I really want to say that we let out a ferocious battle cry as we literally charged our way through the mist. I would have really enjoyed saying that.
Instead, we both stayed nervously, anxiously, frighteningly silent as we dashed through unseen territory.
The hole left by Ix-Lok’s arrow gave just enough momentary visibility for Fogwarth to follow, and his ability allowed us to carve a straight trail to the wolf who had graciously accepted the frostbitten arrow for. Loose rubble and unpacked earth tore up like a biblical parting sea in our wake, oceans worth of mist dissipating to either side as we trampled toward our destination. The visual hole of the arrow closed within moments, and soon we were completely blinded by the endless white and gray once more.
But it didn’t matter. Even with only a foot or two of sight we still met our target, and we struck out with the full force of the charge. My spiked metal shell crashed down on the wolf’s back, and from the mist beside us a long, black blade took the opportunity to slide through the mushroom-filled eye socket of the creature and tucked itself away for bed all the way up to the hilt.
The sword pulled back out, revealing some kind of crystal inlays etched across the blade in symbols that seemed oddly like they could have been elaborate characters from another language. The wielder of the sword was still nearly invisible in the mist, save for the tattered red of some kind of baggy garb she seemed to be wearing.
Before we could get a good look at her another beast was on us, this time a smaller boar with just as deadly tusks. Fogwarth moved and blocked the beast’s attack before it could rip into him, and it was followed by a literal fireball that splashed over the boar’s back like a popped water balloon, then it was punctuated with the black blade ripping into the boat’s skull, dropping it instantly.
[Your party has slain a Wolf Boar; Flesh Cursed - Level 9. You are awarded 93 experience points]
I shoved aside the kill notification, immediately recognizing that we didn’t receive anything for the wolf from moments prior but not worrying about that right now. We had bigger issues, like getting this swordswoman’s attention for five seconds before we accidentally had some friendly fire.
Unless it was a bee of course, then we can definitely set her on fire. Fuck those bees.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Hey! Lady with the sword! Hold on for a sec!”
“Who is there?” She cried out, her silhouette standing poised with her sword facing us. “Why do you seek me?”
“Seek you?” I yelled back. “We’re saving you!”
“Oh? Is that so? And why is it you believe I need your saving?”
“Oh, for the love of…” I sighed and wished once again that I could rub my temples.
“I apologize, fair lady of the sword,” Fogwarth joined in. “I am Fogwarth, the 7th Heir of the Mothric Kingdom. I am joined by my Companion and staunch ally, Barry, and two Golems. We have come to assess our southern border wall.”
“You may or may not have noticed, but your wall has taken a fair bit of damage, Heir Fogwarth,” she answered, her tone lightening a bit. “It is overrun by the [Flesh Cursed] and is for some reason absolutely encased in Canaan Mist. Unless, of course, it is always like this.”
Fogwarth laughed. “Oh no, my fair warrior. Why, our southern farm lands are among the safest and most radiant of them all. The Golden gleam of our harvest may-“
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, cutting him off. “Save the sale pitch for later. Listen lady, we need to check the wall, grab some notes, and get the fuck out of here. Yeah? I’m not looking to be some zombie feral animal chow. Got an orchard to get to, evolutions to make happen.”
There was a halt in our conversation and the warrior moved forward, breaking through the fog and closer where we could see her. She also lowered her sword a bit, but kept her grip firmly ready to strike.
“Who is speaking?” She asked. “I count three, yet the voice which calls out is neither the knight nor the golems. Unless my senses fail me, I believe it is… your weapon which speaks?”
Fogwarth’s eyes seemed to widen within his helmet, showing a slight glint as if star struck in some hastily produced children’s cartoon in the 90s. I could still see a few of the dark shadows in the mist and hear their persistent stalking, but for some reason Fogwarth was just in his own world. I had little to no doubt that if we were attacked right now he wouldn’t notice until we were both nearly dead.
I sighed and rolled my eyes.
