartest human probably ever. I wasn’t even sure my species had the cranial capacity to make something more intelligent than me. I didn’t just think that, I knew it.

Worthless.

I was one of the only people preparing for when They made their move.

Stupid.

I could multiply 4 digit numbers in my head from age 5.

Insignificant.

The entire universe was my playground, and other people weren’t even provably conscious to me.

I dropped to my knees, trembling, gasping, head lowered and eyes wide in all the ways I recalled seeing on Beam. The vampire sneered, triumphant as it stepped forwards. Sword raised slowly to kill me, its wielder confident he had all the time in the world.

The hardest part was not giggling as I pulled the knife out of my boot and drove it down through his.

A scream from the vampire, a taunt from me, and I was rolling out of the weapon’s way. I winced at the sound of it cleaving through the wooden floor, imagining rather vividly just how much resistance my own spine would’ve offered, then I leapt to my feet and closed in just as Beam did.

The vampire picked a good move, this time, though. Taking the extra moment to lean down and rip the knife out, then throwing itself to one side. There was space between us just as there’d been last time, in the mayor’s office, but we’d used our momentary advantage well. It was wounded, less mobile, possibly even mad with pain. We had a chance. I came in first to use it, retrieving my hatchet and clutching it tight.

Just in time for a new blast of red light to wash over me.

I took a single step forward before I felt its influence return, and this time it was..Different.

You’re crazy.

You’re dangerous.

All your friends know it.

They hate you.

They fear you.

They’re planning how to get rid of you.

A chill ran down my spine, and I felt something unfamiliar, something almost alien, that hadn’t struck me since I was a little boy. Panic. Cold and cruel, like an icicle ran through my guts. My weapon dropped from limp fingers as I felt my body tremble involuntarily, legs suddenly weak, hearing suddenly blank, mouth dry and heart pounding like a war drum.

I barely even noticed the vampire step forwards with its backhand, and I didn’t feel the impact at all.