Dealing with the remaining monsters doesn’t take long. They try to swarm me, but I keep on the move and take them out one by one. The heavy sledgehammer makes short work of them, and I’m left standing amid corpses, covered in blood.
As soon as the last one dies, my frenzy starts decaying. The rage I feel goes with it, chipping away one small piece at a time. The steady flow of adrenaline, the shaking in my hands, the pounding in my ears that blocked out the world, they all subside little by little.
Pain replaces them, and I realize I didn’t get away unscathed. I look down at myself for the first time since the fight started, and I find a chunk missing out of my thigh. It has already started healing, but it’ll be a few minutes.
“Emily?” I call out, spinning around.
She’s not in the tree anymore. While I was busy fighting, she moved to the top of the house. Now she’s crouched on the smoke stack, bow held tight in her hands. I take a better look at the monsters and see arrows jutting out of some of them.
She had my back during the fight and I didn’t even realize it.
“You good?” I ask, and I make out the faint outline of a nod under her hood. “Okay.”
I go around collecting her arrows as I wait for my stamina to replenish and my wound to heal. The frenzy decays further, nearly empty by the time I meet back up with her on the house’s porch. But even though it’s gone, I can still feel it there. The rage, the bloodlust, the hunger for battle, they simmer away in the background. Right under the surface of my mind, eager to explode again when I’ll start unleashing hell.
That I find it so much fun is disconcerting. But I can’t deny it, I yearn for the clarity and purpose I felt back there. I snap myself out of it the best I can, but the desire is there now, bubbling.
“We should move on,” I say as I hand Emily’s arrows back to her.
She eyes me up and down, a hint of worry in her stoic expression. But she nods, and we leave side by side.
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The horde is still behind us, still on trajectory to downtown. We’re almost there, so I figure it’s time for our second trap.
I pick out a cluster of houses and get to work. Up on her usual high spot on one of the rooftops, Emily watches me as I assemble everything. The trap isn’t too complex, just another rudimentary bomb. I take the propane tanks I got from Mike’s house, mount them off the ground on a few beams of wood I strip from a house, and I cover them in gasoline soaked clothes. The ones I’m wearing go onto the pile as well. They’re burned, melted, and full of cuts. It’s a wonder they didn’t fall off of me yet. I replace them with a fresh set I looted from one of the houses, and they’re just another pair of jeans and a yellow shirt.
“How much time do we have left?” I ask.
Emily lifts up five fingers, and I figure she means five minutes.
“Shit, that little? Better get going, then.”
She looks between me and the incoming horde a few times. Even though I’m trembling in my boots, I flash her a reassuring smile.
“I’ll be okay, don’t worry. Just go, and wait for my signal before you set it off.”
Emily steels herself and gives me a nod. She jumps from one roof to the next, and I notice the distinct aura of a skill distorting the air around her as it gives her a boost. I really need to know what she’s capable of if she plans to stick around.
“Another thing for later,” I tell myself, shaking my head.
I refocus on the task at hand. The five propane tanks will be the bomb, but if I want them to do maximum damage, I need to add a few more things. Said things come in the form of nuts, bolts, and any other small pieces of metal I can scrounge up from the surrounding homes. I don’t have the time or know-how to make anything too complicated, so I just shove the improvised shrapnel between the tanks and the clothes.
A few layers of duct tape later, it’s all holding together. Barely.
I empty the last of the gasoline on the ground around the supports, giving Emily a bigger target to hit. But I do save a few splashes of the stuff in every canister, leaving them with their caps on at the base of the supports. They’ll gather vapors on the inside, which will hopefully help with igniting the whole thing.
When I’m done, I whistle once to signal Emily. She answers with a whistle of her own to let me know she’s in position.
All that’s left now is for me to wait until the first monsters get here.
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The plan is simple in theory, but it’s damn near suicidal. Again. That’s quickly becoming a trend, and I’m not sure how to feel about it. I should be worried, but the rage and bloodlust are whispering sweet nothings into my ear. Promising me fun and excitement if only I give in to the madness and take these risks when they present themselves.
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Anyway, plan. I have the bomb set up in the middle of the street, ready to take out any monsters in the blast radius. Problem is that I can’t just ease the valves on the tanks too early, the gas would dissipate by the time the monsters got here. Solution? Wait next to the damn thing.
When I’ll see the first monsters, I’ll release the valves. I’ll then light up a few improvised noise makers that are set up close to the trap to attract the monsters, and I’ll dash. As soon as I’ll be a safe distance away, I’ll signal Emily with two whistles in quick succession. She’s up a tree some distance away, ready to shoot a firework arrow at the bomb to blow it up.
The reason I have it set up like this, the reason I’m here alone, is because my one level-up made me faster than her. It also made me faster than the majority of the monsters. But truth be told, I just don’t want her in harm’s way if or when all of this backfires. I came up with the idea, so it’s only fair I take the bigger risk.
