The way my right arm was humming, I would be surprised if Tyler did not know I was getting close. Perhaps he didn’t receive his boon with as much bodily trauma as I had and was none the wiser.
We would hope.
A clinical calmness had spread across me - and Ren, too. Several hundred undead in the way of our true target might put off most Parties. There was no bowing out early now. Non-refundable deposit - we had expected this to be the case.
Still, the elf and I did more than mush our hearts together. After our grand performance in front of the smugglers, we had been buzzing with ideas and new things to try. On the battlefield. Bending the rules of what the System had allowed up, we had a secret up our collective sleeves.
The best opener to any show yet put on.
Tanya handed me the Spell Critical idol. Not directly useful for this first trick, but not everything was about me anymore. In front of me, I summoned my cannon and angled it out to the zombies ahead. Into my hand, my whole card deck, passed over to my protégé, waiting by my side.
The whisper of a word in elven, and the whole pack bloomed with radiant light. Back to me and then I loaded it into the cannon. Things that shouldn’t be possible, but were… because I had been untethered from the strict rules of what was allowed. Ego let me consider myself the System’s favored tool for fixing up the Lady’s blight - and until I died, or it proved me wrong, I’d allow it to boost me to the stratosphere.
Bag of ball bearings loaded next, and then a sack of every nail and screw I had been able to ply and steal throughout my journey. I dropped my health using
Ren healed me back to full, and I gave Wolf a nod. As soon as the first blast went out, we’d be in trouble. Getting to the stone wall to assail the outpost was priority. Wolf would clear us a wide berth to our destination, and should it be unassailable through conventional means, then Quinn would blow a hole through it.
“We’ve been through a lot together,” I said quietly, the hum of energy in my arm keeping me calm and collected. “Today is our darkest day, but through our strength, it can become our brightest. Have no mercy and stay alive. Kill. Protect each other. But most importantly…” I gave them a last glance as a smile crossed my lips. “Make a good show of it.”
The cannon fired.
My deck of mundane cards split and sent the contents out in an ineffective arc, barely making it making it halfway to the milling horde. But… they weren’t mundane at present - they had held the radiant charge just as we had hoped.
I held my left hand up, my eyes glowing bright purple.
“Be at peace once more.”
The mundane cards bloomed into life as I took control of them. Boots drew me forward, and I was joined by the others. Cannon aimed higher in the air so as not to blast us in the back. Wolf thundered up beside my right, keeping pace, while Ren was close by my left.
As the first wave of cards struck the zombies, my cannon threw the two other payloads high into the air. Congealed blood and decaying flesh burst from the gathered dead as my cards swung through necks and skulls, destroying as many brains as I could. Once a card had dealt damage, it returned to ash. A dent in their forces, but we had to get to the outpost as soon as possible.
The two cards I had been holding hit the ground as we met the first wave of the foes before us. With my two Lightning Imps rising from the ground, I switched three of the mundane cards still in motion into my imbued magic versions. Purple light flickered in arcs through the zombies, who were only now starting to turn and see that a threat had arrived.
A swathe of the enemy was then pelted by the metal shrapnel that had flown in a high arc. Scoring weak flesh and felling a couple, but not doing a lot of damage. That was… until my two Imps brought to bear their critical spells - my first roll of the day and I had hit all sixes. I commanded it, and the wide arcs of crackling energy burst out, striking between the figures, occasionally twisting and bouncing off the small pieces of debris I had just peppered the area with.
I wasn’t opposed to breaking the laws of physics, if the System didn’t complain.
Another large group of the undead fell, their foul meat burned off or heads exploded from the powerful attack. My cards had gotten us 20% of the way in, and the Imps had just about worked another 20%.
Still far from the outpost, an army blocking our way. Figures could now be seen peering over the stone walls. We had only a short time before we’d be under ranged assault.
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Now it was Ren’s turn.
The elf grabbed her hat and spiraled it up high into the air. A moment later she spun on her feet, sliding across the dry gravel now supping at the spent bodily fluids of the dead. Arrow drawn and out at her headwear. Struck it at an angle - around 45 degrees, and a cloud tinged with golden light started to billow into shape. Hand out, the first radiant beams sprung forth over our heads to land amongst the throng we were soon to chew through.
Scores fell as we continued our approach until she couldn’t hold the spell any longer. 60% toward the outpost.
A red beam illuminated me. The air rippling before I even heard the sound of the attack leveled my way. I was jostled to the side suddenly as Quinn pushed me out of the way. From the air, he plucked the projectile and was knocked back a dozen feet from the force. I could be mistaken, give that I was trying to do ten things at once… but it looked like a bullet.