“Ah, how observant! Such prowess and insight… you must be… stupendous on the battlefield. Yes, I do have a sentient weapon. One could make a humorous claim that he is quite smashing if I do say so myself. And I do!” Fogwarth laughed nervously as the warrior woman stared forward with an idle expression. “I can see my… humor is lost in the exchange. Forgive me, new friend, for I am known to a small few as Fogwarth, the Bewildering Pudge. I have made a game of our meeting, and for that I apologize. I-“
“Alright, take five, lover boy,” I interjected, not willing to stand another moment of whatever that was. “I’m not a talking weapon. I’m a calypso blueberry encased in a spiked steel shell that counts as armor that was then affixed to a pole so I could be a mace or hammer thing this way we could take advantage of a loophole in the system thing you guys have that would allow me to gain combat specific experience for my evolutions.”
“Oh,” she answered, lowering her sword even further. “Is that all then?”
I blinked, utterly stupefied.
“Y-yeah,” I answered, imagining myself blushing and rubbing the back of my head. “Guess so. Also, he’s a prince, the two Golems talk in unison, and there is an army of bee people.”
She just nodded and I took the pause to examine her more thoroughly.
Her garb seemed like a robe, but not the kind Aspenoc or Fogdahn had worn. It was flowy, but it had separate spots for all four limbs and a black sash belt tied around the waist that seemed to house two other smaller swords. I noted the bandages that seemed to run over her hands and arms, and the out of place armored boots on her feet. Her face was super human-like, similar to how Fogwen and the Queen had eerily human features. This warrior had a face that was tinged red with rough patches that were in a diamond pattern like small scales adorning her visible cheekbone, corner of her jaw, and right at her hairline. Raven black hair fell down from one side while the other was encased in more of the bandages which also covered one of her eyes.
Then there were the scars. So many scars. White, thin hairlines that patterned over any visible part of skin like her face and neck.
“I see,” she answered, moving some of her midnight hair from her face and penetrating us with the cold blue of her visible eye. “It is a pleasure to meet your party. I am Yajima Toki of the Wandering City.” Toki chose her words carefully for a moment, assessing the lingering threats around us. She inhaled and then let out her breath slowly. “I apologize if your information did not startle me as expected. While some of it is interesting, it is not inherently brand new. However, I am afraid I cannot continue our conversation. You see… I am under oath to the lord of the Wandering City to investigate the [Flesh Cursed] mutagen, and I am not to return until I have overturned every stone, or visited every isle and glacier.”
“Yes,” Fogwarth answered, nodding emphatically as all hell. She took her gaze off of me to glare a dagger at him. “This mutagen is peculiar indeed. These creatures are ferocious to be sure, but to attack with such a mixed group as they did! Their individual species should be fighting amongst one another if fighting at all!”
“Even so, I must continue to pierce the veil and uncover how vast this mutagen has spread. I have already uncovered the cause. These poor creatures have been feeding on the corpse of the fallen Vacel Juniperscar.”
Huh. There was something about the way she was talking that I couldn’t quite place my metaphorical berry finger on. Some kind of pattern there. Partnered with how she was looking at me it was obvious that there was something I was supposed to notice if not the entire group. I let myself fall into Detective Stabler (the best character on SVU, let’s be honest here) mode as I tried to piece it together.
Toki squinted at me, waiting on a response, any response.
“Flesh of a dead God,” Al-Lok said.
“Tainted meat of the fallen,” Ix-Lok added, still dragging out its words as if it was experiencing a drunken delay.
“I’ve heard that before,” I said, ignoring the golems. “The Husk thing. What is it?”
With a flick of her sword and a glare of pure malice she pointed out into the fog. “It is what destroyed your wall, and it is how my partner and I entered. We made our way through the cavernous hollow of the Dead God’s Husk, entering through a softened passage at the shoulder and following through for several days until we reached the ankle, where the flesh had been dug into, in turn weakening the structure of the wall built over it. Unfortunately we had discovered that the wildlife of this area had been carving and dining on the beast, becoming infected by the flesh, blood and marrow of the divine. My partner stated that the beasts had been consuming for quite some time, but were held back by the wall until it eventually caved in.”