That’s the plan. It’s suicidal, but it’s simple. Easy. Few moving parts and relying entirely on my ability to haul ass out of here fast.
Yet, as these things tend to go, my plan crumples almost right away. A saying comes to mind as I spot the first monsters: no plan survives first contact with the enemy.
The creatures come in from the wrong side of the street. There are about twenty of them, and the god damned things are birds. Tall and lanky, like ostriches, covered in black down and feathers.
“What the hell, Emily?” I wonder as I crouch next to the noise makers.
She was supposed to warn me of any stray monsters or other problems. Three quick whistles, which would’ve meant for me to drop everything and run early. But she didn’t, and a knot forms in my stomach. Did some of the monsters get her first? Is she fighting for her life right now, while I’m cut off from helping?
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I remember the party list, so I spare a quick glance at it. At least in terms of health, she’s fine.
With my nerves eased on that front, I look at the closest monster and try to figure out what I’m up against. They don’t look like any birds we have around here, the system mutated them quite heavily.
Devolved Stryxian - Level 5
My alarm bells start going off as soon as I see the tag and level. Another monster type that’s done mutating. I sweep my sight over the other monsters, and all of them are similar levels. Some go even higher, reaching level 6 and 7. They advance towards me slowly, in a tight V formation I couldn’t break through.
I look around, and I see more of them fading into existence everywhere. Every yard and alley has at least a few. Seemingly empty spots shimmer for a few moments, and the Stryxians appear there. Specks of light cling to their feathers, pulsing across their bodies as they move. It looks almost like the surface of those holographic playing cards that were all the craze back when I was a kid.
They’re not phasing out of reality or going invisible, just changing colors to camouflage themselves pretty damn well in the poor light conditions. That’s bad, and the terrible news doesn't end there. Besides that nifty trick, they regained some features that almost make them look like dinosaurs. Feathered arms ending in clawed fingers, curved beaks full of teeth, and the distinct raptor talons that birds of prey have on their feet.
They’re horned owls, I realize. Or they used to be. For despite all of the changes that turned them into even more efficient killing machines, they still have those two feathery horns on the sides of their head.
I have to set the plan in motion. I have to get moving. But I’m afraid that once I do, they’ll all descend on me.
“Deep breath.”
I pull out the lighter, say a short prayer as I strike it, and I put the flame to the fuse of the first noise maker. They’re just paint cans stuck into the ground, lids partially on and taped into place so they won’t fly off. Each one contains a few firecrackers, and they’re all connected by a long string soaked in gasoline that runs between them.
As the fire starts traveling up the length of the string, I take another deep breath. I slowly release the valves on the two closest tanks I can reach, then I bolt, going from prone to running in the blink of an eye. The Stryxians open their beaks all around me and they let out these unnerving calls, sounding like a mix between a chirp and a choking seal. I gun it towards the nearest house as the firecrackers start popping behind me.
The Stryxians converge on me. A couple block my path up the driveway, so I pull out the crowbar and sledgehammer. More monsters come flooding in from every direction, drawn to the loud pops.
I swing the crowbar. The first Stryxian dodges under the attack, and the second one takes a swipe at me with its feet. I move to the side, leaning into the momentum of my own attack, but the sharp talons nick me in the hip. Pain erupts from the wound as my health dips a good quarter of the way.
More of the monsters surround me, and I realize I don’t have time for this shit. I swing low with the sledgehammer, hitting both Stryxians in the legs. They topple, and I gain a little bit of frenzy.
Fight, the bloodlust tells me as it awakens. Kill them. Kill them all.
I subdue it and jump over the thrashing Stryxians, not even trying to finish them off. Moments later, multiple monsters pounce on the spot where I’d just been. I keep running, jumping up on the porch. A swing of the sledgehammer breaks the latch on the front door and I’m inside, uselessly closing it behind me.
It only holds back the monsters for a couple of seconds, then they pour in after me. They fight each other in the narrow doorway as others break in through the windows, floundering on the floors before getting to their feet and giving chase.
I keep running, not daring to risk even a quick peek over my shoulder. The stairs to the upper floor are up ahead, and I take them five at a time in my mad dash. Monsters crash at the base of the stairs as I ascend, clambering over each other.
I reach the upper floor and quickly look for the attic hatch. It comes down with a tug, revealing a ladder that I quickly climb. A deep sense of deja-vu invades me as I narrowly avoid a monster that rips the ladder away from under me, but I make it up into the attic more or less in one piece. I’m only missing two chunks, one the Stryxian took out of my hip and another from my calf that I lost with the ladder just now.
I crash in a corner, fighting back the pain as the system rushes to stop the bleeding. A quick check of my health shows that I’m down by more than half.
“Fuck this night.”