This section of my memories always gives me a headache. The smells, the sounds, the violence. Makes my brain feel clogged and smoky, desperate for fresh air. A prison of my own making, perhaps.
I wiped my hands off as I walked back up the stairs into the open air. Briefly, I had looked through the bodies for equipment, but it was just a scan for the high rarity stuff. Stakes were too high to sit and deliberate over all the corpses I was about to make. If we survived, then the spoils would be ours, the second-best prize next to our lives at the top.
My stomach felt uncomfortable, so I looked down. Some blood. I was unsure at how I got the cut across my side, but it was shallow and didn’t really hurt—I was already halfway through a bandage, in fact—it just felt awkward. Still, just made a mess of my suit, as was apparently tradition now. The Imp+ was already readying a second fireball to throw down at the other side of the fort and I was just in time to see the arc of an arrow blazing with fire emerge from the woods and also strike that side of the building.
Wolf burst from the woods toward the grouped figures now to my left. The sling that held the dead scout dropped from his side and rolled down the hill. Quite the distance, but I was a natural by now. With the flick of my wrist, the card was out, traveling the large distance before striking into the corpse. Roger emerged, grabbing at the lantern and sword I had left in there with the body. A moment to gauge where he was and then he was following the bear.
Ren emerged from the treeline and fired an arrow out toward the Shadows shouting at the approaching bear. Entangling shot hitting them mere seconds just before Wolf would. Even from this distance, she was radiant and looked quite the part in our team uniform. I grinned to myself and looked at the lower floor of the next section of the fort. Imp+ vanished, so I summoned another and told him to repeat the same actions, still focused on that side. Disable the middle barriers, set the far side ablaze, fight through the closest side. Push the rats into the waiting maw of the bear.
A small fire had started where I had left the torch on the floor. Nothing major, but the smell of charring wood was starting to become oppressive. Not a fan. A glance over my shoulder and most of it was coming from where the Imp+ had scorched many places, and dark smoke was now waving into the air. They must know something was awry by now. It was only a matter of time before the main stage was crowded by potential volunteers.
I leaped from this building to the next, intending to join my Party somehow. A linen sheet into my hands like a parachute to try to soften the blow slightly as I hit the wooden roof of the side section and rolled. Brief pain, but nothing that I couldn’t live through. I popped the cork of a Rejuvenation Potion. Tasted warm, and like cherries. Still disgusting, but at least there was a brief soothing-
A large creak and groan drew my attention to my feet. It turned out that whoever had been the designated carpenter for this section of the fort had-
The roof collapsed, and I dropped into the room below, amongst a clatter of split planks and broken furniture. Something had broken my fall, but pierced through my side as a show of its disdain. I winced, although the potion should slowly fix that up. A figure silhouetted against the dust cloud and scant daylight stepped into view.
“Jokkar?” I narrowed my eyes with a grimace.
No, only his head was encased in metal plate, strange horns jutting in the air from where his ears would be. A dark metal flecked by a red paint job that looked like it was wearing off. The rest of him was pretty much stark naked, aside from a chain-mail loincloth covering his modesty. Lean but muscled, two chain-wrapped pipes ran from the back of his helmet into the handles of the two shark-toothed swords he held. Almost looked like-
“Nope,” he growled, the helmet muffing his voice. A burst of harsh noise accompanied the whirr of the jagged edges of his weapons as they spun around the main shape. Chainswords, my panicked brain helpfully finished the sentence.
He stepped toward me, and I aimed a drawn crossbow. Metal-encased head snapped back as the bolt struck it but ricochet straight off. I pushed myself away, crawling backward across the debris as he recovered. The illusion of the fantasy world was partly shattered, before I considered he may have come from a post-apocalyptic world. The System wasn't picky where it drew Players from, after all. Now it looked like I had run out of goons and had dropped right into some of the more proficient members of the gang. Chainswords, my inner monologue repeated, slightly higher pitched this time.
The saw-wielding man went to leap at me and immediately stumbled, tripping on something with a curse. A clang of metal as hot coals were spread across the wooden floorboards towards me - the damage breaking the invisibility as my grill came into view.