“Ah… I see…” Fogwarth said with utter dejection, placing me on the ground upside-down and leaning on the pole as if he had been overtaken but sudden dramatic fatigue. “A partner, you say? As they say, when it fogs it pours. Well, I hope the two of you make one another the happiest beings in all of the Wandering City.”
She took a moment to eye him curiously, which looked strange in my 180 degree view, then she shook her head. “Come, I will take you to the wall. I can hear the approach of Captain Saito Daiki now. Let us regroup and head toward the wall.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
At first I heard nothing. Then I heard everything. The solid clanking of heavy armor echoing into the nothingness around us, the rattle of heavy footfalls shaking the ground, and the flapping of wings similar to that of the Mothric King. I also saw the shapes of beasts around us begin to fall back as the new, greater threat approached. From my angle the thing looked like an eclipse. The black shadow of its silhouette was massive, standing several feet over Fogwarth even at our distance. I secretly thanked any of the weird Husk Gods, or whatever they were, that this guy was on our side.
“Captain, report,” she said, saluting with her rune-etched black longsword. “I have made contact with the-“
A high-pitched wailing tore through the mist as two glowing red beams of energy exploded out of the mist and smashed into Toki’s chest. She barely had time to squelch in instantaneous pain as they hit her at center mass, causing her to drop her sword and tumble backwards into the overcast of mist. The sudden scent of burnt fabric and flesh overwhelmed us and for a brief pause none of us knew what to do at all.
That’s when it came through the wall of mist, cackling and wheezing at us. The head, that is. Just the head.
Two wings sprouted from either side of the nearly fleshless skull, one resembling the naked skin of a batwing while the other had dark charcoal feathers like a crow. The skull was adorned in a heavy iron helmet that was so dull it seemed to drink in the light around it, and from its forehead two great antlers reached toward the sky above completely wrapped in the scarlet mushrooms. More of the fungi sprouted from the eyes and the neck opening, with only fragments of its skin falling in long shreds from under the helm.
It cackled more. It was the laugh of an 80 year old pack-a-day Newport smoker, complete with rattled breathing and all.
Behind it came what I could only describe as the rest.
The full body, covered in the impossibly heavy dark armor and wielding a two-handed bearded axe, stomped forward and stood alongside of the head. More mushrooms sprouted from the neck stump, along with a cluster growing out of a gash in the leg armor and another from two large holes in the arm plate. If I had not just smashed through so many of these things already I would have fainted on the spot.
Before we could act, before we could even think, a glow began to emit from behind the mushroom eyes and the stems seemed to part and allow the energy beams their passage. The radiant glow of crimson light bloomed like two cigarette cherries amongst the mist. I began to scream and they exploded out toward us.
Fogwarth slammed his boot to the ground, and in that split-second I thought he was fruitlessly using his ground spike ability again. Then the earth erupted upward, a great wall of dirt and stone blocking our sight and halting the trajectory of the beams. The heat waves blasted the earth, detonating the wall as quickly as it had risen and sending showers of hot muck all around us like brown acidic rain.
“What was that?!” I shrieked. “And how come you haven’t done that shit before?”
Fogwarth huffed and prepared us for the counterstrike. “Sir berry, have you thought you were the only one racking up the experience from our journey! Ha! Oh no, dear friend. I have made such progress on this day and have recently reached the splendid level of 16! My people are awarded abilities on each of the 4th levels! On this, my 16th level, I have chosen the [Natural Shield] ability! A marvelous thing, allowing me to manifest a shield anywhere that contains even the smallest molecule of ambient nature-type Mana! What a gift it is at-”
Fogwarth’s long winded and exuberant explanation was cut short by the full-force battering ram that was the armored body’s shoulder tackle, sending us both sprawling to the ground in a heap of worm and berry. Fogwarth nearly lost his grip on me when we tumbled, but he held tight until we stopped our skid across the landscape and rose back up to our feet. Well, his feet.
