The Malignance was an affront to Aurelio's senses. Despite being positioned in the rear for their ambush, he was able to experience all that the creature had to offer, much to his dismay.
The acrid stench of pus and rotted meat chunks wafted across his exposed face, causing his eyes to water and his body to take shallow breaths lest a deep whiff infect his lungs with its vile gasses.
Its pink flesh sagged and rolled over itself like an ocean of excess skin, open wounds seeping rivulets of orange-black ichor with thin tendrils trying helplessly to knit the body back together.
Like applying a band-aid to a leaking dam.
The Malignance was preoccupied with its meal, a sensible course of swamp sludge and fungal stalks. It tore itself apart, letting flesh split and bleed to encapsulate the mushrooms from their earthen base. Each second it spent stripping the fungi of its organic material was a second Aurelio spent hearing it convulse and drown in its own liquids, whatever circulatory system that functioned in its putty-like body filled with fluid.
The ground beneath it was already beginning to pool up with its revolting bile. He was comforted by the knowledge that he would not need to walk into the creatures inner domain and deal with the hazardous terrain beneath them.
Instead, Aurelio prepared for his end of the ambush, releasing [Ember Lance] from its bindings. The weapon purred on contact, establishing a connection with his spark that'd caused it to churn its engine for the coming battle.
"They're still positioning themselves." Kalani informed him, her fingers white-knuckled around the [Scrap Blasters] grip. He could watch his crew members, Phineas and Oja, skulk through the periphery of the clearing towards the creatures front.
“Any surprises I should expect from this thing?” Kalani whispered.
He conjured an image of the creature in his mind on the tabletop grid and felt time around him slow to a crawl. The feeling was unnatural. Abiding by the rules gave him the benefit to sit down and think his actions through. He wouldn’t have the means to shirk the results of their actions without expending a second wind die, but the benefit of a calm and calculated approach as a non-combatant was invaluable.
Aurelio made a note to commit towards learning basic stratagems to take advantage of his chosen boon.
“The Malignance is a war of attrition. It has a high health pool and replenishes its health pool at the end of each turn.” Aurelio replied.
He stared at the creature and reached out with his INSPECT ability. The knowledge he sought after manifested in his sight as long spectral arms, their ethereal tendrils stretching out of his chest and towards the monster to take the knowledge he needed to share.
Their hands cupped into the thought-stuff of the creature without concern, the snake-like bodies reeling back into him once sufficient pieces of information was taken for his purposes.
Instinctively, Aurelio reached out with his INSPECT ability and scrutinized the integrity of his enemy.
[Enemy] - Malignance
[Tier] - 1
[Trait] - Flesh Knitting: At the end of the Monsters turn, place the top A.I. card in the Wound Pile at the top of the Monsters A.I. Deck.
[Special Terrain] - Infestation: An Infested tile takes one additional point of movement to move through. Scavengers that end their turn on an Infested tile take X points of damage to their legs, where X is equal to the creatures tier.
[Basic Action] - Upchuck/Rest
[Movement] - 5
[Plating] - 10
[Current Integrity] - 14/14
The words that appeared before him looked directly ripped from the tabletop material, verbiage so particular to the game that he was taken aback for a moment with the consideration that maybe this was all an extended lucid dreaming session.
“Aurelio?” Kalani pulled him away from that train of thought. It was too selfish of him to consider that their experiences were lesser or worthy of doubt over something as inconsequential as the system's parlance.
“It has the greatest likelihood of attempting to consume a scavenger. We don’t have a dedicated tank like Cantwell out in the field so it’s best we avoid that attack.” Aurelio started to explain. “Honestly they’re just keeping it preoccupied upfront while we deal the bulk of the damage from back here. We have the benefit of the [Black Needle] using a longer attacking range when in its rigid form but I’m mostly worried about how much health we can shred off of this thing each turn.”
Flesh Knitting wasn’t an augment that turned off, the creature being a namesake to its cancerous thematic origins. Any turn not spent wailing on this thing was a turn it spent recovering from their assault and with the plating it had, it was going to be a tough opponent to harm.
“We’re in position.” Oja crackled through Kalani’s open comms.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“Attack on my signal.” Kalani commanded.
Their comms went silent.
She placed a hand over his shoulder and whispered, “Spend all you’ve got on your opening salvo.”
|AND SO YOUR STRUGGLE BEGINS|
He acquiesced to her command. The system knew he was resolute in the decision and responded to his will. Gridlines appeared before him without the aid of his suits HUD.