The brace of pistols he wore didn’t have that kind of range, so we must be dealing with something more modernized.
“Sniper fire,” Tanya called out, helping the fixer back to his feet.
Not exactly great. We didn’t really have the luxury of cover, or even the ability to zig-zag. My Imps had been doing their best from keeping the sides of the zombie corridor from closing in on us, but any attempt at slowing down to be safer would soon see us enveloped and drowned in zombies.
“Quinn, arm me.” My feet slid to a stop so he could catch me up. This would be a risk, but if I could kill a couple bird with one stone… I’d do so.
As soon as my hands were full, I looked back toward the battlements where four figures were standing. The red dot on one in dark clothing in the middle signaled the possible sniper - and I wasn’t about to wait around to find out for sure.
“Distraction upwards,” I requested. My right eye twitched and my forearm burned.
After plugging a zombie in the head with an arrow, Ren then twisted upward, firing off her ice arrow, burning light blue into the gloomy sky. That’d do.
A rush of air and I was atop the battlements. Finger pressed on the flintlock pistol blew straight through the female sniper’s head. The skintight leather suit was a little impractical and cliche, but any further thoughts were drowned out by the flashes of light as different skills and shields bloomed around me.
Something very sharp struck me through the chest before a giant mace came down and cracked my head open like an egg. I didn’t have much chance to watch the proceedings, as
Too dangerous to stick around and solo the whole outpost. I was full to the brim with hubris, but… I started running as the walking corpses were cutting the path behind us off. Quinn turned, and I gave him the nod. This wasn't a solo show anymore.
His boomerang, now laying in the limp hand of my fake corpse, exploded. A wave of hot air washed through the area as the light briefly stunned all of those not expecting the fireworks. The figures were no longer on the battlements, and the dozen-foot tall wall was now around four or five in a rounded section. Not quite perfect, but something we could work with.
Wolf burst into a flickering red light - his turn at last. He collided with the zombies ahead of us like a bulldozer, the corpses burning and shredding away from his mere presence even before his wide paws turned them into broken messes.
I caught the group up. “Mage and a warrior with a large hammer. Didn’t see the necromancer.”
Tanya nodded. “They’ll definitely be prepared now, probably bunkering up.”
Although I agreed… something was telling me that wasn’t right. What would I do in this situation? Well, my crowd work needed some finessing, but… oh - that was it. My teeth clenched together. “Prepare for contact,” I growled, bringing my magic cards up around us to slash through the press of bodies.
“What?” The fateweaver scanned her eyes around the horde before looking back toward the outpost. “Oh, the assholes.”
Simple really. Just as my demons were our allies, the undead were theirs. In theory, that meant they didn’t need to worry about being attacked by the horde. Which could only lead too…
I watched as a mountain of a man with a long white beard hopped down from the battlements. A giant hammer in his hands, the head of which was about as large as Quinn. Part of his white and blue striped shirt was burned and charred, but any damage from the explosion looked to have been healed up.
Ren immediately fired an entangling shot off at him. A flare of a gray shield, and the attack deflected away into a group of zombies. From the battlements, two other figures. The mage in red robes that I had noticed, now without one of their arms, and another who was possibly a caster - in similar battle garb as Tanya was. Either I had killed another that I hadn’t seen, or…
Much more likely was there was a rogue class somewhere. Imps away, I brought out two Hellhounds. Told one to protect Ren, while the other would follow me.
With a growl, I gripped at my right wrist and pooled all my mana and then my health into a single card. With a flash, it was away. Darting past the bear, it then switched around at awkward angles on the way to the Party ahead. Burning straight through any zombie that was in the way, it eventually reached its target. I smiled as the gray shield went up again, and my card was weakened, but darted to the mage. Another shield - this one in a shade of purple. My card ran out of energy and I relinquished my grip, a heal from Ren washing through me.
The two figures dropped down from the battlements to follow the large man.
And then a third joined them. Purple eyes glowed with fury as the body of the sniper suddenly tried to choke their healer out using the length of the rifle.
A simple trick where I hid Roger's card alongside the brighter attack one. From this distance, I could see the crimson handprints on their heads. Wolf was about ten seconds from being in melee range of the hammer guy.
The clouds finally gave up and rain fell from the sky. Obscuring our vision and beating the smell of rotten flesh into the air. But as I watched the mage move over to help the struggling healer out, I couldn’t help but smile.
And as four further figures stepped up atop the broken battlements, I almost burst out laughing.
There he was. Green energy whipped around him as his cloak billowed from the power circling the long staff he held.
My right arm clenched and purple electricity started to spark around me, small bursts of energy blowing dust away from where I stood.
“Showtime,” I whispered.