A spiraling ball of liquid flame bathed the winged head just as another eye laser glow began to form, and it was followed by an imbued ice arrow that burst as it hit the head’s helmet. The thick iron stopped the great arrow from penetrating, but the concussive force partnered with the combination of flame and frost sent the head swirling backward, only catching itself from hitting the ground at the last moment. Ak-Lok stood before Ix-Lok, the former protecting the latter while forming another of the flame balls in its palm. I could still see the cold-wielding Golem was barely holding it together, straining to cock back the bowstring again while its legs shook just to stay upright.
Before I could focus on them for a moment longer I was swept around, meeting the angled chop of the war axe with the brunt of my spiked armor for a parry. It was fine, I thought as I careened through the air. Fogwarth and I would take down the body while the Golems held back the head, then we would regroup to finish off whichever remained. At least now I knew Fogwarth’s movements, and he knew my thinking. I’d like to think we were of one mind when it came to this business now, or at least close to it. We would parry this jackass, I’d lay down my rose-hip ability to tangle the fucker up while Fogwarth set him off balance with some ground spikes. Then maybe we would spin around for a crushing berry blow.
[26 damage received. 62 damage mitigated]
“Ah! Fuck! God damn it!” The words ripped out of me like a demon in an exorcism movie. Hot pain, raw and clinging, shot through my berry and rattled my teeth. It was unlike anything I had felt, whether it be a bar fight, my father’s tough love, or the time I tried out for the football team only to realize I really didn’t like football. The vision in my left eye became blurred with a slow trickle of red and I quickly realized we had made a severe mistake.
And also, my berry blood was apparently not blueberry juice at all. It was real fucking blood. Oh. No.
“What a molly whop!” Fogwarth said, stammering back from the collision of both blows. “Seems this adversary is of equal strength to our own, sir berry! We should commend such a foe for a battle well met!”
“WHAT THE FUCK!” I screamed, blood still trickling down my face. “WE’RE GONNA DIE! OH SHIT!”
Fogwarth laughed as he composed himself, and the armored body mirrored this, preparing again for its own attack. “Simply a minor wound, sir berry. Your magnificent carapace absorbed a great deal of the force. Now then, we strike as one!”
“OH GOD PLEASE NO!”
From the corner of my eye I watched another arrow follow another ball of flame, once again stopping the beam eye attack just before it was ready to be unleashed. The Golems were there then they were simply gone as I was ripped around, carrying the momentum of Fogwarth’s charge ability and connecting with the armor with a clang of metal on metal force that resounded out into the fog in a shockwave. The knight stumbled back, and I shed my fear blanket for just a moment to cast my [Entangling Rose-Hip] ability and I watched as the thorny stems and flowering fruits wrapped our enemy up to his knees, temporarily trapping him while offering up a single point of damage per second. I also received several complete zeroes as well that fluttered up from the attack, but I wasn’t too shocked. What could thorns really do to armor anyway? It would be like a woodpecker attacking Robocop.
Fogwarth backed my attack up with his spiky stomp move, not managing to pierce the armor in the slightest but doing just enough to unbalance him and cause him to lean backwards while stuck in place. With a unified battle cry we lunged forward, Fogwarth hammering me down in an overhead strike that collided with the armor’s unprotected chest. He fell to the ground with a kick up of dust, and it looked like we finally managed to do some damage according to the two round holes that bled out from the front of the armor.
“Hit the bastard again!” I shouted with a maniacal tremor to my voice.
“Oh ho!” Fogwarth sounded off, raising me up for a follow-up strike.
The armor didn’t bother to wait on us for phase two of the fight, instead opting to bring around its arm to swat us with the back side of the axe. It smashed into Fogwarth’s side and cause him to step back, which was just enough for the knight thing to sweep it back over as it stood, this time with the blade coming right for us. Fogwarth winced, then brought me over for another parry attempt.
[13 damage received. 33 damage negated]
No additional blood this time, but the hit to my armor rattled my berry brains into berry jam and brought on a flood of new aches and pains. Everything was momentarily tunnel vision, and I heard Foggy’s apology come through as if it were said from under water. Trapped in my headspace and worried for my life, I aimlessly launched my interface to find my health pool.