Clearly this chosen ability has more to offer me should I side with remaining in the bounds of the systems framework.
His ignition gauge whined with sudden heat entering into his internal systems. The recompense he was paying for in acquiring the [Coiling Smoke] for his group was dished out to him in the form of five heat.
The air around him was steaming up and he did not let up on the gas, sinking two more motes of ignition into his spark to fuel the [Ember Lances] ignition ability.
The weapon roared to life, the churning engine housed within the chamber of the bolt-action rifle going from a bright red to a blinding white. Dice were conjured on the sights of the weapon and he snapped his fingers to roll them in place.
A four and a five appeared with triumphant flare.
Aurelio pulled the trigger on his weapon and watched a molten comet of fire bore a hole through the creatures sagging flesh.
|Chosen draws one wound|
|Chosen deals one wound|
The prompt confirmed everything he needed to see.
“Grah!” The monster growled, prompting the others into action.
Kalani moved forward on the board and raised her [Scrap Blaster] up with a firm, double-handed grip.
Two shots of compact scrap metal shot out of the barrel of her simplistic weapon.
|Commanders draws one wound|
|Commander deals no wounds|
Her first shot was wide despite the size of the creature, unnaturally pulled away from its target in Aurelios point of view. The second shot buried itself into the creature's skin folds with no apparent damage to the flesh underneath.
The creature responded to the affront by contorting its body to that of an extended maw, scraping the earth and air around it for any tangible target. Luckily the others weren’t positioned near the creature to suffer from Kalani’s failure.
“I’m going in!” Phineas shouted, his rigid [Black Needle] positioned for a lethal piercing stab.
|Scout draws one wound|
|Scout deals one wound|
Another attempt at delivering an opening wound into the creature was denied by the excessive girth of the monster, its skin folding around the slender needle to diminish its piercing potential.
The Malignance didn’t like their opening salvo and attempted to make an example of Phineas. Its still opened maw, now shifted up towards the top of its viscous body, spat out a slimy, thick tongue like a frog towards the scout.
Phineas leapt out of the way, the tongue slithering back into the creature's mouth as quickly as it had been shot out.
“I fucking hate this thing.” Oja grumbled, as they lumbered forward with the [Carbon Cleaver], the saving grace to his party, in Aurelio’s mind.
|Sawbones draws one wound|
|Sawbones deals two wounds (DESTRUCTIVE 1)|
Oja lifted up the weapon with their enhanced strength and indiscriminately hacked away a chunk of the monster's flesh.
“Gurah!” The Malignance gurgled. Aurelio watched as the cleaved piece flopped on the ground like a dead fish before dissolving into an unresponsive meat paste.
“Watch out!” Kalani warned Oja but it was too late. The flesh they’d carved into exposed a swollen sac of pus and bile that erupted in contact with the elements, its vile liquids drenching Oja from head to toe.
|Sawbones suffered one point of damage to HEAD, ARMS (L,R), LEGS (L,R), CORE|
Their body audibly sizzled and visibly corroded but the robotic doctor was made of stronger stuff. Their armor integration made them hardier warriors in that regard.
The Malignance had enough of their shenanigans. Aurelio watched its body recompose itself partially from the damage that Oja had just delivered. It slowly gathered its body to lumber over the robot as this imposing tower of meat before they watched as flesh tore apart to reveal rows upon rows of jagged, yellow, pockmarked teeth.
The creature threw its whole body down to consume Oja whole.
|Sawbones used DISENGAGE|
Aided by the power of their artificial spark, Oja responded to the creatures aggression and deftly tumbled out of the way. The monster scraped its teeth on the earth, releasing small pockets of swamp sludge and metal bits previously subsumed by time and weathering.
Despite the blaring of his ignition gauge informing him that his core was in a critical state, he dismissed the thoughts of the meltdown and focused on the battle before him. If they needed to make the creatures flesh more susceptible to their strikes, then he would attempt to provide.
Aurelio placed his hand to his spark and conjured a die for his REFERENCE ability, his gauge shooting up to an eight, two marks behind a potential meltdown.
He snapped his fingers and rolled.
Six brilliant pips flared from the die and responded to his will, casting off like shooting stars to ignite the Malignance in a beautiful cerulean flame.
“Now we’re cooking with gas.” Aurelio muttered.