“Wise-guy, huh?” He seethed. As he went to step forward again, a Hellhound+ burst out from the side wall and latched onto his bare leg.
Purple electricity worked its way around my arms as I stood. The yelp of the hound as he was struck filling me with cold anger. I unsummoned him before the man could level a follow-up, the saw-blade instead chewing into the floor briefly, sending splinters into the air.
“Looks like I’ll have to use my ultimate attack,” I seethed at him, my eyes aglow and three tomatoes in my hand.
He turned to face me, cutting the first thrown fruit out of the air with his blade. I lobbed the second, which he didn’t even bother to dodge, his overconfidence allowing it to burst across his toned torso.
The third left my hand instead as a bottle. The [Witch's Brew] from the coven, the dark liquid that felt too evil to consider drinking. If the System wasn’t even keen on telling me the contents, then perhaps the latest attraction could assist me. A hands-on experiment seemed to be the best way to tick off that mystery at hopefully no danger to my own well-being.
He went to block it too late, only realizing it was not a tomato halfway through the air. With a blur, he activated some manner of dodge, but it wasn’t enough to fully avoid the projectile. The glass burst on his shoulder and the liquid splashed across his right arm. This seemed to displease him and he launched toward me.
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A sword appeared into my hand. I blocked the initial swipe, but the toothed blade flung the weapon from my hand and bit through my upper arm. Card Fan+ went up for the follow-up, the cards shimmering and bursting almost immediately. Thankfully, the diverted thrust slid to the side and slammed into the wall instead. I dropped to the floor and sent a pair of cards up at him. He leaped backward with surprising agility, my attacks just drawing lines up his stomach and chest before vanishing.
He paused slightly at the sight of his left arm where the potion had hit. His skin had swollen up and looked bulbous and discolored. Whether he was in any pain was hard to tell with his encased head, but dark smoke had begun billowing out of the horns, which I now saw as exhausts for his macabre living machinery.
With the buzz of sparking metal, he clashed his blades together before lunging toward me. I threw up a blanket and rolled to the side - his swords bursting straight through the wall and carving a chunk our of the thin wood as he withdrew them. He hadn’t seemed to notice the room wasn't as strewn with loose debris as before. Just as I was considering some options for the final part of the act, the door at the end of the room swung open and a woman with bright red hair and a silver crossbow stepped in, leveling the weapon at me.
“I’m afraid I must bow out,” I said, purple energy crackling around me. The floor where I stood collapsed, my cards having weakened a circle of the wood during the fight. I dropped to a roll and ran for the opposite door, leaping to slide across a table and knocking paperwork all over the place. Behind me, I dropped all the planks of wood from the above room I had sucked into my Inventory. Not really enough to stop a man wielding two chainsaws, but it’d waylay him a little and give me time to prepare the next attempt to wow.
I slammed through the door and almost ran straight into one of Ren’s arrows as she turned her bow toward me. Relief painted her face, and I felt a little more comforted, too. Wolf blew through one of the walls to my right, a warrior with a large shield being pushed along as he blocked the charge. Roger hobbled along in the broken body of a different goon, giving me a brief wave as he went to assist the bear.
“Two behind me,” I yelled and jerked a thumb backward. My eyes went upwards as rays of light bloomed through the wood floor. Above me, rather than behind, perhaps. I flung my body to the side just as the wood burst downwards, the heat of the attack warming me even through my clothes. Amongst the clattering debris, the chainsaw-man jumped down and started toward me.
I groaned and struggled to push myself back up on my left arm. It was numb and didn’t want to cooperate. I must have landed on it oddly. An arrow struck him in the good shoulder, and he stopped to look Ren’s way with a growl. Small flames flickered out of his exhaust. Behind him, the cloaked woman with the silver weapon dropped down and aimed toward the elf, a volley of five bolts firing out in quick succession.
The purple, swollen arm of my attacker had worsened by a large degree by now. It was a wonder he could even move that arm, and as he turned back to me and took a step, the agony was clear in his body language. Just as his weapons buzzed up with energy again, his infected arm burst. Like a water balloon, flesh and muscle spread across the surrounding area, leaving just a limp skeletal arm that relinquished hold of his weapon.