[Health: 141/180]
[Mana: 183/200]
In the right corner of my vision I could see the bars that made up my Health and Mana, though they went away once my interface was closed. It was a massive inconvenience that I’d have to tackle at some point, but for now I chose to let it drop and attempt to refocus on the fight.
The red beams broke from the flying skull’s eyes after a large arrow flew wide, and both slammed into the guarding Ak-Lok who tumbled back like a stone ragdoll. I shouted out for the Golem, but they were too caught in their own battle to notice me at all. Ak-Lok slowly rose, the blackened stone of its chest still smoldering from the beams yet the Golem already had another fireball casting. Ix-Lok was looking even worse as it struggled to pull the bowstring back and repeatedly failed. The mushrooms had grown from both puncture wounds to their full side, and now more bloomed from a gut on its left thigh that I had not even noticed before.
Fogwarth was not faring much better as he traded two-handed weapon blows with the suit of armor. Most of the axe swipes missed Fogwarth by a hair’s length, and he had utilized me to land several more hits on the thing himself. However, I felt the sluggishness of Foggy’s strikes and noticed how his counters came a bit more slowly each time. A moment later my fear was realized as armor side-stepped a huge strike, bringing its axe around for its own counter.
With a roar of pain Fogwarth dropped me to the ground, blood leaking from his wounded shoulder as if it were a decorative garden fountain. I clanked to the ground, trapped and useless once again. I had seconds left on my rose-hips, but my sunflower had just returned back and with a thought I triggered the ability.
Yellow petals rose toward the sky, energy blossomed over its brown core, and the beam of the cannon met the armor at center mass just as I had hoped. I mentally pantomimed a fist pump and hoped it would buy my friend enough time to regroup. Initially I planned to use it on the flying head, almost ensuring the Golems could take it out and then meet us in battle, but Plan A never works out. Haven’t we been over this already?
Well, Plan B too.
The translucent word [Immune] rose from the impact point as if to haunt me. The damage still landed, which didn’t mean all that much since I wanted to give us a couple seconds of reprieve with the stun. Shit. At least the sunflower’s blast momentarily stopped the armor, even if it was for a nanosecond, and it allowed Fogwarth the chance to dig deep into his burlap pouch again.
The pouch expanded, and it coughed up a large, triangular thing with three points at the top, and its surface reflected the light with its swirling shades of milky white. With his shield strapped onto his good arm, Fogwarth gave a grunt and stepped right next to where I laid on the ground, preparing for the armored corpse’s next assault.
I took the moment to examine the thing.
[Kite Shield of the Pearlescent Lord. Type: Shield. Rarity: Legendary. Damage Type: 100% Blunt. Block: 82% Physical, 86% Magical. Effects: has a 23% chance to reflect a Magical-Based ability. Legendary Effect: Tests Of Time - This item cannot be broken or damaged. This item is impervious to weathering effects. Description: Shield of the legendary Pearlescent Lord. The Pearlescent Lord was said to have been the greatest warrior of the fallen Sharid Dynasty, surviving through over one-hundred battles while leading the Dynasty’s charge against its enemies. The fear of the Pearlescent Lord spread to the far reaches of the continent, rallying tribes and rebels against the encroaching military forces. Together, they crafted a new ability to seal the essence of the Pearlescent Warrior within his shield for all eternity]
Wow. That was some shield. I was never a huge fan of the sword-and-board play styles in games since they always seemed like the basic or easy choice, but then again I had never seen a plump humanoid worm battle against a mushroom infested zombie armor before so maybe I didn’t have a good grasp on what was good for what fight. Regardless, the shield was impressive. The light seemed to play with it, gleaming off of some spots while avoiding others. I looked on in fascination as the shield perfectly matched Fogwarth's curling horns.
Impressive indeed.
The axe blade fell, clashing with the shield only to be thrown aside. Fogwarth triggered his charge ability again, this time using his shield as a close range battering ram and throwing the armor backwards. I could see Fogwarth panting and I watched him lose more blood from his wound, but maybe we still had a shot. Maybe we had this.