He was stunned - as was I. The other woman had moved to where I couldn’t see to chase down the rest of the Party. The metal head turned to observe his spent appendage. He couldn't move it, and that weapon weighed heavily to the floor, holding him back. With the whirr of his good blade, he raised it to himself, chewing through the bone near his shoulder and then the tubing holding the weapon, allowing both useless arm and weapon to drop to the floor.
I wasn’t even sure what to think at that point. Despite how hardened to violence I had become, the act was coldly pragmatic and yet utterly horrifying in every way. My right hand raised, bloody, as I held a card of bright white. Straight for his neck.
He blurred as an ability let him dodge the attack, the beam of my attack traveling straight through him ineffectively. He readied his good sword to pounce on me, and then I brought the card back, bursting out from where his heart was. With another step, he paused and then slowly tipped over, blood draining down his bare torso. I had to give it to the System - while I didn't like the Stats side of things, where my cards used to struggle against tough skin, I could now burst through people with enough stacked damage.
With my right hand I applied a quick bandage as I stood, and then I could use my left arm again. Needed to find the others to make sure they were okay. I picked up one of the chainswords he had severed from the tethering machinery. My brow furrowed at it as I turned the corner. There were crossbow bolts across the wall and blood on the floor. Holes through the structure where Wolf had just pushed through on a destructive path. The whole building was groaning and creaking now, thick with the smell of smoke and death. Warm, too. I rubbed the back of my neck. Roger would have smashed the lantern at the start of this side as intended.
I paced through the destruction with clenched teeth and stopped at the circular hole to the next room.
A figure lay on the floor. Ren’s cloak. Blood had soaked through it where crossbow bolts had pierced. The elf’s bow was lying on the floor nearby. The woman with red hair stood, leaning over the body with a smile on her face. It didn’t seem like she had noticed me, and I paused, my eyes narrowed.
“Can’t run from me, little rabbit.” She cooed, pushing the cloak from the figure’s face.
“Surprise, motherfucker!” Roger beamed back up at her.
Ren stepped into the room from the opposite doorway, throwing a dagger that burst into radiant light. It struck the surprised woman in the chest, and the elf followed up with several Zaps from her wrist-mounted wand holder, scoring small chunks of flesh and clothing to burst from her target. The woman dropped her weapon and toppled backward as Ren gave a twirl and a bow.
“Hope I didn’t have you worried?” She grinned.
There were no Dazzle icons over my head, but I was still very impressed. I returned the smile. She hadn’t been wearing her cloak previously, so I knew something was off. The woman had only seen her as she fled from fighting the chainsword guy, so it was believable enough. I wondered if Ren could see the Dazzle icons she had inflicted on the woman. That would be a good confidence boost. As I went to ask her, I paused - something still felt off…
I ducked just as a blade passed over my head. My elbow shot back, catching the assailant in the leg, and then they hopped back into the other room. My boots spun on the wood and I launched myself through, straight into a clutch of thrown daggers.
Deflected two with the inert chainsword. One scratched across my head, almost catching my eye. One to the side and one to the thigh. Painful. Also possibly poisoned.
The female figure darted away, her clothing a dark blur against the mixed browns of the ramshackle wooden building. She wanted me to chase, but that wasn’t happening. My right hand had already cast the die, while my left bandaged me. A tune played in my head and I hummed along while I waited for the audio cue. I heard her yelp out in pain, and then there was a growl and the sound of gnashing. There we go.
I shook the blood from my hand as Ren and Roger came over.
“You okay, Max?”
“Antidote, please.” My pained smile was enough to convince her to do so immediately.
Against the warmth of the burning building, I strode off around the corner, downing the contents. Almost as gross as the regeneration one, this tasted like grass. The assassin was bloodied, limp from where my Hellhound+ and thrown card had struck her. Unable to run now, panic and sweat covered the part of her face that wasn't masked.
She attempted one final, last-ditch attack against me that I blocked with Card Fan+.
“This next trick is quite the classic...” I smiled coldly, purple light illuminating my eyes as I flooded my mana into the held weapon.
After a small amount of hesitation, the saw blades spun up and screamed rapturous applause.